Bloodforged (26 page)

‘It forms a bond,’ he said, nodding. ‘And stronger than that of blood drunk from a bowl. We will be as brother and sister. You will find it hard to turn against me, and I will find it hard to turn against you.’

Ulrika frowned. Was that what she wanted? Stefan had been cold at first, but he had come to be a good companion to her. Did she want him to be more than that? It would certainly be advantageous to make it harder for him to betray her, but what if she became besotted with him and couldn’t turn against him if she needed to?

‘I will not press you,’ he said. ‘If you wish to remain in pain that is your prerogative.’ He leaned in to her and turned his head again. ‘I merely make the offer. The decision is yours.’

Ulrika looked at his strong, slim neck, and the thick blue vein that ran beneath the alabaster skin. There was a pulse there, borrowed from the man from whom he had drunk, but slower and stronger than any human pulse. She could smell the blood through the skin, clean and pure, and without the human stinks of sweat and perfume and illness that so often masked it. Though she had just fed, she found she was hungry again, desperately hungry. Her burned skin begged for relief. Her depleted veins begged to be filled. Her heart begged as well. It too wished to be filled.

Slowly, like a blade drawn by a lodestone, her lips drew closer to Stefan’s neck, then kissed it. He trembled but stood still, hands at his sides. The pulse beat slow and heavy under her lips, like the pounding of a galley master’s drum, and just as insistent.

She could resist no longer. Her fangs extended and she bit, remembering at the last moment to be gentle, and then drank. Stefan grunted and steadied himself against her, and she held him in her arms. His blood was richer than any she had ever taken from a living man. Its power flowed through her like lava, not just warming her, but enflaming her. It was as if it had been distilled, cleansed of all impurities and made into an elixir of strength.

Her head whirled as emotion coursed through her, though whether it was hers or Stefan’s, carried along on the blood, she didn’t know. Great joys, titanic sorrows and all-encompassing rages brought her to the verge of tears in turn. With each sip she felt she was learning more of Stefan’s heart, his loyalty to his father, his hatred for his father’s enemies, his affection for her, his loneliness, his lust.

At last she could take no more. It was too rich, too overwhelming. She shuddered and slumped back on the table, gasping and looking up at him. His eyes were closed.

‘It was… it was…’ she said.

‘It was, indeed,’ he said, opening his eyes with difficulty and giving her an unfathomable look. ‘You… you are strong in your drinking, sister. You could pull the heart from a man.’

Ulrika’s eyes widened in alarm. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I haven’t–?’

He touched her cheek and shook his head. ‘Do not apologise. It was a gift I am blessed to have received.’

She smiled sleepily. ‘It is you who has given me a gift,’ she said, holding up her hands. They were healed. Even the cut from the silver knife was only a thin black scar. ‘I have never felt stronger. Thank you.’

Stefan took the proffered hand. ‘No thanks are necessary,’ he murmured, kissing it. ‘But, I too have wounds. If you would allow…?’

Ulrika hesitated at this further step. It was when one was fed upon that one lost one’s will, but how could she refuse Stefan after he had given so freely of himself? She pulled him down beside her and turned her head. ‘Take what you will.’

Stefan encircled her in his arms and lowered his lips to her neck. She shivered as he kissed her, both aroused and vaguely unsettled. The last person to drink from her had been Adolphus Krieger, the vile predator who had made her what she had become, and the feel of Stefan’s lips on her throat reminded her of her blood father’s soft manipulations, of the way he had toyed with her and pretended she had a choice in what he did to her. Was Stefan the same, as Evgena had suggested? Was he tricking her in some way? To some unfathomable end?

She almost pushed him away as doubts crept into her heart, but memories of Krieger’s kiss, of the pleasure it had given her, began to push them aside. It had been a pleasure that, to her shame, she had found herself begging for when he denied her it. Her hands remained where they were and she lay still, tensing as Stefan’s sharp teeth dragged across her skin, then sighing and clutching him tight as they pierced her flesh with a delicious shock of pain and found her vein.

She closed her eyes as he began to draw blood from her with gentle pressure. This was a different sort of pleasure than taking blood. That was the pleasure of hunger sated and strength returned. This was the pleasure of control lost and the drifting, sleepy rapture of tension released. The dark memories of Krieger faded away, to be eclipsed by rosy dreams of flying, of gliding with Stefan like dragons in a sky of blood. He was leading her, drawing her on in his wake, and she was happy to follow, to let him choose the path, to give herself up to his will and let him do with her as he pleased. If he wished to drink his fill and let her die, so be it. She would die in bliss, floating towards his warm red sun until it consumed her in its molten core.

She groaned in dismay when he raised his head and the kiss ended. It felt as if a cord between them had been cut, and she was suddenly cold and alone. She cupped the back of his neck and pulled him back down again, but he resisted.

‘I dare not,’ he said. ‘Lest I weaken you too much.’

‘Then let me take more from you,’ she said. ‘And you can take it again.’

She pulled his mouth to hers and bit his lips and tongue, drawing blood and sucking greedily. He bit back.
They clawed at one another, tearing away each other’s clothes and writhing against one another.

From the few things Gabriella had told Ulrika about love between vampires, she had thought it would be nothing more than the exchange of blood, but now she discovered that was not the truth. They were animals, after all, beasts, who must learn to control their savage natures or they would tear their victims limb from limb. Their love was just as animal as their feeding – pain and pleasure in equal measure, biting and kissing, clawing and caressing, wounds that healed as soon as they were made, and bare skin made slippery with blood and tongues.

She had never experienced anything like it before. Not during the rough galloping of horse soldiers, nor the fights with Felix that became romps and then fights again, nor the shameful, sensual surrender to Krieger. This was wilder than any of those, the pleasure stronger and more enduring, the play more give and take. There was a danger to it that only made it more exhilarating. Either of them could take too much and kill the other. It felt as if they were rolling on the edge of a precipice, daring each other to fall to their deaths.

Finally, after a time without time, they lay together, sated and exhausted, naked in each other’s arms. Ulrika rested her head on Stefan’s strong, smooth chest, utterly at peace. This was what she had been looking for. This was the thing that had been missing. This was why she had felt trapped among the Lahmians, and condemned to her eternal life – because she had no one to share it with. This was how being a vampire was meant to feel. Now she was on the right path. Now she knew what she wanted.

Stefan shifted and stroked her hair. ‘This,’ he murmured sleepily. ‘This is right.’

Ulrika caught his hand and kissed it. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘This is right.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

THE VANISHED

Ulrika and Stefan woke at dusk to the sounds of shifting and shuffling and found that the slaver was crawling weakly for the stairs, trying to make his escape. They stopped him at the door, dragging him back and sharing the last of his blood, then broke his neck, threw his corpse in another room, and dressed to go out.

There was an awkwardness between them as they went about these mundane, earthly tasks. What had seemed so perfect and certain in the midst of the morning’s afterglow now gave Ulrika pause, and she thought she saw the same wariness in Stefan’s eyes. Neither seemed to want to broach the subject of what had been said, however, and for a moment it made conversation stilted and strange.

Fortunately, the urgency of their quest gave them safe things to talk about, and soon they were discussing what to do next. They were on their own now, cast out by the Lahmians, and with only this last night before the concert to find and stop the cult and destroy the violin.

‘Once again,’ said Stefan, pacing the cellar room, ‘we have lost their trail. We know not where or who they are. I fear we will have no choice but to go to the concert and wait for them to strike.’

‘That may be too late,’ said Ulrika. ‘If only we could–’ She cut off as an idea struck her. ‘Ha!’

‘Yes?’ said Stefan.

Ulrika sat forwards, smiling. ‘The simplest way to foil the cultists’ plan is to call off the concert. We don’t dare go to the authorities ourselves.’
She
certainly didn’t, Ulrika thought. If she tried to reach her cousin, Duke Enrik, there would be all sorts of awkward questions, and most likely a wooden stake at the end of them. ‘But Padurowski, Valtarin’s tutor, is to be the conductor. If we told him of the cult’s plans, perhaps he could warn the duke or someone at the Opera House.’

Stefan frowned. ‘Would he believe us? He was certain the violin was destroyed. And if he does, would the authorities believe
him
?’

‘With the duke’s life at stake, could they dare risk
not
believing him?’ asked Ulrika. ‘The hole in the wall that guards the Sorcerers’ Spire must have been discovered by now, as well as the bodies of the cultists inside the entry chamber. The duke’s protectors and the chekist must have an inkling something is in the wind. A word passed through Padurowski might frighten them enough to cancel the concert. And if not, we will continue our search.’

Stefan nodded slowly. ‘Do you think it would be worth trying to convince Boyarina Evgena to help again? She may have more influence at court than a lowly conductor.’

Ulrika snarled. ‘Evgena thinks I am your dupe. She thinks we want to kill her. I don’t want anything to do with her any more.’

‘Nor do I,’ said Stefan. ‘But if she can save Praag…’

‘She is too worried about bloodlines and betrayals to be concerned with the fate of the city,’ said Ulrika bitterly. ‘She will turn from defending herself against us to find it has burned down behind her.’

‘Very well,’ sighed Stefan. ‘Then let us go see the maestro.’

Stefan was quiet and withdrawn as they hurried through the shattered nighttime streets of the Novygrad and then across the teeming Merchant Quarter. He hardly seemed to watch where he went, just weaved, head down, through the jostling crowds of soldiers, beggars and drunks, until, just as they stepped onto the Karlsbridge, he looked up, frowning thoughtfully.

‘You should rule in her stead,’ he said.

‘What?’ said Ulrika.

He turned to her. ‘You are right about Evgena. She is a fool, a mummified dowager too long shut up in the mausoleum of her house. You should rule in her stead.’

Ulrika laughed. ‘Me? I don’t want to rule. And I’m done with the Lahmians.’

‘Damn the Lahmians!’ said Stefan. ‘Why do you need their consent? You could be queen here, on your own.’

Ulrika shook her head. ‘They would come after me. The Queen of the Silver Mountain would hear of it and I would be killed.’

‘Aye, aye, I know, but–’ He cursed, then suddenly took her hand and looked her in the eye. ‘This morning. What I said. I meant it. This is right, what we share, and I don’t want it to end.’ He stopped walking in the middle of the bridge and swept his hand to encompass the whole of the city, its lights mirrored and glittering in the waters of the Lynsk. ‘Praag could be our home. We–’

He cut off, smiling wryly, his grey eyes glinting. ‘Foolish though they are, I find myself strangely attracted to your silly idealistic notions of good stewardship, and preying only on predators. Think what Praag could be like if we ruled it. Think what we could do.’

Ulrika blinked, staggered, as a vision, a perfect gleaming future, rose up complete before her at his words. Praag, whole and healed, as it hadn’t been for two centuries – a place where the people lived without fear, and cultists and gangsters and slavers feared to tread – and hidden at the centre of it, herself and Stefan, living in easy luxury in Evgena’s mansion, the secret saviours behind it all. It was an intoxicating dream, and for a moment she nearly lost herself in it, but then she drew back.

‘You weave a tempting tale,’ she said at last. ‘But it is impossible. Despite the fact she has driven me out, I still owe fealty to Evgena. I couldn’t usurp her. And the Queen would never allow it. I… I don’t want what we share to end either, but… it can’t be like that.’

He nodded sadly. ‘No. No, I suppose not. But…’ He looked up at her again. ‘But, you’d be with me, whatever happens?’

Ulrika hesitated. What she felt for him was strong, but again eternity reared its head. Was she ready to pledge herself to him for so long? She swallowed. ‘Let me… let me give you my answer when this business is finished. It may be we won’t live past it.’

Stefan frowned, but then inclined his head. ‘Very well, m’lady,’ he said. ‘You give me incentive to survive.’

They turned and continued across the bridge, once again in silence.

Ulrika stole glances at Stefan as they twisted through the student quarter towards the Music Academy. He looked so grim that, more than once, she nearly spoke up and told him she was ready to give her answer, but each time she held off. She wasn’t ready. She had made too many vows recently, and had too often regretted them immediately afterwards. She would be certain before she did it again.

There were more students than usual in the quarter tonight, all talking to each other in hushed voices. Some of the girls with them were weeping. But it was only after Ulrika had passed half a dozen gatherings that a name, repeated and repeated, broke through the din of her own thoughts – ‘Valtarin.’

She slowed her steps and listened closer as she and Stefan passed another cluster.

‘Gone,’ said a young man with a cello on his back. ‘Vanished. Foul play, they say.’

‘I don’t believe it,’ laughed a bearded companion. ‘He’s probably drunk somewhere.’

‘Maybe some girl killed him,’ said another. ‘Out of jealousy.’

Ulrika spun the cello player around. ‘What is this?’ she asked. ‘What’s happened to Valtarin?’

The young man glared to be manhandled so, but his urge to gossip won over his outrage. ‘He vanished from his rooms last night,’ he said. ‘At least that’s what I heard. His landlord heard him go up with a girl, as usual. Then in the morning he was gone, and the girl was weeping and carrying on, saying he went to answer the door and never came back to bed.’

‘Ha!’ said the bearded boy. ‘He found the girl was uglier in the morning than she had been the night before and slipped out. I’ve done it before.’

Cello shook his head. ‘He hasn’t been seen all day. He was to play at the Kossar’s Return tonight, and he didn’t show.’

‘Then he’s drunk in a kvas parlour somewhere,’ said the bearded one. ‘Like so many times before.’

‘I hope so,’ said Cello.

‘So do I,’ said Ulrika, and let the young man go. But as she turned back to Stefan she shook her head. ‘But I fear it isn’t so.’

‘Aye,’ said Stefan. ‘It makes me wonder. All those souls the cult collects. Do they feed them to the violin? And are they feeding it the souls of musicians now?’

Ulrika shrugged, then stopped in her tracks. If that were true, then… Suddenly she turned and ran down a side street, beckoning Stefan to follow.

‘What’s the matter?’ he asked as he caught up to her. ‘Where are you going?’

‘I have to check on someone,’ she said.

Ulrika stopped in the door of the Blue Jug and stared, her guts sinking. A girl was singing and playing the balalaika on the stage, but it was the wrong girl, a brassy blonde singing dirty songs.

Ulrika crossed to the bar and waved down the barkeep. ‘The blind girl,’ she said. ‘Does she not sing tonight?’

‘She was meant to,’ said the barkeep. ‘But she didn’t come in. I sent Misha around to her place to see if she were asleep or something, but she wasn’t there.’

Ulrika groaned. ‘Is there any other place she might be?’ she asked.

The barkeep shook his head. ‘She’s blind. She don’t go nowhere. Has a little friend who brings her food, and walks her here and back. That’s all she does.’

Ulrika closed her eyes. ‘Thank you,’ she said at last, then turned away.

Stefan was waiting for her at the door. ‘Bad news?’

‘She has been taken,’ Ulrika said, her voice dead and cold. ‘They will pay.’

She strode out into the street and started again towards the Music Academy. She would give Padurowski the warning, but whether or not the concert was cancelled, she would still hunt down the cult. This was no longer for Praag, no longer for some noble idea of protecting the weak. This was for vengeance.

Ulrika and Stefan banged on the door of Maestro Padurowski’s offices on the second floor of the musty faculty building. There was no answer. Ulrika looked up and down the narrow hall, looking for signs that any other faculty were still in their offices, but all the doors were closed, and no light shone from beneath them.

‘We must find out where he lives,’ she said.

‘Perhaps he’s at the Opera House,’ said Stefan, ‘rehearsing.’

They started back down the cramped wooden stairs, and found a stooped old lady in a headscarf looking up at them suspiciously from the bottom step.

‘What you want?’ she said. ‘You are not students.’

‘We’re looking for Maestro Padurowski,’ said Ulrika. ‘Do you know where he is?’

‘Gone,’ said the old lady.

‘Yes,’ said Ulrika. ‘I am aware of that. Do you know where?’

‘He didn’t come today,’ said the old woman.

Ulrika clenched her jaw, struggling for patience. ‘So he is at home?’

The old lady shook her head. ‘The duke’s men said no. They went there to take him to the opera, then came here.’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘What you want with the professor? Do you know where is?’

‘If I knew where he was, I wouldn’t be asking, would I?’ snapped Ulrika.

She and Stefan pushed past the old woman and crossed to the door. She followed them with her eyes as they stepped out into the Academy grounds, muttering under her breath.

Ulrika sighed as they started across the campus. ‘I fear you are right,’ she said. ‘These disappearances must be in preparation for tomorrow night. The cult will kill the blind girl and Valtarin and the professor in some ritual. If only we could find–’

She stopped short as she heard someone whistling in the distance – a wild, haunting melody, and very familiar. ‘The song!’ she said, looking around. A fog had risen while they had been looking for Padurowski, and the grounds of the Academy were thick with it, the trees and buildings looming out of it like towering ghosts. She could see nothing.

Stefan listened too, his eyes growing hard. ‘The Fieromonte played that song.’

‘Forget I spoke,’ said Ulrika, smiling wolfishly. ‘The cult seems to have come to us.’

‘How courteous of them,’ said Stefan.

They stalked across the quadrangle in the direction of the whistling, but as they neared the fountain in the centre, another whistle repeated the melody off to their right. They turned towards the new sound, drawing their swords and going on guard. A third whistle came from behind the faculty building, then a fourth far to the left. Still they could see nothing. The fog and the shrubs and trees that dotted the Academy grounds hid everything, though Ulrika could detect heart-fires on the perimeter of her perceptions. There were dozens of them.

‘Surrounded,’ said Stefan, growling.

The whistling stopped, as suddenly as it had begun, and the night was utterly silent. Ulrika and Stefan turned in a slow circle, staring all around. Nothing moved. Nothing stirred. Ulrika didn’t like it.

‘What are you waiting for!’ she shouted. ‘Come out and fight!’

A sharp snapping came from all sides, and a dozen black shafts darted out of the mist. Ulrika and Stefan dodged and batted them from the air with their rapiers. Crossbow bolts. One passed so close that the fletching brushed Ulrika’s left ear. Stefan snatched another out of the air.