"Is it him or not? I don't believe you don't know!"
"I—I have to think about this, Charlotte."
"There's no time to think," she said desperately, now convinced he was hiding the truth. "I need to know what to do."
"Well, I cannot give you an instant answer—except to warn you not to go near him. I shall try to find out and one way or another I shall let you know; but I can't work miracles. It will take a little time."
He sounded helpful, even kind; there was no mockery in his tone. She felt a trace of relief, only a trace. "Thank you," she said.
"I am glad you asked me. I gave you our number for a reason, Charlotte; there is something special in you. Karl saw it and so did I. So if you ever wonder how it feels to live forever… " There was a click and Stefan was gone.
"Well?" said Anne. Charlotte put her head in her hands. She was knotted with tension, her mouth dry, her head aching.
"I think he knows something and he can't or won't tell me. He said he'd try to help; I'll just have to hope he keeps his word. God, I hope I've done the right thing."
Anne made no comment, only sat beside her and gave her shoulder a reassuring touch. "Oh, Anne," Charlotte whispered. The tension broke; she turned and they clung to each other. "Why is this happening to us?"
***
The long tree-covered slopes met the surface of the Rhine and fell onwards through the water in obsidian-green shadow; the pure blue of the sky dappled the surface, brightened by swift-moving, sun-edged clouds. Karl sat at a table between the trees outside a Kaffeehaus, lost in the view and the soothing flow of life around him; people at the other tables, birds and squirrels feeding fearlessly among them.
When the young waitress brought the coffee and cake he had ordered, he saw the way her lips parted and her gaze moved over him. She lingered to wipe the table, looking back over her shoulder at him as she walked away. Strange sense of melancholy mixed with pleasure. What do you think you see, Fraulein? He threw the cake to the squirrels, watched the steam curling in ribbons of tiny particles from the coffee as it cooled.
A breath of coldness made him look up and he saw the two vampires approaching; Stefan and Niklas, white and gold angels, turning heads as they threaded their way towards him.
"We've been looking for you all night!" said Stefan. He sat opposite Karl, Niklas mirroring the action. Karl felt oddly pleased to see them. Stefan was a secretive, chameleon character whose relationship with his mute twin was unfathomable. Despite their apparent devotion to Kristian, their true loyalty was only to each other—but Kristian, of course, could never see that.
"Well, you have found me," said Karl. "How nice it would be to feel you sought me for the pleasure of my company and not because Kristian sent you… "
"But he didn't." Stefan was uncharacteristically serious. "We've been in London and he doesn't know we're with you. There's something you should know. It's about your human friend, Charlotte."
To hear her name spoken aloud stunned Karl. Its resonances were ethereal, painful. He stared at Stefan with such intensity that the blond vampire drew back. "What about her?"
"When I met her on that unfortunate evening, I gave her the telephone number of our London flat. Last night she called me. She said that she keeps seeing you at night, outside the window, watching her. She wanted to know if it was really you, and we were the only ones she could ask." He put his head on one side, sapphire eyes piercing. "She sounded… terribly upset."
Karl had deliberately distanced himself from his memories of Charlotte. She had become like a rose in his mind, perfect and transient; or an image on film, shining and alive, yet only a silent flicker of light. To think of her as real again brought the most extraordinary pain.
Finally Stefan said, "Aren't you going to say anything? You have not been watching her, have you?"
"No, I've been nowhere near her."
"No, we… did not think you had."
"She must have imagined it… " Karl trailed off, thinking, God, has she still not put me from her mind?
"I don't think she imagined it, my friend," Stefan said quietly. He seemed almost embarrassed. "You don't know, do you? I had a feeling he wouldn't tell you, although how long he thought he could keep it secret… "
"What are you talking about?"
"Your regeneration… what did Kristian tell you?"
"That he kept me bathed in blood until the injury healed." His eyes were fixed on Stefan as if to drink the truth from him.
"Think, if you lose a limb," Stefan said, "it cannot be grafted back, but you will grow a new one. The principle is the same. Two coffins. In one your head, and in the other your body. Filled with fresh blood every day; I know, because I was the one who had to do it. And in time the head grows a new body, and the body grows a new head."
Karl listened in complete abhorrence. He stared at his hands. Same hands he had always known. "You mean that in healing me, Kristian also made a double of me? I don't believe you," he whispered. "I am no different… "
"Your brain, of course, contains your memories, your personality. But the replica's head, regrown from the body, has no mind… only some remnant of instinct."
"And this thing… looks like me?"
"Just like you, but rather as a statue of you, a moving photograph, a ghost. It is less beautiful than you because you are not inside it. Charlotte seemed to sense that."
"But what was his intention, nurturing this thing, letting it live?" He had thought he had no capacity for horror or outrage left, but Kristian had surpassed himself.
There was a strange look on Stefan's face, almost resentment. "If he cannot have you, a living double is the next best thing. Perhaps he hopes it can become everything you are not. Of course, he will be disappointed, because it lacks your character and intelligence… "
"Yet you say this thing is watching Charlotte! Why?"
"I am not certain that it is Kristian's doing. These doubles do not think, but they have some kind of awareness; like a cat, perhaps."
"Some kind of vestigial memory," said Karl. "I believe so." As he spoke, Stefan was stroking Niklas's arm, staring at his profile in which the transparent dome of one pale gold eye caught the light. "I believe they know where they belong."
"Liebe Gott" Karl breathed. "I never guessed. I always assumed that you and Niklas were brothers."
"More than that. He's part of me. Long before Kristian met you, Karl, when I had only been one of his flock a year or two, some soldier found me dining on his comrade and struck off my head. Kristian saved me. I don't know whether he knew it would work, or I was the first experiment, but when I woke from the healing, I found that I had this companion."
"Weren't you horrified?"
"Never." Stefan looked dreamily at Niklas as he spoke. "I loved him from the first moment."
"Isn't this taking narcissism to the extreme?"
Stefan laughed. "Perhaps. It was like finding my missing half, quite literally. We do not need anyone but each other… and Niklas will never leave me. He has the needs of a vampire, though he would starve if I did not take him to his prey. I cannot speak for other doppelgängers being so docile, and of course they cannot be reasoned with."
"Charlotte is in danger."
"Particularly if Kristian ever follows it to see where it goes."
Karl gazed at Niklas, brooding. "Is there any way in which these doubles are more vulnerable than the rest of us?"
"I don't know." Stefan put a protective hand on Niklas's arm. "I would not tell you if I did. But I have told you this for Charlotte's sake, not for Kristian's."
"I appreciate it—but why?"
Stefan gave a dazzling smile that would have made the most stony-hearted mortal fall in love with him. "I like Charlotte," he said. "She reminds me a little bit of myself. What will you do?"
"I had made a decision not to go back to her," Karl said quietly, staring across the river. "Of course, I could disregard what you have told me, walk away and leave Charlotte to her
fate… I have no choice at all, actually, have I?"
***
Standing under a dark arch cut through a hedge, rain pattering around him, Karl stared up at the rear of Dr Neville's house. Creamy stone beginning to crumble, ivy around the lighted windows. It seemed only days since he had last been here, the intervening months lost. He had travelled through the Crystal Ring from Germany to England, fed discreetly, and spent the remainder of the day watching the house. In daylight the double had not appeared.
Charlotte is alive, only yards from me. And some creature in my shape is haunting her! God knows what she must feel. And if I actually see her again… I could be noble; destroy the creature, drive it away—whatever it takes to make her safe—and vanish again without her ever knowing I was here. Or I could be true to my nature and simply take her…
Then, as the darkness came down, Karl saw the figure. It seemed to solidify out of nowhere with a black-ice crackling of the air. Tall, lean… the face in profile as dead-white as the moon…
Dear God, it's the song! Weird sensation like déjà vu, the world caught in a loop of time in which the same scene of horror played over and over again on a vast desolate stage. The echo of Charlotte's voice: "Oh! horror! For when I mark his features, the moon revealeth mine own visage there!"
Exactly that. Karl outside the house of his lost love… and the doppelgänger there before him, precisely mirroring his anguish.
***
The creature that masqueraded as Karl did not appear in daylight—but when darkness fell it appeared again outside the windows of the morning room. Watching. Charlotte could not bear to see it; neither could she bear to ignore it. David had decided that he would not try to destroy it unless it attacked them first, and the others had agreed. Unspoken horror at the idea of a creature that could not be killed… They tried to play cards, listen to the wireless, read—but it would have been easier to relax with a cobra loose in the room.
And Stefan had not kept his promise to help. Charlotte had tried to telephone him earlier but there was no answer; and at last her patience gave way. She stood up and made to leave the room.
"Where are you going?" David said sharply.
She raised her eyebrows. "Where do you think? And I don't need an escort."
"Oh, I see," he said, embarrassed.
She had not actually lied. They would have locked her up if she had stated her true intention. Floating above a sense of danger, Charlotte began with careful deliberation to do exactly what Stefan had warned her against. Her instinct cried out, Don't be such a fool! but a stronger voice countered it. I can't bear this! I've got to know!
She went down to the laboratory, picking up a pair of scissors from a bench as she passed, and through the smaller cellar room beyond it to a door that led directly up to the garden. Outside, a flight of moss-slippery steps led back up to ground level.
The garden was full of movement; trees shivering against the sky, shrubs netted with moving shadows, ivy fluttering on the walls of the house. A thread of terror was looped around her throat but it was drawing her away from safety and out into the darkness.
She moved half-way up the steps, not noticing the patter of rain on her hair. She could see the figure a few yards along, staring in through the window, the face a pale smudge—So like him but not him!—but she knew that if she approached, David or someone else would see her from inside and panic. Could she make the being come to her instead?
She slipped a little way along the side wall, and from the cover of shrubs and laburnums she looked across the grey lawn, the apple and plum trees all in silvery monochrome. Very softly, she called, "Karl?"
He did not react at first. Then, more as if sensing than hearing her, he turned with agonising slowness and began to walk towards her. The way he moved was not like Karl; too smooth, no grace or sinuosity about him. Then with a wave of horror she thought, What if he has come back to life—but without a mind'?
She began to shudder with suspended revulsion as he came closer. If she breathed she would scream. Stop, don't come so close—but he kept walking until he was only inches from her. Completely rigid, she stared up at the face and thought, God, it's him—except for the eyes, the eyes—like Niklas's, blank!
He simply stood there, making no move to touch her; not even looking at her but straight past her at the wall. Long moments dripped by. She was transfixed, all emotion gathered up and suspended inside her. At last, unable to stop herself, she reached a trembling hand up towards his cheek. So pale, the high cheekbone, the beautiful face she had so loved…
"What are you?" she said. No response. A ghost clothed in flesh. Suddenly there was a raging anger twisting up inside; she felt out of her mind with it. "How could you do this to me?" she cried. "Who made you, who sent you? Kristian, Ilona? Why are you tormenting me like this?"
There were tears streaming down her cheeks with the rain. She thought she heard a voice say, "Charlotte," but the being's lips had not moved. It was mocking her. "What do you want? I hate you, Karl. Go away and leave me alone!"
And she struck out at him. Again a faint call, "Charlotte, don't!" but it was lost as the vampire seized her wrist in a grip that deadened her whole body. The scissors were still clutched in her left hand. She stabbed wildly at his shoulders, neck, face. Then she felt the sickening sensation of metal puncturing flesh and the whole garden swung around her like a carousel. A soft tearing of the air that almost sucked her with it—and the creature was gone. She was lying on the earth, exhausted, weeping.
And a clear, soft voice right above her said, "Charlotte, don't be afraid."
Karl's voice. A black figure standing over her. Her heart gave one huge jolt that thrust out all her remaining breath and the night roared and span around her. The shape was completely dark but for a long white hand stretched out to her…
"Let me help you up." The voice was soothing; the gentle Austrian accent burningly familiar after all these months. "There's no need to be frightened of me. Give me your hand." And he waited for her to do so, as if he would not touch her until she gave permission.
In a state of shock, Charlotte climbed to her feet without his help and looked into his face. Another spasm of terror—but this was not the gold-eyed demon. These eyes were glowing honey, scintillating with fire, not disturbingly vacant but full of life and fixed intently on her. And she saw that Karl's true beauty was not merely in his form but in the intelligence that shone from within him.
The first apparition had not given her such a flood of shock as this. Just as she had known the other being was an impostor, she knew with absolute conviction that this Karl was real.
"I didn't mean to give you such a fright," he said. "I was trying to warn you not to touch him, but I couldn't make you hear." He shook his head a little, seeming lost for words. Raindrops fell from the brim of his hat. "Won't you say anything to me, not one word?"
She went on looking at him, devouring every detail. The shock and terror bloomed into excruciating anger and she cried out, "Why have you come back? I saw you die!"
Such anguish in his eyes. "Liebling… I would not have had this happen for the world. I don't know what use it would be to explain but I can't just leave you. I heard you say that you hate me. I deserve worse."
"I don't hate you," she said helplessly.
"I thought… What can I say to you?" He sighed. "I've missed you so much. Don't weep."
But she was weeping. Delicately, as if she might shy away, Karl touched her shoulder; and the next thing she knew she was in his arms, unable to stop herself. They clung to each other. There was nothing to say. When he kissed her she almost pulled away, then the passion jetted up out of nowhere and her mouth met his like a butterfly seeking nectar.
All her self-possession was gone in an instant. Months spent healing herself, coping, forgetting—blown away like burned paper from a bonfire. There had only ever been this… everything else was a bereavement. And all it took was a single touch of his hand.
Ten m
inutes went by before either of them spoke. Then all Charlotte could say was, "Oh, God. Karl." Then rage again. "If you weren't dead, why didn't you come back before? You can't, you can't do this to me!"
So Karl explained, while she leaned against him, listening in numb disbelief as his words streamed away softly into the rain. How Kristian had stolen his body, healed him, made the doppelgänger, how Stefan had delivered her message. "I meant to rid you of the thing without you seeing me. But when you came out to it, when I saw you… "
"You can't leave me again!" she said fiercely. "Not now!"
There was a change in his eyes, an alarming passion and surrender of will as if he were about to attack her; but he only pulled her to him again, so hard she could barely breathe. "What can I bring you but pain? It would be better if I had died."
"No, no, it wouldn't. You don't mean it."
"I can't say it with any conviction at all at this moment." He brushed her damp hair out of her eyes. "We can't stay here in the rain. I assume the double has gone back to Kristian through the Crystal Ring, but it may keep returning. You and your family are in danger. I have to stay to protect them until we can find a way to destroy it."
They were both silent for a few moments, looking at each other. Then Charlotte said, "Stay… in the house with us, you mean?"
Karl smiled. "I can help them best in that way, yes."
She went cold with an apprehension that verged on excitement. "You mean you would face my father and everyone, after everything that happened?"
"If I can speak a single word of explanation before your brother dismembers me." He spoke drily, but there was a hard spark in his eyes that made her think, Has he changed? Did I ever know him, really? "That I will shock and frighten them is certain—but I cannot say that I care. Understand this about me, Charlotte; you mean everything to me, but what they think of me means nothing at all."
A Taste of Blood Wine Page 43
