Anno Dracula - Kim Newman [29]
‘You don’t want to be botherin’ with the boy,’ said Cathy Eddowes, squeezing between von Klatka and Cuda, slipping her arms around their waists. ‘You gents wants yourselves a real woman, a woman as ’as the equipment.’
Von Klatka pushed Cathy away, shoving her on to the flagstone floor. Cuda clapped his comrade on the shoulder. Von Klatka looked with anger at Cuda and the junior vampire backed away, face a stricken white triangle.
Vardalek still cossetted Georgie, purring Magyar endearments which the Devonshire boy could hardly be expected to appreciate. Cathy crawled to the bar and pulled herself up. Pustules on her face had burst and clear gum was oozing into one eye.
‘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