Page 11 of Vacation with the Vampire
Run over. By what, I wondered dimly, as one of the metal contraptions roared past, far too close for comfort. She guided me forward, her grip surprisingly firm. It struck me then, and not for the first time, that there was more strength in her than her earlier panic suggested. Not merely physical, though she had endured pain with admirable stubbornness, but something instinctive. Quick, adaptive, the way an immortal like me should be, I could admire that.
She had extricated us from Thibault’s scrutiny with remarkable ease. A lie, delivered without hesitation, on my behalf. She had acted like we’d known each other far longer than the few hours in a dusty, cold tunnel. She’d conjured plans out of thin air that sounded plausible, for my benefit. Why would she do that? Very curious.
“That guy, Teebow?” she said as we walked, glancing sideways at me. “He was…ah, let’s call it intense. I’m guessing that’s normal for a vampire?” I blinked, dragging my attention from the chaos around us.
“Thibault,” I corrected automatically. “And no. He is not a vampire.” The idea was pretty preposterous, really, but I could not blame her for thinking so. After all, only today she’d learned vampires were real, as well as healing magic.
She frowned slightly, but her steps were steady as she continued guiding me along the sidewalk and down the street. Headed for a location only she knew, it was a role reversal that seemed poetic.
“No? Then what is he?” she asked as we walked, her gaze on the crowd around us. Paris had always been extremely busy, but I could not recall ever seeing this many people on a single street unless there was a riot.
A carriage-that-was-not-a-carriage blared some infernal horn as it passed. I resisted the urge to bare my teeth at it. I recalled wagons and carriages to be noisy, and a risk of getting trampled by them, but this? How was everyone so calm as they hurtled past?
“A gargoyle,” I hissed out without thinking, too distracted by the city’s transformation. Knowing a vampire was real was one thing, but to learn that more supernatural creatures existed? It might be too much of a shock for one day.
Next to me, she was quiet as she absorbed that, but her pace never faltered; her grip remained steady on my arm as she guided me along the sidewalk. “Okay,” she said after a moment. “Sure, why not? That’s kinda cool, actually.”
I glanced at her rather sharply, but she did not notice. “You accept that rather easily.” Her brown hair was not quite brown, catching the sunlight until it looked like spun gold. With the afternoon’s warm summer sun heating her cheeks, she looked rosy too. Not pale and in shock, a state that wouldn’t have been surprising if it had persisted. The sparkle in her blue eyes took my breath away.
She gave a weak huff of laughter. “Honestly? After the whole glowing-eyes, magic-healing crystal situation? My bar for ‘weird’ is pretty high right now.” That was fair. Shehadseen a lot of strange things in a very short amount of time, and not once had she fainted.
She steered me toward a metal pole bearing a sign I did not recognize, then down a set of stairs leading beneath the street. It was another tunnel, but this one was wrong in entirely new ways: brightly lit with harsh, artificial light. The walls were smooth and lacked the organic irregularity of stone. The air was warmer rather than cooler, filled with the press of humanity.
I stared wildly as Susie calmly guided me through the throng, through gates that ate tickets like a child ate candy. More stairs, into a tunnel passage that plunged toward metal tracks. I was not prepared for what would come on those tracks.
The ground trembled. A thunderous rumble surged through the tunnel as something vast and metallic screamed into view along a set of tracks. I stiffened. “What,” I said slowly, “is that?”
“A train,” she replied. “Underground.” No, it wasn’t. This was not a train. I recalled the first such machine, though I had not personally laid eyes on it. Drawings had been circulated, and it had been a great metal contraption blowing steam and smoke. This “train” was smooth and metallic, but it blew no smoke of any kind. There was not even a wagon for coal.
“Come on,” she added, tugging on my arm. “We’ll take this. It’s faster.” Faster. I was not convinced speed was desirable. Nevertheless, I allowed myself to be guided onto the machine. Where was it even taking us? I was so discombobulated that I’dforgotten to ask where Susie was guiding me. That’s how much I already trusted her.
The doors closed with a sharp hiss, and then there was movement. The cart lurched into motion: violent, immediate, and entirely unnatural. The world outside blurred as we were propelled forward at a speed that would have been impossible for any carriage I’d ever been in. The noise alone was staggering, a deafening roar that echoed through the enclosed space. I gripped the nearest pole much harder than intended.
“Are you okay?” Susie asked, eyeing me. She had to speak up to be heard over the noise of the “train,” but she was clearly used to it. She was calm as can be, with a faint smile curling her mouth as if my distress amused her.
“I am,” I said through my teeth, “perfectly composed.” The pole creaked faintly beneath my hand. While she had every right to feel smug for having the upper hand in this, damned if I didn’t hate it.
She snorted, clearly not buying my false bravado. “Right. Sure.” She drawled the last word almost like it was a song, and I clenched my jaw, frowning, but glaring in this situation was hard to muster. The noise was excruciating.
It wasn’t silence so much as her refraining from speaking for a moment, letting her eyes dart over my face. Then, more gently, “You can come back to my hotel, you know. We’ll figure things out there. Unless you’ve got somewhere else you want to go?”
Somewhere else. The question hung in the air as I considered it. I thought about the city above, which was unrecognizable tome now. The den below, which had been repurposed, abolished. Thibault, who still lived but seemed altered, different, and thus no longer truly my friend. Then there was… “Louis,” I said.
She tilted her head in question, but as her mouth shaped my friend’s name, the sound was snatched away by the rumbling train. I found that when I stared into her blue eyes, the noise of the rambling, hurtling death machine we were on faded into the background. “He was meant to be there,” I said slowly. “When I woke. He would have explained.” That had been our deal, but he had not been there, and I had no idea where to find him. I did not even know if he yet existed in this world.
Susie studied me for a moment, then gave a small, wry smile. “Yeah,” she said. “Instead, you got stuck with me.” There was mirth in her eyes, and I liked that. How she could see the humor in the situation. It made it feel a little less dire.
I huffed a quiet breath. “Yes,” I said. “It would seem so.” She had somehow stumbled into my sanctuary and woken me, despite layers upon layers of spells and wards that should have prevented exactly such a thing from happening. She had seemed brash, loud, too different. Then she’d seduced me into liking her with her sharp wit and quiet strength. I was very fortunate it was her I was, for the moment, stuck with.
The journey blurred after that. A series of stops, of people entering and exiting, of sensations that layered upon one another until they became almost indistinguishable. By the time we emerged once more into daylight, I felt frayed. Disoriented in a way I had not experienced in centuries.
“The Louvre,” Susie said, gesturing as we walked. I followed her gaze and stopped. The structure was familiar, but as we gazed along the flank of the building, long banners proclaimed exhibitions, and an endless stream of people seemed to be coming and going.
I had visited one artist or another on several occasions here, but I needed only one look to know it was no longer a place where artists stayed in small apartments. It also did not appear to be a palace any longer, but I did not dare ask what had happened to Napoleon. A museum, yes, but not one limited in its opening hours to just a handful—one that appeared to be a massive draw to people from all over the world. My ears buzzed with their languages.
How long had I slept? Not even the full stint of three centuries, and yet it had been more than long enough for changes far beyond any I’d seen in my previous centuries on Earth. The thought settled heavily.
We reached a crossing, and I began to suspect the large building across the square was our destination. In large letters, it boldly proclaimed itself the Hôtel du Louvre. I stepped forward and was abruptly yanked back. “Whoa, nope!” Susie said, pulling me sharply to her side. One of the metal beasts tore past, far too close. “That,” she muttered under her breath, “is called a car. It could kill you if you don’t pay attention.”
