Chapter Twenty-Seven

“WAKE UP! WAKE up! The boar is here!”

Michel-Leon jerked out of a solid sleep and almost toppled out of his chair, exhausted by his efforts to hunt down the swarm and the creatures that had attacked them in the mists. He glanced around his study, piled with books and notes, trying to locate the danger as the voices howled at him with increasing intensity. He couldn’t think or even hear the state of the household over the din in his mind.

“Quiet!” Michel-Leon snarled, rubbing at his aching temples. Mercifully, the ancestors listened. The house was mostly silent, and the gaslights still gleamed warmly in the hallway. The activity in the workshop had slowed, but a few remained awake and at work. He’d check in upstairs first and see if either Constantin or Régine were awake and then take a peek outside.

He reached for his cane and drew the sword from it before locating the revolver among his papers. As he took the stairs toward the workshop, the house filled with the tinkle of breaking glass from below and above. Michel-Leon spun around on the staircase and rushed down as cries of alarm echoed between the walls.

Dark figures with distorted faces, enlarged eyes and frozen, twisted mouths clambered into the foyer from the broken window. A strange hissing noise came from that gaping maw. Michel-Leon shot at one of the mist monsters and it went down, but others were unlocking the front door to let more in. The thudding and splintering of the kitchen door breaking down warned him that others were coming in the back.

Mahout screamed behind him on the stairs. Her eyes were wide with horror, and her hands were white-knuckled where she gripped her sleeping robe. “Get upstairs. Get your maman,” he ordered. “Find a room and barricade yourselves inside. Don’t come out unless I, Régine, or Constantin say so.”

She rushed away as Michel-Leon took more shots and then paused to reload. He didn’t have enough bullets to take them all down, and they were coming in too fast to pick off. He fell back as they swarmed toward him and held them at bay with his sword. The ones from the kitchen were now in the hallway, and he was trapped between the two forces.

“Michie!” Régine called. “Constantin? Where are you?”

“Downstairs hallway,” Michel-Leon called back, reeling as one came under his guard and caught him in the ribs with a crowbar with a glancing blow as he twisted away. Pain racked his body, but as he fell back, he was fairly certain he had narrowly missed having some ribs broken. The clamor of fighting increased upstairs. Michel-Leon slashed at the one who attacked him and retreated another step back, aiming for the stairs.

“He’s here! He’s here!” Another figure darkened the doorway as the voices shouted in warning. The light in the hallway had broken, and all Michel-Leon could make out was a silhouette.

“Enough,” they commanded in a vaguely familiar voice, a man’s voice.

“The Boar.” The voices hissed in his mind as the creatures attacking Michel-Leon drew back a few steps. The boar was a man, not a creature as Michel-Leon had supposed. He straightened but didn’t lower his sword as the man approached. The noise of battle faded upstairs, and Michel-Leon worried over the other members of his household. He eyed the man as the intruder crouched in the shadows over one of the fallen bodies of its creatures. So this was the one the voices considered to be as dangerous as the mists.

“Did you have to kill them?” he asked in a voice heavy with bitter sorrow, and again the sense of familiarity tickled.

“They invaded my home and sought to harm us. What did you expect me to do?” Michel-Leon asked evenly as the man straightened. “Step into the light so I can see you.”

“You attacked them on the street when they were doing their job. You killed three of my children.” The man stepped forward, his eyes gleaming red in the dark before the stairwell light slanted across his harsh features.

Michel-Leon’s breath caught. Auguste Vautrin.

“You’ve been using blood magic since we last met.” Michel-Leon stared at him, sickened by the evidence of his eyes. Then he studied the creatures surrounding him, who were unnaturally still. The only evidence that they were living was the hiss of their breath through their twisted mouths. “You’ve warped these things, tearing their souls from them to fuel the changes you wanted. How many humans have you altered to do your bidding? How could you damn yourself this way? Vautrin, they were human. You’ve destroyed that.”

“I had to,” Vautrin snapped. “I will never allow the swarm to hatch. Never. These changes make them immune to the mists. They don’t mind.”

“Sweet Saint Jeanne, you ripped their souls from them. There’s nothing left for them to mind. They’re puppets! Not people.” Another thought sickened him further. “Where’s Raul? You didn’t do this to your grandson, did you?”

“Raul has been changed, but his soul is intact.” The response from the ancestors surprised Michel-Leon. They rarely named those they encountered, unless…

“Raul doesn’t understand what I’m trying to accomplish.” An expression of frustrated sorrow crossed Vautrin’s face as he neared. “You cannot understand if you weren’t at Metz when the swarm hatched. He will understand before this is all over.”

Vautrin caressed the back of one of his altered humans as he pushed through their ranks. “Their souls are serving a higher purpose. France will remember each one of them as heroes. The saviors of Paris. They will have accomplished something unlike you! Damn all the chevaliers.”

Vautrin’s expression distorted into rage as his finger stabbed toward Michel-Leon. He raised his sword to hold him at bay and the creatures stirred restlessly, closing in at the implied threat. Vautrin resembled the boar he was named for with his reddened, mad eyes. “Do you know where the swarm is? We can end this. Destroy the nest together.”

“Do you even know how to destroy the nest?” Vautrin paused and searched Michel-Leon’s expression. “If I told you where it was, what would you do next?”

Excitement gripped Michel-Leon. Vautrin did know, and there may be enough sanity left in the man that Michel-Leon could reason with him. “I am looking into that. I have theories—”

“You’ve had months to come up with a plan. Months! Theories?” Rage suffused Vautrin’s features again. “Useless like the rest of the chevaliers who had generations upon generations to solve this plague. I regret having to kill you. You and your sister showed me kindness. But I cannot allow you to get in my way. All the rest of the people you’ve recruited can be made into my children or held in wait in case we need more fuel for my ship.”

Michel-Leon lifted his sword toward Vautrin’s throat. The stairs creaked and then silenced. “The soul sister is near,” the ancestors whispered, and some of Michel-Leon’s anxiety eased. Régine, at least, was alive. The sounds of fighting escalated upstairs, and he was sick with worry about everyone else. He believed Vautrin would make good on his threat.

“You will not harm a single soul in this household,” Michel-Leon warned. Vautrin muttered under his breath, lifting his hand into a claw as a red light coalesced between his fingertips. Michel-Leon tensed to thrust his sword home.

“Don’t kill him!”

Michel-Leon reeled from the echoing roar in his mind. He fought to return to his body as the ancestors yanked him onto the astral plane. For a moment, he glimpsed Vautrin there as well before he clawed his way back to consciousness.

He and Vautrin stared at each other with equally stunned expressions. Michel-Leon’s sword fell from nerveless fingers, and Vautrin’s hand dropped as the creatures milled about in confusion. Régine appeared on the last few steps, her gun trained on Vautrin. He met her gaze and shook his head.

“You’re a chevalier too.” Michel-Leon reached to grab Vautrin’s shoulders, and the man shrank back.

“Non, non. I’m not like you.” He gripped his hair with a cry of distress. “Why won’t they let me kill you?”

Régine eased a step closer, her expression mirroring her shock and envy. Neither the creatures nor Vautrin noticed her approach. They were all caught up in his mental agony. What one shared, they all shared.

“Chevaliers can’t kill each other. You can keep the voices from taking over. Let me teach you,” Michel-Leon offered.

Vautrin must’ve been one of the children left behind and forgotten in Metz, assumed dead in the slaughter. He’d been forced to grow up with no understanding of his heritage, consumed by the chevaliers purpose, with the memories of the horror he’d witnessed to fuel it, and no way to make sense of the voices in his mind. No surprise he had become so twisted. Michel-Leon didn’t know if there was a way to cure him of the taint of blood magic, but he would try.

“Stay away from me,” Vautrin raged, pointing a shaking finger at Michel-Leon as he backed away. “Let me do what I’m destined to do. It’ll all be over soon. Stay away. I will slaughter anyone who comes near me or mine on sight. Even you!”

As Vautrin backed away, so did his creatures, slithering back into the darkness of the broken doorway. “Wait!” Michel-Leon followed as Régine fell into step beside him. “What do you plan on doing with the nest and a ship? Let me help.”

“Do you think this is wise?” Régine muttered under her breath. “We can’t hold them all off if we extend ourselves out here. The ancestors might not be able to stop someone this far gone.”

Vautrin’s eyes glittered with madness. “You want to sacrifice yourself? Steer the ship to the stars? That’s the only way you can help.”

“How did you find the nest?” Michel-Leon asked, stepping closer as the creatures hissed in warning. “I must know.”

Vautrin’s eyes went distant. “You see a swarm hatch once, and you can hear the call of them forever. That’s how I knew they returned. That’s how I found them.”

He whistled sharply, and more commotion erupted overhead. His creatures picked up the bodies of their fallen. Then Vautrin disappeared into the night, his creatures following, leaving the front door listing on its hinges. Michel-Leon and Régine chased them, but they moved eel-like through the shadows and they soon lost them.

“What is going on, Michie?” Régine asked, brushing back the tangle of her hair that had loosened from its braid. For the first time, Michel-Leon noticed her feet were bare and she had on her nightclothes and robe.

“We have some answers only to have more damned questions. We’d better check on your family and our crew in the laboratory.” His blood was cold. “Constantin was up there. I’m sure of it.” Frustrated, he raced back to the townhouse with Régine to check on everyone.

Salome had emerged and was railing over the state of her kitchen. Michel-Leon left Régine to deal with her and raced up the stairs to the top level. The workshop was in chaos, tables overturned, and three bodies were laid out under shrouds. Lyon and Pariseau were setting things to right. Michel-Leon’s heart clutched. Neither survivor was Constantin.

“Are you unhurt?” he asked as he forced himself to head toward the sheet-covered bodies. He couldn’t lose him. Not now. “Weren’t there more of you up here?”

“Those bastards killed Favager, Olivier, and Renaud.” The foreman spat. “Severin is following after them.”

It was all Michel-Leon could do to keep his hand steady as relief swept through him. Constantin may have better luck with his unique ability to blend in with the shadows. “I should’ve foreseen this,” he said softly as he studied the features of the fallen men. “Do they have families?”

“Non, my lord. They were alone in the world.” Lyon exchanged glances with Pariseau. “We were their family.”

Michel-Leon pulled the sheet over their faces again. “I’ll make sure they have a proper burial and aren’t forgotten in a pauper’s grave.” It wasn’t enough, but it would have to do. He desperately wished Janvier was there. He wanted his council. He needed it. Vautrin’s involvement changed so much.

He was going to have to go onto the astral plane for answers. He’d have to go deeper than he’d ever gone before, and the thought scared him. What if he couldn’t pull himself back out? If anybody could reach him, it would be Janvier.

He would have to figure out a way of doing it without him. Michel-Leon rose and began helping the survivors put the house back together again while he waited for Constantin to return.