Baker Thief Read online

  Table des matières

  Baker Thief

  -1- Pendre la crémaillère

  -2- Le Croissant-toi

  -3- Bande à Part

  -4- Les Dessous de Montrant

  -5- Point de Contact

  -6- Le Nid Familial

  -7- Une Fracture dans la Glace

  -8- Collision

  -9- À La Une

  -10- Entre Quatre Murs de Cristal

  -11- La Nature des Exocores

  -12- Et Pourquoi Pas Montrant?

  -13- L’aide-xubérante

  -14- Le Feu Aux Poudres

  -15- À la Rescousse

  -16- On Respire

  -17- Et Tombent les Masques

  -18- Sur la Piste

  -19- Les Laboratoires

  -20- L’Espoisson Spatule

  -21- Un Peu de Clémence

  -22- Un Feuilleté de Complications

  -23- Je Crois en Toi

  -24- Le Tour de Calèche

  -25- Partenaires

  -26- En Bonne Compagnie

  -27- Vieille Fille, Nouvelle Toile

  -28- Pousse et Pointe

  -29- Lumière Cruelle

  -30- Ombres Protectrices

  -31- Du Pain et du Repos

  -32- La Forme du Nous

  Thank You for Reading!

  Want More?

  Remerciements

  BAKER THIEF

  Claudie Arseneault

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, businesses, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is entirely coincidental.

  Baker Thief

  Copyright © 2018 Claudie Arseneault

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  ISBN 978-1-7753129-0-1

  Edited by Lynn O’Connacht

  Cover by Laya Rose

  Interior Design by Claudie Arseneault

  Published with The Kraken Collective

  claudiearseneault.com

  Content Notes

  Below is a list of trigger warnings for Baker Thief. If you need more information to navigate the story safely, please feel free to contact me for details. Numbers represent chapters.

  First, general trigger warnings for genocide: a substantial amount of the storyline relies on villains targeting a specific caste of people and transforming them into a power source.

  Breaking and entering: 1 – 11 – 14 – 19 – 27 – 29

  Gunshots: 1 – 14 – 23 – 24 – 29

  Food: 2 – 6 – 9 – 10 – 16 – 25 – 26 – 28 – 31 – 32

  Alcohol: 6 – 8 – 10 – 26 – 27

  Mob violence: 5 – 6 – 10

  Human experimentation and trafficking:

  2 – 4 – 7 – 11 – 14 – 15 – 19 – 21 – 22 – 29

  Misgendering (accidental): 14

  Fire/Burns: 14 – 15 – 17

  Breathing difficulties/asthma: 1 – 14 – 15 – 16 – 20 – 22

  State violence (police): 8 – 22 – 23 – 24 – 29

  -1-

  PENDRE LA CRÉMAILLÈRE

  Adèle lay wide awake in her bed, pondering the differences between the unfamiliar noises of a new home and the scuffle of discreet footsteps in her living room. The occasional grating filtering through her door could only belong to the latter. Someone had sneaked into her flat.

  They had chosen the wrong house.

  Adèle pulled her nightstand’s drawer open in a deliberate, silent movement, then wrapped her fingers around her pistol. Not two weeks inhabiting the neighbourhood and a stranger already wanted to steal from her. She might regret deciding to live in the Quartier des Bouleaux. Whoever this thief was, Adèle would make sure they shared some of that regret.

  She slid out of bed, her thin night gown slinking around her. Adèle thanked God she’d put something on. Summers in Val-de-mer grew hot and humid, and she didn’t always bother. Bad enough to be arresting thieves without her uniform on, she didn’t need to be doing it in her underwear. Adèle breathed in deeply, both to calm her nerves and to listen to her intruder. The soft scraping of her desk’s drawers drifted through the otherwise silent night. They were in her minuscule office, then. What a strange choice. The tiny room was almost a cupboard for storage and utilities. Adèle had crammed a desk under the westward window, however, granting her the luxury of sunlight when working late evenings. She used to bring a lot of police work home in her last job, and suspected the extra light would remain an essential.

  Adèle progressed across her bedroom with slow and careful strides, gritting her teeth at the cold floor against her naked feet. Walls and furniture cast unfamiliar shadows around her, and Adèle thanked the lampposts outside for the meagre light filtering through her curtains. She’d needed to adjust to it, but in complete darkness, she might have hit a corner, alerting the thief to her coming. She wished she was still at her old home instead; this new flat’s foreign rooms felt threatening. The presence of a stranger riffling through her belongings didn’t help any.

  She rounded the corner to her office, pistol raised before her.

  A woman bent over her desk, clad from head to toe in black cotton clothes, including a cape and flowing skirts. A bad, stuffy choice in this weather, and the outfit surely got caught on furniture often as she moved around. Still, at least the fabric clung to her soft arms, the rolls of her belly and the thickness of her thighs, giving Adèle an excellent idea of her shape. She’d covered the upper half of her head with a black bandana, which she’d folded and tied behind her head. Long purple hair flowed out of the makeshift mask, cascading down her shoulders to the middle of her back. She held a thin ink pen, sculpted from birch wood after Adèle’s new quartier’s Soul Tree, which her sister had bought for her upon learning she planned to move to Val-de-mer. The quartier hadn’t won the Tournoi in the last thirty years, and Emmanuelle had joked that with her little sister in their ranks, they finally stood a chance. The bauble didn’t warrant stealing, but Adèle hated the idea of losing it.

  “I’m in a foul mood, so you’d better put that down.”

  The thief froze, then let the ink pen fall with a clang before turning to Adèle. Her brown skin glistened in the moonlight, but even face to face with her Adèle couldn’t spot much else. She registered the details she could, memorizing the intruder’s large nose and smirk, along with the brown eyes shining through holes cut in the mask, until her gaze landed on an exocore, tucked in a subtle fold of the fabric that acted as a voluminous pocket. A soft red light emanated from the gem, as if the power it should be pushing through Adèle’s flat was struggling to get out. The metal casing contained most of the radiance, but, as it didn’t fully cover the core, some of the glow escaped. Enough of it for Adèle to notice. Her gaze shot to the stand on the wall, where her recently-bought exocore should be ensconced. It was, of course, missing.

  “Give back the exocore too,” she said.

  Instead of obeying without question, the thief pouted and crossed her arms. Disbelief and indignation rippled through Adèle, and she tightened her grip on her pistol. She’d had enough. Moving into Val-de-mer had already been difficult, and she didn’t need an upstart thief shattering her feeble sense of security and taking off with her flat’s costly source of electricity.

  “Don’t make me say it twice.”

  “Or you’ll shoot me?” The thief’s voice was rich; her tone playful. If the gun scared her, she hid it well. “I don’t think you would. I’m Claire, by the way.”

  “I’l
l arrest you.” Adèle ignored the given name. She didn’t want to know! This woman wasn’t Claire; she was a thief who had broken into her house to snatch her valuables away. A criminal who didn’t show the slightest hint of remorse. “I am an officer of the law.”

  She saw no need to mention she only started this new assignment tomorrow, and had never met her boss or colleagues. Nor that she didn’t expect them to be very welcoming of her—not if her troublemaking reputation had followed her from one city to the next. If Adèle had to introduce herself tonight in order to bring Claire in, she wouldn’t hesitate despite the less than ideal circumstances.

  Claire clapped her hands. “Oh, good!”

  Adèle scowled at the thief’s pleased exclamation. Did anything get through her thick skull? Why would she ever consider this good news? Adèle’s doubts must have shown, because Claire chuckled.

  “It explains the revolver. Not a lot of people in the big city have legal reasons to keep a firearm within reach, and those who ignore the law… they’re not the sorts I want to associate with. Or anger.”

  “You ignore the law! You broke into my house. You’re trying to steal my things, right now!”

  “You can’t compare the two! I’m harmless.”

  Harmless? Didn’t she realize harm came in other ways than through physical wounds? The nerve of this girl! Adèle stepped forward, her blood boiling. She wanted to return to sleep, to rest before her first day of work, but she doubted she’d manage to now. Especially since every word out of Claire’s mouth renewed her anger. “Put my exocore back on the desk, then step away from it.”

  “If you insist.”

  “I do.”

  With another pout, Claire slid her hand towards the sling pouch. Adèle willed herself to track every inch of movement, to never lose sight of her. The thief grimaced as she touched the exocore, and Adèle scowled. If the thing disgusted her so much, why even steal it? Then again, perhaps she shouldn’t expect the motivations of a masked and caped thief to make sense. People who sneaked into private houses costumed and laughing tended to have weird ideas about the world around them. Adèle didn’t care to hear them. She wanted her exocore back, and she wanted this Claire to answer for her crime.

  Yet despite her vigilance—despite the assiduity with which she watched Claire’s fingers—Adèle never noticed her drop the exocore in favour of a smokestick. One moment she was staring at the hand, the next it had turned into a blur, and before her brain could even register how wrong this was, thick gray smoke erupted from the pouch. Adèle’s mind scrambled to grasp how the thief had moved so fast, and her instincts took over. She shifted her aim towards Claire’s left knee and pressed the trigger.

  The bang startled Adèle, shaking off the last of her drowsiness. She so rarely shot, she had forgotten how hard it made her ears ring. Her bullet whizzed through thick smoke and thunked into wood. Not flesh. Adèle hurried back as Claire’s cape snapped close by, loud and clear. How had she reached Adèle so fast? Would she strike her next? Where from? Adèle backpedalled against a wall, her heart hammering in her chest, inhaling the smoke in the process. It shot through her airways, burning, and she doubled over to cough. Her firearm almost slipped out of her sweaty palms as she leaned against the wall, trying to recover from her throat closing down.

  Something brushed against her—a flash of purple hair and black cotton—then the soft padding of silent feet grew weaker. Adèle stumbled out of the room, cringing at the wheeziness of her breath. Hard to hear anything above herself. Had the thief fled? She peered at the smoke, slowly improving. As seconds passed, she began to relax. Then Claire’s voice boomed from behind, and Adèle spun on her heels.

  “Sorry for all the smoke!”

  Adèle brandished her revolver again, but Claire was nowhere around. A strange absence followed, and for the first time since waking up, Adèle knew with complete certainty that she was alone in her flat. She hurried to the bathroom, snatching her bottle of vivifiants. She snapped two of the pressured-air capsules into a small chamber, and shoved the open end of it in her mouth. Adèle inhaled deeply, and fresh and stingy air flowed down, reaching into her lungs and appeasing her. With a relieved sigh, she allowed the medication to take effect then spat the worst of the mucus back into the sink. She hoped she wouldn’t need the stronger but slower inhaler later; she was in no mood for the long routine of mixing medication with water and having it boil in her special tin can. Sometimes, though, the rescue vivifiants just weren’t enough. When she felt better, Adèle returned to her living room. Warm summer wind slid into the house from her now-open window.

  Her thief had escaped.

  The woman had stridden into Adèle’s home, browsing through her personal items and unhooking her exocore, stealing power and safety all at once. Worse, she had grinned at Adèle, introduced herself like this entire encounter was a pleasant chat in the nearest café, then slipped through her fingers. A walk in the park! No wonder she hadn’t worried about the revolver.

  Adèle slammed her palm against the wall, humiliation burning through her stomach and throat. She should have arrested Claire. Smoke drifted out of the windows, revealing walls still undecorated. Adèle hadn’t turned her flat into her cozy home yet, and now it felt more foreign than ever.

  -2-

  LE CROISSANT-TOI

  Reassuring familiarity washed over Adèle as the local bakery’s bell rang. Every morning since moving to Val-de-mer, the lovely sound preceded the scent of fresh bread, the warmth of the bakery, and the delicious croissant she always bought. Established a block away from her apartment, Claude’s Croissant-toi was a haven and her favourite spot in this neighbourhood. Moving had brought about many changes, but Claude’s infallible smile had soon created a routine Adèle used to ground herself. It made this new area feel a little like home.

  Unlike that thief, who’d smashed her growing sense of security and belonging into pieces.

  Adèle heaved a sigh and rubbed her eyes. Even after this Claire had left, she hadn’t managed to get a drop of sleep. She had watched the sky lighten for dawn through her thin curtains, cursing the anxious insomnia on the eve of her first day at a new job. Adèle reached for the talisman at her neck, prayed the bad timing wasn’t an omen of things to come, and returned her attention to the tiny bakery.

  Huge wicker baskets hung on the walls behind the counter, each filled with baguettes and breads of all types—brié, bran, nut sourdough, with white or rye flour, they spread before her in various shades of brown, their crusts almost glowing in the warm light. Claude stood in front like a proud father, round arms on his hips. Adèle’s gaze immediately sought the golden croissants he prepared every day, and her mouth watered at the promise of buttery goodness. She stifled a yawn and hurried closer.

  Claude cocked his head, and strands of rich brown hair fell in front of his eyes. It never seemed to stay contained in his long and loose ponytail, even early in the morning.

  “Madame, have you slept at all last night?” Concern tarnished his otherwise radiant smile. Adèle wondered if he’d ever stop calling her Madame or using “vous” instead of “tu” for her. She couldn’t be more than a year older, and the overt politeness and formal address both amused and irritated her. When she shook her head, he snatched a ceramic cup from his shelves. “Let me brew you my finest coffee, then. On the house.”

  He motioned to the visitor’s counter, a small section at the rightmost end devoid of viennoiseries and fitted with seats, for customers who wished to linger, and Adèle plopped down on a stool. She rubbed her eyes again. “You’re too kind. I had a rough night.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I hope the croissant is extra delicious to make up for it.”

  “That’s a tough challenge.” Adèle grinned and watched him put a percolator over the fire. Claude still powered his bakery through gas, foregoing the more modern exocores. Perhaps he couldn’t afford this latest technology. The upgrade didn’t come cheap, even for low-energy houses, and she wouldn’t
have paid for hers if not for the diminished risk of fire. “Your croissants are always impeccable. It’d be a miracle for this one to surpass others.”

  He laughed, and Adèle allowed the sound to wash over her. His voice became deeper when he laughed, heartier, and more honest, as if every loud burst came unfiltered from within. She had never been with a man before, despite a number of romantic crushes, and listening to him now, the stiff smell of coffee drifting around the bakery, Adèle wondered if Claude might become the first. She leaned forward, her gaze following him as he hand-picked a croissant for her. Her romantic life could wait until her job had settled, for sure. Besides, it might give her time for a bond to form, and the sexual attraction that sometimes came with it. One could hope, she thought, staring at his golden skin and bright hazelnut eyes. He’d be a nice change of pace from the wild ride Béatrice had been.

  Claude set the coffee and croissant in front of her. Their gazes met, and his face shifted into a more serious expression. Before he could add anything, however, the bell chimed.

  A tall woman swept in, skirts flowing behind her, with short boyish hair and rich brown skin. She threw her arms up with a grin, called “Claude” in a deep and accented voice, pronouncing the “a” and “u” as two tied vowels instead of a single “o”. Claude’s eyes widened, but after a stunned second, his face split into a welcoming smile.

  “Livia!” Then they were off, chattering in Tereaun, which Adèle struggled to follow. Despite sharing words and sounds with Bernéais, Tereaun had a completely different musicality, a sing-song rhythm foreign to her ears. She loved it, even if she didn’t understand most of it. Claude had gone around the counter to embrace the newcomer, then turned to Adèle, a hand still on the taller woman’s shoulder. “Adèle, this is my younger twin, Livia. Livia, Adèle is new in the neighbourhood, but one of my most regular customers already.”