Green Fairy (Dangerous Spirits) (22 page)

By the time he returns to the locker room, Cireil has already left. He does not speak to the other dancers. The ermine watches him, especially when he presents his eight and a half francs out to M. Oller. The polecat counts out seven and seventy-five centimes in return.

“Perhaps you are not leaving after all,” the ermine says to Niki, at the doorway. She smirks, licks a finger, smooths the fur on her small ears.

Niki lowers his head. “I…have not decided yet.”

“It is not such a bad life, the dance.” The ermine smooths the other ear. “There is no other life for you, you know.” She turns her head back to the other dancers. “A girl may find a patron who can afford to keep her as a servant, perhaps as a mistress. But you…there is no cu-cu out there who will keep you.”

At that, Niki lifts his muzzle. Now the other dancer is watching him with a mix of pity and satisfaction. “Yes, not even this rich chamois. The risk, the danger if he is discovered to be keeping a boy! And why would he need to keep you? The streets are filled with boys desperate for one night. They can be had for one of those coins in your purse.”

“You do not know him,” Niki says.

“Neither do you.”

Niki steps out into the back hallway of the club. He shakes his head, knowing there is nothing more to say to the ermine.

“
A demain
, cu-cu,” she calls after him, amused.

Perhaps you will see me tomorrow, he thinks, and perhaps the day after, but not for the reasons you think. It is not because Jean is insincere. It is because here there is the dance, and there…who knows what is there. Love, perhaps, but there is love here, too, even if it is more diluted.

These thoughts bring him through the hallway to the back door. He pushes the reluctant wood hard with his shoulder, letting in the cool, damp night air. Automatically, out of courtesy, he holds it for the ermine walking behind him while he turns to his right, looking down the dark alley he takes to the Rue Blanche.

In the darkness, there is a heap of clothes the size of a person.

The door slips from Niki’s fingers, striking the ermine. She cries out angrily, but Niki is two steps toward the body, and the ermine’s words clatter to the ground and fall away as she sees what Niki sees. And by this time, Niki already smells wolf.

“No,” he whispers, but he cannot hold his feet still. They take him closer and closer, and the scent of wolf fills his nose, so that he can detect the distinct and familiar character of it as well as the sharpness below it, the coppery-bright tang that sends his tongue to his bitten lip in sympathy. And then he is kneeling beside it, the thing that once held the spirit of his friend Cireil.

Her body is on its side, turned away from him. She might still be alive, he thinks, though he knows it is only hope speaking, a small light powerless against the darkness. His paw hovers over her shoulder, not wanting to extinguish the flicker.

The ermine’s scent rolls in behind him as she approaches. “I will fetch M. Oller,” she says. Not the gendarmes, of course. M. Oller will do that; they will come for him more quickly. She runs back to the club, while Niki extends a shaking paw to Cireil’s nose.

No breath warms his fingers. He cannot bear to touch her muzzle, but even at a finger’s distance away, he can tell that it has no more warmth. He leans forward and catches a hint, just the barest hint, of a mustelid scent. Something fierce and angry, like…like a mink.

M. Oller will be here soon. But the scent tantalizes him, and Cireil is turned away as though keeping the secret from him. From him, with whom she shared all she knew. His paw grips her shoulder and pulls. She resists; he pulls again, panting with exertion or emotion or both. Her body shifts, and then rolls in one clumsy motion toward him onto his toes.

He yelps and jumps, losing his balance and falling backwards. When his tail hits the ground, his teeth snap closed on his lip right where it is already swollen. Blood drips onto his tongue, the scent of blood fills his nose, overwhelming any faint mustelid scent he might have thought he’d smelled. The stain on the front of Cireil’s plain yellow dress looks black; but then, the dress looks white, and Niki only knows it is yellow because he has seen it in the light. Here beneath the clouds, meters from the closest gas lamp, the color is gone from it, and though he can replace the yellow of the dress from memory, the blackness of the stain does not become red when he does so. It is dark and deep, a hole without bottom stretching from just below her breasts to her waist, sending tendrils out along the side she was lying on.

Her eyes are glassy grey, and there is nothing behind them. Niki reaches down to close them, and closes his own against the pressure of tears. He presses his tongue to the fresh bite in his lip. No dance is worth this price: to watch his friends waste away and die, to know that the end of his road is more likely an alley than a bed. Not when a hand is extended to him.

He takes Cireil’s cold paw in his. He will hold it until M. Oller arrives.

Pain flared through Sol’s lower lip. He jerked awake and brought a paw up to his muzzle. His eyes were wet, his chest tight.
Christ
, he told himself.
It was just a dream. Don’t be—don’t—

But when he sat up in bed, when he saw his paws, the dream flooded back to him again and he couldn’t hold back a sob, and then another. His paws shook and his body shuddered, and small squeaks forced themselves past the thick blockage in his throat.

It took him a good ten minutes to stop shaking, wiping his eyes, wincing at the pain in his lip. He must have bitten it in the night; he could taste blood on his tongue even after he’d finished crying. And his tail was sore, too, as if he’d slept on it poorly. Or fallen back on it in a stone-paved alley.

Even after he stopped the tears, Cireil’s blank, grey eyes haunted him. Grief welled up inside him, denied the release of tears, a tension that shook his paws until he clasped them together. It was a dream, just a dream, he told himself. He hadn’t even known Cireil that long, only two years—

Two
weeks
. Two weeks since he’d started dreaming about her, of course. He squeezed his paws together and then pressed them to his muzzle. That mink, that damn mink, how could they let him get away with that? Just because she was a dancer, he thought her life meant nothing. He had no idea how many other lives he had scarred with that savage, bitter action.

Sol focused on calming himself down. Deep breaths, paws on his knees. Finally, mercifully, the knot of grief loosened. Cireil’s blank eyes still tugged at him, but Sol pushed the image resolutely away. It’s just a dream, he told himself over and over again. It’s just a dream, nothing more, why are you crying over a dream?

The smell of buttered eggs and bacon floated up to his bedroom and his stomach rumbled. Breakfast was downstairs, and so were his parents, and if he went down on the verge of tears, there would be questions. He could tell them it was a dream, but once he told his father that he was definitely not starting the Lakeside game, they would think he was crying over that. His father would think he was a sissy, even if his mother stopped him from saying the word out loud.

Maybe he could put off telling his father. Maybe if he fell down the stairs and got a concussion and had to be taken to the hospital…or maybe Natty would call to tell the family that he was going to start in the football game this afternoon, and his parents would pile into the car and go.

Or maybe Sol would have a nervous breakdown as a result of a weird, scary, absinthe-induced dream. Of all the possibilities, that seemed the most realistic.

But already the grief felt more manageable, more distant, as though he were no longer mourning the loss of his own friend, but of a friend’s friend. He still felt the bleakness in his chest and throat, but his eyes were dry and he was only sniffling a little. So he pulled on pants and a t-shirt. He crept down the stairs, taking care not to fall down them. By this time, he hoped, his father might have finished his breakfast, leaving the kitchen empty for Sol to sneak into and eat.

No such luck. His father looked up as he entered the kitchen. “Morning,” he said, and tore a chunk off the end of a strip of bacon.

Sol mumbled, “Didn’t sleep very good,” and headed for the grits on the stove.

“Didn’t sleep well,” his mother corrected him, but neither parent said anything more to him until he was sopping up the remnants of his eggs with a piece of toast.

“You want to catch some grounders this morning?” his father said, laying down the sports section of the paper.

Sol stared down at his bowl of grits. “It’s raining.”

“Not that hard.” His father leaned forward on the table. “Did Mr. Zerling make a decision?”

Here it was. Blank eyes staring into a cloudy sky. “No,” he said, and then saw himself a week in the future, two weeks in the future, his father yelling,
how long have you known?
“I mean, not really. But kind of. I guess it’s not definite but…”

His father’s voice was even, measured. He knew, but he wanted Sol to say the words. “Did you win your starting spot back?”

Sol’s mother stood beside the table, reaching down to take her plate to the sink. She froze, her muzzle pointed down at Sol. If not for the tick of the kitchen clock, Sol would have no idea that time was passing. The hiss of the rain and the gurgle of water through the gutters made Sol feel that the house was awash, floating down the street; normally he enjoyed the feeling of adventure that brought, but this morning it just left him even more unmoored. He could smell the rain even though all the windows were closed, a lightly damp, earthy smell beneath the toast and grits and eggs.

“Sol?” His father leaned closer.

“No.” Sol lifted his head. “No, I didn’t. Taric’s still playing really well and Mr. Zerling doesn’t want to mess with chemistry so I’m on the bench for the Lakeside game.” And when compared to dying alone in an alley, how bad was that, really? He glared at his father, keeping his ears up with an effort.

His father didn’t look angry or upset, though. He just raised his eyebrows slightly. “Well. What more could you have done?”

There was nothing he could have done.
Anger at his father kept the grief about Cireil and the frustration about himself at bay. “I did everything I could! I stayed until it was dark, I worked my tail off for two weeks, I caught grounders with you…”

“Wolves are supposed to be leaders. Did you work to gain the confidence of your teammates?”

“I did it by playing as hard as I can.” He fidgeted on his chair.

“And by not eating meat?”

Sol shoved his chair back from the table and folded his arms. He swiveled his ears back so they faced the kitchen window, making the sound of rain louder. “What does that have to do with it?”

“Norston came to my office—Xavy’s father. Asked about your health. What do you think his son’s tellin’ the team? That you’re weak, that you can’t do the job, that it’s good that they got a replacement for you!”

“He’s just…he’s just stronger, and faster. And the guys like him better.”

“They should like you.” His father’s finger jabbed at him across the table. “You’re a wolf.”

“I’m not like you!” Sol yelled. He stood up. “I’m not like Natty! I’m just me!”

His father leaned back in the chair. “Yes, you are. Well.” He turned to Sol’s mother. “Would you like to go to Sears today?”

Sol shoved his chair in against the table and stormed out. “Solomon James,” his father called after him, but he didn’t stop. He marched up to his room, slammed the door, and turned his music up as loud as he could stand it before dropping onto his bed. His own scent, worn into the sheets, enfolded him; guitar riffs slammed his ears and shivered through his body; his tail lay trapped under one leg, the ache from his dream pulsing along in time to the music.

Beneath the guitar, he heard pounding on his door, his name called in his father’s deep voice. He flicked his ears that way, but didn’t move. There was more pounding, and then the door opened and his father came in.

“Hey!” Sol sat up in bed. “You’re not supposed to come in unless I say it’s okay.”

His father shut the door, walked over to Sol’s stereo, and turned the music off. Sol grabbed the remote from beside his bed and turned it back on.

“Turn that off.” His father glared across the room.

Sol folded his arms. The band Dragonsbane wailed angrily about the injustice of the world. “Fine,” his father said. He grabbed the iPod out of Sol’s stereo and put it in his pocket.

“That’s mine!” Sol yelled. He jumped off the bed and stood, paws balled into fists, four feet from his father.

“You want to act like you’re twelve, you’ll get treated like you’re twelve.” His father leaned against the dresser. “Why don’t you tell me what you think you’ve done to deserve a car.”

“I did everything you asked me to!” Sol hated the “tell me what you think” game. He couldn’t keep his voice down. “I worked and tried and stayed late and I didn’t think of anything else.”

“For two weeks,” his father said.

“That’s all the time I had!”

“You think you’ll get the starting spot back by the end of the year?”

Hope sparked for a moment. “I can! Yes!”