A Dance in Blood Velvet (30 page)

He thought,
I cannot ever leave this spot. If I relax my guard for one second they’ll break loose and destroy me. If Andreas can’t find the Book, I shall have to stay here until
...

Sweat poured from him.
I can’t do this. But I must.

Come back, Andreas. For God’s sake, come back.

* * *

When Karl returned home, he knew Charlotte had been there. The note had been picked up, slightly crumpled, dropped; but she’d left no message in return. Smoothing the paper under his fingers, he sighed. This set a seal on the empty horror of looking for Kristian and the lost Book.

“Don’t be sad, dearest,” Katerina said behind him. “If she’s been home, she hasn’t come to any harm. She must still be with Violette; you know how enticing humans can be, how hard it is to leave them alone.”

Saying nothing, Karl took a fresh sheet of paper and wrote the date.

“Why leave messages, if she can’t be bothered to answer? It’s a waste of time, she won’t come. She doesn’t seem to realise the importance of our search.” Katerina’s voice was gentle, consoling. “She’s making things so difficult for you. I’m sorry.”

Karl, however, did not want sympathy. Grimly, he went on writing. An impersonal note; no affection, no recriminations.

Charlotte,

I have called our friends to meet me at Schloss Holdenstein tonight. If you read this in time, join us there. It is vitally important; please don’t fail me.

K.

Age softened the outlines of Kristian’s Schloss, making it seem organically fused to the ridge on which it stood. A mass of dark walls, turrets and chaotically angled roofs, it resembled a dozen such castles on the Rhine; a dreamlike place to inspire fairy tales. To Karl, though, its silhouette against the lavender sunset looked inexpressibly malevolent. Such grim memories. He and Katerina stepped from the Crystal Ring at the base of the ridge, and climbed the steep wooded hillside towards the castle. On their left the river lay dark as iron.

Spring flowed towards summer; grapes were swelling on the vines all around, trees danced in rags of green taffeta. The castle remained chill and barren.

Katerina said, “It seems a century since I was last here. How desolate the Schloss looks. Does anyone still live here?”

“I’ve no idea,” said Karl. “I haven’t set foot here since Kristian’s death.”

“Did anyone tell Kristian’s followers of his demise?”

“Not to my knowledge. I certainly had no intention of admitting my guilt.”

“So it’s possible they don’t know?”

“They must have found out by now,” Karl said indifferently. “I had no reason to care what his acolytes thought. Some would have been glad.”

“And the others?”

“Would want to avenge him, I imagine.”

He began to climb faster, moving sure-footedly over outcrops of rock and near-vertical paths. Katerina hurried to keep up. “And if anyone’s there,” she persisted, “what shall we tell them now?”

Karl did not reply.

It hadn’t been difficult to contact the vampires who’d helped him to kill Kristian. Ilona had readily offered to help. Pierre liked Vienna and Paris; Stefan and his twin Niklas were usually in London. While it was unlike Ilona to be so helpful, Karl knew she was more concerned about the consequences of Kristian’s death than she would admit.

Karl made sure, though, that he and Katti arrived well before the others. He wanted to know what danger waited at the Schloss before anyone else walked into it.

Reaching the walls, they entered the Crystal Ring to pass inside. Even in the ghost-world, the stonework felt dense and coarse, holding them like molasses. As they pushed through, Karl sensed the presence of several vampires, like jewel splinters in his mind. Walls of bare stone hardened around them, becoming a corridor with a low roof and sloping floor. No luxury here; Kristian had kept the castle as plain as a monastery. The flagstones were spotless, freshly swept.

Karl and Katerina looked at each other. “Well, let us see who is here,” he said.

As they walked towards the heart of the castle, the atmosphere was that a crypt; an echo of the manor house tunnel. The lingering agony of victims had soaked into the ancient walls like blood.
This can happen anywhere,
he thought.
Wherever vampires dwell for too long
...
the curse will rebound on us.

They descended a curving flight of steps. At the bottom, in the doorway to a chapel, a female vampire stood looking at them. She was slender, almost childlike, with straight dark-gold hair. In her dark hooded robe, with a broom in her hands, she seemed part nun, part fairy-tale witch. Karl remembered her. She’d rarely spoken, never smiled, and had obeyed Kristian with fanatical devotion.

“Grüss Gott,
Maria,” he said.

She gave a minimal nod of respect. She didn’t appear surprised to see him, he’d stayed away far longer in the past. But then her gaze moved to Katerina, and the broom fell from her hands.

“Katerina,” Maria whispered.

“Yes, dear,” said Katti. “Back from the dead.”

Maria had been trained never to question Kristian, with the result that she never questioned anything. She only blinked solemnly.

Karl said, “Kristian is not here, is he?”

“No.”

“When did you last see him?”

Maria’s eyes hardened. “He has not been here for a long time.”

“Almost two years?”

“Calendars are props for mortal insecurity. We are timeless.”

A phrase straight from Kristian’s mouth. Karl sighed inwardly. Maria had been a true believer, forbidden to think for herself. Now, with no inner resources, she was worn thin by her master’s absence. Karl wondered,
Is it too late for her to change?

“Surely you notice the seasons passing. In your estimation, how long? Many months?”

“Yes, many,” she conceded. Her hard mouth turned down at the corners. “We thought our lord Kristian was with you.”

“Well, he is not,” Karl said softly, thinking,
I cannot tell her, and break her heart... not until I’m certain that he’s truly dead
. Sensing other vampires converging from different parts of the castle, he tried to count them; three, four...

“Where is he, Karl?” said a voice behind him. Karl turned and saw a young man with a cherubic face, fair hair, clear grey eyes; the look of a keen young priest about him. Cesare. He, too, was a passionate follower of Kristian’s creed; unlike Maria, fiercely evangelical.

“Have you not seen him?” Karl said lightly.

“Not since he left here - with you,” said Cesare. “And you’re right, it is almost two years. Where is he?”

“I don’t know,” Karl said truthfully.

Other vampires appeared, drawn by Karl’s arrival. He counted seventeen. Like Cesare and Maria they all wore black monastic robes. Although their faces were half-hidden by hoods, Karl recognised them all. His gaze moved over them.

“Are you all that’s left of the faithful?”

“We wait for our leader,” said Cesare in strange tone. “Some drifted away, claiming that Kristian had deserted us - for you, Karl. But we never give up hope that the Father will return.”

“So no one here has seen him?”

The hooded ones murmured denials. Karl touched Katerina’s fingers, a secret communication of relief as he dared to believe that no one had resurrected Kristian. That they were truly free of him forever.

“I have something important to tell you,” said Karl. “I’ve called other immortals here; when they arrive, I want everyone to meet in Kristian’s chamber. Will you come and listen?”

The acolytes nodded. Their eyes, lit from within like the eyes of cats, rested hungrily on Karl as if he held all the answers.

The Schloss felt austere and frigid. Karl had always loathed it. Even in the master’s absence, he noticed, the atmosphere hadn’t changed. No laughter, no affection, no humanity was allowed to dwell here. Only celibate adoration of Kristian, and worship of his singular savage God.

No wonder so many of us risked hideous punishment for the sake of freedom,
he thought.

Ilona arrived first with Pierre, an immortal who was sometimes an enemy and occasionally a friend to Karl. He had curly brown hair and cold blue eyes, a handsome, sardonic face. Pierre and Ilona were allies in their flippant attitude to life, yet here they were subdued. For once they made no sarcastic remarks, no cruel jokes.

Next came the blond twins, Niklas and Stefan, like porcelain angels. They were physically identical but for their eyes; Stefan’s were blue and mischievous, Niklas’s topaz-yellow and blank. Stefan was full of life, while his brother followed in mute, emotionless compliance. A law unto themselves, these two, though Karl trusted Stefan.

The newcomers in modern dress made a striking contrast to the hooded disciples, who greeted them with searchlight stares, deep suspicion on both sides. No love lost here. The atmosphere was thick with shadows.

No sign of Charlotte.

Karl couldn’t wait for her. He was sure, now, that she would not come. Presently he called everyone into the deep windowless chamber where Kristian used to hold court. As he watched them filing in, he thought,
I should have gone to find Charlotte myself... Perhaps she takes my failure to do so as rejection, but surely she knows me better than that? I will not be heavy-handed. That was Kristian’s way, not mine.

Katerina whispered in his ear, too softly for anyone to overhear, “Don’t worry. Kristian is gone for good, I’m certain.”

“I knew of no more than sixty vampires,” said Karl, “and Kristian claimed to control them all. Nearly half are here. It’s possible that someone unknown could have healed him... but I knew him. If he could, he
would
have come back by now.”

“Well, everyone’s here,” said Katerina. “Will you begin?”

Everyone except Charlotte,
Karl thought. Her absence deepened his sense of foreboding.

The chamber was bare, but for a carved black chair that stood on a stone dais like a throne. Torches flamed on the walls. There was no sign here that the world had moved beyond the Middle Ages. As Karl went to the dais, the vampires waited in silence, Katerina and his friends standing apart from the hooded ones.

Cesare, with his hands folded inside his wide sleeves, headed the faithful. Looking into their solemn, guarded eyes, Karl felt no regret for what he was about to say. He had no pity for them.

“Nothing stays the same forever,” he began. “Not even for immortals. I fear you’ve wasted two years waiting for your master to return, because Kristian is dead.”

A moment of stillness, like a held breath. A female voice, Maria’s, cried, “No!”

Someone else shouted, “Liar!” and then a wave of angry denial began. The only one who did not react was Cesare.

Karl’s voice cut through the uproar. “It is the truth.”

Dull silence rolled in, broken by whispers and moans.

“And how would you know?” Cesare said hoarsely. “What proof do you have?”

“That he hasn’t returned.”

“But he went away with
you
. You are the one he placed so far above us! What happened to him?”

Karl closed his eyes briefly, sickened by the pain in the priest-vampire’s voice. “I killed him.”

If they decided to take revenge, he was ready. For long seconds no one moved.

“Impossible,” Maria moaned. She started forward, but another vampire held her back. She doubled up, her hands clasped over her heart.

Cesare said bitterly, “We know he’s dead. We know!”

The uproar began again, this time directed at Cesare. He faced them and shouted in anguish, “It’s no good! We all felt the vibration of his death; the whole Crystal Ring shuddered and wept with outrage. And we have wasted all this time pretending it never happened. Admit it!”

His passion shocked Karl. Cesare forced acknowledgement from the others like blood. Their grief was a tangible web. Karl almost felt sympathy... almost. As Cesare confronted him, he was unafraid.

The fair vampire said, “Why in the name of God have you come to tell us what we already know?”

Karl rested a hand on the high-backed chair, fixing them with baleful eyes. All at once he realised they were afraid of him, as they had been of Kristian. “If you knew, you plainly did not want to face it, but you must. Your master is dead. You should consider how you are going to exist without him, for there’s no need for you to live like slaves a moment longer.”

Cesare’s boyish face twisted with loathing. “Kristian trusted you, Karl. He loved you more than he loved all of us together. He
chose
you!”

“Well, perhaps he chose me as his executioner,” Karl said acidly. “Listen to me. He was a tyrant. He had to die so that we could think for ourselves, and it has never been more important that we
think.
Someone such as Kristian cannot die without affecting everything. When he died, Katerina woke from the
Weisskalt.
Other vampires may also have woken. Have any of you seen unknown immortals in the Crystal Ring, or sensed unexplained presences?”

A hesitant murmur of assent. A woman wept on her neighbour’s shoulder; Maria was down on the flags, arms outstretched in grief. Karl took any reaction as a sign that there was still hope for them.

Cesare said, “How did he die?”

“You don’t need to know.”

“But we do. We won’t believe it until we do!”

So Karl began to tell them. Why spare them anything? They were vampires, not children. He would not implicate his accomplices, unless they chose to stand with him, but he had no reason to deny his own guilt.

As he spoke there was movement in the corridor outside. Smoke and flame flared in a draught; a figure appeared in the doorway, hair shining bronze and gold under the torchlight, her gleaming eyes fixed on him. Karl’s hand tightened on the black chair, but he contained his reaction to the briefest pause between words. Then he went on describing Kristian’s death in passionless, clinical detail.

* * *

When Charlotte left Violette, she fled straight home - but Karl, again, was not there.

Her attack on Violette, the whole of their disastrous relationship, had shattered her. It was all she could do to think of anything else. She found the note, stared distractedly at the words. Schloss Holdenstein?
Why, what does this mean?