A Dance in Blood Velvet (12 page)

An unspeakably weird place, the lair of some medieval hermit. Eeriest of all, there had been five imprints on the cover, as if someone had recently touched the Book and snatched their hand away.

“I don’t like it,” Holly had said when they brought it home. “It has a horrible aura. I wish I’d never had the vision, and that you’d left it where it was.”

But Ben had tasted its power. Now he was going to use it again - even though he was breaking his promise to Holly - in self-defence.

Wanting to avoid arguments, he’d persuaded her to visit a friend for a few days, insisting that she needed a rest. She’d gone reluctantly, saying goodbye with a sullen mouth and suspicious eyes. She must suspect... Still, now she was out of the way, he’d worry about the consequences later.

Lancelyn, you can send all the psychic currents and nightmares you like against me,
he thought;
I am going to shape something real to send against you!

He was ready to begin.

The attic was dismal, the outside panels of the temple as grey and dull as the surroundings. He’d constructed the shell within the roof space so he could walk all the way around it.

One of the panels was a door. Ben opened it and went inside.

Within, the ten-sided space was lined with mirrors, replicating each other to infinity. Ceiling and floor were black, each with a ten-pointed star painted in white lines. He lit an oil lamp and replaced the violet glass shade; he ignited galbanum and frankincense in a censer. Fragrant smoke filled the air.

Benedict was wearing his ritual clothes: pale mauve robe with the ten-pointed star on the breast, full-face mask and hood.

On the floor, in the centre of the star, he placed the Book. First, a meditation to settle his mind; then, breathing fast to make himself dizzy, he began to spin round and round the temple.

His mind was resistant to the trance. Trickles of doubt diverted his concentration. Although he dreaded failure, he was even more afraid of success.

Will it be the same being that answers, or a different one?

God, I wish Holly were here.

Lancelyn’s fault... He began this... Does he think I’m weak, so easily intimidated? He needs to learn and he has to be stopped.

Breathe deep. Kill the doubts and concentrate.

As Ben trod the circle, he chanted a deep, piercing note until the bones of his skull vibrated. He found it easy these days to touch Raqia. He was an adept, in no need of the elaborate trappings and rituals of lesser initiates.

Reflections whirled past him, purple, black and silver. His vision darkened; green and red exploded across his eyes as he grew faint. Sweat poured from him, ice cold. His head ached from chanting, as if he were pounding his skull against a door... a vast ebony gate to hell itself.

The barrier burst open. He was out of his body and soaring through clouds. Dark gold, deepest blue. He leapt across a livid chasm and saw a vast white halo, scintillating far above.

He reached up to the halo and touched it! Shimmering coldness broke over his hand as he tried to grasp a piece of the higher realm and absorb its power...

Visualise...
Power striking his enemy like lightning. A hellish wind blowing through the enemy’s house. A cloud in the darkness of his bedroom, settling on his chest and sucking out his life...

Succubus. Lamia.

He cried, “Spirits of Raqia, you let me into your world; now come with me into mine! Hear the plea of your faithful servant. Aid me now and I’ll repay you richly. Come to me... come now...”

Ripples flowed from his hand. He was plummeting backwards, losing his hold on the realm too fast. Yet the ripples flowed on. They shook the whole realm of Raqia; not a pebble but a boulder thrown into a lake...

Benedict burst out of the trance with a shout of pain. He ached and trembled as if he’d been crushed by a train. He struggled for control; now he needed all his strength to master the forces he’d called.

The temple swung into semi-focus. Something lay in the centre of the double pentacle, a white shape. Benedict stared. As before, it looked like a skeletal corpse, curled on its side like a crescent moon around the censer, lamp and Book. The lavender glow was as coldly mystical as moonlight.

“It worked!” he whispered. “By God Almighty and all the powers of Sophia, it worked!”

The first time had not been a fluke. He’d brought a solid, real being from another world into this. Again, his instinct was to recoil and banish it, but he controlled himself.
Be scientific...

Had the transition killed it?

It looked dead, desiccated, ash-white. Cold vapour swirled from its skin and Benedict shivered. The entity brought winter with it, and snow lay on the floor as if blown there by the brief opening of an arctic door. Crystals glittered in the lamplight.

Benedict watched the creature. How to protect himself? He turned slowly, envisioning pentagrams in the north, south, east and west to guard the space... knowing that the true purpose of words and symbols was to concentrate his mind. That was where magic lay. In the mind.

Suddenly the apparition made a sound, a thin dry groan that went on and on. “
Ahhhh...
”

Fresh sweat burst out on Benedict’s back. Not dead! He edged towards the mirror panel that concealed the door. This was too real.

“I am Benedict,” he said, trying to sound authoritative. “I have summoned you from Raqia to Earth to do my bidding. You are here at my command. Can you understand me? Can you speak?”

It heard. The groan grew louder. It shifted a few inches with a scraping sound, and stretched out a hand with a terrible dry crackle, as if the effort might shatter its frame. It lifted its chin and Benedict saw the face. A mummified angel. He stared with overwhelming horror and pity at the papery skull and mindless, shrivelled eyes.

He tried again. “All respect to you, Spirit; you are safe here. I wish us to help each other. Tell me what it is you need.”

The groan turned into a word:
“You
.”

The creature pushed itself up on bony forearms. Benedict wrenched open the temple door and was through in a second; he glimpsed a pale streak as it leapt at him, heard a leathery thud and the shattering of glass as he slammed and locked the door just in time.

He stood outside with the key in his hand, shaking, wondering how he would cope with the creature he’d unleashed.

Reduced at a stroke from adept to terrified probationer. This was the line between imagining he knew everything, and realising he did not; between belief and horrific reality. He’d imprisoned the thing, but there was only wood and glass between them.

Caught between terror and growing elation, he put his eye to a gap between panels.

In the glow he saw the bare wood of the damaged door, the creature lying at its base amid shards of glass. A corpse of ash. Tragic, it looked. Ravenous... for flesh, or blood? How on earth was he to control and nourish it?

The secrets were never meant to be used like this,
he thought.
Worst possible abuse of privilege. God help me, I’ve done it now.

Suddenly, as if the temple shell were transparent, the corpse stared straight at him, the wizened face feral and ghastly. He caught his breath. Then, in a white streak, it sprang.

Glass exploded like a shell-burst. Benedict screamed. The panel splintered and the creature came surging through and straight onto him, bearing him to the floor.

Its strength was impossible. Dead-white hands closed on his neck, forcing the screams back into his lungs... and as he strained, uselessly, to keep its fangs out of his throat, its wide-open mouth and staring eyes were a perfect mirror of his own.

W
hen Karl first mentioned Katerina, Charlotte had visualised her as small, gentle, and sisterly. The woman who bloomed from the husk was not at all what she had imagined.

Within two weeks, their care restored her to stunning physical condition. It was impossible to believe that the sleek beauty who reclined on the chaise longue was the same creature. She was stately, with glossy dark-brown hair that lay in skeins over her broad shoulders. Beautiful, but not ethereal; her features were strong, her mouth full, her brown eyes haughty.

Charlotte tried to dismiss Ilona’s warnings, but all the same she couldn’t stop herself watching Karl with Katerina. The more she tried to prove Ilona wrong, the more her worst fears came true.

Karl’s attentiveness to Katerina ran deeper than kindness to a dear friend. She saw the way he looked at her, the tenderness with which he brushed her hair from her face. He would sit holding her hand for hours, talking softly, in both English and German. At first she did not respond, but soon she began to look at him, frowning a little, listening. Sometimes her lips would move, as if she were trying to speak.

At the same time, Karl became distant towards Charlotte, giving her minimum attention before returning to the patient.

He’s preoccupied, he’s concerned, it won’t be for long,
she told herself, but rationality failed to soothe her paranoia. She’d never seen him like this with anyone, even Ilona. The easy warmth he showed Katerina made her jealous.

When Karl went out to feed and to rest in the Crystal Ring, Charlotte no longer went with him. Instead she was expected to stay with Katerina.

Charlotte endured these times. She could barely bring herself to speak to the invalid. If she tried, Katerina’s only response was a wary sideways stare.

Her unease deepened towards animosity.

The hostility, it seemed, was mutual. To please Karl, Charlotte would sit and read to her, but it was always with the creeping feeling that Katerina might attack her at any moment.

The difficulty of suppressing her true feelings made Charlotte withdrawn; but if Karl noticed, he said nothing. That alone was unlike him, and hurt her. He was too wrapped up with his “patient” even to notice.

I think Karl would have made a wonderful doctor,
she thought drily.
In a different life, a different world. He has the hands and eyes of a healer... so people trust them, and find out too late that he has the fangs and appetites of a wolf...

The room in which their guest was convalescing had yellow roses twining over the wallpaper, a peaked wooden ceiling, vases of alpine flowers: it was a room of warm spring sunlight in which vampires - deceptively - did not look out of place.

One morning, as Charlotte sat reading to Katerina, Karl came in and looked over her shoulder at the book of Goethe’s poetry on her lap.

“Why don’t you talk to Katti, instead of reading?” he said.

“Because I don’t know her,” said Charlotte. “And she doesn’t know who I am.”

“But she soon will. She sees you every day. I know from experience that it’s possible to be
aware
for a long time before you regain the power of speech.”

Charlotte nodded. For Karl’s sake, she swallowed her resentment. She tried not to mind that he sat on the edge of the chaise and took Katerina’s hand...

Katerina gave a start. She turned her head, blinked, and spoke in German. “Karl? Darling, has the world gone mad, or is it me?”

“Katti,” he said warmly, smiling as Charlotte had rarely seen him smile. With his left hand he clasped her fingers; with the right he caressed her shoulder, his attention completely on her.

“I don’t recognise this room.” Her voice was deep and expressive; a voice to drown someone in love or kill them with hate. “Don’t let go of my hand. I want to be sure you’re real. I’ve had the most awful dreams.”

“I am real,” said Karl. “You’re safe now. Do you know how long you’ve been here?”

Katerina looked around the room at the cheerful soft golds and yellows, the bright flowers. Her glance touched Charlotte briefly. “I have no idea. I feel as if I’ve been ill, and lost my memory, like a human. Give me a moment.” She pressed a hand to her head. “It was like a dream... Were you and Ilona really bringing me victims? I couldn’t get enough blood... I tried to speak but I couldn’t move or make sense of anything. Before that there was blinding light and I was frozen and very afraid... Oh, my dear, hold me. I feel so strange.”

“You have been ill, in a sense,” said Karl. He hugged her to him; Charlotte stood and watched, feeling invisible. “As near to death as a vampire can be. Don’t you remember how we found you?”

“Found me... where?”

“In the Crystal Ring. Don’t worry, we’ll explain later.”

“Is Kristian here?”

“No,” said Karl. “No, he is not.”

“I knew you were with me, but on the other side of a glass wall. I couldn’t reach you.” Katerina stared at Charlotte over Karl’s shoulder. “Who is she?”

Karl let Katerina back onto the pillows, and turned. “This is Charlotte.” He switched to English, although Charlotte had understood their conversation perfectly well.

There was pure antagonism in the woman’s eyes; a reflection of the emotion that leapt into Charlotte’s heart. Hatred on sight.

“I didn’t ask her name. I asked who she is.”

“My companion,” said Karl.

“Ah,” said Katerina. “I see.”

“She helped us to bring you back to life.”

“Step forward, Charlotte. Let me see you properly.”

Charlotte obeyed, but she felt she was being judged. Katerina’s gaze trailed over her and found her sadly lacking. “What strange clothes you’re wearing.”

“My clothes are strange,” Charlotte said coolly, “because you have been asleep in the
Weisskalt
for forty years.”

Katerina looked stunned. Charlotte had used a cheap way to dent her composure, but for a moment it was worth it.

“Forty years?” She stared wildly at Karl. “What year is it?”

“Nineteen twenty-six. Spring.” He gazed at Charlotte, his eyes saying,
Why could you not let me tell her more gently?
“Can you remember anything?”

“No. Let me think...” Her face went stiff with terror. “Oh God, where’s Andreas?
Where’s Andreas?”

She was so distraught that Charlotte felt a pang of remorse. She wanted to comfort Katerina - even wanted to like her - but their situation made it impossible.