Page 22 of The Child of Rue Royale
“We’ll be in touch,” he says.
“Cassius,” I whisper, feeling a lightning bolt strike through my core.
“Thank you. Thank you so much.” And before I know it, he’s in my arms, being squeezed as tightly as I can.
His large frame remains stiff for a moment or two until it softens and he embraces me back. “Sister,” he whispers.
“Brother,” I say. Tears are who I am now. The witch that never cried nor grew things, is growing something and crying at every turn.
“Chantal!” I scream once Cassius is out the door, running the best I can down the hall. “Chantal, it’s like a diary. Cassius wrote it.”
I word vomit everything Cassius told me, show her the book, and grab her arm. “Chantal, I think there’s something vital in here. I can feel it.”
I don’t know what or how or why, but Chantal looks at me and says, “Well, what are you waiting for?” The anticipation sparks from her eyes, and I pull the book into my chest, trying to gather my breath.
“Okay,” I say, turning to go down the hall. I plug in my phone and grab a blanket, ignite a fire in the fireplace, and settle in for an all-nighter if that’s what it takes. I open the book, my fingers gripping it like it’s the last one on Earth, because for me, it feels like it is.
THE LONG LIFE OF CASSIUS DELACROIX
San Francisco, 1955
I HAD NEVER LOVED Aman before, not in my vampire life, at least. Abandoned by my father, cast out to the consuming streets of New Orleans during a time when survival was no easy feat, even if you came from the most privileged of lifestyles.
He sat at the end of the bar, shouting his name. “I’m Bastian DeZaiffe, dream weaver, life-giver, fairy godmother!”
With a closed fist, he pounded the bar top for another round. The woman next to him smiled, a tall thing with beautiful legs, and he wrapped an arm around her waist, pulling her to him tightly.
Bastian DeZaiffe…French, of course he was French, and perhaps that’s why I was initially drawn to him. The French were a dime a dozen on the streets of New Orleans, but not quite as much in a random bar in the North Beach neighborhood of San Francisco. There was every kind of race and creed within the walls, and that’s one thing I loved about California. The southern ways of my beloved New Orleans could be stifling, so I went west in the summers so I could breathe.
Curious why this Bastian exclaimed he was a dream weaver, I sat in silence amongst the scent of stale beer, analyzing, eyeing Bastian’s every move. Reckless, he was absolutely reckless. The way he pressed against the girl, how he consumed her when he kissed her. My lip rose with a jealousy that tantalized me. To be so free, so jovial, that was not who I was, but more who I longed to be.
My fangs achedin my gums, the desire for his blood capturing me. I often fed from what I was jealous of, so it surprised me I longed to stay.
“Get a room,” a man yelled from a stool before me, and I rolled my eyes. Envy made men act out, and Bastian was the type to command all the attention in the room. Though sloppily drunk, DeZaiffe possessed a beauty, an authenticity that I wished I could emulate just for a night, just to experience how that felt. To be so free.
The man grumbled, stomping up to this Bastian and his female companion, but before anyone could step in, Bastian cocked a large fist back and sent it straight into the man’s nose. I scoffed, covering my mouth with my hand, a wicked smile curling on my lips, completely invested in how this would play out.
I calmly watched as Bastian was swiftly pulled out of the bar and thrown atop the hood of a taxicab. I found it amusing, I did, but the fight wasn’t exactly fair. The gargantuan bouncer had at least four inches on Bastian, and double that in width.
“Bastian DeZaiffe sleeps with gutter rats,” the bouncer proclaimed as Bastian slid down the front of the taxi, reminiscent of how an egg slides from a spatula, his body plopping in the street.
I approached him under the glow of the neon bar sign, hands in my pockets, as Bastian rolled over and vomited closer to my shoes than I would have liked. I bounced back, meeting eyes with Bastian’s girl. I thought she would bend over and help her man up, but she only giggled.
“He can never hold his liquor.” Her voice was deeper than I thought it would be, rich like butter.
“I’ve learned that liquor is a terribly hard thing to hold,” I said as the man writhed on the floor.
“Yeah,” she said softly, eyes looking at Bastian in a forlorn way. “Yeah, I guess it is. Guess you can’t fix someone just cause you want to.” She nodded, coming to some sudden philosophical conclusion in her mind, then spun on her heel, taking off down the street.
“Well, shit…” I groaned as Bastian rolled on his back.
“Shar?” Bastian yelled, eyes on the heavens. “Shar?” His head attempted to roll up.
“Shar left,” I said, licking my lips and kneeling next to Bastian. Green eyes, dark hair, yellowed skin. And I smelled it immediately. The sick permeated from him. Too young for liver damage, yet there it was. Vampires can’t generally diagnose disease, but I’ve been around long enough to know the signs. Yellow where his eyes should be white, an odor of unwell blood. I desired him as a meal, but sick blood is far from appetizing, so I expected to be completelyput off.
Bastian’s hand shook, and there was a puffiness to his face, as beautiful as it was. The young man was ill, something irreversible. His liver would fail and eventually claim him, and it made me melancholy on a whole new level, as if something was just within my grasp and then suddenly gone. Vanished. Never to return. Because I wanted him—not in a sexual way, not in a romantic way. Yet it was a desire not only for his blood but for his essence. I wanted to know what his beauty tasted like. A devotion stirred inside me I couldn’t put a name to or recognize.
“You’re sick,” I said as Bastian wiped spit from his chin, head pressed on the cool cement.
