Wicked After Midnight

11

It was a long way down, so long that I had time to realize that I was falling and wheel my arms and legs, trying to land any way but head-first. I was nearly invulnerable, but “nearly” left a lot of wiggle room. I managed to get flat, like a starfish, and that’s how I landed: on my back, splayed out, still holding the damn duster in one hand. Vale’s green pendant had shattered on the boards beside me.

Daimons screamed and scurried about as if I might explode. But I just lay there, contemplating the bizarre pain of falling a hundred feet and landing on solid wood planks that had shivered beneath me, probably sending dust into the catacombs just below, where I’d once stood with Vale. Everything onstage moved in slow motion, the rainbow-hued circle of faces now gathering above me making the cheerful noise of dolphins laughing underwater.

I just shook my head weakly. My teeth were clenched so hard I could feel my fangs digging into my gums. Something blue waved and wiggled to get my attention, and I squinted. It was Bea. She made the universal sign for Okay? And I barely managed to connect my thumb and forefinger. She smiled, and I allowed my eyes to close. Dozens of fingers helped lift me, and I went limp and boneless as they carried me away. Looking up, I saw an acid-green face far, far away, high in the sky, glaring at me with eyes like lasers. I bared my teeth in a smile.

Limone wanted me dead. I had not obliged. And that made me happy.

The daimons deposited me in my bed, which now had a much thicker blanket. I was curious if it was from Vale, but everyone was fussing too much to listen to me. Finally, Mel cleared them all out until it was only her and Bea, tucking me in.

“Come on, y’all. I’m fine.”

Mel tsked. “Oh, la. That was a big fall, chère. We need a chirurgeon to check your bones. You might have broken something.” The green shards of the pendant matched her skin as she gently placed the remains of Vale’s gift on the table beside my bed. “Sorry about your heartstone.”

“Heartstone?”

“Vale used to have one. They’re very special to his people. Maybe he can find a replacement.”

Tossing off the blanket, I rolled to my feet and stretched, cracking my spine in four places as if that would help heal the part that ached inside when I looked at the broken necklace. Vale had told me to be careful with it, and it had been special, and I had let it get destroyed. Growling, I did a backbend, satisfied at the pops in my hips. The green girl in the tutu and the blue girl in the shepherdess costume both stared at me as if I was the strange one.

“Why aren’t you dead? Why are you standing? What happened?” Mel asked, her arms held out to catch me should I suddenly topple over.

“I was on the catwalk. Limone started an argument and pushed me off.”

Mel sucked air in through her teeth and tapped her toe shoe. “Oh, la. I saw her skulking off while everyone gathered around you. If Mademoiselle Charline finds out, they will take Limone to the gendarmes, and they are . . . not kind to us.”

Bea tapped Mel on the arm and signed something in a flurry.

“Are you going to tell?” Mel asked.

“Who, me?” I thought for a moment, understanding that I was being given some sort of test. “No, of course not. I’m not hurt. Besides, if she ran away, my problem is over, right?”

Bea held up a finger, then fled the room. Moments later, she returned and signed to Mel.

“She’s gone. Her room is a mess. Looks like you’ve rid us of some trouble.”

I chuckled. “I didn’t really do much. Just fell. But who will . . .” A milky, old-fashioned lightbulb flashed over my head, and I grinned. “Wait. I have an idea. Will you help me?”

Their eyes met, shifty and suspicious but curious. Bea shrugged a How?

“First of all, go put Limone’s room back in order, and don’t tell anyone she’s gone. Second, can you find a makeup kit? With paint?”

I twisted back and forth, getting limber. I had work to do.

I spent the rest of the afternoon holed up in Limone’s room, planted in front of her full-length mirror. Her door actually had a lock, a good one, and no matter how many people knocked, I ignored it. The ewer held rose-scented water, and the first thing I did was take what my grandmother always called a whore bath, exhaling in relief as the dirt I’d carried with me from Sangland dribbled down onto a plush rug. Limone’s closet held almost everything I needed, but I struggled with the final piece of the puzzle. Without needle, thread, or scissors, I couldn’t make what certainly felt like the most important part of my wardrobe.

Therefore, it seemed like more than providence when I heard Blue’s voice on the other side of the door.

“Limone, dear, I have a special delivery for you.” Her wheezing told me she was in on the joke, and I cracked the door open just wide enough to let her slip in. Her eyes twinkled as she held out a pile of cloth. “That’s what you needed, yes?”

I held out the bloomers and smiled. “Exactly. But how did you know?”

“You have your secrets, and I have mine. Now, let me help you not muck it up.”

The basket she set on the floor held all the little details that only a costumer remembered, and I was soon ready to put my plan into motion.

“Break a leg, dear,” Blue said as she hobbled back out the door. “I’ll be watching.” She winked and was gone, and I checked the clock under glass on Limone’s dresser. Her room was three times the size of mine and much more beautifully appointed. And if tonight went as planned, it would be mine completely tomorrow.

A soft scratch on the door startled me. “It’s time,” Mel whispered. I gave her a few minutes to get into place, as being seen with me could get her thrown out of the cabaret—at least, until my plan reached victory.

I took one last look in the mirror, and damn if I wasn’t impressed. Each of the cabaret’s daimons had a personality or theme, and her costumes and colors reflected it. Bea was a dainty shepherdess, Charline was an Egyptian queen, Mel was a butterfly. And now I was marked in every way as exactly what I was: a blood drinker. The deep-red jacket, short but billowing black skirts, red lipstick, kohl-lined eyes, and red-lacquered claws would stand out even among the bright daimons.

With a deep breath, I opened the door and hurried down the hallway, down the stairs, and past the niche in the brick where Vale had kissed me. Without really meaning to, I trailed the points of my claws along the bricks, a little hitch in my breath and a tingle in my belly. Would he be in the audience, watching? God, I hoped so.

I pulled the veil from my small top hat down over my face. The double layer of black lace hid my features, but still I hurried before anyone bothered to ask who I was and what I was doing. The first act was in progress, the audience warming up with swirling dancers and the pounding of feet on boards—the very boards that had shuddered underneath me when I fell. The cabaret hadn’t paused for even a moment; rehearsal had gone on, and neither Madame Sylvie nor Mademoiselle Charline had been up to check on me, that I knew of. If it hadn’t suited my purposes so well, I would have been insulted. Criminy would have been there for an hour, holding my hand and stroking my hair back with a concerned look on his sharp eyebrows and threatening to kill me if I told anyone of his soft heart in regard to a scruffy little orphan like myself.

But we weren’t in Sangland anymore.

Finally backstage, I wrapped my hands around the rope ladder and climbed quickly and without looking down, lest someone see my face. The first act ended, and I hurried faster as the daimon girls ran behind the curtain. Halfway up, I checked to see that Mel and Bea were in their places. Mel gave me a smile, and Bea giggled silently into her hand, each where she was supposed to be, waiting to play her part in the plan that would either make me or break me.

The catwalk swayed as I hurried past the place where Limone had pushed me. What a gift the bitch had given me. Stepping out over thin air, I caught her hoop and settled myself on it in the same position she had taken the first night I’d come to Paradis. I’d never used a hoop before, but my body knew exactly what to do. It felt sturdy, cold, and sure beneath my bare hands. The second I found my mark, the anxiety melted into the same beautiful calm I felt every time the spotlights came on. Performing had become part of me, the place where I knew myself and my body and my part in the world. And tonight I would steal the goddamn show.

The audience went quiet, and the curtains parted with the whisper of velvet on wood. The hoop trembled, and I began to descend. As the spotlight hit me and the hoop stopped in midair, I let go with one hand and swung back into a dramatic arch that Limone herself couldn’t have achieved. Lifting one leg in a perfect point, I let my skirts fall down to reveal black fishnet stockings and a high-heeled red boot. The crowd went mad.

Instead of Limone’s signature music, Mel had managed to coax the orchestra into producing “The Infernal Galop,” and I went through a series of contortions on the hoop, writhing around it as Limone had but with more finesse, more flexibility, and more daring. She had slithered around the metal circle, but I contorted around it, bending and arching. At just the right moment, I swung down, a move I’d never practiced but which I knew I could stick.

I hung from my hands now, my heavy skirts pulling toward the stage. The hoop began to descend, right on cue, and I willed Bea’s hands to speed up, to ensure that I hit the ground exactly when I wanted to. On a whim, I scissored my legs out and around and got the hoop spinning, letting my skirts flail out in a move that got an appreciative howl from the crowd. Thank heavens for Blue’s bloomers.

After landing daintily in the center of the stage, I got into place, hands on my hips. And then the music hit precisely the right moment, and I threw back my veil, tossed off my hat, and became the first girl in the Paris of Sang to dance the can-can.

The first time my leg rose over my head straight up, the crowd gasped and whispered. Then again and again, and they roared. They fucking roared! I kicked high, kicked in circles, and even did that little leg-shake thing that made my skirts fall all the way back to show the lacy bloomers. At that sight, the men nearest the stage took to their feet and surged forward, clamoring. I moved toward them with a suggestive smile and began kicking the top hats off their heads to laughs of disbelief and the hot growls of universal lust. Francs and roses rained at my feet and clattered under my boot heels.

I glanced offstage and found Mel and Bea watching me anxiously, their arms entwined. Jerking my head, I held out my hands to them, and Mel laughed and rushed onstage, linking arms with me and matching her kicks to mine as well as a regular body allowed. Bea was beside her in seconds. More and more of the audience left their seats to rush the stage, and Mel thrummed with joy. For a daimon, this sort of response had to be like an ice cream buffet for a little kid. She waved offstage, and other daimons joined us, linking arms into a long line as they learned quickly how to do my bastard version of the can-can. I briefly wondered what they wore under their skirts and whether they were truly giving the audience a show, but it had been their choice to join me, so I wasn’t going to worry about it.

The song was drawing to a close when the first of the men clambered onto the stage. The curtain fell early to cut him off as the orchestra fumbled to a halt. Mayhem followed, with men in tuxedos trying to crawl under the weighted velvet curtain and Charline darting back and forth with her whip and cane, trying to smack them away. The mustachioed male daimon I’d seen behind the bar that first night grabbed the push broom and tried to hold the men off of us, his barbed tail wagging dangerously over his shoulder. The daimon girls had glassy eyes and couldn’t stop laughing, and I was filled with the power of the stage, with the knowledge that I’d started a complete and utter sensation. It was getting dangerous behind the curtain, but it felt good, and no one made a move to leave.

Strong fingers dug into my wrist. Even when Madame Sylvie dragged me offstage and shoved me hard against the brick wall, I couldn’t stop smiling.

“What is this farce?” she growled, her face hot, bright red under flaking flesh-colored paint.

“It’s not a farce. It’s a dance. I call it the can-can.”

“How dare you! I take you in off the street, and you drive away one of my stars and take over the show? Unforgivable.”

I swallowed my grin, tried to look contrite. I failed. As I licked my lips and tried to plan my next words carefully, Blaise tugged on Madame Sylvie’s jacket.

“Madame!”

“Away, boy. This is business.”

“But madame. This note is from the duke.”

The paper he held out was pristine and creamy and thick, the seal that held it still wet and glistening with a rampant gryphon. A hungry look passed over Madame Sylvie’s face, and she let go with one hand, still pinning me to the wall with the other. After ripping the note open with her teeth, she read it one-handed and sucked in her breath. Ever so gently, she untangled her fingers from the front of my jacket and placed me back on the ground as if I were made of porcelain.

“There are more, madame.” Blaise held out a fan of paper in his other hand, and Madame Sylvie took them with a giddy chuckle.

“Would you like to be the mistress of a duke, my Demitasse?” She raised one eyebrow at me as if gracefully conceding defeat and moving on to the next stage of negotiations.

“I’d like to meet him first.”

She stepped back, tucked the duke’s note into her cleavage, and brushed down the front of my jacket where she’d wrinkled it with her fist. “The can-can, eh? You’ve named a dance ‘the scandal.’ ”

“We are also sold out for tomorrow night, madame.” Blaise melted into the shadows.

Madame Sylvie crowed and looked at me as if I was edible—but in a regular way and not the harmless daimon way. “And what a scandal it is! Already sold out for tomorrow, and it’s not even intermission. I would call you an instant success if it didn’t cause me pain to do so.” She took a deep breath and put her hands on her hips. “Outfoxed by a Bludman. What have I come to?”

“A grand success, tons of publicity, and oodles of money?” I ventured.

She patted me on the head. “Just so. Now, off to your room and lock the door before they find you. You’ve driven them to a frenzy, you know.”

I straightened my jacket and put up my chin. “I’m taking Limone’s room.”

Her mouth quirked up, and she looked me up and down. “Fair enough. Just stay away from La Goulue, or she’ll stab you in the throat.”

“I’ve already died once on your stage. I’m not scared of round two.”

“Be scared of tomorrow, my dear. There will be even more men in the audience. And this time, they’ll be waiting to eat you alive.”

“Not if I eat them first.”

My eyes dared her to retort. She raised her chin a notch. On a whim, I caught the corner of the duke’s note and whipped it out of her corset, tucking it into my own cleavage instead. Her gaze continued to measure me, and I raised my eyebrows.

As I turned to hide my smile and take the stairs, she called, “Speaking of which, I’ll send out for some blood, shall I? Can’t have you getting too hungry.”

I raised a hand in thanks and muttered to myself, “You have no idea just how hungry I am.”

My elation and smug self-satisfaction lasted until I opened the door to Limone’s room and found a man standing by my open window, his face obscured by billowing white curtains.

“Shut the door and close your eyes,” he said.