by C H Chelser
Even when the veil that separated him from the streets he had once walked was so thin, he needn’t follow the pavement to get about. In this case, the difference was marginal, for the most direct path to his target led him down the pavement of a straight boulevard. In life he might have noted the transition from uneven cobbles to smooth flagstones. In his present existence, he gave the surface beneath his feet no thought, but kept his mind trained on the marker he had selected.
It was waiting for him.
He had expected no less. The boy that had approached him was experienced enough – old enough – to know when another sought its presence. He shifted a fraction away from the threshold in order to cross the distance in an instant. Then he shifted back to the razor edge between worlds, to where the boy leaned against the pillars of a large ornamental fountain.
His arrival did not go unnoticed. The cluster of fey playing in the water spray squeaked in inaudible alarm and disappeared, leaving an astral stink of fear in the air. He scoffed. As if their premature souls would be enough to snap at, had he been so inclined.
‘And you are,’ the boy said by way of greeting.
His expression hardened. ‘If I were, I would have.’
‘I know,’ said the boy, ‘but your self-restraint, admirable as it is, doesn’t change anything about what you are.’
A dark chuckle. ‘It does. Otherwise we would not be conversing like this.’
A hint of nervousness rippled through the boy’s energy, but faded when its attention turned to the human couple on the other side of the fountain’s basin. They were all over each other, giggling like fawns. The girl faked a cry when her suitor stole a kiss.
‘I find them entertaining,’ said the boy.
He regarded the scene and folded his arms. ‘They are witless.’
‘Maybe, but entertaining nonetheless, don’t you agree?’
His silence replied that he couldn’t care less. This upset the boy. Apparently it meant him to take an interest in the humans. Sensing its undercurrent of apprehension, it wasn’t difficult to guess why.
‘They are not to my taste,’ he said. ‘Neither are you. Your skills are more valuable to me than your energy.’ He switched his mental focus to what he had come for and added: ‘You were right.’ About several things, none of which he needed to specify to be understood.
Visibly set at ease, the boy abandoned all interest in the flirting couple and fully acknowledged him.
‘I knew you’d find the other. Only devourers can go deep enough.’
He would not deny that. The fire of his fury was too evident, even when he kept it secure. ‘It must be made to answer for its actions,’ he growled. ‘Locked up at the edge, where it belongs.’
The boy shrugged. ‘I’ve seen rampant devourers before. Not often, but when you’ve been around as long as I have, you know it happens. After all, not all of them are so far gone that they let their pain consume their own soul instead, hey?’
He snarled at the teasing wink. ‘I never fell that far.’
‘Chances are this one didn’t, either.’
‘Unlikely. It is consuming souls.’
‘And not feeling guilty about it, or its self-hatred would’ve dragged it down to the outer edge.’
‘It takes more than self-hatred to accomplish that.’
‘Well, you would know,’ the boy laughed and dashed across the basin to where the human couple were sitting, using them for a living shield.
‘Infantile,’ he muttered. Then, straightening: ‘I did not come to play games. You want me to stop this other, you shall take your part in that.’
‘I can’t,’ the boy cheered with a quasi-apologetic wave. ‘I lurk here at the threshold. Maybe a little deeper when I need to, but that hole of yours was already all but out of my reach. So you must do it. You might well be the only one who can.’
‘My options proved to be limited.’
‘Try again,’ the boy said and walked away from the fountain. ‘You would do all of existence a great service. Isn’t that what you wanted? To make yourself useful?’
With two strides, he had caught up with the boy and landed his cane on a narrow shoulder. ‘You do not get to walk away from this.’
‘Why not? You’re up against your own kind, but I’m of a different league. I’d rather not get involved.’ The boy ducked out from under the cane’s knob and sauntered off, but the black cane blocked the way.
‘I imagine you don’t,’ he said, baring his teeth in a menacing grin, ‘but you should have thought about that before you involved me.’
Alarmed, the boy attempted to dive away once more, but he was faster. Tentacles of black mist extended from what until now had appeared to be his greatcoat. They bore down on the boy, taking him an unshakeable hold.
‘You instigated this. Now you will see it through.’
The boy struggled in his grasp. Millennia of experience beat against him, but his own determination was as solid as the oppressive darkness to which he belonged. Eventually the boy gave in and both resumed their usual appearance. What had been black tentacles and a writhing mass became a wet hand holding the collar of a Parisian street rat.
‘You still wonder why it should be you?’ the boy pouted.
‘I never did,’ he said, not letting go. ‘Fight fire with fire. A well-known tactic, but I cannot fight what I cannot see. So you will assist.’
‘There is nothing I can do.’
‘You shall be my eyes when the light obscures the devourer from me.’
‘But that means it will find me.’
‘You have no choice.’ He leaned closer, forcing the boy to look him in the eye. His preferred appearance might be human, but without fail his all-black eyes testified to his true nature. ‘You asked one monster to stop another. I will. By all means necessary if I must. You are one of those means.’
The boy blurred with a faint, primeval instinct to flee, but no longer resisted his still solid grip. A wordless compliance came forth, along with the same inverted confidence he had sensed from the boy before. He let go. The boy didn’t run.
‘You know I can’t go into the deep darkness with you.’
‘You will not need to,’ he replied. ‘I disturbed the creature’s hunt last night. Its hunger will drive it up to feed. And when it does, you will find it for me.’
Chapter XII
Mercedes gazed at her reflection in the dressing mirror and sighed. Plenty of make-up, loose locks covering her cheeks and a high-collared chemise weren’t enough to mask the massive bruises on her face. Ample use of lead-white foundation hid the discolouration of her skin, but the substantial swelling of her left cheek was evident. She tried a little extra rouge. In vain. She straightened her shoulders and back. Excuses would have to cover what cosmetics couldn’t, and as with most issues, the key was to act as if nothing was wrong.
When she arrived in the shop, Nicole and the girls were finishing off the usual preparations before opening. However, her entry caused them to grind to a halt. Ignoring the awkward pause, Mercedes flashed them a polite smile and pretended not to feel the stinging of her cheek as she did. In line with her normal routine, she went to the counter to check today’s agenda.
Almost at once timid footsteps approached her. She glanced up and found Nicole examining her with a troubled expression.
“Are you well, madame?”
“I am, thank you,” Mercedes said with what she hoped was an air of nonchalance. “Indeed, I was a bit under the weather yesterday, but I’m feeling much better now.” She folded the fresh list of receipts back in place and closed the register. “Did anything of note happen while I was away?”
“No, madame. Yesterday was very quiet again. We have received two cancellations for fittings planned for today as well.” She hesitated a moment. “If you would rather lie down, I’m sure we can manage. Monsieur Fabron looks in on us regularly.”
“I’m certain he does.”
“It’s just... Monsieur told us not
to expect you for a number of days at least, what with the doctor suspecting a concussion after your fall.”
Mercedes cleared her throat to hide a snort. The credibility to Eric’s lie vexed her, but it paved the way for hers. “It is not quite that bad, I assure you,” she said smoothly. “A headache will not detain me when there is work to be done.”
Nicole’s worries were not put at ease, but soon other problems demanded their mutual attention. The sales had improved a fraction since the week had started with a corpse and the police on their doorstep, but one customer per hour was deplorable for a regular Wednesday morning. An alarming development with disastrous consequences if it lasted. One more issue on her growing list of potentially dangerous situations. The only difference was that this was something she knew how to deal with.
“I will be in the back. I have a few things to discuss with Monsieur Fabron,” she told her assistants and bustled through the corridor to the workshop. Her intention was all business, but Doctor Hubert’s visit flitted across her mind and stayed there. Her face ached. Crossing the floor to Eric’s office, she met the prying eyes of the seamstresses with a stern glare.
Gagnon had informed her that Eric had taken breakfast in his office this morning, which to Mercedes confirmed that he had not come out all night except to prepare the registers for the shops. And now he was again at his desk, because she could sense his confusion and frustration through the closed door. Her own aggravation grew at feeling his, but she hadn’t come here to start another row. Instead she pulled up her invisible shields to keep his emotions out, braced herself and knocked.
Her knuckles had barely touched wood when the door sprang open and Eric all but stumbled into her. He staggered and gripped the doorpost to keep upright.
“What in blazes! Oh.” He went rigid. “Madame. Perfect. Step inside. I would have a word with you.”
“Convenient, because so would I with you.”
The instant she stepped inside and shut the door, his stiff pose fell. Frantic hands sought to occupy themselves, but never stayed still for long as he paced up and down the small room.
“You shouldn’t be here.” His gaze was fixed on his nervously weaving fingers. “It’s a nightmare doing everything by myself, but you should be upstairs. In bed. Resting. You should not be here!”
“Why not?” Mercedes kept her voice steady behind her shields. “I should think I had enough rest after the laudanum. Since you cannot be everywhere at once, as you say, I thought I might as well make myself useful.”
He didn’t appear to have heard her at all. “On that note,” she continued with emphasis, “I came to discuss ideas of how we are going to win back our customers. We cannot sit by in idleness and pray for them to return.”
Eric nodded in agreement, then shook his head and eventually grimaced. “It is not that simple.”
“I never said it would be easy, but I was thinking that perhaps we could free up some extra funds for advertisements in—” She stopped when he whipped around and stared at her with blank eyes. “Mon cher?”
“You shouldn’t concern yourself with the shops for now,” he muttered, not necessarily to her. “You need to get better first.”
So there it was.
Relishing the anxiety on his face might be cruel, but after what he had done to her, it served him right. She would have enjoyed seeing him fret a bit longer, but being branded a hysteric didn’t serve her at all. The sooner this travesty was over, the better.
“I’m not ill, mon cher. I suffered a bad nightmare while sleepwalking, that is all. Beyond that I am in good health.”
Eric grinned like a maniac and uttered a strangled noise that didn’t quite sound like the derisive chuckle it was meant to be. “Do you realise you do it?” he asked all of a sudden. “Do you realise, or is it so compulsive that you believe it yourself?”
“Believe what, mon cher?”
“The lies. Do you? Doctor Hubert said you might not even be aware of them. That you believe in your own perception of the world and no longer see how erroneous it is.”
The words cut. Her heart sank, but her temper flared. “Well, that certainly divests me of any chance to defend myself. What else did he say?”
“That I shouldn’t blame you for cuckolding me. You can’t help it, he said. A common symptom of...” The sentence deflated into a defeated huff. “Anyway, the doctor said it is treatable. That with rest and proper,” he pointed at her lower belly, “proper stimulation, you will recover.”
“Recover from what, exactly?” she retorted, arms folded. “If I am ill – which I’m not – I would be neither in want nor in need of any such treatment.”
“Yes, yes, Doctor Hubert told me you would resist. He warned me. I am to give you another dose of laudanum if you become too rebellious, he said. And if that doesn’t help, he knows a good and professional facility for women who...” His voice trailed off in a whimper. “Only as a final resort, he said. Only when nothing else helps.”
Mercedes swallowed the bile gathering at the back of her throat.
“No hospital, no laudanum,” she snapped with more venom than she thought she could possess. “Lock me up and drug me, but then who will help you run the shops? Who will help you stay in business? That affair the other day lost us a lot of customers, and you know it. You need to reverse that tide. Can you do that alone?”
“No.” His expression was terse, set in grim determination. “Therefore it is imperative that you do all you can to get better. That has to come first. So you will go upstairs and rest. I shall come up as often as I can to give you that stimulation.”
“A sensible use of resources indeed,” she sneered. “You had better save your energy for a more useful purpose.”
“No, no protests, ma mie,” he hushed her. “I swore you loyalty in sickness and in health, so I will do what I must. For you, and for both of us.” He came closer, hands reaching to frame her face. She pulled her head back before he could touch her.
“Leave it. It hurts.”
He honoured her and played with one of her locks instead. “Had I known you did those things because you were too ill to help yourself, I would have been more careful.”
She doubted that, but her misgivings about him died when she realised Eric unwittingly presented her with a golden opportunity to solve her most immediate problem.
“There may be a more attainable solution to aid my recovery,” she said, weighing the words as she spoke them. “A friend of mine – or maybe it was Carmen, I cannot recall – once told me about the virtues of certain implements. Implements made specifically for women.” She dithered in a deliberate demonstration of prudence. “As I understand it, these objects are designed to... alleviate specific tensions in the female body. The ones normally released when lying with a man.”
Eric looked puzzled. “You mean like the cold-water hoses on the womb that Doctor Hubert mentioned?”
“I suppose so,” she said tentatively, but shuddered at the thought. “Only this would not demand any of your time, and the use of it will not require me to leave the house.”
His face lit up. “That sounds promising.”
“It does, but I have no such implement now. I will need to purchase it. To do so, I will need to go out just this once.”
The bait was set. As she had expected, he wasn’t too keen on taking it. His nostrils twitched and his jaw worked, but instead of unleashing a barrage of objections, he glared at her.
“Mon cher, I know what I ask is too much, but for your sake, it must be done. It is unfair to require you to abandon your work to lie with me at all hours when a simpler method is available to achieve the same effect.”
“Then write to the doctor to arrange for such an implement,” Eric snapped.
“Hubert? What will he do with such a request? The good doctor has neither the age nor the gender to be knowledgeable about these things.”
“Yet if I let you go on this errand, who is to say you won’t seek out the company
of a living ‘implement’ instead? You? I cannot take your word when you lie without knowing it!”
She opened her mouth to rebuke him, but at once he held up both hands to silence her.
“No, no. I speak too soon. You are not to blame for your lies, or for your infidelity. I suppose this is a risk I must accept for the sake of your wellbeing,” He hissed a sigh and shook his head at himself. “Fine. Go. I won’t stop you. I will even give you the money to buy what you need, provided you give me proof of your purchase. I take it you will need a cab, too?”
“Thank you,” whispered Mercedes, careful not to break this rare spell of luck. “There is one appointment in the early afternoon that has not been cancelled. Duty comes first. I will attend to that client before I leave.”
Eric pinched his nose. “No. Come to me whenever you wish to depart, but you can’t face customers looking like you do. With the rumours about that dead student being what they are, I will not risk further rumours about the state of your health. Even when they are correct.”
Thus banished from her own shop floor, Mercedes resorted to what work she could find. After the noon meal Eric pressed her to have a lie down, but with no appetite to sleep the day away, she retreated to the storage room under the pretence of taking stock of the inventory. In less than two hours she had counted everything and shelved yesterday’s shipment to boot. A tedious job, but peaceful. Rolls of fabric didn’t give her strange glances, let alone unwanted advice.
She drew up a crate labelled ‘cordonnets’, tamed her skewed dress and sat down to bide the rest of her time. It would be at least another hour before she would be welcome with Anne. Madame Esmeralda’s clients preferred the cover of darkness, so Anne arranged her hours accordingly. Calling on her any time before the late afternoon was no less indecent than calling on another in the dead of night.
At least she could make the call. Against all odds, Eric had permitted it. She had feared the doctor’s diagnosis would confine her even further, but now her supposed medical condition had bought her those few hours of freedom to get the stronger medicine she needed in case Eric’s shots the other night had not missed the mark. Better yet, if the cramps such medication caused got too severe, Eric wouldn’t think twice about her taking a few drops of laudanum. Irony at its best.