The Parisian Codex

11 - Finding Robert

The avenue was deserted. The movie theater I passed had long since spat out its last customers. The stole, about to burn out, invited me to turn right again and head down a narrow street. I was now behind the luxury stores, as if backstage. I passed behind the Lido again, but on this street, the facades were anonymous. The stole drew my attention to the left, and the last flame died before my eyes.

I took a few more steps to the end of the street. Now what? I turned left, because that was the last direction my ritual had given me before dying. A street stretched as far as the eye could see, straight and deserted. I took a few steps down the street, slowly. In my hand, the stole was a lifeless piece of cloth. I stuffed it into my coat pocket.

I turned on the spot, trying to find the demon's scent on my own. The rain was making things difficult—water washes away magic like everything else. A doorway deeply embedded in the wall provided me with a precarious shelter, and I tried once more to focus on my senses. Yes, the trace was faint and washed out, but the magic was still recognizable... I left my shelter to walk up the street but immediately lost the trail. In the other direction, perhaps? I found the scent in front of the doorway, but it eluded me three steps further on. The demon hadn't gone north. He hadn't returned south towards the avenue. Had he retraced his steps? It was a good way to cover one's tracks. So good that I had no chance of finding my prey. The last possibility was through the doorway.

The door was wedged between a bakery and a dry cleaner's—both closed at that time of night. It was a double leaf of green-painted wood, three yards high, rounded at the top. A huge lock had once controlled its opening. I could have picked it without too much trouble. Unfortunately, a magnetic system operated by a keypad kept the leaves closed. It would have taken a battering ram to break down that door ... if you were human. Could a good kick do the trick? The operation was likely to be noisy. But by the time the few locals called the police, I'd be long gone.

I positioned myself to strike the door with my heel when a crash startled me. I recognized what passed for music of late, coupled with loud laughter. Probably drunken men coming out of a nightclub. The music stopped, and the laughter died away. I kept my ears pricked for a few seconds longer, then moved into action.

The door resounded like a gong under my kick, but didn't give way. I struck half a dozen more times before hearing an encouraging creak. After that, the wood quickly gave way, and my momentum carried me beyond the door.

I found myself in a dark tunnel. Here the rain had not washed away the demon's scent, and I knew I was back on the right track. A few yards ahead of me, a pale light. The tunnel passed under the second floor of the building and opened onto a courtyard ... no, a new street, hidden between two parallel rows of buildings and lined with bare-branched trees. What Parisians call "cité": small neighborhoods cut off from the rest of the city, hidden from the eyes of passers-by.

Large collective garbage containers were lined up near the tunnel, waiting to be taken out into the street.

Back in the rain, I lost track of the demon again. I walked slowly down the alley, wondering what Zagan could be doing there. All the windows were dark, the neighborhood asleep, and nowhere did I see any trace of demonic activity. I passed the dumpsters for the third time when, driven by frustration, I decided to lift the lid. In the first one, I found what I was looking for.

Robert Leroy lay on a bed of stinking trash bags. I cursed and jumped inside the dumpster to examine the body. I put my fingers on his neck, but I already suspected that his heart was no longer beating. His skin was still warm. His jaw and neck were already stiff. Robert had been dead for several hours.

Robert's hands were badly burned—the reddened, blistered skin sometimes gave way to black patches of charred flesh. Other than that, there were no mortal wounds on his body. I was willing to bet that the demon had simply left him for a receptacle more to his liking. As Robert's soul had been ejected during his possession, there was no one left to animate his carcass. Or so I assumed.

So my demon had taken off in another body. And since my ritual had consumed the embroidery, I had nothing left to follow its trail. Nothing, that is, except Robert's body. Even in the stench of garbage, I could smell the demon's trace on the corpse. Could I use Robert as I used the embroidery? I imagined putting him in the middle of my double circle and following him through the streets of Paris until I found his killer. Where would Robert's body begin its combustion? In any case, a human body should burn longer than cloth.

I considered the dead man at my feet. I needed to notify Nadine Leroy, and that wasn't going to be a pleasant conversation. Especially since I didn't know if I'd have anything left to give to the widow once Robert's body was consumed. I didn't care: I'd be able to track down Zagan, and that was the main thing.

My second thought was for the codex. Was it somewhere in the garbage? I would have to rummage between the bags as soon as I got Robert out of there. I put my arms under his body and lifted him up. I was about to step over the edge of the bin to get out when footsteps echoed under the tunnel's vault. The beam of a flashlight blinded me for a moment, and several voices shouted in chorus: "Police! Freeze!"

Three cops in uniform—two men and a woman—surrounded my garbage can. Two of them had their guns pointed at me. The third spoke up: "Come out with your hands up!"

I looked at Robert's corpse, which was literally on my hands. What options did I have?

I could cooperate with the police, explain everything to them, and spend the next 24 hours in custody. The cells were generally not very open to sunlight, which was rather reassuring. But a vampire can hardly keep himself awake during the day, and if someone tried to wake me up ... things could quickly get out of hand. Cooperating seemed like a bad idea. I mentally apologized to Robert.

The cop was getting impatient. "I said..."

I threw Robert at him.