Wicked After Midnight

23

When Lenoir met me at the door to his flat, my heart stuttered prettily.

“I heard you went for quite a ride last night, my Demitasse. I didn’t expect you.”

“Water under the bridge, monsieur.” I fluttered my eyes behind my fan. “But today, I am yours.”

Rare and bright, his smile startled me. “And I couldn’t be more pleased.”

I followed him upstairs, mentally comparing his body with Vale’s as the cats twined around my ankles. The two men were built differently, and Lenoir was much older, but I had no complaints. In a way, I felt a little sorry for the men of Sang. With so many petticoats and hoops and bustles, they had no way to judge a woman’s true shape until they got her undressed, which didn’t happen often. In Sangland, from what I understood, the Pinky women were so terrified to reveal their skin to the noses of bludrats that they rarely removed all their clothes, even for lovemaking. Sometimes I regretted being bludded, but when it came to personal freedoms and safety and how good it felt to take off thirty pounds of fabric and breathe at night, I was definitely on the right team.

Upstairs, I changed quickly and relaxed into my chair with a tranquil sigh. Although it had been gray and oppressive outside, the sun danced in prettily through the window, the motes of dust falling like magic snow upon my arms, where the tiny hairs stood up in ripples. A narrow crystal flute appeared in my hand, pink bubbles fizzing.

“This is not the usual drink,” I murmured, taking a sip and then a deeper one.

“Blood and champagne, my dear. They call it the Tsarina’s kiss. It’s too early for absinthe.” He smiled again. “For now.”

I nodded, enjoying the sweet fizz tickling my nose. In moments, I’d downed the blood-tinted liquor and wiped a rogue bit of foam off my nose. I had forgotten since landing in Sang how satisfying and refreshing carbonated drinks could be. As a little girl, I had often awoken in the middle of the night so parched I thought I would die, and nothing felt as marvelous as gulping down soda straight from the bottle in the fridge. Before I could mention it, Lenoir had exchanged my flute for another, which I sipped more slowly, as the first one was already bubbling straight up to my head.

I sank deeper into the chair, slowly unfurling in the sunbeam the way a flower greeted the morning. The champagne glittered in my goblet like laughter made liquid, like the lighter, sweeter, more forgiving sister of the dark red wine laced with blood and absinthe he usually gave me for our meetings. With every sip, I told myself it was only a prelude to the bliss yet to come. I let my eyes go soft, trading focus for the fuzzy, dreamy world of Lenoir’s studio. I didn’t realize I was sighing until Lenoir looked around the canvas at me, his eyes the opaque dark blue of blackberries and threatening to seep in and fill me completely.

“Close your mouth.”

I smirked and licked my lips, missing the bright pink gloss I would have worn in my own world.

“I’m not your plaything,” I said. “For all that I’m merely an object in your still life, I still have free will. And I’ll sigh if I goddamn want to.”

“You’re harder to paint than a horse. At least they express their annoyance through twitching tails and ears.”

The champagne had to be getting to me, for the answer fell from my lips like ripe fruit from a tree. “Horses, monsieur, are best kept for riding.”

One eyebrow shot up, and I knew my little barb had found the target. Finally, the stark, austere man showed some sign of passion outside of his paint. “I have no time for leisurely riding, mademoiselle. And my interests lie outside the acceptable.” His words were clipped as he disappeared behind the canvas, his twitching brush belying the break in his usual coolness.

I took another sip, rolling the champagne and blood over my tongue. There was something else there, something sweet and cloying and syrupy. Not absinthe, not even a hint of wormwood and anise, and I didn’t know if that was disappointing or comforting. But whatever the unknown addition was, it made my spine go loose, my arms limp, my lips numb. Might as well have been absinthe, for still it made the dust motes dance like fairies, just out of the edges of my vision. But what had he said about his interests?

“Do you know, my dear, that I have traveled?”

My mouth quirked up, and the empty glass spun lazily in my fingers, which seemed altogether too long and as if they had grown another joint. “I would assume so, monsieur. A man of your age and tastes would wish to experience the world.”

His night-blue eyes peeked around the canvas like a child cheating at hide-and-seek. “I’ve been to every corner of the globe. Which has no corners, as I suspect you are aware. I’ve sampled the . . .” He paused daintily, and I could imagine his spade beard twitching as he chose between the word women and the word blood. “Wares of every bazaar, every bodega, every grand hotel.”

“And?”

I was surprised to hear footsteps and looked up to find Lenoir staring down at me, his eyes gone the indigo of caverns cleaved in rock where things are buried forever, hidden until they crumble away to shadowy loam. He looked cold and remote in a way Criminy never had, as if growing older had ossified his heart and caused his veins to shrivel into sharp things, claws that forever grasped. He leaned over, and I found my hands hovering over my chest as if begging him not to snatch out my heart in his twisted talons.

“And I have found that everything in this world has a price.” He leaned closer, close enough that I could smell the blood on his breath. “Except, perhaps, yourself. And do you know what that tells me, mademoiselle?”

My breath caught, and I tried to smile and utterly failed. “That you need a bigger checkbook, monsieur?”

Although I’d considered every smile from the suave older man a triumph, the one he gave now chilled me to the bone. “It tells me that I simply need to find the right cage and the right lock.”

I took a shuddering breath and sat up, my backbone suddenly going from gaseous to solid, sublimating into rage and defiance. “There’s no cage,” I said distinctly, “that can hold me. I’ve broken out of four so far, and I’ll beat my wings against the bars of the next one, too. Right until it fucking breaks.”

I was so scared that my knees trembled under my skirt, but his eyes were pinned on my face, and so perhaps he didn’t see. And yet something about the way his nostrils flared, like a dog scenting a mailman, told me that he knew. And he liked it.

Lenoir raised his chin, spun, and returned to his palette and canvas slowly, his boots silent on the thick carpet, as if he walked on the moon.

“The funny thing about cages, Mademoiselle Ward, is that if you build them just right”—he winked at me before disappearing behind his canvas—“the creature within need never know it’s been trapped.”

I heard the rasp of dry bristles on canvas and instinctively moved my arm back into place, my mouth freezing of its own volition into a smile I no longer felt. Not until the cool glass kissed my lips did I realize that he’d moved to my side and refilled my champagne flute, that the glass pressed heavily against my mouth, demanding to be consumed. But the liquid within wasn’t light and bubbly and as frivolous as butterfly wings and fairy glitter. No. The moment I scented it, I knew it for what it was. Absinthe. And blood. And other things that, I knew now, had been there all along, hiding under the heavy nightmare of anise and the coppery heat of hunger. His fingers pressed the glass to my lips, urging them apart. My own hands were frozen on the chair. I had no choice but to drink.

By the second sip, I no longer cared what it was.

By the third, I’d forgotten I had wings at all.

After that, time ceased to pass. I seem to recall cool hands on my arms, pulling laces, tugging on shoes, moving me like a grand, cold doll. I remember a slight thump as my head hit the wall on the way down the stairs. I recall, like some faraway dream, Auguste’s shocked gasp and his soft murmur. “Monsieur, is she even alive? It’s too much.” And then the beat of an engine, the rocking of the stairs, and the beloved, dark, infinite quiet of silk sheets sliding over my body.

When I slept, I dreamed of dark angels and deep wells of wine, floating with bones. And dancing. Always dancing.

Heavy knocking roused me, just a little. My eyes were smeary, my limbs forged of lead. I tried to move, but I was all tangled up on my bed.

“Demi? Are you here?”

I had to swallow a few times to find my tongue. “Entrez. Or something,” I called, struggling to figure out which way was up. My head felt as if it was stuffed with wine-soaked cotton balls, heavy and wobbly.

The curtains parted, and Vale appeared like a giant bat: upside down and flapping. I laughed my ass off.

“Oh, no, bébé. What have you done?” The words were lazy, slow, and overloud, as if he were shouting underwater, and yet his steps were oddly fast as he crossed the soft rugs to reach me.

“Might still be a bit drunk,” I answered, staring at his boots, which were wet and caked in filth. He’d come from the sewers under the city, then. “And you’re getting shit on my rug.”

Warm hands caught me under my knees and behind my shoulders, and my stomach flipped for a dozen reasons as he set me upright, or what I had to assume was upright, as everything suddenly ceased being upside down. He kneeled, his golden-green eyes boring into mine like corkscrew grass. I opened my mouth a little, hoping he might kiss me while I was too drunk to act surprised about it. But instead of settling his lips over mine, he simply breathed me in.

“Drunk on what?”

I licked my lips, marveling that the champagne and wine and anise and wormwood and red blood could merge to taste like candy, hours after the fact.

My voice went low, playful. Rebellious. “This is Paris. What do you think I’ve been drinking? Café au lait?”

“Absinthe. Mon dieu, bébé. How much?” He shook my shoulders, making my teeth rattle like the bone dice Louis had shaken in a cup in the pleasure gardens.

I wiggled out of his grasp and turned onto my hip to splay myself gracefully over the bed in a similar attitude to the pose I’d adopted for the artist. I’d sat this way for hours, my face frozen in a teasing Mona Lisa smile, waiting like Pavlov’s dog for the moments when Monsieur Lenoir would set down his brush and refill my goblet with a splash of his potent cocktail. Funny, how things as normally repellent as red wine, absinthe, and blood could mix together and not curdle in the glass. But the taste was a thousand times better than any ingredient alone, and the high was the opposite of caffeine.

And it only got better, each time I had it.

“How much, Demi?”

I shrugged elegantly and nearly fell off the bed. “Just a glass.”

Vale leaned close, his face more serious than I’d ever seen it. Normally, I was the stiff, controlled diva, and he was the mischievous brigand, the clown. But now I was loose as a goose, and he was so tightly wound you could almost hear the gears grinding inside.

It struck me as funny, and I swallowed a giggle and poked his nose with my finger and said, “Boop.”

Vale was so tense he was all but vibrating. “Demi. Mon dieu, woman. Will you never listen to me? Not even once? Absinthe is serious, bébé. It is poison. It is dangerous.” His hands cupped my face, but again, the kiss didn’t come. With his thumbs, he pulled down my eyelids, and I rolled my eyes. “Drink all the bloodwine you want. Get drunk every night, preferably in my vicinity. But I’m begging you never to take absinthe again.”

I wrenched out of his grasp and rubbed my eyes. “You’re totally harshing my buzz, man.”

“You could go into a coma, Demi.”

“Your mom’s in a coma.”

“You could die.”

“I’d die happy.” I flopped back again and rolled my head over the pillows, my attention caught by what I thought was a brass octopus offering me millions of diamonds.

Vale’s hand cupped my scalp behind the sweat-plastered curls, pulling me forward and out of the little reverie inspired by the glittering chandelier. “I wouldn’t,” he said with a heavy gentleness. “And neither would your friend Cherie. Have you forgotten her already?”

That finally broke through the dizziness—that anger. “Of course not. Of course I haven’t forgotten her. She’s like my sister!”

“And are you any closer to finding her? Have you done a single thing today, asked a single question? Or have I been running around Paris, spending my hard-earned francs to buy up teeth, in the hopes that you’ll see how much I care for you?”

I pushed away from him, but my arms were too weak to have any effect. He only held me tighter. But he couldn’t stop me from talking. “I don’t know where to begin, Vale! This life eats me up. There’s not a spare moment. I’m lost and dizzy and exhausted and constantly hounded, and I’m still no closer, just rolling old men’s bodies, my hands deep in their moist pockets. Just waiting every moment to be kidnapped, to be stolen away like a child in the night.” Something knocked at the back of my brain, and the sudden realization would have taken me to my knees had Vale not been holding me. “Oh, shit. I should’ve just let the elephant take me away. I had my chance, and I totally blew it. It’s what I want most, and it terrifies me. I just had to fight, didn’t I?”

“You are a fighter, bébé. Do not blame yourself for following your instincts.”

“But I do. And these teeth—are they even hers? Will they bring me any closer to finding her at all? If I stop to think about it for even a heartbeat, I nearly go mad with grief and frustration. But the absinthe quiets it. Only the absinthe and your mouth give me any peace at all, you bastard, and how dare you throw it back in my face?”

I wanted to shake my head, but I wanted his hands on my body more, so I let him hold me there and give me a significant look that made me feel even more warm and loose-limbed than I already was. I swallowed hard and sat forward, and Vale’s hand slipped around to cup my jaw, his thumb stroking my cheek. “Please, Demi. Please, bébé. We’ll look harder. But no more absinthe.”

My lips parted as I leaned forward to kiss him, and he jerked back. “Why, Vale? I don’t understand . . .”

“I can taste it on your lips.”

“So?”

“So I want nothing to do with wormwood and blood.”

I moved forward again, murmuring, “Don’t be silly. Lenoir said—”

He stood smoothly, from his haunches to his feet before my eyes could track him. He’d managed to lay me gently on my pillows, but I felt the loss of his touch so keenly. “Lenoir,” he breathed. “What else did he tell you, bébé?”

“That it was harmless. That the stories weren’t true. That Bludmen weren’t . . .”

“Weren’t . . .?”

I sighed. “I forget the word.”

“Of course you do. He wants you to forget.”

“He doesn’t. He wants to paint me. Wants to make me an even bigger star. Wants my portrait hung in the Louvre, surrounded by crowds.” I was in his arms again before I could blink, my head cradled against his shoulder like a child.

“What he wants,” Vale whispered in my ear, “is for you to give in completely, a little at a time.” He placed my head back down, and I puddled limply amid the down pillows. With infinite care and a face as hard and sad as weeping stone, he drew the covers over me.

“But he’s an artist—” I started.

“Oh, bébé. He’s a man, and all men are liars.”

He slipped out the window without looking back, and I giggled softly to myself.

“Liar!” I yelled to the darkness.

When I next heard banging on my door, I was far less drunk and much more annoyed, in part because I couldn’t remember what had happened at Lenoir’s or why Vale and I had quarreled. He had refused to kiss me—I knew that much. And there was something about Cherie, about me not trying hard enough to find her. As if plundering bodies and making myself a sitting duck weren’t enough.

The knocking made me grind my teeth, tasting something black and twisted, licorice and soot.

“Go away!”

The knocking continued, louder and more insistent, and I took off my boot and threw it against the wood.

“Demitasse, forgive me, but the gendarmes are here for you.”

I sat up, blinking back against the sun piercing my curtains. “Am I to have no peace?”

The door opened, and Charline smirked at me. “You wanted to be a star, and stars have no peace. Dress quickly. The photographers are outside the front door, waiting to snap you.”

I groaned and rolled to my feet, testing whether my legs would hold me up. It was iffy. Bathing with rose water from the ewer, I couldn’t help noticing my face. It was a total mess, the kohl and mascara dribbling down my cheeks in dried tear tracks and the lipstick bow smeared across my chin. God, and Vale had seen me like this last night? No wonder he hadn’t kissed me. I looked like Courtney Love after a bender. I scrubbed it all off and rubbed in an expensive cream made of crushed pearls—a gift from a nameless suitor—before reapplying my makeup and touching up my hair. Even dressed to the nines, I felt itchy and off, and I vowed to take a long, hot bath after the night’s show, even if it meant I had to pay Auguste to drive me to a public bath house. My time at Lenoir’s yesterday had promised to be relaxing, but I felt more tightly wound than ever, as if nothing would satisfy me until I tasted the absinthe again.

Wait. Had I promised Vale I wouldn’t drink it again? I didn’t think I had.

He’d been right about one thing, though: I had let the giddy whirl of fame get to my head, and I wasn’t trying hard enough to find Cherie. By light of day, I felt silly and lazy and guilty. And ready to get tough about finding answers.

With every hair in place and long satin gloves covering my arms, I sashayed down the stairs and out the door, blowing kisses to Mel and Bea and the rest of the girls, who watched and whispered. And no wonder—I’d nearly been killed in a giant elephant and had then disappeared for a day with the most famous and notorious artist in the world and come home too drunk to walk. Even for a cabaret girl, I lived a wild life.

Are you okay? Bea signed, and I nodded and signed, Thank you.

As soon as Auguste opened the front door, flashes of light and clouds of powder erupted. The photographers crowded around, their reporter partners shouting questions in Franchian and Sanglish and waggling huge feather quills in my face to get my attention. I drew the veil on my hat down over my eyes and took the hand the mustachioed gendarme offered me. But instead of gently holding my hand as if I were getting into a carriage, his leather glove clamped down around my wrist, and he all but dragged me into a waiting constabulary conveyance. The appointments were far rougher than I was accustomed to, and I clenched my hands around the wooden bench as the thing grumbled down the cobblestones, battering me against the sides behind iron bars.

“At least I’m not in manacles,” I grumbled.

The younger, nastier gendarme snorted. “Against my recommendation, I might add. Please cause trouble. I beg you.” He not-so-subtly stroked the sleek gun resting against his hip. It looked like a futuristic metal ray gun, but I was willing to bet it was filled with seawater that would burn my skin and possibly leave me with permanent scars. He’d probably never had a chance to use it before and was just praying to give it a whirl.

I crossed my legs and gave him a sultry smile. “You’re not the first man to say that to me, Monsieur Legrand.”

He scowled and stared at his clenched hands. I had an enemy for life, but it was worth it.

The conveyance stopped in front of a grand edifice, all soaring white stone and gargoyles and carvings, classic Paris in this world or my own. Inside, it was noticeably less charming, the windows mostly covered and the gaslights a sickly yellow. The floor was dark and slick and made each footstep echo, each muffled thump or shriek bounce eerily off the walls. I walked between the gendarmes, head back as if they served me instead of compelled me. I still wasn’t exactly sure what they wanted, but I knew it wasn’t good. My job now was to turn the tables and get what I wanted in the most dramatic and diva-esque way possible.

“Pastry, madame?”

I gave the older gendarme a quirked eyebrow as he held up a pretty lavender box of éclairs that I had to assume were the Sang version of cop doughnuts.

“Unless they’re filled with blood, monsieur, I must demur.”

“Oh, la. I had forgotten.” He stifled a laugh and shook his head, and I liked him the better for it. He would clearly be playing the role of Good Cop in today’s drama. “I’m afraid we don’t keep blood on hand, mademoiselle. I do believe you’re the first Bludman we’ve had in the station.”

I waved him off. “I understand. A few years ago, I would have gladly eaten half that box.”

His jaw dropped, showing teeth that had clearly seen too many pastries. “But . . . you were once human? I have heard tales but assumed it was merely supposition.”

“I was born just as human as you, monsieur.” I batted my eyelashes, knowing that when I wanted to, I could look like an innocent seventeen-year-old. “Fortunately, on the cusp of death, my godfather was able to change me over. But I do miss the sweets.”

The younger gendarme spit on the ground. “Blasphemy. The girl is clearly lying.”

I fought the urge to hiss and claw his face off. “Tell me, are those éclairs filled with vanilla cream, chocolate ganache, or pudding? I always preferred the vanilla cream, myself. Especially the real kind, made with butter and Madagascar vanilla.”

The older gendarme’s mouth twitched. “These are chocolate ganache,” he said, patting his belly. “My favorite.”

“Let’s get this over with,” the younger one grumbled, and they led me through a thick metal door with a small, barred window near the top. Inside was a sturdy wooden table and three chairs. The older gendarme pulled out my chair for me, and I sat daintily, crossing my legs at the ankles. The gendarmes sat across from me, each one shuffling his papers and preparing his pen.

“Sergeants Bonchance and Legrand, questioning Mademoiselle Demi Ward, also known as La Demitasse, regarding the events of March nine,” the older gendarme said loudly and clearly, glancing at the window in the door in a way that told me we had a witness.

“Please proceed,” a metallic voice boomed through a rudimentary speaker.

“Mademoiselle Ward, please tell us everything that happened on the night of March nine.”

And I told them, conveniently leaving out the bit about having the hottest sex of my life with a costumed brigand in a private alcove. When I got to the moment when the copper elephant ripped free of its moorings and began to charge through the streets, the younger gendarme, Legrand, raised a hand.

“Mademoiselle, just to clarify, could you please tell us why you were to meet the prince in this pachyderm?” The nasty quirk of his thin lips told me to tread carefully.

“I have no idea what he might have had in mind, monsieur. I was merely asked to pay my respects to a visiting dignitary.”

“On your knees, mademoiselle?”

I smiled sweetly. “I’m a citizen of Almanica, monsieur. I kneel to no one.”

“So you’re saying no money changed hands? That there was no understanding?”

“Not with me. I had barely spoken twenty words to the prince beforehand. Whatever expectations he might have had are his own business. But pray tell, Monsieur Legrand, how does this apply to my attempted kidnapping?”

“That’s Sergeant Legrand,” the smaller man growled.

Bonchance put a kindly hand on his arm. “Let’s get back on track, lad.” He gave me a sympathetic look. “Now, can you tell us how you incapacitated your kidnapper?”

Another saccharine smile. “I hit him twice in the head with a heavy wrench. I assume that self-defense isn’t yet against the law?”

Bonchance shook his head no, but Legrand leaned avidly forward.

“Interesting. But how did the gentleman in question come to be exsanguinated?”

My nostrils flared, and I put up a gloved hand. Funny, how I’d never had so much power before now, the first time I’d been a minority. And I wasn’t taking his shit. “Please, monsieur. If I might ask a question? Would you be interrogating me if you thought I had killed him with the wrench? Or a knife? Or any other weapon at hand?”

“That question is not pertinent—”

“An attorney might think it is.”

Legrand went silent, and Bonchance stroked his mustache.

The older cop leaned forward, speaking out of the side of his mouth as if we shared a secret. “You must understand, mademoiselle, that as Bludmen are rare in Paris, this is a new conundrum for us. Technically speaking, it is against the law to drink from a human. But if it was self-defense against someone who clearly meant you harm, we must consider it carefully.”

“Messieurs, I beg you. Please remember, during your deliberations, that I was trapped in a very small, dark room with a man who had already tried to kidnap me.” I blinked, letting my eyes tear up. “And I’m also fairly certain that the crash had damaged him internally. Do you have any idea who that madman was?”

Legrand scoffed. “This is a police investigation, mademoiselle, not your personal gossip mill.”

I sat up straighter, dropping the doe-eyed act. “I have a right to know the identity of my attacker.”

“That remains to be seen.”

“And I’d also like to discuss the disappearance of my dear friend Cherie, who was abducted by slavers on the road to Ruin.”

“That is not part of the current investigation,” Legrand snapped.

Bonchance added, “And only the city of Paris itself is in our jurisdiction, you see.”

“You’ll not even take a statement? Not even send out a bulletin with her information?”

Legrand looked as if he might spit again. “The whereabouts of . . . cabaret girls is not our top priority. Girls disappear frequently, mostly as a result of the unsavory habits of your lifestyle. If we spent our time chasing down every loose woman who fell on hard times, we wouldn’t have time to investigate important things, like murders. We’re the ones asking the questions, mademoiselle; you’d do well to remember that.”

I stood, the chair clattering to the ground behind me. “I’m sorry, but are you telling me that you’re satisfied to let slavers kidnap innocent travelers? And that when a madman kidnaps me in a giant machine, I’m not only prevented from knowing his name, but I’m also on trial for killing him in self-defense? Because I’d like to speak to a lawyer. Attorney. Barrister. Whatever you call it in this insane excuse for a justice system.”

Bonchance held out his hands. “Now, mademoiselle. Let’s stay civil and reasonable.”

Legrand’s lip twisted up. “I hate questioning women. So melodramatic.”

Anger flared, my cheeks blazing hot. “So when women are kidnapped, you treat them like criminals? This is clearly a case not only of misogyny but also of racism. Were I a human man, you’d be clapping me on the back and handing me a cigar. But because I’m female, a Bludman, and, in the words you’re too cowardly to speak and which aren’t actually true, a whore, I don’t deserve justice?”

They both stared at me, mouths open.

“Mademoiselle—” Bonchance began, and I almost felt sorry for him.

“Tell me, either of you. Tell me you think that because of who I am, because of what I am, I deserved it. I dare you.”

“We didn’t mean—”

“Tell me,” I said clearly, turning to let my eyes bore through the window in the door, “that every word I just spoke isn’t true, and I will cease to be, as you say, melodramatic.” I sat down daintily. “And I’ll wait for that lawyer now, while I compose my remarks for whichever reporters would consider my little story worthy of their time.”

After a long, dangerous, and painful pause, the speaker squawked, “The mademoiselle is free to go.”

Bonchance opened the door, and I flounced out of the room like the queen of goddamn England. Now I just had to discover who had kidnapped me and where he had planned to take me. I had to find Cherie and prove all those self-righteous good-old-boy hypocrites wrong.