The Beautiful and the Cursed

by Page Morgan

  Ingrid watched distractedly as Nolan and Vander crouched and started to discuss the best way to pry the cover free. She looked past the underbelly of the bridge, where pigeons trilled and cooed from their roosts. The Zouave statue molded to the base of one of the bridge’s arches seemed to stare at them with rapt distaste.

  It was daylight. What if something happened down in the sewers? What if Luc felt even a nominal resonance of fear from her? He’d have to shift. He’d have to fly through skies that would reveal him to anyone who happened to look skyward.

  He would know where she was. Luc had watched from the stables as she’d left with Vander. Not for the first time, Ingrid wondered if afternoon was the best time for this.

  “Maybe we should come back at night,” she suggested.

  Using Nolan’s sword as a lever, Vander and Nolan heaved the round brass cover and slid it to the side. It scraped along the paved walkway.

  Vander stood and brushed his hands on the sides of his trousers. A few seconds of eye contact was all he needed to read Ingrid’s mind.

  “You won’t need him.”

  The words weren’t an attempt to reassure her. They had been sewn together with a black look that flashed behind his spectacles. It was gone fast, before Vander could return his focus to the open manhole. But she’d still seen it. Her thoughts for Luc had upset him.

  “It’s not about me needing him,” she said as Nolan shinnied through the manhole. Constantine followed without difficulty, as if he descended into the sewer every day. “His instinct won’t care that two Alliance members are beside me with their blessed weapons. He’ll be forced to come to me. And in daylight—”

  “He might be seen. So what?” Vander interrupted. “Why should that bother you, Ingrid? It’s Luc’s problem. Let him worry about it.”

  Her eyes watered as if he had struck her. Vander saw it and looked away, lips pursed.

  Ingrid gathered her skirts and concentrated on lowering herself to the edge of the manhole, then finding the metal ladder with her feet. So she’d been wrong about Vander. He was jealous of Luc after all. How well he’d covered that up, she thought as she climbed down the two dozen or so rungs and stepped onto another stretch of pavement.

  It was warm and dark, with only two electric jets visible along the railed-in walkway. The humid air wasn’t as overwhelming as it had been in Constantine’s orangery, and it wasn’t nearly as fragrant. There was a smell, though. A dank, sulfuric odor that reminded her that human wastewater flowed nearby.

  Above, Vander slid the cover back into place before climbing down. The cover sealed with a gong, and the dense air immediately felt harder to breathe.

  “Well, this is cozy.” Nolan’s voice rolled off the arched tunnel walls and briefly ate up the steady hum of fast-moving water. It ran in a gushing strip just beside the raised walkway where they stood.

  Thick, sweaty pipes snaked overhead, but they were lost to the murky darkness outside the limited sphere of light.

  “It is the picture of solitude, is it not?” Constantine said, and with a flourish of his cane began walking.

  Ingrid started after him, the water rushing at such a fast clip it threw wind up over the railing. Vander grabbed for her arm and roughly jerked her back, his crossbow already aimed into the darkness.

  “Stop.”

  Nolan swung his broadsword into an offensive position. “How many are there?”

  Demons. Vander could see their dust.

  “At least four,” he answered. “We should leave.”

  “No.” Ingrid wrested herself from Vander’s death grip. “One of those streams of dust could be Léon’s.”

  She squared her shoulders and continued on Constantine’s heels. The old man had already started walking again.

  “He could be dangerous,” Vander said for what felt to Ingrid like the millionth time.

  “And he could be scared and confused, just like I was when I started lighting things on fire,” she returned.

  She peered over her shoulder and saw Vander and Nolan following closely, their weapons at the ready. “Don’t you remember what it was like? Knowing something was wrong but not having any idea what or why?”

  “I know helping him is the right thing to do, Ingrid, but this isn’t one of your lessons at Clos du Vie. This is real. You’re in no way prepared to fight demons, so it’s left to me to make sure you’re safe.”

  Vander was probably aiming for chivalry, but his words smacked of patronization instead.

  “Protecting me is Luc’s problem, isn’t it? Let him worry about it,” Ingrid said, throwing Vander’s earlier words right back at him. She didn’t care if they stung. This was exactly why she’d wanted to take lessons with Constantine. She didn’t want her safekeeping to fall to anyone. Her safety should be her burden alone.

  If only she could direct her power the way she needed to.

  Nolan passed Ingrid, taking the lead in front of Constantine. Vander brought up the rear, and he was quiet there, no doubt stewing over her retort. Their first argument. Ingrid kept her eyes on the steel railing that she speculated kept the sewer workers from taking a misstep and falling into the rushing, debris-laden water.

  After a few minutes of silent procession, the railings began to look, well … odd. Whitish strings wrapped them, forming wide nets between each section of post. The nets jiggled here and there, and when Ingrid stopped to bend closer to one, she saw why. They weren’t nets. They were spiderwebs. Spiderwebs the size of pillow shams, and they had trapped all manner of things. In the web closest to Ingrid, a cockroach struggled pointlessly. Its hairy legs had become tangled in the sticky gossamer, along with a number of flies and centipedes, and in one far corner—Ingrid peered closer, before gasping and standing back up. It was a rat’s tail, chewed off from the rest of its body.

  “Constantine,” Nolan called from farther ahead. The tip of his sword sliced through a web that stretched the width of the walkway. The broken strands fell away, but not with a ghostly flutter. The threads dropped to the cement with a wet slap.

  “Either the evolution of spiders has worked at miraculous speeds here in the sewers, or this was spun by the Duster we’re looking for.”

  Nolan was right. It had to be Léon. Ingrid stepped away from the webbed railing. Her heel nudged something. It looked like a dirty, oversized mothball in the dim underground light. She quickly corrected herself: it was a cocoon. She didn’t want to know what was inside.

  “He’s close,” Vander said, his crossbow raised.

  The next voice that rang out didn’t belong to any of them.

  “How do you know this?”

  Léon was above them, perched on one of the thick pipes, his chest and legs folded tightly together so that he could fit in the small space. His shoulders hunched forward until they were on his knees, and his short blond hair hung in limp, ragged clumps around his face.

  “How do you know this?” he repeated, his English heavily accented.

  “Because I can see your dust,” Vander answered, nonplussed. Ingrid admired him for that; her heart raced like one of Pamplona’s stampeding bulls.

  “I have it too,” Vander went on, his crossbow still aimed true.

  “Léon,” Constantine said, walking back toward the pipes that he had just passed beneath. “We only wish to help you. Won’t you come down?”

  Léon’s sweaty face pruned up into a grimace. “You. You said I would get better. You said I would be able to control it.” He rocked forward, letting his hands come out and brace against a parallel pipe. He hung over Constantine, seething. “Well, I could not! And now they are dead! You can’t help me.”

  He sounded as angry as Grayson had the night before. Ingrid knew not to pull Vander’s crossbow from its target, but she placed a hand on his arm to stay him.

  “It takes patience, Léon,” she said. The boy’s eyelids, which had been sealed in agony, sprang open. “I hurt my friend. I didn’t kill her, but I could have. I could have killed a number o
f people. We all make mistakes—”

  “I murdered my family,” Léon spit. “Mon père, ma m-mère.” His chin quivered as he spoke. “And Charles. Mon petit frère …”

  They let him sob. His shoulders shuddered and his nose ran and Ingrid had to look away. Was this how Grayson felt? Did he hate himself the way Léon did? Something about Léon’s sobbing must have put Vander at ease. He lowered his crossbow and hitched it back inside his overcoat.

  “My name is Ingrid Waverly,” she said once Léon had composed himself a bit. “I have the blood of a lectrux demon. My brother, Grayson, has hellhound blood. We know how frightened you are. How confused. Please, let us help you.”

  Léon watched her from his perch, his pale lashes blinking rapidly, as if he was considering her offer. She held her breath.

  “Non,” he finally said, shaking his head for emphasis. “You want to help me live with this curse, but there is another who will free me of it. I am going to him.”

  Constantine’s feet scraped the cement as he lurched forward. “You cannot.”

  “What man are you talking about?” Nolan asked, his broadsword still poised.

  “Dupuis,” Léon answered.

  Ingrid knew the name. Dupuis was the man Luc had told her about the evening before. The one who had called on Constantine and asked about her.

  Constantine jabbed his cane at Léon as if it were a saber. “Monsieur Dupuis is lying to you, Léon.”

  “You lied to me!” Léon shouted, and with a grating shriek let go of the pipes. A pair of long, hooked fangs had erupted from his top gums by the time he hit the walkway. They were thin and black and reached to the underside of his chin. Léon went for Constantine’s shoulder with them.

  The old man had spry reflexes. He bashed his cane into one side of Léon’s face. It stunned the boy long enough for Nolan to shove Constantine aside and connect the flat of his broadsword with Léon’s shoulder. He didn’t want to hurt Léon, or he would have angled his sword quite differently.

  Vander pounced on the Duster from behind. He pinned Léon’s arms and kept him from taking another leap for Constantine. But the boy’s hands were still free, and Ingrid watched with wonderment as each fingertip secreted what looked like a white bead. The beads grew larger and rounder and then dripped from his fingers.

  Léon flicked his wrists and ten ribbons of thick white silk spewed toward Nolan. The webbing lassoed him, twisting and weaving until Nolan’s arms were bound to his sides.

  “Stop, Léon!” Ingrid shouted.

  Then something began to happen to her own fingertips. They prickled and stung, the shudders of electricity dancing wildly from her shoulder to her hands. She hadn’t called on it, and yet here it was, as unwelcome as ever. She closed her eyes and tried to use the imagery Constantine had taught her: Plunging her arms into snow. Or into icy water. But a moment later the current was still live and kicking inside her.

  Her fingertips throbbed and swelled with need. If the electricity came out here, now, it might travel anywhere. Strike anyone. Unless she could direct it. Give it someplace to go.

  Her ears rang with panic, cutting through the roar of the sewage river. Ingrid’s eyes sprang open. The water! She threw herself toward the webby railing and leaned over the edge, her hands reaching for the aqueduct. A warm shudder rippled through her as forks of lightning flowed from her, driving into the brown water. The river of sewage turned into an electrical tide, illuminating the tunnel in bursts of skittering white light. It crackled and hissed, and Ingrid’s eardrums itched. And then it was over. She sagged against the railing, feeling drained yet again. Tears of frustration rimmed her eyes.

  Ingrid rested her head against the railing before remembering the sticky webs encasing it. She pulled back and swiped at her forehead as Constantine hustled to her side.

  “My lady, are you hurt?”

  She shook her head, avoiding his eyes. “I just … I couldn’t stop it.”

  Constantine patted her shoulder. “Electricity begets electricity, I am afraid. Once you begin generating it, the current must be very difficult to quell. Come.”

  He left her side.

  All sounds of the struggle between Léon and Vander had fallen silent. Vander still held the boy’s arms pinned, but Léon now stared blankly at his raised fingers. The tacky liquid had stopped seeping from them.

  “How—? It … it stopped,” Léon whispered. Vander freed him.

  “You can control it,” Ingrid said, jealousy hot in her chest.

  Léon curled his fingers into his palms, tucked his fists to his stomach, and ran. He dodged Vander and disappeared like a shadow into the sewer tunnel. After a few seconds, Ingrid couldn’t even hear the slap of his feet against the cement.

  “Burke,” Nolan said, still wrapped tight in Léon’s webbing. “If you have a moment? I feel like an idiot over here.”

  Vander sheared the threads binding Nolan, the webbing falling again with a heavy, wet smack. Vander then reached up and massaged his upper lip.

  “Are you hurt?” Ingrid asked.

  “Léon might have thrown his head back,” Vander answered. “It’s nothing.”

  “Who is Dupuis?” Nolan asked as he peeled leftover threads of silk from the buttons of his coat.

  Ingrid turned toward Constantine. “He visited you recently.”

  Her teacher didn’t react to her knowing this detail. He simply gestured in the direction of the entrance with a flick of his cane and began retracing their steps. Ingrid fell in behind him.

  “I hadn’t taken Gaston for such a gossip,” Constantine said, laughter lifting each word. “Indeed, Monsieur Dupuis and I are acquainted, though it does not rank among my fondest acquaintances—he is a member of the Daicrypta.”

  Ingrid kept walking, waiting for more of an explanation, but Vander and Nolan both stopped.

  “The Daicrypta?” Vander asked.

  “Why would any of them visit you?” Nolan tagged on.

  “Wait—” Ingrid held up her hand. “What is the Daicrypta?”

  The skittering of claws sounded above them, along the cast-iron pipes.

  “Keep walking,” Vander advised, and then explained, “They’re demonologists.”

  Like Constantine. “So they study demons?”

  And how could this Dupuis man offer to free Léon of his curse?

  “They do more than that,” Nolan answered. “They’re occult. The Alliance’s goal is to push back the demon realm, but the Daicrypta would rather keep the demons right here, in our realm, so they can learn from them. Manipulate them. And they couldn’t care less if people get injured in the process.”

  Ahead, an electric jet reflected light off the rungs leading up to the manhole cover.

  “What I’d like to know is how Constantine came to be acquainted with one of their disciples,” Vander added.

  Constantine had finally reached the foot of the ladder leading out. “I know many of them, monsieur. I was once a disciple myself.”

  Vander and Nolan advanced on the old man so quickly that Ingrid jumped back, and Constantine held up his cane to ward them off.

  “I said once,” he repeated. “I could no longer condone a number of their practices and decided to take my leave.”

  “Which practices were those?” Nolan asked, his broadsword still level with Constantine’s throat. “Observing humans possessed by demons and allowing their torture instead of performing a simple exorcism? Or perhaps it was the practice of buying asylum patients and using them as flesh rewards for the demons they were attempting to tame and train?”

  Ingrid stared hard at her teacher, her stomach in a knot.

  “Yes, those practices,” Constantine admitted, his nostrils flaring. “Those and many more. You may judge me as you see fit for becoming a disciple in the first place, but there is no one—no one—who regrets it more than I.”

  He took a rattling breath to calm his own fervor before continuing. “It has been over a decade since I parted ways with the
Daicrypta; however, no inoperative disciple can ever go very far. They will always be watching me. Robert Dupuis was a colleague, and you might have guessed that he has an interest in Dusters—particularly in Lady Ingrid.”

  She took another step back. “What does he want with me?”

  Ingrid wondered whether the Dispossessed knew about the Daicrypta, and whether Luc would be as upset as Vander and Nolan seemed to be.

  “Shall we discuss this aboveground?” Constantine asked.

  Ingrid made for the rungs right behind Nolan, eager for the cold, fresh air. Down here, the air was too thick and rank to take a full breath without gagging.

  At the top Nolan put muscle into shoving the manhole cover up and aside. The bleak afternoon light kissed the crown of Ingrid’s head, and when she climbed out, the gritty walkway and splattered pigeon droppings were a welcome sight. Even the curious glances from the occupants of a passing river barge didn’t affect her.

  Once Vander and Constantine were out and the cover had been slid back into place, the conversation picked right back up and blew Ingrid’s good spirits to smithereens.

  “Dupuis wants the same thing as Axia,” Constantine said. “Lady Ingrid’s blood. The angelic quotient of it, at least.”

  Vander took a protective stance in front of her, as if Constantine were going to do the attacking right then and there.

  “I am sure they would not intend for her to die,” her teacher went on. “But their blood-draining and -separating experiments have failed more often than they have succeeded.”

  Ingrid’s knees went a bit weak. Brilliant. So now she had to worry about not only a crazed fallen angel coveting her blood but a secret occult society as well?

  “Dead girl or no dead girl, they’d have angel blood. I don’t even want to think about what they could cook up with that,” Nolan said. “Why has Dupuis come to you? Has he made some kind of offer?”

  “None that I am tempted to accept,” Constantine replied, cutting his eyes toward Ingrid. “They cannot simply take you and perform their experiments. When you accepted me as your teacher, I laid claim to you. Even though I am an ex-disciple, they must honor my claim.”