Immortal Muse (15 page)

The man with the pick dropped the tool. “
Putain de merde,
” he muttered. Both men moved a step back from the grave, crossing themselves. Perenelle took a step forward, opening the shutters of her lantern to shine light into the darkness of the casket.

It was empty, as she had half-expected it would be. Nicolas wasn't here, because Nicolas wasn't dead.

But the coffin wasn't
quite
empty, for she saw a flash of white in the lantern's glow: a roll of parchment, sealed with wax. “Go!” she told the two men. She threw them a pouch holding the money she'd promised them. The coins clinked as the pouch was caught. “You've been paid for your work. Now leave me.”

They did so, grabbing their tools and running from the cemetery, their boots crunching on the gravel of the walks. Perenelle reached into the coffin and plucked out the scroll. The red wax seal had been impressed with Nicolas' signet ring. She broke the seal and unrolled the stiff parchment. The words were few, written on three separate lines:

I've taken your knowledge and used it for myself.

In time, I'll take the rest.

I promise you a long and miserable life.

She crumpled the parchment in her hand, her heart pounding. From the nearby church's entrance, she heard the creak of hinges and saw the wavering light of a lantern in the crack of the door. She thrust the parchment into a pocket of her cloak, and she fled.

As she left, she imagined she could hear Nicolas' low, sardonic laughter pursuing her.

“C
AMILLE, I need to talk to you. Please call me.”

There were at least a half dozen variations of David's plea in her voicemail. “I want to see you, but I'm not going to do that unless I know it's what you want.” An equal number sat in her text message inbox. “Call me. Please. Call me.”

She deleted them all unanswered.

Emotion warred with logic inside her. Desire fought caution, need battled reserve.
He's one of the few shining ones. If you pass him by, who knows how long it might be until you find another. You already want him. You like him. You
need
this. You deserve another chance.

Yes,
she answered that internal voice,
but Nicolas may already know, and if he doesn't, he will soon enough. I want to stay the hunter and not the hunted. If I let him glimpse my presence, that all changes, like it did in Vienna. He'll come after me again and maybe this time . . .
She didn't allow herself to finish the thought.

She laid out the Tarot on her kitchen table, she consulted the astrological charts; neither gave her any comfort. She burned incense and chanted a spell of comfort, but she still had trouble sleeping, her fears bleeding off into restless nightmares. A dozen times or more she found herself reaching for her cell phone, holding it and imagining herself dialing David's number, playing over the possible conversational gambits in her head. Each time she put the phone back in her purse.

She tried to find what comfort she could in the group from the
Bent Calliope.
She needed their energy; if she had stayed alone in her apartment without the nourishment of any soul-hearts, she would become sick and lethargic: at least Morris, Mercedes, and the others could keep her going. She went to the bar every night, remaining there as long as she could, soaking in their vivacity, basking in the warmth of their conversations. She had gone home with one of them each night, not wanting to spend the night alone with her own thoughts, talking to Morris or John or Rashawn about their work and taking in their fervor, trying to fill herself with momentary passion to keep her going for another day.

Tonight, she had left with Mercedes.

“Who is it?” Mercedes asked. She spoke in her Puerto-Rican Spanish. Her hand stroked the length of Camille's side from hip to shoulder, warm and soft. Her fingers traced the slope of Camille's breast and tangled in the chain of the pendant, lifting it, stroking the carved face as if she were reading braille. With the touch, Camille felt the connection between the two of them strengthen, felt the surge of energy into and between them strongly enough that she sucked in her breath in pleasure.

“What do you mean?” Camille asked. She also spoke Spanish, but hers was a lisping, proper Castilian. Camille remembered how Mercedes had laughed at her accent the first time she'd heard it. “
You sound like you're from Madrid,
” she'd joked.

In the dimness, Camille glimpsed a smile. Mercedes was lying on her side, facing Camille on the bed, one arm propping up her head. “I mean,
mi amor
, that all of a sudden you're paying so much attention to us that there has to be something else going on. Mind you, I'm not complaining; it's been too long since we've had a chance to be together this often. The others might not see it, but I do—since I've been around you, my writing. . . . Well, you've made me see everything differently, and better. I've sold the last three stories I've written; I've managed to snag an agent for the novel. You've done the same for the others. They were talented before, but now . . .”

“I didn't do any of that. You all did it yourself.” The lie came easily. Camille knew the truth: Mercedes had been a mediocre writer, someone with far more ambition than talent. But there had been enough, simmering there deep inside, that Camille had been able to coax it out, to draw it into herself and return it to Mercedes enhanced and blooming, a feedback cycle that benefitted them both. In Camille's mind, Mercedes' creative talent was an emerald well in the core of her body—the soul-heart, the source from which she could draw the sustenance that she needed. Like the rest of those in the group, Mercedes could only be taken so far. Her well was not as deep or as expansive as Camille needed, not alone, but the creative energy of her in combination with Morris and Joe and the others could sustain Camille for a time.

The well: lying there with Mercedes, Camille could dip into those green waters and taste them. She sipped at the energy, her eyes closing. “You did it yourself,” Camille repeated into the flow.

Mercedes let the pendant fall from her fingers. She slid her free hand under the fall of Camille's hair, gently cupping the side of her face. She leaned in, her kiss wafting over Camille's lips like a moist zephyr. “Bullshit,” Mercedes whispered in English as she drew back, and Camille saw the smile return. “So who is it?” she asked again, back in Spanish. “That Danny guy you brought by the other night, the photographer who hardly said two words?”

“His name was David, not Danny.”

“Danny, David, whatever. Tom the bartender told me the two of you left in a cab together. Did you have fun?”

“He's married. You reminded me of that, remember?”

Camille felt Mercedes' shrug, the mattress springs protesting. “All right then, did you have adulterous fun?”

“No.”

“Did you want to? Uh-uh-uh, don't answer”—her forefinger pressed against Camille's lips—“I can already tell. So why didn't you go ahead and do it?”

Camille didn't answer. She couldn't answer, since the answer was far too complicated, and she wasn't certain herself of where the truth lay. Mercedes chuckled alongside her. “For an enigma, you can be awfully transparent sometimes,
chilla
. What happened? Come on, you have to tell me.”

“You're a writer. I'll just end up reading about it in one of your stories.”

“And you claim you don't help me. See? Go on, spill.”

She did, as much as she felt she could, as much as she thought Mercedes would actually understand. She told Mercedes about their photography session, about Helen finding them, about the party, about the messages afterward.

“All that is why I'm never going to be in a monogamous relationship,” Mercedes said afterward. “I hate to say it, but I really can't blame this Helen; it sounds like she's only trying to protect what she has, but she also sounds like she's entirely the wrong person for David. Of course I'm sorry for you, darling, stuck in the middle. Relationships suck. Too much drama. Great stuff for writing about, though.” Her fingers stroked the damp fleece between Camille's legs. “That's why I stick to casual sex. It's much easier. Usually.”

“You don't really believe any of that. If you found the right person . . .”

Mercedes laughed again. “If I say it enough times, maybe I
will
believe it, eh? Maybe I already know that right person, and if she were willing, maybe I wouldn't believe it at all.” They both knew who she meant, but Camille remained silent, and Mercedes took in a deep breath before letting it out again. “All right, then. You need to talk to him, Camille. Call him back. Go see him. E-mail him. Something. Anything. You should find out where things stand. You know you want to. Just admit it.”

With the words, Camille felt the knot in her stomach loosen and she realized that Mercedes was telling her to do exactly what she longed to do.
You need him, and he needs you . . .
“Thank you. You're right.”

“I am a Puerto Rican woman, and thus I am wise beyond my years,” Mercedes answered, laughing. “And now that we have that settled, I'm not going to let this chance to seduce you pass by. Lay back, woman, and let me show you why you shouldn't settle for a man . . .”

 * * * 

“So
have you decided to drop this?” Bob Walters asked Camille as she entered his office. He rubbed his thinning hair and leaned back in his chair, sipping at a hopelessly stained mug of coffee. Walters appeared to be badly in need of either a secretary or a shredder. His desk was overloaded with stacks of manila files, arranged in dangerous towers that threatened to avalanche into each other. The desk's top could have been wooden, metal, or veneer—there was no way to tell, since every available inch of it was covered by paper. It had looked the same when Camille had first hired the man. She wondered whether the file cabinets lined up behind him held anything at all, or if they were as impossibly stuffed as his desk. “If you're looking for progress, I don't have any to report. No one seems to have seen your mysterious friend, if he's in the city at all.”

Camille laid a check on the papers in front of Walters. He glanced at it and shook his head. “Good money after bad,” he said. “Unless you've some better lead to give me.”

“I might have,” she told him. “Helen Treadway. Currently married to David Treadway. Here's their address.” She handed him a slip of paper. “I don't know what her maiden name might have been, but I figure you can find out. It's possible she may be in contact with my guy. I want you to follow her and see.” She didn't tell him that she wanted him to do this because, if it were true, then Nicolas would be less likely to notice a professional like Walters tailing Helen than an amateur like herself, and because she thought the possibility rather unlikely anyway.
Nicolas can't have found me already. Helen's little comment was just meant to intimidate me, to keep me away from David.

“It's ‘possible,'” Walters repeated. “And how likely is that possibility, or am I going to be sitting in my car all day and night for nothing?”

“I don't know,” Camille answered. “I figured that's what I pay you to tell me. Hire someone else to do it if you want—just make sure he or she's good at it.”

Walters let out an aggrieved sigh. A forefinger prodded the check, then his hand covered it and he swept it into the middle drawer of the desk as he opened it, shutting it again emphatically. “You bought yourself another week. I'll check out this Helen Treadway, see where she goes. I'll call you if anything breaks. Anything else?”

Camille lifted her shoulders. “One small thing. I know David Treadway, the husband. If you're watching their place, you might see me.”

Walters' eyebrows climbed the craggy ledges of his forehead. “You know him that well, eh?”

“I know him,” she said. “And that's all
you
need to know. Call me if you find my guy; if not, then maybe you're right and I'm wasting my money. But you could use it to hire someone to clean up this place.”

“What for?” Walters asked. “I know where everything is. Somebody else'd just make a mess of things.”

 * * * 

Sh
e waited two more days before she found herself on the street outside David's apartment, staring up at the windows that she knew were his studio. She waited as if expecting a sign, perhaps a glimpse of him behind the glass, or perhaps Helen, striding confidently and possessively through the street door. She glanced up and down the street; Walters' car was nowhere visible; that could mean that Helen wasn't there, or it could mean that Walters was hiding himself better than she realized.

The universe remained stubbornly noncommittal. People slid past her on the sidewalks; cabs crawled by in the street, honking their horns at slow traffic; an airplane painted twin contrails in the sky. The city bustled around her, ignoring her and stubbornly refusing to give her anything that might resemble an omen or sign.

She grasped the pendant in her left hand, clutching it so tightly that she could feel the edges of the carved stone pressing into her palm. She recited an incantation. As she closed her eyes and the last words of the charm left her lips, she nodded. David was there; she could almost see him in the darkness behind her closed eyelids: a pulse of emerald light.

She released the pendant. She hurried across the street and up the steps to the street door, and pressed the buzzer for his apartment. “Hey,” she said when she heard the intercom click on and David's voice ask who was there. “It's Camille.”

The buzzer sounded, and she pushed the door open. Down the hallway, she saw his door open. David stepped into the hallway. Camille couldn't decide if he was irritated or delighted. “Camille. Come in, come in. I had the strangest feeling just a moment ago, like I knew you were outside, then the buzzer rang . . .” He stepped aside as she approached, though she stopped short of the door.

“Helen?”

David seemed to laugh, a nasal snort. “Just come in,” he repeated. She did, and stopped almost immediately. The room had changed. The Impressionist prints were gone, though the Klimt was still on the wall near the stairs to the studio loft. The bulk of the furniture was gone. The few scattered chairs and the scarred coffee table all alone in the center left made the room look forlorn.

Camille heard the door shut behind her as she surveyed the room. “Helen's gone,” she heard David say. “We've separated—we had a big argument and discussion the day after the party and decided we needed the time apart. That's what I wanted to tell you. It just didn't seem something to say in a lousy message, especially when I didn't know if you were listening. I thought . . . I thought I'd lost both of you.”

She turned to him. His gaze was on the bare room more than on her, with the same expression on his face, snagged somewhere between frown and smile. “I'm sorry,” she told him, though part of her felt nothing but relief. “I feel responsible.”

“Don't.” He spat out the word, then lifted a shoulder as if to soften the sound. “This was coming whether you were around or not. You just forced us both to see what we already knew but wouldn't admit.” He laughed again; a shattered and uncertain amusement, the sound echoing against the empty walls. “She's living with some friends. Left me this place since my studio's here.” Another bitter laugh. “Not that I'm going to be able to afford to keep it—which I think was her plan. It was her salary that usually paid our rent.”