Riho found herself outside, on a city street beneath the night sky. The sudden transition left her momentarily shaken; had she not expected, if not this exactly, then at least something, she would never have been able to deal with it. As it was, she found the experience bewildering; she knew she was wherever Montoni's painting led, but the sheer reality of the place amazed her. The air was warm and heavy, a spring night in a sunnier climate than anyplace she knew, and the cobblestones beneath her feet had that not-quite-level feel that spoke of great antiquity, of centuries of use by feet and wheels and of the forces of nature.
She appeared to be in a great city of some kind; the street she was on was long and lined with closely-built buildings of historical European style, though Riho could not place the exact period or nation–if there was one. Painters created fancy as well as fact, and Riho did recognize, if not the specific street, the general outlines of what had been depicted in the painting. There, though, there had been light and people and gaiety, while here everything was dark and silent. There was no torch, no street-lamp to light the way, no press of people caught in the wildness, the loss of control that was Carnival-time. All was still and dark, silent but for Riho's footsteps as she turned to look about her.
It's lucky vampires can see in the dark! she thought with some relief, for she would have no trouble making it through the city. The thought of a bloodsucking bat flying through the night and running into walls because it couldn't see rose in her mind, but she set it aside. The humorous image was probably the result of rising hysteria, Riho's own nerves being drawn to the breaking point by her fears for Shido and the strange situation she had ended up in.
Those fears surged up brightly as she saw, perhaps a block away, a crumpled figure lying on the curbside. She ran towards it at once, her heart in her throat. Was it Shido?
No. She sighed heavily with relief. It wasn't Shido. It wasn't a person at all, but a life-sized mannequin of some kind, its face a blank white eggshell. It was dressed in a fancy red and blue tunic with gold edging as well as red pantaloons tucked into black knee boots ornamented with gold thread. It looked like something out of a movie, like the mannequin had been stolen from a costume shop and dumped in the street. The clothes kind of matched the architecture, Riho thought. Next to its pale white hand lay a full-face mask with no ties but instead mounted on a stick for its wearer to hold. The fingers were actually curled slightly around it, and she realized they were articulated. It wasn't a mannequin, then, but a life-size doll.
Suddenly, with a jerk, the doll sat upright, its upper body snapping up as if pulled by something. Riho yelped in fear as she leapt back. Was this the breed? It looked nothing like Shido had described, but that could be because it wasn't inhabiting a host. She'd never faced a night breed alone before. Did she even have a chance?
The doll continued to move; it was pulled to its feet and then began to walk towards Riho. Its movements were jerky and uncoordinated, not smooth at all, but it was not slow, either. It lashed out at her with its hand, and the hard, sharp fingertips slashed through her sleeve and cut her arm. It was only a superficial injury and healed over at once, but it brought sharply home to Riho that she was being attacked. She backpedaled, instinctively glancing left and right, then realizing that there was no help coming, no last-second rescue.
She would have to do this herself.
The doll lurched towards her, limbs and joints clacking with every movement. Riho tried to drive the sound from her mind, keep her concentration on what she was doing. Shido had been teaching her how to fight as a vampire, but she'd never actually tried it in combat before. She raised her right hand to her lips and pierced her fingertip with her fangs.
To a vampire, blood is life, Riho, she remembered him saying, but it is so much more besides. Blood is power, and your strength resides in even a single drop of it.
Riho concentrated only on the voice in her memory as her finger bled, striving to shut out her fear of the thing advancing on her, her fear of what might have become of Shido, her terror of spending the endless nights before her alone. What mattered was the blood, her blood, her power. She called to it, and it responded, swelling and extending, hardening into a blade of faceted ruby. Riho's hand closed around the bloodsword's hilt, and yet she could feel along its entire length, for it was part of her, not a weapon to be picked up and put down but wholly a creation of her own power as a vampire. Her face lit up in a smile as she saw what she'd been able to do, and then the smile vanished as she turned towards the advancing doll.
It lunged for her again, clawing at her with its fingertips, but this time she was ready for it. Riho dodged aside easily with her vampiric speed, and swung the bloodsword in a horizontal arc at the doll's unprotected abdomen, under its extended arm. The sword struck hard; there was a sound of splintering wood and Riho could feel power surging through her, out of the blade and into the target. She completed the scything stroke and the living doll fell apart in two halves.
That can't have been the breed, she thought. I couldn't have beaten it so easily.
Then the smell hit her, potent and irresistible. Blood. Not the sword, but fresh human blood that made her throat ache with sudden hunger. Riho's head turned, almost involuntarily following the scent, and she found herself looking down at the doll. Blood was flowing from the severed halves, pooling on the cobblestones. For a horrible moment she was afraid she'd just killed a person in a costume, until she realized that the exposed parts didn't show anything but splintered wood.
Only the did she scream.
"H-how can a doll bleed?" she babbled aloud.
It had been a doll, and yet it hadn't. It had been one of the people who'd disappeared. This was what had become of them.
The rattling of wooden limbs and metal joints heralded that arrival of more of the living dolls. They lurched from doorways and alleys, dressed in a variety of outlandish costumes, some male, some female, and some of strange creatures from which Riho couldn't identify the sex of the wearer. The dolls themselves were faceless and sexless, each and every one identical but for their outfits. Most were empty-handed, but a few carried some kind of weapon appropriate for their costume–a court dandy with a dueling sword, a juggler with a bandolier of daggers, a medieval headsman with a cruelly carved axe. It was like an insane masquerade, crazily costumed dolls thronging the streets and every one advanced on Riho with that same jerky, unnatural way of moving.
-X X X-
The great hall of the palace was set for feasting. Long wooden tables groaned under the weight of succulent viands, platters of roasted meats, delectable fruits, fresh-baked breads and superbly aged cheeses. The light from hundreds of candles from the great chandeliers above were reflected dazzlingly off polished silver cutlery and off ewers and goblets containing rare vintages mulled and spiced. The costumed guests ate and drank heartily, with a clattering of knives and forks, consuming food with a sort of heedless gusto.
This bounty attracted Shido not at all, magnificent though it was and despite the fact he hadn't eaten or drank anything since he'd awakened in the inn. Indeed, the thought of putting food between his lips faintly repulsed him. The strains of music flowing down from the small orchestra in the musicians' gallery overlooking the hall was far more appealing.
He walked on towards the far end of the banquet hall. There, on a kind of raised dais, sat a table crossways to the others, so those at it could overlook the diners. It could have easily seated two dozen along one side, but in fact there was only one person there; the other baroquely carved, velvet-upholstered chairs were empty. The table's single occupant was a woman, wearing an elaborate gown, a fantastic confection of gold and ivory satin. Her face was strikingly beautiful, with glorious honey-colored hair tumbling down over bare shoulders and swanlike neck. Her eyes were wide and so bright a gray they nearly seemed silver. Her lips curved in a welcoming smile as Shido approached her. Beneath the table he saw two long, lean shapes like dogs; they stirred as he neared but neither they nor any of the people present made any kind of move to stop him from approaching the dais.
"Welcome, seeker," the woman told him.
Far above, the tower bells tolled eleven.
-X X X-
Marionettes! Riho realized. That's what the unnatural movements of the dolls reminded her of. They were just like the figures in puppet shows she'd seen as a child, limbs and bodies suspended by wires and pulled into uncannily complex motions by the puppetmaster's art.
She parried a sword-slash with the bloodsword and the marionette's blade was severed by her supernatural weapon. It dropped the hilt with the remaining stub and instead lunged with empty hands. Riho backed away, her ripped dress testimony to the clawed fingertips' ability to wound, but she couldn't bring herself to strike out. Whatever evil magic afflicted it, this was still, somehow, a person–a victim, not a willing servant of darkness like Yukito Abe.
That wouldn't stop the marionette from hurting her, though.
Maybe there was another way, she thought. She let the bloodsword become just blood again, and rushed the marionette. Riho evaded its attacks and seized its shirt, easily lifting the doll over her head. Her vampiric strength amazed her; before the change she'd have barely been able to lift the marionette, and now it seemed no heavier than a feather. Riho hurled the doll bodily into a cluster of others and they went down with a loud clatter of wood, tangled together. In more than one place, though, a limb had been cracked or chipped from striking the cobblestones, and blood was once again welling up from those injuries.
That was the hard, ugly truth of it. There was no way Riho could fight back without injuring, perhaps killing these victims of the painting's breed. Even if she was willing to do that, they might still overwhelm her by sheer weight of numbers or because of her very limited experience in any kind of fighting. Running away wasn't an option; the marionettes were everywhere.
No, she realized, they're not. She was thinking like a human, and indeed the steadily advancing dolls would have had a human trapped and surrounded, but Riho wasn't human anymore. She had to fight–or escape–not as an ordinary person, but as a vampire.
She sprang up from the cobblestones, leaping two stories straight up to the steeply gabled roof of one of the buildings lining the street. Riho easily kept her footing on the slippery surface; not only were her balance and dexterity superhuman but she could also move in ways simply impossible for the living, like running straight down a vertical wall.
Yes, she'd lost a great deal, but sometimes what she'd gained was worth it, even to a girl who really didn't care about power or magic.
Her strategy had worked, too; the dolls were milling around at the base of the house where she perched, but even though they clearly know where she was they had no way to get easily up to her.
Riho couldn't just hide there forever, though. One of the marionettes had discovered the drainpipe and was beginning to climb up it. Soon it would be on the roof with her and she'd have the same problem as before. If only, she thought, there was a way to cut its strings. Did the ghostly puppets even have strings? They should, Riho told herself. There had to be a reason they took this form, wasn't there?
And there they were, pale blue threads that reached down from the night sky in a forest of strings connected to each and every marionette, far more than even a master puppeteer could use. Sometimes the strings passed right through solid objects such as overhanging street signs or the roofs of houses, making Riho understand that they had no physical reality at all, that the "strings" were merely extensions of the controller's power. She hadn't seen them at first because she hadn't been looking, not really. The golden, vertically-pupiled eyes of a vampire could see more than just what could be touched or felt–if she remembered to look with them.
As the marionette's hand cleared the top of the wall and scrabbled for a hold, Riho summoned up the bloodsword again and swung it in a sweeping arc above the doll. At the touch of her weapon the strands of blue light parted and vanished, and the animation went out of the marionette. It began to fall at once, slipping over the edge now that it had no way to hold itself up, but Riho caught it by the arm and hauled it up over the edge, leaving it braced against the edge of the drain so it wouldn't fall. She'd finally found a way to overcome the dolls without actually destroying whatever life was inside.
That didn't solve her problem, though. There was no way Riho could cut free all of the marionettes, and even if she somehow did, how long would it last? Could the puppetmaster regain its control of them? She was so new to these supernatural occurrences that she couldn't even guess what was and wasn't possible.
No, she needed to run away. The marionettes couldn't catch her if she didn't let them. From her vantage point on the high roof, Riho could see out over the city, and from this view she could tell there was somewhere to escape to, or at least where she ought to go. While most of the city was dark and still, one portion was not. The glow of lanterns and torches suffused it, and behind windows Riho could see flickers of movement. At the center of the glow was a great fairytale palace with rearing spires, a clock tower looming above them all. Swiftly, she sprang from roof to roof with an effortless agility, landing lightly on peak or shingles and leaping off again. The warm night air rushed against her face as she moved so quickly she was almost flying.
The clock tolled eleven times, as if its chimes were to welcome her to the palace.