Grim Lovelies

by Megan Shepherd

  “Anouk. Oh God.”

  The stain wasn’t red wine, she realized.

  Her mouth went very dry.

  Blood.

  But whose blood?

  Then she saw the knife in Beau’s hand.

  Chapter 5

  The room seemed to spin. Time was doing strange things, as though when every clock in the house stopped, time itself had frozen.

  “Beau?”

  He stood. There was blood on his hands and staining the front of his white chauffeur’s shirt. On the floor beside him, half hidden behind the bed, a pale hand with broken manicured fingernails lay palm up toward the ceiling.

  Anouk sank to the floor. She started to call out for help—​Luc! But his name died on her lips. Luc wasn’t here to answer.

  “Beau . . . what did you do?”

  “It wasn’t me.” His eyes were wide. “I found her like this a moment ago. I was carrying up her shopping bags from Galeries Lafayette.” He pointed the knife vaguely at some packages that had been dropped in a hurry, tissue-paper-wrapped treasures spilling out onto the floor. “I just came in and saw her like this . . . didn’t know what to do . . . tried to see if she was still alive . . .”

  Anouk’s eyes went to the knife in his fist. As if just then realizing how bad it looked, Beau dropped it.

  “She’s . . . she’s dead?”

  And then she was crawling across the carpet toward that pale manicured hand, almost as though her body weren’t her own, as though the blood in her veins was moving her body for her. Closer. Around the corner of the bed. The hand was connected to an arm, long and pale, and a shoulder covered in a cream-colored blouse that bore telltale red stains, like poppies. Something wet and warm soaked into Anouk’s palms and she drew back.

  Blood.

  “I didn’t do it,” Beau insisted.

  She twisted around to him. “Then who did?”

  “I don’t know. I thought it was only you here.”

  “It is only me.”

  He paused. There—​for a second she saw it on his face. If it wasn’t him, and she was the only other one home, then . . .

  Anouk scrambled to her feet.

  “Someone else must be here,” Beau said quickly. “Hunter Black. Or Viggo.”

  “Viggo wouldn’t kill his own mother!”

  But there had been that embarrassed, nasty look on Viggo’s face during the blood harvest earlier that day. She shook her head—​Viggo was a spoiled crétin, but not a murderer. And Hunter Black was the shadow at Viggo’s side, the loyal hound at his master’s call; he wouldn’t draw a knife unless Viggo had commanded it. Besides, they had left hours ago.

  “Well, I don’t know!” Beau said, pacing.

  “We . . . we have to tell someone,” Anouk stuttered. But who? The police? No, of course not. That was who the Pretties called in detective novels, but this was a house of magic. She tried to think of what Luc would have done. “We could send a message to Castle Ides. To the Shadow Royals.”

  “They’ll think it was us!”

  “Then . . . we have to tell Viggo.”

  Beau stopped in his tracks. His eyes were wide, sparking fear. “Are you mad? If Viggo sees me with a knife in my hand and his mother’s blood on my clothes, he’ll have Hunter Black slaughter me where I stand, and you too, probably, for good measure.” He started pacing again, this time kneading his forehead with one hand, unaware that he was getting blood all over his face. “Merde . . . we’ve got to get out of here before they come back . . . go as far away as we can.”

  “Run? We can’t. I can’t leave the house.” But she realized as soon as she’d spoken how wrong she was.

  “Yes, you can,” Beau said, as though realizing it at the same time. “You don’t have to obey her anymore. She’s gone. The pelts!” He spun toward the Mada’s closet. “I need a bag.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Go downstairs. Pack whatever you can, quickly. Anything valuable we can pawn. And some clothes, plain clothes, no aprons, for the love of God. I’ll meet you by the car. Do you know where her oubliette is? We can’t leave it behind.”

  Her lips parted. His words were a distant buzz in her ears. She remained fixed on the spot. Mada Vittora was face-down. Anouk couldn’t see the lips that had smiled at her so sweetly. The hands that put ribbons in her hair.

  She sank to the carpet. “We can’t leave her. She made us. Luc would say—”

  “He would say that we were slaves, Anouk.” His hard-edged voice came from the closet, along with the sound of boxes being torn open, coats being pulled from their hangers. “And now we’re not, and our pelts are our own again, and we’re getting the hell out of here.”

  She lowered her hand to her mistress’s silken hair and petted it gently. So soft. So pretty. She smelled of rosewater—​she must have whispered a love spell on someone that day. Why hadn’t she done a foresight trick? If she had, would she have seen her own death? Would she be here now, kissing Anouk’s cheek, telling her the house looked so clean and tidy?

  “Anouk.”

  Beau was shaking her. She realized she was cradling her mistress’s body to her chest, blood soaking through her clothes to her skin. She blinked, still feeling as though time were permanently broken along with the clocks.

  Beau shook her again. He had changed clothes and washed his face—​how much time had passed?

  “Anouk, find her oubliette. And get clothes and any money you have.”

  Money? Bills and coins? That was something she had only read about. Her shaking hand went to Luc’s franc on the gold chain tucked under her dress collar.

  The last time Anouk had seen Luc, he’d been working on the coins in the attic—​she hadn’t bothered to ask him then what they were for. She’d been desperate, distracted; a few days before, she’d lain down on the Mada’s bed after a grueling polish of the windows and accidentally fallen asleep. A Goblin named Crumpet had seen her and threatened to tell the Mada unless Anouk stole the witch’s good champagne—​the Armand de Brignac!—​but she couldn’t possibly steal from her mistress. Luc had stopped her frantic pacing. What’s the Goblin’s name? he had asked, and she’d told him about Crumpet. I’ll fix it, Luc had said. Easy. And sure enough, the next day, a gift basket of macaroons showed up at the front door, addressed to Anouk, with an apology from Crumpet.

  How had Luc managed it?

  “Merde,” Beau cursed. “There’s no time. We’ll have to come back for the oubliette.”

  He had an old burlap sack by his side stuffed with something thick and pungent, like fur coats. He shook her again. This time, his voice was more direct, his tone lighter in a forced way. “Listen, everything will be all right. We have to go. We aren’t abandoning her. Viggo will find her here and do what needs to be done. I know she meant a lot to you. And she loved you, that I’m sure of. The rest of us could go to hell, but you were her special one.”

  Anouk stroked the silken hair once more. A week ago, a Goblin blackmailing her over a nap had seemed like the end of her world. But this . . . this wasn’t scrapes and bruises, a ruined soufflé or a torn hem in need of mending. There was no mending this.

  Then Beau’s hands were on her shoulders, lifting her to her feet. And then she was stumbling down the stairs, and they were running through the entry hall and . . .

  He threw open the door and dashed into the night.

  She stopped at the threshold.

  She’d never set a toe beyond this point in her entire human life. Twelve months and ten days. One year of cleaning and cooking. One year of all the beauty of being human, of happy memories and teasing and Luc and Beau and licking icing out of the bowl. Had she been alive before that? Yes, in a murky, frightening kind of way, but that life was nothing; it was animal, it was instinct, it was just survival.

  The cold place. The dark thing.

  Her life now—​the bright human one, the only one that mattered—​had always been within these walls.

  She took a dee
p breath, stepped across the threshold, pulling herself away from the only home she had ever known, and reached for Beau’s waiting hand.

  Chapter 6

  She was outside.

  Really outside, not just on a rooftop or standing in the mansion’s courtyard. Outside, in the night air, with moonlight on her face and the sidewalk underfoot and a woman in a fur coat across the street staring at her bloodstained apron. Beau was at the rear of the Rolls-Royce, throwing his weight against the bag of pelts—​their pelts—​to stuff it inside the trunk, and there was that sad little tree no one but Luc ever watered, and Luc’s tin watering can forgotten beside it. She stumbled into the street and a cab shot by, swerving with a squeal of brakes, the driver yelling something she didn’t understand, and then a boy on a bicycle flew past her from the other direction, veering sharply so as not to hit her.

  She closed her eyes.

  Shut out the cars, the lights, the sights of the city. Thought about Mada Vittora’s long fingers tying prim knots in her oxford shoes while teaching her a rhyme about rabbits.

  “Anouk!” Beau called.

  Her eyes snapped open. He was holding the passenger door for her. Her hand went to the gold chain around her neck, to Luc’s coin. Hot tears finally rushed at her eyes, tears that, once they started, she couldn’t stop.

  Beau wrapped a gentle arm around her waist. His voice was softer. “Anouk, we have to go.” He steered her toward the car with urgency.

  She whipped her head around, looking back down the street. Through blurred vision, she took in the far end, which she’d never been able to see from the turret window, the fountain so close now, just a hundred meters away . . .

  “I’ll be right back.” She tore out of his embrace and started running.

  “Anouk, wait! What are you doing?”

  The sidewalk bit at the soles of her bare feet. What was she doing? She should stop, turn around, but she didn’t. She clutched the coin harder.

  The alley was just as she’d always imagined. Ivy twisted in the iron gate. Roses climbing the walls. Worn bricks underfoot. The babble of water eased the thrashing grief inside her, and she felt hope rising in its wake. Was this what the Pretties felt like here? Was this why they came to the fountain, for this swell of hope?

  But she stopped short when she saw the statue.

  It wasn’t a Greek god. It wasn’t a mermaid, either. Nothing nearly so lovely.

  Gargoyle; the word came to her. She’d seen drawings of them in old books, hideous things that clung to buildings like demons, and a pang of disappointment hit her. How could the Pretties wish on something so ugly?

  Her heart was thundering. She was foolish, foolish! She started to turn back toward Beau, but then the gargoyle’s mouth caught her eye. It had an odd curl to the stone. Almost . . . a smile.

  She took a step closer, clutching the coin around her neck.

  The gargoyle was small, no bigger than a cat, crouching by the fountain’s pool, spitting a thin stream of water from its stone lips. Its forehead was blockish and ugly, but its eyes were bright, almost playful. Maybe this was why the Pretties found it so magical: beauty and ugliness in one.

  She tugged the gold chain over her head, took off the franc, and held the coin out with a shaking hand.

  She closed her eyes.

  “I wish for her soul to be at rest.”

  The babble of water was a balm against her thumping pulse, but it didn’t erase the sweat on her brow, the blood staining her clothes.

  She opened her fist.

  “No.”

  She felt a hand close over hers, stopping the franc before it fell. Beau. Her eyes snapped open.

  “If you’re going to make a wish,” he said, “make it for us, not her. That we get out of here with the skin still on our backs.” He lowered his voice. “There are scrying crows all over the rooftops. Can’t you hear them whispering? They’ll spread word of what happened throughout the Haute’s scryboards—​both the official ones and the illicit ones. We need to go.”

  Despite how confident he sounded, his hand was shaking too. He was more worldly than she was, but only barely. He’d been human for two years to her one. His life had been the house and the car and not much in between.

  She turned back to the fountain. “I wish for us, then. To be safe.”

  She dropped the coin in.

  Together, hand in hand, they hurried to the Rolls-Royce. Beau had left the key in the ignition, the doors open. Would their wish count? She’d expected Beau to tell her again that the wishing fountain was just a silly thing the Pretties believed in, but he didn’t. Maybe deep down he wanted to believe too.

  Beau slid into the driver’s side and slammed the door. Anouk raced to the passenger’s side. She took in the townhouse in one final, heady glance. It looked different from the outside. Only three stories tall, not the seven that it was inside. Where did the ballroom fit? The attic? The courtyard?

  A crow landed on the roof cresting, followed by another, and another. Dozens of them. Twice the size of Corpus crows. Peering down at her with sharp glass eyes. The low murmur of whispers carried on the wind. With a flurry of wings, one landed on the chrome hood ornament just feet from her. The bird lunged, moonlight glinting off its sharp beak. The tip of it caught the flesh of her arm. She gasped at the red scratch.

  The bird lunged for her again. She jumped back and grabbed Luc’s watering can. Tears in her eyes, anger in her throat, she swung it as hard as she could at the bird, slammed the can into it with an explosion of feathers and white shimmering smoke. She waved the smoke away, coughing.

  The crow was gone.

  But more cawed from the rooftops. Louder. Sharp talons. Sharp beaks.

  “Anouk—”

  “I know!”

  One dived off the cresting, talons aimed for her eyes. She dropped the watering can, jumped in the car, and slammed the door hard just as the crow collided with the window.

  Beau hit the locks.

  In the car. Safe. Looking out the windshield at the crows. Another one landed on the hood ornament. One pecked viciously at the door handle. Whispers filtered through the air vents, speaking in no earthly language. “They’ve seen into the windows,” she said. “They know she’s dead. They’ll follow us.”

  “Like hell they will.”

  The car roared to life beneath Beau’s hands. Anouk clutched the edges of her seat. She twisted to look behind them. The crows were taking wing and swooping down from the rooftops toward them.

  “Beau, go!”

  He jammed his foot down on a pedal and the car tore into the street. Anouk struggled to keep sight of the birds. Dozens of them glided on the night air, dodging street signs and trees with ease.

  “They’re everywhere,” Anouk breathed.

  Beau glanced in the rearview mirror. His face was grim, but there was a confidence in the way he gripped the wheel. He turned down a one-way street, sharply. Anouk’s fingers clutched the leather seat harder. It felt like the car was hurtling impossibly fast. He whipped the wheel again, and there was a squeal of brakes. For a second, the skies were clear, and her grip eased. But then the flock of birds appeared over the nearest roof.

  “They’re still coming!”

  The crows weren’t limited by streets and traffic signals. They could soar over trees and houses, travel from one city block to the next in seconds. Beau didn’t take his eyes off the street, curving sharply around a closed brasserie on the corner, red-and-white awning folded for the night and chairs stacked beneath it. He pressed harder on the gas and they zipped past closed-up shops, then turned onto a cobblestone alley so narrow the side mirrors nearly scraped the buildings, the car bouncing violently. Anouk’s heart clattered in her throat with each jolt. We’ll be okay, she told herself. I made a wish. We’ll be safe. We’ll make it . . .

  Something thunked on the car roof, and she shrieked. The sound of hundreds of flapping wings came from somewhere overhead, along with sharp caws and chilling low whispers l
ike a swarm of bees. Another sharp beak pecked at the roof of the car hard enough that it dented the metal ceiling.

  Beau spun the car onto another street, still accelerating. How fast were they going? Eighty kilometers an hour? Ninety? They sped past a bar with thumping music and flashing lights and writhing dancing bodies. Past a supermarket with all its lights on, blindingly bright. And then the car shuddered and the sound of the road changed. Anouk pressed her face to the glass. A bridge. They were driving over the Seine. From here, she could see a wide stretch of the city. Buildings reflecting in the water, and a tower—​a soaring metal structure that curved into a point. Hundreds of tiny lights on it, shimmering like champagne bubbles. Her breath fogged the glass.

  The Eiffel Tower.

  But as beautiful as it was, a dark shadow on the water stole her gaze—​a black cloud of flapping wings.

  The car shuddered again when the bridge ended. Other drivers were honking at Beau, yelling out their windows as he whipped around them, darting in and out of traffic. The Eiffel Tower disappeared behind clouds. Beau drove faster, taking sharp turns, and her stomach objected. The world was moving too fast. Too many sounds, too many sights. The smell of Mada Vittora’s blood on her clothes.

  Anouk leaned forward in the seat, covering her mouth with her hands.

  “It’ll be okay, Anouk.” Beau gripped the wheel tighter. “I can lose them. I was made for this. To drive.”

  She shut her eyes. As the car raced along the dark streets of Paris, it was all she could do not to throw up on the polished silver trim of the Rolls-Royce’s floor.

  * * *

  “You can open your eyes now,” Beau said. “We’ve lost them.”

  Anouk slowly opened one eye, then the other. The world beyond the windshield had gone strangely dark, not the thin black of night, but closed in by some sort of monstrous scales. A loud but rhythmic whoosh-whoosh surrounded them as the scales moved back and forth.

  On closer inspection, she saw that the scales were made of the same plastic material as her mop.