~ Risen ~
Part 2
Lucia quickened her pace as she reached the streets. She didn't want to speak back to the idle brained, pretend queens, and she could never stand talking to men when she looked her best. It was past midnight but only a few couples were boarding their carriages so she felt it was safe to slip past without being seen. This she had done through most of her trip to Paris.
The streets were relativley empty and the air was dank with the smell of horse mess. Neither bothered Lucia her, main thoughts were of getting home. Paris was alright for the entertainment and pleasure, and the food may have been a little better than it smelled, but none of this could meet her expectations when she constantly compared it to Rome. She took pastrami over caviar and black coffee over champagne.
If circumstances were different she might have felt triumph as well as a knot in her throat. The circumstances were not different and she did have a knot in her throat accompanied with the want for immediate answers. In one night she had done something she had been prepared to do her entire life. She had done away with something evil, something that could toy with the lines of humanity and weave them into something different. Into something that could engulf a soul and spit it into a million flames.
In one night she had killed a vampire, her father's name was cursed, her death had been sworn, and her mother's death had been mentioned. She couldn't feel remorse for the creature. If she did not hate him than she hated what he was. Her pride bended rather than broke, it was nothing unusual to hear bad things of her father. Her life had only been threatened once, as far as she knew, when she had fallen into a canal at seven years old, and even that was fixed very quickly by her father. But hearing of her mother's death was something few and far between.
She heard the french language offering her a ride.
Lucia turned to see the carriage driver at pace with her quick stride. The young man wore the cap of a cab driver and a welcoming smile, neither persuaded her.
She answered in french, "No."
He praddled along, "Oh! But, Madam, it is bad outside, you should catch cold."
"No," her patience was fair except for the strength beneath it, "Thank you."
His insistence continued, "Come in, cover yourself from the cold," He mumbled as is speaking to someone else.
This didn't stop her from hearing, "Scuzi!"
She heard chuckling of another man.
The cabi stopped the horses, "italiano, hey, Jack?"
He did have a friend, and he climbed out of the buggy older than the other, but not by much.
The cabi laughed.
The one called Jack bowed, "Madam, we welcome you."
Lucia smiled welcoming the fight, "With open arms, how gracious."
They nodded and chuckled, "Yes, Madam."
She began to notice the absence of very large houses.
The two started forward slowly, they were used to easier targets, this dissappointed her. She realized that a very richy look probably wasn't the best for this time of night or this part of town. It probably seemed like a well off pick pocket's fantasy. A fragile lady in expensive, thin lace with no hand to hold, or fight for her.
When they grabbed at her in a lung that's when she reacted. She slid between their clumsy actions. Darting under the horses she pulled herself up in between them steadily.
The younger one looked around, "Where did she go?"
She unlatched the horses from the buggy.
"I don't think she was slowed down by glass slippers," Jack contemplated.
He was right. She was wearing boots.
The horses took off without the approval of the two men. Lucia climbed to the one on the left. They smoothed through the streets steady without interuptions. It felt breezeless, seemed endless. As though they could go forever fleeing all thoughts of wickedness, cruel, unjustified pokiness, in speed. In speed the world was like fragments you could be perceptively aware of without being a part of it.
In speed the horses could breathe.
In speed, they danced.
The world behind forgotten.
These horses didn't get to run like this very often, because they didn't stop until she made them. She tied the reins to a light pole and turned to the door of the inn. The inn keep might have looked shocked if she hadn't been asleep. Stephen who had heard her return was coming down the stairs. She marched up the stairs past him, and his grinning face. At twenty-three he was three years her senior and more of a cousin, even without real blood relation, more than anything else.
"How did it go?" his voice was filled with sarcasim even if the question wasn't.
"Great," She opened the door to their room, "Let's go home."
"That bad?" He was serious now, knowing tonight was important to her.
"No, I just rather be home, now," she cut the laces of her dress up the back with a butter knife on the table. She actually thought the dress was beautiful, which was more than she showed outwardly. Circumstances were in the way and she did not like wearing it.
"We could just go early in the morning," his thin frame plopped on the dresser.
"No," She stepped over scattered books on her way to the screen,"No, it's allready morning. Relatively."
"I'm not going to win am I?" She heard him sweeping his books up.
Changed into pants and a loose tunic she let her dark curls extend ot her shoulder blades. She grabbed an apple off the dresser,"Nope."
He was piling his things into a bag, "Well, then, just tell me how it went."
She brushed the apple off. An almanac sat at her feet. She balanced it on her right toe and kicked across the room where Stephen caught it. She stuffed the dress into her duffle bag with the other few things she had brought along, a bible.
"Luce?"
She sighed, "Stephen," she paused with a faint grin,"When you are seducing a woman never get her name wrong, it can upset her. Next, it's very useful to know her last name," her hand was on the doorknob, "And furthermore if you allready have five other wives don't even bother with the sixth."
Stephen said nothing but she knew he was grinning.
Taking the apple back up she bit through it's green skin letting it sweet sour dew over her lip only a little before swallowing, "Are you ready?" she opened the door.
"No."
"I'm down stairs."
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