A Taste of Blood Wine

by Freda Warrington

  "As I fed on him I felt the tenderness swallow me again, relief and ecstasy so sharp it hurt. But afterwards—and whether he lived or died I did not want to know—desolation overcame me. There was no escape from the thirst. I would be compelled to do this over and over again. How could I stay with my sisters or my parents, how could I enter their houses or even speak to them on the street while this was within me? How could I look at them, when I could only see them as shimmering vessels of blood? How could I take them in my arms, when they might die there?

  "That was when I understood what Kristian had meant. I could have no contact with humans; it would be a betrayal of them even to try. There was a gulf between us forever. I cannot express to you, Charlotte, how alone I felt at that moment.

  "So I went back to Kristian; he found me half-way and we walked along the Karntnerstrasse together, like two Viennese gentlemen after the Opera. I told him my feelings. I told him I wanted to kill myself.

  "He replied that if I was serious, there was a place where I could be frozen into oblivion forever, a place he called the Weisskalt which was so high and cold that even vampires could not survive it. The image of it frightened me, and I was so angered by the dispassionate way he spoke that I never seriously considered suicide again. To defeat him, I must live. I said I would go anywhere with him, do anything, if he would only leave my daughter alone.

  "He agreed; I think he'd forgotten about her already. But he said, 'It's not enough, Karl. You must come with me because you want to, not because I hold some kind of threat over you.' I was incredulous, that he could do this to me, murder my wife, try to make me kill my own child, then expect me to love him! Yet he did.

  "No one could have brought him to justice nor held him in a jail. One thing I persuaded him to do; to help me cover up Therese's death, which he did by posing as a doctor and claiming she had died of a sudden illness. Yes, it sounds sickening, Charlotte, but understand; if they'd known she was murdered, there would have been uproar and I would have been a suspect. Then if I disappeared it would have proved my guilt; I could never have seen my family again. But it Therese's death seemed a quiet and ordinary tragedy, it would be understandable if I left Ilona and went away to get over my grief; and it would be acceptable to go back sometimes. It avoided so much unnecessary pain.

  "So that is what I did, and then I went with Kristian and his other vampires, to keep them away from my loved ones.

  "In many ways Kristian was right, there are things that can seem more profound than human love. It was wondrous, this strange new existence, and I fell in love with it despite myself. Vampires can move into another dimension, a world aslant from this, which we call the Crystal Ring. When we enter it we seem to vanish. We can travel through it to any part of the world—feed in a different place every night if we wish, and thus pass invisible and unsuspected among mankind. It must sound unbelievable to you… "

  Charlotte looked thoughtful. "When Pierre came to Parkland, I recognised him. I'd seen him once in Cambridge and I saw him disappear into thin air."

  "But he didn't speak to you or harm you?" She shook her head. Karl stroked her arm. "Oh, Charlotte. I didn't know he was looking for me even then. I should have been more vigilant."

  "At least now I know I wasn't going mad," she said. "I saw a vampire disappear, so how can I not believe you? Tell me more about it, please."

  "Ah, too much to tell you, really. The Crystal Ring is beyond description." Karl smiled. "It is like walking in the sky, but it can also be dangerous. It is another existence… no wonder, really, that Kristian calls it the mind of God. To give him his due, all the things he offered me were real.

  "I cannot truthfully say that I regret what Kristian did to me. But I would have given it all for Therese to be alive… I can never forgive him for that, never. He elected himself king of vampires simply by being the strongest. I don't know his origins, but I believe he has defeated immortals older than himself, and probably destroyed his own creators. He is the worst kind of egomaniac, one who believes he has God on his side. An avenging God who visits disasters on mankind to teach them their folly. Sometimes he believes he is God. And his little flock are his black angels.

  "But Kristian's fanatical passions never moved me. His view of immortality and the Crystal Ring were too narrow; he was capable of interpreting them only through the religious framework he must have known in life. Everything about him depressed me, his arrogance, his presumption, his brutality. Yet I can't say I hated him; or if I did, the hatred was simply there inside me like a sheet of snow, boundless, implacable, absolutely cold. And it was the same with love. Although the grief I felt for Therese was overwhelming, I did not fall under the weight of it. It was so great it seemed to be outside me, while inside I felt deadly calm.

  "And with killing; however appalled I was by the idea of drinking blood to live, this strange tranquillity enabled me to do it. It enabled me to accept what I was, to stay sane.

  "I am not saying all vampires feel like this. It was simply my nature, accentuated by the transformation. Perhaps it was what first drew Kristian to me, my serenity, but later it began to drive him mad. However he provoked me, I would never react as he expected. I couldn't be what he wanted me to be.

  "But then, that was true of so many of those he created. Time and again he would destroy vampires who did not live up to his ideals. I have only escaped the same fate, I think, because he has a particular obsession with me. It has become his crusade, to see me go down on my knees and admit that I was wrong, that I adore him and need him; then he can destroy me, and pride will be satisfied.

  "But I was telling you that when we left Vienna, I went with Kristian to his Schloss on the Rhine. He lived as austerely as a monk there. He was extremely rich, but earthly trappings were just a convenience to enable him to exist in the world. His craving was for devotion."

  "Do you mean he kept you prisoner?" Charlotte asked.

  "Not exactly. We were free to come and go, but if anyone stayed away too long, he would always find them eventually. His punishments were horrible. The greatest fear he held over us was of being left to freeze in the Weisskalt, the highest layer of the Crystal Ring. A death sentence. The irony was that the very qualities for which he chose his vampires—independence, intelligence, boldness—made us intrinsically rebellious. Perhaps that's what he wanted, the struggle of wills. He can't see that, in the end, his domination over us can only be physical.

  "Inevitably I stayed away from the Schloss longer and longer, until I simply did not bother going back. He came after me, of course. The fights we had… so pointless. Yet he always stopped short of punishing me. He kept letting me go, giving me one more chance to return of my own accord.

  "Instead, others began to leave him. Strange as it seems, Andreas and Katerina became my dearest friends and they came to live with me. Pierre too, though he could never make up his mind about anything. Kristian could not tolerate it. He is a jealous lord who could not believe I had not the remotest desire to steal his flock from him. I think that was when he began to hate me more than he loved me.

  "Meanwhile I often went back to Vienna, while my family still lived. It was a shock to see them. Vampires do not change, you see; I was used to their porcelain beauty around me every day. But in my loved ones I saw every line, every grey hair, the subtle changes in their gait. I could see the blood rushing through Ilona like sap through the petals of a flower. She grew so fast that I wanted to seize her and say, 'Stop! The faster you grown, the sooner you will die!'"

  Charlotte said, "Did she—did she know you?"

  Karl nodded. "She looked on my sister and brother-in-law as her parents, but she knew I was her real father. She'd been told I could not be with her because I was playing with an orchestra abroad. She was the sweetest child. I adored her with human and vampire intensity. I couldn't bear her sadness, when I left again—and I never dared stay long—yet she accepted it. It was my sister who looked at me with suspicion, though she never said anything
.

  "Then one time I returned to find that Ilona was married. I could not believe it. She was twenty-three already… and it is a terrible thing to admit, but I was jealous of her love for her husband. But that was not why I made the decision.

  "It was so long since I had last visited that I did not even make myself known to them. I followed Ilona and my sister as they went to visit our parents' grave and I was shocked to see how old my sister had become. She was grey-haired, stout, slightly breathless as she walked. She wept a little, as she always did at the grave. God, I would have done anything to go to her, to put my arms around her and say, 'It's all right, liebchen, I am here… ' But it struck me that I actually could not approach her; the visible disparity of our ages was too great. What could her reaction have been? And the knowledge that she would shrink from me in terror was agonising. So I stayed where I was, under the branches all outlined with silver by the rain, watching.

  "Here she was, weeping in a graveyard, she who'd been so young and full of life… and I looked at Ilona beside her and I thought, You too. I shall have to watch you grow old and die, my daughter, while I remain here like a stopped clock on a desolate landscape, watching your life shine and flicker and go out in the distance…

  "I couldn't bear it, Charlotte. I went to Ilona's house that night and took her away. She was so delighted to see me, it never seemed to strike her that I showed no signs of age. She trusted me so completely. And I thought I was thinking of her, but the truth is I was thinking only of myself as I put her in a coach and took her to a hotel.

  "I did not give Kristian a thought; it was Katerina who warned me that he would be furious, but she and Andreas were persuaded to help me. And that night we made Ilona into a vampire. I never told her what we were going to do; I thought, quite rightly, that she would be horrified. I took such pains not to frighten her, and I don't think she suspected anything until the very last moment when I… when I drank her blood and killed her. I was terrified that the process would fail, that she'd remain dead—because it can happen—but the three of us gave our energy back to her and her eyes opened again.

  "And I shall never forget the anguish and loathing on her face when she realised what she had become. From that moment she hated me.

  "She had every right, of course. What I had done to her was no better than what Kristian had done to me; I'd taken her without consent, sundered her from her husband and everything human. I had what I wanted; Ilona, unchanging, to look at forever. But such a price to pay. She changed completely; she lost all her sweetness, became cold and vicious. A perfect vampire, perhaps; no longer my daughter.

  "Kristian allows no one else to create new vampires, so he was outraged. With more subtlety than I realised he possessed, he knew that the best way to punish me was to leave me alone and destroy those I loved instead. He took Andreas and Katerina from me and condemned them to the Weisskalt—for the sin of loving me more than they loved him. I feared he'd do the same to Ilona. But no, he was entranced by her and she, perversely, decided to adore him. To this day I do not know if that was simply her revenge on me. Kristian's perfect angel she became." Karl fell silent. Such pain in these memories.

  Eventually Charlotte asked, "What did you do?"

  "What could I do? I tried again and again to talk to her. She was implacable. In the end I had to accept it and let her go. But I still love her. That will never end.

  "Since then I have lived alone. Anyone who befriended me was in danger of incurring Kristian's jealousy; I could not take that risk with anyone's life. Oh, there is more I could tell you, of the travels I have made in search of some kind of meaning, the wretched confrontations with Kristian… but it would add little to what I've said.

  "There are only a few dozen vampires in the world, Charlotte, all of us subject to Kristian. He is always there behind everything, like a great dark storm. I kept hoping that he would give up and leave me in peace, after all this time… I should have known it was a vain hope. His patience with me is running out. He's so desperate that he has even resorted to harming Ilona, his favourite. He sent Pierre to tell me that she was in the Weisskalt and would remain there unless I went back to him."

  "But you didn't go," said Charlotte.

  "No. The night I was missing, I went to rescue her myself. Kristian attacked me, and that was why I was too weak to spare poor Edward."

  "Oh, Karl," Charlotte said softly. "Did you save her?"

  "For the time being." Karl shut his eyes for a moment, weighed down by dark hopelessness, soothed by Charlotte's touch. "But while Kristian lives no one is safe, no one free."

  In a cautious, soft tone, she said, "Could he be killed?"

  "Try beheading a vampire; they just slip away into the Crystal Ring laughing. And to take him to the Weisskalt would be impossible. He's too strong. That was why I came to your father, Charlotte. Not the only reason, but the main one; to find something that would be fatal to Kristian, perhaps a substance created artificially in a laboratory that is never encountered in nature."

  Charlotte looked startled but intrigued. "Did you find anything?"

  "No corrosives affected my flesh, radium did not burn me, no gas poisoned me… I am coming to the conclusion that only the extreme cold has any effect on us at all."

  "You were trying these things on yourself?"

  "Natürlich. How else could I find out?"

  "But you might have killed yourself!"

  "Yes, there was that risk," said Karl. "But it was one worth taking, if there was a chance of destroying Kristian. Does it sound heartless, to speak so coldly of killing one of my own kind?"

  "Yes, but I'd feel heartless too, if he'd done those things to me. I'm not very good at being sympathetic. I never know the right words… but I am so sorry, Karl… especially about Therese."

  He stroked her arm. "It's all right. I cannot change what happened so I have learned to accept it The sorrow is distant now."

  "I wish you could have told me before," said Charlotte. He looked into her eyes, trying to read the changing shadows in her violet irises. He saw no hostility there, no condemnation. Rather, she looked contemplative.

  "So do I," he said softly. "There it is; I don't know what I am, or why I exist. I have encountered no gods, no demons. I wish I had Kristian's faith; but what is the use of searching for an invisible God when you can see the very essence of life pulsing through plants? What does it mean to be immortal, when the universe itself cannot last forever? I am still looking for the answers; I hoped to find them through science, but I think if there is anything to be found, it is inside us."

  Charlotte was silent for a time. The fire crackled; a slight wind curled around the house, bringing faint voices from outside. Then she said, "I don't know what I expected you to tell me, but what you've said is so different from anything I could have imagined. There's one thing I'm sure of; you are not evil, Karl."

  "I doubt that your father and brother would look on my story so favourably. Don't lose sight of what I am. I was human once, but if I still had a conscience I would never have survived this long."

  "But who can claim to be completely good?" she said fervently. "The War, all those young men who never came back, or who came back like Edward—" she stopped, swallowed. "That was the doing of men, wasn't it? Or are you going to tell me that you and Kristian started it between you?"

  Karl laughed, despite himself. "No. Men perpetrate evil to match that of vampires, it's true. Ours is on a small scale by comparison."

  "You said you'd always been yourself with me," she said, her face intense. "I don't doubt it at all now. I still love you, Karl. I can't help it. I can't just make it stop… "

  "Nor can I," he said.

  She was leaning towards him. He only had to slide his hand through her hair and draw her head down a little for their mouths to meet. And at the silvery warmth of her he felt the heavy pull of desire falling through him, her compliance drawing him down into it… it would be so sweet to make love to her again, but at
the last moment, that exquisite loss of control that still felt so poignantly human, would he have the strength to turn his face away from her throat as he had before? He doubted it. Not this time. He forced himself to end the kiss, to hold her away from him. She stared at him, lips parted, eyes misted over with longing and dismay.

  "Charlotte, please… "

  "What? What am I supposed to do? I cannot believe you are evil! You're like light streaming through the door from another world. I was scared of it at first, I thought it would burn me to cinders, but you, you told me not to be frightened. You can't just take the light away."

  "Oh God." He held her wrists so tight that he must have hurt her. "You know we can't stay here. It's not only my need for blood, Charlotte. I have to ensure that Pierre doesn't come back."

  "Why should he come back?"

  "He has a very dangerous sense of humour. He's already attacked Madeleine, and he threatened to do worse once he recovers his strength. He knows the best way to hurt me is to hurt your family. I can only control him as Kristian does, by physical dominance."

  "To hurt my family?' Charlotte turned pale with helpless fury. "What about them? He can't, how dare he even think of it!"

  "It's my fault," said Karl. He relaxed his grip and held her hands lightly, his voice calm. "I never meant to endanger your family, but by coming to them, I've drawn other vampires after me."

  She stared at him, aghast. "What are we going to do?"

  "Initially, I am going to write a note to your brother informing him that I will release you in exchange for letting me go unhindered."

  "Why?"

  "Because that is what I intend to do."

  "No."

  "Charlotte, this situation is impossible! We cannot stay together, whatever happens."

  Her lips were dark against the paleness of her face, her eyes circled with shadows of tiredness and strain, but that only seemed to accentuate her beauty. She was utterly different from Therese, yet now when he recalled his wife's death it was Charlotte he saw there. Despair filled him. He wanted to forget the hopelessness in the warmth of their love… but in the circle of his arms she would only fall to the danger from which he wanted to protect her. Horrible, that in the midst of this he could still want her blood, yet he did. He wanted her silken skin against his, her love flowing all around him and into him… to pretend that he was human again, and that everything could be all right.