VII. The Lost Days (2)

Alice Huet

A boy came in screaming at the end of the concert. I was about to sing my last song. Two dead men had been found in some corner of the club. Someone called the police. Several people rushed around me, offering to take me home. I pulled away, ran backstage. I passed Justine in the hallway: "Have you seen Michel? - I don't know, he's missing. I left running. A man wanted to prevent me from approaching the back stairs. "Don't go that way madam, you mustn't see that." I managed to pass, quickly regretted it. Two corpses were lying on the ground, one had a completely misshapen head. I rushed off, slipping through another back door.

I waited for him at his place. When he finally got home, in the early hours of the morning, the lights were on. I was lying on the bed, still in my coat. I stood up quickly when I saw him enter. "Where were you ? I was worried to death. Have you been drinking?"

He didn't answer me. He threw his keys on the cluttered table, sank into the chair.

"What happened ? Just tell me what happened.

- Leave me alone !

- Justine told me that Lupin was furious, that he wants to take you to the military tribunal. But what did you do? You do not want to talk to me ?

- Not really…

- And these guys in the basement, I saw what you did to them, you have nothing to say about these guys too?

- Alice...

- One of them… you smashed his head! Fuck, Michel, you just killed them!

- Listen, that's enough, you're at my place, get out. "

He grabbed me by the wrist, as I struggled, he pushed me violently out. I managed to stop his arm for a moment, staring at him for a few seconds.

"What did they do with you there?

- Get out ! " He shouted.

He slammed his door on my nose, I straightened my fur and stormed off. When I turned around, all the candles were out in his house. Well, fuck this shit, sort it out yourself.

Justine Vasseur

" Abandonment of post !" Lupin was circling his office. "Oh I'm going to destroy him, gods, I'm really going to. What a fucking idiot! "

I waited, a little anxious.

"He's not himself those last days, we had to stay at the Somme for three more weeks.

- Don't fucking care, everyone is responsible for their actions. "

The Countess Anne entered the room. I got up immediately. I don't really had a choice, one should always get up when Madame enters a room. She was Lupin's direct supervisor, and was responsible for relations with all other supernatural creatures, gods, spirits and religions in the territory. She was at least five hundred years old, was born under Francis I, had been according to legend as well Iskandar's last mistress, Henry IV's or the Sun King's. During the Revolution, she had led the Loyalist Secession against the then leader of Nome, who rallied to the Constitutionals. Subsequently she had stood up to Napoleon alone, and to the whole of the Fourteenth Nome for years. By the extent of her powers, she should have taken over as leader of the Fourteenth, but she was too polarizing, controversial, and, but we were very careful not to say it in front of her, she was only a woman.

Above all, she was a fervent royalist, both for France and among magicians. She was part of that handful of enlightened people who still believed in the Pharaoh's return.

"Lupin," she greeted him casually. "Where is he ?

- He is coming."

Michel entered in the meantime, looking like someone who hadn't slept all night. The countess stared at him from head to toe, sitting in her chair.

"I warned you," she told him. "What did I tell you when you came to Nome? Do you remember ? Answer !

- That I was a scoundrel.

- Yes, you are scum, and you will remain so, it seems. You should shoot him Lupin, people like him never learn. Besides, what about the mission?

- A success, with the exception of course of the druid. He escaped us.

- Well, it's not very serious. Call me back when you have something really concrete. And check out what Abdias Kane is up to. He spends his time with demigods and Celts, and would have gone snooping around Figeac as well. Let me be damned before letting a Kane interfere in our French affairs. "

Michel Desjardins

« Pourquoi vous faites ça ? »

Arsene just sent me to see a doctor after all. A guy not very happy to be there, who sighed when he saw me and took out some papers. "We're going to start with the family history. Do you have alcoholics, carriers of venereal or degenerative diseases?

- My father used to drinking.

- Your mother was a prostitute, wasn't she?

- She was in a brothel for a while…

- Say no more." He sighed.

"Why are you doing this?"

The doctor looked up, surprised. "Not that I'm happy with it, it's Iskandar's procedure. Especially after the… accidents of your former brothers in arms.

- You mean the suicides of the Ninth's magicians?

- If you want my opinion, we were too gentle with you. All the generations of Per Ankh waged war, you are the only one who can't cope with the aftermath. "

It was not the same. "You are probably right. "

"What are you afraid of Desjardins?

- Sorry ?

- Your fears, I have a line to fill. "

Open windows, I thought. "Defeat" I said.

"It's common, but you don't have to worry about it anymore. You need some rest, and don't touch the booze. You have a predisposition to alcoholism and neurosis."

Dumbass. " Goodbye. "

I went to pick up Alice from her hotel after that. She almost always lived in a hotel now, or with one of her lovers. I found her in the lobby, we sat face to face on one of the couches.

"Alice, I'm so sorry.

- I'm just worried about you.

- I know, it's gonna be fine.

- Are you sure ? You should… go see a doctor, or something.

- Alice, please, I'll be fine. "

She paused for a moment, then resumed.

"Your father wrote to me. He is in Paris.

- Since when does my father write to you?

- You haven't answered him?

- No. I haven't seen him since I was eleven.

- Michel, he lost all his other sons in the war. Your half-brothers anyway ...

- Never knew them.

- Listen, I know it's not easy, fathers, I've only seen mine three times in my entire life. But I really pitied him, I swear.

- Too bad for him.

- Go see him, please, just once. You are all the family she has left now.

- Stop telling me what to do!

- Why are you always like that?

- Fuck !" I left before I'd need to apologize again.

« Tout comme chez les Corses, les Bourguignons, les Berrichons, les chtis, les Picards, les Auvergnats et j'en passe. Michel, les trois dieux grecs qui trainent encore le plus chez nous sont Dionysos, Apollon et Aphrodite.

To complete the picture, Erwan was waiting for me at home. Holy shit. They will never let go of me. At the time I was living near Montparnasse, I rented two small rooms in a ground floor which overlooked a courtyard of a building. There was no magical protection, and, of course, my lock didn't deter a skilled magician. He asked me, as soon as I entered:

"How did it go?

- Nothing he just wanted to know my family history.

- Alcoholism?

- Why, were you asked too? "

He just smiled. "Oh, no need.

- The main faults of the Breton race are uncleanliness, superstition and drunkenness *." I recited my geography textbook from memory. Erwan laughed.

"Just like with the Corsicans, the Burgundians, the Berrichons, the Chtis, the Picards, the Auvergnats and so on. Michael, the three Greek gods who still hang around here the most are Dionysus, Apollo and Aphrodite.

- Love, art and good wine. We can do worse."

He handed me a plate of soup. I noticed he had put my books away and aired. I wasn't sure if I wanted to kill him or thank him. I preferred to change the subject.

"What did you do after the war?

- I drank for several days non stop. After that I sobered up and went sailing to the Canaries. I also lost a nephew, he was like a brother to me.

- I remember, I just whispered. What are they gonna do with me now?

- Not much. We negotiated with Lupin to get you back to mine clearance. Actually, they have other issues on their hands up there. We are dealing with a network of dissident demigods, allied with the Celts, which is quite worrying. They would be led by a certain Jean, which does not help us given the banality of this first name here. Chiron will give us his report. Of course, he kinf of hesitates to betray a former student, but Olympus pressuring on him. Crocodiles, however, are only used for Egyptian magic. This kind of mixture announces trouble.

- Are you going to have to take care of it? Talk to your contacts?

- For the moment no. I have to finish cleansing Picardy. Do you want me to put you in another squad? We also have a courtesy visit to make to chefs in Provence, if you ever want a breath of fresh air...

- Don't tire yourself out for me. I don't mind going back to clearing.

- Michel, they could quickly ruin your life at Nome if they wanted to, and most of them do want to. Anne, the Chevalier, the Marquis de la Barre… Chief La Roque told them to leave you alone. Just keep a low profile.

- You will notice that trouble tends to find me more than I tend to look for it.

- Oh, was that a smile?

- Don't get carried away too quickly.

- I have to go, don't touch the booze. Unless you have dark thoughts, in that case ...

- Call the asylum?

- Call me, moron.

- Deal"

In the end Alice continued to harass me, for three days, with the blind stubbornness that defined her so well. So I ended up seeing him again, my father, a few days later. He had aged this man, he was no more than a shadow, shriveled and curled up, bony, his eyelid nervous. He was so small, the giant man of my childhood.

"You wanted to see me, sir.

- Michel "he cheered up. "You grew up. I have been told that you have become a war hero. That you had the cross of merit, and the legion of honor.

- Metal scraps, yes.

- You're a man now.

- That's what you always wanted, right? It took time but the result is there, watch.

- I was hard on you, it's true. It was for your own good.

- And my mother, it was for her good too? No need to look like that, sir. I'm not ten years old anymore, you can't just lock me in a dark cellar to silence me.

- Michel! You are still my son.

- You are wrong sir, you no longer have any sons. You threw yours on the roads with his mother, remember? "

I closed the door on his thin outstretched hands, lit a cigarette on the porch. I left whistling towards my house, a ray of sunlight was gilding the paving stones, it was the first in months.

*True quote, from the M. Brusson Textbook, actually edited in 1929, not before WWI.