Divah

by Susannah Appelbaum

  Itzy hauled the heavy lid open and found Aunt Maude.

  Flies were crawling on what were left of her eyes.

  75

  “I’d like to report a murder.”

  Itzy was back in the concierge’s private offices, staring at Wold.

  Wold blinked at her, but said nothing. Finally, he sighed.

  “A murder, Miss Nash? Surely not.”

  “Well—a body then. But I know who did it!”

  “Miss Nash, these are serious accusations you are making.”

  “My aunt is seriously dead.”

  Wold drummed his gloved fingers on the polished desk before him.

  Itzy crossed her arms and waited, her Hermès scarf flattened beneath them. The scarf, for all its expensive silk, felt scratchy and uncomfortable around her neck. As she pulled at it, she examined the concierge’s desk. It was neat and tidy, a stack of letters the only thing upon its glassine surface beside the phone.

  “Do I have to call police myself?”

  “We prefer to handle these things … internally. Our clientele, you see—” Wold made a showing of lifting the phone and dialing a few numbers. He eyed Itzy. “Dead you say? In a trunk?”

  “She didn’t get there by herself.”

  “Security?” he said into the receiver, an air of tired skepticism settling into his voice.

  Itzy looked at the phone, urging him to talk. One of the letters caught her eye, peeking out from the tidy row. It was on the cream-colored Carlyle stationery from her aunt’s writing desk. On it was the unmistakable scrawl of her own hand.

  Wold had never mailed her letter to her father.

  Back in the lobby, Itzy tried to remain calm. She felt weak and her breathing was shallow. She looked around unsteadily. The black marble floors were polished to a mirror sheen, a pool of obsidian. The chandelier, an island in its midst, clung to the ceiling. The murmur of conversation threaded across the room from the dining room, where somehow, incredibly, people were eating. Off to the left, the elevators chimed in the small vestibule, the hearth spit. A clerk behind the front desk was helping a guest in quiet tones, and Itzy watched the interaction as if from a dream.

  She looked around at the picturesque scene and wanted to scream.

  A seated diner eyed her steadily from a table laden with crystal and a deep-red wine. He looked strangely familiar to Itzy—a faint recollection, vague and unreliable. She frowned, trying to place him. His eyes lingered on her as he sipped his wine, his hand wrapped about the glass stem.

  A phone buzzed, and Itzy startled. The desk clerk excused himself from the guest, answering it. He listened for a brief moment, and then, turning, he scanned the lobby, locking eyes with Itzy. He said a few deliberate words into the receiver, never taking his eyes off her.

  The guest was fumbling in her purse. She was an older lady, her nails like claws. She turned to leer at Itzy. Half of her face hung slack, the skin pulled down by gravity, her one eye bulging and red-rimmed.

  Itzy was out the revolving doors in a flash.

  76

  “Maurice!” Itzy said, relief washing over her. Obscura & Co. was empty; none of the younger photo assistants were in their usual places by the lightbox and file cabinets.

  Maurice looked up from a catalog. “Itzy, I’ve been expecting you.”

  She saw his wings then, smaller than Gaston’s, with tight little silver-flecked feathers built for speed. They flexed and then folded.

  “I’ve been sick.”

  “I know.”

  He reached out with his weathered hand and tipped her chin up, inspecting her face. “Nice hair.” He brushed a lock of white hair aside.

  “Thanks.” She smiled. She tried to mean it. “Blondes do have more fun.”

  “Such a tiny thing,” Maurice said.

  A single tear ran down her face.

  “Hey—what happened to fun?”

  “Aunt Maude’s dead.”

  “Your Aunt Maude died in the line of duty, Itzy.”

  “How?”

  “It was a family business. She worked in her own way alongside her brother, your father, keeping the Upper East Side safe. When she went missing, I feared the demons finally got to her. Seems I was right.”

  “Th-the governess. She’s the Divah, isn’t she? Her eyes, they’re black as pitch—and that dog. She calls it Mops, like Marie Antoinette’s.”

  Maurice removed his magnifying lenses, folding them carefully and placing them on the glass counter. “Yes, Itzy. She is. And that dog is her trusted hellhound.”

  “Oh.”

  Maurice’s voice softened. “I know this is a lot to handle, Itzy. I’ll do my best to explain. While in Hell, demons maintain loyal subjects on the earthly plain and rely upon them for news and gifts—burnt offerings, even letters. And passage back topside, should the opportunity present itself. The doctor has apparently been successful in procuring a body for the Divah and conjured her forth.”

  “I thought Luc invited her,” Itzy said.

  “Luc may have invited her, Itzy. But you brought her here. In your bag. And from there, the doctor carefully nourished her as she grew in strength.”

  “So—everything? This is my fault?”

  “No, child.” Maurice held her gaze.

  “What does she want?” Itzy managed.

  “The same thing we all do.” He pointed at himself, the empty shop.

  “Which is?”

  Maurice thought this over. “Has anyone ever explained to you about the war?”

  She shook her head.

  “Angels and demons are more alike than we’d prefer to admit. In the end, we are all just soul stealers. Some work in the dark and some in the light. Those destined to die—as we call humans, Itzy—will depart the earthly plain with either an angel or a demon by their side. Where your soul ends up next depends on your escort, as I’m sure you can imagine. Or so it was for eons. But, well, things have gotten muddled—ever since the last great war. Ah, the good old days, when good and evil were so easy to define! While, classically, angels have fought for good, and demons for evil, these lines started to blur. There are sorcerer angels who battle for evil, and even demonic entities who align with the heavens. And then, there are ones like Luc and myself—ones who owe their alliegiance to no one. For that, we are ostracized or persecuted. We are deemed Fallen. Flies in their ointment. The traditional angels prefer instead to see themselves as on the side of righteousness in some grand battle between good and evil. We are soldiers in a war, it is said, and it would do no good to have no cause to fight for. But the futility of war weighs heavy on us—Luc especially. And Itzy, we’ve come to believe that the lines between good and evil are murky, and as so, all war is false.”

  Maurice paused, stretching his wings.

  “But while war is a murky affair, one thing is an absolute, Itzy. And that is that angels—demons, too—are not whole. We are beings of dark or light. Extremes. Dark or light, but not both—never both. And this, Itzy, is unendurable. All we want—all angels and demons want—is to be whole. So we wait at your bedsides. In the corners of darkened rooms. In hospital wards. And when it’s time, we slip your soul out of this realm and into the next. It is the closest we can ever come.”

  Maurice eyed her critically. “Do you know what a soul is, Itzy?”

  Here, words failed her.

  “It’s quite simple. A wholeness, a union of opposites. It’s the part of you that came into this world before you were named. Before you were Itzy.”

  “So, you want a soul?” Itzy asked.

  “I want to be whole. Although I’m old enough to know that this can never be.”

  “And Luc wants a soul?”

  Maurice sighed. “In the sense that a soul is the integration of darkness and light, then yes.”

  “And what does the Divah want? A soul?”

  “Not just a single soul, Itzy. The Divah wants all souls—every soul that has ever been, or ever will be. She wants to open the Gates of Hell a
nd rule oblivion.”

  A silence decended upon Obsura & Co. while Itzy digested this.

  “Wow. Luc sure can pick ’em,” Itzy finally said.

  Maurice smiled. “Something I’ve been telling him for centuries.”

  77

  “You say a soul is the integration of darkness and light,” Itzy said. “That reminds me of something.”

  Maurice raised an inquisitive brow.

  “Photography,” Itzy said.

  “Well, exactly!” Maurice smiled. “Now you see why we’re all drawn to it.”

  He produced a waxy envelope and slid it forward to her on the counter. The tattoo on his finger was old and timeworn, Itzy saw, the crisp lines fading.

  Her last roll of film. Itzy slid the glossy paper out and looked.

  Another contact sheet, from her tour of the basement with Johnny. The infrared film was high contrast, ghosty. The film was sensitive to heat and could pick up traces of people even after they’ve left the room hours later. The body heat from a fingerprint on a window. Bare footprints.

  Her eye was drawn to her photograph of Paris in the stairwell when she had surprised Itzy, the animal’s demon eyes frighteningly evident. Her eyes scanned the awful pipeworks—and something fierce with matted fur, a blur. It appeared to be holding a wooden club.

  Then Itzy came to the image of the coal room with Johnny. She had snapped a picture in the dark of Marilyn Monroe’s monogram.

  “What does that look like to you?” Itzy passed the loupe to Maurice, who looked down with a wrinkled eye.

  “Hard to say. It looks like a woman? In white. There, off to the left.”

  Could that be Marilyn? These were her tunnels.

  Maurice scrutinized her carefully. “Remember, Itzy. Film has the power to capture the unknown.”

  She flipped off the lightbox.

  “And infrared is an honest film. Beautiful. Brutal. But it always reveals the truth. Next time you’re down there, take another roll.”

  “The Divah’s taken my camera. There won’t be a next time.”

  “Bah.” Maurice shrugged. “Photography is a dying art.” His eyes found hers again. “Here—don’t say I never gave you anything.”

  A long silver package was now on the counter between them.

  “What’s this?” she asked.

  The angel shrugged, a little ripple of coarse hawk like feathers. “A little souvenir. From 1793.”

  Itzy examined the object with growing interest. A row of four fingerholes were punched in one side, a grooved grip for her thumb on top. A thin, elegant chain dangled from either end. Itzy pushed her hand through, gripping the cold steel, and pulled. The room rung with the sound of metal on metal, and Itzy had unsheathed the most unusual blade she had ever seen.

  Her breath caught in her throat. “Is this—”

  “It is. I had it modified to fit your hand. Cut down to a more manageable size.”

  “But Ava said it was missing! Destroyed in the Reign of Terror—”

  “Hardly! I’ve just been waiting for the right person to give it to.”

  Itzy lifted the guillotine blade.

  “Itzy, you brought the Divah to the Carlyle. Now’s your chance to send her packing.”

  She hefted it in her hand, curled her fingers tighter through the cold metal holes. She made a fist. The slanted and honed blade that once beheaded Marie Antoinette was now part of her hand.

  “How does it fit?”

  “Like a glove.”

  “You’ll want to practice, Itzy. That thing’s no toy.”

  “That shouldn’t be too hard, Maurice. The hotel’s crawling with demons.”

  As she turned to leave, a question came to her. “Maurice? You’re saying it’s impossible to be both angel and demon?”

  “Did I say that?”

  “Well, wouldn’t that solve everything? Dark. Light. All in one. Wouldn’t that make you whole?”

  Maurice thought for a minute, and then sighed. “Now that would be really something. And for an angel, not much is new.”

  78

  “Hold the elevator!” Itzy scrambled across the gleaming black floor. Of the hotel’s three elevators, one was open, but the doors were shutting as she ran. The tip of a polished cane emerged from within, and the doors bounced open again. Itzy clattered into the small enclosure and leaned against the back wall, clasping her case from Maurice, chest heaving.

  “Thanks,” she said to a stoop-shouldered man in a pinstripe suit, leaning on a cane. He wore the thick black glasses of the blind.

  Itzy brushed her shock of white hair from her face, considering her options. She had no intention of going home—to 1804—with her aunt’s dead body stuffed in a trunk in her room. But Ava would know what to do.

  “Eighteen,” she said to the operator. But the floor was already illuminated. She glanced again at the blind man. He stared straight ahead through the open doors to the Lobby.

  A couple boarded—a businessman and a mousy girl in a pantsuit, his secretary, Itzy thought. Now it was tight in the small enclosure, and the four endured some polite reshuffling, the mousy assistant jostling the operator and apologizing.

  As the elevator doors slid closed again one final time, Itzy saw the hellhound. Mops was warming himself beside the blazing fireplace, as still as stone. Their eyes locked, and the dog bared its yellowed teeth.

  “Where’s Johnny?” Itzy asked the operator, a potbellied man with a preponderance of nose hair. She felt the elevator lift off the ground.

  “Gone,” he shrugged. There was something between his teeth, Itzy noticed.

  “What, on vacation?”

  “Something like that.”

  Maybe Johnny tried to say good-bye when I was sick. Itzy liked that idea. She’d ask Luc, she thought, but remembered the dark look on his face each time Johnny’s name came up. Instead, Itzy took in the new arrivals. The businessman wore a charcoal-colored wool suit, and the mousy girl carried a leather attaché case. They, too, seemed to be going to eighteen.

  When the elevator stopped at the fourth floor, Itzy grew impatient. A man with a mustache and slick black hair boarded, some sort of crest sewn on his velvet jacket. His hair was in a style that could only be called a pompadour, smooth and velvety, like his attire. He glided in on silent slippers, smiling offhandedly. “Afternoon,” he said.

  At the sixth floor, the elevator braked yet again and Itzy had had enough.

  “You’ve got to be kid—”

  But Itzy never finished her sentence. The elevator doors opened on a woman with long flowing hair, intelligent eyes. The gleam of fame was on her, as distinct as wings.

  “Going up?” Julep Joie asked the crowded elevator.

  Itzy had seen pictures of Julep Joie, paparazzi shots of the actress as she embarked on some humanitarian trip to Ethiopia, and again on the streets of Paris with her famous husband and gaggle of children. She was a maverick, Julep Joie, which Itzy admired, and the star’s secretive lifestyle intrigued her.

  Room was somehow found for the superstar, and quickly.

  Itzy was now pressed against the back wall, a pinstriped elbow at her neck. She could just make out Julep’s distinct profile.

  “Floor?” the operator grunted.

  Julep turned and caught Itzy’s eye. “Eighteen,” she said, winking.

  The elevator operator pressed a button and the doors closed.

  Her stomach heaved as the elevator glided upward. She looked again at Julep, who was staring straight ahead now. Peeking out from beneath her collar was a splash of silk.

  Julep Joie, Itzy thought. I can’t believe that’s really Julep Joie!

  The elevator was gaining speed, hurtling upward. Itzy’s feet seemed heavy, her body slow and clumsy feeling. The elevator, actually, seemed to have a mind of its own. The burst of speed now ended suddenly, and the ride came to a sudden, grinding halt. But before Itzy’s stomach could leave her throat, the elevator lurched and jerked—sickening grinding noises rattling he
r nerves.

  Something was troubling Itzy though. There was something about the secretary that she couldn’t place. Something about her eyes. While she had her next thought—they are black pools of tar—the mousy secretary had already begun moving about the elevator in a blur. With one hand, the woman jammed the controls, and Itzy’s feet shuddered as the bank of lights blinked distressingly. With her other, she broke the operator’s neck, effortlessly twisting it around to face Itzy.

  Spinach. He has spinach between his teeth.

  The man’s mottled face stared at Itzy, a grimace contorting his features, until his knees buckled out from under him, and he crumpled, sagging to the floor. A grinding and repulsive shudder rattled the elevator, and Itzy found herself thrown to the far side of the small enclosure. The blade from Maurice was now wedged beneath the dead operator’s slack jaw. A line of thick spittle joined one to the other.

  Julep Joie’s beautiful face was so close she could smell her perfume, see the print on her Hermès scarf. “Stay down, kiddo,” Julep said.

  The lights were flickering, and the floor was swaying beneath Itzy’s feet. A voice was in her head—her own, she realized. Please don’t let the lights go out, it said.

  Julep was gone from Itzy’s side. Holding the railing, the superstar pushed off the wall, scissor-kicking the businessman. Itzy heard a greasy cracking noise, the crunch of bones as Julep’s foot connected with the man’s throat, knocking him off balance. Spinning, Julep pounced on him again—a well-placed kick and her heeled boot pierced the side of his neck. One sharp elbow to his temple, and he was down with a guttural snarl. Something flashed silver, and the man’s neck opened from ear to ear; dark oily fluid spurting out, the charnel stench of sulfur filling the air. The demon writhed, a horrid gurgling pouring from his torn throat, and then vanished in a puff of heavy brown spores and the smell of decay.

  “Jules!” The man in the velvet jacket shouted a warning. The mousy secretary whirled through the air, scratching at the superstar’s face with polished red nails. The two went down, thudding hard upon the uniformed body of the elevator operator.