by C H Chelser
From one heartbeat to the next, the oppressive weight of the demons’ intangible darkness had lifted. Stray light from the city peered in through the window, no longer fighting a losing battle to illuminate the room.
Mercedes held her breath. Was this the heart of the storm? She counted silently, waiting for the unnatural pressure to plummet back onto her. Ten… Twenty… The curtains hung still. Her rumpled nightgown had dried up. She was alone.
Suddenly dizzy, she grabbed hold of the bedpost and sank onto the mattress. “Oh God. Dear God in Heaven.” Whether God existed or not, the exclamations soothed her nerves, like reciting the Our Father had when both devourers had gazed at her with such…
“Oh, dear God,” she sighed again.
To know oneself to be bait for an unseen monster was all very well, but facing deadly fangs in a muzzle the size of a horse’s head was a different matter entirely. In Anne’s cellar, she had only felt the monster, but behind monsieur’s shield, she had seen long thick paws, black eyes and that ferocious mouth, where all semblance to any living creature ended. The sight of it had turned her stomach. Sometimes, ignorance truly was bliss.
Yet what had scared her most, and did even now, was the creature’s hunger. That insatiable, boundless craving had stripped her mind bare despite the shield. Or had that terrible desire been monsieur’s appetite carving at her soul?
“He had every chance,” she whispered to the empty room. “He could have turned on me, easily. Almost did, too.”
Only not quite. He had defied his instincts and protected her instead. No small feat, as she had witnessed. His shield had buckled, it had broken, and still it had succeeded where hers and Anne’s had failed.
Mercedes licked her dry lips. That shield, the demon’s will manifested, was indeed every bit as strong as Jean had promised it would be.
Except Jean had never mentioned anything about the demons’ inabilities to behold each other. Her stolen glance at ‘monsieur’s’ thoughts had given her the impression that he was blinded, but she had never imagined both he and the monster would stagger around one another like two blind mice, dealing haphazard and badly aimed blows back and forth. Yes, her aura had literally shed light on the situation, but the benefit had been minimal. Even to her, any time their energies had overlapped it had become impossible to tell them apart. As if their intense darkness had faded into each other, erasing any distinguishing features between them.
Likely that comparison was more correct than she wanted it to be. After all, they were both of the same demonic nature.
“Do not forget that,” she admonished herself. “He may have saved you and you may be his ally, but that does not change what he is.”
Even so, neither was it fair to ignore the differences. As an ally, she owed ‘monsieur’ her aid, and therefore she continued to stir up whatever emotion crossed her tired mind, simply to cast a light by which she might recognise their return. She drew on the still-fresh fear, terror and confusion, but also on her anger and resentment towards Eric for the ‘stimulation’ he had forced on her to ‘fix her poisonous mood’. Every burst of emotion spread colours like ink in water. Through gritted teeth she searched the patterns of her own energy for refractions, but found none.
She was still alone.
Her heart thumped in her chest. Slowly the varied emotions converted to one vast clump of dread and worry. Like a helpless onlooker peering at the water’s surface for submerged combatants to come up for air, she strained the reach of her senses, but encountered only silence.
What wild chase were they locked in? Had her demon subdued the monster, or had it managed to escape, leaving him without knowing where to turn? Whichever the case, as time ticked by, so did the chance of them coming back.
“For Heaven’s sake, Mercedes. You promised him that you would help. Then make yourself useful!”
Impatiently she nudged Eric’s sprawled body to one side of the bed until she had enough space to lie down without falling off the edge of the mattress. Settling on top of the sheets, she closed her eyes and envisioned the long stairway Jean had shown her.
Her steps were hurried, her counting so quick she barely completed each number. The end of the stairway never came. At the count of one hundred steps, she stopped, willed herself to calm down, and started over. Taking deliberately slow steps down the imaginary staircase, this time she needed only thirty steps to arrive at the heavy oaken door.
As before, the door swung open at her approach. She couldn’t see what lay beyond it, but then realised that she hadn’t yet decided what should be there. Where did she need to go? The only way the demons could have gone was down, into the lower echelons of Jean’s column. Thus the plain with the grey fog would be a sensible place to start.
On the far side of the black marble threshold, the shrouded city appeared.
The first step she took to cross over was too fast, too unfocused, and the door moved away. Her second and third attempts fared no better. She let out a frustrated cry, which rang too loud to be in her mind only.
She had to shift. Help her demon, help Danielle. Even if the fight was over and ‘monsieur’ had won as he had been so adamant that he would, she had to know. Because then she could see her daughter again, and feel those light caresses and her milk-and-honey voice, and...
I have to get through. Mercedes pressed her forehead against the defiant doorpost. Please, I just want my daughter.
A slight pressure wrapped around her arm and pulled her off her feet. The doorpost vanished at once, as did the weight of her body. The instant she felt the cord extending from her insubstantial back, Mercedes assumed the preferred shape she had chosen for herself last time. It worked. She let out a chirp of joy.
‘I did it! I shifted!’
‘Almost,’ said a stranger’s voice out of nowhere.
Alarmed, Mercedes cast her senses into every direction. She was in a city, in Paris, but not the Paris she knew. Her immediate surroundings suggested that she stood in the middle of a street, but looking down, there was no pavement. Her skirts vanished into the thick fog that covered what passed for the ground. She saw the outlines of others move by, some human in shape and some less so. A few were near, but none seemed to pay any attention to her. Save one.
‘They’re not here.’
From the fog emerged a boy. He was about twice the age Danielle had chosen for herself, and sat on a low stone wall, feet dangling. A street urchin, by all appearances. They lived by the dozens in a city this size. It was only to be expected that they died by the dozens as well. This one seemed to be used to astral life. And to visitors. He stared at her with unmasked intent.
Mercedes stared back. ‘Who are you?’
The boy said nothing, but she caught images from him which revealed that he knew who she was looking for.
‘They’ve gone much deeper than this,’ he added.
‘I see. Then I must go deeper, too.’
The finality of that decision was enough to open a corridor in the fog beneath her feet. She ran without moving, ever faster through the dwindling light. Ghosts of all sorts passed by, but still the sensation of the corridor persisted. She continued until the night was complete and the only light around was her own. She slowed, but didn’t halt. By the glow of her aura dark features, animalistic and primal, flashed into view, existing only as long as her colours touched them. Still she went deeper.
Her back hurt. It had stung when she had first shifted, but now the cord pulled like a tether around her waist. She felt like she was choking.
‘No further.’
At her word, the corridor ceased abruptly. The pain did not. Determined to do what she had set out to do, she harnessed the pain to fuel the pulses of her aura, shining her frayed light as far as it would go. She fretted when it dissipated at barely arm’s length. How was she to find her demon like this? How was she to help him?
Something slithered past her in the dark. Fear and pain coloured her aura a pale yellow, providing a glimp
se of what looked like reptilian scales rubbing against her legs.
‘No, no, no, not this!’
She shifted up, following the pull of her lifeline. Whenever she dared, she slowed to search for either ‘monsieur’ or the monster. She found no trace of their typical energies in the deeper darkness, and once she reached the plains where the light penetrated, she knew she had lost them both.
‘Where are they? I have to find them. I have to find him!’
‘I told you, they’re not here.’
Two hands grabbed her and hauled her up, all the way to the threshold. Here Paris resembled her Paris, and she recognised the quai des Gesvres, opposite the Cité. A low wall, similar to the one she had seen in the fog, lined the quayside of the Seine. On it sat the street urchin from before, studying her with eyes that were infinitely older than his appearance.
‘That wasn’t very smart,’ he said casually.
Mercedes wrapped her arms around herself, mirroring her aura tightening as she waited for the pain in her back to subside. ‘I suppose not, but he needs me.’
The boy scoffed. ‘Does he now? Huh. No wonder he’s stopped looking for me. Not that I’m complaining. Not at all.’
He shared an image that she recognised as her demon, but which bore more resemblance to the creature that had leapt at her throat tonight.
‘My dedication to him is not born of choice,’ she countered the warning. ‘I have to save my daughter, and he is the only one who can help me.’
The boy took his time to consider the explanatory images that came with her words, and finally nodded in acknowledgement.
‘It takes one to catch one. That’s the whole problem.’ He sounded older now, more experienced. ‘You’ll be a help to him, I reckon. That’s good. Vanquishing a rampant devourer is no solo endeavour, no matter what he says. You might just give him the edge he needs.’ The boy chuckled at a private joke. ‘Which is not the actual outer edge, of course. No sane soul can go there. Although that is probably where they went just now.’
Mercedes’ dejection showed in her aura. ‘Is there a way to follow them there?’
‘Not as long as you’re alive. Even dead, only the most damaged souls sink that deep.’
Dejection turned into dismay. ‘So I cannot go where I am needed, and I cannot go where I want. I risk my life by shifting, yet I cannot visit my daughter, nor can I fight the monster that threatens her. If that is so then tell me, of what use am I?’
The boy made a face. ‘Only you can answer that.’
Mercedes refrained from replying. Tonight in her room, she had proved that she was not useless, but her present disappointment tainted her perception.
She leaned onto the parapet and gazed down at the river, flowing rapidly from one bridge to the next. Water under the bridge, Anne had taught her years ago. When her own mind was her enemy, she had to wait for time to flow by and wash away the destructive mood. Until then, practical thoughts took precedence.
‘You helped me cross, did you not?’ she asked, already knowing the answer.
The boy shrugged. ‘You needed a hand, and I had one to spare.’
‘I suppose I should thank you.’ They both knew her gratitude was only politeness. She should have accomplished it by herself. When it mattered most, she might not have a friendly spirit at hand to help her.
‘Don’t worry about that,’ said the boy. ‘Shifting is a matter of practice.’
‘I’m not at all certain if that will make a difference,’ she said, not hiding her bitterness. Her back ached again, now with the dull pull that reminded her not to stay much longer. ‘My body will not allow me more practice, I’m afraid. I must go.’
‘Can you find your way back home?’
‘Yes,’ she snorted. ‘That I have no trouble doing alone.’
She woke mere moments later on the soft bedsheets, angry and chilled but otherwise unhurt. With some effort she dislodged the blankets caught under Eric’s sleeping form. He didn’t so much as stop snoring. At the recollection of how he came to be in this state of stupor, Mercedes allowed a tentative smile to replace her snarl. Thieves, brigands and rapists: ‘monsieur’ certainly chose his prey well.
Though she wished he had been as careful about taking on tonight’s adversary. Much as she wanted to help, for now there was nothing she could do. Except perhaps help herself by preparing a cup of tea. Her demon’s intervention had not prevented the need for that, or for a clean, wet rag and a washbasin.
“Tomorrow is soon enough,” she muttered to herself, stifling a yawn as she gave the covers an extra tug and curled up beneath their gentle warmth. The night still had some hours left. She wasn’t going to waste them in the kitchen when sleep promised that she might forget the pain and the worries, if only for a while.
Chapter XIX
Stumbling noises and whispered words interrupted Mercedes’ dreams and chased away their shapeless hold on her. The room beyond the bed curtains was dark but for the glow of a single candle. The glow came closer, followed by a hand stroking her healing cheek. She groaned in protest. Sluggish fingers not her own played with a stray lock of her hair, oblivious to her reluctance. Annoyed, she lifted her head and squinted against the candlelight.
“Shh. Rest, ma mie,” Eric whispered. “I hope you are feeling better now.”
On the tip of her tongue lay words of resentment, but she restrained herself. “Will I be needed in the shop?” she inquired, servile for his sake only.
“You are needed. Sorely,” he said, “but you should not exert yourself and compromise your recovery. Perhaps, if you feel up to it, we may take the noon meal together?”
Mercedes gave him a non-committal nod as she lay back on the pillows and closed her eyes.
“Yes, good. Sleep now. I wish I could do the same.”
The mattress flexed upwards as he rose, and she listened to the sound of his weary footsteps departing. He had not exaggerated his fatigue. Small wonder, since the energy that had been drained from him exceeded what a night’s rest could replenish. Nevertheless, the bedroom door falling shut behind him gave Mercedes a further reprieve from the world. A soothing notion. So soothing that she drifted back to sleep before the echoes of Eric descending the stairs to the workshop had faded.
Faint images and warped memories washed into her consciousness and back, like a river lapping at its banks. Several times she believed Jean to be standing beside her, a surreal scowl on his gentle features as he berated her for her recklessness in running away from him, and threatening to feed Danielle to the demon’s distorted mouth. Sheer despair tore her loose and she woke, disorientated and anxious, but so relieved to discover it was only a dream that she succumbed to sleep again within moments, cast into an incoherent vision about an old man dressed as a boy who told her to practise more without explaining what she had to practise, or how.
When next she woke, Mercedes forced herself upright before she could doze off once more. She pulled away the bed curtains and put her feet on the rug. A shiver of cold and misery rattled down her spine. How tempting it was to lie down again and sleep for days. Years ago, when grief had consumed her to the point of insanity, such lethargy had been her daily reality. That paralysing weariness had since left her, but the recent fears and obstacles rekindled the numbness with unnerving accuracy. She had difficulty keeping her eyes open and her mind wanted to drown in some waking dream. The sheets were soft, the covers still warm. So inviting.
Anne had warned her of days like these. Warned her about the dangers of giving in. That if she didn’t fight, one day she might not come out.
Standing up hurt in a way that was not physical, but the effort jolted her back to the present. Still shivering, she rang the cord by the bed to summon Amélie. The maid appeared almost at once.
“Fetch me some warm water, a clean towel, fresh underwear and my burgundy dress,” Mercedes told her.
“Yes, madame.” The maid fumbled her curtsy, “Oh, eh, madame? Gagnon asks if you would like to have
breakfast, or whether you prefer to wait until the luncheon is served.”
Gagnon… In last night’s melee, Mercedes had all but forgotten about the housekeeper’s threats. They had frightened her before, but now she felt nothing of the sort. How absurd it was to kowtow to a vengeful old woman after facing the hunger of a soul-eating demon!
How absurd, too, that she should face deadly consequences if she neglected to defuse those threats. Absurd and disproportionate. She rubbed her temples.
“Tell Gagnon ‘no breakfast’, just hot water for tea, to be ready when I am.” Something she could not afford to forget, whatever the circumstance. “And do hurry, girl. I promised Monsieur Fabron I would join him for the noon meal.”
Strictly speaking she had made him no such promise, but accepting Eric’s invitation might prove that she was once again congenial, and no longer in need of his ‘stimulation’. Even the gentlest, kindest of advances Eric might make had lost their appeal, and to rely on her demon to interfere on her behalf a second time was unwise for many reasons.
When Amélie had left, another shiver sent Mercedes back to bed after all. She didn’t lie down, but huddled under the covers for warmth. Her eyelids grew heavy although she wasn’t sleepy. To keep her mind otherwise occupied, she used the remainder of this morning’s solitude to sense if there was any news from the other side of the threshold.
She did sense activity in and around the flat, but no spirits dark enough to be either of the devourers. Logical, as their presence excluded that of others. But the prolonged silence alarmed her. What if they had plummeted all the way to the darkest part of Jean’s column, all the way to the outer edge? What if they had fought, and ‘monsieur’ had won but was unable to leave that place?
It surprised her that she cared. He was a demon, a creature of the dark that cared nothing for her. Likewise, she should keep her distance. Yet the burning in her chest was caused by outright concern. She did care what happened to ‘her’ demon.
Jean did, too, from what she had gathered. She considered reaching out to the guide and asking him if he knew what had become of her dark ally. That might put Danielle at risk, though. Perhaps ask the gamin she had met at the threshold instead? He seemed to have an interest of his own in the two devourers. Would he be nearby? She searched.