Charlotte shook her head, helpless. Then she drew Anne towards her and they embraced. How she’d longed for this. Forgiveness, acceptance. How it had hurt, losing her dearest friend in such rancour. “If you really want to know, I won’t deny you.”
She bit into Anne’s neck and swallowed. The blood tasted like champagne. Anne did not pull away, only made a faint noise in her throat. Charlotte stopped, and they held each other hard; friends, blood-sisters. This was a bond between them forever.
“But don’t have bad dreams, dearest,” Charlotte whispered. “It’s also a gesture of love.”
Anne smiled. With an arm around Charlotte’s waist, she turned and said, “Look.”
There on the dew-grey lawn danced a spirit in white satin and net; Violette Lenoir, the ghost of Giselle.
The scene vanished, like a bubble.
A vision beyond a daydream. Almost real - but false. They were not Anne’s words, not her sentiments. Charlotte lived with the hard truth: that she would never see Anne again.
* * *
A dart of cold stung Karl to alertness. Something felt wrong. He looked around and saw black shadows undulating over the contours of the Crystal Ring, the hills changing shape like storm clouds on a strong wind. The watchers again?
No, nothing there. The moods of the Ring were changeable. A stream of coldness flowed heavily over him, and he knew it was time to return home. He tightened his arm around Charlotte’s waist, trying to rouse her gently, but she woke with a start.
“Oh, is it time?” she said reluctantly. “I was so far away.”
“We should go back. Are you cold?”
“I wasn’t until I moved... but yes, it’s freezing. And I’m thirsty.”
The ether was a vast flow of ultramarine glass around them. Long strands of cloud traversed the blueness. The two vampires were fantastical sculptures of jet and coal-black lace, tiny against the rolling skyscape.
Below them, against a fleecy cloud, Karl saw a thin greyish shape. He touched Charlotte’s arm. “There’s someone down there, do you see?”
“Yes. But they look...”
She didn’t utter the word “dead”, but Karl had the same feeling. The vampire looked rigid, like a dark cross against the whiteness. As they drew closer, Karl saw no lustre on its skin, no cobweb wings to add grace. It looked starved, scoured, brittle. It was floating helpless in the Ring like driftwood.
Charlotte said anxiously, “Can you tell if it’s someone you know?”
“Not yet.” They were curving swiftly downwards. “Slow down. Be careful.”
“This is what happens if we stay too long, isn’t it?” she said faintly. “We grow too cold to escape, and starve.”
They landed on the cloud, their feet sinking into its substance as it just bore their weight, like honey. Karl bent down to the creature. A stick figure, coated with ash; the face was blurred. Grief thrummed inside him. Charlotte uttered a moan of pity and horror.
“I think she’s female, but I’ve no idea who she is,” he said. “She must have been here a very long time. We’re too late.”
“What shall we do?”
“Leave her.”
Karl touched the creature’s thin arm. Searing cold bit him, so fierce it bonded his hand to the arm and he couldn’t pull free.
“What is it?” Charlotte, alarmed, tried to help him.
“Mein Gott,” he said. “Don’t touch her! She’s deadly cold. I think she’s come down from the Weisskalt.”
Charlotte glanced up, as if seeking a gap in the thunderous clouds far above. But the Weisskalt, the frigid outer skin, was too far above to be visible. Binding her tattered false-wings around her hands to protect them, she said, “I’ll bite my wrist and squeeze blood on your hand to free you. You’ll tear the skin otherwise.”
Karl began to say, “No -” when the stick-creature thrashed into life and seized him. Its body was not fragile but heavy as stone, the thin limbs as strong as steel. Ice flared through him. He saw Charlotte over its shoulder, her eyes wide as she tried to drag the demon off him. Then he felt its fangs sink like sharp thick fossils into his neck.
There was nothing harder to fight than a starving vampire. Karl couldn’t escape. He was paralysed, his ears full of the creature’s convulsive swallowing. His blood leapt painfully through his veins, pulsing out of him in time to the numbing suction of the mouth.
He struggled, suppressing panic. It was vital his senses remained clear. “Charlotte, we must leave the Crystal Ring. Guide us down. Quickly, before she takes all my strength.”
As he spoke, he sensed another vampire drawing close. No surprise, to see another dark form winging alongside Charlotte -red and violet glints on a swirl of blackness - nor to hear Ilona’s light, abrupt voice.
“We’ll take him together. One on each side.”
“Hurry,” said Charlotte. No time to be startled by Ilona’s appearance, only to be glad of her help. “Don’t touch the creature, she’s freezing.”
Ilona retorted, “She’ll soon be warm as toast, if we don’t prise her off my father.”
The Crystal Ring spiralled as Karl fell in the vampire’s grip. Ghastly, this helplessness. As his energy was stolen with his blood, he feared he would plunge through thin air to Earth - or be stranded in the Ring without hope of escape.
But he felt sure hands on his arms, drawing him down curving paths of ether towards the lake of shadows below. All the time Karl battled to keep his bearings, and to prise the ravening blood-drinker out of his flesh.
She was taking everything. Heat, strength, will. And as she surged frantically back to life, her self touched Karl and he realised who she was.
Instantly he stopped fighting, held her to him with both arms, even while his power bled away and his vision turned white.
Charlotte and Ilona pulled them both from the Crystal Ring and into the mortal world. He felt Charlotte’s energy tingling into him through her hands, the only warm spots on his body. She’d lent her strength to bring him back. And so had Ilona; why had she helped?
As they tumbled to Earth, the creature’s fangs came out of Karl’s neck and she slumped in his arms. She was no longer stone-rigid but pliable flesh. In human guise again, all four collapsed exhausted on the ground. Karl blinked, and saw the faces of his lover and his daughter glowing ghostlike against darkness.
They were lying on grass, on a roadside. Dawn glimmered on steep alpine meadows.
“Karl?” Charlotte’s arms went around him. Her clothes were torn, her hair tousled. “Are you all right?”
He hugged her, sat up, gently set her aside. “Yes, beloved. Thank you.” He looked at Ilona’s sharp oval face, pallid under her hair, the same near-black auburn as his own. Just a glance. She would only throw his thanks back at him.
Between them lay the naked, piteous form of the sick vampire. She tried to claw at Karl, who held her down easily. Her form had changed with the transition to Earth, but she scarcely looked human. Her body was dead white and skeletal. Skin and muscle were pasted on her bones like papyrus. Mummified. A thing that should have been dead; instead she was writhing, sounds of agony rattling from her throat.
Karl bowed his head. He was beyond weeping.
The three immortals knelt around her, silent - not with revulsion, but with the knowledge that they could each be looking at their own fate. To suffer like this, unable to die...
Karl pulled back his sleeve, and put his wrist to the vampire’s mouth.
“What are you doing?” Charlotte cried.
The white creature, closing her eyes, sucked hungrily.
“Feeding her.”
“Hasn’t she already taken enough from you? Why?”
“It’s Katerina,” said Karl.
Charlotte and Ilona both gaped. Karl felt weakness weighing him down. He knew he should stop while he could still move, but he was transfixed by Katerina’s ruined face, by the way her pain lessened as his increased. Pinkness crept into her cheeks. Then Ilona swore in G
erman, and began to laugh.
“Christ!” she said. “I might have known! She always led a charmed life, didn’t she? I wonder how she pulled this trick?”
Charlotte closed her hand on Ilona’s arm. “Don’t,” she said. Her voice was quiet, but her subduing effect on Ilona was - to Karl - unique and astonishing. “Karl, please stop feeding her. She’ll kill you.”
“How?” asked Karl. “If only it were that easy for us to die.” He pulled his wrist from Katerina’s lips and pressed his thumb to the wound until it began to heal. Then he took off his coat and covered Katerina’s pathetic form. She uttered faint moans. There was no intelligence in her eyes.
“It is Katerina, without doubt,” said Ilona, bending closer. “What happened? Where did she come from?”
“We found her drifting as if dead,” said Karl. “I didn’t know her at first. When I touched her, she attacked me. But, Ilona, why were you there?”
She glanced at him with her large dark eyes, looked away. “I am often near you, Father. I dislike entering the Ring, but every time I’m there I feel something... not right. I considered asking if you’d noticed the same, but I’d hate you to think I have such fancies.”
“You should have told us,” said Karl. “You know I would take you seriously. What was it you felt?”
Ilona’s lips thinned; she loathed admitting to feelings that weren’t flippant or callous. “Other vampires around me. Too many. And what was Katerina doing, floating like a dead fish in a tank, when we thought she was in the Weisskalt?”
“I don’t know whether to be relieved or disturbed that my own visions were real,” said Karl. “I wish I had an answer, Ilona.”
“What are you going to do,” said Charlotte, “about Katerina?”
“Cut off her head,” said Ilona. “Put her out of her misery. She can’t survive.”
“Why not?” Karl said sharply. “I brought you out of the Weisskalt, and you survived.”
“Yes, but I’d been there only a few days. She was there for forty years! Look at her!”
“I will not destroy her.” Karl said evenly.
“God,” Ilona muttered, raising her eyes at the sky.
“Are you going to help me or not?” said Karl.
Even Charlotte looked reluctant. Drawing back, she said, “What can we possibly do?”
“She needs human blood. She’s drawn so much from me that I’ve no strength left to enter the Crystal Ring at present. Even if I could, Katerina’s far too weak to go back in. So, first we must find out where we are.”
“Somewhere in Austria or Switzerland,” said Ilona. “Isn’t that specific enough?”
Karl ignored her. “We’ll arrange a place to meet. Charlotte, you can go through the Crystal Ring and bring a motor car; go home and bring ours, or hire one; whatever is quickest. Meanwhile Ilona and I will feed Katerina. Then we’ll take her home.”
* * *
“Can you enter the Crystal Ring for long enough to take her through a wall?” Ilona asked.
“I doubt it,” said Karl. They stood in a valley with mountains rising around them, dawn lightening the shadows to steel-mauve. A spring thaw patched the snow with green. He held Katerina against him, wrapped in his coat; she was like a wax mannequin, her head drooping against his shoulder, her hair cobwebby like an old man’s.
“We’ll do it the easy way, then.” Ilona pointed to a farmhouse sitting snugly in the valley. “I’ll enter first and let you in. The inhabitants won’t put up a fight. Can you sense them?”
Karl felt little discs of warmth touching him. He was drowsy, and didn’t want to harm them. But for Katerina’s sake...
They went down through the twilight, unobserved. At the house wall, Ilona vanished; moments later, a door of cracked wood swung open, and Karl took Katerina inside. He felt sickly cold, almost too weak to think. He scented blood in the gloom, deep under the stench of animals, of sour milk and cheese, washing, woodsmoke, human illness.
There was no one healthy in this house. The fit members of the family must be out in the meadows, for only two hot, quick-breathing entities pulled at him. Thirst ravaged him.
“Here,” Ilona whispered, pushing open a door.
There were two beds in the little room. In one lay a thin boy, his breathing laboured in his sleep. On the other sat a grossly fat wreck of a man, with an adult’s face and the eyes of a child. He watched the sick boy as if he’d sat there all night.
Seeing the vampires, the big man leapt up and screamed. Ilona sprang forward, felled him with a jab of her fingers. She tore into his throat, then recoiled and sat him upright, offering him to Karl.
“God!” she said disgustedly. “I don’t think he’s washed in his life! Let her take him, quickly.”
Karl had only to help Katerina a little. Smelling the blood, she writhed like a baby seeking its mother’s breast. She fell onto the child-man, began to lap from the wound Ilona had made as if demented. She absorbed his blood, his life-aura, everything.
The boy woke and sat up, staring with huge, feverish eyes at the apparitions in his room. His breathing was noisy, threaded with whimpers of fear.
Katerina will need him too, Karl thought. God knows how much blood it will take... but he, too, was starving.
He moved to the boy and sat down on his bed. The child stared at Karl in dumb terror. He was dying; tuberculosis, polio, some awful affliction. Karl pitied him; but sparing him was impossible. He could only clasp the narrow shoulders and look into his eyes.
Karl held back until the boy’s expression changed from fear to tranquillity... even love. And then, sealing the deception, he bent and bit into the clammy throat.
He was famished and the blood was more delicious for being hot with fever. No human disease could affect him. His own unnatural body would destroy any trace, leaving only the rich crimson essence he needed. When the craving was strong enough to override conscience and compassion, he let it; accepting his nature without pride, without shame.
His thirst partly slaked, Karl forced himself to stop and leave the rest for Katerina - although, God knew, the child had little enough to give.
Two pitiful corpses, they left. Shells. Karl seemed to be looking at them from a great distance, unmoved. The river of life had caught them, carried them for a while, then washed them up like drowned dogs on the bank. So it did to everyone. But the gorgeous, glittering, crimson river flowed on forever.
* * *
Policemen came and asked questions.
Yes, said Benedict, Deirdre was grief-stricken over James’s death. No, we’ve no idea why he killed himself. We didn’t know him well. A suicide pact? I don’t think so. She was on her way back to Ireland. Yes, they attended meetings of my brother’s literary group, but this occult stuff has been greatly exaggerated. What we do wouldn’t shock your maiden aunt. Come along sometime.
Holly sat listening to this, weeping.
She’d known about Deirdre’s death long before the police called. One of her psychic flashes, like a punch to the stomach. That must have been the moment Deirdre went under the train.
Deirdre had been waiting to change trains at Leicester, the policeman told them, standing quietly on the platform with no sign of agitation. When the train came she jumped in front without warning. Witnesses said she held up her arms as if to stop it, but the driver couldn’t brake in time...
She must have jumped on impulse, said Ben.
Eventually the police went away, satisfied there were no suspicious circumstances.
Ben and Holly comforted each other. Later, as she began to recover, Holly said, “I’ve had an awful notion, ever since Deirdre came to say goodbye. I thought, ‘If anything happens to her, it will prove her right.’”
“About what?” Ben said thornily.
“Being persecuted by Lancelyn.”
He shot to his feet. “Don’t be ridiculous! She was upset, not in her right mind!”
“I don’t want to believe it either,” Holly said in a low voic
e. “But we have to consider the possibility, at least.”
“I’m going to work,” Ben growled.
Numb, Holly watched him walk out; tall, long-limbed, fair-haired. Always full of energy; a strange mixture of kindness and single-minded ambition. She worshipped him. That was why he could hurt her so easily.
When he’d gone, she went into the kitchen and made a cup of tea to calm herself. Two of your friends die, she thought. You suspect that your own beloved father - father-figure, at least -as good as murdered them. What in the name of God are you supposed to do?
Another image. A white envelope in a gloved hand. A letter on its way...
She pushed away the vision. Her psychic ability was a burden, not a gift. The random images were capricious, unreliable. They never presaged anything good.
Lancelyn and Benedict might possess higher powers to touch the astral world, but she had a simple clairvoyance that they lacked. As a medium, she was invaluable to them. The process made her uncomfortable, but she submitted out of a desperate need to be useful. Her own parents had regarded her weird gifts as unacceptable. So to be accepted and needed by the men she loved meant everything to her.
It was through her visions that they’d found the ancient Book. Why she’d had that particular vision, she’d no idea, unless Lancelyn had projected his complex desires onto her. “We need an earthly key to the astral realm, a link,” he had said. Then he had hypnotised Holly, and she had seen the heavy volume on a table in a tiny cell that was thick with mildew, candlewax, soot and cobwebs. The cell was in a tunnel, deep underground, where no human had passed for centuries.
Further hypnotism and research helped them locate the tunnel. It was on a private estate in Hertfordshire, which meant, strictly speaking, they were trespassing. But, Lancelyn reasoned, if the owners were unaware of the tunnel’s existence, how could taking the Book count as theft?
Holly hadn’t gone with them, but on their return they described the place exactly as she’d pictured it. They’d broken into the cellar of a derelict house to find the entrance. A cold, subterranean place, full of death and ghosts. The lair of a mad hermit, long since dead.
A Dance in Blood Velvet Page 6
