The Coldest Girl in Coldtown (26 page)

He found that he did not want to be alone. Fortunately in Paris, he could find low company at any time. In a cabaret where a dark-haired girl performed the shocking
danse du ventre
, he met up with a few of his acquaintances. He knew little about any of them, really, except for their appetites, which were prodigious. Still, their laughter chased away the dreams of the night before—at least until Gavriel found himself studying the throat of Raoul de Cleves, a comte’s son prone to gambling and deep in debt. As the night wore on, Gavriel
became more and more aware of the movements of blood under de Cleves’ skin, of the way his heart sped it along, fresh and hot. It would be so easy to slice open flesh and release that red stream, bright as claret. It would be so easy to get him alone, to promise him the loan of some money and then press him against the wall of the alley and—Gavriel pushed away the thought of what came next. He tried to watch the girl onstage, but when she rotated her hips, making the bells on her skirt tinkle, all he could think of was the artery that ran down the inside of her sweat-slicked inner thigh.

He staggered home, drunk as he could make himself. When he opened the door to his room, a fire was burning in the grate and the devil sat in a threadbare chair, as elegantly dressed in a dove gray coat with covered buttons as though he’d come straight from Versailles.

“I’m Lucien Moreau,” the devil said, eyes bright with hellfire. “I imagine you have questions.”

Gavriel stood in the doorway, frozen.

“
I feel so strange
,” said Lucien in a falsetto, a smile stretching his mouth, clearly much entertained by his own performance.
“What’s happening to me? How could you make me have these terrible desires? Satan, avaunt!”

Gavriel came inside, closing the door behind him. “I apologize,” he said. “I am very drunk and not likely to be as clever in my interrogation as you imagine. I confess I am discomposed, but you may stay as long as you please. I have been searching through the streets of Paris for damnation, and now that damnation has come to sit by my grate. Who am I to turn it away?”

He was not as cool as his words made him appear, but Lucien’s
mocking rendition of his thoughts had put him on his mettle: He refused to let the creature see how afraid he was.

Lucien inclined his head in thanks. “You never do quite what I expect. To me, surprise is a quality precious above rubies.” He held up his hand, and Gavriel could see that one of the silvery rings he wore covered the length of his finger like some kind of armor, with a wicked hooked talon at the end.

He drew that across his wrist, letting blood well. It was darker than the blood Gavriel remembered spattering his brother’s chest, darker and with an unusual blue tint. The smell of it seemed to fill the room, a hypnotizing scent, like ozone rising after a lightning strike, and he lurched forward without meaning to.

“Drink,” Lucien said. “This is what you thirst for. Come and drink.”

And as Gavriel bent his head, falling to his knees, fingers shaking as he closed them around Lucien’s wrist, some part of him knew that before this moment, he had only been playing at wickedness. He had never done anything in Paris so terrible that he could not have returned to the man he had once been.

Then the flavor of Lucien’s blood washed over him and he was lost. He sucked at the wound, tongue pushing into the slit skin of Lucien’s wrist, a low sound starting in the back of his throat. He forgot about Aleksander. He forgot about his mother and father and sister. He forgot about the sound of the gun firing and the smell of the powder and the way his brother’s body had sprawled in the snow. There was only this.

And when he woke in the late morning, with blood staining his
lips and teeth, blood smeared on the pillow where he’d rubbed his mouth against it in the night, all he thought of was getting more.

Before, Gavriel had been full of self-loathing and conflicting desires, but now his days had a singular focus. He waited for night and for Lucien to drink from him and then feed him from his wrist. Nothing else mattered very much. He drifted through his days, no longer caring about salons or cabarets, no longer caring about drink or degradation.

At first, the feedings exhausted him, but then the blood seemed to have worked some strange alchemy. His hunger abated. He walked through the streets during the day, feeling stronger, swifter, and more alert than ever before. He could snap a poker in half and catch the reins of a frightened horse, jerking it to a halt, without even exerting himself. In his room, alone, he threw a knife at the wall again and again, perfectly able to control where it struck. His canines grew longer and sharper, making his gums bleed. He was delighted, running his fingers over their points absently when he was alone, to prove to himself they were really there.

And as Gavriel hunched over Lucien’s wrist, new teeth making neat little holes in his skin, Gavriel felt as far from himself as he could have ever wished to be.

On the seventh night, when Gavriel returned to his apartment just after dusk, Lucien was there, lounging in a chair, wearing a dinner jacket with a shawl collar. He had a girl with him, sitting on one of the arms, in a thin, stained shirt and heavy-looking brown skirt. Dirt rouged her cheeks, darkened her throat, and gloved her hands. A box rested on the table, apple green satin spilling out.

“I told her that she could take a bath here,” said Lucien. “Is that all right?”

Gavriel nodded numbly, his heart speeding as he took in the scene. “Of course, if she wishes.”

“She wishes,” said Lucien and gave the girl a little shove. She stood obediently. “I told her she had to be quite thoroughly clean before she could put on the dress you bought her.”

Gavriel glanced over at the box of green satin and then back at the girl. She was looking at the fabric with longing fierce enough to make her foolish. He remembered his sister’s closet full of such dresses, and he thought that it was such a small thing to want, but of course, for her, it wouldn’t be.

Run
, he thought, but didn’t say aloud.
You know you ought to run. Please run.

He pointed toward the back of his apartment and watched her as she lifted the box and walked slowly toward the tin bath in his bedroom, the jug of water he’d left there along with a square of lye soap. She moved lightly, and there was a sway to her step that made him think of the dancer he’d seen just days before. He imagined pressing his mouth to her neck, her heartbeat fluttering like a bird’s wings, and shuddered.

“Why is she here?” Gavriel asked.

“Oh, don’t be tiresome,” said Lucien. “Surely, you can guess both her provenance and her purpose. There is no mystery.”

“Lucien,” Gavriel said, cautioning him, “what do you mean to do with her?”

“She’s not for
me
,” Lucien said. “My blood has made you ready, but the final transformation is before you. Tonight is your last night
as a living man. Drink from her and be born anew. Her death buys you life eternal.”

Gavriel shook his head, backing away.

“Oh, come now. You can’t pour wine back and forth between two vessels forever.” Lucien smirked.

“I have enough innocent blood on my hands,” Gavriel said. “Enough and more than enough.”

Lucien laughed. “So that’s what you’re running from, is it? Oh my dear boy, very soon it will be as nothing to you, I promise. There will be rivers of blood to drown in, and one single drop will be as meaningless as a single star in all the tapestry of the sky.”

“I won’t do it,” Gavriel told him, stalking toward the door. Lucien grabbed for his arm, but Gavriel pushed him away with all the stolen strength of his blood. “I don’t care what I do to myself, but I won’t be the cause of suffering for another.”

“You will,” Lucien said, red eyes shining, lips curled into a mocking smile.

Gavriel escaped into the night, the echo of Lucien’s laughter following him.

Lucien found him a week later. Gavriel had taken the stagecoach away from Paris and found himself a small hostelry outside Marseille. He had lain down the night before, sweating and shaking, hearing the heartbeats of humans like drums through the walls. Cold crept deeper and deeper into his skin until it finally froze his heart.

When Lucien opened the front door and saw the common room streaked with scarlet, the bodies of the innkeeper and his wife, the
barely grown children who worked in the kitchens and stables, he smiled. Gavriel, crouched over a body, looked up at him with a despair so deep that it was barely a feeling at all.

Of course, Lucien had killed the girl Gavriel had tried to spare. He told Gavriel all about it on their ride back to Paris.

CHAPTER 23

Death has made

His darkness beautiful with thee
.

—Alfred Tennyson

T
he streets after dark were stolen by vampires. They strode along, their ruby eyes flashing and their coats flapping. Some had Mohawks and nose rings, making faces at everyone they passed; some ran through the streets, arm in arm, flowing white dresses fluttering behind them; some twirled ebony walking sticks, strutting in velvet jackets, with long, dandyish hair; some were surrounded by a crowd; and some strolled alone.

Tana stuck close to the buildings, ducking under awnings to stay out of their way. Her heart raced, and she couldn’t tear her eyes from their unnatural pallor and easy grace, couldn’t stop staring at their hellish eyes.

“You get used to them,” Jameson said, but she noticed that if a vampire got too close, he’d crouch and his hand would twitch toward something in his boot.

Finally, Jameson stopped at a metal-barred window displaying earrings in the shape of scarabs, a purple raincoat with a matching umbrella, and several wigs in bright colors. A sign over the door crafted from glass beads and broken bits of mirror read:
ODDMENTS & LOST THINGS
.

The door had a metal speakeasy grille set into it. Jameson pulled a bell.

A few moments later, a girl opened the grille. The moment she spotted Jameson, she broke into a wide grin, although her smile dimmed slightly at the sight of Tana.

She flipped the locks on the door and opened it, letting them into the dimly lit building.

The girl was tall, with long, tawny hair, like a lion’s mane, loose around her shoulders, and eyes the bright green of bottle glass. Gold was dusted over her cheeks and painted on her eyelids. She was wearing a kimono-style robe, looking as though she’d just gotten up.

“Hi,” Jameson said, smiling shyly. He looked a little dazzled by her beauty.

“Hi,” she said back. She seemed to be holding her breath, waiting for him to do or say something. Whatever it was, he didn’t do it.

Gone was the breezily confident boy who’d taken Tana to breakfast and explained Coldtown politics. “You can get most anything here,” he said to Tana. “Valentina’s got a magical power to recall where an old box of the exact thing you’re looking for was put a year ago.”

The girl—Valentina—smiled. “I wasn’t working here a year ago,” she protested.

His lips curved, but he didn’t look at her. “That’s why it’s magic.”

Tana glanced at the racks of clothes against one wall, with open suitcases near them, each one overflowing with shirts and coats. A few mannequins had been arranged to look as though they were tied up, and those wore an assortment of sparkly dresses and hats. Oil lamps burned on several surfaces, making shadows dance.

A woman descended the stairs, her heeled shoes loud on the wood. At the sound of her arrival, Valentina pulled away from Jameson. The woman was the oldest person that Tana had seen so far inside the gates, with long, gray-streaked hair, fine enough to look like spiderwebs where it caught on her black gown. A heavy rose-gold medallion hung around her neck, and she wore bright blue earrings almost the exact color of her eyes.

“Well, don’t just stand there, Valentina,” she said to the girl. “Lock the doors behind our customers. We want everyone to have the safest possible shopping experience.”