A Dance in Blood Velvet (4 page)

His reaction was measured, as always. “But why risk destroying people you like, or even love? We may not kill, but we cause untold damage that may be worse than death to some. And the more you feel for someone, the more dangerous. You know how close I came to destroying you. The more I loved and desired you, the greater the temptation of your blood. That’s why I choose strangers: so that I don’t betray someone who trusts me. And I know it solves nothing, makes me no less evil. But at least their faces do not follow me forever afterwards.”

Charlotte couldn’t answer.

Karl stroked her shoulders. “Yes, I agree you had to drink from Milner to cloud his mind; but is that why you did so? He was likeable, someone who would be a good friend to a mortal, such as David.”

“Karl, stop this,” Charlotte said, closing her eyes. “I can’t help these feelings. I can’t be perfect.”

“I’m not asking that. I’m saying that if you drink from people you know, they will haunt you, in one way or another. You may never be free... neither physically, nor emotionally.”

“Can’t we even have human friends?”

“You know what happens!” said Karl. “You can never see them only as friends - and God knows, I have tried - without being aware of the blood under their skin, their cells changing with every moment they grow older.”

Charlotte felt thirst clamp tight on her heart; an urge for more than blood. “But I want them. I need them.”

“More than you want or need me?” Karl spoke lightly.

She broke away and sat on the edge of a chair. “Don’t be infuriating. It’s different, you know it is. Don’t pretend not to understand!”

“Oh, I understand only too well.” He spoke softly, but she heard many echoes in his voice: bitterness, empathy, regret, passion. “That’s why I encourage you to think before these feelings overwhelm you.”

“You imagine I don’t
think?”
Charlotte retorted. “I wish I could stop!”

“But this is the point: the blood. It enables us to stop thinking. It’s almost the only experience that obliterates our intellect for a few blissful minutes, isn’t it so?”

Charlotte said nothing. She sat still, her gaze fixed on him.

Karl came to her, sat on the arm of the chair and put his hand over hers. “When you were human,” he said quietly, “when I first knew you, all your attention and passion fastened on me. And I warned you it was for the wrong reasons.”

“The glamour of vampires,” she murmured. “No, always more than that.”

“I know; but the magical veil drew us together so powerfully precisely because it threatened to keep us apart. Now the veil is gone, other forces are pulling you away from me. Inevitable, I know, but it still makes me sad.”

She turned to him. His face was inches from hers, achingly beautiful, his hair a crimson halo. Ice-white danger to any human who came this close to him. His words unsettled her. She had to challenge them. “No, Karl, you’re wrong.” She touched her fingertips to his cheekbone. “You told me this wouldn’t be easy. Every day I miss my family, and fight against what I’ve become, and hate myself for loving it so much. And you want me to be happy - yet you disapprove because I’m not tormented enough!”

Karl had the grace to look startled. Then he laughed. “Am I such a fiend?”

“Unbearable.”

“But our debates are such a delicious pleasure,” he said, “and such wonderful pain.”

She wanted to be angry, but couldn’t, because he was right. “My God,” she said, “Karl, if I could for one moment make you understand what I feel for you - if I could find the words -”

They were moving towards each other, her hands sliding over his shoulders, his around her waist; each the predator, each the willing prey.

“There is something other than blood that saves us from thinking too much,” said Karl, “and far sweeter than tormenting ourselves with words.”

* * *

The bed under its shadowed canopy was never used for sleep.

On the cover their limbs shone with creamy luminescence in the darkness, moving, undulating. Their desire for each other felt human, sensual, compelling. Nothing to do with blood. Strange and wonderful that this pleasure hadn’t been lost with their humanity - but then, it was a passion that could take dark, deceptive paths.

Charlotte had been a shy young woman of twenty when Karl met her: secretive, wary, sharply intelligent. He hadn’t set out to seduce her, but neither had he tried very hard to refrain. A double sin, for while she worried about the potential disgrace, she was unaware that Karl, by his very nature, knowingly placed her in mortal danger. Unforgivable. Yet their attraction had been too thrilling to resist. Never would they forget their first time, in all its forbidden ecstasy... Karl so careful to ensure that she shared his exquisite pleasure. So cautious not to harm her, in any way. Resisting her innocent fervour had been impossible; delighting her, effortless. And at the end, protecting her from the peril of his blood thirst - sheer agony.

Now, though, they knew each other completely and held nothing back. Savage and divine was the fulfilment of this long dance. As Charlotte’s head tipped back, her hair falling golden-bronze across the pillow, Karl felt her cling to him as he let go. The convulsive waves were delicious, human, deceptive... for they left him defenceless. Transported by bliss, Karl felt a surge of deeper lust, the vampire’s true need.

When Charlotte was human, Karl had forced himself with every thread of willpower to turn his face from her neck. Excrutiating to resist: worse to have hurt her, or to admit that his suppressed urge for her blood had twisted into sexual desire and back into blood-lust again...

Ah, no longer. Now he let the feeling flood him. His face dropped to her throat and he bit, one swift savage action.

Then her blood was in his mouth, sharp and sweet like the juice of pomegranates. He could
taste
its colour: garnets, shining berries.
Ah, God.
Ecstasy. But a few sips only... to take more would weaken her. Just the very sabre-edge of rapture.

In the same moment, as Charlotte gasped her own pleasure - as her mouth opened with the cry - her lips and tongue latched hot onto his neck and her teeth stabbed into him. For minutes, blood passed between them; a circle of pleasure so extreme it verged on pain. Too powerful to be borne for long, while the exchange lasted it swept away everything else. This was the Crystal Ring in its deeper, hidden sense; a ruby-thorned rosary of paradise.

They broke the circle, lay gasping in each other’s arms. Blood was scattered like jewels on their throats and breasts, while their wounds were already healing. Hair dishevelled, they lay gazing at each other. Every emotion shimmered between them. This was peace, chaos, contentment, yearning. An addiction that must be sated again and again, a lust that some would condemn as demonic; this was the nature of their mutual obsession.

And at the end of all, it was love.

* * *

In the deepest layer of the Crystal Ring, Andreas lay like a sea creature on the ocean bed, rolling with every surge of the tide. Half dormant, he could barely move or think. He could only endure the hideous crawl of eternity. Waiting... for what?

Somewhere in another time, he was talking rapidly, angry and distressed. The words and the setting eluded him. And then - Karl’s face. Karl’s hands on his shoulders, and the enchanting tranquillity of his eyes.

“Andrei, don’t do this,” said Karl.

He heard himself answer, “But Kristian took everything from me! He took my poetry, gave me this horrible darkness and his sick puritanism in its place! How can I bear it?”

“But what’s to stop you writing poetry, as you did in life?” Karl was always so reasonable, curse him.

“You don’t understand, do you?” Andreas said furiously. “I can’t write, because there is simply no point! No point to anything, except blood! And Kristian calls this the way to God? Damn his God, damn them both to hell!”

Karl’s arms went around him, lips against his cheek.

In the background, Katti’s voice soothed, “There is still love, Andrei. And we love you. Kristian can’t take that from us.”

But he could. He could and he had.

A groan issued from Andreas’s throat. The images dissolved and vanished, but the groan went on and on.

B
enedict Grey did not consider himself evil. His activities might have generated lurid headlines had he attracted notoriety as other, more flamboyant, occultists did; but such attention was merely a measure of the public’s ignorance. They could not comprehend that “occult” simply meant “hidden”, that rejection of conventional religion did not equal devil-worship, nor that his quest was harmless and scholarly. Benedict would never dream of using his knowledge to hurt another living soul, hadn’t even considered such danger.

Until today.

In an ashen sunrise, he stood looking out of a window, trying to clear his mind. The parlour was a cosy room with cream-washed walls, red rugs on dark floorboards, an inglenook fireplace. Outside, the winter-brown garden was sheened with buds. Daffodil shoots poked through the soil, and starlings squabbled over bread scraps on the lawn. After the previous night, it seemed miraculous that the everyday world was still here.

Outwardly, Benedict was conventional. A handsome ex-soldier who’d survived the War almost unscathed, he’d moved to Ashvale, a small market town in the middle of England, to be near his older brother Lancelyn. Ben and his wife, Holly, owned a thriving bookshop. That was all outsiders needed to know.

Their neighbours had no idea what took place in the privacy of the Greys’ home. The brown brick cottage, with its slate roof and charming veils of creeper, looked as unremarkable as any other in the quiet old street. Only a chosen few knew of his arcane book collection, or the temple he’d constructed in the attic. Even Maud, his bookshop assistant, suspected nothing.

Ben and Holly alone knew what had happened in the temple last night.

Too stunned to talk, they’d retired to bed, but neither had slept. Holly was unsettled. Shortly before dawn, when she dropped off at last, Ben came downstairs to watch the sunrise while he tried to make sense of the impossible.

Lancelyn had taught Benedict that the astral plane was subjective; that every occultist’s experience was unique, his perception of supernatural entities purely mystical. There were no horned demons waiting to be summoned bodily to Earth.

So what the hell was it that had manifested in his temple last night?

The ritual had been one of hundreds he’d performed, some with Holly and some alone. He recalled fragrant ribbons of smoke, the rhythm of incantation, lamplight gleaming on their robes - coloured lavender, for the border between night and day. Infinite corridors of reflection in the mirrors. The black Book in the centre of a ten-pointed star. And then, coalescing from air, a creature from the astral realm. Not a phantom but solid, maggot-white,
real
.

The difference, Ben reflected, was the presence of the Book.

He glanced at a small table, where the volume now lay like a slab of night on the lace cloth.

Holly was right, the creature had looked disgusting: a fossilised skeleton, horribly alive. Ben had needed no persuasion to banish it. Truth was, he’d been terrified. And now he was shocked rigid to realise he’d actually succeeded: summoned a being from the astral plane. Yes, he was appalled by its ghastly appearance, the aura of cold evil emanating from its pallid body, but...

By God
- he thumped the wall in exuberance -
it was exciting!

With the safety of distance, he regretted his haste in dispelling it.

Shouldn’t have panicked
, he thought.
Should have been more scientific, sent Holly out, tried to communicate. What if...

Holly came in, interrupting his thoughts. Her normally pert face was stamped with circles of tiredness, her jaw-length dark hair a mess, but still she looked wonderful: a slim beauty in her white silk dressing gown. Their long-haired tabby cat, Sam, was in her arms.

“Still can’t sleep, darling?” he said. She joined him at the window and stood looking out at her beloved garden. “Cigarette?”

She shook her head, so he lit one for himself and rolled it between his finger and thumb. Nervous habit.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said. “The Book made the difference. We’ve proved there’s power in it.”

Her shoulders tensed under the white silk. She held Sam tighter until he struggled in protest and she had to let him down.

“Not still upset about it, are you?”

“I wasn’t upset,” she whispered. “I only wish I’d never seen the damned Book. I knew there was something evil about it.”

“Oh, evil is subjective!” Ben exclaimed. “Just because something scares the life out of us, that doesn’t make it
evil.
Simply unknown. Waiting to be investigated.”

Holly turned to him, her eyes bright with fear. “You’re not planning to try again, Ben.” It was a statement, not a question. “You mustn’t even think of it!”

Her emotional reaction began to annoy him. She wasn’t saying what he wanted to hear. “But think, Holly; we succeeded! We summoned an entity from the astral realm. Even Lancelyn’s never done that!”

“But it was horrible.” She shivered. “Hideous.”

“You couldn’t see it properly.”

“My eyesight may be poor, but I saw quite enough.”

“It wasn’t what I expected, that’s true. But fascinating, you must admit.”

“You have to draw the line at this, Ben. Fascinating, maybe, but dangerous.”

Growing exasperated, he said, “Time of the month?”

She glared at him. “What has that to do with anything?”

“Well, you always get prickly-”

“Ben, I’m prickly because last night you materialised a
thing
in our attic that defied description! And you think it’s
interesting
?”

He sighed, breathing out smoke. “I’m sorry, darling. I never meant to alarm you.”

“Are you going to tell Lancelyn?” she asked sharply.

For some reason, the prospect was unwelcome. “Yes, yes, I’ll tell him,” he muttered. Holly walked towards the stairs, smoothing her hair. He didn’t want her to go; he wanted to talk, if only she’d calm down. “Where are you going?”