Wicked After Midnight(54)

Although Criminy had strictly forbidden feeding from customers and Cherie had never drunk from a live victim, the two-headed boys of the caravan had plenty of experience and loved to brag. Catarrh and Quincy had shrugged their extra-wide shoulders, saying that where they’d come from in Freesia, two minutes of drinking could conclude a full day’s work for lucky humans with a healthy constitution.

While Quincy filed his teeth, Catarrh detailed how very easy it was to make the bloodletting enjoyable for them if we wished. Bludmen did have a sort of residual magic. That was how they got away with snitching blood in the darker corners of the freak tent. Their willing victims never complained and sometimes enjoyed the experience so much they left a copper behind. The high-necked gowns and winding cravats meant to protect the humans from us sometimes protected indiscreet Bludmen from the repercussions of a pilfered meal.

Knowing that feeding from the duke could, much like my stage antics, be another triumph or end with me being chased out of the city with fire and pitchforks, I tried to make it as good for him as I could without sacrificing my honor. Judging by the way he tried to drag me onto his lap and over the bulge in his expensive trousers, it worked. He was putty in my hands, whimpering and blissfully writhing under my lips. When he moaned and shuddered suddenly against me, hands digging hard at my waist, I knew we were done.

I pulled away with a long, seductive stroke of my tongue. He lay back, drained and panting.

“That was the most sensual experience of my life, my Demitasse.”

I stood, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. “Happy to oblige, monsieur.”

I slipped on his frock coat, opened the copper door, and walked down the stairs of the elephant’s leg on the balls of my bare feet. The night was dark and cold and still when I emerged, stepping out of the elephant’s foot to run across the courtyard and into the cabaret. The halls were empty, the theater silent. With a sniff of disgust, I plundered the coat’s pockets, all empty, and dropped the expensive pile of fabric on the boards, disappointed to find not a single whiff of Cherie on its lapels. Feeling humiliated and cheap, I ran up the stairs, not stopping until I was in Limone’s old room, now marked with a sign reading “La Demitasse” in curling silver letters, just like I’d dreamed of seeing on my first night here.

Thankful my window was closed and locked from the inside, I curled up in my bed and quietly shook. The duke’s blood made me feel strong, beautiful, invincible. It was almost enough to quiet the tiny, shouting voice saying that I would be thrown in jail in the morning. But it had been my only choice.

My hand slid to the place under the mattress where I’d hidden my coins and the pouch of Criminy’s sleeping powder. Although I trusted Mel and Bea, there were dozens of daimon girls I still didn’t know who had access to my room every moment that I was gone. My treasures were still there, and it suddenly occurred to me that not only did I have a powerful and mutually beneficial gift for the men who bought my time—because I knew without a doubt that the duke wouldn’t be the last—but I also had a way to render them unconscious while I hunted for clues. A tiny sprinkle of the harmless sleeping powder would give me plenty of time to search each body that found its way into the copper elephant for any hint of Cherie or the slavers. Tomorrow night, after the show, I would begin my investigation.

I could only hope that my second gambit would turn out as well as the first.

* * *

My sleep was long and delicious, right up till the dreams turned from the mad clapping of packed crowds to the thunder of hooves and a black conveyance, the air shimmering from spotlights to smoke rent by the flailing legs of screaming horses. But in the nightmare, Cherie was torn crying from my arms by a man in a bird mask, our talons breaking as we were ripped apart. I woke gasping and muttered, “Holy shit.”

As if on cue, my door opened to admit Blaise with a dainty teacup filled with deliciously warm, high-quality blood. On the tray sat the same apothecary jar filled with notes, even more than before. I sat up, rubbing my eyes at the sunlight filtering through my open window. It felt like a dream within a dream within a dream.

“What’s going on? Am I in trouble, Blaise?”

He giggled into his hand. “I don’t think that’s what they’re calling it, mademoiselle. Read the paper.” I unfolded the Parisian newspaper on the tray, the fear in my heart giving way to curiosity. I had fallen asleep half dreading Madame Sylvie’s harsh screech or the stomp of gendarmes with billy clubs and guns filled with seawater. After all, feeding from humans was strictly forbidden and punishable by death in Franchia, as it was in Sangland. Blaise, fresh blood, and a newspaper had to be good news.