The Demi-Monde: Winter (45 page)

Once the package’s contents had been laid out across the back of the couch, Ella found herself astonished by the care that Vanka had lavished on the selection of her outfit. The long skirt was cream-coloured with deep vents at the back which would, she suspected, give it an elegantly flowing line. There was a contrasting short-cut jacket of the deepest blue with a high collar and gigot sleeves, and a white blouse in the most delicate of lace. The whole ensemble was to be topped off by a straw boater dressed with the inevitable veil.

‘Do you like it?’ he asked anxiously.

‘It’s marvellous. Vanka, you have exquisite taste.’

‘But wait! There is my second selection, an ensemble for you to wear when we visit the Resi tonight.’

‘The Resi?’

‘It’s a nightclub here in Berlin.’

Ella scrolled through PINC to be told that the Resi in the Berlin District of the ForthRight was a duplicate of the original, Real World nightclub that had been famous – infamous, more like – as a hotbed of immorality and decadence in Weimar Germany.

This should be interesting.

‘Strange that there should be a nightclub in the centre of the ForthRight. I wouldn’t have thought the UnFunnies would have permitted it.’

Vanka laughed. ‘You can thank Beria for the Resi: he wants somewhere where he can let his hair down. He goes there to hunt for girls.’ Vanka lit a cigarette. ‘Anyway, as rumour has it, he also keeps it open to piss off Crowley: the pair of them hate each other.’

‘Why are we going there?’

‘It’s where we’ll find Toussaint Louverture … Louffie to his friends. He’s one of Shaka’s chief lieutenants and he’s the chap who can organise the shipment of blood.’

‘You know him?’

‘Yeah, I know him. He owes me for a consignment of blood.’ He gave Ella a rueful smile. ‘We’ll have to be careful: Louverture’s a very dangerous man. He’s a Blood Brother so the last thing we want him to know is that you’re a Daemon. If he finds out then you’ll get to NoirVille all right but you’ll find yourself being exsanguinated for your trouble.’ Vanka took a nervous drag of his cigarette. ‘Hopefully though he’s mellowed a little since I saw him last. Word is that since he’s hooked up with Josephine Baker he’s a changed man.’

‘Josephine Baker?’

‘Yeah. Louverture isn’t just one of the big dukes in the Blood Brothers, he also runs the Revue Nègre – which is currently performing at the Resi – though he only does that so he can keep an eye on his Bronze Venus.’

Ella clapped her hands in excitement. ‘We’re going to see Josephine Baker tonight?’

A nod from Vanka.

‘Then tonight’s going to be one of the most memorable nights of my life.’

‘I just hope we find Louffie in a good mood, otherwise it might also be the last night of your entire life. That’s why I took so much trouble selecting your evening gown.’ He opened a second box. ‘I wanted to find a dress for you which would do more than just adorn your superb figure: it had to be a dress so glamorous, so daring, so risqué that no man seeing you in it – especially Toussaint Louverture – would be able to deny you anything. We’re lucky that Louffie’s one of the few males in NoirVille who isn’t enraptured by men. Therefore … voilà!’

From out of the second package he conjured a dress of such sublime elegance that for a moment Ella was lost for words. Made from cream satin, it was long, close-fitting, backless and, from what she could make out, nigh on frontless. It was the most beautiful dress she had ever seen.

Vanka seemed unsettled by her silence. ‘I trust you approve of my selection, Ella, but now having seen you, I think even if you appeared for this evening’s rendezvous in that shirt Louverture and every man in the Resi would applaud.’

‘Oh, Vanka, you’ve been so very kind to me. It’s a wonderful, wonderful dress, but you do realise if I wear it I won’t be able to disguise the fact that I’m a Shade.’

‘The Resi is the one place in the ForthRight where you don’t
have to hide what you are, Ella. With Josephine Baker’s Revue Nègre performing there you’ll be just one woman of colour amongst many. Tonight you are quite at liberty to flaunt both your colour and your beauty.’

Before she quite knew what she was doing Ella had skipped up from the couch and kissed Vanka on the cheek.

There was an embarrassed pause, then Vanka raised his hand to the place where she had planted the kiss. ‘I warned you once before, Ella, that beautiful young ladies being so free with their affections might find themselves in danger of having their affections reciprocated.’ And with that he leant forward and placed the lightest of kisses on her mouth. It was like a dam breaking. Before Ella quite knew what was happening she was in Vanka’s arms, her mouth hard against his, their bodies merging.

She’d never felt like this about a man before. She felt dizzy with excitement. It was as though the pair of them belonged together.

They broke and spent a breathless moment simply holding one another, simply enjoying the comforting feel of each other’s bodies. Then Vanka stood back. ‘Ella … I will help you escape the Demi-Monde, I will guard and protect you, I will never leave you. But you must promise me one thing.’

‘Anything.’

‘I know here in this world we can never be together: you’ve told me that I’m just a copy of a Vanka Maykov living in the Real World. So, when you return there, will you find me?’

‘I’ll find you, Vanka, I’ll find you. Vanka … Vanka … I love—’

‘Gor, bugger me but it’s brass monkeys out there,’ complained Rivets as he barged through the door. Ella and Vanka jumped away from one another and urgently looked for something to occupy their attention. Rivets seemed not to notice the
awkwardness of the situation that he’d stumbled into, he simply shrugged and dropped the box he was carrying on the floor. ‘I got most ov the stuff you wanted, Vanka. The point-two-two was a bit ov a pig to source but I found wun in a ‘ockshop.’

He dug into the jacket pocket of his overtight and overchecked suit, pulled out a tiny revolver and tossed it to Ella. ‘‘Ere’s a “Welcome to Berlin” present from your pal Rivets, Miss Ella. This ‘ere’s a lady’s gun: small and delicate but good at busting hearts.’ The boy stretched out a hand. ‘We didn’t ‘ave a chance for a proper introduction last night. Me name’s Rivets and I’m Vanka’s oppo.’

They shook hands and immediately Ella knew everything there was to know about the orphan: how he’d been found wandering the streets by Vanka who’d taken pity on him, how he’d become a dab hand at helping Vanka with his short cons and how his Jack-the-lad demeanour hid a penetrating intelligence. Undersized and scrawny he might be but he’d packed a lifetime of experiences into his fifteen years. In many ways he was a pocket Vanka.

‘Rivets: that’s an interesting name.’

‘Got it ‘cos I’m good at nailing birds,’ answered Rivets with a wink and then for emphasis made a leering examination of Ella’s naked legs. ‘Nice pins …’ he began and then stopped abruptly when he saw the still weeping cuts on her thigh.

‘Crikey, you’s bleedin’,’ he spluttered. ‘Wot is you: a Daemon?’

‘Yes, Rivets, she’s a Daemon,’ said Vanka quickly. ‘But she’s a friendly Daemon.’

‘A friendly Daemon.’ Rivets chewed the oxymoron around for a moment and then eyed Ella carefully. ‘I ain’t never met a real live Daemon before. You sure she’s ‘armless, Vanka? I ‘ear these Daemons are buggers for villainy.’

‘Oh, Ella is quite harmless, Rivets, except when she’s got her
dander up.’ Vanka took a freshly laundered handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to Ella, who used it to dab away the blood on her leg.

She gave the handkerchief back. ‘Thanks, Vanka.’

‘My pleasure.’ Vanka refolded it and put it back in his pocket. ‘I’ll treasure it.’

Cautiously Rivets stepped forward to study Ella’s legs more closely. ‘Well, I’ve got to say, Vanka, that she don’t look much like a Daemon, ‘ceptin’, ov course, that she’s a Shade but then there are a power of Shades down in NoirVille and they ain’t Daemons. Well … I don’t fink they is.’ He turned to look at Vanka. ‘Any’ows, Vanka, wot are yous doing palling up wiv a Daemon?’

‘It’s a long story, Rivets, but all you need to know is that by helping Ella here we’re going to make ourselves very, very rich.’

Rivets wasn’t convinced. ‘I don’t knows about this malarkey, Vanka. Helpin’ a Daemon: that’s not natural that ain’t.’

‘It’s worth ten thousand guineas to you, if you do,’ said Vanka quietly.

Rivets paused for a moment letting his imagination run around with the idea of having so much money to spend. ‘Well, iffn you puts it like that, unnatural or not, I don’t suppose there’s any real harm in it.’

‘No, there’s no harm in it, Rivets, but it might be an idea, Ella, if you were to get dressed. We don’t want anyone else seeing your legs.’

As Ella collected her new clothes she was struck by a thought. ‘Have you heard anything about Norma Williams?’

Vanka shook his head. ‘No. She’s probably dead, drowned in the sewers. I presume you Daemons can drown?’

‘Oh yes, we can drown. We Daemons can die in the DemiMonde just like we can die in the Real World.’

‘Then it’s a penny to a pound that she’s a goner. So my advice is that we concentrate on our own problems, and stop worrying about the late and very unlamented Norma Williams.’

It was harsh advice but, when Ella thought about it, utterly pragmatic. Norma Williams was in all probability dead and if she wasn’t the chances of her finding her way in the black labyrinth of the sewers without the help of PINC were virtually zero. She’d done her best to fulfil the mission she’d been given: better now to look after herself and to do everything she could to get home in one piece.

That evening – cleansed, coiffed and clothed in her really quite outrageous gown – Ella walked with Vanka up to the Resi’s grand entrance. She felt giddy with anticipation. She was going to an exciting place with the man she loved.

There … she had admitted it to herself. It might be a ridiculous and stupid and impossible and nonsensical thing to have done but she couldn’t deny what she felt. When she was with Vanka she felt alive, more alive than she had ever felt in the Real World. And tonight, no matter what happened with Louverture, she was determined to enjoy herself.

The nightclub was very busy. There were crowds bustling around the pavement outside trying to cajole the doormen into allowing them into the place: everyone in Berlin, it seemed, wanted to see Josephine Baker perform. Ella wasn’t surprised; in a Sector where everything considered even mildly outré was crushed under the dead hand of UnFunDaMentalism, the chance to witness such a decadent, prurient, yet officially sanctioned event made the Revue Nègre the hottest ticket in town. In fact the competition for tables was so intense that even Vanka, usually so confident in his powers of persuasion, seemed doubtful of his ability to talk his way into the nightclub.

Ella had no such apprehensions. She nodded towards the three doormen guarding the club’s entrance. ‘Which one of those doorstops is the main man?’

Vanka looked and frowned. ‘Karl. The biggest one, the one with the waxed moustache, but it’s no use, he’s already turned down a ten-guinea bribe.’

Arm in arm with Vanka, Ella strolled – putting a coquettish little wiggle in her walk as she did so – over to Karl. ‘Miss Ella Baker and her friend Colonel Vanka Maykov, here at the invitation of Mr Toussaint Louverture,’ she announced.

Karl spent a few moments running an appreciative eye over Ella’s long, slinky, cream-coloured gown, and, of necessity, the long, slinky, caramel-coloured body the gown was so desperately striving to contain. This done, he checked the guest list. ‘I’m sorry, Miss Baker, but I don’t have you on my list.’

‘That’s because I only decided to take up my big sister’s kind invitation to see the show an hour ago.’

‘Your sister?’

Ella tapped a finger on the poster that decorated the entrance to the nightclub. ‘My big sister, Josie.’

‘I didn’t know Miss Baker had a sister … er … Miss Baker.’

‘Well, you do now.’ If anyone could pull off the trick of playing Josephine Baker’s sister, Ella knew it was her: she had the colour, she had the same slim figure, she was wearing a suitably elegant and quite risqué gown and she had put a decidedly arrogant lilt in her voice. She had spent so much time trying to sing like Josephine Baker that she was pretty confident she would be able to talk like her.

Ella could tell from Karl’s expression that he was faced with something of a dilemma. Probably his manager had told him very forcibly that under no circumstances was he to allow entry to the club to anyone not on the guest list but the scene he
could imagine ensuing if he turned Josephine Baker’s sister away was really too horrible to contemplate. In the end he capitulated.

He unhooked the red rope guarding the club’s entrance. ‘Monsieur Louverture has table number sixty-seven, Madem -oiselle. It is on the far side of the club. I trust you and Colonel Maykov will have an enjoyable evening.’

Together they swept regally into the club, Ella doing her best, as she sashayed through the foyer, to restrain herself from laughing out loud at her triumph. Even the tawdriness of the interior didn’t dampen her exuberance.

The Resi’s reputation was that it had been the epitome of decadence; instead it seemed decidedly low-rent. The club was built around a large rectangular dance floor surrounded by packed tables themselves bordered by more intimate booths set on two low balconies. It was garishly decorated – to Ella’s mind it resembled an old-fashioned cinema that had been tricked out in pink and gilt – and lit by dozens of candelabras. There was nothing subtle about the Resi; it looked just what it was: a huge, brash pick-up joint.

Yet when Ella entered the room with Vanka, there was only one couple who grabbed the attention of the crowd. That Vanka was, without a doubt, the best-looking and best-dressed man in the room – with his figure, he was born to wear black tie and tails – contributed to this, but it was probably that he was accompanied by a Shade that ensured they would be the centre of attention. And Ella, knowing that she looked devastating in her gown and her fur wrap, found being the focus of so much whispered gossip really quite exciting. This, she decided, was what it must be like to be famous, to be a celebrity.