The Spider Dance

by Nick Setchfield

  Fabienne turned to him, purring now. ‘The Glorious is the Glorious.’

  They kept walking, the floodlights throwing their reflections along the avenue of black stone. Up ahead stood another pair of sculptures. Two towering marble hands reared out of the ground, cupping a curving glass tunnel. It was the entrance to a starkly modern building, as incongruous as anything else Winter had seen on this island. The cloud drifted over its tiers of windows and whitewashed concrete.

  Fabienne led the way. Winter noted that there was no security presence at the tunnel’s entrance. In fact there wasn’t even a door, let alone a pat-down or an identity check. They simply strolled in, under the swollen glass arch. Maybe that was a demonstration of real power, he reflected. If you considered yourself truly untouchable then an open invitation was a statement.

  The tunnel took them to a staircase and the staircase took them to a set of double doors. Fabienne turned a chrome handle and the doors parted. The entire interior of the building was a pristine, oppressive shade of white, but the room they now entered was so bright it hurt. It was hot, too, the air burning with the light of a half-dozen Klieg lamps mounted on tripods. Their carbon arc bulbs had been angled to face the doors, confronting visitors with an intense and disorientating battery of light.

  Winter blinked, trying to clear the afterimage of the lamps from his eyes. He could just about see a desk at the far end of the room. There were two figures sat at it, conspiratorially close. As Fabienne led them deeper into the immaculate white space he saw that they were a man and a woman. Two more brutally bright lamps were positioned behind the seated figures, the combined glare obscuring the details of their faces.

  ‘I have delivered the British agent, my Glorious,’ said Fabienne. She sounded eager to impress.

  ‘Is he aware of our proposal?’ asked the woman, with a voice that melted on her tongue. There was a trace of accent there but Winter couldn’t quite pin the nationality.

  ‘Outlined in the broadest terms.’

  Winter took a step towards the desk, ignoring the unspoken boundary Fabienne had established.

  ‘How did you people know I was in Venice?’

  The faces remained maddeningly vague. Winter only had the most general impression of the woman’s features, blurring behind the imprint of light on his retinas.

  ‘The Crown can barely contain its secrets.’ This time the man had spoken. His voice was equally glossy, the accent just as unplaceable. ‘Given the recent revelation of your nation’s infidelities with the Soviet Union – Philby, wasn’t that the traitor’s name? – I’d say it was open season on British Intelligence, wouldn’t you?’

  Winter gave a grudging nod of understanding. ‘You intercepted my communication to London. Must be a weak link in Century House. No doubt someone who enjoys the kind of rewards you specialise in.’

  The woman picked up the conversation again. ‘There are a number of things you should realise. One, our presence is greater than you imagine.’

  ‘And two,’ said the man, seamlessly, as though the pair had shared a single thought, ‘we have been operating in this world for some considerable time. Millennia, in fact. We plundered the secrets of Babylon. We stole star maps from the pharaohs and looted the sacred scriptures of the Xia dynasty. Your Elizabethan spymasters were upstarts in comparison.’

  The woman spoke again, her words blending with the man’s. For a moment Winter was convinced they were talking in unison. ‘The countries you cling to are so small a concept. You squabble for knowledge and try to cage it within your borders. But there are empires within shadow of which you are utterly unaware. Entire frontiers concealed in the wind. We pass across your nations and you suspect nothing.’

  ‘Maybe you do,’ said Winter. ‘But I know one thing. I’ve seen those people outside. The ones in the robes. You may have an empire, as you call it, but this world can burn you.’

  ‘We are all at risk of that,’ said the man behind the desk, evenly. ‘You yourself have been burnt. By magic, was it not? You reached for that particular sun. And you paid the price.’

  Winter stared into the light, determined to find a face. ‘Well, if you’re looking to hire Tobias Hart, you’re in for a disappointment. My name is Christopher Winter. If you want to do a deal you deal with me.’

  ‘Oh, we’re well aware of your circumstances,’ said the woman, her tone just as measured. ‘And as you may see, we’re very partial to duality.’

  The pair of them rose from their seats, their movement perfectly synchronised. In fact they had an uncanny symmetry, their bodies mirroring one another so precisely they genuinely looked like reflections.

  Winter watched as they circled the desk. He saw two heads, two arms and two legs and it felt as though he was staring at a calculation that refused to add up. Then he realised. They were conjoined twins. A male and a female, genetically impossible as that was. The pair were fused at the hip, their torsos twisting like rival roots where the flesh merged. They were dressed in a black collarless suit, tailored to encompass both their bodies.

  ‘What are you?’ he asked, bluntly.

  The two of them chimed together. ‘Are we not glorious?’

  13

  They were beautiful, as beautiful as each other. But it was an eerie kind of beauty, the caramel skin smooth and flawless, the bone structure geometrically ideal, as if the planes of their faces had been designed, not formed. There was something arid and inhuman in their perfection, like mannequins or magazine adverts given the spark of life.

  And then there were the eyes. Winter could see them clearly now. The pupils were grey, the irises gold, what should have been the whites an oily black. The eyes made no attempt to pass for human.

  ‘An incubus. And a succubus. In one.’ Winter gave a half-smile. ‘I’m amazed you didn’t burn up years ago.’

  Fabienne and Alessandra both shot him a cautioning look.

  The two faces of the Glorious tilted imperiously. Their voices blended again, their thoughts combining. ‘We are the firstborn of Lilith, the Great and Fallen Mother. Our exquisite form is remarkably resilient.’

  ‘If you’re so remarkable why do you need me?’

  The woman gave the answer. ‘You are a resourceful, experienced man, flesh and bone though you may be. Your work with British Intelligence has demonstrated a certain prowess when it comes to carrying out, shall we say, expediencies.’

  Winter didn’t hide his distaste for that kind of euphemism. ‘Killing people, you mean?’

  ‘Necessary acts of termination.’

  ‘Yes, I’ve killed. Each kill was in the interests of national security. I don’t exactly do requests.’

  The man nodded. ‘Of course. But at least hear our request. You may find it just as easy to justify.’

  He motioned with the hand that belonged to his side of the shared body. There was the subtlest shift in the air, a sense of electrons rearranging themselves, as if bidden. Immediately the lamps softened, losing their glare to reveal the finer details of the room. Ironically there was little to be seen. It was minimally decorated in the modern aesthetic, the furniture as surgically white as the walls. The kind of room that made Winter recoil from the future.

  The Glorious returned behind the desk. There was a glossy stack of prints on the flawless plastic surface. The woman’s hand passed the first of the pile to Winter.

  ‘The target.’

  It was a charcoal sketch, a likeness captured in broad but efficient strokes. It showed a man, probably in his late sixties, Winter guessed, with a crest of white hair that crowned tall, imposing temples. The shock of hair had been tamed into a mane, long enough to trail on the collar of the man’s suit. A snowy moustache framed a stern, thin-lipped mouth. The pale eyes were equally uncompromising. Whoever this was had the cruel, entitled air of Mediterranean aristocracy, the bloodline of a conquistador or a Caesar.

  ‘Am I meant to recognise this person?’ asked Winter, studying the portrait as Libby looked over his shoulder
.

  ‘Hardly. Don Zerbinati is famed for his reclusiveness.’

  Zerbinati. Winter saw the word in his mind, circled on that slip of paper concealed on the corpse of the Soviet agent, the one they had discovered in the palazzo. Zerbinati. So it was the name of a man, then. He kept his facial muscles taut, hiding his reaction.

  ‘You couldn’t get a photograph? What is he, camera shy?’

  ‘He cannot be photographed.’

  ‘No one’s that reclusive.’

  ‘He cannot be photographed,’ reiterated the Glorious, together.

  Winter was handed another print. This one was an altogether more elegant piece of artwork, detailed in fine scratches of India ink. It seemed to be an illustration from a Victorian journal, probably a penny dreadful, judging by its lurid subject matter. The gothic vignette showed a woman in a nightgown, one arm raised in music-hall terror against an advancing figure.

  ‘But as you can see,’ continued the Glorious, ‘he can, at least, be captured by art. And the human imagination.’

  Winter peered at the other figure in the picture, the one looming over the woman. It was a man, thin and ragged, dressed in a threadbare frock coat, string-belted trousers and dilapidated boots. A vagabond, perhaps, or a labourer. He shared the regal sweep of hair with the man in the charcoal sketch but there was something disturbingly animalistic in the face, the lips bared to reveal serrated teeth. There were words beneath the illustration, set in neat type. Black of purpose and animated by intent most foul, the dread revenant sought its ungodly sustenance.

  Winter glanced up. ‘Seriously?’

  ‘Oh, he has quite a history, if you know where to look. No doubt his origins would embarrass such a self-made man.’

  A third print was passed to Winter. This one was a reproduction of a medieval woodcut. Cruder in style, it depicted a rural, moonlit crossroads. A smiling monk held a Bible as a wormy figure in black rags fell to its knees, cowering. Light blazed from the holy book.

  ‘You’re telling me this is the same man? They’re all meant to be Don Zerbinati?’

  The male half of the Glorious addressed him. ‘He left his original name on a wooden cross in a village cemetery in the Valle dei Mulini. The name could be buried but not the man. He endures, let us say.’

  ‘A vampire,’ murmured Winter, remembering the files he had seen in Budapest. ‘But they can be photographed. I’ve seen pictures of their bones.’

  Fabienne spoke up. ‘It’s a quirk of their physiology. They are susceptible to X-rays but no other medium has been able to hold their likeness. Only art. Their flesh does not photograph. No mirrors or shadows mark their presence.’

  Alessandra nodded. ‘The undead are nothing if not elusive.’

  So Zerbinati was one of those hellish creatures, the ones whose bones held the secret that Operation Paragon had attempted to uncover. No wonder the Russians were interested in him.

  Winter returned to the first picture, the charcoal portrait. ‘So what is this, a courtroom sketch?’

  ‘In 1952 the Italian authorities attempted to prosecute him for immoral earnings,’ said the female side of the Glorious. ‘The trial barely lasted a day. Some legal technicality, or at least that’s what the record states. Don Zerbinati is an extremely influential man. Influential to the point of untouchable.’

  Winter stared at the pale eyes in the picture. They were only strokes of charcoal but there was something fearless in that gaze. ‘Who is he? What does he do?’

  ‘He rules Naples.’

  ‘Unelected, I take it?’

  The two faces of the Glorious smiled in perfect, queasy unison. ‘He is above politicians, above officials. Above even the mobsters of the Camorra. The underworld is in his pocket. Every corruption, every crime, every vice in the city… all at his door. Don Zerbinati is clan leader of I Senz’Ombr. The Shadowless.’

  ‘Can’t say I’ve ever heard of them.’

  ‘Of course not. And that is why they retain true power. They are a whisper at the heart of a storm.’

  ‘They consider themselves the highest caste of vampire,’ said Fabienne, ‘and it’s true that they possess certain genetic superiorities. They can enter holy ground and move freely in the day. It’s said that even the ones they turn can walk in the light. A touch of royal blood makes all the difference. And this is the king. The fount of that blood.’

  ‘Why would you want him dead?’ Winter caught himself, recalculated his words. ‘Or at least less… undead?’

  ‘Don Zerbinati has more than local ambition. He wants to unite his kind. Since the great Christian purges of the sixteenth century the vampiric empire has been splintered. Disarrayed. They retreated to the very shadows they cannot cast. A thousand independent dynasties, embedded in a thousand cities. They have power but it is diffuse.’

  ‘Surely this is a territorial squabble between you and the vampires? I know there’s precious little love lost between you lot.’

  ‘There are implications beyond our eternal quarrel,’ continued the male half of the Glorious. ‘Now Don Zerbinati seeks to give structure and purpose to these scattered houses of the undead. Unchecked, he will forge a new superpower for this world, bigger than America or Russia or Red China. A shadow nation, global in scale, one that will operate from a position of darkness and stealth, as untouchable as its ruler.’

  ‘He’s called a summit of the clans,’ said Fabienne. ‘It is happening in Naples in October, on the Feast of the Precious Torn. A special day for their kind. You could almost call it holy.’

  ‘Thank you, Fabienne,’ acknowledged the Glorious, tartly, before returning their attention to Winter. ‘Naturally it would be advantageous if Don Zerbinati was removed from our concern before then.’

  ‘And just how do you intend to kill him? I imagine he doesn’t die all that easily.’

  The Glorious paused. ‘It would require a very special bullet.’

  The conjoined bodies turned as one. They walked to the rear of the room. Only now did Winter realise that there was a door set into the furthest wall, its hinges all but invisible, masked by the gleam of the lights. It slid sideways with a ripple of casters, revealing an antechamber beyond. In contrast to the white room this was a gloomier space, lit by a single standing lamp.

  A parchment map was suspended from the ceiling. Its edges swayed as Winter and the others filled the hidden recess. It was an old map, an Ottoman map, the colours water-pale now but the lines that marked the national borders still vividly defined. Each nation was identified in curls of Arabic script. Winter recognised the coastlines of Europe.

  The eyes of the Glorious focused on him alone, the four golden irises bright and penetrating. ‘We trust you found the information you were seeking at the home of Signore Franzeri. If you did, now is the time to share it.’

  Winter hesitated, aware that Libby’s eyes were also upon him, a watchful reminder of Faulkner and London and a sense of duty that felt increasingly less vital to him. His professional reflex was to hold on to intelligence. But he had no idea what he had just acquired from Franzeri’s remains and, to judge by this whole extraordinary setup, these people did. This time curiosity overruled instinct. He reached inside his jacket and handed over the fan.

  The Glorious took it with a look that approached reverence. The man’s fingers moved with the woman’s, spreading the whalebone blades until the painted scene of the canal extended to the fan’s full width. Marvelling at what they held, the Glorious walked to the standing lamp and tilted its bulb directly at the map. Then they placed the fan in front of the beam.

  The silk cast a shadow on the parchment, turning the countries pale grey. The thread that had been inserted between the folds made a darker, more distinct shadow. It threw a ragged line upon the English Channel.

  It was a map upon a map.

  The Glorious adjusted the position of the fan. Now the shadow of the thread moved across the sea, gaining in size. Finally it aligned with the coast of Northern France, locking prec
isely into place. It matched the topography exactly, its peaks and dips echoing the contours of peninsulas and inlets. Winter assumed that the seven gems studding the silk had to be markers of some kind, denoting specific locations in the French countryside.

  ‘Signore Franzeri acquired quite a keepsake for his collection,’ said the Glorious. ‘This fan was the property of Pope Clement XIV. It vanished from the Vatican archive in 1773. It was later rumoured to be in the possession of the Marquis de Montferrat. Some say he intended it as a gift for Lilith herself. It is fitting you have brought it to us, Mr Winter.’

  ‘What am I looking at?’

  The woman answered him. ‘Folklore insists that vampires can be killed in a multiplicity of ways. A stake through the heart. Contact with holy water. Direct exposure to sunlight.’

  ‘Garlic,’ said Libby, with a smirk that faded as the rest of the room turned to her. ‘Just saying. I’ve heard about the garlic thing. Probably bollocks.’

  ‘These are peasant defences against the lowest caste of the undead,’ said Alessandra. ‘The ones who are barely more than vermin.’

  ‘Right,’ said Libby, with a chippy hint of North London. ‘I guess I know my place, then.’

  The incubus continued. ‘The higher vampire – the king, the queen – cannot be eliminated so easily. Their physiologies are considerably more robust. To kill them you need the holiest of armaments. Sacred objects. True relics. The thorns of Golgotha, for instance.’

  Winter took a moment to place the reference. ‘You’re talking about Christ? The crown of thorns? That’s two thousand years ago.’

  ‘They endured. The thorns were preserved by an alchemical procedure and guarded for centuries by a sect of Gnostic Christians. They were venerated, for they contained the very matter of Christ. His blood. His sweat. The remnants of his pierced flesh. In time they came into the possession of the Church. And as the vampiric dynasties expanded the Church made use of them.’

  Winter was curious now. ‘How?’

  ‘The burial of a vampire is a perfunctory business. They are never in the soil for long. You can see it as a perversion of the divine resurrection, if you like. But those who hunted the royal vampires knew it could be permanent.’