by Nathan Long
In a panic, Ulrika fought again to stand, but the Strigoi recovered first, and grabbed her from behind, picking her up by the neck.
‘Now, you burn!’ it roared, then raised her over its head and turned towards the fire.
As she struggled weakly in the Strigoi’s grip, Ulrika saw the sorcerer leaning over Gabriella, laughing, the silvered dagger held high.
‘Mistress,’ she cried, ‘Mistress, wake up.’ But she knew it would be too late.
A thunderclap bang punched her in the ears, and the Strigoi squealed and staggered beneath her. She slipped from its suddenly slack fingers and crashed to the ground head first.
Through a fog of pain she saw the sorcerer turn, eyes wide, then another thunderclap rang through the room and he jerked back, the silvered dagger flying from his hand as his head exploded in a shower of gore and he sank to the floor.
Ulrika rolled onto her back and looked up. A tall figure in a broad hat stood in the bedroom door, a smoking pistol in each hand. Ulrika blinked in surprise.
It was witch hunter Templar Friedrich Holmann.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
THE UNKINDEST CUT
The Strigoi roared and stepped over Ulrika, limping unsteadily towards the witch hunter. She could see a smoking, black-edged hole in its back where the silvered pistol ball had struck it, and also the bloodied point of her rapier, still piercing it from front to back. Holmann tossed his pistols aside as it came towards him. He ripped a glass vial from his bandolier and drew his sword, his grey eyes blazing with righteous fury.
‘Foul fiend of darkness,’ he cried, hurling the globe. ‘In Sigmar’s name, I shall destroy thee!’
The Strigoi knocked the vial away, shattering it, and the water splashed its hand and arm. It snarled as its skin bubbled and hissed, but it did not slow. Holmann dodged its swipes and cut its arms with his sword, but the beast hardly seemed to feel it.
Ulrika shook her head, trying to clear her dizziness, then forced herself to her feet. Steel and blessed water would not be enough to stop Murnau, even wounded as it was. Without silver or fire, Holmann didn’t stand a chance.
Bright metal winked at her from the floor – the silvered dagger! It lay where the sorcerer had dropped it when he had died. She staggered towards it as Murnau knocked Holmann into the bed beside the still unconscious Gabriella, stunning him, then raised its claws for a final strike. Ulrika snatched up the dagger and fell towards the Strigoi, stabbing for its bullet wound. She fell short. The shining blade only scored its flank.
It was enough to get its attention. The Strigoi howled as its flesh blackened, and flailed a maddened backhand at her. The barrel-sized fist hit her in the chest and sent her skidding on her back across the polished floor to crash into the remains of the balcony doors.
‘No more silver!’ it cried, stomping after her. ‘No more pain!’
Ulrika struggled to get to her feet as the thing lumbered closer, but the shock of so many impacts had made her limbs numb and clumsy. The room kept tilting to the left.
Holmann picked himself up from the bed and threw another vial at Murnau. The Strigoi roared as the glass shattered and blessed water splashed across its back, raising blisters and steam.
‘Sigmar grant me strength!’ cried Holmann, charging in and aiming a cut at its neck.
Murnau turned and caught his sword arm, and flung him at Ulrika just as she made it to her feet. They slammed backwards together through the shattered doors to crash down on the stone flags of the balcony. The silvered dagger bounced from Ulrika’s grasp and disappeared over the edge to fall to the yard below.
Holmann groaned on top of her, clutching his wrenched and mangled arm. Inside, the Strigoi was limping towards them, its hideous face contorted in pain and Ulrika’s rapier still sticking from its belly.
‘Get off,’ she said. ‘It’s coming.’
‘I should let it kill you for your treachery,’ he growled, but rolled aside.
‘I left you behind to keep you safe.’ She grabbed the balustrade and pulled herself upright.
He rose beside her, wincing, and switched his sword to his left hand while he pressed his right against his side. ‘My safety is not your concern.’
The Strigoi smashed through the door, snarling and swiping at them both. Holmann dived left, slashing behind him, left-handed and awkward. Ulrika sprang up onto the balustrade and looked down. In the yard below Mathilda, still in her she-wolf guise, was fighting a handful of ghouls, while more craned their necks towards the balcony and bayed their hunger. No escape there.
The Strigoi lashed out at Ulrika’s legs, trying to sweep her off the railing. She leapt over its arm and grabbed at a gargoyle that held a lantern in its granite jaws beside the doors. Her battered skull throbbed and she nearly lost her grip to dizziness, but then pulled herself up and caught the edge of the slanted snow-patched roof.
The Strigoi’s claws grabbed her right leg, but Holmann hacked at it from behind and its grip loosened as it turned to swipe at him.
Ulrika heaved herself up onto the snowy roof and shouted down at it. ‘Not him, cracked-pate! Me! Up here!’
She tore slate shingles from the roof and flung them down at Murnau’s head. It snarled and shielded itself with an upraised arm, but she skimmed a slate past it and cracked it in the teeth. It roared, furious, and reached for the roof with its massive hands.
This was a good idea, she thought as she crabbed backwards through the snow towards the ridge line. A slippery, uneven surface was just the thing to even the odds. Here the Strigoi’s clumsiness and terrible wounds would cancel out its strength, while her agility would give her an advantage. Murnau would be slipping on the icy slates while she danced on them.
She saw her mistake as soon as it started after her. Murnau’s claws did not skid on the stone shingles, they smashed through them and bit into the wood lathing beneath. It pulled itself up by main force and crawled towards her like some starved albino ape, its clawed feet digging into the roof the same way its hands did.
‘Svoloch!’ she swore in her native tongue.
‘Ha!’ it laughed. ‘You’ve trapped yourself, little fly! And you’ve lost your silver fang!’
Ulrika backed down the ridge line as Murnau rose up and snatched at her with its claws. Without a weapon she couldn’t hope to fight it. Its reach was too great. She shot a glance behind her. The end of the roof was fast approaching.
Its right claw raked her shoulder and knocked her on her back on the narrow roof peak. She started to slide down the snowy slates and caught herself, arms flung wide. The Strigoi roared in triumph and raised its fists to smash down at her. She looked up. The hilt of her rapier was still sticking out of its gut, right above her. She reached up and yanked it out, twisting as she pulled.
The Strigoi screeched in pain and staggered back. She slashed at it and tried to get to her feet again. It batted the blade aside with one claw and slapped her with the other, knocking her back towards the end of the roof and sending her sliding down the slant. She threw out her sword arm and stopped herself. Her head was hanging over the end of the roof. There was no more room to run.
The Strigoi climbed down the slope towards her, crushing slates with every step. Beyond it, Ulrika saw Holmann struggling to pull himself up from the balcony with his almost useless right arm. She had to give the templar credit for not giving up, but he was going to be far too late.
The Strigoi grabbed for her legs. She slashed at its hands, but started sliding again and missed. The monster caught her ankle and picked her up, holding her upside down over a sheer, three-storey drop. The scene spun dizzyingly beneath her – a small cobbled service yard between the old keep and the new wing of the house, with a quaint covered well in its centre.
‘So, little fly,’ rasped the Strigoi. ‘Can you fly?’
Ulrika arched around like a cat in a trap, hacking at
the Strigoi’s left leg with all her might. The blade bit deep, finding bone, and it grunted and dropped her, stumbling back. With a desperate twist she caught the edge of the roof, letting the rapier bounce away down the slant. Her claws carved shrieking lines in the slate as her weight pulled her down and she slipped towards the edge.
The Strigoi stumped forwards again to stomp on her fingers, blood running down its leg like a red waterfall. She hooked its left foot and pulled herself up. It grabbed her, its claws crushing her ribs as it tried to tear her free, but she held on, sinking her fangs into the back of his ankle. It howled and pulled harder. She clung tighter, clamping down with her jaw like a pit dog killing a rat. Then, with a final mighty heave, it pulled her free – and she ripped its tendons out with her teeth.
As blood sprayed in a wide arc, the Strigoi fell sideways, its leg suddenly unable to support it. Ulrika scrabbled at the edge of the roof as the monster hit the slanting slates, but its claws held her tight. It bounced once, then plummeted down into the yard, clutching Ulrika to its shoulder like a favourite doll.
There was a frozen moment of horrible vertigo – just enough time to know that she would die – and then a jaw-snapping impact, a deafening crash, a second impact, more painful than the first, and then…
‘Fraulein Magdova!’
The voice was loud, but far away, strange but familiar. She wished it weren’t so dark so she could see who was speaking. She wished she would stop falling so the world would stop spinning.
‘Fraulein!’
The pain came back. It felt like she had been plunged into a tub of ice water and beaten with sticks. All her body hurt. All of it – head to toe and inside and out. It was with difficulty that she sorted out all the sensations screaming for her attention and realised she was lying on something hard and cold.
She opened her eyes, then shut them again. The world was still spinning, much too fast. She tried again. Still spinning, but she was ready for it this time. The first thing she saw was the night sky, greying a little in one corner. Next she saw a high white wall, rising up to a peak, and then a man in a broad hat, standing at the peak, looking down at her.
‘Fraulein,’ he said. ‘Do you live?’
‘It…’ she said haltingly. ‘It seems so.’
The man’s shoulders slumped, though whether in relief or disappointment she could not tell.
‘Don’t move,’ he said. ‘I will come to you.’ Then he vanished.
Ulrika nodded absently, then frowned as she noticed dust and snow settling all around her. It felt to her jumbled brain that a week had past since she had fallen from the roof, but if the dust was still settling it must have been only seconds. Seconds! That meant Murnau might still be trying to kill her!
She tried to sit up, and all her pain hit her again, as fresh as the first time. She groaned, and sank back, using only her head to look around, and found the Strigoi.
From the vantage of the ground, it was for a moment hard to tell what had happened to it. The monster’s long, scrawny body was above her, blocking out a good portion of the sky, and seeming to hang in the air. She wasn’t sure how that could be, but then tipping her head further she saw that it seemed to be lying on its back on the roof of the covered well.
She still didn’t quite understand, so she rolled over onto her stomach and pushed herself to her knees. Every muscle in her body shrieked at this torture but amazingly, Ulrika could feel no broken bones. How had she fallen three storeys onto cobbles without breaking a bone? Even being what she was it seemed impossible.
She sat back and looked up at the Strigoi again, and all became clearer. It was indeed lying on the well, but not precisely on the roof. It had smashed through the roof as it had fallen, and impaled itself on one of the thick oak uprights that held the roof aloft. Two feet of splintered beam stuck up through its shattered chest like a giant white tooth running with blood, and it lay splayed like some unimaginably ugly butterfly pierced by a pin.
‘The beast broke my fall,’ she murmured, wonderingly. What a miracle that she had bounced away and missed the impalement it had suffered.
Running footsteps brought her head up, and she tried and failed to stand. Holmann raced into the yard, sword drawn, and hurried to her.
‘Fraulein,’ he said, kneeling beside her. ‘You should not move.’
She waved a dismissive hand at him, then leaned against the lip of the well and levered herself to her feet. The world swayed around her and her ribs and limbs and wounds throbbed with pain, but she was standing. She turned stiffly to the witch hunter.
‘May I trouble you for your sword, Templar Holmann?’ she asked. ‘I seem to have misplaced mine.’
He looked warily at her. ‘What do you intend?’
‘I intend to be certain,’ she said, and looked at the Strigoi.
Holmann hesitated, then reversed his heavy sword and held it out to her. She took the hilt, then stepped to the Strigoi’s head, which hung off the edge of the well’s roof and stared up at the sky. She raised the sword high, then stepped back, startled, as the monster’s eyes blinked open and it turned to look at her, all the anger gone from its gaze, to be replaced by a sad confusion.
‘The voice,’ it rattled. ‘The voice lied.’
The voice again. ‘What voice?’ asked Ulrika. ‘Who told you to do this?’
‘The… voice,’ it replied, and then its eyes went blank and it sagged back.
Ulrika brought Holmann’s sword down with a sharp snap of her wrists and severed the Strigoi’s head from its shoulders in a single blow. It thudded to the cobbles and rolled to Holmann’s legs.
He smiled grimly. ‘It seems you were right to be certain,’ he said, then held out his hand to take the sword back.
It was Ulrika’s turn to hesitate. Now that he was here, she was presented again with the dilemma of what to do with him. It remained her duty to kill him, as Gabriella had ordered, and she could do it here. She had a sword and he was defenceless, his right arm torn and twisted. But how could she? He had saved her life. He had saved Gabriella’s life, and he had trusted her with his sword even though she had tricked him on the road.
She wiped the blade clean, then reversed it and offered it back to him. He looked at her strangely as he took it back, as if he too had wondered if she would return it.
‘You should go now,’ she said. ‘The killer is dead. Your job is done. Be off before things get… difficult.’
Holmann frowned. ‘I… I would not leave you if there is to be more trouble.’
‘No trouble for me,’ she said. ‘Just you.’ She picked up the Strigoi’s head by one of its outsized ears, then held it out to him. ‘Here. Take this and go. Show it to your captain and claim your glory. But hurry.’
Holmann reached out for the hideous thing with his left hand but, before he could take it, Ulrika heard soft footsteps at the opening to the yard.
Madam Mathilda stood there, stark naked, her ample curves covered in scratches and bite marks, some bone deep. Ulrika groaned. Another minute and Holmann would have been away. Now it was too late.
Mathilda smiled approvingly, showing still-sharp teeth. ‘Well done, dearie,’ she said. ‘His cowardly corpse-eaters ran off as soon as he fell.’ She beckoned them forwards. ‘Now bring his ugly head and yer little sweetheart, and we’ll have a nice chat inside by the fire.’
Holmann shot a questioning glance at Ulrika.
She hung her head. ‘Don’t try it,’ she murmured. ‘You could not outrun her.’
‘Witch hunters do not run,’ he said, then set his jaw and bowed her forwards.
They walked together out of the yard, then around to the front door as Mathilda padded naked behind them, watching their every step.
As they neared the porch, Ulrika saw the silvered dagger which had fallen from the balcony above. She stooped and picked it up, then looked back at Mathi
lda.
The madam smiled broadly. ‘Best return that to yer mistress, dearie, and don’t get any ideas.’
Ulrika nodded, cowed, and tucked the dagger into her torn and bloodied doublet.
Gabriella was carrying Rodrik down the stairs as Mathilda herded Ulrika and Holmann into the morning room. Ulrika almost laughed at the incongruousness of the image, the delicate lady with the powerful knight in her arms, but Rodrik was deathly pale, and the countess was limping so badly she nearly dropped him.
Ulrika dropped the Strigoi’s head and ran to her, taking some of Rodrik’s weight. His chest was concave inside his doublet, and soaked in blood, and his sword arm was bent back the wrong way.
They lay him on a chaise as Mathilda and Templar Holmann watched from a respectful distance. As his head touched the cushions his eyes fluttered open and he looked up at Gabriella. Blood bubbled from his lips as he spoke. ‘Mistress,’ he said. ‘Forgive me. Forgive my jealousy. I should never have left you.’
Gabriella took his hand in hers. ‘And I should never have made you jealous, beloved.’ She kissed his cheek. ‘You are forgiven.’
Rodrik lifted her hand to his crimson lips and kissed her fingers. ‘Thank you, mistress. I am proud to have died in your defence.’ He took a ragged breath. ‘It is all I have ever lived for.’
The breath rattled out of his throat and his head sank back, his eyes staring sightlessly at the ceiling. Gabriella looked at him for a long moment, then reached out and closed his eyelids.
‘Poor besotted Rodrik,’ she said sadly. ‘His devotion drove him from me, then brought him back to die.’
‘I’m sorry, mistress,’ said Ulrika. ‘I feel as if my presence pushed him away.’
Gabriella shook her head. ‘You are not to blame. I could have found a way to give you your glory without denying him his. I was as petty in my way as he.’ She looked at the back of her hand and saw the blood from his lips. ‘He was a vain, prideful fool, but a true heart. I will miss him.’