Divah

by Susannah Appelbaum

No, Itzy thought. No. Hell is not my domain.

  Itzy yanked her hand with all her might, and it came away with a sickly gluey thread.

  She skittered away from the horrendous pit on all fours.

  Already the surface of the sea was studded with debris, spent arrows, embers bobbing on the sticky waves. A careless woodwose tumbled in, his hair caught on the gluey surface, like flypaper. More followed, drawn by the shrieks of their comrade, and a few of the dead shambled in and began to slowly sink.

  Itzy raced through a high vaulted aisle beneath the choir. Near a crypt, she stopped. Behind it was a scratching, pitiful sound. It was worrying something in the shadows—gnawing on a bone.

  “Mops!” Itzy hissed. “Begone!”

  The animal had hold of something between his teeth and was growling, pulling at it, shaking his head trying to tear it free.

  That’s no bone, Itzy saw.

  Itzy peered around the corner of the crypt. “Ava?” Itzy’s voice was scorched.

  Ava turned then, and Itzy recoiled at her gruesome features. “Hello, Itzy,” she said, her voice like a rusty old can.

  Itzy sunk to her knees.

  I am finally going crazy, Itzy decided. This is more than I can bear.

  Itzy felt the world grow dim. A hand closed around her elbow and Itzy turned, disoriented, her blade-arm hanging limply by her side.

  “Miss Nash?”

  She blinked.

  I am crazy, she confirmed. A wild laughter bubbled up from her belly.

  Wold stood before her, bowing slightly, clean and crisp in his morning jacket, as the battle raged behind him. A slight bluish aura surrounded him. “If I may be of some assistance, Miss Nash?”

  Itzy glanced madly at Ava and Mops, and Wold followed her gaze. The concierge slipped something from his vest pocket—a glittering dagger, encrusted with rubies, the handle carved from bone. With an expert flip of the wrist, Wold sent the weapon flying and it lodged in the haunches of the small hound. A thunderous noise followed, and Mops lifted his head in astonishment. Turning in circles, he snapped with fury at the dagger, which was now glowing blue, roaring at his backside. And then, quite simply, he was gone. A small pile of brown spores rose like an anthill where he had been standing.

  “If you would follow me, Miss Nash. I have it on good authority that things are about to heat up in here. The scholars are storming the lobby as we speak.”

  A fireball exploded somewhere nearby, but the concierge did not flinch.

  “On whose authority?”

  “My master’s.”

  “Your—who is your master?”

  “Mr. Beauvais, Miss Nash. I am his manservant. If you would be so kind—” He gestured with his manicured hand, his left one that was inked with a black tattoo. All argument left Itzy and she followed the concierge up the winding stairs of the tunnel, letting the pleasant tones of his occasional “Watch your step,” and “Yes, very good of you to keep up such a fine pace,” and, finally, “Mind your blade, Miss Nash. I’ve already shaved this morning,” wash over her like earthly delights.

  102

  They arrived in the hotel’s industrial laundry room, beside a set of plain metal doors.

  “The cargo elevator?” Itzy asked as the doors folded open.

  “Indeed. You’ll recall that Miss Monroe would on occasion find them useful, when discretion was called for.”

  They stepped inside, and the doors clanged shut. The interior was wide and unadorned. Wold pressed the button for the Tower Suite and the elevator shot up.

  “The Tower Suite?” Itzy asked.

  “Indeed. Although Mr. Beauvais was quite recently”—Wold cleared his throat delicately—“displaced.”

  “Displaced? What does that mean?”

  “He vacated his quarters. For someone more senior.”

  Itzy contemplated this until another thought occurred to her.

  “Wold, you never mailed the letter to my father.”

  “Ah, well. Your father never got off the plane in Paris.”

  The elevator doors opened upon a small butler’s pantry, lined with cabinets and shelves and a small service sink. Wold held the doors open for her while flicking a lever, locking the elevator in place. Through a set of swinging doors, Itzy saw she was in Luc’s airy suite, the blues and whites and golds of Bemelmans’s heavenly cloudscape upon the ceiling.

  Itzy felt her before she saw her.

  “How’s your father?” a voice said.

  Somewhere, some part of Itzy at her deepest, knew the voice.

  Itzy turned.

  Anaïs was beside a long, ornate bar. In her hand, she held a small, delicate drink with something bright and red floating inside it. Anaïs had delicate wings of the lightest blue; they fluttered in the breeze with plumes of down. Itzy scrutinized the room more carefully. One corner held a pile of luxurious luggage, carelessly stacked and obviously rifled through.

  “Mom?” Itzy asked, inanely.

  Anaïs raised her glass. “In the flesh. Well—sort of. If I were made of flesh, that is.”

  “You displaced Luc?” Itzy asked.

  “I do so love the Carlyle. Don’t you?” When Itzy didn’t answer, Anaïs continued in a different tone. “Oh, don’t worry. He’s a big boy. He can take care of himself. Actually, come to think of it”—she twitched her mouth in annoyance—“maybe he can’t.”

  Anaïs peered at Itzy and sighed.

  “Oh, don’t be like that. I’m not here for long. Just long enough to clean up the mess you made. And I understand they’ve found him quite a suitable set of rooms on one of the lower floors. Is that not so, Wold?”

  Wold stepped forward, nodding curtly. “Quite satisfactory, madame. If I understand my master correctly, he considers it a privilege to vacate the Tower Suite for you and yours, as he has been forced to demonstrate so many times in the past.”

  “See?” Anaïs said to Itzy brightly. “Now. Can I get you something to drink before we begin? You look parched. It’s too bad we don’t have time for a little toilette—it would make what comes next ever much more agreeable.” Anaïs fixed Itzy a small drink with a bright red cherry floating in it and glided over to her daughter. “Here. Salut!” She clinked glasses and tipped hers back in one gulp.

  “Mom.” Itzy took a small sip. It was sweet and cloying. “Where have you been?”

  “Whatever do you mean? I got here as soon as I could. How funny of you, child. In one breath you chastise me for displacing your beloved Luc, and in the other for being delayed at doing so.”

  “Where have you been my entire life?” Itzy clarified.

  “How old are you?” Her voice softened. Anaïs reached forward, curling a stray lock of Itzy’s white hair behind her ear. “Twelve? Thirteen?”

  “I’m seventeen, Mom. Nearly eighteen.”

  “My sweet. That is but an intake of breath for someone like me. That is but the moment between dawn and the time I slip from my sheets with dreams still clinging to my nightclothes. That is—”

  “I get it.” Itzy threw back the rest of her drink, which somehow tasted much better the second time around. “Who are they?” Itzy nodded at a pair of angels who flanked the doors to the balcony like statues. They were tall, severe female angels, with light emanating from their haughty faces.

  “Colette and Sabine.”

  Itzy eyed them critically.

  “What are they doing here?”

  Anaïs looked taken aback. “They are my entourage. They go wherever I go, Itzy. Oh! It’s nearly time. Sweetie, are you ready?”

  Anaïs walked to a large rolling cart from room service. A tray was set atop, with the biggest silver dome Itzy had ever seen. Anaïs gestured. “Go on, then. I took the liberty of ordering something. The convenience of room service cannot be overstated.”

  After a quick glare at Sabine and Colette, Itzy lifted the lid. Inside, a folded card.

  Compliments of the Carlyle

  She turned the card over thoughtfully. On the reverse
side, in smaller script, was another message.

  Demon Bait

  Itzy inspected the silver tray.

  It was loaded with orderly vials glittering in the light.

  103

  Itzy was aware of the familiar sound of the elevator approaching—Johnny’s elevator.

  Johnny’s gone. He never existed. Nothing is as it seems.

  “Hear that, girls?” Anaïs chirped. “Lovely sound. Reminds me of the rattle of the guillotine.”

  Itzy was prepared, blade in hand. Her dress, once an enviable collection of organized jewels, was now torn and defiled and her face and hair were streaked with biohazard.

  “If I can leave you with one important lesson, Itzy, it’s the importance of looking one’s best in battle.”

  “What do you mean, leave you?”

  “Ah, well.” Anaïs hemmed and hawed. “When I’m gone.”

  “You’re not staying?” Itzy’s voice squeaked.

  “Well, Luc will be wanting his room back—”

  “I mean for me.”

  “Ah—”

  Itzy thought of Ava. I know a thing or two about angels.

  “Mom, did you ever know someone named Ava?”

  “Who, darling?”

  “Ava Quant. Or maybe you’d remember someone named Frankie.”

  “Frankie? Frankie. Seems I remember a man called Frank—something about a weekend by Lake Garda, or was it Como? He had the cutest baby blues. Oh, but that was a lifetime ago. And when I say lifetime, I do mean that in your terms, dear.”

  Itzy eyed the elevator nervously. The whirring ceased and the elevator made its usual clicks and adjustments as the doors readied to open.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Ava was a friend of mine, Mother. Seems you stole her husband.”

  “I see you have a flair for the dramatic, Itzy.” Anaïs sniffed. “You must get that from your father.” Anaïs surveyed the room quickly. “I do hope I ordered enough of that stuff.”

  Anaïs cracked a vial and doused Itzy’s hair with it.

  “Ever think of getting work done?”

  “Mom—I’m seventeen.”

  “Going on eighteen, as you yourself reminded me. I’m just saying, you’re looking a bit peaked.”

  The remainder of the Botox was unceremoniously poured on Itzy’s face, her shoulders, behind her ears. It ran in streams down her spine.

  Anaïs made for the balcony. Sabine and Colette closed in behind her, longbows at the ready. “I am sorry about this, Itzy. But you know you have to fight your own demons. I’m sealing the room now, sweetheart.”

  “You’re what?”

  “Sealing the room! The Divah cannot be allowed to escape. We’re all counting on you!”

  “That’s your plan?”

  “Just cleaning up your mess, my dear. Don’t take it personally. It’s what I do.”

  And then, with an efficient chime, the elevator doors slid open.

  The creature advanced into the suite in two great strides, head turning on an articulated neck. Itzy felt the nauseating yank of her insides as they were stretched forward invisibly like elastic. The Divah was more insect than human, a horrifying apparition in a dress and a huge powdered wig. She had thin shining joints where the flesh had fallen away, and her legs were punctuated with little dart-like hairs. Aunt Maude’s fox pelt hung at an unnatural angle from her shoulders, its small beady eyes a matching pair to the Divah’s—black, dark pits into a dreadful place.

  These eyes found Itzy immediately.

  It’s like looking in the mirror, isn’t it? the Divah said, picking her way onto the foyer, knees bent in a half crouch. Huge, leathery wings jackknifed open, the scaly skin nearly transparent and torn in places. They hung like fire-ravaged curtains. They beat a foul air Itzy’s way, and she staggered backward. And then they were gone, folded up from where they came. Nearly. Itzy saw one was broken, twisted, dragging on the floor. Horribly, Itzy heard the Divah begin to hum.

  The itzy bitzy spider crawled up the water spout.

  Out the windows, the angels congregated. Sabine and Colette had their longbows drawn, guarding the glass doors, the outlines of which were bleeding with a bright blue light. The Divah cocked her head, sniffing.

  Breakfast of champions.

  The Divah squatted down beside a puddle of Botox and recommenced her humming. Itzy saw her chance. The sprint across Luc’s floor took forever. Her body felt as if it were moving through molasses, like dreams of running but getting nowhere. Each step brought on more pins and needles, and as Itzy neared the Divah, her limbs were numb, her body barely responding to her commands. Somehow she leveled her blade, aiming for the Divah’s unnaturally long neck. A war cry escaped her lips as she raised the blade high, bringing it down in a deadly vector.

  The Divah raised a hand, her scaly back still to Itzy, and a ball of flames exploded, shooting lights off in her skull. Itzy was propelled on hot winds across the room, landing in a bone-crunching pile against the wall, shattering Luc’s expensive sound system.

  Anaïs’s voice came from the balcony. “Oh, oh—that one looked like it hurt.”

  Itzy rose to her feet unsteadily, her blade-hand clattering on the room service cart as she pulled herself up. She coughed once and spat out something black and charred, wiping her mouth on her shoulder.

  The Divah’s voice ripped through Itzy’s head, reverberating around her brain, bashing her eardrums and needling her eyeballs.

  Didn’t your mother teach you any manners?

  The wig, its coils of silver curls, fell from the Divah’s head as she turned, rearing on Itzy. Her bald head was like a winter field of wheat—dead stalks of hair in patches of flaky white skin. Two scaly horns sprouted above her hairline like the pincers of a stag beetle. She leveled her dead eyes at Itzy.

  Wait—I forgot. She left you, didn’t she? That mother of yours. She abandoned you in the ash bin. Her own child! Left you there to save herself. Just like she’s doing now.

  The Divah surveyed the room, then staggered once, loping on a trick knee. Itzy came at her again—by sheer force of will—with a series of unsteady uppercuts aimed at the demon queen’s head. She heard the sound of the Divah’s breathing, gurgling and hissing, and then her foot connected with the Divah’s throat in a wet, sickening crunch.

  Again, some gargantuan force shot her backward into the wall—and this time through the wall.

  The itzy bitzy spider—

  Electrical wires snaked though the gaping hole, sparking. Itzy staggered to her feet in a white marbled bathroom and made her way back through the hole in the plaster. Dusting herself off, she found she was again by the room service cart, which she began to consider more seriously.

  She saw her own freakish reflection in the silver domes and the balcony beyond. Luc had arrived, his magnificent wings tensed. Gaston and Maurice were there, too—their faces sharp and serious, their weapons drawn.

  “The restoration of your powers, Luc,” her mother’s chirpy voice continued, “are you enjoying them? I must say, it’s quite a relief to us all. After we get this little matter fixed, we’re ready for a month at the spa.” She nodded at Sabine and Colette. “Have you stayed at the Waldorf?” Anaïs was asking. “Would you recommend it?”

  “Try the Sherry-Netherland,” Luc growled.

  “Really? The Sherry-Netherland? I do hear it’s nice this time of year.”

  A bubbling noise was coming from the Divah as she struggled to clear her windpipe.

  I am in no hurry, poppet, the voice gurgled. It is nearly done.

  A scorching wind picked up, dimming the light. Itzy’s hair whipped about her face.

  It was nearly done, Itzy realized. The possession was nearly complete. This slow, stalking, incidious possession had nearly run its course. She felt the last torrent of herself leaking away; she felt her heart burning and her hands icy at once.

  I am not afrai—Itzy said, but the words seemed indistinct, meaningless. Jumbled together. I
am—

  Her blade was glowing blue, she noticed. But her hand seemed so far away. Was this her hand? Seeing was difficult, too, she realized. As if everything were a double exposure. That happened sometimes with her Leica. Her Leica.

  She swiveled her head. Here was the dim balcony, Luc’s anguished look as he pressed against the glass. But superimposed over him Itzy saw her own self—but through the eyes of the Divah. Her own eyes were dark and hollow pits. The stench of sulfur and brimstone overpowered her.

  She fumbled for the last silver dome from room service with her numb fingers. Beneath it was a glistening bottle of water. Itzy seized the Evian and turned again to the window. With some difficulty, Itzy found Luc’s eyes. She let herself get lost in them, the deep amber, the golden flecks. He nodded, once.

  She readied the Evian.

  All the air, as if by vacuum, left Itzy’s lungs. Her heart thumped loudly as she tried to breathe. Something was burning, Itzy saw from the corner of her eye. She looked around desperately—off in the distance, through the glass doors, was her mother, her manicured wings catching the night breeze. She had her hand on Luc’s elbow, restraining him, and a deep-blue light was seeping from her grip. Her mouth was moving in causal conversation, her lips glazed with gloss.

  Her mother’s angels glared at Itzy from across the room, their eyes icy and indifferent. Their longbows were glowing blue, and they were pointed at Itzy’s head.

  Thanks for the vote of confidence, Mom.

  Itzy’s stomach was churning, her temples constricted with the pounding of her pulse. The Divah’s dank breath was congealing on her cheek. She leaned in, sniffing, and from her mouth came a long, telescoping tongue—more of a proboscis. It flickered, and then slowly, sickeningly, it touched her face, licking the Botox from Itzy’s cheek.

  I don’t know what he sees in you. Such a scrawny thing, no? It’s me he loves.

  Itzy’s body was trembling as the tongue retraced its path, leaving a slick of yellow behind.

  “Go. To. Hell.”

  Itzy emptied the bottle of Evian over her own head. The searing pain was blinding. Itzy was on her knees, the agony crippling. Her skin was on fire, the nerve endings refusing to burn away. There was nothing but the world of pain—that, and the howling. At first she thought it was her own, but her voice had died in her throat. The howling, shrieking, withering screams were from the Divah.