The Dark Arts of Blood

by Freda Warrington

  Karl put a hand on Stefan’s arm, but he shook him off.

  “Weren’t you listening?” Violette’s voice was low, shaky. “Emil’s lady friend is a vampire.”

  “And the bastards who sliced Niklas to pieces were human!” Stefan retorted. “So what?”

  “Fadiya knows those bastards,” Violette said with quiet emphasis. “Stefan, I am sorry about your brother, but he is dead, and Emil is still alive and in danger. I must find him. I came to ask for Charlotte and Karl’s help, because I’ve already spent hours searching. He’s gone without trace.”

  “Perhaps you should not have forbidden them to see each other,” Stefan said acidly.

  “I may not be free of blame, but I was trying to protect him.”

  Charlotte parted her lips, hesitating as she wondered what to say first. “We want to help you, of course, but we can’t leave Stefan in this state…”

  “Did you try Bergwerkstatt?” Karl spoke over the end of her words. “Reiniger might know where she is. She may know about the bone-knives. She might have given them to him, for all we know.”

  “Why?” said Charlotte.

  “If we knew that, we could be halfway to solving this puzzle,” said Karl.

  “Yes, I tried the house,” said Violette, “but only from the outside. Something stopped me going in: a bad feeling, an aura. I could have burned my way through, but I sensed humans inside and I could tell none was Emil. They wouldn’t hide somewhere so obvious, would they? Fadiya didn’t live there, anyway. She had the room at Hotel Blauensee – unless that was just somewhere to take victims.” Violette sounded contemptuous. “I checked her hotel room, but her belongings had gone. She and Emil are long gone from the town, and probably from Switzerland by now. I couldn’t trace his presence at all, so she must be shielding him in some way. I sent Thierry and a handful of others I trust to ask around in case anyone saw them leaving, but there’s no news, nothing. We’ve told everyone else that Emil is ill, but I can’t keep the truth secret much longer. I appreciate that you can’t leave Stefan, but if you three can’t help me, who can?”

  She went on staring at Niklas’s waxen face, as if trying to see inside him. Charlotte knew how fiercely independent Violette was. She never asked for help unless she was desperate.

  “Well, isn’t this a little hypocritical?” said Stefan. “Charlotte did not want to be rescued from Karl. When her brother David tried, the consequences were disastrous, to say the least.”

  “When Charlotte made off with me –” Violette gave her a pointed look “– no one at all came to my rescue. And Stefan, you know the state I was in after the transformation. You were there.”

  “But you recovered.”

  “That’s one word for it.” Violette’s eyes were flint, Stefan’s like blue fire in the bloodshot whites. “It was a long, horrifying experience that I wouldn’t wish on anyone. And I don’t trust Fadiya. I don’t care what her intentions are. No vampire is ever good for a human.”

  “Or vice versa,” said Stefan. His usually perfect hair was a bird’s nest, damp with tears. Charlotte was afraid they might start fighting, from sheer overcharged emotion.

  “I must find Emil,” Violette repeated. “If none of you can help, I’ll go alone.”

  “We want to help, of course,” said Karl, now on his feet. “I don’t know whether his disappearance is connected to Reiniger, because he claimed he knew nothing of Fadiya’s motives. And he appeared genuinely shocked when I warned him that Amy was in danger.”

  “Godric could have been lying,” said Violette.

  “But if he knew, why not ask her to help transform him, rather than me?”

  “Perhaps she refused, too. Perhaps Godric was angry with her, and that’s why she fled with Emil.”

  “Violette, you know full well that she fled because we threatened her,” Charlotte put in. “You expected her to obey you when you forbade her to see Emil. She didn’t.”

  “I know,” said Violette. “But if Fadiya had an argument with Reiniger, it can’t have helped. But why would she, a vampire, fear him?”

  Karl spread a hand to indicate Niklas beneath his white shroud. “Because Reiniger has the power to do this. Not all humans are weaker than us. We should know that by now.”

  The dancer gave a reluctant nod. “They hold power over us in many different ways. Violence is one thing, but love is the most dangerous of all.”

  Charlotte touched her arm, but Violette, like Stefan, was too brittle to be consoled.

  “Dear, you know I want to help,” said Charlotte, “but I can’t leave Stefan like this. I can’t be in two places at once.” She thought of her lamia, and shuddered. “Well, sometimes I can, apparently, but the spectral half of me is malevolent, deaf to reason and completely useless.”

  “I think we should all stay together,” said Karl. “If Reiniger and his gang attacked Stefan and Niklas as revenge, there’s nothing to stop them coming back and attacking the rest of us. They have weapons and skills we don’t understand. We’re all in danger.”

  Charlotte, startled, met his intense amber stare.

  “This is a warning. This is just the start,” she said. “But – the start of what? Does he think this will persuade us to make him and all his friends into vampires? He must be mad.”

  “A little knowledge is dangerous,” said Karl. “Godric may think it’s easy to bully us into creating a small vampire army for him. He wants to be powerful, superior to all the humans around him. He muttered about awakening Woden and all the Swiss heroes of legend. He intends to be godlike: he said as much. However, he doesn’t know what happened when that maniac Cesare tried a similar plan. Carnage. He doesn’t understand that the Crystal Ring itself may not accept him.”

  “Well, here’s a thought.” Stefan’s voice was savage. “Let’s go up to Bergwerkstatt. Let’s pretend we agree to help, begin the transformation and simply kill them all!”

  Karl walked to the windows, silent in thought. He folded his arms. “It’s a possibility. But, Stefan, I am not taking you near anyone while you’re mad with grief.”

  “Then lock me up, because I can’t stop being mad with grief!”

  “I will, if I have to,” Karl replied. Charlotte saw he was serious. “You realise that Reiniger will be expecting us to confront him? He’ll be ready. We don’t know how many bone-knives he has, but it’s obvious he’ll lay plans to ambush us. He could torture or kill us all if we try to sabotage his aim. Even if we escape, we’ll have made an enemy with terrible, unknown powers. I’ve no intention of putting you, Charlotte or Violette in such peril.”

  “I cannot do nothing!” Stefan growled. “I’ve never been one for conflict. But this is different, everything’s changed – if I’ve lost Niklas, I’ve nothing else to lose. If you won’t come with me, I’ll go to Reiniger alone and I will drain him to a husk and hear him scream for mercy before he dies.”

  “Don’t,” said Karl. “Godric Reiniger has a very particular grudge against me. Stefan, don’t…”

  Stefan ignored him. His eyes were manic. Suddenly animated, he strode to a desk, unlocked a drawer and took out the Istilqa knife, wrapped in its black scarf.

  Godric was so close to his lost weapon, thought Charlotte, and didn’t know.

  “I’ll take my chance,” Stefan said, glaring at the others. He had the wild stare of someone in a red mist of rage and anguish, beyond reason. He strode away, half-fading into the Crystal Ring as he went – only to collapse.

  He lay face down on the carpet, groaning. Karl and Charlotte rushed to him, but he was barely sensible. Blood seeped through his shirt from the bandages beneath. He moaned in pain, sobbing. Incoherently he raged, his voice barely a whisper.

  “Dearest, your wounds,” Charlotte said gently. “You’re in no state to go anywhere. Hush.”

  He didn’t respond. She looked at Karl’s grim face, then at Violette.

  “You definitely can’t leave him,” the dancer said gently. As Karl and Charlotte lifted St
efan on to the couch, she added, “Forgive me, I have to go. First to the academy to see if there’s any news – also to create a schedule to keep everyone busy while I’m away. I’ll come back later.”

  Charlotte began wishing her good luck, but Violette was already gone with a silvery shiver of the air.

  Stefan lay muttering on the couch, eyes closed. Now and then his back arched in pain. Charlotte fetched a blanket to place over him, but he threw it off. Patiently she covered him again. To see him like this was unbearable.

  “What are we going to do?” she asked Karl. “I feel like marching on Reiniger’s house, too, but as you say, it would be senseless.”

  Stefan had dropped the scarf and bone-dagger on the floor. Karl bent to pick it up. He seated himself in an armchair and unwrapped the weapon. Even from feet away, Charlotte felt its unpleasant emanation tingling on her skin. The glow felt cold, disturbing, lethal. It emitted a vibration below the level of hearing that made her dizzy.

  Karl handled it with bare hands. She knew how uncomfortable that was. A couple of times he flexed his fingers, as if the haft made them numb.

  “What are you doing?” she asked. “God, the smell of that thing, like musty old caves and sour metal – it was on Bruno, and Wolfgang, and all Reiniger’s men.”

  “And strongly on Godric himself,” said Karl. “They’re using the knives to protect themselves against us. But how? By stabbing the blades into their own veins?”

  Charlotte went quiet, caught up in a series of images. A subterranean tunnel, soaked in the ghostly pain of hundreds of murdered souls: the lair of an unknown medieval vampire who’d hoarded their skeletons in a secret crypt. Eventually the raging vacuum created by their deaths had, in turn, drained that vampire’s life force.

  She recalled the book he’d left behind: a ledger containing all their names and how they had died. The pages were so deeply soaked in death and anguish that the book in itself had become inimical to vampires.

  It had held a form of karma, cosmic justice. Whatever is stolen must be paid back, Charlotte thought. When you create a vacuum, you create a fierce power that will eventually suck its lost matter back into itself.

  That was the elusive familiarity that plagued her.

  “The Book,” she said. “The Ledger of Death.”

  “What about it?” Karl poised the knife between his forefingers by the tip and the ruby pommel. “I destroyed it.”

  “Yes, but the knife reminds me of it. The feeling’s been nagging me all along. The repellent scent and aura are so similar to the emanations from the Ledger of Death.”

  Karl was quiet for a moment, then said thoughtfully, “You’re right. It’s not identical, but close. If the handle is carved from human bone, it must be the bone of a vampire’s victim.”

  “Who would make such a thing?”

  Karl didn’t answer. He rolled up his left shirt-sleeve and pressed the knife blade to the inside of his forearm.

  “Karl, what are you doing?”

  He was cutting into his own flesh. She rushed to stop him, not fast enough. In horror she watched the blade slide into the skin, from the elbow towards the wrist, a line of dark red pearls oozing out of the long vertical slit.

  “Don’t!” she gasped.

  He placed the knife on the scarf beside him, and held Charlotte back with his right hand on her shoulder.

  “The only way to get inside the knife is to let the blade inside us,” he said calmly. “You were stabbed. So was Stefan. I need to go wherever it was you went.”

  She gave a strangled growl. “But I learned nothing! I had nightmares, I thought I’d split in two, I went mad for a few hours and threw Wolfgang through a window. Now Niklas is dead, Stefan delirious – how can this help? Karl, for pity’s sake!”

  “I don’t believe that you learned nothing,” he replied. “It’s a matter of analysing our visions.”

  “Well?” She was trembling with anxiety. “How does it feel? The wound, I mean?”

  Karl flexed his left hand. “Cold,” he said. “Liebling, hold my hand. You were right, it is really extraordinarily painful.”

  She took his left hand between both her own. His fingers were icy. His whole hand felt heavy and nerveless, like wax. Then his head tipped back. His eyelids fluttered and came to rest half-open, looking at her – with no sign of awareness.

  * * *

  The first stab went through his ribs.

  Karl was on a dark footpath that meandered through the bushes and trees of an unlit wild park. All was black. Even with his night-sensitive vision he could see only greyish shapes and the bright eyes of woodland creatures in the undergrowth. How could the man within his grasp see anything at all in the night? Perhaps he knew this route well enough to walk it in the pitch dark – but that confidence made him easy prey. Karl seized him and fed before the victim even knew he was there. He noted the expensive texture of the man’s jacket and felt the rasp of a trimmed beard against his face as he relished the rich delicious blood of this healthy individual…

  Then came the poison-cold blade between his ribs.

  Karl felt the tip go right into his lung, felt the lung trying to heal itself but failing, as if acid on the blade were eating the tissues before they could mend. He froze in pain and complete astonishment.

  No victim had ever retaliated before.

  Not like this. Sometimes they struggled. And he’d been injured by other vampires often enough to know that this pain was extraordinary. First there was a flood of glacial cold, then all his strength went, followed by his consciousness…

  The next he knew, he was inside a house.

  A large room with heavy, traditional furniture pushed back against the walls. There were framed prints hung in neat rows: maps? Several faces stared down at him by the light of oil lamps and candles… five humans, all male, aged between twenty and forty. Each one held a dagger two-handed. Karl was flat on his back on a rug. His chest was bare, his shirt undone.

  He couldn’t see any chains holding him down and yet his limbs were pinned to the floor as if by huge rocks. He felt terrified but deadly calm.

  This was one useful lesson he’d learned from his dread of Kristian: the art of remaining absolutely still and emotionless, despite being scared out of his wits.

  In turn each man leaned down and drew a knife-blade across him: down his breastbone, across his chest, slashing diagonals across his abdomen. One cut each. Then they all bent down, each man holding a knife tip in the centre of the wound he’d made. The pain stung and froze and scorched. Karl felt all his power running out through the knives. He saw, or imagined, lines of glowing red mist flowing out of him and into the five men.

  Their faces shone. They laughed.

  “Stop!” said one, apparently the instigator. Smart suit, cropped dark hair and beard, pocket watch… this was the man he’d encountered in the park, who had stabbed him.

  Now he appeared to be taking back the life-energy that Karl had stolen.

  This made no sense. He couldn’t speak to demand answers, could not even blink. Humans feeding upon vampires?

  “Enough,” the leader went on. “He’s dead. He has nothing left. But you all felt that, didn’t you? You all felt the power? Yes?”

  Their laughter echoed horribly in Karl’s head.

  What happened next he couldn’t remember.

  Long afterwards, he pieced it together. Clearly they hadn’t killed him. However, they had weighed him down with stones and dropped him into a lake, because that was where he regained consciousness, deep in obsidian water. Mired in silt, he discarded rocks from what was left of his clothing, crawled his way along the lake bottom and up a turbid rocky slope until he finally reached the shore.

  How long did it take him to recover?

  No one came to help. He went on all fours until he found a rock-face to support him, and then he walked until the scent of blood and warm, breathing life led him to a drunken man lying unconscious in an Alpine hut.

  Weeks
of delirium followed. Karl rested and fed when he could. A long time passed before he regained his full strength. The scars took even longer to heal, but at last they vanished and left his skin unblemished. Finally he found himself gasping with relief in a frosty pine forest as he realised he was well again; still not quite in his right mind, but full of controlled, fiery anger.

  And that was why he had gone back to the house.

  Somehow he’d remembered where it was, recalled the look and the odour of the place. He went back to find the bearded man and to kill him.

  Godric Reiniger’s father.

  * * *

  “Karl. Karl, beloved, please come back to me…”

  Charlotte’s voice reached him and he felt his consciousness returning, very slowly, as if he were a human surfacing through a fog of laudanum. He saw her lovely, worried face. He managed to blink – so at least she’d see he was alive – but speaking would take more effort yet.

  Had he truly chosen Godric’s father at random? The question had plagued him, ever since Reiniger had shown him the crude but horrifying movie scene.

  He rarely entered houses. There were folk enough on the street to fulfil his needs. So why had he been inside the Reiniger household at all? Karl’s recollection of the past was mostly crystal-sharp, so why had fog obscured those events?

  Now he knew.

  “Karl!” Charlotte gave him a shake. “Speak to me, you utter… idiot!”

  He swallowed, managed to sit up in the chair. The room came into focus: outside, the sky was darkening to deep blue and lilac over the lake. Stefan curled on his side on the couch, clawing at thin air.

  “I was unconscious,” said Karl.

  “I know! I’ve spent two hours trying to wake you.”

  “But we don’t sleep. Not as humans do. How is it possible?”

  “An effect of the bone-knife,” she said, sitting back on her heels. “It happened to me, too, although I didn’t realise until I woke up. You will need to feed. That might help Stefan, too, although I’m afraid he might be uncontrollable.”

  “Perhaps we could bring one of his friends to him.” Karl sat forward, resting his elbows on his knees. He examined the cut he’d made. The bleeding had long stopped and the wound was clean. Apparently Charlotte had licked the blood away. The edges showed signs of healing, sensation was returning to his left hand.