Part 10 (1/2)

'No,' said Detlef, quietly. Having touched something inside himself, he was now letting it go, leaving it well alone, pus.h.i.+ng it back into the depths.

Eva stilled, staying her hand from the blow.

'What?'

'No,' he said, firmer now. 'I won't.'

He was ashamed of himself, and uneasy. He stood back, hands by his sides. He didn't want to touch her again.

Eva looked real fury at him, and, leaping from the divan, went for his face. He grabbed her wrists, and held her fast, keeping her away from him, pus.h.i.+ng her back.

He felt his bruises, but also a strength inside him. He had resisted temptation. He had not become Mr. Chaida.

'Hurt meee!' Eva screeched.

There was something wrong with her face, as if there were a layer of thin steel over it. She had foam on her lips, and was fighting seriously now. Her attacks were not in the least playful.

'What are you?' he asked.

'Hurt me, wound me, bite me'

He pushed her off, and backed away from her, shaking his head.

From the darkness, a pair of hands clapped, the sound reverberating around the auditorium, turning into a thunder of applause.

The Animus had lost. It knew the fact with a gem-bright certainty. The beast in Detlef Sierck hadn't been strong enough to take over his heart completely. He was as much Zhiekhill as Chaida. He could be tainted and taunted, but not destroyed that way. There was too much else in his spirit, too much light in the darkness.

The host was shaking with the trauma of defeat. She was near the end of her usefulness. If the Animus couldn't destroy Detlef's soul, it would have to make do with ending his life.

Eva pressed her hands to her face, trying to keep the loose mask from coming free. As the Animus faded from her mind, she felt her pain, her shame, her rage.

Her hands were wet with tears. She huddled, sorry for herself, wrapping what was left of her clothes about her. Detlef was stern, uncomforting. She didn't understand what she'd found inside her.

She had thought the Animus a blessing, but it turned out a curse.

The Animus slowly withdrew its tendrils from Eva, detaching itself at every point from her mind and body, cutting off her feelings, relinquis.h.i.+ng its degree of control over her.

Only the purpose remained.

Still applauding, Genevieve latched onto her pride in Detlef. He had defeated something as invisible and beastly as Mr. Chaida. She hoped she might have been able to do the same, but doubted herself.

'It's me,' she shouted, 'Gene.'

Detlef shaded his eyes and peered into the darkness. He could never see her like that. He did not have vampire eyes.

He was suddenly self-conscious.

'There's something wrong,' he tried to explain. 'We weren't responsible.'

Eva was sobbing quietly, forgotten, abandoned.

'I know. There's something here, something evil.'

She tried to sense another presence, but her scrying was gone. It was only an occasional thing.

'Gene,' he said. 'Where'

'I'm in Box Seven. There's a secret pa.s.sageway.'

She turned to check the open trapdoor, and saw something huge and wet squeezing through it.

The back of her hand covered her still-wide, still-sharp mouth, but she did not scream.

She was beyond screaming.

'It's all right,' the Trapdoor Daemon tried to say.

He knew how he must look.

The vampire dropped her hand, and her eyes shone red in the dark. She swallowed and straightened up. Trying not to be revulsed, she couldn't keep the pity out of her face.

'Bruno Malvoisin?'

'No,' he said, the word long and low from his flesh-concealed mouth. 'Not anymore.'

She put out her sharp-nailed hand.

'I'm Genevieve,' she said. 'Genevieve Dieudonne.'

He nodded, his huge lump of a head wobbling. 'I know.'

'What's going on?' Detlef shouted from the stage.

'We have a visitor,' Genevieve said over her shoulder.

It was over with and he was out in the open. The Trapdoor Daemon felt a strange relief. There would be pain, but he didn't have to hide anymore.

Poppa Fritz was snoring in his cubby-hole when Reinhardt went in through the stage-door.

His resolve was strong inside him.

'Eva!' he shouted.

He blundered through the backstage dark. In the afternoons, all the lights were down, as Guglielmo tried to save crowns on candle-wax and lanternwick. But there was a light somewhere. Out on the stage, perhaps.