Floats the Dark Shadow Read online

  Dondre closed his fingers tight around the money and grinned. “Messieurs, mademoiselle, I know all the hidden places. You should come back soon.”

  “Not too soon, Dondre. Mademoiselle can’t wait to escape,” Averill said, watching her prowl about the exit.

  “Tant pis.” The boy shrugged elaborately, indicating it was their loss. He stuffed the coins in his pocket and ran back into the catacombs.

  “Do you want to lead the charge, Theo?” Averill nodded toward the stairs.

  “Like Jeanne d’Arc leading the siege of Paris?”

  “Jeanne failed to reclaim the city,” Casimir reminded her.

  “Perhaps, but she was a fabulous heroine, even to a California girl.”

  Casimir smiled at that. “Paris was one of her few failures.”

  “Well, I shall succeed. Up!” Theo forged ahead. Their ascent seemed endless. They followed the tight coil of stone steps round and round and round, until they at last emerged onto the streets. She gazed up the night sky, at the pure and icy glitter of a billion stars. Eternity was that soul-stirring vastness, not the crumbling necropolis lying below. Theo breathed deeply, drinking in freedom with the sparkling air.

  “I want a drink,” Paul announced.

  “Champagne is best after midnight,” Casimir said.

  Luscious, giddy champagne suited Theo’s mood, but Averill countered with, “Absinthe is best anytime.”

  “Either, both—and beer as well,” Paul said. “But where?”

  They were on the southern edge of Paris, in sprawling Montparnasse. Like her own neighborhood, it mingled peaceful, bucolic patches with sinful pleasures. But it was Montmartre where Theo wanted to be, her haven. “Home.”

  “Le Chat Noir est mort. Vive Le Rat Mort!” Paul exclaimed.

  The Black Cat, Montmartre’s most famous cabaret, had closed with its owner’s death. But the even more disreputable Dead Rat remained. Theo shook her head. “Not there. Somewhere bright.” She craved light and life after all this grimness

  “The Moulin de la Galette?” Averill suggested.

  “Yes. I want to dance!” New energy rushed through her. Released from the oppression of the catacombs, she felt deliciously wicked again. She would stay out all night dancing with her poets. Dancing with Averill—

  Their fiacre was one of many waiting at the exit, the horses shifting restlessly as the midnight revelers emerged from the catacombs and jostled around them. “La Galette,” Casimir called up to the driver as Averill helped her into the carriage.

  They rolled into the night, the horses’ iron-clad hooves clattering loudly on the pavement. Theo laughed with midnight giddiness as they hurried through the streets of Paris, leaning out the window of the coach to feel the night breeze ruffle her hair. She searched for a glimpse of the distant Eiffel tower, glinting like steel lace in the starlight. Almost as much a newcomer to Paris as she was, the tower was not yet ten years old—but already symbolic of Paris herself. The dark buildings grew denser as they drew closer to the center of the city, but lights glowed ever brighter as they rolled through the Latin Quarter, bustling even so late at night. Looking in the café windows, Theo saw students drinking, laughing, kissing, and even a few studying earnestly amid the cheerful chaos.

  They crossed the Seine, the towers and spires of Notre Dame framed against pale clouds. On the Right Bank, they trotted beside the formal Jardins des Tuilieres, quiet in the starlight, and on to the Avenue de l’Opéra, with its elegant cafés, and through quieter streets, until at the foot of Montmartre the night came alive again. Lights still blazed at the Moulin Rouge and surrounding cafés, and would till the sun rose. The carriage passed the boisterous cabaret, then took the gentler slope up the rue Caulaincourt. They crossed the bridge over the Montmartre cemetery and took the first turn toward the rue Lepic. Except the carriage halted. Looking out, Theo saw some sort of commotion ahead. Gendarmes swarmed everywhere.

  The Revenants climbed out of the fiacre and mingled with the people in the street, a peculiar mix of gaudy riffraff, insomniac artists, and sleepy bourgeois in nightclothes. There was an air of hectic gaiety. Some were singing, some shouting, some growling threats. There was a chant that sounded suspiciously filthy, something involving cows.

  “What’s happening?” Paul asked the nearest chanter.

  “Anarchist,” the fellow told them. “Blew up a building.”

  “Destruction is a passion—a creative passion,” Paul declared. “Bakunin.”

  “It was just a gas explosion,” a gendarme said, followed by much groaning and argument in the crowd.

  “All the buildings are standing,” Theo pointed out, hoping it was no more than a faulty stove. She felt a surge of protectiveness. This was her street, these were her neighbors. She didn’t want bombs blowing them out of their cozy beds at midnight.

  “Not a whole building—just the top floor. Up the street.” A woman gestured beyond the curve of the rue Lepic. “The police took away the bomber.”

  Theo started up the hill, her friends following. They were halted by a gendarme. Undeterred, she wove her way back through the throngs to the rule Tholozé, which was not guarded and ended across from the Moulin de la Galette. The crowd here was obviously from the cabaret. They had rushed into the street at the sound of the blast and most were returning, now that the bomber had been hauled off to jail.

  “He was going to bomb the Sacré Coeur!” one fellow told them.

  “Too good to be true,” Paul said.

  “Killed six flics,” another man announced. “A hero of the people!”

  “Murder is not heroic,” Theo challenged.

  “Disagree with the mob and lose your head,” Casimir warned.

  “Aristos like you don’t use their heads,” Paul said in his nastiest tone. “They have no brains to put in them.”

  “Let’s use our feet for dancing!” Theo broke in. She did not want her friends arguing.

  “I’ll ask the band to play the Dynamite Polka,” Paul said. Theo presumed that was not a joke.

  “I doubt you’ll even need to request it tonight,” Casimir muttered.

  Wanting only to escape thoughts of death, Theo dashed across the street to the Moulin de la Galette. Lit by lights in the garden, the old windmill glowed in the moonless night. She plunged forward, determined to forget both the trouble outside and the grim world of the catacombs. La Galette was the perfect escape. Theo loved the rustic nightclub, with its hodgepodge interior. Decades ago, grain was ground here. Now chandeliers glittered above the polished wood floor and green latticework decorated the walls. She paused on the threshold and closed her eyes, letting the music begin to work its magic and sweep away the sourness of the street. When she opened them, Averill was by her side, a question in his eyes.

  “Dancing,” she said again, knowing only movement would break her free of the clinging shadows. Averill smiled and offered his arm. Paul and Casimir appeared behind him. Theo and her poets joined the swirling throng, dancing and drinking till the doors closed at dawn.

  ~

  The sky was paling as they left. Paul led them to a nearby boulangerie on the rue Tholoze, promising perfect croissants. He knew the owner, the rotund and apple-cheeked Monsieur Pommier, and coaxed him to open the door to them. The baker’s voluptuous wife and elfin daughter were just pulling their bread and morning pastries from the ovens. The shop was filled with the heavy aromas of warm yeast, baked wheat and rye, brandied raisins, marzipan, and melted chocolate. Theo laughed, dizzy and ravenous from the deluge of scents. She bought golden brown almond croissants. Unable to wait, she bit into one of the pastries. “This is amazing. So crusty!”

  “I have my secret pleasures.” Paul chose a savory pastry with ham and cheese.

  Averill smiled at her. “You are sweetly decorated.” Her breath caught when he reached out and brushed the flakes of puff pastry from the edges of her mouth. An innocent touch? Or an innocent excuse for a touch?

  “We must have café au lait fo
r our picnic,” Casimir declared.

  “But the cups...” Ninette, the lovely young daughter, looked flustered. Tendrils of black hair framed the perfect oval of her face. Her eyes were chocolate brown and delicately tilted.

  “I will buy them,” Casimir said.

  “Don’t be absurd,” Paul said. “I will bring them back to her.”

  “Wouldn’t you prefer absurdity, Noret?” Casimir retorted.

  Paul rolled his eyes. Since he was a regular, the baker agreed Paul could return the cups later. Theo watched as Ninette poured foaming milk into the fresh black coffee and served them with a charming blush. That splash of pink would be lovely in a portrait that framed her in the golden tones of the pastry, and the crusty loaves of bread on their wooden shelves would make a strong background pattern. The foreground would have coffee in the pure white cups—not the pale, breakfast café au lait, but a deep, rich brown. Theo felt a tingling of delicious excitement. The challenge of drawing the catacombs lingered, a murky cloud in her mind, black as the ink she’d use. Painting this beautiful girl in the cozy bakery would be a golden counterpoint. Theo determined to come back soon and see if Ninette would pose. She could work on the portrait on rainy days.

  Carrying their breakfast feast, they climbed to the pinnacle of the hill. From there it was a short walk to Sacré Cœur with its wide steps overlooking the city. Theo sat down, savoring the view of Paris and the meal to come. She wished the tree-topped shoulder of the hill didn’t obscure the view of the Eiffel Tower. It was strange to have it absent in the vast panorama. Averill and Casimir settled on either side of her, but Paul hovered behind them. Together they sipped their café au lait, sharing the quiet morning with the masons arriving to work on the still unfinished basilica. Although it was incomplete and unconsecrated, services were being held inside. Whenever the doors opened, the sound of organ music flowed over them.

  Still standing, Paul gave the church a look of loathing. “It is an atrocity.”

  “It looks like a petrified wedding cake,” Theo agreed, though she loved the domed shape seen from a distance, the travertine stone glowing pure white on the peak of Montmartre.

  “An atrocity and a monument to atrocity,” Paul insisted.

  It was not aesthetics but politics that made his voice so hard and implacable. Theo sat up straighter, tension tugging like reins at her shoulders and arms, at her throat.

  “It was meant to heal the wounds of war,” Casimir said sharply, “and to expiate our sins.”

  “To expiate the supposed crimes of the Communards—and to celebrate their slaughter,” Paul snarled. “The Army of Versailles lined them up and shot them. They entombed hundreds in the gypsum mines below—sealed them in with explosives. Our bomber should have blown the Sacré Coeur to smithereens.”

  “He is not my bomber.” Casimir’s voice crackled like ice. “During the Revolution, men such as he slaughtered the innocent monks of La Veillée sur Oise and destroyed their hermitage. What little remained of our town the Communards decimated.”

  Was that when his chateau burned? Theo wondered. He would have been a child then.

  Paul gathered breath to argue, but Averill interrupted, his voice mild. “The basilica was built on the site of the martyrdom of St. Denis.”

  “Ah yes…they chopped off his head but he picked it up and carried it two miles, plopping it down where he wanted his abbey built.” Paul sneered.

  “Jeanne d’Arc made a pilgrimage here…” Casimir began.

  Paul leaned forward, suddenly earnest. “A true heroine, Jeanne. A valiant warrior and a patriot, she did not desert the people of France. Then she was betrayed by the ruling class—”

  “It is too early for argument,” Theo broke in. “We don’t need to blow ourselves to smithereens.” As a peace offering, she gave Paul a bite of her croissant, oozing marzipan and crusted with toasted almonds. Hunger triumphed over zeal. Paul turned his back on the cathedral, sat on the step behind them, and proceeded to devour his petit dejéuner. The others relaxed and together they watched a soft pink light bathe the rooftops and spires of Paris.

  Averill’s gaze was dreamy. “L’insidieuse nuit m’a grisé trop longtemps….”

  Treacherous night, you have intoxicated me far too long. A new poem? Theo leaned closer, but he spoke so quietly she could barely hear him at first. Ever elusive. Then he raised his head and spoke clearly.

  O jour, ô frais rayons, immobilisez-vous,

  Mirés dans mes yeux sombres,

  Maintenant que mon cœur à chacun de ses coups

  Se rapproche des ombres.

  O day, O cool radiance, abide, mirrored in my darkening eyes, as now, with each beat, my heart draws nearer to the shadows…. “That’s beautiful, Averill,” Theo said. “Yours?”

  “He wishes,” Paul said. “Jean Moréas.”

  “I have no poems about the dawn,” Averill said, looking out over the sun-washed city. “Only the night.”

  Chapter Seven

  Their smiling lips seemed to murmur something

  —They dream, they lean upon their small, round arms,

  Sweet gesture of awakening, faces uplifted,

  Unsettled gazes all around...And think

  Themselves asleep in some pink paradise.

  ~ Arthur Rimbaud

  “DOUX geste du réveil, ils avancent le front, et leur vague regard tout autour d’eux se pose,” Gilles coaxed the drowsing child to wake, to look around.

  Tonight, he would let the poem set the mood.

  No frenzy this time. His soul was starved and must be filled, but craving must be bridled by artistry. He crouched over Dondre, curbing his impatience. Ribbons of blood crept from the back of the boy’s neck and across the stone floor. They made a beautiful crimson frame for the curling hair, the paling skin. His naked body had a pearlescent glow.

  To conjure his lost castle of Tiffauges, Gilles was burning incense. The perfumed smoke rose like soft, black prayers. Prayers to Satan. Candle flames wavered beside the stone walls. They made a fluttering sound, like tiny tongues licking. The shimmer of a scream lingered in the air. When Gilles made the cut, Dondre had shrieked then fainted. The boy was groggy now, barely aware of the pain. It was a rapture Gilles loved, the languishing glory when they bled out slowly beneath him. Sometimes they did not even understand they were dying. So piquant….

  “Beautiful, isn’t he?” The other was silent, but Gilles did not need an answer.

  He always tried to select for beauty, though his sacrifices must fulfill other criteria first. If they were not beautiful enough to please him, the heads could be removed before he took his pleasure. And if they were as beautiful as this boy, the head might be worth preserving. Denis had been irresistible, of course. The martyred saint had been decapitated, and so the saintly boy had been as well. Sometimes Gilles would choose one of the loveliest heads—hold it up and kiss it while he satisfied himself. With the boys, if their pink members were especially pretty, he would cut those off and add them to the display. Dondre was very pink there, genitals plump and rosy against his white thighs. Already Gilles had a priceless collection. His own private museum.

  There was a moan. Soft, musical. Barely breathing, Gilles waited until Dondre opened his eyes and peered around him. The boy saw, but did not understand, did not recognize him. He was slipping away. At first Gilles was disappointed. Then charmed. Each death was unique.

  He must be quick…but not too quick. Opening his clothes, Gilles stretched out upon his prize, his erect member stroking slowly over the tender skin of the belly. Exquisite, delicate friction. Another soft cry.

  “Mon cheri,” Gilles whispered, sweet endearments flowing from his tongue. He moved slowly, slowly, drawing out the sensation. “Mon ange. Mon petit chou-fleur.”

  Dondre trembled beneath him, muscle and nerve guttering like the candle flames. Gilles began to croon a lullaby as life ebbed. The soft cries, his own sighs, the gasping breath were his music. He rocked Dondre gently, soothing him as
he stroked. He watched the slow drift down into darkness. He looked deep into his eyes until their gaze fixed upon him. It was a sweet oblivion, sinking into the black well of the fixed pupil as his seed spilled out in the little death.

  Gilles shuddered with pleasure. Sighed deeply.

  This was his most romantic encounter.

  Chapter Eight

  Lechery is the wet nurse of Demonism.

  ~ J. K. Huysmans

  MICHEL had barely slept. Dreams of bombs and blood haunted him. New dreams and old knotting together in his brain, his belly.

  Walking to work, he paused at the center of the bridge linking the Île Saint Louis to the Île de la Cité, letting the cool morning light clear the gloom from his mind. From here, the twenty arrondissements curved out in a clockwise spiral like the shell of a snail, each housing its own diverse worlds. Alone for the moment in the heart of Paris, Michel allowed himself to savor the view of Notre Dame. One of the Impressionists should paint the cathedral at dawn—a grey dawn like today, the muted light flashing with sudden iridescence like the throats of the pigeons strutting at his feet. Shreds of clouds floated like pale banners about the spire of the Gothic cathedral, and washes of sunlight gilded the arches of the flying buttresses. Just across the bridge, the great willow trailed its withes over the embankment, green leaves cascading against the ancient stone. Faint traces of mist still hovered near the quais, but the Seine gleamed silver, flecks of vivid color rippling in the wake of passing boats.

  Michel turned at the sound of footsteps. It was the grocer’s wife on her way to early mass. He nodded to her then crossed over to the larger island. The morning was relatively quiet. The café conversation of a few early risers mingled with the daily calls and clatter of workmen making deliveries. He chose a café at random for his petit déjeuner. He patronized most of the cafés along his route, wanting them all to know him, to feel free to call on him in need. The coffee was fresh, hot and bitter, the ham and eggs too greasy. He ate a little, paid, and wrapped up the remnants of the food in a bit of newspaper.