The Spider Dance

by Nick Setchfield

  Winter wasn’t convinced. ‘Whatever he’s done, and whatever your cause, he deserves better than this. There’s no dignity here.’

  The Hungarian regarded him with a sour look. ‘Is this empathy, Mr Winter?’

  ‘Not really. Surprised you don’t just kill him.’

  ‘And then we’d be left guarding his corpse. Because inevitably he’s going to rise from death. Try to understand, these things don’t die easily.’

  Sated by the liquid, Várkonyi spoke again, his voice as brittle as old leaves. ‘I think you should listen to this gentleman. You’ve already entered into an alliance with this ballroom harlot of a demon. What makes my needs so different from hers?’

  Alessandra seized Várkonyi by the roots of his hair, wrenching his bandaged head towards her. The movement was sudden and furious, enough to take Winter by surprise.

  ‘You’re an infestation, like all your kind.’

  ‘Predators,’ Várkonyi retorted, short of breath but determined to correct her. ‘We are part of the natural order. We thirst to live. That’s more than your kind ever do.’

  Alessandra tilted the man’s head until the veins bulged in his throat. ‘You are no better than animal scum.’

  Winter flinched at the word animal. She had used it earlier tonight, and aimed it at him.

  ‘We drink blood,’ spat Várkonyi, the twin crucifixes staring up at her, defiant. ‘And our hearts burn with its warmth, brighter than you can imagine. What do you steal from this world, girl? The pleasure of flesh, would you call it? That’s the sweet thrill of blood too. The joy in the veins. No wonder your kind crave it. You are cold, empty things. How jealous you must be of the living. They have a fraction of your time in this world but they know how to taste it. We both want the gifts of their bodies. I simply choose to bite, not screw.’

  Alessandra reached for Várkonyi’s face with her other hand. She prised his mouth apart, her fingers forcing back the upper lip until she’d fully exposed his teeth.

  ‘Go on,’ she jeered. ‘Take a bite, then. Take a bite with your big mouth, little soldier.’

  Winter recoiled. Várkonyi’s teeth had been sawn down to rutted stumps. Now they were no more than vestigial fragments of enamel, embedded like broken pebbles in the gums. His captors must have done this to him. Perhaps they’d taken his eyes, too.

  ‘Alessandra,’ he cautioned, touching her arm.

  She turned, a flash of something vicious in her dark eyes. ‘Spare him?’ she asked, incredulous.

  Winter nodded. ‘Please. There’s no need.’

  She removed her hand. Várkonyi let his head slump, a curl of amusement on his lips.

  ‘So brave, demon. Taunting a captive man. What confidence you have. One day you will face my kind without their shackles. Let’s see how your confidence serves you then.’

  ‘Vampires and Erovores,’ said Majoras, her tone resigned. ‘Old enemies. Older than this world, I think.’

  ‘Operation Paragon,’ said Winter. ‘You’re telling me I was part of it?’

  Majoras nodded, finally – reluctantly – accepting Winter’s plea of amnesia. ‘A joint initiative between British and Russian Intelligence, before this Cold War came and set your nations at each other’s throats. You weren’t just part of it, Hart. You were integral. You headed the missions that scoured Europe for the undead.’

  ‘What the hell did we want with these creatures? We were fighting a war…’

  ‘The vampire is a phenomenal species,’ conceded Majoras, momentarily putting her hate aside. ‘Death is a minor setback to them. Their bodies have a way to defy it. A capacity to reanimate themselves, time and time again. Imagine that power on the battlefield, to say nothing of their unholy strength and agility.’

  ‘You wanted their secrets,’ added Alessandra, a trace of condescension in her voice. ‘Because your science believes anything can be dissected, even the damnation of the undead.’

  ‘It’s not damnation,’ muttered Várkonyi. ‘It’s a birthright.’

  Winter mulled what he had just heard as candlelight guttered on the cavern’s walls.

  ‘We wanted to fight the war with these things? Is that what you’re asking me to believe?’

  ‘Not as such,’ said Majoras. ‘You didn’t want to create more of their kind. They were human once, after all. We share our essential biological code with them. Your scientists wanted to isolate the deviation in the DNA, graft it into the human body. Make soldiers who could afford to die, and die again.’

  Winter understood. And he felt cold at the implications. ‘Recyclable casualties of war. The ultimate acceptable losses.’

  ‘And then you won the war,’ Majoras continued. ‘And made a new enemy of your former ally. Operation Paragon was officially abandoned as a dead end. At least on the British side. The communists are rather more tenacious.’

  ‘It’s ongoing?’

  ‘We intercepted signal intelligence from Belarus station ten days ago, rerouted from Moscow. They already have a team in the Carpathians, ransacking crypts. I imagine it won’t be long before they’re in Hungary.’

  ‘Imagine that, Oszkár,’ teased Alessandra. ‘Leaving your body to science when you can never actually die…’

  ‘They’ll come for your kind next,’ Várkonyi countered. ‘They already know what you are.’

  Majoras hushed them and continued talking to Winter. ‘If the Soviet Bloc finally unlocks the secrets of undead biology then it will hold a clear advantage. The communists will be empowered to escalate this Cold War to the real thing. That’s why I summoned you here, Hart. We’re racing against them now.’

  ‘What did you think I could do?’ asked Winter.

  ‘You led the missions. You were a specialist. You knew where these things were buried. The Russians are chasing rumours, peasant whispers. You had facts, not folklore. With your knowledge we could get to the bodies before they do.’

  ‘Whatever I might have known… it’s all gone. I’m sorry.’

  Majoras sighed, some of her earlier fire gone now. She gestured to Alessandra. ‘Then do the job you came for. Get this woman to the West. Let her tell British Intelligence what we’ve learned here in Budapest. There will be other men who worked on Operation Paragon. Find them. Find them soon.’

  She turned to lead them out of the limestone church. Alessandra gave a contemptuous parting smile to Várkonyi and then followed her. The flames of the closest candles gusted at their departure.

  Winter stood where he was, watching as the sac of pale red liquid bubbled above the blinded soldier.

  ‘I appreciate your compassion,’ rasped Várkonyi. ‘Your blood is tainted, but you have a good heart.’

  Winter made to go. As he did so Várkonyi’s nail began to rap the arm of the chair. The sharp, staccato taps reverberated against the rock walls. And then, just like before, the finger found a rhythm. As if locking on target, thought Winter.

  Tap-tap. Tap-tap. Tap-tap. Tap-tap.

  His own heartbeat, echoing again.

  8

  It was already light when they left Gellért Hill, the sky poised between grey and blue.

  Winter hadn’t slept for over a day. His eyes ached and he could feel his senses blunting. Usually he would fix this with a sharpening amphetamine hit but his allocated pills had been left at the hotel, along with his gun. No doubt state security had taken his possessions. Now they would be sifting through them, scrutinising labels and serial numbers in a bid to know just who had walked into their country as Anthony Robert St John Prestwick.

  Sometimes he wondered if Christopher Winter was just another shell of an identity, fundamentally no different to a Prestwick or a Hastings or a Swinstead or one of a hundred meticulously constructed covers he had used over the years. Another name, another life, just one he had chosen to believe in. It was a thought he quashed as quickly as he could each time it whispered. This was who he was now. He owned this name.

  But here among the twisting shadows of Budapest – in the
company of Alessandra – the line that divided him from his past, from Tobias Hart, felt altogether hazier. Standing in that cave, hearing Judit Majoras talk about Operation Paragon, his buried years had seemed closer than ever. Something unresolved was stirring, determined to find its way back into the present.

  God, he itched to be in London now. Home soil, he knew, would help him shake this feeling. A cup of sugary Lipton tea in his Battersea bedsit could keep the world away.

  Budapest seemed to prickle with eyes this morning. Every archway, every window, was a potential surveillance point, every commuter queuing for an early tram an agent of the state until proved otherwise. Winter felt conspicuous and wanted to be out of this city as soon as he could. He kept his movements small and contained as he threaded through the waking streets, his pace brisk but not quite quick enough to attract attention. Alessandra followed him rather less subtly, still dressed for a seduction. Her glamour was part of her, somehow. She inhabited it like a skin.

  ‘I’m pretty sure I encountered something like Várkonyi in London,’ he told her at last. ‘Just before I got this assignment.’

  ‘The undead are everywhere. They’re hardly indigenous to Eastern Europe.’

  ‘You think it’s a coincidence?’

  She gave a sharp smile. ‘They’re predators; they go where the blood is. This entire planet is a banquet to them. So many regional flavours, so many vintages.’

  ‘This thing was after a heart. A human heart. I was told that it was very old and very valuable. I saw those photographs back in the hill. Those creatures’ hearts were missing. That’s coincidence too, I take it?’

  Alessandra’s smile had faded. ‘Maybe not.’

  ‘And there’s something else. I’m equally certain I met one of your kind, too, the same night. They were also after the heart. I think there’s a bigger picture here, one that you’re not sharing. So tell me. What’s going on?’

  Alessandra paused, considering her next words. ‘First we get out of Hungary. Then we talk. You’re right. There’s much you should know.’

  It was scarcely an answer. But Winter could tell from her face it was all she would grant him for now.

  The conversation ended, they made their way to Toldy Ferenc, a quiet residential street close to the pale turrets of the Fisherman’s Bastion. There they located a concrete-fronted apartment building, the agreed site for Gately’s dead-drop. It was utterly nondescript, so camouflaged by drabness it barely registered in anyone’s eyeline. Winter walked into the ammonia-scented hallway and, using a key that London had provided for just such a situation, opened a letterbox marked in the name of Kautzsky, Apartment 12.

  He sorted through a stash of post. Utility bills mainly, but there was a postcard from some humdrum Caspian resort, a hand-tinted photo of a trawler on the front, a scrawl of Hungarian on the back. A British operative must have sent it, maybe a sleeper agent, doing a favour for Queen and country. Anything to maintain the integrity of this address and keep the imaginary Kautzsky alive. The state watched everything, even postcards.

  ‘Is it there?’ asked Alessandra, just as eager as Winter to slip the city.

  Winter glanced across the hallway. A boiler-suited janitor was mopping the communal area, sloshing suds across the tiles. The man was young, no more than thirty, but had a hearing aid clipped to his ear. Winter watched him a moment longer then returned his attention to the post.

  ‘Yeah, this has to be it.’

  He tore open a beige envelope, addressed in black type. It was stamped with the shield of a local charitable trust, one that was just as fictitious as Kautzsky. Inside was a glossy black-and-white pamphlet, urging a donation. Wedged between the glum portraits of orphans was a pair of train tickets and documentation providing a new identity for Alessandra.

  ‘Gately didn’t let us down,’ said Winter. ‘Come on, let’s go.’

  He unbuttoned his jacket to pocket the tickets and the papers. The janitor eyed him from across the hall, taking in Winter’s blood-smeared shirtfront. Winter stared back. The man looked away again and continued to push his mop, the thick strands of yarn foaming across the floor.

  Winter tilted an ear. He was sure he had heard something, just for a second. The crackle of a voice, a metallic whisper, leaking from the cleaner’s hearing aid. He strained to catch it again but a vehicle had begun to reverse in front of the building, its engine sluggishly loud. Winter turned to the door and saw a newly arrived refuse truck through the glass.

  ‘Let’s move,’ he told Alessandra.

  They pushed through the door and out into the narrow street. At the edge of the pavement a man in oilskin trousers and a black labourer’s jacket was shaking a bin into the back of the truck. The steel teeth of the compactor turned, gnashing through the waste. A scent of refuse drifted from the hulking vehicle, hot and nauseously sweet.

  Winter and Alessandra crossed the cobbles. They walked calmly but there was an edge of threat in the thin, bright sunshine. Winter sensed it immediately. It was tangible, like air tensing before lightning. The truck nudged its way along the gutter, keeping pace with them, its motor grinding.

  Aluminium clattered on concrete. The man in the oilskin trousers had slammed the bin to the kerbside.

  Winter studied the wing mirrors of the parked cars. Each sun-struck reflection gave him a new and clearer view of the figure behind them. The man was walking now, ignoring the bins that had been placed for collection, his concentration fixed on Winter’s back. One mirror exposed a dull glint beneath his jacket. The next confirmed it as the handle of a gun, snug in a shoulder strap.

  Winter felt the acute lack of his own gun. The ankle knife was also gone, discarded on the rooftop of the Maria Theresa. His eyes flicked to Alessandra, the briefest of glances telling her that they should keep their pace up.

  The truck continued to crawl, its thick wheels turning on the cobbles. A cyclist passed them, soon lost to another street.

  Winter slid a hand into his jacket pocket. His fingers found the brass chill of his knuckle-duster. His other hand made a play of patting the left-side pocket then pulled out a packet of Woodbines. He flipped it open, the movement drawing the stalking man’s attention as his right hand wriggled into the metal rings.

  Winter leapt on to the bonnet of a Škoda estate, stamped across the car’s roof and launched himself at his pursuer. He had surprise and momentum on his side and the pair of them smashed into the road.

  Twisting, the man tried to slam a hand against Winter’s face. Winter countered with a clout of brass, hearing cartilage crack as his fist connected with the man’s nose. He hit him again, a whip of a punch. The man’s eyes were momentarily blinded by his own blood.

  The truck had stopped, its engine cutting. The driver flung open the cabin door and jumped down to the pavement. Alessandra strode towards him, smiling with purpose, entirely confident.

  Winter and his opponent grappled on the hard cobbles, their bodies rolling through petrol spills. The man was well-muscled and in seconds he had managed to wrestle an advantage. He balled both fists and hammered Winter either side of the head.

  Winter reeled, numbed by the double blow against his skull. Then he took a steel-toed boot in the ribcage, the velocity of the kick thrusting him back onto his feet. He staggered, fighting for balance, the street lurching, a drunken churn of architecture and sky.

  A matter of feet away the driver faced down Alessandra. His expression was wary. He was clearly perturbed by her smile. Impulsively he snatched her wrists and wrested her towards him. Her smile only widened.

  Winter backed against the door of a building. His adversary advanced, blinking blood as he cleared his vision. He was reaching for his gun, sliding the weapon from its leather holster.

  Winter was upon him, exerting all his strength to straighten the gun arm. Gaining leverage he gripped the man by the bicep then contorted the forearm to an ugly, unendurable angle. With a grunt he shifted his body weight, accentuating the pressure. A final twist and
the bone snapped like coral.

  Howling, the man collapsed to his knees, the pistol smacking across the cobbles. Winter strolled over to retrieve it. Grasping the barrel he swung the gun and cold-cocked his opponent.

  Alessandra stared into the driver’s eyes as he held her. Her black gaze was measureless. She set her face against his, provocatively close. Her mouth fell against the man’s throat and her tongue darted across his skin, lapping at the pulse points.

  The driver gave a small, involuntary sigh, his eyes quivering. In moments his body had surrendered, shuddering with pleasure.

  Alessandra easily shook his hold now. Freeing her wrists she cradled the man’s face, her lean fingers glimmering in the morning sunlight. She sunk her nails into his cheeks and he gave up a noise that began as a swoon and finished as a scream.

  ‘Leave him.’

  Winter was behind her. There were people in the street now, keeping a watchful distance behind the cars. Any moment one of them would surely summon the police.

  The succubus ignored him, savouring every ecstatic, terrified tremor of her victim’s body.

  ‘Alessandra…’ He placed a hand on her shoulder.

  She spun with a snap of black hair. Her eyes glared gold and her expression was savage. She was a demon. Winter knew that. But until now this knowledge hadn’t turned his blood cold.

  Her eyes faded to black again. She acknowledged him with a nod, mopping her mouth with the back of her hand. Then she pushed the whimpering man to the ground, leaving him rocking on his knees.

  Winter turned the gun in his hand. A FÈG PA-63 semi-automatic. Hungarian security forces issue. Two-tone, black and chrome. Built for the alleyway, not the battlefield. He already knew the first shot he would fire with it.

  Securing the pistol in his holster he began to walk away from the crowd and the empty truck and the two men, one still shaking, the other unconscious on the cobbles. Alessandra kept pace beside him. A moment later they broke into a trot, stirring a clump of gulls that had strayed into the city from the river. By the end of the street they were running.