The Devourer

by C H Chelser

  “You ran short? Oh, please don’t tell me you ran short. I warned you a hundred times not to cut it so fine.”

  “There was enough left for one last serving,” Mercedes assured her, “but yes, it was a bit close for comfort. I would have come by sooner, given a chance.”

  Anne pulled a small linen bag from a larger one hanging from the side of the shelf and began to fill the bag from the contents of the jar.

  “Eric again?”

  Mercedes sank onto the nearest stool. “He is… being hard on himself.”

  “So by extension he’s hard on you, if I can still read a face as well as a palm.”

  “He will not permit me to set foot outside the shop during business hours, because he does not trust the staff. He thinks they will rob us blind behind our backs.”

  “And will they?”

  “An absurd notion. No employee ever did such a thing. Eric is just afraid of losing control.”

  “Including his control over you, hmm?”

  Mercedes sagged. “I cannot see why he bothers. He is my husband. I am sworn to obey him.”

  “Yet you keep coming to me for this.” Anne tied the strings of the linen bag and let it dangle from her finger. Mercedes made to take it, but her friend whisked it out of her reach.

  “You may have sworn obedience, my dear, but it’s still your choice how you obey him.”

  “We have been over this before, Anne. He leaves me little by way of choice. Coming here tonight was a hard-won luxury as it is.”

  Behind the curtain, the kettle rattled on the stove. Anne dropped the small bag into Mercedes’ hand.

  “Camomile tea today? Or do you prefer lavender?”

  “Anything that tastes better than this lot,” Mercedes said as she put the bag in her reticule.

  While Anne busied herself in the tiny kitchen, Mercedes retrieved five of the ten coins from the discrete pocket in her dress and put them on top of Anne’s wooden box. When the older woman returned, carrying two steaming mugs of tea, she caught sight of them at once.

  “Tsk. You overpaid again.”

  “Did I? I prefer to consider it my contribution to your fair pricing policy. Handsome donations from your affluent customers offset the discounts you give the poor, so that everyone pays what they can afford.” She pursed her lips. “And I know very well on which side of the equation I stand.”

  Anne chuckled and swiped the coins into her bodice, with the rest. “I don’t mind extorting rich buffoons like that fob just now, but I treat my friends better than that. Can I offer you some other kind of tea, medicinal or not, to make up the balance?”

  “There is no need.” Mercedes stared at the steam from her mug as it danced in the candlelight. “You have done more for me than I could ever repay. Those few francs are a pittance in comparison.”

  “A reading, then.” Ringed fingers took a deck of cards and placed it face down on the centre of the table.

  “No, no. I would rather speak with you than with your cards.”

  Anne smiled. “Whatever you wish, my dear. It’s not as if you don’t have your own means of listening, anyway.”

  For as long as her drink lasted, Mercedes listened to Anne’s anecdotes about the absurdities she encountered in her unusual shop. A second cup saw her witness to the latest bed sheet gossip, because old habits die hard. Years had passed since Anne had painted her face and wore cheap dresses like the girls down the street, but she wasn’t too proud to call on her lewder skills whenever money was tight or the local gendarmes needed to refrain from asking too many questions about the cards on her table and the items on her shelves.

  Mercedes drank Anne’s stories in even more readily than the hot tea. They painted a picture of the world beyond the limits of her boutique, and offered a reprieve from Eric’s overbearing concerns. Still she kept her ears primed for the tolling of the bells. Two hours, she had agreed with the cab driver. He had promised to wait for her if she ran late, but she wouldn’t risk trying his patience. Or Eric’s.

  “You seem troubled, my dear. Are you worried about last night’s serving? If you want, I have something stronger to put your mind at ease.”

  “No, thank you. According to its taste, it must have been sufficient.”

  Outside, the cathedral and three different churches rang the hour. Mercedes counted and sighed.

  “I have to go. Eric has put me on a curfew, and he will raise Hell if miss my cab-ride back.”

  “Curfew? You did tell him you’re a grown woman, I hope.”

  Mercedes patted her friend’s hand. “I know you like to mother me, but you really do not have to. He is just careful with me. It is endearing in a way, if a bit unnecessary.”

  Anne snorted in disdain, but then reached under the table with her foot. Nothing happened.

  “Oh, putain!” She reached again. On the other side of the cellar, the front door popped from the lock. “The rope caught again. Bloody thing! I’ll have to check that.”

  Mercedes chuckled and fastened her hat on her head. The top rim scraped across the ceiling.

  “At a pinch you could always use real magic,” she said as she stooped a fraction.

  “Ha! I wouldn’t even if I could. Never waste good energy when parlour tricks will do just as well.” Two dozen bracelets chimed as Anne shooed her to the door. “Now, off you go before that husband of yours takes ‘endearing’ a step too far. You have your tea?”

  “I do. Thank you.”

  Anne glanced over Mercedes’ shoulder and put on a knowing smile. “Yoo are welcome, madame,” she crooned and showed Mercedes out with a dramatic sweep of her arm. “And yoo, good laidee,” she called out to a fidgeting woman in a dress too expensive for this neighbourhood. “Come een, come een, and telle me what Madame Esmeralda can doo vor yoo.”

  So business continued. Mercedes didn’t hang around to see the woman fall for Madame Esmeralda’s irresistible charm. Visiting Anne without interruptions from her alter ego were best made earlier in the day. Mercedes decided that she would find time soon to do so again, with or without Eric’s blessing.

  She hurried down the seedy street, backtracking her steps in the dark. The first stars dotted a sky that was only a few shades away from true night. The larger streets had streetlights, but here the only light came from the cheap candles behind the harlots’ windows and the lanterns that some of the passers-by carried before them. Neither source shone in abundance, but by their numbers she was able to see sufficiently to walk briskly without tripping.

  Rue Gervais Laurent was by no means deserted. Men and women alike loitered on doorsteps, talking and laughing, some cursing loudly in heated arguments. The noise and the chaos made her uneasy. She walked by as fast as she could without running.

  When she came up to two men chatting up a street jade, she squeezed past them. One growled foul words, but she paid them no heed on the premise that he would do the same. Up ahead the lights and the traffic of the rue de la Cité beckoned. With a little luck, her cab was already waiting for her.

  A shapeless shadow sprawled on the dark pavement forced her to break pace. Uncertain about what it was but in no hurry to find out, she raised her skirts to step over it as quickly as possible, when something connected hard with her arm and shoved her aside. She stumbled, groping for support on the walls to keep upright only to trip into a dark alley between two buildings instead.

  “Good catch, this,” said the same guttural growl that had cursed at her moments ago. “Looks like she’s got good money on her, what?”

  Mercedes scrambled to her feet, but a calloused hand grabbed her throat and pushed her into a wall while a thick leg pushed her knees apart, pinning her where she stood.

  “Not a sound, Yer Highness,” rasped the man. His stinking breath filled her face. “We’re in the mood for a little fun, my friend an’ I. Only we came up short on cash. Now we could bare yer lovely behind instead, or we’s ask ye t’make a conta...contrabiution.”

  A second man guffawed. “H
ehehe, ‘contribution’. That’s funny, Maurice, that’s really—”

  “Shut up! An’ stop wriggling, Highness. Look, this’s how it’s gonna be. Ye pay, I let go.”

  “But I do not... have any money!”

  The man shrugged. “Ye don’t pay, I don’t let go. Not f’r a good while, at least.”

  Harsh laughter drummed in her ears. The big hand all but crushed her throat. Not a chance she might scream. At best, she could claw at the man for all she was worth. But he was shrewd and kept her hand away from his face, so that her fingers scratched futilely at his greasy shirt.

  It started to rain. The moisture seeped into her dress, chilling her to the bone while air ran out and true panic set in.

  “Aah! Ow!”

  “What’re you doing?”

  The grip around her neck slackened. Mercedes gasped, the hand pressed down again.

  “Don’t move, I said,” the rough voice spat in her face. “And you, don’t make so much noise, you imbecile!”

  “It’s not my fa—aah! Aahaauw! Maurice, get ‘em off me!”

  “Get who o—Oowh!” The man staggered a step. “Aah! Aaaah! Stop it! Stop!”

  He let go. At last. Mercedes gulped a lung-full of air and began to cough. Every muscle in her body trembled as she sagged to her knees. The rain persisted, soaking her even if she didn’t feel the drops falling. The cries persisted, too. Frightened, Mercedes wiped a wet strand of hair from her face and glanced up. Both of her assailants backed away, cursing and cringing as if they were under attack themselves.

  But, who was dealing the blows?

  “Please—Ah! No, please! Mercy. Mercy!”

  A deep, terrible rumble rolled beneath their yowls. Almost sound, if sounds were tangible. But then... They were no longer alone. Something, someone, was in here with them!

  Too scared to move for fear of being beaten herself, Mercedes searched the darkness from the corner of her eye and the far reaches of her mind.

  There, behind her attackers, the shadows grew darker than the night.

  Despite shock besieging her senses, Mercedes saw a third figure outlined black on black, invisible yet as clear as a memory. She couldn’t make out a face, but she did recognise a large stick extending from a long arm, beating both brutes into crying heaps of agony. The one who had pinned her made a desperate attempt to crawl out of the alley, but a deformed claw shot forward and dragged him back.

  Impossible. This was no man, and ghosts couldn’t touch. They couldn’t! Unless they were... unless...?

  The black figure bent forward and clamped down its claw on the man’s skull. Mortified, Mercedes watch the apparition suck faint wisps from his living prey. Mortal shrieks echoed against the alley walls, until they dulled to a whimper. Next, the man collapsed on the ground beside his sobbing comrade.

  “Oh, good God.”

  A whisper. Her exclamation had been barely more, yet the softest gasp would have been too loud. So far she had been overlooked in the fray, but now the ghost glared straight at her. Beneath thick brows, eyes like black cesspools gauged her like a tiger that had spotted its next meal.

  No thought. No emotion but terror. Just for a moment.

  At once she sprang to her feet. Neither claw nor club stopped her as she ran out of the alley, out of the street and into the lights and life of Paris. A carriage waited by the curb, a team of white horses before it. She didn’t spare the driver a glance as she yanked the door open and clambered in.

  “Madame?”

  A man’s voice. She froze, but no, she was alone in the dark cabin.

  “Madame? Are you all right?” The cab driver. Her driver.

  “Home,” she ordered. “Fast!”

  A whip cracked, the horses whinnied and with a jolt, the fiacre set in motion.

  Chapter IV

  The carriage rocked as it picked up speed. Erratic bumps jostled her taut muscles and forced out the breath she had been holding. Still she gripped the worn Utrecht velvet of the seats while she counted, slowly and deliberately despite herself.

  “…five…six…seven…”

  The carriage made a sharp right turn. Her head swam and all her senses flared at once, but they detected nothing beyond the noises and smells of the city. She continued to count anew. Ten, twenty. Through the window she saw the lights along the Palais de Justice. Another turn, and then again at the count of twenty-nine. At forty, the Pont Neuf appeared ahead. At sixty-three, crossing the rapid waters of the Seine delivered her from the remaining terror that still clung to her.

  “Nothing happened,” she said to herself. “They frightened you, but they did not harm you. None of them did.” But next time she went out by herself, she would remember to carry a small knife on her person.

  For what little good a blade would do against that horrific ghostly apparition.

  “Hail Mary full of Grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed are thou…”

  Mercedes locked her fingers tightly, yet the tremor in her hands worsened at the thought of what she had just witnessed. By any means possible, she pushed the memory from her mind. She couldn’t afford to dwell on this now.

  As it was, she hoped to God her five francs would be enough to buy the driver’s silence after her remarkable arrival at the fiacre. If the man told Eric anything that was remotely true, she faced her husband’s justified wrath on top of everything else. That she could afford even less.

  The rattle of the wheels diminished. Smooth stones. They were driving through the rue de Rivoli already. Precious little time to fabricate a suitable excuse for her bedraggled appearance, because Eric was certain to notice the state of her dress. As a couturier, any blemish on her clothes would stand out to him like a red flag to a bull, never mind that she would drag an obvious trail of wetness behind her with every step.

  She wasn’t supposed to have walked any kind of distance, let alone far enough to get soaking wet in this rain. Which by now had stopped, too. In fact, a glance out of the carriage window told her the pavement was barely wet at all, undermining her idea of claiming she had been caught in a local shower. She stroked the creases from her skirt. Perhaps she could claim an incident with a bucket of water? Hardly plausible! That might have sufficed if only part of her had been sopping, but as it was her whole dress was—

  —completely dry?

  Alarmed, she touched the fabric again. No, it hadn’t been her imagination: her skirt, her sleeves, even the locks of her hair were dry. How could that be? The rain falling on her face, the weight of her waterlogged skirts as she ran, it had been real! Of that she was certain.

  The fiacre rounded another corner.

  Now that she gave it more consideration, raindrops didn’t soak through any fabric so quickly. In hindsight, the wetness she had felt was more akin to having had a pail of water poured out over her. A few minutes in a squall might do that, but a simple fall of rain could not drench three layers of cloth.

  Yet it had rained, and she had gotten thoroughly wet. For a brief instance. Too brief an instance.

  “Rue de Richelieu, madame. As requested.”

  A chance! No matter how inexplicable, her being dry meant she might be able to sneak past Eric’s scrutiny. Provided the cabdriver did not blab his mouth off first, of course. She opened her reticule and got out the five remaining coins, but started when the carriage door swung open.

  “Need help, madame?” said the driver.

  “Thank you, monsieur.” She slipped the five francs into his palm when she accepted his extended hand and climbed out of the cab. “Please, not a word to anyone.”

  A nod and two fingers to his floppy hat were his only reply. Perhaps he had spotted, as she had, the man appearing in the doorframe between the boutiques. Mercedes prepared to flash her husband a greeting and hurry inside, but he caught her arm before she could. She froze.

  “Mercedes?”

  Eric’s voice was much kinder than she had dared to expect. It reminded her of times gone by, so long ago, when he had spoken
her name with such genuine concern. His cool hand gently cupped her chin and made her look at him. She cast her eyes down in shame. How could she have allowed herself to forget that despite his short temper, the man she loved was also capable of great tenderness?

  “Ma mie, what happened? Your hat is all askew.”

  “What?” Her hands shot up to find the garment, but her fingers encountered only unruly locks and two upset hairpins. She reached further back and happened on the brim of her hat, caught in her bun and holding on by a tether. Carefully, she pulled at it to dislodge the other two hairpins that had saved it from being lost. She glanced over her shoulder, but the driver, as agreed, held his tongue.

  “Go inside,” Eric urged her. “Ask Gagnon to make you some tea.”

  She obeyed without a word. Had she misjudged him so? She had learned not to expect compassion from him. If ever she felt under the weather, he tended to be annoyed that illness or distress kept her from her work. Perhaps she had been too harsh in judging his agitation to mean he didn’t care about her wellbeing. Had he not stayed by her side when most men would long since have run?

  At the top of the stairs, Mercedes found Amélie awaiting her. The maid said nothing, but her face grew stark and she wrung her hands.

  “Yes, I know. Come with me, girl. This mess needs to be made presentable.” Not to mention that aside of everything else, she had to hide the little linen bag in her reticule somewhere safe before Eric interrogated her about her present state.

  Amélie hurried after her mistress. “Madame, did monsieur tell you about—”

  “Ah, Mercedes! There you are!”

  Mercedes stopped in her tracks. For a moment she thought Eric had caught up with her, but then realised the booming voice belonged, in fact, to a woman. To Carmen Talbert, to be precise. Her sister-in-law.

  “What a surprise,” Mercedes cooed, at once the professional socialite her mother had taught her to be. “I had no idea you would be coming. Why did you not tell us?”

  “I know it was naughty of me not to announce myself,” Carmen said in the tone of someone who frequently interchanged ‘naughty’ and ‘obnoxious’, “but Henri is out at a client’s in the country and I was bored, so I thought I’d drop by for a spell. It’s been ages since I have seen you!” She pouted unconvincingly. “Please say you don’t mind, darling?”