He paused, as if tempted to kiss her; and the awful thing was that she didn’t mind, that she liked him very much. So easy to let this go further. It would be wonderful and comforting; he would make her feel safe, cherished. But that treacherous moment would come when she could no longer resist the thirst... she saw Violette’s stare of betrayal and horror, heard Karl’s sad voice, “Never look at their faces or ask their names...”
Oh God, but she was thirsty and he was so close and there was no one near...
With a great wrench she turned her face aside and pulled away.
“Forgive me,” he said sadly. “I was too forward. Such a fool, I forget I am no longer twenty-five. It is not to be, is it?”
“No,” she said. “Not because I don’t like you...”
“My dear, no need to explain.” He looked wistfully at her. “You are so young and I am so old...”
“Nonsense,” Charlotte said softly. “You’re not old, and I’m not as young as I look. But I can’t, because... I’m afraid I might hurt you.”
A quick, indulgent smile. “How could you possibly -” Josef stopped. She was looking straight at him, letting him see. The glassy light of her skin, the tips of her canines.
He went deathly pale and took a step backwards, swaying. She thought he was about to faint or run away, and she didn’t want that. Taking his arm, she guided him to a bench and sat beside him. A statue of Mozart gazed benignly down at them.
“Don’t be afraid of me,” she said, clasping his hands. “Please. I let you see what I am because I trust you. I didn’t want to deceive you - and I think you are the exceptional kind of man who can accept it. Can you?”
The stiff revulsion in his eyes began to soften. Warmth returned to his clammy hands. “Oh my God,” he said, taking a deep breath. “Mein Gott.”
“Forgive me, Josef. I didn’t mean to shock you. I simply couldn’t lie.”
“Such creatures exist, then. Ones who are not quite alive, but prey on the living. And if we’d grown close, would you have killed me - like a black widow spider eating her mate?”
“I might have done.”
“There cannot be a pleasanter way to die,” he murmured.
“That’s what they all think,” she said drily, “until it’s too late.”
He blanched. “How strange. My friend’s little daughter.” He looked intently at her, frowning in curiosity. “But how did this happen to you?”
“It would take forever to explain.”
“Does your family know?”
“Yes. That’s why I can’t go home.” Suddenly she no longer felt that this mattered. She stood and began to walk away, but he followed.
“This is terrible,” he said. “Don’t go. I’m not afraid. Let us talk.”
Her thirst was growing too strong. “Please, you’re in danger if you don’t let me go.”
“Charlotte,” he said with sudden intensity, “come home with me.”
“I told you, I can’t.”
“Not for that reason.” The sadness in his face was something far deeper than horror or infatuation. And she knew her instinct had been right; Josef did possess the calm intellect to accept her. “I believe you won’t hurt me; we will just be friends, yes? But please. There is a reason.”
Without knowing why, Charlotte gave in and went with him. Fatalistic curiosity took over.
They reached a dark cobbled courtyard, a stone staircase leading up to a flat. Inside, the low-ceilinged rooms were crammed with furniture and books. A miasma of sickness lay on the place.
Josef asked Charlotte to wait in a parlour and closed the door; she heard voices, Josef asking someone to leave, the front door closing. Then he came back and said, “I’ve sent the nurse away.”
He took her into a stuffy bedroom. In the bed lay a woman with greying hair coiled about a lined face, eyes open, mouth gaping at the ceiling.
“Who is she?” Charlotte whispered.
“My sister, Lisl,” said Josef. She glanced at him but he looked away, trying to hide his tears.
“What’s wrong with her?”
“A deterioration of the brain,” he said. “Premature senility. Lisl is only a year older than me. First there were little lapses in memory, changes in her personality. Eventually she could not feed or dress herself and would cry when I left her alone. Now she does not even recognise me. She has no life. She simply exists, and her lungs are failing too. She’s not my Lisl any more.”
“Can nothing be done?”
“Nothing,” he said. Tears ran down his face. “And I think it would be better if she were dead. I only wish I had the courage to do it myself.”
Charlotte stared at him, horrified. “You cannot be asking me...”
“Yes, if it will be painless,” he said. “And peaceful. Will it?”
Her instinctive horror vanished almost as it appeared, only a remnant of human emotion. “Yes. But how can you trust me like this?”
He didn’t reply. Charlotte moved to the bed. She did not want to do this, but knew she was going to regardless; her fangs slid out of their own accord and the thirst was like a weight falling through her. No going back. Why not, she thought, when they are both in such misery?
She bent down and took the woman’s thin wrist. The skin was loose and dry but the pulse thudded fast against her thumb.
Charlotte hesitated, gazing down at the face concealing a fragmented mind. Lisl’s expression was tragic in its vacancy, a pearl of saliva poised on her slack lip, a stale smell rising from her even though she was kept clean and her hair was neat. The little violets embroidered around the neck of her white nightdress... every detail shimmered through a haze of tears.
And Charlotte thought, What if I could make her a vampire now? Would her mind and youth return? Or would she be frozen like this forever?
She lifted the hand to her lips, then changed her mind and folded it gently across the woman’s chest. Not the wrist, she thought. There is no need to be impersonal; I am not afraid of your sickness, Lisl.
At the last sharp moment, Lisl was as desirable as any mortal, her blood as rich and luscious. Charlotte was almost delirious with hunger, yet she leaned down as gently as she could. Did I meet you once, when I was a child? I don’t remember.
For a second the woman’s cloudy eyes caught hers. The slack mouth moved. Charlotte seized the last spark of awareness, saying with all her soul, Don’t be afraid...
“Is there anything you wish to say to her?” Charlotte said.
“Why?” Josef said thickly.
“Because someone killed my sister Fleur, who wasn’t ill but young and strong. I never had the chance to tell her all the things I’d failed to say...”
“My God,” he whispered. “No. It is all said...” But he clasped his sister’s other hand and bent his head against her fingers, murmuring unintelligible words.
Then she slid her hands into the neck of the nightdress, and bit gently into the woman’s throat.
Memories rushed through her in a stream of vermilion light; Lisl, young and laughing, and Charlotte, hardly out of babyhood, being bounced on her round firm knees, while her father and a brown-haired young Josef smiled at them -
Gone. Salt-richness filled her mouth, divine liquid surging through her throat and stomach and veins... all sorrows quenched in a violent spasm of ecstasy.
It was over in a sigh. Lisl’s heart gave up without argument, then Charlotte let her fangs retract and lifted her head, licking blood from her lips, letting the last sip slide down her throat; tidying away the evidence. All she felt was relief.
When she looked up, she found Josef staring at her with the same sick look Violette had given her; the sudden shock of understanding, the horror that she herself had experienced when she’d first realised the truth about Karl.
Now Josef saw, under the soft feminine layers of her clothes and skin and hair, a hard, luminous core that craved blood and fed without conscience. More than evil; simply untouchable, impossible to grasp.
Charlotte rose, eager to be away from her victim - and from Josef. “I must go,” she said, glancing back to see him pulling the sheet over his sister’s face. She walked on through the front door and down the stairs, but he caught her up in the courtyard.
“She’s at peace,” he said. His cheeks were tear-streaked, but she was taken aback to see that the stiff horror in his face had softened. “I’ve no idea what to say, but I must say something. I’ve done a terrible thing, yet I don’t feel it to be terrible. Lisl is at peace. Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me. You may regret it later, and hate me.”
He shook his head. “Never. Tonight has changed everything for me. Whatever you are, Charlotte, I hope you’ll visit me again.”
“Why?” She looked at him, aware of an affinity between them that lay beyond logic or analysis.
“How can I be content to bury myself in dead mythology, after living mythology has revealed itself to me? How can I feel anything for Lamia, succubus, incubus, Lilith and her demon children or all the angels of heaven, when I have met a real being who is richer and stranger than anything on the dry page of a book?”
“Do you want to write me into a book, a thesis?”
“It’s tempting, but no, no more than I’d put a bird of prey in a glass case,” he said with a wry look. He took her right hand, and kissed it twice; first the back, then the palm, as Karl had often done... The gesture made her shiver. “If ever I can help you in return -”
“Even though you know what I am?”
His lips thinned in a sad smile. One more minute and she could have fallen in love with him; even after Karl, even after Violette. It seemed she fell all too easily.
“You have been so kind to us,” he said. “Even kinder than I could have dreamed, no?”
“One thing,” she said. “If ever you see my father again, don’t tell him you’ve seen me. Goodbye, Josef.”
“Never say goodbye to an Austrian. The phrase is Auf wiedersehen.”
* * *
Violette was alive, healthy, hard at work; Charlotte was desperately relieved that her attack had caused no apparent harm. Soon, though, her initial relief turned sour.
Dans le Jardin had nothing but bad reviews. The ballet disturbed and confused its audience; critics universally loathed it. Churches called for it to be banned.
The work was accused of being too modern, too simplistic, obscene, grotesque, a waste of Violette Lenoir’s huge talent. It proved the folly of a woman trying to replace the great Janacek. Yet the worst accusation was that it was too serious. The mood of these times was one of frivolity; Violette had tackled a theme too dark and disturbing.
“Lenoir was pupil of Pavlova’s but will never be as great as her teacher because she lacks warmth,” one critic wrote pompously. “She is a superb actress but it is an act; her emotions do not come from the heart.”
You blind idiots, Charlotte thought in fury. Her dancing is completely from her heart. Her coldness stems from her pain. It’s self-protection!
One day, in more enlightened times, Dans le Jardin might be revered; but now it was a disaster. At every performance, Charlotte was disheartened by shrinking audiences. Once the public decided to hate the ballet, nothing would move them to love it.
Now Violette was newsworthy again; the Ballet Janacek faced ruin.
The tour was cancelled halfway through, and the company returned to Salzburg. Charlotte retreated to her hotel, thinking of Violette alone in her flat across the river; imagining the disappointment and worry she was enduring. And she longed to go to her...
The following day, as she sat reading in her hotel room, Charlotte felt a wave of heat scamper over her. A human approaching. She threw aside her book, knowing who it was even before she heard light footsteps in the corridor. Opening the door with undignified haste, she found Violette standing there with her gloved fist raised, about to knock.
Charlotte didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She did one sensible thing: refrained from throwing her arms around the dancer. They stood and looked at each other; Violette unsmiling, unreadable as always.
“It’s so lovely to see you,” Charlotte said at last. “Come in. How are you?”
Violette walked in, not replying. Her coat was deep blue, trimmed with black fur. She looked around the room, went to the window and stared out.
“I didn’t think I’d ever see you again,” Charlotte said, subdued. “Won’t you take off your coat?”
Violette turned and gave her a long, hostile look.
“I won’t touch you,” said Charlotte. “I swear. Please. You’re in no danger.” Then Violette hesitantly took off her coat and hat and laid them on the bed. Underneath she wore a lavender dress with silk roses on the shoulder. No jewellery.
Charlotte said, “How did you know I was here?”
“I know you’ve been in Salzburg for weeks, and at every performance.”
“Why have you come to me now?”
“I wish I knew,” Violette said abruptly. “I tried to stay away but I couldn’t help myself.”
And nothing’s changed, Charlotte thought helplessly. “I loved Dans le Jardin.”
“I’m so glad.” Violette gave an ironic smile. “It’s a shame no one else did. It came about because of you, you know.”
“How?”
“After you...” The ballerina unconsciously rubbed her collarbone. “After what you did to me, I went out of my mind for a time. A sort of creative frenzy. It was very strange... not pleasant. In the Garden was the result.”
Charlotte found herself laughing. All at once it was hard to be polite. “Shall I drink your blood again, to repeat the effect? Is that why you’re here? I should have asked for royalties.”
“For all the good it would do,” said Violette, eyes narrowing. “Ballet Janacek’s finished. I put everything we had into that ballet, and lost it all. Doubtless I can find another position, and so can my dancers, but what about the rest of my people? I care about them, even if I seem not to. They are everything to me.”
“I’m sorry. If I’m meant to feel guilty, I do.”
“No, I didn’t come here to blame you!” Violette exclaimed. “I blame only myself. Jardin was an insane project. I was insane; unfortunately, no one dared tell me.”
“But the ballet was wonderful!” said Charlotte. “It was too progressive, that’s all. You know that.”
“I don’t know what my life has come to,” said Violette, “when the only person to whom I can admit that my heart is broken - is you.” She sat on the arm of a chair, turning her back. Charlotte left her to cry for a few minutes. She found a handkerchief in Violette’s coat pocket and offered it, careful not to touch her.
“Would you like a drink?”
“No. I’ve been drinking too much.”
Charlotte fetched a glass of water. “This is what I meant.” She gave her the glass, leaned on the chair back. “Your company isn’t finished. There’s a simple way to save it.”
“What?”
“Put on Swan Lake.”
“With what? I told you, we’re bankrupt!”
“I’ll give you the money.”
“I couldn’t possibly take it.”
“Pay me back later, then. It doesn’t matter. And I’m not offering out of guilt; I can’t bear to see you fail because of the public’s stupidity! For God’s sake, will you stop being so stubborn? You’ll drive me mad!”
She grasped Violette’s wrist. The dancer glared. Charlotte loosed her, but as her hand slid away, Violette caught and held it, digging her nails in. “I want to thank you, but I can’t. This is like selling my soul to the Devil... Where does your money come from?”
“It’s mostly Karl’s, actually,” Charlotte breathed. “It’s very easy for us...”
“To steal?”
“We don’t need to. He has property, investments... and it’s hard to stop people giving us gifts of their own free will.”
“After falling in love with your begu
iling demon eyes? It sounds like fraud to me.”
“You don’t really think I’m from the Devil, do you?”
“I don’t know, Charlotte. All I know is that when you left me, I went mad. I give in. I’ll do anything to save my ballet, but what’s the price? My soul, my blood? Take it. I belong to the Devil, anyway.”
Charlotte longed to embrace the slender woman and console her... but even as she denied her nature, she couldn’t trust herself. With the memory of Violette’s disgust fresh in her mind, she would still give anything to taste the burning jewels of her blood...
Again, with effort, she held back.
“I promise,” she said, “I will never prey on you again. We’ll be friends, that’s all. I’ll prove you can trust me.”
“I wanted us to be more than friends. That was my downfall.” Violette stood and went to a mirror, trying to compose her face. “Friends, yes. Let’s draw a line between us, like a business agreement. This Karl; he’s your lover, I take it?”
A pang went through Charlotte from head to foot. “At the moment, I’m not sure.”
“Is that why you’re so unhappy? He drew you into the kingdom of the undead with his fatal kiss, then deserted you?”
“Not exactly. We have terribly complicated lives, just like humans. And you won’t turn into a vampire, Violette; it’s not that easy.”
“But I already am one,” said the ballerina, staring at herself in the mirror.
Charlotte started, wondering what she had missed. “No, you’re not.”
“All women are bloodsuckers. That’s what my father told me.”
“You didn’t believe him, did you?”
“Part of me always has. It’s a form of obsession, isn’t it? You know something is ridiculous, yet you cannot stop thinking it.”
“But why would he say such a thing? That’s cruel.”
“I don’t think my poor father was in any state to realise he was being cruel.”
“Tell me what happened,” said Charlotte.
“I don’t want to. It’s sickening.” Violette roved the room like a cat unable to settle. She was fragmenting before Charlotte’s eyes, her outer shell falling to reveal a raw, defenceless creature who’d never breathed the air before.
A Dance in Blood Velvet Page 29
