Genevieve 04 - Silver Nails

by Jack Yeovil

  They had been attacked as they took a snack break. Bread and cheese was spread around, soaked in blood×so much blood! Broken mugs spilled strong milky tea. With so many smells making her eyes sting, she had to concentrate. Blood, tea, milk, cheese. And something else, something herbal and repulsive.

  'Merciful Shallya,' swore Liesel, almost falling over the bodies. 'Are they'

  'No, but they will be if their wounds aren't treated.'

  Genevieve, suppressing the red thirst screaming from the savage stem of her brain, checked the wounded guards, feeling for heartbeats.

  'Is this a vampire attack?' Liesel asked.

  'It looks like it, doesn't it?'

  Sister Liesel was suffering from shock, quivering with potential panic. She was demanding attention when Genevieve ought to be following the trail.

  'Stay here and see to these men,' Genevieve ordered. 'Press something over the bites. Anything to stop the bleeding.'

  'Don't go,' Liesel said. 'Jenny, please.'

  'I have to.'

  She pushed through the door. Bland's apartments were reachable only by doors at the end of this corridor. There should be two more guards.

  The doors were open and the guards lay bleeding on the floor.

  The herbal smell was more noticeable. Genevieve almost staggered.

  She sprinted silently down the corridor.

  Inside Bland's quarters, a small fire burned on a carpet, a dropped lamp in the middle of it. Flames cast shadows on the low ceiling, where a painted Morr presided over the torments and rewards of the beyond.

  Genevieve caught the assassin at her work.

  The blonde woman held Temple Father Bland in a vampire embrace, bending him over backwards at the knees. The cleric was in his nightshirt and cap, awake but frozen with terror, open eyes twitching, perpetual smile a rictus grin.

  Blood on his neck.

  'Stop,' said Genevieve.

  The assassin raised her bloodied face and looked at her.

  It was as if the gift of a reflection had returned. Genevieve was looking into her own face. Rather, at the nightmarish worst she had ever looked×a mask lit by wavering flame, eyes red bursts, finger-length fangs bloodied, streaks of gore in her hair.

  'Who dares disturb the feeding of the vampire Genevieve?'

  The voice was her own but different, coming from outside her skull.

  Dazzled by the firelight and befuddled by all the spilled blood, Genevieve wondered what this creature was. Had her vampire self detached from her own body and set out on its own to kill?

  Then, she saw through it.

  'Do I really look like that?'

  The assassin recognised her.

  'You!' she said, startled.

  'How inconvenient for you,' said Genevieve.

  The assassin dropped Bland, whose head fell dangerously near the fire. He was twitching, still alive.

  'Not inconvenient at all,' said the assassin, whom Genevieve saw was taller than her, with a longer reach. 'The vampire Genevieve murders Tio Bland, and is then captured and destroyed at the scene of the crime. It's better than the original plan.'

  'Do you really think you can be me, Eva?'

  'I've been playing you for years,' said Eva Savinien. 'The critics say I'm much better at it than you were. In the Genevieve Dieudonne business, you're an amateur.'

  Genevieve faced herself. The fangs and claws were functional fakes. The hair was a wig.

  Only the blood was real.

  'How much is Wietzak paying you? Surely you could do better as a royal mistress?'

  'Wietzak? He's not the half of it, sister.'

  'You're not my sister.'

  Genevieve leaped at Eva, but tripped over Bland, whose bulk wrinkled the carpet on the slick stone floor. Eva darted out of the way with something close to vampire swiftness. The actress had been possessed once, by something called the animus×it had emerged from the ruins of the fortress of Drachenfels for revenge. When it quit this host, the animus had left something of itself behind.

  The blow came out of the dark, and caught the back of her head as if landed by a mace.

  This was not like fighting a living woman.

  Genevieve, lifted off the floor, sailed across the room. She hammered against a case of old books, which tumbled around her as the shelves collapsed. A heavy wooden board struck her head like a hammer. She put out her hands to steady herself and her sharpened fingers sank into book-pages. They were all blank, impressive bindings with nothing inside. That said something about their owner.

  Still, she was doing her best to save the man's life.

  'He won't be grateful,' purred Eva, suddenly close to her face. Tio Bland will still hate you. I've just opened his throat a little. You must be thirsty. All this blood spilled and none to drink. You must hate him, Genevieve. I'm not a vampire, and I hate him. I'll help you get away. You can have the credit. You'll be a heroine to your kind. You'll be another Kattarin'

  'One was enough, play-actress.'

  Genevieve jabbed out with the heel of her hand, smartly clipping Eva's chin. One of the assassin's fangs was jarred loose. Her eyes widened as she nearly choked on it. She spat the thing out, a carved chicken bone.

  Eva's clawfingers×steel-and-silver sheaths with curved barbs×came for Genevieve's face. The tips just raked skin, and dreadful black pain slashed across her cheek, eating to the bone.

  She was out of the way of the second strike.

  From behind, she got a hold on Eva's neck, and wrenched off her wig.

  Eva's hands came up and tore off Genevieve's own wig. It had been securely attached and a lot of hair came with it.

  They stood with each other's hair in their hands.

  The fire spread to the fallen volumes. Flamelight rose. Bland was trying to get up on his hands and knees but kept falling. Blood trickled from his mock-bites.

  Eva shredded Genevieve's wig and let the segments fall. She was skilled with her sharp killing-talons. And she'd had the foresight to use silver.

  'I can take out your heart, lady leech.'

  'You have to find it first.'

  Mantis-style would leave her sides open. Too easy to get to the heart under the arms. Genevieve knew she'd have to fight like the bare-knuckles bruisers in Arne's gymnasium, elbows close to her ribs, punching with jabs, concentrating on the head and belly.

  She damned Eva for her extra height, her extra inches of reach.

  She slammed at Eva's head, with the same left-right-left, hook-jab-jab combination Preiss had tried on her. Eva ducked the hook, but took both the jabs. Her left eye was bruised and bloodied, then her cheek-bone broken. Genevieve stood back and pivoted, arching out her leg, knee loose, foot stretched. She landed her boot-toe in the big eye-cheek wound.

  Eva gave out a satisfying yelp.

  'Time for a final bow, understudy,' suggested Genevieve.

  Eva recovered, faster than Genevieve had expected, and reached, taking a grip on Genevieve's side, on the soft part below the rib-cage.

  Four needles of agony cut through her robe and lanced into her body. She opened her mouth in a scream that wouldn't come.

  Eva took another hold, on Genevieve's shoulder. A thumb-thorn stuck into her neck. Hot hurt spread, covering her from upper arm to upper ear. Half her vision was fuzzy. Eva's face was half-blur, half-mask-of-hate. Eva held Genevieve pinned, squeezing her side. But the thorn in her neck was the killing tool×it probed, parting veins and stringmeat, and scraped her jaw-bone.

  It was agonising.

  'The first time I played you,' Eva said, conversationally, 'in the Treachery of Oswald revival, I slept with Detlef. When this is over, I'll go back to him. I'll gut him and let you take the blame. You'll be remembered as a monster.'

  Genevieve took a firm hold on the talon stuck into her neck. The silver sheath seared her palm, but one more pain among so many could be ignored. She extracted the thorn from her flesh, twisting brutally. With a snap, she broke Eva's thumb.

  Then, she ha
mmered her forehead against the bridge of Eva's nose.

  Cartilage gave way and a cloud of blood exploded all around.

  Some of it went into Genevieve's mouth and she tasted Eva. There was almost nothing there.

  Eva's hands went to her face.

  Genevieve was free, though two of the fake fingers were still stuck in her side like white-hot arrowheads. With fast fingers and gritted teeth, Genevieve plucked the claws and threw them away.

  Eva, horror-struck at the assault on her good looks, held her hands over her squashed nose. Blood poured between her fingers.

  The room was on fire now.

  Genevieve slung Bland over her shoulder and stepped into the corridor.

  That herbal smell hit her again.

  Liesel had dragged the two inner guards away. She was surrounded by four bleeding, unconscious men at the end of the corridor.

  'Wake up, Brother Preiss,' shouted Genevieve.

  Liesel still seemed too horrorstruck to move.

  Genevieve set Bland down with the guards. His wounds were shallow, though his nightshirt was on fire. Almost absent-mindedly, Liesel patted out the flames.

  'Get Preiss,' Genevieve insisted.

  That smell! She knew what it was. Ground sleeprose petal, usually taken in tea. Before Eva came along, the guards had been drugged. The assassin had an ally within the Temple of Morr.

  'Liesel,' Genevieve said, 'it's important. The danger isn't over. Snap out of it.'

  'This isn't how it was supposed to be,' Liesel muttered. 'I told you to save yourself.'

  'I'm fine. So will he be. But we must act fast'

  There was an explosion within Bland's apartments, and a crack shot through the walls. Genevieve half-turned and saw a creature of flame exploding through the doorway. Eva, burning all over, charged down the corridor, screeching, claws reaching.

  Genevieve punched her in the heart, knocking her down.

  She tried to smother Eva's flames×apart from other considerations, she wanted the actress-assassin alive to explain herself×but the fire kept bursting back wherever it was slapped out. Eva's face was black but for her eyes and teeth. She struggled, scratching at Genevieve though her claws were gone.

  Genevieve's own clothes were smouldering.

  Fire was less bad for vampires than silver. But enough flame would kill her.

  A beam split above and the ceiling fell in. A broken spar plunged, jagged end like a stake, and speared into Eva's heart, stopping her writhing.

  The actress died like a vampire.

  Genevieve made it out of the collapsing corridor in time.

  Liesel was doing her best trying to heave five heavy, insensible men away from danger.

  There was other activity in the temple now.

  Brother Preiss and Father Knock were here. And other brothers and sisters, half in robes, half in nightwear. The collapse of the corridor had limited the fire to Bland's apartments.

  She heard Preiss order Willy and Walther to organise a bucket-passing line from the stables-pump to quell the blaze. Knock had some of his Old Temple cronies see to certain sacred items he wanted removed to a place of safety. Thoughtfully, someone tossed a pail of water over Genevieve, drenching her robes and drowning fire she hadn't noticed.

  A chaplain-healer was looking at the guards and the Temple Father.

  'They've been bitten,' he said.

  Everyone was looking at Genevieve. Her hands, swelling and insensible from silver poisoning, went to her hair. Some of the wig-pins were still there. The last of her healthy country lass' make-up was washed away.

  'Sister Jenny,' said Preiss. 'You have fangs.'

  XV

  'Ladies, gentlemen, excuse me,' he declared. 'I am Detlef Sierck, genius.'

  Certainly, his announcement attracted attention. As a good entrance line should. Melissa gave him a little round of applause.

  The central quadrangle of the Temple of Morr was smoky and crowded. A row of bleeding, insensible bodies were being seen to by a chaplain-healer and several sister-nurses. A wrestler-sized cleric×Detlef recognised Lupo Preiss from his epic bouts with Hagedorn a decade ago×had Genevieve, who seemed to be in a sorry state again, pinned to the ground. Several guards held down her arms and legs.

  'That lady is Genevieve Dieudonne, my fiancée. She is under the protection of my sword. I call upon you in the name of the Empire and common decency to let her up at once. If you do not comply, I shall be forced to cut you to ribbons.'

  He bowed slightly and held up his sword, blade catching the lantern-light.

  A brother rushed onto the scene, holding a wooden mallet and a short sharp stake. He caught sight of Detlef's blade and skidded to a halt. He didn't hand the vampire-slaying apparatus to Preiss.

  'What is this intrusion?' asked the sister with spectacles.

  Detlef spotted her instantly as the one in charge. He recalled her name: Sister Liesel von Sutin.

  'A rescue,' Detlef declared.

  'And you've brought a child with you?'

  Melissa smiled, showing fangs.

  'Oh,' said the sister. 'That sort of child.'

  In the carriage on the way over from the Street of a Hundred Taverns to the Temple of Morr, Detlef had tried to persuade Lady Melissa that it would be best if she didn't accompany him as he forced his way into a nest of vampire-slayers. She'd said she had no intention of missing out on any of the fun and had, at her age, learned to walk into and out of far worse places. When that hadn't impressed him, she just started repeating everything he said word for word in a high-pitched child-voice that scraped his nerves. Finally, he had just given in and told her not to look smug about it.

  'The assassin must be destroyed,' said Preiss.

  'Genevieve isn't the assassin,' said Detlef. 'She has been defamed by a woman named Eva Savinien, who came here in disguise.'

  'This thing came here in disguise.'

  Genevieve tried to sit up. She was bleeding from several places, had been set on fire and put out, and her white skin was blotchy with what looked like swollen insect-bites. The last of her make-up was washed away.

  'You are not to call my grand-get a 'thing',' said Melissa.

  The child-shaped vampire walked across the quad and stood over the brothers pinning down Genevieve. Melissa tapped her foot and looked cross.

  'Let her go, you bullies.'

  Force of personality persuaded the clerics to slink back.

  'Genevieve is a heroine,' said Melissa. 'She has saved your horrid Temple Father. I hope you'll learn a lesson about the undead from this. A living woman came to kill Tio Bland but a soulless vampire saved his life.'

  Genevieve flung her long arms around Melissa's tiny neck, exhausted and grateful.

  'Ugh, child,' said Melissa, 'you'll ruin the furs. How did you get so bedraggled?'

  'Lady elder,' Genevieve gasped, 'my apologies.'

  Genevieve still hugged her grandmother-in-darkness, face lost in voluminous fur.

  Preiss looked to the injured, soliciting further orders from Bland. The Temple Father was alive but unconscious, bandages wrapped around his neck, face pale. Then, the wrestler looked to the woman in charge.

  'Sister Liesel?'

  The sister was thinking.

  'Vampires have come among us,' she said, at last. 'And their human slaves. They must be put to the stake.'

  Genevieve's face reappeared. She looked at Liesel, eyes burning.

  'But, Liesel'

  Detlef recognised a complicated flow of emotions. The set-up within this temple was beyond instant understanding.

  'Impostor, betrayer, assassin,' said Liesel, pointing at Genevieve.

  Genevieve stood up, setting Melissa aside.

  'No,' said Genevieve. 'I'm not the betrayer here. The assassin had help inside the temple, but not from me. Liesel, you swear by Shallya, not Morr. You are a very clever woman in a world that too rarely rewards you. I don't think you're dim enough to subscribe to Tio Bland's vampire prejudice. But you do see oppor
tunities for advancement. After the assassination, what were you to become? The guardian of Bland's memory? Would you relay his wishes from the beyond and take control here? Make up a title like 'Temple Mother' or 'High Priestess? Everyone is already looking to you for orders. They've got used to it in the last months. Will you have us all killed and get back into your huddle with Baron Wietzak? Cooking up another Undead War so you can both make names for yourself?'

  A lot of eyes were on the sister.

  'Jenny,' she said, 'I hoped great things for you.'

  'There is no Jenny. She was just pretend. Just as there was really no Liesel.'

  'Brother Preiss, kill this leech. Now.'

  The wrestler looked at Sister Liesel and shrugged. He made no move.

  'With the Temple Father injured, I assume command here,' said Knock the elderly priest. 'A sister cannot decree the policy of the temple. Even the lowest novice brother comes in the precedence before the mother superior.'

  An elderly woman in robes beamed approval. Sister Liesel fumed.

  'To kill, even to kill a vampire, is to usurp the domain of Great Morr,' continued the Father, making devout signs. 'He alone decides when to take a soul. There must be no more blasphemy.'

  'Aye, Father Knock,' assented Preiss.

  Sister Liesel, frustrated, was still thinking. She knelt by Bland and began to shake him.

  'Wake up, Temple Father, the vampires are here!'

  'Leave him be,' said Father Knock.

  'He's dying,' said the healer. 'Nothing can be done.'

  'You see,' said Liesel. 'They're monsters.'

  Detlef had not put away his sword. He thought he still might have to fight for Genevieve.

  The brother with the stake and mallet held them up, ready for use.

  Bland's eyes fluttered open. He was still smiling. His face must just be in the habit. He looked ghastly.

  Father Knock muttered last rites and sprinkled incense over the Temple Father, with what Detlef intuited was a certain grim satisfaction.

  'They've killed you,' Liesel told Bland.

  'I was always prepared,' gasped the Temple Father, 'ready to fall first×indeed, to die×in the conflict, so long as my ending was a greater beginning. Here starts the Last Undead War, which must end with the eradication×indeed, obliteration×of the vampire taint from the world'