Floats the Dark Shadow (50 page)

“You kidnapped Matthieu while Averill was in prison. You never wanted to hurt him.” Theo prayed it was true.

“Oh, I wanted to hurt Averill, but only as he wanted to be hurt. He showed me that pain can lead to freedom.” Casimir laughed. “You’ll never win him,
chère Amazone
. Unless it hurts, it can’t be love. He needs the darkness. Your bright sunlight will only push him deeper into the shadows.”

Theo’s heart twisted. Averill had spoken almost the same words. But her pain, her love for him was only a distraction Casimir used to goad her. Saving Matthieu was all that mattered now, but she choked on her words.

Michel spoke for her. “You will not be forgiven if you take Matthieu with you. Your repentance will only have meaning if you surrender him.”

“He belongs to me.” Casimir said it as if were indisputable.

Seeing them together, Theo thought Matthieu might be Casimir himself as a boy. Denis and Dondre resembled him as well, but Matthieu most of all, with his large eyes and curling mop of hair. Casimir gazed at her, his eyes so guileless now, utterly enraptured with this evil fairy tale of his own creation. In it he destroyed his image again and again. Only his own death would end it.

“He is not you,” Theo said, fighting her rage. “He only looks like you. He has a mother who loves him.”

“And his own Jeanne d’Arc who will fight to protect him.” Casimir’s voice was condescending, but myriad emotions flickered over his face, sadness, envy, hatred.

Theo saw Michel move toward her protectively. Casimir smiled at him. “Do you think I would consign her to the flames?”

“I think you would burn the world down if you could,” Michel answered.

“Ah, you are wrong. Jeanne d’Arc was sent to redeem me. She failed and I failed. I must achieve my own redemption. She is beyond pain, yet the path to her is through pain. Centuries ago they offered me the chance to follow her into the flames, but I was too proud, too fearful, and I let the executioner strangle me on the pyre. Jeanne came again when I was a child here, and died again, right above us. I should have burned with her.”

He knelt, the tug of the rope pulling Matthieu to his knees beside him. He lowered his head, as if in prayer, but kept the gun trained on Michel. “I am your brother in Christ. You must pray for me and forgive me freely, as you desire God to forgive you and have mercy on your souls. I have lacerated your hearts, yet I beg you to pity me.”

Gilles de Rais’ words, before he died. Theo answered, “I will pray for you, but only if you release Matthieu.”

He gazed up at her. “He is my sacrifice. The greater the sin, the greater the forgiveness. I need only feel profound regret and contrition.”

Theo did not dare look at Michel. She sensed his presence like a wire taut between them, but did not dare turn her eyes away from Casimir. “I do not see regret and contrition. I see pride, indulgence, defiance. Do not heap another sin on your soul. Matthieu is indeed your sacrifice, not burned upon the altar of your sin but freed, whole and innocent.”

“Not quite innocent. He is anointed with my sin.”

Matthieu gave a low sob, tears running down his cheeks now.

She was desperate. He had an answer for everything. “No, you are the last sacrifice, Gilles. You and you alone.”

He smiled at her, his most charming, boyish smile. “You are valiant, but you are not Jeanne. You cannot make that claim.”

“But I am Jeanne,” she said to him. “Jeanne Theodora Faraday. When I came to France, I thought that my other name would be more unusual. I wanted to be a great artist and I chose it out of pride. I too sinned.”

“No,” he said, rising, staring at her. Fury rippled through the muscles of his face, distorting it. “Do not dare!”

She went on, heedless of his wrath. “Jeanne’s spirit came to me. When I was little, I would ride my horse through the meadows, dreaming I was leading her armies. I could almost hear my valiant companions—almost hear you—but I thought it was only the wind.”

“Liar!” He searched her face, still angry and disbelieving.

She defied both. “What more proof do you need than that I am here, now, when you must come face to face with God?”

“You wear men’s clothes. You have the heart of a warrior,” he murmured, trying now to convince himself. Then he glared at her, “You are Averill’s lover.”

“No, I am a virgin.”

He stared at her, wonder and fear in his eyes. His lips trembled. “Her spirit came to you?”

“Jeanne!” Matthieu called to her. He was not too young to understand some of this bizarre drama. “Save me, Jeanne!”

Theo knelt and held out her arms, imploring Casimir. “Give him to me.”

“I did not die alone,” Casimir said.

“Those who died with you were your servants in evil.”

“My servants but not my true companions,” Casimir agreed, watching her intently. “If you are Jeanne, return to me. Join with me, as it was meant to be, and I will let him go.”

Theo walked back to the table. Ignoring Michel’s gasp, she picked up the jar of gasoline. Shaking, she poured the vile liquid over her shoulders, feeling it run down her body and soak her clothing. Beside her, the lantern blazed ominously.

“More.” The fervor of a fanatic glowed in Casimir’s eyes.

She poured more over her arms, her legs, then put the jug on the table with its flaunted implements of torture. Terror and hope twisted every nerve and muscle, but she kept her voice clear, commanding. “Release him.”

“Come to me.”

She moved closer, held out her hand, almost but not quite within reach. “You cannot have us both. You must choose.”

He hesitated, then said to Matthieu, “You can untie the rope.” Matthieu turned, his hands fumbling with the knot. She watched, praying silently as he jerked and tugged. Then suddenly Matthieu was running—though he seemed barely to move through the yellow air thick as poisoned honey. The rope flapped as he ran past the gasoline pooled on the floor, beyond the line of staked heads, beyond Michel. As he passed, Michel’s eyes met hers and he cried out, “Theo, jump!”

She jumped, her shaking legs seeming to give way even as she flung herself sideways. Her dive carried her as far as the stakes, the yellow light swaying above them. She rolled and kept rolling. Glimpses of terror and hope flashed with every turn. Casimir hurled his lantern at her. It crashed against a stake in a crackle of glass but its spurting flames did not reach her. Still rolling toward the door, she saw Michel rush the table. Casimir fired the gun at his hurtling body. Michel gave a harsh cry and spun with the impact. Then he whirled and kicked out, a long hard kick that hit Casimir and sent him flying back to crash against the table. The jolt of his body set the lantern rocking. Michel staggered back toward the door then collapsed. The lantern toppled, the glass shattering on the floor. With a hissing rush, the pool of gasoline became a pool of fire. Greedy fingers of flame reached out and seized Casimir, rushing up his legs, his body, licking over his face. She watched in horror as he leapt up, a human candle, screaming and screaming and screaming as the fire engulfed him. He stared back at her from the center of that agony—and then he was running toward her, his hands outstretched.

“Don’t let him touch you!” Michel cried.

Theo sensed the miasma of fumes hovering all around her, thicker now than when she first poured the gasoline. She leapt to her feet and raced through the door. Matthieu stood in the hall, watching the horrific end unfold. Theo grabbed his hand, pulled him with her, running down the hall and through the wine cellar, past the gruesome dangling body of Corbeau. Another shot sounded behind her as she ran with Matthieu out the door and up the steps to the demolished kitchen. At the top she turned, waiting for any glimpse of fire below, waiting for the evil spirit of Gilles de Rais to seek her out. No light showed except the dim flicker of candlelight through the open door. They were safe. But what of Michel? Casimir’s first shot had wounded him. Had Michel ended Casimir’s agony with the second? Had Casimir somehow managed to kill him?

Matthieu pressed against her, trembling as she was still trembling. She held him close, needing the same comfort he did, needing to feel him alive. He looked up at her. “Is your name Jeanne, mademoiselle, like Jeanne d’Arc? Did she speak to you?”

“No, my name is just Theo. And if she spoke to me, it was to tell me to save you.”

“You did not burn,” Matthieu whispered. “It is a miracle.”

“No. It is not the gasoline that ignites, it’s the fumes. I was lucky,” she told him.

“A miracle,” he said again. Theo thought it was too, whatever the scientific explanation. She was alive. But she must go back down. “You stay here, Matthieu. I must go see if Inspecteur Devaux is hurt.”

“No need.” They both swiveled round to stare down the stairs. Michel stood at the bottom, his face white with strain. “He’s dead.”

“You shot him?” Matthieu asked.

Michel gave a sharp nod.

Theo drew a long breath. “I’m glad you ended his suffering.”

“Mercy is better than vengeance.” His gaze was dark, and his voice sounded as uncertain as she felt. She went down the stairs to him, looked at the bloodstained hand pressed to his side. “Rib,” he said.

“There’s the carriage,” Theo said. “I can drive us back to town.”

He nodded, then set himself to climb the stairs, refusing her help. There was a working pump by the abandoned cottage, so Theo began to wash the gasoline off herself and Matthieu. Suddenly she had the image of Casimir standing here, washing away his victims’ blood. How many children had perished here?

She led Matthieu off as soon as she felt they would not burst into flames at the slightest friction. He helped her put the carriage horse back in his traces. Gingerly, Michel got into the carriage. Matthieu beside her, she drove slowly down to the bottom of the hill where the river Oise flowed by, water gleaming in the sun.

Impulsively, Theo stopped so she and Matthieu could wash again. And again….

The cold water swept away more of the petrol, more of the stench of death.

But the memories were burned into them forever.

Chapter Forty-Two

Let us go, then, my poor heart. Let us go,

my old accomplice.Repair and paint anew

all your triumphal arcs. Burn bitter incense

On your pinchbeck altars. Scatter

with flowers the cliff's gaping brink.

Let us go then, my poor heart.

Let us go, my old accomplice.

~ Paul Verlaine

THEO walked up the rue Lepic toward home, her damp hair drying in the bright June afternoon. The compulsion to wash hadn’t waned. She’d been to the baths once or twice a day for a week, scrubbing with vinegar, with ground coffee, with whatever remedy anyone could suggest. The clothes she had thrown away. The stench of death and dying was gone from her skin but not from her mind. Rotting corpses. Burning flesh. Gasoline. The smell clung to her hair and she almost hacked it off—then thought of Jeanne d’Arc and her shorn hair. Theo kept hers long and returned to the vinegar. Lifting some strands to her nose now, she sniffed only dampness and sunshine and felt a swell of relief.

A week….

A week, and still Averill had not come to see her. Had he not forgiven her? Did he think she despised him? She had told herself to wait until he was ready to speak to her. A week was not so terribly long, not after what they had all endured. Averill was grieving—and he had other worries. His sister was still hidden away in some asylum.

Michel had let her tell Averill of Casimir’s death. He heard her out, every hideous detail. He did not wish to be spared. But then he wanted to be alone. In mourning for a dream. But as she left he reached out his hand and clasped hers. “I still love you,” he whispered. A voice from the bottom of a well.

“I love you too,” she’d answered, but she’d felt only wretchedness.

After his release, his mother had come to thank her, trembling and almost incoherent with joy. Francine had been with her, tense and acidic. Had she hoped Casimir would propose? Was her lost chance at being a baroness more important than her misconception of who he was? A misconception they had all shared. Theo remembered how strangely perfect Casimir had seemed. Too perfect—because he was always playing a part. Not knowing what tales her uncle might spin, Theo had written her father so he would have an honest, if expurgated, version of what had happened. Yesterday, a telegram came, pleading with her to travel with him in Italy. It lay on her table, unanswered.

Theo approached the door of her home, for home it still was. Matthieu’s mother had mixed feelings, her heartfelt gratitude for Theo’s rescue tainted with blame for her knowing such a monster. At first Madame Masson wanted Casimir’s guilt shouted from the rooftops. Then Michel warned that the newspaper reporters would descend upon her and Matthieu like jackals. The story had been covered up by the Paris police with the help of the locals. Corbeau took the blame and few knew the full truth. The Revenants did and disbanded. None of them wanted to be associated with a killer.

Casimir had been the true revenant, possessed by Gilles de Rais. Possessed by the idea, perhaps by the spirit, as Yeats had suggested.

Theo paused as she entered the courtyard, closed her eyes and breathed deeply. It had rained earlier. The fragrance of the pink tea roses mingled with the rich aromas of bark and soil, the glimmering greens of leaves and damp grass. The air smelled sweetly alive, idyllic, peaceful. She inhaled again, the sweet, living scents keeping the ugly memories at bay for a few more seconds. When she opened her eyes again, she saw Averill rise from where he’d been sitting beneath the shadow of the rose tree—reading while he waited, for he carried a book in his hand.

She walked forward, going to meet him under the cool shade of the overhanging branches. Close to, he looked exhausted, a rim of the bruise still faintly visible on his throat, his eyes hollowed. But he smelled lovely, the scent of warm woods and lavender. Yet now that he was here, her emotions were an awkward tangle and she did not know what to say. She glanced down at the book. “Baudelaire.”

“I have stopped drinking absinthe,” Averill said, “but I still drink the darkness. You would think that Casimir’s death would have cured me of that addiction, yet it is more potent than ever, the mystery deeper.”

So they were at the heart of things already. Casimir stood between them, a dreadful burning brightness that obliterated everything else. She stared at Averill, words knotted in her throat.

He met her gaze. Pale as his eyes were, his gaze seemed bottomless. “I never came back for the portrait. You can paint it now if you want. I have nothing more to hide from you.”

A flare of anger gave her back her voice. “Then we can be truly honest at last?”

“I told myself I was honest,” he answered, “that it was only a lie of omission. I did not tell you about the women I bedded, why should I tell you about Casimir?”

“I did not know them.”

“We were lovers only occasionally.” His voice was hesitant. “I kept thinking it might be over, but it never was, quite.” He paused. “If you had asked, I would have told you—but I did not want you to ask.”

Theo still felt betrayed. “You implied there were such adventures—but only as a schoolboy experiment.”

“I was sixteen when Casimir saved me from some bullies who were beating me for reading poetry.” He frowned. “I was small for my age and looked much younger. Now I wonder now if that drew him. He took me home with him. It was my first time.”

Her heart ached. Averill had told her once that was how they met, but spoke only of the valiant rescue, not the seduction.

He smiled a little. “That year I shot up inches. It seemed like magic, as if he had worked some miracle on me.”

“You were in love with him.”

It was an accusation, not a question, but Averill answered it quietly. “In love—and always a little afraid. Casimir was tender with me, but he also led me to the darkness. Then he showed me that darkness can lead to light.”

Theo almost choked on the words, but she gave them to him. “He said the same of you.”

“Did he?” Averill asked, puzzled. “Knowing what he did, that seems abominable.”

Unable to stop herself, she repeated Casimir’s mysterious words. “He said unless it hurts you, it couldn’t be love.”

Averill flinched as if slapped, but continued to answer her quietly. “Yes. I am a masochistic…at least on occasion. Nothing else is as…transfiguring. It is more like worship than sex. I discovered that secret with Casimir, that first time. Hurt lingered from the bullies beating. I wanted him so much the hurt did not matter. Pain and pleasure dissolved together. Dissolved me—body and soul.”

Theo shivered a little. “And that made you love the pain?”

“At first it was a transformation, a joy. Later—the more I hated myself, the more I craved it.” He closed his eyes, then opened them to face her again. “I needed the obliteration.”

“But why did you hate yourself?”

“Why do I hate myself? For not fighting my father—then for trying to kill him. For abandoning my mother and sister to my father’s viciousness. For returning to the same prison that destroyed them. There is no escape.”

She put her hands on his shoulders. He leaned forward, resting his forehead against hers with a sigh. His hands rose to rest on her arms. She ached inside, filled with yearning and a terrible sadness. Impulsively, she kissed him. His lips were warm and full against her own. They trembled slightly. She felt him tense. His hands tightened fiercely but did not push her away or pull her closer. She felt no more than before, a yearning, an aching emptiness. She felt him waiting—as she was waiting. There was no rush of desire, no urge to melt into him.

Confused, Theo drew back. Meeting her gaze, he smiled bitterly. “So he has murdered that as well.”

It was true. She did not even know when it had happened. Was it when she saw Averill kiss Casimir? No, it had not ended then. But perhaps that had been the mortal wound that let desire bleed away and die, a husk on Casimir’s funeral pyre. “I wanted to marry you,” she whispered, stricken.

Averill shook his head. “I will never marry. My family’s blood is degenerate.”

“No!” she said fiercely.

“Still defending me?”

“I still love you,” she said, as he had said to her in the prison. She did.

“But you are not in love with me anymore.”

She did not answer. The pain in his eyes revealed he was still in love with her, which made it far more terrible. She ached all over, a pain in her heart that spread outward to every limb.

A shaft of sunlight slanted across his face. He shielded his eyes. “Can we go inside? It is so bright here.”

Theo was aware of the garden again, after seeing only him. The sunshine was a balm, one of the few she’d found, but he was always sensitive to its brightness. She led the way upstairs. In her apartment, the windows were open, vases filled with flowers. Underneath the fresh air and fragrant blossoms lingered the fumes of turpentine—something a painter with her own studio must live with. It was faint now, with the bottles sealed and paints put away, but still it made her queasy. It was a thinner, sharper smell than gasoline, but near enough to turn her stomach. It had not stopped her work at the easel. Painting was her exorcism. There would always be reminders. Would fire ever be friendly again?

Averill looked over at the empty easel. “Have you been able to work at all?”

He had been honest with her. Theo went to the corner, picked up the portrait that faced the wall and placed it on the easel. Turning back to him, she said, “I haven’t been drinking the darkness. I have been drowning in it.”

Averill stared at the portrait. At last he said, “It’s horrific—horrific and magnificent.”

“I hate it.”

He nodded. “But you had to paint it.”

Matthieu stared out from the canvas. The light falling across half his face was warm, but Theo revealed the grim shadow haunting his memory. She painted it, blackness bleeding scarlet and breathing sulphurous yellow. An acidic green oozed forth like a sickness of the soul. Not his sickness, yet he was stained by it.
Anointed.
The colors reached out from the background, wove through his hair and spilled over his shoulders.

“Does the boy hate it too?”

She shook her head. “He seems oddly comforted.”

“He feels the presence. He is grateful you can see it too.”

“Perhaps.” Theo did not know why Matthieu found comfort in her company, but he did. Perhaps because he did not want his mother to know how horrible it had been, but Theo knew already. There was no need to pretend.

Going back to the wall, she took out a study of Mélanie with her skirt on fire, the image she had been too frightened, too ashamed to paint before. “I don’t want to show them.”

He nodded, then glanced at the other canvases against the wall. Understanding, she said, “There are no pictures of Casimir. That’s strange isn’t it? Images of him blaze quickly, like a match, but then there is only utter darkness. With all the terrible memories haunting me, you think he would too.”

Averill rested a hand on the easel. “You are not only painting Matthieu—you are painting yourself.”

She nodded. It was not only the stench of the physical horrors that clung to her. It was the metaphysical horror as well.

“But it has not corrupted you,” Averill said. “I do not know if you will ever lose your innocence. It is an innocence of the heart, of the spirit.”

“I do not feel innocent. Not after what has happened. I feel swallowed by the darkness.”

“Inside it for now, but never a part of it. Even lost in it as you feel you are now, you give off light. You are a beacon.”