L'Ange de la Mort (The Art of Revolution #1)

Chapter Fifteen - 20. February. 1789



Gabriel

The night is painted with gilt bronze, spilling through the streets of Paris in feather-fine rivulets of firelight. Linkboys mill about, guiding the well-to-dos through the half-melted muck outside the Palais-Royal, lanterns of orange flame held aloft like beacons in the dark. 

Just as it’s been every night for the past few months, the air is frigid and relentless, biting at the exposed skin of Gabriel’s face and forcing itself into the gap on his cloak. He hasn’t been properly warm since October, but he knows it would be unfair of him to say anything about it now while he’s alongside Marie and Maxime. 

Neither of the two make a complaint as they enter the covered shops of the Galerie de Bois, but Gabriel can see the way Marie shakes and the pinpricks of raised flesh on her arms. She walks next to Maxime, so close the two brush hands whenever either of them takes a step. Though Gabriel isn’t sure if the closeness is for warmth or another reason entirely. It’s always impossible to tell with Marie and Maxime. 

“Through here,” Maxime says, ushering them away from the streets and into the shopping arcade. 

The upper class of Paris society still linger outside the shops, chatting with their friends with thick scarves of sable fur wrapped around their necks, but the lower members of the peerage are beginning to trickle in as well. Prostitutes in gowns the color of tropical birds glide through the crowd, beauty patches stuck over open sores. A ventriloquist sits on a step, threadbare coat pulled tight as he makes two porcelain dolls embrace in a passionate dance. The porcelain girl has skin marred with flecks of dirt. The porcelain boy is missing a leg. 

Maxime leads them past shops selling sparkling jewels, furs, and oil paintings, their varnish shining in the muted light. While they walk, Gabriel pulls his hood farther over his face, adjusting the cloth patch concealing his two-toned eye. Though the shopping arcade has its fair share of aristocrats milling about, most are the wives of wealthy merchants who live in the city and not residents of Versailles itself. Nevertheless, Gabriel can’t risk being spotted by someone he knows. 

“This way, your lordship,” Marie hisses. 

Gabriel blinks once, ripping his eyes away from a display of fox fur muffs, the heads of the animals still attached and eyes replaced with rubies. “Sorry. Where is the gambling den?” 

“This way.” Marie indicates to a darkened doorway with a flick of her head.  “As I said before.” 

Nodding, Gabriel walks behind Maxime and Marie to the gambling den, his heartbeat increasing the closer they get to the room. He’s going to end another man’s life. Tonight. Far too soon after his last kill. But Baptiste insisted the kills become more frequent and more public now that murmurs of L’Ange de la Mort can be heard on the streets. Better to instill fear into the court. 

But Gabriel has long since grown tired of being a monster. 

Though it’s too late for anything to be done about it as the three enter the gambling den. The room is thick with pipe smoke, clouds of it crawling down Gabriel’s throat and clinging to his lungs. The light is low, tinged red from the velvet curtains pulled closed over the windows, and golden scrollwork creeps along the walls, the fresco of nymphs and swans on the ceiling tinged yellow from smoke. The air is perfumed with a mixture of melting wax, tobacco, and unwashed bodies. Gabriel takes in a breath to steady his nerves. And immediately coughs. 

“I’ve seen Monsieur de Levis sitting near the back corner of the room every night I’ve been here,” Maxime says. “He should be there tonight as well.”