The Dark Arts of Blood (17 page)

“I… suspected. I hoped…”

“I would do anything for you. Don’t mistake me. This isn’t blind lust or infatuation. I desire you, of course, with all my being – but this is more. It’s everything. I would marry you tomorrow if I could. I don’t ask for an answer now, of course not, but my offer is there for eternity. I have to be with you.”

“Stop. Emil, please. I was going to say that I hoped my suspicions were wrong.”

Of course, she was bound to react like this. This was too sudden, he knew – but the truth was out now. He drew back, sitting on his heels.

“I don’t believe you feel nothing in return,” he said, as calmly as he could. “I know you do! That night of the storm at sea – you saved my life. You sat with your hand in mine all through that long, terrible night.”

He paused to draw breath. Violette remained motionless. Even in his heightened state, he knew better than to lay a hand on her.

“I lay my life before you,” he went on, his voice going hoarse. “We should be together. I
have
to be with you. What do I care for your rules, when they bring us nothing but pain? I may be a fool, but better a brave idiot than a coward. You wanted the truth – there it is. My heart is yours, now and forever. I love you.”

He ran out of words, feeling drained, unburdened. Not humiliated, but relieved that he’d found the courage to spill his true feelings, for good or ill. His heart clenched tight around the hope that she would soften and whisper, “I need time to think about this,” or, “I have been alone for so long…”

After a silence that seemed to last an hour, she said, “Have you finished?”

He nodded.

“Well, I appreciate your honesty. Stand up, return to the other side of the desk.”

He obeyed and sat down, holding on to the arms of his chair.

Her voice was gentle and compassionate, but her eyes were glacial.

“Emil, dear, you need to understand that I don’t share your feelings. What you suggest is impossible.”

He sat staring, his whole being electrified with denial. He was ready for debate, argument, anything but this wall of ice.

“I’m not angry with you,” she went on. “We may all develop inconvenient feelings. That doesn’t mean they must be acted upon. I am, however, bitterly disappointed. I thought that I’d found a perfect partner whom I could trust.”

“You can trust me!”

“Not any more.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Yes, you do.” Her eyes seemed to fill the universe like blue-violet suns, casting a terrible spell over him. “You knew the rules when I took you on. Beyond a working partnership, nothing can or will
ever
occur between us. Unfortunately, your outburst has seriously compromised our professional relationship.”

“No – it need not,” he said helplessly.

“How not? You have a choice, Emil. If you truly cannot control your feelings for me, you must leave.”

“
What?
But I am the best—”

“Yes, the best partner I’ve ever had, and I don’t want to lose you. So if you can erase your emotions, and if we can behave as if this conversation never happened – then you can stay. But I’ll never be at ease with you again. You do understand that? I’ll never confide in you, never treat you as the other half of myself, never trust you. Because of this, I’ll always be on my guard. Everything between us will be work, nothing else.”

He groaned, his hands dangling between his knees. His turmoil of misery began to harden into anger. He couldn’t accept her rejection, couldn’t endure it.

“Madame,” he said. “I cannot help my feelings. I wish I’d said nothing, but you forced me to speak!”

She shrugged. “I needed the truth from you, whether I liked it or not.”

“Affection may grow in time,” he said softly. “I will prove myself.”

Violette stared at him. She was notoriously intimidating, but never had he seen her as burning-cold and hostile as she was now.

“Enough. Don’t make me repeat myself.
I do not share your feelings
. Do you accept this, or shall I look for a new male principal? Jean-Paul is waiting in the wings. He’s not you, but he’ll do well enough.”

“I accept it,” he whispered, floored by outrage and misery. Blood ran scalding through his hands and face. Sweat dampened his forehead. He wanted to yell and lash out at fate – what tormenting deity caused him to love this cursed art form, to bring him into the orbit of a goddess he could never have? All those pretty girls at the stage door – he could have had any or all of them. But the only woman he wanted spurned him. How dare she hold such power over him?

“Good,” she said. “For the next week, you will attend class, but nothing else. No rehearsals.”

“You’re suspending me?”

“Not exactly. Think of it as time to cool off. I do not want to see your face again until you’ve purged your mind of this nonsense and are ready to work. Now go.”

“Madame…”

“Are you going to be professional and forget this ever happened? Or are you going to continue composing your letter of resignation?”

“I can’t take it back,” he growled, backing towards the door. “You asked for the truth. I won’t feel shame for telling it. Forgive me for being a mere mortal.”

“Forgiven,” she hissed. “Now
get out of my sight
.”

Emil stumbled into the corridor, slamming the door behind him. He was half-blind with humiliation and rage, his heart in shreds. The encounter was no more than he should have expected – yet, for a few impulsive moments, he’d dared to think…

“
Idiot!
” he cursed himself.

Turning a corner, he bumped into Mikhail. The Russian grinned, all innocent good cheer.

“Hey, what happened? Mistress give you a dozen lashes of her tongue? What did you do?”

Emil exploded. “You told her, you bastard! This is your fault!”

“I never said a—”

Emil’s fist cracked into his jaw and Mikhail hit the floorboards. He was out cold for a few seconds, then stirred, dazed, with blood streaming from his lip. People began to gather in the passageway. Suddenly Violette came striding towards them.

“What the hell is happening?”

She took in the scene, turned with slow menace to Emil.

“Suspension until further notice,” she said.

K
arl clasped Charlotte’s hand in the darkness. The flat screen came to life with silvery images, ghostly yet over-bright to his dark-attuned vision.

Most human art held some kind of interest for him: even if a play was dull, he would find endless fascination in studying the actors’ mannerisms, or the subtle interplay of the audience. Film was different. For some reason he couldn’t make any connection with this comparatively young technology. The surreal glimmer of black and grey, the melodrama, the choppy editing and hysterical music, the way the action ran too fast, distorting time – all combined to give him a sense of nightmare.

“Talkies” were on their way. And colour. When critics insisted that these developments would never catch on, he could only smile. Of course they would. Almost every advance caught on in the end.

Charlotte found the cinema entrancing. Wanting to please her, he’d sat through the surreal horrors of
The Phantom Carriage, Nosferatu, The Cabinet of Dr Caligari
and too many others.

Tonight they were watching
The Lion Arises
, an overwrought fantasy about an Egyptian queen being kidnapped by her own eunuchs, and rescued by an heroic Swiss officer and his trusty friends. The small cinema was packed with British, American and French tourists.

“Charlotte,” he whispered, “we saw this last month. It was as terrible then as it is now.”

“I know,” she said with an enigmatic smile.

A man leaned down from the row behind and tapped Karl on the shoulder. “Excuse me,” he said in a low, clipped tone. “Did I hear you say that this film is terrible? Why?”

“It’s… well, a little overacted, don’t you think? And the action jumps all over the place,” Charlotte answered with polite charm. “But the camera work is very good.”

“When the action jumps, that is intentional.”

“Dream sequences?”

“It’s called symbolism,” he hissed.

“I see,” said Charlotte. “It’s very… striking.”

The man sat back with a
hmph
noise.

Karl stayed quiet, thinking,
It’s the work of an amateur, trying too hard.
All the same, he became mesmerised by the deep grainy shadows, actors with blanched faces and dark-ringed eyes… divinely beautiful in a disturbing way, like vampires.

A desert sword-fight cut abruptly to
Fasnacht
, the pre-Lenten festival when the streets of Lucerne filled with revellers in grotesque masks, musicians marching in ranks like soldiers. The musical accompaniment – a live pianist doing his best to improvise atmosphere – was out of time, so they seemed to pound their drums to a different, unheard rhythm. The effect was disorientating.

Symbolic
, thought Karl.
So this refers to what is happening in the hero’s head?

He’d witnessed
Fasnacht
in reality: a noisy, entertaining parade. He was amazed that the grey tones and soundless frenzy could turn a colourful festivity into a scene from a horror film.

Huge white-faced demons with spiralling horns leered at the camera then reeled away. Hideous kings and queens swayed along, eight feet tall. Gigantic gnomes, wolf-faced warriors with straggling hair – on
Fasnacht
Lucerne was possessed by a medieval carnival, as if the inhabitants of hell had broken loose for a few days.

Karl found himself holding his breath, hands turning cold. He didn’t recall being so disturbed the first time they’d watched
The Lion Arises
. Now he felt deep, irrational disquiet, almost a phobia; an emotion that belonged to humans, not to vampires.
I cannot be afraid of a film
, he told himself in disbelief. Yet the longer he watched, the more his unease deepened. The monotones, the overwrought action, the faces that were too pale and shadow-ringed like those of mad, animated corpses…

The atmosphere made him think of Raqia at its most distorted and hostile, and of hallucinations he’d suffered when Kristian brought him back from the dead… Times of pure horror.

Fasnacht
was both traditional and powerful. Quintessentially Swiss, yet almost pagan. A primeval ritual to scare away demons.

That was the not-so-hidden meaning. The hero was fighting off demons to save the beleaguered desert queen.

“Karl?” Charlotte whispered. “Are you all right? You look horrified.”

He blinked, averted his gaze from the screen. The silvery light flickered over her face, making her appear ghostly. She looked just like one of the actresses: pale, beautiful, sultry-eyed. And a twin sat beside her, exactly echoing her movements.

He closed his eyes, gripped her fingers.

When he looked again, there was only one Charlotte.

“Your hand is freezing,” she said. “We can leave. Hunt instead.”

“No,” he said softly. “Fascinating, that light and shadow can have such a profound effect. We’ll stay until the bitter end.”

“I think it’s wondrous, the way they make images move, create a story out of something that isn’t really there. I was eight years old when my father took us to our first moving picture. The magic never wore off.”

“And I wouldn’t dream of depriving you of that magic,” Karl replied, “but if you ever make me watch
Nosferatu
again – well, among humans it might be grounds for divorce.”

Charlotte grinned. “Don’t tell me you were frightened!”

“No. But it was grotesquely inaccurate. And mildly ridiculous. I should add that if ever I saw an
accurate
film about vampires, I’d be truly disturbed.”

“I thought the story was moving,” she said. “But I promise I won’t inflict any more horror films on you. No more
Dr Caligari
or
Hands of Orlac
… but I think they’re fun. Shivers down the spine.”

“If you would stop muttering,” hissed the man behind them, “perhaps you would appreciate what you’re seeing!”

“Apologies,” said Karl, exchanging a sideways glance with Charlotte.

He couldn’t put his disquiet into words. The flat unreality, the flickering grey shadows full of hidden, indefinable threat, afflicted him at a primeval level.
Uncanny
. That was the only word he could find, and even then it was a feeling, not an explanation.

Karl let his attention drift to the audience. The place was full and he couldn’t help savouring the heat of so much human blood. So many pulsing hearts. Couples whispered and kissed in the dark, as they never would in public…

Charlotte gripped his hand, jolting him from his trance.

“There she is, look!”

The scene showed pillared chambers, the queen on her couch. She had ash-pale skin, plaited hair and huge smoky eyes. Dozens of paunchy men played her villainous captors, and half a dozen maidens danced in outfits as revealing as the censor would allow.

“The girl at the back, third from the right.”

Karl studied the extra. She was attractive but unremarkable. “What about her?”