Page 22 of Even Vampires Bleed
I don’t need more reading.
“Did they say anything about finding my father?” I ask Luc as we ascend the stairs.
“No. They didn’t specify. I don’t know if they meant the whole team, including your father, or if it was just about the rest of the team,” Luc answers.
He doesn’t apologize or try to make me feel good, but right in this instant, I think that is what I need.
I can’t let any weakness enter my building armor, or I might shatter, and it will be harder to convince Elhyor that this time he can’t send a team without sending me, too.
I don’t need to do the fighting, but I can definitely sneak past any guard and start releasing the prisoners while everyone does the killing.
By the time we reach the top of the stairs and enter the buzzing church, my virtual armor is in place. My mind is ready to go to war and to do whatever it takes to be in that recovery team.
No one will get me to change my mind.
It’s time to get my dad back.
12
Cassiopé
“I’m going,” I tell Elhyor when I finally find him walking from his office. I’m surprised to see that Léandre was with him, yet Angie is nowhere to be found. Then I see her entering the church from the doors at the back. She looks like she’s been through a tornado, so I deduce that she was trying to fly on her own when pandemonium started here.
“No–” Elhyor starts to say, but he’s cut short by both the sight of his wife and the elbow Léandre just stuck to his ribs.
He only gets away with it because Angie just arrived because I’m pretty sure in normal time it’s not something Elhyor would let pass.
“You’re staying here with me,” Elhyor says, and I first believe he’s saying that for me, but his eyes are solely focused on Angie. I realize that he already forgot I want to go with the recovery team.
I tap on Elhyor’s arm as Léandre comes to my side and softly grabs my hand as if it was an everyday thing.
“If you don’t let me, I’ll go anyway. Even dad never managed to keep me inside Notre Dame. You won’t be able to, either. So, you either let me go officially, or I’ll join the team once they’re out of Notre Dame’s sight. In any case, I’ll be there. If you let me go with the team, at least you know I’m not alone there.”
Léandre squeezes his hand around mine, and I don’t need him to voice it. If I go, he goes—no matter if they said again and again that with the color of his feathers he can’t go.
Elhyor seems half in the conversation. It’s like his mind is already half in the one he’s about to have with his wife. I tap on his arm again and he finally gives me a short, “Go, I can’t stop you, anyway,” and then he disappears with Angie.
“I guess we get to visit Blois. Or its underbelly more exactly,” Léandre says with a voice who wants to be cheery but lacks warmth.
Yeah, I get it. I’m both relieved we finally found them, and at the same time my heart is squeezing itself at the prospect that my dad might not be amongst them.
I know I should get ready.
But how does one get ready when they’re about to go on a mission in their animal form? It’s not like I can arm myself or whatever.
Everything is going to fall to the ground as soon as I shift.
So, I wait until everyone is ready. There are some harnesses that are going to be carried by four bat-shifters at the same time. I can’t put one of those on me. I’ve never flown with one of those, and I surely would make a mess if I was to try for the first time today, but I get closer, look how the weapon master instructs how to set them to a group of warriors, and Léandre and I start helping the warriors into harnesses.
Once we’re done, there is only Léandre, Luc, Pierre and me in our human form. Everyone else is ready to go.
“I’m leaving with you,” I hear Elhyor say at my back, and my body finally relaxes since Pierre won’t be leading this mission.
But my relief is short, because in the next instant, Elhyor adds, “It’s a decoy, so Michaël thinks I’m leaving Notre Dame unattended. I’ll just fly out and will be back here in a half hour.”
My body goes rigid.
I was ready to do this in the first place. Even knowing it would be Pierre leading us.
