Foretold (31 page)

The
loup-garou
doesn’t wait, and as Luc pushes through the crowd in front of us, I hear the screams of the poison inside the room leaching into the streets. Luc stumbles, and I wonder if he feels the blood slick beneath his scuffed boots.

He slides me onto the back of his moto, kicking it into
gear with one arm still around me. He turns his face, just so. His mouth is against my forehead as he shouts into my matted hair.

“Hold on, Adi. No matter what, don’t let go.”

I nod. I won’t. I promise.

Not now. Not yet.

It doesn’t matter what comes after this, I think. What falls from the sky. We had less time than we knew.

My words alone were a world-killer
.

We fly, bumping, over the seam where the cobblestones give way to smooth asphalt.

I pull into the space between Dumpsters and beneath the laundry line where I keep my bike.

I turn off the moto.

The silence is surreal; the alley behind my apartment is strangely quiet.

Nothing has happened here, not yet.

No one knows what is about to happen.

Someone next door has begun to roast a chicken. Marceline, across the hall, will be home from school any minute now. An open window above mine broadcasts a football game from inside.

Paris SG versus Marseille
, I think, pulling out my keys. Out of habit, I listen for the score, even as we rush up the steps and push our way through the little gate.

Only Adrienne’s eyes tell me it is real. When she looks at me, I see flame and ash and blood. I see the brokenness and the ending, the rising panic.

Wordlessly, I swing open the door and scoop her effortlessly into my arms. Her head drops against my shoulder as I carry her inside.

My room is a bed and a window and a kettle. I let my eyes follow hers, a circle around my room. The walls are bare. The shelves empty. Dirty coffee cups piled in the sink. A lone bag of leeks sits on my counter. Leeks? What was I thinking? The end of the world and a bag of leeks.

We need only the bed.

I place her on the mattress gently, as if she were a dandelion. A dream. A wish.

But she isn’t.

Adrienne is stronger than that. Harder. She sits up and looks past me, out my good window, and I turn to see the fire burning across the city. Our Lady in flames. I listen for the sirens.

Then I close the window.

Enough
.

“Don’t you want to see?” she whispers, looking at me sadly. I smile down at her, pulling a stray curl loose from the corner of her mouth. A single tear catches on her lashes. “For the last time? How it ends?”

Adi’s lips are the color of pink champagne.

“I do. I want to see everything.” I lean closer to her, until I can feel her breath on my cheek. “For the first time. How it begins.”

It’s you
, I think.

You are the beginning and the end
.

You always were
.

Her eyes meet mine.

She pulls my leather jacket down my arms, without looking away from me. Our gestures become frantic, and I fumble with her buttons, nearly yanking her dress in two.

I give up and let the fabric rip. A button strikes my temple and she smiles.

She pulls my shirt over my head, pulling me down to her side.

Instinctively, I slide my hands down, moving her on top of me. Her skin is slippery as pearls, as petals between my fingers.

I’m still wearing my jeans, and she’s still in her dress, pooling down around her hips. Her camisole is lacy and red. A tiny tattoo of what looks like a half a heart rests just above the curve of her perfect left breast.

Then I see it isn’t a heart.

It’s a flame.

I stare, wonderingly.

She looks down. “That? My candle in the shadow.” She touches my chin. “For you, Luc. My light.”

I can’t look away.

For me
.

She carries me next to her heart
.

Me.

Red lace and fire between her wrists and her hem. Two things I never knew.

I kiss her, hard, but I cannot kiss her hard enough. She pulls away, breathless, and I bury my face in the hollow of her neck.

Near the flame.

“I’m still here. I’ll be right beside you, Adi. I’m not going anywhere.” I hold out my hand and she takes it, threading her fingers between mine.

Her eyes are wet with tears that hang in the fringe of her eyelashes, refusing to fall.

“I know.”

She doesn’t say anything else.

“Luc.”

Her voice breaks on my name.

It is only one word, but it is mine. It is enough for me.

“I’m here.” I kiss the pattern of her fingers. “It’s the only place I ever wanted to be.” I rub her hand against my closed eyes. “Go to sleep,
ma belle
.”

She smiles. “I’m not afraid. Not now. Not anymore.” She pulls free, wrapping her fingers in my hair, raising her mouth to mine.

I am afraid
, I think.

I’m afraid it isn’t happening. I’m afraid I’m not really kissing her, that I’m asleep in my own bed, alone. That I’m going to wake up any minute now, to bad coffee and worse cigarettes.

But I don’t wake up. I won’t.

I’ll never wake up again.

It’s real.

Everything, all of it. She’s real, so I’m real too. Even if only for a moment.

It is peaceful here, in her kiss.

I can rest here.

Finally.

I lay my smile against hers and we don’t stop kissing as the last sparks of the known universe fly.

Our flames climb even higher than that.

I stare into Luc’s eyes, wrapping my fingers in his hair. I pull his mouth to mine.

We aren’t kissing anymore, I don’t think.

We’re breathing.

I want every part of our bodies to touch, as long as they can. I want my skin to grow into his, like two webbed fingers of the same amphibious creature.

Heart to heart. Hip to hip. Toe to toe.

Cell to cell. Blood to blood. Bone to bone.

Ash to ash
.

They say we all die alone, the Mortals. But I know now it’s not true. Not for Immortals, anyway.

It’s only now that I am dying that I am finally not alone.

We are here now, for this one moment.

Really here.

Mortals and Immortals, the planet and the people.

The dogs and the cats and the birds, Luc and me. Everyone and everything, all history and all time,
tous ensemble
.

We all go down together.

And when we do, I know what happens. I bring Luc home to the peace that belongs only to us. We take each other into the dark.

It is our first time as much as our last, our beginning, in our end. A lifetime lived in one forever hour.

Love is its own oblivion; death seems somehow smaller.

We sit in the darkness at the edge of
la Cathédrale de Notre Dame
, as close to the perimeter as the fire trucks and the police and the ambulances and the shocked crowd will allow.

Adi wears my clothes. I keep my hand fixed to her waist, beneath my old black sweater. We have become one thing. Even so, everything has changed. Her curls are wild, her lips are purple. Her eyes are red, like she herself has been lit on fire.

She has been. We both have.

Our Lady is gone, taking with her
la Société de Notre Dame Immortelle
, every last one. The end of the universe came, all right.
Oui. Le fin
.

But not for the Mortals.

Only for everyone and everything we knew.

Our Nostradamus, gone.

My Enigma Machine, gone.

And the prophecy?

Adi points to the distant place, the line where one darkness gives way to another. “La
Seine
, it’s red with fire, see? The reflection?”

I nod. “
L’Ile de la Cité
must be burning all the way down to the water.” It’s true. The island where we stand, in the middle of Paris, is going up in smoke.

She looks at me, aghast.

“The
prophecy
, Luc.” She can barely speak the words.

“Scattered fire from the skies,” I say, remembering. I pass her a paper cup of bitter coffee. Her hands are shaking.

“The King of Terror?” She glances at me from the corner of her eye. She already knows the answer. She has, I think, since the first moment she saw her words themselves could bring on an apocalypse of their own.

I shrug. “Who knows. Does it matter?”

She shivers. “It does to me.”

I see the last flickers of doubt and wonder on her face. Who was at the other end of the machine? The Great Enigma himself? Can anyone ever be certain?

She shakes her head.

She is certain. She knows.

And she knows I am certain too.

I pull off my jacket, wrapping it around her.

“C’est moi.”

“It’s me.”

As I step off the bus with my duffel, I stare at the sign across the street welcoming me to my new home.
Seaside Campground and RV Park
. I never thought I’d be homeless at the age of eighteen. Well, I
was
homeless. Today, I’m the proud owner of a crappy RV on the smallest piece of land at Seaside RV Park.

With the hot Florida sun at my back, I enter the general office and find the property manager at the front desk. I already know the guy from the phone conversation I had with him, and it’s pretty obvious he doesn’t have a stellar work ethic.

The dude is sitting beside a big box of half-eaten donuts. “What do you want?” he barks in what he probably thinks is
an intimidating voice. He has no way of knowing that nothing intimidates me.

“I’m Carson Miller,” I tell him. “The new owner of the RV on lot twenty-six.”

“All right.” He takes a clipboard with a bunch of papers attached to it and hands it to me. “Fill out all the info, sign the agreement, then give it back to me with your deposit for the monthly rent on the lot.”

After filling out the forms and giving him the cash, I’m officially a resident of Seaside.

I sling my duffel over my shoulder and walk down a winding dirt road lined with campers, tents, and RVs. I stop in front of an RV that looks like it’s seen better days. Lot 26.

Home.

The red and orange sunset painted on the side is faded and dirt-encrusted, and a banged-up screen door is lying in the dirt next to the RV like it’s the door’s final resting place. A bunch of bright yellow and red flowers perfectly outlining the rectangular lot looks out of place. I walk up to the door and put the key in the slot, but realize pretty quick that the lock doesn’t work. I probably should’ve checked it the first time I came to look at the RV, but all I was interested in was finding a cheap, permanent place to stay. I got lucky that the woman selling the RV just wanted to get rid of it, fully furnished with dishes and utensils and everything. Supposedly it was her father’s place and he’d died recently, so she had no interest in keeping it.

“Are you moving in?” I hear a squeaky, excited voice from behind me.

I turn around and see a red-haired girl wearing dirty, ripped jeans and a football jersey that’s seen better days.

“Yep.”

“Where are your parents?” she asks.

I stand frozen for a second before answering. “Don’t have any.”

She gives me a look of disbelief as she walks toward me. “Of course you have parents.
Everyone
has parents. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be alive.”

“Thanks for the biology lesson,” I mumble.

“That’s okay if you don’t want to talk about your parents. Half the time I don’t want to talk about mine, either. By the way, I’m Willow. Willow Baxter.”

I wonder how Willow hasn’t gotten the not-so-subtle hint that I’m not in the mood to talk. I don’t intend to make any friends while I’m living here. My goal is to work and save up so I don’t have to worry about paying off the rest of the loan I got for the RV or paying rent on this small piece of earth that my RV is on. I open the door and catch a whiff of some nasty odor coming from inside.

I walk into the place, feeling a small sense of pride. This is mine, and no matter how crappy it is, nobody can take it away from me.

I drop my bag on the bed and start opening the windows to let the place air out. Who knows how long it’s been since someone lived here.

“What’s your name?” Willow practically yells through the ripped screen as if I’m hard of hearing.

“Carson.”

“Were you named after someone? Because I was named after a tree. And before you go thinking it was any old type of tree, it wasn’t. It was a tree that my parents carved their initials into when they fell in love.”

“I wasn’t named after anyone … or anything.”

“Oh. That’s too bad.”

Is this chick for real? “Not really. Listen, I’m gonna clean up the place and start unpacking. See you later.”