by Jack Yeovil
The last moons of the year, just past full, shone in through the glassed window at the end of the corridor. The pale light was cool and soothing to her skin, but the thirst burned in her throat and stomach.
Soon, she would be forced to Balthus. The puppet could hardly resist, and everyone already assumed she was bleeding him in his bed. But, for the moment, she could afford to be more fastidious.
The forest guide had taken to laying garlic flowers on his shrine to Taal, to protect him from her. And he had a silver knife under his mattress. She had picked it up with a cloth around her hand, and dropped it into the commode. She didn't want Balthus panicking and hurting her.
She made her way back down to the dining hall. The embers were still glowing in the ashes of the fire, and the servants were clearing up by candlelight, bearing away the crockery to the kitchens, arguing over the leftovers of the venison and fruit.
They all froze as she stepped into the hall, but, recognizing her, shrugged and got back to work. They knew what she was, but also that she was only barely their superior in the von Unheimlich household. Compared to the caprices of Graf Rudiger, she was no threat.
There was a servant girl in her early twenties, dark where the others were corn-blonde, sultry where they were lumpy. At dinner, Genevieve had sensed this girl's interest. Her name was Anulka, and she was from the other end of the Empire, the World's Edge Mountains. In that region, there were Truly Dead vampire lords and ladies, and the peasants competed to please their masters. Anulka had lingered by Genevieve, bringing her wine and food which went untouched, and bestowing smiles and glances.
The girl would do.
Anulka was by the fire, waiting. Genevieve beckoned her, and she curtseyed, crossing the room with a certain smugness of expression, calculated to irk the other maidservants. They turned their backs, and shook their blonde plaits, muttering prayers to Myrmidia under their breaths.
The dark girl took Genevieve by the hand, and led her out of the dining hall into a dressing room. It was sparsely furnished, but there was a cot, with pillows rather than straw.
Anulka sat on the cot, and, smiling, loosened the drawstring of her shirt, lowering her collar away from her swan-white neck. Genevieve's eyeteeth grew longer, sharper, and her mouth gaped open. There was red desire behind her eyes. She felt her fingernails extend like claws, and brushed her hair away from her face.
She must have blood. Now.
'No, child,' someone said, a hand upon her shoulder. 'Don't cheapen yourself.'
She wheeled around, razor-tipped fingers up to strike, and saw the interloper was Count Magnus. Just in time, she held herself back. It would not do to harm this nobleman, the friend and mentor of Graf Rudiger.
'The slut's looking for a protector, for gold, for a way out of this place.'
Anulka's blouse was in her lap now, and her flesh was pale and cold in the moonlight. There was a trickle of blue juice seeping from her mouth, spotting her breasts.
'She's a weirdroot chewer, Genevieve,' Magnus said. 'You'd be poisoning yourself.'
Anulka smiled as if Magnus weren't there, teeth stained, and caressed herself, inviting Genevieve's sharp mouth to fasten upon her body.
If she hadn't been so consumed with the red thirst, she might have noticed Anulka's addiction. She was far gone into it, weirddreams floating in her eyeballs. The servant lay back on the cot, and convulsed as if Genevieve had bitten her. She moaned, welcoming a long-gone, or half-imagined lover.
Magnus found a blanket and, not unkindly, put it over Anulka's slow-writhing body.
'She'll sleep it through,' he said. 'I know the addiction.'
Genevieve looked at him, asking without words
'No,' he said, 'not me, my father. His brother was one of the five who didn't come back when Friedrich won his ivory. He thought it should have been him, and tried to bury the guilt with dreams.'
She was weak now, and enervated. She was shaking, her gums split and her stomach empty. She had been close to drinking, but not close enough
'Dreams,' Magnus said, wistfully.
There was nothing for it. She must find Balthus and take him. He would fight, but she could find a burst of strength to overcome his struggle. Her teeth would meet in his neck.
She turned, and her knees gave way. Magnus, surprisingly fast for someone his age, caught her.
'It's been too long, hasn't it?' he asked. She didn't have to answer.
Magnus laid her down on the flagstones, which were ice-cold through her dress, and propped her up against the wall.
The red thirst was an agony.
The Count was undoing the seven tiny buttons at the end of his jacket sleeve. He rolled the cloth back, and loosened the cuff of his shirt.
'It'll be thin,' he said, 'but we're a fine-blooded family. We can trace our line back to Sigmar himself. Illegitimately, of course. But the blood of the hero is in me.'
He presented his wrist to her, and she saw the blue vein pulsing slightly. His heart was still strong.
'Are you sure?' Genevieve asked.
Magnus was impatient. 'Child, you need it. Now, drink.'
She licked her lips.
'Child'
'I'm six hundred years older than you, count,' she said.
Gently, she took his wrist in her hands, and bent her head to the vein. She licked a patch of skin with her tongue, tasting the copper-and-salt of his sweat, then delicately scratched the skin, sucking up the blood that welled into her mouth.
Anulka moaned in her weirddream, and Genevieve suckled, feeling the warmth and calm seeping throughout her body.
When it was over, her red thirst receded and she was herself again.
'Thank you,' she said, standing up. 'I am in your debt.'
The count still sat, his bare arm extended, blood filling his tiny wounds. He was looking distractedly at the window, at the larger moon. A cloud drifted across the moons.
'Count Magnus?'
Slowly, he turned his head to look up at her. She realized how weak he must be after her meal. Invincible or not, he was an old man.
'I'm sorry,' she said, gratitude gushing. She helped him upright, hugging his great barrel chest as she got him standing. He was heavy-set, big-boned, but she handled him as if he were a frail child. She had taken some×too much?×of his strength.
'Child, take me to the balcony. I want to show you the forests by night. I know you can see better in the dark. It will be my gift to you.'
'You've done enough.'
'No. Rudiger wronged you today. What Rudiger does, I must make amends for. It's part of our bond.'
Genevieve didn't understand, but she knew she must go along with the count.
They passed through the dining hall, which was cleared of servants, and towards the balcony doors. The cloud passed the moons, and light poured in, striking the portrait given pride of place among the von Unheimlich trophies.
Magnus paused, and looked up at the picture of the young woman in the woods. Genevieve felt a shiver of motion run through his body, and he said a name under his breath.
Serafina.
The doors were open, and a night breeze was blowing in, scented by the trees. Genevieve could taste the forests.
The doors should have been fastened.
Genevieve's night senses tingled, and she intuited something. Not a danger, but an excitement. An opportunity.
Count Magnus didn't even know she was there. He was years ago in his memories.
Silently, she manoeuvred him onto the balcony, keeping in the heavy shadow of a pillar.
The balcony ran the length of the lodge, and afforded a view of the slopes beneath. The lodge was built against a sharp incline, and could only be approached from the side paths. The pillars held the lodge up, and the balcony between them was level with the tops of the nearest trees. Beneath, the stream ran.
There was a man at the other end of the balcony, bent over the balustrade, looking downwards, a bottle clasped in one hand.
I
t was the Graf Rudiger.
For Genevieve, it would be a simple matter. She had to put Count Magnus down, trusting him to fall asleep. Then, she simply had to pick up Rudiger and throw him, head-first, off the balcony. His skull would be crushed, and it would seem like a drunken, regrettable accident.
And Mornan Tybalt would be unopposed in the councils of the Emperor.
But she hesitated.
Replete, she felt benevolent, grateful. Count Magnus was the graf's friend, and her goodwill towards him spilled over onto the von Unheimlich family. She could not, with honour, carry out Tybalt's mission while Magnus' blood was still in her.
Magnus lurched away from her, standing shakily on his own. She was afraid for a moment he would tumble over the balustrade. It was fifty or sixty feet to the jagged rocks of the streambed.
But Magnus was firm on his feet.
Rudiger didn't notice them. He was deep in his own brooding. He took a pull from his bottle, and Genevieve saw he was shaking. She wondered if the graf were human enough to be terrified by the goal he had set himself. He was more likely to come home on a bier with a hole in his chest than in triumph with his ivory in his fist.
And that, too, would let Genevieve off Tybalt's hooks.
Rudiger was looking at something below, out in the woods.
Genevieve heard a woman's laughter. And a man's, deeper and out of breath.
Magnus was almost level with the graf now. Genevieve followed him, worry rising.
Out in the woods, white bodies shone in the moonlight.
Magnus embraced the graf, and Rudiger struggled in his friend's grip, teeth gritted.
Graf Rudiger von Unheimlich was shaking with rage, angry tears on his face, his eyes red-rimmed and furious. With a roar, he crushed his empty bottle in his hand, and the glass shards rained down from the balcony.
Genevieve looked over the balcony.
Down by the stream, Otho Waernicke, a fat naked pig-shape, was covering a woman, snorting and grunting, his belly-rolls and flab-bag buttocks shaking.
Rudiger shouted wordlessly.
The woman, eyes widening in horror, noticed the audience, but Otho was too carried away to be aware of, or care about, anything but his lusts. He rutted with vigour.
Genevieve saw fear in the face of Otho's partner, and she pushed at the bulky youth, trying to get free of him. He was too heavy, too firmly attached.
'Rudiger,' Magnus said. 'Don't'
The graf pushed his friend aside, and made a fist of his bleeding hand, cold sober fury radiating from him.
The woman was Sylvana de Castries.
* * *
VI
Doremus was in the woods, hunting with his father.
'The second most dangerous quarry,' Graf Rudiger had said. 'Man's mare'
They were running fast, faster than horses, faster than wolves, darting and weaving between the tall trees.
Their quarry was forever just out of sight.
Magnus was by Doremus' side, his scar fresh, face bloody.
Balthus was with them, doglike, snapping at their heels, licking his nose and forehead with a long tongue. And his vampire glided above them on butterfly-bat wings stretched between wrists and ankles, lips pulled back from teeth that took up half her face. Rudiger kept on, dragging them all with him.
They moved so fast they seemed to be standing still, the trees rushing at them with ferocity, the ground ripping out from under their feet.
Doremus had a stitch as sharp as a daggerthrust.
They were closing on the quarry.
They burst from the trees into a clearing, and caught sight of the prey.
Rudiger cast a stone from his slingshot. He caught the quarry low on her legs, and she fell, a jumble of limbs, crashing down against a fallen tree, bones snapping loud inside it.
Moonlight flooded down onto the fallen prey.
Rudiger howled his triumph, steam rising from his open mouth, and Doremus saw the face of the fallen.
He recognized his mother
and was awake, shaking and covered in sweat.
'Boy,' Rudiger said. 'Tonight we hunt.'
His father was standing in the doorway of his bedchamber, bending his bow to meet the loop of its string, neck straining taut under his beard.
There was a servant ready with Doremus' hunting clothes. He stepped out of bed, bare feet stung by the cold stone floor.
The shock of the chill wasn't enough to convince him he wasn't still dreaming.
Count Magnus was with his father, and Balthus and Genevieve.
Doremus didn't understand.
'The second most dangerous quarry.'
He pulled on his clothes, and struggled into his boots. Gradually, he came awake. Outside, it was still darkest night.
Unicorns were hunted by day. This was something different.
'We hunt for our honour, Doremus. The name of von Unheimlich. Our legacy.'
Dressed, Doremus was pulled down the corridor towards the entrance of the lodge.
The night air was another shock, cold and tree-scented. Magnus had lanterns lit and was tending them. Balthus had the two dogs, Karl and Franz, and was whipping them to a frenzy.
There was a dusting of snow on the ground now, and flakes were still drifting down lazily. Cold, wet spots melted on his face.
'This harlot has dishonoured our house,' Rudiger said. 'Our honour must be restored.'
Sylvana was shivering, standing between two servants who were careful not to touch her, as if she carried the plague. She was dressed in a strange combination of man's and woman's clothes, some expensive, some cheap. A silk blouse was tucked into leather trousers, and a pair of Rudiger's old hunting boots were on her feet. She wore a cowhide waistcoat. Her hair was a tangle over her face.
'And this fool has insulted our hospitality and shown himself unworthy for his position.'
The fool was Otho Waernicke, dressed similarly to Sylvana, and laughing with an attempted insouciance.
'This is a joke, isn't it? Dorrie, explain to your father'
Coldly, Sylvana slapped the lodge master of the League of Karl-Franz.
'Idiot,' she said. 'Don't sink further, don't give him the satisfaction'
Otho laughed again, chins quaking, and Doremus saw he was crying.
'No, I mean, well, it's just'
Rudiger stared at Otho, impassive and hard.
'But I'm the lodge master,' he said. 'Hail to Karl-Franz, hail to the House of the Second Wilhelm.'
He saluted, his hand shaking.
Rudiger lashed him across the face with a pair of leather gloves.
'Poltroon,' he said. 'If you dare to mention the Emperor again, I shall have you killed here and let the dogs eat your liver. Do you understand?'
Otho nodded vigorously, but kept quiet. Then, he clutched his stomach and his face went greasily grey-green.
He burped, and a dribble of vomit came out of his mouth.
Everyone, including Sylvana, stood back.
Otho fell onto his hands and knees, and his whole body shook like a stuck pig's. He opened his mouth wide and, in a cascade, regurgitated every scrap of the food he had consumed earlier. It was a prodigious puke, worthy of legend. He choked and gagged and spewed until there was nothing but clean liquid to bring up.
'Seven times,' Count Magnus said. 'A record, I suspect.'
Otho heaved painfully, and made it eight.
'Get up, pig,' Rudiger said.
Otho snapped to it, and stood up.
'The wolf has its fangs, the bear its claws, the unicorn its horn,' Rudiger said. 'You too have your weapons. You have your wits.'
Otho looked at Sylvana. The woman was calm, defiant. Without her face paint, she looked older, stronger.
'And you have these.'
Rudiger produced two sharp knives, and handed them to Sylvana and Otho. Sylvana got the balance of hers, and kissed its blade, eyes cold.
Otho didn't know quite how to hold his.
'You must
know,' Rudiger told Sylvana, 'that when I hunt you, I love you. It is pure, with no vindictiveness. The wrong you have done me is set aside, washed away. You are the quarry, I the hunter. This is the closest we could ever be, closer by far than we were as man and mistress. It is important you understand this.'
Sylvana nodded, and Doremus knew that she was as mad as his father. This game would be played out to the death.
'Father,' he said, 'we can't'
Rudiger looked at him, anger and disappointment in his eyes. 'You have your mother's heart, boy,' he said. 'Be a man, be a hunter.'
Doremus remembered his dream, and shuddered. He was still seeing things differently. The unicorn blood was in him.
'If you see dawn,' his father told Sylvana and Tybalt, 'you go free.'
Rudiger took a waxed straw from a servant, and touched it to the flame of one of Magnus' lanterns. It caught, and began to burn slowly.
'You have until the taper is gone. Then we follow.'
Sylvana nodded again, and stepped into the darkness, silently vanishing.
'Graf Rudiger' Otho choked, wiping his mouth.
'Not much time, hog.'
Otho stared at the burning end of the straw.
'Get you gone, Waernicke,' Count Magnus said.
Making his mind up, the lodge master pulled himself together and jogged away, fat jouncing under his clothes.
'The snow is slowing down,' Magnus said, 'and melting on the ground. A pity. That would have helped you.'
'I don't need snow to follow tracks.'
The taper was nearly half-burned. Rudiger took the dogs from Balthus, gathering their leads in one hand.
'You and your bloodsucking bitch stay here,' he ordered his guide. 'I'll only take Magnus and my son. We should be enough.'
Balthus looked relieved, although Genevieve×who was more alive somehow tonight×was irked to be left behind. For some reason, the vampire had wanted to be in on the hunt. Of course, she must be used to the second most dangerous quarry.
The straw was a spark between Rudiger's thumb and finger. He flicked it away.
'Come on,' he said, 'there's hunting to be had.'
* * *