The Dark Arts of Blood Read online

  A performer must act as well as they dance. Emil wondered why Ivan would fall in love with an insipid white-clad princess, Tsarevna, rather than with the Firebird herself… but it was a folk tale. Of course the prince must have a human princess to rescue. For him to fall in love with a bird, enchanted or not, would not make sense.

  Still, he played Ivan as if he adored the Firebird. Couldn’t do otherwise.

  Exhilarating music masked the thud of ballet shoes on wooden boards. The audience little guessed the months of gruelling rehearsal that went to create an illusion of mythical creatures flowing weightlessly in a treasure-box of golden light.

  Violette’s shoes made hardly a whisper. She always smelled cool and delicate, like lilies, and never seemed to break a sweat as did ordinary mortals. This was part of her mystique, of course: one of the qualities that made her a true star, a goddess.

  Now King Kastchei prowled the stage, hunched and evil in his skull mask. By this point, Emil was so caught up in the narrative that he forgot it was Mikhail in the costume. He felt a shiver of true fear. Kastchei’s black cloak dragged like funeral cloth, and the bone staff in his hand wielded terrible powers…

  Then the Firebird returned to help the Prince. She cast her spell over Kastchei’s magical creatures, making them dance like puppets to exhaustion, sending all the princesses into enchanted sleep, finally guiding Prince Ivan to destroy Kastchei the Immortal and set free his captives. Violette leapt and whirled as if she would dance herself to death in a tumult of blood-red. All other characters onstage were secondary.

  The story belonged to the Firebird.

  Of all ballet heroines, she was the least sympathetic. She inspired awe, not affection. Aloof and magical, the Firebird was not of this world. That was her power.

  Watching her, Emil went light-headed. The world changed. This was no drama but real, as if he’d entered another reality where the Firebird was a terrifying goddess of blood and fire. All the other dancers were ghosts, while Kastchei stalked mankind like the grim reaper…

  So horrific was this vision that Emil nearly collapsed. The stage became a frozen tableau full of horror. His sight darkened with panic…

  “Emil!”

  Mikhail’s whisper shocked him back to reality. He’d nearly missed his cue. The audience didn’t notice – but Violette would, of course. He flung himself back into the performance, but his heart was pounding, sweat soaking his costume. Stravinsky’s music carried him like a flood, through the grand wedding scene of Prince Ivan to Princess Tsarevna, to the end.

  All too soon, they were taking their curtain calls to an ecstatic audience.

  Relief and triumph eclipsed his anxiety attack. Violette made no comment about his lapse – it had never happened before – yet the unease lingered in the pit of his stomach. It was nothing, he told himself. Last-night nerves, if there is such a thing. A warning against overconfidence.

  When they finally left the stage, Emil was laughing with the rest. He prayed that no one noticed how violently he was trembling.

  * * *

  At the stage door, Emil found himself mobbed. Dozens of women of all ages surrounded him with shining eyes, wide excited smiles – he’d experienced nothing like it before. There were always fans after a performance, clamouring for Violette. Now he realised in amazement that this crowd was waiting for him.

  They called his name. He heard sighs, gasps, exclamations – every voice telling him how wonderful he was. He couldn’t help but laugh with sheer pleasure.

  They all looked so beautiful, young and old alike made radiant by happiness. He smiled as he signed their programmes and photographs – they had photographs of him, as if he were a film star! – and tolerated their warm hands touching his sleeves. Some even reached up to stroke his hair.

  A member of the theatre staff appeared at his shoulder and chided the crowd, asking them please to stand back and wait their turn. Emil brushed him off.

  “Ladies, ignore this old spoilsport,” he called cheerfully. “I have ink in my pen for everyone.”

  Expressions of shocked delight among the older females made him aware of a double entendre he hadn’t quite intended… but what the hell. He grinned with them, unable to suppress his amusement. A cloud of mingled perfume and soap, beginning to sour on overheated bodies, threatened to suffocate him. He kissed every hand presented to him, every powdered cheek…

  A black limousine slid past. Inside, he glimpsed Madame Lenoir’s face looking out at him with a cool, amused smile. Half the crowd turned and rushed after her, calling out her name. Surrounded by bouquets of lilies and white roses, she waved like royalty as she disappeared into the night.

  Around him, the press of women sighed with bliss and love. Suddenly Emil began to lose his nerve, wondering what he’d started. Then someone pulled out several strands of his hair. The sting of pain made him jump. More than pain, the sheer brazenness of the action shook him. He stepped back, palms raised to say, Enough.

  A handful of backstage staff came to his rescue, easing him from the crowd’s grip and inside the building. Plaintive voices followed him, fading as the heavy wooden door shut. “Emil, Emil, we love you!”

  Emil stood in the sudden quiet of a brick corridor. His assistant Thierry – a fortyish, dour Frenchman who took care of his mundane needs – said, “Sir, we’re bringing your car around to a different entrance so we can deliver you to the hotel without any more fuss.”

  Emil barely heard him. The wave of adoration had been unprecedented, terrifying… but gods, so exhilarating! He could spare a few strands of his thick golden hair, after all. He threw back his head, took a deep breath.

  “Actually, Thierry, I rather enjoyed the fuss.”

  “Oh, who would not, sir?” Thierry said drily. “But, perhaps a little discretion next time? You know Madame does not care for… too much display.”

  Emil only laughed. He ran the length of the corridor, leaping in a high grande jeté as he went.

  * * *

  “So, you have admirers,” said Violette.

  They stood together at the rail of an ocean liner, ready to set sail for Europe. Well-wishers and photographers lined the quay. Violette had ordered all her dancers, musicians and staff on deck to wave farewell under the Statue of Liberty’s serene gaze. Their departure would be shown on newsreels in every cinema across the States within a few days.

  “Admirers, madame?” he said, unsure whether she was teasing or scolding.

  “Yes, I am addressing you, Emil. Your devotees impressed everyone by their sheer number.” She looked stern, which was nothing unusual: she could make her face an ice-mask that struck terror into the bravest heart.

  Emil reddened. “No, no, madame, they were there for you, for the whole company.”

  Violette’s mouth relaxed. “Dear, I am teasing you. Did you think I was jealous?”

  “Of course not. I’d never presume to receive a hundredth, a thousandth part of the admiration that you have earned… but still…”

  “It’s nice to be appreciated.” She raised a gloved hand to wave as the ship slid away from its moorings. “Don’t be modest, Emil. You’ve made a great impression.”

  “It was a shock, if I’m honest, to find so many people…”

  “Swooning as if you were a matinee idol?”

  He gripped the rail, braced for a reprimand. “Forgive me if I embarrassed you.”

  “How did you embarrass me?”

  “Perhaps I should not have been so… available. But…”

  “It’s all right. You’re young, and this is very new and exciting.” She touched his coat sleeve. “Believe me, I know how heady it is to be worshipped, especially when it begins. First you reel in disbelief, then you become drunk, euphoric. It’s natural to reciprocate, but I also know how very frightening such attention can be.”

  “Yes, that’s it,” he said softly. “I hate to admit it, but I was terrified. Don’t tell anyone. One of them pulled hairs out of my head!”

 
; Violette laughed. “Fear is healthy, Emil. It’s when you take adoration too seriously that madness follows. A warning: don’t become lost in it. Keep your distance. You know the saying, that familiarity breeds contempt? Do not let your fans too close, in any sense.”

  His eyes widened at her implication. This was more than advice: it was a command.

  “I would not dream of it, madame.”

  “Good. Accept their awe with good grace, cast a few crumbs, then turn away. Think of yourself as a prince, not a dog to be petted. The very crowd that fawns over you one day may lose all reason and tear you apart the next.”

  He swallowed hard. “I understand.”

  They made a strange pair, he thought. He was the son of an Italian farmer from Tuscany, she – despite her French stage-name – an English gentlewoman. Cast a few crumbs, then turn away: that was exactly how she treated him. Oh, he knew he was good – she’d hardly have chosen him if he wasn’t the best – but she treated him like a headstrong thoroughbred colt to be kept under tight control.

  Sometimes, in private, he would rage against the power Violette held over him, but common sense always prevailed. She was the master, he the eager protégé. The price of dancing with her was to defer, always.

  “By the way, what was wrong with you last night?” she asked coolly.

  “Wrong?”

  “You made some mistakes. Most unlike you. Do you think I didn’t notice?”

  His head dropped. Damn. I hoped I’d got away with it! No such luck.

  “Two mistakes, madame. I’m aware of them and I have no excuse. Our last performance, the exhilaration, the audience…”

  “Exactly so. You let the situation go to your head and lost concentration. We must never allow that to happen.”

  “Madame, I apologise,” he said fiercely. “If ever I let you down or behave in an unprofessional manner – on stage or off – you will have my immediate resignation.”

  She went silent for a moment.

  “Emil, I appreciate the sentiment, but there’s no need.” Her face softened and she looked candidly at him. She was still a goddess, without the Firebird’s heavy make-up: lovelier, in fact, with her snowy skin, ebony hair, expressive violet-blue eyes. “The truth is, all criticism aside, I am proud of you. That is all the praise you will get from me, so savour it. Now bid farewell to your admirers. Smile and wave!”

  Emil obeyed.

  * * *

  The liner was midway across the Atlantic when the storm hit.

  Emil woke from a nightmare to find the vessel lurching and creaking around him. The storm seemed part of his dream and he was disorientated, struggling to comprehend where he was, what was happening. He heard the roar of wind and waves, muffled yet ferocious. He sat up with a gasp.

  “Hey,” said Mikhail across the gap between their beds. “If you’re going to throw up, do it outside.”

  His queasiness was nothing compared to the intense foreboding he felt. He’d been dreaming that Violette was in danger.

  “No,” said Emil. He rolled out of bed and pulled on a shirt and trousers, staggering as the ship rolled. “I have to find her.”

  “What’s the matter with you? It’s just a bloody storm. If we sink, we sink.”

  Mikhail’s bravado wasn’t feigned – or if it was, Emil had never seen any cracks in his facade.

  “Sink?” said Emil. More than fifteen years after the tragedy, no one boarded a liner without thoughts of the “unsinkable” Titanic. “I must make sure Madame Lenoir is safe.”

  Mikhail muttered under his breath in Russian, then said, “Sure. She only has Geli and half a dozen attendants to comfort her. Do you know you talk in your sleep?”

  “What?”

  “Nothing. Do what you like. Neptune can rock me back to sleep.”

  Emil staggered into the passageway to find a commotion: crew members trying to shepherd alarmed passengers back into their cabins.

  “No danger,” they kept saying. “Only a squall, ladies and gentlemen. Stay calm. The ship is sound. You’re safe below decks.”

  Emil pushed his way to the nearest stairs, realising he had no idea how to find the stateroom where Violette was sleeping. Most of the dancers were in first-class cabins but these were spread over two decks, and of course the men were always berthed as far as possible from the women. Violette’s accommodation was kept secret to guard her privacy, so how could he find her without hammering on every door? Thrown from one wall to another, he grabbed a stair-rail and began to climb to the promenade deck. A steward tried to stop him but Emil pushed past.

  Even the crew – surely old hands at such weather – looked pale as they tried to pacify frightened passengers. Emil’s head spun but he ignored the feeling as if it were mere stage fright. The ship reared and fell through nothingness. There was no solid ground, nothing to cling to.

  The liner was huge and he was soon lost, the storm turning the vessel into a dark wild labyrinth.

  He found himself in a first-class lounge, a large salon full of evening-suited men swigging whisky and playing cards, pretending not to be terrified for their lives. Which way to the staterooms? Or was Violette on the deck below after all? Half out of his mind, he crossed the lounge and climbed a broad shallow flight of steps on the far side. The carpet squelched with brine beneath his shoes. He clung to a brass rail as the whole vessel dropped beneath him.

  Two more sets of doors, and he was out on deck.

  The storm hit him like a hurricane. The wind sucked out all his breath. Far ahead, he saw the prow rise like a mountain, only to drop again in a long, sickening plunge. The wind whipped spume from the waves. Within seconds he was soaked.

  He was on a broad walkway, with rails on his left, portholes on his right. Walls of water thrashed the ship: sheets of rain and huge, breaking waves. The gale was a solid force. Heading towards the prow was impossible, so Emil made his way aft, groping for another doorway back inside. This was hopeless. The vessel was like a small city and he had no idea where Violette was. Foreboding forced him on. He was certain that if he didn’t find her, something terrible would happen.

  In darkness, all he could see was veil upon veil of spray. He skidded as the deck became a near-vertical wall. Then the ship heaved over the crest and plunged into a canyon, sending him sliding the other way.

  Emil gripped the rail and clung on for his life, edging like a snail as he rode out each lurch and drop. He was drenched to the skin, shivering, gasping with the effort of keeping upright. Only his honed strength and balance aided him.

  Never had he dreamed his ballet training might save his life.

  He saw no one, not even crew members. He realised he must be the only soul on the entire vessel stupid enough to venture on deck in such a storm. If the ship were to capsize, could the crew even launch lifeboats in such conditions?

  Don’t think of that. Find Violette, make sure she’s safe…

  “Madame Lenoir!” His shout was a faint rasp. Brine sprayed into his mouth.

  Emil didn’t pause to think that his actions were irrational – that Violette was in no more danger than anyone else – and in any case he was powerless to stop several thousand tons of wood and steel keeling over into the abyss. But…

  If the worst happened, at least he would be with her.

  He came to an open stretch of deck: an area where, only the previous afternoon, he’d sat sipping cocktails and taking the sun with his fellow dancers. Now the deck seesawed as waves exploded and foamed around his feet. The sheer effort of fighting the storm drove all fear out of him. This was hellish – yet he’d never felt more alive.

  All was black but for the faint lights of the ship. By this dim glow he saw a figure moving, black on charcoal. Perhaps twenty feet away from him, the figure had a long robe, a staff in one hand and a mask like a giant skull. It looked exactly like Kastchei, the evil sorcerer from The Firebird. Hunch-backed, this apparition glided along the far side of the deck as if untouched by the storm.

  Emil
stared. Had Mikhail donned his stage costume in order to play some mad practical joke? No – Mikhail was in his bunk, with more sense than to risk such a prank. What maniac would take the costume from its trunk in the cargo hold in order to parade around in this tempest?

  No one.

  The moment was like the trance he’d experienced on stage, magnified tenfold. He’d stepped into a shadow world full of incomprehensible horrors. Telling himself that this must be an illusion did not work. There was no sense to be made of this. Reality itself changed, lifting a scrim to reveal a sinister dimension no mortal should ever see.

  The figure appeared dry, unaffected by water or wind. It moved without effort as if gliding across a flat stage – or like a character on film. A ghost, then… yet King Kastchei looked as solid as had Mikhail in the role. And he moved with purpose.

  In his deranged state, Emil was convinced that Kastchei was pursuing the Firebird herself. He was hunting Violette.

  “No,” Emil gasped. Sea-water whipped into his face. He wiped his eyes, panting. “Hey, you! Wait!”

  He released his death grip on the rail and started across the treacherous, plummeting deck. With every step he skidded and swayed. Twice he fell to his hands and knees. Kastchei drifted on, oblivious to him. Fire appeared to smoulder dark red within the huge bone skull. Then the sorcerer stopped, confronted by a small black figure – Violette?

  Emil could barely see through the gusts of rain and spray, couldn’t tell if his own eyes were deceiving him, but the two appeared to be fighting.

  Both gripped the staff two-handed, wrestling each other for possession. He struggled towards them, fell as the deck leaned, regained his feet. Panting for breath, he pushed wet hair out of his eyes and saw them with brief but absolute clarity.

  The sorcerer towered over the small dancer. The long bone staff leaned at an angle between them as they both held on tight, Violette trying to seize the weapon – or to hold him back. An aura shone around them, the red of hot iron. How could she possibly match Kastchei’s strength? Although the sorcerer couldn’t break her hold, he was forcing her back towards the ship’s rail. She dealt a kick to the side of his knee and he staggered, only to straighten up again and roar his anger.