Wicked After Midnight

The bludmare picked her way through bunches of cattails, sometimes plunging into a boggy bit as we aimed for the yawning mouth of the pipe.

“Oddly enough, it’s not so bad once you’re inside. The rain and sewage collect and pool out here over the graves, but underground it’s channeled through rock. The threat of horror keeps most people out, though. Not to mention the blud creatures. Just remember not to touch any of the bones. They’re cursed.”

“You actually believe that?”

He chuckled. “Let us consider. Touch moldy bones and see if I’m cursed forever, or keep my hands to myself? Not a difficult decision.”

We reached the pipe, where a trickle of grayish water splattered to the boggy ground. The mare sneezed against her metal muzzle, adding bloody foam to the sludge. Vale edged the horse closer to an old log, and without being told, I leaped off her back and landed heavily on what felt like permanently bowed legs. Vale dropped beside me, steadying me with a firm hand as the log wobbled. He slapped the mare’s rump, and she took off with a splash, her hoofbeats merging with the near-constant thunder overhead.

“Won’t she run away?”

He smirked and stared after her high-flung tail. “We plant a carcass nearby to draw the bludmares and leave a young lad to catch and picket them. Hungry predators aren’t so smart when it comes to half a bloody pig on the moor.”

It was my turn to smirk with a flash of fang. “Funny, I’m pretty good at resisting bloody pigs.”

“One point to the mademoiselle.” Vale tipped an imaginary hat; I pictured a fedora and couldn’t stop myself from giggling.

Surefooted as a fussy cat, he leaped onto the lip of the pipe and straddled the slushy water. I followed him into the darkness, my skin prickling as I left the weak light of a cloudy day for the sucking shadows of the cylinder. Just before the pipe’s curve shifted to aged stone, the light gave out. Vale pulled a heavy pendant from the neck of his shirt and twisted its base, and a gentle green glow filled the space, showing a long tunnel of orderly bricks and stones. Perfectly set in patterned niches were artful groupings of smooth white bones and polished skulls. Sluggish, lumpy water flowed down a channel set in the middle, just wide enough to straddle. Each side had just enough space for a slender person to walk without turning sideways. Vale’s shoulders were almost too broad and occasionally bumped the wall as he led me down a ladder and deeper into the catacombs. I threw out my senses, hoping for any sign of Cherie.

“My father’s band is ahead of us somewhere. The slavers never return by the same route, and there are endless tunnels and ladders and stairs and secret niches set into the maze of underground crypts. The good news is that I haven’t seen blood or signs of combat yet, but the bad news is that if they reach their destination in the city and get topside before the brigands find them, we will have no idea where your friend was taken.”

“Then what?” My boots rasped on the stone, and the smell shifted from death and decay to something slightly more tolerable, a mineral smell tinged with iron.

“Then whatever the lady wishes. I can return you to Callais, take you back to our camp, or deliver you to your new life in Paris.”

“Dropped on the front step of a cabaret like a baby in a basket,” I muttered.

He turned to give me a horrified look. “I do believe they call that murder in the city. The bludrats of Paris are monsters. And so are some of the men who frequent the cabarets.”

The American teenager in me peered down into the water with a frown. “Speaking of which, anything nasty live in the catacombs?”

Vale chuckled and kept walking by the light of his pendant. A flash to the side caught my eye, and I watched him twirl a wicked-looking blade. “That depends on your definition of nasty.”

“Dude, don’t try to scare and impress me. I seriously want to know.”

We passed an open tunnel, and I heard faraway shouting and felt a damp breeze. When I paused, he gently grabbed my wrist to pull me along. “Paris looks ordinary topside, all orderly rows and squares. But down here, in the old city, things are twisted and strange. There is no complete map, no limit to how wide or low the tunnels can go. Men have gotten lost and never come back. Or they’ve come back changed. Some say that even deeper than the tunnels, there are caverns filled with glowing crystals and albino bats. Sometimes bludrats find their way down here and go blind and bald. Sometimes feral dogs find a cavern and live like wild, half-mad creatures.” He trailed off, his footsteps the only sound. But I smelled a lie.

“There’s something you’re not telling me, Vale.”

He exhaled, shaking his head sadly. “Sometimes we find daimons down here. Ruined. Walking corpses. Mostly women.”

“And you don’t know what happened to them?”

“Not a clue. The best we can figure is that they got lost and went mad with it. No emotions to feed on, no clean water, no light. After a few weeks of wandering around down here with nothing but the sewage and pitch-black darkness, it makes sense.” He stopped and spun, blocking my path. The green light lit him from below, a fiendish ghoul, all sharp edges and shadows. “I see that you wish to ask, so I will tell you. We kill them. Quickly and as kindly as possible. If you bring them topside, they scream and panic. Father brought one back to camp once, and she killed a child.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Life is dark, and then you die, bébé. Just let it be a reminder that you never want to get lost down here. And if you do, go very quiet and follow the sound of water.”

Up ahead, a burble of voices. Vale stilled, and I nearly ran into his back before he relaxed.

“It’s my father. And he’s angry.”

I held my breath but caught no sound of Cherie, no soft rasp of skirts against stone. What little hope I had tumbled away in the darkness. “Bad news, then.”

“Today does not appear to be your lucky day, no.”

I fingered the rabbit’s foot still hidden in my pocket. “And how’s your day?”

He drew a deep breath and gave the call of a hunting owl, which was swiftly answered from the bowels of the tunnel. Leaning his shoulders against the wall, he regarded me, smirk back in place. “Could be worse. No silvers, but I already made my hunting quota for the week, catching you behind that bush. Such a big, tame bludbunny would win prizes at any festival.”

“I bet you say that to all the girls.”

He sighed, almost sadly, before turning to greet the group of men materializing from the shadows, lit by the glowing green of their own pendants. Their leader exactly matched my mental image for Vale’s father, leader of the brigands. A pro-wrestler type going to seed, with a paunch that stretched his vest, gray hair marching backward off the top of his head, and a scarred leather eye patch.

“Lose the trail? Lorn’s fault, I’m sure.” Vale’s voice was dry and silky, every word a dare.

The old man shot a disgusted look at his older son. “Your responsible brother is still tracking the bloody bastards. They’re faster than ever. Didn’t see a single one. Found this, though.”

I peeked around Vale and almost oozed into the water when I saw Cherie’s hairbob.

“That’s hers. My friend Cherie’s.”

The old man squinted at me with his one good eye. “Who the hell is that?”

Vale winked at me over his shoulder. “The girl I found behind the bush.”

“I thought you were lying as usual.”

“Then you owe me an apology, old man.”

The head brigand turned red, which was quite an accomplishment in the green light. “I don’t owe you a goddamn thing, son. You want something, you take it. If you can.”

Vale stilled in front of me, going stiff all over like a stalking cat. He snatched the hairbob and handed it to me. As I fingered the ribbons that I had helped tie under Cherie’s hair just that morning, Vale hopped across the water to the ledge on the other side of the tunnel.

“Care to join me, bébé?” He held out his hand.

His father glared at me, his single eye going narrow. “Mademoiselle, we’d be glad to escort you to safety. Despite Vale’s bad manners, the Hildebrand tribe is known for stout hearts and valor.” His eye roved over me, as if calculating the worth of my figure and costume. When he smiled, it was cold, like a shark.

I smiled sweetly, showing fangs. “Stout hearts? But I thought you were thieves.”

Vale swallowed a laugh, and I took his hand and leaped lightly to the other side, where he caught me with a palm splayed across my back.

“Vale, it’s your duty—”

“To escort this mademoiselle to her destination in the city. Don’t worry, Father. I’ll be home eventually.”

“Already told you, don’t come home unless you plan on living up to your birthright.”

Someone snickered behind the old man, and Vale released me and walked stiffly along the ledge, away from his father and deeper down the tunnel toward Paris.

“Thanks, but no thanks,” I said with a wave as I followed him.

The ledge wasn’t as well kept on this side. It crumbled in places and felt almost spongy in others. Whenever there was a rough spot, Vale slowed and held out a hand to help me across. I could feel conflict and unease roiling in him, and I wasn’t exactly calm myself. I wanted to break free, to run, to howl, to show my fangs to whatever creature had dared to take my friend Cherie. The ghostly plague doctors in the smoke now seemed like nothing more than nightmare visions I’d conjured myself. All we had was the hairbob clutched in my gloves. The anger and helplessness were maddening, but we had no choice but to creep along carefully, feeling our way down the narrow ledge, half-blind in eye and heart.

Which was probably why I decided to badger my savior.

“So . . . your dad.”

“He is a terror, no?”

“Is he trying to start a fight or something?”

Vale chuckled. “Something like that.” ns class="adsbygoogle" style="display:block" data-ad-client="ca-pub-7451196230453695" data-ad-slot="9930101810" data-ad-format="auto" data-full-width-responsive="true">