Bloodborn (41 page)

The Strigoi screeched in pain and staggered back. She slashed at it and tried to get to her feet again. It batted the blade aside with one claw and slapped her with the other, knocking her back towards the end of the roof and sending her sliding down the slant. She threw out her sword arm and stopped herself. Her head was hanging over the end of the roof. There was no more room to run.

The Strigoi climbed down the slope towards her, crushing slates with every step. Beyond it, Ulrika saw Holmann struggling to pull himself up from the balcony with his almost useless right arm. She had to give the templar credit for not giving up, but he was going to be far too late.

The Strigoi grabbed for her legs. She slashed at its hands, but started sliding again and missed. The monster caught her ankle and picked her up, holding her upside down over a sheer, three-storey drop. The scene spun dizzyingly beneath her – a small cobbled service yard between the old keep and the new wing of the house, with a quaint covered well in its centre.

‘So, little fly,’ rasped the Strigoi. ‘Can you fly?’

Ulrika arched around like a cat in a trap, hacking at the Strigoi’s left leg with all her might. The blade bit deep, finding bone, and it grunted and dropped her, stumbling back. With a desperate twist she caught the edge of the roof, letting the rapier bounce away down the slant. Her claws carved shrieking lines in the slate as her weight pulled her down and she slipped towards the edge.

The Strigoi stumped forwards again to stomp on her fingers, blood running down its leg like a red waterfall. She hooked its left foot and pulled herself up. It grabbed her, its claws crushing her ribs as it tried to tear her free, but she held on, sinking her fangs into the back of his ankle. It howled and pulled harder. She clung tighter, clamping down with her jaw like a pit dog killing a rat. Then, with a final mighty heave, it pulled her free – and she ripped its tendons out with her teeth.

As blood sprayed in a wide arc, the Strigoi fell sideways, its leg suddenly unable to support it. Ulrika scrabbled at the edge of the roof as the monster hit the slanting slates, but its claws held her tight. It bounced once, then plummeted down into the yard, clutching Ulrika to its shoulder like a favourite doll.

There was a frozen moment of horrible vertigo – just enough time to know that she would die – and then a jaw-snapping impact, a deafening crash, a second impact, more painful than the first, and then…

‘Fraulein Magdova!’

The voice was loud, but far away, strange but familiar. She wished it weren’t so dark so she could see who was speaking. She wished she would stop falling so the world would stop spinning.

‘Fraulein!’

The pain came back. It felt like she had been plunged into a tub of ice water and beaten with sticks. All her body hurt. All of it – head to toe and inside and out. It was with difficulty that she sorted out all the sensations screaming for her attention and realised she was lying on something hard and cold.

She opened her eyes, then shut them again. The world was still spinning, much too fast. She tried again. Still spinning, but she was ready for it this time. The first thing she saw was the night sky, greying a little in one corner. Next she saw a high white wall, rising up to a peak, and then a man in a broad hat, standing at the peak, looking down at her.

‘Fraulein,’ he said. ‘Do you live?’

‘It…’ she said haltingly. ‘It seems so.’

The man’s shoulders slumped, though whether in relief or disappointment she could not tell.

‘Don’t move,’ he said. ‘I will come to you.’ Then he vanished.

Ulrika nodded absently, then frowned as she noticed dust and snow settling all around her. It felt to her jumbled brain that a week had past since she had fallen from the roof, but if the dust was still settling it must have been only seconds. Seconds! That meant Murnau might still be trying to kill her!

She tried to sit up, and all her pain hit her again, as fresh as the first time. She groaned, and sank back, using only her head to look around, and found the Strigoi.

From the vantage of the ground, it was for a moment hard to tell what had happened to it. The monster’s long, scrawny body was above her, blocking out a good portion of the sky, and seeming to hang in the air. She wasn’t sure how that could be, but then tipping her head further she saw that it seemed to be lying on its back on the roof of the covered well.

She still didn’t quite understand, so she rolled over onto her stomach and pushed herself to her knees. Every muscle in her body shrieked at this torture but amazingly, Ulrika could feel no broken bones. How had she fallen three storeys onto cobbles without breaking a bone? Even being what she was it seemed impossible.

She sat back and looked up at the Strigoi again, and all became clearer. It was indeed lying on the well, but not precisely on the roof. It had smashed through the roof as it had fallen, and impaled itself on one of the thick oak uprights that held the roof aloft. Two feet of splintered beam stuck up through its shattered chest like a giant white tooth running with blood, and it lay splayed like some unimaginably ugly butterfly pierced by a pin.

‘The beast broke my fall,’ she murmured, wonderingly. What a miracle that she had bounced away and missed the impalement it had suffered.

Running footsteps brought her head up, and she tried and failed to stand. Holmann raced into the yard, sword drawn, and hurried to her.

‘Fraulein,’ he said, kneeling beside her. ‘You should not move.’

She waved a dismissive hand at him, then leaned against the lip of the well and levered herself to her feet. The world swayed around her and her ribs and limbs and wounds throbbed with pain, but she was standing. She turned stiffly to the witch hunter.

‘May I trouble you for your sword, Templar Holmann?’ she asked. ‘I seem to have misplaced mine.’

He looked warily at her. ‘What do you intend?’

‘I intend to be certain,’ she said, and looked at the Strigoi.

Holmann hesitated, then reversed his heavy sword and held it out to her. She took the hilt, then stepped to the Strigoi’s head, which hung off the edge of the well’s roof and stared up at the sky. She raised the sword high, then stepped back, startled, as the monster’s eyes blinked open and it turned to look at her, all the anger gone from its gaze, to be replaced by a sad confusion.

‘The voice,’ it rattled. ‘The voice lied.’

The voice again. ‘What voice?’ asked Ulrika. ‘Who told you to do this?’

‘The… voice,’ it replied, and then its eyes went blank and it sagged back.

Ulrika brought Holmann’s sword down with a sharp snap of her wrists and severed the Strigoi’s head from its shoulders in a single blow. It thudded to the cobbles and rolled to Holmann’s legs.

He smiled grimly. ‘It seems you were right to be certain,’ he said, then held out his hand to take the sword back.

It was Ulrika’s turn to hesitate. Now that he was here, she was presented again with the dilemma of what to do with him. It remained her duty to kill him, as Gabriella had ordered, and she could do it here. She had a sword and he was defenceless, his right arm torn and twisted. But how could she? He had saved her life. He had saved
Gabriella’s
life, and he had trusted her with his sword even though she had tricked him on the road.

She wiped the blade clean, then reversed it and offered it back to him. He looked at her strangely as he took it back, as if he too had wondered if she would return it.

‘You should go now,’ she said. ‘The killer is dead. Your job is done. Be off before things get… difficult.’

Holmann frowned. ‘I… I would not leave you if there is to be more trouble.’

‘No trouble for me,’ she said. ‘Just you.’ She picked up the Strigoi’s head by one of its outsized ears, then held it out to him. ‘Here. Take this and go. Show it to your captain and claim your glory. But hurry.’

Holmann reached out for the hideous thing with his left hand but, before he could take it, Ulrika heard soft footsteps at the opening to the yard.

Madam Mathilda stood there, stark naked, her ample curves covered in scratches and bite marks, some bone deep. Ulrika groaned. Another minute and Holmann would have been away. Now it was too late.

Mathilda smiled approvingly, showing still-sharp teeth. ‘Well done, dearie,’ she said. ‘His cowardly corpse-eaters ran off as soon as he fell.’ She beckoned them forwards. ‘Now bring his ugly head and yer little sweetheart, and we’ll have a nice chat inside by the fire.’

Holmann shot a questioning glance at Ulrika.

She hung her head. ‘Don’t try it,’ she murmured. ‘You could not outrun her.’

‘Witch hunters do not run,’ he said, then set his jaw and bowed her forwards.

They walked together out of the yard, then around to the front door as Mathilda padded naked behind them, watching their every step.

As they neared the porch, Ulrika saw the silvered dagger which had fallen from the balcony above. She stooped and picked it up, then looked back at Mathilda.

The madam smiled broadly. ‘Best return that to yer mistress, dearie, and don’t get any ideas.’

Ulrika nodded, cowed, and tucked the dagger into her torn and bloodied doublet.

Gabriella was carrying Rodrik down the stairs as Mathilda herded Ulrika and Holmann into the morning room. Ulrika almost laughed at the incongruousness of the image, the delicate lady with the powerful knight in her arms, but Rodrik was deathly pale, and the countess was limping so badly she nearly dropped him.

Ulrika dropped the Strigoi’s head and ran to her, taking some of Rodrik’s weight. His chest was concave inside his doublet, and soaked in blood, and his sword arm was bent back the wrong way.

They lay him on a chaise as Mathilda and Templar Holmann watched from a respectful distance. As his head touched the cushions his eyes fluttered open and he looked up at Gabriella. Blood bubbled from his lips as he spoke. ‘Mistress,’ he said. ‘Forgive me. Forgive my jealousy. I should never have left you.’

Gabriella took his hand in hers. ‘And I should never have made you jealous, beloved.’ She kissed his cheek. ‘You are forgiven.’

Rodrik lifted her hand to his crimson lips and kissed her fingers. ‘Thank you, mistress. I am proud to have died in your defence.’ He took a ragged breath. ‘It is all I have ever lived for.’

The breath rattled out of his throat and his head sank back, his eyes staring sightlessly at the ceiling. Gabriella looked at him for a long moment, then reached out and closed his eyelids.

‘Poor besotted Rodrik,’ she said sadly. ‘His devotion drove him from me, then brought him back to die.’

‘I’m sorry, mistress,’ said Ulrika. ‘I feel as if my presence pushed him away.’

Gabriella shook her head. ‘You are not to blame. I could have found a way to give you your glory without denying him his. I was as petty in my way as he.’ She looked at the back of her hand and saw the blood from his lips. ‘He was a vain, prideful fool, but a true heart. I will miss him.’

She sighed, then licked her fingers and looked up. Her eyes focused on Holmann, standing stiff and uncomfortable a few paces behind Ulrika.

‘So,’ she said. ‘So this is your witch hunter.’

Ulrika nodded, fearful of what was to come. ‘Templar Friedrich Holmann, countess.’

Gabriella stood unsteadily, then curtseyed to Holmann. ‘I am in your debt, templar,’ she said. ‘Your timely shots saved my life, and very likely the life of Mistress Ulrika.’

Holmann inclined his head. ‘I did my duty, lady. That is all.’

Gabriella smiled at him coolly. ‘And is your duty done? Or will you now arrest me?’

Holmann hesitated, his hands clenched at his side. ‘I have vowed to Lady Ulrika that I would not,’ he said.

‘Did you?’ said Gabriella. ‘And you mean to honour this vow?’

Holmann stiffened even further. ‘I… I have never broken my word, lady.’

‘How very noble of you,’ said Gabriella.

‘I told ye he was her sweetheart,’ chuckled Mathilda.

Holmann flushed. ‘She promised me I would be in at the death of the monster. That I should have the credit of it.’

‘Ah, I see,’ said Gabriella, smiling slyly. ‘That explains it.’ She looked like she was going to say more, but at that moment, the heavy door to the old keep creaked open and Hermione and Famke peeked out, like two frightened rabbits looking from their hole.

‘Is it dead?’ asked Hermione.

Gabriella and Mathilda turned on her with cold eyes.

‘No thanks to you,’ said Gabriella.

‘Left us t’die while she hid in her rookery,’ sneered Mathilda. ‘We’d have lost half what we lost had ye and yer ungainly get lent a hand.’

‘I must protect my own!’ Hermione protested, stepping out with Famke behind her.

Gabriella stepped towards her. ‘Are we not your own? We are your sisters. You closed the door in our faces.’

‘I panicked!’ said Hermione. ‘Fear overwhelmed me.’

Gabriella snorted. ‘Surely the mark of a great leader. No wonder you worry for your position.’

Hermione’s eyes flared at this. ‘So you
do
conspire against me! You will use this tragedy to poison the queen’s opinion of me.’