The Bloodshade Encounters & The Songspinner (Shadeborn Book 2) (4 page)

Secrets Are Best Kept That Way

The organisation of Jazzy’s possessions was still taking place above them as Novel and Baptiste descended into the catacombs. The illusionist could hear the boxes tumbling and the Sewards arguing over something that had apparently smashed. The farther the two men went into the darkness of the underground cavern below the Theatre Imaginique, the fainter the voices became, until they could hear nothing but the sound of their own footsteps and Lemarick’s heavy breaths. Baptiste seemed to have no need for breathing, a fact which disturbed Novel, urging him to break their silence. Now was the time to voice his question.

“This cloud above you,” he said, staring at the hazy mass that was still growing over Baptiste, “Why can I see it?”

“You know exactly why,” the other man replied without looking back.

“Damn,” Novel answered. “You could have warned me. You know how I loathe surprises.”

“Is it honestly going to trouble you?” Baptiste snapped. Novel didn’t need to see his face to know the MC was irate. “It’s purely atmospheric, like the weather, unless you know how to read it to your advantage.”

“Will you teach me?” Novel asked.

They had reached the bottom of the stairs. Baptiste turned and looked back at the shade, conflicted.

“If you wish,” he replied, nodding awkwardly, “But I rather thought you had your hands full with Lily.”

If it was a pun, it was delivered with a terribly bitter wit. Novel ignored the remark and proceeded towards a low-burning torch on the wall. He took hold of it and the flame increased by his will, after which he gave it to Baptiste with a nod.

“After you, Monsieur.”

The pair walked along a corridor that was as silent as a grave and twice as deep. Shadows engulfed their every move, but Novel and Baptiste remained a portrait of calm where lesser beings might have quaked at the horror of being so enclosed.

“So tell me,” Baptiste began, his voice echoing down the passage, “Is having a soul mate all it was promised to be?”

“Why are you so interested?” Novel demanded, glaring at the taller man’s back. “As I recall, it was you who told Lily to stay away from the Imaginique. Until, of course, you needed her to save me.”

“Well, you’ve moved her in,” Baptiste replied, “So it would be wise of me to change my mind.”

“You told her I was dangerous,” Novel said.

“You
are
dangerous,” Baptiste corrected. “Besides, I like the girl well enough as an individual.”

A short pause followed, in which Novel heard his own footsteps quicken.

“But not when paired with me?” he asked.

“I never said that,” Baptiste shot back.

Silence fell upon them once again as they found the end of the tunnel’s path, turning a sharp corner into a small cavern totally coated in shadow. Baptiste hung his torch on the wall, shedding a little light onto the scene before them. A faint crunch sounded under Novel’s feet and he reached down, dislodging a chunk of white, flaking stone from beneath the heel of his shoe. Raw gypsum was crumbling from the walls. Novel pocketed the substance, out of habit, and straightened up.

“We met in a place like this,” Baptiste said, as though he might have plucked the thought straight out of the shade’s mind.

“Perhaps that’s why it feels so appropriate for the task,” Novel replied.

By the will of his mind, the flame from the single torch lifted into a comet and took flight around the room, tracing a familiar path to seven other torches that began to burn. The cavern they stood in was a square room carved into the earth and held steady by pillars of alabaster. In its centre was an ancient throne made of the same substance, which Novel approached, sitting down upon the hard and unforgiving surface. He had felt the deathly cold of this seat many times in his past, though every visit made the surface less icy to the touch. It was as if the cold didn’t filter through him anymore.

Novel looked to his right hand side, resting his forearm on the raised arm of the throne. Down the outside of the alabaster seat, a deep crimson line had permeated the stone, staining it forever with the trickle of dried blood. The sight of it should have made Novel’s stomach turn over, but the shade felt nothing but a prickle of anticipation as he observed the ghastly mark. Baptiste stood watching him for a moment, and his hard, sharp features had transformed into a soft, apologetic look. Novel did not return his sympathy. He stared his MC straight in the eyes, those eyes so full of life.

“Shall we commence?” he asked.

La Belle Époque

Paris was burning once more, but no longer with the fires of destruction and revolution. The streets of the world’s most glamorous city were now lined with the heat of tourists and travellers, bustling along in fervent lines to reach the many delightful destinations that Paris had to offer. Cinema, theatre, burlesque, opera: the possibilities for gaiety were simply endless in the summer of 1891. Outside his dining room window, Lemarick Novel saw the rush of the wild crowds as they ebbed and flowed, ever entrapped by a tide of impatience to reach the subjects of their indulgence.

“Come away from there, son of mine,” Mother said from across the room.

Lemarick went dutifully, glad to see his mother had risen early. They had spent a very late night training Lemarick’s skills with fire magic, and the still-young shade had feared that he may have exhausted his mother’s patience on the topic in order to perfect the technique. The son waved an elegant hand and his mother’s chair slid out for her to take her seat at the breakfast table, returning to her perfectly at the exact moment that she rested her weight on it.

“Thank you dear,” she soothed.

Mother Novel was draped in her usual black clothing, a dress lined with lace and a bonnet that covered part of her dark, curling tresses. Her face held a pale, smooth beauty despite her declining years, yet Lemarick couldn’t help but notice the bony withering of her hands. The darkness within her was starting to show on the surface. Lemarick took his seat opposite her at the dining table as he watched her bright eyes roving over the selection of cold meats and cheeses between them. Even as he watched, certain foods began to shift around the table, plates rising and falling until his mother had what she wanted before her. She’d always had what she wanted. Lemarick had made sure of that as the years went by.

“I thought we’d work on water again today,” Mother suggested as she prepared a piece of bread.

Lemarick wanted to groan, but he remained proud and seemingly unfazed by the comment. Water was his enemy: the one element he had never had any luck in mastering, save for removing the occasional droplet of split wine from the collar of his shirt. The young shade simply shook his head politely.

“I’m afraid I have to decline Mother,” he replied. “I believe you have forgotten the date today.”

If she was indeed angry, then the barest flicker of anger glowed in Mother Novel’s eyes for less than a second. It was hard even for Lemarick to tell what that flash of emotion meant, but he knew that in that moment, a thousand thoughts had raced through her age-old mind before she gave her considered reply.

“You have made plans?” she asked.

Lemarick gave a little shrug. “They were made for me,” he said. “Edvard is calling on me after breakfast. I have no idea where we’re going.”

Mother released her breakfast knife slowly and deliberately. It came to rest on the table with an echoing thud. She discarded her food and put her bony fingertips together, eyes bright as she considered her son. After a tense moment, she pointed at him thoughtfully.

“You are too much like your father, you know,” she said.

It wasn’t the worst insult she had ever given Lemarick – she said far more hurtful things when his skills didn’t live up to her expectations – but the mention of his father always managed to sting Lemarick in a deep place where he could do nothing to soothe the wound. Mother meant, of course, that following Edvard’s spontaneity was something that the infamous Salem Cross would have done without even thinking it to be a bad idea. The difference, Lemarick reminded himself, was that he
knew
it was a bad idea, but he was doing it anyway. He wasn’t sure whether that made him better or worse than his father, but it certainly didn’t make them one and the same.

“Yes Mother,” was all Lemarick said out loud despite his inner dialogue.

“Oh well,” the dark lady sighed, “I suppose since you’ve made the arrangement you ought to go. It is only polite. You’ll come back at the end of the morning to continue your training. I can attend to other business in the city until then.”

“Yes, Mother,” Lemarick replied again.

He knew better than to ask
what
business exactly. Mother Novel used her title to its full advantage in the city of Paris, gaining information and notoriety wherever she went. The methods she used to do this were secret from her son, and he suspected that they would always be so. Questioning them only ever resulted in Mother getting angry and that wasn’t a sight Lemarick was prepared to see ever again, if he could help it.

Mother abandoned her breakfast part-way through and called upon a windowmaker to take her away, leaving Lemarick to once again peer out of the townhouse window as he awaited the arrival of his friend. Lemarick donned a top hat on his crown of fair blonde hair and adjusted an emerald neckerchief about his throat. Colour was fashionable these days, but he could only tolerate a dash here and there. He could already imagine, with no small amount of horror, what Edvard might be wearing to hit the town. Lemarick hoped that Ugarte would still be with him to use her calming influence. The pair were usually inseparable but, when they fought, Ugarte often took herself back to Spain for months at a time, before she would accept Edvard’s numerous apologies and come travelling once again.

Lemarick needn’t have worried. Ugarte came into view some way up the street, gliding down the busy avenue in a striking black and white creation. Corsets and feathered hats were the height of Paris fashion, but the Spanish beauty had done away with all the wild accessories, leaving the lines of her dress to show off her true curvaceous shape. Lemarick moved quickly through the dining room and let himself out onto the street, walking up to meet her some distance from the rented house.

“You never let me reach the doorbell,” Ugarte said with a quirked brow. “Is your mother really that bad?”

Lemarick managed a curl in his lip, but he knew better than to indulge himself in complaining about Mother. She had given him everything, when his father left him with nothing. It wasn’t proper to besmirch that, however controlling she could be.

“You are unescorted?” Lemarick asked, taking Ugarte’s hand and placing it on the crook of his elbow.

“Ed’s found a new toy,” she answered with a roll of her sea green eyes, “he’ll be along shortly. We’re to wait here.”

They stepped out of the path of the growing crowds, nearer to the curb of the street where hardly any carriages were passing. It was a bright, warm day, the sort that inspired people to want to walk. Lemarick felt his skin crawling a little at the bustle all around him.

“You’re getting very pale,” Ugarte told him. He felt her hand squeeze his arm just a little tighter. “Perhaps we could take you on a holiday. The Americas are beautiful in the summertime.”

Lemarick shook his head without even considering the idea.

“I have far too much work to do here,” he replied. “Mother wants me to find my glamour before the end of the season. She says it’s remarkably close.”

“Glamour?” Ugarte said, her brow creasing.

Lemarick sometimes forgot Ugarte’s youth, and not everyone had had the intense magical education that Mother Novel so dutifully provided her son.

“The mark of a shade’s maximum power,” Lemarick explained. “Mother’s certain that my training isn’t far off reaching the full maxim of my strength.”

“I don’t like the thought that she’s forcing you to change, Lemarick.”

Ugarte said it so softly that he barely heard her on the busy street. He tried to shrug the words off, convincing himself that she simply didn’t understand the need for such great power.

“It’s only a change in my appearance,” he mused.

Ugarte turned to him, eyes wide as saucers.

“Can you be sure of that?” she asked.

Their moment of trepidation was broken by the sound of an obnoxious horn blasting down the street. The whole gathering on the avenue came to a dead stop, all eyes fixed on a bizarre contraption coming down the road. It was a bright red carriage with the upper section ripped off, but it was not being propelled by horses. Lemarick surveyed the machine for a steam vent indicating some sort of locomotion, but there was none. This, he realised with dread, was one of those new automobile things. He then realised, with further dread, that he recognised the driver.

“Bonjour!” Edvard Schoonjans said, waving his top hat at the whole street from behind the steering sticks of the invention.

Lemarick stepped up to the contraption as it came to a bumpy stop, leaning on the bright red chassis. His friend was bedecked in a lurid yellow suit which, irritatingly enough, suited him extremely well. Lemarick was determined not to give an ounce of praise for Ed’s inimitable style, and he frowned at the machine very deliberately.

“If you expect me to ride in this death-trap…” he began, but Ed was quick to cut him off with a loud proclamation.

“Internal combustion!” Ed boomed. “If Peugeot can do it, then so can I!”

A few people on the street even gave him a little applause. This was a mistake, for Edvard started bowing left, right and centre, forcing Lemarick to get into the back of the carriage to get him to force him back into his seat, before he made even more of spectacle of himself. Ugarte followed, leaving Lemarick no room to protest as Ed started his engine once again. He was filled with excitement like a toddler, and had all the skill of one as a driver.

“If you think this is good, wait until we get to the Populaire!” Ed cried. “I have even more to show you.”

“If we get there alive, that is!” Ugarte replied with a chuckle.

Lemarick closed his eyes, gripping his seat for dear life as the automobile trundled on.