Just accept that things are different WHO Élisabeth Vincent WHAT Death, resurrection, damnation WHERE Paris WHEN January 19-24, 1944 RATING R (swearing, violence, implied sexual assault)
Élisabeth glanced at her watch and sighed. The meeting was scheduled to start at nine, but it was already half-past eight, and she was still at the library. The cold weather had meant a temporary expansion in operating hours, as well as an influx of new patrons looking for someplace warm to spend their time. That had meant more books pulled from shelves, left scattered around or incorrectly reshelved after the library had finally shuttered its doors at seven.
Normally, Élisabeth would have left at five, returned home for a light meal and a glass of wine, before slowly making her way to the meeting by way of her favorite café. It was a tricky endeavor, and one she didn’t embark on all too often simply for the sake of her comrades in La Résistance. Because of her association with Sturmbannfuhrer Varner, she was known to a number of other German officers in the city, and though Paris was big, it wasn’t so big that she wouldn’t cross their paths. Twice before she’d had to abandon a meeting to avoid suspicion.
She would have simply done the same tonight, except that René had been insistent: tonight was critical for what was to come. In the manner they’d arranged, he had come to library that morning to return a copy of Mourning Becomes Electra with a note tucked into it to meet him at the History shelves. As casually as possible, Élisabeth had obliged, excusing herself from the circulation desk.
“Sur le toit,” René had muttered from one side of the shelves, pretending to browse.
“Dois-je?” Élisabeth had asked under her breath, reshelving a few errant books on the other side.
“Celui-ci est critique,” he’d told her, and she knew from the tone of his voice that he meant it. There had been whispers and muted discussions about what they could expect over the next six months; it didn’t take her long to figure out that this was likely the staging meeting that would dictate whether Paris would be free, or continue live under a Nazi boot.
“Ça va,” Élisabeth answered softly, and returned just as casually to the circulation desk.
A few minutes later, she had watched René leave, his collar turned up against the cold as he stepped outside and headed off. Beside her, Margot - one of the volunteers - clicked her tongue, shaking her head as she dealt with the last patron in line.
“Vous devriez juste baiser déjà,” she told Élisabeth once the patrons were out of earshot.
“Ce n'est pas comme ça,” Élisabeth huffed dismissively, straightening up the desk. Margot simply made a knowing sound and went back to her work.
The rest of the day had seemed slow and uneventful, although as she finally finished shelving the last books, she wondered if it had only seemed that way when compared to her anxiety about the evening’s meeting. She glanced at her watch again - almost ten to nine. It would be risky, but she could still make the meeting if she walked fast.
With the library locked up behind her, she wound her way through the streets as fast as she could without appearing too conspicuous, often doubling back, or slipping into alleys to cut across the blocks. When she was certain that no one had been following her, she slipped into the jazz club that had been chosen for the meeting’s location, Sur le Toit. She didn’t much care for jazz, but it made for good cover as she made her way to the bar, ordering a glass of wine.
Her time on Varner’s arm had made her well practiced at appearing like she was enjoying herself when her stomach was tied in knots, and her heart seemed to be racing. The wine certainly helped to calm her nerves, although she still noticed a slight tremble to her hands, which she masked by tapping along to the beat on her table. Once she’d been there long enough to seem innocuous in the back of the room, she finished her wine and headed toward the powder room, diverting through the door that accessed the cellar at the last second, vanishing from sight.
The staircase was dark and damp, the smell of mildewing earth seeping in as she descended into the cellar beneath the building. There were small storage spaces that the club used on either side, and at the end of a short corridor, her destination. The door was shut, and when she pressed her ear against it for a moment, she couldn’t hear anything; then again, the stone walls were very thick, and the cell wasn’t about to go shouting their existence for anyone to hear above them. With a few short knocks, she announced her presence, waiting for the two members guarding the door to let her in.
The heavy wood door swung open with an eerie creak that gave her gooseflesh as she stepped inside, and in a blur was immediately forced to her knees by two sets of powerful hands on her shoulders.
“Je suis Élisabeth!” she exclaimed, thinking for a moment that her tardiness had caused her to be suspect by those already in the room. But as she looked around the room, searching for a familiar face to vouch for her, her breathing stopped, her stomach dropping at the sight. Her friends, her comrades, all of them - dead before her, sprawled out in pools of blood, looks of horror and fear frozen on their faces. And there, at the front of the room was Sturmbannfuhrer Hans Varner, his pistol drawn and held to René’s temple. The sight of him still alive brought her some small relief, her breath returning.
“Hans -” she started, only to be slapped across the face by one of the soldiers forcing her down.
“Halt den Mund, Hure,” Varner growled, cocking the gun. René remained impassive.
“Ne le laisse pas gagner, Lisette,” René told her calmly. “Même ma vie n'en vaut pas la peine.”
Élisabeth couldn’t help but let out a sob. They both had known the cost of actively working against their occupiers. But victory had seemed so close, so assured, they had managed to convince themselves that they would make it through. And now here they were, about to be executed alongside their comrades, just two more entries in the long list of casualties of war who would never be heard from again.
“Do you want to know who gave you up?” Varner asked, switching to English so that his soldiers wouldn’t know what he was saying. After all, it wouldn’t do to pour out his heart to a traitor in front of them, not if he wanted to maintain his command.
“It was your friend from the library,” he continued. “Margot. She couldn’t wait to tell me all about your secret meetings with him.” He punctuated the word by kicking René hard in the side, then sighed a little as René doubled over in pain.
“Please,” Élisabeth begged quietly. “Let him go. I’m the one who hurt you.”
“Yes you are!” Varner nearly laughed at the words, before his eyes went cold, fury starting to build in his chest. “I was nothing but kind to you - showered you with gifts, gave you my heart. And this is how you repay me for my love?” He kicked René again, even harder.
“I had wondered,” he admitted, “why you finally began to accept my invitations. After all, you wanted nothing to do with me at first. But then I thought, ‘Hans, you have won her! She could not resist forever!’ That’s not what happened, is it?”
“No,” she answered softly, her head hanging low, tears running down her cheeks. Varner closed the distance between them in an instant, leaving René to another guard. His hand roughly gripped her chin, forcing her face up to meet his.
“I really, truly loved you,” he murmured, his eyes soft for a moment, before his anger hardened them again. “Did you ever love me?”
Something about his question sparked something in Élisabeth. Her tears stopped, her face twisting into a cold, satisfied smile.
“No,” she told him defiantly.
Varner snapped, both of his hands wrapping around her throat with a snarl. He pushed her to the floor, out of the grip of the two soldiers, straddling her body to pin her down as his grip grew tighter and tighter. Élisabeth tried to fight back, but she was helpless under his attack.
“Enlevez vos mains d'elle!” René shouted, earning him a pistol whipping from the nearby guard.
“Maybe I should you fuck you in front of your boyfriend,” Varner growled in a low voice into her ear. “For old time’s sake.”
Élisabeth’s air supply was rapidly dwindling, and all she could do was try to make an awkward squawking sound in protest as her vision began to tunnel, her strength growing weaker and weaker until everything went black.
***
The light seemed so bright as Élisabeth opened her eyes, holding her hand up to shade them. Every inch of her ached, her muscles stiff as though she’d just finished a rigorous ballet lesson from her youth. As her eyes adjusted to the light, she looked around and realized she wasn’t in her own flat, nor was she in Varner’s, or even René’s. Wherever she was, it belonged to someone well off; the furnishings were lush, and the lamp on the bedside table - the source of the offensively bright light - was ornate and gilded, and seemingly very old.
Slowly, she moved to slip out of the bed, trying to remember how she had arrived there in the first place. Her mind felt as though it was in a fog, wisps of images teasing her through the haze. Had she gone to a club last night? She could hear jazz music, playing so loudly it made her head hurt, for a moment she had to clamp her hands down over her ears. Then it faded away, as quickly as it had come, leaving her lost once again.
Her feet were bare when she they touched the luxuriously carpet floor, her toes sinking into the plush weave. She had been so certain that she had been wearing shoes before, stockings and a skirt… she had been at the library. And then…
She could hear voices - in the next room, the corridor? - arguing in muffled tones through the walls. One she recognized instantly, and it sent a shiver down her spine: Varner. The other was somehow familiar, but she couldn’t place it; low in pitch, but distinctly feminine, with a halting authority behind it as it spoke German in clipped tones. They seemed to be arguing by the volume and ferocity driving the conversation, but try as she might Élisabeth couldn’t make out any distinct words.
Perched on the edge of the bed, she listened until the voices seemed to come to some sort of settlement - if not an agreement - and footsteps started to make their way down the hall; she guessed it was Varner from the heavy, rapid steps. Sure enough, the door to her room swung open to reveal the German officer.
“Ah, du bist endlich wach!” he cheered with a small clap, stepping into the room.
“Wo bin ich?” Élisabeth asked, her voice little more than a hoarse whisper, her throat burning with the effort of speaking.
“Nicht wichtig,” Varner told her dismissively, closing the door behind him. “Wichtig ist, dass Sie Ihren Platz jetzt verstehen.”
“Mein Platz?”
A smile curled Varner’s lips, cruel delight in his eyes as he stood before her and roughly grabbed her by the arm, pulling her from the bed to force her down in front of the nearby vanity. She stared, unblinking, at her reflection; her skin had become even paler, a gray tinge hiding just below the surface. There was no trace of bruising along her neck, which seemed odd given that she had a fleeting memory of Varner strangling her - but then, maybe it had been a dream.
“Schau, wie schön du jetzt bist,” Varner murmured, leaning in close.
It was then that Élisabeth realized he smelled… delicious, and watched in horror as she transformed at the thought. Her eyes sank into her face, the skin around them darkening as if a shadow had fallen over them. She gasped, revealing long, sharp canines, much to Varner’s excitement; he even began to laugh as she pressed her fingers to her throat, searching for a pulse to no avail.
“Was hast du mir gemacht?” she sobbed, transfixed on the terrible sight.
“Ein Greuel,” Varner told her. “Es ist das einzige Schicksal, dass einer verräterischen Hündin wie dir passt.”
“Aber wie…?” Élisabeth struggled to remember what had happened. The meeting, her late arrival… the corpses of her comrades, laid out around her. And René…
“Was haben Sie mit René gemacht?” she demanded. Varner shook his head, feigning sorrow as he clucked his tongue mournfully.
“Ah, meine Liebe, die Frage ist: Was haben Sie mit René gemacht? Du warst so hungrig, hast wenn du aufwachst. Der arme René hatte nie eine Chance.”
He pulled up the sleeves of the dressing gown she was wearing, revealing smears of dried blood. Élisabeth wasn’t sure if she wanted to retch or try to lap them up, which only made her feel sicker. She tried to shove Varner away, although found her strength lacking, as if that too had been drained away along with the blood that had once coursed through her veins. He simply chuckled, tut-tutting as he gripped her wrists and wrenched her back to the bed, shoving her back onto it.
“Siehst du dis?” he asked her, producing a small syringe. “Dies ist eine Tinktur von Vervain. Es hält mich von der Kontrolle deiner Art frei. Aber für dich...”
He lunged forward, pinning her against the bed as he carefully plunged the needle into her neck, delivering a small dosage before he quickly withdrew as she began to writhe and scream in pain.
“Für dich ist das die Kontrolle.”
Smiling as he watched her suffer, he delicately undid the buttons of his uniform jacket, shrugging it from his shoulders and carefully laying it over the back of the nearby chair. He rolled up the sleeves of his dress shirt, undoing the collar before he lowered himself over Élisabeth, the pain seemingly subsiding from her body but leaving her even weaker than before. Gently, he caressed her cheek, then began to pull up the hem of her dressing gown.
“Niemals vergessen: Du gehörst jetzt zu mir, Liesel,” he growled in her ear as she weakly tried to fight him off, panic rising in her chest as she began to remember the day - or was it days? - before, when she had been pinned beneath him on the cold cellar floor. She never would thought being strangled to death a blessing, but it had seemed more pleasant that being conscious for what he had planned.
This time, she feared, she would have no such reprieve. He had made her a creature cursed to remain somehow living after death, and crippled any such power she might have been endowed with as a result. Hers was a damned existence, he had seen to that. Now she could only hope that he might slip and inject her with enough vervain that it might kill her.
It was the only thought she could hold onto to sustain her as she felt him move against her. That, and the hope that one day, she might finally break free of his control and rip his throat out.