A Dance in Blood Velvet (16 page)

Charlotte said softly, “Katerina means to take you away from me. I know you don’t want to believe any ill of her, but it’s true.”

“No. Dearest, try to forgive her. She has nowhere to go, no one except me.”

“She’s a vampire, not an orphan!”

“Kristian used to say, ‘Our Father is God and our Mother is Lilith.’ As they do not exist, clearly we are all orphans.”

“Oh, well, that is a beautiful answer! The very thing that makes her dangerous is the fact that she has no one but you.” Despair drained Charlotte of emotion and she thought,
God, why do I feel so helpless?
She turned to him, laid her hands on his chest. “Karl, I will be honest with you. I can’t stand her being here. I want her to leave. Please.”

He held her wrists, pressing her hands to him. She felt the warmth of stolen blood through his shirt, the lean contours of his ribs.

“I cannot ask her to leave, any more than I could you.”

Her breath caught raw in her throat. “Do you love her so much?”

“Yes. If you want honesty. But it’s not the same.”

“Isn’t it? How do I know you don’t take her to our bed while I’m not here, and drink her blood? You must have done so in the past!”

“Charlotte,” he said sadly. “I don’t.”

“But you’ve hardly touched me since she arrived. What am I supposed to think? You haven’t made it clear to her that you are with
me
. All I can see is that you refuse to choose between us.”

Taking her hands between his, Karl bowed his head, touching his lips to her fingers. He was still closed away. She knew he wouldn’t give a direct answer.

He said, “If I’ve done or said anything to make you doubt my feelings for you, I ask your forgiveness. But out of love, grant me this: don’t ask me to discard a friend.”

Charlotte could not answer. He kissed her, and as her lips opened to his, her anger dissolved into hopeless confusion. They were together, and talking. That in itself was such an exquisite pleasure, it hardly mattered what they said.

“Very well,” she acceded. “For your sake, I won’t ask. I understand your loyalty to her. But you know we can’t go on like this. How long?”

“I don’t know, beloved,” he sighed. “She hasn’t regained strength to go in and out of the Crystal Ring. She’s more vulnerable than she seems.”

“If I thought that was true, and she didn’t hate me so violently, perhaps I could bear her,” Charlotte whispered.

“Be patient.” And Karl himself was so patient that she could refuse him nothing. “It’s not a question of her vanishing from our lives the moment she recovers. It’s more complicated. We don’t know what changes Kristian’s death may have caused. If his passing woke Katerina, what about the other vampires he imprisoned? We must find out.”

“That could take years. If not forever.”

“I promised to help her find Andreas.”

Charlotte was silent, nurturing a small flame of hope.

“If she finds Andreas, will she be content with him? Or does she want you both to herself again?”

“Don’t,” said Karl. “Haven’t I reassured you?”

“Katerina’s the one I’m really afraid of. I can’t help it, Karl. She makes me go cold. She would get rid of me if she could.”

“No.”

“Believe me.” Charlotte stared languidly into the fire. “I never thought anyone could come between us, not even Kristian - until I met Katerina.”

“Not your Giselle?”

She looked at Karl in surprise. “What?”

“The first time you saw her, I thought for a few moments I’d lost you. You’ve been to almost every performance since.”

A cold feeling gripped her stomach, like the beginning of blood thirst. “And you were welcome to come with me, but you didn’t! I needed to escape to another world where the most important person was not Katerina. Do you blame me? I remember all the dire warnings you gave against growing too close to humans, but I’ve never met Violette Lenoir, and I don’t want to.”

“Beloved, I can only say this: stay with us. Don’t feel you’re being driven away. You are not. Be patient with Katti, because this concerns all of us.” Karl stroked her hair, and kissed her again. “Nothing can separate us.”

“Then don’t keep secrets. You used to tell me the truth, however harsh. Now I feel you’re telling Katerina but not me, as if you imagine I need protecting from... what, I don’t know.”

Karl’s pale, caressing hand paused on her cheek. “Very well. There is something else.”

He went to put fresh logs on the fire. Charlotte sat forward.

“What?”

“There is a faint possibility that Kristian might not be dead.”

Charlotte gaped at him, horrified. “That’s impossible! What makes you think that?”

“Because Katerina swears his voice woke her up.”

She shivered, despite the fire. “No. He’s dead. Do you think he would leave us alone if he’d survived? He died... and Katerina woke.”

While she followed a black strand of thought along its unwelcome branches, she was conscious of a larger reality; that she and Karl were communicating soul to soul again, that she felt loved and whole within the crimson-golden sphere of firelight...

Logs popped and hissed, showering sparks. A draught sent gold motes whirling everywhere as the door opened and Katerina strode into the room. She brought a swirl of cold air with her, a surge of light and life.

Charlotte’s mood fell like a dead bird.

“Still splendid, the world out there,” said Katerina, unpinning her hat and throwing it on a chair. Her dark hair gleamed, and her face was flushed from feeding. “So wonderful to see and feel again, to walk among people and taste their blood. Warm, warm. But I don’t like the fashions; how plain, how straight up and down they are. And those machines roaring about on wheels. How they stink! But it’s so exciting.”

She flung off her coat and sat down in an armchair, unbuttoning her shoes and rubbing her feet through her silk stockings. “I never knew such clothes for making a woman look as dowdy as a pauper, or as elegant as a Greek goddess. They look simple yet they’re so difficult to wear. Whoever thought of these appalling button-strap shoes? And I tell you, I am not flattening my breasts for anyone. They’ll be sorry, these women, when fashion changes and they’ve flattened themselves out of existence. Oh, but all in the name of freedom! What wonders that Great War has brought about.”

“Be glad you missed it,” Karl said drily, dusting ash from his hands as he turned to her.

Charlotte hated her for violating the mood.
Little cold shadow
, Katerina had called her, and at this moment that was how she felt. Here was Karl’s “dear friend”, radiating energy and
joie de vivre;
and all Charlotte had offered in competition was flat-voiced jealousy.

And all those unpleasant feelings, fused with the revelation Karl had just unleashed on her, made her ruthless. Ignoring Katerina, she pursued her unfinished conversation with Karl. “Why didn’t you tell me before?”

Silence. Even Katerina looked startled, and asked lightly, “Why didn’t you tell her what, Karl?”

“No point in worrying her, when we have no proof,” he said.

Katerina blinked. “Proof of what?”

“That Kristian may have survived.”

“Ah.” Katerina flopped back in the chair and began to unpin her luxuriant hair. She looked majestic and seductive.

“I don’t care,” Charlotte said fiercely. “You should have told me.”

Katerina stood and went to Karl’s side in a single flowing movement. Both dark, she only half a head shorter than him, they seemed as close as twins.

“She’s right, Karl,” she said, looking down at Charlotte. “We should have told you, dear. But what can you do about it?” Again the honeyed condescension, calculated to make Charlotte feel an outsider. She was beyond tolerating it.

Staring hard at Katerina, she said, “I don’t know. But I would like to help you find Andreas.”

Unexpectedly, Katerina came and sat beside her. She put a hand on Charlotte’s arm. “I appreciate it, but that’s not a good idea.”

“Why not?” Charlotte spoke thinly, glancing at Karl’s half-shadowed face.

“I’m worried about how Andreas might be when we find him. He could be out of his mind; Lord knows how he might react, seeing a strange face.” As Katerina spoke, her smooth tone frayed. She was speaking the truth, and couldn’t hide the pain that gleamed through her facade. Charlotte felt brief but genuine sympathy. “You’re a fledgling, Charlotte; how could you defend yourself, if Andreas attacked you?”

“I can look after myself,” she retorted.

Katerina appealed to Karl. “You wouldn’t put her in such danger, would you?”

“Of course not,” he said.

“So you’re saying you don’t want or need my help, either of you?” said Charlotte.

“We’re thinking of you,” Katerina began, but Karl interrupted.

“I’ve told Charlotte that I want her help. Whatever the danger, I cannot tell her what to do. It’s her choice.”

“Natürlich!”
said Katerina, as if astonished it should be otherwise. She stared hard at Charlotte, her face regal, full of dark strength. The contempt radiating from her chestnut eyes crushed Charlotte to ash. “Your decision; but ask yourself: suppose he was put in danger by having to protect you, do you
really
want to put Karl’s safety at risk?” And the unspoken coda:
“When you know you aren’t wanted, and you appreciate how miserable I can make your life?
”

* * *

Benedict walked through dark lanes with a vampire at his side, and more questions in his mind than he’d ever dreamed.

Lancelyn might create illusions or mind tricks to terrify people,
Ben thought,
but has he the power to call a supernatural creature in physical form? I doubt it. Surely, if he’d ever achieved such a feat, he’d never have been able to keep quiet!

Andreas was silent, incredibly light and graceful under the voluminous greatcoat. A thin figure: just a glimpse of dead-white skin between hat-brim and scarf.

Ben took him to the canal a few miles away, where water lay turgidly brown under the shadow of warehouse walls. There the vampire took a victim, an old man lying asleep on a narrowboat.

Ben tried to watch - not to shy away - but it was dark. He heard more than he saw. The man starting awake, a muffled cry, the long thin form bending over him; the crunch of teeth through flesh and cartilage, a brief struggle, stillness. Then only a faint groan from Andreas. He lay down right along the old man’s form, convulsing as if with sexual pleasure.

At that point, Ben could stand no more. He left the boat and waited on the towpath, feeling sick, shivery and depressed.
Christ, how often will he want to do this?

He closed his eyes, opened them again to find Andreas beside him, silent and composed. His face looked polished, luminous. A great chilling wave of awe went over Benedict. He’d been so wrapped up in practicalities that the truth hurtled through and struck him like a spear.
This is a vampire. An evil spirit that should be dead and is not.

Ben shook himself. He guided Andreas into the cover of trees, one hand hovering near the vampire’s shoulder - not actually daring to touch him. They walked for a minute. Then Ben said, “Did you kill him?”

“Probably,” said Andreas. His German accent was very pronounced yet musical; soft, dreamy. “Ah, but I feel better.”

“Listen to me. You don’t have to kill them, do you?”

The vampire didn’t answer for a while. Eventually he said, “I don’t have to, no.”

“Then don’t!”

“What does it matter?”

“This isn’t London!” Ben said sourly. “We can’t support a rash of unexplained deaths. People will talk, there’ll be police and journalists everywhere...”

Another pause. “While I need the blood so desperately, I can’t help draining them. I can’t stop. But if I could, it still leaves them... unwell.” Rough anger edged his voice. “What do you want of me? If you don’t like this, Benedict, why in the name of hell did you bring me here?”

They did not speak again until they reached home.

Ben switched on a light, and watched Andreas remove his coat. The change made him gasp. Although the vampire was still pallid and skeletal, he was recognisably human; skin smooth, his limbs straight, his movements easy.

Ben said, “We have a lot to talk about.”

“Have we?” Andreas said bitterly. His sunken face with its cobweb hair was unsightly - but what a change from his first appearance!

“I need to know what you remember of the astral world, and why you were trapped there. If you’re a vampire, why weren’t you free to roam the world? Were you dead? Were you ever human, or -”

“Liebe Gott,
stop this!” the vampire said hoarsely. “I can’t remember anything! Only flashes, which vanish when you ask these stupid questions. My head aches and I want to sleep, but I can’t. Leave me alone!”

“I’m sorry,” said Ben. “You need to rest. Is there anything... particular that you require?”

“A coffin?” said Andreas, mocking his tone. “No. I do not need to lie in a coffin, nor to avoid daylight or running water. None of the folklore nonsense. But protect me from bad musicians and bad poets, please. And the cold. I can’t stand to be cold.”

Sighing, Benedict took him to the guest bedroom. Andreas lay down and seemed to enter a state of catalepsy. Not breathing. Ben shut the door and left him.

He had a few hours fitful sleep, continually disturbed by the cottage cracking and murmuring around him. Bad dreams. Mice running about between the floorboards. The taste and smell of blood...

He woke to daylight, barely in time to dress before the housekeeper arrived. He checked Andreas, found him lying as before, staring at the ceiling. Ben locked him in.

When Mrs Potter came, he let her make his breakfast, then gave her the day off. She was surprised, but didn’t argue. Ben would have to find excuses to keep her out of Andreas’ way...
Hmm, awkward having a vampire guest, but I’ll sort it out
.

He telephoned Holly and told her all was fine. She sounded unconvinced.

He meant to spend the day in his study, reading all he could find about vampires and their connection to the astral world. He’d just settled to the task when Maud arrived on the doorstep, indignant.