The Dark Blood of Poppies (41 page)

Violette smiled. “Do you think they’d dare?”

“Don’t underestimate them. The Crystal Ring can give us strange powers.” Charlotte looked candidly at her. “It can take them away, too. We can’t take anything for granted.”

“Well, thank you for warning me.”

“I’m serious. Simon came and tried his hardest to persuade Karl and me onto their side. Perhaps he succeeded, I don’t know.”

“What do you mean?” Violette’s faint anxiety jumped to a higher pitch.

“I drank his blood. Karl fears it may have put me in his power.”

“Any symptoms?”

Charlotte shook her head. “But how can I know? Something might happen without me being aware, or able to stop myself.”

“You mean you might go for my throat? I don’t think you’d win.” Violette moved towards the windows. “I don’t want to hurt you, or anyone. But it’s what Lilith does when she feels threatened… I won’t harm them, as long as they stay away!”

“I can’t persuade them to do that. They’re frightened. They seem to think you’ve been sent by God to test them.”

“Perhaps I have,” Violette said softly. Turning, she saw concern in Charlotte’s eyes. “Are you sure you’re right to defend me?”

“Yes. I brought you into this, and I love you. If they kill you, they can take me too.”

“And Karl?”

Charlotte didn’t answer. “I should go.”

“Yes, go, Charlotte. I appreciate your concern, but all I want to think about is dancing.”

Charlotte vanished, without a kiss, looking desperately sad. Violette was on the verge of following, but restrained herself.
I’ve no room for sentiment. I must think about the end of this ballet, nothing else!

However, Violette couldn’t get the conversation out of her mind. Images of violence plagued her. She remembered their terrified faces as she plunged fangs and nails into their flesh: Matthew, Pierre, Rachel, Ilona…

She needed to escape. Melting into Raqia, she left Salzburg behind and flew to the Alps. There she walked for hours, oblivious to the cold, relishing the wildness of the mountains. A bitter wind wailing from the peaks blew ice needles into her face, chilling her from head to foot. Numbing the pain.

She hadn’t wanted to loiter in the Crystal Ring. It was too sinister, full of mysteries and accusations. No, the clean harshness of nature was the place to confront Lilith, to catch her black wings and bring her down.

What are you?
Violette cried.

I am night
, said Lilith.
I am blackthorn winter and the death of dreams. I am madness and cruelty and fever, I am disobedience and disappointment and disease. I am the laughter of demons and the tears of God and the Devil’s bride. I am all your worst fears.

You are many things
, said Violette.
You are a demon lover, a storm spirit and a night hag. You exist in every mythology. You have always been here.

Always
, Lilith agreed.
And I have a special affinity for blood.

But why? What are you?

Look harder. You’re looking but you can’t see me.

Violette tried. A great curtain of ink flowed across her mind. Searching for Lilith was like groping for the end of the ballet. But she was looking at nothingness. What she’d taken to be Lilith was only a dead end, a wall of blackness. The real Lilith moved somewhere behind the wall but Violette couldn’t reach her, couldn’t grasp the truth.

Why can’t I find you?

I am a Black Virgin in a shrine
, Lilith informed her.
I am a black stone in the earth. I am the end of all things.

But who are you?

I am you
, said Lilith.

“Then why can’t I remember?” Violette cried. “How can I know I’m you, yet not understand?”

Because
, said Violette-Lilith,
you are talking to yourself.

Crouching beside a rock in her thin lavender dress, the ice storm battering her, Violette screamed her anguish.

No one heard. The storm and the mountains ignored her.

After a time she stood, entered the Crystal Ring, and surged through the rolls of liquid cloud towards the south.

Again she’d denied herself blood, even knowing it was foolish. Thirst unhinged her. Her mind filled with the flapping of ravens, the maddening enigma of Lilith.
Black because she is veiled…

Violette thought of Lancelyn, the arrogant human mage who’d tried to unveil her. He’d called her the Black Goddess, bringer of wisdom, madness or death to those who penetrate her.

He’d been so certain of finding wisdom, but Violette had brought him madness. She’d destroyed him for his arrogance… yet the memory still needled her. What if he had been able to unveil Lilith’s mystery?
It’s obvious I can’t unveil myself. If I’d swallowed my pride, let him make an altar of me – perhaps the ritual would have enlightened us both.

But no, Lilith kept the veil closed. It was not what she wanted. And she must always have her own way.

Lilith was pulling her towards another horizon now.

Violette couldn’t forget Rachel’s visit, or the terrible sense of being hated purely for existing. She remembered Lilith’s rage, which had made her tear off Matthew’s head, compelled her to bite Rachel’s long, slender neck and swallow her fierce blood.

How could they ever forgive her?

Violette felt the pressure of hatred building against her. She sensed it in the Crystal Ring, where every tremor seemed to express a human nightmare or a vampire’s tortuous thoughts. Sometimes it happened that Lilith’s sixth sense caught the wavelength of an individual… And now she was thinking of Rachel, a victim of Lilith who’d simply disappeared. So many questions Violette needed to ask… How to find her, though?

Let Lilith guide me
, she thought.
Don’t fight. Let go…

She was a dark rag tossed on a sea of blue-black waves. Crimson light dripped endlessly down the chasm walls above her.

This realm is made of the fragile energy of thought-waves, so Charlotte says. And every vampire is part of it, so we each leave a vibration, a trace of our existence here.
She recalled an analogy made by Charlotte-as-scientist.

“Imagine the Crystal Ring as a cloud chamber. If human thoughts represent water vapour, then vampires are the atomic particles. Chains of bubbles form in our wake to mark our path.”

Raqia flowed inside Violette-Lilith, indivisible from her.

She saw a statuesque man with skin like burnished coal, walking across a parched golden plain. A single African, walking under a vast sky, watched by lionesses… and she knew he was a vampire.

And that was where Rachel was. Africa.

A long journey, but Violette couldn’t turn back. She climbed very high, almost to the
Weisskalt
, and travelled so fast that she terrified herself.
Perhaps
, she thought,
I could also travel to America in a night…

She found them at dawn, as the sun bleached the hem of night. Insects sang in the grass. She saw a single white tree on the plain, and beneath it Rachel and the African were sitting cross-legged, like travellers sharing stories. They wore loose white garments to deflect the sun. Rachel’s hair was an orange flame against the whiteness.

“Good morning, Rachel,” said Violette.

The woman started as if seeing a ghost; she turned a shade paler, if that were possible. The man looked up as if nothing could surprise him. He was muscular, his skin burnished ebony; he would tower over her if he stood.

“Oh, my God,” said Rachel.

“Not exactly. Try the other side.” Violette knelt, facing them. A snake slithered away from under her knees, rustling through the dry grass. “Won’t you introduce me to your companion?”

Rachel recovered herself and became cool, tense, self-controlled. “Malik, Violette.”

“Malik. I’ve heard of you. You’re one of the immortals who escaped the
Weisskalt
when Kristian died. One of the few who hasn’t threatened me. Yet.”

She studied his long, sombre face, his velvety eyes. He looked back serenely until she wondered if he spoke English. Then he said, “I have no reason to threaten you, Lilith.” His voice was bass-deep, soothing. “You are no threat to me.”

A hot wind sprang up, stirring grass and leaves. “Am I not? Do you mean that if we fought, you’d win?”

“No,” he said. “I mean that I don’t fear your bite. And you have no desire to attack me.”

She gazed at Malik, trying to perceive what he meant. She realised he spoke the truth. He raised no anger in her whatsoever. Why was he different?

She turned to Rachel. “You’re a long way from home.”

“But Malik isn’t. This continent is his home, the savannah, the desert, the jungle. He hates what we call ‘civilisation’.”

“What about you? Did you come all this way to escape me?”

“At first. I was afraid.”

“Is that why you’re not with the others?”

“What others?”

“Those who are plotting to kill me.”

“I don’t want to kill you,” said Rachel. “I thought if I saw you again, I’d be terrified – but I’m not.”

Rachel had changed, lost her acerbity and remoteness.

“I’m not here to frighten you,” said Violette. “I only came to see what happened to you.”

“You cared, after all?” Rachel’s tension softened. “I thought you were another Kristian, but you’re not. Malik and I are the same. We loathe Kristian and his kind, with their mania for power. I fled here out of fear, but I stayed because I belong here.” She smiled, her mouth as red as her hair. “I love this solitude. The freedom to walk these great plains without fearing any hunter, whether they wield claws or spears.”

“When did you discover this?”

Rachel raised her long fingers to her collarbone. “When you drank my blood. You stopped me dead like a wall and made me see that in making demands on you, I was behaving like Kristian. Don’t you realise, Violette, that you can’t merely feed? You change people.”

“I know,” Violette whispered. “Not always for the better.”

“Nor for the worse.” Rachel leaned forward and kissed Violette full on the mouth. “I’m not your enemy.”

Violette felt a flicker of desire, a poignant echo of Robyn’s presence. Lovely moment.

Rachel sat back on her heels and leaned on Malik’s shoulder. They gazed intently at her, pale and dark like chess pieces. Violette was suddenly afraid.

“You two see something that I can’t see for myself. What is it?”

“Darkness and evil are not the same thing,” said Malik. “When you understand, you’ll know more than I can tell you. But you must find the truth for yourself.”

“You’re right.”

“Will you take Malik’s blood, too?” asked Rachel.

Violette studied the tempting skin of his throat, so black it had a blue sheen. His calm eyes held wisdom she couldn’t yet decipher.
Dive through the layers of darkness beyond the veil, let in the lovely silver light…
Her heart quickened, and she had to look away. “No,” she said.

“Why not?”

“Because Malik does not need to change.”

* * *

Violette had expected to meet an enemy and instead found – dare she think it? – two friends. Or at least, two who didn’t despise her.

She raced northwards through Raqia, not feeling the cold.

Could I have persuaded them to fight with me? I doubt it. They don’t want that, and neither do I. I suppose I could draw an army of adoring followers, throw them against Cesare’s and watch them slaughter each other, as if I were some gloating goddess of war.

That’s why I drive them away – because they’d love me so easily if I let them, and I would destroy them. Cesare and Simon are right about me, and that’s why I must face my enemies alone.

Violette wished she could stay in Africa under the burning sky. Or in the desert, Lilith’s wilderness. Impossible. Chains drew her home.
And
, she thought,
I might have grown to envy Rachel and Malik’s love, another triangle from which I feel excluded.

But why envy anyone, when I despise love and its lies?

She knew that the comfort she’d sought in Robyn was an illusion.
Yes, it broke my heart to reject her, but she would never have loved me fully, because her deepest desires are for men.

Violette thought of Charlotte, who was generous with her affections, but who loved Karl more than her own life. She wasn’t sure she could bear to see Charlotte again without seizing her and piercing her divine throat… spending all her frustration on a carnal wave of blood.

Again she pictured Robyn, and Malik’s eyes telling her to follow her instinct. The ache of missing Robyn, struggling to finish the ballet, and fighting Lilith’s thirst, were all one. She changed direction. Magnetic lines drew her like gold threads, westwards above the Atlantic. She felt she could travel forever without rest or blood.

Another night and day before I arrive home
, she thought.
Two days of rehearsal lost. And my girls will worry…

But the journey would be worth it to catch one glimpse of Robyn’s face.

If only I can find an answer there.

* * *

Robyn felt cool, strong and in control. She told herself the feeling would last, and it did – for a full five minutes after Sebastian had left. Then she broke down.

It was like bereavement. Like falling, this hideous feeling of being gouged hollow, torn to shreds on a cold wind. She curled up, head between her elbows, hands folded on the back of her head. The effort of not crying was agony.

Come back, come back. What are we doing, why must it be like this?

Morning came. The day dragged and died. The night was eternal. And then it all began again.

Robyn carried on, but her spirit had gone. Alice fussed, the doctor came and went, Harold brought flowers and chocolates and diamonds; nothing mattered. She didn’t want to eat, or talk, or sleep, or think. Somehow she forced herself, but the effort was exhausting.

She thought of Violette.

He’s punishing me for threatening him with Violette. For how long? Oh, Sebastian, come back so I can live again!