The Dark Arts of Blood Read online

  “If he had walked away when I asked him to,” she retorted. Both their voices sounded far away and fuzzy. Inside the rippling surface, the lamia’s eyes were cold and dangerous, like those of a snake preparing to strike.

  “Just give me the damned knife, strigoi!”

  He grabbed her shoulders. The moment his clammy hands touched her, she reacted as if burned. She spun to face him, her mind suddenly focused. The rough fabric of his jacket scratched her bare arms. His touch was an assault.

  “Take it, if you can,” she whispered.

  She lunged, mouth open, forgetting she was supposed to be human again. The man reacted by reflex, thrusting her away with a curse. She stumbled and fell backwards into the veil.

  The mirror shattered under her. A hundred glass shards pierced her body as it crashed flat to the floor. The pain was excruciating. Set free, the lamia came flowing out. Charlotte watched in blank amazement as her other-self seized the man with pallid arms, pulled him to her, pushed her face inside his collar and nipped the salty flesh until blood poured over her tongue…

  He cried out. He struggled. Damn him, he was strong, and she was still weak from her injury. Their battle took them across the bedroom to the balcony doors before he finally went limp in her hands. Then, in mindless fury, she ran him straight through the closed glass doors and pitched him over the balcony rail.

  In a split second he was gone, falling from sight into the darkness of the steep tree-covered drop below.

  His blood was foul, tainted. The dual being, Charlotte-and-lamia, bent over the balcony and regurgitated the blood she’d swallowed. It streamed easily out of her, like water from an upended vase.

  Then the lamia floated back inside the room through the ragged hole of broken wood and glass. When Charlotte moved, the creature moved with her. They were one again.

  “Help me,” she whispered.

  * * *

  “Charlotte?”

  She found herself sitting on the bed, curled against the headboard with her hands around her knees, staring at the pine-panelled wall opposite. She wasn’t sure what she was doing there… writing, that was it. Filling pages with all that she’d seen.

  Karl was back at last.

  She looked hard to make sure it was really him. The blanket Stefan had left over her was on the floor. She seemed to have thrown off her clothes and replaced them with a silky robe that hurt viciously everywhere it touched her skin. Her dress was on the floor, covered in blood spots.

  Karl rushed to her, sat on the bed beside her and took her hands.

  “Dear God,” he said, “Charlotte, beloved, what happened?”

  “Nothing,” she said calmly. Stefan appeared in the doorway, followed by Niklas: another reflection.

  Seeing her, Stefan’s mouth opened in shock. “Charlotte, gods, what have you done? I knew I shouldn’t have left you alone!”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said, not comprehending why they were upset. “I’m perfectly well, just… sore. I don’t know why. It’s nothing.”

  Karl turned his head and snapped, “Stefan, a moment, please.”

  Charlotte realised he was dismissing his friend because she was partly undressed. She’d pushed the robe off her shoulders because it hurt so much. Despite everything, Karl’s puritan streak made her smile.

  “What?” Stefan said, grinning back at her. “It’s nothing I haven’t seen before. Oh, don’t glare at me like that, Karl. I meant half-clothed women in general, not Charlotte in particular.”

  “Let them stay,” she said, adjusting the fabric to cover herself. “Stefan and Niklas are more like… well, sisters to me than anything.”

  “Sisters?” Stefan retorted.

  “I meant it as a compliment.”

  “I know,” he said with a wink.

  He sat on a low couch at the end of the bed, facing away from her, with Niklas beside him. He put an affectionate arm around his brother’s shoulders, whispering into his ear. He hadn’t left Niklas behind to watch over Charlotte while he sought Karl, for the simple reason that Niklas was of no more use than a doll. Without Stefan’s care, he was as vulnerable as a human child.

  Karl looked as serious as she’d ever seen him. She hastened to reassure him.

  “Nothing happened,” she repeated. “Karl, I’m sure Stefan told you that a drunk accosted me in the street with a knife. Then I had some awful hallucinations. That’s all. I’m well again now.”

  “Hallucinations?” He drew her robe off her shoulder and began to pluck at her skin, his fingernails as delicate as tweezers. She became aware that he was taking splinters of glass out of her flesh. Strange.

  She looked down, turning her head to see mirror shards piercing the skin of her shoulder-blades, the backs of her arms and thighs: dozens of tiny crimson cuts leaking blood. No wonder the robe hurt so much. Wherever it touched, it was pushing the glass deeper into her flesh.

  “Yes, from the dagger,” she said. “Wait, was the dagger real? It’s a blur. I can’t remember where reality stopped and the illusions started. I decided to write everything down, in case we found a clue…”

  She looked down at the notepad lying beside her.

  Blank.

  Stefan said, “Ah, Charlotte…” and then nothing for half an hour as Karl took every sliver of glass out of her skin. At last it was done, and she was able to sit up and tie her robe properly. She shook her hair free, saw tiny spots of blood leaking through the ivory silk.

  “Well, this is ruined,” she said softly. “And so is that dress. How did I get all this glass in me?”

  “We hoped you would tell us,” Karl said gravely.

  Charlotte went still. A cool draft blew on to her. While she contemplated how to describe her hallucinations – the lamia in the rippling veil, and the supposed policeman finding her – she sensed another presence in the house: the unmistakable warmth of a mortal. “Oh, no. You brought prey here for me? There’s no need…”

  “It’s all right,” Karl said gently. “Tell us what happened.”

  “I remember trying to enter the Crystal Ring, and collapsing, and Stefan putting me on the bed. Then I imagined I got up and looked in the mirror, only I was human again and my reflection was… the blood-drinking demon part of me. I was convinced I’d split in two. So disturbing. Then a man came into the house, pretending to be a policeman and demanding the knife back.” She laughed uneasily. “Could anything be more ridiculous? We fought. I fell into the mirror, and the vampire escaped and fed on the man – or she tried to feed, but the blood was foul, so she threw him…”

  “Charlotte.” Stefan beckoned. She rose from the bed, unsteady on her feet, and saw the full-height mirror lying flat on the carpet, glass everywhere.

  A long spattered trail of blood led to the balcony doors, which hung smashed on the frame as if a bull had charged through them. More glass glittered on the balcony. A breeze blew through the gap. Smears of blood marked the balcony rail.

  “Oh, ye gods,” Charlotte said softly. “I didn’t split in half, did I? The lamia was me all the time. And that man was really here.”

  She let Karl and Stefan help her downstairs to the parlour, where she sat frozen on the edge of a sofa beside Niklas while the others lit a fire and more lamps.

  Presently she noticed a young woman standing in the doorway that led to the entrance hall and kitchen. About twenty-five, with an intelligent face, dark neat hair and a plain red dress, she looked like a schoolteacher.

  Karl sat next to Charlotte and took her hands firmly between his.

  “Why have you brought her here?” she asked, looking from him to Stefan.

  “There’s no need to whisper,” Stefan said with a grin that managed to convey apology, sympathy and a sense of the absurd. “Leni is deaf. She and Niklas would make a perfect couple, don’t you think? He never speaks and she can’t hear! Ideal.”

  “Can you not be serious about anything?” she said. “I expected you to bring Karl home, but not a human! Why?”
>
  Stefan kissed the top of her head. “Because you are only going to recover with good pure blood.”

  “Karl, we agreed not to bring victims into our home.”

  “I know,” said Karl. “And we’ve singularly failed to keep the agreement, haven’t we? You and I have both broken the rule for different reasons. I knew you wouldn’t want us to capture some innocent milkmaid, so…”

  “Leni is a friend of mine,” said Stefan. “She knows what we are, she will give her blood willingly.”

  “Oh, I see.” Charlotte closed her eyes for a moment. “One of your harem.”

  “I’m offended.” Stefan sat down, pushing in between her and Niklas. “You should know me by now. Cultivating a group of human friends who trust us and give blood freely – isn’t that gentler than seizing strangers off the street? Or throwing mystery men off balconies, come to that?”

  “Stefan,” Karl said coolly, giving him a look over Charlotte’s head. She felt the look pass between them.

  “So I didn’t imagine it,” she murmured. “That man tracked me down because the dagger is valuable to him and he wants it back. He had inhuman strength. So did his drunken friend, whom he called Bruno. They both called me strigoi – why use that term? It’s a Romanian word, not Swiss. And I could smell the poison of the knife in his blood – I couldn’t drink it. Oh, and he spoke of local rumours, as if he knows the area. Apparently this is a deserted chalet with ghosts! And, unless I’m still dreaming, I’ve just killed him and cast his body into the forest.”

  “Apparently so,” said Stefan. “I’ll admit, it’s out of character for you, Charlotte.”

  “Not much out of character,” she murmured. “It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve lost control.”

  Karl held her closer. His affection almost made her weep. That she could behave so destructively, and yet he understood and didn’t blame her… But they were both vampires: he’d brought her into this, and had no moral high ground from which to judge her.

  “All because of this mysterious knife? Can I see it?” Karl asked.

  “I hid it in the kitchen,” said Stefan. “Wait there.”

  Stefan came back with the weapon resting across his palms on a folded towel.

  “Don’t touch it,” he said. “Damned thing has a life of its own. I believe it’s only dangerous if the blade pierces the skin.”

  “I’d rather not have been the test subject,” said Charlotte. “I went completely mad for an hour or two.”

  Stefan smiled. “Happens to the best of us. Come on, Charlotte, let Leni help you.”

  She shook her head vehemently. “No. Take her away. I tried to feed on that stupid brute who was here! The evidence is upstairs, a broken door and a ruined carpet. This is a nightmare. No sooner have I accepted what I am, this happens! There’s always something we didn’t expect.”

  “Yes,” Karl said gently into her hair. “Always something else.”

  “Is this how Violette felt, when she thought Lilith possessed her?”

  “I don’t know. Perhaps.”

  “It’s horrible, being out of control.”

  “I see that, beloved. But still, let the girl help you.”

  “It’s all right, sweet friend,” Stefan added, touching her shoulder. “Leni’s blood is very soothing.”

  Charlotte gave in and let the young woman come to her.

  The affection with which Leni knelt at her feet and offered up her wrist made Charlotte want to weep. She bit as gently as she could, and stroked the girl’s hair as she fed. And Stefan was right. The rich luscious blood, freely offered, brought her back to her true self for the first time since the ice blade had pierced her.

  * * *

  Later, she and Karl stood on the lower balcony that led from the parlour, looking out at the peaks of the Eiger, the Jungfrau and the Munch floating against the pre-dawn sky. Snow vapour streamed down the slopes and she heard glaciers melting, flood water gushing into clear creeks as spring took hold. She breathed the chilly air, the fragrance of pine resin and meltwater.

  Soon the cattle would be driven up to the high pastures to graze, the musical rhythm of cowbells calling in summer. Every change of season was marked by a festival of some kind and she liked that. Rural traditions were as reassuring as sunrise, even though she and Karl were forever outside the human world. Often it was pleasant standing apart, watching mortal activities with the detached interest of a god. At other times, she wanted to plunge among them, lose herself in the whirl of their heat and energy.

  Inside, Stefan was playing jazz music on their gramophone and dancing with Leni, showing Niklas the steps then passing her to his mute brother for another dance. Leni seemed to be having the time of her life. She couldn’t hear the music, but Charlotte realised she must feel the vibration.

  “Dear heart, I’m so sorry,” said Karl.

  She put her other arm around his waist, closed her eyes in pleasure as his lips touched her forehead. “What for? It wasn’t your fault some drunken idiot stabbed me. I’m better now.”

  “I should have been there to stop him.”

  “You couldn’t have known. But… I’ve killed before, Karl, but I hate it. After tonight, I never want to do so again. Never.”

  “I know.” He kissed her again, conveying that he understood all too well. How many similar horrors had he faced in the past, she wondered, and how many could any vampire endure?

  “All the same, I know I probably will,” she murmured. “So I’d better have a damned good reason.”

  “No better reason than defending yourself,” said Karl.

  “We must find out about the blade before someone else is hurt in the same way. Or worse.”

  “Stefan will help us. He always does.”

  “Bless him. Although it feels strange to bless someone for seducing victims with so much enthusiasm.”

  Karl laughed. “But they love him and Niklas, so they don’t go unrewarded.”

  “True.” Charlotte took a breath of the fresh, resin-scented air. She felt normal again – at least physically – whatever “normal” meant. Looking down into the dark treetops, she said, “Somewhere down there is that man…”

  “Who had no business coming here,” Karl said. “I believe we know how he found you. Stefan stole a car to bring you home, so he had ample time to follow you, most likely on a motorbike. Stefan says he heard an engine in the distance, but thought nothing of it. Did you?”

  “I don’t remember. Perhaps it was luck on his part that he caught us up. And he said he knew the area.”

  “So it’s unlikely he has supernatural abilities. He was simply quick-witted or fortunate enough to keep you in sight,” said Karl. After a silence, he added, “I went down there, while you were with Leni. I found a trail of scent and blood where he fell, but no body.”

  “You mean he survived?”

  “Apparently. He may not have been alone. There are tyre tracks on the path, not made by Stefan’s car, and boot prints. Perhaps the drunken charmer Bruno was with him.”

  “If they escaped… I don’t know whether to be glad or horrified.”

  “Let’s hope you terrified them so thoroughly they’ll never dare come near us again.” The warmth of his lips felt wonderful on her cheekbone. “However, I won’t rest until I’ve tracked these men down. They won’t get away with attacking you.”

  “Oh, Karl.” Her heart sank. “Don’t place yourself in danger over this.”

  “They will be the ones in danger, not us,” he said. “You know I can’t resist a mystery.”

  Where her hand rested on Karl’s sleeve, she noticed a greyish aura surrounding her fingers. It trailed behind when she moved, like an after-image. A small chill went through her.

  It hasn’t left me, she thought. I have to overcome it, I must hold on to my true self. I survived Lilith’s bite and I’m too strong to let this… this devilry have any power over me.

  She wondered if Karl could see the mist-image. He said nothing, and she daren�
��t ask.

  “And now what?” she said. “Glass can be mended, carpets cleaned. We’ve lived here in peace for a long time… but people are beginning to suspect us, Karl. Even though we hunt far afield, it takes only one or two lapses on our part and there are rumours of Alpine ghosts and demons and Weisse Frauen. Mysterious illnesses. And now, this.”

  Karl waited for her to continue, as if he knew what she was going to say.

  “I have loved being here, but I can’t stay any longer,” Charlotte sighed. “You know that, don’t you? It’s time for us to leave.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  SORCERER

  The Firebird spun in a blur of blood-red net, feathers and lace. Her body described a perfect bow of torment: head thrown back, arms stretched behind her like wings.

  Emil watched her, entranced. He was so lost in rapture that he nearly missed his cue.

  At the last second he jolted from his reverie, leapt over the wall and joined her in the enchanted garden. He became Prince Ivan, capturing the magical Firebird who struggled with ethereal anguish to escape him.

  He sensed the enthralled audience, unseen in the darkness beyond the stage lights.

  He lifted Violette high on his shoulder, twirled, set her down again to balance en pointe on one toe. Her other leg lifted in a high arabesque as she strained for freedom… then they whirled across the stage in perfect step, her costume bright scarlet against Prince Ivan’s gold and crimson.

  Emil Fiorani had joined the ballet only last year and become her male principal six months ago. Everything had happened so fast. The thrill of being chosen by the world’s greatest ballerina would never wear off. On stage he was the complete professional – but in a corner of his mind, there was still a boy exclaiming in disbelief, I’m dancing with Violette Lenoir!

  Tonight, in New York on the last night of their tour, he gave the story every last shred of passion. Prince Ivan stole a feather from the Firebird and released her, in exchange for her promise to help him later… Then he met the thirteen princesses, imprisoned in an enchanted forest by the sorcerer, King Kastchei.