“You coming, bébé? Or are you scared?”
I tossed my hair. “Scared? This is what I am, Vale. I’m a creature of Darkside.”
He shook his head. “Not here. In Paris, things are different.”
This time, I reached for his hand, and his fingers curled reassuringly through mine. The buildings were narrow and thin, the alleys crooked and riddled with shadows. Bludrats roamed, big as cats and bristling with fur the color of dried blood, sometimes a lighter mauve. They ignored us, and we ignored them. When one skittered by with a child-size hand in its mouth, I kept my eyes up from then on.
The shops we passed were typical for Darkside and yet decidedly . . . well, darker. In London and Manchester, Crim had told me, there was a malevolent area of Darkside that no one but villains visited. Deep Darkside, they called it. In most cities and smaller towns, though, Darkside was composed of compulsory ghettos and shops specifically catering to Bludmen. Here, it was like an evil version of Main Street in Disney World. The shop fronts were elegant and intricate, with wood carvings and stone gargoyles and gleaming windows, but the things behind the windows were twisted and strange. When Vale stopped before the only shop with windows blocked by black velvet curtains, a shiver ran up my spine.
“Maybe it’s closed,” I said hopefully. “No sign.”
The look Vale gave me was grim and somewhat pitying. “He does not need one.”
Instead of pushing the door open or knocking, Vale pressed his thumb to the sinister fang of the bludbunny-shaped door knocker. When he smeared a drop of blood against the peeling black paint, the red sank magically into the wood. The door swung open on silent hinges, revealing a crowded room shot through with smoky beams of light piercing the black curtains. The walls were redder than red, cracked in the corners, and lit with buzzing carnival lights around the edges.
Vale stepped in first and pulled me through. I hesitated for just a moment on the threshold, and the door slammed shut, almost smacking my hip. I spun away and nearly stumbled into the carved white fangs of a herd of screaming, carousel-horse heads arrayed on spikes. Stumbling back, claws outstretched, I bumped into a stuffed owl swinging from the ceiling by a hook. Off-balance, I sought Vale’s side, sighing in relief as his hand curled around my waist.
Across the room, a counter sat unmanned, the greasy glass obscuring glittering objects within. Big jars of peculiar items sat in rows on shelves, and I noted powders, the twisted pink petals of dried bludrat ears, ivory-yellow teeth of all sizes, and one jar filled with liquid and what appeared to be sheep eyeballs. A dusty dentist’s chair of metal and ripped fabric lurked in the corner under a cone light, making me shiver when I saw the rust-flecked instruments hung on the wall behind it.
“Touch nothing,” Vale whispered.
“Didn’t wanna,” I whispered back.
A cacophony started up, somewhere in the building. Mad barking that reminded me of reading Cujo as a little girl, far before I was old enough to handle it. There were no doors that I could see, no curtains to other rooms, and Vale pulled me behind him and turned to face a gaping hole that had appeared in the floor, roughly hewn from the wide wooden boards. I was sure it hadn’t been there only moments ago. Nails clicked on stone far below, and the barking intensified. I hadn’t noticed him move, but there was suddenly a strange and evil weapon in Vale’s hand, like an intricately cast version of Wolverine’s claws. I plucked a parasol from an umbrella stand made of a polar bear’s head and open jaw and prepared to face whatever nasty thing was growling and slobbering up the steps.
“Monsieur Charmant!” Vale barked. “We wish to parley!”
There was no answer but a sudden silence as the first dog’s head came up over the stairs, its lips pulling back to growl so low and deep that it vibrated my ribs. Slow claws clicked, more growls joined it, and the thing appeared in the scant light.
“Are you shitting me?” I shouted, letting my parasol drop. “French poodles?”
“Franchian wolfhounds,” Vale muttered, “Bludhounds, for short.”
I stifled a giggle. Because they were totally French poodles, cut into the usual balloon-dog shape, with poofs on their heads and butts and around their ankles.
Then I looked closer and saw the fucking fangs. Like a saber-toothed tiger’s, they curved down over the jaw until the things opened their mouths and howled, which was even worse.
Six of them crawled up from hell and took the floor, spreading out around us. They were nearly as tall as I was, their heads canted downward and their shoulders hunched like hyenas.
“You think those are . . . wolfhounds?”