Chapter 8 #2
Maher and Dávid excel at finding welcoming clubs in every city we go to.
Ever since Diavola’s letter where she needled me about my lack of relationships, I’ve gone out with them.
I’ve had too many drinks. I’ve tried to find a body to create a little pleasure with.
But it never works. Every time I get close, I hear her, whispering in my ear.
Everyone leaves this world alone.
I want you soft and warm and breathing.
I consume you.
I’ve read her words so many times they may as well be tattooed on my body. And at night, when I dream, she’s always there, murmuring those same words and more. I cannot escape her, and I cannot catch her, and I worry it will drive me mad one of these days.
Maher must sense my plummeting mood, because he stops teasing and puts a hand on my shoulder. “I mean it. Go back to our rooms. I’ll wait here until someone else arrives. I don’t want her to be alone.”
And just like that, my despair changes to shame. This case isn’t what we’re trying to solve, but I’m glad we were able to do something for the poor young woman.
“I love you,” I say. Maher sets down the camera to hug me. It feels impossible that only three years ago we were strangers; he’s family now.
“I’m very lovable.”
I snort a laugh and release him. “You sound just like Dávid. It’s terrible. I should never have reunited the two of you.”
“Tonight you can tell me the story again of how our Dávid, who has never willingly run a single step in his entire life, sprinted the length of Budapest when he thought I was in mortal peril.”
I leave Maher watching over the girl and trudge to the hotel.
Brussels is a city that shows its growing pains most on the edges, and as I leave the chaos of the outer neighborhoods for the older sections it gets, if not quieter, at least more orderly.
It’s not so different from Amsterdam, but without the canals the air is hot and dry.
I miss the smell of my city, the smell of my home, the smell of Mama.
We’ve been away for months now, chasing death.
We always find it, and yet we never find her. Diavola.
And I won’t even have a letter to puzzle and agonize over. I know this wasn’t a waste and yet it feels crushingly disappointing. I’m running out of time. Diavola always reminds me of that.
The chatty woman we’ve rented rooms from is thankfully occupied in the kitchen, so I’m able to slip straight upstairs to the guest space. As soon as I open the door, Inge pounces.
“Well?” she demands, pencil and pad in hand.
“Fake,” I answer, at last taking off my jacket. My blouse beneath is as sheer as I can manage and I still want to remove it, too. “One of the police officers. He knew about our investigation and staged his murder to look like one of hers.”
“That’s twice now.” Inge frowns, tearing out the page.
It doesn’t belong in her notebook anymore.
She tucks it into a separate folder. “I’m going to make a study of how many men in policing are also violent criminals.
But this does make an even dozen murders we’ve actually solved. Assuming he didn’t get away?”
“Correct.”
“Very good.” Inge nods approvingly, as though she’s my elder sister rather than a teenager whose care I’m responsible for whenever we’re away from Amsterdam and Joren.
To be fair, she’s often the most level-headed of all of us.
Which is another reason we keep her away from the actual scenes.
It’s not just protectiveness. We need her brain working clearly, untainted by horror.
She’s the most valuable member of our team.
I kick off my shoes and start tugging off my stockings when Inge holds up a hand to stop me.
“Not yet,” she says.
I flop onto the chaise longue with a groan.
We usually stay in hotels, but increasingly Inge has been finding apartments for us to rent for a few days.
She’s declared them homier. Which is true.
Staying here feels like visiting the home of a fussy spinster aunt.
Every flat surface is covered with delicate porcelain animals, staring at us with shiny black eyes.
Inge was so delighted when she saw them that I couldn’t let her know how unnerving I find them.
The collection reminds me of my mother’s own hobby, and I resolve to find at least one silver miniature for her before we return to Amsterdam. I wonder if anything here reminds Inge of her mother, whom I assume is dead, as neither Joren nor Inge have ever mentioned her.
“Inge—” I start, and if I am preternaturally good at examining crime scenes, Inge is preternaturally good at sensing when I’m about to ask her a personal question.
“Jacket back on, no time to rest,” she interrupts.
“Are we leaving already?”
Though there’s no obvious pattern in where and when Diavola strikes, she’s drawn to cities where the mood is high and the possibilities seem endless.
Unlike Jack the Ripper and the handful of other repeat murderers we’ve found, she doesn’t target those on the edges of society least likely to be properly investigated.
She kills men, women, children. Families.
Couples. Friends. She kills individuals or small groups, and her methodology has yet to repeat itself.
There’s no way to predict who or where she’ll kill, but we have found that she always strikes at least twice in a city before moving on.
Which means we have no reason to stay in Brussels now that we know it wasn’t her. Doubtless Inge already has the train schedule so we can move on without wasting any time.
Instead, Inge produces a poster. In bold crimson letters at the top it reads “Cinématographe” and beneath, in black, “Lumière.” Painted in pastels is a crowd of police officers, top-hatted gentlemen, and elegant ladies streaming into a building.
I sit up, intrigued. “I didn’t know they had a moving picture theater here.”
“Even better news.” Inge’s green eyes flash with pleasure like they always do when she’s done something clever, which is often.
“I gossiped with the girl handing out flyers, and Louis Lumière himself is in Brussels right now. We can ask him all about his moving pictures, whether or not Diavola could have a cinematograph machine, and how we might track her if she does.”
The cinematograph is so new that in most places it’s barely a rumor, much less a reality. We’ve never been able to properly pursue that angle of inquiry. Inge’s right. This is worth leaving my stockings on for.
I pull on my jacket, scribble a note for Dávid and Maher, and then we head out to see a man about a magic camera.