Stones throe, p.3
Stone's Throe, page 3
I flew through the four small rooms that made up our home: kitchen, sitting room, a bedroom carved in two so that Maman and Papa, as much as myself, might have a hint of privacy. There were no clothes missing save what they must have worn; no notes left to scold or warn a wayward daughter should she return. Arms and legs of furniture lay broken, some of them shorn in half just as the piano was, as if they had been used in defense.
I did not remember leaving again, only that outside in the street I knelt at a wretched man's feet and begged to know where my beloved Maman and Papa had been taken. Begged to know who, and felt long cold fingers of fear grip my belly as the man averted his gaze and whispered the words I knew he would: "Le Monstre."
I do not fear you, I had said to him years ago. You will, he had replied, and I had armed myself against that. I had learned to fight, I had learned the lay of the district in ways I had never before known, understanding where the criminal element gathered and discovering the places they moved and hid wares. I was too gently raised to come by this knowledge natively, but my Savate teacher knew more than how to fight, and I learned it all from him in preparation for facing le Monstre. But he had never shown himself. His threat had been left fallow so long I had nearly forgotten it, and yet now it rose up inside me, cold and terrible. He had been a prophet after all: I did fear him now. Not for my own sake, but for my parents'.
In a flash I understood, too. I had been nothing, a silly girl with a trembling voice, and I had thought he had forgotten me over the years. He had not forgotten. He had waited, a long and deliberate game, until I was complacent and happy. Only then could fear truly be awakened in my belly. Only then could his promise come true.
Hate twinned itself with fear, building an unbankable fire in my breast. Later, looking back, I knew that a girl had gone into Maman and Papa's apartment, but that something else left there that day. Even then I knew I was changed, that I walked away from that broken flat with more weight and certainty than I had had, but it was years before I understood that that day, my spirit awakened to its destiny.
A carriage awaited me. I walked instead, feeling the streets change under my feet from cobbles to pavement; feeling what I had let myself forget: that I had come from a place where a madman, a monster, could steal a family away, and that no one would raise a hand to stop him. I had met that monster, and yet I had done nothing to stop him. Instead I had left my parents to that haunting fear while I danced on clouds and drank the finest wines. No one had known love like I knew; no one could have felt the self-disgust that I felt.
"Amélie," my Gabriel said to me as I entered the vast foyer of his Parisian home. Horror made his voice light in the single word: horror, concern, love. All the things he should voice, but shame writhed in my belly like a snake and I could not go to him. "Amélie," he said again. "Tell me what has happened."
"Le Monstre." I spat the words and he flinched, though my rage was as much for myself as for the creature who had taken my parents away. "I have to leave you, Gabriel. I must find Maman and Papa. Le Monstre has stolen them from me." Just, I could not bring myself to say, just as you have stolen me from them. But that was unfair; he had not forced me to follow him that winter night, nor much had to coax me out of the gutters and into the light of his sun.
Shock whitened his lips and made tension around his vivid eyes, as if he had heard my unspoken accusation. But no: he came forward to clasp my hands, and his own were as cold as mine. "Estelle? She is missing? Let me help you, Amélie. Your mother has been so important to me for so long. And your father," he added, though we both knew it was because of Maman's voice he had chosen to become their benefactor. Even now he still played the records of her singing, often when he thought I could not hear, but still, he played them, and it seemed to me that he was revitalized each time he did, as if her voice lent him strength and power. "I know many people. Let me call them, my love. Let me help you find Estelle."
I unwound my fingers from his to put my hand against his cheek. He was pale, as pale as I had ever known him to be, and the brown of my own skin beside his was startling in comparison. "You know many people," I agreed, "but not this kind of people, Paul-Gabriel. Le Monstre is where I am from. From le dix-huitième." The eighteenth district, where lay Montmartre, Pigalle, the Moulin Rouge; all the places I had known growing up, and which had not, until I returned, seemed desperate and ugly. "You, your beautiful home, your wonderful food and your amazing artists, you do not belong there. Your friends will not know where to find le Monstre."
"Paul-Gabriel," he murmured, and a hint of a knowing smile played at his lips. "You are very serious, then, my Amélie, to use all of my name."
"I am."
"And you know where to find this monstre?"
"No. But I will." I kissed him, looked into his eyes once more, and left his palatial home with the memory of his beauty burned into my mind like a brand.
CHAPTER FIVE
I could not know whose motorcycle I borrowed from the Parisian streets, but I could be grateful to him for it. A soldier, I imagined: a boy back from the war, a messenger boy who had perhaps loved a German girl too near the front; who had wooed her with the rumbling engine of a Triumph, and lost her when the army called him home. The girl was gone, but the pursuit of that memory lent me this roaring black beast.
It was easy to steal, easier to drive, and put a love for machinery into my loins that was as intense and throbbing as any I had ever known for my Gabriel. Its grumble announced me long before I saw the warehouse, and it spat stones at the unadorned walls when I spun it in a circle to stop and take stock of the heart of my enemy's territory.
Empty warehouses, noisy railways: this was territory beyond the edges of old Paris, a wasteland squirreling up and around la Butte, the hill upon which Montmartre was built. Thieves and bandits had once peopled these places; now, where the warehouses were occupied, it was by their heirs: thugs and brigands, all in the employ of le Monstre. No one warehouse was easily distinguished from another; they all had broken or blacked out windows with no signs of life within.
One, though, had men outside; wary, watchful men. I counted six and suspected more: burly men with gnarled arms and thick necks, hired for their size rather than their wit. They wore the casual clothes of dock workers, broad-striped shirts and denim pants over black leather boots. Most wore caps; those who did not sported stubbly hair on their ill shaped heads. One carried a crowbar, but dropped it loosely at his side when he saw who approached.
I knew the picture I made: an African girl in a sea foam dress, loose sleeves brushing the elbows to show strong, not soft, arms. The skirt was hitched high to show an unseemly length of leg wrapped around the black belly of a motorcycle. I had not even changed my heeled, lambs-leather shoes, knowing that the clothes, taken together with the motorcycle, would paint me as a harlot. That, I judged, was more useful than being seen as a threat; my reputation, should I survive the next hours, could be repaired.
Two of the men exchanged grins, then sidled glances at the crowbar-bearing man, whose leer encouraged them to leave their posts and step my way. I waited, smiling, and did not think of the chill in my hands or the racing of my heart. I could not be afraid now, even if fear consumed much of my mind; of such stuff was courage made, acting despite terror. I braced my toes against the street and saw the workers' hungry eyes follow the shape of my calf as it flexed. They were not looking, then, when I withdrew the pistols strapped to my other thigh.
The weapons had come from the same place I had learned the location of le Monstre's warehouse: through my Savate teacher, though he would himself not give me the guns. Instead he had—disapprovingly, for why had he taught me to make weapons of my hands and feet if I only chose to resort to guns?—sent me to a disreputable man known to deal in cash and lies and the things they bought. Even if I was not my teacher's student, I was Paul-Gabriel Laval's woman; I had both coin and stories to spare. If I had not had those things, the weight of a favor owed by one so close to the Benefactor still would have purchased me all that I needed to know.
I had never fired a gun, but the disreputable man had told me what I needed to know. A willingness to do harm was worth more than a sure shot; marksmanship did not matter if the trigger could not be pulled. He had not believed I could pull it, but his belief did not matter: the astonished pair whose gazes drifted back upward to find themselves in my sights believed, or were at least cautious.
Not cautious enough: one smirked and stepped forward, a meaty hand extending toward me. "Don't," I suggested. "I will shoot."
His smirk broadened and he took another step. Only a fool would allow an adversary close enough to seize her weapons, and I had had enough of being a fool. I lowered the pistol a little and shot him in the thigh.
The report was the loudest thing I had ever heard; the scent of gunpowder stringent and intoxicating; the kickback, a surprising thrill. This was power, extended beyond the human hand, beyond mortal reach. I had never dreamed that guns would appeal to me; now I knew that I would carry one into adversity for the rest of my life. For the rest of my life, however long that may be. Long enough, I vowed, to free my parents from le Monstre's grip; anything beyond that was a gift.
My assailant had not yet fully realized that he had been shot when I kicked power back into the Triumph's engine, spun its rattling beauty again, and roared past the crowbar-wielding thug and the other workers to burst through the warehouse doors.
Voices cried out behind and before me, startled men racing for weapons with reach: chains, staffs, and guns. The latter were in great supply, and heat flushed my skin. I was a fool after all, if I had thought le Monstre's warehouse would be filled with lace doilies and the stiff-armed stuffed bears called Teddy after the beloved President of the United States. No; there were stacks of munitions, clearly labeled, and I could only imagine that he supplied the Central Powers, lining his own pocket to the detriment of the Allies.
But it was not for the weapons I had come. The Triumph's engine rattled and roared, echoing off the warehouse's tall, windowless walls. I crouched low over the handlebars and gunned the beast, its leap of power driving us into the warehouse's heart. I had pursuants, but I did not look behind myself to see them: my quarry lay ahead. I wanted Maman. I wanted Papa. And I wanted le Monstre himself.
A chain clattered against the Triumph's wheel, entangling it. The wheel seized and I flew forward, regretting in that instant my decision to wear a gown rather than borrow my father's leather coat to protect my tender skin. Pallets and straw broke with my impact, cushioning me somewhat from an otherwise disastrous landing. I rattled to my feet, discarded my shoes, and ran without taking stock of my injuries. They were not debilitating; that was all that mattered.
The warehouse was poorly lit and overfull, though mercifully without dust, and those hunting me were entangled in the clattering mess created by a spilled motorcycle. For long seconds I ran uninhibited, until a man rose up from between boxes without warning and I ducked under the Tommy gun he pointed toward me. I did not shoot him, but only hit his belly with the butt of my pistol, which had the satisfying effect of dropping him to his knees. I used the pistol a second time at the base of his neck, rendering him senseless, seized his machine gun, and ran the way he had blocked, believing that a guard there meant some degree of importance.
We were very close to the Seine in this warehouse; I did not expect to find a door with a stairway leading down, and yet its very unlikeliness gave me confidence that it was the direction I needed to go. I crept down the stairs rather than catapulting, grateful for my silent bare feet even if the stone steps were clammy beneath my soles. Water dribbled down dimly lit walls, distant torches offering guttering light. I emerged, in time, into a chamber ringed by small glass boxes with brightly colored tubes rising from them. Liquid pulsed through those tubes, a few bubbles bursting within them as steady drips of the colored liquo fell into the boxes.
At this chamber's center were welded two pig-iron chairs, terrible to envision. Leather straps slashed the pitted metal, holding the chairs' occupants in place. Their hands clawed the ragged chair arms, their bodies strained and thrashed with tension, but their faces were hidden beneath vast metal helmets from which wires and suction cups dangled.
"Maman. Papa." I did not need to see their faces, bien sûr, to know their tortured bodies, and my whisper was lament and apology both. A second glance around the room told me we were alone, and I slung the machine gun to my side as I ran to save my parents.
The wires were a desperate tangle, some seeming to carry electricity to the nodes attached to Maman's head, others draining away the bright liquid that pulsed into the glass boxes. I hesitated, fearing to do even more damage by tearing at the contraption without discrimination, but Maman's grey skin and dull eyes brought ruin to my uncertainty. I seized a handful of wires, whispered another désolée, and yanked—
"Do you like it? I call it the Emotion Extractor. It's taken me years to perfect it."
The familiarity of that voice sent spasms through my arm, weakening its strength. A wire or two, no more, came away from Maman's skull, and it was with sick horror that I turned my gaze whence the voice came.
A gaping black hole in the wall: a door, unseen until it was opened. Within it, the bane of Paris, the criminal underlord to whom I now knew my parents had owed their every success...and failure. My lover, my beautiful angel, my Gabriel...le Monstre.
Such emotion rose in me I had no single word for it. It chilled and heated me all at once, weakened my knees and soured my stomach, sent me trembling even as I could not move. No air passed my lips; no useful thought formed in my mind. My heart was an emptiness inside me, rent open and left to bleed on the cold stone floor.
Le Monstre came toward me, stopping to caress Maman's careworn face. He did what I could not: plucked free the wires and cups, loosening her from her bonds. "Emotions," he said, almost gently. "They command us, ma chérie. Would it not be better if we commanded them? If they could be bottled and sampled, used when we need courage or fear? Awakened only when we wish to feel love, or require hate's fire? And what if we could inspire those feelings—if we could inspire loyalty, trust, obedience, creativity, anything you might imagine!—what if we could inspire those in the moment that we needed them most?" The last of the wires came free from Maman's shorn skull and she slumped, drawn, drained, with no spark of life in her dark eyes. I moved without grace, trying to catch her; le Monstre caught my wrist instead, and discarded Maman from the chair.
The horror that held me in place shattered, giving me control of my limbs again. Unfiltered rage exploded in my breast, and with my free hand I reached for the pistol at my thigh.
Gabriel lifted a vial with soft gold liquid within an atomizer, as if for perfume. He sprayed it once into my face: it was sweet in flavor but somehow unscented. I breathed it in unwillingly and he spoke a single word: "Sit."
I did, with utter and instant compliance. I took my mother's place in the chair even as my muscles fought and trembled against the action. "Obedience," murmured Gabriel. "The first of my Distilled Emotions, or Behaviors, if you will; there are so many actions and sentiments that can be commanded with my concoctions. It will last for days, perhaps weeks; your parents have tasted only a single dose, and still they do as I demand. Sing for me, Amélie. Sing, because music heightens emotion, and I wish only the purest emotion possible for my distillations. Your mother sang until she could sing no more, and from your father I drew helplessness, regret, anger, all magnificently pure. Your mother's were more splendid yet: the depth of her regret will be bettered only, I think, by yours..."
I sang as he spoke. I could not help myself, though he had not commanded a particular music and so I could, and did, sing songs of war and rage and hate. My chest felt as if it might tear in two, so wretched was my broken heart, and that too I sang, even as I began to understand what I offered him with the music. Once I tried to change my tune, but he tsked and told me to continue as I had begun. "I have you to thank for all of this," he said then, with a certain sly pleasure. "That day you pled for your mother's career, for your parents' happiness—I could not help but think, that day, what if I could capture this passion? What if I could distill it, make use of it? You were even the first of my experiments with the distillations, my dear Amélie. Your fear that night in Montmartre was potent enough to bottle, and gave me the first promise that what I desired might be possible."
Sickness rolled through me as I recalled that night three years ago. I remembered how the fear had drained from me. I had thought, of course, that I had found my courage, but no: he had taken my fear, not for my benefit, but for his own.
"I have always had an interest in the alchemical," le Monstre murmured. "I've sought, as many men have, an elixir of life, a way to defeat death through alchemy or science—or both!—and while that has as yet still slipped through my fingers, these potions offer me a greater command over humanity than any mere long life might do. I am grateful to you, Amélie. You have been a delight, even if you were too young to truly love, of course—"
I knew he might well lie in order to waken fresh emotion in me, but I could not batten down against betrayal, against sorrow, against love spurned, for I had loved him truly. My voice broke before my rage did, and when my song no longer hid the sounds of the suction cups and tubes and wires, fear finally took its place in my breast, all for le Monstre's terrible distillations. He waited some little time, then said to me, "Sing," and I opened my mouth to try again.
A wretched croak came forth, but of vastly greater import was the startling realization that I felt no compulsion this time. I could choose not to sing: the Obedience had faded, and Gabriel did not yet know it. It had been hours, oui, but certainly not days, not weeks. I thought his distillations were less powerful than he imagined; it did not occur to me that perhaps it was I who was stronger than he thought.
