A Dance in Blood Velvet (48 page)

“Good God!” Ilona said indignantly. “What’s wrong with her? Is my hairstyle out of fashion already?”

Charlotte went to Violette and tried desperately to console her. “Hush. Don’t be afraid, she’s here to help us.”

At last Violette forced out the words, “You called her Ilona!”

“Yes.”

Hard to hear the words, but Charlotte made out, “My father, my father...”

Ilona said, “Charlotte, dear, whatever is she saying? Can’t you quiet her?”

“I’m trying!” she said, but Violette was writhing under her hands, repeating,
“Father, father...”

In dismay, Charlotte understood. “Oh, God,” she breathed. “She once told me that a vampire attacked her father and caused his madness and death. She thinks it was you, Ilona. She recognised your name.”

“I’ve never met her wretched father! She’s demented!”

“How do you know?” Charlotte said angrily. “The way she described the attack, it couldn’t have been anyone else!”

“Well, what if you are right?” Ilona glared at Violette. “I can’t be expected to remember individuals. If I killed your father, dear, he must have deserved it.”

Violette lunged drunkenly forward, almost falling off the chair. Charlotte held her back.

“She doesn’t want this, does she?” Ilona leaned down, her face near the dancer’s. “I didn’t want it either, dear, but I got it. I didn’t even know what was happening; at least you seem to have some idea. Am I right, Charlotte? She doesn’t want it - but you do, therefore it must happen? Just like Karl. In the name of love, his will must be done. And the irony is that now he refuses help you in exactly the same violation - so here I am instead.”

“Why did you agree, if you’re so bitter?”

“Anything to upset Karl,” Ilona said. “Why should I care what Violette wants anyway? Let’s get on with it.”

But Violette shrank from Ilona, clutching at Charlotte; even grasping Stefan, who was on the other side of her chair. “Not her! Anyone but her! If I can’t stop you, please, I beg of you, don’t force me with her. Not her, not her.”

Ilona stood glowering at Charlotte. “Charming. If that’s the way she feels, she can go to hell.”

“Wait -” Charlotte began helplessly, but in the face of Violette’s revulsion and Ilona’s rage, she knew there was no point in arguing.

Ilona leaned down and touched Violette’s hand. “And if they transform you into a vampire, you
will
go to hell, of course.”

“Stop it!” Charlotte cried. “Get out!”

Karl’s daughter picked up her hat, smiled sweetly, and vanished.

The moment she went, Violette seemed to lose all her strength and slumped over, clinging to Charlotte’s hands. Stefan, giving Charlotte a resigned look, carried Violette into the bedroom - the room where Charlotte had talked to Karl, just before he, Stefan and Pierre had transformed her; their last conversation and last embrace as human and vampire.

Charlotte sat at the polished Italian dining table with her head in her hands, thinking,
What are we going to do? I wanted this to take place gently, with love.

Stefan came back, pulling the door to behind him.

“How is she?” Charlotte asked.

“Asleep. Passed out,” said Stefan. “Lord, she is beautiful. Just like Snow White. I would love to wake her, a prince with a difference.”

“Make her spit out the poisoned apple and come back to life,” Charlotte murmured. “What can we do now? Could just the two of us -?”

He sat beside her and placed his hand over hers. Through everything, Niklas sat like a mannequin, a faint frown shadowing his crystal-gold eyes. That was all the emotion he ever showed, an indistinct echo of Stefan’s.

“I won’t risk it. Without enough energy to take her into the Crystal Ring, she’d die. We’ll find someone else - if you still want to go through with it.”

Pain settled around her throat. “I can’t go back.”

“There is Pierre, if you could stand him, or one or two others I could ask, though it may take time to find them.”

“I wonder if Andreas would agree?”

“He wouldn’t want to displease Karl.” They were silent for a minute, then Stefan said, “Why are you crying?”

“I don’t know,” Charlotte said. “It’s ridiculous.”

“Tell me.”

She took a quick, sobbing breath. “Karl never had this burning desire to make me a vampire, as I have for Violette. It didn’t possess him so strongly that it nearly killed him. He didn’t take me away and simply do it. It wasn’t a burning light!”

“Charlotte...”

“And I’m crying because he’s not here now. Because he wouldn’t help me, wouldn’t see...”

“Charlotte, try to understand him. What you’re doing to Violette is what he did to Ilona! And he thinks you’ll live to regret it, as he did. Then, next time the desire comes to transform someone, you’ll fight it and it will be agony, whatever your decision. How can you say he didn’t burn? You were there. You know everything he felt and the anguish he endured. You know.”

“Yes. I know.” She let her head drop. The tears eased their hold. “Why are you so good to me?”

“Why not? It’s easy to be kind. It’s especially easy with you, because you respond so sweetly. Besides, it gives me pleasure.” Stefan leaned over, lifted her chin, and kissed her lips; the kiss of a lover and friend, such a rare combination, electrifying and soothing all at once.

“I could fall in love with you, Stefan,” she said.

“I am in love with you, Charlotte.”

“No, you’re not. You only love yourself.”

“And Niklas!” he said indignantly.

“As I said; yourself. But then, I seem to fall in love with almost anyone.”

“Oh, now I am insulted,” Stefan said lightly.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean...”

“Oh, don’t apologise. I know you think the world of me.”

Charlotte laughed. “Well, I do.” They kissed again, and the kiss was delicious, lingering, poignant because they both knew it would never go any further. Stefan’s lips slid down to her neck and she thought he would bite her... but he only planted a kiss on her collarbone, and pulled back.

“It’s easy for us to love each other, because we will never cause each other pain,” he said. For once he was serious, even sad. “You’ll never make demands on me, because there is nothing you really want of me. And I will never tear your heart to pieces, because only Karl has that power. Hasn’t he?”

“Only Karl,” she agreed.

Stefan went to his twin, stood behind him and stroked his blond hair. Niklas looked ahead with a slight smile: a porcelain doll. “It’s Niklas I feel sorry for. He can never share the pleasures of helping friends or kissing lovers.”

“But he never feels pain, either, does he?”

“Is that good? It only means he can never understand.” Stefan seemed far away, and for a moment sorrow burned from him like a white sword. Then he was himself again. “Why don’t you go and look at Snow White?”

Charlotte went into the bedroom and sat on the bed. Violette lay with her head on one side, her bare left arm an ivory curve against the covers. She was awake. Her eyes glistened darkly under not-quite-closed lids.

“I’m sorry, Violette,” Charlotte whispered. “I’ve made such a mess of this. I never meant to frighten or force you, but I couldn’t see any other way. I don’t know how to explain!”

Violette half-turned her head to look at her. Her voice was languid and hoarse, as if she barely had strength to speak. “It’s all right, Charlotte. I know. I always knew this was going to happen. I was born with this curse... What use is it to fight?”

“You make it sound so negative, so evil.”

“But that’s what I am. I can’t resist my own nature.”

“You are not evil!”

“According to the Church, the tiniest unrepented sin may condemn us to hell. What does it mean then, to lie willingly in the arms of a vampire while I wait to be taken into your ranks?”

Charlotte gripped her arm in frustration. “But if there’s no God - if mortals can be as bad as we are - oh, I don’t know what to say, because you’re right! There are no excuses. We have nothing to commend us. What I intend to do to you is wrong. But tell me you don’t want it, that you’d rather sit crippled in a wheelchair, or give up and die, and I’ll let you go.”

Violette only sighed. “It doesn’t work that way,” she said tiredly. “My intellect rejects you, but my instinct says I have no choice. It’s nothing to do with dancing or cheating illness. It’s something quite separate... I don’t understand. Perhaps it’s the wine and opium. I won’t fight you... but I’m still frightened, Charlotte.”

“Don’t be.” She kissed Violette’s limp hand. She preferred it when Violette fought; this bleak acceptance of the inevitable was ghastly.

“But I’m terrified.” Violette took a short, dry breath. “I’m so damned terrified I could die.”

Voices from the outer room. Charlotte sensed another vampire and thought
Karl!
- even as she knew it was not him. Giving Violette’s hand a squeeze, she went into the drawing room and was astonished to see Katerina there, majestic in white fur.

Seeing Charlotte, she gave a start. “My dear, I didn’t expect to find you here. But of course, I should have realised.”

“Should you?”

“Karl told me of your intention to bring Violette into our circle.” Katerina looked at the bedroom door. “She’s in there, is she? Still human.”

Charlotte was incensed by her arrival, her patronising omniscience. Stefan was unperturbed. “We had a little trouble with Ilona,” he said ruefully.

“How astonishing.” Katerina let her fur coat slide into his hands. “If ever you did
not,
that would be news.”

“What do you want?” said Charlotte. “Did Karl send you?”

Katerina gave her a cool look that became suddenly conciliatory. “I don’t blame you for snapping at me, but must we stay on bad terms? He sent me, but not about Violette.”

“Why, then?”

“He wants to see Stefan. It’s not urgent.” Her voice was quiet and Charlotte noted a difference in her demeanour. She was less regal and condescending, more vulnerable. She sat down, folding her arms on the table and looking up at Charlotte. “All the same, hasn’t it occurred to you that Karl might be right? It’s a terrible, momentous thing to end a human’s life like this.”

“Do you think I don’t know that?” Typical that she’d take Karl’s side! “I’ve been through it all. Did you and Andreas plead for Karl’s life when Kristian decided to make him a vampire? He didn’t ask for it, either. Well, did you?”

“No,” said Katerina.

Charlotte was struck by the openness of her admission. Why had she changed? “No, you helped. Why?”

Katerina’s full deep-pink lips parted. She seemed taken off-guard. “Kristian was a hard master to disobey.”

“And the rest! Don’t tell me Karl’s beauty played no part, that you didn’t want to see such beauty live forever. You couldn’t care less for his human life!

“It’s true. I loved him. We all did. Kristian fed us the idea that vampires were meant to be solitary creatures with only one attachment: Kristian himself. Easy to believe, when you first pass through the veil. Suddenly humans seem a world apart, and it’s difficult to feel for anyone when your strongest emotion is a craving for blood. You feel cold, isolated, afraid, and Kristian is the only one you can turn to.”

Charlotte thought,
This is the first time she’s actually talked to me!
Disarmed, she said more gently. “Was that how it felt for you?”

“At the beginning. I had been very religious. I was sincere in my faith, so I was sincere and passionate in my devotion to Kristian. But, with being the devout acolyte Kristian demanded, there came terrible pain. The truth is, we need companionship. We are not austere creatures like monks. We are profligate with our passions, we crave affection just like the humans we once were, if not more so. In other words, to comply with Kristian’s image of a vampire is a lie. That’s why Andreas and I turned away from him. He demanded the impossible. That’s why he lost almost everyone in the end. How could he expect me to look on the beauty of Andreas and Karl, and not want to touch them and love them?”

“Why did he choose people who were bound to let him down?”

“He was the world’s worst judge of character. Don’t you agree, Stefan?”

“Thank heaven,” Stefan said with a grin.

“He saw what he thought he could make us, not who we really were.” Katerina’s gaze drifted into the distance. “Karl was a soft silent creature; a cat, keeping to the edges of the room, observing without being observed. You catch a glimpse of him in the shadows; his dark brows indented over his lovely eyes, a shine of red fire on his hair, the faintest smile on his lips. All the rest is darkness; but his face, you would die for. Kristian was fooled; he imagined that because Karl stays in the shadows and says little that he is not strong, not dangerous.”

“You don’t have to tell me this,” said Charlotte. “I know him.”

“I’m simply describing him; isn’t this the man, the vampire, we both know? But your reaction proves my point! You can’t bear the thought of sharing him. I don’t condemn you, because I’m guilty too. He makes us both possessive, because neither of us
can
possess him.”

A strange calmness washed over Charlotte. At last she felt able to talk to Katerina. The war between them was over, although neither had won. Charlotte said, “I lost almost everything I had for him, and my soul is damned - by the laws of common decency, if not by God Himself. Yet I still think I’m the luckiest creature in the world. But I never stop paying. Every moment we’re apart is... agony.”

Katerina looked candidly at her. “I had no idea you felt such pain. I’ve never suffered to that degree over anyone. It sounds nightmarish.”

“It can be. But it’s worth anything to be with Karl. Or was, if he will ever speak to me again.”

“How can you have anything left for Violette?”

“Precisely because she’s the only being with the power to stop me thinking about him.”

Katerina gave a disapproving huff. “Dangerous to give others such a hold on you. Love them, by all means, but don’t let love kill you. The way to survive is to need no one; then no one can hurt you.”

“Oh, that’s a fine principle, that goes all to pieces when a certain person intrudes on your life. I tried to convince myself I could exist without Karl, and I can. Exist - not live.”