Alizarin Crimson

by Erica Millard

  Quasimodo . . . Victor Hugo.

  “Liam! The quote! Do you have your phone?”

  “Yeah . . .”

  “Look up the quote from Van Gogh’s page. Why didn’t I think of it earlier? I bet it is from Victor Hugo.”

  “Victor Hugo?”

  “Yeah, Van Gogh mentioned Victor Hugo several times in letters to his brother.”

  “It will take a minute for my phone to boot up.” Liam put his battery back inside.

  I glanced around the tower corner and saw it: a door, made of metal and wire but with a handle and lock.

  “You’re right. It was said by Victor Hugo.” Liam scrolled on his phone. “But why did Van Gogh give the quote as well, if the sculpture was what we really needed to find?”

  “I’m not sure.” I stared back at the gargoyle. “There’s only one way to find out.”

  The security guard paced by again, coming the other direction, with a glint on his belt.

  “Distract him while I get his keys,” I whispered in Liam’s ear.

  “Excusez-moi, monsieur.” Liam rattled off more French. The guard responded with a smile as Liam pointed to a large building visible in front of the Notre Dame and asked a question. The guard probably wouldn’t have responded so favorably if I’d asked him in English. They went back and forth, gesturing to different places on the skyline.

  I came up beside them, acting interested and pretending I could understand. The keys were attached to the guard’s belt loop with a small, black carabiner. I fidgeted to the side and the guard turned to include me in their conversation.

  Damn! But I smiled and he smiled back. Liam noticed and pointed to something on the far horizon, the opposite direction from where I stood. Without making any sudden movements, I wrapped my fingers around the metal, pressing the keys into my palm so they wouldn’t jingle as I pulled them away. The guard glanced back at Liam, but his gaze didn’t reach me. I slowly pushed open the clasp and slid the mass of keys away from his belt loop. The metal dug into my skin, but the pain was nothing compared to the fear that the guard would catch me. Liam backed away and gestured wildly with his hands. The guard laughed, and I shoved the keys into my pocket. When the guard did look at me again, I smiled and laughed, like I was in on their joke.

  A few moments later, the guard continued on his rounds. I was sure he would have been able to see my heart trying to beat out of my chest as he walked by, but he was still chuckling at whatever Liam had said.

  “Do I need to add pickpocket to your list of abilities?” Liam asked with a raised eyebrow when the guard was gone.

  “I wish!” I put a fist over my heart as if that would help it slow. “It might be a handy skill to have, but the fear of almost getting caught would probably give me a heart attack.” I tiptoed over to the door, which I then realized made me look way more suspicious than just walking.

  “Wow,” Liam said, “you would so not make a good criminal.”

  “That is my ultimate goal in life,” I said sarcastically as I fumbled with the keys, trying to figure out which one opened the door. “Being a criminal isn’t even in my top ten things I want to do. Can’t you watch guard, whistle or something if someone is coming?”

  “No? Too bad, because I am sure the media could come up with all sorts of cool nicknames for you. How about Scarlett Bandit because of your skin?”

  “That makes me sound like I am robbing stagecoaches.” I jerked on a key that was wedged in the door, because it didn’t fit. My hands shook as I went around the key ring. “How many keys does this guy need?”

  “You’re right, you look more like a pirate than a stagecoach robber.” Liam leaned against the stone block corner with his hands in his pockets, looking totally at ease.

  “A pirate who’s obsessed with art?”

  He shrugged. “Hey, it could happen. Pirates are people, too, you know.”

  “Of course, it’s the last one I try.” The key slipped into the lock just as a low, brief whistle sounded behind me. I didn’t turn around, but instead pretended I found the stone wall fascinating. A loud flock of tourist strutted past and barely spared a glance at me. Maybe it wasn’t so hard to do things without anyone noticing. When they were gone, Liam and I shuffled through the gate, and pushed the door closed so the lock clicked. Here the wire cage didn’t enclose the walk, and the sudden lack of shield was dizzying, even with the shoulder high stone railing.

  Above me the bell tower loomed, and I felt sick at the mere thought of climbing it. Along the corners, round stone knobs carved into spirals protruded up the wall and would serve as a ladder of sorts.

  I took two in my hands and tested my weight against them. They held but were small and insignificant compared to my body mass. What in the hell was I doing?

  I turned back to Liam. “Wish me luck.”

  If this were the movies, this was where Liam would’ve swept me dramatically into his arms and kissed me, leaving me breathless but determined to continue. But this wasn’t the movies.

  “No, I’m going,” Liam said.

  “Ha!” I said in disbelief. “Why on earth would you go?”

  “Because it’s dangerous.” His teeth clenched at my disregard, but his tone was matter-of-fact.

  “But what happens when you get all the way up there and you have to use color magic.” Logic was on my side. “But wait, you don’t have color magic.”

  “Color magic? That’s new.” He strolled nonchalantly to the wall and took hold of the knob.

  “Yeah, I just now decided I like it better than being called a Colorist. Anyway, don’t try to change the subject; you’re not fooling anyone. You stay here, and I’ll be back.”

  “No, I really think it should be me.” He tested his weight against the stone knobs, and the first nob he stepped on broke away and shattered on the stone walk below.

  I tried not to act smug as I nudged him away. “See, I weigh less than you, and besides, nothing is going to happen.”

  He didn’t look convinced, but I chose my first hand and foot holds. Just like rock climbing, I tried to convince myself, but it wasn’t. There wasn’t a harness secured around my waist to catch me if I fell. I missed my rock-climbing shoes.

  “Just make sure no one sees me,” I said with a smile I didn’t feel.

  Liam didn’t smile back. “Just be careful.”

  “I will. Besides, it won’t be hard to get to,” I lied.

  Viewed from the distant square below this place didn’t seem that high. Even from the gargoyle’s walk, the distance up the bell tower was tiny compared to the distance below. But here was no metal cage to protect me. There was nothing but air and stone and the green copper of the steeply slanted roof behind me. I took a deep breath, trying to calm down. If I fell from the tower, I wouldn’t fall all two hundred or so feet to the ground, but I would just splat on the walk, maybe break my back on the railing.

  Happy thought.

  Liam stood there now, arms folded, looking concerned and . . . angry. But this was my fight, not his. It had to be me.

  “Shouldn’t you go keep lookout or something?” I asked as casually as I could.

  “I haven’t seen anyone pass for a good three minutes. I figure if I stand under you, I can . . .” but he trailed off, “do . . . something. Man, that was really lame.”

  I laughed, but the truth was, I liked having him close by. It made me feel not so alone.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  “Ready.”

  I took my first step.

  31

  But these problems lie more in ourselves than anywhere else.

  —Vincent van Gogh

  The stone was cold against my skin, despite the summer heat. I climbed the northwest corner of the east bell tower, and it seldom had the sun to give warmth and the illusion of life. I tried to keep my weight evenly distributed between the stone knobs, not knowing how many pounds of pressure each could withstand.

  The gargoyle seemed a mile away, sucking me toward it, drawin
g me in. “I complained about going to gymnastics for eight years,” I said to Liam as I climbed to keep my mind off—well—death, dismemberment, the image of my skull cracked open below. “I really need to apologize to my mom. What were you saying earlier about me being a criminal? How about a cat burglar?”

  “I’ll have to see how well you do here before we draw any conclusions.”

  His voice fell further away, and I didn’t look down. I couldn’t, or else I wouldn’t be able to keep going. There was no up and no down, just the in front of me. Even though I was in the thick shade, the sky seemed too bright, the meager sounds from below too poignant, the stone under my fingers sharp as razor blades, as if my senses were high-strung to the point of being overwhelmed and useless. Sweat beaded and ran into my eyes and down the small of my back, and I didn’t dare wipe it away for the fear that it would break my concentration. Soon I was too far away to talk to Liam.

  Up and up I climbed, mechanically, torturously. My muscles ached and began to shake as the red rushed through my body with the increased speed of my heart. I longed for a rock-climbing harness I could sit back in to rest, held aloft with nothing but rope against the metal of a belay, but I was alone. I couldn’t seem to get enough air, and my own breath tore at the inside of my throat. In the shadow of this tower my skin was cold, even with the heat and sweat and anger that tinged everything now. The rough stone dug into my palms and fingers, and I left tiny splotches of blood on each surface I touched.

  It felt as if I’d been climbing forever, yet when I looked up there was so much farther to go. The feat I still had yet to accomplish distracted me, and I put all my weight on one foot. The twirling stone snapped away from its place, but I caught myself with my hands and my other foot.

  I held on, frozen in exhaustion, pain, and that eternal anger.

  “Please, Aya,” Liam yelled from below. “Come back. It’s too dangerous, there has to be another way.”

  He was right. I could give up and stop fighting against gravity, let it work with me in climbing down instead of against me. I could walk away.

  This was the next clue to finding the Aveum, and with a mere match I could destroy the page to its whereabouts. I could climb down right now and fall, shaking and terrified, into Liam’s arms, but what would I be then? But Liam knew and I knew, and as long as the knowledge was there, we could never be safe from Dune. Van Gogh’s words had told me to come. Believed I could make it.

  I didn’t respond to Liam. I didn’t trust my voice or my thoughts. I kept going. There was a reason Van Gogh made this so hard. It wasn’t just for some stranger to stumble upon—it was for me. Even though he didn’t know who I would be, Van Gogh had trusted that I’d be strong enough to find the clues he left behind. Van Gogh knew I would be strong enough, and so did I.

  So in answer, I took another step up and onward. It was not only a step toward the Aveum, but toward a destiny I’d shied away from, been terrified of.

  I pulled myself up that sheer face, up and up until there was nowhere to go, with nothing else to do but introduce myself to the gargoyle Van Gogh planned for me to meet.

  I pulled myself onto the roof and slid onto the platform behind it.

  The gargoyle was huge, standing taller than me since he was designed to be seen two hundred feet below. How had he been constructed without the tools we now took for granted and arrived here at his perch at the top of the world over eight hundred years ago? The wind was menacing now where the air was the only thing between me and the deadly rock or metal below. It seemed to whisper images of flying and falling and failing.

  The gargoyle stared out at the rest of the cathedral, eyes bulging in maddened relief out of the sunken stone flesh around them. Other statues littered the rooftop, but this one stood out with its extreme grotesque face that was near human. Its body was the shape of a man, but feathers rose off its back, ruffled and ready to strike. The top of the gargoyle’s head and wings were worn away and rough from hundred years’ worth of rain, snow, and wind. Unlike the other statues, it did not stare with gray stone eyes. The irises glinted red, blue, and yellow in the sunlight, making it look as though tears gathered along the lids. Crimson shone out the innermost pupil and the irises were the cobalt blue of a sky at twilight. A ring of jaundiced yellow filled the space that should have been white. Tiny, almost invisible, slits behind the ears allowed sunlight to illuminate the eyes, and they glowed hot and bright and real. The eyes gave the grotesque face sparkling life, which only served to make it more terrifying. Red, yellow, blue: the colors that, combined, made all others.

  I thought about searching the surface of the gargoyle, looking for anything, like that tiny circle from the statue at the park, but I knew it wasn’t necessary with those eyes calling out to me.

  Using the part of me that manipulated red was now second nature. To reach out past the red inside me was no different than reaching out my hand. But every time I touched blue or yellow and found nothing, a stab of disappointment settled into my heart. Would I ever be able to use them? I ignored that anger that was always near the surface, waiting to bubble up when I least expected it.

  I reached out to the eyes with my Talent and pushed.

  The eyes sank back into the head, leaving only vacant holes to stare at me. If the face with the eyes had been terrifying, the face without them was something from a darker world of demons and monsters I hoped didn’t exist.

  As the monster’s eyes slid back, its tongue jetted forward. Just when I thought the thing couldn’t get any uglier, an extra eight-inch-long tongue changed my mind.

  It was the only movement, and I was disappointed. I wanted another door to pop open, far, far away from this thing, but no, there was only the tongue.

  Gross.

  I stood on my tippy toes to get a better look and I reached inside. It was only stone, but I was still surprised when moist breath didn’t lick my skin. I got a sudden disturbing image of a knife slicing off my fingers in the dark hole, and I shuddered. I groped around inside, surprised at how much room there was, and my fingers brushed fabric.

  I’d have thought the surprise at finding things left by Van Gogh would have worn off by now, but it hadn’t. To put this here, had he once climbed the tower just like I had? My arm scraped along the gargoyle’s teeth as I withdrew the object.

  It was wrapped in a square of once-yellow fabric, now with dark brown water marks and tiny holes where insects had eaten away, and tied together with a thin cotton string. I broke the string with a jerk that left my fingers stinging, and the fabric fell away, blown across the stone with the breeze, and I shivered as it fell off the tower into empty air.

  It was a key, but it looked nothing like the skeleton keys of Van Gogh’s time. In the middle was a long metal dowel, just like in a normal skeleton key, but instead of just one row of teeth there were five, all jutting out from the center in a star. If I drew a line from the tips of each row, it would have made a perfect Pentagon. It was heavy in my hands, and it wasn’t just the metal that weighed me down. I reached inside the gargoyle’s stomach one more time, the action making me squirm, but there was nothing else.

  The wind rose and pushed against me, and I clutched the gargoyle’s ear for balance. I shoved the key into my pocket.

  I turned back to the tower, but I couldn’t leave this gargoyle with sunken eyes, his grotesque features rendered horrific, so I stepped back to fix him. Just in front of my chest there was a pop as a chunk of the gargoyle was blasted away, flinging dust onto my face. The shot echoed half a moment later. I ducked on instinct, flattening myself against the stone gargoyle platform. Two more shots dug into the stone behind me.

  She’d found me. Dune had found me. Part of me was outraged they would use a gun. So many Talents, but they resorted to using a gun? Lame.

  “Liam!” I screamed. They’d seen him with me. I peeked over the edge, trying to see where he was. A sob of sweet relief escaped my throat when I found him on this side of the metal fence, his back presse
d up against the wall, out of their reach.

  For now.

  Figures lined the upper part of the Notre Dame. A group huddled next to the entrance we’d opened, fiddling with the lock, while others spread out, presumably trying to find another way in.

  I was a sitting duck here. There was only one way to go. Van Gogh believed I could do this, maybe that meant I was strong enough.

  It had to mean I was strong enough.

  The corner I’d climbed to get up here was visible, as were two others, from where the figures stood, and I inched along the tower top to the other side to the only one that wasn’t. I sobbed in earnest at what I saw.

  All the comfort of climbing a wall with some kind of an intermediary point disappeared. Besides the tiny walkway, there was nothing between me and the ground but two hundred eighty feet of solid nothing. The climb had been exhausting and that was without someone with a gun, or worse some crazy Aolian, at the bottom waiting for me. If I hadn’t been so scared, I would have considered vomiting, just for something to do but stare down and wonder how it would feel to have the ground rush up to meet me as I accelerated at 9.8 meters per second, squared. Damn you, physics.

  And still the wind rose, bringing unnaturally dark clouds, tearing at me, willing me to fall from my perch.

  Was it better to die of a gunshot wound or a fall? Uh, maybe that was the wrong question.

  I swung over the edge of the tower and took hold of the tiny stone spikes peeking out of the corner.

  I had only moved a few feet before my head spun, my breathing already hoarse. Rain began to fall, in heavy sheets, cold and unrelenting. Where had the sunshine gone? I couldn’t see the ground or anything else below. There was only the stone in front of my face and, on it, streaks of blood from the where scratches on my hands left my body only to be diluted in the water pouring from the sky.

  Down I climbed. The farther I went, the stronger the wind and the rain became, unnatural even. My saturated hair whipped against my face, and I froze in my climbing as the wind blasted against me. Just hanging on was as much as I could do with my exhausted muscles fighting gravity and fatigue, wind and rain, and pain.