Belle Morte Bites (Belle Morte 4.3)

Vive la Révolution: Part Two

Isabeau smelled the smoke before she saw it.

She moved to the window of the attic, pushing aside the ragged curtains so she could look out over the city.

Two days had passed since she and Jeanne had left Celeste's house together, but they still hadn't made it out of Paris. It was so dangerous, even for vampires, and they couldn't risk drawing any attention to themselves. After leaving Faubourg, they'd been forced to hide from mobs in the street, spending one night huddled in dank back-alleys, and another hiding out in the attic of a ramshackle little house that seemed to have been abandoned. Perhaps the people who'd lived here had fallen to the guillotine.

The plan had been to flee as soon as night fell, and hope that this time they could get out of Paris, but the smoke changed everything.

Jeanne joined her at the window, gripping the wooden sill with both hands as she watched thick clouds of smoke billowing over the rooftops and blotting out the stars.

"Is that . . ."

"It's the Faubourg," Isabeau grimly replied.

Jeanne let out a little cry. "We have to go to them. We have to help them."

Isabeau stared at the smoke, her heart turning to stone and plunging into her stomach. What if it was already too late? Celeste had survived so many years, it seemed ludicrous to think she couldn't survive this too, but . . . vampires weren't indestructible. Then again, just because the Faubourg was burning, didn't mean that Celeste and Renee were still there.

Going there could be dangerous.

But Isabeau had come all the way from Sweden to try and save her friends. If they needed her now, she wouldn't walk away.

"Let's go," she said.

As soon as they'd left the Faubourg the first time, Isabeau had ripped the cockade buckles off her shoes and pinned them to Jeanne's dress, where everyone could see them. Just because she was following the accepted fashion codes of the Revolution didn't mean she was exempt from wearing the national ribbon, and at a time like this they didn't want to give anyone an excuse to notice them.

They made their way to the Faubourg as quickly as they could, and they weren't the only ones. Small groups of men and women hurried in the same direction, decked out in Revolutionary colours, and though some of them had pale faces and haunted eyes, perhaps only joining in out of self-preservation, others were openly gleeful, laughing and cheering as they marched to the destruction of one of Paris's wealthiest districts.

Their voices rose into the air as a roar – "Liberté! Egalité! Fraternité!"

Isabeau couldn't pretend she understood the frustrations and inequalities that had led to this. She had been born into money, and as a human she had never gone without. Things hadn't always been easy since she'd become a vampire, but she couldn't compare her choice to live a simple, rural life to the suffering of thousands and thousands of French peasants. But the constant slaughter that had plagued the city this past year couldn't possibly be the way to achieve change – not when anyone could accuse anyone else with no evidence, not when fair trials were a thing of the past, not when the streets were clogged with blood and the air thick with the stink of death. This was no longer about destroying the unjust class system that saw so many peasants starve to death every year. It was no longer about equality.

They reached the Faubourg, surreptitiously pushing their way through the crowd until they could see what was going on.

"No," Jeanne gasped, clutching Isabeau's hand.