Edward answered hesitantly, "Just come to, er—make sure you're all right, old man… " Anne, Charlotte and Madeleine came into the hall after him. Odd, none of them wearing coats.
"Don't come up, we're on our way down," said David. As he spoke, he saw Edward's gaze shift sideways to Karl. Edward tensed visibly. He seemed to struggle between growing panic and the instinct to behave correctly. David recognised the onset of a nervous attack and he willed Edward to control it, thinking, Keep a grip, old man. Don't let it happen again.
Karl went straight past David, as if glad of this opportunity to leave. "If you will excuse me," he murmured.
As he started down the stairs, Edward's eyes turned wild with horror. Edward, no, David thought in alarm. Control it, for God's sake!—but the change was too swift, the outburst too sudden to be prevented. Before he could move, Edward was shouting hoarsely, "Keep away from him, David! He's evil, can't you see? Get out of here!"
Karl stopped, half-way down the stairs. Rather than fleeing the house as David had expected, Edward started forward across the hall. He came limping and stumbling up the stairs with his walking-stick held like a bayonet. "Run, David! I'll hold him! For Christ's sake, run!"
"Edward, no!" David yelled. He started towards the stairs, but he was too far away to do anything. Edward hurled himself upwards and thrust the stick straight into Karl's stomach.
David's own gut tightened in sympathy—yet Karl didn't even flinch. Instead he clasped the stick easily in both hands, turned it aside, then used it to drag Edward towards him. Edward seemed unable to let go. David could not see Karl's face, he could only see his friend's, collapsing from battle-frenzy into abject terror as the Austrian's hands shot out and closed on his shoulders. Karl's strength was too swift, too effortless to be human.
It happened so fast. David could only stand and stare. The words went through his mind afterwards, over and over again. I should have stopped them but it happened so fast!
With Edward in his grip Karl turned a little, so David could see him from the side. His face was bone-pale, his expression blankly demonic. His iris was an arc of scarlet fire. Then, most horrible, his mouth opened and David stared in utter disbelief as the canines grew visibly into fangs. Less than a second, it took. Then Karl lunged and sank those vicious ivory wolf-teeth into Edward's neck.
Edward gave a strangled, bubbling cry. A line of blood spurted out; Karl's lips moved to stem the escaping flow, and he clutched Edward to him with a ghastly intentness. A feasting panther. Monstrous.
David caught a glimpse of the girls down in the hall. Anne was clutching Charlotte; he knew from their expressions they had seen everything. Madeleine had her eyes tightly closed.
David's paralysis broke and he sprinted down the stairs. "What the hell—? Let him go!" he shouted, striking Karl on the shoulder. It was like striking a marble column. Karl's arm shot out and sent him sprawling down the stairs on his stomach.
David scrabbled madly to stop himself and ended up at the bottom of the stairs, bruised and winded. He felt something fall against him, warm and heavy. A body. Edward. It was a moment before David could clear his head, and then he felt hands on his arms, looked up into the shocked faces of Anne and Charlotte.
As they helped him to his feet the hall was suddenly full of people. The foreman and several workmen had rushed out to see what the commotion was and they were crowding round him. Madeleine stood a couple of feet away, her eyes squeezed shut as if to squeeze the sight out of her mind.
"Stay back! I'm all right," David barked, and they all jumped away from him as if burned.
Edward lay crumpled on the bottom stair. Blood stained the lapels of his jacket, and his throat was a purple-red mess, with two ragged wounds glistening in the gore. With a groan of disgust—not at the blood, but at what Karl had done to him—David bent down and tried to find his pulse. Nothing. A fist of grief punched through him. He stood up and cried, "Someone get him to a doctor! Quickly!"
He looked up. Karl von Wultendorf had vanished, but the workmen were rushing by on either side of him. "He's nipped in one o' the bedrooms, sir," said the foreman as he dashed up towards the landing.
David started after him, shouting, "Be careful, he's dangerous." He glanced back, saw Anne and Charlotte bending over Edward, Maddy staring at them but not helping.
He thanked God that the estate men had acted so quickly, at least. Without them, Karl might have escaped, but they had trapped him in a room with a window too small for escape—if he had chosen to throw himself from the upper storey. The foreman and three others were just inside the door; the Austrian in the centre of the stone-walled room, facing them. The air was consumptive with dust and damp, the light the colour of cobwebs.
As long as he lived, David would never forget von Wultendorf's face. There was nothing demonic about it. He looked so damned tranquil. His skin was softly coloured now—with Edward's blood? Almost expressionless, just a minimal curve of the lips that was not quite a smile; but his eyes! One moment they seemed sad, the next full of sleepy contentment, then coldly ruthless. Yet they never changed. The varying impressions were in David's mind; the truth behind those deceptive orbs remained hidden.
"Give the word, sir, and we'll rush him," said the foreman, but no one moved.
David shouldered through them, so angry that he could hardly find his voice. "Well, you've revealed yourself for what you are, von Wultendorf. If Edward's dead, You'll swing for this! Now you may as well give yourself up quietly, because there's nowhere you're going except straight to the police station."
Karl held his hands palms outwards, almost a gesture of supplication. "I cannot express my regret for what has happened," he said in a low voice. "But I must warn you that it would be dangerous to try to detain me."
"You have the effrontery to threaten us, after what you've done?"
"I am telling you that I don't wish to hurt anyone; but if you try to prevent me leaving, I will. I know you to be a man of high courage, David, which is why I rather doubt you will heed my warning. But I wish you would."
"Bloody nerve!" said David under his breath. "So, you refuse to give yourself up?"
"I have no intention of doing so."
"Right." He heard movement behind him, glanced round to see a short, heavily built carpenter come panting across the landing, carrying several lengths of lead piping. "Oh, good man!"
As the carpenter distributed the primitive weapons, David whispered, "We'll spread out and surround him. Only go carefully, he's damned strong."
"It will do you no good," said Karl, as if he had heard. "I implore you not to. You cannot win."
"We'll see about that." And the six men began to move across the uneven wooden floor towards von Wultendorf, who, disconcertingly, did not move a muscle.
"What's going on?" said a female voice, out on the landing. It was Madeleine. David ignored her, willing her to go away. Then, louder, "What on earth do you all think you're doing?"
The men halted in their tracks. David glanced round, cursing. Madeleine stood in the doorway, arms folded, cheeks red with anger. She must have seen Karl attack Edward, yet she was behaving as if it hadn't happened—or as if she couldn't accept it.
"Maddy, please keep out of the way," David said firmly.
"This is ridiculous!" she exclaimed. "Leave Karl alone, you've no right."
"Maddy—"
In advancing on Karl the men had left the doorway clear. To everyone's astonishment, she simply walked straight between them and stood at Karl's side, facing them indignantly.
"This is barbaric!" she cried. "Just put those things down and let's try to sort out this misunderstanding."
David froze. It was like watching someone touching a match to spilled petrol. Karl simply looked at Madeleine with that same awful intensity in his face; then his hand flashed out and curled round her wrist.
She gasped with pain. "Karl, you're hurting me," she exclaimed, trying to ease his grip. When she found she could not, she look
ed up into his eyes and her indignation began to dissolve into confusion.
"Now," said Karl, with the same incongruous politeness, "perhaps you will listen to me. I have no wish to harm anyone; nothing will happen to Madeleine, as long as you do as I say. Everyone must leave the house. I shall remain here, with her as my hostage to ensure against any further attack."
"What?" David said furiously.
"I think you heard me. I can't tell you how much I regret this. But I must be left alone."
He held up Madeleine's bird-thin wrist in his hand, as if to emphasise the point. The grip seemed to have immobilised her. "Karl?" she said. David saw the revelation hit her as the horror of the situation sank in at last, as she was finally forced to see Karl for what he was. Her face fell with terror, as Edward's had, and she began to struggle like a dying bird. "Karl, let me go," she cried, breathless with fear. Then, when he did not respond, "David, help me!"
***
Charlotte helped Anne to carry Edward to his car, somehow got him into the rear seat while Anne cranked the engine. He felt so heavy, lifeless. She sobbed unconsciously as she arranged his limbs, while all the time the images were searing through her mind; Karl on the stairs, expressionless, eyes like fire through rubies as Edward rushed up towards him; Karl seizing Edward, tearing into his throat with vulpine ferocity, sucking his blood then throwing him aside as if he were a doll. Pushing David down the stairs—God, no, impossible, all of it—but she had seen it, seen it.
The horror of it was clotted in her throat like blood, there was nothing she could say or do to release it. Edward kept on about vampires—no, it can't be. Karl was always so tender, so kind… but the way he looked sometimes, strange things he said. She remembered his lips on her throat and shivered. Those times when he… No, no, it's unthinkable… but could he, would he have done that to me?
Maddy had given them a perfunctory hand with Edward, then run back inside the house. She had seemed more angry than anything, muttering that it was, "A mistake, a misunderstanding." She closed her eyes when it happened, Charlotte thought. She refused to see it!
"Some blasted use Maddy was!" Anne grumbled. She struggled with the starting-handle, swore, finally brought the car to life and jumped into the driving seat. "Get in, Charli. We'll go down to the doctor in the village."
Charlotte felt her duty was to go with Anne. But if anything happens to Maddy or David—dear Lord, don't let them be hurt. And Karl—whatever he had done, she was afraid for him too. No choice. "Go without me," she called through the car window.
Anne, thankfully, realised there was no time to waste arguing. "Right!" she shouted, already pulling away. Charlotte ran back into the house and up the stairs, almost choked by the thrust of her heartbeat.
She reached the landing too late.
Shaking so violently she could barely stand, Charlotte stared through the doorway and saw Maddy in Karl's grasp, abject with disillusionment and terror. And Karl, ignoring her fear, was speaking quiet, understated threats of death.
Like a serrated knife the truth drove through Charlotte. What was he, to have killed Edward—yet to be standing here afterwards as if nothing had happened, unmoved and sublimely beautiful—just as he had looked when he had kissed her, declared love with the same mouth that now uttered callous threats against her own brother and sister?
The Devil. Only the Devil himself could possess such twisted glamour, look so calmly on his own crimes.
How else could he disregard Maddy's pitiful pleas for help? He must listen—he can't be so cruel—yet Karl remained untouched, glacial.
"Let her go, damn you!" David said fiercely. "Good God, Karl, to think we trusted you! If you've a human bone in your body—"
"But I have not. I am sorry, David, but I have stated my conditions and if your men will carry them out, your sister will not be harmed." Karl's presence was powerful, a charismatic will that could not be resisted. His very calmness and the eerie, commanding quietness of his voice were part of that power.
Charlotte had never seen David look so much at a loss. "For God's sake, man, she's just a girl. Be reasonable. You can't do this!"
"If you want to help her, I suggest you all leave. Now."
Charlotte stared at Karl, and all at once she felt that she had lost her mind. Reality had shifted, entered another dimension. Driven not by bravery but by some rash, internal compulsion, she found herself running into the room. One of the workmen tried to catch her round the waist but she pulled free, gasping, "For pity's sake, don't take Madeleine. Take me instead. Please, Karl, take me."
There was a moment of absolute silence. She couldn't see properly; everything was spinning, blurred. The only clear figure was Karl, and from him flowed danger as bright and sharp as lead-crystal. Glass stained with blood.
Then Karl said, "Very well."
He let go of Madeleine, who flew to David's arms; and in the same instant he took hold of Charlotte, very gently, by the wrist. Softly he said, "Now you will all leave. You may bring Charlotte food and clothes and leave them by the front door; but if there is any attempt to enter the manor again, she will suffer. Now, if you value her life, go."
David's face turned bleak with defeat. He began to back out of the door, taking Maddy with him, followed by the disconsolate workmen. That was the worst shock of all, the moment when they gave up and abandoned her. Grey stars rolled across Charlotte's eyes, blotting out the last sight of them and the fading echo of their footsteps.
I love Maddy, I couldn't let her suffer, I had to save her… She drew the half-truth around her for warmth, but it dissolved like snow in rain. Hopeless to deceive herself. Would I have been so noble if it hadn't been Karl? I don't know. I'm not selfless, not brave… just a despicable hypocrite. Her real motive was far more complex, painfully selfish; despair had overridden her fear. She felt her disgrace was complete, making her an expendable member of the family… a scapegoat to take away their pain. But deepest of all ran the need to know the truth about Karl, however unbearable that truth might be.
Expensive, such selfishness.
Karl's grip felt hard and delicate as bone; the horrible impression of a skeleton holding her. She looked up at him, desperate for a word, a glance to ease her anguish. But as he turned his face towards her, all she saw was an exquisitely beautiful mask; eyes fashioned from jewels that mimicked human emotions to perfection. Love, sorrow, pain; how clever, how utterly hollow and cold.
Then a devastating wave of terror broke over her and she thought, I don't know this creature, I don't know him at all! God help me, what have I done?
She tried to cry out, "David, don't leave me!" but the blood was spinning out of her head and she could not speak. All the life had bled out of the house and she was alone, sinking through a black and grey netherworld where nothing mattered.
* * *
PART TWO
Like an angel crying mercy to a storm
You call from shadows where you don't belong
And the candle that I carry in my dark
Was once a torch to burn that I held back
When I tried to comfort you, I lied
Now I speak with effort, my tongue forever tied
When you walked across the meadow towards the moon
You made the midnight stranger welcome much too soon…
—Horslips
Ring-a-Rosey
* * *
Chapter Ten
About the Fire
When Charlotte awoke, she was convinced that she lay in her own bed. She felt that she had slept for days, and her only recent memory was of what seemed a vivid, recurring dream. Karl in a doorway, lightning candles on a candelabra. Slowly he turned to face her, his face glowing eerily white, the flames turning his hair to a blood-red halo; and he seemed utterly alien, supernatural, no longer the man she had loved. He was staring at her as he approached, his eyes as brilliant and compelling as fire scintillating through garnets.
She knew then that this was no mortal being.
She was aware only of the white face, the burning, chilling eyes, and the roaring grey cataract of terror…
And then of waking in her own bed…
But if it was her own bed, why was the canopy so old and faded, like a medieval tapestry? There was a vaulted ceiling, stone and plaster walls, and everything was in the wrong place… it was a nightmare she had sometimes had as a child, that she had awoken in a different place and was a prisoner…
"Father," she whispered. "Are you there? Father… "
But it was no dream, and the shadowy, unfamiliar room was real. A fire glowed in a cavernous grate.
A voice said, "Don't be afraid, Charlotte. Don't you remember where you are?"
Then the memories drenched her. She sat up, sweat branching coldly down her back. Her whole body felt twisted up like wire with tension.
"Where's David? Where's Anne?"
"They've gone. You fainted, don't you remember?"
She looked round and saw Karl sitting in a chair next to the bed, in waistcoat and shirt-sleeves, his collar undone.
"When?" she gasped.
"Ten minutes ago, no more." His face was sublime, impassive, his voice polite. Detached from her distress.
"But I feel as if I've been asleep—unconscious—for days!"
"You have not, I assure you," he said. "The mind can play tricks when you are in a state of shock. Here, you will feel better if you drink this." He placed a cup in her hands. She stared at it as if it were poison.
"It's whisky and hot water," he said. "One of the workmen was good enough to leave a hipflask in the kitchen."
She sipped cautiously at the drink and felt the fierce heat spreading through her, returning her fully to her senses. She realised that they were in the solar, which in the Middle Ages had been the family's private apartment about the hall. Now her prison. She put the cup aside and stared at Karl, hardly believing he was the same person. With her own eyes she had seen him kill Edward, fling both him and David down the stairs, seize Madeleine…
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