The Darkness Dwellers

by Kirsten Miller

  “Ah.” Kiki nodded. “So Sidonia has stolen my identity. I was wondering what you two had in mind.”

  “That wonderful gentleman Lester Liu was the inspiration. Having one of his daughters impersonate the other. Genius! Sergei, remind me to send Mr. Liu a thank-you gift as soon as we’ve finished with Katarina.”

  “I suppose that means you’ve come to kill me. May I ask what you’ve done with Verushka?”

  “Ms. Kozlova will be joining you in the afterlife,” Livia said. “We shall be visiting her next.”

  “Mother!” Sidonia huffed. “Stop answering the elf’s questions. I’m already running late as it is. Can we just get this over with?”

  “Darling, you were the one who insisted on seeing your cousin dispatched. The dreadful child would have been dead days ago if we hadn’t been forced to work around your social schedule.”

  “I wanted to make sure it was done right this time,” Sidonia said. “Okay, Sergei. Go ahead. But don’t get any blood on my shoes.”

  Sergei bowed deeply before removing a Russian combat knife from an ankle holster. “Your wish is my command.”

  “Stop trying to act cute. Of course it is!” Sidonia said, stomping her foot. “Say your last words, Katarina.”

  Kiki grinned. “I have a proposal for you.”

  “We’re not interested in any of your proposals,” Livia replied. “Nothing can save you now.”

  “I realize that,” Kiki said. “I don’t intend to bargain for my own life. I would like to barter for Verushka’s life instead.”

  “Why?” Sidonia asked. “She’s just an old servant.”

  “Then it should mean nothing to you if she lives,” Kiki observed. “But since you ask, Verushka saved my life more than once, and I would like to repay her before I die.”

  “Forget it,” Sidonia said. “Now that I have your title, there’s nothing you can possibly give me.”

  “Perhaps,” Kiki replied. “But I know how to save something you wouldn’t want to lose.”

  “Do all the elves talk in riddles?” Sidonia snipped. “Get to the point, Katarina!”

  “Your hair,” Kiki replied bluntly. “Your mother developed the Pokrovian royal curse at seventeen. And your seventeenth birthday is just around the corner, isn’t it? Do you ever dream that you’ll wake up bald? I know how to keep those nightmares from becoming reality.”

  Sidonia’s face was suddenly as bloodless as Kiki’s. “The curse can’t be stopped. Mother’s been to see the best specialists in the world. Her condition is incurable.”

  “Perhaps she hasn’t met the right experts,” Kiki said. “Do you recall the rat-repelling perfume you once coveted? Or the tonic that renders poisons and drugs ineffective? Well, the same young lady who invented those formulas has developed a cure for your condition.”

  “Why should I believe you?” Sidonia blustered.

  “I don’t expect you to believe anything. That’s why I’m asking only the life of one lowly servant in return for the cure. I can even have a supply delivered to you right here in Paris. All you’ll need to do is release Verushka.”

  “Don’t listen, Princess! This is one of Katarina’s tricks,” Sergei warned.

  “I agree, dear,” Livia said. “And wearing wigs isn’t as terrible as one might think.”

  “Did I ask for your advice, Mother?” Sidonia barked. “How would we make the trade, Katarina?”

  “One of my associates will contact you,” Kiki said. “She will exchange the cure for Verushka. Then you will be free to kill me.”

  “How will you know Verushka is safe if you’re locked away in a bell tower?” Sergei asked. He seemed genuinely curious—and more than a little bit wary.

  “That’s my problem, not yours,” Kiki replied. “Do we have a deal?”

  Sidonia took a deep breath. “I don’t know.”

  “Then I would recommend investing in some superglue. I can only imagine what your new subjects might think if your wig should ever fall off. You know how Pokrovians feel about bald queens. It’s such a primitive superstition, isn’t it? People can be so cruel.”

  “You have twenty-four hours,” Sidonia announced. “Sergei, get the door.”

  Chapter 17

  Unfortunate Side Effects

  NEW YORK CITY: WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 18

  Shortly before Hanukah, when I was nine years old, my mother took a job as a cleaning lady at the main branch of the New York Public Library on Forty-Second Street. Having earned three PhDs, she was a bit overqualified for the position. But it wasn’t a job my mother intended to keep. After all, we had our own remarkable library, which lined every wall in our home. My mother took the job for me. I’d read about the sprawling archives hidden below the library and neighboring park—miles and miles of books, documents, and forgotten treasures—and I dreamed of exploring them. My parents couldn’t afford the kind of presents that my Atalanta classmates received for Christmas or Hanukah. My gift that year was an after-hours tour of the semi-secret library archives that are buried beneath Bryant Park.

  For much of my childhood, I’d been haunted by the feeling that I was a disappointment to my parents. I never felt unloved or neglected, but at times I’d catch them watching me. And I knew they were wondering how two studious individuals could have produced someone so strange. I’d never come close to making straight As, and I spent my free time studying reports of alien abductions and watching videos about giant squid.

  The only trait I seemed to have inherited from Bernard and Lillian Fishbein was my love of books. Aside from our shared fear of Mother Nature, that was our family’s one little patch of common ground. The evening my mother snuck me into the library’s archives, we intended to stay for only an hour. Instead we roamed the aisles all night long, cracking open countless dusty tomes and leafing through the diaries of hard-living luminaries. A guard discovered us in the morning, and my mother was promptly relieved of her duties. We bought hot chocolates from a café in Bryant Park and reveled in our discoveries. It was the first day I really felt like a Fishbein.

  It might have been that memory that made me choose Bryant Park as the site of an early-morning Irregulars’ meeting to discuss Oona Wong’s family troubles. Or maybe it was the park’s strategic location—right in the center of Manhattan, an equal distance from the Irregulars’ various schools. But it’s just as likely that I wanted to make my friends pay. The previous day, I’d been up before dawn, ferrying the cure from one end of town to the other. Now it was the other girls’ turn to suffer a little. It was only fair. Right?

  “Where’s DeeDee? I have to get back uptown to class!” Luz announced. “We all got Betty’s e-mail this morning. She made it to Paris just fine. There’s nothing any of us can do until she hears from Kiki’s French boyfriend. And why are we meeting outside in a park, anyway? I’m freezing my butt off! Can’t we go to a diner and get some coffee?”

  “All restaurants in Manhattan are off-limits to us right now,” I explained.

  “Why?” Luz demanded.

  “Go ahead, Ananka. Tell them it’s all my fault,” Oona mumbled miserably. She was wearing one of Mrs. Fei’s old coats, and her long, glossy hair was hidden under an unflattering baseball cap.

  “Now that Betty is in France with the cure, we need to start focusing on our next project,” I said. “Oona’s in trouble. Lili Liu is still impersonating her. The girl’s been dining and dashing all over town. There’s a chance she could get Oona arrested. So we’re not going to test our luck at any restaurants until we figure out how to stop this girl.”

  “Why does that mean we have to meet in the cold? We can still talk on the phone! Or meet at a restaurant in Brooklyn!” Luz argued.

  “Brooklyn?” Oona looked confused. “I’ve never even been there.”

  “Me neither, but I’m pretty sure they have restaurants.”

  “You’ve made your point, Luz,” I said. “Next subject?”

  “I have an idea that might help us find Lili,” chirpe
d Iris. “How about a map?

  “A map of what?” Oona asked dismissively.

  “Well, I was watching a movie called Silence of the Lambs last night …”

  “Isn’t that R-rated?” Luz interjected. “Your parents let you watch that sort of stuff?”

  “Sure—don’t yours?” Iris replied matter-of-factly. The embarrassment on Luz’s face told us not to expect an answer. “Anyway, in the movie, the FBI is searching for a serial killer. They use a map to plot all the places he’s dumped bodies. It helps them figure out where the guy lives. So, what if we plotted all the places that Lili’s been spotted? It might help us zero in on where she’s been staying.”

  “That’s actually a pretty good idea,” Oona admitted reluctantly.

  “Thanks!” Iris beamed.

  Just then, a blast of wind tore through the empty park, shaking great clumps of snow from the tree branches. One landed with a splat a few inches to my left. “So, Iris, you and Oona get started on the map after school. We’ll meet again tomorrow.”

  “Why not tonight?” Oona asked. “It’s not going to take that long to make the map. We might even be able to hunt Lili down before Luz’s curfew kicks in.”

  “I have other plans tonight,” I said.

  “What do you mean you have plans?” Oona demanded.

  Fortunately, I never got a chance to answer. DeeDee was sprinting toward us, arms flailing and eyes wide.

  “Ananka!” she panted. “The blond woman in the black Mercedes! She followed me here! I tried to lose her, but she kept showing up everywhere I went. I swear, it’s like she has some sort of tracking device.”

  “Did you inspect your shoes and bags for devices?” I asked.

  “I know the rules! I do a check every morning!” DeeDee insisted.

  “You’re being followed?” Oona asked.

  “Stalked!” DeeDee corrected.

  “The fun never stops, does it?” Luz muttered. “Just when I was looking forward to a few minutes of downtime.”

  “Where is the lady now?” I asked.

  “Right across from the subway station.” DeeDee pointed toward the corner of Forty-Second Street and Sixth Avenue.

  “Did you get her license plate number?”

  “Of course I did!” DeeDee said. “I memorized it the first time I saw her. FTSVP01.”

  “Iris, stay here in the park and call 911,” I ordered. “Tell them you’re being followed by a black Mercedes, license plate number FTSVP01. Say you think the driver might be armed and dangerous. Try to sound really young and really scared. Have them send a cop right away. The rest of you come with me.”

  “Where are we going?” DeeDee asked.

  “To have a little chat with your stalker,” I said.

  Crouched down out of sight, the four of us traveled in a single line along a row of parked cars until we reached the Mercedes. The lady inside nearly soiled her beige leather seat when I stood up and rapped twice on the passenger’s side window. She was rail thin, immaculately dressed, and her hair was a shade of blond that comes out of bottles that cost five hundred dollars. The woman must have mistaken me for a juvenile panhandler, and her lips were forming the word scram when she spotted DeeDee standing to my right.

  There’s a Pokrovian folk saying that goes a little like this: Never trust a person who smiles for no reason. In my experience, the folk of Pokrovia can be a wee bit paranoid, but in this case, they’re probably right. There was no reason for the lady in the black Mercedes to be so overjoyed to find a fifteen-year-old chemist peering through her window. And yet here she was, showing more teeth than a crocodile. I wondered if the woman had mistaken DeeDee Morlock for lunch.

  “Who are you, and what do you want?” I demanded once the lady had lowered the glass barrier between us.

  “I’m sorry?” She kept on smiling, even as she feigned confusion. “Perhaps I should ask the same question of you?”

  “You know who I am. You’ve been following my friend for days. Either you tell us what you’re after, or we’ll let the cops find out. They’re already on the way. So talk fast and don’t even think about driving away. We have your license plate number.”

  My tough talk had zero effect on the woman. She simply passed a crisp white business card through the window. “My name is Faye Durkin. I’m a senior vice president at Fem-Tex Pharmaceuticals. I would like to speak with Miss Morlock about her hair-growing formula.”

  “How do you know about that?” DeeDee stepped forward.

  “Your physician, Dr. Edmonds, and I have been friends since Yale. He was the one who shared the wonderful news about your discovery.”

  “Don’t they teach doctor-patient confidentiality at Yale?” Oona asked. “Or did Dr. Edmonds just skip all the lectures on medical ethics?”

  Faye Durkin kept her eyes glued to DeeDee. “When Dr. Edmonds mentioned Miss Morlock’s visit to his office, he believed he was acting for the greater good,” she insisted. “Do you know how many people might benefit from a formula like Miss Morlock’s? Are you aware that thousands of women in this city alone suffer from life-altering hairlessness?”

  “No, but we know how much cash a cure could make for Fem-Tex Pharmaceuticals,” Luz said.

  “Hey, wait a second. Didn’t Fem-Tex come out with a product a while back that was supposed to treat female baldness?” Oona asked.

  “Yes, well, that formula had a few unfortunate flaws,” Faye Durkin admitted.

  “That’s right! I remember! It didn’t grow hair, and anyone who tried it came down with projectile diarrhea. I lost a fortune on your stock!” Oona growled.

  “I’m sorry to hear that, but I think a girl your age might be a little too young to be playing the stock market, anyway.”

  “Look, I don’t think you realize who you’re dealing with, lady,” Luz jumped in. “We’re not little girls, and we’re not idiots. We’re New Yorkers. Native New Yorkers. You need to start taking us seriously.”

  “Oh, but I do take you seriously,” Faye replied as if humoring an irate toddler.

  “No, you don’t. But you’re about to,” I told her just as a cop car pulled up, its siren wailing.

  “These girls bothering you, ma’am?” inquired one of the two officers in the car.

  “Excuse me?” Oona was instantly outraged. “She’s the one bothering us! We were the ones who dialed 911!”

  The cop regarded Oona through narrowed eyes. “You look familiar. I’ve seen you somewhere before. Wait … aren’t you that girl who got kicked out of Fat Frankie’s? The shoplifter whose photo is up all over Chinatown?”

  “No,” she said, taking a step backward. I slid an arm around Oona’s waist—not to comfort her but to keep her from fleeing before it was necessary.

  “You girls looking for trouble? You wanna take a ride down to the station?”

  “That won’t be necessary, officer,” Faye Durkin said sweetly. “These delightful young ladies were just giving me directions to Bloomingdale’s.”

  The policeman looked skeptical, but there was always a chance that one of us was a lawyer’s kid. “In that case, ma’am, you have a nice day,” he said. “And you girls get to school. If I see you on the streets after eight thirty, I’ll arrest you for truancy.”

  Faye Durkin beamed up at us as the cops drove off. “It looks like I just did you a good turn, ladies. Maybe you’d like to return the favor?”

  “Where did the police just go?” Iris had joined the group, but now Luz appeared to be missing.

  “Apparently the police won’t question a rich blond lady who drives a Mercedes,” I sneered.

  “You can hardly blame them,” said Faye Durkin. “Unlike gangs of teenage hoodlums, wealthy blond women don’t tend to be terribly dangerous.”

  “I don’t know about dangerous, but you’re definitely irritating,” DeeDee said. “There’s no hair-growing formula, Ms. Durkin. It was just a school science fair project that got out of control. I couldn’t replicate the results if I tried.”

/>   “And that would be a very plausible excuse, Miss Morlock, if I hadn’t taken the trouble to contact your school. The science fair was months ago. I believe you took home first prize for something called Morlock’s Miracle Mixture. It sounds delightful, but I’m afraid it would render too many of Fem-Tex’s most profitable products obsolete.”

  DeeDee could only play dumb for so long. “I worked my butt off making the Miracle Mixture. I spent ages testing it before I entered it in the science fair. I haven’t even started analyzing the hair formula yet. It’s not safe. …”

  “So there is a formula!” Faye Durkin clapped her hands together like a performing seal. “Don’t worry, our lawyers will address any safety issues.”

  “Your lawyers?” DeeDee asked. “Don’t you employ scientists to test all your new products?”

  “Sometimes it’s less expensive to face a few lawsuits.”

  “You’re not listening to me!” DeeDee snapped. “I just said the formula could be really dangerous!”

  “Oh, but I am listening. And I’m prepared to offer you a sum of money substantial enough to soothe any pangs of conscience. …”

  “Forget it, lady. DeeDee doesn’t need your dirty cash. We’re all independently wealthy.” I winced when Oona said it. The Irregulars didn’t need anyone looking too closely at our finances.

  “Oh really? And who exactly are we?” Faye inquired. “Are you some sort of girl gang?”

  “We’re just a group of teenage hoodlums who are late for school,” I said. “We don’t have any more time to talk.”

  Oona stuck her head inside the car. “Don’t follow DeeDee. Don’t contact her. Don’t even think about her. DeeDee’s answer was no, and it’s final.”

  “Let’s go,” I told the others.

  “Wait! Miss Morlock!” Faye called. When there wasn’t a response, she cranked her car’s engine. But as soon as she stepped on the gas, it was clear that she wasn’t going anywhere. All four of the Mercedes’s tires were flat.

  “Did you slash her tires?” I asked Luz once we were out of sight.

  “Who, me?” Luz replied as she groomed her nails with the blade of a Swiss Army knife.