Beth:And, if all else fails, we can tie them up in Alaric’s dungeon and refuse to let them out until they shag away all their animosity.
Isis:Arabella has never told us anything about her life before Argleton. She’s so secretive. It would help if we knew what broke them up in the first place…
4
Arabella
Then
The Antirhodos Collar was discovered in the late seventeenth century off the eastern harbour of Alexandria, near the ancient island of Antirhodos, where the Pharaohs of the Ptolemy Dynasty built a magnificent palace. According to legend, the Antirhodos Collar is cursed. While it is worn, it brings the wearer good fortune, but those fortunes are undone threefold once the collar is removed. The legend goes that during the Battle of Actium in 31 BC, the clasp broke and the collar fell from Cleopatra’s neck. Cleopatra and Marc Antony withdrew to Alexandria with the broken necklace, believing their cause lost unless they could rededicate it at the temple to restore its magic. Octavian took the city before they could reach the temple, forcing the lovers to commit suicide. Reports suggest Cleopatra threw the necklace into the ocean so that it wouldn’t fall into Octavian’s hands. Plutarch reports that Octavian had divers search the waters for the necklace, but it was never found.
–Percival Flannery,Archaeological Discoveries of Cleopatra’s Egypt
“RUMOUR HAS IT THATLUCIENVegais in the city,” Catherina puffs smoke from her cigarette with one hand as she fluffs the peacock feathers in her headpiece with the other. Her olive complexionshimmers beneath the oil lamps that light the cramped dressing-room in what was once a priest’s sacristy. Our guests often muse about what the ghosts of the priests think of what goes on in this once-sacred building, but I couldn’t care less. Ghosts are annoying and they never tip the dancers. “He may grace us with his presence tonight.”
“As long as he spends big at the bar and takes a couple of you back to a private confessional for dessert, I don’t care if he’s the Archbishop of Paris.” I kick her shin. “You’re about to miss your cue.”
Catherina makes a face at me. That was perhaps a tasteless joke. Paris is still reeling from the Prussian defeat and the horrors of thesemaine sanglante– that bloody week when the national army suppressed the Paris Commune two months after they seized power, leaving my beautiful city a smoking ruin.
But Paris is nothing if not resilient. If the City of Light has one feature to recommend it, it is survival. Paris will endure. Paris will still be a bright beacon of pleasure long after the world turns to ash.
It’s no wonder I ended up here, enduring, thriving like a weed among a bed of broken flowers, dancing while the world burns around me.
Catherina checks her corset before rising from her stool and shimmying through the red velvet curtains into the wings. I hear the roar of the audience as she emerges on stage for her signature number – a lively cancan that’s as provocative as it is masterful. Catherina could be making her fortune in one of the more reputable theatres in Montmartre, but as a creature of the night – an Upyrfille soumisehoping to rise in the ranks to become a courtesan – she prefers the company of our kind. Here, we can truly be ourselves and give in to our more provocative fantasies.
I check on the other dancers, making sure they have everything they need for the night ahead and their Prefecture registration cards within easy reach – I wish no trouble from thebrigade des mœurs, who are tasked with policing establishments like ours. Then I check my reflection – perfect as always, every strand of my thick, curly hair in place beneath the glittering pins, and my neck dripping with jewels – and take the narrow rear stairs up to the VIP level.
The job of a courtesan is never done.
I lean over the ornate iron railings I stole from a burninggrand magasinand survey the scene below. It’s early yet – the sun only set two hours ago, so my theatre is nowhere near full. Guests circle the tables set in front of the stage, some transfixed by Catherina’s titillating dance, others perusing our menu of fresh and vintage blood. In the second row, near the bar, a group of my favoured writers and artists loudly insult the tastes of the Salon. I gather Monsieur Monet has been rejected again. They are all friends of the vampire painter Édouard Manet, and the only humans allowed unaccompanied into my den. Their presence brings me joy, and without them all paying extortionate sums to have me sit for them as their model, I never would have had the money to make this place a reality.
Behind me stretch the VIP booths. Already, two of the velvet curtains are pulled closed. This former church was once connected to a nunnery. The booths were for the nuns to attend services while remaining apart from the congregation. Statues of winged angels and a writhing Christ watch over the stage. Every night during ourgrande finalewe pour fake blood over the Christ to dribble over our cast below – a big fuck you to the church that has burned, tortured and hunted our kin for centuries.
In another life, I might’ve enjoyed being a nun. Solitude. Decent food. Only one man demanding things of you, and although the biblical God is undeniably kinky (all that fire and brimstone, yum), without a corporeal body he’d be a pretty easy customer to please.
If only the clothes weren’t sohideous.
My fingers circle the railing, squeezing tight, wringing out a tiny, secret shiver of joy at the beauty of what I’ve created.
La Petite Mort.My theatre.
All mine.
Everything here is built off my own back, bought with freedom I tore from the throat of my captor. Five years ago, I came to Paris with nothing but my first name and a collar of jewels, and I’ve used every trick and skill I have to rise to the rank of courtesan, and now my theatre is thriving.
We’re not the Moulin Rouge or the Comédie-Française. We cater to a very specific clientele. While humans with dark proclivities (like the artists now consoling their friend with another round of absinthe) occasionally wander into our den, La Petite Mort is where vampires conduct their business within the safety of our stone walls, and woo willing Thralls to sate their illicit hunger. And I can employ women like me – immortals who wish for an alternative to an eternity waiting on a husband – and enable them to claim their future.
I pioneered a vampire burlesque show the likes of which Paris has never seen – the perfect mix of blood, sex and power. I conceived my signature act when I was dancing at parties hosted by the famed architect and libertine Gustave Eiffel. The man isnutsabout steel and towering erections, so I came up with the idea of dancing around and hanging off a vertical steel pole while I performed a bloody burlesque striptease.
Even now, while the night is still young, I see my kind leaning over in their booths, spreading their Thralls across the tables, lapping at their necks as though sampling a deliciousgarbure.
I’m pulled from my thoughts by a commotion at the door.Heenters. Lucien Vega, the most notorious Upyr villain this side of the Seine. Any illegal goods coming through the city bear Lucien’s mark. A triangle of men flank him – two Upyr and a human, judging by the smell.
Séraphine moves through the crowd to greet them, her waifish eyes heavy-lidded, her tray laden with goblets of blood as well as sweet cocktails and sugared candies for the Thralls, to keep them bright and alert. She escorts them towards the stairs. They will have one of our VIP rooms, of course.
On stage, Catherina’s routine reaches its climax as she luxuriates in a bathtub filled with blood, her hands roaming over her naked curves. The Countess Bathory routine – one of our showstoppers. Later, she will mingle with our guests, her body strung with jewels and still drenched in crimson gold. Lucien Vega will throw money at her for the honour of kneeling and licking blood from her gold-sandalled feet.
She is an enchantress.
