MONACHOPSIS- V. Hargreeves ³

009. THE GREAT DEVOURER.

And he did, eventually. Just not with Louise.

When recalling what had happened in the restaurant later, Beau would tell authorities it came out of nowhere. He wasn't lying, either—there were no prior signs that Louise was ill. Nothing in her posture or body expression to convey that she was in pain. Just the bright, happy face of his wife, sipping Le Newbie.

Until that face fell.

This was how it happened, in the patches that had become Beau's memory of the incident: Louise smiled at Beau. She rubbed a pearl under two fingers. The candle lit at the center of their table cast shadows on her face. She lifted her wine glass to take another sip. The rim grazed her lips.

Then her expression whitened. All of the blood seemed to drain from her face. Her mouth parted, ever so slightly, as if in surprise.

The glass slipped from her fingers, clattering onto the table. Knocked askew, the wine within began to spread across the table, a dark, dark stain on the white tablecloth. It looked far too much like blood.

That was the only warning Beau got.

"Louise?" he asked, raising his gaze back to his wife's blanched face. "Ça va, mon cœur?"

Are you okay, my heart?

Louise opened her mouth wider, as if to speak. Nothing but a gasp left her throat, instead.

Then blood began to drip from her eyes.

It leaked down her face like tears, down and down and down. It was red, dark red, almost as red as the wine she'd just spilled on the table. It was ghastly. It was horrifying. It was wrong.

Beau leaped back, pulse roaring in his ears. "Louise?" he asked. "Louise?! Que se passe-t-il?!"

What is going on?

Louise's face became, if possible, even whiter. Beau noticed that blood was dripping down her ears, as well. He was just going to call someone over for help when it happened.

His wife pitched forward and projectile-vomited a spray of blood across his face.

Beau screamed, leaping to his feet. His face was wet and red, his new suit stained, but he didn't care about either. All he cared about—all he could care about—was his wife, and a second eruption of blood. This time, it came from her ears. Something burst in her eyes, too.

"Louise!" he shouted. He whirled around, facing the restaurant. A few people had turned around at his screams, but not enough. "Aide! Aide! Quelqu'un! J'ai besoin d'aide!"

Help! Help! Somebody! I need help!

But by the time help arrived—in the shape of a nearby waiter and several panicked patrons—it was too late. Louise had slumped over completely.

Beau reached out a single, bloody hand, feeling for her pulse.

There was none.

His wife—his beautiful wife, who had, as of five minutes ago, been completely alive and well—was gone.

THE SPARROW ACADEMY COURTYARD gave Nadine the same, strange sense of déjà vu that the interior of the mansion did. There was enough to be familiar—it was the same layout, after all, with the same garden paths and ornately decorated benches—but just enough differences to skew her entire perspective. There was no statue of Ben here, for example, though that was to be expected. This Ben Hargreeves wasn't dead, so there was no need for such a commemoration. Even so, the place seemed strange, even sinister without it. It was just... wrong.