The Dark Arts of Blood (22 page)

Being a vampire did not make him all-powerful. He was perceptive, but not psychic. He couldn’t slaughter every man here, in public, in hopes that he’d got the right ones. That wouldn’t lead him to the truth behind the eldritch dagger. His skin prickled with tension, but there was nothing he could do… yet.

He noted that the benches along the table were a third empty. Then he caught Emil’s aura again – no longer inside the building, but somewhere outside in the night.

As he turned to leave, he and Reiniger caught each other’s eye. The brief glance froze Karl. Again the look held recognition, a challenge.

Reiniger’s stare seemed to say,
I know what you are. I will not forget your face
. And Karl thought,
Nor I yours
.

Outside the crowds were thinning, establishments closing for the night. Men were pouring out of bars, singing at the tops of their voices. Karl caught the red-gold smudge of Emil again. He wasn’t in the street but somewhere behind the beer hall.

From the general noise, Karl separated out the soft, horrible crunching sounds of fists and boots pounding into flesh.

He flew through the Crystal Ring to reach the place in seconds. In an unlit alley behind the building he came upon ten thugs, brutalising a hunched shape on the ground. They uttered obscenities, even spat on their victim.

Karl strode to the gang, seized the nearest brute by the shoulders and flung him hard against a nearby wall.

The others stopped their attack in pure shock. They were all of a type, like the ones inside: short-haired, thick-set, hard-eyed. Karl wasted no time on verbal threats. He simply let them
see
what he was: dropped his human persona, let his true nature shine out like white fire. He almost took on his demonic form from the Crystal Ring, but with a pale glowing face, blood-red eyes – enough to warn them either to flee, or die.

The gang broke up and ran. Their pounding footsteps made the walls ring. He’d never seen a bunch of men vanish so fast in his life. Ugly laughter echoed after them.

Then Karl dropped to his knees beside the groaning bulk on the ground.

Emil was a mess. His lip was split, both eyes black, blood trickling down his face. He winced with pain as Karl helped him to sit up.

“Is anything broken?” Karl asked.

“Don’t know. God, my ribs…”

He cried out as Karl probed his ribcage, trying to ignore the blood aroma. Masked by the stink of beer and sweat, it was not all that tempting.

“You are just bruised, I think. How did this happen?”

“
Bastards
,” Emil spat.

“All right, tell me later. Let me help you. I’ll carry you if you can’t walk.”

“I can walk! Get your hands off me!”

Karl stepped away, as asked. Emil struggled to stand, finally swallowing his pride and gripping Karl’s arm before he could climb to his feet. He was even drunker than his attackers. Not quite so princely now.

“Come on, Emil, let’s go home. You know who I am, don’t you?”

“Herr Alexander. Another of her friends. I s’pose she sent you to fetch me back?”

He vomited three times before Karl hauled him to the end of the alley. After that, he sobered up a little, and began to weep. Karl aided his slow, staggering progress through the streets, across a bridge to the newer side of town and towards the theatre.

“Bastards,” Emil said again, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “You know why they beat me up? They thought I was homosexual. Just because they recognised me from the stage – they assumed – the names they called me! Obscene.”

“I’m sorry,” said Karl.

“What are you sorry for? You stopped them killing me.”

“Why were you in there? There are pleasanter establishments.”

“Who are you, my father? I was there to get drunk, that’s all. I got into an argument with them – that idiot, Notz, was spouting rubbish, praising Mussolini – so I put him right. A fight started – think I was thrown out, don’t remember. But once I was outside, some of them followed me. They called me a filthy poof. Me!”

“I could call the police,” said Karl. The thought of hunting down each thug individually and tearing out his throat was tempting, but he dismissed the impulse. His main concern was to deliver Emil safely back to Violette.

“No, not the police. I don’t want to bring scandal to the ballet – although why should I care any more? She doesn’t want me. I can’t go back there.”

“You might as well. Just go to bed, sleep it off, see the doctor if you need to. Violette will not be happy at the state of your face.”

Emil gave a short, harsh laugh. “What does she care? I suppose she told you – has she told everyone what a fool I made of myself?”

“Emil,” Karl said firmly. “She told only Charlotte and me.”

“Mikhail knows, so everybody knows.”

“It doesn’t matter. And you haven’t made a fool of yourself. You love her, but she doesn’t love you? I know it feels like the end of the world, but it isn’t.”

“Easy for you to say. No one understands how this feels. All the beer, the screeching racket they call music, girls smiling at me, all those boots in my guts –
none
of it made the pain go away. What will make the pain stop? Why can’t she…?”

He stopped, gasping for breath. Karl let him pause, concerned that he’d punctured a lung.

“What is it? Can you breathe?”

“Yes. I’m all right. But I remember what Charlotte said to me… that Violette loved someone who died. When she told me that, I felt her grief – Violette’s grief. That’s why these stupid tears won’t stop. But then I thought – who was the lucky man she loved? And if she’s capable of love, why can she not love me? I could comfort her. She doesn’t have to live alone, grief-stricken, without love.”

“Come on,” Karl said. He put his arm around Emil’s shoulders, as much to soothe him as to help him walk.

“Did you know him? Who was he?”

“She,” Karl corrected. “Emil, you don’t know Violette at all. No one does, really. She doesn’t love easily, it’s true. But when she does, her affection is only for other women.”

“No.” Emil reeled, would have fallen if Karl had not held him up. “You’re lying!”

Karl shook his head. “You must have heard rumours. It’s true. You deserve the truth.”

The theatre rose in front of them, its facade a glory of Art Nouveau curves, with pillars carved in the shape of goddesses trailing fruit and vines from their hands.

“No. Liars, all of you!”

“The sooner you accept the truth, the easier it will be. You are going to look and feel like death in the morning,” Karl said briskly. “I’ll take you to your room, and bring you water and aspirin. I know this heartache feels as if it will never pass, and you won’t get over it in a day – so I suggest that you don’t even try. Just sleep. I’ll come back and see you tomorrow.”

“Why? Who are you, anyway? She sends her lackeys after me!”

“Half dead on your feet, and still so belligerent?”

“Hide me from Violette,” said Emil. He missed his footing as Karl took him through a side door into the academy, collapsed like a dead weight and began sobbing. Karl had never seen a man cry so excessively. “I don’t want her to see me like this.”

“She values you more than you know,” said Karl, hefting him to his feet and closing the door behind them.

“It’s not enough.”

“It will have to be enough, because that’s all she can give.”

E
mil woke, blinded by daylight, feeling as if a tank had run over him.

The ballet’s doctor, a short balding man of sixty or so, was leaning over his bed. Everywhere his fingers probed, fresh waves of pain throbbed through Emil. He slapped the doctor’s hand away with an inarticulate growl of rage.

“Get off me!”

The doctor scowled and stepped away, pulling down his rolled up sleeves and refastening his cufflinks. Then Emil saw three figures standing inside the doorway: Karl, Charlotte and Violette. He groaned.

“Cuts and bruises,” said the doctor. “And when a healthy young man who never drinks decides to tip beer down his throat – this is the predictable result. He’ll live, madame. I recommend a week’s rest, and then light practice to regain his fitness.”

“Thank you,” said Violette. “Come back and check him again this evening, will you? Thierry – he’s the assistant assigned to Emil – Thierry will pay you.”

Her face loomed over Emil, shell-white, her sapphire eyes large and unblinking. Her lack of expression was more terrifying than anger would have been. Never in his life had he felt so low, like a soldier close to death in the bottom of a trench… so sick, depressed, and humiliated that he was sure he would die of it. Charlotte and Karl stood behind her, looking over her shoulders.

“Karl told me what happened,” Violette said softly. “I don’t know whether to yell at you for getting into that situation, or give thanks that you weren’t murdered. For pity’s sake, Emil!”

He turned his face away on the pillow.

“Well, I see there’s no point in me saying anything until you feel better,” she went on. “Who were the men who attacked you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Emil! Are you proud of being the most exasperating person who’s ever worked for me? Tell me what you remember, and I’ll leave you in peace.”

Gritting his teeth, he managed to prop himself on his elbows.

“Madame, I was disgustingly drunk. They were talking politics, which I despise. I got into an argument with them. A fight broke out… the next I knew, I was outside. Some of them came after me, started using me as a football, and then Karl arrived. That’s all I know.”

Karl said, “I saw Godric Reiniger inside. He was talking with some men very similar to the ones who attacked Emil. I believe they were all part of the same group.”

“Reiniger, who fancies himself a film-maker?” Violette looked puzzled, then dismissive. “He didn’t look the type to associate with inebriated idiots, but I suppose you never can tell.”

Karl said nothing more. The three stood gazing down at him. Their faces weren’t unkind; they all looked grave and concerned. But as they stared, something changed. Again Emil felt his mind shift, a membrane of reality tearing away to show the truth beneath.

The three faces were not human.

Their skin was radiant, with an eerie glow like pearl. They never seemed to blink. Karl’s face was too serene, his eyes like amber fire beneath the sooty shadows of his hair. Charlotte – so pretty and warm, with amethyst eyes that would mesmerise the very soul out of you, lips that would kill with pleasure. And Violette – Snow White, ice maiden, witch, enchantress…

“I’ll send Thierry in to look after you,” Violette was saying, almost kindly. “I wouldn’t have had this happen for the world, but – it’s done. Rest.”

He heard her words as if from a great distance, as if she were looking at him through rippling water. All he could see clearly were their three mermaid-pale faces, filling him with unutterable terror. He couldn’t form any clear idea of what he was seeing, yet he knew.

None of them are human
.

* * *

“Like hell will I rest,” Emil told himself angrily, fists clenched under the covers. An hour or so had passed. His head had cleared to some degree, but the horrible illusion he’d suffered only left him agitated, determined to leap out of bed, shake off his weakness and forget the whole episode. The sooner he returned to normal, the sooner this madness would leave him, and he’d prove to Violette… what?

That he was stronger than she dreamed. She would never look at him with pity again.

Thierry, who fussed like a grumpy mother hen, had gone to bring him some tea. While he was out of the room, Emil got up, splashed water on himself and pulled on his practice gear. Out in the corridor he bumped into Thierry, exchanged a few harsh words, and pushed past. Minutes later, he entered the studio just in time for class to begin.

Everyone stared at him.

His reflection in the studio mirror was ghastly: bruised eyes, battered face, mouth swollen like a balloon. He moved as stiffly as an eighty-year-old, wincing with every step as he approached the barre. This morning the session was being supervised by the ballet mistress, Joelle, who was even more intimidating than Ralph with her long, thin figure, heavily powdered face and orange-dyed hair. She rapped her cane on the floor and said, “What’s this? No.”

“Have you never seen a black eye before?” Emil said coldly. “A minor accident, that’s all.”

“I do not think Madame Lenoir would wish you to risk further injury by dancing unfit.”

“I’ll be the judge of whether I’m fit or not. Ignore me, and proceed.”

For the first time in his career, he outstared her. At last Joelle gave in and turned away. “Very well. Your decision, your fault if you hurt yourself. Begin,” she snapped.

Emil had never suffered such excruciating pain in his life. Ribs, kidneys, head, every part of him hurt – this was worse than the beating itself. Yet he pushed himself through each exercise, giving his injuries no quarter, refusing to let anyone see his agony.

And the others… did any of them know that Violette and her friends were… different? He glanced around at the intent, innocent faces of the other dancers. Was he the only one who’d
seen
… or was he the only one who was
not
in on the secret? Jean-Paul, Mikhail, Ute – all seemed to be laughing at him behind their blank expressions.