Darius
Darius walked along a thin, cobblestone sidewalk that encroached upon the narrow Parisian street. He wondered why the city did not simply ban cars altogether from these streets. The widest Rue barely had room for the delivery and private vehicles that attempted to share it with cyclists and pedestrians. Would anyone in the city even miss the cars if they were gone? Exhaust still hung in the air, the scent of it clinging to Darius’ clothes. No, and the city would be a better place if at least the Rue welcomed only cyclists and pedestrians.
Paris held a special place in Darius’ heart, and places like this, nestled between La Cité and Le Marais, reminded him why. Only a few buildings in this section of the city reached seven stories, and those only by modern additions. They leaned close, shadowing the streets, and whispering secrets of ages past. That lean, Darius knew, was not the illusion of lines and angles found in the modern city. Here failing foundations and antique artisanship caused the buildings to sit at strange and uncomfortable angles known to drive some sensitive men insane.
Darius placed his hands into the pockets of his jeans and walked past red and beige façades with their white and yellowing stone arches framing doors and windows. All were shuttered to the night. If the street lamps still held light, even they kept it locked away. That mattered little here. Anyone who came out after dark in this neighborhood tended to prefer doing work away from the light.
He reached the end of the street and turned onto another. Here, trash bins hung over the curb, making driving or cycling more treacherous. Darius stopped and made a point of pulling his hands from his pockets so that he could adjust the watch on his left wrist. Someone followed him. That was not a new development. She had been shadowing him for at least an hour, keeping pace but staying just out of sight. He wondered what she was. No breath stirred his skin to betray her location; he had discovered it other ways. She could be a psychic vampire, perhaps one who saw Paris as a new opportunity.
His follower slipped around the corner. Darius turned and saw a blur of shadow move from the street into the thin alley across from him.
The action answered his question. She was Sanguine. Psychics did not know how to twist shadow. They relied on their mental prowess to keep themselves hidden. She was skilled in her art as well. He could not distinguish more than a faint form in the darkness around her. She was either very old, or very young and afraid. Either option presented its problems.
Darius had wanted his homecoming to be a peaceful event.
“Come out, come out.” Darius’ Londoner accent stood out among the French architecture.
The figure in the darkness stirred. She was keeping herself incorporeal – a higher talent indeed. Darius fixed his concentration upon the shadows. His eyes, the bright blue of an unvarnished sky, flashed before shadow overtook them, moving from the pupil and swirling outward until even the whites were engulfed.
“I said come out.”
The darkness of the alley became viscous and began to bubble and writhe. Within, the girl’s form struggled as she tried to maintain some control. She stood no chance against Darius’ manipulations. The shadows expelled the thin frame of a teenager. She wore tight jeans that were beginning to fade in places and a black t-shirt. She gathered herself and crouched low, watching him with hazel eyes whose green flecks glowed. Her short brown hair framed a face that, less wary, would be pleasant to look at.
“See, isn’t it better to meet face to face, like civilized people?” Darius held a hand out to her. He needed to be sure of this one. Now that she was in the open, he could tell she was young – a decade, perhaps two. With the shadow control she displayed, she should be feral. If she were, she was no use to him.
The girl considered his hand with suspicion and caution. Then the glow faded from her eyes and she stood, straightening her shoulders. She did not approach him, and the suspicion did not leave her eyes. Darius knew, then, that she was not feral. She would have attacked him or tried to flee. He was curious about her now. Who had she been in life, and how did she master her powers so quickly and not lose that person?
“If I wanted to talk to you, I would have approached you when you left the airport.” She spoke in French, a modern Parisian dialect.
“You’ve been following me that long?” Darius replied in French, matching her dialect, though he knew some of the inflections were archaic. He chided himself for not noticing her sooner. Of course, there had been so many people around him, and she gave off no sense of danger. How would he notice her?
She could be a decoy.
“Do you have a name?” Darius decided if she were a decoy, he would play along. Let any who thought to attack him try.
The girl watched him as she decided whether to answer. She revealed no ticks or motions that might serve as signals. She was alone and it occurred to Darius that he might be as much a curiosity to her as she was to him. Did she think him an anomaly? Was she perceptive enough to pick up how unlike herself he really was?
She picked up Darius’ assessment of her, and he saw her wrinkle her nose in disgust. Her senses pulled at innuendo like threads.
Darius moved forward, watching the world pass by in still motion as he closed the distance between them. He looked down, bending slightly so that their faces were mere inches apart. He parted his lips in a wide grin and revealed white teeth crowned by a pair of long, thin fangs.
“I can drink your name from you, but that is far less civil.”
“Your breath smells of carrion.” She looked up at him defiantly, not breaking eye contact.
Not the least bit feral, but you should be.
Darius shrugged his shoulders and tilted his head to one side. “It might be. Our flight was delayed at Heathrow. Tell me, where is your coven?”
“I was sent to hunt.”
Darius doubted that. “No one hunts this close to La Maison.”
“I was hunting near the airport. You led me here, Monsieur.” Darius did not miss the mockery in the honorific or the anger it was supposed to draw. Was she a fool, or did she think she could escape when he acted rashly?
“You shunned your duty so easily for my benefit? Do you think I am a stupid, or that lying will buy you some mercy?”
“It will buy time to spring the trap laid for you.”
Darius stepped back and folded his arms. The girl’s defiant gaze did not change. Darius laughed, throwing back his head as he did so. He felt the air in front of him snap together. He looked forward to see the girl crouched low against the brick of the building, her fangs bared and her hands spread, fingertips ending in talons. Darius shook his head as she leapt at him. He raised his hand to catch her by the neck. She winced at his touch and snapped her jaws on empty air, wriggling and digging the talons into his arms as she struggled to break free of his grasp.
“Who sent you? One of La Maison’s protectors? Someone who would fancy themselves able to take this city with its master gone? Or are you a gift my estranged son left behind in his exodus?”
The girl stopped and her face froze as realization moved across her features. Her eyes grew wide and her struggles began anew, this time not to merely break his grasp but to get away from him. Around them shadows coalesced as she tried to become incorporeal and float into them. Darius reached out with his senses to cut the strands from her.
“No one sent me.” She choked the word out around the grasp of his hand on her throat. “I caught sight of you at the airport. Our kind do not usually travel by plane. I was curious. I wanted to make sure you were not dangerous.”
“Is your curiosity sated?”
“Yes!” Her voice choked as panic rose in her. She ceased her struggles when as it became apparent that she could not get away. “Please, let me go.”
Darius pulled her close to him and took in a deep breath. He wanted a good, full scent of her. He held her away and smiled once more, broad and hard. “Blood of my blood. We are family.”
She retracted her talons and fangs. Any threat was replaced by fear and misery. “Please, Monsieur, please. I just want to go my way. I am no threat to you.”
“I never entertained the thought.” Darius considered the implications of this girl. Her display of power made sense now, though her lucidity did not. “You know who I am. Does my reputation precede me?”
She nodded. “The old men speak of you in hushed tones. Déchu, the One Who Fell.”
Darius laughed, but was not so foolish to throw his head back this time. Whomever this girl was, he did not like the conundrum she presented to him. “I’m merely a man, not Lucifer. So tell me, now that you have me at a loss, what is your name?”
“Patricia.” If she had tears, she would be crying.
Darius softened his smile and placed Patricia back onto the ground, releasing his grip on her. “See. Being polite is much better. Thank you. You may call me Darius.”
Patricia rubbed her neck. Darius looked at his own arms to see that the talons she had dug into him barely scratched his skin.
“I did not think you were real.” Patricia looked around them. The shadows that had thickened in their struggle dissipated, revealing the buildings once more.
“Did you think that Max had simply spawned from the ether?”
“I had hoped so. I pretended he was just punishment to the world for its sins. I did not want to think someone could make him.”
“I had only the best of intentions.”
Darius ignored the confused expression on Patricia’s face and looked around. The street to his left narrowed, dark and tunnel-like, until it ended at the arched portal of La Maison. The street seemed to speak. Go no further. The fear was palpable. Darius was not used to this. La Maison had always been a place of gathering, peaceful and welcoming.
Was this Max’s perversion? Had his wayward child turned the Château into a den of bloodletting and iniquity? Or was this in response to his leaving? Darius knew that Max had all of the covens held by fear of violence. Did the surviving covens, in hope that their collective fear would deter him from returning, throw this something up?
Darius looked back at Patricia, who was once again studying him. “How many did Max cull when he left?”
“As many as he could in three nights.” Patricia paused. Darius had the sense that she was organizing her thoughts, putting information together. “He was leaving quickly, even though nothing here threatened him. I have only seen a few covens come back out. Most huddle and wait. Are you here to finish the work?”
“If necessary.” Darius looked at her carefully. He had originally thought her to be fifteen when she was turned, but understood now she had been older. Eighteen, nineteen perhaps. She was mousey, but not unattractive, and her features made her look younger than she was. “And you? Did he slay his coven as well?”
Patricia shook her head and again seemed to measure her response. “He took his coven with him. I was not part of it. I was merely food that did not survive.”
Darius could not trace the threads of her emotion enough to know what she was measuring. Was she being protective, or deceptive? He decided that it did not matter. Even if she were a clever trap laid by Max, she could not harm him. “I am beginning to like you a little more. Come. I want to be off the street and into my home.”
Darius turned and began to walk again.
Behind him, Patricia hesitated, then followed, picking up her pace to fall in beside him. “It is not very fun. I have been once since Max left. The old men look over their shoulders like they are waiting for an ambush.”
“Do they think he will return?”
“Some mention it. Others fear the Psychics will come. The old men speak of them, too. They say that the eyes of a Psychic are lifeless as she slaughters your coven.”
Darius rolled his eyes. “They would not know. No Sanguine who has seen a Psychic move on a coven has ever lived to talk about the experience.”
“None?” Patricia’s voice livened with curiosity. He wondered if the old men bothered to speak to her, or if she merely picked up scraps of their conversations. “The stories of the old wars –”
“The old wars were very one-sided. We should have stayed solitary. Our numbers keep us safe from rebellious living, but the Psychics exploit the links between us too easily.”
