A Dance in Blood Velvet (56 page)

As they emerged into the street, Charlotte perceived the city as an iron blur in which every human glowed like a magnetic red fire. Katerina steered her between them. They passed through a little garden square enclosed by railings... and Charlotte saw a girl coming towards them, no older than herself, with a cheerful open face, an expensive coat, a terrier on a lead. In that moment, though, she was not a person. She had no purpose but to slake Charlotte’s wrenching thirst.

The girl stopped, staring at Charlotte; first confused, then captivated. “Excuse me, but do I know you?” she said.

They appeared as sisters, embracing. Charlotte pressed her face into the girl’s fur collar, seeking a vein. And then came the gorgeous spurt of blood and convulsive, excruciating relief...

And guilt. The beauty of it, and the horror.

Charlotte managed to leave the girl alive; but with what nightmares, she would never know.

* * *

Violette was in a desolate, storm-torn landscape that was in perpetual motion. She sat cross-legged on a mountain that bore her weight with the buoyancy of liquid, not rock. The peaks around were the colour of slate; the sky - if it could be called a sky - the most glorious deep blue she’d ever seen.

She knew this was the Crystal Ring. An ocean of wild, hallucinatory colour where clouds became mountains and the earth below was mist. A kind of hell, formed of pure energy. Lethal energy that could flood human cells and veins with demonic immortality and vile appetites.

Her captors stood around her. She now knew their names; the golden one, who glowed with red fire, was Senoy. The pale one with milky hair and silver eyes was Sansenoy. And the dark one, crowned with long blue-black hair, was Semangelof.

“Lilith,” said Senoy. “Beautiful Lilith.”

God’s envoys had come for her, just as she dreaded. She was cold, achingly cold to her bones, and so hungry that every fibre of her body screamed for blood. But her discomfort was only a backdrop to her burning fear and rage.

“You will not refuse us again,” said Sansenoy. He was icy and domineering; the leonine Senoy exuberant and warm. Semangelof seemed quiet, even empathic, but Violette knew their personalities were deceptive. Masks on sticks that angels held up to shield their true nature.

“I won’t come back,” Violette whispered. “I won’t be Lilith any more.”

“You can’t
not
be Lilith, dear,” said the dark female. “You always have been and always will be her.”

“My name is Vi-” She couldn’t utter the word. It seemed so far away, and a lie. She was Lilith.

“We offer you redemption,” said Senoy. “You disobeyed God, yet God in His mercy gave you a role; to become his His retribution against those who stray. The greatest evil is disobedience. If sheep stray, they become fodder for the wolf. You are the wolf of God!”

How lovely, their singsong voices. Violette closed her eyes, lulled.

Sansenoy said, “To be God’s sword on Earth, you must submit to His will. You are Mother of all Vampires, Lilith, the scourge of mankind. God cast you down and He raised you up to be his lash! Take your responsibility!”

Her eyes flew open. “God has done nothing for me,” she said. “I won’t repent, I won’t do His will! I was punished for the crime of wanting freedom. I won’t repent. I will not be used to punish mortal sinners.”

“Then you will remain the outcast of outcasts,” said the scarlet-gold angel. “The screech-owl in the night. You cannot disobey God without paying.”

“Have I not paid?”

“Come with us now, and all debts will be settled.”

She couldn’t think straight, with these dazzling creatures staring through her. She was drunk on hunger and madness.
Who was the ballerina who danced so ecstatically? Was it me? No, someone else. I don’t even remember her name.

She said, “Come with you, where?”

“There cannot be a queen without a king,” said Semangelof. “You are incomplete. You rejected Adam. All your sorrow stems from this original sin. So come and be joined.”

“To whom?” Violette spoke scornfully. “To the Devil? To my father? To Janacek? It’s all the same. God wants me joined to some man who will absorb me completely into himself.”

A faint sigh from Semangelof. “Ah, she understands.”

“I understand that I’m not allowed the freedom I desire.”

“Perfect freedom resides in perfect obedience,” said the white angel. “Your last chance, Lilith: come with us to your new consort. Apart, you are both incomplete. Together, you will empower each other.”

Violette said, “I am no one’s consort.” Her voice was faint, and reason was bleeding out of her.

“All your bitter loneliness,” said the dark one. “Swallow your pride, and all shall be healed. You’ll be complete.”

“Aren’t you a woman?” Violette whispered. “Why aren’t you on my side?”

“A true woman knows that her place is at her husband’s side.”

Someone plucked a thread, and Violette’s mind unravelled.

Sick, cold and lost, she surrendered to their convictions like a dead leaf to the wind. “Take me,” she said. “Do whatever you must.”

She felt their hands on her, scorching her fragile flesh as they lifted her up through the otherworld ocean of storm and fire. “You won’t redeem me, you’ll kill me.” They weren’t listening. Still the words fell faintly from her dry lips. “And it’s not Lilith you’re taking back to Adam. Only what’s left of me.”

K
arl’s abductors flew so low through the Ring that he saw the strangely warped and compressed contours of Earth. Deprived of strength, Karl felt like a disembodied eye floating across the darkness. Farmland, villages, and a smoky city passed below. Then came deep-cut hills, valleys flooded with fog.

The three swooped down, holding him. Reality exploded around them; the hills became massive walls louring against the sky. Steep-shouldered peaks rose from a fast-running wide stream. The rush of water and the occasional bleats of sheep were muffled in the mist. Even to vampire eyes, the light was dim and eerie; grass and bracken, rocks and water were colourless.

Karl glimpsed a village far away. The inhabitants slumbered, unaware of preternatural creatures diving over the hills. He saw a mass of trees, and a railway line snaking away into the fog. Then the landscape tipped, and he saw a massive stone house poised on a hillside. The angels accelerated towards it.

Karl knew the house was Lancelyn’s. He sensed power, too much like Kristian’s. The dead stone hand of a despot... and this hill was a black slope in Hades where demons fought futile wars forever.

Karl saw the fortress wall looming fast. He thought,
We’re only half in the Crystal Ring, we won’t pass through!

He felt the impact as a dense, grainy substance swallowed him. For a wild second he thought his abductors would leave him entombed in the wall. He floundered through the stone, slower and slower... until he pushed out a hand into clear air. With the last of his strength he dragged himself forward and broke through to the real world.

He was inside the house, leaning back against the now-solid wall. Dazed with blood-loss, Karl still felt the abrading, suffocating embrace of stone tingling on his skin. Without doubt, he was too weak to re-enter the Crystal Ring. He sensed granite all around him, thick-walled chambers stretching above and below.

Suddenly there was a grizzled human face staring into his. His captors had vanished. Gathering what remained of his wits, Karl found himself in a long, windowless gallery with a curved ceiling. Light came from a row of braziers poised on bronze tripods. Firelight flickered on the walls, throwing shadows from a collection of strange human-size figures... mechanisms made of metal, cloth and fur.

The man in front of Karl was the only living being. The only source of blood.

Yet Karl, although starving, couldn’t take him as prey. He was powerless to do anything except stare at the crumpled face, narrow mischievous eyes, the coarse hair and beard. Could this be the arrogant magus he’d confronted before? The man was dressed in shapeless brown overalls. With a screwdriver and an oil-gun in his left hand, he could have been a workman. But his sheer, solid confidence could belong to no one else.

“Welcome to Grey Crags,” said Lancelyn. He quickly wiped his free hand on his overalls, extended it; Karl disdained the gesture, only glared coldly at him. The man was unperturbed. “I’m delighted to meet you; sorry we weren’t properly introduced last time. I’m Lancelyn Grey. You are the legendary Karl. I apologise for my overfamiliarity, sir, but I understand that vampires change their names so often there’s little point in calling you ‘Mister’ or ‘Herr’.”

Karl laughed, surprising himself. He should have been furious, but there was something oddly endearing about Lancelyn’s manner. He said, “I almost did not recognise you as the infamous Lancelyn.”

“Infamous. I like that.” Lancelyn grinned. “Ah, well, can’t play the great magus all the time. I’ve work to do. Have to give my brother a proper welcome. Will you excuse me?”

Lancelyn turned away and went down on all fours to worry at the mechanism of a life-size fur-and-metal tiger that held a human figure between its paws. Karl thought,
Does he have no sense of danger
? He pressed his tongue to the tip of one fang, halfextended from its sheath with the pressure of hunger. And yet, he could not bring himself to strike.

Karl went a few steps closer. “Would you care to tell me why I’m here?”

“I wanted to meet you properly. I’ve heard so much about you. The only vampire Ben can’t control, correct? Yet you’ve been working with him - not least in trying to burn my bloody house down, but I’ll let that rest. And you are also, I understand, the one who killed the Lord of Immortals, Kristian. My daemons are not at all happy about that.”

His casual tone barely masked an implied threat. Karl absently made to rest a hand on the tiger’s head.

“Don’t touch it!” Lancelyn exclaimed, straightening up. “Bloody dangerous, this thing. I’ve just got it working. Wonderful curiosities, aren’t they? Damned sorry I lost that Mexican.”

Karl realised he meant the ugly cigar-lighter that had sat on the desk in his other house. “Also a fire-hazard, if you are not careful.”

Lancelyn gave him a dry, knowing look. “No hard feelings. I didn’t keep the really important books there anyway. Nothing has happened that was not meant to happen.”

Karl had an uncomfortable feeling that this was true. “Your ‘daemons’ - who are they?”

Lancelyn flicked a switch, and the tiger came to life. It turned its head from side to side, flicked its tail, roared. The puppet beneath its paws struggled, its painted face a caricature of mortal fear. Then the tiger opened its jaws, lunged, and bit off its head.

As the automaton came to rest, Lancelyn touch a hidden switch, made it disgorge the head, and reset the mechanism. “Excellent,” he said.

“You haven’t answered my question,” said Karl.

“Well, it isn’t for me to discuss the business of angels. They wish to have words with you, but I have no quarrel with you.”

“Angels?” Karl felt a rush of shock and scepticism.

“Well, what should we call them? ‘Vampires’ hardly does them justice, ‘daemons’ or guardian spirits implies that they’re here to serve me, whereas in fact they have their own reasons. I don’t command them; we work together, which is the best way. Messengers of God, if you like. Incidentally, I trust they didn’t hurt you?”

“I’ll live,” Karl said acidly. “But what are they, really? I was with three vampires who had agreed to help Benedict. We were attacked - so I thought - by three dark figures, yet suddenly there were not six vampires with me but three again. As if your daemons had taken over their bodies. Have I misunderstood?”

“Probably.”

“Are you going to explain?”

“No. I’m not being difficult, old chap; I’m not actually sure that I can. Come with me.”

Wiping his hands on a rag, Lancelyn walked the length of the gallery. Karl followed, thinking,
I’ve never met such a mortal before. Even Ben had respect for the beings he’d summoned, a healthy trace of awe. Yet Lancelyn isn’t stupid; it isn’t mere bravado. He has absolute confidence. Shrewder than Kristian, less heavy-handed; perhaps more dangerous for that.

Karl, despite the discomfort of suppressed thirst and anger, was fascinated.

The gallery was a museum of automata. Some stood on tables - a silver, articulated swan swimming on a stream of glass rods, a rose-cheeked ballerina pirouetting on a spindle - but most were floor-mounted. Larger than life, grotesque. A gipsy with a moth-raddled dancing bear; a man repeatedly catching the same fish; a guillotine about to sever the head of a revolutionary, while a waxen-faced woman endlessly knitted the same square of wool. A hooded executioner bearing a huge axe...

At the far end, a spiral staircase led up into the body of the house. Water rushed somewhere deep below. The house was old, but the staircase and plaster-work around the stairwell, Karl noticed, were new.

Lancelyn led him into a huge cathedral-like room. Bare granite walls were softened by luxurious furnishings. Roman Catholic opulence, the organic richness of Art Nouveau, heavy fringed silks like altar cloths, candles in brass sconces, lamps glowing under Tiffany shades. Five arched windows of stained-glass dominated a semi-hexagonal apse that - as Karl recalled from his outside view of the house - jutted magnificently over the hillside below. The night sky did not do the windows justice, but he still saw gorgeous jewel-colours, Bible scenes as works of art, holy figures set in sweeping landscapes.

Yet there was a lump of coldness at the room’s heart. Something that called to Karl and repelled him, clawing at his mind...

The Ledger of Death.

“Come in,” said Lancelyn, exchanging his overalls for a dressing gown of maroon quilted silk. “Make yourself at home. Mind if I smoke?”

Karl saw the Book lying in the centre of a massive rosewood desk. The sight of it made him feel faintly ill. This was the concentrated essence of the horror that had brought down Kristian...

“Ah, you’ve noticed,” said Lancelyn. “Benedict was rather upset at losing the Book, wasn’t he? My dear sir, you look terribly pale.”