The Dark Arts of Blood (27 page)

“What business?”

Charlotte had an odd feeling of dislocation, as if she’d just woken up and lost track of time. She recalled speaking with Amy, then travelling through the misty violet lower regions of Raqia… but she had no idea what Stefan meant.

“The knife?” he said. “I thought you were eager to examine it.”

“What knife?” said Charlotte.

Why were they looking at her so strangely? Why was Karl coming towards her, frowning?

“This,” Stefan said, puzzled.

Across his palms he held a thick folded scarf, a dagger lying on top. Its carved bone handle was set with a ruby, like a giant blood drop. Charlotte had no idea what she was looking at.

Then the memories came back in a violent rush. She backed away until she collided with the far wall, so cold with shock she thought she might pass out like a human. The air shuddered and she saw her double floating in front of her: the mindless, mocking lamia. She felt the sting of glass shards in her back.

“No,” she said. “
No!
Take it away from me.”

Through a snowstorm, she heard Karl say, “Charlotte?”

“
H
ow could I have
forgotten
?” she said for a third time, stricken. “How?”

Everything came back now in a clear flood: being stabbed in the street, her nightmarish hallucinations as the self-styled policeman intruded on the chalet and nearly lost his life at her hands. The spectral double. Karl, plucking glass slivers out of her flesh…

And yet, somehow, her mind had wiped out the entire night.

“It must be to do with the knife itself,” said Stefan. “Can you remember when you last… remembered what you’ve forgotten, if you see what I mean?”

“I’m not sure.” Charlotte rubbed her brow, glad of Karl’s arm around her. “It’s been fading for a few days. This morning, when we came out of Raqia, it had gone altogether. But I didn’t
know
I’d forgotten until I saw the knife again. I only remembered Amy when I actually saw her, and then only the events that involved her. What’s happened to me?”

“As Stefan said, a side-effect of the knife-wound,” said Karl. “Why would it cause forgetfulness? I have no answer… Beloved, at least your memory has come back.”

“I almost wish it hadn’t. Am I going to keep forgetting and remembering? It was… absolutely horrifying.” She went to the window and rested her head on the glass. “A cold knife cut me in half and I’m drifting in two separate pieces, untethered. No one else sees it, not even you, Karl. You’re all concerned that I’m in shock, but not that it’s real or serious. And I don’t want to make a fuss, because only I can help myself and I don’t know how yet.”

Reflected in the glass, she saw Stefan touch Niklas’s arm.

“It’s not so bad, having a double,” he said.

“It’s entirely different!” She turned on him. “Mine isn’t a separate physical twin that I could choose to love or destroy. It’s me but
not
me… like a living ghost, mocking me… I can’t explain. I can’t touch her, but she won’t go away. What is it? The manifestation of all my guilt about choosing to become a vampire, befriending Ilona even though she killed Fleur, and all the hurt I caused my family?”

“Shed your conscience, or learn to live with it,” Stefan said brightly. “I’ve told you that before. There’s no other way.”

“I thought I had shaken it off, long ago.” Charlotte folded her arms. “I never suffered much guilt at all, to be honest – yet it’s there, in my shape, following me around. I’m sorry.”

“For what?” said Karl. He looked so beautiful, so concerned and helpless that she hurried forward and embraced him, feeling that she must comfort him, not the other way round.

“Being overdramatic. I’ll be all right, I promise. No more strange fits.”

“Love, try to keep that night in the centre of your mind,” Karl said gently. “The memory will lose its potency, but not vanish again. I hope.”

“I’ll lock the knife away,” said Stefan. “Forgive me, Charlotte, I had no idea this would upset you.”

“No, bring it back!” she said. “Put it on the table there. I’m better now, and I do want to examine it again.”

Karl passed her a magnifying glass. Bracing herself against the painful shocks to her fingertips, she turned the knife over and studied the carved pattern. A maze, a death-mask with closed eyes in the centre… And another detail, the tiny inscription just below the ruby pommel. She’d forgotten that, too.

“There’s a word,” she said. “It looks like Arabic. I can’t read it.”

“Nor can I,” said Stefan. “What’s the use of immortality, if not to learn every language on the planet? If only I wasn’t so damned lazy.”

“Let me see,” said Karl.

He studied the word for a while. Eventually he said, “I think it reads
Istilqa
.”

“What does that mean?”

“I’ll find out for certain,” said Karl, “but I believe it means ‘sleep’.”

* * *

Later, they sat outside on the edge of the veranda, watching pleasure boats and yachts drift past. Delicate spring flowers danced in the grass. The peaks on the far side of the lake floated like white lace against the sky.

Charlotte related her encounter with Amy. Stefan was leafing through a catalogue of
Spring Fashions, 1928
. She knew he was paying attention to the conversation even though he pretended nonchalance.

“I’ve still learned very little about Godric Reiniger,” she said, “except that he fancies himself a
great
film director and likes to court favour with important people. But didn’t you see him in the beer hall, Karl?”

His eyes were intent on her, as golden as two setting suns. Still watching her for signs of mental derangement? She broke eye contact, trying not to mind.

“Yes. And the thugs who attacked Emil were similar to the men Reiniger was talking to inside. Part of the same group. They had a similar aura, a pale yellowish glow. Very faint, but somehow painful to the eyes. And all had an odour like the men who attacked you. Not alcohol, but something noxious in their blood.”

“At least I wasn’t imagining all that.” Charlotte hugged her knees. She checked that her memory was still intact, and recalled how much happier she’d been when it had vanished for a while.

“Perhaps you should go and speak to Herr Reiniger,” said Stefan.

“It’s not so easy,” said Karl. “I tried last night.”

“Karl!” She glowered at him. “You didn’t tell me.”

He met her gaze, blinked. Again she saw his subtle look of concern.

“Charlotte, I did tell you.”

When she found her voice, it was rusty, faint. “Did you, really? Last night is blurred… but I felt so tranquil in the Crystal Ring, Obviously I was tranquil because my mind had gone blank.”

Karl and Stefan turned their heads to look at each other. She added, “If you two exchange one more of your ‘Poor Charlotte’s gone mad’ looks, I shall bang your heads together, I swear!”

“Sorry,” said Stefan. “We’re worried, that’s all.”

“Well, I did not get inside the house,” said Karl. “That was the strangest thing. I tried to enter through the Crystal Ring but there was a force around the entire building, physically driving me away. Like a sphere of red energy, a barrier I couldn’t breach. And a powerful aroma of blood.”

“Pleasant or toxic?” asked Charlotte.

“The latter. Whatever they were doing inside seemed rather more interesting than making movies.”

“You didn’t think to knock on the front door?” said Stefan. “Too obvious?”

Karl hesitated. “It would have been difficult to explain why I was there. Also, I was sure that if I did get inside, I’d never escape. Every time I’ve seen Reiniger, he’s stared at me as if he knows exactly what I am and is about to produce a sharpened axe.”

“Are you sure he wasn’t simply admiring the view?” said Stefan.

“Absolutely certain,” Karl said drily. “That’s why I meant to observe, rather than confront him. As things stand, we still know almost nothing about him.”

“Amy mentioned secret meetings,” said Charlotte. “Selected men only. She said nothing about… occult practices involving blood, or whatever they were doing.
Her
blood smells wholesome, so she can’t be part of it.”

“So her uncle doesn’t tell her everything,” said Karl. “I think I should pay him another visit.”

“Must you?” said Charlotte. “I’ve such a bad feeling about him. You forever warn me not to get involved with humans.”

He touched her cheek. They looked at each other, forgetting Stefan and Niklas were there. “I know, but that’s because I’m bad at following my own rules. Otherwise I would never have asked your father to teach me about science, nor grown so dangerously close to you.”

“You warned me then that you have no morals. I know that isn’t true; you have your code of behaviour, but you don’t hesitate to break it when necessary. Is that a fair assessment?”

“Perfectly fair,” said Karl. “Every incident of late seems to have emanated from that house. The bone-knife, the gang that assaulted Emil, Amy fainting in the street…”

Charlotte tensed with anger. “Did her uncle know the doctor he sent her to was a sadistic old pervert? Does he even care? Poor girl.”

“Be careful,” Karl said softly.

“I know,” she said. “Tender feelings towards a human are deceptive. Sympathy turns into thirst before we know what’s happening. You don’t have to remind me.”

“That’s not what I was going to say, but… never mind.”

“Karl, I’ve had enough lessons to know I’m unlikely to change, but still, I promise I have no intention of feeding on Amy. She invited me on a weekend jaunt to Paris. I told her I can’t go, but perhaps I should, if only to protect her. She said her uncle’s forbidden her to go. I’m worried she’s in more danger from him than from me.”

Karl looked out across the blue water, his eyes turning thoughtful. That serene stare, framed by dark brows and lashes, had always captivated her. Sweet torment.

“All the more reason for me to visit Herr Reiniger, while you do whatever you must,
liebling
. But let us both be careful. I think I’ll do as Stefan suggested, and simply knock on the front door. Do you remember those red columns of light we saw in Raqia?”

“Yes,” said Charlotte. “Shooting up towards the
Weisskalt
. You said you’ve seen them several times?”

He met her gaze, said in a subdued tone, “And last night I saw them emanating from his house. They vanished when the red sphere faded. It’s alarming to think he’s capable of creating so much energy. I wonder what he’s trying to do, and how much he knows.”

Charlotte went quiet with shock.

“Do you like this one?” Stefan interrupted, passing her the catalogue and pointing to a sleek evening dress.

“Why? We’re trying to have a serious conversation.”

“Too serious,” he said. “I’m planning a party. I want to treat you to a new outfit.”

“What’s wrong with the ones I have?”

“Too many bloodstains.”

“There are no… apart from the dress that was ruined when I was stabbed…”

“Exactly. You need a replacement.”

Charlotte began to laugh. “Stefan, I swear you think I’m some life-size doll for you to dress up! I don’t care about fashion.”

“Nonsense. Listen to this.” He read out loud from a magazine, “‘Gone is the flapper. In her place has come the young woman with poise, of soft-toned and correct speech, soberly dressed, and without closely cropped hair. Miss nineteen twenty-eight is much more subtle and polished, and she wears black satin instead of cerise. This year’s style in young girls is to be quiet, conversational and terribly in earnest about careers.’” Stefan laughed. “There, Charlotte, you’re already well ahead of fashion.”

“‘This year’s style in young girls?’ Heaven help us,” said Charlotte, pulling a face at him. “I’m so glad I was never part of that world. Are you sure you wouldn’t like to try some of these outfits yourself?”

“Well, perhaps I would,” Stefan retorted. “Would it not be fun for Niklas and I to dress as women, and pass ourselves off as your twin sisters?”

Charlotte imagined the scene. “Actually, yes. May I wear one of your suits, and a fake moustache to complete the picture?”

“No moustache, but a top hat! Think how glamorous you’d look! See, Karl? Your shy beloved has discovered a taste for mischief.”

“I should be used to your sense of humour by now,” said Karl.

“We’re stuck on this Earth for eternity, as near as makes no difference,” Stefan remarked. “A little frivolity helps pass the time. I live in hope that you’ll take undeath less seriously, one of these days.”

“Karl isn’t always serious,” said Charlotte. “I love him the way he is, and the same goes for
you
, Stefan, so don’t taunt each other.”

“It’s my fate to be misunderstood. You assume I’m wandering off the subject, while I’m actually trying to help you and you haven’t even noticed.”

“How?” said Karl.

“A party is the perfect thing to lure Godric Reiniger and his friends out of their lair, isn’t it?”

“That’s actually quite a good idea,” said Charlotte.

“Or a potential disaster,” Karl added. “I doubt he’d come, though. He doesn’t know us. I suspect he considers himself too important to respond to invitations from strangers.”