I wonder why he’s being so open with me? Karl thought. He’s fearless and wants to show off? If he truly recognises me as unhuman, he’s either stupid, or he believes he’s as strong as a vampire. And he does not seem stupid.
“I suppose making movies is a more peaceful road to power than raising an army,” said Karl. “However, your followers made the rather disastrous mistake of assaulting the male principal dancer of the Ballet Lenoir.”
Reiniger sat back on the edge of his desk, one hand cupping his other elbow and the cigarette poised near his jaw. “As I said, that was not my doing. But I don’t know what a male dancer is, if not degenerate. An Italian communist homosexual who prances on stage is fair game, I’m afraid.”
“Do you seriously believe that?”
Godric shrugged. “Tell him to stay out of beer halls.”
“I don’t think Emil is a communist…”
“Did you know that his brother was executed for trying to assassinate Mussolini?”
“No,” said Karl, startled. “I don’t blame Emil for keeping quiet about such a thing. Even if it’s true, it’s a very flimsy excuse for your gang to assault him.”
“I have no ‘gang’. But, who knows, perhaps one of my friends saw Fiorani take a swing at me.”
“He tried to hit you? Why?”
“For no reason at all,” said Godric. “I saw he was drunk, I tried to stop him going inside for his own safety. He responded badly. That’s all. It was an unfortunate misunderstanding and I… I can only wish him a swift recovery.” When Karl didn’t answer, he added, “Will you tell him?”
“He doesn’t know I’m here,” Karl said softly.
“Did Madame Lenoir send you, then? If you know him, you must know her.”
Karl noticed the blue spark in his eyes when he spoke her name. “Yes, I know her.”
“Indeed?” A long pause. A finger of ash fell on to the pristine floor. “She is very much a celebrity, a local goddess, but I’m afraid I offended her. I would so like to film the ballet, but she turned down my offer flat. I should like to make amends, to apologise…”
The faint corona that surrounded Godric flared bright, like acid-yellow flames – a brew of excitement, hope, anger, savage determination.
What is going on in this man’s head? Karl thought. If only I could read his mind. All I see is that he wants to control everything and everyone, and is burning with resentment that he can’t. He’s mortal, so why does he have this shield around him that protects him from vampires? How?
“I understand that it would be prestigious for you to work with her,” Karl said carefully. “It would increase your fame to have your name linked with hers.”
“You think I want to meet her out of self-interest? Reiniger Studios is successful in its own right, and every bit as ‘prestigious’ as the Ballet Lenoir. If anything, it would benefit her more than me, to have her ballets filmed and brought to a wider public. I think she should reconsider. How well do you know her?”
“I can’t promise to plead your case to Madame Lenoir.” Karl evaded the question with a rueful smile. “I don’t know you well enough, Herr Reiniger. And she didn’t send me. No one did.”
“Mm. So you are really here about something else? Interesting. Do you want to join our cause, Herr Alexander? Have I inspired you?”
Reiniger’s shoulders began to shake with laughter. His lips flattened and tears shone in his eyes.
“What’s so amusing?” Karl asked.
The tears spilled as Reiniger went on giggling, making a wheezing sound. He looked down at his own shoes, apparently so lost in the private joke that Karl felt inclined to leave. Then he regained control, dried his eyes and cleaned his clouded spectacle lenses on a handkerchief.
“Oh, more than you know,” he said. “My beer-hall friends are part of my film crew. They hold strong and sincere opinions, and when they’ve had a drink or two, they tend to express themselves rather too loudly in public. Sometimes they go too far and need discipline. But I wouldn’t want to rein in their high spirits – and don’t you find human behaviour fascinating?” Reiniger, still grinning, fingered a messy stack of papers on his desk. “I was observing, in order to see how outsiders react to them. Do they heckle, or are they inspired to shout their support? And to judge how such a scene might work in a film. Nothing is wasted, creatively. Not even a regrettable street brawl. Don’t you agree?”
Karl felt Godric was trying to draw him into some sort of complicity he didn’t want.
“Well, I agree that mob behaviour is interesting. Are your supporters trying to clear Switzerland of ‘degenerates’ one at a time, starting with Emil?”
Godric’s thin blond eyebrows rose. “You disapprove of violence? You, of all people?”
“Why do you say, ‘Me, of all people’? You don’t know me.”
Reiniger watched the curl of smoke he’d exhaled. Karl perceived an indefinable, sinister shift of the atmosphere. The moment was charged with insinuations that he felt he should understand, but did not.
Instinct whispered to him, Kill Reiniger now and leave. Yet he couldn’t. Karl’s curiosity equalled his thirst for blood: some called it a weakness. He was not like Kristian or Pierre, Ilona or even Violette, able to crush the problem and walk away. Perhaps life would be easier if he could, but he couldn’t destroy Reiniger without understanding who and what he was.
This was why he warned Charlotte against getting involved. He knew the dangers.
Godric gave a short laugh, a jerk of his shoulders. He stared at Karl with his searing gaze. Eventually he said, “You don’t recognise me, do you? I remember you, however.”
Dull foreboding snagged Karl’s heart.
“Forgive me,” he said. “My memory is usually excellent, but you’re right. Other than the occasion when we passed in the cinema, I don’t recognise you. Where could we have met?”
Godric gave a thin, grim smile.
“If you don’t know, I’ll keep you guessing for a little while. I didn’t know your name then, Karl Alexander von Wultendorf. I didn’t realise that monsters had names. But I am older and wiser now, while you have not aged a day.”
Karl said nothing. Apprehension sank through him. Surely not a past victim… He hunted at night, feeding and abandoning prey before they had a chance to see his face. The attack tended to cloud their memories. Fang-wounds healed swiftly. A few days of madness or fever might follow, but the attack itself would be a blank. A frightening chasm into which they dare not look…
But there might be exceptions. Moments of carelessness.
Godric Reiniger stared through his gold-rimmed lenses. “May I assist your memory?”
“If you must,” Karl said steadily.
“I never forgot your face, you see. Like a painting of an angel, too handsome to be real with those lustrous eyes: beautiful, if such a description can apply to a male. Do you notice that people almost break their necks, swivelling their heads to follow you? Quite tiresome, I imagine. Your fine looks are memorable, even in the half-dark. See…”
Godric reached into a desk drawer and took out a sketchbook. He placed it on the desk and opened the cover, angling it for Karl to examine.
Karl did not want to look. He disliked being manipulated, but his innate good manners and thirst for understanding overrode his apprehension. He studied the first picture. A drawing of a man’s face in red crayon…
The lines were crude and immature, clearly the work of a child. Yet, without doubt, the face was Karl’s own.
“Please, look at the rest,” said Reiniger.
Reluctantly, Karl turned the pages one by one. A faint, familiar rusty aroma wafted out of the book. Every drawing was of him, and all were executed in red; crayon at first, then scarlet pastel, red ink, and then a dark red paint that had crinkled the paper. With each portrait, the style grew more sophisticated, moving from a child’s to an adult’s. Some were full face, others showing the figure from the side, half in shadow. The last three sketch
es were looser, more impressionistic, almost angry in their rough energy – but all, without question, drawings of Karl.
“Can you see yourself in a mirror?” asked Godric.
“Yes, of course.”
“So you know whose face I was trying to capture?”
Karl didn’t answer. If this man knew he was a vampire, why wasn’t he afraid? He wouldn’t be the first human Karl had met who considered himself too powerful, too worldly-wise and clever for fear, or even sensible caution.
“How old do you think I was when I drew the first one?”
“I don’t know. Twelve, thirteen?”
“Ten,” said Reiniger. “Not bad for my age, don’t you agree?”
“Remarkable,” Karl said softly. “You were a gifted child.”
“Drawing is not my strong point: I’m better with photography and film, but I do my best. The others are from memory. One a year, on average… usually around the anniversary. I would have dreams, you see, and feel compelled to purge your face out of my mind yet again. The most recent” – he waved his cigarette at the page that lay open – “I drew yesterday.”
Karl traced a fingertip over the scrubby, red-brown lines. A smell like iron and raw meat rose strongly around him; the taint of dry, dead blood. A human would not notice, but to a vampire it was overwhelming.
“You paint with your own blood?”
“It seems appropriate. How do you know it’s mine?”
“The scent,” said Karl. “Every human is different.”
“Ah, like wine.” Reiniger flipped the book shut and snatched it away. His eyes sparked with sudden rage.
The smell was far from appetising. Only blood pulsing through a living human was enticing to vampires. But he hadn’t come here to attack Godric Reiniger. Karl couldn’t identify the pollutant in his blood, but it made him imagine biting into a ripe peach and receiving a mouthful of vinegar.
“What anniversary?” he asked.
“Of the night you killed my father in front of me.”
In the horrible silence that followed, Karl found nothing to say. No point in denial. He still couldn’t remember anything, but why would Reiniger make such an assertion if it wasn’t true? Shadows stirred in the back of his mind, nothing he could grasp. He only stared at the man without emotion. What did Reiniger see? A monster with the face of an angel, eyes like fiery amber holding no trace of remorse?
“I was surprised to find strigoi so civilised, so… human,” Godric said after a minute, resting one hand in his trouser pocket. “But glad, too, because it means you have some comprehension of the atrocities you’ve committed.”
“I can’t answer this accusation,” Karl said very softly. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“May I assist your memory?”
“Perhaps it’s best if I leave.”
“I can’t stop you leaving, it’s true. Nor can I stop you killing me, if you’ve a mind to end all this – although you might find it harder than you imagine.”
Reiniger brought his hand out of his pocket. In it he held a small bone-handled knife, nearly identical to the one that had wounded Charlotte. The blade glittered. A sharp unpleasant tang hung in the air. Karl stared at the silvery after-images as Godric wove patterns with the knife-tip.
It was the strangest feeling. The knife seemed to emanate a deadly vapour… but nothing was poisonous to vampires, was it? Except this.
Karl took a step forward, only to find it was not his imagination playing tricks. He felt dizzy and had to move back.
Worse, the feeling was familiar. Not because of the Istilqa knife he’d left with Stefan, but something older, so deep and vague he could make no sense of it. Formless, ancient dread.
“What is that?”
“Our defence against you,” said Godric. “You’ve never seen a sikin before?”
“I think I would have remembered,” Karl said, evading the truth.
“One may not be lethal to your kind, but all my men know how to use them. Just so that you know.”
“How many?”
“Enough.”
Karl raised his palms. “I swear, I have not come here to threaten you. You can put the sikin away. I came to talk.”
“Good,” said Godric. The knife vanished back into his pocket. “Now, if you would bear with me, there’s something I’d like you to see. An explanation. Will you?”
He held out a hand to usher Karl out of the room and upstairs. Karl was puzzled, weirdly entranced by Reiniger, and now apprehensive. But he craved an explanation more than anything.
“We have quite an efficient operation here,” Reiniger said conversationally as they went. “We mostly use Bell & Howell cameras, but we’re trying the new Bolex models, made in Geneva. I prefer to support the home economy, naturally. We have darkrooms and an editing suite. This is not Hollywood. I cannot afford to employ hundreds of technicians. So, everyone must master several skills. There’s nothing I ask my assistants to do that I can’t do myself: filming, lighting, processing, even costume and make-up. But all the story ideas, all the scripts, are mine.”
“And you direct?”
“Write, direct, edit and distribute. Aside from my supporters, who double as extras and crew, this is a one-man operation. Mine. Reiniger Studios.”
The room to which he led Karl was a small private cinema, with tiered seating, a projection booth at the rear and a huge screen veiled by black curtains in front. There were prints along the walls that looked like Japanese calligraphy.
“My screening room,” said Reiniger.
“Impressive.”
“Take a seat, anywhere you like.”
“What are you doing?” said Karl.
“Just humour me. Sit.”
With a sense of dread, verging on claustrophobia, Karl took a seat in the back row. Reiniger left him there. A few moments later, the lights went down and he heard the whirr of a projector start up behind him. Karl sat as if chained there. The curtains opened. Beams of light shot over his head and silver grey shadows began to dance on the screen in front of him, playing out a wordless horror story.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
ROSE AND THE BLACK WOLVES
Emil was drowning. Walls of water hit him, one after another. All was black, the world upside down. In the far distance he saw Violette, a tiny figure confronting a great skull-headed monster – he screamed her name but brine filled his mouth. He must reach her or the world would end…
“Violette! Violette!”
He woke violently and sat upright in bed, streaming with sweat.
“Emil?”
Fadiya’s voice was warm and soothing. Odd that every time he woke – gently or suddenly – she was always awake first. He couldn’t shake off the night terror and almost wished she were not there to witness his panic.
“Another bad dream?” she said. He nodded. He was gasping for breath, his heart racing so hard he thought he might die. “You were calling out her name. Violette.”
“I – I dreamed she was in danger. I dream it all the time.”
He felt her hand on his shoulder. Her touch calmed him, and he found his breath.
“Always the same,” he groaned. “A figure menacing her. It looks like Kastchei the sorcerer from The Firebird ballet, but real, and truly evil. Maybe he represents death, or something worse, I don’t know. And I have to save her, but I can’t.”
“Perhaps that is what the dream is telling you, my dear,” she murmured. “You cannot save her from her own demons, so you need to accept that.”
“But what demons? Why would anyone mean her harm?”
Fadiya shrugged. “Who knows? We all have burdens to bear, and in the end, we all have to face our nightmares alone.”
Her words chilled him.
“I can’t accept it!”
“You’re still in love with her, aren’t you?” It was more a statement than a question. He only sighed. He switched on a bedside light, poured some brandy into a glass and drank it i
n two gulps. Putting the glass down with shaking hands, he missed the small table and the glass thudded on to the carpet.
“Of course you are,” she went on. “You aren’t the kind of man who would fall in love and out again so lightly. If you were, I wouldn’t be here with you. But I am here…”
Her words trailed off as her hands moved over his back, tracing every muscle as her lips began to plant kisses on his neck and throat. The warmth of her body against his was irresistible. Her palms slid around to explore his taut abdomen. His hands found the inner surface of her thighs.
“It was only a bad dream,” Fadiya whispered. “Let me help you forget.”
He turned to her, found her mouth as they rearranged limbs and lay side by side, pressed to each other. Already he was so strongly aroused that he felt he must be inside her or die… and she guided him, laughing and moaning with her own pleasure. She had this effect on him every time, a hot whirlpool of aching, excruciating pleasure…
Would Violette have been like this?
Emil could not, dared not think of her. There was only Fadiya, all around him like umber fire. He was deep inside her now, thrusting into her comforting heat. A thousand times better than plunging through ice-cold storms to reach Violette.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” Fadiya whispered into his ear. “I only want to bite you a little. Here.” She kissed his neck, her mouth a burning pressure on his skin. He was too far gone to care what she was saying. She could do anything she liked to him, anything. “May be a little sharp… forgive me. Won’t be for long but I have to… oh God, I have to…”
He climaxed as she bit him, pleasure overwhelming pain. Then he felt himself sinking into darkness, as if he were back in the nightmare again. He tried to capture images, but the fragments vanished like slivers of ice between his fingers. The fact that she’d bitten him, and broken the flesh, barely registered before it faded from his mind…
They lay sated together, too heavy to move. He looked into her sultry eyes and thought of nothing but the erotic wonder of her warmth. Fadiya… she was so loving, so beautiful.
Perhaps he could love her. At least he could try.
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