Zamani (21 page)

Chapter
Thirty One

Ai led the tour group toward
the shotgun house where Alex was killed.
 
Sasha and Steph tried to mix in with the crowd as much as possible. Steph
was the one who told her that tours of her neighborhood and of spots where she
worked and where Liz worked were becoming popular. Zofia’s lessons had been
very useful. Sasha could easily cloak her identity and make people see her as
whoever she wanted them to believe she was.
 
That had grown especially important now
that Liz was back in town.
 
Sasha felt
confident in her ability to disguise herself, even to Liz. Of course, everyone
assuming she was dead helped her avoid detection.

She’d practiced this several
times at old haunts, even going into The Ruby during busy nights, including the
night of the party where Liz took formal ownership of the bar.
 
She’d been careful to stay well back in
the crowd, far from the door and at a good distance from the bar, in the
shadows of the more intimate corners.
 
She’d passed Kirby and Mike on the sidewalk several times with no flash
of recognition.
 

As Ai described the events of
the night of Alex’s murder, Sasha had to work at suppressing a reaction.
 
The small tour group hung on every word
Ai said, and since she and Steph brought up the rear of the group, Sasha was
able to comport herself well while still maintaining her disguise. Neither Ai nor
any of the groupies seemed to recognize her.
 
Steph’s hand in hers also steadied her.

She recognized Ai from
school.
 
She remembered Olivia hiring
Ai to do some research for her, just as she’d hired Alex.
 
She also now recognized Ai as a donor;
she could feel it when she looked at her.
 
Steph and Lucy explained to Sasha some donors were unaware of their
status.
 
Little explanation was
required to convince Sasha of this; after all, she’d been a vampire and completely
unaware until Lucy revealed it to her.
 
In Ai’s case, the likelihood was Olivia had turned her into a donor but
left her unaware of her status.
 
Lucy explained that in darker times vampires often did this in order to
ensure a steady supply and not risk detection.
 
Zofia had snorted and said it was also
just like Olivia to go around messing with people’s lives and not tell them
squat all about it.
 
Sasha wondered
how Ai would feel if she knew her identity as a donor and if she would be angry
for not being given a choice.

At least she didn’t have to
die; as far as Ai knew, she was still the same girl as before—in the
bloom of health.
 
She hadn’t been
forced to create a whole new life.

Sasha felt Steph nudge
her.
 
She must have sensed she was
lost in her thoughts. The group was starting to move, and Sasha could see
shadows in the house, the movement of the blinds where someone was peeking out
at the group as it slowly started moving down the sidewalk back toward the
Quarter.

Later as they entered The Ruby
she looked at Steph and nodded at her.
 
Steph sat with the group while Sasha went to the bathroom.
 
She’d seen Liz behind the bar and didn’t
want to have to face her and order a drink from her. She wasn’t ready for that
and she was afraid she might let her cover slip.
 
She waited in the bathroom, listening
carefully.
 
She heard Liz take the
table’s orders, and she waited a bit longer to give her time to deliver them.
 
She heard a conversation between Ai and
Liz; she was proud of Liz for standing up for herself, warning Ai to mind her
business both in giving her tours and in bringing people to the bar.
 

Once things quieted down,
she slid out of the bathroom and sat next to Steph, who’d chosen a seat on the
side of the table that put their backs toward the bar, for which Sasha was
grateful. She felt Liz’s energy behind the bar, but she also felt someone
else’s presence.
 
She looked over
her shoulder and saw Christophe Garnier sitting at the bar.
 
She’d asked about him after the
Halloween ritual, seeking some answers as to his identity and the powerful
attraction she’d felt toward him.
 
Zofia had sensed him that night as well, and she’d assured Sasha it
wasn’t just that he was from a family of powerful Voodoo practitioners.

He was kindred.

Sasha worked extra hard to
keep herself closed off.
 
She
wondered about his relationship with Liz; from the moment she’d seen Liz at the
New Year’s Eve party, she knew that she, too, had been turned, but she was not
trying to hide her identity from anyone.
 
Sasha had felt her power emanating from her, but she’d also sensed confusion
and innocence.
 
She’d talked to Zofia
about it that night.

“Do you think she knows
she’s turned?”

“It wasn’t all that long ago
you were woken up in the morgue. Imagine what your life would be like now if
Lucy hadn’t found you.” She’d shaken her head before Sasha could even suggest
that perhaps she’d never fed. “Just because Liz isn’t not fully aware of her
true identity doesn’t mean she hasn’t instinctively fed when the opportunity arises.”

 
Now, sensing the tension between Liz and
Ai, Sasha realized that there was an undercurrent of desire there—both
donor and Vampire could feel it, but because they didn’t know their true
natures they assumed it was simple anger and the heat that came with that
anger.

Christophe trailed them when
the group left the bar and moved on to the next tour stop.
 
Sasha could feel him, even though he
hung a good half block or so back, pretending to look in shop windows or to
play with his phone; she knew he kept Ai in his sights.
 
He was doing a far better job of
cloaking himself now than he had on Halloween, but he wasn’t trying especially
hard to conceal his thoughts.
 

The next bar stop they made,
Sasha waited until they were all seated at the table and then headed to the
bathroom, brushing her hand along the back of Ai’s chair.
 
She didn’t have to wait long for Ai to
follow her. The bathroom was toward the back of the building, and there was an
exit next to it that led into the shared alley in the back.
 
She washed her hands while she waited
for Ai to make her way down the short hallway; she opened the door and there
she was, waiting for her.
 
Sasha
smiled and grabbed her hand, leading her to the alley.
 
Ai was glassy eyed and obviously had
been groomed for this kind of feeding on demand, as she acquiesced so easily in
her trance state.
 
Sasha hated to
feed on her unaware, but it was one way to make sure she had access to her and
could use her to find out what she needed to know.
 
 

She made the cut quickly and
took no pleasure in the short feeding.
 
Ai was completely open to her mind and completely susceptible to
Sasha.
 
She planted the idea in Ai’s
mind that she should seek Liz out and help her.
 
Help
her understand who she is. Let her help you find yourself.

By the time the group
disbanded and Christophe approached Ai for a date, Sasha’s connection with Ai
was well established.
 
She saw and
heard Ai’s conversation with Christophe in much the same way someone reading a
book listens to the radio or TV in the background.
 
Neither of them was aware of her
watching them as they made their way to dinner. She left them then, as she knew
they’d keep each other occupied for the remainder of the night.

Chapter
Thirty Two

Ai surprised herself by
going home with Christophe.
 
She wasn’t
really the type for a one-night stand, but there was something about him she
found irresistible. She feared if she didn’t take her opportunity to spend
tonight with him she wouldn’t have another.
 

Ai considered herself fairly
mid range on the Kinsey scale, and Christophe was beautiful even though he was
not really androgynous, which was typically what she found attractive.
 
He was muscular but thin, and they fit
together well.
 

She woke up sometime in the
night and found herself alone in the dark.
 
She threw on her t-shirt and underwear and softly made her way down the
stairs to the bottom floor of the carriage house.
 
She could see his silhouette and the glow
of his cigarette as she came down the stairs, and he exhaled and softly said,
“I didn’t want to wake you.”
 

She sat next to him and felt
goose bumps form as her thigh barely brushed against his.
 
He was only wearing his boxer briefs and
the sight of his bare chest in the dim moonlight coming in through the windows
added to her excitement.
 
She
thought about how smooth and solid his chest was.
 
She wanted to run her hands over it
again, over his shoulders, rake her fingernails down his back, feel his weight
on top of her.
 
He smiled at her as
if he could read her mind, a sassy smirk of a smile.
 
He crushed out the cigarette and stood
in front of her, offering his hand.
 
She took it and he led her back up to bed.

She left him the next
morning well after the sun came up; he smiled sleepily as she gathered her
things and made her way back downstairs and then out into the world.
 
She needed to get herself put back
together and meet Dr. Holmwood at her office later to go over some of the
research she’d prepared for her.

As she showered and got
ready to go to campus, she thought about the night before and how Christophe
had enthralled her. That was the only word she could think of to describe how
she’d felt.
 
It was a familiar
feeling, she realized, similar to how she felt in Dr. Holmwood’s presence and
in dreams of her. She’d sensed a spark of it with someone in the group
yesterday, too, and also when she met Liz at The Ruby.
 
Liz had obviously been angry about the
tours, but there was heat there, and Ai decided she wanted to see if she could
pursue that.
 
She felt confident
after her night with Christophe that she could pull it off.
 
She made plans to follow up her tour
visit with a solo trip to The Ruby to invite Liz to come on the tour and see
for herself what it was all about.

Chapter
Thirty Three

Christophe was accustomed to
his grandmother and his sister, Vivienne, having epic arguments.
 
When his mother was alive, she’d been a
good buffer between them.
 
Back then
it was Rosalie who stood up to Marie, ensuring Vivienne had every advantage,
including boarding school.
 
While he
couldn’t imagine leaving New Orleans for schooling, he still envied Vivienne
for all of the attention she received during their childhood and all of the
opportunities he never had.

As the only male in the
household, Christophe felt the isolation sharply.
 
He often fantasized about living with
his father, Auguste Bellot, but as he grew older he realized it could only ever
be fantasy.
 
Auguste had another
family, a wife at least, and she would never allow Christophe to live with them.
 
He begged Rosalie once when he was a child,
maybe five years old, to know why his father didn’t live with them.

Rosalie squatted down to him
and kissed him on the cheek before looking him in the eyes.
 
He remembered how her eyes filled with
tears as she said softly, “Oh, sweet boy.
 
Don’t worry about such things.
 
Your father has a house somewhere else and you and Vivienne and I have
to stay here to take care of your grandmother.”

Shortly after this, he’d
seen his father at Mass with Delia, his wife.
 
In a moment of clarity, he realized the
many times before when his mother hand grabbed his hand and held her close to
him at Mass she worried he’d call attention to himself and embarrass her and
Auguste.
 
He waited patiently next
to her as he usually did, waiting for his chance.
 
When his mother was occupied by a fellow
parishioner seeking love advice after mass, he darted through the other people
milling about as he saw Auguste and Delia walking away arm-in-arm.
 
He ran after his father, catching up
with him easily and tugging on the hem of his father’s suit jacket.
 
Auguste and Delia stopped. Christophe
heard Delia’s sharp intake of breath and saw the tears well up in her eyes. He was
struck mute, realizing the pain he caused Delia just through his existence.
 
Auguste said nothing and the couple resumed
walking, leaving Christophe standing alone in silence.

He’d never pressed it again
with Rosalie or his father, but shortly after Christophe’s attempt at contact,
Rosalie and Auguste started arranging for times they could all be
together.
 
After that wordless
exchange outside the church, Christophe’s resentment toward his father began to
build. While he was civil to his father during the short visits following the
encounter, he didn’t seek a relationship with him beyond those visits.
 
His resentment grew to hot anger after
Rosalie killed herself.
 

The anniversary of Rosalie’s
suicide always renewed that spark of anger.
 
He knew as he readied himself for Mass
that his grandmother had arranged for Marguerite to come in and cook dinner for
the three of them. He’d seen her through the kitchen windows, bustling
about.
 
Marguerite had been his
first love. She was a slight woman, and even though she was quite young,
Marguerite had the same kind of quiet reserve his grandmother and his mother
had.
 
She was one of Marie’s
students, and he’d taken a special interest in her partially to spite his
grandmother.
 
Marguerite had not
been as easy to sway as he’d hoped, and Marie hadn’t seemed to care that he was
sleeping with her student.
 
It was
just another instance in which she ignored him and seemed to think of him as
simply a fixture in her life.
 
Ultimately,
both women responded to his advances with far less passion than he’d hoped and
the romance fizzled out.

On this anniversary of
Rosalie’s death, he saw his father and Delia at Mass; he wondered if Auguste
remembered it was the anniversary.
 
If Delia remembered, Christophe thought, she probably cheered the day as
the anniversary of when her husband finally was her own.
 
His musing was disrupted as Vivienne
joined him and their grandmother started in with how long it had been since
they’d all attended Mass together.
 

“Not only that, but
Christophe here has taken a page from your book, Vivienne, and is hardly even
home anymore.”

 
Vivienne smiled at that thought and merely
mumbled to their grandmother, “Good, I’m glad my little brother is finally
acting like an adult.”
 

After Mass, the two younger
Garniers walked to the car together.
 
He knew he had little time to talk to her before Marie would grow
impatient and suspicious of their private discussion.

He and Olivia needed the
family secret. He knew Marie would never divulge it to him, and probably not to
Vivienne, in fear that his sister would take the same route Rosalie had.
 
His only real hope was to get Vivienne
to help him get the secret by becoming her ally.
 
He had to convince her their mother had
been right about the ritual.
 
He
broached the subject by bringing up the letter Rosalie had sent to
Vivienne.
 
She’d shared it with
Christophe as they grieved their loss immediately after Rosalie’s suicide.
 
Rosalie had been clear in the letter,
which she must have sent shortly before taking her own life, that Vivienne was
not to say anything to Marie, and the only other person that Vivienne felt she
could talk about it with was her brother. At the time, neither sibling gave the
story their mother told much credibility beyond it being the creation of her
own tortured mind.

After all, how easy was it
to believe that their grandmother was centuries old and had discovered a way to
move from body to body, claiming the physical life and beauty of her daughter
as her own?

But, when he’d told Olivia
the story his mother told in the letter, she assured him of its validity.
 
Her description of the Eve of St. John
ritual and how Marie looked her in the eye gave him chills.
 
He knew, from drumming in rituals for
his grandmother, his mother, and now his sister, there was a level of knowing
in those moments when the drumbeats catch you that transcends reason.
 
He had no doubts left about his
grandmother’s power.
 
He’d seen
pictures of his great grandmother and could not ignore the look of panic and
fear in her eyes.
 
His great
grandmother died before he was born, but Rosalie had loved her greatly and kept
a small black and white photo of the two of them together on her altar.
 
She’d revealed in the letter that the
woman who was supposedly her grandmother, muted by a severe stroke, was her
mother—she’d been displaced from her body for Marie’s own dark purposes.

The ritual that allowed Marie
immortality was the secret Olivia yearned for, and Christophe saw the great
opportunity this held for him; not only would he be able to deny his
grandmother the pleasure of taking his sister’s identity, but he could also use
the ritual to create a new identity for himself.
 
He could only imagine the power he might
have if he could inhabit the body of someone else who had gained power and
prestige on their own in the broader world.
 
And even if he chose to stay Christophe
Garnier, he’d be with Olivia forever.
 
Surely she would grant him that request if he gained the secret for her.

The dinner fell apart in much
the way he assumed it would. Marie poked at Vivienne for not being present
enough, for not taking her role in the family seriously enough with her mother
gone.
 
The surprise for Christophe
was his sister standing up to their grandmother, telling her of the warning
letter Rosalie had sent, and asking her directly to tell her side of the story.
 
He’d taken that as his cue to exit, and
he’d retreated.
 
The carriage house he
lived in served first as his mother’s apartment and now it was his refuge.
 
He wondered if she was there tonight, on
the anniversary of her death. He couldn’t sense her, but he’d never been able
to.

He could see the silhouettes
of Vivienne and Marie through the windows, Vivienne gesturing with her hands as
she talked while Marie stood as still as a statue.
 
He wondered how much Marie would really
be willing to tell Vivienne.
 
He was
happy to see the seed he’d planted in Vivienne’s brain had taken root and led
to the confrontation.
 
He never felt
before that he could manipulate his sister and now he felt far more powerful
than she was. Both women seemed small to him for the first time.

His feelings of power were
reinforced when Vivienne did as he’d hoped and joined him.
 
He poured them each a shot of rum and
asked her about the argument.
 
Marie
simply harped on the same old themes—Vivienne should have children and
should begin taking on Marie’s clients so that when Marie was gone they’d have
someone to count on.
 

She’d asked him about that
day then--the day Rosalie hung herself.
 
She’d done it in the dining room.
 
“I still don’t know how she managed to push the heavy table to the side
and attach the rope to the top of the fixture in the ceiling.” Christophe
paused and took a gulp of bourbon before continuing.
 
“She had to have used a ladder to attach
it, but she’d taken such time and care that she’d removed the ladder from the
house and placed it back in its place with the other garden and household
maintenance tools.”

That his grandmother had
never had the heavy light fixture replaced after Rosalie used it to secure the
rope was beyond him.
 
Yet, it was
under that light that they dined together each year on the anniversary of her
death.

 
“They were fighting before it happened; Grandmother
was arguing it was time for Mother to take on more of Marie’s clients and to be
more responsible, about how now that she had children there was no reason to
continue with Auguste.” He paused again and wondered once more if Auguste was
aware of the date. “Grandmother stormed out of the house, leaving Mother behind.
As I took her to her client appointments, she complained all afternoon about
mother’s insolence.”
 

He’d been proud of Rosalie
that day at first; it was the first time he’d actually seen her stand up to
Marie, and he’d returned that day and gone straight to the carriage house,
assuming she’d be in her own space, ignoring her overbearing mother.
 
He liked spending time with her in the
carriage house, as it was the only time he had her full attention.
 

“So, I came home expecting
her to be here, but she wasn’t. I was standing in the doorway of the carriage
house, my hand still on the door knob as I pushed it open, when I heard the
screams from the main house.”
 
Marie
found the body of her only daughter swinging from the chandelier in the dining
room.

After he recounted the
story, he left Vivienne there, drinking and brooding.
 
He knew that the anniversary of her
death and the room with Rosalie’s altar were his best hope for contact between
his mother and his sister.
 
He
sensed that Vivienne was beginning to believe there was more than simple
madness to Rosalie’s accusations, and he hoped that the build up of energy
would be the tipping point.
 

He left her to go to
Olivia.
 
She was glad to hear
Vivienne was beginning to take her mother’s story for the truth.
 
Now they only had to wait.