‘Excellencies,’ Woodbridge began, ‘please...’
Cuda stood up and laid hands on the potman. The Carpathian was a foot shorter than the beefy warm man, but the red fire in his eyes made it plain he could rend Woodbridge apart and lap up the leavings.
‘What is your name, darling one?’ Vardalek asked.
‘G-G-Georgie...’
‘Ah-hah, how is your rhyme? “Georgie-Porgie, pudding and pie”?’
She had to intervene. Sighing, Geneviève stood up.
‘Pudding and pie you shall be,’ purred Vardalek, his teeth scraping Georgie’s plump neck.
‘Gentlemen,’ she began, ‘please allow these people to continue unmolested with their business.’
The Carpathians were shocked silent. Vardalek’s mouth gaped open, and she saw that all but his fang-teeth were green ruins.
‘Back off, new-born,’ Cuda sneered. ‘If you know what’s best for you.’
‘She’s no new-born,’ muttered Kostaki.
‘Who is this impertinent little person?’ asked Vardalek. He was licking tears from Georgie’s cheeks. ‘And why is she still un-dead seconds after insulting me?’
Cuda left Woodbridge and flew at Geneviève. Swift as an overcranked zoetrope, she leaned sharply to one side and jabbed an elbow into his ribs as he passed, shooting him across the room. His wolf-helmet came off as he fell, and someone semi-accidentally dumped a pot of slops into it.
‘I am Geneviève Sandrine de l’Isle Dieudonné,’ she declared, ‘of the pure bloodline of Chandagnac.’
Kostaki, at least, was impressed. He sat up straight, as if to attention, bloody eyes wide. Von Klatka noted his comrade’s changed attitude and, without moving from his spot, also withdrew from the confrontation. She had seen a similar attitude a few years ago in an Arizona poker parlour, when a dentist accused of cheating happened to mention to the three hefty cattlemen fumbling with their holster straps that his name was Holiday. Two of the drovers had then shown exactly the expressions worn now by von Klatka and Kostaki. She had not been in Tombstone for the funeral of the third.
Only Count Vardalek was left in the fight.
‘Let the boy go,’ she said, ‘new-born!’
Fury sparked in the Hungarian’s eyes as he pushed Georgie away and stood up. He was taller than her, and almost as old. There was a terrible strength in his arms. His swelling nails turned to dagger-points, the lacquer on them shrivelling like butter on a griddle. He covered the distance between them in a snake’s eye-blink. He was fast but he was of the diseased bloodline of Vlad Tepes. Her hands sprang out and she took a grip on his wrists, halting his finger-knives an inch from her eyes.
Vardalek snarled, foam blotting the powder on his chin, dripping on to the bulbous frills around his neck. His breath was proverbially foul, heavy with the grave. His stone-hard muscles writhed like pythons in her grasp, but she maintained her hold. Slowly, she forced his hands away from her face, raising his arms as if she were setting the hands of a huge clock at ten minutes to two.
In gutter Magyar, Vardalek alleged that Geneviève had regular carnal knowledge of sheep. That the milk from her breasts would poison the she-cats that were accustomed to suckle there. That seven generations of dung-beetles congregated in the hair of her worthless maidenhood. She kissed the air and squeezed, hearing his bones grind together, allowing the sharp points of her thumbs to cut into the thin veins of his wrists. Panic grew in his watery eyes.
Softly, so he alone could hear, she spoke in his own tongue, informing him that she was of the opinion that his ancestors knew only the love of mountain goats and asserted strongly the probability that his organ of generation was as flaccid as a newly-lanced plague bubo. She asked what the Devil was employing for an arse while Vardalak was using that tender part of the diabolic anatomy for a face.
‘Let go him,’ von Klatka said, without authority.
‘Rip out ’is rotten ’eart,’ said someone suffering from an attack of courage now someone else was standing up to the Hungarian.
Vardalek’s knees gave way as she pushed him back and down. He crumpled and sagged, but she still held him up. She made him kneel and he whimpered, looking up almost pitifully at her face. She felt dry air on her canine teeth and knew the muscles of her face were stretched into a beast-like mask.
Vardalek’s head bent back, and his eyes rimmed with blood. His golden helmet of hair slipped, disclosing the angry red scalp his wig concealed. Geneviève let the elder go and he collapsed. Kostaki and von Klatka helped him up, Kostaki almost tenderly setting straight the Count’s wig. Cuda was standing too, and had his sword drawn. Its blade caught the light, silver mixed in with the iron. Disgusted, Kostaki bade him put his weapon away.
Woodbridge had the door open, ready to usher them out. Georgie scurried off to wash Vardalek’s spit off his face. Geneviève felt her face resuming its normal placid-pretty aspect, and stood by mildly. The background chatter resumed and the accordion player, proficient only within a narrow thematic range, started up ‘She Was Only a Bird in a Gilded Cage’.
Von Klatka got Vardalek out into the street and Cuda followed them, filthy tail dragging. Kostaki remained, surveying the wreckage. He looked to where von Klatka had thrown his banknotes and gave a half-grin and a snort. The money had been whisked away as a sponge soaks up spilt beer. The gypsy girl was ostentatiously not where the notes had been. The Guardsman’s white face cracked along lines when he changed expression, but the splits healed over instantly.
‘Lady Elder,’ said Kostaki, saluting her before turning to leave, ‘my respects.’
10
SPIDERS IN THEIR WEBS
He was in Limehouse, somewhere near the Basin. In Beauregard’s experience, the district’s evil reputation was well-deserved. More nameless corpses washed up on the mudflats in a typical night than Silver Knife could account for in three months. With much creaking, rattling and shuffling, the hansom manoeuvred through an archway then came to a dead halt. The cabby must have had to bend double to scrape under the arch.
He gripped the hilt of his sword-cane. The doors were opened for him, and red eyes glittered in the dark.
‘Sorry for the inconvenience, Beauregard,’ purred a silky voice, male but not entirely masculine, ‘but I trust you’ll understand. It’s a sticky wicket...’
He stepped down from the cab and found himself in a yard off one of the warren of streets near the docks. The fog here was wispy, hanging like undersea fronds of yellow gauze. There were people all about. The one who spoke was an Englishman, a vampire with a good coat and soft hat, face in darkness. His posture, studied in its langour, suggested an athlete in repose; Beauregard would not care to go four rounds with him. The others were Chinese, pigtailed and bowed, hands in their sleeves. Most were warm but a massive fellow by the cab-door was new-born, naked to the waist to show off his dragon tattoos and an un-dead indifference to autumn’s chill.
As the Englishman stepped forward, moonlight caught his youthful face. He had pretty eyelashes like a woman’s, and Beauregard recognised him.
‘I saw you get six sixes from six balls in ’85,’ he said. ‘In Madras. Gentlemen and Players.’
The sportsman shrugged modestly. ‘You play what’s chucked at you, I always say.’
He had heard the new-born’s name in the Star Chamber, tentatively linked with daring but somehow amusing jewel robberies. He supposed the sportsman’s involvement in this evident kidnapping confirmed that he was indeed the author of those criminal feats. Beauregard believed even a gentleman should have a profession, and always backed the Players against the Gentlemen.