"No, Father sent for me and I've heard this awful story about you and Karl. Is it over, then? Are you all right? Come in, we're just having a cup of tea. Didn't Sally take your coat?"
"I let myself in," said Charlotte, hanging up her coat and hat. "Wait; who's in the drawing room?"
"Only Father and Anne. David and Auntie have gone back to Parkland."
That made it a little easier; but it was her father Charlotte most dreaded facing. "How is Father?"
Maddy shrugged. "Not awfully well, poor thing. But he'll buck up when he sees you!" Charlotte wanted a moment to steady herself, but Maddy was already opening the drawing room door, exclaiming, "Look who's here!"
Their father and Anne were sitting side by side on the sofa, drinking tea. Seeing Charlotte in the doorway they sat up and stared blankly at her; no relief on their faces, just frozen astonishment. The atmosphere was instantly fretted with tension. Finally Anne jumped up and said, "Oh, Charli, what a shock!" But her father, stony-faced, did not utter a word.
"Now come on, tell us what happened!" said Maddy.
Charlotte could not speak.
"Don't be impatient," said Anne. "Just let her sit down and have a cup of tea. You needn't say anything until you're ready, Charli."
"All went wrong, did it?" Dr Neville said gruffly, not seeming to expect an answer. The aura of unease that emanated from him was so powerful that it subdued even Maddy.
I'm still in disgrace, of course. They don't know what to say, either. Even Anne seemed reserved, if not hostile. Yet Charlotte felt such tenderness for them that their coldness was unbearable.
This is a terrible mistake. Why did I come back? I can't tell them what's happened. I can't tell them a thing!
As they sat without speaking, Charlotte found herself mesmerised by the pinkness of Maddy's mouth, the way Anne's hair curved behind her ear, the angles of their hips and knees… seeing them as a painter would, only she did not want to paint Anne and Maddy, she wanted to stroke their skin and bite through it and suck the life out of their hearts. God, is this how Karl used to look at us?
She pretended to be drinking her tea, but it turned cold and congealed in the cup. The idea of tasting it was more repellent than the idea of drinking blood had been before her initiation. Even to let it touch her lips sickened her. Yet they hadn't noticed. It was unbelievable. But then she remembered that no one—except Edward—had noticed that Karl was a vampire, either.
So now I have lost both Karl and my family too. How could I stay here, pretending to be human; not eating, not sleeping, vanishing without explanation? And the desire she felt for them… Oh, God, tenderness, not impersonal hunger. That's the danger, that my love for them would lead me into it… yet I do love them. I wanted to make them understand.
She put her cup down and forced herself to speak. "I can't stay. I came back to say goodbye… and that I'm sorry."
No one said anything. Her father glared at her, withering coldness in his gaze. Her feelings were in turmoil, yet she felt somehow distanced from her emotions, just as Karl had suggested she would be. It enabled her to speak calmly, at least. But as she tried to go on, she felt a familiar snow-crystal splitting of the air. Ilona appeared in the centre of the room. Madeleine gave a sharp scream and leapt up, sending her cup and saucer spinning across the carpet. Charlotte was hardly less astonished than the others. Everything about Ilona was designed to shock; a backless gown of scarlet beaded lace, kohl around her eyes, her lips and nails painted blood-red. She was a deliberate, exquisitely delicate caricature of a vamp. Charlotte stood up, horrified, because whatever she felt for Ilona she did not trust her. Images of Ilona at Fleur's party…
"Excuse me for intruding," said Ilona, smiling venomously. "I wanted a word with Charlotte."
"What are you doing here?" Charlotte said faintly.
"You disappeared without saying auf wiedersehen, darling. Your friends want to talk to you." Before Charlotte could ask what she meant, Ilona began to walk around the room, looking at the others in turn. Then in mock surprise she said, "My dear, you haven't told them, have you?" She laughed and ran her fingernails down Dr Neville's cheek. Charlotte flinched. He didn't move a muscle but he looked mortified. "Your poor father doesn't realise."
"Don't touch them!" said Charlotte.
Madeleine and her father looked dumbfounded, but there was a grave intelligence flowering in Anne's eyes. "Charlotte, who is this woman? Another of them, isn't she!"
Ilona turned as if she might attack Anne. "Be quiet!" she hissed. Charlotte watched in alarm, remembering that even Karl could not stop Ilona if she became violent—but her tone softened again and she went on, "Charlotte looks well, doesn't she? Glowing, I would say. Don't you think there's anything strange about her?"
They looked bewildered—except Anne. She was staring at Charlotte with a dark expression that seemed to cut right through her. The others didn't understand, but Anne knew.
"Oh, God!" Ilona cried. "You're all so stupid! No one is less observant than a scientist, Dr Neville, as you prove. Look at me and then look at her!"
"Ilona, please don't," said Charlotte.
She continued pitilessly, "Your precious Charlotte is like me. She is a vampire."
Utter silence. They were all staring at her. Charlotte made her face a blank; she gave herself up to their stares, while inside she was falling apart. What was the point of denying it?"
Ilona sat on the arm of the sofa, swinging one leg; a bright young thing at a party. "I thought you ought to know. She obviously hasn't told you herself. Aren't you going to say something, darling? You're not trying very hard to deny it."
Charlotte felt Anne's eyes burning into her. What could she do to placate Ilona? Charlotte went to her, put her hand on Ilona's bare shoulder and stroked her neck; not the gesture of someone who felt intimidated. It must have looked strange to her family, yet it seemed to work. "Thank you," Charlotte said, softly bitter. "I was trying to tell them rather less brutally."
"Idiot," said Ilona with a mixture of affection and contempt. "You don't belong here. You belong with us. Stefan has some kind of message for you; he's outside with Niklas and Pierre. Are you coming, or not?"
"Yes," Charlotte sighed. A strange, cool sense of resignation came over her. "If you will wait outside while I finish saying goodbye."
"If you insist. But don't be long, or I may be forced to come back and tease you a little more." Ilona blew her a kiss and vanished; but Charlotte could sense the cool flames of vampire presences outside the house.
She made herself face her family. They looked stricken, their eyes full of incredulous horror. Another unwelcome revelation, when she thought nothing else could touch her. They're frightened of me!
She went to Maddy, reached out to touch her hair. "Don't be afraid of me. It's not as bad as it seems."
Her sister pulled away wildly, crying, "Don't touch me! Get away from me, Charli!" Charlotte drew back, shattered by her reaction, thinking, I could take her on her own, mesmerise her with this glamour so she wasn't afraid and loved me again. But it wouldn't be fair, it wouldn't be real.
"Father," Charlotte said quietly. "Can I speak to you alone, please?"
Not replying, he stood up and walked across the hall into the study. Charlotte followed, with the impression that he did not really want to, but could not resist her will. Do I have this power over others now?
He sat on the leather couch but she stood, keeping her distance. In this study Karl had caught her alone and she had lost her fear of him… as a prelude to losing everything else to him. Do I want to step back through the veil, be human again? That was the best time. Wanting Karl, in all innocence of what I was actually asking for. Well, now I have it, with a vengeance.
Her father looked at her for a long time before he said, "It can't be true, this awful thing. Tell me it's not true."
"I'm sorry, Father. It is."
His face changed slowly as he went on looking at her, seeming to crumple with fear, anger
, denial. "You've changed," he said. "What's he done to you? How can I get you back?"
"You can't, Father," she said softly. "I am still the same inside. But what I have become can't be reversed."
His hands curled into fists. "He's destroyed you!"
"No. I chose this. No one forced me. I wanted it."
Colour rose into his cheeks and he was shaking his head. "Why?"
"Because I loved Karl." She knew her words were tormenting him, that he could not bear to hear them, but she had to tell him the truth. "I always loved him, even after what happened to Edward, even when I was his prisoner. Always."
"But he's evil! It's obscene. How could you do this, Charlotte? You were so blameless, innocent. He's corrupted you. Your mother would turn in her grave."
"Wouldn't you have loved Mother, whatever she did? Why must you cling to this belief that I was perfect? I never was. You are seeing the real me now. This is how I've always been inside!" She leaned towards him but he recoiled, denying her, pushing her away. The pain made her feel cruel. "You never saw Mother as she really was, either."
"How dare you! I adored her!"
"Yes, but you didn't know her! She wasn't perfect either. And I am not her, I never have been her."
"I don't understand what you're saying."
"Yes, you do." She knew she was hurting him but she could not stop. "Isn't this what you wanted me to be? Mother again, the saint who never existed; just a frozen image of her, captured eternally. Well, now you have that. I shall never grow old! Do you want me to stay here for you to look at forever?"
Her father was weeping, his head in his hands. She was aghast at herself, wrung out with grief… but she could not reach him. How could she comfort him with these white demonic hands that later would grasp someone else, not to console them but to feed on them?
Suddenly he looked old, all his vigour gone. He had always seemed so strong; his feebleness was unbearable. I have done this. I've destroyed him.
"I shan't stay," she whispered. "I can't, of course. Father, don't weep. Please forgive me. I still love you."
In a voice thick with tears he said, "Get out of my house, Charlotte. As far as I am concerned I have only two daughters left; their names are Madeleine and Anne."
She went to the door, paused to look at the curved bulk of his back, the wisps of white hair straggling over the crumpled collar. Such a familiar sight… not intent on work now, but humped with bereavement. Only the coolness in the very centre of her soul enabled her to close the door and walk away. But all around it, the human flames burned.
Anne was in the hall, arms folded, glaring at her. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes bright and hard. Charlotte faced her, hoping only for a word of acceptance; trying hard not to be aware of her enticing human heat. "I'm leaving, Anne."
"Well, I suppose that's for the best," Anne said flatly.
"Please look after Father. I so hoped we could part on good terms but he's so distraught, I can't do anything—"
"Oh, of course I'll look after him! Sweep up the mess you've left! What are friends for?"
"Anne, don't." She felt moisture gathering on her eyelashes.
"Oh, vampires cry, do they, Charlotte? Crocodile tears, I suppose."
"Why are you so bitter? You were the one person who always tried to understand and not condemn me!"
"Yes, when I thought that your good sense could win through in the end. But to do this! To deliberately become one of these—How do you expect me to be understanding? I can't even begin to adjust my mind to the enormity of it."
"Do I seem so vile to you now?" Charlotte exclaimed.
"Oh, you look the same, you sound the same—and yet you don't. Your skin is luminous, your eyes burn. Like that woman who appeared. She was the one who killed Fleur and Clive, wasn't she? The moment I saw her I suddenly knew it was true. Yet you put your arms 'round her! I'm frightened of you, actually. Yet you stand there still expecting me to be your friend!"
"I don't expect anything," Charlotte said quietly. "But I don't want you to hate me. I couldn't bear it. If you think I'm unfeeling, you're wrong; emotion, pain, everything is more intense now than it ever was before."
"Oh, do you expect sympathy? You've realised that Karl's heartless charms are nothing in comparison to losing the love of your family?" Charlotte said nothing. She would not give Anne the satisfaction of knowing that Karl had abandoned her. "I warned you about him from the beginning! Anyone can make a mistake in love, Charlotte, but to go on chasing it to such an extreme—what did you expect?"
"If you're telling me I deserve this, you're right!" Charlotte drew away, beginning to detach herself from Anne. From the anguish. Now it was Anne's eyes that were full of pain, her own that were tranquil. Like Karl's; the veil between the Crystal Ring and the human world. "I never meant to hurt you, or anyone… yet I have. But I shall always love you, Anne. You look at me as if I'm a fiend, but do you think I could take a drop of your blood?"
Anne started, as if the thought had not even occurred to her.
"I'd rather die," Charlotte went on softly. "Karl never laid a finger on anyone here—except Edward—yet he has torn this family apart and drained them of happiness. And so have I. This is what vampires do, isn't it? Tell Maddy and David I'm sorry."
Charlotte turned away, put on her coat and hat and quietly let herself out of the front door. She leaned against it for a few seconds, calmed by the cool summer air on her face, while the grief that speared her from skull to feet was so familiar now that she could hardly feel it. Disaster. It all felt so unfinished, to part in this mutual rancour, without reconciliation. They have the capacity to heal… It's me who can't change. Will I feel like this forever? Long after they have forgotten me and are nodding contentedly by their firesides, will I still be this torn, cold thing that can't die?
She walked across the wide drive to the gate, and outside in the tree-lined street she found Pierre, Stefan, Niklas and Ilona waiting for her. And Stefan put his arms around her and hugged her. She didn't know why. It was hard to believe he had once seemed so threatening, when now he seemed so sweet. She returned the embrace but it was not him she wanted, it was Karl.
"Why are you here?" she said dully.
"Oh, Charlotte," said Stefan. "Never try to explain yourself to humans. It takes a very special mortal to understand a vampires. We came to Schloss Holdenstein after Karl went there with Kristian. Didn't you know?"
"Should I have done? I was locked in a cell, I didn't know anything!" she said, thinking, What does this matter?
"You went away before we could speak to you. Karl gave me a message for you."
A flash of lightning in her chest. "What message?"
Stefan lifted his shoulders. "I don't understand it. He said, 'Tell Charlotte to remember the manner of our escape.' "
"That's all?" Her nerves were alight, her numbness replaced by frustration. "What does it mean?"
"We thought you would know."
She shook her head. "But why would Karl leave me any message at all… unless he was trying to tell me his surrender to Kristian was a pretence?"
"That's what we wondered," Stefan said softly. She looked at them each in turn. They seemed to be expecting something of her. But can I trust them? Or are they asking me to betray Karl?
"Don't raise your hopes, chérie" said Pierre. "It may be his way of saying goodbye. I tell you, I have never seen Karl behave like that before. I have seen him angry, upset—I have done my share of provoking him—but I have never seen him lose his dignity. Kristian would have known if he was faking it. The moment he gave in, Kristian forgot all about punishing us. No point, if Karl didn't care any more. Karl didn't even care what Kristian did to you, Ophelia."
Charlotte flinched. "But why do you care about this? Why did you help me become one of you in the first place? I thought you were all loyal to Kristian!"
"Ah, trying to work out whose side we are on?" said Ilona. "No one's but our own, dear!"
Stefan s
aid, "Don't you know his favourites are the ones who are most difficult? Look at us. None of us have ever followed Kristian's line. We have all grown a little sick of having to pretend. Kristian demands love with menaces; Karl wins love simply by existing. You have that gift too, Charlotte. We think it is time things changed."
Charlotte hung onto the words of the message, the only hope she had. Then she thought, Not the manner. The manor!
Frost crystallised on her heart. My God, he wouldn't go there again, he wouldn't risk death, not even…
Oh yes, he would. I know him. He would.
A flash-fire of crisis, dazzling as sun on snow. She looked at the others, thinking, Can I trust them? I don't know, but I must, I have no choice. She said guardedly, "I think I know where Karl has gone. If I am right, he has put himself in great danger. Will you come with me?"
***
At the base of the steep narrow stairs, the dome-shaped chamber seemed smaller and more oppressive than Karl remembered. He stood beside Kristian, looking around at the dripping, encrusted walls, the drifts of soil and masonry where part of it had collapsed. Countless tons of earth and stone pressed down above them. The air was thick with a cloying graveyard stench. Still no voices. The silence was a pent-up scream, taut as a cross-bow.
Opposite, the thin black throat of the tunnel wormed its way through the earth. Karl stared at it as if hypnotised. The tunnel seemed to breathe out a whitish mist, and where it touched his skin it felt like fingers of liquid nitrogen trailing over him. Can't he feel it?
"This is of no great interest," said Kristian. His voice, too loud, sheared away down the tunnel and awoke a faint echo. It came back to Karl's ears as a very faint, anguished wail that went on and on… Kristian, though, seemed not to notice. "This way?"
He strode into the tunnel and Karl followed, walking slowly but with lethal determination. Apprehension crawled round him in a cloud of ice-dust, but he pushed it away, again and again. The wine jars were hunch-backed, alien creatures lurking along the walls.
"There is a barrier of debris blocking the passage," said Karl, "But there is a way through."
A Taste of Blood Wine Page 54
