The witch hunter’s heart lay on the altar, and beside it a small pool of blood gathered where it dripped down from the ragged wounds.
He only wished he could have remained long enough to see the aberrant horror on their faces when they discovered the corpse. It was self-indulgent, of course, to want to savour the full extent of his brutality.
He didn’t have the time for such idle fancies. Preparations needed to be made. The witch hunter had unwittingly given him something more urgent to worry about. He wasn’t the vampire, that’s what the fool had said. Skellan had dismissed it in his hunger to dispense pain, but the words returned in the calm after the blood-thirst. If he wasn’t the vampire that could only mean one thing: the witch hunter had been on the trail of another rough beast. Not, surely, Narcisa or one of her breed…
So who then? Who was here?
And more pressing, what kind of threat did they pose?
He limped out of the temple.
And he knew.
You’re not the wolf… But he knew who was.
Oh yes, he knew. The Strigany caravan had burned because it was sheltering the wolf, and that wolf was Jerek. It had to be. That meant Jerek was here, hiding somewhere in this stinking warren of streets. But what was he doing here? Why Nuln? Why now? Did the old wolf know that he was here? Was he hunting Skellan with some stupidly noble idea about putting him out of his misery? He wouldn’t put it past the insufferable buffoon.
Let him try, Skellan thought. Instinctively, his hand strayed to the eye patch, a bloody finger scratching beneath it at the mined flesh. It was a permanent reminder of the score he had to settle with the old wolf.
It would have to wait, for now.
He waited for Mannfred in the shadow of the mausoleum.
It was snowing again. The fat flakes swirled in the air, not thickly enough to hide the door of the manor house or the comings and goings of the dead girls, but enough to deaden the sounds of the world. It was winter; of that there could be no doubt, yet the women showed no signs of being affected by the cold. They walked and whispered and giggled, shawls drawn up to the pale blue blush of their throats. Skellan studied them. They were like birds, flocking, preening, primping and posing, craving the eye. The unnaturalness of their vanity still surprised him. Both dead, both monsters in the eyes of humanity, they lived in different worlds. It was as though death held no dominion for the Lahmians.
He had seen Narcisa twice already tonight. She refused to meet his eye, which pleased him. She knew her place now, recognising him as her superior. She moved coyly, giving him time to watch. He found himself remembering her scent and feel. He would have her, he decided, relishing the prospect. When the time came she would scream out his name. He smiled.
Narcisa had promised that the Eternal would give them an audience, as if she had a choice. He barked a short harsh laugh at the notion of a woman daring to laud it over him. Oh sweet Narcisa you will beg and scream, he decided, and I will grow drunk on it. He would have her on her knees pleading for mercy as he very slowly and very deliberately hurt her. He found himself imagining it, the images so real in his head that they could have been hallucinations.
He watched the peculiar dance of the snowflakes, the twist of light and shadow. He held out his hand, catching flakes. They didn’t melt, so cold was his skin.
He turned, imagining he heard something behind him, a careless footfall crushing the fresh snow. He was alone in the ever-whitening graveyard, the flakes settling around him. He didn’t feel the cold. His blood was far colder.
The solitary depression of a footstep in the otherwise virgin white didn’t go unnoticed.
He wasn’t alone.
He didn’t move.
He listened, searching for the slightest sound out of place. The fine hairs on the nape of his neck prickled, as did those on his forearms.
Skellan had used Mannfred’s strige, that vile undead creature that looked, in truth, like nothing more noisome than a cadaverous plucked chicken, to tell his master of the labyrinthine tunnels beneath the city, and the jetty hidden within the walls of the riverbank. He had suggested discretion. The Vampire Count had agreed it made sense to avoid the city proper. Only a fool revealed his hand so early in the game. He would enter the city from below, and move through it out of the sight of prying eyes, negotiating the old tunnels.
Skellan expected him to emerge from the mausoleum. The old tomb was almost certainly connected to the subterranean walkways.
He turned in a full circle, until he had almost succeeded in convincing himself he was alone.
He waited for the watcher to reveal himself. He studied the yellow of the lamps as they flickered in the windows of the manor house and the comings and goings of the elegant Lahmians. It was all he could do to remain hidden. Their carefree sashaying as they walked, arms linked, down the long gravel drive infuriated him. They knew he was there. They looked his way with a casual toss of the head. The shadows masked their true expressions, but he knew they were sneering. Over the next few hours he would turn their comfortable little world on its head and strip them of their smugness. Then he would sneer at them.
“They are exquisite corpses, are they not?”
The sound of Mannfred’s voice startled him even though he had known all along that the Vampire Count was close by.
“I’ve tasted better,” Skellan said, even as he said it remembering the richness of Narcisa’s tainted blood as it trickled down his throat. It was a lie, he hadn’t.
“Somehow I doubt it,” Mannfred said, as though reading his mind.
Skellan turned to face his master, but found he was looking at shadows and the bare expanse of the white stone of the mausoleum wall. It took a moment to discern the vague blur around one of the carved columns where the air seemed agitated. He looked down and saw the lone footprint and looked back up studying the peculiar blur of the air intently. The more stubbornly he stared at the curiosity the more substantial the shape hidden within it became. Even knowing what was causing the peculiar displacement of the air it was difficult to focus on the blur for any sustained length of time, made more so by Skellan’s monocular vision.
Finally, the Vampire Count drew back his hood and emerged from the shadows. His expression was sardonic. He knelt, dusting his hands in the grave dirt, a curious mark of respect for the interred and rose again. “Shall we?” He set off without waiting for Skellan’s response, flinty chips of gravel crunching under his boots.
Skellan hurried after him.
A fair-haired beauty turned, shying away from them as they approached. Mannfred sketched an easy bow. Skellan ignored the woman. He caught up with the Vampire Count as he knocked twice with the huge snake-headed knocker on the iron-banded door. The door opened before the cries of the metal had fully faded. For a moment Skellan thought it was Narcisa who stood in the doorway, but he quickly realised it wasn’t her. The differences were subtle, cheekbones more aquiline, eyes ever so slightly more almond-shaped, lips fuller. She stepped aside to allow them to enter. She wore a silk ball gown of emerald green that clung perfectly to her body, accentuating every curve.
Skellan moved deliberately close to the Lahmian, causing her to back up another step.
The inside of the manor house was another world entirely. He wasn’t sure what he had expected from the brief glimpses he had managed, but on the evidence of the foyer alone this wasn’t it. Heavy velvet drapes the rich red of blood were cinched in place by golden snake heads. The serpentine emblem was repeated everywhere, in the gilding of the picture frames, in the weave of the carpet beneath their feet, in the metal casing of the crystal chandelier, coiled around the table lamps and the bole of the hat stand, and even carved into the door jambs. The foyer was dominated by a huge double-sided marble staircase. Its wrought black iron banisters were fashioned as rearing cobras. The jewelled eyes of dozens of snakes studied them, and amid the statues and carvings Skellan saw movement, the sinuous ripple of a living serpent. It came across the carpet, fo
rked tongue flashing out. The woman knelt, holding out her arm for the serpent to coil itself around.
Stroking the reptile she bade them follow, and instead of climbing the stairs, led them through a narrow twisting corridor to a glass ceilinged arboretum filled with lush, green life. She ushered them towards a bench in the centre of the vast chamber. She raised her hand to an overhanging branch and whispered something, causing the snake to slither off her outstretched arm and curl itself around the branch. Skellan saw at least fifteen various species of snake draped on branches and more curled up at the bases of the exotic trees. He had no desire to wake any of them.
“The Eternal bids you wait a moment with her children while she readies herself for your visit.”
She turned to leave.
“Stay with us,” Mannfred said, touching her arm.
She glanced down at the hand resting on her arm and nodded, “As you wish.”
“Good, good. Now, tell me a little about your mistress. A good guest should always know something about his host.”
The girl smiled faintly. “It is not my place.”
“Don’t be coy, girl, it doesn’t suit you,” Skellan said, moving to stand a single step behind her and leaning in so that she would feel his breath on her skin.
“Very well,” the Lahmian said, stiffening visibly as Skellan laid his hand softly on the nape of her neck, fingers brushing her throat almost tenderly, almost.
A white mouse scurried across the stone floor. A viper fell from a branch directly above it and had swallowed the creature whole in the time it took to blink. Skellan watched the snake’s body distort as it digested the mouse. Satisfied, the snake slithered away into the shade.
“The Eternal is the oldest of our kind in these parts, and as such is our queen. She is as wise as she is beautiful. As—”
“On second thoughts, silence is a virtue,” Mannfred said, somewhat dismissively cutting across her. He ought to have noticed the signs. The woman was under some kind of thrall. He had no interest in hearing whatever lip service she had been programmed to puppet. Anger flared in the woman’s eyes but it never reached her lips. She curtseyed, turned on her long stiletto heel, and walked back into the main body of the house, her skirts swishing around her as she went.
The Eternal made them wait.
Skellan knew he was not patient, but Mannfred seemed prepared to wait all eternity for the woman to dignify them with her presence. He walked around the stone dais that marked the centre of the arboretum, touching the leaves, feeling the varying consistencies. He pushed back a branch to reveal a huge elaborately carved stone head. It was an impish thing with a bulbous nose and cherubic cheeks, and a row of razor-sharp fangs. It was a quite repulsive little monstrosity. Mannfred let the branch fall back across the stone facing, hiding it once more. He moved three more steps and knelt. Skellan saw him pluck up the only red flower, a beautiful orchid with a yellow stamen. He plucked the petals away from the stem one at a time, denuding it slowly. He scattered the petals at his feet and then walked over them.
Skellan sat down on the bench content to let Mannfred explore. There was little in the curious indoor garden that interested him. He leaned back, allowing his head to tilt back so that he could see the ceiling. It was glass and metal, domed with huge windows allowing the moonlight in yet keeping the cold of winter out. The heat from the arboretum kept the snow from settling on the glass. It was a breathtaking construction. Ultimately, Skellan didn’t care what they did with their glass and steel and stone. It was all the same ephemera of life that slipped through time’s fingers like grains of sand.
He dosed his eyes, thoroughly bored.
He would find a way of making the arrogant bitch pay for the insult. He imagined, for a delicious moment, walking through the Eternal’s house, claiming her followers one by one, stripping them just as painstakingly as Mannfred had the orchid, and just as lethally. Instead of those gossamer fine petals he’d peel away tendon and muscle from bone, transmogrifying them into blood red roses of flesh. He licked his lips. He could taste their fear. It was intoxicating.
A rattle-tailed serpent brushed up against his foot. He watched it. For a moment it seemed as though the cold-blooded reptile had no interest in him, but then it reared back, fangs bared to strike. Before the snake could sink its teeth into him Skellan snatched it up. The creature hissed and squawked as he forced its jaws further apart until the bones started to crack and the skin split as he tore the snake in two savagely. He threw the remains at another reptile hoping to start a feeding frenzy with the blood.
He looked down at his hands. They, half of his arms and the left side of his shirt were covered in blood. He lifted his fingers to his lips and tasted it. The reptile’s blood had a peculiar tang to it. It was less iron-rich than its human counterpart, earthier.
The woman reappeared a moment later. She had changed. Instead of her silk dress she now wore a simpler shift of raw cotton. As with everything else in the manor it bore a serpent’s crest. She looked, if anything, more doll-like and beautiful in the sackcloth, as if the richness of her dress had somehow detracted from her essential beauty. Free, now, she radiated poise and allure in equal measure. She inclined her neck, studying the blood on his hands. A smile flirted with her lips as she said, “The mistress will see you now.”
Skellan stood, staring at her. All that time, and for what? A damned change of clothing? He struggled to remain calm, barely managing to bottle his anger. His lip curled into a snarl.
She pointedly ignored him.
“Do you think it was wise to bathe yourself in the blood of one of the woman’s pets?” Mannfred asked.
“No, but it was satisfying.”
“It will certainly give our host pause for thought, I’ll grant you that.”
They followed the woman out of the arboretum, but not the way they had come. She led them between dragging branches that scratched and snagged at their clothes and hair, behind the great stone head, to an opening concealed in the back of it. Fourteen steps led down. They descended slowly into darkness. At the bottom the woman struck a light and lit a taper. She pulled a reed-wrapped torch out of a black iron sconce and plunged into the darkness, leading them down, down, deeper and still down.
Their footsteps echoed in the cramped confines of the tunnels. The passageways were incredibly claustrophobic. The sheer weight of the earth pressed down on all sides threatening to transform the warren of tunnels into a barrow. Skellan touched the walls. They were cold, sheened with a fine coat of mucoid slime. His fingers came away slick and sticky. The temperature dropped steadily without falling below a pleasing chill.
Still they descended, the woman leading the way.
The quality of sound changed; the pressure of the earth above dampening it. Their footsteps became leaden. Water dripped tantalisingly somewhere away in the darkness beyond the edge of the torch’s glare.
Skellan had a bad feeling about this latest turn of events. He didn’t trust the woman, or any of her kind. He had observed them well enough to know that they were devious creatures capable of almost any treachery. He slowed, walking in the furthest part of his shadow. He watched her back, watched the arch of her spine, her musculature for some sense of tension, and beyond her watched the flicker and dance of the flame’s caress as it turned the oppressively dark, dank passage into a place of light. The light, if anything, was less reassuring than the dancing shadows. He was at home in the shadows; they were his natural habitat. He was a hunter. He relied upon stealth. The light lied. It pretended to reveal all of its secrets, expose its dark places, but it never did, not fully.
The tunnel widened into a spectacularly gaudy antechamber painted in splashes of bright colour, greens and reds and foiled with gold. The room was dominated by two huge urns that stood either side of a door. Shadows clung stubbornly to the door, making the embossed relief figure of a jackal-headed man stand out in stark relief. The jackal man held a staff that appeared to be in the process of transforming i
nto a snake. There was an iron ring in the creature’s mouth. The Lahmian walked up to the door, grasped the ring and knocked three times, slowly, deliberately and loudly.
Beyond the door a woman’s voice uttered a single word, “Come.”
Their escort opened the door and stepped aside to allow them to enter the nave of a vast subterranean temple, although whatever gods it venerated, they were none that Jon Skellan was familiar with. The one they called the Eternal sat on a mighty snakeskin throne where in any other temple the altar would have stood.
She was not beautiful by any stretch of the imagination.
She was old and haggard, her skin so deeply lined that it was impossible to make out her eyes from the shadows they conjured. She wore a simple black shift and a tiara of gold and copper hammered into a perfect circle. The serpent’s head consumed its tail. The blood-rich rubies of the tiara’s eyes glittered in the torchlight.
“It has been a long time, Kalada,” Mannfred said, dropping smoothly to one knee. “I would say you haven’t changed but I would be lying. The years have ceased being kind to you.”
The Lahmian smiled. On her it was anything but a pleasant expression. “Flattery will get you nowhere, von Carstein. What gives you the right to enter my home?”
“You know her?” Skellan asked, still trying to take in the immensity of the subterranean temple with its unfamiliar fetishes and statues to gods he didn’t recognise: figures with reptilian heads, huge distended jaws and jagged teeth, figures with avian features, owls and contemptuous birds, and others with the feral lines of cats and dogs. They were all painted with archaic symbols Skellan did not understand. He wasn’t particularly fond of feeling like a simpleton. It rankled, like so much of the pomp and circumstance of the whole charade.
“From another life, one that was not kind to her,” Mannfred turned his attention back to the woman on the throne. “I had thought you dead, Kalada.”
“Death is no great mystery to us, is it, my dear? No, on the contrary, death is familiar, comfortable.”
[Von Carstein 03] - Retribution Page 14