The Dark Blood of Poppies

by Freda Warrington

Blood-heat suffused her face. To her own shame, she felt intensely aroused and unable to hide it. She pressed herself to Karl’s body, feeling she would melt into him from head to foot.

  “Karl…”

  Rather than push her away, Karl responded, as if his sovereign compulsion was to please her. And this transition from detachment to passion, she found irresistible.

  Later, as they rested on the bedcovers with the first glint of dawn turning their limbs to pearl, Karl said, “I hope you were not thinking of Simon.”

  “I hope you weren’t, either,” she said reproachfully.

  Karl smiled, his lids half-veiling his eyes. “Love, do you think you have no power to hurt me?”

  “I think,” she said, looking down at their entwined fingers, “that I don’t always like myself, therefore I sometimes can’t understand how you can love me.”

  “Really? If you suspect my love is so fragile, would that drive you to someone else? Violette, Josef, Stefan – even Simon? That’s my fear. If you are so unlovable, why do we all adore you?”

  “I only want you, Karl,” she whispered. “You know I’d die without you. Frightening, but true. Simon tried to tempt me away, but he never could.”

  “All the same, Simon is dangerous,” said Karl. Their faces were close together on the pillow. “Why does he want us both, do you think?”

  “To take the place of Fyodor and Rasmila?”

  “Or because he thinks we’re stronger than John and Cesare? Perhaps he wants us on his side because he’s afraid of us.”

  The thought gave Charlotte, who’d often felt powerless, a thrill of excitement.

  “You refused him,” she said, “but he won’t give up. Karl, I think he was trying to get to you through me. But I won.”

  Karl breathed out softly, looking grave. “Liebling…”

  “What is it?”

  “Rasmila once played a similar game with me. I was starving and she gave me her blood, convinced me there was love or at least friendship between us. But her blood put me in her power for a time. Took away my conscience and willpower…”

  Charlotte sat up, aghast. “You think Simon’s done that to me? God, no, you’re wrong!”

  “I hope so,” said Karl.

  Remembering the magnetic evil in Simon’s dazzling eyes, she shuddered, thinking, I wouldn’t put it past him to set such a vicious trap.

  “Look at me,” she said, turning to Karl and stroking his cheekbone. “Can you see anything wrong? Because if you can, I’ll go away. I won’t stay and risk betraying or harming you.”

  Karl’s face was lovelier to her than Simon’s sun-bright beauty could ever be; his eyes, honey-brown crystal, were infinitely more alluring.

  “No, don’t leave.” His tone was gentle, but the words were a command.

  Her voice raw, she said, “But can you kiss me, and lie beside me, and hunt with me… without trusting me?”

  * * *

  The woman, Ilona, took Werner to a cheap hotel room. Once inside, she turned into a vampire.

  Werner had never anticipated such pain, such pleasure and fear. His most lurid fantasies bore no resemblance to reality. Ilona rendered him helpless as if staked out for slaughter, and she led him into visions wilder than any fever.

  She ravaged and hypnotised him. She dragged him through paradise and left him stranded on the other side, gasping, his body blood-streaked and throbbing with puncture wounds.

  Afterwards, she sat above him like a cat, licking her lips. Huge, passionless, intent eyes… A cat seen from a mouse’s viewpoint.

  He wanted her again. Wanted her forever.

  He told her, and she smiled.

  “You’re very good,” she said. “For a virgin, perfectly incredible.”

  He hadn’t admitted that, so his pride was dented. “What makes you think…”

  “Never mind. Just be thankful you didn’t disappoint me – because you would have found out the painful way if you had.”

  Werner began to shiver, his teeth chattering. He seemed to see her through claret-coloured glass.

  “But if you want this forever, you’ll come with me and do everything I say.”

  “Anything.” He was losing consciousness, pawing at her for help.

  “And when I say forever – what was your name?”

  “Werner.”

  “When I say it, Werner, I do mean forever.”

  Then came a long interval of oblivion. A few times he bobbed to the surface of awareness, just enough to gain the impression of being carried by soft-footed monks… Then blackness again.

  When he woke, he was lying on the floor of a dungeon. A lone candle flickered on dank walls. For minutes, certain he was dreaming, he could only stare at the barred iron door. Then horror struck him. God Almighty, this is real!

  Panic ripped through him. He sat up, only for an iron hammer to pound behind his eyes. He collapsed again, moaning.

  “Ilona? Where are you? Let me out!”

  “She can’t hear you,” said the dry voice of a spider.

  The cell was full of shadows. Werner felt the same unreasoning dread that he’d felt as a child at night, fear of what lay in the dark corner of his bedroom. Now the dread was fulfilled, as a swathe of blackness detached itself and came towards him.

  Bony hands grasped him, with nails like thorns. A ghastly face, all hooked lines of cruelty, glared down. Werner caught the abattoir stench of blood and stared in horror at the creature’s naked, red-raw scalp and its pointed teeth.

  “She delivered you to us,” said the demon. “Do you fear God, human scum?”

  Werner thought he was in hell, being punished by some mad demon-priest for the sin of fornication. The vampire’s fangs were lengthening, as Ilona’s had. He writhed in fear.

  “Let me go!”

  “No, you must repent. Do you fear God?”

  “Yes, yes,” Werner cried, but the vampire kept repeating the phrase, his voice rising to a frantic shout, the mouth moving closer to Werner’s face, red tongue wobbling.

  “Do you fear God? Do you fear God?”

  Werner began to scream. He wet himself. Then, convulsing in the vampire’s claws, he began to sob and cry for his mother.

  * * *

  Outside the cell, Simon and Cesare listened to the screams of their latest recruit. Cesare stood with folded arms, nodding in satisfaction. Simon felt nothing; no pity, no pleasure.

  “This Werner is a fine boy,” said Cesare. “Ilona chose well again.”

  “I told you she’d have her uses,” Simon said without tone. His encounter with Charlotte had left him so despondent that he had no patience with Cesare’s banality. Important, though, to maintain his angelic mask. Draining three victims had partly restored Simon’s strength, but he still felt listless, frustrated.

  The cries grew fainter but more desperate.

  “A mother’s boy,” Cesare sneered. “John will knock that out of him. The more completely John breaks them, the simpler they are to reshape. Twenty so far; how many more, do you think, before we begin the transformations?”

  “As many as you wish,” Simon said, trying to sound interested. “But let’s keep the number manageable. Thirty should be enough, not an army of thousands.”

  “Of course. I believe in moderation.” Cesare’s gaze slid sideways to meet his. “The thousands will follow in good time. They’re not just an immortal army against Lilith; they are for the world after Lilith.”

  “The bright new day,” Simon murmured.

  “Quite so.” Cesare’s face shone with a soft, radiant smile. “Which reminds me, we should discuss the question of transformation. The order of initiation will be crucial –”

  “Don’t worry,” Simon interrupted. “We’ll talk later. All will be well.”

  Cesare looked reassured. Simon walked away, the human’s sobs dwindling but still audible; an irritating noise, like a constantly whining dog. Even when he reached a small chamber at the top of the castle, he could still hear it. He stare
d out of a narrow window at the forest beyond.

  “What you don’t realise, Cesare,” he muttered to himself, “is that unless we seduce Charlotte, Karl and even Sebastian to our cause, your dreams may never bear fruit. They are the crucial ones. By refusing to join us, they aid Lilith.”

  So close I came to winning Charlotte… The memory of her fangs piercing his neck burned Simon as much with ecstasy as humiliation. The fact that she outwitted me only proves me right. With her on Lilith’s side, an army of green fledglings will fall like grass to a scythe.

  The grey light rippled. Simon looked round to see two figures emerging from Raqia: his rejected lovers again, Fyodor and Rasmila. Pathetic waifs.

  This time, however, they didn’t rush to cling around his neck. Instead they greeted him with formal bows, self-controlled and dignified.

  “We’ve given you time to reconsider,” said Rasmila. “If you still insist that you no longer want us, we’ll accept your word. You will never see us again. But if you’ll give us a last chance to prove our love…”

  She looked resigned, not hopeful. Fyodor’s chalky face was gaunt, like a man facing the gallows. Yet their dignity touched Simon. Or… perhaps his contempt for Cesare and John made him more tolerant of his former companions’ failings.

  “Well, I make no promises,” he said thoughtfully. “But there are matters in which you may be of use, after all.”

  Their faces lit up. They gasped his name, but he turned his back on their gratitude and incredulous delight. In the depths of the castle, Werner’s sobs became the whimpering of an abandoned child.

  * * *

  Five days passed before Sebastian went to Robyn again. To his disappointment, her house was deserted.

  He entered and wandered the rooms in darkness, imagining her everywhere, looking at silver-framed photographs on her polished sideboards. Four pretty young women in wide-brimmed hats, laughing in an open-topped car: Robyn and her sisters? A formal Edwardian couple: mama and papa, no doubt. A very young Robyn in a cowboy hat, sitting on a horse. A lean-faced, intelligent-looking man arm in arm with two women… this one had a caption. “Mommy, Josef and Lisl, 1902.”

  No photographs of the dead husband, no happy wedding scenes.

  All her possessions looked expensive, gorgeous. Ornaments, vases of fresh flowers, creamy lace on dark wood. He breathed her lingering scent, imagining her in the parlour, or climbing these stairs… brushing her hair at this dressing table, stretching out on the bed… her tall voluptuous body dappled by moonlight.

  Ah, I wish you were home tonight, my Robyn.

  Yet he didn’t wait for her. A pensive mood fell on him. To see her now would destroy the magic of haunting her empty house. It was as if Robyn, not he, were the ghost.

  Sebastian recalled another house he’d loved. He felt the place calling powerfully to him, although it lay across an ocean. Perverse, that he felt more affinity with houses than he ever had with sentient beings.

  But the thought of Blackwater Hall reminded him of Simon, Ilona and the others. He cursed. Am I lingering here, he thought, to avoid their intrusions into my life? Perhaps. What of it? I don’t want them, but I do want Robyn.

  When he left, he waited another four days before returning. He wanted to punish Robyn a little, for not being there precisely when he’d needed her.

  * * *

  Every knock at the door made Robyn’s heart leap and drum in her throat. It was never him, of course. When had he ever bothered to announce his arrival?

  Tonight – ten days since she’d last seen Sebastian – she jumped by reflex, then scolded her nerves into submission. Let Mary answer it, she thought. Unless it’s Harold, I’ll play the gracious hostess for fifteen minutes then get rid of them.

  A minute later, Mary entered and announced two names that sent a chill through her.

  “Mr Victor Booth and Mr William Booth to see you, ma’am.”

  Russell’s brothers. The last people in the world she wanted here, but propriety demanded that she face them.

  “Show them in,” Robyn said, resigned.

  Two young men, with close-cropped brown hair, entered with their hats in their hands.

  “Mary, take their coats,” she said, but the older one raised his hand.

  “There’s no need, ma’am. This won’t take long. I’m William and this is Victor, my brother.”

  “Yes, I remember. It’s a pleasure to see you,” she lied. “How may I help?”

  The two were of average height, thickset, as serious as detectives. Neither attempted to shake her hand. Their fleshy, shiny faces recalled their brother, although he’d taken the family’s meagre share of good looks to the grave with him.

  “You remember our brother Russell, Mrs Stafford?” said William.

  Their eyes were dull and hard as gunmetal, accusing. Robyn’s invisible armour slid into place. “I know. I was terribly sorry to hear of his death. Won’t you have a drink?”

  “We don’t drink, ma’am,” said Victor. His voice was weak, with a strangled note that people must love to imitate. “Neither did Russell, until he met you. Then it seems he drank himself to death.”

  She had a ghastly feeling of déjà-vu: Sebastian in the Booths’ garden, insinuating that she was Russell’s murderer. But surely Sebastian had no connection to these men? Preposterous… but what if he did?

  “I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re implying, if anything.” She spoke lightly, as if this was a friendly conversation.

  “I think it’s clear enough,” said Victor. He was less sure of himself than William. She could take advantage of that.

  “Are you suggesting I had something to do with his death?” she said in soft amazement. She moved deeper into the room, while they stayed by the door. Harder to hit a moving target, she thought. “That’s unfair. I was fond of your brother. He was a nice guy, the best. We saw each other for a while, but he was so young…”

  “Too young to die,” said William. “Too young to kill himself over a whore like you. Don’t act innocent, Mrs Stafford. Everyone in town knows about you.”

  “What do you want?” she said sharply.

  “We want you out of Boston. Go, or we’ll smear your reputation over any town where you try to settle. We will ruin you.”

  Robyn gave no sign that she’d heard. She pretended to be lost in thought, one hand playing with the slide that held her hair coiled on her neck. The slide came free. Sweeping her hair over her right shoulder – a gesture she’d perfected to seem artless – she was about to begin her appeal, only to be arrested by the certainty that Sebastian was nearby.

  She ignored the feeling. Eyes downcast, she said, “Do you really blame me? I thought he’d get over it. I never realised… God, if it’s true, I’ll never forgive myself!”

  She swayed. Victor started towards her, thinking – as she’d intended – that she was going to faint.

  “I’m fine,” she said as he hovered, looking confused. “What could I do, but end our relationship? I shouldn’t have let it begin, I admit that. But what was the alternative to ending it? I hardly think your family would have approved of our marriage, do you?”

  She was a faultless, natural actress. Victor was half hers already, so she focused on William.

  “If I caused his troubles, I’m sorry. Folk say you’re fair, Christian men who wouldn’t dream of making such accusations against a widow on her own. Especially not ones based on rumour. You don’t actually know me, do you?”

  Even William looked less sure of himself. Not finding her the hard-faced witch they’d expected, they didn’t know how to proceed. A few more moments, she thought, and they’ll be eating out of my hand – or drinking my bourbon, the miserable abstainers.

  Now she would invite them to sit, and she’d ask questions about Russell, perhaps cry a little. Favour one brother, create jealousy, divide them. Playing this game with two at once would be fun.

  “Please, make yourselves comfortable,” she began. “Whatever you wan
t, let’s talk first. You don’t object, do you?”

  “No, ma’am,” William said with reluctance.

  As he spoke, she heard a footstep in the hall. Then Sebastian appeared in the doorway. He wore a dark overcoat and looked forbidding, every inch a creature of subtly malevolent strength.

  The brothers, still on their feet, stared at him.

  “You’d better be leaving now, gentlemen.” Sebastian’s soft tone was a promise of violence. “If it takes two grown men to intimidate one woman, I think you should be crawling back under your stones while you can still walk. And if you ever come near Mrs Stafford again, you’ll be reunited with your brother sooner than you hoped.”

  Robyn could only stare, incredulous, as William confronted the vampire.

  “Whoever you are, sir, this is none of your god-damned –”

  Sebastian’s hand shot out and landed on William’s throat. He appeared to exert no pressure. He fixed the brothers with gleaming eyes, but both men stared back as if he’d produced a gun. William turned grey.

  “Out,” said Sebastian.

  Both men jammed their hats on their heads and fled.

  Sebastian turned to Robyn with a look of amusement. “Well, that was easy,” he said.

  “How dare you!” she exploded.

  “How dare I – what?” He appeared stunned by her reaction.

  “Interfere in my life!” She felt livid enough to attack him. “You had absolutely no right!”

  “Beautiful child, they were threatening you. They deserved the fear of hell putting into them, gutless pigs.”

  “I was coping perfectly well on my own, thank you! I didn’t ask for your help and I don’t need it. They came here hating me. They would have left thinking what a warm, wonderful and wronged person I am. Given time, I’d have sent them both the same way as their precious baby brother.”

  “To the grave?”

  “To the bottle! Russell told me the reason they’re both teetotallers is that Victor used to be an alcoholic. It would have been my pleasure to make him lapse. I love corrupting evangelists.”

  Sebastian gazed at her in wonder. “You truly have an evil streak, don’t you?” He came to her and stroked her arm. “I thoroughly approve.”