The Dark Arts of Blood

by Freda Warrington

  Godric gave a snakelike smile. “We’ve had precious few vampires to experiment on. It works on humans, too.” He rolled up his shirt-sleeve and gave Karl a glimpse of silver-pink scars along his arms. “Self-inflicted cuts draw power from the sikin. Cutting others invokes a surge of energy that everyone present can absorb. But I suspect vampires yield the best results of all.”

  “Have you tried this on Fadiya?”

  “No, not her.”

  “Tell me about her,” said Karl. “How did you meet?”

  Reiniger hissed smoke through his teeth. “A few weeks ago, she appeared inside the house and yes, I knew at once what she was. We had an argument, a stand-off, you might say. She had fangs, I had my sikin: fighting was pointless. She claimed that my hoard of sakakin were originally hers. However, she couldn’t take them by force. Nor could I make her leave.”

  “How did she know they were here?”

  Godric shrugged.

  “They’re artefacts of power. They give off a powerful emanation which she claimed to sense from a distance. I’ve experienced such phenomena, so I’ve no reason to doubt her.”

  “Yet she let you keep them?”

  “She had no choice. It was rather as if she tried to demand a gun from me while I was pointing it at her.”

  Godric’s gaze fixed on Karl, cool and unwavering through his spectacle lenses. The look was unnerving. Not hostile, but knowing, yearning… infuriatingly enigmatic.

  “Do you know anything else about her?”

  “Almost nothing,” he said abruptly. “I’m not interested, to be frank. I asked her to leave, but she refused. In the end we reached a sort of truce: she would let me keep the sakakin if I let her stay. To be fair, she’s kept her word not to feed on anyone, and she gave me advice that made our rituals stronger.”

  “Advice?”

  “Yes, to call on the name of Zruvan, some long-forgotten deity. I was reluctant, but I can’t deny that it works.”

  “Why would Fadiya want to help you?”

  “H’m, that’s the question. She seems to approve of our using the sakakin to evoke power. When I asked about this Zruvan, she replied, ‘He’s more than a god. He is a force beyond your comprehension. Honour him, and he’ll open his secrets to you.’ I was sceptical. I’m not a religious man in the conventional sense, but… this ‘incomprehensible force’ speaks to my soul. It is beyond good and evil.”

  Godric nodded to himself.

  “What did she want in return?” Karl asked.

  “That I employ her, giving her a reason to stay in Lucerne.”

  “I’m sure she could have done that without help,” Karl said thoughtfully. “Unless she wasn’t here for her sacred knives, but for another reason. Looking for someone? Perhaps what she actually wanted was to meet Emil.”

  “I don’t care,” Godric said, irritated. Karl sensed a wall going up. “Her business is her own. We had a simple agreement: to help each other without asking questions. In any case, she’s gone. No longer relevant.”

  “That must be a relief,” said Karl. “Her presence must have been frustrating for a man who likes to control everything.”

  “You’re wrong about me,” Reiniger said brusquely. “I don’t gather followers by controlling them. They’re men who share my vision.” He waved at the blood prints. “I can’t create these glyphs without the participants’ consent. It takes courage to tolerate blades slicing into your skin. I need men of courage around me, not weaklings.”

  “Charlotte did not consent, when she was stabbed in the street.”

  “That was a mistake. The perpetrator was punished.”

  “Bruno?” No reply. “Stefan and Niklas most certainly did not consent.”

  “That was a warning,” Reiniger said acidly.

  “Incidentally, did you know that your father tried the ritual on me?”

  His words threw Godric. “My father’s been dead for thirty years.”

  “And it happened thirty years ago.” Karl turned to him. Godric, who was standing close behind, took a step back.

  “My father?”

  “And four of his friends. They had me on my back, in the dark, just as you had Niklas.”

  “Show me the scars!”

  “There are none. They fade, albeit more slowly than normal wounds. I don’t know what they gained from the experiment, but I do know that when I came round, I was underwater, weighed down in the bottom of a deep lake.”

  Reiniger looked stunned. “I know he invented the ritual, of course – I learned it from him, or rather from the papers he left. I refined it. But I had no idea that he’d tried it upon you.”

  “He did. He used the sakakin to overpower me, he dragged me back to his house, and afterwards tried to conceal what he thought was my corpse. And that is why I went back to his house and killed him.”

  Godric Reiniger’s jaw worked. A grey pallor added years to his face. “Revenge?”

  “No. I wasn’t even angry. However, I was extremely disturbed. I intended to stop whatever he was doing, to me or to anyone else. That’s all. I would have taken the bone-knives and his papers, too, if I’d had the chance, but you interrupted me.”

  “You fled from a ten-year-old?”

  “A child in the doorway, staring while his father’s life ended at my hands? Yes, I was horrified, and I left. And then I forgot those events entirely, because of the narcotic effect of the blades.”

  “But this means you and I are more deeply connected than I dreamed.” Godric’s breathing quickened. He moved restlessly down the steps, paced in front of the curtained screen. Waves of agitation, distress and excitement pulsed from him. “This means something – if I can put aside my father’s death, and you put aside your friend’s – if we can rise above weak human emotion – isn’t this what being the highest form of predator means? We’re like gods. Tell me, do you know what the sakakin are?”

  “Too dangerous for human hands,” Karl replied. “They should be destroyed.”

  “I thought you, of all people, would see the beauty of creating art from pain and blood! The sword, the gun, the mortar shell should also be destroyed – but never will be, because they’re too useful. I won’t give up a cache of weapons that protects us from vampires – particularly when there’s one standing in front of me. But when I become immortal, I won’t need them any more. I may still amuse myself with them, but I won’t need them.”

  Karl was on the lowest step, a few feet from the screen and as far as he could be from the doors. He saw no side exits. Against the black curtains, Godric’s aura shone like a halo of cold flame, a fierce white fire radiating from him. Karl felt its chill from a distance. As he walked carefully towards Godric the power grew, pushing against him like a snowstorm. He felt his own strength fading.

  The lights seemed to dim. His ears rang with the awful pressure he’d felt in the meeting chamber, as if an engine was rolling on its way to crush him.

  Godric knew, and yet didn’t know, just how unhuman he already was. And the change was happening fast. Even as Karl watched his aura grew wilder, writhing and flashing with energy. Godric appeared to gain height, his flesh turning pale and hard like marble.

  If only Godric Reiniger had been a crazed fantasist. Instead he was metamorphosing into a creature that didn’t know its own strength, but when he realised…

  Karl saw that there was nothing to do except to stop him. And the simplest answer was usually the best.

  Karl braced himself against the wintry power. He reached Godric and looked into his unblinking, triumphant eyes.

  “Your father’s death was not revenge,” said Karl. “This is revenge.”

  He seized Godric’s upper arms, held him rigid and sank his fangs into his neck. The blood was foul with the metallic taint of the knives, but Karl overcame his revulsion. If he couldn’t swallow the blood, he could still bite through the windpipe, through arteries and nerves—

  Reiniger seemed to crumble like chalk in his hands. Dissolved, vanish
ed.

  Karl heard a commotion at the top of the room as men burst in to defend their leader. He stood heedless of his own safety – empty-handed. Where his victim had stood there was a shimmer of frost and air. Nothing.

  Godric Reiniger had fled as only a vampire could: into the Crystal Ring.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  BLOOD-RED SUNSET

  Charlotte left Amy in the Ballet Lenoir’s auditorium. She seemed happy to stand in the wings, fascinated by the set-builders at work and the musicians rehearsing.

  They were preparing to stage Violette’s current ballets – Swan Lake on some nights, The Firebird paired with Witch and Maiden on others – oblivious to the fact that the whole project was in jeopardy. But there must be rumours, thought Charlotte. The ballet, like any organisation, teemed with gossip. Even the boy who swept the floors must have heard whispers that Violette and Emil were nowhere to be found.

  Presently Amy came to Charlotte’s side in the stalls and asked if she could fetch the Bolex cine-camera and do some filming.

  “Yes, that’s a wonderful idea,” said Charlotte, distracted. “I’m sure Violette won’t mind. It’s in our rooms, but I’m not sure where Karl left it and he’s not here. Come on, I’ll go with you.”

  The activity would help take Amy’s mind off her uncle. Charlotte couldn’t forget so easily. With every breath, she saw renewed images of Niklas lying dead, Stefan shaking in wordless grief, Karl drawing the blade down his own arm.

  She led Amy from the theatre into the academy next door, wondering if Karl and Violette were safe and if she should try to find them.

  Which of them is in greater danger? And would my presence actually help, or make things worse?

  Upstairs, at the far end of a corridor, she saw the door to their suite of rooms standing open. Karl was just inside the entrance. Charlotte saw him as if from a great distance, the passageway distorted like a scene from a horror film, the angles of the walls all wrong.

  Her brief flash of relief at seeing him evaporated.

  Karl was leaning back against the open door, and in his arms was another woman. She had creamy-pale clothes like gossamer, and was pressing the length of her body into him. Her lips touched his, and his arms clasped her back with affection…

  Behind her, Amy gave a muted gasp.

  Charlotte’s head swam. She couldn’t see properly. The woman moved away from Karl and walked deeper into the apartment, giving his arm an affectionate touch as she went. Just as Charlotte herself might.

  “Stay here a moment,” she said to Amy, who obediently remained in the corridor, wide-eyed.

  When Charlotte reached him, he was standing in the doorway alone.

  They stared at each other.

  Karl was so practised at appearing calm in most situations that she rarely saw him surprised by anything. Now he looked astonished. Thirty seconds passed like an hour, then he broke the silence.

  “How did you do that?”

  “What?” she said, confused. “I didn’t think you’d be home yet. Amy wants to film, so we came for the camera… and I find you being terribly friendly with someone else. Who is she?”

  “Charlotte,” Karl said helplessly, “she was you.”

  “How?” A mass of questions rose inside her, then all her emotions went as still as winter. “I’m here now. I was not here a few moments ago.”

  “But you were. I was embracing you, not someone else. I thought you’d slipped into Raqia and gone in a circle, for some inexplicable reason…”

  “I assure you, I didn’t. What did ‘I’ say?”

  Karl’s gaze drifted over her shoulder. His expression went dark. “I don’t remember. Just endearments.”

  “So I didn’t mention Amy, or anything else? I didn’t ask if you found Stefan with Herr Reiniger, or ask if you were hurt?”

  He shook his head. “I’m not sure you said anything at all, in fact.”

  “Don’t you think it odd that I wouldn’t mention any of our concerns?”

  “Strange in the extreme,” he said quietly. He looked towards the bedroom. “There was quite a scene at Reiniger’s house. I persuaded Stefan to leave. When I left, a short time later, I caught up with Stefan and brought him here… And I have just watched you walk into that room after him.”

  “I saw her too. But that was not me. God, Karl…” Her voice went faint. “I tried to drive the lamia away, but I knew she hadn’t really gone.”

  Karl and Charlotte hurried into the bedroom, a spacious room with a big double bed. Her breath stopped as she took in an appalling sight: Niklas’s body was on one side of the bed, a white sheet covering him to his chin. Stefan lay beside him, eyes closed, holding Niklas’s hand. He, too, looked dead – except for the occasional shallow breath or faint moan.

  Of the “other” Charlotte, there was no sign.

  “We both saw her come in here,” said Karl.

  “Perhaps she went into Raqia.” A horrible feeling cascaded through Charlotte, like melting ice. “That knife wound really did split me in two. She isn’t me, she’s a living ghost, like part of my soul, and she has no mind, any more than Niklas did… yet you mistook her for the real me?”

  “She felt solid,” Karl murmured. “I couldn’t tell you apart… except…”

  “Except that she said nothing rational to you? Wasn’t that a telling sign? If it wasn’t, I’m insulted.”

  Stefan sat up, making her start. “What are you two muttering about? No one came in here.”

  * * *

  Godric came back to the real world and to his human form in a meadow, high above Bergwerkstatt. Rather, he crash-landed: flew through a mad world of cloud and flame and ice-crystals, knowing with the irrational, sure knowledge of a dream that he’d become something more than human… then he plunged down, skidding along the grass like a grounded kite. Tall pine trees rustled around him. Clouds fleeted across the bright blue sky. Everything seemed too fast, too vivid.

  He pulled himself into a sitting position and stayed there, gripping his knees, until his shock faded. Then the clarity of his thoughts astonished him. Obvious, obvious what had happened.

  “I do not need Karl to transform me,” he said to the sky. “It’s happened. I’ve transformed myself.”

  He sat there for at least an hour. The only sounds were of a stream gushing downhill and the distant music of cowbells. Presently he saw a figure toiling up the green hillside towards him. Wolfgang Notz.

  Only when he saw Wolfgang did he remember Karl’s threat to his niece.

  “Godric, Christ, there you are!” Wolfgang pushed a hand over his shorn hair and caught his breath. “We’ve been looking everywhere – we thought—”

  “That the strigoi had killed me?”

  “Well… yes! You both vanished from the screening room…”

  “He tried,” Godric said off-handedly. “But he can’t. I have become impervious to death.”

  Wolfgang stared as if he’d gone mad. “You’ve… what?”

  “Is anyone looking for Amy?”

  “Yes, of course, but… It’s no good panicking, because she’ll be no use as a hostage if they harm her, and they must know that.”

  “When do I ever panic?” Godric rose smoothly to his feet. His spectacles were askew. He straightened them, wondering if his metamorphosis would include perfect eyesight. “Where did Karl go?”

  “Don’t know. As I said, vanished. We were more concerned about you, sir. What happened? You’re covered in blood and grass stains.”

  “Don’t look at me like that, Wolf.” He raised a hand palm upwards, fingers curled as if gripping a ball. “You still feel this intense power from the sacrifice of Bruno, the ritual with the vampire twins, from every single Eidgenossen gathering we’ve ever held?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you know it’s real. I haven’t lost my mind. Wolf, I went into another world – how else do you think I got here? I’m changing. We all are, and I’m taking you with me, but only one of us can be
come the ultimate leader. It’s happening to me, Wolfgang. It’s wonderful.”

  His deputy took a step back, his expression turning hard and wary. Not the expression of awe that Godric expected to see. “And how many more of us are you going to sacrifice to complete this process?”

  “As many as necessary. Are you wavering?”

  “No, but what we did to Bruno…”

  “The men loved it,” Godric said with a smile. “You felt their excitement, their blood-lust. You loved it.”

  “I’m not especially proud of that.”

  “Embrace it, Wolf, unless you want to be the next sacrifice. It’s simple psychology. Fear keeps the men loyal. And as long as they stay loyal, their reward is to be part of the inner circle with a share of this astonishing power. It’s an easy choice, isn’t it?”

  Wolfgang paused a little too long. That hard gleam of doubt was still in his eyes. “Not that easy. I believe in a strong nation. I believe in you – but I did not sign up to murdering our own comrades, nor to our becoming vampires. What, you want us to turn into the very monsters you despise?”

  Godric thrust out his hand, seized Wolfgang by the shirt collar and twisted, almost lifting him off the ground. His strength shocked them both. Wolfgang’s freckly face went crimson.

  “How dare you question me? I can destroy you at a stroke, Wolf. You know that. Are you with me or against me?”

  “With you,” Wolf gasped, choking.

  “I can’t hear you. State yourself clearly. Are you still loyal?”

  “Yes, I’m loyal. I’m with you, sir.”

  Godric dropped him and Wolfgang stumbled on to his knees, spit flying from his mouth as he coughed and cursed. When he straightened up, the two men stood glaring at each other – Reiniger ice cool, Wolfgang red-faced and gasping.

  “We are not turning into vampires,” Godric stated. “We shan’t do anything as crude as drinking blood – unless we want to. No, we’re becoming strong in a nobler way. That’s my father’s legacy to us, through the sakakin…”

  “All the same, I thought we’d win people through a sound mixture of reason and appealing to Swiss German hearts through your films. This business with the blood rituals has never felt clean, or honest, or right.”