Page 53 of Even Vampires Bleed
I saw her a few times in Notre Dame, which means she’s probably used to the fact those damned bats can hear everything and anything. For all I know, she might be a bat herself.
“What’s in it for you?” I ask the grumpy duet.
“You’ll have to ask Elis, I’m not in the know,” Cassiopé tells me with a shrug. It makes me wonder why exactly they picked her for this mission, if she knows nothing about what we’re about to do or what we’re going to steal.
“You don’t need to know. All you need to know is that I can carry whatever we’re getting from there,” the man says.
If she’s grumpy, he’s grumpier.
But they both seem to be very professional, and for the next hour, we pour over the maps that lay on the table.
They’re accompanied by schedules of every sort that show all the people getting in and out of the whole building on a daily basis.
I don’t know how the humans got their hands on all of that, but it’s truly impressive.
When we’ve been here for almost the whole morning and have compiled every document that can actually be useful, Elis interjects.
“We need to bring you up now,” he tells me, and I have no idea why it came so suddenly. I have half a mind to ask about it when Cassiopé chimes in.
“I’m not ‘we’. Bring him back over ground. I’m going to see Christina.”
Well, that sounded lovely.
I truly have no idea what I did to this girl, but it must have been something truly awful. Or maybe she’s just a bitch.
No, it can’t be that. She doesn’t seem to react the same way to Elis’s presence, so it must be me.
Well, I don’t know what to do to make it better, anyway, so she’ll probably have to bear with me until this mission is over.
27
Cassiopé
Ican’t breathe.
I’m not going to survive a full week with him in the same room. Even if it’s just half a day each day.
We still have a food recovery mission this afternoon. Those can’t wait.
And I thank Christina for forcing us to keep planning them while we’re going through the way we can use to get inside this “curiosity cabinet.”
I hated her for making us do small jobs still, but I could kiss her feet now just because of that.
Well, I’m not going to do that literally, though.
First, because it’s really not something I’d like to do and second, because her office is blessedly empty right now and it’s the perfect place to hide until Elis is back from above ground.
He’ll know where I am, but it still gives me time to collect myself.
He’ll have questions, I know.
Because I might have been a sad mess since I arrived at theSacré Coeur,but I’ve never been curt or dismissive with anyone.
I was both today.
I know it, and Elis might like keeping his secrets, but he likes not being ordered around even more.
He stays silent about the way Christina talks to him only because he knows she can provide him something. I have a feeling that it was all about this mission we just started and that he won’t accept the way she talks to him anymore when this is over.
