Delilah Dawson - Wicked After Midnight

“Eat?” I shrugged. “I don’t eat.”

She shook her head no and did another sign.

“Mouth rain?” I guessed. “Drool?”

With a silent laugh, she made fangs of her fingers and tapped them against her neck.

“Oh! Do I need blood?”

An enthusiastic nod.

“It would help.”

She inclined her head, and I followed her down the stairs. In the hallway, my eyes went straight for the niche where Vale had kissed me—and I had kissed him back. Part of me hoped to see him there, maybe leaning against the brick wall nonchalantly and smirking, waiting for me. But he wasn’t there, of course. If all was going according to plan, he was out in the city, trying to find information on a pretty blond Bludman who had recently appeared under mysterious circumstances.

I almost missed it when Bea ducked down a different niche that was actually a hallway. Just a little ways in, she opened a hobbit-sized door and scrunched over before disappearing inside. With little choice, I followed her into the dark. Small tendrils of light occasionally filtered in from up high, but below my knees it was so dark that I couldn’t tell if the sandy debris under my feet was dirt, stone, or more crushed bone. When Bea finally knocked softly on a wooden door, I stopped behind her and held my breath, hoping for fresh air. At least I wasn’t trapped in here with a yummy human.

The door opened a few inches.

“Eh?”

The face that appeared in the gap surprised the hell out of me, as I’d written a paper on the symbolism of, well, pretty much her. It was the girl from Édouard Manet’s A Bar at the Folies-Bergère , except that her eyes weren’t dead. They were narrowed and annoyed under hay-colored bangs that had lost any luster they originally possessed.

Bea mimed the same thing she’d originally tried with me, the one that looked like mouth rain .

“No blood magic, Beatrice,” the girl said severely. “You know how Madame Sylvie feels about . . . oh.”

Bea had moved aside to reveal me, doubled over in the tunnel. “Hi,” I said with a little wave.

The girl sucked air in through her teeth. “Must be the new Bludman.” She put a reddened hand to her plump white neck, rendered pale by the deep blue velvet of her gown. “Are you as tame as they say?”

I grinned. “Want to step into the tunnel to find out or just give me some blood to be sure?”

Bea shook with a silent laugh, and the girl shrugged as if cleverness was an itchy flea in an especially tender place. The door closed, leaving Bea and me in the dark, her breathing strangely silent.

When the door opened again, the girl shoved a chilled vial into my hand. “It’s cold and old. But if you slip me a few coppers, I can maybe find some fresh.”

“I don’t have coppers now, but I will soon.”

She raised one plucked eyebrow. “I don’t have fresh blood now, but I will . . . then.”

The door closed, and Bea’s hand patted my forearm swiftly in apology.

“It’s okay. Everybody gives the new girl trouble, right?”

I caught a flash of her nod as she moved around me and back down the hall the way we had come. Considering that I couldn’t sip without throwing back my head, I curled my hands around the vial to warm it while I followed Bea out. I did notice a little gust of air about halfway through, and when I looked up, I saw a flash of lavender clouds lit by the weak sun. I hadn’t seen a window since entering Paradis, so it was the first time I’d seen the sky since stepping into the catacombs with Vale. The scent of ozone and impending storm filtered down like dust, and a lone raindrop sizzled on my cheek. Up ahead, Bea tapped the walls, and I hurried on.

I stepped out and straightened, leaning backward to crack my spine. As I lifted the vial to pop the top, Bea grabbed my arm and dragged me away, and I chugged it just as we entered the wings of the stage.

Paradis looked different in the morning. With no crowds, only half the lights, and a chill in the air, it called to mind a cavernous old church built on the bones of sacrifices and still echoing with noise that had fled. The girls were gathered in small groups or standing alone, practicing dance steps and bits of arias and acrobatics. A few daimon men moved among them, their foppish clothes and bored gazes indicating they had no interest in the rainbow of sleepy cabaret girls running through their acts in various states of undress.

“Did you get any sleep, chérie ?”

Mel was the same emerald green she’d been when I’d met her last night, a color almost exactly the opposite of Mademoiselle Caprice and her sons in Criminy’s caravan, at least according to the color wheel. She was dressed in what amounted to a ballet costume on Earth—a leotard, tights, toe shoes, and a ragged tutu the color of dust. Four more daimons in similar costumes waited in a half-circle, whispering behind their hands and staring at me.

“A little,” I said. “After things got quiet.”

She laughed. “Oh, la. That’s probably the last time you’ll have the opportunity to sleep at all while Paradis is open. You’ll be so exhausted tonight you’ll barely be able to fall into your own bed.”

“Oh, goody.”

“I’m sorry, Mademoiselle Demi, but is honest work a problem for you?” The daimon who had so rudely awoken me appeared, toes tapping beneath her golden gown.

“No, madame .”

“Mademoiselle Charline. Your choreographer.”

I snorted to myself. Of course. Of course there would be a Sang version of Charles Zidler, the famous mastermind behind the Moulin Rouge.

In response, I was slapped across the face for the second time that morning, and this time, I most certainly did hiss. She didn’t even flinch. “If you wish to work at ze most famous cabaret in the entire world, you will learn respect, hard work, and my goddamn name, you vicious little scab.”

I swallowed down my desperate need to rip her to shreds but only for Cherie’s sake. “Yes, Mademoiselle Charline.”

Her mouth pursed. “Better. Now. Show me every single trick of which you are capable.”

“Here? Now?”

All the other daimons had stopped their own practice to stare at me, and I felt the full force of a hundred eyes of all different colors and shapes, some with unnerving horizontal pupils like a goat’s.

It was Mademoiselle Charline’s turn to snort, but hers was an elegant French snort.

“Fifty daimon dancing girls will be just as cruel as a thousand rich Parisian gentlemen. There’s no better trial of your mettle.”

I nodded. I could do this.

“I need three chairs, a mouth stand, a glass box, and a large ball.”

Mademoiselle Charline jerked her chin at the daimon girls standing behind Mel, and they scurried into the wings like terrified mice. Charline’s foot tapped as we waited, and I went through the abbreviated series of stretches Cherie had taught me years ago, the bare minimum that would limber up my body enough to perform the full range of motion required by someone in my profession. It was rote now, as natural as taking a shower or making a bed.

After years of careful practice, my elbows and shoulders could hyperextend easily, and my spine could curve in unnatural ways that I tried not to contemplate too deeply. I’d taken gymnastics as a child on Earth, but being a Bludman made my entire skeleton feel like a Slinky. I forgot, most of the time, that I wasn’t human anymore, but it was never more apparent than when I was contorted like a snake, my fangs digging into the stand while I balanced my feet on my head and salivated over the audience.

The daimon ballerinas reappeared, carrying much-mended practice pieces, not the more showy equipment that would be used during actual performances. I checked each item carefully to ensure that if I embarrassed myself, it would at least be on my own and not because of a weak chair leg or cracked mouth stand. Satisfied, I replicated the setup I had used at Criminy’s Clockwork Caravan and stood gracefully, arms up and show persona in place.