Page 1 of The Child of Rue Royale
DEAR BASTIAN,
Broken hearts must continue beating or perish. So I continue. I get up in the morning, I endure the day, and then I write it all in this journal for you to read when you’re back in my arms.
Though I began telling you about Cassius’s desperate phone call, it became too much to write (pregnancy makes you so tired, Bastian—if you were here I’d bore you to death with all the sleeping). But allow me to finish the tale of the most bizarre thing that has happened, and when I say bizarre, I mean it. Because Cassius is head over heels in love, and I didn’t truly believe it until I saw it with my own two eyes.
When I reached Comey’s just minutes after hanging up with Cassius, Oksana leaned in the doorway of the French Quarter bar, arms crossed, and when our eyes met, her top lip curled up as if she smelled something rotten.
“Took you long enough,” she remarked, and her English accent tasted more bitter than espresso. I followed her, wondering where the HUMAN manager of Comey’s gets the nerve. Music blared from the tiny stage as Oksana and I twisted and turned to get through the crowd. Another busy night in the French Quarter, another night I’ve rushed to the vampires.
Oksana opened the door for me to go upstairs to Nightwalkers, your vampire speakeasy above Comey’s, and feelings assaulted me. Something like déjà vu—a deep nostalgia hit me from the first night you and I had seen each other in years.
I paused on the step, taking a moment to collect the wave of emotions that flooded my memory. I am the last true witch of New Orleans who fell in love with the forbidden vampire. How things came together and fell apart so quickly. And I had to remind myself that your smile would not be greeting me when I entered the room. In fact, I had no idea what would be greeting me.
“Please save her,” were the desperate words Cassius uttered across the phone line mere minutes before. It was the first time I had heard from him since your death, three months ago. “I’m in love, and I need you to save her. If anyone can do it, it’s you.” The vampire who had sworn off love was in love and was begging me to save her human life.
So I went, doing what you would have wanted me to do.
Oksana slammed the door behind me, prompting me of the urgency, so I ascended the stairs. The glass on the new Nightwalkers sign reminded me that I blew out the old one the night we came for revenge. The night your mother killed Franklin Maltese, The Vampire King of Louisiana, because he tried to kill me, but instead killed you, the love of my life.
All because Franklin foundout about our forbidden affair. Remember the night Franklin confronted us in your house? When I threw him around like a rag doll? Well, I wounded his misogynistic pride, so of course, he tried to kill me by setting fire to my home. But it wasn’t me that was home. It was you, my beloved, and we lost you. When Mother, Chantal, and Jade showed up to Nightwalkers for revenge, we found Franklin had a protection spell placed on him by a mystery witch. So it wasn’t us that killed him that night, no, it was Nicola, (always your doting mother) who drove the stake through his chest, avenging your death.
That night our mothers shook their blood-coated hands, and we all promised that what happened in those walls was to stay between the seven of us.
Cassius’s yelling—no, screeching—reverberated through the door, forcing me from my memories. I rushed to open it, and my eyes fixed on a young woman lying on the floor, her curly black hair pooled around her face like an oil spill. Cassius was on his knees, clutching her hand and pressing a cloth on her chest.
The room was dark as usual, void of the haunting music that usually played, of the clientele that always congregated inside. And in the quiet, I could tell that life was leaving her; I could smell it as her chest barely moved. The woman was dying.
Searching the room, I saw Cassius and Amerie and next to them, a vampire I did not recognize. Amerie, your family’s faithful vampire companion, ran to me, pleading, her weeping eyes begging me to help Cassius, help him.
“She’s here,” the unfamiliar vampire with dark blond hair said, pointing at me, and Cassius looked up at me. Pulling the girl’s hand to his heart, his blood-rimmed eyes penetrated mine, and I could almost see myself, Bastian. Your hand in mine, begging the universe for you to survive the rays of sunlight that threatened to burn your body to cinders. But your fingers turned to ash, right inside of mine, and you were no more.
I felt Cassius’s pain as he mouthed, I love her. Then he swallowed and gave life to the words that spun in his brain.
“You must do something, please. I can’t turn her. Please, do something.” He turned to the dark blond vampire. “Mathius, make room.”
“A human,” I said, shaking my head because her fragility terrified me. “Why haven’t you taken her to a hospital?”
“It’s too late for that,” he cried, the torment in his eyes heavy as an anchor, his long brown hair pulled at the nape of his neck, yet pieces dangled from the sides as if he were trying to rip his own hair out. “It’s you save her, or she gets turned. And you know I’ll never forgive myself if she gets turned.”
Cassius’s guilt over turning you into a vampire emanated from his body, a man so remorseful from creating one vampire that there was no way he could withstandcreating two. Even though Nicola adopted you and raised you as her own, it seems Cassius will never forgive himself for creating you.
I looked back at the poor human on the floor. She was so lovely, Bastian. I could see why she was so precious to Cassius, and it wasn’t just her outward beauty, but her aura—a light inside of her, a ferocity. Something they would surely ruin, and forgive me for saying that but I worry it’s the truth. Yet, I did what you would have wanted. Looking at Cassius, I said, “I’ll do my best,” then knelt beside her body.
“Let me,” I said, gesturing to the wound on her chest, her white tank top, blood-soaked and ripped in half. Cassius moved his hand away as mine peeked under the cloth, proving my fear correct. A deep bite into the fat of her breast that wasn’t just two simple fang marks, but multiple across the top, like she was being marked then drained. This was intentional, this was malicious.
“What the fuck is this?” I yelled, my stomach turning weak on me. It happens more and more these days.
“The potions won’t heal it,” Amerie whispered. “Our blood won’t fix it. What do we do?” Amerie’s concern surprised me. Did she care about this human?
Grabbing my bag, I pulled out my grimoire, Winnie, and shook my head. “My potions are for small cuts; the creams aren’t meant to cure trauma wounds.”
I grabbed a thin blue candle for healing from my bag, lighting it as my mind tried to construct an appropriate spell, and then looked at Cassius.
“Hold this over the wounds,” I ordered.
He looked at me, confused, and I widened my eyes. “Cassius!” I shouted, and within a millisecond, his cold pinky grazed mine, grabbing the candle…and that skin. That cold skin reminded me of what it felt like to be near a vampire, near you. My vampire. I blew out my cheeks and shook my head. Pregnancy makes you a hormonal mess, but I’m sure the grief doesn’t help. At four months pregnant, it’s one of the few signs that I’m carrying a child. My clothes are slightly tighter, there’s nausea, and there’s crying. A lot of crying.
“What do I do?” Cassius asked with urgency.
