Wicked After Midnight (Blud) (25 page)

I emerged from the bedroom, one hand to my bosom and a confused look on my face. “
Monsieur
?”

I didn’t recognize the slender gentleman waiting in top hat and coat by the door. A velvet cape hung over his arm, and his red beard glinted in the gaslight.

“Didn’t they tell you? We’re going out. Have you ever seen the pleasure gardens?”

“But
monsieur
, I thought . . . that is, I usually make a gentleman’s acquaintance here . . .”

He waved that away with the enthusiasm of a young boy utterly unaccustomed to hearing the word
no
. “The Tuileries. The fruit trees are in flower and lit up. It’s like a fairyland. We’ll ride donkeys. Come along.”

I glanced around the pachyderm, with its rich appointments and nods to sensuality. Could it be possible that
a client had paid for the privilege of taking me out on a date in the most fun and fashionable garden in the world? I had to admit he looked pleasant enough, young and bright-eyed and dapper. And what was he going to do, anyway? I was almost invincible, and I was very nearly bigger than him, and Jack the Ripper was at work in London, not Paris.

I smiled and reached out for the cloak he waggled enticingly.

“I’d be delighted, Monsieur . . .?”

He laughed and wrapped the cloak around me. “Does my name really matter?”

I gave him the most genuine smile I’d worn all week. “I guess not.”

Taking his hand, I let him pull me down the stairs, laughing all the way.

When they called
the Tuileries the “pleasure gardens,” they meant it.

In this peculiar parallel universe, they were more like Central Park than a palace, and what happened under the acres of leafy boughs was far from governmental. My date didn’t give me his last name or the important title I’m sure he held, based on the cut of his clothes and the servant daimon who followed us at a respectful distance with a large bag of coins and a small crossbow. But he did give me a spectacular night that reaffirmed my reason for leaving Criminy’s caravan in the first place. And with a saucy wink, he told me to call him Louis.

We saw ballerinas and operettas and parades and a puppet show almost as good as that of Charlie Dregs. Louis enjoyed flagon after flagon of beer and surprised me by purchasing a snow cone and pouring a vial of blood from his pocket over the grainy white hill of ice made by a clockwork machine. Considering that I hadn’t had a popsicle in six years, it was quite a treat. We had carousel rides and donkey races and dancing, and I laughed so hard that I fell down on my ass—and not the donkey.

Paris was beautiful at night, and had I been there at
the right time with the right person, I would have understood why they called it the City of Love. The trees were in bloom, as Louis had promised, and strung with millions of twinkling lights like stars caught in nets of silk. As we promenaded down the Boulevard Mortmartre, the golden lights glowing on either side cast the cobblestones in indigo shadows, as if we might keep walking on and on forever and never reach the horizon. The crowds were jewel-bright and filled with joy, the daimons mixing among the humans and sighing happily as they sold balloons and toys and nosegays. The Tower was likewise strung with lights and rose over the city like a doting parent, calmly keeping watch yet always waiting for lightning to strike.

Louis was excellent company, in part because he wanted nothing more from me than a lovely evening. I suspected he was glad to spend time with someone who had no expectations and treated him like an equal, as everything about him pointed to royalty. I also guessed, judging by the way his eyes roved to gentlemen’s backsides, that his interests lay in other domains. But I hadn’t laughed so hard in years, and I almost forgot all my problems and ambitions, for a time. It was relaxing, being with someone who had no expectations of me, either.

Right up till I saw the blond girl, I had one of the greatest nights of my life. Even though I hadn’t had a drop of bloodwine, I still felt half-drunk and free and easy, and I was leaning on Louis’s shoulder and giggling over a gendarme’s misbuttoned pants when a flash of light blond caught my attention. The girl passed under a gas lamp at a fast clip, trailing a cloak, and I knew instantly that it was Cherie.

“Excuse me,
monsieur
.” I untangled my arm from
Louis’s and bolted off the walk and across the green, my boot heels sinking into the soil. “Cherie!”

She didn’t turn, and I didn’t stop running. All around me, female heads shot up—of course, because
chérie
was the most common name men in Franchia used to address women they were sweet on. I twisted through the crowd, my breath short in the spring night, hoping I could catch her before she disappeared. I didn’t know why she would run from me, but I was damned well going to find out.

Her heels clicked onto the cobbles as she ducked down an alley. A human or a daimon would have stopped, but not me. Bludrats scattered with Franchian disdain as she stopped at a narrow door, knocking frantically. But I was faster than whoever was inside, and with talons dug into her shoulder, I spun her around. She lurched back, banging her head against the door.

“Cherie?”

She was already sobbing. “Please,
mademoiselle
. Please let me go.”

It wasn’t Cherie; I knew that the second I saw her face. But she was the closest thing I’d seen to my friend, and the disappointment hit harder than a fist in the gut. This girl was a human, and a sickly one at that. I could smell her, but she evoked more pity than hunger, as if there wasn’t enough of a meal to bother breaking the skin.

I let go of her shoulders and took a step back. The door opened, revealing an indigo-skinned daimon, her cheeks drawn and her hair braided back tightly. Behind her, colorful ribbons hung from hooks along with sausages and strips of meat. The scent of magic was just as heavy on the air as the copper tang of bloody meat.

“Zis is not ze place for you,” she said with a heavy
Franchian accent, ushering in the human girl. The door slammed in my face. I looked up, curious about what the building was, if perhaps it was a beggar’s house or a soup kitchen or a hospital, some place that took in pitiful, fleshless wretches. There was no sign, no daimon code like at the inn. I walked around to the front and found only a butcher shop, with lank pink meat hanging in the window and a pig’s face staring at me, the eyes flat and bulging. The Parisians seemed to favor fanciful door knockers; this one was a cow’s behind, the clapper a long, curled tail. Perhaps the girl was a servant here, a pig girl or some such. In any case, she wasn’t my business; Cherie was. And that meant I had to get back to Louis and feed my way into his good graces, if need be. His pockets were surely full of secrets.

I hurried back toward the laughter and music of the Tuileries, which reminded me more than a little of Criminy’s caravan—the way the light drew you forward and each new act within seemed more magical and colorful than the last. Perhaps the daimons used some of the same spells as my clever godfather. In any case, I felt at home here, more than I had since leaving my wagon.

As I entered the crowd, hand after hand landed on my arm. Whether they knew who I was or were simply drawn to a pretty girl without a man by her side, I didn’t know. But I shrugged them off, one after the other, telling them with a fake smile to come to Paradis and see me. It was exhausting, or maybe I was just coming down from the elation and adrenaline of thinking I’d finally found Cherie. By the time I found Louis, deep in his cups by the donkeys, all I wanted was to drag him back to the pachyderm and drain him half dry for the contact high.

“You’re the first woman who’s run from my charms,” he said with a slur. But he was smiling.

“I wasn’t running from your charms,
cher
. I thought I saw an old friend and wanted to introduce you.” I sat in the chair by his side, draping an arm over his shoulders, and he melted against me. I’d long ago struck his name from my mental spreadsheet of suspects. There wasn’t an evil bone in his body.

“Shall we head back to the pachyderm, then? You must be exhausted. I don’t know how you girls do it, putting on such an energetic show and then entertaining the lads until dawn.”

I nodded, finally understanding completely why the halls were always empty when I returned from the elephant. I guess I’d already known—had been told repeatedly but hadn’t really internalized—that the girls sold their bodies to the clients of Paradis. I hadn’t fully explored the entire cabaret, but there had to be other apartments somewhere, places far more sumptuous than the tiny, threadbare rooms where they slept. Mel and Bea and the rest . . . they were prostitutes.

It didn’t sit right with me. But again, it wasn’t my business. I’d seen in Sangland that women were in every way less free than they were on Earth, but I hated to think that the beautiful, talented, kind girls I knew here had turned to bartering their bodies for their livelihood.

Louis stood, wobbling, and held out a hand. Arms around each other’s shoulders, I half dragged him back to Paradis. I had to help him up the winding stairs and onto the plushy couch, where he collapsed in a lanky, boneless heap, wrapped in his wool coat like a very wealthy and elegant burrito.

“I’ve heard you don’t do . . . what the other girls do.” He blinked at me through glowing ginger eyelashes.

“Well,
monsieur
—” I pursed my lips, but he waved his arms to stop me.

“No, I’m saying that’s why I chose you. I have . . . other tastes. But I’ve never met a Bludman before, and it’s very rare that I find something to pique my interest. Is it true you drink from your paramours?”

I cocked my head at him. What a peculiar man. “It’s true.”

“I’m told it feels rather pleasant. That some men find independent release in your arms.”

“That is also true.”

“Then will you drink from me? I’ll probably make you drunk, at this rate. But I like new experiences.”

And so, taking him in my arms, I gently tipped back his head and pierced the tender skin of his neck.

I couldn’t help grinning. I had studied history along with art, and after an evening on his arm, I knew what I was doing.

I was feeding on the future king of Franchia.

*   *   *

It was a pleasure to
root around the rich fabrics of his costume, looking for clues that I knew weren’t there. All I found were bits of horrible poetry, licorice pastilles, a tight roll of silvers, and some mustache wax in an adorable tin. Louis looked so sweet, innocently sucking his thumb in untroubled sleep. But I left him there as I left all of them, hurrying through the courtyard and back to my room. I didn’t stop at the door to Paradis to listen for footsteps; either they were elsewhere doing their work or
asleep, exhausted, in their beds. And I didn’t see Vale, either.

As I brushed out my hair and prepared for bed, all I could think about was how much easier life would have been if I’d never left the caravan. Safe under Criminy’s wing, I’d resented the endless, marching army of dull nights and duller days. But now, on an adventure and facing challenges that definitely seemed insurmountable, I missed knowing exactly where I stood. My heart was buffeted on all sides by feelings I didn’t want to have. One minute, I was dragged down by sorrow and loss and hopelessness over Cherie. Moments later, I was buoyed by determination and confidence regarding my career and talent. And then my skin and belly swirled with confusion and lust whenever Vale came near, as if my brain completely shut off. And just now, I was overcome by an odd, floaty, tipsy sensation that made me dream of dancing.

I didn’t feel like myself. But I didn’t know who I was anymore, either.

Besides the future king’s wine-drenched blood, what had gotten into me?

*   *   *

The next morning, I arrived
on Lenoir’s doorstep a few moments too late, late enough that he gave me a cold, disapproving stare.

“Cavorting with princes is no excuse.”

Instead of answering him, I stared him down. I didn’t owe him anything, and if he thought I did, he’d spent too much time around weak-willed humans and emotionally dependent daimons. He snorted and jerked his chin toward the stairs. With grace and without hurrying, I walked the stairs to the attic studio and went directly
to the screen to change. When I emerged, a glass of bloodwine with the strange, plum-sparkly hint of absinthe sat beside my chair, and Lenoir stood behind his easel. The cats appraised me coldly from their chaise, their green eyes the color of Limone’s skin.

“
Monsieur
, I told you, I don’t care for absinthe.”

He chuckled, a dark and humorless sound that made my eyes stray to his lips. “Your empty glass from yesterday says differently. Whether or not you care for it, you enjoyed it. Now, sit. Drink. I have work to do, and I need your limbs to be pliant.”

I took a step toward his easel, curious about what his furious brushstrokes had accomplished yesterday. A paint-stained cloth hung over the canvas, blocking my view entirely.