Angels of Music

by Kim Newman

  She put up her hand, as if at a press conference.

  ‘Miss, ah, Reed, isn’t it?’ Orloff acknowledged. ‘How can I help you?’

  ‘Skipping past the obvious business of me not wanting to be in the show, can I at least ask what it’s all about?’

  ‘I don’t understand. What is what all about?’

  ‘This. The après-minuit, the Red Circle… Your patrons – who I’ll bet I could name, by the way – what do they get out of this?’

  Dr Orloff looked puzzled. Had no one ever asked before?

  ‘I believe I can enlighten our guest,’ said someone from behind her – in a slightly reedy voice.

  She turned and saw Georges Du Roy.

  The journalist and politician was dressed as if for the opera, from top hat to spats. Jewels sparkled on his fingers and his stickpin. Famously handsome, he had wooed his way through the salons to winkle tit-bits for the gossip column that was the making of him. He had softened in middle-age but retained his smooth skin and watery bright eyes. His moustache was dyed and waxed.

  She would have walked past him on the street without noticing – yet, he was the true monster in this case. His pink, plump face was his mask.

  With him was Guignol, on a leash and all fours like a hunting dog.

  ‘I confess it,’ he said. ‘My comrades and I, the brothers of the Red Circle, are addicts. Connoisseurs, certainly. Fastidious, perhaps. Choosy, naturally. But addicts. We want what we want. We must have it. Must. If we can no longer participate, we must watch. It is the great secret delight of all mankind, you know.’

  ‘Murder?’

  ‘You could call it that… but it’s so commonplace a term. Murder is brute stuff. One man shoots or stabs another, in a quarrel or for no reason. Even duels, assassinations, factory accidents… they are over too quickly, not savoured, not enjoyed.’

  ‘This is about Bloody Week?’

  Du Roy looked wistful. ‘Yes, of course. Some of us had an inkling before then. During the siege of Paris, when the elephants in the zoo were slaughtered for food. Or at school or on the battlefield. We trembled, on the verge of self-understanding. We pursued other gratifications, so much less piquant than those we really needed. It was that glorious shining week, those few precious days, when we truly learned what it was that we must have. It was our revelation. Excess, my dear. Excess! A banquet of killing! An orgy of blood-letting. Murder upon murder! Massacre upon massacre! A refinement of the art!’

  Kate saw why Clara Watson had sold her for a Red Circle pass.

  ‘You’re just… mad. Rich, and mad. The worst combination.’

  Du Roy smiled, showing little rows of sparkling teeth. ‘Everyone’s a critic.’

  ‘Are you satisfied, Mademoiselle Pomme de Terre?’ asked Orloff. ‘You’ve been privileged above any other in being granted an interview with our impresario. An exclusive.’

  ‘I doubt that. What he says sounds rehearsed. I think he’s said it all before. He’s as bored with it as I was.’

  Orloff signalled. Malita slapped Kate.

  Kate made fists, then remembered the gorilla with the high-powered rifle.

  Du Roy tipped his hat to the performers and retreated, hauling Guignol away. The presiding spirit of the Théâtre des Horreurs was surprisingly quiet. Du Roy handed the leash to Morpho, who grinned and tugged viciously. As the collar went tight, a wheezing came from deep in Guignol’s throat – air forced through his swazzle.

  So, the monster’s position was usurped.

  This wasn’t Guignol’s show any more. This was for the Red Circle.

  X

  DR ORLOFF ARRANGED the cast against the backdrop, as if it were an execution wall. Kate half-expected a blindfold, then realised that would be a mercy. The Red Circle were not disposed to mercy.

  Morpho, Malita and Orloff remained onstage. Morpho was stripped to the waist, showing off his battle scars. Malita and Orloff put on butcher’s aprons and white coats. The props bench in the wings was piled with hammers, tongs, knives, sickles, gouges, bludgeons and other, unidentifiable instruments of mistreatment. Bottles of poison and acid were also available. A short, round-faced, bald-headed fellow with a permanent smile stood by the table, ready to hand over implements when needed. Very professional.

  Kate thought of making a grab for the acid, but knew she’d be cut down. She had no doubt the man in the gorilla suit was an expert marksman. Dying too quickly would spoil the show but she’d still be dead.

  The curtains parted and the limelights flared.

  Beyond the shimmer, she could make out shapes.

  A procession advanced down the aisle, and climbed up a carpeted set of steps to the stage, traversing the invisible barrier between the audience and the drama.

  Du Roy escorted a veiled lady in a scarlet hooded cape.

  Kate trusted the Red Circle were satisfied with their newest member. She hoped Clara would get bored in a year or two and poison the lot of them. By then, she’d have had opportunity to seduce an intern at the School of Tropical Medicine and secure some new, hideously virulent bacillus for the job. Du Roy wouldn’t look so smug with weeping boils erupting all over his face.

  The others trooped behind the King and Queen of Horror.

  General Assolant was in full uniform, chest sagging with a glittery weight of medals and honours. In this private realm of fantasy, Père de Kern had promoted himself to cardinal. His red robes would have been too grand for Richelieu. His train trailed like a bride’s, and was carried by imps – naked children painted red all over and staggering as they began to suffocate. Charles Pradier wore judicial robes and magistrate’s hat, adopting the British convention of the black silk handkerchief draped over the top to signify passage of a death sentence. Eugène Mortain sported a tricolour sash over court clothes and had a drunken doxy with him. The fair-haired wench tittered and clucked, marring the solemnity of the occasion. Would she end up taking part in the performance? Blondes were as easy to replace as Maximilian’s little yellow birds.

  The audience wore red domino masks, for convention rather than disguise.

  Attendants in red livery set out chairs on the stage, close to the action. Individual trays for snacks and drinks were bolted to the chair-arms. There was even a folded-up programme placed on each cushion.

  Kate would have liked a look at the running order. With pathetic orphan sisters and an Aztec princess in the line-up, she doubted she’d get top billing. The best she could hope for was to be snuffed quickly at the end of Act One. Her corpse would be dragged off for dumping in the sewers while the audience enjoyed an intermission and exchanged opinions about her death scene.

  A small group of musicians – blindfolded, as promised – struck up a selection from Carmen.

  The audience took their seats.

  Mortain’s mistress evidently had no idea what she was about to see – she was laughing shrilly and flirting with everyone. The others were intent, quiet, perspiring, eager. Du Roy had a habit of licking his lips like a fat lizard. Assolant gripped the hilt of his sword as if he’d like to draw his weapon and hack randomly at the people in front of him – which, she supposed, he might well do. Watching wouldn’t be enough for these people. De Kern had his imps kneel down before him to form a footstool. Pradier counted out little pills from a box and swallowed them, washed down with a swallow from a silver flask.

  The surprise was Guignol’s role.

  The masked man was still on a leash, still held by Morpho. Where once he had been master of the stage, now he was a stooge.

  Kate saw blood on Guignol’s costume, seeping through. The mask was battered, the nose pushed in, as if he’d taken a bad beating.

  Even this close to her death, she was trying to understand.

  Was Guignol an unwilling participant in the après-minuit? She saw his eyes were shut, as if he didn’t want to look.

  Morpho tied Guignol’s leash to a post, and kicked him.

  The show had started …

  XI
>
  THE OLD SOLDIER was the opening act.

  The orchestra played a march as he saluted the audience with his remaining arm – the left. He sat on a stool and, with practised ease, worked off his left boot with his right foot. With rather more difficulty, he peeled off his sock one-handed and tried to roll up his trouser-leg, which kept snagging on his knee and rolling down again.

  Mortain’s blonde roared with laughter. De Kern swivelled his head almost entirely around, like a snake or an owl, and stared her into silence. She needed a swift pull from the flask after that. The priest’s head turned back and he gave a ‘pray continue’ gesture with his free hand. The other was tucked under his robe and horribly busy.

  Malita came to the Old Soldier’s rescue with a jack-knife and slit his britches for him, from the ankle-cuff to well above the knee. The cloth parted and flapped aside. For such an obvious invalid, the soldier had a healthy-looking leg.

  ‘Vive la France,’ he said. ‘Vive la République.’

  The orchestra played ‘La Marseillaise’, with some deliberate, comic wrong notes.

  Dr Orloff gave the Old Soldier a saw and he got to work.

  He fought valiantly against the urge to scream and only whimpered as he performed the auto-amputation. He chewed his long moustache. He had once been right-handed, Kate realised. His left-hand strokes were awkward. The saw kept slipping in its red groove. Nevertheless, he hit bone and parted cartilage before passing out.

  Mortain’s mistress stuck her fist in her mouth. Mortain took her neck like a kitten’s and forced her to keep watching.

  The Old Soldier fell off the stool. Sundered veins pulsed and spurted. Kate saw a flash of yellowish bone and clumps of gristle.

  Morpho stepped in, with an executioner’s axe raised.

  ‘No,’ insisted Du Roy. ‘He must be awake.’

  Dr Orloff applied a tourniquet to stem the flow of blood, then used smelling salts to wake the Old Soldier.

  ‘I am sorry,’ he said, through tears of pain. ‘I have had… a momentary lapse.’

  Morpho brought the axe down. The angle was awkward and the cut not clean.

  The Old Soldier screamed. And apologised again.

  Dr Orloff positioned the sundered knee over the stool, which made a decent chopping block. Morpho finished the job and tore away the leg, which he then tossed at Guignol, who flinched as he was kicked in the face by a disembodied foot.

  The doctor tightened the tourniquet.

  It was touch and go for a moment, but the bleeding was stopped and Orloff worked fast with hot irons and needle and thread.

  The audience, bored by this, gossiped. The musicians played a cake-walk.

  Blood pooled on the oilskin, creeping closer to Kate’s toes. Her fellow performers were either in shock or insane.

  His life saved, the Old Soldier was carried away… perhaps considering a fourth appearance, though for the life of her Kate couldn’t imagine how he’d come up with a new turn.

  The Red Circle weren’t that impressed.

  Stage Door Jeannot, sober at last, tried to make a run for freedom. He slipped in the blood. A crack sounded and a rifle bullet smashed his skull. Instantly dead, he somersaulted in the air and landed in a messy heap of tangled limbs.

  There was weak applause at his impromptu performance.

  Malita bit her cheek in disappointment. Kate supposed she’d expected to have the fellow to herself in a later, scheduled act.

  She smelled gunpowder. A cartridge-case pinged on the stage.

  Guignol struggled with his collar, trying to pull free. Mortain’s doxy was shocked silent. De Kern moaned with pleasure. Assolant furiously muttered, ‘Can’t abide a coward – should be shot, the lot of ’em!’ Du Roy looked bored – he had said murder wasn’t enough for him anymore.

  Someone had died in front of her. Kate was beyond fury and terror.

  XII

  DR ORLOFF WAS less expert than Guignol as a master of ceremonies. He hemmed and lectured, playing for time while the next act was setting up.

  Stage Door Jeannot threw him off his script.

  The corpse had to be removed and a pool of blood mopped, then the wet patch scattered with sand.

  Orloff fussed as all this happened in front of the audience.

  Du Roy glared at him. Kate supposed artistes who fell out of favour with the Red Circle got to make one last spectacular exit.

  Malita pulled her out of the line of waiting performers. One of the orphans clung to Kate’s skirt. Malita was about to slap the little girl. Kate deflected the blow with her arm and told the child everything would be all right. Her tongue went like leather as she lied. Malita led her to the props table.

  The prop-master held up a stiletto and stabbed it into the meat of his hand. The blunt-tipped blade slid into the handle. He gave the trick knife to her. Would it be any use? Malita impatiently showed her how to holster it in the top of her boot.

  ‘In the spirit of Montmartre, we present the famous apache dance,’ announced Orloff. ‘Performed by our own celebrated Morpho and a special guest… Miss Katharine Reed of Dublin.’

  So this was why she was dressed as a French streetwalker.

  The orchestra began the ‘Valse des Rayons’.

  Malita dragged her onto the stage. Morpho was waiting. The one-eyed ox now wore a tight, striped shirt and a red neck-scarf. A cigarette was stuck in the corner of his sneer. Red and yellow war paint striped his cheeks, as if he had Apache and apache mixed up.

  She’d seen this act the other night – the mock-fight of rough dance, as the ponce slings his tart around, miming slaps and kicks, with kisses between the blows. For the benefit of the Red Circle, she guessed the fight wouldn’t be mock and the slaps and kicks wouldn’t be pulled. The idea of being kissed by Morpho wasn’t too appealing either.

  No wonder they hadn’t given her a knife that would stick in anything.

  Morpho adopted an odd pose, like a matador – fists at his sides, up on his toes, bottom tucked in, chest puffed out, looking at her sideways with his single eye. There was a touch of vanity in his plumped-up self-regard. Only now, with Guignol tied up, was Morpho a real star.

  ‘Dance, girl,’ whispered Malita in her ears. ‘If you disappoint, they’ll go after your family.’

  Malita shoved Kate at Morpho.

  She slammed against his chest and he grabbed her hair, which hurt enough to get her attention.

  The herky-jerky music continued, with pauses Offenbach hadn’t written, as she was rattled around the stage. She struggled, but Morpho was strong and had done this before. He let her go and slapped her face hard, snapping her head around – a few more like that, and her neck would break.

  She aimed a kick at his shin. Make use of the damned boots!

  Deftly, he got out of her way and she fell over. Sliding on the still-wet oilskin, she got a sandpapery burn on her bare thigh. He jammed a boot in her ribs and she rolled over, trying to ignore the burst of pain.

  At this rate, her debut would be over in no time at all.

  Morpho took her arms and hauled her up again, lifting her off her feet and over his head, then wheeling her around in the air. She was dizzy. Flashes went off in her eyes.

  Up in the flies, she saw Sultan the Gorilla, rifle-barrel moving as he kept his bead drawn on her…

  …and, above him, a black shape, descending silently on the ape sniper. A dangling loop of cord hooked around Sultan’s throat. The Punjab lasso!

  She had only a glimpse, but it was enough. She had not been abandoned. A Phantom watched over her…

  …though she couldn’t help wishing Erik had got his act together a little earlier.

  Now, she had to get through this pas de deux without being killed.

  Morpho held her by an arm and an ankle and spun like a top. Her hair came loose and flapped like a flag in the wind. A panorama rushed past, faster and faster.

  The Red Circle. The orchestra. The prop table. The stagehands. Guignol, chained. The black chasm
of the auditorium. The painted pastoral scene, streaked with blood. The waiting victims.

  She tried to look up.

  Morpho let go and she slid across the stage, scraping her side raw, ripping her costume. Her shawl came loose and she skidded to a stop.

  A breathing moment.

  Above on a wildly swinging gangway, unnoticed by everyone else, a slender, cloaked, white-masked figure exchanged savate kicks with Sultan the Gorilla. Erik had entered the field.

  Morpho mockingly beckoned to Kate.

  At this point in the dance, the apache girl usually crawled on hands and knees back to her pimp to take more medicine. The little fool would try to stick him with her garter-knife but he’d bend her wrist back contemptuously until she dropped it.

  Kate pulled the toy stiletto from her boot-top. It had an edge but no point. Could she jam its spring?

  No time.

  Malita kicked her rump and propelled her towards Morpho.

  Mortain laughed and applauded. A particular aficionado of this act, it seemed. His blonde was watching again, almost lulled.

  If she tried to stab Morpho in the chest, the blade would do no harm.

  Determined not to die on her knees, she stood and countered his come-hither gesture with one of her own, summoning him to a fight.

  He brought out his own knife. A blade sprang from its handle. Not a prop.

  She flicked a glance upwards. Erik’s lasso was tight around the gorilla’s neck. She didn’t dare look too long, for fear of drawing attention to the show above the stage.

  Morpho puffed smoke and danced towards her.

  She slashed at his face, catching his cheek with the knife-edge. Used to scythe rather than stab, the blade didn’t retract. She barely scratched him, but a runnel of blood dripped from his face. He gulped and swallowed his dog-end. Coughing and choking, he thumped his own chest.

  Now, she got a good strong kick to his shins.

  More applause.

  ‘I love it when they fight back,’ said Mortain, loosening his sash. ‘Encore, encore!’