A Dance in Blood Velvet (64 page)

K
arl watched the steel-fanged mouth of the tiger closing on Stefan’s neck as if in a nightmare, unable to prevent this horror.

As
revenge this is perfect,
Karl thought.
Kristian himself would have approved. Forcing me to destroy my own friends...

“We are not cruel,” Rasmila had claimed. In the three daemons’ eyes this was justice, that Karl should be watching Stefan die in the jaws of a metal beast, that Charlotte and Katerina were struggling painfully for life only to face the same doom when their turn came. Meanwhile the angels merely watched and smiled.

All the time, Karl was aware of the blood-bond linking him to the daemons and to Ben; an open channel to their will. Like a blood-red cord it was tightening. Vibrations travelled through it, becoming images: a veiled woman rising up like a serpent, expressing denial in a voice like thunder. Surrender, pain, grief, release. The cord began to fray. And then the denial again, slashing like a knife-blade.

“I
cannot be Lilith. They lied. Senoy, Sansenoy, Semangelof, I defy you. I will not obey you, now or ever!
”

The cord snapped.

Karl felt the break deep inside his mind. It was like a sudden violent haemorrhage, then stillness, freedom.

The angels’ power over him had gone. And, dear God, he knew why.

He leapt forward, slammed his hand onto the switch that stopped the tiger. It froze, teeth half in Stefan’s neck.

“Keep still,” said Karl.

Stefan whispered, very weak, “I am going nowhere, believe me.”

Karl slid his hands into the hinged mouth and wrenched the lower jaw clean off, leaving broken wires and twisted metal. Stefan collapsed to the ground, a necklace of deep wounds oozing crimson blood - but they’d heal, Karl knew, and Stefan would live. He turned and, with slight shock, saw Niklas on his knees, holding his own throat, sharing Stefan’s pain.

The intrusion of the Crystal Ring was fading. Ben could not sustain it on his own. He was leaning heavily on the silver swan’s casing, white with exhaustion. Katti was with Andreas, shaking him, hugging him.

Karl’s gaze swept to Charlotte, and his soul failed. She was face down on the floor, her hair a bronze cloud tangled with dried blood. He saw the corner of the Book beneath her shoulder.

He started towards her, but Simon, Rasmila and Fyodor gathered to block his path. Their radiance dimmed until they seemed more human than angelic. Clearly aware their power had gone; they looked at each other in consternation.

“It has failed,” said Rasmila, plucking at Simon’s arm. He seemed dumbstruck, and even Fyodor’s arrogance had vaporised. Karl felt no sympathy at all.

There was distant scream. Benedict raised his head, exclaimed, “Lancelyn!” and fled the gallery, taking the spiral stairs three at a time. The three envoys started after him, moving, in Karl’s perception, in slow motion. He went to the nearest tripod and seized the brass censer; a bowl two feet across, heavy, with red-hot embers still smoking within. Barely feeling its heat, Karl flung it at Simon. Scattering ash as it spun through the air, it caught Simon’s skull hard and pitched him onto the floor. Karl was already running towards him, seizing the axe from the hooded executioner as he went.

The weapon was heavy and sharp.
God knows for which of us it was intended
. He put his foot on Simon’s back, pressing him down; then he swung the axe at the golden-fair neck.

The blade struck bare tiles. Karl stumbled in the space where Simon had been. An image lingered, a glowing body-shape fading into the Crystal Ring. Glancing up, he saw Rasmila and Fyodor vanishing, black and a white ghosts, frozen in attitudes of flight; now there, now gone.

He dropped the axe, and ran down the last stretch of the gallery to Charlotte. Lifting her up, he found her hands crabbed around the Book - but she was alive. Her eyelids fluttered heavily and she tried to speak. He began to prise the Book from her.

“Let it go, Charlotte. Let go!”

At last he wrenched the tome from her and hurled it away, straight into the smouldering embers from the brazier. Then he fell to his knees, holding her, his face hidden in her hair.

He stroked her head, felt her skull smooth and whole under his fingers. The injury had healed.
Thank God, or whatever powers rule us
. Relief flooded him.

“Forgive me,” he said.
“Liebe Gott,
I never meant to -”

“Karl,” she whispered, “Karl, hush. I know it wasn’t your fault. There’s no need to say anything.”

“I want to kill those who made me hurt you! But what were you doing with the Book?”

He felt warmth returning to her hands. Her mouth curved with irony. “Trying to stop you.”

He shook his head. “Oh, love, I doubt it would have worked; I’m sure the angelic envoys were immune, and I was under their control. But it might have killed
you
.”

“I don’t think so. I am not guilty enough.” She sighed. “Yet.”

As he helped her to her feet, she carefully probed the back of her head. Her eyes misted with disbelief. “Oh lord, it’s healed. How wonderful... how horrible.” She raised her face to his; still lovely, even after she’d come close to death and sprung back to life, as vampires could. “But what happened? Why did the angels leave?”

“I have some idea,” he said gravely. “Lilith linked their circle of power, and she could choose to break it - which she did. But let us find out.”

Stefan came to them, one arm around Niklas’s waist. His wounds were healing - more swiftly than Charlotte’s, but he looked deathly. “You believe in leaving things to the very last second, don’t you, Karl? My God, what in hell were you trying to do?”

“It wasn’t me, Stefan,” Karl said, gripping his shoulder. “Believe me, I’m so sorry; you know I would not hurt you for the world.”

Stefan nodded, kissed Charlotte’s cheek and leaned his head against hers. There was no need to speak.

From the far end of the gallery, Katerina called, “Karl? We should go after Benedict.”

“Yes, we’re coming,” he said, but Stefan shook his head.

“Not me. I’m not taking Niklas into more danger. What would he do without me? And if I lost him, I should die. I’m sorry if you think me a coward, but I will not take any more risks with his life.”

“It’s all right, we understand,” said Charlotte. “Can you enter the Ring?”

“I think so, now those creatures and Benedict have stopped interfering with it. We’ll see you in London. Be careful.”

Stefan and his twin vanished. Karl sighed, feeling no resentment at their departure. “I doubt there’s any more he can do here anyway,” he said. “Come on.”

When they reached the main room with its cathedral windows, Lancelyn’s distress streamed to meet them, a tangible miasma. Exchanging a glance, Karl and Charlotte ran to the door on the far side, following Katti and Andrei, all drawn by the pungency of human sweat and terror. Sensory impressions streamed over Karl. The melting reds, greens and blues of the windows; the weight of stone walls, the grim cold atmosphere. He sensed water rushing through hidden caves far below, stillness outside... Two centres of heat that were Ben and Lancelyn. And a silver-purple storm waiting for them...

Human warmth drew them along a passage to a large bedchamber. Karl heard Ben’s voice raised, almost screaming. The door was open, Violette standing just inside, Ben gripping her shoulders. Lancelyn was lying naked on his stomach a few feet away. Pushing past Katti and Andrei, Karl entered the room.

Benedict was shaking Violette, shouting, “What have you done to him? What have you done?”

He might as well be shaking an automaton. She stared through him and ignored his grip as if rooted in stone. Her mouth dripped blood.

Since Ben had forced Karl to act against his own friends -whether he’d known what he was doing or not - Karl had no sympathy left for him. He broke Ben’s grip and shoved him back against the wall, so hard that he grunted with pain. “Leave her alone. Have you not done enough harm?”

Ben writhed, trying to escape, hardly seeing Karl. “She attacked my brother, she tried to kill him! Look at him!”

Karl looked down at Lancelyn. The magus who’d once seemed so poised, intelligent, humorous, now writhed in madness on the floor, all dignity gone. Karl saw two purple marks on his neck and his pallor, a sure sign of Violette’s feast. His face was contorted, unhuman sounds hissing from his throat, a hideous grin twisting his mouth. All the light had gone from his eyes. Karl turned away in disgust and pity.

Looking at Violette, he asked, “What happened?”

She wiped her hand across her lips. “He forced me...” She trailed off. Karl sensed she was not ready to be reasoned with or consoled. She seemed primal, isolated.

Ben was leaning down to Lancelyn, weeping openly now. “Someone help me with him, please.”

As he reached down, Lancelyn rose in a serpentine contortion and attacked him. His hands went round Ben’s neck and the two men collapsed on the floor. Ben fought, choking soundlessly.

By reflex, Karl seized Lancelyn and tried to separate them.

Incredible, his strength, almost vampiric. Karl held the thick wrists and prised them slowly away, conscious of Rasmila-Semangelof’s energy burning fierce but short-lived within him. The brothers’ sweat-stench was now strong enough to mask the aroma of blood. Karl did not think of feeding. Ben’s mouth was open, his face a purple mask of agony. Then Karl jerked Lancelyn loose. Ben scrambled up and ran, coughing and retching.

Karl held Lancelyn’s wrists hard, trying to calm him. Lancelyn went on writhing beneath him, his tongue flicking from side to side in the red slot of his mouth. His eyes were white crescents. The revelation drove Karl almost to tears. Lancelyn was not hysterical, but completely unhinged. The brain behind the eagle-keen eyes dashed on the rocks of ambition. And although he’d hardly known the magus, the tragedy burned him.

“Get out, all of you,” Karl said.

Karl flung Lancelyn aside and ran. As soon as he was through the door, Ben slammed it shut and locked it behind him. Katti and Andrei were in the passage, but there was no sign of Violette and Charlotte.

The door shook in its frame as Lancelyn threw himself against the other side. Ben jumped, wild-eyed.

“You must leave him locked in, for your own safety,” said Karl.

“I can’t leave him there forever!” Ben’s voice was cracked and raw, and he rubbed at his larynx, coughing between words.

“I suggest you summon medical help. However, it will take strong men to restrain him.”

“My God - are you suggesting... an asylum?”

They looked at each other as Lancelyn’s hellish groans mapped his agitated, random movement around the chamber.

“What do you think?” Karl said coldly.

Ben raised both hands to rub at his face and neck. “I was meant to protect him! I was so busy thinking the threats were all outside - I never thought the danger was in bed with him! God forgive me!”

Karl took his arm, impersonal but firm. “Come away,” he said. “We should find Violette, before she does any more harm.”

He led Ben back to the main room. He’d expected Violette to flee, but she was standing below the central window like a supplicant before an altar. Slim as a lily-stem, trembling faintly, she was untouchable. The window, showing the Serpent in the Garden of Eden, spilled ruby and emerald light over her.

Charlotte was with Katerina and Andreas, watching from a distance.

“Was that her first taste of blood?” asked Karl, resting his hands on her shoulders.

“Yes, it was,” Charlotte murmured, softening and leaning into his touch. “She gave in at last.”

“Nothing more devastating. We never forget that first taste. Poor Lancelyn, to have been her prey... though perhaps he deserved it.”

Ben rasped, “You witch! You might as well have murdered him!”

Violette spun to face him. “What have I done?” Her voice was flint-hard with fury. “He began this. What about the evil he’s done to me?”

“How dare you -”

“He forced me to take his blood! Forced me. If he hadn’t, I would never -”

She stopped, bowing her head, hands cupping her elbows.

Karl said, “That isn’t true. The thirst would have overcome you eventually, whatever the circumstances.”

“No.”

“This is monstrous!” said Ben. “Lancelyn didn’t deserve this! He acted from the highest motives.”

“He was deluding himself,” said Karl. “His motives were as selfish as could be. He sought immortality and power by taking an incredible risk. The vampire’s bite can bring madness; he must have known this. He was a fool to imagine that enlightenment would come from it. But he thought he was different, superior to everyone else.”

“What I did to Lancelyn was horrible,” Violette said suddenly. “But he thinks he’s found what he wanted. He believes he’s become the Serpent of the Tree of Knowledge. Yet he’s merely mad. Is that not horrifying?”

“You’re mocking me,” Ben said hoarsely. “God, Karl, can’t you get her out of here? I want her away from Lancelyn!”

“Where were his precious envoys?” Andreas put in sardonically. “Why didn’t they save him?”

Violette said, “They’ve gone.”

“We know,” said Karl, “but how?”

“I tried to do what they asked but I couldn’t. I’m fated to disobey them. That was why they left. I wanted to obey - I thought if I surrendered, I might be saved - but I cannot stop being this -this
thing
for trying.”

Charlotte left Karl and approached the dancer. Her deep-lidded smoky eyes were full of questions, compassion. She was pure warmth in Karl’s eyes; golden-bronze and russet, aglow like autumn, while Violette was stark black and white. And Charlotte’s obvious love for her still twisted his heart. Karl felt Katerina move close to him, her hand sliding through his arm.

“Are you any closer to understanding what you are?” Charlotte asked gently. She extended a hand, but Violette jerked away, stared sullenly from Karl to the others, her arms folded defensively. Unpredictable passions coiled in her eyes.

“I was reborn yesterday, but I feel ancient. My birth was painful, but when it was over I was five thousand years old. I remember being Lilith, the Mother of Vampires. I
am
Lilith.”