He looks up at Soren, his mouth bloody.
“What next?”
Soren smiles as if he approves.
“Good, but I would have preferred if you’d killed them in reverse order – the children taken in front of the father. So much more dramatic. Plus you were too kind, calming them first. I always like to see a fair fight. The chase. The conquest. If you had chased them down and killed them one by one in front of the father, like a lion kills a baby gazelle in front of its family, now that would have surprised me. But this was better than your usual kill. Dying soldiers? What sport is that? You’re improving.”
We walk on under the bridge and find a young girl and her sister asleep beside a support pillar, an old ragged blanket all that keeps them warm and off the dirt.
“There’s your chance to redeem yourself. Take them. Chase them. Kill the one in front of the other.”
Michel does. He stands over them, menacingly, and kicks the older girl’s foot. She wakes, sees his hunter face, and screams, clutching her sister who also wakes and screams.
“Run,” Michel says, his voice a growl. “RUN!”
They run along the riverbank in the darkness. The youngest girl trips and falls and Michel is there, picking her up. She’s no more than eight, her face still baby-soft despite the grime that covers her. He carries her as he chases the older girl. When she sees he has her sister, the older girl stops and pleads with him to release her.
“Don’t hurt her,” she begs. Older, perhaps ten or eleven, she kneels on the riverbank, her hands clasped. “Please, Sir, don’t hurt her!”
He kills the child in his arms and I watch in horror as her tiny body struggles, their forms silhouetted against the blue moon. Then he throws her down on the ground. The older girl tries to crawl away on her hands and knees but Michel grabs her from behind and lifts her up, taking her, killing her in moments before dumping her body in the Seine.
Now, he has drunk the blood of seven humans, most only children, but still, he’s gorged himself on human life.
I hate him as I stand there, tears in my eyes.
“Well done,” Soren says. “Why, you’ve so much fresh blood in you, you could fool a human into thinking you are alive. That you have a soul. Maybe we should go to one of the more popular salons and watch you try. Convince some lovely and high-born marquess of your humanity, and then kill her. Oh, to see the horror on her face…”
Michel says nothing. He merely climbs the bank back to the bridge and we continue on our evening stroll.
“Yes, let’s,” he says finally. I watch him from behind as he and Soren walk side by side.
For the first time since we were turned, I truly don’t believe he has a soul anymore. I don’t know anymore what is act and what is real. I don’t know my brother anymore. I make a pact with myself to never become like him – acting as if he’s heartless, soulless.
Even if it means my death.
I throw the pages onto the floor beside my bed and lie back on the pillows, my stomach sick at the story I’ve just read. I can’t believe Michel would act that way – he seemed so moral, so ethical, when I was with him. Fighting for humanity, to protect us from Dominion. How could he be so heartless? Was it an act or did he relish the kills he made?
I toss and turn for hours, unable to get the images of him chasing the poor children and then killing them with such little care – all of it to impress Soren.
I suspect that was Julien’s goal.
I don’t see Julien again for the rest of the week, and by Friday, I’m feeling exceptionally blue. Reynolds does most of the work requiring discussions directly with Julien, so I have no reason to even see him. Instead, I return to work and try to catch up with the case and any developments I missed while I was away.
Every night I go to bed, thinking of Michel, about Julien, wondering where Julien is, and how Michel is doing. On my part, I feel a certain level of frustration knowing I could have Julien in my bed if only I was willing to get down on my hands and knees. I just can’t do it.
I’m worth more than that.
Finally, late on Friday night after I’ve gone to bed and have been sleeping for a while, I wake when he sits on the bed beside me.
"Eve," he says, shaking me lightly. "Wake up."
I startle awake and sit up, rubbing my eyes.
"What's the matter?"
"An interesting development turned up in my travels."
I wait, but he seems distracted.