by Lee Carroll
“Has John Dee sent you?” he blurted. “As a messenger of his powers? Or, to threaten me in this vile way? It won’t work, Monsieur Roget,” he added importantly. “My miracle is stronger than yours. My miracle is love.”
Roget’s crackle nearly became a shriek, then died away suddenly like a torch plunged into water. “If you think love is stronger than lightning, you’ve got a lot to learn about life, boy. Lightning is a condensation of the universe itself. ‘Love’ is mostly illusion, the mutant offspring of self-interest and moon shadows. As to Dee, that is but a worm to my dragon. I would no more carry a message for him than a hawk would for a goat!” By way of additional exclamation point, Roget fired off yet another bolt, brighter than the others, as if he had added fire and urge to it. It found the tiniest scrap of Will’s chin before glancing off into a blur of brightness against the window.
Will grimaced with a fiery pain that, though tiny in diameter, carried the force of a too fierce pinch. Almost unthinkingly, he coiled and unleashed a savage left hook against Roget’s jaw. The miracle worker semed dazed for a moment, blinking heavily and doubling over, his skinny torso riding his bony lap. But when he came back upright, he held a gleaming Spanish buccaneer’s knife in his right hand, one he’d evidently kept concealed in a scabbard affixed to his leg. He drew the knife overhead for a downward blow, grinning with wicked slyness at Will, though all of it a bit sluggishly as if he were shrugging off the effect of Will’s punch.
The window to their right shattered with a metallic sound and both men glanced over to see what had happened, but the window was draped in black as though by funeral crêpe. Will took advantage of his opponent’s distraction to leap from the carriage, rolling onto the ground as he’d reflected on doing moments earlier, hitting the ground with a jarring lurch and in a tangle of limbs despite his effort to remain bodily organized. Before he was able to get to his feet he saw Roget spring from the carriage, his black robe flapping behind him like the wings of the giant black bird Will had spied earlier. Something gold glinted at the man’s throat and, as he leaped toward Will, Will felt the first prickling of recognition. He’d met this man before—at the party in London at which the poet and Marguerite had announced their engagement. He was none other than the Italian priest who had denounced their union as bigamous! Was he some avenging Savonarola whose mission was to punish adulterous fornicators? But why attack Will? Neither he nor Marguerite were married. And, perhaps more to the point, where had a priest learned to wield lightning?
All these questions were but the work of a moment, and then the man—priest or no—was above him, sword drawn, and Will saw that he would be run through if he didn’t move quickly.
But before he could take evasive action, his assailant was jerked back as though on a string. He seemed to hover for a moment midair, his eyes growing wide, then he dropped to the ground, crumpling into a ball like a piece of scrap paper tossed impatiently away by a frustrated writer. Will looked up into the sky to see what force had so cavalierly disposed of Roget—and saw, hovering above him, the huge black bird. It was beating the air with its enormous wings, its beady, bloodred eyes focused on the inert, facedown figure of Roget. When Roget turned over, the bird dove at him, snapping at his face with its long yellow beak.
Roget screamed and, shielding his face with his arms, scrambled to his feet. Will saw that he was trying to snap his fingers again to generate one of his lightning bolts, but the bird wouldn’t let him. It kept pecking at his fingers, drawing spouts of blood where before lightning bolts had sprung. At last Roget was forced to run for the woods to seek cover from the bird’s attack. Will watched his halting, bird-pecked progress, grateful that the bird had chosen Roget to attack and not him.
“Oi!” The driver’s exclamation brought Will’s attention back to the coach. “That there gentleman didn’t pay me the last half of his fare.”
“That man was no gentleman,” Will replied, shaking his head. “How did he engage your services in the first place?”
“I were drinking at the White Horse and he overheard me to say I was taking a young gentleman to the estate of the great John Dee. He told me he’d pay me handsomely if I’d pick him up on the way back, but he only paid half up front.”
“That will teach you to trust scoundrels such as he,” Will said, getting back into the coach. “But if you promise to get us back to London without stopping for any new passengers—man nor bird—I’ll make up what you lost.”
The driver was agreeable to Will’s suggestion and whipped the horses into a fast gallop. Above the hoofbeats Will thought he could still hear the flap of a large bird’s wings, but instead of making him feel threatened, the sound comforted Will, with the notion that he was being watched over from above.
17
The Astrologer’s Tower
When I had confirmed with the night clerk at the Aigle Noir that Sarah had come back, I went up to my room to pack and wait for dawn and the first train back to Paris. I was too keyed up to sleep, so I sat at the window watching the stone walls around the château take shape in the gray light of dawn and thought about Melusine.
Oberon had introduced me to her in New York last winter. I’d recognized the name from the fairy tales my mother had told me, but the old, wrinkled homeless woman I’d first met in Central Park hadn’t resembled the legendary fairy of folklore. Melusine was supposed to have been so beautiful that the moment Raymond of Poitou came upon her in the Forest of Coulombiers he had immediately fallen in love with her. She agreed to marry him on the condition that he never look upon her on Saturdays, but as in all such arrangements the mortal spouse eventually gave in to doubt. Spying on her in her bath, he’d seen her long serpent tail and blamed her for the aberrations in their children. When he rebuked her, she sprouted wings and fled, although she haunted the castle for generations. When I met her in New York City, she hung out by sewer manholes and park fountains. She took me on a tour, while in molecular form, through the city’s waterways and tracked down John Dee to his lair beneath the East River. At least we had thought it was John Dee. The apparition turned out to be a trap and we’d both been flushed out into the bay. Because Melusine was a freshwater creature, she’d begun dissolving instantly. I’d just managed to get her to Governors Island before she dissolved entirely and then decanted her into an empty Poland Spring bottle.
The bottle was locked in my suitcase back in Paris. Her last request had been to bring her home, and I’d been meaning to take the trip to Lusignan as soon as I got my sign. Now it looked as if I might have received that sign. Maybe if I’d taken Melusine back to Lusignan right away, I wouldn’t have had to wait at Saint-Julien’s for so long or come here to Fontainebleau to meet Hellequin. I shuddered thinking of the ghoulish rider and his cloak stitched out of abducted women. I’ll keep an eye out for you, he’d said. Even now I could hear the echo of hoofbeats. I had a feeling I’d never really be free of them.
Although it was still too early for the train, I got up to go, unable to stand the quiet of my room any longer. Even the repeating pattern in the wallpaper had become maddening … all those fleeing shepherdesses glancing coyly over their bare shoulders, so many leering shepherds … I looked closer at a patch of paper near the door and saw that one of the shepherds had sprouted horns, cloven ling I, and an erection. Worse, the frothy bit of shrubbery behind him now disclosed the hunt in all its horrors—the flayed face of Hellequin, the faces of his victims fluttering in his cloak. I spun around to see if all the vignettes in the wallpaper now held this scene, but suddenly I didn’t want to know. I could hear the hoofbeats in my head. I turned and left my room, closing the door behind me and making myself walk down the long, straight hall without glancing left or right at the wallpaper.
* * *
On the train back to Paris I picked up a discarded Le Monde and read about the fourth Seine murder. They were no longer being called suicides. All the bodies had been drained of blood. The Vampire Murders, they were being called.
> It couldn’t be Will, I told myself, wiping the newsprint off my sweat-slick hands. He never killed innocents and he had left Paris in May. A year ago I would have dismissed the appellation as a media affectation, but now that I knew vampires existed, I wondered not whether there were vampires in Paris, but how many. I’d never asked Will about others of his kind. The only other vampire he’d mentioned was the one whom John Dee had summoned to make Will immortal.…
My sweat turned icy cold. Will had the box. He’d taken it to summon a creature to make him mortal. Had something gone wrong and he’d let out the vampire who had made him instead? Was that vampire now ravaging Paris for victims?
When we pulled into the Gare de Lyon, I experienced once again a moment of double vision—only now instead of seeing Holocaust victims being herded into freight cars by Nazi soldiers, I saw the crowds as so many beating hearts circulating blood for a centuries-old monster. I could hear the pulse of the crowd along with the hoofbeats that had lodged in my brain.
I hurried out of the station, urged on by that incessant beat, and walked across the Seine to the Left Bank. I found myself glancing toward the roiling water flowing under the Pont d’Austerlitz. Had it been only a handful of nights ago that I had looked into that water and wondered how despairing a person would have to be to throw themselves in? Had some monster of the night preyed on lost souls—such as Amélie and Sam Smollett—as they paused on the bridge’s ramparts? Even though it was full daylight, I hurried on, barely able to keep myself from breaking into a run. Perhaps Madame Weiss would know something about the murders.
When I arrived at the hotel, though, I found that Madame Weiss was not there.
“She’s gone to the country,” the manager told me, tight-lipped, her eyes slanting sideways. Then she quickly busied herself tidying up some sightseeing brochures that were already perfectly tidy.
“Madame Weiss looked upset when she left,” a man’s voice informed me as I was opening my door. I turned and found Roger Elden leaning against the hall bookcase holding a cup of coffee. In my overtired state I wasn’t sure which smelled better—the coffee or the clean tang of Roger Elden’s cologne.
“Did she?” I asked. “Do you know what was the matter?”
Roger shook his head, a soft brown lock falling over his eyes. I noticed lines around his eyes and some silver threaded through his hair that I hadn’t noticed before, little signs of age that only made him better looking. Why was that the case with men? I’d never worried before about growing old, but I wondered now if Will wasn’t able to become mortal again, what it would be like to grow old while he didn’t. Especially with a man who might have cared so much about his looks that he’d traded daylight for eternal youth.
“… so if you wanted to come, tonight is perfect.”
“I’m sorry,” I apologized, realizing I’d missed half of what Roger Elden had been saying while I worried about my vampire ex (the one who’d abandoned me) noticing gray hairs and wrinkles. Talk about shallow! “Come to what?”
“The conference is sponsoring a series of midnight tours of famous astronomical landmarks. I know it sounds eccentric, but what can you expect from a bunch of science geeks?”
I smiled. “Hey, some of my best friends are science geeks. My friend Jay once dragged me to Nicolas Tesla’s abandoned laboratory on Long Island.”
“Cool. Nick was a genius, but a bit of a nut,” Roger said, as if speaking of an old colleague instead of a scientist who had been dead for over fifty years.
“Where’s the tour tonight?”
“The Medici Column. It’s over by the Bourse on the rue du Louvre. There’s a spiral staircase inside it that leads up to the top of the tower. It’s normally closed to tourists, but it will be opened tonight for members of the conference.”
“And what’s on top of the tower?”
He grinned sheepishly. “A weird metal contraption built by a sixteenth-century astrologer.”
“Gosh, who could say no to that?”
“Really? You’d go?” He beamed at me so hopefully that I felt myself dangerously close to tears. I had a sudden urge to unburden all my troubles to this complete stranger, but when I recalled how bizarre those troubles were, I told him I’d meet him at eleven thirty in the lobby and let myself into my room before I could make a complete fool of myself.
I dropped my overnight bag on the floor and collapsed onto the freshly made bed. The maids had left the window open, letting in a cool breeze that ruffled the lace curtains. Beyond them the green leaves made a soothing murmur. I felt as if I’d come home. I closed my eyes and fell into a deep sleep and a strange dream.
I was on a road—or perhaps above a road. I could see a carriage speeding along it as if I floated in the air. It was my job, I somehow knew, to keep whoever rode in it safe, but safe from what I didn’t know. The countryside on either side of the road appeared peaceful—rolling hills, cultivated fields marked off by hedgerows—England, I found myself thinking with a pang that felt ke homesickness. I followed the coach through twilight and into night until I felt so tired my limbs—wings?—began to feel as heavy as lead. I looked longingly at ponds surrounded by tall grass on either side of the road. Good nesting ground, my dream self thought. But just as I began to drift from the sky, I woke in the dark room with a start, feeling as if I’d not only slept the day away, but somehow slept years … even centuries away. And that I’d forgotten something.
Melusine.
I went to the closet and dragged my suitcase off the top shelf. The Poland Spring bottle was still inside. I jiggled it and held it up to the light, trying to see anything remarkable about it, but it just looked like water. Then I opened my laptop and looked up train schedules to Lusignan. After a half hour on the SNCF site, which kept crashing on me, I realized I had to catch a 6:10 a.m. train for Poitiers, then I’d have nine minutes to transfer to a train to Lusignan. If I missed it, I’d have to stay overnight in Poitiers because there was only one train a day to Lusignan. How remote was this place anyway?
When I googled Lusignan, I found out. Other than a Wikipedia entry on the Lusignan dynasty, I could find nothing about the town. When I tried to find a hotel, I got results for Poitiers. Apparently the town had no hotel. If I missed the one train back to Poitiers, I’d have to … well, I’d better not miss it.
By the time I finished plotting my itinerary it was 11:25. Roger Elden would be waiting in the garden. I put on a sweatshirt over my T-shirt and jeans and tossed the Poland Spring bottle into my backpack—just in case I didn’t have time to get back here before the train. As I went out into the garden, I reflected that by the time I caught up with Will Hughes I would be nearly as nocturnal as he was.
* * *
Roger Elden was sitting at one of the little metal tables in the garden, a bottle of champagne and two glasses set up before him.
“I knew you’d make it!” he said, popping the champagne cork and filling the two glasses. “You look like a woman who couldn’t resist an otherworldly experience.”
“You have no idea,” I said, taking a glass. “What are we drinking to?”
“To exploring dark matter and bringing the universe’s mysteries into the light.” He held up his glass.
I held up my glass and clinked it against Roger’s. The clear chime (where had he found two crystal champagne flutes?) reminded me uneasily for a moment of the bells tolling in the Garden of Diana last night, but I shook off the connection. “To the light,” I said, echoing the last words of Roger’s toast.
His glass paused halfway to his lips and he tilted his head at me. “Exactly!” he said, breaking into a grin. “To the light!”
The champagne was ice-cold and tasted mysteriously of orange blossoms and cloves. We finished our glasses, then Roger stoppered the bottle and put it into a padded carryall, which he put over his shoulder.
“I thought we’d walk. It’s such a beautiful night. I love Paris after dark, don’t you?”
I agreed and we started out, w
alking briskly down the rue Monge toward the Seine, then crossing the river over the Île de la Cité past Notre Dame, lit up like a great ship sailing along. I asked Roger how he became interested in astronomy, and he chattered happily about a boyhood fascination with the stars, an influential academic mentor, and an enduring quest to plumb the secrets of the universe. His favorite quote was Hamlet’s: “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” His favorite Crayola crayon was Midnight Blue (the same as mine), and his favorite song was Van Morrison’s “Moondance.”
Talking about musical tastes led me to tell him about Jay and Becky’s band. He loved that they called it London Dispersion Force and made me sing two of their songs after promising not to laugh at my voice. He failed dismally and we walked through Les Halles laughing like two drunks coming home late from the bars and cafés that filled the neighborhood. We were still laughing when we reached the Medici Column at the end of a long park. The conversation had made the walk go so fast I was surprised to reach it so soon—and a bit dismayed to find that no one was there at the column waiting for us.
“You said your geeky colleagues loved this sort of thing.”
Roger shrugged. “They probably all went out clubbing. Astronomers are like a bunch of frat boys on spring break. But look, the door’s unlocked. Shall we?”
Roger’s cheerful demeanor was perfectly open and nonthreatening, but it suddenly occurred to me that entering a deserted tower with a man I didn’t know wasn’t the brightest idea. On the other hand, could it be much worse than going into the Luxembourg at night to meet a tree spirit? Or into the Forest of Fontainebleau to meet Hellequin?
