TWENTY-TWO
At least I’ve done what I’ve done for a good cause, Horace Blaydon had said, when Asher had brought up the subject of the man’s turning loose his artificial vampire to feed in the backstreets of London and Manchester . . . cities of the country he claimed he was working to protect.
And yet, Asher reflected, wasn’t he one of them himself? Every kill he makes henceforth will be upon your head . . .
In the endless darkness of the crypt, Asher could barely tell where memory ended and dream began. Only the fear remained, of what Benedict Theiss might be doing, and what would come of it, during the coming war, and after. Did they think a living weapon like that would not acquire a life of its own?
I had to do what I did, what I am doing, for the common good.
He drew a breath, trying to keep his mind clear. Leaned his head back against the pillar behind him.
They all said that.
I know what I’m doing, Blaydon had said.
They all said that, too.
God preserve us, Asher reflected wearily, from people who ‘know what they’re doing’.
Myself included.
The crypt was cold, as if all the winters of all those years in which it had been in existence had sloughed there and pooled. Despite his shabby jacket he shivered, unable to truly sleep. Yet he knew each waking hour filed something from abilities he’d need in two days’ time – if his calculations were correct – when he and Jacoba reached Berlin. He guessed how she’d try to control him in the daylight hours and knew he’d have to move very quickly, or he would be a dead man indeed.
Charlottenstrasse. That would be out towards Potsdam, one of those handsome brick villas that the Junkers who ruled the country built for themselves, for when they came into town to attend the opera and marry each others’ sons and daughters: feudal nobles despite the pretense of a parliamentary Reichstag, warriors whose whole souls were invested in the Army.
Soldiers who could not wait for the War they were certain they would gloriously win.
And who did not consider what that War would make of the world that would come after.
They ruled the country, those landowners for whom the only honorable profession was that of arms. Like the French, who considered it appropriate for ladies to get off the pavement to let brilliantly-uniformed officers pass. Of course they could not conceive of a world in which war had become too devastating, too beastly, to be waged anymore. The answer was always more courage: the intuitive depth of the pure-blooded German soul.
He had no idea what he’d do when he reached Colonel von Brühlsbuttel’s doorstep.
But whatever it was going to be – and he was almost certain it would involve killing the man, if Ysidro hadn’t done so already – he would have to do it swiftly, to be out of Berlin on the noon train.
Lydia whispered, ‘Don’t hurt them.’
Even the smooth-running motion of Madame Ehrenberg’s motor car made her so dizzy she feared she would faint.
‘Hurt them?’ Petronilla Ehrenberg raised one beautifully-shaped brow. ‘My dear child, Dr Theiss will guard them as if they were his own children, until Texel returns with coffins and a cart. Thank Heavens he had his medical bag with him, to keep the servants at the house from waking before time.’ The green glance slipped sideways to Lydia, the pale gleam of early morning flashing in Madame’s eyes. ‘What happened? And how is it that you, Frau Asher, have the acquaintance of not only what appears to be a mature vampire – who is he, by the way? – but also one of my little maidens?’
Lydia thought it wisest to drop her head back against the elaborately-tucked plush of the car seat – she didn’t need to conjure up the effects and appearance of a splitting headache – and mutter again, ‘Don’t hurt them . . .’
The car went around the corner, and Lydia, jostled, felt a surge of nausea sweep her, and despite the agony of throwing up while wearing a corset, she didn’t hold back. It earned her several violent slaps, but convinced Madame that she was too weak and disoriented to question – something she certainly was after being slapped with a vampire’s terrifying strength. She was barely conscious of the car turning into the courtyard of St Job’s, and of the chauffeur – after locking the gate – carrying her to what had been a chapel off the main monastic church.
When they woke her later Dr Theiss was there, and the angle of pallid sunlight through the single arched window was close to seventy degrees towards the perpendicular. The light fell full on Madame Ehrenberg, resplendent in several shades of rose and watching with sharp impatience while Theiss peered into Lydia’s eyes with his bright little mirror, and gently felt her neck and the back of her head. ‘How many fingers?’ he asked, holding up two – mightily blurred, since her spectacles had been left behind at the izba, but distinctly two.
Lydia made a show of blinking, squinting – would a doctor be fooled as easily as her Aunt Faith? – and mumbled, ‘Three? No . . .’ She reached clumsily to touch his hand, making sure that she missed. Her head still felt like someone had forgotten to remove the ax blade from her skull, and even the attempt to grope for Theiss’s hand made her feel faint, so she dropped back to the pillow – which seemed to date from the original monastic establishment, she thought – with a piteous cry. Behind Theiss, a whole array of mildewed Byzantine saints glared from the wall, as if about to chorus, She’s making it all up . . . ‘I want Jamie,’ she whispered and began to weep, needing very little effort to sound as wretched as she felt. The tears flowed easily.
‘Give her something,’ snapped Petronilla Ehrenberg. ‘I need to know who that vampire is, and what he was doing there.’
‘Madame, there is nothing to give her,’ explained Theiss, with a patience in his voice that told Lydia he’d explained this two or three times already. ‘She is suffering from a severe concussion—’
‘How soon will she be able to talk?’
‘I don’t know, Madame. One never does, with head injuries.’
With the swiftness of a striking snake, Ehrenberg was at the doctor’s side, leaning over him to catch his lapel, jerk him towards her. From where she lay, Lydia couldn’t see the details of her expression, but the woman’s sudden rage flowed off her like smoke from ice. ‘And what kind of doctor are you, not to know that? If you are as ignorant as you—’
‘Petronilla.’ Theiss laid down his mirror, looked up into those gleaming eyes. There was not the slightest trace of fear in his body or his deep, calm voice. ‘My beautiful one. No doctor knows these things. You know this – of course you do . . .’
She released her grip, fell back a half step, her lace-gloved hand to her temple.
‘You are exhausted.’ Theiss quickly got to his feet, took both her hands in his. ‘And it is no wonder. The latest injections—’
‘I am well.’ She straightened up, smiled a smile that Lydia could feel, a warm loveliness . . .
It is our lure to be attractive, Ysidro had said once to James. It is how we hunt.