Delilah Dawson - Wicked After Midnight

“Dang. Is this it?”

My dreams of opulence fluttered sadly to the floor with the dust bunnies. The room was a quarter of the size of the wagon I’d shared with Cherie and contained nothing but a narrow wooden bedstead with a sagging mattress, two ratty old chairs, a bedside table, and some hand-carved hooks for hanging clothes I didn’t own. The walls were a sorry, washed-out blue with a cracked mirror hanging dispassionately in a corner, and the sea-green floors were bare and dusty, in some places so gappy that I could see top hats moving below like shifting herds of cattle. My thighs clamped together instantly, just in case one of them should happen to look up. The lone window opened onto a dark alley.

“It could be worse, mademoiselle . You could be sharing a room with Limone or La Goulue.” Blaise shivered, his skin going over with dark blue spots like a pox.

“Are they that bad?”

I had always loved Toulouse Lautrec’s painting of La Goulue, the saucy can-can dancer who had ruled the Moulin Rouge, high-kicking the hats off her ensorcelled fans. Maybe she wouldn’t make the best roommate, but I still couldn’t wait to meet her in the flesh. Being here in the Paris of Sang was almost like traveling back in time on Earth and witnessing firsthand the larger-than-life historical celebrities from my art history books.

“La Goulue is all too real for my taste, mademoiselle .” The boy shook his head. “They do not call her the Glutton for nothing.”

“What does she feed on, then?”

“There is nothing she will not devour, mademoiselle .” He paused at the door, although I hadn’t seen him move across the room. “If you have everything you need?”

I spun around, which took almost all the space in the tiny chamber. Empty. So empty. “I don’t have anything. Do I get a nightgown or a blanket or . . . anything?”

The small boy shrugged his narrow shoulders. “You must earn it first, mademoiselle .”

He made to dart out the door, and I snatched him by the collar. “Wait.”

He half trembled, half sneered, waiting as if I might strike him. Instead, I sank down to my knees and gave him the closed-mouth smile that made me look sweet instead of dangerous.

“Please call me Demi. Mademoiselle is way too long.”

“ Oui , Demi. But you know, La Demitasse has just as many syllables.” And before I could ask him how he had managed to listen in on that conversation, much less how he knew what a syllable was, the impish blue daimon was gone.

There was nothing more to see in my room, of course. I would have to earn a blanket soon or freeze to death at night, if Franchia was anything like Sangland. As the hallway was still quiet, I went out to see if any other famous cabaret dancers called Paradis home. The fanciest door placard by far belonged to La Goulue, and I was certain I recognized the names Jeanne La Folle and La Cascadeuse. All the other names were Franchian, the same names my French teacher had assigned to us in high school.

As I traced La Goulue’s name with a finger, the long bout of applause far below ended, and footsteps sounded on the stairs like a herd of giddy wildebeest. For girls who were light on their feet onstage, the dancers of Paradis were noisy as hell when they were off the clock. As they appeared over the top stair, I felt very much like Simba in The Lion King , about to be run over by a gallumphing herd but without a tree to cling to.

“ Attendez . Who are you?”

The woman at the head of the colorful flock stopped halfway down the hall, and I whipped my hand behind my back as if the letters I’d been tracing on her sign had burned me. I knew her instantly, of course. La Goulue as a daimon was very similar to La Goulue from the paintings: thin, sharp, bendy, and with a head of golden hair. As I struggled to find words, her skin shivered over from sunny yellow to the same angrily striped red that I’d seen earlier on Mademoiselle Caprice.

“ Bonjour . I’m Demi Ward, but they call me La Demitasse.” I sketched the curtsy Criminy had taught me in the caravan, a courtly gesture that showcased my litheness and made my skirt fan out behind me. After a moment of silence, the entire coterie of daimons broke out in laughter.

“I wouldn’t be too proud of being a cup, if I were you.”

I recognized Limone’s neon green skin and matching acidic tone.

“If you are not a daimon, why are you here?” asked another girl, this one bright orange.

“She’s new, aren’t you, doll?” Mel rushed forward, her skin the cheerful green of four-leaf clovers. She put a bare arm over my shoulders and drew me close in a sisterly side hug. “Vale brought her up from the catacombs tonight. And if you’re up here, I suppose you got the job?” I nodded, and she pulled me into a real hug. “Good for you, darling. And this is your room? Ah, bon ! But it’s empty, isn’t it?”

La Goulue shrugged as if she’d seen a million girls come and go. She walked past us and into her room, slamming the door. Everyone else pushed toward my open door and peered inside.

“You have nothing? But that is so sad, chérie . Where is your trunk?”

“Were you robbed?”

“Paris was so nice before all the humans showed up, non ?”

As if on cue, they gave a collective sigh.

“Except for you, Demi, darling,” said a purple daimon as she patted my arm.

I was boggled, yet again, by the fact that daimons, so sensitive to every emotional change in a person’s heart and mind, could fail to see or smell the difference between a human and a Bludman, a predator and the prey, until they got very close, as Mel had, or saw the telltale fangs. But I wanted to start out here as myself and avoid the sort of lies that might make the daimons hate or resent me later. I wouldn’t tell them I was a Stranger, but I would let them know exactly what I was.

“Oh, I’m not human,” I said. I grinned, showing off my fangs, and the daimon girls drew back with a gasp.

“A Bludman?”

“It can’t be.”

“She’ll eat all the customers!”

“Will she eat us?”

“I don’t think so. We don’t taste so good, on the inside.”

Mel let out a piercing whistle, and the other daimons stopped sidling backward and chattering and instead stared at me as if I was a bludbear walking on two legs in galoshes.

“Silly things. Do you think Madame Sylvie would let her into the cabaret if she was dangerous?” She turned to me and put a hand on my shoulder as if to help me prove my point. “Demi, darling. Have you ever killed anyone?”

“Never. I’ve never even drunk from a live body. And Bludmen don’t care for daimon blood.”

The girls began whispering again, and Blaise stepped out of their throng.

“It’s true. Madame Sylvie tested her against Monsieur Philippe. She kissed him on the cheek.”

The purple daimon let out a glittering laugh. “If you can get close to that buffet of flesh without drawing blood, you can withstand anything.”

“I almost killed him just last week, and I can’t even eat him,” added a pink daimon.

They all laughed and crept forward, and I closed my lips over my fangs to smile.

Limone pushed her way past the girls and stood to face me. Her cheekbones were hard-cut, her face pointed and austere. Hers was a cruel beauty, and in a way, I envied her. Even after being bludded, I still felt too soft, too curved, too pink-cheeked. No one would mess with Limone.

“Just because a dog licks your hand does not mean it won’t turn on you.”

I showed my fangs, my posture as straight and aggressive as hers. “I don’t plan on licking you or turning on you,” I said. “I’d rather be friends.”