by Morgan Rice
She’d simply disappeared on the night of her grand performance, on the night when Jean-Charles had planned the most romantic evening possible for them both to celebrate. He’d bought the best wine he could afford, fine cakes and food. He’d even bought a ring, so that he could try one more time at proposing to her. He’d felt sure that she would say yes.
Instead, she hadn’t even shown up to their romantic rendezvous, and that had broken something inside Jean-Charles. No, not broken it, set it free.
Putting his rope away inside the folds of his cloak, Jean-Charles started to walk. Of course, by this point, everyone was on the lookout for a figure dressed as he was, but that was the beautiful thing about Paris: there was always another way, under the surface. He’d learned the routes through the catacombs, including the ones that connected up to the theatre. In the days when he’d been seeing Amelie, they’d provided a convenient way to meet up for trysts. Now, they gave him the freedom to do what he had to.
Jean-Charles started to work his way through the catacombs, guided by the light of a single lantern. There were thieves and beggars who lived down here, but they left him alone. They didn’t want to get too close to a killer, in case he turned on them.
Jean-Charles almost laughed at that thought. As if they were worth his attention. He targeted actresses, not scum. The same actresses who had spent most of Jean-Charles’s life turning him down, even as they courted attention from as many other men as possible. The same actresses who treated him like he was nothing, the moment that they got into the best roles.
Jean-Charles had spent enough of his life around them to know that they were all more or less the same. All vain, all self-centered, all looking only for the ways their pathetic efforts on the stage could give them more money, or fame, or lovers. Well, tonight, another of them would die, another Juliet paying the price for the one who had abandoned him.
Jean-Charles had decided that tonight would be a special performance, though. His work out on the streets of Paris and in the dressing rooms of the theatre had helped to spread the word and strike fear into the city. They had started rumors about who it might be and set the Sûreté running this way and that.
That had been satisfying for a day or two, but now Jean-Charles wanted more from it. The feeling that came when the light went out in an actress’s eyes was incredible. The moment when their scrabbling at the strangling rope gave way to stillness was almost perfect, yet now, Jean-Charles wanted to share that moment with an audience.
He took a left and a right, going until he found a set of steps leading up into the Theatre Rue St Germain. Carefully, Jean-Charles set his lantern down so that he would be able to find it again. He would need to make a quick escape, after he had completed his grandest act.
Would he escape? Jean-Charles believed that he would. He was not suicidal, was not about to walk into somewhere when he did not believe that he would walk out again, yet the possibility of being caught and guillotined added another layer of excitement to this, because escaping would have its own thrill.
First, though, there was the moment that mattered, the grand climax that would secure his place permanently at the heart of the theatre’s lore. He would add the one element to this that would make it perfect.
Tonight, he wouldn’t just kill another Juliet. Tonight, he would do it onstage, in front of a watching audience who had probably paid to attend in the hope that they would see just that.
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
Kaia could practically feel the urgency boiling off the inspector as they hurried down to find a carriage. The inspector left money for their rooms in an envelope at the front desk. He was serious about them not coming back.
“We have to get to the theatre, Kaia,” he said. “We have to get there right now. I know who the killer is!”
“Who?” Kaia asked.
“A man called Jean-Charles Ariette, who was jilted by Amelie de Fiaux almost by accident when she walked away for that ritual back there,” the inspector explained.
“So the shadows-” Kaia began, but Pinsley shook his head.
“This is not about whatever strangeness is going on in Paris, or in the wider world,” he said. “This is about one man; a man I should have already stopped. I had him in my hands, Kaia, but I didn’t reason out his role in all this.”
“You’re being too hard on yourself,” Kaia said, as the inspector managed to flag down a carriage. “You can’t expect to reason out everything. Especially not with the shadows involved.”
“If the world is not amenable to reason, then it is chaos,” Pinsley said. He sounded frightened, and Kaia wasn’t sure if that was because of the prospect of the world being unreasonable, or because of the possibility of what might happen tonight. “If we don’t get to the theatre, he will kill again. I’m sure of it.”
They could agree on that part. Kaia still had a suspicion that a shadow might be involved in all of this. If there were three of them, why not four? Why not have one of their number keep Kaia and Pinsley, or even the Shadowseers, distracted with a series of killings connected to them? It made a kind of sense, and Kaia knew that she would have to be prepared for the possibility that Jean-Charles Ariette had a shadow possessing him.
“The Theatre Rue St Germain,” Pinsley yelled to the driver in French. “As fast as you can!”
“About to miss a performance, are you?” the driver called down.
“I hope not.”
The carriage set off through the streets at speed. It was only a short way, but even so, any extra pace they could gather would help. Kaia could feel the urgency of this too. They didn’t want to show up, only to find that the killer had already struck. She could guess what was driving the inspector’s extra fear, too: he was probably thinking of his daughter. If she was in the theatre, then it was even more important that they got there.
In just a minute or two, they arrived at the theatre. There were even more people there for this evening’s performance than there had been the first time Kaia and the inspector had visited. She could hear the talk all around her already.
“…another one. Who do you think it will be?”
“One doesn’t like to speculate. Fancy, keeping a theatre open when there’s a killer on the loose.”
“But that’s half the attraction!”
Kaia hid her disgust at that and kept going through the crowd with the inspector, finally reaching the ticket office. The inspector stood there solidly until they reached the front.
“No more tickets!” the ticket seller declared, just as they reached it, putting up a sign to that effect even as she shouted it.
“But there have to be,” the inspector said. “Please.”
“No more tickets.”
“It is a matter of life and death.”
“No more tickets,” the ticket seller said, putting emphasis on each word.
They headed outside.
“We need to get in there,” Pinsley said. “It’s vital.”
“I know,” Kaia replied, trying to work out how they could do it. Should they try to sneak in.
“I have spare tickets,” a man said, approaching them through the crowd. “But they’ll cost you.”
“How much?” Pinsley asked.
The man named a sum, and even though Kaia didn’t fully understand how much a franc was worth, one look at the inspector’s face told her that it was a lot.
“That works out at almost an English guinea each,” he protested.
“Well, it’s a very popular play,” the ticket tout said. “Of course, if you don’t want to get in there…”
“No, no, I’ll pay,” Pinsley said, taking out the money and taking two tickets from the man before he could snatch them away.
“That was a lot,” Kaia said. She didn’t think that she’d actually seen a guinea, a whole pound plus a shilling.
“It was,” Pinsley agreed, “but if it gives us a chance to stop this madman, it will be worth it and more. Come on.”
He sta
rted to stride towards the entrance. Kaia followed, moving with the crowd as they all flowed inside.
“Do we search the theatre?” Kaia asked.
“I would love to,” Pinsley replied, “but the director has already ejected us once. If we interrupt now, and he throws us out again, we won’t have a chance to stop the killer.”
Kaia could understand the fear in Pinsley’s voice there. If they’d been in London, he could probably have just stopped the show and searched the building. Here, if he tried to demand anything, they might find themselves locked out completely.
“So what do we do instead?” Kaia asked.
“We search as surreptitiously as we can,” Pinsley said, leading the way down towards the stage.
“Non, non,” an usher in a red velvet uniform said, moving to intercept them. “Please take your seats. We cannot allow anyone to approach the stage. It is too dangerous. Where are your tickets? Ah, you’re not in this section at all. Follow me.”
The usher led them to their seats, and there didn’t seem to be any way to argue. They had to sit there. They were a lot further from the stage than they’d been last time. A lot further, all the way at the back, behind a pillar.
“What are we meant to do now?” Kaia asked.
Pinsley looked as frustrated as she felt. “We can’t try to sneak out of our seats with the ushers watching,” he said. “I suspect… I suspect that all we can do is sit here and watch closely for any sign of Jean-Charles Ariette. If we can stop him, we can explain our actions, but before that, trying to do more will simply see us removed.”
Kaia wasn’t sure that she liked that plan, and she was convinced that the inspector didn’t either. Having to wait like this was a kind of torture.
Worse, they were so far back from the stage that they might not be able to help. Kaia had another worry in that regard too. A part of her was still convinced that there had to be a shadow involved in this somewhere, that there was no way an ordinary man would do all this.
How close did she need to be to feel the shadows? She’d picked out a few manifestations of them across the city before, but when it came to possessed people, she suspected that she needed to be closer. Amelie had been practically underneath her window, and when she’d first sensed the shadow in Doctor De Vere back in London, he’d almost tripped over her.
Kaia was convinced that shadows were still at the heart of all this. What human would behave the way this killer had, however much the inspector thought he’d worked out his reasons?
That meant that Kaia had a chance to sense the danger coming, but for that, she needed to be closer.
*
If Pinsley had bought those tickets for the performance, rather than for the chance to stop a killer, he would have demanded his money back. He and Kaia found themselves jammed right at the back of the theatre, far enough away that it was hard to make out which actor was which, and the words to the play came to him half garbled thanks to the conversations of those in front.
Worse, he and Kaia were seated behind a pillar, so that Pinsley had to peek out like a soldier from a foxhole back in the Crimea. He could see Kaia craning her neck in an effort to see what was going on.
It made every moment of the play frustrating. They were doing all they could when he had no power as a policeman here, yet it still didn’t feel like nearly enough. They had to just sit and wait, when they should have been actively searching? The most Pinsley could hope for was that he could ensure that everyone was safe through the play, then convince the director to search the premises in the aftermath.
Pinsley looked back to the stage again, determined that, no matter the distance, he would spot any danger. The play was approaching its climax, with Romeo coming onstage while Juliet lay on a funeral bier, pretending death. The chorus of the play was up there with them, providing a background to what was meant to be a powerful moment of young foolishness in the name of love. Pinsley searched among them in case Jean-Charles Ariette had hidden himself in plain sight.
Instead of finding a face he only half remembered from a fight in a bar, he found one face that it would be impossible for him to forget. His daughter Olivia was onstage with the rest of the chorus, playing her part, oblivious to the danger that she might be in tonight.
She was so beautiful there, and so elegant. Under other circumstances, Pinsley would have felt pride in seeing her there, but now he just felt afraid.
Pinsley turned to Kaia to point out Olivia’s presence, but from the expression on her face, he knew that she had something more urgent on her mind.
“What is it, Kaia?” he asked.
“I have a plan,” she said.
“What plan?” Pinsley asked with a frown. What could they do that they weren’t already doing?
“Trust me,” Kaia said, and set off from her seat before Pinsley could begin to stop her.
She made it halfway down the stairs there before one of the ushers moved to cut her off her, obviously whispering for her to retake her seat.
“But I’m telling you,” Kaia said, in French, far too loudly for the silence of the space. “I need to get down there. I think I saw my friend, and-”
“You must retake your seat, mademoiselle,” an usher in a red velvet uniform replied. “We are in the middle of the play.”
“I know that,” Kaia said, “but this will only take a moment.”
“Non, mademoiselle,” the usher replied. “We cannot have people getting too close to the stage. Not when things are potentially dangerous.”
“It really is important,” Kaia said, continuing to argue.
What was she doing? It wasn’t just the fact that Kaia was trying to sneak forward at all, it was the fact that she was having this argument now that she’d been caught. Was she trying to get herself thrown out of the theatre?
It took him a moment to realize the truth of Kaia’s plan: she was causing a distraction, which would let him get closer to the stage.
Pinsley took his chance, slipping out of his seat and trying to get closer to the stage. As he did so, Pinsley thought he saw movement behind the chorus. He tried to tell himself that it might be nothing, just a stagehand working to prepare for the next scene. Every instinct Pinsley had told him that it was more, though. He started forward, moving along the row and then down the steps towards the stage while Kaia continued to argue loudly with the ushers.
“I don’t care if you throw me out,” she said. “Don’t you know who I am? I am the famous actress Kaia Smith!”
In all fairness, that was a good piece of acting in itself. She was a girl who had come from nothing, yet now, Kaia seemed to be channeling all the entitlement and rudeness of the worst prima donna. The result that nearly every eye in the room was on her.
Pinsley’s eyes were firmly on the stage. He made his way closer, and now he could make out the figure there, moving into position behind the chorus. Was he behind Olivia? The truth of it didn’t matter when the fear of it was so great inside Pinsley. He scurried forward, moving quickly, but not wanting to attract attention.
The figure on the stage edged forward, into the light. He wore an opera cloak, disguising almost everything about himself, but even so, Pinsley knew who it was.
“Jean-Charles Ariette!” he bellowed, and the head of that hooded figure snapped round towards him. The figure stepped forward more openly then, holding a strangling rope, as if it might kill a member of the cast even now, taunting Pinsley with his inability to stop it from happening.
Pinsley started to run forward. He didn’t care now if people saw him, only about getting to the stage in time. Around him, people started to shout, some of them pointing at the stage, some at him.
“It’s the killer!”
“It’s some mad fool charging the stage!”
“Don’t you see? It’s all part of the play. It’s brilliant!”
“Rather gauche, I thought.”
Pinsley realized that at least some of them thought that he was the killer, trying to rush the
stage. He ignored all of the shouting, though, continuing forward. A man tried to get in his way, and Pinsley shoved him back into his seat, barely slowing down.
“The killer’s on the stage, you fools!” he yelled. “Jean-Charles Ariette, stop there, you’re under arrest!”
It didn’t matter right then that he wasn’t in London, and couldn’t arrest anyone here. All that mattered was that he was a police inspector, and his quarry was in front of him. Pinsley charged at him, trying to get to Jean-Charles Ariette before he could strike.
He did strike, though. He grabbed out with that rope of his, and since Pinsley had interrupted his plans, he grabbed at the first member of the chorus he could lay hands on. Was it coincidence that made his rope wrap around Olivia’s neck, or fate, or simply some horrific echo of the madman Pinsley had not stopped before he could kill her mother?
Whatever it was, Pinsley roared with anger at the sight of his child being hurt like that, and his headlong rush turned into the charge of an angry bull. He leapt up onto the stage and slammed into Jean-Charles Ariette, knocking him back from Olivia so that he lost his grip on the rope he held. He thudded down onto the stage, rolling and grabbing for his rope.
Pinsley went to grab at him, but there were actors in the way now. One of the actresses screamed, while others ran for the wings. In the audience, Pinsley saw people fighting to come forward, or get away, the two groups running into one another and causing chaos.
“What are you doing?” the actor playing Romeo demanded, stepping into Pinsley’s path.
Another grabbed at him, and Pinsley shook them both off.
“Olivia?” he called out.
Her voice came back, as melodious as it ever was, sounding utterly shocked. “Father?”
The stage was in almost as much chaos as the audience, now. The chorus must have seen what had happened, because some of them were huddling around Olivia, while others were trying to get away. The main actors, at the front of the stage, had obviously only seen Pinsley charge onto their stage and plow into someone there. They thought he was the threat, so that he had to shove away another set of grabbing hands.
