St. Croix, Who Are You?

Nantes, 30 October 1990

Hello, my dear diary, on this wet and rainy October day. It's fifteen minutes past visiting hours, and the weather is gloomy.

I'm sorry I haven't written earlier, but I'm in the hospital and barely not in a haze of painkillers. It's only now sinking in that Noémi is dead. I'm too tired to cry, and not sure if I dare to write about the reasons, because I'm sure a strangers hands will read your virginal pages. Sooner or later, it will happen, I fear.

I've been tube-fed blood and force-fed the yuck they call food around here. And questions. Those too. The police asked awkward questions like if I'm using or if the stabbing was some sort of profession-related... thing. Auntie would be sorely offended if she had heard a few of those questions. "Harassing the victim of a stabbing... unacceptable." That's what she'd tell them.

They haven't apparently found the people who did any of this. I was shocked to realise I wanted to say something bad about the men who did this, and wish their souls to Hell.

But I didn't say anything, because it would have meant bad things for the poor soul that I...

Maybe I do need to tell you some of it after all.

I think I've seen him here. Why he would visit me, I don't know. But the nurses say no-one's been in to see me at all, so I'm going to have to credit hallucinations for that. Also, that's what's frightening. I'm free from auntie's doting presence, but I thought she'd be here by now, crying into my shoulder. No-one has been in to see me. Not even my darling auntie Monette.

This is so sad. I'm under guard by the police, and no-one's telling me anything. The way things went at the bridge and before and after that, I think a bunch of punks want my blood. Or my head. Why did he call them 'gobs'? Hobgoblins, demons? A gang of ruffians... I know old people have misconceptions of younger people, but that's a bit too thick, even when it's said by a madman.

So sad. Noémi, dead, and an innocent old man who seems barely capable of taking care of himself.

They want to feed me now. I'll write more later.

The rain poured down and set the mood as 'gloomy', just like Cecile had written. Her mood was gloomy and the room was gloomy, mostly because she had asked the nurse to turn off the lights so she could nap, although the hum of air conditioning contributed. Even the food had been gloomy, but Cecile liked to amuse herself with the thought that at least it had tasted like something for a change.

She wondered if it was normal to not cry in her situation, or if it would have been too sentimental to do the opposite. It bothered Cecile to no end that she remembered everything clearly like she always had, but in the end none of it truly a reaction.

Even when they said she was lucky to not have to eat with a plastic bag taped to her stomach, she felt nothing. Why would they say such a thing in the first place? To scold her like a little child? It didn't help at all, and it certainly didn't even get her to think at all.

The weather was getting even worse. As far as Cecile could tell from papers and such, it had been getting worse and worse steadily. Floods were just what she needed to crown October as the most annoying month of the year so far.

She tried reaching for the water they had left her, but unfortunately found her arm an inch too short to even touch the glass, let alone the can. It hurt to try and bend farther. "Wonderful," she mumbled and tried to sink into the bed. Left with nothing better to do, she decided it was best to take the nap she had asked for. In truth, she was tired. Cecile felt it was entirely likely she couldn't snap out of it for a long while.

Cecile closed her eyes and thought. Why couldn't aunt Monette be there to help her? Never mind that she made Cecile feel embarrassed, because she also made her niece feel calm, safe. Those were certainly not the first things you wanted to say to someone important, but they were true.

The sound of something being placed on the small table next to her bed made her gasp and open her eyes. They turned wildly to the side, expecting to see the jolly roger grin of a young man and a stiletto knife.

Instead, Cecile saw someone in an old frayed trenchcoat holding a glass of water.

Oh no. Of all the people, it had to be him. "St. Croix?"

The man's face contorted into a confused mask, like it had back on the bridge. Deep-set, sunken eyes, hair that had twigs in it and a stale smell. Not unpleasant, but disturbing because it reminded her of funerals. St. Croix didn't smell like a hobo: he smelled like a mortician. "Yes."

"How did you get here?" she hissed, staring at him and taking the glass. "Are you even here?"

There was something disturbing about the man otherwise as well. On every possible level that could be considered 'harmless'. Mad.

"I'm here," St. Croix said, turning his head around as he scanned the room.

"Have you been here earlier?" Cecile inquired in a slightly less edgy voice. Somehow it seemed strange how he frightened her, and yet seemed to actually do nothing to warrant such a reaction. Except maybe appear out of nowhere.

"I have," said St. Croix, giving her a strange look. "I will. I am."

Cecile sighed. She ought to have known his idea of 'here' would be purely opposed to logic. She might as well make the best of it... even though she still wondered, how had he managed to run away from three punks with knives and a baseball bat with her in tow? Granted, St. Croix looked like someone who had done menial labour for a long time, but on the other hand, the coat buried his body inside very well.

"Can I have more water, please?" she said finally, giving up on trying to understand him. The man said nothing, simply turned his head slowly to look at the can before picking it up and filling the glass again while she held it. "How did you get past the police?"

St. Croix took his time thinking about the answer, or so it seemed. He placed the can down slowly and sat on the chair in which the cop had been sitting during the interrogation. "You ask many questions," his monotonous voice replied.

"You don't answer them very well."

Instead of replying to that, the madman stared at her for a long time expressionlessly, blankly. It seemed as if he didn't understand. Mad, Cecile thought, and intellectually challenged, too.

"Do you mind answering questions?" she asked, twitching when a cigarette seemed to appear from nowhere in his hand. It was lit.

St. Croix almost immediately said, "No." A scarce half a second later he continued. "I don't always know the answers."

Waving the smoke out of her face, she snorted out. "Please put that out."

The light of the cigarette disappeared as he put it away, tensing. "I'm sorry. It isn't proper?" he asked.

"Who would have told you that?"

As the smoke dispersed, St. Croix blinked helplessly and stared deep into Cecile's eyes. "I don't know."

Hopeless. Cecile couldn't help wondering if he had meant to sound apologetic. Unfortunately for her, St. Croix had a monotonous tone and voice, which, besides making it hard for her to understand him, made him seem emotionless and unpleasant to talk to.

The hum of the air conditioning ended. "I don't know what happened after they stabbed me." She looked at the man, and he looked back uncomprehending. Without bothering to hide her frustration, Cecile added edgily, "Could you tell me, please?"

St. Croix nodded slowly. "I broke their bones and dropped them off the bridge."

Oh my God, she gasped mentally. But St. Croix was... oh no.

The door opened abruptly, and the policeman looked in. Cecile dropped the glass on the floor, startling both St. Croix and the policeman.

The policeman turned on the lights just as abruptly, managing to blind Cecile momentarily. When she squinted at the policeman, he looked embarrassed. "I'm sorry, miss. I thought I heard voices."

Cecile looked around, noted that St. Croix indeed was nowhere to be found and looked at the policeman uncomprehendingly. "I... must have been talking in my sleep."

The lights went out again. "A thousand apologies, miss. I'll tell them to get you another glass," the quite nice-seeming man, still looking mightily embarrassed, said and closed the door slowly.

"Oh, don't worry about..." the door closed.

"...it."

Cecile sighed and looked miserably at the chair and the glass shards on the floor. "Are you still here?" she whispered and looked around.

Finally the feelings were catching up with her. Rejected, alone, lost and small; tossed in a dark pit with only a delirious, a blind and deaf man to keep her company.

----

She woke up sweaty and realised she had been soft-boiled by the unexpected morning sun. Opening her eyes, Cecile saw that while she had been asleep someone had brought her a new glass and filled the can. They were now close enough for her to reach, too, and she didn't waste the opportunity. The water tasted fresh, cold. It was something to be grateful for.

The door opened quietly. This time a nurse peeked in and gave Cecile a bright smile. She was the warm, plump kind that reminded Cecile of her grandmother. Soft, safe. "Good morning, dear. Feeling sore?"

"A little, thank you," Cecile smiled tiredly, eyes half-lidded. "The water was good."

The nurse carried breakfast to her bed, lay it on her thighs and proceeded to move the chair to the other side of the bed. "I thought you might like that. We still haven't cleaned the floor, though. Thought it best to wait until you were up."

She peeked over the edge. The shards, still there, reminded her of last night and darkened her almost content mood. A question struck her, concerning St. Croix. How did everyone know his name, but not his origins?

The nurse allowed her to feed herself but remained in the room, chitchatting about this and that. The weather and how horrible it had been and how the meteorologists said that the sunny morning was only the calm before the storm. Apparently it had stopped raining at some point during the night. All the better, but knowing that the rain would just continue later on didn't cheer her up at all.

"Nurse?"

"Yes, dear?"

"Why hasn't my aunt been here to see me?"

As she had expected, the nurse immediately looked nervous. "I'm not quite sure. We have called her, the police have been to see if she's home, but..."

Though the nurse kept on talking, Cecile didn't need to hear anything more. She was afraid. Had the gang dropped by, despite St. Croix's sudden confession? Or had it been... St. Croix?

She was afraid, and she knew it was for a good reason.

"...she has had breakfast, yes."

"Mhuh?" Cecile looked up toward the door and saw once more the jovial, yet tired face of the policeman. It turned to talk to someone outside the room.

An older man with dark half-moons under his eyes entered before Cecile could say anything. He was balding, slightly obese and held a notepad in his right hand. A pen was in the left.

"Don't stress her too much, hmm?" said the nurse, tiptoing out of the room.

The man snorted and smirked at this. "Good morning, Ms Roussau. You have slept well, I hope?"

"Like an infant," she replied, smiling politely with no enthusiasm.

The man smiled back in the manner required by etiquette, nodded, glanced at his notepad and then offered his hand. "Inspector Marseille."

"You already know my name." They shook hands, Cecile feeling quite blank as she looked at the inspector's tired, bloodshot eyes. "You're obviously here to ask questions, but do you mind if I ask a few myself?"

"Not at all," Marseille said, still smiling politely. She could see he was overworked and would have rather been on his way as soon as possible, but being nice didn't always amount to anything... certainly not accomplishments.

"Have you heard from my aunt?"

"Monette Roussau? No, unfortunately. She hasn't either left the house or entered it for as long as we've been aware of you. None of the windows are broken, and the doors are locked. No lights on, either." Marseille gave her a contemplative look. "Would you give permit us to use your keys and go in?"

"Sure," Cecile said hoarsely. Not home... or locked inside. And considering St. Croix had the strange ability to show up from (and disappear into) thin air, she wondered if the mad hobo had...

"Miss?"

She fidgeted. "What?"

Marseille looked at her studiously before closing his notepad. "Lost in thought? Can't blame you. Really. But, let me ask again... you said you were stabbed at the bridge, but you were found at a telephone booth three blocks away. How did you end up there?"

She was once again the deer in the headlights. "I can't remember." This was at least partially true. She didn't know how she had ended up in the abandoned old mansion. All she knew was that she had woken up on a black and white bed in a black and white room, and there had been...

Marseille opened up his notepad again. The woman hadn't been touched apart from the two stab wounds that were more like diagonal slashes across her stomach, so sexual assault could be ruled out. Still, he wondered, couldn't it have been the punks? "Where did you come to?"

The faint remembrance of the smell of lilies was behind her answer. "In someone's garden. There were... chrysanthemums." What was she doing? Protecting someone that could have killed her aunt? But he had, most definitely, saved her. That was worth trust, wasn't it?

"Chrysanthemums..." Marseille muttered. "All right. Is there anything else you remember? Anything?"

Cecile decided to play it safe and stare at her legs. She sighed and shook her head. Apparently, Marseille was satisfied with this.

"All right," he said and stood slowly. "That's it. You'll know first if we find your aunt."

For the first time during the short while Marseille had been there, Cecile smiled genuinely. "She'll run to me and bury me in worried tears. I'll be sure to know."

This thought seemed to make even Marseille smile in an honestly touched manner. "I'm sure. Thank you, Ms Roussau." He walked to the door.

"My pleasure," Cecile said, the door to her world once again closing.

----

Nantes, 31st October 1999

Dear,

Inspector Marseille was over to meet me yesterday. I didn't like him very much, in fact, I feel he must have been more interested in his precious search for perps than the well-being of their victim. But I suppose that's how the police work - unless I happen to turn up my clogs, in which case they'll be even happier when they catch the perps.

Apparently auntie was nowhere to be found, they told me when I got my keys back today. No blood, no nothing. No suspicious signs, like an almost full coffee cup left on the table, no television on, nothing at all. Not even a note.

But despite things going slowly and my karma being against me, I expect to be out by seven in the evening - that is, an hour from now. Apparently they caught a hold of my cousin, and he's coming to pick me up and take me home. Only trouble is... I've never met him. Certainly, I've heard him being mentioned by mother and auntie in the past, but that was more than ten years ago. The nurse couldn't even give me his name, which just figures. Imagine that. Not that I'm going to tell anyone, because damned if I'm going to rot here. When I get home, I might get some answers.

Apart from Marseille I didn't get any visitors (again), so since nothing really interesting (food included) happened, I kept napping. The dreams I had were something I should have maybe anticipated. The stabbers were in my dreams, their faces looking totally unhuman, but still human. It was like looking at your reflection in a double glass window. Really weird.

The weather's bad, as promised, and it's very dark. Suitable for Samhain, as auntie would have

---

The door opened again, and Cecile looked up to see the comforting nurse again, pushing in a wheelchair. In spite of herself, she greeted the nurse with a smile and put her pencil aside.

"Hallo, dear. All packed up?" asked the nurse, a certain Madame Bilodeau, the only thing Cecile felt she might even miss about the hospital.

"All I have is a little paper to take with me," she replied, folding the papers on which she had written her temporary diary entries. Not in the mood to listen to a list of questions, she then shot back her own: "He's here, then?" It wasn't quite seven yet, Cecile noted, but at least it meant that for change there was a timely rescue.

"Downstairs," Madame Bilodeau said and brought the wheelchair next to the bed. "The police insisted that his ID be checked... now doesn't that make you feel safe?"

Cecile chuckled at the woman's condescending tone, then immediately wincing at the pain it made her feel. "I'm so glad to see that someone else shares my opinion of the police force in general." Although, admittedly, it had been thoughtful of Marseille to call the hospital and have the staff ask her if she would allow them to bring her clothes from home.

Madame Bilodeau smiled back, winking. "You'll be all right with them. And that cousin of yours seemed like a sweet boy."

"Boy? Madame, you're making fun of yourself again, aren't you?"

"Not as much as you would think," the nurse smiled and helped her into the wheelchair. Though grateful, Cecile was almost sure she didn't need it.

"Thank you," Cecile said as the nurse pushed her a few steps toward the door.

Then the sound of breaking glass startled both her and Madame Bilodeau. Both the can and the glass had fallen and broken, and now the shards were all over the floor.

"Oh no," Madame Bilodeau sighed and circled around the bed to inspect the damage.

Just as Cecile thought there was something fishy about this, she turned to stare toward the door. The surprises continued to amount as she realised she was staring into a trenchcoat, literally. Into a trenchcoat, inside which there was nothing. Looking up, she saw the grim and expressionless face of St. Croix.

The wings flashed.

----

"What?"

She was staring at her own reflection, in her own house. Her auntie's more like. From the mirror, she could also see that St. Croix's figure loomed tall behind her. Cecile turned to look, pleasant warm waves of rage giving her courage.

"What the hell was that?"

St. Croix smiled, but it was a smile devoid of any emotions or motives.

"What the hell are you doing?" Cecile screamed, barely noticing the pain. "I was going to be picked up and brought here, you witless imbecile!"

"Not by him," spoke the madman, staring back. "He only wanted the blue in your eyes."

He was still not making any sense at all, which just annoyed Cecile more than a little. "I ought to kill you," Cecile replied darkly.

St. Croix tilted his head, uncomprehending. "How?"

The question startled Cecile. Was he really taking her that seriously... well, strangely?

As her answer never came, St. Croix took a few gliding steps in the dark room toward the window and peeked out. She watched him wordlessly, as she had just begun to wonder how St. Croix had spirited her away like that.

The man turned to stare at the door and the room, then at her, his eyes reflecting the little light from the streetlights outside. "Someone has been here."

"Yes, the police." She was nervous. Was he going to flip his lid?

The so-called ghost of the bridge shook his head. "No."

"Well?"

St. Croix stared for a while. Then, "There are salt circles in your common room."

"What? How can you...? Have you been here before?"

The man shook his head and gestured toward the door.

Cecile considered her choices for a moment. Either she could stay put and refuse to co-operate, or she could play it safe to keep St. Croix happy. Thinking about his straightforward confession concerning the punks, she swallowed and started carefully toward the door. She wouldn't ask him to push her.

Out the door and down the corridor, then she turned, the haunting figure of St. Croix following her wordlessly.

The furniture had been moved to the corners to make space for salt circles. There must have been at least five kilograms of it, and it was all done with such perfect lines and curves, it seemed like art. Or rather, it would have seemed like art had it not been for the electricity in the air.

As Cecile blinked away a few tears, St. Croix waded into the circle and broke the patterns. Almost immediately the sensation lessened.

"Who are you, St. Croix?" she whispered, rolling slowly to the edge of the disturbed circles. "I don't understand what's going on, and you don't give me any answers, and..."

"I am St. Croix," the hobo said in his hollow voice, tossing salt in a wide arc at the window. "And that is all."

She despaired, no longer certain if this man was mad or had read too much about Buddhism. He had certainly seemed more lucid earlier, even calling her something.

"Do you know what happened to my aunt, St. Croix That Is All?"

The madman was silent for a moment. "No, Cecile."

Ah, progress. "Do you know who she is?"

"No. But only the police and who did this have been here for a while now."

She raised her eyebrows. "How can you tell?"

Pause. The man's face was blank.

"Well?" she said slowly.

"Nobody has b--"

"All right!" Cecile sighed. "It seems like I can't get a decent answer out of you. But..."

But what? The police would be looking for her, soon. One did not simply disappear from the hospital...

"St. Croix? Take me back."

"The hospital?" For once, the man's voice betrayed some emotion, or at least reaction. He did not sound as if he approved of this. "But he is there."

"How do you know my cousin?"

The man turned. "Cousin?"

"Yes. My cousin."

"He is about as related to you as was that nurse."

"Oh please! How are you of all people supposed to know?"

The madman, who, Cecile reflected, didn't actually look as much old as worn, tilted his head and waded out of the salt to stare at the room suspiciously. "Why would I not?"

Cecile opened her mouth to protest, but in the end just tore at her hair and snarled frustratedly. The man was infecting her with his own madness! It seemed as if his rules were real, even if they appeared to distort reality.

When she looked up to glare daggers at him, St. Croix had wandered to her aunt's bookshelf to poke his hand at the glass door. He seemed to fidget when the hand didn't pass the glass, and left his hand to press against it softly.

Cecile wheeled over, frustrated but curious. She didn't think he would notice her if she didn't present herself to his eyes. "What now?" she snapped, catching the objects of his fascination for a moment: her aunt's two music boxes, the other of which broken.

"They're music boxes," Cecile noted with sarcasm that was utterly lost on St. Croix. "You've never seen one?"

"I have," the man said, his countenance as blank as ever.

Cecile sighed. For an obsessive and overly protective person, the man was relatively hopeless in his inability to concentrate. Shaking her head and burying the anger, she turned the wheelchair around and headed toward the kitchen. "Are you hungry or are you going to stay there all night?"

The man turned his head and considered. Cecile waited for half a minute before sighing again and leaving the room. He didn't follow.

The kitchen, recently renowated, was indeed stainless and very much untouched as Marseille had informed Cecile. She was glad for that, and even more so for the fact that the Roussaus had their coffee next to the percolator and not in a shelf. Once she got that sorted out, she proceeded to loot the refridgerator to make up for the days of horrible hospital food.

She didn't really care it was late at night and that she was drinking coffee. With St. Croix in the house, she was rather afraid to go to sleep or even call Marseille.

Besides, wasn't it rather obvious that they would barge in soon anyway?

It wasn't like she expected, however.

----

Half an hour later she noted that St. Croix was still staring at the music boxes, but she had left him alone and moved to her aunt's room on the other side of the house to wait by a window overlooking the street. The room, decorated with quilts and memorabilia from the sixties, mainly old clocks and puppets, felt safer than the rest of the house, and always had.

She had left the lights off because she also didn't want St. Croix to find her that easily. There was no doubt that the man had an uncanny knack for finding her, but still, it made her feel even safer. With coffee coursing in her veins, she was also certain she wasn't going to fall asleep.

So she waited.

The tick and the tock of the clock changed into rhythmical footsteps, startling her. They were hurried, nothing like St. Croix's, but she hadn't seen anyone approach the front door.

Curious, she turned the wheel chair toward the door and quietly pushed herself forward. Opening the door slightly ajar, she stopped to listen.

"Cecile? Hi, it's Anto-- What? You? But the salt--"

"Salt has no power over me."

She felt the air become heavier, loaded with the same sort of electricity she had felt near the salt circles.

Things were very wrong.

"Dead men are not meant to walk!" the stealthy intruder's voice cried, and then she heard a sound like a huge, full drawer colliding into a wall very fast.

Ignoring her self-preservational instincts, Cecile forcefully pulled the door entirely open and started pushing herself into the corridor and down it. But she stopped, if only for a second, when she saw that there was fire coming from the common room.

Holy crap, she thought. What have I gotten myself into, God?

Cecile had barely enough time to end this thought when the intruder was tossed out of the common room at high velocity. He bumped into the corridor wall, bounced off it and fell on the floor.

She stared as he cringed and forced himself on his feet, gazing into the burning common room while wearing a puzzled expression on his pleasing, if too sharp-featured face. The intruder soon looked away from the fire, noticing Cecile. A strange look registered on his pained face.

"Cecile! We have to get out of here!"

She realised she had a dilemma. She could either trust this man - who she assumed was her cousin -, or the demented hobo that seemed to have some occult skills (at least that's what they seemed like), but at the moment, Cecile didn't know which one made her more suspicious.

So she turned around and headed for the door, scared out of her little mind that had recently found too much information to process. Teleporting homeless people that spoke nonsense, murderers that according to said homeless people weren't human, and cousins that weren't cousins. Could it get any worse?

"No, wait!" the intruder yelled after her, followed almost instantaneously by another sound of something solid hitting a wall. "Can't you just stay dead?!"

When Cecile reached the front door when she felt a wave of hot air, but she didn't stay to see what was going on. She opened the door, grabbed her auntie's favourite coat and rolled out, wincing as she almost crashed into the lawn with the wheelchair. But ultimately the poor woman everyone seemed to want a piece of made it out to the street escorted by yelling and electric, hot air.

Cecile kept pushing until she was several blocks away outside a bistro, exhausted, sweaty and shuddering in near panic. She took a few moments to wait outside the bistro to catch her breath and to collect her composure - and maybe her thoughts, too.

This was bordering ridiculous. It wasn't as if she was the belle of Nantes, just a poor woman who liked tennis, dancing and nice clothes. She leaned back and brooded over the issue, barely realising that she would have liked to also burst into tears out of self-pity. She wasn't ready for this sort of thing!

But with silent determination, she wiped the corners of her eyes into the sleeve of her aunt's coat and headed for the bistro, thanking warmly the old gentleman that opened the door. It was occasions like this that she would have wanted someone to make it better with a hug, or something similar.

But aunt Monette was still missing, Cecile reflected as she acquired some more coffee and a sandwich she didn't think she would eat. Without her favourite coat, no less!

Just as she sipped her coffee, she heard fire engines hurry past the bistro, followed closely by a few police cars.

Cecile sighed. And now there was that mess, too. She finished her coffee calmly, pretending to everyone (herself included) that nothing was wrong. Now that she finally felt decently safe and had some privacy, she began to think.

It was time to accept the delusions as facts. Maybe St. Croix was a ghost, considering what the intruder had screamed before attacking (or was it, being attacked by?) the madman, and maybe his previous ravings held some truth. She could not comprehend what this talk of the blue in her eyes was about - her eyes were a rather dull smoke gray -, but the man seemed to see things differently as it was.

And then her cousin. Or was it 'cousin'? Cecile wasn't sure if she could trust him, either. Decisions, decisions. Oh, if only she had her auntie. Was she dead? She still didn't know if St. Croix or her 'cousin' had killed or kidnapped auntie Monette. Or had it been St. Croix's 'gobs'? They had certainly made short work of her and Noémi.

Sighing, she reached in the coat to see if her auntie had any lipbalm in there. Instead, she found a wallet. By now she was rather certain that her auntie was in trouble, but a part of Cecile suspected there might be something going on from her auntie's part as well.

There was only a little money in the wallet and no credit cards. A bunch of receipts, too, two from the night she was stabbed. So auntie Monette had been home that night after all?

That couldn't be right, she realised. The police, even if they were something of an annoyance among other things, were far from stupid. Cecile checked the coat's other pockets just in case, discovering only a spare button, a needle and string, chewing gum and a pack of cigarettes (the former to cover the latter's effects, Cecile knew) and the lipbalm she had been after in the first place.

Nothing important. It was the perfect moment to fume and figure out her next move. She would not go home - even if the police wouldn't arrest her for disappearing like that, they would let her 'cousin' near. What a mess.

After applying the balm, she left, wondering where she was going to spend the night.

----

Maybe I ought to have seen this coming, Cecile mused morbidly and stared at the white car with red stripes and "POLICE" written on the side with blue letters from a good distance. It was the second friend who's home she had attempted to reach, but as with the first, the police had managed to spread themselves here.

Well, fine, thought Cecile and turned back down the narrow French cobblestone street she had arrived from, muttering profanities under her breath. Her arms were getting tired, and she didn't dare push too hard, once again because of the still healing cuts on her stomach. She was grateful for her love of sports, but ever since the incident she had been rather low on energy. But she blamed it on the hospital and the food served there.

As Cecile rolled down the street, she hoped the few pedestrians didn't recognise her, or that her picture wasn't shown on every television channel. She didn't have time for nonsense, because she was much too inconvenienced and annoyed for that. It was beginning to look as if she had to spend the night in a bar or something similar, plotting her alibi.

Oh yes. She couldn't just tell the good inspector that a bum had kidnapped her from a guarded room on the fourth floor practically in front of a nurse. That would have painted a very good picture of her to Marseille. The truth was as good as lie, so why bother with it?

Cecile's plotting was cut short as she made her way to a third friend's apartment just to see if the old adage 'third time is the charm' had any truth to it. It was proven true, but only not in a manner she would have wanted it to. She had still a ways to go when she stopped to take a breather. That turned out to be the mistake, that allowed someone to finally catch up with her.

Passers-by had left her alone so far, but this time one crept closer and closer quietly but without trying to even be stealthy. Just because it was her unlucky day, Cecile glanced at the approaching man carefully, looking away when it wasn't either St. Croix or a policeman. But when she realised he looked familiar she gave the man another look.

But St. Croix said he killed them? Cecile blinked, startled by the fact that she was gaping at one of the young men the hobo had tossed off the bridge - and he certainly looked like it. His right arm hung limp and he had little scars on his solemn, expressionless face that hadn't been there earlier. The leather coat and frayed jeans looked to have been hauled through the dirt of the riverbottom.

It was one of the 'gobs', all right, and she wasn't going to stick around. Yet when she turned to flee, she almost bumped into two gentlemen, both of whom were very busy staring at the gob with narrowed eyes. Both were most definitely foreigners, and wearing some sort of golden triangular pendant.

Cecile fidgeted. Wait, pendant? isn't that... oh, no.

"No need to be alarmed, young miss," said the older of the Court mages, a bald man dressed in a cardigan and khakis, in broken French that made Cecile wince. Then, in British English, he noted to his companion, "Quite impressive, Edgar. Rather basic, but it looks like its still walking despite the injuries."

The one referred to as Edgar, wearing a suede jacket and jeans, snorted. "It's not very impressive anymore, I'd say," the other (desperately needing a haircut and a shave, though Cecile) replied in American English and took out a little pocketwatch.

"Umm," Cecile said as the hobgoblin approached, lifting its left arm. She was about to break for it again, when the Briton snorted.

"You're really much too picky, Edgar," the older man complained and - frighteningly for Cecile - waved the creature off with a hand. The little sentience in its eyes was snuffed out like a faint flame, and it fell tall on its face.

Cecile couldn't stop staring at it as it slowly but surely began to dry and shrink, leaving behind only the clothes it had been wearing.

"Robert," Edgar began and produced a napkin, "anyone can create hobgoblins if they want. They're nothing interesting."

"In other words, you can't be bothered," Robert said with a hint of mockery to his voice.

"Umm," Cecile said again, barely following the conversation with her rudimentary English skills. Am I supposed to run now? She didn't really know how to act when two men capable of magic had just more or less saved her.

"Precisely." Edgar blew his nose and turned to regard the shuddering Cecile, who was rather convinced that she was in a load of trouble. Bu now past experience had taught her that saviours didn't always have good intentions.

Edgar blinked a few times. "Robert. There's something strange about her."

Oh yes, a world of trouble, Cecile whined mentally and backed up from the two. "Messieurs, I'm thankful for the help, but--"

Robert, face lit with enlightenment, cut her off before she could finish. "Goodness, Edgar. She's the girl that disappeared from the hospital."

"Not that, look."

And Robert looked. "Oh my. That is peculiar."

At this point, Cecile thought it was best to get some distance between herself and the two mages. She had barely turned and rolled over the clothes left by the hobgoblin when she heard Edgar shout in English, "Miss! Stop right now!"

To her panic, Cecile's hands stopped pushing. As the men approached with smiles on their faces, she was painfully aware of her inability to do anything at all.

"You bastards!" she hissed, trying pound her hands against the wheels. "Let me go! I've had enough of all this!"

"I'm afraid not," Robert said with his extremely broken French and began to push the wheelchair into the opposite direction she had been going into. "And that you will have to come with us for now."

"Look at the bright side," the American said in slightly more graceful French, "you'll be safe."

She shot them a glare, especially at the smiling Edgar. Is that so?

----

"Taming the shrew, eh, Edgar?" Robert chuckled as Edgar reappeared, expression grim, from the bathroom. He had not managed to get rid of the coffee stains on his shirt.

"Stow it, Bobby. Keep writing if you haven't anything nice to say."

Cecile glared at them both from the corner she had been stuck in, all the while busy looking as if she was watching television calmly. She felt slightly pleased that she had rebelled against a wizard, magician or whatever they called themselves. At the same time she knew she was lucky - they wanted to know something about her, and that kept the warlocks from simply blowing her up.

All things considered, she was looking for the most painless way to die, and she had a feeling blowing up was not exactly painless. However, Cecile also had the feeling that whatever they wanted from her, it was not going to be painless, either...

Edgar returned to her, sitting on the chair he had dragged near her when he attempted to offer her coffee. "That was not nice," the more civilised of the two men (to wit, the one that spoke better French) said, though not as vehemently as Cecile would have expected.

"Boohoo," she replied and glared at him. "Why?"

Edgar frowned. "Why what? Are we keeping you here? Don't be daft, woman."

Cecile wished she could slap him other than verbally. "Everyone seems to want something from me. I don't know why."

Robert chuckled in the background and put his paper - filled with Arabic - to the side. "Exactly who is everyone?"

Not able to stop herself from wincing at the man's French, she sighed. "I wish I knew. Those... goblins started it all."

"Amateurs," Edgar mumbled in English.

"Shush," Robert chided. "Let her speak. This might be interesting." Then, in French, "Please, go on."

Cecile glared daggers first at Edgar, then at Robert. "Then a cousin I've apparently never had tries to pick me up from the hospital because my aunt is nowhere to be found."

"So far, that's not much," Edgar commented snidely.

"Shut the hell up," Cecile snapped back, her temper flaring. "First the goblins, then the ghost, then my damn cousin and now you two wiseasses that think you're above everything!"

The warlocks were silent for a moment, glaring back at her. When Cecile opened her mouth to say something more, Robert cut in. "What's this about a ghost?"

Cecile blinked and immediately felt stupid. Oh, great. Nice going, idiot. "Yes." She glanced at Edgar, who had raised his eyebrows. "I, umm."

"Fancy that, indeed," Robert said and smirked at Edgar. "This must interest you at least a bit, Edgar?"

"Much more than the bloody fae," the young man grunted. "At least ghosts can usually only frighten you."

Cecile barely stifled the immediate impulse to burst into hysterical laughter. She managed to look only amused. Edgar dismissed her entirely and turned to look at Robert.

When St. Croix gets here, Cecile found herself thinking as the men discussed the matter, I'll point and laugh at you. That is, if he doesn't kill me, too.

With what little English Cecile understood, she got the impression the men had the wrong idea altogether of what they were facing. Words such as 'harmless' simply did not mix with St. Croix, but she didn't correct them. At some point the discussion waned and Edgar paid attention to her again. Robert went to open the window.

"Can I please have that coffee?" Cecile asked. "I'll behave this time."

"Sure," Edgar replied, "and maybe we can talk about the ghost at the same time, yes?"

Her mouth was in a tight line when she nodded. Uncertain exactly how much she dared to lie to these people, especially since it looked as if they knew more about ghosts than she did. But at least she was getting coffee.

The coffee was black and strong, as she had expected. She was stuck with two people who probably spent all the night poring over some piece of obscure text. Or hunting monsters, she mused, eyeing both of the mages.

"What does a ghost want with you?"

The question startled her, and she nearly spilled coffee on her lap. "Want with me?"

Edgar smirked and leaned back in his chair. "That's the impression you gave. Everyone wants something with you - that's what you said. What does it want with you?"

It? Well, St. Croix would hardly mind being called a thing, I'm sure... "He keeps going over and over about my eyes, and how everyone wants the blue in them."

"And you're surprised?"

"My eyes are gray as far as I know," Cecile snapped back. Did the man really have to act so demeaning?

"Are you sure?"

She swallowed her coffee calmly. "I believe in what I see."

"That's nice. Tell me, what did you think the ghost could do to you?"

"You don't know?"

Edgar glared at her as Robert chuckled, muttering about the shrew once more. "Let's assume that I don't, then," the American said poisonously.

"All I know is that it has been giving me trouble ever since I first met the dead creatures."

"Hobgoblins?"

"Yes."

"What did it do?"

"How should I know? I woke up in the hospital, barely remembering the hobgoblins as it was."

"Great. And that was the last of it?"

Not ready to lie to Edgar when it was clear he would discern whether or not she was actually doing so, Cecile shook her head. "No. It kept haunting me in the hospital, too."

"Hah. That's really interesting," Edgar said, eyes wide with some sort of confused fascination. "That's really interesting, Cecile."

Uncertain as to how she should understand that last sentence, Cecile offered Edgar a dirty look before she focused her attention to her coffee. While it was not the best treatment for external stomach aches, it at least helped with her headache.

"Why is it interesting?" Cecile asked, thinking at the same time. There were still so many questions left unanswered, and more were turning up all the time.

Edgar squinted and smiled. "You don't know this ghost from its life and still it bothers you."

"That's unheard of?" Cecile asked, hoping this would not lead to further inquiries.

"Oh, not entirely." The American shrugged. "You have something that drew it to you like a moth to a flame. I'm merely surprised it's the only spirit to want your second soul."

She was quiet for a while, searching his face for signs of trickery, but only found smugness. It was more than she could stomach. "So what colour is the sky in your world, Edgar?" she asked with a faint, mocking smile.

Edgar's expression paled. "You're talking to a Court mage, Cecile. You might want to reconsider that line."

She bit her lip hesitantly. Keep him happy, Cecile... men like their egos soothed. "Seriously? Two souls? What good is that for?"

"Edgar, please," Robert said in French, looking up from his manuscripts. "She doesn't need to know."

"You..." Cecile began, then shut up. You don't need to rub it in. A mental pause. Imbecille.

But Robert and Edgar disregarded her completely. The conversation between the two mages suddenly turned into English again, and Cecile was once again out of it. But she could make out bits and pieces. She did her best to make it seem the opposite.

"Bob, it's not going to matter. If we can keep her safe from the ghost and the rest..."

"Oh, do shut up, Ed," Robert said, leaning back in his chair and rubbing his eyes. "How do you know she doesn't understand what you're saying? Did that even cross your mind?"

"Bah." The American glanced at Cecile. Then (with a look of wounded pride) he looked at his companion. "Fine. I suppose Mister Redetti will be the one to fill her in on the details of her existence, then."

Robert nodded, cleaning his glasses. "That sounds about right. But I really must ask, Ed my boy. Ghosts? There are more than one. Why is only one interested in her second soul?"

"Elementary, my dear Bobby."

"That was demeaning, Ed."

"So was 'Ed my boy'. I'll tell you why. There's always a little fish and a big fish. And then there's a shark. It's not the first ghost to call a town - or a big chunk of it - its own domain."

"This is the old continent, Ed. Marseilles predates Columbus. By two millennia."

"Doesn't that just prove my point further?"

"I may not be as well-informed about ghosts as you, but so two and a half millennia translates to huge amounts of dead people, and the dead cling on. Any ancient monstrosity can be brought down by sheer numbers."

"That's supposing a lot. But maybe so's mine. Fine." The American stood up and walked to the balcony, staring about. Cecile followed his every move tensely - the primordial fear of the unknown (magic, in this case) had wisened her a little. The mages had already demonstrated their powers once, and she was not going to give them another reason any time soon.

She fidgeted when Edgar turned to stare at the British mage. "Supposing you can handle a simple baby-sitting gig, Robert, I could go look into this."

Robert chuckled and squinted thoughtfully at Edgar. He thought about it only for a moment. "Certainly. I'm in no particular hurry - and neither is she."