Genevieve Undead Part 27

The servant obviously didn't understand. Her lips and chin were blue with weirdjuice.

'Vampire,' Rudiger said. 'You come with us.'

At that moment, Genevieve decidedTybalt or nothat she would kill the Graf von Unheimlich. She knew there was blood on his hands. He must have killed his mistress. And Sylvana de Castries had not been the first 'hunting accident' in the vicinity of Rudiger's lodge.

Magnus, exhausted, was looking at the portrait of the graf's dead wife.

'Serafina,' he said to himself. He was exhausted, hurt, delirious.

'Anulka,' she said to the maid, using her vampire eyes to penetrate the dreamfog. 'Get some weirdroot. I know you have it. Grind a little into a herbal tea. Give it to the count. You understand?'

The servant nodded, fearful. Weirdjuice, much diluted, could help take away Magnus' pain.

She let Anulka take Magnus, and stood up.

'Get ready,' Rudiger told her. 'Perhaps you'll learn something about hunting by daylight.'

Genevieve bowed and withdrew, trotting down the corridor to her quarters.

Balthus was already dressed in jerkin and furs, and taking his knives and snares down from the shrine of Taal.

'We'll do it today,' she told him. He nodded, his back to her.

'You keep Doremus occupied, and I'll finish the graf. Then we'll be free of Tybalt.'

Genevieve pulled on trousers and a waistcoat. She took one of Balthus' feathered caps, and tucked her hair under it.

'What's his hook, Balthus?' she asked. 'What makes you Tybalt's puppet?'

The guide turned to her. His beard had grown recently, and was creeping up his cheeks towards his eyes. A thatch of ruddy fur swarmed up from his chest and around his neck.

'I might change,' he said. 'Some day.'

'A touch of warpstone, eh? Poor faithful dog-altered. Well, you can find a new master and fetch all the sticks you like after this.'

Balthus didn't look happy about it.

Back in the hall, Rudiger was impatient to leave.

Magnus, already drifting into the dream from Anulka's tea, was trying to say something, trying to talk to Doremus. The graf's son knelt by his 'uncle,' trying to listen, but Rudiger was pulling him away.

'Time for that later,' the graf said. 'We must be on the trail before it cools.'

Genevieve squeezed Magnus' hand, and followed the three men out of the lodge. The dogs were tired, so the hunters would have to do without.

Around the lodge, where the trees were cleared, it was a pretty morning. The sun was heavy on Genevieve's eyes, but in the dark of the woods things would be better.

The graf was striding off. He had told Balthus they were heading for Khorne's Cleft, to pick up the mare's trail there.

Genevieve hesitated, looked back at the lodge, and followed the others. It would be no trouble for her, keeping up.

They travelled a recently beaten path, the way Rudiger and Doremus had brought Magnus. Genevieve smelled blood on the ground. Under some circ.u.mstances, she was more sensitive than a good dog. But she did not volunteer to stand in for Karl and Franz.

Rudiger was grimly exultant. He sang under his breath, hunting songs of the Forest of Shadows.

Unaccountably, Genevieve did not just want to kill him. She wanted to break him, humble him and drink his blood. What he had told Doremus yesterday was true: you could take strength from your kills. Genevieve wanted his strength.

Rudiger had changed since he had killed his woman. He wanted Genevieve by his side, and kept tugging at her, keeping her up with him.

She guessed his interest in her, and planned to use it against him. When Balthus led Doremus away, she would take her teeth and claws to him. Once it was over, she could pitch him into Khorne's Cleft, and his body would be gone forever.

They came to the Cleft. This, she understood, was the site of the kill. Genevieve noticed Doremus looking into its depths, hoping for a glimpse of Sylvana.

Rudiger was unaffected, down on his knees, looking for hoof-prints.

'Here,' he said, tapping the frosted ground.

Genevieve examined the spoor, noting the distance between prints.

'She must be huge,' she said.

'Yes,' grinned Rudiger. 'An old b.i.t.c.h unicorn, seventeen or eighteen hands, ivory longer than my arm.'

She smelled his arousal.

Rudiger took her slender wrist, and encompa.s.sed it with his mighty fist. She could break his back with her slim hand.

'I want her horn,' he said.

He stood up, and followed the mare's hoofmarks into the trees. Doremus followed, reluctantly it seemed. Genevieve thought the way they were taking was familiar.

'She took her time,' Rudiger said, pointing to a chewed branch well out of human reach, 'had some breakfast. She's a cool one, trying to gull us all the time. She'll take a lot of killing.'

The graf strode ahead, following the path the mare had made.

Genevieve looked to Balthus, and the guide turned away. She knew she couldn't count on him, but she hoped she wouldn't have to.

'Look,' Rudiger said, pointing to a flattened area, 'you can see the outline.'

There was a blanket of thin sc.u.m on the leafy ground, and the last traces of a skeleton.

'This was your kill of yesterday, son,' Rudiger said. 'Your wounded stallion must have found her, set her off against us. That's war, of course. We must kill the mare, Doremus, before she kills us. This is what it is to be a man.'

She had heard raving lunatics make more sense.

Rudiger went on ahead, came back, and called them on, urging them to run.

She got the feeling Doremus was at the end of his patience with his father. He shouldn't be difficult to distract.

'Come on, come on,' Rudiger said.

Genevieve realized what it was that had been plucking at her mind. 'I know this path,' she said.

'Yes, yes,' Rudiger agreed. 'The track to the lodge. The mare has doubled back, gone on the attack. Very clever, but we aren't fooled.'

She was appalled.

'But the count'

'An old huntsman's trick, my dear. Leave the wounded as bait. Magnus taught it me when I was a child.'

Rudiger laughed, and Genevieve could have struck him down. Her nails were lengthening, sharpening, and her anger was keen.

But the graf was gone, running ahead, all caution flown, enthused by the chase.

Balthus caught her eye, and nodded towards a fork in the trail. He could mislead Doremus, and she could end it.

She shook her head.

'We've got to get back to the lodge,' she said. 'Count Magnus is in danger.'

'Uncle' Doremus said. 'How?'

'The mare has his scent, his blood,' Balthus explained. 'She'll want to finish him.'

'And my father?'

'Knew?' Genevieve asked. 'Of course he knew. Come on.'

Stirring Doremus out of his doziness, she ran on, following Rudiger, following the mare.

The trees thinned, and they neared the lodge.

From ahead, she heard a howl. A man's howl of grief and fury.

Outpacing Doremus and Balthus, she ran, dodging trees, pushing against the ground. She was fast as a leopard when she had to be.

But she was not fast enough.

The doors of the lodge hung open, and Rudiger stood before them, still shouting his anger.

Genevieve pushed past him, and saw she was too late.

Anulka was crumpled in the entrance, a b.l.o.o.d.y hole gouting under her chin, twitching in her last dream. Count Magnus Sch.e.l.lerup lay beyond, beside the overturned and smashed table. He was twisted like an old blanket, and the deep gores in his chest exposed ribs and vitals. The mare must have tossed him on and off her horn like a child playing with a cup and ball toy.

She skidded on the blood, and fell to her knees.

The smell of the blood was in the air around her, and she salivated. The blood of the dead was repulsive to her, tainted food. She had been reduced to drinking it too many times, but it still made her stomach turn. Magnus' blood, in her, cried out.

Doremus was with her now, the wind gone out of him.

'Uncle'

It was too late.

Behind her, Rudiger was striding back into the woods, determined to have his revenge.

Genevieve took a cushion, and laid it against Magnus' b.l.o.o.d.y head, covering his scar. She looked at the unblemished half of his face, and at Doremus. Then, she shivered, the world turning around and coming down, with a nauseating lurch, in a new configuration.

She understood. And she understood what she had to do.

Leaving Magnus, pushing past Doremus and Balthus, she followed Rudiger into the forests.

Her foreteeth slid out of their gumsheaths.

X.

Doremus wept in his heart, but no tears came.

Uncle Magnus was dead, and there was nothing more to do for him. He looked at the old man's face, his scar covered by the vampire girl's curiously tender gesture. For all his life, Magnus had been there, the old Invincible, warm where his father was cold, understanding where his father was indifferent, encouraging where his father was demanding. The count had not been invincible, in the end. But he had died quickly, of a mortal and honourable wound, not lingered with some disease, leaking uncontrollably from all orifices, mind befuddled, body diminished.

It was not such a bad death, Doremus told himself. Then he looked at the blood, at the ripped wounds, and knew there was no such thing as a good death.

Balthus was waiting, in attendance. There were servants all around now, chattering, tutting. Where had they been when the mare was killing the count? Hiding for the sake of their skins?

Doremus followed his father and the vampire, Balthus jogging along with him.

No matter what he felt about his father, about hunting, about the kill, Doremus swore he would track down this thing that had slaughtered his uncle and end her life.

He would find the mare before Rudiger, and this time he would have a clean kill. Then, he would burn his bow.

The forests swallowed them up.