Anno Dracula - Kim Newman [30]
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.