Chapter Forty-One The Performer #2
My body had other plans as it pulled me into the light, the glare blinding me as I stepped out cautiously, the dark, empty expanse serving as my audience.
I could see a faint shimmer of the chandelier, larger than life for such a lavish establishment.
The looming empty levels of seats along the sides, and a dark shadow to block the floor and orchestra pit.
It was empty . . . or so I assumed.
“You came.” A voice from the crowd, such relief in those two words, I hardly recognized Arkady as the source.
“I saw your message.” My own voice betrayed me, but it seemed he was hungry for my answer as well as my attendance.
I couldn’t see him in the dark, but I knew he was lingering about. The creaking of a seat, then the echo of one person walking through such a vast and empty place. His form only became known when he appeared by the steps at the front of the stage. Even then, he seemed reserved.
“I want to explain.” I swallowed.
“We can talk about it later.” He approached slowly, ascending the stairs.
“I had to—Lorelei. It isn’t as you think.”
“Like Vincent?”
“No—but, well, yes.”
“What about the others? In the icebox.”
My breath caught, twisted in my lungs.
“A better question would be, who did you feed to me?”
“I don’t know—”
“Be honest.”
“I asked him to not tell me their names.” My answer was cowardly, but it was true.
He stood still at the top of the stairs, his face hidden from me as the spotlight glared from behind. His expressions were a mystery to me; I had no clue as to whether he was angry or disappointed.
I took a deep breath, opting to wait for him to speak.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I did—”
“The truth.”
“You got the truth. It was just in pieces, or skimmed from just above the surface. I always gave an answer,” I said sternly.
“What did you neglect to tell me, then?” His voice became cool, his shoulders still tense from what I could see. “You know my secrets. It is only decent to share your own.”
“I would have told you, in time.”
“You ate them, Petre.”
The words rang in my ears, bouncing off my canals like a deep-rooted tinnitus.
The silence was taken as an answer, and he laughed. As if it were some tired joke.
I considered the answer carefully. “Some on my own, some fed to me.”
His form rummaged for something, stepping closer as he pulled out a photograph. He held it straight in front, stepping forward enough for me to see it.
A little blond girl, kneeling beside two massive white guardian dogs, an empty metal bowl shared by all three.
“When did you start?”
My eyes shifted from the photo to his hand, blood on his fingers and smudged on the corner of the paper.
I stepped back, and he stepped forward quickly, his other hand extended in a halting motion.
“Wait.” He was visible now, smudges of dark red stuck to his face, his eyes dark from either the poor lighting or some other force entirely. “I want to know how long he was helping you.”
I shook my head, covering my face as if it would hold back the sob swelling in my throat.
My hands were pried from my eyes. Arkady holding them far enough away where I couldn’t hide, I couldn’t resist. His eyes were so sharp, I couldn’t read them as they cut me down to something small, something to be dissected.
“You lied to me,” I cried. “You told me you’d never given in to your urges! You promised me I would be safe!”
“And you are,” he said with such certainty, I could have believed it.
“That’s why you didn’t tell me where you kept Vincent,” I accused. “Is that why you called me here? To finish the job? To bury your secret?”
His lips curled into a grin, dimples forming as he shook his head.
“No, my love”—he tipped his head toward the audience—“we are finishing it together.”
I stared in silence for a moment, following his eyes slowly to the audience. I squinted, blinking to let my sight adjust to the darkness.
Somewhere in the void, movement.
My head snapped back to him. “Arkady, what have you done?”
He let me go, reaching into the back of his pants for a folder. He then emptied it onto the floor in front of me.
All of the photographs were of me, older, newer . . . all of them. Even the one from the papers.
Arkady stepped to the edge of the stage, settling in a comfortable stance and shoving his hands in his pockets. “I’m missing a few patrons of yours, but that is because I used them as muses.”
“What do you mean?” I looked at him, his backlit silhouette somber in such a desolate scene.
He sighed. “I wanted to be respectful and let you do the honors.”
“I don’t understand.” My lip trembled as I stepped to his side.
“My muses were used to fill the sculptures,” he whispered, “and I still regret giving such divine opportunities to the likes of them.”
I stood stagnant.
Arkady looked to me, his steady hand engulfing mine. “The first sculpture of mine contained Kostya’s foster father,” he began.
I watched him, and now that he had my attention, he turned to me to collect both my hands in his.
“The second one was my foster parents, after I became a ward of the state. The third was Sister Margeret from when we were moved to Saint Lucia’s.
She liked to burn us with cigarettes. The latest?
My last foster parents. They rented us out to the factories.
We were lucky if we just lost fingers, as some never came home. ”
“So you have hurt people before?” I whispered.
He nodded. “I didn’t lie to you entirely, just as you did with me.
I never acted on an innocent, I only acted for innocents.
I am not angry. I wanted to show you that I understand.
” He lifted my knuckles to his lips and kissed them, releasing a shaky breath as he closed his eyes.
“I rid the world of my demons, allowing me to finally be free. I just want the same for you.”
I looked out into the still dark. Now that we were at the edge, I saw them.
All of them.
Forms to the front, slouched from apparent concussions and tied to the theater seats with rope. Several shifting heads and flighty glances. Some of them unconscious, some just coming to their senses.
Among them, a group of patrons at various stages of consciousness, most bound and gagged.
Officers, including the commissioner. Next to Mr. Hunt was Vincent, armless and decaying.
His body was almost all bones, dried clay keeping the bugs from speeding the process.
One more seat over, my mother . . . and finally, my father.
The only ones not gagged were my parents, I suppose to plead their case, as they were the reason for everyone’s attendance at the heart of it all.
My hand tore from his to cover my mouth, gripping tight as I felt the tears finally escape.
“Some of your patrons overlapped with my muses. I suppose abusers rarely commit once,” he said, chest puffed out proudly. “Further proof we were fated to meet.”
“We can’t do this.” I shook my head. “It isn’t right.”
“Yes, you can.” He stepped behind me, his hands smoothing down my arms with his head tipped beside mine. “This is the time to let the truth be free. To heal is to first be believed, to testify. Allow me to be your witness.”
I stared out into the crowd. My mother began to sob, the commissioner was barely conscious, and my father held my gaze with such eerie steadiness, I believed he knew this was his restitution for whatever deal he’d made at the crossroads with whatever devil he held dearest.
“They developed an appetite for killing . . . and I, the taste for flesh against my will.”
“What did they do?” he prompted.
“They fed me alongside the dogs.”
“Who did they put in the food?”
“Anyone they wanted to disappear,” I said. “Félice married a politician—the one running against Mr. Hunt for position of commissioner.”
“He was the first?”
“No. I’d lost count.”
Arkady’s fingers brushed over my wrists before intertwining our fingers. “Who was the first?”
I stared at my father, and he never broke, his wife inconsolable beside him as if she weren’t equally to blame. “My mother. They fed my mother to me.”
I couldn’t stop shaking, my limbs becoming cold from the heaving of emotion.
“They knew I was sick. A sour kind of luck where one thing led to another . . . I couldn’t help it.
” I swallowed. “The coroner would give me meat belonging to the evidence of their experiments. After a while, it became too frequent. I couldn’t do it anymore.
Couldn’t keep up, there were too many bodies.
I was becoming too aware of my meals, and I just .
. . couldn’t. I thought it was the most ethical way to satiate my cravings, but they abused it.
They abused me. My condition that they gave me. ”
“That’s good, Petre,” Arkady praised. He leaned down to my ear to whisper, “You asked me once what type of man I was.”
I nodded slowly, looking at him from the corner of my eye, his hand still in mine.
“You have a choice. If you wish to be free of this, of me, you may leave. You can walk out of here and go far away, these people and myself gone forever. You don’t need to know what happened to them. You won’t ever see me again.”
I squeezed his hand, hot tears spilling faster as I turned to him.
He held my face between his hands with something like reverence.
“I was always going to be on your side, no matter what,” he said at my lips, hesitating only slightly as they nearly touched.
My mouth hung open to say something, anything, but his lips were gone.
As he began to pull away, my hands cupped over his, holding them before they left my face . . .
“Wait.” My voice rang clear. “I have something to say.”
His eyes flicked between mine, stepping back, allowing me the spotlight.