The red thirst was an agony.

The Count was undoing the seven tiny b.u.t.tons at the end of his jacket sleeve. He rolled the cloth back, and loosened the cuff of his shirt.

'It'll be thin,' he said, 'but we're a fine-blooded family. We can trace our line back to Sigmar himself. Illegitimately, of course. But the blood of the hero is in me.'

He presented his wrist to her, and she saw the blue vein pulsing slightly. His heart was still strong.

'Are you sure?' Genevieve asked.

Magnus was impatient. 'Child, you need it. Now, drink.'

She licked her lips.

'Child'

'I'm six hundred years older than you, count,' she said.

Gently, she took his wrist in her hands, and bent her head to the vein. She licked a patch of skin with her tongue, tasting the copper-and-salt of his sweat, then delicately scratched the skin, sucking up the blood that welled into her mouth.

Anulka moaned in her weirddream, and Genevieve suckled, feeling the warmth and calm seeping throughout her body.

When it was over, her red thirst receded and she was herself again.

'Thank you,' she said, standing up. 'I am in your debt.'

The count still sat, his bare arm extended, blood filling his tiny wounds. He was looking distractedly at the window, at the larger moon. A cloud drifted across the moons.

'Count Magnus?'

Slowly, he turned his head to look up at her. She realized how weak he must be after her meal. Invincible or not, he was an old man.

'I'm sorry,' she said, grat.i.tude gushing. She helped him upright, hugging his great barrel chest as she got him standing. He was heavy-set, big-boned, but she handled him as if he were a frail child. She had taken sometoo much?of his strength.

'Child, take me to the balcony. I want to show you the forests by night. I know you can see better in the dark. It will be my gift to you.'

'You've done enough.'

'No. Rudiger wronged you today. What Rudiger does, I must make amends for. It's part of our bond.'

Genevieve didn't understand, but she knew she must go along with the count.

They pa.s.sed through the dining hall, which was cleared of servants, and towards the balcony doors. The cloud pa.s.sed the moons, and light poured in, striking the portrait given pride of place among the von Unheimlich trophies.

Magnus paused, and looked up at the picture of the young woman in the woods. Genevieve felt a shiver of motion run through his body, and he said a name under his breath.

Serafina.

The doors were open, and a night breeze was blowing in, scented by the trees. Genevieve could taste the forests.

The doors should have been fastened.

Genevieve's night senses tingled, and she intuited something. Not a danger, but an excitement. An opportunity.

Count Magnus didn't even know she was there. He was years ago in his memories.

Silently, she manoeuvred him onto the balcony, keeping in the heavy shadow of a pillar.

The balcony ran the length of the lodge, and afforded a view of the slopes beneath. The lodge was built against a sharp incline, and could only be approached from the side paths. The pillars held the lodge up, and the balcony between them was level with the tops of the nearest trees. Beneath, the stream ran.

There was a man at the other end of the balcony, bent over the bal.u.s.trade, looking downwards, a bottle clasped in one hand.

It was the Graf Rudiger.

For Genevieve, it would be a simple matter. She had to put Count Magnus down, trusting him to fall asleep. Then, she simply had to pick up Rudiger and throw him, head-first, off the balcony. His skull would be crushed, and it would seem like a drunken, regrettable accident.

And Mornan Tybalt would be unopposed in the councils of the Emperor.

But she hesitated.

Replete, she felt benevolent, grateful. Count Magnus was the graf's friend, and her goodwill towards him spilled over onto the von Unheimlich family. She could not, with honour, carry out Tybalt's mission while Magnus' blood was still in her.

Magnus lurched away from her, standing shakily on his own. She was afraid for a moment he would tumble over the bal.u.s.trade. It was fifty or sixty feet to the jagged rocks of the streambed.

But Magnus was firm on his feet.

Rudiger didn't notice them. He was deep in his own brooding. He took a pull from his bottle, and Genevieve saw he was shaking. She wondered if the graf were human enough to be terrified by the goal he had set himself. He was more likely to come home on a bier with a hole in his chest than in triumph with his ivory in his fist.

And that, too, would let Genevieve off Tybalt's hooks.

Rudiger was looking at something below, out in the woods.

Genevieve heard a woman's laughter. And a man's, deeper and out of breath.

Magnus was almost level with the graf now. Genevieve followed him, worry rising.

Out in the woods, white bodies shone in the moonlight.

Magnus embraced the graf, and Rudiger struggled in his friend's grip, teeth gritted.

Graf Rudiger von Unheimlich was shaking with rage, angry tears on his face, his eyes red-rimmed and furious. With a roar, he crushed his empty bottle in his hand, and the gla.s.s shards rained down from the balcony.

Genevieve looked over the balcony.

Down by the stream, Otho Waernicke, a fat naked pig-shape, was covering a woman, snorting and grunting, his belly-rolls and flab-bag b.u.t.tocks shaking.

Rudiger shouted wordlessly.

The woman, eyes widening in horror, noticed the audience, but Otho was too carried away to be aware of, or care about, anything but his l.u.s.ts. He rutted with vigour.

Genevieve saw fear in the face of Otho's partner, and she pushed at the bulky youth, trying to get free of him. He was too heavy, too firmly attached.

'Rudiger,' Magnus said. 'Don't'

The graf pushed his friend aside, and made a fist of his bleeding hand, cold sober fury radiating from him.

The woman was Sylvana de Castries.

VI.

Doremus was in the woods, hunting with his father.

'The second most dangerous quarry,' Graf Rudiger had said. 'Man's mare'

They were running fast, faster than horses, faster than wolves, darting and weaving between the tall trees.

Their quarry was forever just out of sight.

Magnus was by Doremus' side, his scar fresh, face b.l.o.o.d.y.

Balthus was with them, doglike, snapping at their heels, licking his nose and forehead with a long tongue. And his vampire glided above them on b.u.t.terfly-bat wings stretched between wrists and ankles, lips pulled back from teeth that took up half her face. Rudiger kept on, dragging them all with him.

They moved so fast they seemed to be standing still, the trees rushing at them with ferocity, the ground ripping out from under their feet.

Doremus had a st.i.tch as sharp as a daggerthrust.

They were closing on the quarry.

They burst from the trees into a clearing, and caught sight of the prey.

Rudiger cast a stone from his slingshot. He caught the quarry low on her legs, and she fell, a jumble of limbs, crashing down against a fallen tree, bones snapping loud inside it.

Moonlight flooded down onto the fallen prey.

Rudiger howled his triumph, steam rising from his open mouth, and Doremus saw the face of the fallen.

He recognized his mother and was awake, shaking and covered in sweat.

'Boy,' Rudiger said. 'Tonight we hunt.'

His father was standing in the doorway of his bedchamber, bending his bow to meet the loop of its string, neck straining taut under his beard.

There was a servant ready with Doremus' hunting clothes. He stepped out of bed, bare feet stung by the cold stone floor.

The shock of the chill wasn't enough to convince him he wasn't still dreaming.

Count Magnus was with his father, and Balthus and Genevieve.

Doremus didn't understand.

'The second most dangerous quarry.'

He pulled on his clothes, and struggled into his boots. Gradually, he came awake. Outside, it was still darkest night.

Unicorns were hunted by day. This was something different.

'We hunt for our honour, Doremus. The name of von Unheimlich. Our legacy.'

Dressed, Doremus was pulled down the corridor towards the entrance of the lodge.

The night air was another shock, cold and tree-scented. Magnus had lanterns lit and was tending them. Balthus had the two dogs, Karl and Franz, and was whipping them to a frenzy.

There was a dusting of snow on the ground now, and flakes were still drifting down lazily. Cold, wet spots melted on his face.

'This harlot has dishonoured our house,' Rudiger said. 'Our honour must be restored.'

Sylvana was shivering, standing between two servants who were careful not to touch her, as if she carried the plague. She was dressed in a strange combination of man's and woman's clothes, some expensive, some cheap. A silk blouse was tucked into leather trousers, and a pair of Rudiger's old hunting boots were on her feet. She wore a cowhide waistcoat. Her hair was a tangle over her face.

'And this fool has insulted our hospitality and shown himself unworthy for his position.'

The fool was Otho Waernicke, dressed similarly to Sylvana, and laughing with an attempted insouciance.

'This is a joke, isn't it? Dorrie, explain to your father'

Coldly, Sylvana slapped the lodge master of the League of Karl-Franz.

'Idiot,' she said. 'Don't sink further, don't give him the satisfaction'

Otho laughed again, chins quaking, and Doremus saw he was crying.

'No, I mean, well, it's just'

Rudiger stared at Otho, impa.s.sive and hard.

'But I'm the lodge master,' he said. 'Hail to Karl-Franz, hail to the House of the Second Wilhelm.'