The Spider Dance

by Nick Setchfield

  ‘The remains of your men were discovered soon after the Englishman’s escape,’ Zerbinati told Cesare. ‘Salvatore and I came to a mutually beneficial agreement. He was commendably loyal to you but he has no desire to endure life this way. He told me of your ambitions. I gave him the voice he needed.’

  He placed his hands either side of the head, spreading his elegant fingers across the bloodless skin until they rested beneath the eyes and the mouth. When he spoke again his voice had a guttural register. Three raw syllables that sounded as though they had been ground from a man’s throat.

  ‘Bastardo!’

  Salvatore’s eyes hadn’t left Winter. The word was meant for him. In the absence of lungs and vocal cords Zerbinati was channelling the thoughts trapped inside the decapitated head. A vampire monarch’s gift, Winter could only imagine.

  ‘In return for his confession I have brought him here,’ declared Zerbinati, his voice regaining its characteristic silk as it resonated across the rock walls. ‘He shall find mercy among the pilgrims. A finality he would otherwise have been denied. So you’ve done some good, at least, Cesare, by unlocking this sepulchre.’

  He walked to the feet of San Gennaro, the shadow of the saint falling upon him. Reverently he placed the head among the bones.

  Salvatore’s eyes rolled up, staring at the outstretched arms, at their promise of an ending. The lids flickered, then closed in gratitude, waiting for the hallowed blood that would one day seep from the marble hands.

  Don Zerbinati turned to his son. ‘Why, Cesare? Why crave even more power than you have?’

  Cesare matched his gaze. ‘Is that really how you built your empire? By asking such a stupid question?’

  Zerbinati belted him with the back of his hand, sending blood flying from the ruined mouth.

  ‘I am your father. And I am your king.’

  ‘Well, what other reason do I need?’ Cesare was frothing blood as he fought to push words through broken teeth. ‘You call this a dynasty. How can it be a dynasty when you will never die? My bloodline is meaningless. You know that, Father. I’ve been your heir for centuries. I will always be your heir. Our kind inherit nothing! So I take what is mine!’

  Don Zerbinati listened, and nodded, weighing a reaction.

  ‘You will inherit my mercy,’ he said simply. ‘And my regret.’

  As Winter watched he delved into his suit pocket. When he opened his hand the bullet – the sacred bullet – was resting on his palm, blistering the flesh around it.

  Cesare stared at the object, realising his father’s intention. ‘You won’t end my life. I’m still your blood!’

  ‘Then my blood is poisoned. I’m cleansing the bloodline.’

  Zerbinati took his son by the back of the head, wrenching him onto his knees. Cesare tried to pull away but the older vampire had superior strength, superior will.

  ‘This is the power of the Christ. This is why you should have learned to fear it.’

  Zerbinati locked a hand to Cesare’s mouth, prising the jaws apart, forcing the shattered teeth to separate. The bullet was burning in his hand, charring the skin with a hiss of heat. Winter could smell the flesh searing in the presence of the thorn.

  Cesare screamed as Zerbinati put the bullet on his tongue. His father clasped the jaws together and pulled the head back, keeping his hand firm against the lips. In seconds Cesare had the bullet in his throat. He began to choke on it, compelled to swallow it down.

  Zerbinati released his grip and stepped aside.

  Cesare rocked on his knees, his eyes widening.

  There was a tiny ignition of light at the centre of each pupil. The smallest flame catching hold, burning out of the black circles, scorching the irises and turning them into hot red coronas. In seconds the whites of the eyes were also on fire, seared into blindness. Soon the sockets held only smoke, pouring out of the eviscerated holes.

  The skin cracked and curled like bonfire leaves, crumbling against bone. Cesare reached for his face, the tips of the fingers already reduced to ash. Even the golden salamander ring ran molten in the flames.

  A voracious heat consumed him. A holy heat, absolute and annihilating, blazing out of his chest, out of the bullet, out of the hallowed thorn that had drawn the blood of the Nazarene millennia before. The conflagration savaged his body, purging the flesh like a wrathful spirit.

  Cesare’s carcass fell to the cavern floor, charred organs and blackened entrails exposed through the rags of his suit. There was no life left in him, only the cinder sparks of the dust that had once been skin.

  Winter felt the sweat cool in his pores now that the heat had passed. He was shocked almost into numbness by what he had just witnessed. He looked from Cesare’s remains to Don Zerbinati. The man’s face was impassive.In that moment he seemed part of the necropolis, something old and monolithic.

  ‘You said this was a place of mercy.’

  There was a flutter of muscle beneath the mouth. Zerbinati’s eyes shimmered in the light of the cavern. He was fighting tears. It was obvious now. ‘Mercy is always a matter of judgement.’

  Winter pushed past Cesare’s men to where Libby lay. He knelt beside her, easing her hand from the wound and sliding his fingers into hers, through the warm paste of blood. Her hand briefly tightened in response, but it was clear the strength was leaving her. The girl’s skin had a pebble-coolness to it now. The blood was slowing in her veins as her heart failed.

  She was still breathing but the pattern had changed; a dry rasp of breath followed by no breath at all and then, after an agonisingly long pause, another halting intake of air. It was the way people died, Winter knew. The awful, fractured rhythm of the final moments, snatching at existence.

  ‘I’m with you, Libby,’ he told her again. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’

  He remembered taking that bullet in Budapest, how Alessandra had saved him with magic, with a demon’s enchantment that had crept from a mirror and healed the damage. He had that power inside him now, and no idea how to use it, how to shape it, how to keep this girl alive. He could only will her to keep breathing. Just one more breath, and another. It was all he could do and Christ, it wouldn’t be enough.

  ‘Who is she?’

  Don Zerbinati was standing over them.

  Winter kept his eyes on Libby, watching as she dragged the dusty air into her mouth. ‘British Intelligence. She took a chance. She was brave.’

  ‘She was your friend?’

  Winter snapped at his use of the past tense. ‘She’s still alive. She’s right here. She’s breathing.’ The words were as much for her as for Zerbinati.

  Seconds passed before another tortured breath broke the hush of the chamber. Libby’s hand hung limp in Winter’s, barely any weight at all.

  ‘My son did this?’

  Winter nodded, on the verge of exasperation. ‘He shot her. He shot her in the heart.’

  Zerbinati considered this in silence.

  ‘You’re quite right,’ he said at last. ‘This sepulchre is a place of mercy. I can ensure she lives.’

  Winter looked up, searching the other man’s face. ‘How?’

  ‘We must make a deal.’

  ‘There’s no time for a bloody deal!’ Winter shouted the words, his composure breaking. ‘If you can save her, save her! Do it now!’

  ‘First we reach an agreement,’ said Zerbinati, evenly.

  Winter sighed through his teeth and turned back to Libby. ‘What are you asking?’

  ‘I ask only your discretion. Tell your people nothing of what you found in my city. This crypt, these pilgrim bones. All that is buried here. Destroy those photographs. Never speak of what you discovered. This site is sacred to my kind. It is not a charnel house to be plundered. Do we have an understanding?’

  Winter wasn’t persuaded. ‘The Erovores told me about your ambitions. You’re expanding your empire. You’ll end up provoking a war between my people and yours.’

  ‘The Erovores lied to you,’ Zerbinati countered, co
olly insistent. ‘I have all the power I require, here in this city. Why would I provoke a war? The world is exquisitely balanced and I exist within that balance. Cesare had ambition but the centuries have burnt ambition from me. Simply respect my rule. British Intelligence must stay out of Naples. Once they learn where I have concealed the bones it will only be a matter of time before Moscow knows.’

  ‘You’ve met with the Russians! I saw Kulganek at the villa!’

  ‘Paragon is a dead operation for me. Another war, another alliance. I have told the Soviets we will reach no accommodation. If they choose to pursue their research it will be without my blessing. And that is an unfortunate place for anyone to be.’

  ‘And who says you’re telling the truth?’

  ‘You have my word. The word of a king.’

  Winter knew there was no time to debate this. ‘Say I agree to this deal. Just how do you intend to save her?’

  Zerbinati regarded the dying girl at his feet. ‘I intend to give her life. As a gift.’

  Libby’s eyes widened as they met Zerbinati’s. She was on the edge of consciousness but the meaning of his words had cut through her.

  Winter took a moment longer to realise the implication. ‘No chance…’

  ‘This is the proposition I’m offering. Do you accept?’

  ‘Turn her into one of you? Just what kind of life do you think you’d be giving her? You people are monsters. I’ve seen your gift. A girl in the Spanish quarter, killing for a fix of blood…’

  ‘We are far from monsters. Let me prove it to you.’

  ‘You’re the undead!’

  Zerbinati nodded, accepting this with good grace. ‘But we are not the dead. She would know life, at least. Do we have an agreement?’

  ‘It’s not my choice,’ Winter protested. ‘How can you imagine it’s my choice?’

  Libby gripped his hand with the last of her strength. She was fighting to focus, fighting to speak, determined to push the words from her throat. Winter leaned in, placing his head closer to hers.

  ‘I want to live,’ said Libby. The syllables cracked as she uttered them, all but lost in a choking swill of phlegm and blood.

  She might be delirious, thought Winter. Brain activity was always chaos in the last moments.

  ‘Listen to me,’ he urged her. ‘Do you understand what he’s saying? What he’s offering you? It’s not life…’

  Libby’s eyes flared, a flash of hazel against white. It was as if she had summoned a final, familiar spark.

  Again she forced the words out, blood spilling onto her chin as she spoke. ‘I want this…’

  Zerbinati addressed Winter. ‘Do we have an agreement?’

  Winter nodded, then let his hand slip from Libby’s. He rose to his feet, keeping eye contact with her as long as he could.

  ‘Do it. Do it quickly.’

  Don Zerbinati knelt beside her. His spine arched as he threw back his head, drawing down the teeth.

  The bite was taken with an unexpected tenderness. There was compassion in the way he didn’t linger, didn’t rend or shred the skin. Winter had only ever witnessed a vampire’s blood-frenzy. This was different. There was nothing savage in the way Zerbinati pierced her throat. It was precise, almost surgical. An act of mercy, just as he had promised.

  Libby gave a raw, urgent gasp as the teeth sank into her neck. Her body shuddered as her hands curled into fists. It was as if a vicious, animating current was fighting to escape her. Again she gasped, a shock of cold cavern air punching into her lungs.

  Zerbinati took his teeth from her, dabbing at the blood that ringed his lips. Without turning his head he gave a command to the men. ‘Stiletto!’

  One of the Shadowless proffered a switchblade. Zerbinati sprung the slender length of steel and scored his palm, summoning a crescent of blood. He brought the hand to Libby’s mouth.

  She instinctively lapped at the skin, her tongue darting against the wetness. There was hunger – and life – in the way she drank from the wound. Her eyelids quivered, lost in the new sensation, the new desire. And then she was still, her arms falling either side of her, rolling into the dust. Zerbinati rose, the transaction of blood complete. ‘She’ll be taken care of at the villa. She will need time.’

  Winter crouched beside Libby, looking away from the puncture wounds on her throat. Her expression was dazed but her breathing had stabilised, back to its usual rhythm.

  She raised her head, her eyes finding him. For a moment all she could do was stare, disoriented. And then, with an effort, she lifted herself onto her elbows.

  ‘Take it slow,’ said Winter.

  The words tumbled out of her now. ‘Feels weird… Everything’s bright… I can taste it…’

  Winter placed an arm around her shoulder. He pulled her close, hearing her breathe, feeling the brisk, solid thump of her heart, a heart that would outlast his, might even outrace the world.

  ‘They’re going to take care of you. It’s going to be alright.’

  As he held her he stared at the cavern wall.

  There was only one shadow on the ancient rock.

  28

  The car waited in the blue dusk, its engine idling, poised for the interception.

  Winter had tucked it into a lay-by, among the wild hawthorn that bordered this country road, just off the A2 on the main commuter route between London and the mansions of Kent. The car’s position allowed him a view of approaching vehicles. There was just enough distance – just enough time – to determine silhouettes and skim licence plates. The rural speed limit was an advantage in that regard but this would be a tight, precise manoeuvre, turning on a matter of seconds. He had rehearsed it in his head until it was nearly a muscle memory.

  The engine throbbed through the chassis of the saloon. Winter could feel the wheel vibrate in his hands as he glanced at the dashboard clock. Eighteen minutes to nine.

  The sun had begun to fade an hour ago and the late summer twilight felt heavy on the Kent countryside, smudging the details of trees and hop kilns. Only the occasional Morgan or Mercedes broke the stillness of the fields, headlights chasing asphalt as they passed. If some returning stockbroker spotted the Rover Mk II wedged against the hedgerow they didn’t slow. A breakdown, no doubt, a job for the RAC. Or maybe it was a furtive office tryst, fogging the rear windows.

  Winter had hired the car from a firm in Sevenoaks. Once again he had used the name of Anthony Prestwick, a man who had begun to feel more real with each deception. In a day or so – if this went to plan – he would post an envelope to the firm, enclosing a roll of banknotes, more than enough to cover the inevitable damage to the car. It would be a tidy, decent thing to do. He would use a postbox in Faversham or Broadstairs, or some other town he had no intention of ever visiting again.

  Winter sat there, staring through the passenger-side window, the remains of a travel sweet turning on his tongue. The road was reasonably quiet at this point in the evening, the traffic sporadic. People tended to flee the city at six, or perhaps a glass of port later. But not the man he was waiting for. This man had a schedule of his own, one that Winter had mapped and anticipated over the past weeks. It was just about all he could pin down.

  Winter’s Ford Zephyr waited in a tree-shaded copse on the other side of a field. He had left it there that morning, knowing he would need it later, once the Rover had served its purpose.

  It was gone nine o’clock when he spotted the Bentley in the dying light. There was no mistaking the imposing grille and quad headlights of the Continental Flying Spur. A glance at the licence plate confirmed the target. It was approaching from the left at a comfortable 30 mph.

  Now.

  Winter put his foot to the accelerator pedal, gunning the 3-litre engine and sending the car lurching out of the lay-by with a roar.

  Then he stamped on the brake, arresting the surge of speed as best he could.

  A horn sounded. The Bentley had no chance to swerve. The Rover was right in its path. Winter registered the driver�
�s face, the shock and rage in his eyes.

  He shut his own eyes and turned away, keeping his head absolutely level to counter the risk of whiplash. He gripped the wheel, muscles tightening as he braced for impact.

  The prow of the Bentley ploughed into the passenger doors. Winter heard a protest of metal as the cars clashed, two sets of bodywork grinding and buckling. The pulverising crunch shook his bones and knocked the breath from his body. His head hit the driver’s side window, his temple juddering against the glass, but the seat belt kept him secure.

  At almost two tons the Bentley had the greater heft. Its pure weight and impetus sent the Rover scraping across the asphalt, some twenty yards along the road. The tyres of the smaller car screeched as they were rammed sideways.

  Locked as one, the vehicles finally slid to a halt. Winter opened his eyes, lifting his hands from the steering wheel. He tested his fingers. No breakages. He looked to his left. The passenger window was shattered, the rear one too. A mess of glass littered the leather interior, mixed with splinters of wood from the ruptured panelling. Through the wreck of the window he saw the Bentley’s chauffeur, furiously pushing himself out of his seat.

  A jammed horn blared through the dusk. It was a strident, hateful sound. In the aftermath of the crash Winter couldn’t tell which car it was coming from. He unclipped his seat belt and stepped out of the Rover, ignoring the bruised, winded ache in his chest.

  He walked to the other side of the car, grinding scattered glass beneath his shoes. ‘I’m so terribly sorry, old man. All my fault. So bloody stupid.’

  The driver was already in his face. ‘What the hell’s your game, you tool? Didn’t you see us coming?’

  Six foot one, estimated Winter. Ex-service bearing, all fists and shoulders. Prominent veins, hot, pinched eyes. Not the longest fuse. Too confrontational for a bodyguard but could clearly handle himself if need be.

  ‘I can’t apologise enough. It’s an insurance claim, of course, but damnably inconvenient for you. I’ll let you have my card.’

  ‘This is a Bentley!’ the man shouted above the insistent sneer of the horn. ‘You don’t do that to a Bentley!’