The Paris Escapade

“What are you going to do?” I asked as I stared at Nora, not even allowing myself to blink. A single movement could be enough to set her off. It was at that moment that I understood why a deer stared when they saw headlights. I had no idea what was going to happen next.

“I vant to ‘ear it from you.” she answered. Her soft, gentle face had turned so cold, it was like I was before a totally different person. Her honey-golden eyes had turned to hardened amber. “‘ow did it ‘appen?”

I held my hands up, placating, while I tried to gather my thoughts. Six months ago... I hadn’t wanted to think about that ever again, now I had to trawl it out of the depths of my memory. “Nora had taken Gabriel, and I went to get him back.”

“Vhy Vould Nora ‘ave to ‘take’ Gabriel? Veren’t they married? Vhy did ‘e not just go vith her?” Her accent was getting more exaggerated as she became more agitated. If this had been any other situation, I would have found it comical.

“He didn’t want to go with her. He wanted to be on his own.” I grimaced, realizing how bad I was making Gabriel sound.

“Vhy?” Her voice was turning harder by the second.

“I don’t know.” I lied. I couldn’t tell her that Gabriel had left Nora after she had killed his son over fifty years ago. That was up to Gabriel to share, I didn’t even have the know it. The only reason I did was because I has read Great Aunt Katrina’s journal. “You’d have to ask Gabriel that.”

Even though Nora looked like a small child, she was at least a few decades old. She saw through me with narrowed eyes. “Father gave me a gift vhen I returned.” she said. “A new ability, so zat I could sift truth from lies. If you won’t give me ze answers I need, zen I will take zem from you.”

I shook my head quickly. “Nora, you don’t understand-”

The girl moved fast; in a blink she was in front of me. With another blurred movement, I felt a hot knife of pain slice the inside of my wrist. She clamped her small hand over the wound just as blood began to flow from it.

The pain vanished instantly as my mind was abruptly jerked away from all thoughts of my wrist, or Nora, or the situation I was in. Instead I hurtled backwards, six months ago. I experienced it all again, rewinding and fast forwarding in fits and starts.

Nora, Gabriel’s wife, sending the twins to the house. Gabriel killed the older one and drank her blood. The younger one hadn’t attacked, so he ignored her.

I was jerked forward, this wasn’t important.

I was on the roof of a tall apartment building, lying in a pool of my own blood, unable to move. Gabriel had brought me up here with him so he could kill me. He needed my blood to fight Nora.

Nora was senseless and violent, like a rabid dog. She snarled and attacked blindly, throwing herself at Gabriel, wanting to rip him apart with her bare hands. Her expression was contorted with madness and rage, betrayal and pain etched into her face.

I retreated quickly. Why was she like this? What had happened to her?

“Lucifer sided with me, like he always did. Things became violent, and you killed him.”
The words echoed, distorting in my mind. I retreated again.

Lucifer, Gabriel’s son. Nora’s son. No, there must be something else here.

I rewound again, back to the house, to Nora’s grand entrance. She came down the stairs and calmly killed Callie, using her abilities to send an iron lamp stand right through her body. I remembered feeling too terrified to move, barely able to speak.

Her eyes had been so cold, looking out from the innocent face of a child. So much loathing was in those eyes, along with a deep obsession that ran to her core.

“Not zose eyes!” a girl’s voice screamed.

I was abruptly brought back to the present, pain rushing back to my wrist. I was already on my knees, falling to the floor took no effort. I gripped my injured wrist tightly, subconsciously keeping pressure on the bleeding wound.

“I don’t vant zose eyes!” Nora screamed, clutching at her golden curls, her bloodied hand leaving red streaks in her hair. There were tears in her eyes as she scrunched them tightly closed. “Zat’s not me.” Her voice broke to a ragged whimper. “Zat’s not me.”

I curled up reflexively, nursing my injury. Blood leaked from between my clenched fingers, dripping on the carpet. The pain was too much, I couldn’t get up to comfort the girl, and right now I wasn’t very inclined to do so.

“If you don’t want to be that way, then don’t.” Gabriel’s voice came from the door. He stood straight and tall in the doorway, coolly observing the scene in front of him.

Nora looked up quickly, her eyes wild with fear and shock. “You.” She swallowed like she was trying to hold back bile. “You zink it’s zat easy?”

“It might not be easy, but it’s simple. The Nora I loved walked a very dark road. That doesn’t have to be your path.”

“Father said-”

“Forget what he said!” Gabriel interrupted. “Do whatever it is that you want to!”

Nora’s golden eyes narrowed. “Isn’t zat exactly vhat ze last Nora did? She didn’t listen to Father.” Her voice rose. “She ran off to America with you and never looked back, and look at vat happened to her!”

It was Gabriel’s turn to swallow uncomfortably. “You’re right, to a point. She did run, but she never really got away.”

“Vat do you mean?” Nora seemed calmer now, more inclined to listen.

“She got away from Paris, but she carried something with her. A desire, something that she wanted more than anything.” Gabriel’s eyes turned to the ceiling. “I never really understood it, till I came back here. She had never been content, playing as your father’s Nora. She wanted to be head of the family, to have a cabal of vampires bound to her, bent to her will. She wanted what her father had, but didn’t have the patience to build a family slowly over centuries. She wanted it too badly, and resorted manipulation and force. Eventually that desire turned to greed, and it turned on her in the end.”

As she listened to him, Nora’s bottom lip trembled as tears rolled slowly down her cheeks. “You don’t have that desire.” Gabriel told her. “You just want to hold onto your family, to take care of your father and the people that are close to you. They don’t give you much freedom, and sometimes they’re not very nice to you, but they’re yours.” He dropped his gaze. “I know what it’s like to want to hold on to what’s yours.”

Nora bowed her head silently. Gabriel walked past her and knelt down next to me.

I looked up at him and grimaced. “What the hell are you doing here?” I asked sourly.

“What a fine way to greet your rescuer.” His voice was dry.

“You shouldn’t be here,” I said, pulling my injured arm close to my body. “You’re hurt. I pushed a lungful of water out of you just a few hours ago. At least, I think it was a few hours ago.” I had no idea how much time had passed while I was unconscious with Dimitri.

“I’ll live.” He reached for my injured wrist.

I jerked away from him, scooting back on the carpet. “No.” I said through gritted teeth as fresh pain flashed up my arm.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he insisted. Taking my wrist firmly and pulling me slowly towards him. “Just let me see.”

He pried my fingers from the wound and his face tightened. Panic was beginning to take over again, and I struggled harder, trying to pull away from him. “Stop moving, you’re making it worse,” he scolded me.

“I’m not going to bait a shark.” I said, then grunted. The pain was getting worse, and the blood was oozing out faster.

“If you keep moving like this, you’re going to kill yourself. Stop pushing the blood out of your body.”

I wouldn’t listen to him, I just wanted to get away before he turned on me again and finished the job he started six months ago. The memories from that day were fresh in my mind, as if I were reliving it all over again.

“You’re not giving me any other choice,” he said. “This is for your own good.” He brought the inside of my wrist to his mouth.

I lost it then, terrified out of my mind. I screamed and tried to push him away with my good hand. I started hitting him with my fist, but couldn’t pull free because as soon as his mouth touched my skin, numbness began to spread from my wound and down my arm. My struggles quickly grew feeble, till I couldn’t even lift my arms any longer. I fell limp, my injured arm hanging in his grasp.

He didn’t sink his teeth into me, as he had done last year. He merely pressed his open mouth to my wound, stopping the flow of blood. He didn’t draw any more out, instead keeping perfectly still till I stopped struggling, then he pulled away.

He contemplated the inside of my wrist for a moment, then turned his eyes to my face. That heaviness in my arms had taken over the rest of me. The only thing I could do was stare at him, my thoughts moving sluggishly through my brain. “There’s one thing you’re going to have to learn, if you continue to associate yourself with me, Evangeline,” he said matter-of-factly. “I’m poisonous.”

Dawning was slow to pierce my thoughts, but understanding did come. I had felt like this before, when he had last tasted my blood. This heaviness that stopped even my breaths. I hadn’t thought too deeply about it the last time, chalking my weakness up to blood loss. Now I saw that it was something about him, in his teeth or his saliva, that had paralyzed me. That was how I had almost died last year.

Right now the feeling wasn’t as bad. I could still breathe, if shallowly. I could look around and think, I just couldn’t move.

He had brought my sweatshirt with him. He tore off a sleeve with his teeth and wrapped it around my wrist, tying it tightly. He stood up, picking me up as he did so. He tossed me over one shoulder easily like a sack of flour and headed for the door. “I just came to reclaim what was stolen from me. I’ll leave now.”

Nora quickly reached out and grabbed the back of his shirt. “You can’t just leave like zat.” He paused, looking back at her. “My family won’t let you.”

“I managed to get in here with no problem.”

“You vere allowed to. Vhen you try to leave, zey vill kill you. Evangeline as vell.”

“Then what am I supposed to do?”

I summoned enough strength to turn my head and look at Nora. Even upside down, I could see the resolve in her face. “I’ll go vith you.”

“I just brought you back here,” Gabriel objected, his voice rising. “It’s been a bad day for me and I’m tired. I won’t be able to bring you back again.”

“I can find my vay back ‘ome. Please, I’m sorry for vhat I put Evangeline zrough.” She looked at me. “Vhat I made her remember. Let me make it up to ‘er by making sure she gets avay safely.”

He thought it over for a few seconds. We needed to get out of here as soon as possible, he was hurt, and for the moment I couldn’t walk. Things didn’t look good for us. After a moment, he held his free hand out to the girl. “Fine.”

Nora smiled weakly, then took his hand. “Zis vay.” She led him out the door and down the hall.

After about fifteen minutes, I regained feeling in my hands. I tested out my limbs and found I could move feebly. The pain in my wrist returned in full force and with it another pain I had all but forgotten. The trip through the air duct had not been kind on my turned ankle, and now it throbbed worse than ever.

Letting Gabriel carry me was a comfort to my injured bits, but hanging upside down was making me dizzy. “I need to be right side up, or I’m going to throw up on the back of your pants.” I told him.

He stopped and put me on my feet a little too quickly. Between the dizziness and my bad ankle I crumpled almost immediately. Nora reached out and steadied me. Over the blood rushing in my ears I heard her tell Gabriel to continue carrying me.

He sighed and scooped my back up, holding me more traditionally. I closed my eyes and pressed my head against his shoulder, waiting for the nausea to pass.

“God, how much do you weigh?” He was trying to hide it, but I could hear a hint of strain in his voice.

“One ten.”

“Yeah, right.”

I sighed. “You’re still hurt, why are you here?”

“As much as I hate to admit it, without you I’d be dead right now.”

“You should rest, let someone else rescue me. Or, just let me get away on my own. I’m the stupid one for getting kidnapped, what am I worth?”

“I know you don’t mean that.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” I lied. Truth be told, I wasn’t worth much. I was always getting into situations that were practically impossible to get out of of without getting hurt, and that had the side effect of dragging the people who cared about me down with me.

“Time to walk.” He set me back on my feet. By this time the dizziness was gone and I had most of the feeling back in my body, so I was able to stand up on my own.

We were at the entrance to the mausoleum. The damaged door was in front of me. I bent down to squeeze through the warped opening. Gabriel followed close behind me. Nora made to come through after, but Gabriel blocked her. “Go back to your room, Nora.”

The girl looked hurt, so I stepped in with some soothing words. “You got us out all right, thank you. We’ve got it from here.”

She shook her head. “You do not. My family vaits in ze streets, zey could ambush you at any time. If I am vith you, zey would not be able to follow you back to ze school.”

I looked over at Gabriel, who was refusing to look at either of us. I turned back to Nora. “Are you absolutely sure you know the way back here?”

She nodded enthusiastically. “Cross my heart.”

Gabriel sighed in frustration and moved out of the way. Nora quickly scrabbled through the opening. She took my hand, then Gabriel’s and we headed to the cemetery gate.

Nora jumped up and over the gate, landing nimbly on her feet. Gabriel climbed up to the top of the gate and helped me over, then jumped down heavily.

I had expected him to pick me up again and take to the rooftops, but he walked down the street normally. I looked over at Nora, who shrugged and walked after him.

I hurried to catch up, till I was at pace with the two vampires. Nora let her pace fall back a little, till Gabriel and I were walking together.

I glanced at him. I wasn’t going to mention the walking, I knew that he was still hurt and pointing out that he wanted to take things easy would only start an argument. Still, now that I was away from the Manigault home, something still bothered me.

“Thank you for coming to get me,” I began. “I still don’t think you should have, though. If I had to be rescued, someone else would have been better.”

“Oh, you mean Kieran?” Gabriel didn’t look at me.

“Whoever doesn’t matter, just listen for a minute. The vampire that kidnapped me is in a lot of trouble right now.”

“Why is that?”

“Because he wasn’t supposed to. I heard that Father guy telling him that he wouldn’t be able to follow your movements any more, and that the only thing I was good for now was bait.”

Gabriel frowned. “That’s strange. I thought the whole point was to use you as bait.”

“Apparently not. It seems like they were using me to spy on you somehow.”

“Vas it Dimitri?” Nora’s voice was a squeak behind us.

We both paused and turned to her. “Yeah,” I answered. “I think that was his name.”

Nora’s golden eyes were as wide as saucers. “‘As ‘e attached ‘imself to you?”

“What do you mean?” I asked. “He seemed pretty infatuated.”

Her hands began to tremble. Gabriel stepped in. “Who is this Dimitri? Is he powerful?”

“Very much so. Dimitri is one of Father’s sons. Ze only one left out of four.”

“He killed the others?”

“After Father, ‘e is ze most powerful vampire in my family. ‘E ‘as killed many times, and ‘as more abilities zan anyone else. ‘E is terrifying, but vat makes ‘im truly dangerous is ‘is ability to invade dreams. ‘E buries himself in your subconscious, vere you are most vulnerable. From zere, ‘e ‘as access to every secret in your mind, even ze ones you don’t know yourself.”

She looked at me and I felt my own eyes widen. “You mean he was actually inside my dreams? I thought he was just making me hallucinate or something.”

Gabriel turned to me. “You’ve been having strange dreams? Why didn’t you say anything?”

I looked at him, aghast. “They started when we were back home. I thought you were causing them somehow, like how you kept blowing out the lights.” I decided not to mention that the person in my dreams had looked like Gabriel.

Nora threw herself at me, burying her face in my stomach, and I looked down at her. “It’s not fair, I just met you.” she sniffled, then looked up into my face. There were tears in her eyes. “I vanted you to be my friend.”

I put one hand on the top of her head. “Nora, I’m right here, we can be friends. Nothing’s going to happen to me.” I reassured her. “Dimitri didn’t seem like he was going to hurt me.”

“Every time Father attaches ‘im to someone, zey always die. Dimitri plays with zem until ‘e gets bored. As soon as ‘e does, ‘e zrows zem away like dolls.” her voice was getting more and more hysterical.

“Okay, okay.” I shushed her soothingly. “You got me away from him. Let’s get back, and I’ll be returning to America in a few days. Everything’ll be just fine.”

“You won’t be safe. Dimitri is ze only one I cannot hide you from. Influence does not work on ‘im!” Her eyes widened in horror, and she pushed herself away from me. “Ze school! ‘E will know about it by now.”

“We have to get back.” I turned to Gabriel, who nodded.

“Here.” He reached into a pocket and pulled out my phone, which he handed to me. I immediately dialed Ms. Brun’s number. While it rang, I looked around for a cab, one arm up.

“She’s not answering.” I announced, hanging up the phone without leaving a message. A knot of fear was forming in the pit of my stomach.

A taxi pulled up and we all piled in, Nora sitting between Gabriel and I. “Do you have any money on you?” I asked Gabriel after giving the driver the address.

He dug through his pockets and pulled out his wallet, which was a wet mess. “The credit card is dry.” he replied.

Luckily, the cab had a card machine. I took his card and stared out the window anxiously. Gabriel said something to the driver in French and we went a little faster, but I had a terrible feeling it wasn’t fast enough.