The Casquette Girls (53 page)

“Stay back!” she screamed when we ran to the water to pull her from the dangerous Mississippi
.

A drooping tree branch suddenly twisted past my head, growing longer and longer until it plunged into the murky water. I just stood gobsmacked while the enchanted vine pulled her from the current.

I thought she would kill him for it, but at first she was too busy reeling from experiencing the coven’s surge of power. For the rest of the night, however, Isaac couldn’t walk past any fauna without getting his butt smacked by banana tree leaves or, even better, tickled by Spanish moss – which amused me greatly. He took the beatings with grace, but yelled to me through the tickles, “Is this funny to you?”

“
Oui
,
”
I replied with an innocent smile, and he swore he’d get me back for laughing at his misfortunes.

Any tension
among the three of us eased, but it was still strange. There was something extremely personal about casting magic – the secret, fantastical nature of it all. It was hard for me to trust the magic so completely… and to let people in on something I was still jostling with and barely believed myself. Being brought together under extraordinary circumstances had created an immediate bond, but the quickness with which it formed made it feel surreal. Being around Désirée and Isaac calmed me down in a way that I’d never felt around friends before, but somehow this also made me incredibly nervous at the same time.

Sometime in between Désirée’s river-dunk and sunrise, we ended up back at the shop, settled into the mound of pillows behind the fuchsia curtain. Désirée made Isaac a
gris-gri
s
while I gave him the
Cliff Notes
version of Adeline’s diary and picked little feathers out of his hair.

As I finished the story of the pirate massacre, he picked up the medallion resting against my chest and rubbed the captain’s eye.

I filled him in as much as I could, but when I got to the Emilio part of the story, I couldn’t get the death threat out. It was hard enough grappling with the idea of my own mortality, but handing someone else their potential death sentence was too much. Désirée had to finish for me.

“I knew there was a reason I hated that douchebag!” he yelled after she broke the news.

“I want to work on this elixir I found in Marassa’s grimoire,” Désirée said with the same light tone as if she wanted to whip up a batch of brownies. “The original coven had seven members. We’re going to need all the help we can get.”

She went out into the shop with her eighteenth-century ingredient list, and I watched through a crack in the curtain as she began to pull an assortment of jars and boxes from the shelves. Isaac was on the floor, glancing at Susannah’s book while he sketched in his own. It had taken him all of thirty seconds to get over the shock.

He must have felt me looking at him.

“It helps me think,” he said. “I swear I’m not just doodling.”

“I know.” I settled under a blanket in the cushions next to him, uncapped a pen, and began translating, but, just like in my dad’s studio, my eyes kept flicking to his artwork. He was sketching my medallion. He swept the pencil across the page, scripting out the letters A.S.G. As he began to layer over the star that covered the monogram, I couldn’t help think about my dad and my mom, and
Adeline et le Comte de Saint Germain
, and wonder how deep the crazy in my family history went.

10
th
August 1728

It has been three days, but I still can’t believe that Martine is dead. Although, dead doesn’t seem like the appropriate word, considering I saw her walking— no,
dancing
in the street last night. I tried to speak with her. I long to know that she is okay. At least, that is what I tell myself, but my true desire, now that she is one of them, is for her to convince them to go back to Paris, or wherever they came from.

13
th
August 1728

My attempts to communicate with Martine have been fruitless. She will not even look at me. Gabriel says this is common with newborn vampires – they often reject their former human families, as part of their transition. And I was the closest thing that Martine DuFrense had to family.

14
th
August 1728

The guilt over the DuFrenses’ deaths consumes me. The guilt lies twice as heavy now, Papa, knowing that not only could I have killed the vampires on our journey across the ocean but also that their presence here seems to have something to do with me. With us.

I lie awake at night, thinking about the words Gabriel Medici spoke the night he killed Martine. His demands and his threats. He doesn’t believe me when I say I don’t know your location. So this is why you were so secretive about your journey, Papa? It brings me great sadness that you thought I could not carry this burden with you.

I haven’t told the other girls about his threats, for I feel this is a matter of family affairs.

15
th
August 1728

Sometimes I think Gabriel believes I am teasing him by not telling him the information he desires. Sometimes I think he is drawn to this game of cat and mouse. And sometimes I think his assumption that I have something he wants makes it safe for me to be around him. At other times, I wonder if he has just led me to believe that I have the upper hand.

16
th
August 1728

Gabriel said the most peculiar thing tonight. As usual, the hour was late, and he appeared to have drunk quite a lot, so I also attributed his chatty mood to the anise-flavored wine he is so fond of. As gentle as a man could be, he asked me if I like
La Nouvelle-Orléan
s
.

When I told him that I liked the city very much, he grabbed me with force and told me I had better start saying my goodbyes, and that if I haven’t revealed your hiding place by the time his brothers arrive, then I would be going away with them – that he would make me a Medici. The misplaced comfort I feel around him made me smile and ask him whether that was his twisted way of asking for my hand in marriage.

To which he smirked and replied, “Well, that would require me asking your father’s permission first, wouldn't it? No, I have a much more permanent idea in mind.”

17
th
August 1728

I just don’t know what to think about anything anymore. The world has gone mad. My head is too foggy and my hand shakes too violently to pen the events of this evening.

19
th
August 1728

The last days have been a blurry haze. Susannah has been feeding me strong medicinal concoctions for the injuries to my neck. They reek of fennel and left me fading in and out of sleep in a near hallucinogenic state. The pain was excruciating, and I began to feel infection setting in. In my state of semiconsciousness, I could hear the girls fluttering around me. There was a fierce debate amongst the circle – they seemed to be split on my course of treatment. In the end, Cosette strongly said, “Her temperature is
too
high. I am going to get him! He is the only one who can save her now.”

“We’re not letting you go alone,” her sisters yelled out the door, running behind her.

Before the triplets made it back, Gabriel was in my room, hovering over my head. “How did this happen?” he growled.

“Why don’t you ask your cousin Lorenzo!” Susannah spat back.

I will never forget the look in his eyes. The fear… mixed with this strange glimmer of hope. With angered huffs, he wiped my fevered brow. The chill of his hand sent waves of shudders down my chest.

“You bedda not do anything but help her,
Monsieur
,” Marassa said with threat.

He hissed at her and then cupped my face with his hands. Although I shook violently, his touch began to bring down my body temperature immediately.

I think every girl in the room was holding her breath as he removed the bandages, exposing the infected puncture wounds.

Susannah
frantically asked him questions in English, which I couldn’t understand. He replied in her native tongue and then bit the fingernail on his right index finger so that it cracked at a sharp angle.

My eyes widened as he held my neck steady.

“Wha—” I stuttered.

“This is going to hurt, Adeline, but I will be quick,” he said, looking into my eyes.

Before I could even nod, he slit open the puncture wounds on my neck with one quick swipe.

I screamed in pain as his lips suctioned onto my neck. His left hand held me down as he attempted to extract the venom.

He released me for a moment, quickly spat into the basin of water next to the bed, and in a flash was reattached to my neck, and I was screaming again. I felt my eyes roll back in my head as he spat and sucked and spat.

“It’s not enough!” he yelled. “The venom is coursing too deep in her bloodstream. Why didn’t you call for me sooner?

No one said anything for a moment, and then Susannah screamed, “No!”

My eyes flipped back open to see Gabriel lowering his wrist to my mouth.

I clamped my lips shut just before his blood could enter.

“It’s the only way!” Gabriel said and then looked grimly at Susannah. “If she dies,” he said softly, “it will be on your hands.”

My head fell sideways, and the blood smeared across my face. All I could think was, if all that has happened had something to do with our family, Papa, then I deserved to die, not the others. Not Sophie, or Claude, or Martine, or Morning Star’s brother, and none of the nameless souls in
La Nouvelle-Orléans.

Marassa rubbed my shoulder and said gently, “You gots ta do it, Addie.”

And then Cosette was by her side, squeezing my hand. “You have to drink it, Adeline! It will only be a few drops.” She shot a look at Gabriel. “Just enough to save your life,
ma fifille.”

Tears fell from my eyes.

Gabriel distracted me by wiping the blood from my cheeks with one hand while parting my lips with his other. When his open wrist dripped blood onto my tongue, I immediately choked on the vile metallic taste. Cosette squeezed my jaw like a babe so I couldn’t shut my lips.

The blood slipped down my throat, and then suddenly, with animalistic impulse, I found myself pushing Cosette out of the way and clutching Gabriel’s wrist, pining for him. For his blood.

But no sooner had I started drinking than he was forcefully detaching himself from my mouth. “No more,
cara mi
a
.
”

Panting, I looked back to him with begging eyes. He slipped underneath the blanket next to me and pulled me into his chest.

“Go to sleep, little lamb,” he said gently, scooping me so close my entire body pressed tightly against his.

“What do you think you’re doing?” cried Cosette. “Get away from her! Get out of the bed.”

“Precautionary measure,” he told the girls, his sturdy arms wrapping me into his chill. “You are going to want me around if she drank too much.” His voice was solid, but I could sense his worry. “Not that I really care if she rips off all of your heads, if that’s what she wants, but I’d rather avoid an encore of Martine's performance. I’m here for the night, just in case.”

“Just in case?” Cosette yelled, fuming.

“When it comes to death,” he said, “just as in life, there are no guarantees.”

“I knew this was a bad idea,” Susannah
said, pulling the blanket away.

In a flash, Gabriel rolled over me and grabbed her tiny waist. “If you think a blanket is going to keep me from taking
anything
I desire tonight, then you are an even sillier little girl than I thought.”

“Remove your hands from her,” I heard Cosette say from behind me.

And, just like every other man, Gabriel did as Cosette commanded.

But then Gabriel had the final word:
“You have two options. Leave… or settle in with us.” I could tell by the inflection on his last word that he was smiling.

Cosette then picked up the blanket, pulled it over us, and crawled in next to me.

“You’re going to be okay,
ma fifill
e
,
you will always be one of us,” she said, burrowing against my back.

Her close proximity to the vampire made her sisters gasp, but then they, too, lay down at our feet. Marassa settled onto the sofa at the edge of the bed, and Susannah curled into a chair in the corner, keeping a sharp eye on Gabriel.