Free The Dark Arts of Blood by Freda Warrington Page B

him upright, hefted him to a bench, and sat him down.
    Violette.
    No one else was there. No mysterious skull figure, no sign that she’d been assaulted, nothing. Yet she was real enough. And she had rescued him.
    He couldn’t speak. Violette’s face was even paler than normal, glowing with its own fragile light. Her hat and coat were drenched. She sat beside him, staring hard into his eyes. She looked both furious and relieved – the look a mother might have for a child who’d hurt himself through disobedience.
    For long minutes they remained there, clinging to the bench as the liner ploughed on through the storm. He felt they were alone on a ghost-ship. Eventually Violette spoke.
    “Idiot. Emil, what on earth are you doing outside in this?”
    He thought,
I could ask the same
, but no words would come out.
    “I know some travellers prefer to be on deck, however rough the waves,” she said. “It eases sea-sickness, even at the risk of pneumonia or falling overboard. Is that why?”
    “I’m not sea-sick, madame,” he managed to say. “I… I was looking for you.”
    “Why? You must have known I was in my cabin, as you should have been.”
    “But clearly you were not. I saw…”
    “What?”
    “I thought I saw someone attacking you.”
    She went quiet for a few seconds. “Why would anyone attack me? I think the storm made you see things. The rational part of the brain no longer works in such conditions. It’s understandable.”
    “But that doesn’t answer what
you
are doing on deck in this weather, madame.”
    “Emil, I asked first.”
    He clenched his teeth, caught between the urge to pour out his emotions and the need to show her due respect.
    “I can’t explain. I felt you were in danger, not just from the storm but something else. Don’t ask me how, I simply knew, and look! I was right! I was trying to find your cabin but I got lost. Then I saw a figure, exactly like Kastchei. I thought I saw him attack you… you were fighting… I don’t know what I saw.”
    Violette reached out and took his hand. Her gloved hand was wet and cold, but Emil didn’t care. To feel her fingers around his palm was paradise. She was the most captivating, enigmatic creature he had ever known… and here he was, alone with her, their hands entwined.
    “My dear, you are brave and impulsive. Also a little crazy, I fear. And now you know my secret.”
    “Madame?”
    “That I sometimes wander at night because I cannot sleep. I like to sit in the fresh air, however wild the weather, and to contemplate the ocean. The infinite, terrible forces of nature. I’ve grown rather good at sneaking out past my assistants, who in any case have learned not to stop me.”
    “But the danger! The storm nearly swept me overboard. What if the same had happened to you? If you’d vanished at sea and no one ever knew what happened…”
    “Imagine the headlines!” Violette laughed. “Then I truly would be a legend forever.”
    “Don’t even joke about it.”
    “Emil, calm yourself. This bench is out of the wind, and perfectly safe if you keep still. I’ve sat here a dozen times… and in worse conditions than this, on other voyages. Give yourself up to the elements and it’s almost soothing. Oh, but don’t tell anyone.”
    “Of course not,” he said.
    He was rendered speechless by her admission, by the simple miracle of her presence. What a night. They sat together until the storm calmed at last and sunrise tinged the cloudy horizon with silver.
    “Well, we survived,” she said softly. “We shall not speak of this again.”

CHAPTER FIVE

AWAKE BY MOONLIGHT
    “ Y ou idiot.” Wolfgang Notz spoke softly, but his voice pierced like a needle. “Have you sobered up yet?”
    Bruno brought the motorcycle to a halt amid the parked vehicles in front of the house. The huge structure was luminous in the dawn.
Bergwerkstatt
, read the modest nameplate. Mountain workshop. As Bruno booted down the kickstand, Wolfgang dismounted behind