Chapter 2
PART I
"The Sanguinaire are often seen as weak, for they cannot thrive on their own, needing constant supplies of blood. Both from the Regulars - to boost their failing immune system - as from Shifters, to harness the surrounding energies. Sanguinaire magic is at its best when they work together with Shifters, in complete community. Chaos Magic profits from complete communion, and its effects are all the more successful when Shifter and Sanguinaire coalesce intimately."
Darren J. Whitford in Principles of Nonpareil Alchemy, ed. Cours St. Cyr, 199
August 25th, 2018
Collège de St. Cyr
Outer grounds
Moon in Aquarius - Waxing Gibbous
I drive my car through the open gates, up the long lane. The château stretches before me, still too far. On my right, vineyards sprawl, their branches lumbered with fat grapes ready for the pick. The same sight greets me on the left. The September sky is blue, dotted with a few sparse, white clouds. School starts in a week.
Gently, I let the engine hum uphill, taking in the sight of the massive building. It houses the university in all its seven wings, which sprawl from a central one. Eight halls, every one named after constellations. It makes a beautiful picture, its early renaissance architecture cut against the background of sky and dark woods beyond. Ah, those woods. They've seen more than there's time to tell, haven't they? This place is as familiar to me as a second home. This is my third year teaching. But before that, I was a student here, for four years of my life. Pegasus Hall, back then, Serpens now. I was at Corvus last semester, but was made head of Serpens last July. The rest of the teachers seem to think the students will connect more to me than to my colleagues. Because I'm not a stuffy old fart like most of them. Not my words, mind you.
Turning left, I lead the car towards the woods. This may sound strange, but bear with me, there's an old barn that serves as garage for the staff. At the moment, it's close to empty, but soon will be packed full with all sorts of vehicles. Now, there's only Jean Marchand's Prius, Larry Bentley's Ford Fiesta, the Headmaster's Citroën and the array of bicycles staff and students use freely. I park my Peugeot in its usual spot, jump out, stretch my back. These Summer holidays fell short, I ended up in Paris with little to no memory of what I was doing there. Or why I went, in the first place. My goal was to head home - but it's not as if I have one, is it? I'd planned to visit my mentor in the UK, but somehow ended up in Paris, hitting Pigalle every single night, living it off like I was twenty again. Well, I'm not, I'm close to forty, and should remember this more often. I think my liver would thank me for it.
Hoisting my luggage from the trunk, I set out for the château. The glare momentarily blinds me, but I could walk these alleys with my eyes closed, I know this place like the palm of my hands. Who was it that spoke of the curse of familiarity? I can't remember. But I really don't need my eyesight to travel the route from the garage to the front door of St. Cyr, we used to come in here for a smoke or two, back in the day. Good lord, has it been that long?
I was eighteen the first time I set foot in St. Cyr. I'm thirty-seven now. Where did time go? What have I done with it? Nearly twenty years gone by, and what have I to show for it? Well, most would say a lot, I did land myself one fine job, didn't I? But it's not what I wanted to do, that's for sure. When I left St. Cyr at the age of twenty-two I hoped never to see this place again. Yes, I did learn impressive things, here. I did very well in my academic life, here. But my goal was always Notre Dame, at the Sorbonne. Not the Sorbonne of the Regulars, no. Our Sorbonne. The hidden, secretive lair where magic and true alchemy are researched and studied. Where the obscure writings of men and women normal human beings think are like them, undergo extensive analysis and investigation.
I left these halls carrying a recommendation letter from my mentor, Professor Darren Whitford - who often declined the invites to lead research and investigation departments at Notre Dame (Nonpareil equivalent of the Sorbonne, actually inside the Sorbonne), Oxford, Cambridge, only so he could form the bright young minds of Nonpareils from the onset. With that letter and my grades, I was offered a scholarship so I could work on a thesis and join the research department at Notre Dame. And there I was, not much different from the man I am now, immersed in my tiny, little world, my studies, my work. Ten years of my life I spent there, and believed myself happy. I had it all under control, see. It was when the scandal broke out that I started losing it. It was when the phone call came, and the letter arrived, that I began to lose it. But what could I do? I owed him that. I owe Darren far too much, couldn't say no. After twelve years of bliss, I said goodbye to my place in Notre Dame and returned to St. Cyr.
Truth is, I needed a change of scenery.
A five-year-old relationship had come to a sudden end, leaving me at a loss. Broken-hearted, angry, lonely, I found myself in need of a respite, some distance. We were still going through the separation process, trying to split things into what's hers and what's mine, who gets the flat, who gets the car. Turned out I got the car and the flat. I can be a real bastard, when I want to. Which is funny, seeing I am a bastard. My mother probably had no idea who my father was. Hell, I hardly know who my mother was, she had me and dropped me off at the Du Vall Institute, which is nothing more than an orphanage for Nonpareil children whose parents don't want them. She was probably a Regular; they tend to get rid of their Nonpareil kids, unable to cope with their differences. I wasn't the first, won't be the last. There were plenty of other children at Du Vall, I grew up surrounded by people who could have been like siblings to me. Were I of a more loving disposition.
All right, so maybe I am a little jaded, just because my parents couldn't be bothered with raising and loving me. My ex says it's why I can't commit, why I don't really give myself to the relationship. She says it's what tore us apart. That, and the fact I was unwilling to try, to heal, to work on my 'issues'. Turns out I have issues, according to her, and these spur from having been abandoned and avoiding connecting with others. It's not true. I did connect, I do connect, still. Back at the Institute, I had plenty of friends, and a few were quite close. Adam Peirce is still one of my best friends to this day, he's like a brother to me. It was he who came to stay for two weeks after my ex left. He pulled me back up and convinced me to accept this job. Helped me stay afloat. So she's wrong, I do connect. Just not with her, because she was never satisfied, and always wanted more.
It was the nightmares, I think. She wanted me to delve into that, and I wasn't ready. I'm still not ready. They still occur, from time to time, and still freak me out, though I can't remember them after I wake up. But I always wake up terrified, and sweating. And I know these nightmares have something to do with what happened here years ago.
Those two girls.
Jumping to their deaths, for no apparent reason. Of course there was an investigation, but nothing came up. Apparently, I watched the whole thing, but can't remember a single detail. No, that's not correct. I do remember being stunned, in shock; I do remember shouting at another girl when she laughed over those suicides. We were all part of the same group; we were Darren's rising stars. The best Alchemy students, the most prolific in Chaos Magic, we set the bar so high. I think it must have been that which led the girls to top themselves, they couldn't handle the pressure. But how did the rest of us fail to see they weren't all right? How did we not realise those girls were struggling? I know I blame myself for their deaths, partly; I know guilt eats and corrodes me from the inside, and that - not the fact I was left at an orphanage soon after being born - is what's fucked me up.
That's why I find it hard to give myself.
That's why I haven't been in another relationship since Marine and I split.
The guilt.
At first, I tried to pry the others. Davide, Brian, Thierry, they drew a blank, like me. Their brains deleted the entire thing. We all know it happened, all know the girls were in our study group, we all remember them, only not the accident. Davide watched it, too, standing by the window of his room at Andromeda. Both girls dropped to their deaths from Orion. But just like me, Davide doesn't remember seeing Sabine - the one he would have spotted immediately - fall to her death. Of course I know why, we were probably compelled to forget. Miss Lake was one powerful Sanguinaire, one of the very few who could compel others like her. It's not hard to do that to a Shifter, but another Sanguinaire? That shit takes talent and a lot of power. I'm sure she compelled us all to forget, just so we weren't very traumatised. And it worked for a few years, it did. But Miss Lake died back in 2015 - freak accident, apparently - and her compulsion lost strength. We all started having nightmares, flickers of memories, flashes of things we can't quite put down. I know I have, and Tom did too.
He looked me up two years ago, when he came over on a visit. Trying to jog his memory, I think; he kept talking about how Brian and Davide were having flashes of memories they couldn't remember. We walked the grounds of St. Cyr for hours, well into the night, and tried to put together the days before the girls killed themselves. And we still came up with nothing. No one remembers seeing them depressed, no one remembers sensing they might be at risk. All we can recall is how driven they were - like all of us, those in that special, closed group. We thought Noelle might remember something, Tom had this recollection of her being very angry at us after the girls died. He said she accused us of being hypocrites, of being guilty of what happened, so maybe Noelle did know something. But if she did, she never said a word; and she's as guilty as we are.
Even more so, because we may have been oblivious to the girls' state of mind - and that in itself is a terrible, terrible thing - but she knew and told no one. Did nothing. She as good as pushed them from the window, the roof; her hand is dipped in blood as much as ours. But we'll never know, for Noelle disappeared after the girls died. She left St. Cyr the following week and was never seen again. Rumour has it she passed away not long after, she'd been living a wild, dangerous life. It still makes me shiver, thinking of her. I was in love with that girl and she totally ignored me; it was my first ever heartbreak. Come to think of it, Noelle may just be the reason why I have commitment issues, not my parents' abandonment. Marine may have seen it all wrong.
I shake my head, it's a waste of time dwelling on these things. Noelle happened twenty years ago; Marine, I don't even miss. It's not like she was the last woman I felt pulled towards. And here's another thing I don't want to think about, here's another issue my brain yells is taboo and shouldn't even be entertained. I've tried to fight it, these past couple of years, and will continue to do so, but...
My train of thought is cut off by the booming voice of the Rector, who aims it at me.
"Ah, Professor King," he greets, his lips hidden under the moustache he grows like flowers in an English garden. "Just the man I wanted to see."
He slides an arm through mine, in typical Rector Montpelier fashion, which always unnerves me. Marine would say it's because I wasn't cuddled and held as a baby, so I have 'issues' with being touched. Marine might not be wrong, in this case. I stare at the man the least invitingly as I can. All I want is to drag my luggage to my room, put it away, and sit down with the list of students so I can finally make a decision. Ever since Montpelier decided St. Cyr was to revive the old habit of providing certain students with entry into advanced studies, he's been nagging me about having a list ready before the start of first term.
On my first year teaching at St. Cyr I got away with handing him the list just before Christmas break. Alleging I didn't yet know the students, nor their academic prowess, well enough to allow me a choice. Last year, the man hounded me all through the first two weeks of September, so he could post the list. Apparently, the Advanced Alchemical Studies is the most sought-after discipline in all of St. Cyr. Well, it's good to see some things haven't changed. This year, he seems intent on having the list up by the first of September. And I'm sure he'll insist on me adding a couple of students. After all, he did not shy away from sending me email after email all through August, urging me to make the damn list. And on those emails, he always insisted I take a look at a certain First Year student's academic reports, which I did. The grades are good enough to enrol this person in my classes, even the A.A.S., but first years shouldn't be allowed. For whatever reason, Montpelier wants me to break the former rules, where it comes to this one.
He wants me to break my own rules, where it comes to another student, although the man is completely in the dark about it. Another student whose grades demand a spot in my private, elite study group, but one I should avoid at all costs. Now, he wants me to place her in my Hall.
"Have you got that list for me, young man?"
There. What did I just say? He wants to publish it before term even starts.
"Sir, I haven't yet made a final decision as to who the new entries should be. There are a few students whose academic results..."
"Tut, tut, King. I need that list before you leave for Somerset."
Leave? For Somerset? What the fuck's he talking about? Term's about to start, I'm going nowhere for the next few months.
"I'm not going to Somerset, sir."
He eyes me with a certain chagrin, his rough, reddish countenance mellowing slightly. Almost as if he pities me. I wonder what the man's playing at, and am about ready to hand him the bloody list as it is, with those two students in it. Let the universe take care of consequences, I shouldn't really give a fuck about any of this. My place isn't here, I constantly long to be back at Notre Dame, immersed in my own studies, my research. Not taking up Darren's dream, his work. It was never my own. But of course I'd never have denied him the request, Darren was like a father to me. He alone was a constant in my life, from as early as I can remember. He alone visited me at the orphanage, took me out on visits, vacations, even Christmas, a few times. I often wondered why he never adopted me; after all, he called me his golden child plenty of times. And that's why I'm stuck here. Because I owe him.
I'm stuck here and on the verge of completely screwing my life and my head, even more than it already is. The thought puts a smile up my face, a snigger on my lips. Montpelier watches me with a frown, and once again I'm pulled back to the present moment, head filled with questions about his Somerset mention. Darren lives in Somerset, and I'd planned on going there this Summer, but Pigalle called, Paris called. I missed my old haunts, and Notre Dame at the Sorbonne, more than I missed Darren.
A sudden intuition glides over me, takes hold. My body temperature, mild to start with, plummets, and I'm suddenly drenched in a cold sweat. I dread the man's next few words, dread them with a bodily ache that gnaws on my stomach and waters my guts.
"My dear boy," he starts, he has this obnoxious habit of calling everyone his dear boy or girl. It grates on my nerves as so many other of his idiosyncrasies. "Indeed, you are. I'm afraid I don't have good news for you."
End of part I