by Jack Yeovil
To come so far and fail! Detlef would have killed Bland himself, only that seemed to be what the martyr wanted. The eager vampire-slayer tapped mallet to stake, and looked at Genevieve's chest.
'This is silly' said Melissa. 'You, sawbones, out of my way.'
The chaplain-healer stepped back. Liesel looked electric hatred at Melissa.
'Don't let her near.'
Brother Preiss had a firm hold on Sister Liesel's shoulders.
Melissa got on her knees and crawled to Bland. She nestled into his lap, and stroked his bandaged neck. He smiled indulgently, until she showed her adorable little fang-teeth, then he cringed, eyes rolling upwards.
'Leech,' he gasped.
'Hush, silly man,' said the vampire.
Melissa raised her wrist to her mouth and bit as if into an apple, pricking her own vein.
Scarlet blood welled. She jammed the spouting wound into Bland's mouth. The Temple Father's eyes widened, and went red with the infusion. Melissa chewed away his bandages and sank her fangs into the red scratches on his neck.
Her whole body bucked as she drank deeply, sucking Bland's blood as he swallowed hers. This was how little leeches were made.
It lasted a while.
When the mutual feeding was over, Melissa dropped Bland and stood up. She was shaky on her feet, having lost as much blood as she'd drunk. Genevieve steadied her.
'He's dead,' said the chaplain-healer, hand on Bland's heart.
'Not for long,' said Melissa. 'Lay him out, and have a goat or something close by. When he wakes up, he's going to be very thirsty.'
'And he might want to reconsider his policy on vampires,' suggested Genevieve.
XVI
She had tried to find out what was to become of Liesel von Sutin. According to Temple Father Knock, the sister was on a retreat in the Northern Wastes, devoting herself to the simple duties of cleaning and cooking for an order of ascetic monks who had vowed never to look a woman in the eyes much less talk to one. Genevieve still wasn't sure what she thought of Liesel. She kept hearing Knock's proud statement that 'even the lowest novice brother comes in the precedence before the mother superior'. The only comfort she could take was that, as a vampire, she should live to see that change, in the Cult of Morr and throughout the human world. It would be a long while coming, though. Even Brustellinite anarchists like Prince Kloszowski, who wanted to bring down kings and lords and set peasants on an equal footing with their former masters, treated women like strange combinations of slave, slut and long-suffering mother.
The Temple of Morr wasn't issuing much news about her newest brother-in-darkness×perhaps because the responsibility for issuing any news had formerly laid with the now-closed scribe-proclaimer's office. The Boulevardpresse alleged that the cult's goat consumption had risen tenfold and that novices wore silver collars when attending late-night services. Tio Bland's 'dear wife and three lovely children', on an extended tour of the provinces, were not expected to return to the city this season.
The whole vampire campaign had blown over completely. Under Knock and his 'Old Temple' faction, the Cult of Morr announced a 'Back to basics' campaign, and clerics were busying themselves with their former good works and funereal duties. Clause 17 was, by quiet agreement, struck from the Sanitation Act.
Happy hour in the Crescent Moon had lasted a week. Lady Melissa would never have to pay for the special ever again.
The Vargr Breughel was looking for a new leading lady. The surprise success of Renastic and Vlad, the comedy ventriloquist and his vampire dummy, meant that the theatre could play variety to full houses while auditions were held for Genevieve and Vukotich. She had sensed that Detlef was working up to asking her to play herself again, and had deftly reasserted her permanent retirement from the stage.
No one had been arrested for the murder of Ibby the Fish, but Watch Sergeant Munch announced that progress was being made on the case. The monthly number of Hooks found floating off the docks was roughly equal to the number of Fish found hooked in back-alleys.
Munch was more concerned with the 'mosquito murders', a series of gruesome deaths among well-connected criminals who had recently bought themselves out of Mundsen Keep but ran into a strange instrument of justice that sucked all the flesh out of their skins through a single puncture-wound over the heart. It was rumoured that 'Filthy Harald' Kleindeinst and his sometime partner Rosanna the Scryer were on the case, which involved a conspiracy reaching from the lowest stews of Wharf Vermin Way to the perfumed palaces of Imperial Row.
Baron Wietzak was truly dead×transfixed with hawthorn, beheaded with silver, burned in a holy fire, ashes scattered in the sunshine. Someone had told the Tsarevich Pavel Society how to penetrate his castle crypts via secret passageways unknown to anyone under a thousand years old. Melissa claimed not to know anything about that.
It turned out that Eva Savinien had been profitably moonlighting as an assassin for years, committing murders for hire during the times when she was 'resting'×though she earned far less as a killer than she did as a star actress, suggesting some compulsion lingering from her old encounter with the animus. The story of her Zhiekhill-and-Chaida life came out in the Boulevardpresse. The body recovered from the fire at the temple was impossible to identify and so many of her admirers hoped she was merely missing.
And Genevieve was still here. In the theatre, in the city.
She couldn't remember precisely how it had happened, but she and Detlef seemed to be engaged. Obviously, the traditional silver ring was out of the question but gold was a fair substitute.
Waking at nightfall from a day's lassitude in the divan she had insisted be installed in the office, she saw Detlef at his desk, scratching quill to parchment, a fresh candle burning. He was working on a second sonnet cycle. He was losing weight and the character lines in his face were firming up. When he was writing, he had the concentration of a dedicated schoolboy.
She watched him for several minutes before he noticed her. When he did, he smiled, set aside his pen and blotted the page.
'Tonight,' he said, 'you can read it.'
She had been waiting for that.
At once, she was across the room. She slipped into Detlef's lap, and greedily snatched up the paper. For an instant, she was disappointed to find he had not been working on a poem. He was drafting an announcement to go into the Spieler, of their wedding.
The ceremony would be held on stage, with the Arch-Lector of the Cult of Sigmar solemnising the vows of nuptial devotion and Honorio of the Convent of Eternal Night and Solace reading the invocations of fortune and long life. Melissa was monopolising Kerreth the costumier with many refinements of the pattern for the gown she was to wear as maid of honour. Prince Luitpold, heartbroken by the disappearance of Eva Savinien but cheered by a sudden interest in the dance stylings of Antonia Marsillach, had consented to represent the Imperial court at the wedding. He was to become official patron of the Vargr Breughel Memorial Theatre, which ought to make future censorship of Detlef Sierck productions unlikely and was 'one in the eye for the fogeys of the Imperial Tarradasch Players'. The wedding reception was to be at the Crescent Moon, which would consent to admit living people equally with the undead for the occasion and had been instructed to import vintages of quality for the cellar. Rumour had it that virgin lads from the mountains, raised on only fresh beef and purest springwater, were being brought to the city to be on offer as the special for that evening. Genevieve had issued strict instructions to Poppa Fritz and Guglielmo Pentangeli that the Three Little Clots were on no account to be allowed to organise Detlef's stag night×but had few illusions that her wishes would be acceded to in the matter.
Genevieve hummed over the announcement, then approved.
'Missy says I make up too many tragic endings,' Detlef told her. 'Just for a change, let's live happily ever after.'
'It's worth a try,' she said.
Detlef bared his neck to be kissed.
Table of Contents
RED TH
IRST
NO GOLD IN THE GREY MOUNTAINS
THE IGNORANT ARMIES
THE WARHAWK
THE IBBY THE FISH FACTOR
