A Dance in Blood Velvet (15 page)

“Do you know where you are?” he said, slowly and clearly.

The vampire’s eyes were dark gleams, deep in the sockets. “No. I was... I can’t remember. Help me.”

“I am Benedict, your master. I called you here to serve me.”

The creature’s face lengthened. “Who am I?” It curled up, one hand round its thin knees, the other clawing at its throat where Ben had made it imagine a chain.
“Mein Gott... Ich fürchte mich... Katti, wo bist du?”

The vampire was frightened! Its weakness and confusion were pitiful. Not at all what Ben had expected or hoped for. With his hand pressed to the bite-wound in his neck, he stood over the pale being.

“Can you remember your name?”

Silence. The skull-like head fell sideways. Then it said,
“Ich heisse Andreas
.”

A human name! What could this thing be? Had he raised it from the dead?

“Where are you from, Andreas?”

Ben saw the almost-human lines of the face expressing misery and hunger. The thing raised its head and said with astonishing clarity, “Why do you stand there asking these puerile questions? I am starving. I don’t know where I came from, or why you have this power over me. I never met a mortal who... I don’t understand. I only know I’m starving, starving.”

“What do you need? Human blood?”

“Ja,”
said Andreas. A ghastly smile split his face. “Just that.”

“Nothing else? Ordinary food? Animal blood?”

Andreas stretched out an arm with a rustling, dry-leaf sound. “Must be human.
Bitte.
I need it.”

“How much?”

“Ich weiss nicht.
A lot.”

“Well, you can’t have more of mine.”

“I’d take it if I could. I’d kill you. I don’t know why I can’t. I’ve never felt such hunger. It hurts and I’m hot and cold.” He clawed at Ben’s foot. “If you won’t give me blood, find someone who will!”

Ben stared at the monster, alarm singing inside him. He couldn’t train a vampire to do his will, any more than he could keep a guard dog, without feeding it. So someone had to provide their blood. Their health and life, too, perhaps.

Ben had never meant to cause harm, only to protect himself and Holly. But no, that was a lie. He’d wanted to prove a point, to demonstrate that his power was superior to Lancelyn’s. And this was the price.

“Let me out.” The vampire’s voice was guttural with pain.

Benedict shook his head. “Impossible.”

“But you must. Don’t you understand? I need blood! I am in torment; is this why you captured me, to torment me?”

Andreas rose suddenly to his feet, unfolding demonically. Ben stepped back, startled.

“You did it!” the vampire hissed. “You brought me here to starve. What are you? Torturer!”

Bleached arms outstretched, Andreas lunged towards the attic door. More glass shattered and fell.

Ben said softly, “The chain is tightening. It will take off your head!”

Andreas collapsed across the threshold, a gnarled silver branch. His fingers were frantic twigs plucking at his neck.

Benedict rubbed at the pain in his own throat. The creature’s suffering woke his pity. Lancelyn had taught that any spirit he summoned would be an embodiment of his own qualities, focused to attain his goals. This was nothing of the sort. It was a separate entity, with its own inner life, a human name.

Ben made a decision. It meant following the Left-Hand Path and never turning back, but, grimly, he made it.

He bent over Andreas and said, “I’ll make a bargain with you.”

“Anything.”

“Suppose I take you out and find you someone to feed on. Is that what you want?”

The reply was a groan of pure lust.

“In return, you will obey me in all respects. You will feed on no one without my permission. You will answer all my questions truthfully. And if ever I let you out alone, you will return to me. Do you agree?”

The vampire nodded. Ben picked up the Book and thrust it under his icy hand.

“Swear on the artefact that summoned you! That will bind the oath.”

The vampire cringed and tried to pull away, but Ben held him in place.

“Einverstanden. Ja,
I swear, I give you my word, I’ll obey you!”

As Ben released him, Andreas snatched his fingers from the cover as if it were red-hot. Shuddering, he sat up and edged away.

“No need for that! Why shouldn’t I come back? I’ve nowhere to go. Let me feed now and I’ll do anything for you. Please. I can’t think, can’t move. I want my strength again.” He saw himself in a piece of broken mirror and touched his own desiccated face. “God help me. Who did this to me? I can’t bear to live like this. Either kill me or let me feed!”

Benedict watched with curiosity. Not true, then, that vampires cast no reflection.
He is truly in my power,
Ben thought -
or at least, he thinks he is, which is the same thing.

He felt a spur of elation. Perhaps the path of darkness would be easier to follow than he’d thought.

“Calm yourself, Andreas. I shall look after you. It’s the middle of the night, so we can go now, but you’ll need clothes... You can wear my greatcoat, and a hat is essential.”

“God in heaven,” said Andreas, staring at Benedict with contempt. “Do you think I am some brainless savage, happy to go outside stark naked?”

* * *

The days and the nights folded down one on another; Katerina grew in strength, yet showed no inclination to leave. Charlotte was beginning to suspect that she never would.

Each afternoon they sat in the roseate glow of the drawing room; Karl, Charlotte, and Katerina. Three unnatural beings in the shape of humans - still with enough humanity to love and to hate one another.

Before Katerina came, Karl and Charlotte had spent nearly all their time together. They separated only to feed, each preferring, for different reasons, to hunt alone. In the morning they would enter the Crystal Ring to rest; evenings were often spent at the theatre. But the long golden afternoons and velvet nights were theirs. They would read to each other, talk, listen to the gramophone; or Karl might play the cello, which Charlotte loved. Often they took long walks through the night-blue woods, or climbed the white flank of a mountain that no human could survive; or simply rested together in contented silence, hands entwined, needing nothing else. These times were as delicious as the savage addiction of their love-making.

Everything they did together was absorbing, timeless, lined with gold and tinted with gorgeous colours. Not a human world. No dull moments; no division between pleasure and pain.

But since Katerina arrived, Karl and Charlotte had not made love. They were too often apart, to ensure their guest wasn’t left alone. Karl even avoided sitting beside Charlotte as if he would not touch her in front of Katerina. Small consolation that he did not touch Katerina, either. This seemed diplomatic, to avoid either woman feeling rejected. But the distance he placed between himself and Charlotte made her feel she couldn’t speak or act freely in her own house.

After her initial attack on Charlotte, Katerina had apparently called a truce. She became polite and gracious - enough to satisfy Karl, at least. If he perceived the barbs concealed by her gentle words, he didn’t say so.

Charlotte found Katerina’s sweetness intolerable. So false. At least open hostility could be fought. Instead, she too must play the courtesy game; to do otherwise would only place her in the wrong.

Katerina’s disdain came through in subtle, sinister ways. She said nothing to cause offence; instead she was so kind and condescending that she left Charlotte feeling hopelessly inferior - precisely as if Katerina knew her dormant weakness, and deliberately set out to wake it. She behaved like the mistress of the house, Charlotte her maid. Their very temperaments made them slide into these roles. While Charlotte battled to keep her place, Katerina simply occupied hers, like a serene and smiling Madonna.

It’s obvious
, Charlotte thought,
that she means to claim Karl and usurp me. Why can’t he see it? But she’s a different person with him; warm, sincere, a dear friend. I could easily have loved her, in other circumstances
...
but that knowledge only twists the knife.

Karl and Katerina’s ease in each other’s presence was instinctive, effortless; torture for Charlotte to witness. They spoke openly of old times, excluding her. No doubt there were a thousand more matters they discussed only behind her back

And there was the strain of keeping her dignity. She mustn’t let Karl sense her jealousy, nor let Katerina think she cared.

For a time, Ilona came and went like a capricious breeze, all charm and cruel humour. She uttered venomous put-downs to Katerina that Charlotte longed to say but daren’t; Katerina only responded with unruffled gaiety. Neither would let the other win. If anything, they thrived on their animosity. If Ilona made a show of affection to Charlotte, it was to irritate Katerina. Charlotte despaired at their bickering, the way they used her against each other.

Yet Ilona had a more serious agenda. Questions about Kristian’s death, Katerina’s rebirth, shadows haunting the Crystal Ring. When Katerina refused to supply straight answers, Ilona lost patience and ceased to visit them. Despite feeling used, Charlotte missed her. She felt she’d lost her only ally.

If Karl was aware of these undercurrents, he seemed to regard the situation with sad detachment. He believed that everyone was responsible for their own behaviour, as he was for his; a philosophy Charlotte found noble but infuriating.

When she was human, Karl had been unobtainable; beautiful, mystical, so far beyond her that she hadn’t known how to reach him. Aching to touch him, yet terrified of what would happen if she did...

With cruel irony, the same feeling crept over her again. This time, though, the barrier between them was not Karl’s vampirism, but his attachment to a past she could not comprehend.

She thought,
If Katerina really wants to get rid of me, she will. I should fight her, tooth and claw, but I don’t know how!

One night, to her relief, she came home and found Karl in the drawing room alone.

“Where’s Katerina?” she asked.

“Gone out to hunt and explore on her own.”

To her unspeakable delight, Karl came to her, kissed her, and drew her to the sofa. Just as if nothing had happened. She wasn’t about to argue; they sat together in the fire’s glow, hands entwined, her head resting on his shoulder, as they used to before the intruder came. Charlotte felt free to speak at last.

“It’s wonderful to be alone,” she said. “Able to talk.”

Karl’s eyes, reflecting tiny flames, became troubled. She’d seen that expression before she discovered he was a vampire; a look that said,
I am keeping a terrible secret from you.

“You don’t have to be quiet when Katerina’s here,” he said. “She is not an ogre. There’s no reason for her presence to curb your freedom.”

“You wish we’d get along like good sisters?” Charlotte said flatly.

Karl half-smiled. “Of course.”

“You noticed, then, that we don’t.”

He didn’t answer at once. His gaze drifted unfocused to the fire. “I am sorry that you are both finding this difficult.”

“Have I said a word of complaint?” She kept her voice steady. “I did all I could to help, and I would have done more, if you’d asked. But you can’t expect me to be overjoyed that she’s here. There seems to be one law for her and another for me.”

“You mean her victims? That was only while she was too weak to hunt for herself.”

“Yes. I know. I understand. But she can look after herself now, so why is she is still living here?”

She hoped to find sympathy in Karl’s eyes, and saw none. A touch of disappointment, perhaps, which hurt.

He said, “I don’t want her presence to distress you. The last thing I want is to cause you any unhappiness.”

Sudden anger boiled from nowhere. “That always was the last thing you wanted, yet you caused it regardless! First you took away my only defence against you, my fear - and then you took my heart, my virtue, my blood, my respectability, my family - and finally, my humanity.”

His face did not change. She could have struck him.

“But you are still here.” He stroked her cheek, turning her face towards him, his amber-crystal gaze intent on her. “Whole, beautiful, still completely yourself. What did I take?”

“Nothing. I gave everything freely. And I’d do so again.” Shivers of desire ran through her, even while she was furious with him for beguiling her so easily. “Don’t forget that!” she said fiercely. “Did Katerina ever give you so much?”

“It wasn’t the same,
liebling.
She was one of the three who made me a vampire; she, Andreas and Kristian. And, as I’ve told you, you have nothing to fear from her.”

“I think you’re wrong.”

The shadow fell across his eyes again. “She apologised for what she said when she first woke. She was not herself.”

“She hasn’t apologised to me. She is nice to me now only because you asked her. Isn’t it true?”

Karl’s only response was a slight lowering of his eyelids. His long, dark eyelashes concealed his irises.

“Don’t you see?” Charlotte went on. “Katerina behaves as if she’s your wife and I am her servant, and with such grace that I hardly realise what’s happening until it’s too late. She’s too subtle, too clever for me; I don’t know how to fight back.”

“There’s no need for you to fight her! It’s simply her manner. There was never any guile in her, not even with Andreas, who would have tried the patience of a saint.”

“Do you think I’m imagining things? That she’s perfect and I’m making trouble for no reason?”

“Your words, not mine,” he said. “But no, I don’t think it.”

“She’s different with you, of course. She sees you as an equal, takes you seriously. She treats me as nothing, a child to be patronised. I suffered it from my aunt and sisters all my life and I won’t tolerate it again!”

He touched her temple, brushing back strands of hair. How delicate his fingertips felt on her skin, warm silken ivory. “They had power over you, only because you let them. Don’t you remember how you overcame it - long before I made you immortal?”