The Casquette Girls (62 page)

“If the skeletons weren’t sticking out of the ground trying to attack me, I wouldn’t be trying to pull them out!” I shoved angrily at his chest. He staggered one step back, stunning us both.

His baffled gaze shifted from his chest to my hands. “How did you…?
Magic,” he whispered under his breath.

I was oscillating between a total meltdown and wanting to jump him.

I bolted before I could crack.

“Whatever you’re doing
,” he yelled, “I’m not going to let you martyr yourself, Adele!”

I didn’t look back.

But this time he caught up with me. I forced myself not to smile when I heard his footsteps behind me, and I swatted away his hand as it brushed my fingers. He linked my arm into his. The old-timey gesture sent a sensation though my body that I certainly shouldn’t have been feeling just then.

“What are you going to do?
Lock me up in chains?”

“Don’t tempt me.”

“You are worse than my father!” I yelled, coming to a halt.

“Just from a different time.” His eyes dropped to my lips. “When things were far more simple.”

My heart leapt into my throat. But then his gaze moved around my head, as if monitoring a circling fly. He blinked twice and shook his head before looking at me with momentary skepticism.

“Ha, you know chains couldn’t hold me,” I said pathetically, not wanting to lose the moment.

He squeezed my arm. The thought of running away together flashed through my mind. I wondered if he was entertaining the same idea.

The thought was fleeting
; Gabe came crashing into us from behind, breaking our embrace. “What are you crazy kids up to, tonight?” He boxed his arms around our necks. I immediately scooted out from underneath him. His freed arm resulted in a head tousle for his brother. They wrestled for a minute, and then Nicco wriggled away, annoyed. He ran his hands through his hair a few times, and it fell perfectly back into place. I hated my pulse for accelerating.

“Damn, I love this city!” Gabe yelled into the night. “It really hasn’t changed all that much in three hundred years.”

“Yet, you are so eager to leave.” My words dripped with disdain.

His head rolled to me as if he was loaded. “I’ll admit, if there was ever a city to get trapped in, this is definitely the one. There’s just one little problem with that scenario
.” My fingers burned. Suddenly, he was smack in front of my face, fangs out. “I take issue with the whole being trapped part—”

Nicco knocked him to the ground, and they rolled around just like idiotic human brothers.

“How long are you going to keep up this heroic act,
fratello
?” Gabriel asked, landing on top.

Nicco flipped him over. “As long as it takes.”

“Ha!” Gabe yelled, throwing his younger sibling up to his feet. “You’ll crack in the end. You always were father’s little pet.” He sprang up next to Nicco with the grace of a gazelle.

I turned and walked away, fuming. I couldn’t listen to them quarrel any longer as if they weren’t referring to
my life
.

They quickly caught up, brushed themselves off, and continued to rattle on.

“I didn’t think you’d be so drunk already on a night so important to you, brother,” Nicco accused.

“Drunk? Who’s drunk? I’ve hardly had anything to drink tonight. Lorenzo, my two girls, and I only had a couple rounds at Le Chat Noir.”

My shoulders tightened at the mention of my father’s bar, and I quickened my pace. So did they. Nicco gave Gabe a look that said, “Yeah, right,
”
and then turned to m
e
.

“Where are we going,
bella
?”

I stopped and
looked at Gabe. “You want the curse broken?” I teased. “Then to the attic, of course.”

Nicco knew I was lying about breaking the curse. His catlike eyes surveyed my face for the truth. When I gave him nothing, he sighed and held his hand out in the direction of the convent, letting me play it out.

“Back to where it all began. How poetic!” Gabriel shouted and danced and pulled us along with the exuberance of a recently flowered Titania.

“The Three Musketeers!” Gabe yelled as he continued to dance down the street half a block ahead of us.

Nicco looked at me, and I did my best to shrug in innocent confusion before we went after him. There was something about a vampire’s erratic behavior that escalated the tone from crazy to dangerous; suddenly the thought of vengeful vampires not being in control of their minds seemed like a
ver
y
bad idea.

“Isn’t it amazing?” the beautiful blond asked with his neck craned towards the sky.

“Isn’t what amazing?” I replied.

“The stars. The universe!”

Nicco smacked his brother’s arm and yelled something in Italian. Gabe ignored him, took my hand, and spun me. My wings flitted up. I finished the twirl, but he didn’t let go. His eyes continued to circle around my head. A small smile escaped as I wondered what kind of chaser he was seeing.

“I think you really are
La Fée Verte!”
he said with a goofy expression. Then he yanked me close to his chest, exposed fangs suddenly inches from my face. His grip became painful as he whispered, “What did you do to me, faery?”

“Stop being such a freak, Gabe,” I muttered, trying to hide my fear as I pushed him aside. He was too loaded to think it strange that I sent him staggering, but his quick flash of fang had focused my mind on our mission. I began to walk again.

Gabriel quickly flanked my left side and Niccolò my right, playing their respective roles of the Fool and the Knight, but whether they were blinded by arrogance or worry, neither saw me as anything more than the Ingénue.

That was my first card to play.

Adeline or Cosette, with their feminine charms, could have more easily slid into this role, but even without their talents it wasn’t too difficult, for my doe eyes were partially real. Even now, my fingers twitched because I wished Nicco would hold my hand – and I loathed myself for it. I might not have been able to hear the pattern of his heart, but I knew deep within my being that he was on my side. The thought made me blush at the stone sidewalk, but I quickly picked up my head, put on an expression as stoic as his, and quietly played my real role: the Pied Piper.

* * *

The sounds of revelry, which could just as easily have been mistaken for the sounds of an insane asylum, began to fade as we marched further away from Jackson Square and Bourbon Street, until they were nothing more than ambient noise. A mild undercurrent of energy flowed through my body – a subdued state of electrocution, as if I had been continually licking a battery. Between the elixir, the magical wards, the close proximity of vamps, and the constant reality of impending death, I knew the feeling was not going away anytime soon.

Walking in between the two Medici brothers brought me a weird sense of both fear and excitement. I forced myself to stay in the present moment. Whenever my mind wandered, our amiable history gave me a false sense of security. One slip too far into the comfort zone could cause not just my demise, but also the coven’s – or, God forbid, my father’s.

I reminded myself that I still had two witches on my side. Even though I couldn’t see them, I could feel their presence. The closer we got to the attic, the more overwhelming the sense of togetherness, strength, and power became. The medallion radiated warmth beneath my costume, making me sense that Adeline and the original casquette girls were with me in spirit, too.

* * *

When we arrived at the church property, the wrought-iron gate swung open before I had the chance to hide the magical action. Nicco’s gaze followed mine to the roof. I knew he was silently trying to figure out my plan.

I stared at the attic window that had started it all – one of the shutters was swaying and the other hung loose, just as Isaac had mentioned. The glass panes had been replaced, but the window arch was still bricked up from the inside.

Unable to contain his excitement, Gabe moved ahead as we silently weaved through the labyrinth of overgrown hedges. The stake burned through the fabric of my bodice, the enchanted metal longing to be back where it belonged.

The convent door creaked open. No more time to think. No turning back.

Nicco’s lips quickly brushed my ear as he whispered, “You can do this,
bell
a
.
” His hand went to the small of my back. I was too worried about whether he had felt the hidden stake to be encouraged by his unbridled optimism.

I stepped away from him and into the dank vestibule. My elixir-strengthened eyes adjusted to the darkness more easily than usual; nonetheless, I picked up a dusty oil lamp from a small marble table, turned my back to them, and passed my hand over the glass to produce a flame.

“After you,
mademoiselle
,” Gabriel said, waving his arm toward a wide, wrapping staircase.

I took a deep breath and stepped ahead of them, once again trying to suppress that girl-in-attic horror-movie image.

You are the predator, not the prey.

The mantra turned over and over in my mind, forcing out any lame, romanticized scenarios I had gained from years of reading too many tales of unrequited love.

I passed the second floor and hurried on up to the third, fearful I might turn back. Not that turning back would have been an easy option with two vampires at my heels. The staircase became less grand and eventually dead-ended at a simple wooden door with a rusty old padlock.

“Step aside,” said Gabe. “Let’s get this party started.” He chuckled at his proper use of the modern idiom, and gave the wood a shove
. To our surprise, the door didn’t budge – Gabe did. His misjudgment sent him teetering on the top stair.

Nicco caught him before he could take a tumble. “What the hell, Gabriel?”

As they exchanged foreign words, presumably about Gabe’s failed strength, I opened the padlock and attempted to mentally move the door, but there was little metal in the old wooden joinery, and said wood was severely swollen into the post-Storm doorframe.

Nicco moved past me and pressed his hand against the door. It slammed open. Gabe looked at his own hands with curiosity and then at Nicco, who was rubbing his wrist and looking at me as if for answers. The ripple of suspicion was soon lost when Gabe took off down the hallway, singing some kind of Italian folk song.

* * *

The floorboards howled as I made my way with the lamp down the hallway of doors. The thin slats of wood that formed the old walls now hung loose, and the cracks between them revealed small rooms that must have served as simple living quarters at one point in time. I wondered who had rested so close to the sleeping vampires.
Orphans? Slaves? Ursuline sister
s
?

The hallway led us to a dark room, where I immediately bumped into the keys of an old pipe organ. I raised the lamp so I didn’t further injure myself before we even got going. The floor planks wobbled as I meandered through the sea of dusty objects stacked high upon Victorian furniture and salvaged church pews: ornately-framed oil paintings of generations of priests, boxes of Bibles and rosary beads, racks of holy vestments in clear protective bags that had long since yellowed, French maps, modern Christmas decorations, and statues of the Virgin Mary in different styles from different centuries.

The deeper we walked into the cave of holy artifacts, the thinner the air became until the smells of dust and mothballs poked at my brain. Nicco had followed his brother to the far end of the room, where they were both waiting for me. Generally their dispositions couldn’t be any more opposite, but now they both seemed equally anxious. As I approached the seal, they parted, revealing a short door with a mélange of locks from a different era.

This is i
t
.
I slid my finger over the first rusty chain. Gabriel practically vibrated with excitement.

The lock released with a loud pop. I moved onto the next, first working open the intricate mechanisms, and then undoing the remnants of three-century-old spells. I felt the enchantments linger, not leave – just allowing us passage. In my peripheral vision, I caught sight of Nicco balling his fists with anticipation. The sound of the final lock dropping sent a wave of fear rippling through my body. With a lift of my hand, the rusty hinges slowly pushed the door open. An unpleasant creak warned
: this door has been kept shut for a reason. Enter at your own risk, fool.

Once again, Gabe went ahead while we took a beat, knowing that whatever was going to happen on the other side wasn’t going to be good.

* * *

As soon as I stepped into the dark room, flames burst around the walls in one quick whip, until each of the sconces was ablaze.