Warhammer - [Genevieve 03] - Beasts in Velvet

by Jack Yeovil (epub)

  'Green velvet,' he cried, looking around the room.

  A woman caught his eye, trying to get through a door sideways to avoid getting her dress trapped.

  Jewels sparkled on her bosom.

  Daggers drawn, he went for her

  * * * * *

  Dien Ch'ing sat quietly and let whatever would come come.

  Someone tried to put a knife into his eye, but he swept it away with a simple movement.

  After that, he was left alone.

  This was much more amusing than the clumsy, grotesque-bodied dancer had been.

  Rosanna found Johann and helped him struggle to throw off the thick red curtain.

  They didn't have to talk about Wolf. A touch was enough for the exchange of views.

  If Wolf was the killer, Johann wanted him caught. Not killed, but caught.

  Fine. He could argue with Captain Kleindeinst later.

  When they were free, the inn was a hell of tangled bodies. Everyone was shouting at the top of their voice.

  She sensed a very powerful, very evil presence. Another one.

  Emmanuelle lifted her skirts and ran. The horrible man was chasing her, daggers slicing through the air.

  She was in a dead end. Backing down a dark passage, she had come up against a wall.

  She prayed to all the gods. She asked for forgiveness. Mama, Papa, forgive me! Leos, forgive me!

  The horrible man×Yefimovich the fire-breather×was coming slowly now that she was trapped, enjoying himself, making passes in the air.

  'Snick-snack,' he said.

  As he came into the darkness, she saw that his features weren't quite natural. Something was shining under the skin, making his face look like a luminous mask.

  There was something with him, something small and horrid that scuttled along the ceiling.

  She screamed.

  Yefimovich laughed.

  Leos had his sword out and was holding off the mob.

  'Look out,' someone said, 'he's dangerous.'

  The fool woman was clinging to his shoulder, using him to shield her naked body. She might get in the way if it were to come to a slash-up fight.

  He prodded the air in front of several revolutionists.

  Their enthusiasm for the overthrow of the aristocracy was pricked and they backed away.

  Cowards! He should have expected no more from peasant rabble.

  Harald sliced through the curtain with his blade and stood up, shaking the heavy folds off his shoulders.

  There were a lot of dangerous people in the room. But Wolf wasn't one of them.

  'Yelle,' Hasselstein shouted, charging down the corridor.

  The fire-breather was standing over his mistress, cackling.

  The Lector was not a man of action. He was a strategist, a tactician, a politician. Within the Cult of Sigmar, he had chosen the Order of the Anvil over the Knights of the Fiery Heart, studying the Law rather than the Arts of Combat.

  But he picked up a chair and ran down the corridor, shouting.

  The chair smashed into Yefimovich and came to pieces. He found himself holding a leg and bludgeoned the agitator's head with it.

  Yelle was screaming at the top of her lungs.

  Her hands reached out and grabbed at Yefimovich's face

  and it came off.

  It was like a burst of light in the passage.

  Emmanuelle shut her eyes, but the fiery face still burned in her mind.

  XIII

  Elsaesser had been forced into a backroom. He looked around for something useful as a weapon and found a kegspike.

  'Look,' said a hard voice, 'it's an inky!'

  Two Leaguers were in the room, armed with heavy clubs.

  'Let's spill his swotty brains!'

  He recognized them.

  They had applauded at Brustellin's expulsion, and stolen the library's copies of the professor's books to use as privy paper.

  'Stay back,' he said, waving his spike.

  'What have you got which could make us, quill-head?'

  Elsaesser reached into his jacket.

  'This,' he said, producing his copper badge.

  'Now,' he said, 'up against the wall and spread your legs, ape-men!'

  Yefimovich's face was gone.

  The cleric of Sigmar was a trembling wreck. And the countess-elector a screaming harpy.

  Respighi opened the hidden door, releasing the catch at the top. The High Priest of Tzeentch stepped into another room.

  Number Two was a wash-out, Milizia decided, and gave him the shove. She could tell he wasn't interested in girls much.

  Her first mission now was to get out of this mess.

  No, make that second. First, she needed some clothes.

  Gallantly, the Norseman threw his fur waistcoat at her. Belted around her waist, it was like a dress.

  Now, escape.

  She made a run for the door.

  They had Hals von Tasseninck down on the floor and were kicking the teeth out of his head.

  The Grand Prince's idiot son was trying to force a window and shrieking whenever anyone tried to touch him.

  Harald waded into the brawl and pulled two people away from the elector's boot party. He knocked their heads together and dropped them on the floor. The rest of the kickers backed away.

  Harald picked the Grand Prince up and looked into his battered and bloody face.

  'Good evening, elector,' he said. 'Remember me?'

  Milizia was in the dark. She was outside the inn, in an alley. The cobbles were like ice chunks under her bare feet. At least she was safe now.

  The Beast was savage, but it could be calm when it had to be.

  Its chosen prey scented, it stalked her, ignoring the other blood scents whirling around in the air like fog.

  Its claw was out.

  The fighting was dying down now, dwindling to mere confusion. Johann had been shielding the Prince with his body, but the young man had slipped away somewhere. He prayed to Sigmar that Luitpold was sensible enough to stay away from knives and fires.

  'Yefimovich's an altered,' someone had said.

  'It's true, I saw him. His head is a living flame.'

  'What?'

  The revolutionists were getting rapidly disillusioned with their leader. No one was sure what was going on.

  Suddenly, Johann was surrounded by strangers. Harald was there, with the von Tassenincks. And so was Rosanna, over with the Norseman, the Kislevite and the blue-faced, parrot-nosed Marquess Sidonie. Mornan Tybalt was sobbing and rubbing injured hands; someone had clipped one of his thumbs for him, reducing his taxable digits by one half.

  But everyone else in the de la Rougierre party had spilled out into the dark.

  Milizia was almost out of the alley when she bumped into him. 'You,' she said, 'out of my way.'

  The shape stood firm and then stepped forwards. She backed away. Its eyes were shining. She felt a scream beginning

  The claw stuck into Rosanna's mind, 'Johann,' she shouted, 'it's happening now!'

  The Beast's claw stuck into the girl's stomach and her eyes clouded.

  There was no time for a proper job.

  Harald and the baron collided in the door Rosanna was pointing at. He swore and helped the elector up. Rosanna was with them. 'Which way?' he asked her. 'The alley. The way we came.'

  The passage was full of bodies. They had to struggle. Harald realized that Rosanna was screaming. 'It's killing me!'

  It was killing her!

  Johann thumped someone out of the way, but it was useless. The failed revolutionists were streaming against them, pushing them backwards.

  Tears were pouring from Rosanna's eyes. Her screams scratched at his mind.

  It was if he could feel it too.

  Elsaesser had knocked the Leaguers out with a tap apiece from his spike and was feeling quite chipper. That was a blow for the inkies, if not for the revolution.

  There was an empty barrel in the room, standing up like a tub, its round lid rest
ing against the wall.

  There was a small, square door, bolted, at the rear of the room by some casks. He guessed it was for rolling in barrels.

  Outside, a sharp scream rose and was then cut off.

  He cursed himself for standing about feeling pleased.

  The bolts were rusted, but he knocked them free with his spike and put his shoulder to the door.

  It fell out of the wall and he stumbled into the alley, knocking his head on the opposite wall.

  There was blood in the water again. He remembered this place. Number seven, Margarethe Ruttmann.

  He saw the two figures at the mouth of the alley.

  And now, number nine.

  The corpse slapped the cobbles, falling like a loose-jointed dummy.

  Elsaesser got a good grip on the spike and stepped forwards.

  Impossibly quick, the Beast was coming for him.

  He raised the spike, but the killer had his wrist in a shackle-like grip.

  The Beast pushed him and they both fell back through the barrel door.

  Elsaesser felt something sharp slice across his stomach and then his neck. He heard rather than felt his throat opening.

  He had failed. He had failed everyone.

  The Beast picked him up and swung him around. He felt his shins strike wood and then he was dropped.

  The Beast had shoved him into the barrel.

  He was pushed down. His front was soaked with blood and he couldn't cry out. He just made a 'gack gack' noise as he gasped for breath.

  The lid came down on the barrel and he heard the blows of the cooper's hammer.

  He was forced down into a squatting position, his knees up against his chest. Blood was pooling around him.

  He was seeing colours in the dark.

  Mrs. Bierbichler had been right. He could die.

  But he would die having seen the face of the Beast.

  PART FIVE

  BESTIALITY

  I

  The Commission of Inquiry decided officially that the Great Fog Riots petered out sometime soon after sunrise. Actually, the incidents continued for several days, as stragglers from various factions set about each other with leftover weapons, and the Hooks carried out a series of opportunist robberies. The fires in the East End were finally brought under control in the late afternoon, and a lot of people returned home to find their homes weren't there any more. The Commission more or less decided that this was their own fault for getting mixed up with a riot and, upon the advice of the one-thumbed minister Mornan Tybalt, opted not to crack open the treasury to provide the newly-homeless with funds for food, shelter and refuge. Whereupon there were a few more riots and the Imperial Militia, by now a great deal better experienced, moved in and restored order with a modicum of unnecessary brutality. By the end of the week, the city's population of beggars had increased by one-third and there were nightly scuffles outside the Temples of Shallya as indigents fought over the limited number of cots made available by the Clerics of Mercy.

  The riots ended mainly through confusion of purpose. Rumour and counter-rumour spread through Altdorf with a supernatural rapidity. However, it was almost immediately general knowledge that Yevgeny Yefimovich was an altered and a devotee of the Ruinous Powers, and that he was also the murderer of Ulrike Blumenschein, the Angel of the Revolution. This was a heavy blow to the radical movement and Prince Kloszowski dashed off several poems excoriating the fiend in human shape who had perverted a just cause and a good woman to his own diabolical purposes. There were a few die-hard Yefimovites, but they tended to get more involved in violent feuds with the Kloszowskists than with the authorities. Professor Brustellin's body was found in the street and buried outside the city walls, a permanent shrine erected above his remains as a reminder of his great works. The watch mainly left the radicals to their own quarrels and concentrated on sorting out the debris.

  It was clear that Yefimovich had killed Ulrike in an attempt to stir up the people against the Imperial court, and the Commission ruled that it was therefore proven beyond all manner of doubt that the revolutionist monster was also the murderer known as the Beast. Popular resentment against the aristocracy dwindled to its usual level of mild seething and it was safe again to walk the streets of the docklands in a green velvet cloak.

  The fog began to thin, but only slightly.

  Cleric-Captain Adrian Hoven finally managed to get into a room with the relevant commanders of the city watch and the Imperial Militia, and various disputes of jurisdiction were settled to everyone's satisfaction. A joint action was mounted and any remaining disorder was speedily quelled. The last disorder was ended when a discreet bribe was passed into the hands of Willy Pick, and the Hooks ceased their campaign of outright looting and vandalism.

  The Commission would abandon its attempt to list all the casualties of the Great Fog Riots and no two estimates of the damage would ever tally. The Emperor Karl-Franz was reported to be 'most upset' by the whole affair and called for all the citizens of Altdorf 'to display that old Imperial spirit and rally through just as Sigmar would have wanted us to.' Grand Prince Hergard von Tasseninck lobbied for the flogging of all people suspected to have been involved in the rioting, but this suggestion was rejected on the grounds that it was 'too impractical.' In the end, Rickard Stieglitz was caught, then tried for and convicted of insurrection, and given a public ear-clipping before being imprisoned in Mundsen Keep. Nineteen other individuals were jailed for various crimes, ranging from arson to seditious libel, committed during the riots. Prince Kloszowski left the city before the watch could take him and continued to write. His epic, The Blood of Innocents, would become an underground classic, especially after it was banned in every city and state of the Empire.

  A list was posted in the Konigsplatz of all the watchmen, Templars and militiamen killed or injured. Buried in the roll of honour was the name of Helmut Elsaesser.

  The Beast, of course, was still at large.

  * * * * *

  II

  The Beast had come for her. It seemed to be made of solidified fog, draped in an enveloping cloak of green velvet, complete with a hood. Evil eyes stared out of the blackness where the face should have been. She could feel its rage, its hate, its violence. It moved not like a human being, not like an animal. It had a queer grace, a delicacy of gesture, and yet it radiated strength, menace, hostility. In its clouded mind, the lust for killing burned as fiercely as the weirdroot addict's need for his dream-drug. Fixed to the spot, she could not run. The fog was as thick as cotton and she could not fight through it. She was a little girl again, far from Altdorf, somewhere in the forested mountains. Behind the Beast, she sensed her parents, making no move to save their daughter. They were thinking that it would be best if the witch cuckoo were dead. Then, they could stop blaming each other for the freak. They could be part of the village again. Father could return to the tavern and hoist tankards with his friends, mother could supervise her other daughters×her real daughters×and turn them into good little dressmakers. They urged the Beast on. Rosanna was sweating, already feeling the pain the Beast would visit upon her. Her sisters were there too, with their pinching fingers and slapping hands, like the Beast's attendants. The fog stung her eyes like woodsmoke. They were in the alleyway now, between the two inns, and the murderer's hand was around her throat, its knife slicing upwards.

  Rosanna woke up, her heart kicking like a baby in her chest.

  There was no Beast, except in the memories she had sampled. The memories of the killer's victims.

  She had been dreaming it over again, scrambled up with her own dreams.

  She was crouched against a wall in the Matthias II, with a cloak×green velvet, of course×flung over her. She could not remember going to sleep.

  Baron Johann von Mecklenberg was pouring out cups of tea. Harald Kleindeinst was sitting down, carving bread with a knife less impressive than the one slung on his hip.

  It would have been a cosy breakfast scene were it not for all the men-at-
arms milling about and the annoyed dignitaries huddled together.

  The baron had thought it wisest that everyone stay in the inn for the night, under guard. Obviously, he was as much interested in penning up potential suspects as in keeping de la Rougierre's guests safe from the rioters.

  Of course, Wolf was gone. And so was Yefimovich.

  The Countess Emmanuelle, still in last night's ball gown, was posed like a statue, attended by her brother and the Lector. She was looking irritated, as much because the Beast was drawing attention away from her as for the inconvenience and indignity of spending a night away from her luxurious accommodation at the palace.

  Some time last night, Mikael Hasselstein had given Rosanna a gold crown and told her to stay close by. The gesture annoyed her and she was reconsidering her future at the Temple. It was becoming obvious that there might be conflicts of interest between the causes of Justice and the cult of Sigmar. And the cause of the cult was especially vague just now, overlapping unnervingly with that of the Lector. The whores whose minds Rosanna had shared all charged a lot less than a gold crown for their services, but their clients had not pretended to be buying anything other than the temporary use of their bodies. Hasselstein seemed to think he could own her outright.

  The Bretonnian dwarf was up and shouting, abusing various servants and militiamen for their clumsiness. The Celestial simply sipped tea and smiled.

  The function room was a mess. The guest rooms upstairs had been turned over to Luitpold and his instantly-assembled guard and so everyone else had had to spend the night downstairs. Some of them must have relished the chance not to be alone, but the countess, at least, was steeped in a cold fury.

  The baron smiled and brought Rosanna some tea in a goblet. The inn was running low on cups and there was broken crockery underfoot.

  'Well?' she asked.

  'Wolf is gone.'

  'Baron, was he the Beast?'

  The baron looked pained and she read genuine confusion.

  'Call me Johann,' he said.

  'You don't know?'

  'No. I fear, but I don't know.'

  'Last night, someone was saying it was Yefimovich.'