by Jack Yeovil
'It was another Warhawk killing.'
Detlef couldn't move his face to react as the special greasepaint was laid on.
The watch were on their way.
He had lost track of Genevieve, but could trust her to look after herself. He hoped he could trust her to look after him too.
'It has nothing to do with us,' Guglielmo said. 'A beggar was the victim.'
In her dressing room, Illona Horvathy was loudly filling a bucket with her dinner, as she'd done before every performance of every play she'd ever been in. Cindy stood back and judged her handiwork passable. Outside, he was Zhiekhill. Inside, he didn't know
He heard the first notes of Felix Hubermann's overture.
'Places, everyone,' Detlef shouted.
Feeling the cold, she made her way down the narrow passage, knowing the floor was likely to give way under her. It was dark, but she was at home in darkness.
Genevieve knew the Vargr Breughel was connected with the labyrinth of tunnels that criss-crossed under the city. Altdorf had suffered too many wars, sieges, revolutions and riots not to be worm-holed through with secret ways. There was a drip of slime from somewhere, and the Box Seven smell was strong in the confined space. It was a surprise, however, to find the body of the building itself so extensively undermined, as if the theatre was a stage set, backed not by solid walls but by painted canvas.
From the passageway behind the ladies' dressing rooms×to which, equipped as they were with one-way mirrors, the management could have charged admission and secured quite a substantial income from the city's wealthier devotees of female flesh×she'd passed into a hublike space, from which tunnels led off to all the points of the compass. There were also trapdoors in the ceiling and floor, so she supposed this knot was one of the secret junctions, a nodal point in the labyrinth.
There were few cobwebs, which suggested these paths were travelled often. In an alcove in the wall at the junction, a small bowl of matter burned, giving off a glow and a smell. It was longbane, a wood known to burn slowly, sometimes for up to a year.
This was an inhabited lair.
'Anyone home?' she asked, the passages throwing back echoes at her. There was no other answer.
She remembered the dark hallways of Drachenfels, and the unease that had set into her soul when she entered that castle. Even before anything had happened, she'd known that had been an evil place, the haunt of monsters and madness. This was different.
Reflecting upon her emotions, she realized she was depressed, not afraid. Whatever walked here, walked alone, lived alone. It hid away in the dark not from malice but from shame, fear, self-disgust.
She opened a door, and a stench enveloped her.
Her sense of smell was keener than a human's, and she had to hold her nose until the first wave had dissipated. Her stomach convulsed, and she would have vomited if there'd been any food in her. She didn't need to eat, but sometimes did so to be sociable or to sample a taste. But she hadn't taken anything solid for weeks. The nausea spasms were like blows to her abdomen.
Standing up, she looked into the cupboard.
It was something's larder, well-stocked with pale sewerfish, dog-size rats, various small altered creatures. The meat animals of the labyrinth all bore the taint of warpstone: the fish were eyeless or possessed of rudimentary forelimbs, the rats had heads out of proportion with their thin-furred bodies, other beasts were unidentifiable as what they had formerly been. They'd all been killed by something strong that broke necks or took large bites from its prey. Evidently, the epicure would not touch meat that was not yet a few days rotten, and these morsels had been left to putrefy a little, until they were fit to serve the larder-keeper's taste.
'Gods,' Genevieve swore, 'what a way to live!'
Moving on, she came to a drop that fell away into the depths of the city like a cliff. It was covered with what looked like a ship's rigging, a net of thick ropes, sturdy if tattered. It would be comparatively easy to climb down, but she thought that adventure could wait for another night.
Down below, she heard water lapping.
Turning away, she confidently expected to be able to retrace her steps. Within fifty paces, she was in new territory, lost.
She thought she was still on the same level as the theatre, and if she held still she could even hear the distant sounds of Felix's overture. She could not have gone that far into the labyrinth. There were trapdoors all over the place. Some must lead back to the public ways of the house.
Trying another promising door, she found herself surrounded by books and papers, stuffed into floor-to-ceiling shelves. There was a longbane taper burning, giving the room a woody, pleasant smell.
Longbane was known as Scholar's Ruin, because its fumes were mildly euphoric, mildly addictive.
This was a fairly ordinary theatre library. There were much-used and scribbled-on copies of standard works. A full set of the plays of Tarradasch, actors' and directors' copies of other repertory warhorses, some basic texts on stagecraft, a bundled collection of playbills, scrolled posters. A bound folio of Detlef Sierck was upside-down among the other books.
Genevieve looked about, wondering if any unusual book might turn up here, some grimoire of power bound in human skin and holding the key to a vast magical design. There was nothing of the sort.
What she did find was a whole case given over to books by someone of whom she had barely heard, a playwright of the previous century named Bruno Malvoisin. He was the author of Seduced by Slaaneshi, which she remembered as a scandalous piece in its day. Apart from that, he'd contributed nothing which still lived in the repertoire. She read the titles of plays from the elegant spines of the books: The Tragedy of Magritta, The Seventh Voyage of Sigmar, Bold Benvolio, An Estalian's Treachery, Vengeance of Vaumont, The Rape of Rachael. A whole life was wrapped up between these covers, a life spent and forgotten. Evidently, Bruno Malvoisin meant something to the inhabitant of the labyrinth. That might help solve the puzzle. She must ask Detlef if he knew anything about the man. Or, more usefully, Poppa Fritz: the stage-door keeper was an inexhaustible fount of theatrical lore.
She stepped back into the passageway, and tried the next trapdoor. It led to a small space that smelled of bread and belched a pocket of warm air at her. Genevieve almost passed it by, but then recognized that the back of the space was a door as well. She pulled herself into the recess, and pushed the door×a heavy, iron flap but unlocked×open.
Slipping out of one of the ovens, she found herself in the kitchens of the Vargr Breughel Memorial Playhouse. A chef turned, gasped, and dropped a tray of intermission pastries.
'Sorry,' she said. 'I thought I was cooked through.'
XI
Throughout the play, the Animus observed Detlef Sierck. In their scenes together, Eva was close to him, and the Animus could see through the filter of her mind. The actor was a huge man, almost swollen, physically strong, a powerful projector. This host wouldn't formerly have been able to best him in a struggle. Even with the Animus guiding her, taking away any restraints of pain or conscience, she might take a long time to overcome him. And Eva knew that, frail as she might seem, the vampire would be even more resilient.
With the rider in her mind, Eva lived the role of Nita as never before, wrestling the piece away from Detlef and the other players. The second act curtain was hers, as she returned on her knees to Chaida, lifting her scarf away from her bruises and throwing herself upon his mercy. The tableau was thunderously applauded.
Once the curtain was rung down, Detlef said, 'Good work, Eva, but, perhaps, from now on, less is more'
As she stood up, the scene shifters working around them to change the stage set, Detlef looked at her. Sweat was pouring from him, beads glistening through his monster face-paint. His role was exhausting.
Reinhardt swarmed around, and kissed her on the cheek.
'Magnificent,' he said, 'a revelation'
Detlef frowned, his Chaida brows moving together ferociously.
'She gets better and better, don't you think?'
'Of course,' the actor-manager nodded.
'You're a star,' Reinhardt said, touching her chin with his thumb.
The Animus knew that Reinhardt Jessner wanted sexual congress with its host. From Bernabe Scheydt, it understood lust.
'Just remember,' Detlef said, 'at the end of the play, I kill you.'
Eva smiled and nodded humbly. The Animus sampled the complicated emotions that ticked over inside the host's head. She was more ordered in her thoughts than Scheydt, the supposed devotee of the Law, had been. In her single-mindedness, she was very like the Animus itself. In the near distance she had purposes, and every-step she took brought her nearer their achievement. Surprised, the Animus found itself in sympathy with Eva Savinien.
Coolly, professionally, the host stood to one side of the stage, allowing her dresser to change her shawl, and a make-up artist to dab stage blood and blue bruising onto her face.
'More flowers,' said an old man Eva knew as Poppa Fritz. 'Flowers from the palace.'
The Animus allowed Eva a tight smile. She thought the admiration of influential men a distraction. Despite everything, despite her resolve, despite her calculation, her life was for the theatre. She thought of taking lovers, patrons, a place in society. But they were just underpinnings. Her purpose was out in the limelight, out on the stage. Eva understood she was different, and didn't expect to be loved by individuals. Only the audience counted, that collective heart which was hers to win.
'And a special bouquet,' Poppa Fritz continued, 'from a kind spirit'
A chill struck Eva, surprising the Animus.
Poppa Fritz held out a card, upon which was written, 'From the Occupant of Box Seven.'
'That's the Trapdoor Daemon's perch,' he explained.
A panic grew inside Eva, but the Animus soothed it away. Sampling the girl's memory, it understood her instinctive fears, understood the tangle into which she'd got herself. It could help her overcome these untidy emotions, and so it did.
The Animus was beginning to lose its sense of a distinct identity. It had started to think of itself as herself. Its former existence was a dream. Now, it was Eva Savinien. She was Eva.
Her name was called, and without a thought she took up her place on the dark stage. The curtains parted, and the light came up.
Nita lived.
Eva was different tonight. Of course, the Trapdoor Daemon had expected that. After the shock she'd had, most actresses would not even have gone on this evening.
He couldn't understand, though, how she could be so magnificent. She was a different person onstage. The screaming girl in the dressing room was left behind somewhere, and all the audience could see was Nita. He wondered how much of the luminousness of her playing was down to fear, down to the memory of the thing she had seen.
Having confronted a monster in her real life, was she better able to understand Mr. Chaida's mistress? Later, would she come back to her guiding spirit just as the Kislevite drab persistently crawled to her abusive lover?
The ghost was almost frightened. He understood Eva the actress, but he couldn't begin to fathom out Eva the woman. He didn't even really believe there was such a person.
In Box Seven, he was racked with sobs, stifling the noise, feeling the tears leaking from his huge eyes.
On the stage, Nita cringed under a torrent of abuse from Chaida. The monster took a willow-switch to her back, and poured forth a stream of obscenities, insults, taunts.
The Trapdoor Daemon, like the rest of the audience, was held horrorstruck.
Detlef Sierck's Chaida capered like an ape, almost dancing with glee as he inflicted hurt upon hurt. As Eva's performance grew in strength, so she pushed her co-star to greater lengths.
Evil was in the Vargr Breughel Theatre. Concentrated under the lights, shining for all to see. Detlef's Zhiekhill and Chaida would be remembered as one of his great roles. It went beyond make-up. It was as if the playwright were truly living out the duality, the heights of nobility, the depths of depravity. Some might fear for the performer's sanity and assume he had gone the way of the notorious Laszlo Lowenstein, the horrors of his stage roles overwhelming his real life until man and monster became indistinguishable.
On stage, Mr. Chaida clumped with heavy boots over the prone form of the innkeeper's child, gleefully stomping the life out of her.
Listening from his hiding places, the Trapdoor Daemon had learned that tickets for Dr. Zhiekhill and Mr. Chaida were changing hands at ten times their face value. Every night, masked dignitaries were cramming into the boxes, unable to bear not having seen the piece. More seats were being squeezed into the stalls and circle, and commoners were paying a week's wage to stand by the walls, just to wonder at the spectacle, to be a part of the occasion.
The audience screamed as the innkeeper's daughter's head came off, and Chaida booted it into the wings.
It was magical. And fragile. No one knew how long the spell would last. Eventually, the play might fall into a set pattern, and become a routine entertainment, and those lucky enough to see it early would look with pity upon those who came later in the run.
The scene changed. Nita was alone now, singing her song, trying to beg from unseen passers-by the kopecks she needed to bribe the gate-keeper to let her out of the city. Away from Chaida, she might have a chance. Back in her village, she could find a life.
Half the audience was trying to hide their tears.
Her hands out, she felt the buffeting of the uncaring Kislevites. Her song ended, and she slipped to the stage, fluttering scraps of paper drifting about her to signify the famous Kislev snows. In her ragged clothes, Nita shivered, hugging herself.
Then the shadow of Chaida fell upon her. And her doom was sealed.
XII
It was taking Detlef longer to recover after each performance. There were three major fights, four violent love scenes and six murders in the script, plus the physically gruelling transformation scenes. He was picking up as many bruises as a pit-fighter. He must be sweating off pounds, although that didn't seem to be affecting his gut.
Tonight, he'd barely been able to stand up for the curtain calls. Once the piece was over, the weight of weariness fell on him from a great height. They were all calling for Eva, anyway. He could easily fade into the scenery.
Once the curtain was down for the last time, Reinhardt had to help him off the stage, choosing a path between the ropes and flats.
There was a pile of floral offerings the size of an ox-cart heaped up by the ladies' dressing rooms. All for Eva.
Scraping at his face, pulling off his Chaida deformities, he staggered to his own dressing room, and collapsed on a divan, head pounding like a blacksmith's anvil. He was sure Reinhardt had stabbed him during the fight, but had so many pains that he couldn't isolate any individual wound. His dresser soaked a cloth, and dropped it on his forehead. Detlef garbled out a thanks.
He was still shaking, still in the grips of Mr. Chaida.
When he shut his eyes, he saw Eva Savinien mutilated and dismembered. He saw rivulets of blood in the streets of Altdorf. He saw children thrown into open fires. Human bodies rent apart, entrails strewn in the dirt, eyes pecked by ravens, tongues pulled out.
He woke out of his doze, horrors still vivid in his mind.
Guglielmo was there, with the broadsheets. They were full of the latest Warhawk murder.
'The watch don't know who the beggar was,' Guglielmo said. 'The regular beggars in Temple Street claim never to have seen him, although he doesn't exactly have a face you could identify. He wore an amulet of Solkan, but the assumption is that he stole it. There's no connection with the other victims. No connection with the theatre.'
Detlef could imagine the hawk's spiked feet latching onto human flesh, the beak gouging skin, hammering at bone.
'I've ordered an extra patrol of the night guard on the street, and I'm putting a few bruisers in the building tonight. This whole thing stinks of trouble. What
with Eva's broken mirror and the Warhawk death, I think we might have the beginnings of a curse here.'
Detlef sat up, his back and arms aching. Poppa Fritz was in the room too, looking solemn.
'This house has had curses before,' the old man said. 'Strange Flower. It seems the Trapdoor Daemon took against it. The production never got to the first night. Illnesses, accidents, mishaps, assaults, disagreements. The whole thing.'
'There is no curse,' Detlef said. 'Dr. Zhiekhill and Mr. Chaida is a success.'
'There've been cursed successes.'
Detlef snorted. But he couldn't summon up the contempt for superstition that would once have burst forth unasked when anyone talked of curses on plays. Actors were quite capable of fouling up a production without supernatural intervention.
'Tybalt's called for us to be shut down again,' said Guglielmo. 'I don't know what's got into him. Some moral crusade or other marched up and down outside all evening. Rotten fruit was thrown at the front of the theatre, and a couple of heavies tried to rough up the ticket takers.'
Genevieve appeared.
'Gene,' he said. 'A voice of sanity.'
'Maybe,' she replied, kissing his cheek. She smelled, peculiarly, of fresh bread.
'Where've you been?'
She did not answer him, but asked a question of her own. 'Who was Bruno Malvoisin?'
'Author of Seduced by Slaaneshi? That Bruno Malvoisin?'
'Yes, him.'
'An old playwright. Bretonnian, originally, but he wrote in Reikspiel so he must have been an Imperial citizen.'
'That's all?'
'That's all I know,' Detlef said, not understanding. 'He must have died fifty years ago.'
Poppa Fritz shook his head. 'No, sir. Malvoisin didn't die, exactly.'
Genevieve turned to the old man.
'You know about him?'
'What is all this, Gene,' Detlef asked.
'A mystery,' she said. 'Poppa Fritz?'
'Yes, mam'selle. I know about Bruno Malvoisin. I've been in the theatre a long time. I've seen them come, and I've seen them go. All the greats, all the failures. When I was a young man, Malvoisin was a famous playwright. A director, too.'
