Bloodborn (20 page)

Holmann joined her and looked out into the night. ‘Then it must be able to fly,’ he said.

Ulrika followed his gaze. The window looked out over the intersection. The closest building was across the street, perhaps ten yards away. ‘Or leap,’ she said, remembering her rapturous rooftop gallop of two nights previous.

‘A prodigious leap,’ he said.

‘Aye,’ said Ulrika, already lost in thought again. If she was going to track it to its lair, she would have to go to the other building and sniff around there, then try to follow the thing’s progress from roof to roof, guessing at directions all the while. It would be a difficult task, and if it
did
fly, it would be impossible.

She turned back to the room. There had to be another way – an easier way. She frowned at the floor. There had been others here besides the killer and Mistress Alfina. There were footprints all over the room. Perhaps she could track them instead.

‘But what did this flying monster fight?’ asked Holmann as she began pacing the room, looking at the tracks. ‘It must have been something as strong and ferocious as itself, or this would have been a massacre, not a battle.’

Ulrika remembered Mistress Alfina’s face, frozen in a snarling mask of rage, and the horrible wounds she had survived before someone had plunged a stake through her heart. ‘Aye,’ she said. ‘Strong and desperate.’ She kicked a black rag aside and squatted over a palimpsest of footprints. ‘Men with boots,’ she muttered. ‘Men with bare feet. At least five. Were they accomplices? Where did they go? Where did they come from?’

‘You may be a great tracker, fraulein,’ said Holmann behind her. ‘But you must learn not to overlook the obvious.’

Ulrika turned. Holmann was picking up the black rag she had kicked away.

He shook it out and held it up. ‘The robe of a priest of Morr,’ he said. ‘Or part of one, anyway.’ He showed her the breast of the garment, where a hollow square containing a rose had been embroidered upon it in black thread. ‘You see the sign of Morr’s portal?’ He grimaced and looked at his hand, which was sticky and red where it had touched the cloth. ‘Recently shed blood.’

Ulrika frowned, confused, and looked around the room again. Her mental picture of what had happened here shifted and became cloudy again. ‘So the monster was fighting a priest or priests of Morr?’ But what of Alfina?

‘It is their job to settle the restless dead,’ said Holmann.

New possibilities whirled up in Ulrika’s head like leaves in a wind. Could it be that her theory that an undead monster had killed the Lahmians was wrong? Could the killers have been priests of Morr instead? An image of some impossibly strong templar of Morr smashing through the window and attacking Mistress Alfina in a holy frenzy flashed behind her eyes. But could any human hero, no matter how great, make a leap like that, or claw marks like that? And what of the smell of rotting flesh? What of the little man in the sewers? Had she been mistaken about him? Had he been a priest, not a necromancer? She felt suddenly more lost than when she had begun.

‘But if priests of Morr are exposing these vampires,’ she said at last, ‘wouldn’t they speak up about it?’ She turned to Holmann. ‘Your fellow witch hunters have certainly not kept their investigation quiet.’

Holmann nodded, looking at the cloth. ‘True. Perhaps we should talk to a priest.’

Ulrika shrugged. It sounded more feasible than attempting to follow the smell of rotting flesh across the rooftops of Nuln. ‘Lead on, mein herr.’

The nearest temple of Morr was by the docks on the south edge of Shantytown, a small place devoted to augury rather than burial, and Ulrika began to have misgivings about pursuing their chosen course of inquiry as soon as she saw its open stone door.

In her life before Krieger’s kiss she had heard the same stories everyone had, that vampires were repelled by the symbols of Sigmar and Ursun and the other gods, but she had not so far noticed this repulsion in herself. In her journey with Countess Gabriella from Sylvania to Nuln their coach had passed any number of temples and roadside shrines, and she had come face to face with many priests and knights of various orders in the inns in which they had stayed, and no otherworldly fear had overcome her in their presence, just the reasonable wariness that all prey has for its predator.

She still couldn’t call what she felt as she and Holmann approached the door fear, only a profound nervousness. Morr was the protector of the dead, and his priests, as the witch hunter had pointed out, were dedicated to putting to rest the undead. Could they also somehow sense them? She felt that if she stepped over the temple’s threshold all eyes would instantly turn towards her, and all hands would be raised against her. She feared she would be attracting the scrutiny of the god himself, and that was not a risk she wished to face. What if she was struck down on the spot?

As Holmann started up the black stone steps, she paused. He looked back at her, an eyebrow raised.

‘Perhaps you should go in alone,’ she said. ‘I am but a woman from Kislev. I have no official sanction to be asking questions. You are a templar – a servant of Sigmar. They will answer you.’

Holmann smirked. ‘My authority will not be diminished by your presence, fraulein. Come. A vampire hunter has nothing to fear in this place.’

But a hunting vampire might, thought Ulrika. She swallowed, and considered fleeing, but then decided she could not. The torn robe was the only real lead she had. She did not want to go back to Gabriella and say she had not followed it out of a lack of courage.

‘Very well,’ she said. ‘Let us go.’

Ulrika followed Holmann up the steps, her shoulders tensing as she walked between the two pillars, one white, one black, that flanked the open door. Holmann went into the temple without difficulty but, for Ulrika, there was a pressure at the threshold, like the tension on the surface of water. It pushed back against her, trying to deny her entry, and her mind was suddenly filled with an almost overwhelming fear of Morr and his servants, a dread of their ability to end her unlife and snuff out her tenuous existence.

She fought forwards, both physically and mentally. She was not some mindless thing escaped from the grave. She was still Ulrika Magdova Straghov. She still had Ulrika’s joys and sadnesses, her dreams and longings. She had not yet surrendered herself completely to the night.

The barrier weakened the more she thought on her humanity, and with a last effort she stumbled into the temple and continued after Holmann, feeling weak and diminished.

He looked back at her.

‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Tripped.’

He nodded, then turned as, out of the darkness of the temple’s simple stone interior, drifted a tall, gaunt priest in long black robes, his hood thrown back on his narrow shoulders.

‘Welcome, children,’ he murmured, surveying them with heavy-lidded eyes. ‘Have you questions for the god of portals and dreams? Do you seek to know which path is most propitious?’ He sounded like he was talking in his sleep.

Ulrika hung back, eyeing the priest warily. Would he recognise her for what she was? Had he the power to strike her down? He looked like a doddering old sleepwalker, but one never knew with priests.

‘A more prosaic question, father,’ said Holmann, crossing to him and taking the bloodied black robe from where he had tucked it through his belt. ‘We found this during the investigation of the vampire menace. Have you heard of any of your brethren fighting these fiends, or of any being wounded in pursuance of their duties?’

The priest’s eyes widened, and he was suddenly much more awake. He reached out and took the robe, then examined it closely. ‘That is a lot of blood,’ he said.

‘Aye, father,’ said Holmann patiently. ‘And I seek the fiend that inflicted the wound. Have you heard aught of it? Was the unfortunate who wore this of your temple?’

The priest shook his head. ‘I have heard of nothing like this. And we have lost no brothers here. But this…’ He touched a spindly finger to the breast of the shredded garment. ‘This is not our symbol. We are a temple of augury. Our symbol is the raven, you see?’ He pointed to the breast of his own robe, upon which was stitched the outline of a black bird. ‘This rose – it is the symbol of Morr’s garden. Our brothers who tend the cemetery wear it.’

Templar Holmann inclined his head. ‘Then we will inquire there, father,’ he said, ‘and trouble you no further.’

He took back the robe and turned for the door. Ulrika followed him, and breathed a great sigh of relief when they stepped once again through the open door and out into the cold night air.

Ulrika found it interesting to walk with a witch hunter. She might be a creature of the night and an enemy of all mankind, but it was Holmann who the people feared. As they strode through the Neuestadt on their way to the Garden of Morr, street-corner demagogues stopped their tirades and vanished down alleys. Student agitators dispersed into their colleges. Harlots and beggars and swaggering bravos turned about on their strolls and found that they had business elsewhere. Even staid, respectable burghers blanched and found it difficult to know where to look when Holmann passed them by.

Ulrika hid a smile at each new tremor and stumble. No wonder witch hunters suspected everyone. Everyone looked guilty when they met them. It was also no wonder they were so often solitary men. Who could relax enough around them to be friends with them?

Only once did anyone approach them, a middle-aged woman in apron and mob-cap, wailing with grief, her arms outstretched.

‘Witch hunter!’ she cried. ‘Find my son! The vampires have taken him! You must save him!’

Ulrika’s heart leapt with hope as Holmann steadied the woman. Had the monster struck? Were they in time to catch it? That would be a stroke of luck.

‘When did this happen, mein frau?’ the templar asked. ‘Did you see the fiends?’

‘It happened last night,’ she moaned. ‘Jan went out and didn’t come home. He’s been taken, like all the others! I’m sure of it!’

Ulrika sighed, disappointed. It didn’t sound like a disappearance to her.

Holmann seemed to think the same, for his face hardened. ‘How old is your son?’ he asked. ‘What is his profession?’

The woman blinked, surprised by the questions. ‘He is nineteen, a student at the university,’ she said. ‘He–’

‘A student missing for a day hasn’t been taken by vampires,’ rasped Holmann, cutting her off. ‘He is drunk in some brothel, sleeping it off.’

‘Oh no,’ gasped the woman. ‘Not my Jan! He is a pious boy. He–’

‘If he is still missing four days from now,’ interrupted Holmann again, ‘report his disappearance at the Iron Tower and we will investigate. Until then, wait and pray to Sigmar for his safe return. Now excuse me. I have more pressing matters.’

And with that he strode past the woman, leaving her weeping behind him.

‘Fool,’ he growled under his breath as Ulrika caught up to him. ‘It is always the same. For every one true disappearance, there are reports of ten. Our work is hard enough without ignorant house-fraus leading us on wild goose chases.’

Ulrika nodded, her thoughts elsewhere. ‘Aye, but do you think she’s right? Are the disappearances connected to what we seek?’

Holmann shrugged. ‘There are always disappearances. People only take notice of them when something else stirs their fear – vampires, cultists, mutants – but they never cease.’

After that, they had walked quietly for a while, each deep in their own thoughts, when Holmann raised his head and looked at her.

‘You never spoke of how you came to be chasing the vampire in the sewers,’ he said.

Ulrika coughed, caught off guard. This was precisely what she had meant about the difficulty of being friends with a witch hunter – a companionable walk, some casual talk, and then, out of the blue, dangerous questions. She quickly thought back to their earlier conversation, struggling to remember what lies she had told him so she wouldn’t contradict herself now.

‘I… I have been hunting my sister since that moment when I was not able to go through with killing her,’ she said at last. ‘I realised, as you said, that it was a false mercy to spare her, and have been determined to rectify my error.’

Holmann nodded approvingly.

‘I came to Nuln,’ she continued, ‘thinking she might have something to do with these women who have been exposed as vampires.’

‘You believe she is spreading her corruption?’ the templar asked.

Ulrika shrugged. ‘I know not.’ She paused then went on. ‘I was on the hunt that night when I heard, as you did, of some monster outside the Silver Lily. I too found nothing, but saw a man – or what I thought was a man – watching me from the shadows across the way. He fled when I approached him, and I chased him into the sewers. The rest you know.’

Holmann nodded again and they continued in silence. Ulrika hoped he was done asking questions. The less she talked about the dead Lahmians in his presence the better. She didn’t want to give anything away by accident, or add to what he already knew. But when the witch hunter spoke next, it was not a question.

‘You… you are a most unusual woman, fraulein,’ he said, looking at her sidelong.

More than you know, Ulrika thought, but only said, ‘In what way?’

He barked a harsh laugh. ‘In every way!’ He waved a gloved hand at her. ‘Your mannish clothes, your hair, your manner. It goes against all convention and all seemliness, and yet… and yet with you it seems normal and right.’