Wicked After Midnight (Blud)

by Delilah S. Dawson

  I undressed and slipped on a night shift I found in Limone’s armoire, a far nicer one than the ragged, worn thing I’d borrowed the night before. Would Limone come back for it? And did I care? Probably not, and no. Just as I had once walked the caravan, telling myself that it was home and I should forget Earth, now I paced Limone’s room, telling myself that it was mine and I should forget the caravan.

  I couldn’t put down the duke’s note, couldn’t stop reading the cold words that turned me from a thinking, feeling woman into a commodity. Even after six years in Sang, I still hadn’t internalized the general sentiment that women were things to be used and, when they’d outlived their use, discarded. Women had practically no rights here, unless they had a father or a husband to stand behind them—or a big-ass sword to swing at whoever threatened them. The caravan was better than most places, thanks to Criminy’s liberal worldview, but here in Paris, I was on my own. And I was practically chattel.

  I had no idea what Madame Sylvie had planned for me, whether she had any control over my destiny and my body—or whether she thought she did. This duke could likely own the lot of us if I made him too angry. The shit would probably hit the fan in the morning, but what did I care? My answer to the duke was already in motion, out of my hands, and if Sylvie didn’t like it, I would find another cabaret and teach them the groundbreaking, scandalous dance I’d just invented.

  I undressed, turned down the lamp, and slid between the rich coverlets. The bed was luxurious compared to what I was used to, the feather mattress cupping me like angel wings under blankets as soft as melted butter. I stretched and writhed and stared longingly at the window. I’d noticed since becoming a Bludman that lust and hunger were painfully intertwined. When I hadn’t had enough blood, my thoughts grew dark with needs I’d never known on Earth. And when I couldn’t stop thinking about a guy, I couldn’t stop thinking about his blood and staring at the little vein in his neck. The last guy I’d dated had been poor Luc. He’d been hot, but his daimon blood hadn’t appealed, and neither, I’d soon realized, did his personality. I’d wanted Marco Taresque and had spent more than a few nights in my wagon car thinking about what it would feel like to drink the knife thrower’s blood while he traced my body with the points of his daggers. But Marco had been too old for me and then rightfully claimed by Jacinda, and my hungers had cooled.

  The caravan meant two vials a day, one show a night, very little lust. A simple life.

  Now I was again at the mercy of a hunger that didn’t quite fit. I wanted Vale, but I didn’t trust him, and I couldn’t drink from him. Still, something in me kept watching the curtain billow from the open window anyway, hoping to see his pointed boot slip over the sill, bottle in hand and eyes on fire with mischief. Was it foolish to think his kisses could sustain me?

  Something had been bothering me all along, some restless sense that I had forgotten something important. I went over every look, every word in my conversation with Vale. I could never sleep when something evaded me like that and had sprung from my bed after midnight more than once to Google an actor’s name or pull up a thesaurus online back on Earth. I couldn’t stand being eluded.

  And that’s when I remembered it. Vale had said that he had news. I’d glossed right over it in my excitement over the show, and he’d never returned to the subject. News about what? He had to mean Cherie, but he hadn’t said her name. I leaped out of bed and went to the window as if he might be lurking outside, waiting for me.

  Of course, he wasn’t. That was just stupid.

  As I slunk back into bed, the thrill that had lit up the night vanished. I’d been so self-obsessed that I’d forgotten the entire reason I was here. I had let Cherie down again. There wouldn’t be a third time. Despite what I’d told him, Vale could have all the pecks on his cheek he wanted, if only he would bring my best friend back.

  * * *

  The next morning, an unmarked package arrived at the duke’s doorstep. Underneath the beautiful wrapping that I could only describe as Tiffany blue despite the fact that there was no Tiffany’s in Sang, the duke found a box. Inside that box, packed carefully in bunched tissue paper, was a cow’s tongue.

  I am not a piece of meat for your amusement.

  Hope this charm is to your “taste.”

  La Demitasse

  By lunchtime, a new card had arrived, tripling his price.

  When Madame Sylvie delivered it herself, demanding to know what I had done to inspire him so, I laughed and threw the creamy paper into the fire.

  “I told him he couldn’t buy me. At any price.”

  She tapped her foot, shook her head. “Someone will find your price, ma petite. That, or they will take you and tell you what you are worth after the fact.”

  I grinned, showing her my fangs. “Let them try.”

  13

  Everything had changed overnight. After Madame Sylvie left, fed up with my feral and cocky attitude, Blaise appeared with a teacup of warm, fresh blood and a nicely folded napkin. An apothecary’s glass jar sat beside it on the tray, filled with notes. Apparently, this was the preferred way to win a cabaret girl’s attention, and I went through them one by one, sorting them into little piles on the silky bedspread.

  They promised me love, adoration, bedroom skills, trinkets, private rooms in costly hotels, and willing necks that longed to see if it was true that a Bludwoman could incite a climax just by feeding the right way. I was half disgusted and half fascinated, and as the unfamiliar names and their offerings swirled together, I called Blaise in and requested a notebook and a pen. I made a spreadsheet of names, their offers/requests, the quality of the paper and handwriting, and their perceived creepiness. Each of these men was suddenly on my list of suspects, a self-selected group of supposed gentlemen who thought of women as things to possess and who might have a reason to abduct a young, beautiful Bludwoman and keep her somewhere in secret for their own selfish purposes.

  No one bothered me as I worked. No one knocked on my door or called my name or demanded my attention or help. Cabaret stars, apparently, were allowed to sleep in. I luxuriated, reading the newspapers and gossip magazines Limone had kept in a slippery heap by her bedside. Paris was a place of beauty, intrigue, sensation, and melodrama, worlds away from Criminy’s quiet caravan, where Emerlie’s whispers were the only true source of scandal. Fashion in London was clearly years behind Paris, which was odd, as they were less than a day away in a fast airship. With dresses and the disappearance of bustles on my mind, I turned a page in my new notebook and sketched costume ideas for Blue and practiced signing “La Demitasse” with an ink pen, just in case cabaret stars were required to autograph things.

  One time in the caravan, I had asked Jacinda if her writing could make me a star and had been disappointed when she tried to let me down gently. Now I was a star, and I had no idea what that meant, except that dozens of men wanted to do raunchy things to me, and if I did well enough, I might find myself stolen by kidnappers in scary masks—and that was my goal. And yet all I could think about was a half-Abyssinian brigand’s eyes, his hands on my waist, and the prickle of brick against my back as he kissed me. A dozen different hungers held me, things I shouldn’t have wanted yammering over the one thing I needed most: my friend safely back by my side.

  A light knock on the door startled me, and I huffed a “Yes?”

  “La Demitasse?”

  It was Charline, wearing a painted smile that was at least half false. While she must have loved the monetary benefit I would bring to the cabaret under her tutelage, she had to hate that I had tricked my way to the top instead of earning respect the old-fashioned way. I couldn’t keep the snark out of my own smile. At least Sylvie had accepted her defeat gracefully. The bagload of silvers cleaned up off the stage last night probably helped.

  “Entrez, Charline.” No more Mademoiselle.

  “Did you sleep well, chérie?”

  “Very.”

  “I’d like to discuss tonight’s show.”

  M
y grin widened. “I’d love that.”

  She cleared her throat and pulled out her red notebook, and I noticed that it matched mine exactly. So they’d given me one of her private stash; no wonder she was annoyed. “What we must decide is whether to replicate last night’s act or try something entirely different. Of course, it will not be such a . . .”

  “Surprise?”

  Charline pinched the bridge of her nose. “Indeed. It won’t be a surprise. But it doesn’t inconvenience the rest of the girls, and we already have the equipment and music. I’m sure you’ll want to work with Blue on costuming, and I did have some ideas.”

  She held out her notebook, and I held out mine. The two drawings had nothing in common whatsoever, and laughter burbled in my chest as she fought the urge to screech at me in her typical manner.

  “Look, Charline. I refuse to wear a hat shaped like a coffee cup, even if it works with the name.”

  “But this costume you propose is . . .”

  “Utterly indecent?”

  “Unprecedented.”

  “This is Paris. We set the fashion. So let’s set it. Besides, very little skin is revealed. They’ll see more when the other girls dance than they see when I contort.”

  Angry mauve spread over Charline’s gold skin like ink on tissue. “Must you be utterly contrary at every juncture, mademoiselle?”

  I shrugged and settled back against my pillow. “Why not? Someone needs to. You don’t become a star by doing the same thing everyone else is doing. N’est-ce pas?”

  “Perhaps. But you don’t keep the established clientele by suddenly changing everything they’ve come to expect.”

  “So keep everything the same.”

  She smiled in triumph.

  “Except for my act.”

  The smile died.

  “My act should be last, and it should start the same way, on the hoop. Or maybe a trapeze. Lower me to eye level, I’ll do my thing, then bring all the girls out to dance the can-can together with locked arms. Easy.”

  “And for the costumes?”

  A brief image of one of my favorite childhood movies flashed through my head, and I grinned. “Dress them as forks, napkins, salt cellars, sugar bowls, teacups. Like a giant table, putting on a show just for the diners. Inviting the audience to be our guests.”

  One eyebrow went up as she considered it. “I regret to say that it’s not entirely horrible. Perhaps instead of a hoop, you could emerge on a giant chandelier?”

  I nodded eagerly, imagining it. Me, sliding down the rope to a majestic chandelier of gold and jewels, slithering around it as it slowly descended to the floor. Paris had surely never seen its like, and that was exactly what I was hoping for in my act.

  “It will take a week to prepare this grand finale. Until then, can we count on an exact replication of last night’s sensation?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.”

  “But I have a rider.”

  She cocked her head. “Do you require . . . a horse? Perhaps a saddle?”

  I laughed. I guess she’d never heard of M&M’s, either. “It’s a list of demands. I want posters of me. And a better costume for the interim.”

  She snorted a very Franchian snort and rolled her eyes. “Both requests are already in process. We are not idiots, mademoiselle. If the people want you, we shall give you to them, and gladly.”

  “Excellent.”

  I nodded and sipped my blood, picking up a magazine. Recognizing that she’d been released, Charline spun on her slipper and left, muttering under her breath in Franchian. Her last line bothered me still. I had felt powerful all morning, knowing that I had proven myself, made a good bet, and cast myself one step closer to the stardom I’d always craved.

  But her carelessly tossed words reminded me who was really in charge of my future: the people. More specifically, a slavering crowd of rich, lustful men who weren’t accustomed to being told no. Were they really so different from the slavers who had stolen Cherie? The duke’s response had been amusing, but the fact remained that he hadn’t written “I appreciate your rejection and respect your empowerment,” he had simply upped his price.

  I was still for sale; the bids would just have to get a lot higher.

  * * *

  The show went off without a hitch that night, and the crowd’s mad yammering and stomping filled me with elation and terror. The purple daimon dude, Auguste, ushered me out of view before they could storm the stage and tear me apart, his hand wrapped around the top of my arm, gentle but firm. He was like a bouncer, Mel had informed me, working many of the cabaret tasks that couldn’t or wouldn’t be performed by the girls. But Auguste didn’t escort me to my room upstairs. Instead, he dragged me down the opposite side of the wings, through a maze of hallways, and outside into the starlit night.

  The air was chill and as clear as the air in a Sang city could get, and I opened my eyes as wide as possible, until I blinked away tears. I hadn’t been out of doors since I stepped into the catacombs with Vale, and Paris was ridiculously, impossibly beautiful. The City of Light merged the pictures in my world mixed with the topsy-turvy paintings of absinthe-riddled artists to shimmer with brighter-than-life colors and energy and movement. The effect was beyond distracting.

  Overhead, the clouds swirled and curled around the stars in a dreamy dance. The moon was a perfect crescent, the warm yellow of fine cheese, its glow painting indigo mountains and throwing sharp black trees into shadow. The sky mesmerized me so completely that I nearly tripped on my own feet as Auguste pulled me toward a towering elephant of copper and glittering enamel, its giant legs each the size of a lighthouse and the rivets that held it together as big as my fist.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I muttered.

  As he opened a hatch in its front left leg and yanked me inside, I felt the first sting of panic. Where was he taking me? Then I heard the first calls of the crowd on our tail. It was pitch black and cold inside, and Auguste let go of me long enough to turn the wheel behind us, locking the door.

  “Steps, miss,” he said softly, and I reached out a toe until I felt the first one.

  Up and up we went in a tight spiral. I kept one hand on the smooth copper wall, running fingers over solder and rivets and cringing as gentlemen’s fists banged on the metal. Outside, Madame Sylvie’s voice carried, but I couldn’t catch any words. Had they sold me, or had I been given away? Was this ridiculous elephant my new room? Something about it—maybe the echo of my steps or the cold scent of metal on the air—felt like a prison even a Bludman couldn’t escape. My heart sped up. Could this be where they kept Cherie?

  A glow ahead made my feet move faster, and I soon stood in the most opulent room I’d seen yet in Paris. It was the elephant’s belly, the glowing copper hung with velvet and silks like a maharaja’s palace, with expensive furniture pressed close to the curved walls. The floor, at least, was flat, the wood boards new and polished and covered with sumptuous rugs. A painted screen broke the space up into two distinct rooms, and I would have bet everything I owned that a bed was on the other side of it. But there was no one else there; it was empty. And not a single sniff of Bludman rode the air. No Cherie.

  Not that kind of prison, then. Unfortunately.

  “You’ll stay here tonight. Outfit’s on the other side of the screen. Best get ready.”

  “Get ready for what, Auguste?”

  His smirk was pitying and a little leering. “What do you think, mademoiselle? Being a star ain’t free.”

  With a faux-courtly bow of his head, he ducked back into the elephant’s leg, leaving me alone. Unnerved but still amped from my performance, I went to the gramophone on a small table and pressed the button without checking to see what music waited on the disc. Having grown accustomed to Casper’s masterly playing in the caravan, I was generally disappointed by popular music, but I needed something soothing. The song that started after a mechanical buzz was slow and sleazy. I was flipping through the other records when I heard foo
tsteps on the copper stairs. I gasped and ran behind the screen.

  Oh, what a bed. Round and covered in a mound of pillows, it was clear that only fools would sleep on such a sexy piece of furnishing before they’d completely exhausted each other. All around the bed, the copper walls were painted with bright blue skies, pink-tinged clouds, and daimon children dressed as cherubs with mechanical wings and crossbows. Hanging from a hook on the wall was a delicate wire hanger, and hanging from that by two pathetic silken strings was the slinkiest, most nonexistent dress I’d seen since waking up in Sang, half-dead and craving blood.

  A foot landed on the wooden boards with a creak.

  “La Demitasse?” a cultured but unfamiliar voice called gently.

  The breath caught in my throat. Who was it? Surely not the duke. Or was it? And not Monsieur Philippe, thank heavens. But that left an awful lot of rich, horny men in tuxedos who might have bought their way into my life.

  “Just a moment, monsieur,” I called, keeping my voice low and light.

  “I’ll pour the wine, chérie, while I wait.”

  The offhand use of my best friend’s name was all it took to propel me into motion. Every man I got close to here was one more suspect on my list, one more possibility. With my sharp sense of smell, I would know immediately if he’d been near her. And that meant that I had to slither into the dress on the hanger and make nice with whatever silver-tongued predator had landed on the doorstep.

  My hands were numb as I untied the skirt and undid all the layers of my costume. I almost missed the impenetrable armor of a corset, but in this case, every breath was welcome. The gramophone music buzzed and wheedled, echoing off the metal and filling the room with the promise of sensuality. After checking that the gentleman’s back was turned, his hands busy with cutting the wax and uncorking and pouring the wine, I stripped off my costume and kicked it under the bed.