Redemption Read online

  Woodbury, Minnesota

  Copyright Information

  Redemption © 2012 by Veronique Launier.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any matter whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from Flux, except in the form of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  As the purchaser of this ebook, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. The text may not be otherwise reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, or recorded on any other storage device in any form or by any means.

  Any unauthorized usage of the text without express written permission of the publisher is a violation of the author’s copyright and is illegal and punishable by law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. Cover models used for illustrative purposes only and may not endorse or represent the book’s subject.

  First e-book edition © 2012

  E-book ISBN: 9780738731704

  Book design by Bob Gaul

  Cover art: Woman © iStockphoto.com/Julia Savchenko

  Old Montreal © iStockphoto.com/Denis Jr. Tangney

  Gargoyle © iStockphoto.com/lillisphotography

  Rock face © iStockphoto.com/Dion van Huyssteen

  Cover illustration © Vicki Vebell/The July Group

  Flux is an imprint of Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.

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  Manufactured in the United States of America

  1

  Guillaume

  Humanity wandered by, the way it always had. Tourists, intent on taking in Montreal’s architecture, sometimes gawked at us and took pictures, but no one else really noticed us. From my vantage point, they all were little more than ants, scurrying about their meaningless lives amongst the hustle and bustle of the city. Ants I grew bored of watching.

  They used to interest me, those humans below. I’d not always been apathetic to them. The snippets of conversations I caught as they passed used to pique my curiosity. I wondered about their lives. I even enjoyed piecing together the historical events shaping the landscape below us.

  But when decades passed and all I could do was watch, I cared less and less. The little ants all grew old and died, and were replaced with more ants. A boring, never-ending circle.

  This world was a dull place when you didn’t have a stake in it.

  Below, footsteps echoed on the cement. A girl in a dark coat took the stairs up toward the old stone church, toward our home. She paused and looked back, and as she did, the streetlight illuminated the copper tones of her hair. I ached to crane my neck to see what she was looking at since it wasn’t immediately evident. A late night visit to our church, which was no longer a church, wasn’t a common occurrence; still some were curious enough about the museum’s plans for the old once-majestic stone church. But, these visits were not so rare as to elicit much of my interest.

  Most people didn’t even notice our home. Not since 1926 when construction on the castlelike apartment building next door was completed. So, who could blame me for perking up a slight bit when I could finally see what she had been looking at?

  Three men, sturdy as stone, approached her slowly from the other side of the street. There was something abnormal about their essence. Something unfamiliar to me and I thought I’d seen it all by now.

  “I haven’t felt essence like this in centuries.” Garnier’s voice intruded my thoughts. It unbalanced me momentarily. My companions and I hadn’t bothered to communicate in at least twenty years. There was just nothing to say anymore. Nothing I wanted to say.

  “What is that?”

  “What is happening?”

  My other two companions, the rest of my family, faced the opposite direction and as such, had no line of sight to the drama unfolding at the front of the church.

  Danger surrounded the attackers. It crawled on them with small lightning bolts that electrified the air. It surrounded them and was manifested by them, but it wasn’t part of them.

  A long time ago, I may have wished I could do something to stop the imminent violence; I may have tried, in vain, to scream out for someone to help her. An even longer time ago, I would have put a stop to it myself. Now, I only wondered if they were going to kill her or rape her and then wondered if it made a difference.

  If they killed her, it would cause more of a commotion. There were chances we could listen to more interesting conversations, but who was I kidding? The girl’s murder investigation wouldn’t be worth much note. It wouldn’t evoke any compassion or pity from me. It couldn’t draw emotions from stone.

  And I didn’t plan to feel again. One doesn’t plan for the impossible. I’d been empty for so long, a shell of myself left behind to do nothing but observe.

  No, there was more chance that whatever acts the men below had planned for the poor girl would serve better to awaken my curiosity. Not because I craved violence or obscenities, not in the least, but because it would be different. Different was the only thing I craved.

  She tugged at the doors. Of course, the doors wouldn’t budge. Churches may sometimes be open late, but this wasn’t a church anymore. Bought out by the museum across the street a few years back, it now stood lonely and vacant, waiting for its next purpose.

  She peered back over her shoulder, and I realized, then, that I couldn’t feel her essence. Somehow she kept it hidden within her.

  “Shit!” she said.

  They had closed much of the distance between them and her. Still, they didn’t hurry. I focused on their faces, expecting to witness some form of emotion. But there was none. Blank faces, blank eyes. They were human, I could tell, but different. Maybe it was just the weird way essence flowed around them. Could they be essentialists? Did they control essence? I struggled against my stone restraints. I wanted to lean in and better watch the scene before me. I needed to get down and join the action. And though the others hadn’t said another word, I knew they were also following intently; Garnier, like me, the other two, by tracking the attacker’s essence.

  The girl bolted back toward the street but they cornered her before she had the chance to escape. Though they still gave the impression of calm, their gaits picked up as they approached her. They backed her around the side of the church where Vincent would now be able to get a view. Away from Garnier’s sight. The small yard was only a few feet wide and littered with dead leaves and urban trash. The streetlights did a poor job illuminating the scene and the weak light strained even my superior eyes.

  The girl tripped and fell. I held my breath.

  One of the men laughed and the rest joined in like a pack of demented hyenas. They were close to her. Close enough that the smell should be overwhelming her. She was surrounded.

  They stood over her and I wished I could see them better. I needed to witness the scene below me, but it was to
o hard to make out with the night shadows dancing in harsh strokes around them. My mind absorbed every detail, so I could pore over this scenario again and again when I was back to my boredom.

  She trembled and attempted to push herself away from the ground. Her seemingly frail arms were in fact rather muscular and it appeared she would manage to get up. I felt a small perverse pleasure when she wasn’t fast enough, and a well-placed boot to the upper back knocked her down again. I could imagine the smell of decayed leaves invading her nostrils. The taste of grass and dirt in her mouth. She struggled against him but made no headway.

  Suddenly, I heard a distant sound like drumming. My heart hammered to its tribal beat. She chanted. Under her breath at first, and then louder and louder. It seemed like gibberish, but then I recognized the language. It was the language I learned with her—with Marguerite. The Mohawk language, Kanien’kéha. At the thought of Marguerite, I momentarily forgot everything else and the stone around my heart threatened to crackle, but it wouldn’t. It never did.

  The drumming became louder and louder. My chest, still pounding along with it, seemed as if it would rip open.

  “Who is doing that? Can any of you see anyone playing drums?” Antoine sounded in my head.

  “The sound is familiar … ” When Vincent spoke again it hit me that he sounded so young. Like a child. Were we about to start over?

  I thought of my three companions each watching from their corner. Each stuck in this state because of me, and for the first time, I felt just the tingling of a desire that maybe we could start over someday. I thought of the lives we had already lived. Vincent’s family. Garnier’s pilgrimage and Antoine … well, Antoine just looked out for us. His life has always been for us.

  The ground shook, and brought me back to the present. The girl’s attackers looked between each other. I felt something. A small thread at first, but I recognized the clear feeling immediately. It wasn’t enough yet, but it looked like I would get my wish. I was no longer cheering for the attackers. The girl had to live; she was involved somehow.

  “Our essence is … returning.” I could hear the awe in Antoine’s voice.

  A deep rumble began at the ground where she stood and crawled up the church’s old stones right up to our tower until it consumed me. Some of the stones on the church came loose and fell around her feet. I let out a breath of relief when she remained unscathed.

  Rock crumbled, and we crumbled—or at least our gargoyle forms did. The barrier that had kept us this way for the past seventy years disintegrated. The sweet tingling of our life energy, our essence, flooded back to us—no longer just a thread, this was a river. It felt clearer, fresher than I remembered. Like a rush of clarity.

  Power discharged through the air all around us, crackling like an electrical storm. I couldn’t remember ever having seen essence this wild. From a distance, it looked like lightning, but up close, it was obvious there was something more.

  The miscreants that started this weren’t going to stick around to find out what it was. Their own essence bounced off of them and joined the spectacle manifesting itself over the girl. Somewhere between the rumbling ground, falling stones, and freak lightning, they lost their nerve and ran off in different directions.

  The girl cringed as she picked herself off the ground. Then she turned on the spot and looked around. Stones were not the only things to have fallen from above; several dead pigeons lay all around the scattered debris. Had they been taken out by the crumbling stones or the wild essence lightning? They seemed strangely undamaged. A chill overtook my body.

  I watched the girl run off.

  The essence had returned within me and permeated the air all around us. I couldn’t wait any longer. Scared of missing the opportunity, I grabbed hold of the pool of clarity deep within me. I pulled it out and let it flow through my limbs. First, I worked on it slowly, deliberately, but instinct soon took over and the crisp tingling sensation soon became soft and warm. Pliable, like flesh. Part of my as-of-yet unchanged stone skin crackled as I flexed my arms. I rubbed my hands along them, feeling more and more as the change took shape. First into a flesh version of the stone beast whose form I had been in for the last decades, and then as limbs elongated and my body’s memory took over, I changed into my true form. The one I had been born in, the one that still felt most natural even if it took more energy, more essence to maintain.

  My skin was raw against the night breeze.

  Under the cover of shadow, I used protruding stones and small holes where I could lodge my fingers or toes and climbed down the tower and along the body of the church until I reached the frozen ground. The cold December air made my naked body vulnerable. I needed to cover myself somehow. A small sound behind me brought Garnier to my attention. He was right behind me sporting his famous crooked grin.

  “What are you two doing? This is not our world anymore,” Antoine hissed.

  “So? We will simply make it ours.” Garnier reminded me of a tightly wound spring, just released.

  All around were things I could touch. I stroked the church’s stone wall. Its grainy surface scraped against my fingers.

  I motioned to Garnier to follow me to the spot where the airtight box had been hidden—courtesy of Alice who had done her best to look after us after we became trapped in stone. We pushed past a few bare bushes to a spot where large flat stones covered the ground.

  I remembered watching Alice struggle with the stones. It had been midsummer and she’d had the cover of night as well as that of the leafy bushes, as she toiled for hours to preserve our belongings. We had never seen her again, and Vincent had suffered her absence in silence.

  The moon highlighted the curves of Garnier’s wiry build as he helped me move those same rocks—unchanged by the passage of time.

  The box, which looked like a small casket, did show signs of wear, but was otherwise intact. We broke the thick leather straps that kept it sealed and opened the box.

  I dived in, found my clothing, and held it for a moment, briefly distracted by the feel of it under my fingers. The fiber brushed against my skin as I quickly slid it on, not bothering to properly fasten my suspenders. I didn’t have time to spare.

  I didn’t pause. While I walked away, I grabbed a stale cigarette out of my pocket and lit a match to it—the paper was smooth under my fingers. My hurried strides, rigid at first, became looser with every step.

  “Where are you going?” Vincent asked.

  Vincent and Antoine still remained unchanged, and I was tempted to yell at them to seize the opportunity while they could. But I didn’t have time and they could take care of themselves.

  “I must find her.”

  “Who?” all three of them said at once. Their tones varied from pity, to concern, to alarm.

  “The one who woke us,” I said as I turned the street corner in a half jog. If they wished to continue the conversation, they’d have to follow me. I couldn’t lose her.

  “But why?” Vincent’s voice was deceivingly innocent. None of us were innocent, we’d all seen too much.

  “Are you not curious?”

  “Curious? What is there to be curious about?”

  “The girl, of course.”

  “No, the girl seems inconsequential,” Garnier said.

  I couldn’t afford to lose sight of her. She had piqued my curiosity, not the dull voyeuristic curiosity from the past seventy years—I was actually intrigued. It was not a strong emotion, but I didn’t want a strong emotion, I’d had enough of those, yet this … curiosity … filled the void.

  She was well ahead of me but with my eyesight, this wasn’t a problem—not until she turned onto another street. I scanned the area until I saw the street sign: Peel Street. I looked around me to make sure the street was clear of people before I started sprinting.

  Whenever I saw or heard someone, I kept
to the shadows, sometimes even cutting through alleyways. I finally reached Peel only to see her enter a glass building. We’d seen these new buildings come to life while we were watching from above, yet we couldn’t understand the glass-and-steel monstrosities that slowly dominated our stone panorama. Eventually, we came to accept them as part of our cityscape. And though the people inhabiting these buildings couldn’t hold my interest, the structures themselves did. They were more akin to us, standing still while lives would come and go.

  I touched the building. It seemed cold with its steel and glass. Yet, who was I—a creature who lived as stone for over half a century—to judge it as cold? I shook my head. I didn’t have time for distraction.

  I entered the building and followed the throng of people who lined up to get through a gate. They exchanged currencies for what appeared to be transit tickets. I shuffled through my pockets. I doubted they would accept the light-peach bus ticket I found in there. I jumped over the gate without drawing any attention and made my way through the crowds, looking for the girl.

  If I’d been stronger, I could have shapeshifted into my other form. It would have allowed me to track her, but her scent was unknown to me. It wasn’t the best form to use in an underground transit system anyway.

  An underground train system, to be specific. I stared, wide-eyed. We’d thought we were seeing everything from our perspective but it now appeared that we’d missed an entire other side to our beloved city. I crossed the platform and took in the concrete architecture as I went. I was inclined to abandon my search in favor of these sights. What interest could this insignificant creature hold when I could take in these new structures, these new companions that would remain part of my life for so much longer than the people? But it will still be there when she’s gone. I had to find her while I could.

  From a pass overlooking the boarding platforms, I saw her below.

  2

  Aude

  On the metro station bench, I lean against an advertisement for a new miniseries on Canal Vie. I take deep breaths trying to calm the shaking in my limbs. The circle tile pattern on the floor claims my full attention until I hear the whooshing sound of the subway speeding through the tunnel. I jump up before the blue train screeches to a stop. The doors can’t open fast enough. I push my way through the crowds and find an empty bench, where I plop down, taking up both the too-hard black and white speckled seats.