Genevieve 04 - Silver Nails

by Jack Yeovil

  Detlef understood that in less jittery times, the Crescent Moon had a surplus of applicants for the position of barrel. Some were would-be vampires hoping to meet a patron who would bestow the Dark Kiss upon them, others derived a species of perhaps-unhealthy pleasure from the binding and draining.

  According to Genevieve, the latter had to be watched carefully×they would try to come back too many times and let themselves be bled empty. This barrel did not look as if he was in anything like ecstasy, and no one was drinking from him anyway.

  'There are kisses enough'

  'for us all.'

  'Helga, Heinrich,' snapped Lady Melissa. 'You have shown off enough. Now let Mr Sierck go, apologise profoundly and get back to playing with yourselves. No one finds your antics charming any more. If you can't treat guests properly, you can go to your crypt and think upon your shortcomings for, oh, eighteen months.'

  Gently, the vampires let him down. They brushed off his coat where it had pressed against the slightly-damp brickwork. One pinched his bottom, but he let it pass.

  'We respect the lady elder'

  'and accord you courtesy.'

  'That sounds awfully grudging, you two. Do I have to remind you of the circumstances of our last meeting? You were seeking shelter from witchfinders. A certain gracious lady elder obliged you with a carriage. One or other of you would have suffered a nasty beheading. And we all know how long the survivor would have lasted.'

  The vampires bowed to Melissa.

  'You are an honoured guest, living man'

  'and you are welcome in the Crescent Moon.'

  'That's better. Now, leave us alone.'

  Helga and Heinrich faded backwards into the shadows. Their pale, slightly-glowing faces seemed to linger a moment, then went out like candles. Detlef heard them creeping away.

  'Some of us regret the loss of the looking glass, and will go to great lengths to provide themselves with reflections.'

  'There's a story there, Missy.'

  'Oh, I hope not. Couldn't you write something amusing for a change? I always liked A Farce in the Fog. Whatever happened to your early, funny plays?'

  'The world stopped making me laugh.'

  'Gene has a lot to answer for, if you ask me. It is my considered opinion, and I've had a long time to form it, that no work of narrative art can be truly great unless it contains at least one good laugh. All Tarradasch's tragedies have clowns in them.'

  Melissa looked comically serious, lecturing him in this mausoleum.

  'There, you're smiling again. Let's just blend in with the crowd, and you let me do the talking.'

  They made their way past empty tables to the bar.

  At the far end, a scarecrow creature wrapped in a tattered black shroud looked down at a bowl of spiced pig-blood. It opened a hole in the cerements around its face and unrolled a long, tubelike tongue into the blood, then proceeded noisily to drain its dinner.

  'You don't want to know about the Mosquito Man,' said Melissa.

  Detlef silently agreed with her.

  Melissa rapped her tiny knuckles on the bar.

  'Katya, some service, if you please.'

  One of the barmaids came over. Her flat, pretty face was covered with soft, silky hair. She had slit pupils and permanent fangs.

  'Lady Melissa, what is your pleasure?'

  'Who's the 'special'?'

  Melissa thumbed at the human barrel.

  'A student of the Dark Arts. Making good on a wager he lost. We've had better, but at least he's free of disease. With business down, we take what we can get. The girls have been nipping from him all night and none have dropped dead.'

  'Very well, I shall have a glass of the special.'

  'Coming right up,' said Katya, holding a goblet under the student's neck and opening the spigot. The barrel shook as the flow filled the goblet to the brim. Detlef saw the straps around his head included a leather-ball gag in his mouth, doubtless to keep him quiet so as not to upset the delicate sensibilities of the customers.

  'We've a barrel-place saved for Tio Bland if he ever finds the doorway,' said Katya. When she mentioned the Temple Father's name, her cat-face contorted into a jungle snarl. 'There'd be a queue out onto the street if we could chalk his name up on the bill of fare.'

  Detlef nudged Melissa.

  'I was forgetting myself,' she said. 'Do you have anything for living people? What is it they drink? Tea, wine, milk?'

  Katya looked as if an indecent suggestion had been made.

  'We don't usually serve his kind in here,' she said, pointedly not looking at Detlef, 'but since you're such a favoured customer, I'll see if we can't scare something up.'

  The barmaid called to a junior, a girl-faced woman with snow-white hair and blue bat tattoos on her swanny neck. Katya addressed her in a language Detlef didn't know, which seemed to have miaows in it. The other barmaid replied, without much enthusiasm, but scurried off in little steps. She wore a skirt that was almost immodestly tight (and limiting) from thigh to ankle, but spread out like octopus tentacles around her feet.

  'Gela thinks she saw some wine about. We keep a little in the cellar, to top up the barrels.'

  Melissa looked at her own goblet.

  'It's been a long, dry spell,' she said, then lifted the drink and sucked it down at a single draught, her movement a blur. With red on her lips, Melissa's eyes burned like flares and Detlef thought he saw a jewel-faceted skull under suddenly-transparent flesh. Then, the elder vampire shook her head, setting her curls bouncing, and swallowed. She looked like a little girl again.

  'Here,' said Katya, grudging.

  A dusty mug of weak wine was shoved across the bar towards him. It sloshed a bit. Melissa ordered another measure of the special.

  'Two is my limit,' she said. 'Must keep a clear head.'

  Detlef took a swig of the wine and decided to leave the rest. It had gone to vinegar years ago.

  'Someone in here will know something,' said Melissa. 'It's just a question of knowing who to ask.'

  'A brilliant observation, Missy.'

  'Think you could have found this place on your own, Herr Genius? Or that you'd have fought off the Necksuck Twins?'

  'I concede that you are far more fearsome than me.'

  'So you should.'

  Melissa's second drink came, and she sipped this one, casting her eyes around the room.

  'Anyone unusual been in lately?' she asked Katya.

  The cat-vampire shrugged. 'Most of the unusuals have been staying away. A lot of the regulars have left the city. Some have gone underground.'

  'She means that those with crypts and graves are lying in them, bloated on their last meals, hoping to sleep for seventy-five years or so and wake up in a world without Bland's Boyos. It's not a stupid thing to do. I myself snoozed through the Undead Wars, surrounded by pressed and dried flowers. I woke up to find a shrine thrown up around me and a group of outcast dwarf miners worshipping me as some sort of sleeping martyr princess. They'd somehow got hold of a handsome prince whose kiss was supposed to bring me back to life.'

  Melissa sipped.

  'Does this story have a happy ending?' he asked.

  'Oh yes. Well, sort of. I drained the prince and raised him as my get. He had to be put down, though. The red thirst made him blood simple. He killed those dear little dwarfs. And all their animal companions. And quite a few other people, actually. These things happen. A lot of vampires can't hold their drink like me. I have learned much in my many, many years.'

  She had finished her second special.

  'Just one more, I think, Katya. Since it comes after a long fast. And make it a double.'

  'Glad to oblige, my lady.'

  Melissa was beginning to glow. She was sat cross-legged on a tall stool. She was still wrapped in her furs, which made her face all the tinier.

  'Ask the girl if she knows about Ibby the Fish?' Detlef suggested.

  'I was getting to it, Mr. Genius. Who's in charge of this investigation, eh? Don't
hurry me. Shortlivers always hurry too much. Katya, you heard him. Any word on the late Ibrahim Fleuchtweig?'

  'He was a Fish,' said Katya. 'Hooks got him. End of story.'

  'I thought as much.'

  'Vampires don't bother Fish. Or Hooks, come to that. It's one thing to have a cult on a campaign to wipe you out, but it's a lot more serious if one of the dock gangs gets a down on you. Sleeping a century won't be much use then. Those bravos tell their children and their children's children to keep up a feud. Look at the Hooks and Fish, themselves. Been at each other's throats since the time of Sigmar.'

  'So all this business with the posters and the proclamations, making out that Tio Bland prevented Ibby from rising as a vampire? That's just'

  'Wormshit,' said Katya. 'Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to drain the pig again. Mosquito Man has finished his appetiser.'

  The barmaid moved away. She had a certain lithe, catlike grace, and the back of her dress bustled out suggesting a tail. Detlef wondered how one would manage her without getting seriously clawed.

  'You have to stroke the fur the right way.'

  He was shocked to be so transparent. 'Missy,' he said, haughtily, 'I don't know what you mean.'

  'Liar.'

  'Well, yes.'

  'I won't tell Gene, but only if you promise to write something about me. Something light and charming. No orphans in the snow, no deaths at the dead of night. Just delights.'

  'I shall try.'

  Looking across the bar to the entrance archway, Detlef saw a pair of black boots on the stairs. A newcomer had been admitted. A black cloak followed the boots, and then a sallow face.

  'Ah-hah,' said Detlef. 'I thought as much.'

  He knew the new patron at once. The fellow had the decency to look shifty at being caught out.

  'If it isn't the Sylvanian scene-shifter, 'Alvdnov Renastic'. Or should I say, anagrammatically Vlad von Carstein!'

  The exposed von Carstein raised his cloak to ward off the truth.

  'Don't be silly, Mr Genius,' said Melissa. 'He's not a vampire.'

  'Then what's he doing here?'

  She scrunched up her face, like a very drunk person trying to seem sober, and thought about his question.

  'I've no idea. Let's ask him. Avldovn Rascinet, whatever your name is, come here and be grilled severely. Hop to it, scene-shifter.'

  She started hiccoughing, which was something he didn't think vampires did.

  Renastic, not denying anything, slunk over at them. His long cloak was bulked out, making the scene-shifter look like a hunchback.

  Melissa pounded her fists against the bar. She had no breath to hold, but she banished the hiccoughs somehow.

  'Must be something in that student,' she said. 'He's probably a secret weirdroot-chewer. I'm tired, Mr Genius. Give me a cuddle.'

  She lurched, almost falling from her stool, tumbling into his arms. Gingerly, he held her to him like a baby, patting her back. She laid her head on his shoulder and mumbled about wanting to sleep.

  Renastic didn't know how to take this.

  Helga and Heinrich, noticing Melissa was hors de combat, had crept back, and were paying keen attention.

  'So you're not a vampire?' Detlef asked.

  'I never said I was,' said the Sylvanian.

  'But your name?'

  'It's what you said it was. Vlad von Carstein. Count Vlad von Carstein, actually. The fifteenth to hold the title. I prefer not to use it.'

  Detlef pointed with his freer hand, shifting Melissa up closer in his grip.

  'And you expect us not to suspect you!' he said.

  'How would you feel having the same name as a notorious villain? Being a direct descendent of one of the most evil creatures ever to walk the Known World? Who nearly destroyed this city and the Empire? If you were called 'Constant Drachenfels' at birth, wouldn't you think up something else as soon as you could?'

  That sounded reasonable.

  'But you're in a vampire tavern?'

  'Family obligations. Nothing I'm happy about. The problem with being the current Count von Carstein isn't just persecution from the likes of Tio Bland, it's all the vampires wanting you to turn into one of them and lead a holy war against the living. That's why I left Sylvania in the first place. I'm here, among the undead of Altdorf, to renounce any claim people might think I have to be considered leader of vampirekind. I just want to get on with my life. I like working in the theatre. I've been practising my own turn, and am hoping you'll give me a spot at the next open-stage night.'

  Only now did Detlef notice Renastic lacked fangs.

  'What kind of turn?' he asked.

  Renastic dramatically threw back his cloak to reveal a miniature version of himself attached to his arm like a parasitic twin, a smiling wooden head with a widow's peak and a sharp goatee, atop a trailing body in a child-sized evening outfit complete with cloak and shiny leather shoes.

  'Gentriloquism,' said the dummy, mouth flapping.

  'This is Vlad,' said Renastic, from his own mouth.

  'Yes, I'm Glad,' said the dummy, with an exaggerated Sylvanian accent, 'the gloodthirsty gampire. Why did the gampire cross the road? Gecause it was suckeeng the glood of the cheecken? Hah hah hah. I got a meellion of 'em. Egeryone a weenner!'

  Renastic made a grinning end-of-the-act grimace.

  'What do you think, Mr Sierck?' he asked, eagerly.

  'It needs work, Renastic.'

  'Get me a gottle of glood,' shouted Vlad.

  Detlef understood what Genevieve had seen in the darkened dressing room. Renastic practising his act. She would laugh when she heard.

  Melissa mumbled into his shoulder, saying the act was terrible, but the stagestruck scene-shifter didn't hear.

  'What does he mean, 'needs work'?' said Vlad the Dummy, angrily.

  'We should practise more. Think of better jokes.'

  'Gullshit! What does he know? I theenk I'll suck his glood!'

  'Oh don't do that, Vlad,' said Renastic, shaking the dummy angrily. 'I really must apologise, Mr Sierck'

  'Gug off, human!'

  'he gets carried away sometimes. Very temperamental. Like all vampires.'

  Renastic put his hand over the dummy's mouth, stifling further protests. Vlad's head shook in fury.

  It was a reverse of Helga and Heinrich. Two people in one body, rather than one person in two.

  Weird.

  He set Melissa on her stool, and shook her. She came awake, showing red eyes and fangs.

  'I've got the beginnings of a very bad headache,' she said.

  'I know the feeling.'

  Helga and Heinrich had slid down the bar. They were standing either side of Renastic, hands slipping in and out of his pockets, tongues darting at his face.

  'Fresh blood'

  'noble blood.'

  'He's a von Carstein,' Melissa said. 'You'd best leave him alone. His relatives might not take kindly to you tapping him.'

  The twins huffed.

  'Does every live cow who comes in here.

  'have a patron and protector?'

  'It's most vexing'

  'and a true frustration.'

  'You can bite the little one,' said Melissa.

  Detlef didn't understand, until Helga×or Heinrich, it was hard to tell×darted at Vlad, and bit into wood.

  'Watch my wrist,' said Renastic.

  Spitting×the face of the twin who hadn't bit as contorted as that of the one who had×Helga and Heinrich withdrew again.

  Renastic shrugged his hand out of Vlad and looked at his white cuff.

  The skin wasn't broken.

  'So you aren't even an interested party in all this?' Detlef asked.

  'I wouldn't say that. I don't want to be a vampire, but I'm still a Count von Carstein. I know Bland's Boyos won't make any fine distinctions when they're avenging their Temple Father's murder. I'll be just as likely to get hoisted on a stake as Baron Wietzak himself.'

  'You know about the assassination plot?' said Melissa, agha
st.

  'Oh yes. It's all anyone talks about backstage. Kerreth had it from Antonia, who heard it from Eva's dresser, who'

  Detlef felt that Melissa had got her wish and he was back playing farce again.

  'And, of course,' said Renastic, 'tonight's the night. She'll be at the temple, by now. Let's hope for all our sakes that she's not as good an assassin as she is everything else.'

  'You know who Wietzak's hired killer is?' asked Detlef.

  Renastic nodded.

  'Doesn't everyone?'

  XIV

  'What was that?' said Genevieve.

  'I didn't hear anything,' said Liesel Von Sutin, a little too quickly.

  She had forgotten she wasn't supposed to have sensitive-as-a-bat's vampire ears. It hadn't been an obvious disturbance, just a faint clanking×perhaps a stifled groan. Suggestive enough.

  'I think I should check on the Temple Father.'

  'He has night-guards.'

  Sister Liesel held her sleeve. The woman was apprehensive, close to scared.

  Genevieve's night-senses were pricking. She stretched her upper lip to cover her sharpening teeth.

  'No harm in checking.'

  Reluctantly, it seemed, the scribe-proclaimer let her go. Genevieve padded across the quadrangle, towards Bland's apartments. Liesel hesitated a moment, then followed. The sister's footfalls sounded very loud. Genevieve signed to her to be quieter.

  Genevieve ducked under a hanging, and knew something was wrong.

  The first guards were sprawled at their posts.

  Fresh-spilled blood hit Genevieve's nostrils like a snort of daemon dust. Her night-vision grew more acute. She saw the blood on the guards' throats as a vivid scarlet, pooling in the folds of their vestments, pulsing from twin neck-wounds. Something had crept up on these two and struck serpent-fast.

  Vampire-swift.