Here’s a little something I’m working on! It might become Chapter 1 in a novella or novel about my character Marcelle’s origin story one day, or it might stay a short story. At this point in the tale, she is still a human known as Marie de Noir. This is the very first meeting between her and her future vampire sire and lover, Setanta.

1453: Paris, France

Marie de Noir had never killed anyone before and found the experience to be different from anything she had ever imagined. She would have thought it would make her feel horrid, that the guilt of violating one of the most important ten commandments would eat at her soul. Yet, as she looked down at the unblinking eyes of the dead man in her best friend’s bed, she felt no guilt at all. 

“Oh please no,” whispered Charlotte, gripping her brown hair in a white-knuckled grip. “Marie, is he dead?”

“I don’t think he’s likely to recover from a knife to the throat,” Marie said. She looked down at the blood covering her hands and the bed sheets. It looked so bright red against her pale skin. She’d never seen quite so much blood in one place, not even when she’d once broken another working girl’s nose and it had gushed blood that rushed as freely as the Seine. No, the dead man’s blood was so much more than that, pooling and soaking into the bed. 

Charlotte coughed, bruises already forming along her throat where the client had attempted to choke the life out of her. 

“What do we do?” she managed to wheeze. “If anyone finds out…”

“They won’t find out,” Marie reassured her. Though she wasn’t quite sure how they wouldn’t find out. She glanced out the window. It was nearly sunrise, though not quite yet. Most of the girls had finished with their clients and gone to bed. Girls didn’t work in the mornings, so that was when they slept. Most of Paris didn’t begin to bustle until the sun was up. “We must be rid of him before sunrise.” 

“How?” Charlotte whispered. 

Marie stood up straight as she tied the waist-length, black hair she was named for back and out of her face so she could set herself to the task easier. “Help me.” 

Together, they rolled the man up in the bloody blankets from Charlotte’s bed and Marie checked outside their room. No one was coming, and the halls were still. She took a few steps out and checked down the hall and the stairs to the main room. There was a back door, and no one was in their way. She rushed back to the room and wrapped her arms around the dead man’s legs, heaving him up. 

“Get the head,” she instructed, and a shaking Charlotte obeyed. 

“If anyone sees us-” 

“Then we’ll be quick and quiet,” Marie snapped. 

They managed to half drag the man through the hall, down the stairs, and out the back without being caught, to Marie’s great relief. There was a cart there, an empty one. It had no horse, but that was fine. They were strong enough together.

“Put him here,” Marie said. They grunted and thrust the deadweight into the back of the cart, then sunk together to the floor, their chests heaving with the effort. 

“Now what?” Charlotte whispered. “We’ll hang if we’re caught.”

“We have to get rid of him.” 

“How?”

Marie thought for a moment. “The Seine. We’ll toss him in the river. Even if someone finds him, they won’t know who did it. No one will know it was us.”

“You. It was you,” Charlotte murmured. 

Marie stared at her, at the bruises shaped like a dead man’s fingers on her friend’s neck. “Would you have rather I let him kill you?”

“No. No, I didn’t mean…”

“We’re in this together, Charlotte. Now help me pull this cart to the river.” 

They got a sack meant to hold onions, stuffed him into it with some trouble, then covered the cart with a cloth and began to pull together in silence towards the river. Marie could hear the waters lapping at the banks as they got closer to a bridge overlooking it, sticking to alleys as they did. It was quiet, and still so dark that no one was out. No one but those who had unsavory business to tend to. 

Then, a shadow moved. Not a shadow, no. It was a man whom she hadn’t realized was there in the first place. As he stood tall, he towered over them, and looked very distinct with red hair bright as copper under his feathered hat. 

Charlotte took one look at the man and bolted, leaving Marie alone in the night with a body and a stranger. Oh, she would have words with that woman when she returned to the brothel. 

“Quite the supportive friend you have,” the red-haired man mused as he watched Charlotte flee into the darkness. 

Marie said nothing, but analyzed him quickly as she would one of her clients. He had a thick accent from a land she didn’t recognize, but that wasn’t important. What was important was that he was rich, and a noble. Sumptuary laws forbade common folk from wearing the fabrics he wore, though in the privacy of a brothel many girls had something special not meant for their class to wear for clients, such as a proper girdle. Not only was he permitted by law to wear velvets and silks in public, but he had the means by which to afford jewels and gold, as evidenced by a star ruby set in gold on his finger and the strangely designed golden torq necklace with the heads of hounds on the ends of it. His clothes were clean, and so were his shoes at a quick glance. She doubted he had ever worked a day in his life. She noted a dagger at his belt with a hilt shaped in the head of a hound or wolf similar to his necklace and wondered if he’d ever even used the thing. It looked decorative. Good for slicing cheese and apples, less so for slicing necks.

As she made her appraisal of him, her gaze swept upward to his face, and her heart nearly stopped. Marie had never seen eyes that shade before. Crimson, just like the blood that had spurt from her victim. His face was uncomfortable in its beauty, as if it were unnatural. There was something too smooth, too perfect about his features. Marie had never seen a more attractive man and it terrified her. No wonder Charlotte had run. She gulped. 

“Is there something I can help you with, Monsieur?” she asked, plastering a smile on her face to hide her terror. 

“No. Though it seems there may be something with which I can help you.” He nodded toward the cart behind Marie. She kept smiling. 

“I assure you, Monsieur, I have no need of assistance,” she said. 

“No need to lie to me. There is death in that cart,” he said casually. 

Her heart caught in her throat as he walked behind her and lifted up the cover, then untied the sack to reveal the dead man’s face. “What did this fellow do to deserve such a fate?” he mused. 

Marie’s smile disappeared and she tried to keep her breathing steady so that she wouldn’t faint. “Will you call for the guard?” 

“Answer my question, and we’ll see.” 

She glared at him. “He attempted to kill my friend. I killed him first.”

“Is that so?” he asked. 

“It is.”

She couldn’t read his face as he stared at the corpse, then turned those terrifying, unholy red eyes on her. Marie’s heart kept racing and racing, yet she knew she had to do something. Her life was at stake. 

“I can pay for your discretion,” she said, forcing the smile back on her face in a manner practiced to entice men. 

“I have no need of your gold,” he dismissed. 

“I do not speak of gold, Monsieur.” She stepped closer and in a stroke of boldness, ran a finger down his boat-neck shirt and velvet doublet decorated with black and gold embroidery. She tilted her head to the side in a most coquettish fashion and raised one eyebrow just so in a practiced expression of invitation as her fingers lingered at his belt. He looked down at her in utter amusement. 

“You’re a very brave young woman,” he said. “And while I appreciate the offer, I have no need for such payment.”

“Your wife will never know,” Marie promised, and let her painted, red lips part just slightly, open with a practiced promise of sensuality. 

“I have no wife. I simply have no need for what you offer,” he said. He took her hand in his to remove it from his belt, and as he held up her hand she made a startling discovery: his skin was cold. Not as cold as the corpse in her cart, but unusually cool, like tea left out at room temperature.

Marie glared at him and pulled her hand away. “Then if you’ve no need of payment, either call the guard to see me hang or be on your damned way.” 

He chuckled. “Are you going to throw him into the Seine just like that?” 

“Yes. Is that a problem?”

“It is.” He unsheathed his dagger and before Marie could react, he’d stabbed the corpse, twice. “If you do not puncture the lungs, then he will float up to the surface and be discovered. I recommend filling the sack with rocks as well.” 

Marie raised an eyebrow. Perhaps his knife was good for more than cheese and apples after all. “Is this something you have familiarity with then, Monsieur?” 

“A passing familiarity, perhaps,” he replied. “He seems heavy for you. Would you like assistance?” 

Marie didn’t say anything, so he simply picked up the handles of the cart and began to walk toward the river. “Might I know your name?” he asked. 

“Marie,” she replied. 

“Marie,” he repeated. “Not a name that suits you. You’re named for the Madonna, yet you cart around a freshly killed corpse, wear the garb of a harlot, and tug at the belts of strange men in the dark of night.” 

“Marie Magdalene was a whore,” she said with a shrug. “Perhaps I’m named for her.”

“I doubt Marie Magdalene ever slit a man’s throat,” he said. 

“Then perhaps I am named for the Roman god, Mars,” she retorted. 

“Mars?” he said, and laughed. “What do you know of Mars?” 

“Not much. I knew a man who loved to talk of stars and their names once. He went on and on about each of them, and I didn’t mind as long as he paid for my time. So, I know of Mars, the wandering light in the sky, named for a pagan god of war.” 

“The color red does suit you well. Mars. A little Marcelle.” 

Marie grinned a little. “Perhaps that does suit me better. Unfortunately, my clients prefer the name of a whore to the name of a pagan war god. Priests in particular seem fond of it when they fuck me. They repeat it like a prayer.” 

“How deliciously blasphemous.”  

“You have yet to tell me your name, Monsieur. If you’re to know mine, I should know yours. It is only fair.”

“It is, isn’t it?” He stopped. “I’ve had several names. Which one should I tell you?”

“The one you were christened with,” she suggested. 

“What if I was never christened?” 

She paused and looked at him oddly. “You do not look like a Jew. Nor dress like one.”

He shook his head. “No, I am not.”

“You speak strangely. Where are you from?”

“Ireland,” he replied. “Do you know where that is?”

“No,” she said. 

“It is an island, across the sea to the west of England.” 

“I know where England is,” she said. “And I know their people fear God, even if many English are Protestants. Have you no Christian name, Monsieur?”

“I have a name I use with Christians here in France,” he replied. “Jean de Bourbon.”

Marie’s eyes widened in shock. It was the same noble house as royalty. She did not know a Jean specifically from the house, but knew the familial name well enough. “De Bourbon? But… with your accent. And you are not French.”

He grinned, and said in perfect French without a trace of an accent, “I can be when I wish to be. I can be anyone I wish to be. Looking as distinctly I do, I try to find some ways to blend in wherever I go.” He dropped the accent. “I simply feel no need to put on a pretense with a murderess in the wee hours of the morning.”

“You were not born Jean de Bourbon,” she accused. “You’ve forged your way into a noble home?”

“No forgery was involved,” he promised. “My papers are all legitimate, at least as far as the crown is concerned. Whatever I may be, at least I have the right scribbles on a page to legally mark the identity I wish to steal, with cooperation from the house in question.” 

“Then what name were you given at your birth?” she demanded. “You are not French.”

He put down the cart at the edge of the Seine and looked at her. “You really are quite persistent. I tell you I am connected to the house of Bourbon, I stand here looking as I do, and you do not flinch to make demands of me. You haven’t been afraid of me since I punctured your corpse’s lungs.” 

“Should I be?” 

“Oh yes. You should be,” he murmured. “But since you are not, I’ll grant your request. My name is Setanta, son of Lugh. Others know me as CuChulainn, but my name at birth was Setanta.” The way he said his names made her think he meant for her to recognize them. But they held no weight for her, so made no difference.

“Well then, Monsieur Setanta,” Marie said. “I’d say it is a pleasure to meet you, but I haven’t decided if it is yet.” 

“It is quite the pleasure to meet you, my little Marcelle,” he teased, and picked up several heavy cobblestones with ease, throwing them in the sack with the corpse. She noticed with some discomfort how easy it was for him to rip up the stones, like a child playing with wooden blocks. Perhaps she was wrong in her assessment that he’d never done a day’s work in his life. 

“Why are you in Paris, Monsieur Setanta?” she asked. 

“Why not?” he replied. “I enjoy exploring the world from time to time. Finding amusement. The French court is very amusing, I must say. Very lively on most days. Though it’s begun to tire me, and I’m sure I will return to Ireland one day.” Setanta picked up the corpse and stones in their sack as if it were nothing more than a rag doll and heaved it into the River Seine, where it sank down to the bottom. 

“Are you a solider?” she asked. “Most nobles could not pick up a person with such ease.” 

“You could say that I have been,” he replied, then looked at her. She held her breath as he reached forward and brushed hair back from her face behind her ear. It was such a small movement, yet so intimate. “If I wished to see you again, where would I go?”

Marie raised a coy eyebrow. “I thought you had no need of my services?”

“I don’t. But perhaps I’ve enjoyed your company tonight.” 

Well, Marie was never one to turn down a wealthy client. “I work at Madame de Coeur’s brothel, the Red Cat,” she replied. “Ask for Marie de Noir when the red lanterns are lit at sunset. I’ll give you a discount for your first night as thanks. If you want company for any additional nights, you pay in full like anyone else.” She eyed him suspiciously. She could usually tell what sort of appetite a man had from interacting with him, but it was hard to read this Irish man. “If you have any more peculiar tastes, I charge double,” she added. “And any actions like those of the man you just threw to the water will earn you the same in kind.”  

Setanta threw his head back in open laughter so loud she was afraid he would wake all of France, wiping tears of amusement from his eye. “My. It’s been a while since someone threatened to kill me.”

“As long as you do not try to kill me, we have no quarrel,” Marie replied. 

“Then, I shall not try to kill you,” he said. He removed his feathered cap, held it to his chest, and bowed to her. It was a low bow, one of respect meant for a class much higher than hers. “Until we meet again, my Marcelle.” He put back on his cap and strode off into the waning night. 

***

No AI was used in the making of my writing and it never will be.

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