Bea led us down the stairs, through the hallway, and straight to the trapdoor in the stage, the very one through which I’d entered this twisted cabaret of mixed beauty and grotesquerie just a short time ago. It seemed as if a lifetime had passed, as if I’d shed my skin and now longed to have it back as easily as my clothes. Vale pulled open the trapdoor as the girls lifted old-fashioned kerosene lamps from a shelf behind the bar and lit them with long matches. Even the bartender was with us, her human mask gone to reveal speckled skin that matched the oranges she’d once guarded. She handed me a vial of blood and held up a softly glowing lantern.
“Best drink up, pet. It’s about to get dark.”
I gulped the blood and flopped onto my belly, sliding my legs into the square of darkness and poking around with my boot toes to find the rungs. Ever since we’d visited Monsieur Charmant, the catacombs below Paris felt sinister, coiled like a sleeping snake and waiting to devour me after any wrong step. The underground of Paris had vomited forth the bludhounds and driven tortured daimon girls to death. What would it do to me, where we were going? But the blood settled in my belly and radiated outward, giving me new strength. And when I realized that I was finally on the right track to Cherie, I moved faster down the rungs with a fierce grin on my face.
Finally, a real enemy. Finally, something to fight.
Strong hands gripped my waist and steadied me as I stepped to the uneven ground, enveloped by darkness.
“Did you bring your pendant, bébé?”
I flooded red with shame. “It broke. My first day at Paradis, when Limone pushed me off the catwalk. I was fine, but it shattered.” Strong fingers urged my chin up; I couldn’t see his eyes, but I could feel them, probing and gentle. “I’m so sorry, Vale. I saved the pieces. I know it was special.”
“I am the one who’s sorry. I wanted to give you comfort, not bits of crystal.”
“You did. You do. Don’t we need to hurry?”
His hands didn’t budge from my hips. “Stay with me in the back, bébé. At least until we get close.”
“Why?”
“So I can do this.”
He lifted me, twirling me around and pressing my back against the cold stones. I gasped, and his mouth settled over mine, catching me wide open. I had to hold myself carefully back, mindful of my fangs but filled with an animal hunger for him, for his strange taste, for the hot hardness of his knee rammed between mine and whatever instinct told animals to rut before a battle. His hands slid under my jacket and stroked the curve up and down my corset, his thumbs brushing hard over the nipples exposed by his sweeping fingers. I moaned and pressed against him, arching my back off the bricks.
As I changed the angle and pulled his face closer, I heard an answering moan that most definitely wasn’t Vale. My eyes flew open. Three daimon girls stood behind him with lanterns held high, their faces on us and dreamy yet focused like birds waiting for a worm to surface from rain-wet ground. I pulled away from the kiss and snapped my knees together, forcing Vale away.
“Can I help you?” I asked.
One of the girls, a violet-skinned daimon named Lexie, shrugged unashamedly. “Little snack before the fight can only help, non?”
I scowled over Vale’s shoulder as he held in a chuckle. I could only suppose he was more accustomed to being daimon fodder than I was.
“Please don’t . . . I don’t know. Don’t eat me. Or whatever you call it.”
“Pfft. We don’t eat people.” She gave me a significant look that made me blush. “But love and lust are free game.”
I grabbed Vale’s hand and stormed down the corridor, following the bobbing lights up ahead.
“Try some anger, then,” I growled as we passed.
Vale allowed me to pull him along, but he stayed safely silent. Which was good, as I couldn’t think of anything he could say that wouldn’t annoy me. Still, he slowed down as we approached the bigger group of determined girls stomping on bits of bone as they marched down the tunnel, shedding fluttery bits of feathers in the dank water.
“Love and lust, bébé?” he finally asked, giving my hand a squeeze.
I ignored it and hurried faster.
“You have nothing to say?”
He stopped walking but didn’t let go of my hand, and I was forced to halt or jerk my shoulder out of the socket. So I stopped, because I couldn’t kill people with a bum shoulder. But I didn’t turn around. I didn’t want him to see my face flushed red. The three daimon girls hurried past on the other side of the water trough, giggling. One left a lamp at our feet; another carried a large ball of yarn that she’d tied to the ladder rungs, and the bright red string unfurled behind her, leaving a path.