Disclaimer etc.: see chapter 1
Les Chroniques Parisiennes – Chronique 4: A Message from England
"Luc!" The voice echoed through the house, and Luc sat up sharply in bed. "Luc!"
He dragged on a robe and, fastening the belt, ran down the stairs. In the hallway, leaning heavily against the door, Angelus glared at him from behind yellow eyes.
"Lock the door and block it with something." Luc hesitated. "Now!"
By the time he had managed to drag a table and upturn it next to the door, his master had returned to a human face; and Luc took in the torn clothes and the bloodstains with a horrible jolt of memory. In a short while somebody will come to destroy him. And he heard his own voice, small and shaken, returning: But what if they fail?
"Hot water and bandages," Angelus ordered, breaking through the memory. "Bring them to my room. And hurry, you idiot."
Luc nodded and ran for the things, adding some iodine to the bundle, and carrying the bowl of water carefully headed up the stairs.
Angelus had reached his room and was slumped in a chair, pale and evidently angry. Wordlessly Luc helped him take off his shirt and began to wash the wounds.
"They've stopped bleeding," he volunteered, rinsing the cloth in the water.
"Good." Angelus flinched. "What was that?"
"Iodine," said Luc, winding bandages around a particularly deep stab wound. Angelus reached for the decanter of whisky standing on a low table near him and poured himself a generous measure. When Luc had finished the bandages he stood up with the bowl. "Is that all?"
"Wait a moment. Put down that water." Angelus met Luc's eyes hard. "Do you speak English, Luc? Have you ever met any Englishmen in those auberges you go to? Any strangers talked to you, asked you where you work, who you work for?"
"No!" exclaimed Luc, honestly, but not liking where the questioning was going.
"You've never noticed anyone following you? None of the servants in other houses have said anything, anything whatsoever?"
"No. Nothing like that. Nothing at all. What happened?"
Angelus frowned and picked up his whisky again, downing the glass in a swallow and pouring another. "I was attacked. By men who knew who they were attacking, and had at least the basic knowledge of what to attack with." He examined a mark on his hand. "Crosses, stakes, holy water."
"I don't know anything," Luc said. "Believe me. I know no such men."
"Hmm." Angelus regarded him. "They're dead, anyway, and tomorrow the police will find them in small pieces; but I am on the watch."
Luc turned and opened the door, and with the bowl of bloody water left Angelus alone.
In the morning he went out early, having slept badly, his dreams filled with visions of blood and the mocking smile of Angelus; but only ten minutes away from the house he was stopped dead by the dark uniforms of the city police and wooden barriers across a street.
"I'm sorry, monsieur, you'll have to take another route," the policeman said.
"What happened?" asked Luc, thinking with a sickening feeling in his stomach he probably knew the answer.
"We're investigating that, monsieur," the policeman said, politely. "There appears to have been a murder. Now if you'll just move on …"
Luc nodded, and turned away, but not before having seen lying on the ground, separate from a body, a head with its mouth frozen in a scream, a livid cross emblazoned on its cheek. He hurried off.
"I'm going to hold another party," Angelus announced, later that day, having summoned Luc to his study. "On Friday, I think. Like the last, except this time there'll be a sit-down supper rather than a buffet. The same orchestra. Different waiters, if you will, Luc; and you needn't worry about their health."
Luc noted down 'orchestre' in his careful hand on a piece of paper and looked up. "Why?" he asked, before regretting asking it. Angelus seemed to be in one of his friendly, human moods; approachable and normal, but Luc revised the opinion with the calm answer.
"Because I have other people in mind." Angelus smiled. "In any case, it would be foolish to take another of your friends, my dear Luc; they might grow suspicious." He moved some papers. "That's all regarding the party, but I would value your opinion on something quite different. A letter. It's in English, but I'll translate it for you …"
Luc waited.
"It's to the people who sent those attackers last night. By the way, did you see anything of them this morning, when you went out?"
"The police were there."
"And what did you think of my handiwork?"
"It put me off my breakfast," Luc admitted. Angelus smiled his appreciation.
"Good. Excellent. Now, listen to this. 'Sirs; I am writing to express my condolences for the untimely deaths of your team sent to Paris this week. They came to an unnecessary end. If you feel that I am not worthy of a more efficient solution, kindly desist from sending any more of your people. It would be an unfortunate waste of their time, and I am quite sure that the pleasure each time would be all mine. Any other Watchers sent here will meet a similar end to their predecessors. Yours, Angelus, etc. etc.'" Angelus let the letter flutter to his desk and fixed his gaze on Luc. "Well? Be honest."
"Honestly," Luc said, trembling a little that he dared to voice the opinion, "it makes me feel as ill as what I saw this morning." He waited for the reaction.
"Perfect." Angelus slipped the letter inside an envelope, melted some wax, and sealed it with the gold ring he wore before turning it over and addressing it. "Just what I wanted to hear. Sometimes judging the human reaction is so difficult." He passed the envelope to Luc. "Post that when you go out with the invitations. Of course," he added, nonchalantly, "when their breath is being squeezed out of them, the reaction is so predictable."
Before dropping the letter in the post box, Luc glanced at the address in Angelus's bold handwriting. "The Council of Watchers," he read, "Stokeham House, Wimbledon Common, London, England." And as he went on with his pile of invitations, he wondered what the Council of Watchers meant, and what they were.
His thoughts, his fears, his doubts, his worries; all were swept away in the preparations of the next two days. Invitations to everyone who mattered in Paris, waiters to be found, the chef to be persuaded to cook again, flowers and decorations and music. But as before, the night went perfectly. Halfway through the night, when everyone had arrived and nobody was leaving, Luc went outside to catch a breath of air and to chat to some of the other servants, waiting together inside a carriage parked in the courtyard. They seemed pleased to see him, and even more pleased with the wine he brought them.
"Where's he from, your bloke?" one of them asked in a gruff Alsatian accent. "Not been here long, has he?"
"Somewhere in Britain," Luc said, carefully. In actual fact he was not very sure. Simple matters of origins did not seem to be very important.
"He gives good parties and has good wine and that's all I'm bothered about," someone else said, laughing. "It's all the mistress is bothered about too."
"And mademoiselle?" another man said, taking the wine bottle.
"Oh, mademoiselle," the other replied, "is, so her maid reports, completely and utterly in love."
"In love?" said Luc, surprised.
The footman laughed again. "Oh yes. Bits of love letters in the fires when I stoke 'em up. Her maid says she's been sitting for hours at the window staring into space. Got it bad. I reckon most of them are half in love with your whats-is-name …"
"Angelus," Luc said absently.
"Yeah. Whatever. And in any case it gives them something to do, something to think about rather than these murders."
There was an assenting murmur from the others. "Did you see the police around the other day?" someone asked, with a grimace. "Folk said there were three men in bits on the roadway. In bits, mark you."
Luc took the wine bottle and drank deeply.
"I heard that the Rochefort's kitchen maid had been found dead in an alleyway," the footman who had expounded his theory of love said, darkly. "Drained of her blood, or so I heard."
"Jesus Maria!" the Alsatian exclaimed, crossing himself.
"Not a drop in her," the other affirmed. "It's not the work of a man, that. It's something else."
Luc glanced at his watch and muttered an excuse, hurrying back to the house. Behind him, the other servants looked at each other and shrugged, and the talk turned to other subjects.
People began to leave after midnight, leaving invitations to salons, to soirées and the theatre, as they went, and the carriages rolled away. As the last group left Angelus appeared from a room, murmuring something to a handsome woman in her thirties who laughed coyly and accepted her wrap from Luc before leaving with a backwards glance at her host. Angelus smiled.
"Luc, my coat. Quickly, please."
Luc ran and fetched it, and Angelus disappeared out after the departing coach. Luc turned and with the help of the hired waiters began clearing away the debris of the party.
He had paid off the servants and was going around putting out the last of the candles when his master returned, jubilant with the success of the party and full of light good humour. He threw himself down in a chair and grinned cheerfully at Luc with his snuffer.
"Any news from the coachmen, Luc?"
"They spoke of the deaths in the city," Luc said carefully, choosing his words. "They have their own ideas. But I don't believe they connect it with you. I was told most of the women and girls are in love, sir."
"Of course they are." Angelus put his hand in his pocket and drew out a string of pearls, running them through his fingers. "They always are. Here." He tossed the necklace to Luc, who caught it automatically. "Give them to your sweetheart or something."
Luc thought with a shiver that he remembered the handsome lady wearing pearls. "I don't have a girlfriend," he said.
"Well, you should do. A handsome young man like you, my Luc."
"I don't want to put a girl through the pain of losing me," Luc retorted, almost rudely. "What's the point? One day you'll kill me."
"Probably. All the more reason to live a little first. Keep the pearls. I'm going to bed."
Angelus stood up with his easy grace and wandered away, examining a nail as he did so.
Luc spent most of the next afternoon tidying up and running a feather duster around the rooms, but he was interrupted at four by a knock on the door, repeated and urgent. Tucking the duster away, he went to answer it.
The woman waiting behind the door was alone, dressed in a travelling suit of good brown cloth and a smart, but unfashionable, hat. Her face was tired and her eyes shone guardedly out under the hat brim.
"Monsieur Tarpeau?" she said, softly, her voice accented.
"Yes?"
"Is he asleep?" the woman asked. "Is he here?" Before Luc could think of an answer, she stepped inside the house. "I'm from the Council of Watchers in London, monsieur. Do you know what that is?"
"V – vaguely," Luc stammered.
"He must be killed!" the woman said, still softly but urgently. "Let me go now. While he's asleep."
"He'll kill you!" Luc said. "Those men you sent – they died. Three of them. You haven't a chance, madame."
"Mademoiselle," the woman said. "Rebecca Kent. One of those men was my brother, monsieur. I have nothing left in life but the desire to kill this monster."
Luc glanced away towards the stairs. "He'll hear you, mademoiselle. For God's sake go! Please, just go. If he finds you here he'll kill both of us."
"I have to destroy him," Rebecca Kent said desperately. "You understand? I have to destroy him."
"He has to be destroyed, but I don't know who could do it," Luc said, backing her towards the open door. "I can't – I can't let you try, mademoiselle. Not here." There was the creak of a board from upstairs and the Englishwoman whipped out a wooden stake from her bag. "Go!" Luc said. "Please."
Her body sagged, and she allowed herself to be pushed towards the doorway. "All right," she murmured. "Farewell, for now, monsieur. And don't … don't tell him I came."
Les Chroniques Parisiennes – Chronique 4: A Message from England
"Luc!" The voice echoed through the house, and Luc sat up sharply in bed. "Luc!"
He dragged on a robe and, fastening the belt, ran down the stairs. In the hallway, leaning heavily against the door, Angelus glared at him from behind yellow eyes.
"Lock the door and block it with something." Luc hesitated. "Now!"
By the time he had managed to drag a table and upturn it next to the door, his master had returned to a human face; and Luc took in the torn clothes and the bloodstains with a horrible jolt of memory. In a short while somebody will come to destroy him. And he heard his own voice, small and shaken, returning: But what if they fail?
"Hot water and bandages," Angelus ordered, breaking through the memory. "Bring them to my room. And hurry, you idiot."
Luc nodded and ran for the things, adding some iodine to the bundle, and carrying the bowl of water carefully headed up the stairs.
Angelus had reached his room and was slumped in a chair, pale and evidently angry. Wordlessly Luc helped him take off his shirt and began to wash the wounds.
"They've stopped bleeding," he volunteered, rinsing the cloth in the water.
"Good." Angelus flinched. "What was that?"
"Iodine," said Luc, winding bandages around a particularly deep stab wound. Angelus reached for the decanter of whisky standing on a low table near him and poured himself a generous measure. When Luc had finished the bandages he stood up with the bowl. "Is that all?"
"Wait a moment. Put down that water." Angelus met Luc's eyes hard. "Do you speak English, Luc? Have you ever met any Englishmen in those auberges you go to? Any strangers talked to you, asked you where you work, who you work for?"
"No!" exclaimed Luc, honestly, but not liking where the questioning was going.
"You've never noticed anyone following you? None of the servants in other houses have said anything, anything whatsoever?"
"No. Nothing like that. Nothing at all. What happened?"
Angelus frowned and picked up his whisky again, downing the glass in a swallow and pouring another. "I was attacked. By men who knew who they were attacking, and had at least the basic knowledge of what to attack with." He examined a mark on his hand. "Crosses, stakes, holy water."
"I don't know anything," Luc said. "Believe me. I know no such men."
"Hmm." Angelus regarded him. "They're dead, anyway, and tomorrow the police will find them in small pieces; but I am on the watch."
Luc turned and opened the door, and with the bowl of bloody water left Angelus alone.
In the morning he went out early, having slept badly, his dreams filled with visions of blood and the mocking smile of Angelus; but only ten minutes away from the house he was stopped dead by the dark uniforms of the city police and wooden barriers across a street.
"I'm sorry, monsieur, you'll have to take another route," the policeman said.
"What happened?" asked Luc, thinking with a sickening feeling in his stomach he probably knew the answer.
"We're investigating that, monsieur," the policeman said, politely. "There appears to have been a murder. Now if you'll just move on …"
Luc nodded, and turned away, but not before having seen lying on the ground, separate from a body, a head with its mouth frozen in a scream, a livid cross emblazoned on its cheek. He hurried off.
"I'm going to hold another party," Angelus announced, later that day, having summoned Luc to his study. "On Friday, I think. Like the last, except this time there'll be a sit-down supper rather than a buffet. The same orchestra. Different waiters, if you will, Luc; and you needn't worry about their health."
Luc noted down 'orchestre' in his careful hand on a piece of paper and looked up. "Why?" he asked, before regretting asking it. Angelus seemed to be in one of his friendly, human moods; approachable and normal, but Luc revised the opinion with the calm answer.
"Because I have other people in mind." Angelus smiled. "In any case, it would be foolish to take another of your friends, my dear Luc; they might grow suspicious." He moved some papers. "That's all regarding the party, but I would value your opinion on something quite different. A letter. It's in English, but I'll translate it for you …"
Luc waited.
"It's to the people who sent those attackers last night. By the way, did you see anything of them this morning, when you went out?"
"The police were there."
"And what did you think of my handiwork?"
"It put me off my breakfast," Luc admitted. Angelus smiled his appreciation.
"Good. Excellent. Now, listen to this. 'Sirs; I am writing to express my condolences for the untimely deaths of your team sent to Paris this week. They came to an unnecessary end. If you feel that I am not worthy of a more efficient solution, kindly desist from sending any more of your people. It would be an unfortunate waste of their time, and I am quite sure that the pleasure each time would be all mine. Any other Watchers sent here will meet a similar end to their predecessors. Yours, Angelus, etc. etc.'" Angelus let the letter flutter to his desk and fixed his gaze on Luc. "Well? Be honest."
"Honestly," Luc said, trembling a little that he dared to voice the opinion, "it makes me feel as ill as what I saw this morning." He waited for the reaction.
"Perfect." Angelus slipped the letter inside an envelope, melted some wax, and sealed it with the gold ring he wore before turning it over and addressing it. "Just what I wanted to hear. Sometimes judging the human reaction is so difficult." He passed the envelope to Luc. "Post that when you go out with the invitations. Of course," he added, nonchalantly, "when their breath is being squeezed out of them, the reaction is so predictable."
Before dropping the letter in the post box, Luc glanced at the address in Angelus's bold handwriting. "The Council of Watchers," he read, "Stokeham House, Wimbledon Common, London, England." And as he went on with his pile of invitations, he wondered what the Council of Watchers meant, and what they were.
His thoughts, his fears, his doubts, his worries; all were swept away in the preparations of the next two days. Invitations to everyone who mattered in Paris, waiters to be found, the chef to be persuaded to cook again, flowers and decorations and music. But as before, the night went perfectly. Halfway through the night, when everyone had arrived and nobody was leaving, Luc went outside to catch a breath of air and to chat to some of the other servants, waiting together inside a carriage parked in the courtyard. They seemed pleased to see him, and even more pleased with the wine he brought them.
"Where's he from, your bloke?" one of them asked in a gruff Alsatian accent. "Not been here long, has he?"
"Somewhere in Britain," Luc said, carefully. In actual fact he was not very sure. Simple matters of origins did not seem to be very important.
"He gives good parties and has good wine and that's all I'm bothered about," someone else said, laughing. "It's all the mistress is bothered about too."
"And mademoiselle?" another man said, taking the wine bottle.
"Oh, mademoiselle," the other replied, "is, so her maid reports, completely and utterly in love."
"In love?" said Luc, surprised.
The footman laughed again. "Oh yes. Bits of love letters in the fires when I stoke 'em up. Her maid says she's been sitting for hours at the window staring into space. Got it bad. I reckon most of them are half in love with your whats-is-name …"
"Angelus," Luc said absently.
"Yeah. Whatever. And in any case it gives them something to do, something to think about rather than these murders."
There was an assenting murmur from the others. "Did you see the police around the other day?" someone asked, with a grimace. "Folk said there were three men in bits on the roadway. In bits, mark you."
Luc took the wine bottle and drank deeply.
"I heard that the Rochefort's kitchen maid had been found dead in an alleyway," the footman who had expounded his theory of love said, darkly. "Drained of her blood, or so I heard."
"Jesus Maria!" the Alsatian exclaimed, crossing himself.
"Not a drop in her," the other affirmed. "It's not the work of a man, that. It's something else."
Luc glanced at his watch and muttered an excuse, hurrying back to the house. Behind him, the other servants looked at each other and shrugged, and the talk turned to other subjects.
People began to leave after midnight, leaving invitations to salons, to soirées and the theatre, as they went, and the carriages rolled away. As the last group left Angelus appeared from a room, murmuring something to a handsome woman in her thirties who laughed coyly and accepted her wrap from Luc before leaving with a backwards glance at her host. Angelus smiled.
"Luc, my coat. Quickly, please."
Luc ran and fetched it, and Angelus disappeared out after the departing coach. Luc turned and with the help of the hired waiters began clearing away the debris of the party.
He had paid off the servants and was going around putting out the last of the candles when his master returned, jubilant with the success of the party and full of light good humour. He threw himself down in a chair and grinned cheerfully at Luc with his snuffer.
"Any news from the coachmen, Luc?"
"They spoke of the deaths in the city," Luc said carefully, choosing his words. "They have their own ideas. But I don't believe they connect it with you. I was told most of the women and girls are in love, sir."
"Of course they are." Angelus put his hand in his pocket and drew out a string of pearls, running them through his fingers. "They always are. Here." He tossed the necklace to Luc, who caught it automatically. "Give them to your sweetheart or something."
Luc thought with a shiver that he remembered the handsome lady wearing pearls. "I don't have a girlfriend," he said.
"Well, you should do. A handsome young man like you, my Luc."
"I don't want to put a girl through the pain of losing me," Luc retorted, almost rudely. "What's the point? One day you'll kill me."
"Probably. All the more reason to live a little first. Keep the pearls. I'm going to bed."
Angelus stood up with his easy grace and wandered away, examining a nail as he did so.
Luc spent most of the next afternoon tidying up and running a feather duster around the rooms, but he was interrupted at four by a knock on the door, repeated and urgent. Tucking the duster away, he went to answer it.
The woman waiting behind the door was alone, dressed in a travelling suit of good brown cloth and a smart, but unfashionable, hat. Her face was tired and her eyes shone guardedly out under the hat brim.
"Monsieur Tarpeau?" she said, softly, her voice accented.
"Yes?"
"Is he asleep?" the woman asked. "Is he here?" Before Luc could think of an answer, she stepped inside the house. "I'm from the Council of Watchers in London, monsieur. Do you know what that is?"
"V – vaguely," Luc stammered.
"He must be killed!" the woman said, still softly but urgently. "Let me go now. While he's asleep."
"He'll kill you!" Luc said. "Those men you sent – they died. Three of them. You haven't a chance, madame."
"Mademoiselle," the woman said. "Rebecca Kent. One of those men was my brother, monsieur. I have nothing left in life but the desire to kill this monster."
Luc glanced away towards the stairs. "He'll hear you, mademoiselle. For God's sake go! Please, just go. If he finds you here he'll kill both of us."
"I have to destroy him," Rebecca Kent said desperately. "You understand? I have to destroy him."
"He has to be destroyed, but I don't know who could do it," Luc said, backing her towards the open door. "I can't – I can't let you try, mademoiselle. Not here." There was the creak of a board from upstairs and the Englishwoman whipped out a wooden stake from her bag. "Go!" Luc said. "Please."
Her body sagged, and she allowed herself to be pushed towards the doorway. "All right," she murmured. "Farewell, for now, monsieur. And don't … don't tell him I came."