15 minutes earlier
So there I was, sitting--and staying, I might add--in the car, like the good girl I was trying to be. I had brought along a guidebook about France that I'd bought on a whim a couple of years ago, when I'd had dreams of going to Europe. Somehow, I hadn't imagined it would finally be under these circumstances. So I was taking the time to read about Versailles, and the huge palace whose gardens I'd only glimpsed through the mist. The palace had seven hundred rooms. Wow. I wondered what the rent would be on a place like that in LA. The driver, a portly Frenchmen named Guy, had slid open the glass partition and pointed out the mini bar and snack options available in the back seat, and made polite accented conversation with me while we waited. He didn't seem worried at all, of course. I, on the other hand, was about to go nuts wondering what was going on with Mick and the others.
I happened to glance up from my book just when someone knocked on the window. Hard. I peered through the tinted windows, couldn't see, so switched off the overhead light. I never thought I would see her again. Coraline. She looked as shocked as I was.
"Beth! Please, let me in! A crazy woman is chasing me!" You've got to be kidding me. Pots and kettles came to mind.
"Well why don't you go in the house?" I asked, pleased with my apparent calm, when my heart was pounding with fright.
"Lance will kill me in there. I'm not supposed to be out. Please! Look, Beth, I'm not a vampire right now. I won't hurt you, I swear."
"You want for me to make her leave?" asked Guy.
"No. It's okay." And I unlocked the door. Well, in hindsight, not exactly my smartest moment. Coraline opened the door and climbed in to sit across from me, dripping wet. She eyed the gun I held in my lap.
"Thanks." She ducked down on the seat. "She's coming, I know it," she whispered.
"Who?" Of course, it must be Carrie.
"I don't know," she said. "Just let me hide here a minute."
"Coraline, why should I protect you, after all the horrible things you've done to me? Not to mention, to Mick." I also mentally added Daryl.
"I've changed, Beth. Being human again changes your mind as well as your body. I have many regrets."
"I regret you didn't die when I stabbed you," I said, anger suddenly overwhelming my fear. I looked out the window, hoping for a glimpse of Carrie, or the guys. If I could keep Coraline here long enough…
"Mick has come for the cure," I lied. "So I'll let you stay until your mystery stalker passes by."
"Thank you." We were both silent a minute. What could we possibly say to one another?
"You know, Beth, we were good friends once."
"Was this before or after you kidnapped me to give Mick a new vampire child?"
"Can't we just get past that now? You're not a child anymore."
"Yeah, well thanks to Mick, I got the chance to grow up. It really must burn you—oops, poor choice of words—that he and I are together now. I'm not normally a big fan of irony, but you gotta admit, this turn of events defines the term." I don't know why, but it gave me great pleasure to see that her mascara was running from the rain, giving her raccoon eyes. But it was even more pleasurable to have this chance to taunt her. Again, hindsight would show that that hadn't been the best idea.
"Mademoiselle," came Guy again from the front seat, "would you like me to get Monsieur Kostan?"
"That won't be necessary," replied Coraline, sitting up.
I watched in a daze as she turned around in her seat, and reached in through the partition with both hands. I heard the sickening crack as she broke Guy's neck.
"I thought you said you were human again," I stammered. I guess in my shock, I'd forgotten about the gun completely.
"I lied," she growled, teeth extended, eyes silver. And then I knew no more.
I smelled inside the limo, looked around it, then off into the distance. No physical sign of her, but I could still smell Beth, her sweetness mixed with the lingering scent of her fear. There was another fragrance too, one that I wanted to forget, one that made me sick smelling it in the same inhalation alongside Beth. Coraline. Vampire Coraline.
"The driver's neck is broken," reported Daryl.
"Coraline," Josef said, obviously having scented her himself.
"Yeah," I concurred. The gun I'd left Beth was on the floor. I knew by the smell that it hadn't been fired. We all got into the limo, then realized we wouldn't be going anywhere at this rate.
"Well, someone's gotta drive," Josef said, smirking a little at our paralysis.
"We should go on foot, the better to track them," I suggested. Although the rain wouldn't make things easy.
"But Mick, I just got this suit back from my tailors."
"Well, then you drive, Josef. Daryl and I will track them and call you when we find them. Make up your mind; we're wasting time, here." I know I was sounding half-crazed. I suppose I was.
"Fine. But you owe me an Armani."
"Run the tab, Josef."
We all pulled the collars up on our jackets, and began tracking as the rain continued to pour. We'd all gotten a big whif of both women inside the limo; now it was like a tag team. I immediately picked up the scent, then lost it. Then Daryl picked it up, lost it, and Josef took over. I'm pretty sure it looked funny to any passersby, as we appeared to be looking for something on the ground, stopping once in awhile to sniff the air, like the human-shaped bloodhounds that we were. The trail sometimes went dead, and mostly, we could only smell Coraline. Decay was easier to smell than a living human, unless said human was bleeding. I was grateful I at least smelled no blood.
Suddenly, Daryl picked up on another scent. "Carrie," he said triumphantly. He had stopped under the wooden canopy of a gazebo, where the rain hadn't washed away her trail. "She sat here," he said excitedly, "taking shelter from the rain, I bet. Carrie hates the rain." We joined him there. There was a straight line of sight from the gazebo to Coraline's family home. Carrie must have sat there, waiting, watching. I looked at Daryl, finally seeing the strain beginning to take its toll. I knew what it was like to feel so helpless. As a matter of fact, I was feeling it right at that moment myself.
"Hey," I said softly to Daryl. "We need to keep moving before their scents disappear."
He looked at me a minute, then nodded once, and we were off again. Twenty minutes later, we realized we were in a large garden. Although it was the middle of the day, the rainclouds made it dark as evening, so the gardens of Versailles Palace were nearly empty of tourists. Looming out of the mist was the collasal palace, u-shaped, opulent, imposing. Louis XVI, the Sun King, had lived there, along with other Louis before him. The gardens themselves were a work of art, acres of beautiful hedges, topiary, flowers, paths, and fountains. We'd tracked Carrie and Coraline here, and my guess was that their trail would lead directly into the palace. The palace was empty of royalty. Now, it was a museum and showplace, open to the public.
I noticed Josef was staring at the palace with a look of fond remembrance.
"You've been here before?" I asked him.
"Once or twice. In the late 1700's. That Marie, she sure knew her way around a boudouir."
"You don't mean…." I began.
"I'm telling you, Mick, when she said 'let them eat cake,' that's not what she really meant."
"Let's go in," said Daryl, his momentary excitement at Carrie's scent making way for some good old-fashioned determination. We walked on into the courtyard, then through the doors where a few tourists had wandered in out of the rain. Josef had the Euros, so he paid our way in. It was even more difficult to track two vampires and a human through a room of other wet humans, and we were forced to conclude that either they hadn't come this way, or we just had reached a dead end.
We spent a few valuable minutes going from room to room, and despite our mission, and my intense fear, I couldn't help be in awe of the ornately carved moldings encased in gold, the beautifully painted ceiling murals, and the breathtaking Hall of Mirrors. I was glad the old myth about vampires and mirrors wasn't true. Then again, when I caught sight of the three of us, bedraggled and dripping, I kinda wished I hadn't had to see that.
We were all highly frustrated, especially given the sheer size of the place. If we had to search every room, it would take hours. Josef, aka. Mr. Impatience, had had about enough, and pulled us aside.
"This gives new meaning to the word insanity. Are you guys smelling anything? Cause I'm sure as hell not. I've got a better idea. If things haven't changed that much in all these years, I may know where they could be."
I gestured for him to lead the way. We had passed Marie Antoinette's rooms earlier, and Josef led us back there. This was perhaps the most popular part of the palace, so, despite the bad weather, there was still a crowd gathered there to gawk at the massive canopy bed and make comments in several different languages.
"We need a diversion," Josef said, his voice dropping to vampire levels so that only we could hear.
"One diversion coming up," said Daryl, who moved out of the room. About two seconds later, the fire alarm went off. The tourists in the room looked at each other, began speculating on whether the alarm was for a real emergency, then reluctantly filed out of the room. Daryl swam back through the tide of exiting patrons and joined us back in the queen's bedroom.
Looking around first, Josef went over to the bed, and began gently tapping a nearby wall, starting at about waist level and working up along an invisible vertical line. Suddenly, we heard a small click, and a portion of the wall swung gently back. A secret door. It had been completely hidden by the molding and the pattern of the wallpaper. Josef grinned broadly.
"Nice," I commented. "Where does this lead?"
"Outside the palace via several passageways. This is how Marie escaped the angry mob that came to kill her. It's also how I uh, got to know her better."
"We'd better get in there before they realize there's no fire," Daryl said anxiously. We silently agreed and went into the passage, Josef pulling the door behind us until it clicked shut again. It was pitch black, but lucky for us, we had vampire vision. Our vampire smelling kicked in, but we could smell nothing but mustiness and spider webs.
"Now what?" I asked.
"We walk," said Josef. "If they're in the palace, I bet they came in this way. Especially if Coraline had a prisoner with her."
"And I bet Carrie is not far behind," commented Daryl.
Beth. I'd been so busy focusing on what we were doing, that I hadn't allowed myself to dwell on how much danger she could be in. Beth wasn't exactly Coraline's favorite person, for a number of reasons. I wouldn't put it past her to get rid of the competition. Coraline had said she wanted to be human for me, despite the fact that I already had a human in my life.
The passage seemed to be leading down, and we'd been walking a few minutes when we were all assailed with the strong odor of decay. Vampire decay. Instinctively, we all backed up until we couldn't smell it anymore. If we could smell them, they might be smelling us too.
"So they're close," said Daryl. "There's no way we're sneaking up on them. We just have to be prepared, I guess." We began taking weapons out of pockets. We had no idea what we were walking into, but that couldn't be helped. As we continued on, the smell got stronger, and we could hear voices ahead. And, faintly, I could hear the sound of one, gentle heartbeat.