Wicked After Midnight (Blud)

by Delilah S. Dawson

  “You coming, bébé? Or are you scared?”

  I tossed my hair. “Scared? This is what I am, Vale. I’m a creature of Darkside.”

  He shook his head. “Not here. In Paris, things are different.”

  This time, I reached for his hand, and his fingers curled reassuringly through mine. The buildings were narrow and thin, the alleys crooked and riddled with shadows. Bludrats roamed, big as cats and bristling with fur the color of dried blood, sometimes a lighter mauve. They ignored us, and we ignored them. When one skittered by with a child-size hand in its mouth, I kept my eyes up from then on.

  The shops we passed were typical for Darkside and yet decidedly . . . well, darker. In London and Manchester, Crim had told me, there was a malevolent area of Darkside that no one but villains visited. Deep Darkside, they called it. In most cities and smaller towns, though, Darkside was composed of compulsory ghettos and shops specifically catering to Bludmen. Here, it was like an evil version of Main Street in Disney World. The shop fronts were elegant and intricate, with wood carvings and stone gargoyles and gleaming windows, but the things behind the windows were twisted and strange. When Vale stopped before the only shop with windows blocked by black velvet curtains, a shiver ran up my spine.

  “Maybe it’s closed,” I said hopefully. “No sign.”

  The look Vale gave me was grim and somewhat pitying. “He does not need one.”

  Instead of pushing the door open or knocking, Vale pressed his thumb to the sinister fang of the bludbunny-shaped door knocker. When he smeared a drop of blood against the peeling black paint, the red sank magically into the wood. The door swung open on silent hinges, revealing a crowded room shot through with smoky beams of light piercing the black curtains. The walls were redder than red, cracked in the corners, and lit with buzzing carnival lights around the edges.

  Vale stepped in first and pulled me through. I hesitated for just a moment on the threshold, and the door slammed shut, almost smacking my hip. I spun away and nearly stumbled into the carved white fangs of a herd of screaming, carousel-horse heads arrayed on spikes. Stumbling back, claws outstretched, I bumped into a stuffed owl swinging from the ceiling by a hook. Off-balance, I sought Vale’s side, sighing in relief as his hand curled around my waist.

  Across the room, a counter sat unmanned, the greasy glass obscuring glittering objects within. Big jars of peculiar items sat in rows on shelves, and I noted powders, the twisted pink petals of dried bludrat ears, ivory-yellow teeth of all sizes, and one jar filled with liquid and what appeared to be sheep eyeballs. A dusty dentist’s chair of metal and ripped fabric lurked in the corner under a cone light, making me shiver when I saw the rust-flecked instruments hung on the wall behind it.

  “Touch nothing,” Vale whispered.

  “Didn’t wanna,” I whispered back.

  A cacophony started up, somewhere in the building. Mad barking that reminded me of reading Cujo as a little girl, far before I was old enough to handle it. There were no doors that I could see, no curtains to other rooms, and Vale pulled me behind him and turned to face a gaping hole that had appeared in the floor, roughly hewn from the wide wooden boards. I was sure it hadn’t been there only moments ago. Nails clicked on stone far below, and the barking intensified. I hadn’t noticed him move, but there was suddenly a strange and evil weapon in Vale’s hand, like an intricately cast version of Wolverine’s claws. I plucked a parasol from an umbrella stand made of a polar bear’s head and open jaw and prepared to face whatever nasty thing was growling and slobbering up the steps.

  “Monsieur Charmant!” Vale barked. “We wish to parley!”

  There was no answer but a sudden silence as the first dog’s head came up over the stairs, its lips pulling back to growl so low and deep that it vibrated my ribs. Slow claws clicked, more growls joined it, and the thing appeared in the scant light.

  “Are you shitting me?” I shouted, letting my parasol drop. “French poodles?”

  “Franchian wolfhounds,” Vale muttered, “Bludhounds, for short.”

  I stifled a giggle. Because they were totally French poodles, cut into the usual balloon-dog shape, with poofs on their heads and butts and around their ankles.

  Then I looked closer and saw the fucking fangs. Like a saber-toothed tiger’s, they curved down over the jaw until the things opened their mouths and howled, which was even worse.

  Six of them crawled up from hell and took the floor, spreading out around us. They were nearly as tall as I was, their heads canted downward and their shoulders hunched like hyenas.

  “You think those are . . . wolfhounds?”

  He nodded, weaving back and forth and limbering up for a fight. “They bred some local type of dog to bludwolves, long ago. The gendarmes keep them for tracking and chasing down daimons. And they trim them like that so they won’t get too much blood in their fur while feeding but will still run hot.”

  “How the hell do you trim one of those things?”

  One feinted experimentally at Vale’s leg, and he swiped at it with his claw-knife.

  “Very, very carefully.” He cracked his neck. “Lots of chains. Put your back against mine, bébé. They’re behind us, too. Get ready to fight, and don’t hesitate to kill.”

  I spun around and found three more monster dogs quietly hunting us, materializing from behind counters and trunks on the floor, silent but for their clicking toenails. I couldn’t think of them as anything but bludpoodles, which made them only a fraction less terrifying.

  And then I remembered, or my body remembered for me: I was a monster, too.

  I hunched over and ripped off my gloves, fingers curling into claws, glad I hadn’t let Blue trim my talons all the way down just to placate the clients of Paradis. An answering growl buzzed up from my belly, my teeth bared and my vision going over red. One of the bludpoodles facing me hunched down as if it was going to leap, and I pounced on its back before it could spring.

  I forgot everything but the kill. My claws latched into shaved skin, piercing the hide and veering off ribs. On instinct, I slammed a foot on the ground and fell onto my back, pulling the thing over in a bear hug. With its legs pawing overhead, it whimpered and raked the air with useless toenails, and I bit deeply into its neck to drink. The thing went limp in my arms, and I’d sucked down one deep draught of blood before the next one slammed into me.

  As I rolled to the floor, howling in fury, I caught a quick glance at Vale. He moved like a dancer, the giant claw-knife in one hand and a wicked dagger in the other. One bludpoodle lay near the counter, its head at an unnatural angle. Four-inch saber teeth snapped inches away from my nose, red-tinged slobber flecking my face. With an irritable grunt, I punched it in the face and felt the crunch of bone.

  I counted six wolfhounds: three dead on the ground, two circling Vale, one trying to sneak up on me. But I could smell it, and I pounced before it could and sank teeth into its throat. I’d never used my teeth and talons like this, not since becoming a Bludman six years ago. I’d never been reduced to a fighting machine, a predator, a monster that lusted for the enemy’s blood, no matter what species it was. I sat on the floor, my legs and fluffy skirts poofing around my legs as I dragged the dying wolf-monster into my lap to take what was rightfully mine. Hot blood spiced with fury and madness slid down my throat as I watched Vale dispatch the last hound and straighten, wiping blood off his face and rubbing it on his black trousers, where it disappeared as smoothly as the thumbprint he’d pressed to the door.

  “Demi?”

  I grunted, and he spun around to stare at me.

  “Mon dieu, bébé. You look like a child with an ice cream cone.”

  I shrugged but didn’t stop drinking. He looked half disgusted and half proud. When footsteps sounded on the stairs, I dropped the fuzzy carcass and got back into fighting stance, but Vale merely straightened and held the blood-spattered claw at his side.

  “Quite a welcome, Charmant.”

  The daimon who rose from the floor like a dev
il born from hell looked as if he belonged in a barbershop quartet, but evil rolled off him in waves. He tipped a straw boater at us, mouth twitching under a spectacular mustache and skin the color of Mountain Dew.

  “Oh, customers? Tut. I was just letting my pets out for a little walky.” He glanced around, noting the carnage of pony-sized vampire poodles with one raised eyebrow. “They don’t breed bludhounds like they used to, you know.” He turned back to the hole in the floor and shouted, “Coco! Bring the broom and dustpan. Again.”

  After the bludhounds, I wouldn’t trust anything spit forth from that dark rectangle. A heavy clanking from deep below got louder until a copper orangutan emerged, hobbling on long arms like crutches. It clambered over to me with red eyes blinking impatiently and held out fingers that clicked open and shut in annoyance. With a last pull at the sluggish blud, I placed the drained body in its grasp, and it swung down the stairs, enveloped in the darkness. A series of meaty rips and grinding noises made me glance away.

  “I should charge you for that, you know,” Charmant said with a fussy and exaggerated sigh, and Vale laughed.

  “For what? Destroying illegally bred bludhounds? The gendarmes would pay us in gold for that.”

  “Gendarmes are more easily bought than bludhounds. Why are you here, brigand? Come to buy more teeth for your collection?”

  I stood and shot Vale a measuring look. He had neglected to mention he had come here to pay this devil with cash. He shrugged unapologetically.

  “I’m here to inquire about a gold pin seen around town. The crest is a raven’s skull with a top hat and bat wings.”

  Charmant rubbed filed black nails against the sharp lapels of his red-and-white-striped jacket. “Pish-posh. Sounds enigmatic.”

  “You know what it is, and you’re going to tell us.”

  Charmant’s mustache curled with his smile. “Am I, now?”

  The clockwork orangutan clattered back upstairs and gently shoved me aside with a knuckle and an apologetic, tinny “Ooh ooh.” It picked up another bludhound and carried it downstairs over one arm like a coat as the two men glared at each other. I wasn’t sure how or why, but the copper ape looked downright sad.

  Vale crossed his arms, the silver claw dangling over his taut bicep. “You’ll tell us, yes.”

  Charmant finally giggled, an oddly mad sound. “Depends on what you’re going to give me for the information, I suppose. A few of her fangs? A tube of your mixed bastard blood? A favor? Your firstborn? Perhaps you have a unicorn horn or a selkie skin to trade or some lovely Yssian scales?” Charmant’s eyebrows waggled like dying caterpillars.

  Without a word, Vale reached into his shirt and withdrew a silk scarf, testing its weight on his palm. Charmant snatched it up without touching Vale and unwrapped it like a kid at Christmas.

  “Oh la la,” he purred. “A bludmare’s lucky horseshoe. A fine trade, indeed.”

  Charmant caressed the rusty U in a thoroughly unappetizing way, then tucked it lovingly into his jacket and dusted off his hands. Turning on one heel, he disappeared into the hole in the ground, tail slithering, snakelike, behind him. I was about to protest his abandonment, but Vale put a hand on my arm and shook his head. After a few moments of silence, the orangutan swung up and knuckle-walked to Vale. Its long arm extended, a folded card grasped in dexterous fingers. Vale opened it so we both could read it.

  “Anatole Fermin, Artificer, Boulevard Saint-Germain.”

  “Do you know who that is?” I asked.

  Vale shook his head, angry. “Let’s go find out.”

  The orangutan held open the door, its mournful red eyes tracing our steps as we left, as if somewhere under the metal plates and gears, the thing had a heart and had lost all hope long ago.

  “Ooh ooh,” it said again, and I wasn’t sure if it meant good luck or good-bye.

  Tears pricked my eyes for a reason I couldn’t name, and I held out a hand. The orangutan’s fingers softly wrapped around mine, its eyes blinking up.

  “Thank you, Coco,” I said as we hurried away.

  * * *

  Outside, even the dim light of a cloudy afternoon felt suddenly bright. Vale pulled me aside in the doorway of an empty shop and licked the pad of his thumb to scrub at my face.

  “Back off, Mom.” I wriggled away.

  “You’re covered in wolf blud, bébé. We’ll never make it to Saint-Germain unless I can clean you off a little.” I sighed and held up my face. To my surprise, he planted a kiss on my lips before dabbing at me again and again with his thumb. “Thank heavens you were wearing burgundy today.”

  My eyes were drawn to a flash of golden skin through his black jacket. And beneath that, blood. Half-Abyssinian blood that smelled all kinds of wrong. I wrinkled up my nose and grabbed him.

  “You bit?”

  He shrugged. “That’s what killed the last one. I told you, bébé. My blood is dangerous stuff.”

  “It won’t turn you into a . . . like, a werewolf or anything, will it?”

  He snickered and pulled my jacket over my chest, buttoning it up to my chin. I hadn’t been so covered up since the carriage ride with Cherie, and it rankled. And choked. I tried to yank the stiff collar away from my throat, and Vale gently pulled my hands down.

  “Do not worry about me. Worry about you.” He caught my hand, his thumb caressing my palm. “If you lost your gloves, use your pockets. It’ll be easier if you act like you’re not the famous lone Bludman of Mortmartre.”

  I smiled to myself. The second Bludman of Mortmartre, actually. But he couldn’t know about Lenoir.

  We hurried out of Deep Darkside, and I didn’t look back. Except at the end, because I had the strangest feeling, as if we were being followed. I didn’t smell anything unusual, but after being attacked by gigantic rabid monster poodles, I wasn’t going to start trusting reality.

  The world brightened even more noticeably as we passed under the archway and reentered the colorful domain of the daimons. Street after street, Vale pulled me along by my elbow, silent, intent on his errand.

  Finally, I couldn’t stand it anymore. As we reached a quiet place on a bridge, I murmured, “How much did they cost you?”

  “Ne t’en fais pas, bébé.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  I stopped and, God help me, stamped my foot. “I know what it means, ass! How much, Vale?”

  He turned to face me, gone from gruff to amused in a heartbeat, thanks to my little snit.

  “A gentleman doesn’t name prices.”

  “Well, I just . . . I mean . . . thank you.”

  He grinned, a spark of humor back in his eyes. “De rien, mon chou.”

  “I’m not your cabbage. Cabbages don’t drink blood,” I grumbled.

  “So you do know some Franchian.” He eyed the slant of the sun and jerked his chin toward the other end of the bridge. “If you want to find out who this mysterious Fermin is and get back in time to perform, we must hurry.”

  My eyes were drawn to the water as we scurried over the river. I couldn’t help jealously eyeing the carefree daimons and children laughing in large paddle boats shaped like demented pink swans or tossing crumbs at regular ducks and geese from dinghies floating in the teal-blue water. Bathers reclined on the grassy shores in straw hats and the sort of half-revealing bathing suits no one in Sangland would touch, even if they had a death wish. Sure, they were guarded by an electrified fence and a guard with a seawater gun and a bludrat net, but they still looked mostly relaxed. I’d spent one giddy night at the Tuileries and one brief and stolen night at the Louvre, but no one had ever offered to show me the beauties of Paris during the daylight, and it made me desperately sad. I hadn’t been born a creature of the darkness.

  Soon we were on the other side of the river. The Tower loomed over us, closer than I’d ever seen it, spindly and wrapped with wires and lights and spikes to keep the pigeons from roosting. Surrounding the elevator at its base was an unwieldy me
tal generator crackling with electricity like something out of Dr. Frankenstein’s lab. After another block, the palpable buzz in the air subsided, and we entered a district that smelled of coal, fire, and iron. Some of the storefronts had been hollowed out and equipped with iron gates to show soot-stained daimon blacksmiths, swordsmiths, and jewelry artisans hard at work pumping bellows and hammering cherry-hot steel with a cacophonous clanking that felt like horses galloping over my brain.

  “Ugh. Please tell me we’re not going to hang around here long.”

  “I do not know what we’re looking for, really. This is Boulevard Saint-Germain. I haven’t spent much time here, for obvious reasons.” He nudged me in the side. “At least it’s not the leather-tanning district, n’est-ce pas? Or the one where they process civet and ambergris?”

  As we passed between the forges and storefronts, reading every sign, the sun slowly sank. We didn’t have much time left before I was expected to be in costume and on a chandelier. When we came upon a blacksmith taking a rest on a bench outside his forge, Vale bowed slightly and said, “Pardon, but do you know where we might find the artificer?”

  The blacksmith grunted, his thick tail twitching against the cobbles. “We’re all artificers, monsieur. Which one in particular?”

  “Anatole Fermin.”

  The blacksmith pointed a black-singed finger down the street, ahead of us.

  “Idiot got himself crushed. They are moving his junk now.” He shook his head, his curly mustache and muscles making my heart ache with thoughts of the buff but kindly strong man, Torno, back at the carnival.

  “Merci.”

  We jogged down the street, and I noticed for the first time how Vale’s fighting claw slid into a sort of scabbard along his thigh. A bludmare screamed up ahead, marking our destination: a shop being emptied, the goods stacked outside as daimon workers packed them into crates and hammered boards over the tops before stacking them on a pallet behind the coal-black horse. The tasteful sign over the storefront read simply, “A. Fermin, Artificer,” and the air around the open doors stank with an odd and familiar mix of oil, metal, and magic.