Inamorata (22 page)

O
DILÉ

T
hey were gone by midnight, and when they left, the room seemed eerily quiet, hushed, the candle flames flickering as if people still moved about. I blew out all the candles but for a single hand and sat for a moment in the dim light, trying to catch my breath, which was unsteady and painful.

The evening had been a trial. I was used to desire, to wanting—it was the reason for my existence, after all—but I could not remember ever feeling any such as this. The power of it was a ravishment, twisting me about until I felt myself dissolve in its fury, until I was nothing but yearning. I wanted him as badly as I’d ever wanted a man. He had raised my hunger to a fever—it had been all I could do to control it—and yet, my appetite seemed not to affect him. I’d felt nothing from her, which told me she had no talent at all despite what he’d said about her storytelling. But his . . . it must be more prodigious even than I’d suspected. Perhaps more so than any I’d ever before had. I felt a frisson of excitement through my pain.

What do you most desire, Odilé?

I closed my eyes against the rushing currents of remembrance. The one memory I wished to forget, so stubbornly and starkly clear. The night so blackly dark, the storm raging outside, wind screeching down the narrow, twisting streets, rain driven across the stones. The knock upon my door so very late. The alarm I’d felt when I opened the door to see Madeleine standing there, alone, not a servant in sight.

“What is it?” I’d asked her. “What has happened?”

She pushed her way inside. Her blond hair straggled loose over her shoulders, and she looked drawn and pale, her eyes like shining bits of coal in contrast. I closed the door and pulled my wrap more closely about me. She went to the fireplace, which was barely warm, the fire banked for the night, and held her hands out to it, revealing the bracelets about her wrists—she was still dressed for a party, though it was nearly morning. She rarely left her entertainments early, and I knew something must have happened to bring her here.

My alarm grew. I hurried to the hearth and stirred up the embers, building the fire again. “Shall I get you some tea? Or wine?”

She was shivering as she shook her head, but I went to the kitchen and warmed some wine for her. When I brought it, she drank it gratefully. Still, she said nothing, and I let her sit in silence until I could no longer bear it. “I don’t understand. Why are you here now?”

She turned to me, and there was something in her face—I cannot describe it, but it terrified me. She held out her shaking hand to me—pale, thin fingers. She whispered. “Look at what I am.”

I had no idea what she meant for me to see. “You look as if you’ve had a fright. And you’re freezing.”

She shook her head again, almost violently. “You’ve allowed yourself to be blind, Odilé.
Look
at me. Tell me what you see.”

I was puzzled and feeling more uneasy by the moment. “I see my friend, Madeleine Dumas, who has inspired great men, and who will inspire a great many more.”

She laughed, but it had a brittle edge. “You said you wish to be like me. Is that still true?”

“Yes, of course,” I said. “Why would it not be?”

“Will you still, I wonder, when you know the truth?”

“What truth is that?”

She leaned across the space between us to grip my arm. She was very strong; I felt it would be a struggle to break free, and was amazed that I even thought to do so. This was Madeleine, my friend and mentor and yet . . . in those moments she seemed not that, but something else. Something that did not belong here, before my hearth.

“Madeleine, you’re frightening me.”

At those words, her grip loosened. Her eyes dimmed, returning to their usual luminosity. Her face seemed not so grave or gaunt—there was the pink in her cheeks, the smooth brow, the fine down at her temples. She drew back.

“How old am I?” she demanded of me.

The question confused me further. “I don’t know. As old as I am, I think. No more than forty.”

Her lips twitched in a smile. She looked to the fire, which was now burning hotly, casting her face in an orange-and-yellow glow. “I have lived five hundred and thirty-two years.”

I thought she had a fever. Or that she’d gone mad. The insanity of the poet she’d abandoned had been somehow contagious. I did not know what to say.

“I am tired,” she said. “I have been tired for some time. And I have looked for someone to take my place. But I have never found her. Until now.”

“You need sleep. Come, and I’ll—”

She jerked from my proffered hand. “Do you not understand, Odilé? I am telling you the secrets you have been begging to know. Did you truly want to know them? Or was it only talk?”

Her eyes were burning again. I remembered the conversation we’d had only days ago, the talk of demons, my sense that there had been something in it I was not seeing. Carefully, as if approaching a wild animal, I said, “I truly wish to know.”

She smiled thinly. “You think I am mad. I can assure you I am not.”

The air seemed to shiver about her. I found myself stepping back.

“I have lived for five hundred and thirty-two years,” she said again, this time slowly, as if I were an idiot who could not grasp the words. I could not move nor look away. “I was given this gift when I was thirty-two. I wanted youth, you see. I wanted never to grow old. I did not understand the burden of it then.”

“The gift,” I said carefully. “What gift is that?”

“Can you not guess?” she asked.

“No.”

Her smile grew—this time it was bitter. “We have been called many things. Demons and angels, daughters of Lilith and Naamah, sirens and banshees.”

I felt I was in some strange and disturbing dream. “What?”

“Have you not heard of women who mated with fallen angels? Who became demons themselves?”

“You . . . you had a fallen angel?” I could not believe I’d even said such words.

She shook her head impatiently. “I just told you. The gift was passed to me. The fallen angels are only the story of how we began. But this is truly what I am, Odilé. A succubus. It is what I have been for five hundred years. It is what I wish no longer to be. I am tired,
cherie
. But I cannot just give it up. There must always be one of us. Do you understand? I cannot die until I pass it along. You must take the gift from me.”

I
didn’t
understand. Not a single thing she was telling me.
A succubus?
It was absurd; a fever dream, an illness.

She went on, “When you brought me that poet, I knew you would be so much better at this than I. You told me I could change the world if I chose better. Now, I’m offering that to you.
You
could change the world. You have the eye it needs. Think of what you’ve told me. You wish to leave a mark. You want your name to be remembered. I can give you that.”

My mind was churning—to listen, to put her to bed, to call the apothecary. . . . But I felt paralyzed by her gaze, and gradually I became aware that I saw no madness in her eyes. But how could that be? Everything she was saying was impossible.

She said steadily, “You have known from the start that I was not like anyone else. What is in me speaks to you,
cherie,
you know it does. You are beautiful and skilled. I can make you more beautiful. I can give you the power you crave. I can take away the yearning that torments you. You know I can.”

Truth has a way of speaking, of sneaking in beyond fear or dread. My instincts tingled. Everything I had always wondered about Madeleine made sense of those words: her irresistible beauty, the madness of those who fell under her spell, the power of her inspiration.

Still, I denied it. “What you speak of is impossible.”

“Is it? Imagine it, Odilé. Imagine: men inspired by you. Men who will never forget you. A world that will not forget.”

She knew what to say, what would most affect me.

“Those things can’t just be
given,
” I protested. “Such a talent—”

“You are wrong. It
can
be given. I can give it to you. Look at me, Odilé.”

I saw the change in her gaze, the blackness within her eyes glittering, writhing. Supernatural. Occult. Demon eyes. I remembered the eyes in the portrait, her asking what I thought of the cost of immortality.

“No,” I whispered in horror. “No. Impossible.”

She rose, stepping so close I felt the warmth of her breath as she spoke. “It is a
gift.
And I can give it to you. Ask me, Odilé.
Ask me.
Be what I am.”

I could not believe, even as her words wheedled into my heart, even as temptation roused. What she was offering me—it couldn’t be, could it? But then . . . I
had
recognized her. I had seen the otherworldliness in her eyes, and I knew it was real. And the truth was that I
did
long to be like her—how could I resist the offer now? If such a thing could be—I had wanted this for so long, my whole life. To be known. To be remembered. To leave a mark . . .

I felt now as if my destiny, as if every step I’d ever taken, had brought me to this moment. My hunger for it bloomed irresistibly, as she must have known it would.

I heard my own voice, hoarse with longing, whisper, “Yes.
Yes.
What must I do?”

The satisfaction that came into her expression would have chilled me had I not wanted what she offered so badly. “There are things you must know first. Listen carefully. There are rules you cannot break. You will appear to every man as desire. But only those with talent can feed you, and if you resist your appetite for too long, it will draw from the world around you—a bird’s song, a farmer whistling, a juggler’s tricks—even such little talents you will leech away. To
truly
appease your hunger requires bedding.” Her smile turned cunning. “You are a succubus, after all. Temptation incarnate.”

“And then?” I asked.

“The energy you take from an artist leaves a poison in their blood—a kind of madness, if you will. For them, that madness becomes inspiration. You will be a muse, at least for a time, to every man you feed upon. Those with too little talent, you will drain to death, so you must be careful. But this is the most important thing of all, Odilé; this you must not forget: Every three years, you must choose
the one.
”

“The one?”

“The artist you will make a bargain with. He must agree, Odilé. He must sell you his very soul: his talent in return for inspiration. Once the bargain is locked, you will feel a rapture such as you have never known. You will inspire him to the utmost of his ability. To him, you will be the muse of all muses.”

“As you were to the poet,” I said.

Her smile was sharp—I saw in it no sorrow over his fate. “Yes. Everything he is, he will pour into creating one final work. It will be the culmination of his brilliance. And then his talent will be gone, never to return. Some of them go mad after. Or take their own lives. They will never create again. But your hunger will be appeased. For a time it will hibernate. And then, the cycle will begin again. Your hunger will grow and grow, day by day, week by week, until you choose once more.”

“It seems a hard bargain for them,” I said, remembering her poet’s despair.

Madeleine shrugged. “You told me you thought inspiring the world worth any cost. Have you changed your mind?”

I thought of the brilliance of the man’s poetry, the reason I’d brought him before her. “No. And if I don’t find the talent I want? If I don’t choose?”

Madeleine’s eyes darkened. Her face went sharp and still. “You do not want to do that,
cherie.
”

“What will happen?” I demanded. “You must tell me. Tell me everything if I am to do this.”

“In your worst nightmares, you could not imagine it.” In that moment I saw truly the demon I had only glimpsed before. I saw the eyes that had followed her from a painted portrait, a terrible void that raised an answering horror in me. “The demon inside you will grow until you are nothing but your hunger. It will swallow everything, every bit of talent in its path. It will be too hungry to be discerning. You will drain everything of its creative force until the hunger is sated—for after all, everyone has
some
creativity,
some
imagination. You will
become
the monster, and it will take time to return to yourself. If you allow it to happen too often . . . at some point you will not be able to control the demon. Odilé will disappear forever, no matter how often you feed or what death you leave behind. You—Odilé—will be gone, but the demon will survive—you will
become
it, and you will be so until you can find someone to accept the gift. For the succubus monster cannot be killed; it cannot be destroyed. It can only be passed on.”

Such terrors cannot be truly imagined without experience, and I could not imagine them then. I wanted what she offered so badly. Badly enough to believe that such a dark circumstance could never happen to me. How hard could it be to choose one every three years? I had been a courtesan for most of my life and had nothing but a bleak future. But this . . . to be the muse to inspire such brilliance, to be celebrated and adored. The world would be mine. How could I not want it?