The Dark Arts of Blood Read online

  “Tired?” She gave him an imperious look. “Karl, my human dancers are tired. Vampire goddesses only grow… thirsty.”

  “A figure of speech. You must have a great deal to do.”

  “I appreciate your courtesy, but chores can wait.”

  She took pins from her hair and unravelled the skeins from a short modern style to an inky waterfall. She dropped on to the sofa before the lit fireplace, unbuttoned her shoes and kicked them off. “Everyone will devour a hot meal and fall into their beds. Trunks can be unpacked in the morning. Actually I do feel drained. Such a long tour…”

  “I wish we’d come with you,” said Charlotte, sitting beside her. “We went to the cinema a few weeks ago, and there you were on the newsreel! ‘The Ballet Lenoir sets sail on another triumphant tour.’”

  “We always seem to be waving from a ship,” Violette said ruefully. “I’ve just had a very pushy gentleman wanting to film us rehearsing. Introduced himself as Godric Reiniger and claimed he’d written to me. He was highly indignant that I hadn’t read his letter, as if I should be grateful for his attention! I sent him away. Something about him…” She paused. “I can’t endure such rudeness, but perhaps I was too hasty. Should I have said yes? What we take for granted today will be lost forever in a few years’ time.”

  “That’s a sad thought,” said Charlotte.

  “Mm. Would future generations want to see us leaping about in shades of black and white, an ancient curiosity?”

  “Oh, they will, without doubt,” said Karl. “How was the tour?”

  “Wonderful. We couldn’t put a step wrong, it seemed. The audiences went wild.” She spoke with self-deprecating pride.

  “I never doubted they would,” Charlotte said warmly. “How is your new leading man?”

  “Emil has been astounding. Oh my goodness, how they adore him! You’d think an angel had descended from heaven to dance with me. I’m so thrilled I discovered him, I can’t find words.” Violette laughed to herself.

  “What’s so amusing?” Charlotte asked.

  “He’s begun to gather worshippers at the stage door.”

  “Oh… and what does Mikhail think of that?”

  “Mikhail is philosophical. He knows his prime is over, but he enjoys playing the villain instead. I’m grateful for his good sense, because the last thing I need is two rival stags fighting it out. He’s more like an older brother to Emil. A mentor. Together we’ll drill into Emil’s head not to take his worshippers too seriously. After all, youth and strength fade and then what is left?” Violette broke off, frowning.

  “Wisdom? Achievement? Contentment?” said Charlotte. “If the tour went so well, you deserve to feel proud. So what’s worrying you? It’s obvious you’re fretting.”

  “Ah, so many things.” Violette stretched her strong, arched feet. “I was thinking that as my male partners and corps de ballet grow older, I’ll stay the same. For now it doesn’t matter: if I were still human, I’d be only in my twenties. But in the future… My dancers will age, and wonder how I remain unchanged. ‘Does she bathe in the blood of virgins?’ they’ll whisper.”

  Violette gave a smile so chilling that Charlotte had to look away.

  “This is the difficulty of living in the human world,” said Karl. “But there are ways around such problems.”

  “You speak from experience,” Violette stated.

  “Long experience.”

  “But being found out may have consequences. Such as being decapitated by an angry mob of humans.”

  Karl didn’t react overtly. Charlotte saw his lips narrow.

  “I’m certain you’ll avoid decapitation,” he said drily. “We can usually step into Raqia out of harm’s way. And your reactions are faster than most.”

  “Usually,” Violette echoed. “But the Crystal Ring is unpredictable. What if a day comes when it refuses to receive us?”

  “We had a similar conversation,” said Charlotte.

  “There must be something in the ether.” Violette rose, paced across the room to the window and stood there outlined by moonlight. Although she put on a brave front, Charlotte knew she was still grieving. She could no more get over the loss of Robyn than I could get over losing Karl. Perhaps in her whole life, her eternal undeath, she will never get over Robyn.

  She went to Violette. Knowing the dancer hated displays of sympathy, she only folded her arms and asked, “What happened?”

  “I’m not sure. On the return journey, halfway across the Atlantic… how do I explain? When my company travels, I travel with them. I don’t have to. I could take short cuts through the Crystal Ring – but that has dangers too, and I don’t want to invent reasons for arriving before them. No, they’re my flock, so I shepherd them. But sea journeys are so long… I try to abstain, and usually I can. I don’t want rumours of illness and death following the Ballet Lenoir. That’s happened in the past, but no more.”

  “How often have I warned you that abstaining only makes us more dangerous? You don’t try to abstain for the whole voyage?” said Charlotte, dismayed.

  “I don’t claim it’s easy. Sometimes I slip. After all, a passenger confined to their cabin by illness isn’t unusual.”

  She stopped, looking out at the night sky. Charlotte prompted, “So, you slipped? Did someone catch you in the act?”

  “No. It was far stranger. Halfway through the voyage, my thirst was unbearable. I decided to enter Raqia, travel to the nearest landmass to feed and return to the ship. Simple, I thought.”

  Karl said, “Simpler to choose someone on board. Why discriminate between a victim on water and one on land?”

  “That’s a perfectly good point.” Violette turned to face him. “You’re always so fair and rational, Karl, even while you’re drinking someone’s heart-blood. I like that. However… I wanted to keep the ship ‘clean’, so to speak. Unsullied by my needs.” She gave a light shrug. “Think me irrational, if you will.”

  “Not at all,” said Karl. “We all have our own codes.”

  “I often spent the night on deck, since I can’t sleep and I’ve little tolerance for company. I chose a night to enter the Crystal Ring, only to find I could barely move, let alone travel. A storm racked the whole dimension, so violent it threw me back to the solid world, nearly flung me into the waves, and I only just found the deck. But the storm followed me.”

  With calm understatement, she described walls of water breaking over the prow, driving rain, a gale that threatened to push the liner to the bottom of the ocean.

  “But storms at sea are common,” said Charlotte.

  “Two points. When I first tried to enter Raqia, the sea was calm. When I was thrown back, the wrath of hell came with me. Yes, a storm in both planes could be coincidence, but that wasn’t how it felt.” She drew her arms tight around herself. “Second, something came back with me.”

  Karl moved to Charlotte’s side. She felt his hand on her back as they waited for Violette to elaborate.

  “A spectre, possibly a vampire – not human, but perfectly solid and real. I couldn’t see it clearly. A tall figure in a brownish robe, the colour of dried blood, with a giant skull for a head, or a bone mask of some kind. He held a long staff, as if he fancied himself a sorcerer – like the character Mikhail plays in The Firebird, Kastchei the Immortal – but different. This thing was sinister, hideous… It takes a lot to scare me, but this apparition made me nearly collapse with terror. I felt it was hunting me. We fought. I tried to thrust it back where it came from. The storm was at full force so the fight is a blur. All I remember is struggling for possession of the staff, which felt full of lethal, weakening power, like some form of electricity. It hurt like the devil to hold on, but somehow I pushed the creature back into Raqia.”

  “Did you see it again?” Karl asked.

  “No. Emil appeared. The idiot, he nearly fell overboard. Once I’d got him back on deck, he said he’d been looking for me so that I wouldn’t be alone and frightened in the storm!”

&nb
sp; “That is sweet,” said Charlotte.

  “Foolish,” Violette hissed. “His heroics nearly lost me my best dancer. Anyway… What could he make of the attack? Who knows what it meant? So we sat together on deck, while I tried to make light of my excuses for being outside in such diabolical weather. We sat there until dawn. And I was hoping with all my soul that I had not inadvertently summoned the power to capsize an ocean liner.”

  They were silent for a while. Karl stoked the fire. Charlotte lit lamps and closed all the curtains, except those at the window where Violette remained, a statue.

  “Were you able to feed eventually?” Charlotte asked.

  “Oh, yes. Not on Emil! No, I found a hapless steward, who misread my advances but fortunately remembered nothing afterwards. I’m not unhinged through starvation, if that’s what you think.”

  “I wasn’t thinking any such thing,” said Charlotte. “Yes, the creature may have been illusory. But it’s safer to assume that it was real.”

  “Agreed,” said Karl. “I’ve seen it too.”

  Violette and Charlotte both stared at him.

  “A few nights ago there was a wild storm in Raqia, nearly impenetrable. A shape came flying at me like a black comet. A skull-headed spectre, as you describe. It threw me out of its path and vanished towards the Earth.”

  “Could it have been on the same night?” said Violette.

  “Possibly,” said Karl, “but the timing isn’t significant. Such apparitions may well be seen at different times and places. Sometimes real, sometimes a mirage.”

  “Haunting me,” said Violette.

  “Darling, not everything is pursuing you in particular,” said Charlotte. “It might be… actually, I have no idea.”

  “If I’m paranoid, can you blame me?” Violette retorted. “Almost everyone, mortal and immortal, seems to have a reason to persecute me. Lilith’s fire runs through my veins. Therefore, shouldn’t I anticipate all threats and dismiss them with a goddess-like display of power?” Violette lifted her hands in the air. “So much for that! I’m as much in the dark as you. And I’m concerned – not for myself, but for my company. Every moment, every day, I draw danger to them simply by existing.”

  “Don’t,” Charlotte said firmly. “You’re not a goddess all the time. You’re the avatar of a million dreams and myths about Lilith. You can’t expect yourself to be omniscient. If there’s danger, we’ll seek the source together.”

  “I know why they fear me. Lilith embodies everything women are not supposed to be: wilful, wanton, disobedient. That hasn’t changed.”

  “But we know the truth,” said Charlotte. “They’re frightened because they don’t understand.”

  “They’re frightened because they can’t control me,” Violette retorted. “And it may take mankind centuries to overcome their fear of powerful females, since it seems I must go around educating them one by one. And some people don’t like having the veil torn away. They’ll do anything to stop me.”

  “And we’ll help you,” Charlotte said firmly. “Always.”

  Violette held her gaze with stormy eyes. Eventually she blinked. “You know something about this, don’t you, Charlotte? Come on, tell me about this incident you claim was ‘nothing’.”

  Charlotte exhaled. “All right. It’s a tale of a cold knife, shattered glass, blood, hallucinations and near-death. Perhaps you’d like to sit down?”

  * * *

  Emil looked around his modest bedroom, feeling out of place, oddly deflated. The excitement of the tour was over. How strange was the quiet solitude… His mind still resounded with music, bright costumes and stage lighting, the roar of applause. Theatre smells lingered in his nostrils: perfume and sweaty costumes, rosin dust and greasepaint, bad plumbing. Ah, the girls and women swarming at the stage door as if he were some film idol… The other male dancers – not least his understudy, Jean-Paul – trying to bring him back to Earth with sour jokes. Jealous, naturally.

  Then the voyage home. Each time he closed his eyes, the storm still crashed and rolled through his head.

  He thought of Violette, alone and soaked to the skin, sitting beside him as if the storm could not touch her. Holding his hand until dawn broke and the sea calmed.

  We shall not speak of this again.

  He was exhausted, but sleep was impossible.

  What was Violette doing at this moment? She was in the same building yet he couldn’t go to her, any more than a pageboy in a castle could approach a princess. At supper, he’d overheard the cooks whispering of mysterious “friends” who’d come to visit her.

  Although he was a relative newcomer, Emil was aware that she had enigmatic patrons who came and went at their own whim. He’d glimpsed them a few times: a striking couple, the woman dressed in subtle warm colours that complemented her hair, the man dark-haired and elegant in black. They were known as Herr and Frau Alexander, but no one could tell him who they were.

  They had Violette’s confidence. For that, he envied them.

  Quietly he left his room and trod the corridor, wincing at every creaking floorboard. He hadn’t undressed and was still in the white shirt and grey slacks he’d travelled in, feeling rumpled and grubby. He descended stairs to the next level, hearing snatches of conversation behind closed doors. Apparently others couldn’t sleep, either, though the hour was past midnight.

  Bedrooms and dormitories occupied the highest floors of the academy. Beneath lay practice studios and rehearsal rooms for the orchestra. Violette’s apartment was immediately above the main studio, although the entrance was tucked away and the door always locked. Not that he would dream of trying to enter her private quarters. On the lowest floors lay kitchens, dining rooms, staff quarters and costume stores.

  Next door was the theatre, newly restored. Soon they would be rehearsing for the Ballet Lenoir’s first performance in Violette’s own venue. Emil wandered, envisioning his readjustment to the daily routine of practice, rehearsal and performance that would be his existence for the foreseeable future. How strange, to live in this mixture of the mundane and the magical.

  If fate hadn’t dealt him the good fortune of talent and looks, he would still be in Tuscany, bullied by his grumpy father, a peasant farmer, bossed by older brothers, alternately fussed over and slapped by his adored if aggravating mother. He missed the warm sun shining through the olive groves, the vineyards and wildflower meadows. Even missed his family, a little. He did not miss the arguments. He couldn’t have borne the frustration of doing nothing but farming, having a few children with some peasant girl, and growing old in the same village.

  He refused to become his father.

  A schoolteacher had told him about ballet, showing him photographs of Anna Pavlova and Vaslav Nijinsky. No one could fathom the workings of a child’s brain: why you knew, almost before you could walk, what you wanted to be.

  Emil had been ten when he announced his intention to become a famous dancer. The resulting blow from his father made his ears ring for a week. Life grew no better. Emil was stubborn. The more his brothers mocked him, the more determined he became. The more his father shouted and struck him, the more his mother pleaded, the less he cared.

  Years later, he realised that their anger was fired by more than the prospect of losing a son, a useful pair of hands. They assumed that dancing made him something too unspeakable to be named. Homosexual. A word not even to be whispered.

  As a child, Emil knew nothing of that. The day of his twelfth birthday, he ran away. He found his way to the Ballet Russes in Paris, begged a job as a kitchen boy. Then he sneaked into classes, solicited tuition in exchange for running errands. Through hard work and natural brilliance, he inveigled his way into the corps de ballet – and one day Violette saw him dance, and took him away with her.

  Fate.

  He’d never been home. His mother might be proud, but his father would receive news of his success in the traditional way, with a punch to the ear. Quit this nonsense and get back on the bloody farm!
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br />   Emil laughed.

  “No thank you, Papa,” he said out loud.

  Later, he’d heard the horrific news of his older brother, Alfonso: publicly lynched for attempting to assassinate Mussolini. Emil was only too aware it might not even be safe for him to return to Italy. That was what you got for involving yourself in politics: execution. Emil tried to push Alfonso far out of his thoughts.

  In a corridor, he tried the door that led through to the theatre. He expected to find it locked, but occasionally the caretaker would forget. Tonight the door opened.

  He strolled through the backstage area and came out into the auditorium, a huge space embellished with Art Nouveau fancies; smooth wooden pillars carved into sweeping shapes, lamps held aloft by idealised female forms. Violette had insisted it be restored to its full romantic glory.

  A couple of lamps glowed, shining on a figure that sat on the edge of the stage with his feet dangling over the orchestra pit. Mikhail. He turned and saw Emil in the wings, raised a bottle of clear liquid and waved it.

  “Couldn’t sleep either? Hey, come share this vodka with me.”

  Emil crossed the stage and sat down beside him. He accepted the bottle and took a swig, wincing at the burn of raw spirit. He was not a drinker. Violette disapproved.

  “I’m forty years old tomorrow,” Mikhail said glumly.

  “Prost,” said Emil, saluting him with the bottle. “Happy birthday. You dance like a twenty-year-old, still.”

  “Hah. No need to flatter me. The joints start to ache, the muscles seize up. How many more moments of glory shall I have on this stage, eh? Is it already over?”

  “Surely not. You could go on to sixty, or longer…”

  “Ah, but do I want to? If I cannot give my best – no. I want to be remembered in my prime, not as a shambling has-been. Do I want to teach the young puppies who come after me? No. Damn them, with their eager faces and long legs like newborn foals. No. When it’s over, it’s over.”

  Emil realised he’d get little sense out of Mikhail. Every time he passed the vodka back, Mikhail pushed it on him again. The fourth swallow went straight to his head.