The Coffee Pot Book Club Presents
Floats the Dark Shadow
By Yves Fey
She’s tasted the champagne of success, illustrating poems for the Revenants, a group of poets led by her adored cousin, Averill.
When children she knows vanish mysteriously, Theo confronts Inspecteur Michel Devaux who suspects the Revenants are involved. Theo refuses to believe the killer could be a friend—could be the man she loves. Classic detection and occult revelation lead Michel and Theo through the dark underbelly of Paris, from catacombs to asylums, to the obscene ritual of a Black Mass.
Following the maze of clues they discover the murderer believes he is the reincarnation of the most evil serial killer in the history of France—Gilles de Rais. Once Joan of Arc’s lieutenant, after her death he plunged into an orgy of evil. The Church burned him at the stake for heresy, sorcery, and the depraved murder of hundreds of peasant children.
Whether deranged mind or demonic passion incite him, the killer must be found before he strikes again.
Excerpt
Theo and the Revenants Talk of Gilles de Rais—Floats the Dark Shadow
Vivid yellow, streaks of sunlight glanced off the blades of the windmill. Their brightness gleamed sharply against the bruised purple clouds lowering in the sky. Deep violet shadows flowed along the dusty streets, the pools of color seductive yet strangely sinister.
Theo lowered her brush, backed up, and contemplated the canvas. The cluster of houses funneling to the windmill lacked detail. The brush twitched restlessly in her hand, but she resisted the urge to elaborate. The clouded sky, jutting blades, the sloping planes of the roofs, would lose impact if she refined the buildings that curved down the hill. She liked the yellow door she saw far up the street. Her painting needed that sort of contrast on the right side, and it would echo the flashes of sun. Choosing a smaller brush, she added a rectangle of chrome yellow to the highest house. Too bright. She muted it so that it didn’t pull the eye away from the windmill. A few quick splashes of vermillion suggested geraniums valiantly blooming in the gathering darkness. The newly added yellow and orange gave the shadows a deeper glow.
Stop, Theo thought. Stop. She put the brush aside.
What would the Revenants think if she left the painting as it was? Only Paul would approve. Casimir would consider it raw and unfinished. Crude. She feared Averill would frown at it too. He most admired the delicate, decadent voluptuousness of Gustave Moreau. Theo had illustrated her cousin’s poems in exquisite, painstakingly rendered detail. But Paris was changing her work, changing her. She would still illustrate Averill’s poems in the style he loved, but her painting would go where it would.
The church bells tolled four. There was still an hour before Matthieu came to help her carry back her easel and paints. She would read a chapter of her book then look to see if the painting really needed more detail. Theo turned the canvas around so she would not steal glances at it. She wiped her hands on a rag, then sat cross-legged in the shade of a chestnut tree. Taking an apple out of her satchel, she bit into the crisp flesh, juicy and tartly sweet. The bright fragrance distracted her from the odors of oil and turpentine that called her back to the windmill. Instead, a still life with apples floated through her mind. Patches of red, yellow, and pale green gleamed as she slowly ate the fruit down to the core.
Finished, Theo searched deeper in her satchel for the book Casimir had recently given her. Drawing it out, she stared at the cover for a minute, reluctant to open it. Là Bas fascinated and distressed her. The novel was filled with weird obsessions and unsatisfied quests, overwrought one moment then strangely austere. But it was learning more about the horrific Gilles de Rais that made Theo steel herself before opening her bookmarked page.
‘Association with Jeanne d’Arc certainly stimulated his desires for the divine. Now from lofty mysticism to base Satanism there is but one step. In the Beyond all things touch… She roused an impetuous soul, as ready for orgies of saintliness as for ecstasies of crime.….’
Theo doubted Jeanne d’Arc would be pleased with what she roused. She read on, descending into a darkness as grim as the catacombs.
‘Then as to being a ‘ripper’ of children…Gilles did not violate and trucidate little boys until after he became convinced of the vanity of alchemy.’
“Is that an excuse?” Theo muttered under her breath. Apparently so, for the narrator thought that Gilles was no crueler than the other barons of the age.
‘He exceeds them in the magnitude of his debauches, in the opulence of his murders, that is all.’
A shadow fell across the book. Startled, she looked up to find Averill standing above her. He bent close, lips to her ear, and his whisper sent a spark of excitement coursing along Theo’s spine. “I was born under so fierce a star….”
Stepping into view, Casimir finished Gilles’ most famous quote “… that I have done what no one in the world has done or could ever do.” He sounded almost smug. A cat with cream on its whiskers—or a mouse under its paw.
“You’re wicked, both of you. All three of you,” she chided, seeing Jules lurking behind them.
They had crept up on her deliberately. Theo shielded her eyes as she gazed up at them, standing together, backlit by the late afternoon sun. She was still not fully emerged from the nightmare world of Gilles de Rais. Their words, his words, overlaid an image of star-spattered blackness in her mind. The teasing touch of fear mingled uneasily with the teasing softness of Averill’s whisper. Her heart was racing, and tiny shivers threaded from the hollow of her ear and down her neck.
“What is happening?” Averill asked, nodding down to the book.
Theo seized the offered refuge. She did not want to talk about the opulence of Gilles’ murders, so she turned to the opulence of his possessions. “I was amazed—he was even richer than the king.”
“The richest man in France and the most profligate,” Averill said.
“He bankrupted himself buying gem-encrusted books and extravagant robes embroidered in gold.” Casimir’s gestures clothed his own body in a flow of silks and velvets. “Every object in his possession was luxurious perfection. He devised flamboyant pageants where even the least of the pages was garbed like a king and built fabulous chapels for his angelic choirboys.”
“He spent even more on alchemists who promised to make gold from lead,” a little smile twisted Averill’s lips, “and sorcerers who promised to summon Satan for him.”
Jules closed his eyes as if praying, murmuring something inaudible.
“What did you say, Jules?” Theo asked, wondering why he tried so hard to vanish. Sometimes it made him all the more obvious.
Startled, he opened his eyes. His lips trembled, but he said, “He lost his soul to black magic. But he was forgiven.”
“Forgiven?” Theo hoped not.
“Yes…” Jules hesitated, “…at the end.”
“Oh, he was executed,” Casimir assured her. “Far too mercifully throttled, then burned.”
“But he knelt in church and begged them all for forgiveness.” Jules sighed and Theo thought she saw tears glistening in his eyes. “It was granted.”
Jules had once wanted to be a priest. Averill was raised Catholic, and Casimir. Was that the reason they understood the excesses of Gilles de Rais better than she could? Like him, they had worshipped in vast cathedrals gleaming with golden artifacts. Like him, they breathed air perfumed with bouquets of lilies and drifting clouds of incense. Priests garbed in embroidered robes chanted rites in Latin, transforming the simple words of Jesus to an impenetrable mystery. Impenetrable to her, but not to them. Did the wafers and wine transform on their tongues to body and blood? Rather than the empty cross of the resurrection that she had gazed on, they lifted their eyes to Christ crucified. It was a world of confession and absolution. Of abasement and glory.
A world of utter damnation—yet one where even the worst sins could be forgiven.
By this Book
Yves Fey
Yves Fey has MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Oregon, and a BA in Pictorial Arts from UCLA. Yves began drawing as soon as she could hold a crayon and writing at twelve.
She’s been a tie dye artist, go-go dancer, creator of ceramic beasties, writing teacher, illustrator, and has won prizes for her chocolate desserts. Her current obsession is creating perfumes inspired by her Parisian characters.
Yves lives in Albany with her mystery writer husband and their cats, Charlotte and Emily, the Flying Bronte Sisters.
Social Media Links:
Instagram: Gayle Feyrer (@yves_fey) • Instagram photos and videos
The Whispering Bookworm
Thank you for hosting Yves Fey today, with such an enticing excerpt from Floats the Dark Shadow. xx
ReplyDeleteYes, thank you. I love the elegant backdrop for your site.
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