A Dance in Blood Velvet (31 page)

She had to go, for Karl’s sake, if nothing else. She obeyed the request mechanically, feeling only a wisp of anxious curiosity as she travelled through the Crystal Ring. Her mind was elsewhere, bound up in barbed wire.

She was horrified at herself for betraying Violette’s trust. Worse was her own hypocrisy; the betrayal only mattered, she knew, because it caused Violette to reject her.
Never mind the harm I’ve caused
, she thought wretchedly.
If she hadn’t minded me drinking her blood, that would have made it all right. But she was disgusted and I can’t bear it. That’s all. I wanted her to love me, despite what I am...

Why? Because Anne couldn’t? Yes... but I’ve only done to Violette what I desired from the moment I saw her. How dare I pretend to be so amazed at my behaviour, or so aggrieved by her reaction?

But I never wanted to hurt her... Oh God, this is what Karl used to tell me. “I want you, Charlotte, but I cannot have you without destroying you...” But we went on anyway, because it was too delicious to stop.

The ballerina’s blood danced through her in thrilling lines of garnet light.
Too delicious, too gorgeous to stop... and I felt such passion for her that I couldn’t believe she didn’t share it. I thought, I thought... I don’t understand any of this. How can I face Karl, feeling like this? Ashamed.
A
violater. I can’t.

Charlotte stepped through the thick stone walls of the castle and sensed vampires gathered in a deep chamber. The meeting had begun. This place held unpleasant memories... Kristian had imprisoned her here and forced Karl to discard her, the worst moment of her life... and then he’d starved her of blood, unspeakable torment to a new vampire. But now the pain was distant. She saw the world through a frost of numb shock.

She walked the corridors until she saw torchlight spilling through an open doorway. The vampires - silent monk-like figures whom she hardly knew - were gathered in Kristian’s audience chamber. Karl stood on the dais, one hand resting on the ebony throne, addressing the group.

He was explaining how Kristian had died.

Charlotte entered softly, but everyone looked at her. Karl barely paused, but as he went on speaking he gazed at her, his eyes intense - with relief, passion, anger? All of those. His gaze scalded her like liquid fire in the eerie light. And as he described how he’d lured Kristian to the manor house and hacked him to pieces, he went on staring at her.

Charlotte knew all this; she had been there and she’d helped. But to hear him describe it, in cold blood, to disciples who had revered Kristian as their prophet... Even Pierre, Ilona and Stefan seemed stunned. She pressed against the stone archway, shivering.

Karl.
She saw him as if for the first time. Graceful, lean and imposing, his red-tinged dark hair massed softly around a sculpted face. So finely carved, his features, a seraphim’s face darkened by suffering that had pooled into deadly tranquillity in his eyes. A heart-stopping combination of beauty and strength. His presence never ceased to invade her, thrusting into every cell like the thrill of blood itself, igniting her with scarlet flame. And his power enveloped the stone chamber like a blood-red velvet cloak, as Kristian’s once had.

He finished, having shaped the narrative to sound as if he’d acted alone.
He protected us, his accomplices
, she thought with surprise.

Why weren’t Kristian’s devotees demanding Karl’s execution in revenge? Instead she sensed grief, confusion, directionless outrage. A fair-haired male vampire at the front said, “You cannot take away our leader and give us nothing in return.”

“I’m not asking for understanding, Cesare, still less forgiveness,” said Karl. “I came to tell you the plain truth. Also to suggest that we could help each other.”

“If you want to help us, become our leader,” said Cesare. “Take Kristian’s place!”

Karl was visibly shocked. “No.”

“You must. We need someone. You cannot slay the king and not replace him!”

“My intention was never to usurp him.” His voice was subdued, full of anger. “I did it to free us all.”

“We didn’t ask to be free!” Cesare exclaimed. Cries of assent. “We needed him!”

“You are intelligent beings with powers that humans would envy. So why are you behaving like sheep without a shepherd?”

Cesare’s eyes widened with rage. “Even the strongest need a spiritual guide. What would the Church be without the Pope -and what are we without Kristian?”

The darkening of Karl’s face held Charlotte mesmerised. Easy to forget how forceful he could be when the need arose. The very strength he used to reject the suggestion only drew them towards him. All the more startling because he showed this side of himself so rarely. His strength was as magnetic as his beauty.

“Be whatever you wish,” he answered. “Learn to think for yourselves - unless you don’t want to. You were willing slaves; for that you deserved Kristian, and you deserve this limbo you are now in. I will not take his place.”

Cesare was shaking. Tears ran down his face. “You can’t imagine the agony of being without him! You’ve no soul! How dare you call us slaves, when we loved him; how dare you take him from us and give nothing in return? You killed him to free
yourself
, not us. Never say you did it for us!”

Bronze fire glinted under Karl’s dark brows. “Is freedom ‘nothing’?” He spoke with stony contempt. “I don’t know whether to pity or despise you. This meeting is over.”

With a roar of anguish, Cesare drew his hands from his sleeves and rushed at Karl. A glint of steel; Charlotte saw with horror that he had a cleaver, and was swinging it two-handed at Karl’s neck. No one was close or fast enough to protect Karl.

Rather than backing off, Karl met the attack. As Cesare lunged, Karl’s hands shot out and seized his left wrist. In the same movement he turned, using the attacker’s momentum to heave him over his shoulder and onto the floor.

He lay helpless, Karl leaning over him. The cleaver was still in his left hand, but Karl forced his wrist back and down until the blade cut deep into Cesare’s own throat.

Blood sprayed from crescent wound. A scream became a bubbling rasp as his body arched in pain. His hand sprang open, releasing the handle. The blade remained stuck in the wound, then slid sideways under its own weight and clattered onto the flagstones.

Karl let him go and straightened up, his expression coldly furious. “Does anyone else wish to vent their feelings on me?”

Horrified silence, thick with unease. Charlotte could only press against the wall in relief and shock.

Cesare lay convulsing on the dais, slow blood oozing from his throat. Karl could have beheaded him, Charlotte knew, but had spared him. Cesare’s wound would heal. And although Karl could have drunk the acolyte dry to prove his superiority, the fact that he disdained the blood only made him seem stronger.

The immortals knew, and dared not challenge him. Only Ilona smiled, whispering to Pierre.

Maria spoke. “But you have proved your power. That makes you our leader, whether you want it or not.”

“Take responsibility for yourselves,” Karl said in a low voice. “No one rules over me - and I refuse to rule over others.”

He strode off the dais and towards the doorway. Charlotte saw Ilona, Pierre and Stefan glancing at each other as they turned to follow him. Niklas and Katerina were behind them. As Charlotte waited for them to reach her, she saw Cesare rise up on the dais, hanging unsteadily onto the throne with one hand, the other pressed to his gashed neck. His face was a ghastly bluish-grey.

“You have made bad enemies here, Karl.” His voice was a thick, fluid rasp.

“Enemies, for telling the truth?” Karl said coldly. “The worst foes you have are yourselves.”

“We’ll wait for a new leader to come - and one surely will. Leave and never come back!”

With a look of disgust Karl turned away, not bothering to reply. Reaching Charlotte he stopped, letting his companions go through the archway before him. Ilona and Stefan acknowledged Charlotte with brief smiles as they entered the corridor and vanished into the Crystal Ring. Then she found herself facing Karl, alone.

His eyes moved over her. She had no idea what to say. Karl held out his hand to her, but she saw no warmth in his face.

He said, “Are you coming home?”

* * *

“Why didn’t you finish off that idiot Cesare?” said Katerina.

The seven immortals had gathered in the drawing room of the chalet. Charlotte watched, contributing little to the conversation. Pierre, whom she’d never trusted even though he had helped transform her, leaned on the mantelpiece. Niklas sat like a goldenhaired doll in a chair, with Stefan - deceptively sweet-natured -perched on the arm. Ilona was as striking as ever; fashionable in a black, beaded dress, her hair cropped and wavy. She stood by the gramophone, looking through their record collection; an exact replica of a bored debutante.

Katerina was stretched out on the sofa, Karl standing near Pierre by the fire. Charlotte sat in an armchair, separated from them by her own black guilt.

“I think they’re all mad,” Karl said, “but if I can’t change their minds, I won’t kill them just for disagreeing with me. As long as they leave us alone, I have no desire to trouble them.”

“But Karl, what did you expect?” said Pierre. “All those with any sense have already left. The ones who remained were bound to act like idiots, because they’re idiots to have stayed!”

“Some will have listened to you,” said Katerina, “but they wouldn’t dare admit it in front of poisonous fanatics like Cesare.”

How extraordinary they looked, thought Charlotte, glowing with the enticing radiance that only vampires possessed. She could barely believe she was one of them; she felt like an outsider, filled with human wonder.

“It doesn’t matter,” Karl said wearily. “The point was to make sure that Kristian is dead.”

“And are you?” snapped Ilona.

“As sure as I can be.”

Stefan said with good humour, “To be honest, Karl, I think you made a mistake. Why not agree to lead them?”

“Because I refuse to behave like Kristian.”

“Your pride will kill you, one of these days.”

“It’s nothing to do with pride,” said Karl. “If they want to live on, worshipping Kristian’s memory, they’re free to do so. The point is that Kristian gave us no choice. That was why he had to die.”

“But they won’t forgive you,” said Stefan. “They see a light in you, Karl. I would have followed you happily.”

He spoke lightly, but his smile faded at Karl’s answer. “As you followed Kristian? With dog-like devotion until the moment was right to turn and savage him? You were all the same, even Ilona. Even you, Katti. All of you except Charlotte.”

Their silence writhed on the needle tip of truth.

“For pity’s sake,” Katerina said, low and angry. “That is unfair, Karl.”

“Nothing about our existence is fair.”

Stefan said calmly, “If you won’t lead them, they’ll find someone else.”

“That is up to them.”

Ilona added, “Someone worse than Kristian! At least Kristian loved us!”

“Exactly,” said Stefan. “I would rather have Karl, wouldn’t you?”

Charlotte listened to them arguing as if watching a play. This had nothing to do with her. She felt dead inside; all she could see was Violette’s blanched face and the revulsion in her eyes.

“Enough,” said Karl. “I’m as certain as I can be that Kristian is dead. But if his death woke Katerina, what of the other vampires Kristian left in the
Weisskalt?”

Pierre said, “Leave them alone! The world is a big place. I agree with you, my friend; we are all loners.”

“But are we?” Karl said. “Kristian united us, even while we defied him. He was the tyrant who made it unnecessary to think for ourselves; by which I mean that we didn’t think beyond escaping him. But now he’s gone, we have no focus. You saw how they were in the castle! And as for the vampires he may have woken - we know nothing about them. What might they do?”

“Mon Dieu,
who cares?” Pierre exclaimed.

“Some of us!” Katerina said heatedly. “What about Andrei? Have you forgotten him?”

“Hardly, the self-centred brat.”

Katerina glared at Pierre. “That, as mortals say, is the pot calling the kettle black.”

“Kristian’s death has caused changes we don’t understand,” Karl persisted. “I’m not the only one to sense unnatural shadows in the Ring, am I?”

“No, I’ve seen them,” said Ilona.

“Well, I haven’t,” said Pierre, folding his arms. “We’re flocking together like frightened birds! What’s the matter with us? We’re vampires, nothing can hurt us!”

“No?” said Katerina. “Tell Kristian that. Tell Cesare, who was a spine’s width from death. Or tell
me.
You haven’t the slightest idea of the agonies I suffered when I woke from the
Weisskalt!”

Pierre rolled his over-large blue eyes.

“I simply want answers,” said Karl. “I don’t seek power, only knowledge. Do you understand?”

“Of course.” Stefan put his hand on Niklas’s arm, as if to communicate with his mute double. “And we’ll help you, as we always have. What do you want us to do?”

Karl’s eyes softened, and his lids curved down. “Anything you see fit. Travel through the Crystal Ring, observe anything strange, search for other vampires. Katerina and I will look for Andreas... and for a lost Book.”

“Well, you can count me out,” said Pierre. “You’re wasting your time.”

“Something
is happening, and you won’t make it go away by pretending otherwise,” Ilona said crisply.

“I am surprised at you,
chérie.
Since when are you filled with philanthropic concern for your fellow vampires? You’re only afraid of an interruption to your pursuit of pleasure.” Ilona opened her mouth, but he added, “I know, because you’re just like me.”

Pierre walked to Charlotte, lifted her hand and kissed it. She jumped; she’d been in a reverie, half-listening.

“You are the only one with sense, Ophelia,” he said. “You have nothing at all to say to this nonsense.” Pierre bowed, and vanished.

With that, the meeting was over. Ilona began talking with Stefan and Katerina. Charlotte stood and went towards Karl, forcing herself to face him at last.