Divah

by Susannah Appelbaum

Marie Antoinette stood in the very center of the cathedral, beside the choir, watching Laurent and the girl. The doctor was by her side.

  “What hole did he crawl out of?” Maurice whispered.

  “Pick one,” I shrugged, pointing.

  The enormous bells were rattling the very foundation of the ancient church. A crack had appeared in the stone-block wall, its angry zigzag like a madman’s stairway, and a red glow oozed from the void. The walls shook; the floor under our feet was suddenly insubstantial, as if it might open up beneath us and swallow us whole. The candles above surged to an impossible brightness, and, as we looked around desperately, they flickered, dimmed, and then—taking the cursed bells with them—were gone.

  “What bestial horror has she saved for us tonight?” Maurice cursed.

  A strange silence followed. The eerie yellow glow of the torches at the front portal were all that remained—and then, with one final pop, they too were extinguished. The vast space descended into pitch black.

  But there was no relief in the darkness.

  We soon spied many pairs of red, glowing embers. The candles? I thought, absurdly. The dull red of the embers grew brighter, taking on a fiery, vivid orange—glinting, reflecting. These were not candle tapers, I realized. I gazed at one in confusion, and it blinked. These were eyes of the damned.

  Something brushed the back of my wings, and I felt cold terror for the first time in many, many years. I found myself wishing yet again I had never spotted Marie in the Galerie—that I had never held her hot, dry hand. It was a pathetic wish, a momentary wish, and although I was destined to wish it forever, it would soon disappear in the chaos of the room.

  I invited demons among us that day, Itzy. They haven’t left us since.

  Notre Dame filled with a low, inhuman growl, and the unearthly howl overtook everything. We covered our ears with our hands, eyes wide. Raspy, indistinct words threaded beneath the insidious noise, pleading in desperate tones—the cry of the damned. They spoke an old language, the language of burials, of decay.

  The floor rippled. It buckled and swayed. The worn black and white tiles went flying through the air like flapjacks. A charnel stench filled the air, sulfur thick and pungent. The huge pierres of the underfloor heaved as something vast, something evil, pushed up from beneath them. Where a moment ago we had been dancing, making merry, now rose from the wasteland of the netherworld a hideous vision.

  Death’s door.

  A desolate, Gothic archway pushed up savagely through the checkered floor like an enormous, jagged fang, sending broken rock and earth scattershot across the room. A roiling cloud of stone dust and ash filled the air, settling down on the Shadowsill guests. The heat from Hell blazed upon us, like hot breath from fetid bellows. The few woodwose that dared approach burst into flame, their shrieks echoing through the long halls.

  Agathe whistled low and throaty. “Merde!”

  Foul, protruding spikes dotted the Gates of Hell. The doors bulged, studded with rusted iron nails, but held. Deep below the Cathedral of Notre Dame, the stewing cauldron of souls began to stir.

  64

  You do not have to know your French history, Itzy, to know that the storming of the Bastille that day on July 14, 1789, meant the end of the demon infestation of France. Your mother had orchestrated it well. The peasants rose up and revolted, releasing the imprisoned beleaguered scholars from jail. They roamed the streets and took back what was theirs, beneath banners of Hermès silk, with flagons of pure French water. With help from the Institute, no demon would be safe. They would be flushed out, each and every one of them, from the smallest chimney pot to the largest gilt castle.

  But your mother’s work was not done. From the Bastille, Anaïs and the freed chasseurs made for the Cathedral of Notre Dame. They arrived in a rush of wind, of cool untainted air. And cold blue light.

  In the gloom of the cathedral, the vast, circular rose window began to shine, its colors drenching us in reds and blues. I could find no sign of the Divah or her doctor. The colors played upon the floors, through the sifting dust that hung heavy in the air. We, who had but a moment before been lost in night as black as pitch, were suddenly released from the awful spell—waking as though from a nightmare to Christmas morning. Hell looked, if not a thing of beauty, then like its ugly stepsister, its cracked and withered rock and studded portals decked out gaudily from the colors of the stained glass. The rose window glowed as if the very sun were rising behind it. We shaded our eyes, and it grew brighter still.

  Laurent had found us and stood beside me and Agathe, and we stared up at the unearthly glow.

  “It’s not a party,” he said, “until someone calls the cavalry.”

  The implosion was terrible to behold. The enormous circular window was blown inward as if on the breath of a giant. The force of it knocked us backward, jerking my neck like a rag doll and catching my arms up in my cloak. Beside me, Agathe swooned and fell, as lead and colored glass from the famed rose window of Notre Dame shot through the air.

  As the wondrous colors vanished, so did the sound. In the aftermath of the explosion, I heard nothing. Laurent was mouthing something—gesturing to the balcony above us—but my attention was drawn to the Gates. As I looked in vain for the queen, glass began hitting the floor. Emeralds, sapphires, and rubies rained down upon us.

  “Gate-crashers!” someone shouted, as finally my hearing thrummed alive.

  Through the gaping hole of the stained-glass window they came, the first wave, led by Anaïs. I spotted René and Gaston—exuberant looks upon their shining faces, staffs glowing impossibly bright in their hands. There were hundreds of them, followers of Anaïs and unknown to me. Arrows rained down, streaking silver through the air. From the towers came Sabine and Colette, and they fell upon the queen’s guards and the shrieking harpies that were her ladies-in-waiting.

  “Maurice?” I bleated at the buxom girl. “Agathe?”

  The unconscious girl was surprisingly heavy, and I propped her sagging body in the corner, against a pillar. Her head lolled, and when I righted it, it merely drooped once more to the other side. I nestled her flailing arm in her lap.

  “Stay out of trouble,” I advised.

  Her face was flushed, and she sighed blissfully in her swoon. The demon possessions always want closure, Itzy. The angelic ones never want it to end.

  From somewhere behind us, I heard the sound of splintering wood, as the ancient door in the Lady Chapel was wrenched open in the far apse. Professor Guillotin and his liberated chasseurs were storming in through the rear entrance, brandishing torches. He looked different from the last I saw him in the catacombs—stronger, more alive. His hair had loosened from its severe style, and it hung free and wild in his face. Here was a man with a purpose, Itzy, and his purpose was killing.

  “Vive la France!” he shouted, and his cry was echoed by his followers as they poured into the cathedral.

  I spun around, turning desperately toward Hell’s Gates, its jagged arches shimmered with heat. I could just make out Laurent’s girl—she stood unsteadily, swaying, while the battle raged around her. To my horror, she inched forward, one toe at a time, toward the bloated and ravaged doors. The crowd closed in and she was lost to me.

  Before me, a wildman fell, an arrow in his neck. His club clattered to the floor, and I grabbed the knotted wood handle. As I stumbled forward into the chaos of battle, the club glowed an icy blue. Everywhere, rats were scrabbling across the floor, like children running to their mother, as the angels attacked from above.

  I moved stealthfully, darting behind upturned pews and crypts until I caught a glimpse of the queen. She stood beside the Gates now, in their monstrous shadows. She turned and found my eyes. They glowed with an orange fire, a devilish rapture. My pitch-black feather fluttered behind her ear.

  Luc, does this please you? Her voice was harsh inside my head. I only ever wanted to make you happy.

  As I neared the entrance to Hell, I felt a terrible, yawning terror. The doors
rose horribly in a pile of rubble from the church’s center, stabbing the heights of the transept. The thick stench of sulfur was intolerable. Laurent’s girl stood mutely, mesmerized, a fine bead of perspiration across her lip. The heat was unbearable.

  “Maurice?” I grabbed her by the shoulders, shaking her. Her eyes were glazed and looked right through me. I let go in disgust.

  “Maurice!” I bellowed into the air, throwing my head back, receiving a mouthful of ash. “Maurice! You were supposed to occupy the girl! To save her!” I spun around hopelessly. The vaulted stone ceilings were achingly high. Angels circled, their wings cupping the air.

  The soles of my feet were burning and blistering. I unclasped my cloak, throwing it over the girl in a vain attempt to shelter her from the searing heat. I bent, scooping her up in my arms, but she twisted and flailed.

  “You will die!” I shouted at her.

  “Do you see it?” she said, her eyes bright. “Is it not beautiful?”

  “No—ce n’est pas beau,” I gasped.

  Hell is real, Itzy. And the corrupt, congealed souls within are anything but beautiful.

  Over the din, in some cruel jest, the orchestra was still playing, and notes of a waltz threaded though the scene of horror before me.

  The jackal-headed warrior stood heads taller than the crowd, and he battled with a glittering curved sword, his army of the dead falling in behind him.

  I glimpsed Anaïs battling her way to Marie Antoinette and the doctor. The doctor was edging them away through a dark archway, stabbing at the onslaught of Guillotin’s men with a long barbed cane.

  “Anaïs!” I shouted. “The Divah—she’s getting away!”

  Gaston heard my cry and sent an arrow flying. It lodged deep into the doctor’s thigh, where it burned with a cold, blue flame. He fell but for a moment, scrabbling to his feet, hissing.

  It was then that I saw it. Trampled in the scholars’ advance was a golden oval—my feather still attached, lost in the melee.

  I shook Laurent’s silly girl, hard. “Wake—you stupid thing!” The queen’s mask was being trampled. I raised a hand to slap her. “Réveille-toi!”

  “Hey—easy on the merchandise!” she spoke, eyes suddenly clear and focused.

  “Maurice?” I scowled, my arm still tensed.

  “You break it, you buy it,” he said, running a delicate hand through his luscious hair.

  “What took you so long?” I growled, turning to run.

  “I think Laurent put a block on her,” he called after me, but the words rocketed off the stone chamber and were lost.

  I clubbed several woodwose, sending them flying as I angled for another view of Marie’s golden mask. The fighting was thick beneath the archway, and I skidded to a halt, dropping to my knees. I felt around blindly as the battle surged over me. A soiled, cold foot pressed down on my hand as a corpse wrestled with a scholar nearby. I wrenched my hand free and continued searching madly, feeling about the pitted stone floor for any sign of my beloved feather. Something tripped over me, and, cursing, I saw a broad pair of naked, hairy legs before me. I raised my head level to a filthy loincloth.

  “Cassedents!” I cried. “Be gone. I have no issue with you, you old fool.”

  The grave digger raised his shovel, his eye lolling from its socket.

  “My feather—you’re blocking my path, you dumb fool.” I drew my arm back and deposited my club into the soft putty of his stomach, and he fell back. “How’s that grave the queen promised you? You were right about one thing, Cassedents. The dead do outnumber us.”

  A sickening squelching noise accompanied my second thrust, and I rolled away. As I did, my hand brushed a smooth leather boot, and scales of a reptile hide rippled beneath my fingers. A flinty spur jutted dangerously from the heel.

  I raised my eyes and was greeted by the enormous head of a jackal. The warrior bared his sharp teeth in his long snout, his ears pressed against his skull. A rabid foam slathered his gums. My hands found the folds of my cloak and from it I pulled Marie’s dagger, but it was too late. The long, curved sword arced high above his beastly head, and his arm tensed as he lowered it upon me.

  A shout rang out over my shoulder. A beam of clear white light caught the warrior’s attention, and I rolled away. The jackal’s nose sniffed the air.

  “Run!” shouted René as a bolt shot from his staff, missing the jackal and hitting the floor. A smoking hole appeared. I belly-crawled to the relative safety of the shadows of a nearby crypt.

  Gaston had appeared by René’s side, and they hovered, raining blows down upon the creature. The warrior crouched and swung low, his sword a withering blur. René’s next shot went wide and it hit a pillar, reverberating up the massive pile of stones. Crouched and snarling, the jackal-headed warrior sprung, snapping at the air, his sword nearly catching René by the cloak.

  Gaston fired an arrow at the creature’s backside, and when he fell, the ground shook. A dark, frothy scum spilled from his mouth, pooling on the floor.

  Gaston and René convened in the air wing to wing, eyes bright. René leaned in, gesturing lewdly, and Gaston tipped his head back and belly-laughed.

  They didn’t see it coming.

  The jackal’s eyes wrenched open, his pupils black pinpricks. The warrior’s gloved hand closed around the bone handle of my foul dagger beside him. With a dying burst of strength, the creature threw the wicked blade, and it tumbled through the air over the dead and dying, over the damned and fallen. It caught René in the throat. He crashed to the floor, his wings flailing.

  There were words on his lips, soft as velvet, but I could not hear them.

  “René!” I cried. I looked around desperately. Gaston was hovering, stricken.

  I watched as the light of René’s staff turned cold, as he flickered and vanished.

  An inhuman wail filled the cavernous halls, and I realized it was coming from my throat.

  65

  I grabbed René’s cold staff and swung it around me in an arc, hacking at the jackal and his fancy boots, finishing him.

  Gaston pulled me off. The broken pillar was teetering beside us, threatening to fall. A shiver went up it and it wobbled, wavering like a broken spine. I cast about desperately for my feather, for any sign of the Divah.

  “Save yourself!” Gaston advised. “Later we mourn.”

  Others had noticed the column and were scrambling to escape it. Heavy stones from the lower vaulted ceiling of the aisle had already begun to fall. Gaston pointed down the dark cloister to the Lady Chapel, the breeched door. “There—the doors are unlocked. That is your path.”

  I saw a small animal worrying something in the shadows—gnawing on a ball, or perhaps a bone.

  “Mops,” I hissed, throwing the icy light on the scene. “Be gone!”

  I reached for my flask and the hellhound growled and retreated, and I was left facing an old friend.

  “Ah, Nicolas,” I said. “No hard feelings?”

  I was inspecting the damage Mops had wrought upon the poor head—a better part of an ear was missing and the tip of Nicolas’s nose had been gnawed—when the massive stone column indeed failed, falling down upon itself like a giant’s toy. In the confusion that followed, there was another rending noise, great stone upon stone, and a dark, dank smell filled my nostrils. I shook, sweating and cursing in the dark, hugging Nicolas. Finally the stone dust settled, and the sagging Gothic ceiling over me scraped and groaned, shedding keystones and long, rib-like shards.

  Gaston was gone, off in flight, and I was left alone to peer at what remained. Through the gloom, I forced my eyes to see, raising high René’s staff.

  “You remember René, don’t you?” I asked Nicolas. “He liked you.”

  The nave between us had vanished into a cavernous hole. My eyes were drawn to a tattered silk banner that fluttered beside the grievous opening. It was burned and battered, and splattered with some sort of gore, but bore the Hermès orange and brown. Where were Guillotin and his scholars no
w?

  A gust of rotted stench filled the air from the dark vault beneath the cathedral. A few creatures, loosed from the crypt below, flitted out, flapping their wings with ghastly squelching noises. In the shadows of the gaping hole, I saw something shift. A terrible talon rose up and crashed down upon the stone, gouging the floor as it pulled itself up. Its thick skin was leather, its claw from stone and coal, and judging by its talon, it was gargantuan.

  “What new evil is this?” I asked Nicolas.

  We did not stay to find out.

  66

  I raced with Nicolas down twisting aisles, through evidence of battles won and lost. To my great relief, I spied the Gates, closed and abandoned—no sign of Maurice. The path Gaston had indicated was blocked by the column’s wreckage, and, as I skidded to a halt, Nicolas fell from my hands, leaving a large clump of hair in my fist.

  “Nicolas!” I shouted as he rolled away into a dark recess. I found him beside a polished wooden confessional, banging against one of the discreet doors. He rolled forward, thumping his forehead against it—the sound of a carcass on a chopping block. Again and again he smacked the door.

  “Qu’est-ce qu’il y a?” I wondered.

  And then I realized, Itzy. Marie Antoinette had called the dead, and Nicolas had answered. He had come to my rescue.

  I scooped him up and opened the door in question. Ahead, there was a passage, lit by gleaming tapers. A tattered shred of the costliest silk lay before me—the color of blood.

  “Nicolas, I could kiss you!” I said, turning his hideous grimace to me. “At least, when this is done, let me buy you a proper drink.”

  I snatched up the fabric, feeling it between my fingers. It was soft and scented. It was from Marie Antoinette’s dress. She had come this way.

  Nicolas rolled on ahead, content to follow the low-slung tunnel on his own volition, and I took up the rear.

  “They’ve not been long this way,” I shouted. “The tallows are all fresh, and this foul jelly is from the doctor’s wounded leg.”