The Dark Arts of Blood Read online

  Charlotte shrugged. “I can’t tell, without following them into the bedroom – and I draw the line at that. I assume he is, though.”

  Violette’s eyes glittered. She looked incandescent. She let her hand drop from Charlotte’s arm but otherwise stayed motionless, like a cat about to pounce. “He certainly got over me swiftly.”

  “I’m sure that’s not true. She’s consolation, that’s all.”

  “Well, it has to stop.”

  “Does it?” Charlotte moved away and perched on a chair arm. “Why?”

  “What do you mean, why? You know my rules. My dancers are required to abstain from relationships, whether it’s with each other or with outsiders.”

  “Is this a ballet company or a monastery?”

  “There’s no need for sarcasm. Dancing isn’t any job, it’s a vocation. If we are to be the best in the world, I require complete dedication – and, yes, sacrifice.”

  “And of course, no one has ever dared disobey you,” said Charlotte. “Not one of them has ever had a secret dalliance under your leadership. No one, ever, not once.”

  Violette’s lips thinned. She gave a slow, emphatic blink.

  “Very amusing, Charlotte. All right, perhaps my rules are unrealistic, but it’s a matter of discipline – yes, precisely as if they were in the army or a religious order. But I’m not naïve. No doubt half of them are breaking the rules as we speak. The point is…”

  “Not to be found out,” Charlotte finished. She smiled. “My Aunt Elizabeth taught me that. We’re governed by the conventions of society, but how people actually behave is rather different. Yet the truth can’t be admitted openly. So her other piece of advice was that, if a person is found out, everyone should act as if nothing has happened.”

  Violette laughed out loud.

  “How British. So when you were caught out with Karl, your family sat down over a nice cup of tea and said nothing beyond, ‘Pass the sugar’?”

  “Well… yes and no. They expressed every shade of shock, disapproval and rage you can imagine, and I deserved it. If it had been an everyday scandal, they would have forgiven me in the end. I think even Henry would have harrumphed and ignored the whole thing – it’s dreadfully bad manners to notice that your wife’s having an affair! But they knew what Karl was, you see. That was the difference.”

  “Oh, that’s the line, is it? You could have fallen from grace with a poet, a gypsy, a coalman, a jazz musician…”

  “But really not with a vampire who has drunk your blood and inadvertently nearly killed your brother’s best friend,” Charlotte said in a low voice. “To be fair, my aunt stuck to her principles: she was the only one who more or less forgave me, as if to say, ‘Oh well, it’s not the first time in history someone’s fallen for the wrong man.’ If anything, she seemed to like me better after I’d disgraced myself.”

  “Interesting. A guilty conscience of her own?”

  “Probably, but she was a realist. We’re straying off the subject. What I’m saying is this. If I were you, I’d turn a blind eye. Let Emil have his secret affair. If he’s found an outlet for his… feelings, he’s less likely to be fixated on you, isn’t he? Then, when he’s with you, he can put all his energy into dancing. Isn’t that what you want?”

  Violette paced to the window and back, drummed her fingertips on the back of Charlotte’s chair. Her expression went through subtle changes – anger, exasperation, resignation – as Charlotte looked up at her, waiting for a response.

  “I appreciate the theory. But I can’t make rules, then allow an exception for Emil because he is special.”

  “No one need know.”

  “I will know.”

  “So pretend you don’t! I wish I hadn’t told you.”

  “Then you would have been lying to me. Neither of us wants that, do we?”

  “Absolutely not. But please… try leaving him alone for a while. Stop trying to control his every move. He might settle down and start behaving himself out of pure shock.”

  Violette roved the room for a few seconds, stiff-backed. “I’m not at all happy about this. However, he’s fiery and hot-headed enough to hate me as easily as he claims to love me. I don’t want that. I simply want my perfect, professional partner back. Maybe you’re right.”

  “Really?” Charlotte tilted her head in hope. “I’m not claiming this will solve all your problems, but it must be worth a try.”

  “It had better be,” Violette said thinly. “I only hope I can still rehearse with him, without wondering where his hands have been the previous night…”

  Charlotte stifled a laugh. “Darling Violette, you can’t be that squeamish.”

  “Oh, you’d be surprised,” said the dancer with an icy smile. “All right. Let him enjoy his dalliance, while I blank all knowledge of it from my mind. And this conversation never took place. Let him have a secret wife and a dozen children, if it allows me to keep him!”

  “Steady on.” Charlotte stood, and gave Violette a light embrace.

  The dancer said into her ear, “But.” The word snapped like a whip.

  “Oh, what now?”

  “I must know who she is. I can’t let him loose with a complete stranger. Charlotte, I need you to keep watching them for me.”

  * * *

  Darkness fell, clouds hid the stars and drizzle blurred the streetlamps. Charlotte waited, but to her relief, Emil stayed in his room. Apparently he had no assignation with his lady love tonight.

  Once she was certain he was going nowhere, Charlotte went hunting on her own behalf.

  The doctor’s office was easy to find. Amy had let slip his name: discovering his address was straightforward. Now Charlotte stood outside a creaking old brown building, gazing at his name on a brass plaque among those of other doctors, solicitors, accountants.

  She sensed only one human presence inside. One window on the fourth storey shone with dim lamplight. No point in bothering with human charades such as making an appointment, or even ringing the bell: she simply stepped into the Crystal Ring, passed through the walls, drifted up narrow staircases and materialised in his office. The room was shabby and stuffed with bookshelves, reminding her of her father’s house.

  “Dr Ochsner?”

  He sat with his back to her, reading by a desk lamp: a short heavy man with a thick neck, thinning hair combed over his scalp. As she spoke, he went from a study in motionless concentration to a flailing chimpanzee, scattering papers, pens and books everywhere. She half hoped he’d expire of a heart attack, but now he stood glaring at her over half-moon lenses, red-faced and panting with shock, one hand held to his chest.

  “How the devil did you—”

  Charlotte, in a black coat and cloche hat that hid her hair, sat on the edge of the examination couch. The room was sepia and had an unholy smell of tobacco, schnapps, whisky and disinfectant. She wasted no time, but stared into his eyes, unleashing the full power of her vampiric glamour in order to hypnotise the truth out of him.

  “Did you examine Herr Reiniger’s niece, Miss Temple?” she asked softly.

  He stammered, his terrified expression darkening to a scowl. She read him: a cold man, short on principles, more interested in books than patients, too long in his profession to care about them any more. “Who are you?”

  “I’ve come from Herr Reiniger,” she answered coolly. “He is displeased. Were you aware that after Miss Temple left your office, she began bleeding so heavily that she collapsed in the street?”

  “What? No! That’s none of my doing…”

  She was no longer Charlotte, passionate and sympathetic and fair-minded. At this moment she was pure vampire: coldly angry, an avatar of Lilith, like Violette.

  She would make him pour out the truth, and he wouldn’t even know what was happening.

  “Was it not? Isn’t it the case that you injured her in a cruel and invasive procedure that should have been performed in a hospital, if it was needed at all? You hurt her. You did so deliberately. Her uncle
is deeply displeased.”

  “But – but—” He looked furious, but his eyes were locked on hers. “Herr Reiniger knows perfectly well my methods as regards… intimate matters. Internal examinations are of necessity likely to be painful. Sometimes it’s essential to be a little rough.”

  “A little rough? On purpose? Why?”

  “To teach her a lesson!” Dr Ochsner’s face distorted into an ugly expression. “To teach all these foolish young girls a lesson. To make sure she behaves herself in future, that’s all. Leave her in no doubt that if she acts the whore, she’ll be punished. A young man comes to me with some venereal disease? The treatment is exceedingly painful. It’s no different. It is a moral lesson, harsh but fair. It was for her own good.”

  Charlotte stared without blinking. His cruel, fleshy face lost its colour. “And Herr Reiniger pays you to do this?”

  “We have an agreement. He sends patients to me. I sponsor his films. I support his political ambitions: a strong proud Switzerland. No one in their right mind could object to that.”

  “I see,” she said coldly. “I’ve met many good doctors, but you are not among them. Come closer.”

  Helplessly in thrall, he obeyed. She put her hands on the shoulders of his never-washed old suit jacket. She smelled his sweat, his whisky breath, his terror… but beneath that, the rich, red, throbbing flow of his blood.

  She paused.

  “Godric Reiniger,” she said softly. “Is he your patient too? What secrets does he tell you?”

  Ochsner grunted through his constricted larynx.

  “He’s a hypochondriac. He pays me handsomely every month to tell him there’s nothing wrong with him. Even a strong man has his weaknesses. My job is to keep him strong, a role I undertake with pride.”

  “Anything else?”

  “He works too hard, doesn’t eat properly. That’s all. Please…”

  Please spare me? Please feast on me? Charlotte didn’t know what he was asking, and didn’t care.

  Her fangs dropped from their sockets as she parted her lips. Usually she liked to flirt and coax affection first, but now she was as clinical and swift as Karl. Beneath her raven-black coat, she became the lamia from the mirror.

  “Well, here is my price: that you never torture and humiliate Amy, or any other woman or man, ever again.”

  She struck. Her prey struggled frantically in her grip but she barely noticed, wholly caught in the rich red stream of his life as it flowed deliciously into her, too luscious for her to hold back. For once, she did not even try to stop. She seemed to be floating outside the window, watching her ghost-self feasting…

  Too late, she realised what Karl meant when he’d said, “Be careful.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  A STUDY IN RED

  This time there was no unnatural barrier to keep Karl out of the house. Bergwerkstatt was as intimidating as he remembered, but the atmosphere was quiet, normal. Not even a breeze hampered him as he went up the wide steps to the front door and rang the bell.

  To his surprise, Godric Reiniger himself answered. Before Karl had a chance to speak, the man’s face lengthened and he blinked in obvious, startled recognition. His inner reaction was perceptible only to a vampire: skin paling a shade, heart rate accelerating.

  “Ah. This is unexpected.”

  “If my visit is inconvenient, I apologise. I’m Karl Alexander.”

  “How may I help you, Herr Alexander?”

  “I heard you speaking in a beer hall.” Karl stared straight into his eyes, not pretending any warmth or friendliness. “You seem a man of interesting views. However, some of your companions attacked an acquaintance of mine that night. He was badly hurt. I wondered what you have to say.”

  The man said nothing for ten seconds. Karl expected the door to be slammed in his face. Godric had the same fish-eyed stare as when he’d first seen Karl at the cinema, but this time he was quicker to mask the reaction.

  “And you are here in what capacity?”

  “As a concerned associate of the victim.”

  The cool blue eyes looked him up and down. “Associate?”

  “I’m not here to cause trouble. I hope a quiet talk between us will ensure that nothing similar ever happens again.”

  Another long, wary pause. “If any of the men from the beer hall were involved in a fracas – I know nothing of it, nor can I be held responsible for their actions. They’re high-spirited, they drink too much: I am not their guardian.”

  That was a fair point, Karl thought, if disingenuous. He said, “Still, you appear to have influence over them. If it’s good, wise influence, it’s within your power to dissuade them from mindless attacks on strangers, isn’t it?”

  The tip of Godric’s tongue appeared and moistened his thin lips. “If I discover the perpetrators, I’ll have a very stern word. But won’t you come in?” He gave a sudden, alarming smile. “I’d like to make your acquaintance too, Herr Alexander.”

  “Indeed?” Karl, surprised by the invitation, stepped into the hallway.

  He sensed no bristling waves of power pushing against him. The atmosphere was peaceful. Voices chattered in far-off rooms. All the same, he caught remnants of stale rusty blood, and a bitter scent like an extinguished fire. He thought, Someone has died here.

  “So you heard me speaking. I know you’ve seen my work. Therefore I assume that this is about more than a backstreet fight. You are intrigued by my political views? Something resonated.”

  “You could say that.” Karl noted how Herr Reiniger flattered himself without any prompting. He decided to play along, as the easiest way to keep him talking. Above all, he wanted to ask what Godric knew about the Istilqa knife, but that seemed the most dangerous question of all.

  “You described The Lion Arises as ‘terrible’ – and yet you are here.”

  “Forgive me if I caused offence. The message beneath the overacting was… intriguing.”

  “Good, I’m glad you perceived it. You appear to be a perceptive gentleman. Intelligent. Different.”

  He put special emphasis on the last word. Karl was in a state of calm wariness, his distrust of Reiniger was mixed with curiosity. Karl found all humans interesting: occasionally one held him fascinated. For some reason, to his dismay, this gaunt, ethereal eccentric seemed to have that disturbing hold on him.

  Karl followed him through the grandiose hallway to a vast, stark reception room. An office? The walls were pure white marble. No curtains hung at the tall windows. The room held little furniture: only a desk, bookcase and some tall chairs, streamlined and austere in style. Electric lights lit the room like sun glaring on snow.

  The smell of sour blood was particularly striking here. Karl longed to ask what they’d been doing to create a force so powerful. He recalled rods of crimson light hovering between Earth and the Weisskalt. A force strong enough to affect the Crystal Ring? Now and then he glimpsed Godric’s strange white-yellow aura.

  Herr Reiniger closed the door and stood in the centre of the bare white room. He didn’t offer Karl a drink or a seat. They were strangers, yet Karl felt they knew each other. They circled with the delicacy of rival scorpions.

  “An impressive house,” said Karl, thinking that Charlotte would hate it. Even Violette, who might suit an ice castle, liked some luxury in her surroundings.

  “Isn’t it splendid?” Godric responded with a flash of unguarded enthusiasm. “Took two years to build. I finished it in twenty-six. My own design. The architecture represents the world to come: modern, simple, pure and audacious.”

  “Threatening,” said Karl.

  “Really? You find it intimidating?”

  “Very much so. It’s almost… imperial. Isn’t it designed to intimidate?”

  Godric laughed. “Absolutely! If one is going to be powerful, one had better start by appearing powerful. A quaint old chalet wouldn’t impress anyone.”

  “Whom do you wish to impress?”

  The man shrugged. “Those brave enough to
share my ideas for a better future. Men of vision. Those who stand apart from the masses.”

  “Ah, what are we to do with ordinary people?” Karl said aridly.

  Godric flipped open a gold case full of thin black cigarettes and offered one to Karl. He declined, but watched with interest the meticulous way – like the precision of a doctor preparing an injection – that Godric selected a cigarette, took his time lighting it and savoured the first delicate drag. No doubt this fussiness might become annoying to anyone who lived with him.

  Godric blew out the smoke in a pencil-thin stream.

  “They have their uses,” he said. “As foot soldiers, workers. However, you must agree that the human race could use improvement.”

  “I couldn’t say,” said Karl.

  “Couldn’t you?” Again the man gave him a long, shrewd stare. “You don’t think society would be better without degenerates running amok?”

  “Perhaps,” said Karl. “But how do we judge who is degenerate?”

  “Oh, that’s the easy part. It’s all there in my films. Much plainer than the Bible, with all its ‘meek inheriting the Earth’ nonsense.”

  “I gather you aren’t happy with the way Switzerland is governed?”

  “Not really. Cooperation and sharing of power appears fair, but it makes us weak. Whenever there’s a war, we’re expected to absorb the detritus fleeing from the countries all around us. Too many compromises. Someone needs to stand for strong leadership. I have the means and wealth to do so, so what else would I do? I’m making my films to fill Swiss German hearts with passion until they finally understand.”

  “What do you want them to understand?”

  “That this land is special, that it’s theirs. The mountains are full of gods and heroes just waiting to be awoken. There’s a clear hierarchy of race and language here, and we stand at the top: the heirs of Woden, of Berchtold, of all our great folk heroes. My circle of supporters grows every day.”

  He regarded Karl with narrowed eyes through his thin clear spectacles. Passion burned beneath the cool exterior, and he clearly wanted to share it.