Jean-Luc’s thigh burned from the wound and his side bled. He had no weapon and nowhere to run. His vision blurry, Jean-Luc slumped to his knees and crashed to the floor. He reached a hand out desperately to the old man, but his strength failed him and he blinked, fighting to stay conscious. Lazare approached him slowly, cautiously, as one would a wounded—but not yet dead—beast in a trap. The old man arched his back as he skulked toward Jean-Luc. He stood before the open window, his figure a black silhouette against the sky.
And then, before either of them knew it was happening, Sophie stood and charged the man, her arms bent and bracing. With a shove that took the entirety of her strength, she screamed and pushed her tormentor’s frame toward the large window. He hadn’t expected the assault from that direction, and he dropped the knife, turning his confused gaze to her. She was struggling to wrap her arms around him, and the two of them were caught in a tenuous embrace.
Sophie’s face was contorted and flushed, her eyes burning with the frenzied, primordial instinct to survive; Lazare was stronger, but still surprised and disoriented by her unexpected ferocity.
“You filthy whore!” Lazare spat at her, lifting his hand to strike her across the face. Staying low, Sophie looked up into the man’s eyes. Using her last bit of fight, she shoved her body against his once again. The force with which she knocked into him sent him flying backward, toward the opened window. He slipped on the pool of blood that had collected beneath Jean-Luc’s gaping wound and lost his footing. Sophie, in a flash, capitalized on the old man’s unsteady balance and gave him another push. At the moment Sophie lunged forward, Jean-Luc stirred and saw through his blurred vision Lazare reeling back, his frame thrown by the momentum. His eyes wide with shock, his arms groping at the air, he flew backward out the window.
Jean-Luc struggled to pull himself to the window to watch the man’s fall. Lazare careened toward the street but was stopped suddenly short. Before his body could smash onto the cobblestones, the spear of the archangel Michael met the man’s back so that he landed impaled on the blade of divine vengeance; it tore through his flesh and rose out the top of his gut as the old man writhed, losing his blood and his life, coloring the pristine white of the statue a bright, brilliant red.
The few pedestrians on the street in Jean-Luc’s neighborhood eyed him and Sophie with a mixture of fear and ghoulish interest; why were they covered in blood, their clothes tattered, their faces hollow? Jean-Luc did not acknowledge their shocked expressions or muted utterances of alarm. He had no time to pause to answer their questions. He had left Marie hours earlier and needed to get back to her.
Jean-Luc limped up the stairs toward his garret, his arm around Sophie’s shoulders for support.
“Marie?” He burst into their apartment, and it was there he found the thick figure of Madame Grocque. The woman sat beside the bed, holding a small bundle of linens, a pink face of wrinkled flesh. The baby had come, and now it began to whimper.
“Oh, God have mercy! The baby is here, already? Healthy? But it’s so small. It arrived so early.” Jean-Luc gasped, surveying the scene. Marie was in bed, asleep. The baby, unbearably tiny, was swaddled snugly in the tavern keeper’s arms while Mathieu sat in the corner. The boy wept, undoubtedly upset after what he must have witnessed during the birth, Jean-Luc realized. Sophie rushed to the boy and took him in her arms.
“Oh, thank you, Madame Grocque. Thank you ever so much.” Jean-Luc crossed the room, looking down at the fragile body clutched in the woman’s embrace. But Madame Grocque said nothing, staring at Jean-Luc in dumb silence. What was the meaning of such an expression on her face? Jean-Luc wondered.
“Oh, Monsieur St. Clair, I’m so sorry. I tried, I did. But it all happened so fast. I didn’t even have time to fetch the midwife.” Just then, the infant began to cry, its wail surprisingly strong given the newness of its lungs.
“Well, the baby sounds perfectly healthy, madame, even if a bit early,” Jean-Luc said, approaching the bed. “A little hungry, perhaps.” He looked down at his child, and there was no mistaking that he had a daughter. The baby’s face was a mottled pink, a rosebud with a shock of her mother’s chestnut hair. “As beautiful as her mother,” Jean-Luc said, momentarily consumed by the first sight of his daughter. “And I think she ought to be named for her, as well. Hello, Mariette. Little Marie. How do you like the sound of that?”
The old woman, still holding the baby, shook her head and did something Jean-Luc had never seen her do before: she began to cry.