The Casquette Girls (64 page)

Her face darkened with rage. She jumped towards me, but the chain tightened and yanked her to the ground with a loud crack. I raised both of my hands, no longer hearing the words that came out of my severely bruised windpipe, and pulled her up into the air kicking and screaming for Gabriel like a little girl.

As the chains carried her past me, she swiped my face and her steel-like fingernails sliced the skin from my clavicle to my ear. Holding my neck, I winced in pain, but remained focused on driving the chain into the rafters, until Lisette Monvoisin—
la petite-fille de La Voisi
n
Magnifique
, founding member of the Casquette Girls Coven, and eighteenth-century Medici-made vampire—was left hanging upside down like a bat.

“Look, Lise! We’re flying!” Martine yelled in French as she rocked herself towards her blood-sister.

The hissing sounds coming from Gabe brought my mind back to reality. I removed my hand from my burning neck – blood dripped from my fingers to the floor. Gabriel violently thrashed about in his chains, hissing louder.

Breath
e
.

I looked up at the ceiling and sucked air through my nose.
Warm liquid dribbled down my chest
.
Muscles in my back spasmed in pain.
Two more down. Two to go. Three, if you count Niccolò.

Martine swung around in delusional glee, singing something about breaking the curse and finally going back to Paris, while Lisette spat lewd indecencies about the smell of my blood. The warmth that rose to my cheeks alerted me to Nicco’s presence. Or lack of it.

My eyes quickly scanned the room.
Where the hell did he go?

Then, the vibrations of a trembling voice directly behind me sent shivers down my neck. “Get away from me,
now
,” he growled.

Without hesitation, I darted across the room and behind the table.

When I whipped back towards him, he was leaning over the tabletop. His fangs were out, and he was roughly biting his bottom lip.

“Just stay over there, Nicco!” I yelled, my voice cracking.

His knuckles were white from clutching the table, and I could see the trance-state coming on.

“I’ll put you in chains, Niccolò. I swear!”

“Absolutel
y
not
!
”
His eyes were threatening as he snorted, “Adele, do not eve
n
thin
k
about it.”

The idea of Nicco being chained up when Emilio and Lorenzo showed up was not exactly ideal, but I reminded myself of my number one priority:
surviv
e
.

“Then stay on that side of the room!” I screamed, frantically ripping the bobby pins out of my hair, allowing the waves to cascade around my neck and mask the bloody wounds.

He blinked.

Gabe began to laugh hysterically. “Oh, this is too good, brother. How the irony of this tale will be remembered for years to come, when you end up being the one to kill your
bella
! It’s almost too sweet.” His laugh faded. “Almost,” he added, exposing his fangs to me.

In a flash, Nicco was once more in his face. “
Silenzi
o
!”

The aggression in his voice reverberated through my bones and echoed in the rafters.

Nicco exiled himself to a dark corner to cool down while I pressed my hair into the gashes and prayed to the coagulation gods. Never in my life had I thought I would look forward to the onset of scabs.

“Tiiiiiiiick. Tock. Tiiiiiiiick. Tock.” Gabriel synched his taunts with Martine’s swings.

I had banked on Lisette and Martine flocking to aid their troubled maker, but now it was up to Isaac to play a serious game of cat and mouse to get Emilio and Lorenzo here.

In the voice of a child, Martine slowly began to echo Gabe. “Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.”

My foot twitched. Désirée just might get her wish after all. Just as I was contemplating whether a kick to the crotch was worth risking the physical contact, in sauntered the middle child, fangs protruding.

“
La Fée Verte,”
Emilio said, stopping in the middle of the room. “My, my, aren’t you just stunning tonight?” He retracted his fangs and ran his tongue over his bright-red lips. His gums and teeth were also stained crimson.
Who the hell had he just bitten
?
A sudden chill passed down my spine.
What if the cat had gotten the mouse?

Emilio ended his dramatic cleansing process, and then paused, looking my way. His teeth rested on his bottom lip, similar to the way Nicco’s did, as if he was forcing some kind of self-control.

“That little redheaded friend of yours is so feisty,” he said. Lisette began to thrash about from above. “But I had to settle for that blonde again.” He rolled his head in annoyance. “She never
shuts up.”

As horrible as it was, I let out a sigh of relief.

“They
really
should stay out of the bars… you never know what kind of seedy characters you’ll come across in this town.” He smiled at me and his eyes dropped to my bloody cleavage.

“Now, what kind of trouble have you been getting yourself into?” He took a slow spin on his heel to assess the situation, stopping to shake his head at Gabe, who was stewing.
“Bravissima, signorina,”
he said with a round of slow applause. “Do we have a Heroine tonight?
Impressionnant, ma chéri
e
.
I have to admit, I pegged you more as the Damsel in Distress.”

“So everyone keeps telling me.”

He took a deep bow in hyperbolic admiration. I wanted to drop-kick his head.

He continued to approach, but suddenly stopped and whipped back to the door. “How did you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Move that quickly?”

“Um… I didn’t move at all, Emilio.” He spun towards my voice. Now he was being just as weird as the others. And I wasn’t the only one who noticed. Nicco was now lurking in the nearest shadow, his eyes fixed on his brother. Emilio spun around again and actually swatted at the air.

“I’m over here, E.” I whistled.

“Wormwood,” Nicco muttered under his breath. “But how—” he started to ask and then quickly snapped his mouth shut. The word lit a fire in Emilio’s eyes.

I braced myself for his imminent attack.

But he didn’t attack. Well, not like I expected.

His gaze lingered on Nicco, and then he traipsed over to me and ran his finger over my left cheekbone. His cool touch sent a chill through my burning, magic-saturated shoulders. The contrast made me shudder. I took a few steps backwards, and he followed.

“My, how quickly humans grow up. It seems like just yesterday you were that little lost duck in Paris.” He brushed my face again. My spine stiffened.

Now I had nowhere to go: I was backed up against the wall, exactly where he wanted me. The hanging vampire girls giggled in delight at my submissive position. I pinched their restraints tighter.

Emilio stole another glance at Nicco.

He was just trying to get a rise out of his little brother. I realized this was just the preshow. Knowing that Emilio was more concerned with pissing off Niccolò than hurting me gave me momentary relief.

He looked back to me through his dramatic lashes. My heart pounded against my chest, wondering how far he would push this little charade. His face came closer to mine until his cool breath tickled my flushed skin.
“Paris. La cité de l'amou
r
…
”

Nicco snorted, and I had to squeeze my fist to contain the sparks.

Emilio’s fingers traced my jaw, then slipped down and swept the side of my leg through the flimsy feathers of my skirt. My whole body twitched upright.

He’s just trying to irk his brothe
r
,
I told myself.

It was working. Nicco was inching out from the shadows, fangs exposed. My eyes begged him to stay back.

“We did have some good times, didn’t we,
ma chéri
e
?
” Emilio smiled salaciously as his hand crept through the fringe and grabbed my ass-cheek. My arm reflexively twisted, and I slapped him across the face with elixir-boosted strength.

He fell to the ground with his arms covering his face, yelling in what seemed to be an exorbitant amount of pain.

“You wish,” I scoffed, breathing heavily, satisfied with my impulsive move even if it was a death sentence.

The room lapsed into silent confusion as Emilio writhed around on the floor – bright red peeking from between his fingers.

My hand burned with a sticky wetness. I looked down to find a gooey substance dripping from my palm in bloody chunks. I shook my hand dramatically, flinging his molten skin from my fingers, and a tsunami of nausea crashed into my stomach. My knees buckled, and I hit the splintered floor, forcing myself to choke back my own vomit.

Horror flooded Niccolò’s face, and hoots from the peanut gallery encouraged retaliation.

Emilio jumped to his feet, panting like a rabid animal.

“Why… why couldn’t you have just given me more time, Emilio?” I stammered, pushing myself backwards on the floor.

“It’s just skin, Emilio,” Nicco yelled. “It will grow back.”

I could tell he was nervous – unsure of what role to play.

But Emilio was no longer concerned with his baby brother. He was only concerned with me.

I froze, repulsed by my own destructive actions.

A smear of his skin from his left eye socket, across his nose, over his right cheek, and down to his chin was missing. The wound, in the shape of my hand, left his facial muscles exposed and bloody, and the bone protruded where the ball of my hand had made contact with his cheek. Every time he blinked, it looked like his left eyeball might fall out.

Distracted by the bloody mess of veins and tissue, I didn’t move fast enough when he came straight for me.

A silent scream escaped my wounded throat as he slammed me into a stack of
cassettes
, crushing the wooden tower and bringing a round of cheers from Gabriel’s hanging progeny. Pain shot from my torso out to all of my extremities.

Lying in the pile of broken wood, I attempted to move my hands into an offensive position, but I could no longer feel them. My eyes fluttered open for a second – Emilio had straddled my chest and was kneeling on the creases of my elbows, cutting off circulation to my fingers.

“I am starting to think that draining you might be more satisfying than this whole curse-breaking business.” He slowly licked the bridge of my nose, bringing me fully conscious, and reminding me that I might actually die tonight.

But then Nicco pummeled him from the side, and I rolled in the opposite direction, groaning in pain.

“Let’s go, brother!” Emilio screamed like a total psychopath, blood flinging from his face. “I just fed, so let me know if I hurt you.”

I hobbled to a dark corner as they tumbled across the room.

The floor shook as they pounded each other into the ground. Each held on with such tight grips, it was difficult to tell whether they were still just brothers wrestling or if they really wanted to kill each other.

Nicco landed on top and slammed his older brother’s shoulders down, cracking the floorboard beneath. “The only part stronger than me after you feed, Emilio, is your mouth.”

As they continued to spew sibling rivalry, the sound of creaking metal distracted me. I looked at the ceiling – both Martine and Lisette had started to sway slowly in the breeze.

Breeze?

My eyes shifted to Gabriel, who was smirking at his brothers with nostalgia. The blond locks that hung in his face gently lifted in the air, but he was too engrossed by the fight to notice the inconspicuous whoosh.

At first I thought it was the sound of my own ears ringing, but when I strained, I was sure I heard a faint whistle. It rapidly grew louder until it howled like a derailed train.

The boys stopped scuffling, and everyone’s attention turned to the door as a giant force of wind hurled a furious vampire into the room, blowing out all the lights in the process. He landed heavily in the dark, all the while shouting aggressive-sounding Italian words.

Lorenz
o
.
This was the moment – and even better, Isaac had managed to push him in rather than being chased
.
Nice one, bird-bo
y
.
The last vamp was at the party. I knew what I had to do – no one else would die.

I took off towards the door, arms pumping, ignoring the pain shooting from multiple points. Even in the darkness, I felt all eyes shift from the new vampire to me just before I hurled myself against the door, slamming it shut.

The building quaked as the hexed door joined the circuit of spells cast upon the building.

* * *

Ducking behind a wooden pillar, I leaned over my knees and sucked air into my lungs, trying to brace myself for their retaliation in the pitch-black attic. I relished the knowledge that now Désirée and Isaac would be safe.

But no one immediately attacked me for sealing the exit.
Well, this is anticlimacti
c
,
I thought
.
The waiting caused a squeak of nervous laughter to slip from my lips.

Oh, God, I am losing my min
d
.

Whe
n
I stood up, I realized there was a distinctly fresh tension in the air – the kind of tension that only results from silence. I quickly relit all the sconces and peeked out from behind the pillar: Lorenzo was still on the ground, Emilio was hovering over him, and Nicco stood with his back to me.

And still no one so much as looked my way.

“What is she doing
here
?” Emilio yelled with strange urgency. “
Idiot
o
!”

She? Had Lorenzo rolled in with a hostage?

The high I’d felt after sealing the exit crashed as my self-sacrificial plan atrophied. The entire point of deviating from the coven’s plan was to
avoi
d
puttin
g
any lives at risk unnecessarily. About to transcend into a complete state of hysteria, I repositioned myself to get a closer look, but Nicco turned and then walked back towards me, purposefully obstructing my view.

I heard rustles, and then Emilio yelled violently, “You were supposed to be guarding her!”

“It was a cyclone, Emilio!” Lorenzo yelled back. “How was I supposed to fight the wind?”

“What happened to your face?” asked a new, dainty voice. A very female, very French voice.

My chest heaved. I knew that voice. I tried to move closer, but Nicco moved with me, so I couldn’t see.

“Nothing that won’t heal,” Emilio assured her, trying to suppress his rage. The tender change in his voice alarmed me.

“Well then, I guess it’s time for a family reunion,” Gabriel teased.

Sighing, Nicco finally let me push him out of the way, revealing a sight that absolutely nothing could have prepared me for.

My heart seized.

My brain spun a million times, refusing to process the fact that I had just trapped my mother in a box with two – no, three – unrestrained vampires, and a slim-to-zero chance of getting her out alive.

Hot tears began to stream down my face, blurring my vision. I was too paralyzed to wipe them
.
Did I just sacrifice my mother for the safety of the coven? For the other innocent people in New Orleans? For my father?
I didn’t even notice that Emilio was lunging towards me until I heard
ma mère
scream my name.

Maybe she does care—

Emilio roughly grabbed hold of both of my hips, and then suddenly I was swinging in the air. He threw me back-first against a wooden beam. The stake felt like it had become permanently lodged into my spine. Before I could fall to the ground, he smashed my palms together and pushed me back against the pillar. I gasped as his other hand wrapped around my throat. Lorenzo tackled Nicco when he stormed towards us.