Karl sensed his response to this would not be welcome.
Fyodor said, “Well, friend? Nothing to say?”
“If you want the truth,” Karl said wearily, “whether you come from God or not, I don’t care. I resent others interfering in my existence. I rejected it from Kristian, I reject it from Lancelyn, from you or anyone. You’re making a mistake. Another mistake.”
“You are unrepentant, then,” said Simon.
“I never wished to kill him. I loathed the act and hated myself for it; but I don’t repent. I would do it again.”
There was silence. Karl felt a wrenching shiver pass over him.
“To Lancelyn also?” asked Rasmila.
“Why set up leaders, when you are so powerful?”
“We don’t seek status. We do God’s will,” Simon answered sharply. “But you’ve set yourself against God. Such arrogance must be punished.”
Karl laughed. “So, I’m the Devil now? This is ridiculous! You are under some delusion, this compulsion to control and manipulate.”
“That’s blasphemy.” The quiet sadness of Simon’s words filled Karl with dread. Nothing he said would change their minds. If they were intent on avenging Kristian and anointing Lancelyn, nothing would not stop them.
“What happened to Katerina, Rachel and the others you attacked? And Charlotte?”
“Nothing,” Simon replied. “We only acted to keep them out of our way. They will recover... eventually.”
“But their blood was delicious,” Fyodor added. Karl could cheerfully have torn out his throat. “Keep your concern for yourself, friend. Your punishment will be appropriate.”
Karl’s lips thinned in a smile. “What will it be? The Weisskalt? Beheading? Perhaps you will torture me first. You could torture a vampire for years.”
Simon’s eyes were gold ice. “All we want,” he said, “is for you to help ensure the smooth running of Lancelyn’s wedding and consummation. Come with us.”
Karl felt Rasmila’s hand on his arm. He followed Simon and Fyodor up the steps.
“We are fair, not cruel,” Rasmila whispered. “Do you think I would let them torture you?”
Karl did not reply. They’d been as close as lovers for a few moments; now they were nothing.
The doorway led into the gallery where Karl had first met Lancelyn. He was absent, but the braziers were alight and the automata all in motion. The air was filled with the whirrs and clicks of their sinister mechanical life, the silver cacophony of their music. Karl was surprised to see Benedict at the far end, leaning on the marble altar. He’d shaved, washed and trimmed his hair, and wore fresh clothes; grey flannels and a Fair Isle sweater. A ritual robe of bluish-lilac lay across the altar. Karl sensed the numbing presence of the Book, but the Book no longer seemed important.
Ben came to meet Karl, his expression serious. Rasmila, Fyodor and Simon watched their encounter in silence.
“I trust you found Lancelyn,” Karl said. “What happened?”
Ben’s eyes had a detached gaze. He looked at Karl without friendship or trust; it was not long since Karl had almost killed him in the pit. Their tentative allegiance was gone forever.
“It seems I misjudged Lancelyn,” Ben said. “It was all a kind of... trial he’d set for me. I was judging his behaviour by ordinary standards, when I should have considered it on a far higher level.”
“You don’t sound convinced,” Karl observed.
“It’s been rather a shock, that’s all. But we’ve sorted things out. I’ve seen the Dark Bride and...”
“Ah.” Karl’s tone was cool. “A glimpse of her was enough to make you forget all Lancelyn’s misdeeds and cast your principles aside? I see.”
Ben’s eyes hardened. “No, you don’t. Look, Karl, I don’t know the whole truth, but Lancelyn has made promises to me. I know him and I believe in him.”
“It’s time for the wedding, Benedict,” said Simon. “Explain Karl’s role to him.” The angel-daemons, a bright blur of copper, silver and ebony, vanished into the Ring. Ben and Karl were alone.
“Shouldn’t you go with them?” said Karl, indicating the robe. “You will not want to be late.”
“That depends,” Ben said gravely. “Our task is to ensure that the ceremony isn’t interrupted. If no one tries, all well and good. But Lancelyn fears that someone may want to halt the ritual.”
Someone... Arrested by the thought, Karl let his senses reach out in a widening circle, through the walls to the dew-drenched slopes beyond. Five tips of diamond coldness pricked his mind... and a horrifying sensation ambushed him, like a blood-crimson curtain rippling down. His own thoughts were fogged, while the power he unleashed so easily was not his own. It was the ravening fire of Rasmila’s blood. He’d become her spy.
Five... and he knew their auras intimately. Stefan and Niklas, identical. Katerina, Andreas, Charlotte. His heart sank in despair and he thought, Why did you come? Stay away, then you won’t be harmed!
But his friends still approached. He sensed two of them slipping into the Ring, reappearing much closer. Stefan and his twin...
“What is it?” Ben said anxiously.
“They are already here,” Karl said, unable to keep the knowledge secret. “Two of them are in the house. They’re opening a door and letting in the others.”
Ben’s face flushed with determination. “All right, we’re going to work together. Let’s keep calm and draw them to us. Are you ready?”
Karl was not, but he felt Ben’s mind thrusting into his on an alien red tide. The room tipped partway into the Crystal Ring. He was aghast but couldn’t resist; his will was adrift in a body that belonged to his enemies.
“They are in the main living room,” said Karl. He heard their voices; they knew the daemons were in another part of the house with Violette. “It would be madness to confront them,” Andreas was saying, “Madness!”
Then Charlotte’s voice. “Karl is here! Come with me!”
“Call them!” said Ben.
“They’re already on their way,” Karl said leadenly.
Seconds later, he heard their footsteps on the spiral stairs, and saw them emerge one by one from the alcove near the altar. Charlotte was in front; she rushed towards Karl then stopped, inches from him, as if she’d seen the awful light in his face.
“Karl? What’s happened to you, what’s wrong?”
There was a moment of gathering tension. Katti, Andreas, Stefan and Niklas surrounded Charlotte, sharing her anxiety. The relief he felt at seeing their beloved faces was locked away inside the pitiless other-self, which simply did not care.
Charlotte’s gaze darted to Ben and back to Karl. Her lips parted. “Where’s Violette? What do those creatures want with her?”
Karl was able to answer calmly, “She isn’t hurt, though she was in great distress when I saw her. They’ve brought her here so Lancelyn can marry her.”
“Marry?” Charlotte laughed with disbelief. “She would never agree to that!”
“I asked her if it was what she wanted; she didn’t seem to care. Lancelyn claims it is an occult marriage that will bring him some form of enlightenment. The angels say he is to be Kristian’s replacement.”
They were all looking at him in perfect amazement.
“But what does he think Violette is?” said Charlotte.
“A dark goddess. He had all manner of names for her.” Not of his own will, Karl moved between her and the stairwell as he spoke.
“Lilith?”
“Yes, among others.”
“God,” Charlotte said, putting her hands to her face. Then she became electrified. “But we’ve got to stop them!”
“Don’t even try,” Benedict said sharply. She ignored him, starting back towards the spiral stair.
Karl didn’t intend to touch her, but he was caught by the force of Ben’s will, the dark mesh of Rasmila’s blood. As she tried to run past him, he lashed out with forearm and fist to deflect her.
The blow caught her lik
e a whip of lightning, flinging her off her feet and through the air as if a giant hand had thrown her. She hit the floor and skimmed across the tiles, straight into the base of the altar. Karl heard the crunch of her skull fracturing as it smashed into the marble. The noise squeezed his stomach like nausea.
Karl was aware of his friends’ faces, white ovals of sheer incredulity stamped on his vision. Andreas and Katerina were clinging to each other. Stefan cried out, almost screamed in protest and fury, “No! Karl, what the hell have you done?”
“We must keep them here,” Ben said, his eyes glittering. “It’s a test of my strength, to protect Lancelyn without the angels’ help!”
Karl barely heard him. All he could focus on was Charlotte, lying crumpled and deathly still against the altar, blood matting her hair. Her eyes were half-closed and unblinking, like a doll’s. Above her, on the altar, the Book lay as if in humourless mockery.
Grief and despair drove him almost out of his mind. I did this, he thought. Whatever forced me to do it, Ben or the daemons, I am the one who hurt her...
Even as his powerless self wept, he felt the dreadful black pressure gathering again in his fingertips and he knew he couldn’t hold back. The air throbbed darkly; all around them stood instruments - tiger, guillotine, executioner - that had been reengineered to behead vampires. He would be made to torture and destroy the ones he loved...
Karl knew his friends, and knew they’d fight. He couldn’t even speak to warn them. With a shout of anguish, Stefan launched himself at Karl, Niklas attacking Ben in mirror-image.
Pooling energy, Karl and Ben became a unit that could not have worked alone. Together they manipulated the fabric of the Crystal Ring, making it surge into the real world; a wave of storm-black, barbed force. Against it, Stefan and Niklas stood no chance.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, Karl heard Fyodor laughing.
Your punishment will be appropriate.
* * *
Violette was calm throughout the ceremony. She looked at the chapel through her veil, and felt nothing.
The angels had undressed her, bathed her, anointed her with fragrant oils and draped her from head to foot in black chiffon-silk. She held a bouquet of white lilies. Lancelyn, beside her, wore a long mauve robe beneath a gold cloak. What this signified, she neither knew nor cared. Scents of incense and flowers rose up through the soft light.
The scalding thirst grew worse, but stayed outside her so it didn’t matter. She was a column of basalt.
The three angels acted as witnesses, attendants and clergy. Semangelof was her bridesmaid; the slender silver-haired Sansenoy gave her away. And the scarlet-golden one, Senoy, acted as priest.
The words were in Latin, the wedding like none she’d ever seen. Senoy blessed the unholy objects that lay on the altar. A knife, a knotted cord, a violet candle, a talisman in the shape of a ten-pointed star; he uttered exotic chants, made strange passes that turned her cold. Above the altar, amid a starburst of gold, the figure on the cross seemed to writhe in anguish against the unChristian union that was being wrought below.
There were no hymns or prayers. At one stage Lancelyn launched into a long, unintelligible chant that made the bones of her skull buzz unpleasantly. Was he trying to hypnotise her, or himself?
The ceremony was incomprehensible, like a dream.
Senoy linked their wrists together with the knotted cord, and declared them man and wife. Lancelyn’s face was radiant, like that of a saint enraptured by a vision of the Madonna.
Violette felt numb. What am I doing here? she thought.
“This was only a preparation,” Lancelyn said softly, clasping her fingers. How hot he felt. “The real marriage is to come. When Jesus Christ died and was placed in the tomb, that was his sacred marriage to the Earth. He embraced the outcast black hag of death, and was resurrected.”
* * *
Charlotte felt the impact of marble against her skull, felt the bones crack, the blood haemorrhaging into the lining of her brain. Everything turned crimson and purple... still she went on staring through the explosion of colour, conscious of pain yet not really concerned by it.
She thought she was dying. Although she knew that Karl had struck her, her main feeling was frustration at being paralysed. She couldn’t even gather her thoughts to ask “Why?” It was obvious that he wasn’t acting of his own free will...
Figures flickered in the coloured clouds. One moment Stefan was fighting Karl, the next he was falling... Niklas was already sprawled on the floor. Katerina was on her feet, arguing with the fair-haired man, Benedict. But she was backing away, while Benedict’s eyes were swollen with a terrible bluish light.
Charlotte lost all sense of time. The fight diminished; Katerina and Andreas huddled by Stefan, enraged and helpless; Karl and Ben kept them netted in the Crystal Ring’s chill substance. It was like a slow dream. She knew something terrible was happening to Violette - had already happened to Karl - and all at once her calmness vaporised. Rods of white-hot pain began to drive through her skull, striking again and again.
We are easy to hurt, Karl had told her once, but difficult to destroy. She realised that the terrible pain was caused by the bones and tissues beginning to heal.
But she was healing too slowly. There was an ice-rimmed slab of slate above her, draining her frail energy... the Book that had claimed Kristian.
Sudden movement; crisp coldness swirled in with three dark-bright figures. Laughter? A face stared down at her, pale as pearl, with milky hair and silver eyes. It was the one who’d drunk her blood when Violette was taken. He terrified her.
She heard him whisper, or speak mind-to-mind. “These are the vampires who slew Kristian. Let Karl help us carry out the punishment.”
She saw as if through rippling water. Flickering, fervid light. A whirr of strange sounds as the pale one drifted down the gallery, resetting the automata... mechanical figures, meaningless and sinister... At the far end she saw a garish tiger biting off the head of a dummy that lay between its paws.
Another voice spoke, female, with an Eastern lilt. “No, let us talk to them first.”
The three figures came into the centre of the gallery. Their brilliance hurt her eyes. Everyone was still, listening to the golden-red seraph’s melodic voice.
“The ceremony is over and the consummation is taking place. You’ve done well, Benedict and Karl. As for the rest of you, can you not see that we do this for the good of all immortals? If you fight us, you only hurt yourselves. If we are to stand above mortals, we cannot grovel in their dirt; and we cannot exist in isolation. We must be a choir of angels, united in the firmament...”
Stefan interrupted, dragging himself to his feet. Charlotte had never seen him so angry. “Do you think we rid ourselves of Kristian so we could listen to this drivel instead?” he snarled.
Katerina caught Stefan’s shoulders, as if to hold him back. She said, “He’s right. How dare you violate Karl, and call yourselves ‘angels’? Even Kristian never acted so despicably!”
Charlotte longed to join them. She fought a desperate private battle against her injuries, struggling to move.
“I told you this was a waste of time,” said the pale one.
Then there was a flurry of movement, rippling laughter. Her friends tried to escape, but the angels caught them effortlessly. She saw the golden one feeding on Katerina; saw Andreas attempt to flee, the heartless white daemon catching him. Benedict simply watched, but Karl...
The dark female and Karl had Stefan between them, drinking his blood, dragging him down the gallery... now they removed the dummy from under the tiger and strapped Stefan in its place, his head lodged in the tiger’s mouth so that its metal jaws would close on his neck. Niklas followed, watching passively like another automaton. The female angel was smiling, but Karl had no expression at all.
Charlotte saw the tiger’s tail swishing, heard the creak of its cogs and joints, its metallic growl. Its jaws began to close, engulfing Stefan’s head com
pletely. She saw the huge steel teeth, saw points of blood appear on Stefan’s white throat. She cried out, “No!”
But she couldn’t reach him. The Crystal Ring was coming through the walls in glass waves, purple as thunder. Karl looked up and for a moment she caught his gaze, a fatal blow. They did this to you! she screamed in soundless anguish. His eyes were bruised pits, passionless, as if he’d become a doppelgänger of himself.
She had to stop him.
She flung out a hand, found cloth under her fingertips and gripped it in the hope of pulling herself to her feet. But it was attached to nothing and slid off the altar to land in a lilac cloud beside her. It dragged something with it as it fell. A heavy, oblong block landed with a thump, emanating cold misery...
The Book. She would use it as a weapon to disempower Karl and Lancelyn’s daemons.
Charlotte clutched the leathery weight to her chest, tried to stand, and collapsed. All that happened was that the Book weakened her instead. Unable to release it, she hugged it to herself, her tears turning to ice as the bitter truth of what she’d done to Violette stabbed her.
And the Book was telling her, whatever you do will come back to haunt you. It was the Ledger of Truth, pouring comfortless wisdom into her mind. The ancient hermit-vampire, its author, had lived his role to the full. He’d immersed himself in his victims’ suffering and death, knowing they’d come back to claim him, perhaps inviting his fate. He was an experimenter on a grotesque scale. A primitive scientist, of a kind...
He’d known the Crystal Ring was the outpouring of mankind’s dreams, that every human death caused a change in the Ring, however small. He knew that aware mortals could cause deliberate fluctuations that would enable them to control vampires...
Charlotte was fading, sliding away into darkness.
...that vampires were at the mercy of humans, at the end of all.
* * *
Lancelyn led his bride to the bridal-chamber.
The room seemed to Violette as precise and significant as the set of a ballet. It was all black marble, a dark glossiness reflecting specks of light and colour. Candles, censers on bronze tripods; the gorgeous smoke of frankincense, galbanum and sandalwood. In the centre was a huge bed with a sky-blue counterpane, embroidered with arcane silver symbols.
A Dance in Blood Velvet Page 49
