Compact with the Devil: A Novel

by Bethany Maines

  Notre Dame was Notre Dame; impressive and Catholic and filled with the incessant murmur of a few hundred tourists pretending to be quiet.

  “I thought it would be more sacred,” said Kit, looking around at the massive columns and the overhanging rose window. But as they stopped in front of a quiet alcove chapel, Notre Dame sneeked up on them, and they felt it anyway—the tug of a million prayers layering over each other thicker than leaves in fall. Kit dropped a Euro into the offering box and lit a candle.

  “For my dad,” he said, crossing himself, and then looked at Nikki with a half-embarrassed smile. “I suppose you think it’s silly?”

  Nikki shook her head and lit a candle of her own. “For my father, wherever he is,” she murmured, and crossed herself as well.

  It seemed a thousand years since she’d watched the Catholic mass with her father’s mother or felt the old woman’s gnarled hand as they walked toward the white-robed priest waiting with the blood of Christ. Nell had never liked the church; she said it was a guilt trip designed to keep women under the domination of men. But looking up at the vaulted ceiling and light gray stone turned dark by eight hundred years of smoke and the touch of human hands, Nikki felt a new appreciation for the church. Notre Dame was a home for any Catholic who walked in the door; Nikki felt a swell of envy for everyone who knew they belonged somewhere. Kit took her hand as they walked back toward the doors, and it felt comforting.

  Their solemn mood lasted only as long as it took them to cross the water into the Latin Quarter. A bustling hive of commerce and the historic site of the camps of France’s Roman conquerors, the Latin Quarter had long been the seething home of students, revolutionaries, tourists, and all things ineffably Paris. Barkers stood at the doors of the restaurants and called people in like carnies at a sideshow. Everyone was selling something, and just about everyone was buying. The air was briskly cold, and their breath came out in white puffs, but in among the crowded, narrow streets it didn’t seem so cold.

  By seven o’clock darkness was falling and the cafés were filling up. Nikki and Kit followed the crowds winding toward the restaurants. Soon they had settled into the corner table of a steamy café and were sharing a traditional bowl of onion soup.

  “I feel a bit silly,” he’d said, poking a hole in the crispy golden crust of Swiss cheese and dipping a slice of bread into the soup, “but French onion soup is what you’re supposed to eat.”

  “We’re being tourists today, so we have to. I think it’s a law.”

  “Right!”

  After dinner they began to chat with the twentysomething French couple at the next table. It took only a few moments of Kit flashing his smile around before the couple swooned and invited them to Le Gator.

  “All right, so the plan is I order water and I stick with it,” Kit muttered into her ear as they approached the bar. “If you see me with anything else, you grab me and get me the hell out of there, OK?” He looked at her with worried eyes and Nikki felt his hand tense inside his mitten.

  “OK,” she said, and smiled encouragingly.

  Le Gator was a karaoke bar swarming with singles and people who weren’t single but sure acted like it. Then came the drinks. Marci and Jean were the soul of hospitality and their friends were friendly, or at least smelled fresh blood. The drink offers began to stack up.

  “Non, merci,” answered Kit for the fifth time, and then Nikki caught the sparkle of wickedness in his eye. “But my friend, she would love one.”

  After that the drinks came straight to her, which, on reflection, was how Nikki came to be dancing to Kit’s version of “Respect” with a burly Frenchman. After that the night was a blur; eventually the tired DJ was asking for the last song requests of the night. Nikki had flipped through the book but hadn’t turned in any of her slips. She loved singing in her car, but the idea of singing in front of people terrified her.

  She felt her phone ring in her pants pocket, and she dodged out of the crowd to answer it, feeling a sudden quickening of her pulse and the slight tang of guilt as she recognized Jane’s number.

  “Jane!” exclaimed Nikki eagerly.

  “Nikki!” answered Jane. “I’m with Astriz.”

  “You’re OK then?”

  “Er, yeah …” There was a popping sound in the background, and Nikki could hear the squeal of tires. “More or less,” said Jane, sounding breathless. There was another sequence of sounds—beeps and clicks—and Jane swore under her breath. “We’ve got a piggyback. Nikki, I’ll be at your location tomorrow. Contact you then.”

  The phone went dead, and Nikki felt the blush of fear. She looked around for Kit, fighting the feeling of alcohol. They needed to leave. They shouldn’t have been here in the first place. She dove back into the club, swimming against the crowd.

  “Nicole, Nicole Lanier,” announced the DJ over the loudspeaker, and Nikki’s head snapped around.

  “Your turn!” yelled Kit, pushing her onto the stage.

  “I didn’t turn anything in!” yelled Nikki over the commotion of the bar.

  “Did it for you!” he yelled back.

  Nikki stared into the spotlights in a blind panic. She looked back at Kit and shook her head; he nodded and grinned.

  The music started with a twangy guitar and almost country sound. Nikki knew the music and licked her lips nervously as the words began to scroll across the TV in front of her. It was a song about Mexico and letting go. It wasn’t a common song; Kit had obviously picked it out just for her. She didn’t know whether to be mad or grateful. She resisted thinking about it, closed her eyes, and sang.

  Mere minutes later, they were exiting the club with a wave of other club-goers. Nikki felt high from singing in public; she wondered if this was how Kit felt all the time.

  “Hey, mister, got a light?”

  Kit paused, and Nikki, who had her arm through his, swung to a red-rover stop, still humming her song. Her panic over Jane had subsided. After all, Astriz was with her. What could go wrong?

  “Sure,” answered Kit, fumbling in his pockets for his lighter and pulling out his American accent to match the stranger’s.

  Even in her inebriated state Nikki felt a flare of worry. No one would see through a fake American accent faster than a real American. She tugged at Kit’s arm, wanting to leave. Kit waggled his eyebrows at her, ignoring the warning tugs, and lit the stranger’s cigarette.

  “Thanks,” said the man as Kit lit his own cigarette.

  “No problem,” answered Kit, allowing Nikki to pull him away.

  He jogged a few steps to catch up to Nikki’s pace, and he put his arm around her shoulders, slowing her down. They staggered for a moment on the uneven flagstones until their strides synchronized. Nikki giggled at their ineptitude. The tall stone buildings were jammed together around them and seemed to lean into the yellow pools created by the streetlights, absorbing the sound of Nikki’s laughter and sending back the smallest trill of an echo. Behind them most of the other karaoke singers were heading the other way. In front of them Nikki could dimly see a few figures in the mist walking toward the Metro station.

  “You say you’re going to leave,” Kit sang into her ear, quoting his own song “Devil May Care”; it was practically the only song that hadn’t been sung that night. Nikki laughed again, louder this time.

  “You say you’re going to leave, but I know you won’t. He promises forever, but I don’t. Sweet sin, slipping in. The devil may care,” they sang together. Kit paused, spreading out his arms to belt out the last line to the overhanging streetlight. His voice reverberated off the stone around him, and Nikki shushed him, covering her mouth to stifle her own giggles.

  “But I don’t,” sang Kit, finishing the line, but quieter this time and looking at her.

  Nikki stared at him. Z’ev hadn’t ever promised forever. There had never been any guarantees. Maybe this was just the way things were supposed to be: she and Kit on a cold Paris night under the soft glow of a streetlamp. Nikki found she was holding her bre
ath. What if he tried to kiss her? He took a step closer. What if he didn’t?

  Out of the corner of her eye, Nikki caught a swift movement in the shadows. One of the other bar patrons? Nikki couldn’t be sure, and suddenly she realized that they were standing in the middle of the street in a huge pool of light, twelve feet from any decent cover. Nikki felt a chill stab of fear and an inrush of cool adrenaline blowing away her drunken fog.

  “The Metro closes at twelve-thirty,” said Nikki, reaching out a hand.

  “Who cares?” he asked, blowing out smoke and flicking ash off his cigarette, changing his mood as swiftly as she had. Nikki smiled. He reminded her of Val when he smoked. They had the same way of using their cigarettes as visual punctuation.

  “Duncan will,” said Nikki, still holding out her hand. He shifted his cigarette into his left hand and reached for hers with his right.

  “And we wouldn’t want Papa to worry, now, would we?” he asked, pulling her close to him. Hand in hand, they walked toward the Metro station. In the shadows, Nikki thought she heard the scuttle of movement.

  They reached the blocky square structure that marked the entrance to the Châtelet Metro stop. Its cavernous maw sucked them in, whisking them along in a wind created by the tunnel that stretched for what seemed the entire length of Paris. They hurried down a ramp, anxious to get away from the biting wind that shook their hair and tried to sneak inside their jackets. Huddling together, possibly for the warmth, Nikki watched their breath come out in white puffs that hung in the air before dissipating. The lower they went the less white there was. By the time they reached the turnstile, their gloved fingers fumbling to feed the tickets into mechanical slots, the puffs had disappeared altogether. A few more feet and she felt as if they were in a sauna compared to the outside.

  Nikki and Kit wound their way farther into the warren of the underground, pausing at a map to find the platform they needed.

  “We want the one going toward La Defense,” said Nikki, fingering the map. Kit nodded and oriented himself to the multicolor signs pointing in various directions.

  The square, cream-colored tiles that lined the hall reflected sound oddly. From somewhere deeper in the Metro wound the sound of an accordion and violin playing a sad song, but whether the music was originating from ahead or behind them Nikki couldn’t say for certain. Occasionally, they passed another late-night traveler, but they all avoided eye contact, hurrying in their own homeward directions.

  “A bit more of this and I’ll be taking off my jumper,” muttered Kit, stripping off his windbreaker as they reached their platform. Nikki scanned the empty expanse and wished the train would hurry.

  “Your what?” asked Nikki, distracted from her surveillance.

  “My jumper,” he repeated, flapping his oatmeal-colored sweater to create a breeze while Nikki continued to stare blankly. “Why, what do you call it?” he asked, still flapping the sweater—it was of the heavy, woolen variety and looked handmade.

  “A sweater,” she replied. There was something familiar about the sweater, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it.

  “Well, yeah, it’s that too. It’s not that funny,” he said when Nikki laughed.

  “A jumper is like a pinafore,” said Nikki. “Something schoolgirls wear.”

  “Hmm,” Kit said, looking down, as if trying to picture himself in a pinafore. “Kinky, but I think I could pull it off.” And he posed, strutting in his imaginary pinafore. Nikki laughed.

  “I like making you laugh,” he said, dropping the pose.

  “You don’t have to, though. You know that, right?” she asked, frowning. “You don’t have to entertain me.”

  “You have a good laugh. I like to hear it.”

  “But you don’t have to. I mean I laugh because you’re funny, not because …”

  “Not because I’m paying you?” he said shrewdly.

  “Well, you’re not actually paying me for anything.”

  “Well, I bloody well should be. Nobody does makeup for the entire band for free. If you’re not getting paid, you should really have a talk with Brandt.”

  “No. Well, yeah, I am, but I mean it’s not my normal job; I work for Carrie Mae. So I’m here because I want to be, is all I’m trying to say.” Liquor was making Nikki’s tongue stumble over itself.

  “That’s funny, I thought I had to talk you into letting me tag along.”

  “I think I may have been slightly mistaken about not letting you come along today. I had a good time.”

  “So that would make me, what? Right? Oh, yes, I think so.” He threw his hands up in a rugby referee’s signal for a goal.

  “A girl can make mistakes,” said Nikki, laughing.

  “Can I be one?”

  “You wouldn’t be my worst one ever,” she answered truthfully.

  “Hell, I could be your best mistake ever,” he said, and leaned in to kiss her. Their lips brushed, a kiss that was soft and firm at the same time and might have gone farther if it hadn’t been for the bullets flying past them.

  PARIS VII

  Subway

  Nikki tackled Kit into the subway well. Above them on the platform, two ski-mask-wearing men ran toward them, firing pistols. Huddled under the meager shelter provided by the lip of the platform, Nikki tried to force her brain into a plan.

  One of the men jumped down, nearly on top of them, and Nikki went from planning to reacting. She threw Kit’s windbreaker in the man’s face, shoved Kit to the left, and dove right as the man fired through the fabric. Popping upright, she unbuckled her Carrie Mae belt and yanked it through the belt loops. The coiled steel slid through the loops with ease and straightened with a snap on the gunman’s arm as he turned to aim at Kit. Whipping it around, she snared the foot of the second gunman, who was still above them on the platform. The end of the belt pulled him off his feet. Bullets sprayed in an arc at the ceiling as he went down. Swinging the belt overhead, she brought it slapping down on his wrist, sending the gun skittering away from both of them. The first man came back at her, but Kit surprised him with a diving tackle.

  “Kit!” she yelled, grabbing him under the armpit and pushing him toward the other side of the platform. Kit took a final stomp at the man’s groin before allowing himself to be dragged away.

  Vaulting onto the opposite platform, they sprinted down the hall, heedless of the direction.

  “Kit,” gasped Nikki, hearing the sound of a train arriving.

  “Which way?” he demanded.

  “This way, I think,” she said, and ran down the tube in time to see a train pull up on their side of the platform. They dashed down the ramp and hurtled into the train car. Throwing Kit down into a seat compartment, she followed suit.

  Then the train didn’t move. And didn’t move. Nikki wrapped her belt around one fist and concentrated on willing the train to move. The door slid shut with agonizing slowness, and Nikki breathed a sigh of relief as the train pulled away from the platform.

  “Did we lose them?” asked Kit, gophering up to look around.

  “Wait till we clear the station,” she growled, yanking him back down.

  The train chugged into the tunnel, the compartment lights flickering a little as the train picked up speed.

  “Who were those guys?” asked Kit, sitting up in the seat.

  “I don’t know,” said Nikki, sitting opposite him.

  The train swayed back and forth. Nikki could see through the glass of the connecting door into the next compartment and, when the cars were aligned, into the one beyond that.

  “I … wow.” He ran a hand up into his hair. Then he shook himself all over like a dog getting out of a bath. “I can’t believe they actually shot at us.”

  “Yeah,” said Nikki, thinking that there hadn’t been much us. Mostly they’d been aiming at Kit.

  “I … wow,” he repeated. His fingers were drumming rapidly on his knees.

  They rode in silence. The train slid into a stop and Nikki considered getting off, but a g
lance out the window at the treacherously empty platform changed her mind. She decided to wait a few stops, checking the names against her mental map of Paris—they were heading north. Whoever was after them would have to guess which stop they would get off at, and she wanted as much distance from their pursuers as possible.

  “Look, Kit,” said Nikki, determined to set a few ground rules, “next time something like this happens, just run, OK?”

  “What do you mean, run? And what do you mean next time?”

  “If you get a chance, run. Don’t come back and try to help. I mean, I appreciate it, but don’t worry about me, just get out. Do you understand?”

  “No, I don’t. Those guys had guns. Am I just supposed to leave you there? No way. Besides, we agreed we were partners. Can’t leave my partner behind.”

  “I like partners, but honestly, Kit, just let me worry about my own skin, OK?”

  “No,” he said, smiling cheerfully around his stubbornness. “But don’t let’s argue. With any luck, it’s not an issue that will come up again.”

  “You’re going to give me a heart attack,” muttered Nikki. Hadn’t Z’ev said those same words to her not so very long ago?

  “Let me know when your left arm starts tingling,” replied Kit unrepentantly.

  “Mmm,” murmured Nikki, avoiding further argument and trying not to think of a similar argument with Z’ev. That was totally different, right?

  “Do we even know where we are?” Kit asked. He got up to stare at the Metro map above the doors. “I think we’re on the four,” he said, swaying slightly with the train. “But I don’t know which way we’re going. I should have looked at the sign on the last stop. It’s either toward Gare du Nord or Montparnasse.”

  Nikki winced over his pronunciation of Montparnasse; he put the “T” in. She looked up, meaning to correct him, and glanced out the back window as the train jogged the cars into an unprecedented straight line.