յօ 𝔪𝔬𝔫𝔱𝔥𝔰 𝔭𝔯𝔦𝔬𝔯 ~ t𝔥𝔢 𝔠𝔦𝔱y 𝔬𝔣 l𝔦𝔤𝔥𝔱𝔰
An arm grabbed his wrist. The man's attention flashed with impressive speed to whomever the arm belonged to. However, whoever it was made sure to stay close behind him so that he couldn't identify them without turning around and creating commotion within the crowd.
"We must take issue on some matters, you and I." He heard his interlocutor whisper. The anonymous arm steered him through the underground into a deserted hall. Before he could react a sharp pain hit him in the throat, nailing him to the wall. A combination of surprise at both the attack and the attacker's identity made him gasp. He stared into calm stony eyes.
"You can remind Lucinde that these are my grounds." Edmond hissed. The man shrugged and mouthed "I would but—" his eyes moved to the dagger buried in his trachea in self-explanation. Edmond let out an exasperated sigh while dislodging the weapon. The wound healed gradually, leaving only the beginning of a hemorrhage to bear witness to its earlier gaping presence.
"Fancy seeing you here, Edmond." he greeted. "The last time we talked, I recall, was in March 1871 when you were considering returning to Revel in order to enjoy a more peaceful atmosphere." he chuckled ironically, remembering the far from peaceful insurrections in Paris that had taken place during that very month. "Here let me help you with that." he offered, gesturing to the knife which bore his own blood. He drew what appeared to be an eyeglass cloth from his right shoe which was wrapped around a similar dagger and handed it to the other vampire. Edmond looked at it without taking it.
"Why this sudden hostility, my friend?" The man prompted. "You have never been too bothered by the borders."
Edmond's silver irises grew cloudy. He turned to look around them as if checking that they were indeed alone. Though this was a totally unnecessary precaution to a vampire who could have heard not only the steps of passerby's but also the sound of their heartbeat.
"Befriending each other was not clever. We can not be friends, Émile." he responded regretfully.
Émile's eyebrows furrowed warily as he wondered what fueled this unexpected change in attitude.
"Lucy doesn't mind, why should you?"
"We have less prey this year. The humans are growing scarce. Most of them will be going on holiday soon. Your clan will profit over the tourists. And as you probably know, they have moved the blood donation center to a different location." He emphasized the last words, making it clear he much disapproved of its new location. "My clan is pressuring me to enforce the borders here in Paris instead of retreating to the countryside." He confessed.
"I have only been going to the Sorbonne for physics classes." Émile uttered defensively.
"We both know protons and electromagnetic waves aren't the reason you took those three last physics classes." Edmond accused.
"So you suspect her as well. She's a shifter, isn't she?" He asked avidly.
"She's an ordinary human." His compagnon bluntly cut him short. "What did Lucinde promise in exchange for her elimination?"
"Are you sure?" Émile asked, his voice drooping with disappointment. "Lucy was going to appoint me lieutenant. And she had gotten the real estate papers for the building in the Marais sorted out."
"What kind of shifter hides in a city swarming with vampires?"
"I don't know. Mathilde is convinced that physics professor is related to the recent floods.Plus, I do agree she smells... odd."
Edmond's shoulders tensed. His pupils enlarged. Indeed, now that neither of them was speaking, Émile could hear the clatter of footsteps and the more muffled sound of heartbeats that accompanied them. He peered down at his blood-covered shirt and buttoned up his jacket in order to hide it.
"You don't happen to have a scarf do you?" He asked, patting his bloody neck self-consciously.
"This will have to do." Edmond swiftly stowed his blade away before taking off his coat and handing it to Émile. The collar was high enough it covered his neck.
Three girls which looked to be in their late teens appeared at the corner of the hallway. They were chatting cheerfully. Meanwhile, both men had positioned themselves at the hallway's extremities in an effort to look less conspicuous together. Émile had ears only for the rhythms of three different hearts and fought the urge to appropriate the warm succulent liquid that they pumped. The shortest of the group of teenagers fiddled absentmindedly with the chain of her necklace. She let go of it an instant to brush some straight strands of her black hair away, exposing her shoulder. Émile forced his eyes closed. When he opened them again, her monolid eyes bore into his, bearing a look as subtly fearful as it was quizzical.
"The incident near Place d'Italie was just an ordinary flood. You can't simply deduce that a shifter is behind Paris's foul weather."
It took him a while to notice Edmond was talking to him. The young girl's gaze turned away and he devoted his attention to Edmond. He was holding his phone against one ear. Though Émile knew he wasn't using it —at least not the common way. With vampiric hearing both of them could communicate perfectly from where they were, however, pretending to talk on the phone made much more sense to passing humans. When the group of teenagers passed him, he took on a perked interest, like all five of his senses were intensely focalized on them.
"My goodness." Émile realized out loud. "We must look like such perverts in their eyes." he murmured jokingly.
Edmond's gaze detached from the group of humans to rest on his old friend's silhouette. The side of his mouth twisted into a half wistful smile.
"You haven't changed a bit since 1871, I see. Just do me a favor, don't go taking innocent human lives on the premise that they smell different and tell Mathilde that she is a terrible pharmacist." His voice was warm and soft which replaced the sting in his words. "Farewell, Émile."
He was already walking away. Émile trailed after him.
"Don't you want your coat back?"
"Consider it my gift of valediction." And he disappeared around the corner.
***
That night, her body was at rest but her mind kept racing through information as if she was tearing through a book, reading every line at full speed without being able to fully grasp what was written. It was a weird feeling actually. Being between consciousness and unconsciousness. Between reality and dream.
When she opened her eyes, she could see her apartment caving in over her in slow motion. Snap out of it! She told herself, noticing that she was sweating with fear, although the room hadn't moved. But in its stagnancy, in its sterility, it felt threatening. She got out of bed and opened the window, to escape the apartment's stuffy intoxicating air and let the cold night air fill her lungs.
It was 11:30pm. There was no denying her clear exhaustion. But she needed to get away from this place a bit... and gather her thoughts. She slipped on her parka and opened the apartment door with a click. Then, stood in the hallway trying to fathom how she felt about exiting her apartment for the first time in three days that she had spent trying to cut her contacts with the outside world. Good. She decided.
For the past few days, fear had locked her in her apartment and except for work she didn't dare face the huge city that she now knew was but a maze crawling with monsters. But now something inside her wanted to be freed. She wasn't going to put up with the fear anymore.
Once outside, she sighed, relief melting inside of her. The cold air was like a call back to life. Luna turned street after street not bothering to read the signs. She loved the feeling of going nowhere. Wandering aimlessly was somehow reassuring. All roads lead home. Someone had once told her. Though, the original proverb, she reminded herself amusingly was: All roads lead to Rome...
Anyway, sleep was a waste of time... she justified internally. In one year if you slept the 7hours recommended per night, Luna had calculated, you lost 2555 hours, the equivalent of approximately 106 days in 365... (not counting if it's a leap year of course). She kicked at a stone that was in her path. A gathering of pigeons took off a few paces away. And that means that in a period of 10years you spent approximately 3years unconscious.
After a while, she began regretting having left that big scarf behind. It was part of her plan to leave fear behind with it but now she had the cold to contend with.
The sky was an inky black. But colors and lights sparked in the city below it. In the puddles, you seemed to get a glimpse of another world. An upturned world made up of darkness and smudges of colors.
Ahead, among the lights sprung a valiant column on which stood a golden angel, its wings spread, its hand reaching out toward the night sky. She recognized the Place de la Bastille. For how long had she been walking? This was far from her apartment in the 13th arrondissement.
She walked up to the Colonne de Juillet. There, she stopped, glancing round at the gleaming city around her. Then suddenly her mind lit up too, traveling back to De Revel and his theory of consciousness. She raised her index finger as if to trace the city before her. When her index lifted up to the lights, they formed mathematical processes in front of her. She continued to pivot at the center of the place and watch in wonder as the lights slowly shaped into clear calculations.
This was the genius of psychosis. She was told that we never really see reality as it is. We can not perceive everything all at once. So our mind fills in the gaps. Thus, we think we heard something or we thought we saw something that turned out to be something else. However sometimes our mind distorts reality because we can not comprehend it otherwise or we simply see it differently. For Luna, this is how she understood the world. This is how she saw it.
A/N
1745 words
Is anyone reading this? If so, please give me a sign of life, show me you're real living and breathing readers 😂 because honestly, I'm getting a little lonely here!
The City from Ed Sheeran ;)