Chapter 29
Diavola puts a finger to her lips and winks. The little girl is stunned into silence, frozen, watching as we pass her. I can’t tell if it’s fear or awe in her expression.
“She noticed you?” I thought being able to pick Diavola out of a crowd was my own special talent. If any child can do it, I’m hardly better than them, and it stings more than I care to admit.
Diavola smiles, but it’s a sad smile. “Children often do. I had to be careful when my sister’s children were young. I suspect it’s because experiences are newer for them, so they don’t focus so much on what they expect to see. But they forget me very quickly.”
“Have you tried killing their fathers? That makes a lasting impression.”
Diavola laughs. I didn’t know she was capable of it.
It sounds like…well, it sounds like a woman laughing.
Just a pleasant, perfectly ordinary reaction.
It’s difficult for me to imagine you laughing, she once wrote me.
I never even tried to imagine it from her.
And I could never have come up with this.
I find myself smiling, an expression that feels bigger and brighter than any since Dávid died. “Please don’t take me up on that suggestion.”
“I promise I won’t.”
“But that reminds me. You said in your Vienna letter that you hadn’t strangled a man with your bare hands in a while. Will you tell me about that?”
“Yes! One of my only happy memories. Our neighbor was harassing my sister. Most men in our town thought they were welcome to look at or even touch us because we had no father. I tackled him to the ground and squeezed his neck until he went purple. It took three people to pull me off him. After that, he never touched my sister. No one did, not even the man I eventually killed.”
We’re approaching the main entrance gate to the fair.
Its well-lit arch looms overhead, festooned in yellow and blue glass made to look like gems, topped with La Parisienne, a statue of a woman styled in modern fashion rather than classical garb.
I wonder if she’s being held up by an S-shaped corset, too.
People mock the entrance, comparing it to a stove, but it looks to me more like an organ pavilion. I appreciate the absurd scale of it.
I wave to one of the Swallows and he escorts me past the ticket takers. He doesn’t even glance at Diavola, his eyes returning to scanning the crowds for pickpockets.
“Why didn’t you leave with your sister when she got married?” I ask.
Diavola doesn’t answer. We’re nearly to the Grand and Petit Palaces.
The buildings are stunning in scope and design, holding mostly art.
Maher and I walked the galleries a few days ago, but they don’t seem like good hunting grounds for the Watcher.
I’m not sure where Diavola and I should patrol, actually.
I set out without any plan. Which is a problem when it comes to the fair; it’s easy to walk several miles if one doesn’t have a route plotted ahead of time.
I turn left onto the new bridge, the Pont Alexandre III, with its golden winged horses, glowing lamps, and playful cherubs.
The Seine slips by beneath us, black water broken by twinkling reflections of lights, boats navigating its waters even this late.
The bridge is crowded with couples holding each other close, taking advantage of the romance of it all, and I regret my decision.
Diavola leans over the stone railing and gazes at the water.
“I didn’t go with her because I worried that the curse I was born with, the one that made me sour and contrary and wicked, would follow me.
I thought if I stayed behind in our miserable town and took care of our mother, then my sister would truly be free of it all.
I didn’t deserve happiness, but she did. ”
“You sacrificed yourself for her.”
She dips her head in half a nod, as though she can’t quite take credit even now.
“What was your curse?” I ask, wondering if there actually was a curse. I can’t discount the supernatural as easily as I used to. The vrykolakas next to me is proof enough of that.
“Being born without a father. Refusing to listen when men told me I needed to be quiet. Wrestling any boy who tried to kiss me and pushing his face in the dirt until he cried. Touching myself because it felt nice. Screaming at my mother when she tried to tell my sister and me we were worthless. Defying the priest who tried to drag me into the church to repent of my unnaturalness when he saw me looking at his wife with ‘lustful eyes.’ For the record, hers were the eyes filled with lust.”
I resist the impulse to take her hand in mine. “That sounds less like a curse and more like a girl trying desperately to survive.”
“What is a curse if not something you can’t change that prevents you from ever being happy? My sister didn’t believe it was a curse, either. She begged me to come, but I didn’t want to infect her chance at a good life.”
“The way I infected Dávid, Maher, and Inge, pulling them away from whatever safe, normal lives they might have had,” I say to show that I understand.
To her credit, Diavola doesn’t argue with me. She just nods.
“Every contact leaves a trace.” I brush my hand against hers. Her skin is cool and smooth, and she doesn’t react. I don’t even know if she feels it. But I do, and it terrifies me. “What about the man you killed?” I ask. “Did you strangle him, too?”
Diavola’s eyelids lower until the chasms of her irises are half-hooded.
“A knife. Which was faster than he deserved. Forty years they let him do what he wanted because he was the priest’s brother.
Generations of children were damaged by that monster.
He never touched me, but he hurt my mother.
Not long after she died, I woke up one morning and knew I couldn’t live in the same world as him anymore.
I took a knife, stole into his home, and ended him.
If I’d known how much it would cost me, would I have done it anyway? ”
She doesn’t answer her question. We walk across the bridge and then along the river, past stands selling roasted nuts, tents for having our fortunes told, lovers clutching each other in pools of darkness between lamps, and countless displays and vendors, until we end up in front of the Eiffel Tower.
“Anything?” I ask, as if I’ve been paying attention to our surroundings. I’m entirely focused on trying to pretend I’m not entirely focused on Diavola’s presence beside me.
“No. Before you found the missing cinema equipment and the artist with the smashed hand, how did you know for certain he was here?”
“His scent.”
“His scent?” She raises a dark eyebrow at me.
“You both smell…not the same, but distinctive.” I know how she feels about him, and I want to reassure her that there’s a difference.
“I first caught his scent in Amsterdam at the murder scene of the shipping clerk.” It feels like a lifetime ago.
Back when murderers were simply monstrous and not also sometimes actual monsters.
“You can smell him?” Instead of horror, there’s yearning in the way her eyes drift along the scene around us, as though searching for senses she lost long ago.
“It was the worst in the cave. But yes. It lingers. I know if he’s been somewhere recently.”
“Me, too?”
I smile, wanting to ease some of her melancholy. “You’re a cold so sweet the finest Parisian perfumery would run themselves out of business trying to re-create it.”
“I probably smell cold like the grave.” She wrinkles her nose.
“Like snow on the longest night of the year, when it blankets and holds the earth silent and still, with lights whispering in the darkness above.” Like my favorite season in Amsterdam. Like when I feel the most myself.
She closes her eyes and tips her head back as though trying to remember what it was to have that sense. My eyes linger on her white throat, but then get caught on her lips, upturned in the barest hint of a smile.
“Besides,” I say, “you can’t possibly smell like the grave, since we’ve already established you never had one.”
This earns me another laugh. Drunk on it, I back away, beckoning to her. “Come on. We’ll go to the Ferris wheel.”
“You think he’s there?”
This time it’s my turn to laugh. “No. I’ve just been desperate to try it, and someone has criticized me for never appreciating the cities I visit.
” I lead her along the gardens and walkways that span the open area from the Eiffel Tower, rising above us in orange and yellow splendor lit by electric bulbs, to the enormous agricultural hall, squatting across the horizon.
Luck is with us tonight. One of the Swallows I know—he accompanied me to the scene of a brawl that left several men injured and one paralyzed, once again just men being ordinarily awful instead of influenced by true evil—is helping manage the crowds.
The wait is at least an hour, with hundreds of people standing along the walkway.
“Sneak me to the front?” I give him my best flirtatious smile. Normally I wouldn’t cross that line, but I’ve never needed anything so much as I need to ride the Ferris wheel with Diavola, right now. If we have to stand in line, I’ll come to my senses, and I don’t want to.
He grins at me, tugging on the hem of his uniform jacket to straighten it.
“For you, Mademoiselle Van Helsing? There is no line.” He escorts us—technically me, since he doesn’t notice Diavola at all—to the front and whispers something to the ticket taker.
I pass them both a banknote for their help and, just like that, Diavola and I are in a first-class car.
It lifts into the air. I brace myself against the side before gazing out at the earth, slowly falling away from us.
“You can’t smell or taste or touch, but you can still see,” I say, suddenly shy. I don’t dare glance at Diavola to gauge her reaction. Maybe this isn’t a gift she wanted. Maybe she doesn’t care about the wonders of night at the fair. Maybe she’s frustrated that I’m not taking this more seriously.
She shifts so that she’s pressing against me, arm to arm. We stand there in silence, drifting over Paris together.
I’d forgotten what this felt like, this sense that the entire world could be held between just two people. Maybe I’ve never felt it this way. My stomach drops, and I don’t think it’s fear of heights. Though it is definitely fear of falling.
Diavola leans forward on the railing and rests her chin on her hand.
All her movements are studied and precise.
She’s acting. Because she’s not tired, and she doesn’t need to rest, or shift weight, or adjust. She’s pretending to be human.
It’s a performance just for me, so I won’t be unnerved or think about what she really is.
It’s so sweet and so sad I don’t know what to do with the feelings inside me.
“What is it like, living that long?” I ask, to remind myself how we’re different. How she and I are not the same and never can be.
Diavola straightens, all pretense at humanity gone.
She stands, tall and unyielding, not even her balance affected by the gentle rocking motion of our cart.
“You’re a delicate leaf, spinning down the surface of the river of time.
You might swirl and eddy occasionally, but you’re always moving in the natural direction: from beginning to end.
Birth to death. I’m a rock, sunk to the bottom.
Time passes over and around me. I don’t move, but I do change.
The current chips bits and pieces off me, reshaping me.
If I had a reflection, would I know myself still?
Or would everything that made me me be worn away? ”
She smiles, but it’s not a real smile. It’s more playacting.
“I already have the answer, of course. My own sister didn’t know me.
I’m nothing. I belong nowhere. I’ve been pulled out of time and only in the last ten years have I ever occasionally felt real, for a few moments here and there, imagining myself reflected back in perfect blue. ”
She gazes into my eyes. Do they have the same hold on her that hers have always had on me? I want to lean into her. I want to press my lips to hers and hope she can feel the intention, if not the sensation. I want to—
The Ferris wheel bumps to a stop. Our door opens. Reality rushes in and I rush out.
“Are you well?” Diavola asks, always by my side though I never notice her changing pace to match me.
“I just—I need to catch my breath. I ought to wear fewer layers like you do. Though I quite like my shoes.” I try to make light of the moment so I can forget what it felt like to be lifted away with her for a few precious minutes. I can’t abandon reality. Reality demands my attention.
And so does Maher. He’s loping toward us, waving to get my attention. I hurry to cross the distance.
“I asked every Swallow if they’d seen you,” he says, leaning over and gasping for air.
“What is it? What’s happened? Is Inge hurt?” I search behind him, terrified.
“She’s fine, we’re fine. This damn fair is too large.” He huffs, still out of breath. “There are two missing engineers.”
“All right,” I say, puzzled as to why this necessitated such urgency.
“An engineer who helped build and maintain the moving walkway.” He waves toward the edge of the fair where the walkway circles.
“And another who was in charge of the mirrors in the Palace of Illusions. These aren’t simple laborers who would quit without notice if they found other work.
They’re specialists. Men whose absences create problems, who haven’t been hired by anyone else. Or even seen again.”
“The artist, and the equipment, and now the engineers,” I say, a picture at last starting to form from the details we’d already gathered. “Maher, he’s making his own exhibit.”
He nods, wiping his forehead with a handkerchief and then replacing his hat. “I think so, too. It’s more than somewhere for him to store his things. It’s his own special place to bring his victims.”
“It makes sense. We know he likes to stay in a city for a while once he’s there, and he’s fascinated by technology. He’s adapted over the last decade to take advantage of new inventions. Why wouldn’t he continue to do so?”
I turn to Diavola to get her opinion. Maher follows my gaze and startles.
“Oh! I didn’t see you there.” He looks confused until Diavola stares right at him. His expression clears. “What do you think?” he asks her, still sounding tentative.
Diavola nods. “We have to investigate every single exhibit.”
“But not alone,” I say to Maher. “Never alone. Diavola can go with whoever is on duty.” She nods once more in agreement.
The flutter in my pulse makes it clear that I want to be the one at her side.
But not to protect my friends. To spend as much time as I can with this impossible creature whom I absolutely should not be falling in love with.