CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Quasi cursed under his breath, not bothering to mind his language now that he was well and officially off of Holy Ground, though there was a small part of him that was grateful Darius wasn't with him to chastise him for his choice of words.
The woods that Ser Frederic de Marten was leading him through was growing darker by the minute, and the wretched carriage of the Prince's that Belle had been hoisted off in without her consent to receive treatment for her ailment had long since fled from his and Lieutenant Frederic's line of sight an hour ago.
The bitter Parisian cold was absolutely hostile as it crept its way through the layers of his clothing that coated his body, his only defense against such a chill.
When the wind would pick up and blow, it was so crisp that his very skin hurt.
God, but this was worse than Hell, and he lived in his own personal hell every day. Quasimodo calmed his vicious snarls, the result of his indignation at being denied the opportunity to ride in the Prince's carriage alongside his dying wife. He clenched his jaw shut tight and shut his eyes to release some of the tension.
Notre Dame's bell ringer thought he was getting used to the dryness of his mouth and the continuously swallowing of nothing, but now, as he was forced to trudge through the woods on the outskirts of Paris that supposedly led towards this bastard's estate, where Belle was being held against her will to receive treatment for somehow being poisoned if he was to believe the rumors, now, there was the slime of something thick and the metallic taste of iron between his tongue and palate.
Quasi stifled the almost animalistic growl that threatened escape from the confines of his chest and turned his head sharply to the side and spat the blood that had filled his taste buds and lingered on his tongue, all the while his body shivered underneath his long-sleeved linen undershirt and thick woolen green tunic, and overtop that a dark blue cape.
This was the second time in his life that he wished he would have just been killed.
The first following Esmeralda's death, Quasi had initially believed there was no greater pain than following his friend's death, but this?
Oh, no. It hurt as hell. I'll kill that Prince if he's poisoned Belle. I'll kill him…kill them all…they can't keep me away from her. Kill them all. I don't care what happens to me. My soul is already damned. An 'almost-made' has no place in Heaven. I will gladly take his own life if it means Belle is safe with me…
Notre Dame's bell ringer felt his jaw clench tightly shut and lock up, tighter than rigor mortis, and his teeth dug on the wall of his mouth and he ran his tongue along the top wall of his teeth. And there, the gloved hand that clutched onto a tree branch as he had paused for a moment to draw in a breath of frigid winter air formed into a white-boned fist and he smashed it against the limb, ripping the bough clean off.
Quasimodo almost swallowed his tongue as he quelled the urge to roar like an enraged dragon, a few hot tears escaping his eyes. Damned wretched salty liquid. Though he did not let himself whimper. He would die before he'd ever hear himself sob.
Constant years of abuse at the Judge's hand had hardened his heart. His wife was the one who needed him to be strong now, and he couldn't. The fact that the Prince and his people were not allowing him to ride with her was torture. This was ten times worse.
The ambiguity of not knowing the state of her physical or mental condition was almost torture for him. Quasi felt lost as he and the strange personal guard of the vicious bastard Prince who had quite literally carted off his wife in an enormous black carriage that closely resembled the very same one that Maître Frollo tended to ride in, towards the Prince's castle, which, if he was to believe the tall, dark-haired lieutenant, Ser Frederic de Marten, Captain Phoebus's second-in-command.
Though why he was the one chosen to escort him towards the Prince's castle, the bell ringer had not the faintest idea. He did not question it, however, as his mind ruminated over thoughts of his wife, and how it hurt like hell that he was not currently by her side. He wanted his face to be the first thing Belle saw when she awoke.
If she wakes up at all, the snakelike voice chimed up unhelpfully from the dark recesses of his own mind, in a voice that sounded too much like Master Frollo for his own comfort. What if she dies and you aren't there to hold her hand? What if something happens to her baby and she loses it? And you aren't there? A truly fine husband you are, you accursed little wretch, you vicious bastard.
What if he was not by her side when she passed? What then? He would have failed her. Oh, a fine husband he was! He could not even protect her from this.
These self-deprecating thoughts spiraled in his bloodstream and spread like a drop of fever. Adrenaline flooded his system as he silently allowed Frederic to lead him through the wood. The soldier was in the middle of attempting to make conversation, though the effort had proved to be in vain and wrong when Frederic started asking after Belle.
"She's really quite a pretty little thing, isn't she? Your wife." Frederic called out interestedly, not bothering to glance back over his shoulder, and he really ought to have, for Captain Phoebus's lieutenant would have otherwise seen the dawning look of outrage in Quasimodo's eyes. "T'is truly a pity that she was forced to marry you, wretch, and pregnant with a baby that isn't yours, if the rumors of the strange girl are true, regardless, Belle could have done so much better as a disgraced noblewoman," he sighed, almost sounding disappointed. "Do you think she'll be all right? Or do you think she'll be dead by the time you arrive? Is it true that her husband took her for himself the night you murdered him and forced you to watch?" Frederic snapped meanly, no warmth at all in the man's condescending tone.
At the handsome soldier's words which had goaded him even further past the last vestiges of his temper, which were already adrift in the sheltered harbor of his patience, Quasi felt the familiar hot-spark of anger, hotter than the molten lava he used to fix the bells' cracks back at the cathedral with, ignite and spark in his veins, and in three rapid steps, Notre Dame's bell ringer had closed off the gap of space between himself and the dark-haired lieutenant of Captain de Chateaupers and let out a vicious snarl of frustration. His gloved hand curled around the pale column of the lieutenant's throat and he squeezed, just tightly enough to begin to restrict air to the man's passageways, but not enough (regretfully, secretly, in Quasi's mind) to kill him.
"One. More. Sound," he warned threateningly, whisper hissing it roughly into the shell of the man's ear as he leaned forward. "And I'll snap your neck, de Marten," Quasimodo snarled, hating hearing the crack and dip in his otherwise cold and listless tone, and he flinched inwardly, though he shook off the feeling.
He could tell Frederic de Marten was practically biting off his tongue to prevent the rise of bile on his throat as the sinister tone of the bell ringer's normally kind and tenor-like soft tones had shifted, practically tossed his stomach in cramps.
Frederic's eyebrow twitched and he could not conceal the sheen of terror that formed on his browbone as beads of sweat. "I—I meant no offense, mon—"
But the handsome dark-haired soldier caught himself as he had been about to foolishly utter the word 'monster' in the accursed creature's presence.
The bell ringer felt ventilated at most, as the sweat glistened on his browbone and his temples that evaporated the second Frederic turned his back on him, and balled his gloved hands into fists and raked his fingers through his thick tuft of wild ginger hair, not caring that it stuck up in tufts every which way.
He saw how Frederic de Marten eyed Belle in the cathedral during Mass. She had even confided in him prior to their marriage how the soldier made her relatively uneasy, his piercing stare always feeling to her as though it burned a hole in the back of her head, his inquisitive, sharp green eyes following her backside.
Frederic de Marten had…intentions, towards his wife, and Quasi felt his mind flare like wildfire, and he swallowed nervously, feeling like his throat was on fire and he was suddenly parched. But it wasn't water that he necessarily wanted.
Oh, no. What he longed for, alongside the urge to be by his wife's side, was sweet, blissful retribution towards Frederic's uncouth behavior towards his Belle.
Frederic de Marten did not just think highly of Quasi's wife, the redhaired bell ringer couldn't help but hypothesize, oh, no. The dashing soldier who lacked manners and proper edict wanted Belle all for himself and was not shy about vocalizing his desires for the better part of their so-far half-hour trek in the woods.
Quasi shook his head and practically snarled in frustration in an effort to quell the beast within the confines of his chest, beginning to roar, to elude him of his frenzied, manic thoughts, courtesy of the monster, that sin that was Rage, that had a tendency to rear its ugly head whenever another man looked in Belle's direction.
"You mock my wife, soldier," Quasimodo growled roughly, and his gloved hand came up to curl tightly around the pale column of the young lieutenant's throat. "That ends right here, right now. I see how you look at her in the corridors while you're off duty. Soldier," he snarled, baring his teeth and letting out another animalistic growl, "Let this be your one and only warning. You escaped my hand with just a moment of your precious time lost, but if you come near my wife again, if you so much as look at Belle in a manner that displeases me, then only God Himself will be able to save you, and you won't look to me to be so forgiving…"
Even Quasi flinched as he realized his voice was rougher, coarser than it usually was, and his words towards Captain Phoebus's second-in-command had escaped unchecked from his lips as a pitiless growl. "Leave my wife alone, Frederic. Or you'll die. Will I be forced to beat you?" he snarled angrily, irately.
And without giving de Marten a chance to respond or explain away the slip in his judgment, as he had not been thinking clearly when he'd uttered his words, he shoved the soldier backward hard against the trunk of the tree and strode forward, silently seething, a muscle in his jaw twitching and in his one good as well.
Quasi did not care as he heard a muscle in the back of de Marten's skull crack, though he stifled his heavy sigh of disappointment as he heard the soldier's footfalls practically scurrying to catch up and match the bell ringer's lengthy strides.
With a yelp of surprise, Frederic fell to the ground as the taller man stumbled over what was either a twisted, gnarled tree root or more likely, his own boot in this case. The roots in this damned forest that led to the Prince's estate seemed to have a mind of their own, but Frederic's legs felt like lead, and this marked the second or third time since entering the woods with this vicious bastard of a creature, this 'almost-made' that dared to call itself a man now that it was married to a celestial-like angel that, in de Marten's mind, he did not deserve.
Frederic shot a dark, withering glower as he felt the cathedral's bell ringer's strong-arm curl into a fist around his forearm and somewhat roughly force himself to his feet. "Thanks," he growled begrudgingly and heard Quasi roll his eyes.
As a soldier, he prided himself on his sense of direction, and this had been the main point of his and Quasimodo's limited conversation in these woods thus far, though right now, the younger man did not seem confident in his abilities.
"Good God!" Quasi snarled angrily. "You've taken us completely in the wrong direction! I told you we should have followed the edge of the woods back that way! You didn't listen to me, and now I'm lost, and if my wife dies and I'm not there by her side, I swear to God, de Marten, I'll kill you myself," Quasi bared his teeth and let out a low growl that sounded almost animalistic that Frederic de Marten promptly ignored and strode right past the vicious bastard, though not before making it a point to violently brush his shoulder against Quasi's.
Lieutenant Frederic stifled his urge to roar in frustration at the Prince's insistence that he be the one to lead the monster into the woods, away from her.
He had agreed, somewhat eagerly, to Prince Adam's demands, though it was rumored this particular order came from Judge Claude Frollo himself, and if that were true, Frederic supposed he could not fault the distinguished judge and minister for wishing himself to be rid of the walking curse currently walking in tandem beside him, occasionally shooting him distrustful glances out of the corner of his one good eye.
He had promised both the Prince and the Judge their wills would be done, and that Frederic had been confident in his ability to make his way through the forest following the little matter of disposing of the bell ringer.
All he had to do was lead the wretch far enough out of the way where no one would find his body and then follow a path. That should have been easy, yes?
Frederic had remained confident up until this point that he'd be fine. But he wasn't. This damned forest made no bloody sense, and he was very much lost.
Though he did not dare admit that little nugget of truth out loud to him, lest he fancied his neck being snapped. Just being lost by itself was aggravating enough, but this damned forest had done more than just get Frederic and the monster lost. It was confusing them, twisting the canopy around so they could not tell the light from the darkness, making them think they saw one thing or walked a certain direction when they had actually seen or done the exact opposite. It felt…
Cursed. Yes. Cursed. There was no other word the soldier could think of.
The path at Quasi's feet faded as it leads further into the darkness of the woods, yet follow it he knew he must for the sake of Belle.
Somewhere in there were the answers he as her husband so desperately needed, and so his feet begrudgingly and numbly followed the narrow strip of naked earth among the giants of root and leaf. He allowed his gloved hands to touch their skin as he passed, feeling their gentle spirits soothe his. For this was their world as they stretched toward the light they never saw yet sensed, and Quasi knew he must do the same... open up his other senses... to sound, to the aroma and listen so very carefully to every instinct.
Nothing was more frustrating for Quasi than finding out what he had believed to be a real experience was in fact, entirely fictional, a figment of their imaginations. He scowled, pursing his lips into a thin line, and let out another yell.
"Did we get turned around again?" Quasi wondered with a frustrated growl as he reached out a strong gloved hand and gripped onto Frederic's shoulder. "I thought we'd already passed this twisted tree. That's three times. We. Are. Lost!"
Frederic rolled his eyes and barely stifled a vicious holler of his own. "Get your head on straight. You can yell and scream at me if you think it would help, but it won't help her. Let's just concentrate on getting out of this damned wicked forest in one piece. Alive."
Frederic's serious, agitated voice cut through the bell ringer's frantic hollers and Quasi swiveled his head to look back in front of himself. Frederic de Marten was now standing in front of him where only a fraction of a second ago, he'd been behind and was regarding Quasimodo with a sense of immense annoyance and an intense dislike plastered on his pale face. The bell ringer scowled and lumbered past the dark-haired lieutenant when a small muffled noise snatched Quasi from his agitated, heightened senses as he spun back around lightning fast, pulling the dagger from his belt but was too late.
He heard the ripping of fabric, the splitting of flesh, and a puncture of his ribcage—all his own. The dagger from his hand fell to the snow, now stained crimson with his blood from the seeping wound and gaping hole in his side. Frederic de Marten grinned at Quasi through a vicious grin, his teeth bared in a snarl. He knew he had the upper hand.
Damn you. Curse you to hell…
His widened cobalt eyes traveled from Frederic's ashen face, which was wrought with apathy and a horrible listlessness that would not have looked out of place on Maître Frollo's gaunt features, but on a soldier of Phoebus's, it was appalling, down to the man's strong hand that gripped the thick hunting knife, which was now buried in his side. The knife met the flesh of the bell ringer's ribcage, soft and pudgy, and made a satisfying squishing sound as the tip of Lieutenant de Marten's blade sank deep enough to make him scream.
The skin near the bell ringer's right thigh, in his ribcage, was torn to shreds as the knife rotated, the sound of his muscles and nerves being gouged growing even louder. He twisted the blade in his hands, all the while sinking it in deeper and deeper. It wouldn't be long until the pain would scatter once his shock subsided.
Quasi coughed feebly between breaths. A warm fluid rose in his throat, choking back the only word he wanted to ask Phoebus's second in command.
Why? Why?
His cry was a brilliant sound, guttural chokes mixed with an agonized roar. Frederic smirked, and pulled the blade out of his now deathly-white victim.
He sank to his knees, and at once, he felt a throb of pain strike his temple, and he collapsed, convulsing and trembling like a rabid animal as the thick crimson blood, sticky and garish, messy, as it flowed from the gaping hole in his side, and the cascade of the monstrous bell ringer's life source gushed out in all directions.
Scarlet liquid drenching Frederic's pale face, garish red against pristine white. Frederic turned away as Quasi's plea for mercy became quieter, the sweet tang of blood-tingling in his flared nostrils, and he tasted sweet iron on his tongue.
"Why…" Quasi managed to whisper, something of a miracle between bloody gritted teeth, eyes clenched tightly shut as a white-hot flare of pain jolted up his slightly twisted vertebrae. The confusion must have been evident on his paling face, which was now so pallid and clammy it resembled that of a corpse.
Frederic shook his head and clucked his tongue in mock disappointment before stomping on Quasi's left arm with a heavy boot heel, pleased at the way the monstrous wretch flinched and bit down on his tongue to quell the yell of pain.
"Your…father, shall we call him, who's had so much to offer me. The entire city of Paris knows how little your life is worth to the Judge. Your 'father' has promised me land, titles of my own, a castle of my own. A pretty little wife."
Lieutenant de Marten pressed the heel of his black leather boot deeper as Quasi struggled beneath him, and the bell ringer flinched as the man spat on him.
Frederic was saying something to him, though his voice was fainter now. The pain that had once burned like a fire had faded away to an icy numbness.
Black filled the edges of Quasi's wretched sight and the only thing he could hear was his own heartbeat. His breaths came in ragged, shallow gasps. Seconds passed as he laid there, hearing the footfalls of Lieutenant Frederic de Marten's boots fading.
Soon he was alone, and the seconds dragged as they turned to minutes. It was then that he heard a voice.
A woman's voice, though older, not belonging to his sweet wife. A dark shadow, cloaked, swarmed over top of Quasi, trying to help him, he realized, though his vision ebbed and flowed in vicious black tides, rendering it impossible for him to see who exactly it was. And then…it hit him.
Whoever this…this She-Stranger was, this woman wanted to save his life. If he could have, he would have laughed. Surely, she could tell that it was far too late for him to be saved, yet this strange material of beauty with the auburn curls that cascaded in gentle ringlets to just past her collarbones was like a child, naïve to the darkness of the real world. The despair and suffering of the world that took everything he loved away from him.
First, it had been Esmeralda. And now Belle. Quasi would be joining them both soon enough, though. He would be able to leave all the pain behind. The woman still hovered over him, the apparition no more distortion of the light, a human cut out of colors that weren't at all right.
Where the She-Stranger moved, the things behind her cloaked form appeared bowed, distorted. Her beauteous form shimmered and waved. She walked towards him and knelt by his side as though she were painted onto the winter horizon with a fine brush, the artist constantly touching up and making alterations. The Stranger with the luscious strawberry blonde curls was garbed in flowing white linens that no money could buy, nor any human hand could craft.
Despite the fact that she must have trekked through the brush to reach Quasi's fading form, there was not a spot of dirt, mud, blood, or snow on her robe.
She stood barefooted in the late fading winter sun, almost translucent. She spoke to him, though her words were faint. Quasi closed his eyes. He could die happy now, knowing that he would see his friend Esmeralda and his wife, Belle, very soon.
His fragile human heartbeat one last time, though the Stranger's voice was clear, her tone soft and urgent, as the woman was urging him to stay with her.
The ebb and flow of his fading consciousness threatened to swallow him whole, deeper into the echoing darkness of this damned forest that was sure to serve as his icy grave. But what in the seven hells had he done to warrant…this?!
The image of the Judge loomed over him, the cold listlessness in his eyes as Maître had warned him to stay away from Belle when she had first arrived.
He had not heeded the man's words. Frollo had been wrong about Esmeralda, and he was wrong about Belle. A vision of Frollo, sitting at his carving table, writing words over a piece of parchment paper with a quill. There had been nothing wrong in their lives until the arrival of the Romani woman. Esmeralda.
And Belle. Sweet, succulent Belle. So what in the seven hells had he done besides remaining a rueful bastard, an accursed wretch in his father's eyes? What.
The pain he felt in his side no longer lingered, and the She-Stranger's voice became even fainter as his eyes remained closed. God was good to him at last…
And before the darkness completely engulfed him wholly and his last breath left his lungs for the last time, a vision of loveliness danced in his mind, setting his soul to an eerie sense of sweet, bliss serenity, and Quasi felt…at peace.
Her glistening dark eyes and rich chocolate hair, and her sweet smile. The way Belle's lips lifted upward. The way her one dimple crinkles. The way her teeth are perfectly aligned. The warm glow Belle's happiness gives. Her smile is a ray of sunshine, and he wanted nothing more to look upon her beautiful features as he slowly passed into the sweet abyss of darkness and away from the pain.
Hers was the only face he focused on. Not that of the Judge, not Alice or Darius's, just hers.
His Belle.