She pointed her chin at the magazine on the bedside table. On the cover was a rail-thin starlet, her face symmetrical beyond perfection, in an ultratrendy dress highlighting her perfect curves “How about that? Doesn’t it stand to reason that we’d all end up insane trying to meet that kind of physical standard-always having to be young and beautiful? Look at all the money we spend on beauty products and cosmetic surgeries in the hope of slowing time.”
“Yeah. Luckily, both of us already look like models.”
Eva couldn’t help laughing. It rekindled the pain in her neck.
Then Vauvert ran a hand through her hair. She let him. He lifted her dark glasses, exposing her cherry- colored eyes, and looked into them.
She peered back at him, hoping she wasn’t blinking too much.
Her mouth parted.
Vauvert watched these wet lips. He looked back at her eyes. Eva smiled at him.
It was she who leaned forward first.
Their lips touched.
And all of a sudden, it was so obvious.
Those were the masked woman’s very words. She had blamed her for getting in the way, for interrupting her sacrifice.
That wasn’t what had brought her to Paris, though.
If Saint-Clair had wanted to go for her, she could have done it way before. Yet the crazy bitch had stayed in the south. She came to Paris a year later.
Vauvert frowned.
“Eva? You okay?”
“Eloise Lombard,” Eva said, gasping.
Vauvert just looked at her.
“The girl we saved last year at the Salavilles’! Are you still in contact with her?”
“Not really, no. I talked to her father on the phone a couple of times last year. The kid was having some sort of breakdown. She thought she was being watched night and day. I just hoped it would pass.”
“That’s what we all thought. And we were dead wrong, all of us.”
They stared at each other.
Vauvert finally understood what she was getting at.
“Her father told me they would move eventually if the kid didn’t get any better. But I never checked to see if they did. Wait.”
He took out his phone and called Damien Mira’s number in Toulouse.
It took less than two minutes for his colleague to confirm that the Lombard family had moved. And one more minute to find out that they had settled in Paris just three months earlier.
84
As black clouds gathered above the Seine River, and night began to fall on the city, Eloise kept her senses alert to her surroundings.
She had been living in Paris for three months now, and walking down this street had become part of her normal routine. She had hoped that the anxiety would leave her. But it hadn’t.
She tightened the collar of her jacket, while her two friends chattered about the day at school.
“Okay, are you guys ready then?” asked Miriam, a short brunette whose breasts strained against her tight cream-colored sweater. “I can take care of the screenplay if you want.”
She was talking about the project that their teacher, Lucas Bringer, had given them. They had three months to make a short film. It would be their main assignment for the first semester.
“Scare me,” Bringer had told the class. “That’s what I want you to do. You’ll work in groups of three.” The announcement had triggered a wave of excitement in the lecture hall. They all loved horror movies, and they couldn’t wait to get started. They immediately started conferring with one another, looking for partners and tossing out ideas.
Eloise was the only one who did not show any special enthusiasm.
She agreed to team with Miriam and Charlotte simply because they were the only two people she had talked to since the beginning of the school year. She did not know much about them, and they knew nothing about her. It was all her fault. So far, she had not opened up to anyone. She did not feel ready for it yet.
“We could do a vampire story,” Miriam suggested as she lit a cigarette. “What do you think? A boy who wants to kill a girl while she’s sleeping, but then he falls in love with her? Something real hot, like
“Actually, what you really want to do is find a cute boy to play the vampire so you can get laid, don’t you?” Charlotte snickered.
“So what, you never know, right? Jeremy, for instance, he’d be a hot vampire. You know, the guy with the dreads in art history class. I heard he plays in a metal band.”
“Oh, so he’s into satanism,” Charlotte chuckled.
“And you’re such a jealous bitch. I am the one he’s secretly been eyeing in class.”
“In your dreams.”
“It’s true!” Miriam insisted. “Every time I take a look at him, he’s looking at me!”
Charlotte laughed even harder.
“Jeremy is fucking hot, all right. I’ll give you that. But I’m sure you’ll find yourself other occasions to get laid. I say we make a movie with a serial killer, what do you think?”
“What? Like a slasher flick? It’s been done to death.”
“But it always works. And you should know, Miss Vampire Banger, that the serial killer is nothing but a modern vampire without all the cheesy romance.”
Miriam burst into laughter.
“And I think you’re spending too much time in Professor Dormesson’s class. A bit less intellectualism and a bit more sensuality wouldn’t hurt you, you know. I like romance, as long as there’s sex in it, of course.”
Charlotte sighed.
They both stopped talking and glanced at Eloise, who still had not said a word.
“So what about you? What do you want to do?” Charlotte asked.
“You’re cute. You can play the lead if you want to,” Miriam said. Then, suddenly inspired, she added, “I know! You can play the victim!”
Eloise stared at both girls.
“No, I can’t do that.”
“Of course you can,” Miriam said. “Look, it’s only homework.”
Charlotte stepped toward her and caressed her neck. “Be my victim,” she whispered in a suggestive voice.
“No!” Eloise cried, backing away.
“Okay, fine,” Charlotte said. “Sorry. I was only kidding.”
“I know,” Eloise said, breathing heavily. “I know, but…”
Unable to finish her sentence, she turned on her heels and hurried away from the girls, joining the flow of pedestrians.
“Jeez!” Miriam spat out. “Why do I have the feeling that we’re going to end up doing this assignment without her?”
“What did I do to her?” Charlotte wanted to know.
“Nothing at all, don’t worry. That chick, she’s just weird.”
