The Dark Arts of Blood (31 page)

“And you direct?”

“Write, direct, edit and distribute. Aside from my supporters, who double as extras and crew, this is a one-man operation. Mine. Reiniger Studios.”

The room to which he led Karl was a small private cinema, with tiered seating, a projection booth at the rear and a huge screen veiled by black curtains in front. There were prints along the walls that looked like Japanese calligraphy.

“My screening room,” said Reiniger.

“Impressive.”

“Take a seat, anywhere you like.”

“What are you doing?” said Karl.

“Just humour me. Sit.”

With a sense of dread, verging on claustrophobia, Karl took a seat in the back row. Reiniger left him there. A few moments later, the lights went down and he heard the whirr of a projector start up behind him. Karl sat as if chained there. The curtains opened. Beams of light shot over his head and silver grey shadows began to dance on the screen in front of him, playing out a wordless horror story.

E
mil was drowning. Walls of water hit him, one after another. All was black, the world upside down. In the far distance he saw Violette, a tiny figure confronting a great skull-headed monster – he screamed her name but brine filled his mouth. He must reach her or the world would end…

“Violette!
Violette!
”

He woke violently and sat upright in bed, streaming with sweat.

“Emil?”

Fadiya’s voice was warm and soothing. Odd that every time he woke – gently or suddenly – she was always awake first. He couldn’t shake off the night terror and almost wished she were not there to witness his panic.

“Another bad dream?” she said. He nodded. He was gasping for breath, his heart racing so hard he thought he might die. “You were calling out her name. Violette.”

“I – I dreamed she was in danger. I dream it all the time.”

He felt her hand on his shoulder. Her touch calmed him, and he found his breath.

“Always the same,” he groaned. “A figure menacing her. It looks like Kastchei the sorcerer from
The Firebird
ballet, but real, and truly evil. Maybe he represents death, or something worse, I don’t know. And I have to save her, but I can’t.”

“Perhaps that is what the dream is telling you, my dear,” she murmured. “You cannot save her from her own demons, so you need to accept that.”

“But what demons? Why would anyone mean her harm?”

Fadiya shrugged. “Who knows? We all have burdens to bear, and in the end, we all have to face our nightmares alone.”

Her words chilled him.

“I can’t accept it!”

“You’re still in love with her, aren’t you?” It was more a statement than a question. He only sighed. He switched on a bedside light, poured some brandy into a glass and drank it in two gulps. Putting the glass down with shaking hands, he missed the small table and the glass thudded on to the carpet.

“Of course you are,” she went on. “You aren’t the kind of man who would fall in love and out again so lightly. If you were, I wouldn’t be here with you. But I
am
here…”

Her words trailed off as her hands moved over his back, tracing every muscle as her lips began to plant kisses on his neck and throat. The warmth of her body against his was irresistible. Her palms slid around to explore his taut abdomen. His hands found the inner surface of her thighs.

“It was only a bad dream,” Fadiya whispered. “Let me help you forget.”

He turned to her, found her mouth as they rearranged limbs and lay side by side, pressed to each other. Already he was so strongly aroused that he felt he must be inside her or die… and she guided him, laughing and moaning with her own pleasure. She had this effect on him every time, a hot whirlpool of aching, excruciating pleasure…

Would Violette have been like this?

Emil could not, dared not think of her. There was only Fadiya, all around him like umber fire. He was deep inside her now, thrusting into her comforting heat. A thousand times better than plunging through ice-cold storms to reach Violette.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Fadiya whispered into his ear. “I only want to bite you a little. Here.” She kissed his neck, her mouth a burning pressure on his skin. He was too far gone to care what she was saying. She could do anything she liked to him, anything. “May be a little sharp… forgive me. Won’t be for long but I have to… oh God, I have to…”

He climaxed as she bit him, pleasure overwhelming pain. Then he felt himself sinking into darkness, as if he were back in the nightmare again. He tried to capture images, but the fragments vanished like slivers of ice between his fingers. The fact that she’d bitten him, and broken the flesh, barely registered before it faded from his mind…

They lay sated together, too heavy to move. He looked into her sultry eyes and thought of nothing but the erotic wonder of her warmth. Fadiya… she was so loving, so beautiful.

Perhaps he could love her. At least he could try.

* * *

Violette always got her way.

Some would call her manipulative, but her hold on Charlotte ran deep. They’d been through so much together – events both wondrous and nightmarish – that no one else understood the dancer as Charlotte did. Violette was a genius and a goddess. Charlotte’s obsession with her had nearly destroyed them both, but love between vampires was rarely simple or painless.

They were tangled together like thorn bushes, with as much anguish as affection, but the truth remained that Charlotte loved Violette with all her generous soul and always wanted to help her.

“Next week we start rehearsals in earnest, so I’ve given everyone a four-day break.” Violette was in a silk robe at her dressing table, Charlotte in her black coat ready to go out. “It will be interesting to see what time Emil comes home – if he comes back at all.”

“Wherever he goes, I’ll be there, haunting him.” Charlotte spoke in an ominous tone, only half joking.

“I suppose Karl disapproves of me asking you to watch Emil?” said Violette. “He thinks I use you, I know he does.”

“In the past, perhaps,” Charlotte answered. “These days, he’s more tolerant. Ever since…”

“Ah, the bite of Lilith, which brings enlightenment,” Violette said very softly. “And the death of childish fears, and visions of the future…”

“And mutual understanding. Love.” Charlotte smiled, picturing the time she and Karl and Violette-as-Lilith had shared each other’s blood and bodies in an ecstatic trinity.

“Unfortunately, it didn’t bestow us with omniscience,” Violette added.

“Probably just as well. The little glimpses we get are enough to drive us mad at times. Occasionally the firmament tears open and shows us something astonishing or horrific… That’s quite enough for me.” She leaned down and kissed Violette on the cheek. “Off I go to be your night spy. Don’t wait up.”

* * *

Forty-eight hours later, Charlotte was stepping into a Parisian nightclub called Trois Loups Noirs.

She entered the club through the Crystal Ring in order to avoid attention from door staff, waiters or anyone in the fashionable queue that was gradually shuffling inside. Within the smoky, candlelit space, no one noticed her stepping out of the shadows.

Tonight she was not herself. No flowing satin or lace in subtle melting colours. Instead, a visit to a boutique had secured a disguise: black eye make-up, red lipstick, a brown wig cut in a jaw-length bob. And she wore a dramatic black and white dress, not her style at all.

Violette was right: Emil had absconded for the weekend. Charlotte had seen him and his lady friend emerge from Hotel Blauensee at dawn. Soon after, to her great surprise, the two had been collected in a sleek Hispano Suiza – which made her heart jump, as it was like the one Karl used to own – by none other than Amy Temple, with a dark-haired male in the driver’s seat. She recognised him as the hero of
The Lion Arises
.

Three more motors had drawn up, horns beeping exuberantly until people began leaning out of the hotel windows to shout at them. Then the four vehicles set off in convoy towards the French border: sixteen bright young adventurers, chattering in a mixture of French, German and English.

Amy was good friends with Emil’s lover, judging by the hugs and kisses they exchanged on meeting. Now Charlotte would have to join Amy’s jaunt to Paris, whether she wanted to or not.

To take the famous Emil Fiorani on the trip with them was, Charlotte guessed, quite a prize.

She followed through Raqia, skimming through the ether in her changed form like an eel through the depths of a lake. Reality appeared dim, compressed and distorted near ground level. Keeping the cars in sight was not easy; she would have lost them, had they not made several stops for fuel and food. The journey took the entire day. Darkness fell long before they reached the city.

Perhaps she should have accepted Amy’s invitation after all – but that might have meant there was no room in the vehicle for Emil. Worse, Emil would then know that Violette had sent her. Besides, following them unseen was a pleasure that suited her secretive nature.

With the infinite patience of immortals, Charlotte watched as the party checked into a tall narrow hotel. They took supper at a pavement café, then withdrew to their hotel and apparently spent most of the following day asleep. That gave Charlotte time to procure her disguise, to satisfy her thirst in the backstreets, and to wish that Karl was with her.

The following evening, the group finally emerged in glittering finery for a night out in Montmartre. She memorised all their faces and realised she’d seen at least half of them in
The Lion Arises.
The actress Mariette – the Egyptian queen – was clearly the pack leader, but Charlotte’s attention was on Emil and his companion. He looked splendid in an evening suit, blond hair brushed back. His lover matched him for beauty, her brown skin contrasted by a dress of pale creamy gold, glittering with sequins. Her eyes were huge and dark beneath a sparkling bandeau. She wore a single long strand of pearls.

Charlotte found their glamour mesmerising. Inevitably she began to imagine how the woman’s silken skin would feel under her lips… how she would taste… Her fangs slid into striking position. The sudden pain as one fang-tip nicked her tongue jolted her back to reality.

Concentrate
, she told herself.
I’m here to observe, not to indulge.

Five years ago, she’d been a shy human of twenty, thrust by her Aunt Elizabeth into the bedlam of high society. Hard to believe so little time had passed; it felt like several lifetimes. She recalled a blur of debutante balls, picnics, dozens of events aimed at the ultimate goal: to find the perfect husband. Not an easy task after the Great War.

Looking back, Charlotte appreciated that this wasn’t such a bad way of doing things. After all, the London season was supposed to be wild fun. Her younger sister Madeleine had loved it. Charlotte, reclusive by nature, had loathed the entire pantomime.

Over-sensitive, she was all too aware of the deadly serious purpose behind the season. A good marriage, the right friends, the constant reweaving of society’s structure lest everything collapse… The relentless burden of
expectation
had made her recoil.

Anyway, that was far in the past. Karl had appeared and opened her eyes to the freedom of being her true self. What if she’d never met him? She might still be leading a quiet, productive life as a research scientist. There were worse fates. But she would have remained an introvert: stoic, competent, broken-hearted but never letting her bitterness show.

Karl certainly had not “saved” her in any sense. Their love had proved expensive, not least to her family. But… the heart would not be denied.

Now her life was full of strange pleasures and pains, roaming the night to feast on blood… In spite of all they’d endured – and even with the lamia haunting her – she would not swap her existence for anything.

Entering the jazz club, she felt a surge of nerves and excitement. The atmosphere was intense; a devil’s brew of noise, smoke and body heat. Not the sort of venue her aunt would approve of, although Madeleine had sneaked illicit visits in London. Not wholesome for young ladies…

The place was packed with young ladies, regardless.

She was aware of English voices mingling with the French. There might be people here who remembered her. She dared not risk being recognised, since she was officially dead.

Being seen alive was a hazard that went beyond embarrassment.

An African-American jazz band created a raucous, joyous sound that made her want to sway and lose herself in sensuous rhythm. Couples bobbed frenetically on the dance floor. Charlotte smiled. She and Karl favoured the older, graceful dances. She wasn’t sure she could tell the Lindy Hop from the Blackbottom or even the Quickstep, and the idea of attempting the Charleston struck her as faintly ridiculous.

In her disguise, she felt ridiculous in any case.

On the far side of the room, she saw Emil’s party taking seats around a table with a white tablecloth, candles and ashtrays. They were all laughing, chattering as if already drunk. A waiter placed cocktails in front of them. Cigarettes were passed around. Charlotte saw Emil accept one, coughing clouds of smoke as if it were his first. Everyone laughed at him and he laughed with them, knocking back his drink in one gulp. Next, the regal Mariette tried to drag him on to the dance floor, but he resisted. Their light-hearted argument grew loud and heads turned to stare at him. All over the club, people began nudging each other and turning to gawp. “
Isn’t that Emil Fiorani, the dancer?
”