The Dark Blood of Poppies (15 page)

The talk among the passengers was of the legendary Madame Lenoir. Greatly excited at the prospect of meeting her, they were to be disappointed. Charlotte gave up hope of Josef even glimpsing her before they reached New York.

Some months ago, Charlotte had told Karl about Josef. “A friend of my father,” she’d said. “We met by chance and he recognised me. I tried to pretend he’d made a mistake but he saw through me… and yes, he knows I’m a vampire.”

Karl had warned her against making human friends, so she’d been nervous of his reaction. To her surprise, he’d been sanguine about it. She was touched that he still trusted her, after her relationship with Violette. But that was Karl.

For him to be confronted by Josef in person, however, was a different matter. She dared not tell him before the ship sailed, in case Karl persuaded her to leave Josef behind. So she’d said nothing.

No use delaying any longer, though. On the fourth night, at a cocktail party in a large mirrored stateroom, with the floor rocking gently beneath them, she took Karl to meet Josef.

Josef greeted her warmly, his kind face suffused with pleasure. If Karl was disconcerted by this show of affection, he didn’t betray it. Smiling to hide her apprehension, Charlotte said, “Josef, may I introduce Karl Alexander von Wultendorf. Karl, this is Dr Josef Stern.”

The men’s reaction to each other was formal and guarded as they exchanged pleasantries. Watching them together, Charlotte’s head swam. Both lean and elegant in evening dress, they could almost have been father and son.

She only wished they liked each other. They clearly did not.

As Karl didn’t know why Josef was here, nothing important could be discussed. Instead, a neutral conversation about the ship’s magnificence concealed an ice-edged game. Josef knew Karl’s true nature, which made the exchange even more difficult. And Karl, aware that this stranger knew his secret, was also wary. They were polite, but she saw the icy gleam in their eyes.

When Charlotte found an excuse to end the exchange, the two men parted with the impeccable courtesy of old friends.

Then Karl took Charlotte’s arm, led her through the crowd and up on deck. The ocean wind was damp and chill. No one else braved the night air.

“So tell me, dearest,” Karl said lightly, “What is Josef doing here?”

“I should have told you.”

“Ah, so it’s not a coincidence.” His eyes were dryly reproachful.

“No. I invited him.” She looked sideways at him, gauging his reaction. “I thought he might help Violette.”

Karl rarely showed any immortal arrogance – the assumption that humans had nothing to teach vampires – but she sensed a touch of it now. “In what way?”

“He was a physicist – that’s how he knew my father – but he also worked in psychology and he’s familiar with Hebrew writings about Lilith.”

“And this qualifies him to psychoanalyse Violette? I wish him luck.”

“What else can we try? He might perceive
something
we hadn’t thought of.” Charlotte felt defensive, and wished she didn’t. “Also, he has a niece in Boston. This is a perfect chance for him to visit her.”

“You are very considerate.”

“Are you jealous?” she said, suddenly amused.

Karl smiled, almost. “Charlotte, the man is in love with you.”

“Perhaps,” she said, with a slight shrug. “But he knows we can only be friends. He accepts it.”

“A mortal friend,” he said gravely, “who knows what we are.”

“I hope this isn’t another lecture about the dangers of human friends.”

“No lecture. Have I not left you to learn by experience?”

The remark was subtly barbed. Her friendship with Violette had proved disastrous. “You can be such a beast, Karl, without even trying.”

“Not to you, beloved.” His tone softened. “I wish you’d told me of this plan, that’s all.”

“I meant to. But I knew you’d warn against it, and of course you’re right. I shouldn’t have involved Josef. Should never have let him see what I am. But he seemed able to accept it without horror, that’s all.”

Karl leaned on the ship’s rail, arms folded, eyelids veiling his seductive eyes. “And it means so much, to be accepted by one mortal?”

“Of course.” She laid her hands on his sleeve. “Did you never need a human to accept you?”

“Only you.” He trailed one hand gently down her back. His touch made her shiver with pleasure, like the very first time he’d touched her.

“He isn’t my secret lover, Karl. Perhaps he’d like to be – but he isn’t.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” he said with a wry smile. “But my concern is for him. I welcome anything that could help Violette, but how will she react if you present her with a psychiatrist?”

“She’ll be furious. That’s why I must handle this with extreme care.”

“Quite,” said Karl, “because Josef is the one who’ll suffer if Violette reacts badly. You’ve put him in danger.”

“I know.” She exhaled. “But I’ve warned him, and I’ll protect him.”

“I hope so.” His long fingers pressed into her shoulder; the fingers of a musician, precise and strong. “For his sake.”

In the hour before dawn, after Charlotte had fed, she stood alone at the rail, cold salt spray on her lips echoing the hot salt of blood. Watching the waves, she thought about her family. Those few words, “He was a friend of my father,” led her along a thread of memories. She remembered her father, a gruff and imposing figure in his shapeless tweed jacket; a man with the modern mind of a scientist and a Victorian heart. She recalled quiet, happy times in his laboratory, Charlotte assisting as he teased out the secrets of the atom. His laboratory had been her refuge from the outside world.

She and her father had been close, yet unable to communicate. He couldn’t endure losing his beloved daughter to Karl… and how could she justify her decision to put her love for a vampire before her own family?

Her behaviour had been unforgivable. She knew her father’s health was poor; part of her was still human enough to worry. At least he wasn’t alone. Her younger sister Madeleine, their brother David and his wife Anne, once Charlotte’s best friend, would always take care of him. She still loved them… But she’d hurt them too badly ever to go back.

The price of being with Karl was to leave my human life behind
, she told herself.
Oh, why’s it still so hard to let the memories go? But I can and I must.

This is where I belong. Leaving the past behind. Travelling to New York, Boston, a new world.

She watched the grey-green waves rising and falling, drawing the ship slowly towards the horizon. She let her imagination flow forward in time to the grey bowl of the harbour, towers rising through the haze, and the great oxide-green statue in all her grace, the flame of liberty making its eternal promise.

* * *

The real world came as a massive shock to Cesare.

With every step he took from Schloss Holdenstein, he became more aware of his own naivety. All his vampire life he had sheltered in the monumental dark temple of Kristian’s theology. After the master’s death, he’d stayed there, believing that one day Kristian must return, or eternal life had no point.

For centuries Cesare had seen the world only by moonlight. He’d seen his victims as prey, lacking inner life. He knew nothing of world events, war or politics. He was unaware that fashions had changed, that the motor car was supplanting the horse, that women were questing towards equality with men.

Even without Kristian, in his steady state of despondency, he had been at peace. He’d lived a monkish life. His mind had become small and cramped, a walnut shell sealed around nothingness.

But the shell was cracking.

Venturing from the castle was like walking on knives. How the sunlight dazzled. How strange people looked in daylight, busy and oblivious to him. He was used to being his victim’s universe, the last thing they ever saw! He hated being ignored. Yet he bore it, forcing himself to observe and learn.

A dreadful feeling grew inside him.
Fear
. His ignorance was a thick fog between him and the unfamiliar world.

Cesare knew Violette lived in Salzburg, but he didn’t wish to face her without an armoury of knowledge. Instead he travelled through Switzerland to Italy, once his native land. There people took him for a priest and called him Father. Cesare liked that. It restored his sense of self.

The world dismayed him. Decadence, promiscuity, weak and faltering governments. He decided that a new order was sorely needed, among mortals and immortals alike.

But how little I know
, he thought.
How much I have missed!

These small admissions shredded his complacency until, close to his birthplace in northern Italy, despair overcame him. He broke down before the altar of a tiny village chapel and wept, dashing his head on the flagstones.

Kristian is gone. He is never coming back! Who is there to carry on after him?

No one but me.

A life-sized crucifixion, crudely carved and brown with age, hung above the altar. It represented a faith he’d forsaken long ago to follow the true saviour, Kristian. A soft human belief that sentimentalised meekness and mercy. But now the figure portrayed something else. The rigid arms nailed to the cross, the agonised face under a crown of thorns – all expressed Kristian’s own anguish at his betrayal.

In his grief, Cesare leapt onto the figure and clung to it, tearing its shoulder with his fangs. No one was there to witness the bizarre scene. Wood splintered, the foul taste of sap and old paint filled his mouth. Yet he went on in his frenzy, as if clinging to Kristian and punishing him at the same time.

The storm in his skull overcame him, and he fell. As Cesare lay on the flagstones, God showed him a nightmarish vision. A blond child curled up under the wrath of a witch: a vast, ragged figure with wings and claws, wild black hair. She was beating the boy with a rod, lashing the tiny tender body with glee. Her hair flapped in a gale from hell.

Cesare knew that she was both the child’s mother and the universal mother – the goddess of destruction, bride of the Devil, the Enemy.

Terror overwhelmed him. He wept for the tiny golden boy, but couldn’t move. He knew that the child was secretly a cherub, immortal.

Next he saw a bright gold figure with white wings and a fiery sword. Cesare saw himself at a door with a key in his hand. And he understood.

I must open the door to God’s army. Let them through and they will slay the witch-mother and save the sweet child of immortality!

The vision ended. He rose to his knees, gasping with terror and hope. He laughed and cried. “Forgive me, Father,” he said, clasping his hands. “I doubted you, but now I understand. Kristian died to test me. Use me, Lord. Let me be your sword in the war against the Enemy!”

Presently Cesare walked out into the sunlight. As he emerged, he saw lines of soldiers marching along the dusty, bright road. It was the most beautiful sight he’d ever seen: light filtering through the green leaves, gilding these brisk rows of disciplined, strong young men.

Cesare felt new-born.

Now
, he thought.
Now I am ready to face Lilith
.

* * *

Cesare arrived at the Ballet Janacek’s house in Salzburg by night and entered, feeling all-powerful and disdainful, as if this act of stealth were below him. With heaven on his side, Violette could not touch him. The prospect of confronting her filled him with fire.

The house, save for a sleeping caretaker, was deserted.

Cesare’s first thought was that Violette had deliberately, spitefully thwarted him. Then he felt relieved. He thought of killing the caretaker as a small warning, but a letter on a desk distracted him. It concerned a tour of America, making it plain the company would not be back until autumn.

But this is excellent
, he thought.
I have time to plan
.

Cesare’s new interest in the world led him to explore storerooms and offices, kitchens and rehearsal rooms. He lingered in an empty dance studio, then ascended to the private apartments.

Photographs of Violette were everywhere. Other dancers, too, but her face held him. Blanched skin and huge dark eyes, black feathers clasping her head. Even in monochrome she was enchanting. “Odile, 1925,” read the caption. Cesare had no idea who Odile was. A witch, clearly.

Here she was again, in loose white chiffon, her hair unbound. “Giselle, 1923.” A glacial sylph under a mantle of soot-black hair. Cesare stared, trembling. Through her terrifying eyes, her soul lanced straight into his, and he recognized her.

Oh yes, she was the witch of his vision.

She was the Enemy.

She was everything Kristian had fought against, an affront to God. Alien, impure, uncontrollable, irreverent, wicked. She would bring degradation and death.

He backed away, transported by the pure fire of hatred. Then he knew. Pierre and John had spoken the truth. Lilith was real and at large in the world, more terrible than even John had suspected.

“And you’re mine,” Cesare whispered to her frozen face. “Mine to deal with.”

He raced back to Schloss Holdenstein as if winged. No good to wallow any longer, hoping in vain for Kristian’s resurrection. He knew he must take up the holy work in his own way. Destroy the Enemy, Lilith, and create a new order.

Cesare thought of the strong and joyous young soldiers he’d seen.
They were only humans
, he thought.
I am immortal, God’s chosen. I have a battle to fight, a golden world to create – and never again, as I build the new empire, shall I walk in another’s shadow.

He’d stolen a small framed photograph. Inside the castle, he drew it from a pocket and gazed on the insolent face of chaos. Violette was in a daring, tight-fitting costume of glittering jet scales, not unlike the changed shape of a vampire in the Crystal Ring. The caption read, “The Serpent,
Dans le Jardin
, 1925.”

“If you think you can slaughter the chosen of God,” he whispered, “you are very wrong, Lilith.”

He smashed the glass with his knuckles. His blood smeared the dancer’s image, dripping over her throat and breasts, obliterating her eyes.