The Harsh Light of Day

[TheGrind]

“Henri.” It was the last word she spoke as his teeth sank into her neck. It hadn't been a yell or a shriek yet a last whispered gasp of shock and surprise. This time he didn't stop. She'd come too close to knowing something. Whether it was his absence when the sun shone or the five years they'd known one another and he hadn't aged, he couldn't say. Henri couldn't verify what she knew but there were enough alarms going off in his head that he decided something had to be done. As she laid next to him in the late hours of a Wednesday evening he burrowed his fangs into her neck, draining her dry. Nobody would care about a dead prostitute anyway.

What he couldn't drink he left pooling on the hard floor. As the moonbeams shown through a window he looked into a shattered mirror hanging on an adjacent wall, searching for an image. It never worked. Instead he looked down, using the sky's light to ensure not a drop of blood had spilled on his clothes. It was never a good time to run into an over-aggressive Javert. Henri had become attached to the woman to some length but they wouldn't find him. A pair of centuries had passed and he was still beyond control.

But as he walked through the night he could see down random streets, lights and music spilling through the windows and against the single person walking by. 'It was probably best,' he mused to himself, 'to remain free from attachments.' It was a lesson he tried to teach himself over and over again but it had yet to stick. It was difficult to walk the world alone and living, thriving in the very shadows that people feared. And for good reason.

It wasn't that Henri didn't have it in him to be ruthless and mean. More than a few times bodies had been drained each year to sate his thirst. The trouble was the attachment he would find with some of these mortals. Those he'd grown fond of had been the most difficult to remove but it was a necessity for his survival. In the past he had toyed with the idea of abusing these walking blood bags to make things easier for himself. After what had happened tonight he felt compelled to attempt it. It would make the killing blow easier to deliver.

Saturday evening after 2100 Henri awoke to a darkened sky. People were still awake, high from the energies of the sun. As he stepped out of his room and into a small living area just large enough to house a pair of chairs, he opened a closet door. Pulling out the jacket and his cap he shut it once more. It wouldn't do much good. There would always be a slight chill cast against his skin that no amount of fire or warm bodies could fix. At the very least it afforded him a cheaper place to live since the heat was always sporadic. Or so he'd been told.

Henri left through the door and down the stairs until his feet touched the street. It had been four days since Simone had been left on that floor and his door had still been free from rapping knuckles. He didn't know if they had found her yet. It didn't matter. Henri would have to find a new place, a second home to use for his next object of obsession.

It didn't take him long to walk a few blocks before turning into a lit place. There wasn't any music but there was wine. And people. Henri quietly moved through the room until he came to an empty table for two, a newspaper strewn across it. It was recent, as early as today. A copy of L'Auorore, 1 April 1905.

Looking up he found a woman standing near him. Ordering a glass of wine just to keep her away a little longer he returned his attention to the paper and the glaring headline, La Question Marocaine. The Kaiser just couldn't stay out of Morocco. As the woman returned with a glass and poured the wine Henri folded the paper, setting it aside. There were more important things for him to find. For one, he could feel the paleness beginning to show. As he set his eyes on the room he searched for someone to satisfy his need.

 

[skeptomaniac]

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"Éteindre."

Josceline Beauchard sat on the edge of the rickety bed in her rented chambre, her whole being focused on the burned down candle on her night-stand. The ink dark depths of the flame were seared into her consciousness. For about the hundredth time she strove to fuse will and word.

"Éteindre."*

The candle guttered and she gasped. Then in the next moment it had recovered. She turned towards the narrow skylight in her garret where silvery moonlight shone into the room. It had been a gust of wind, nothing more. Josceline had been sitting motionless for so long in the draught that she had not noticed. There was no cheery fire blazing in her tiny fireplace. Josceline did not need fire in order to keep warm. Again her power receded unchannelled. On nights like this it felt like something was writhing beneath her skin, about to burst forth and destroy her.

She cursed in frustration, her gaze flicking to the huge leather bound book occupying half her bed, its pages curled with age. There was precious little information on her... affliction. It was certainly far from being a gift. This book she had had to procure from the ancient text section of the Musée Carnavalet, which had involved fellating a curator. A rotund man in his middle years, Josceline had become lost in the pendulous folds of his gut before she had even found his pathetic little member. By the time he grunted and spurted his acrid seed into her mouth Josceline had been in danger of suffocation from his sweaty flesh. Acquiring the book had turned out only to have been half the battle too, as the old French it was written in proved difficult to decipher and Josceline could not afford to misapprehend a single word. Now she could hardly glance at the tome without being reminded of how she had obtained it.

And still success eluded her.

Josceline had been an illegitimate child of noble birth, to a woman who had died birthing her, or so she was told by the austere nuns who had raised her - after a fashion - at St. Augustine, La Maison Pour Les Enfants. Josceline's life had been unremarkable except in its privations until she hit puberty at fourteen years old. Things had started... happening.

On one occasion Josceline had been sent out to market for some needlework supplies. Petite and slightly built, she had been set upon by a feral pack of urchin boys, who had beaten her to the ground and stolen the nuns' money. Josceline had watched them chasing after the coins like rats after crumbs, fighting one another into the bargain. The oldest boy sat astride her in a litter strewn alley way. He was a sinewy youth with a mop of black hair, clearly accustomed to being the ringleader. Curiosity prompted him to grab one of Josceline's budding breasts and twist the nipple through her dress. Josceline would never forget the horrifying moment when his intentions shifted as something hot and hard blossomed against her thigh. Petrified and helpless, she had screamed. No sound had left her mouth but she had arched her slender body and the boy had been thrown bodily off of her. She had heard him hit a wall and then the ground like a sack of flour. Through her tears Josceline could see that his ears were bleeding as he scrambled to his feet and ran away. When Josceline made it back to the orphanage, muck smeared and with her tale of woe, Sœur Amandine had taken a birch besom to the girl's backside. On the first strike the stout leather strips securing it had both untied themselves and dumped a pile of twigs onto the floor. Josceline had been charged with bundling the twigs back onto the broom, sweeping the yard and repeating her rosary more times than she could count. There had been no food for her that day but Josceline seemed to handle such privations better than most children, once she realised she was... different.

There was no more time for 'training' now however. Josceline closed her book, wrapped it in cloth and stowed it beneath her bed. She opened her armoire and withdrew the one dazzling item in her drab little room, sliding into it like a second skin. Blood red lipstick completed the look.

Josceline headed out into the night, hastening through a beautiful city that grew ever more treacherous for pretty young women. A long walk into the fashionable centre of Paris would eventually bring her to Le Chat Noir on Montmartre, a cabaret club whose acts ran late into the night, getting steadily more risqué. Josceline was a lounge singer there.

About halfway into the city in her heels, Josceline capitulated and ducked into the nearest bar for a glass of wine. These family run places gave you a glass or carafe of whatever they had got and then left you in peace, unless you wanted whatever they were cooking that night. Josceline kept her coat on. Her exquisite beaded dress had been acquired for a song from a woman fired from Le Chat when her opiate addiction spiralled out of control. It was a dress well worth mugging a girl for. The shoes had yet to catch up but nobody looked at Josceline's feet when she was wearing that dress. She lit a cigarette and mulled over what she had failed to achieve that afternoon with the candle. How could it be so difficult to channel a power that was slowly turning her inside out through lack of release? What vital but probably obvious step was she missing?

[*Extinguish.]

 

[TheGrind]

Reaching into a pouch Henri pulled out a single coin. Henri recalled the disconcerting feeling that ran through him the first time he pulled a coin from his pocket, realizing that the metal piece wasn't warm. The realization that his body could never warm anything again. Whether a coin or a body he would chill anything that came close. Within him he knew he held incredible power that many men would kill for, and they had but in the end even King Midas changed his mind. Doubt occasionally ran unfiltered through his mind but ultimately he chose to drive on. The power was too great and death was much too final.

Another night could pass without feeding from someone. Poor Gabrielle the prostitute had filled him enough that he wasn't in dire need but it was always best to find a host before the pulse pleaded for another drop. It was then that the danger of being caught rose. Henri preferred to take his time if he could afford it. Prostitutes were the best. Their word was worthless, their minds often so warped from the drugs that it could all be explained away due to a rough night. After waking a few coins lighter perhaps they'd swear off the street for a few hours or even a night but they'd be at their limit and be forced to return to the only profession they knew. Travelers and drunks were his next favorite targets although that could be tricky. Finding someone who wasn't a regular was unpredictable and it was difficult to know if they were alone while the bloodlust brayed inside his head. The desired ripping feeling tingling on the tips of his teeth was almost insatiable in those moments. Those moments when hunger counterbalanced any caution for secrecy. It would be best to find someone tonight before that hunger returned.

Momentarily his attention was stolen as the paper he set aside had drifted to the floor. They'd take care of it later, maybe. Or someone would steal it for outhouse fodder. Yellow journalism deserved as much. But war did make the population more vulnerable. Soldiers could be lost, wives were alone and daughters were looking for their first experiences.

The woman had returned with a glass and with the wine swirling around inside, she set it in front of him. As she walked away she kicked at the paper on the floor so it recoiled underneath the table. Twirling the coin in his left hand, with his right he reached for the glass and brought it to his lips. It didn't get him high like it had when he was human. And certainly not the way so many of these fools carried on. But just like a predator he'd sit and wait for his opening. He'd sit and watch, waiting for a single drunk to walk out on his own, or disappear around the back. It would be simple, quick and mostly harmless for the both of them. After what had happened last night he wasn't interested in searching for another whore so soon.

 

[skeptomaniac]

So lost was Joscelyn in her thoughts that she did not see the newspaper drift under her table. It brushed against her ankle and she bristled with such instant annoyance that the paper drifted straight back the other way. She could have kicked it but she hadn't. A draft could have caught it from somewhere but again, it hadn't. Only someone watching carefully would have noticed anything odd.

Merveilleux.

It frustrated her no end that she could not control when her power spilled into her daily life. Her conscious mind seemed to be wholly disconnected from it. Joscelyn's gaze moved from her wineglass to the clock above the bar. She caught the eye of the waitress. Joscelyn only ever had to speak for anyone to be able to guess her profession. Her voice was low, melodic and sultry.

"Un de plus s'il vous plaît et je dois payer. Je vais être en retard au travail à Le Chat Noir."*

"Bien sûr. Quelle heure est votre performance, Mademoiselle?"

"Vingt-deux heures."

Joscelyn scanned the bar and her eye fell on a tall man at the next table. There were no other likely prospects she could see though and she didn't like singling just one man out. If there had been a few likely looking guys it would have been a little different but he had seen her looking now, so Joscelyn elected to persevere. She approached his table and placed a small embossed card on it bearing Le Chat's details and the promise of a free cognac if the card-bearing patron arrived before 9pm.

"If you are interested, monsieur, there will be a good show tonight." She told him. "Singing, cabaret and burlesque... later in the evening of course."

His unblinking gaze made her suddenly nervous. Joscelyn's heart started racing, her face flushing prettily.


*One more please and I must pay. I will be late for work at 'The Black Cat.'