The Dark Blood of Poppies (46 page)

No sign of Fyodor. She wondered,
Was he sent by Simon to trick me here?
Not that it mattered now.

“Karl, have they hurt you?” she said.

“You shouldn’t have come, Charlotte.” Karl glared at Simon, who waved John aside and let Karl go to her.

“How could I not?”

“But now they have us both prisoner. What does that achieve?” He stroked her arms, his expression as sombre as death. And Charlotte knew – as if she’d never believed it before – that she and Karl were not invulnerable, that Cesare’s powers were real. The new order forming within the castle walls would roll onwards, an iron-wheeled leviathan.

“It achieves this,” said Simon. “Time for you both to think. Time to accept that you can either join us or die. What holds you back? Pride? But a vampire’s greatest priority is survival. And then… love.”

Simon came too close, put one hand on Karl’s shoulder, stroked Charlotte’s cheek. She wanted to feel disgust, but instead she felt soporific. On the edge of surrender again.

She wondered if Cesare was jealous, as Fyodor had been.

“Did my blood call to yours, after all?” Simon asked, smiling.

“No. Your white-haired friend came and said you had Karl here.”

“As I intended. Good.”

“Let Karl go! I’ll do anything, put myself in his place…”

“But we want you
both
.” Simon’s tone became persuasive. “I won’t impose unreasonable conditions. You won’t be separated or enslaved. No, you’ll be treated as gods by our followers, like Cesare and myself. All we ask is that you listen. Is it really so wonderful to be out in the cold with only Lilith for company, when you could be with us, warm and loved and safe?”

Charlotte pressed her palm to her forehead, recalling Violette’s refusal to help rescue Karl.

“What is it,
liebling
?” Karl asked, but she shook her head.

“Nothing. All of this.” But she thought,
Maybe Simon’s right. Violette is a monster. I’ve always known. She cares nothing for Karl or me. Why go on defending her, when we may be killed for our efforts?

“May I speak to Karl alone?” she asked.

“As you wish,” Cesare said graciously.

She and Karl went to a corner behind the ebony throne. She put her mouth by his ear, whispering so faintly that even vampires would not overhear.

“What if we appear to do what Simon wants? Pretend we’re on his side, then seduce him away from Cesare?”

“No,” said Karl.

“It could be our only chance. Win some time, set them against each other…”

Karl hugged her close. “You’re probably right, but I can’t. Yes, it worked with Kristian; I pretended to love him in order to betray him – and that’s why I cannot do so again. It leaves a stain in the soul… And I can’t watch you do that, either.”

Charlotte squeezed her eyes shut, ashamed that she’d asked. “Either we prostitute ourselves, or we die.”

“Not yet,” he whispered. “We’re too precious to Simon for him to dispose of us easily. If we stay, at least we may subvert others to our cause –”

“Enough,” came Cesare’s sharp voice. “How went the fire, Charlotte?”

“No one died,” she said, turning to him. “Hard luck.”

“I didn’t intend anyone to die. It was a warning, as Violette knows.”

“What else will you do to her?”

“Anything, everything. Whatever it takes. Simon insists she cannot be destroyed. But I say she must be contained. And one day she’ll wither and die of self-loathing.”

Charlotte took a breath. “Look, we can’t escape, and Simon doesn’t want us ill-treated. Couldn’t you let Karl feed?”

“I could,” said Cesare. “But not until he’s expressed contrition and willingness to co-operate.”

Charlotte looked at Karl. However well he hid it, she knew he was in anguish.

“This is inhuman!” she cried. Simon broke into laughter.

“No, it’s simple,” Cesare said serenely. “You can be tortured until Karl surrenders, and vice versa. John will find it no trouble: torture is his vocation. Or you could give in now, which would be less fun for John but easier for the rest of us.”

Karl embraced Charlotte protectively, his face in her hair.

“Leave, while you can,” he said.

“Not without you!”

Simon came and took Charlotte’s hand. Karl glared icily at him, but as Simon drew Charlotte away, John seized Karl. Separated, they were bundled to the centre of the chamber. Charlotte was aware of Karl struggling, but he was powerless to prevent Simon putting his fangs to her neck.

“It’s over,” Simon murmured. “You’re angry now, but in time… We’ll be angels together, Charlotte.” His fangs were icicles pressing her throat. “Am I not as beautiful as Karl? Can you love me?”

“A bottle of poison wrapped in beautiful paper looks like a desirable gift,” she said. “But it’s still poison.”

His arms tightened savagely. She closed her eyes, waiting for him to strike, but the pain didn’t come. He paused; then his mouth left her throat, and he looked up.

Charlotte felt the air tremble and the temperature drop.

The sound began like wind groaning around the castle. And then the air was full of wings, beating at the air unseen. She froze in dread, as if all Kristian’s victims had stepped out of the walls to take revenge…

Everyone was looking around, eyes glazed with alarm; Cesare, John, Simon, Karl, the unfamiliar vampires – one male, one female – who’d brought Charlotte in. Cries echoed from other parts of the Schloss. More vampires and humans came running in through the archways as if to beseech their leader for reassurance.

The walls shook. A mass of air was displaced as if by some vast primeval beast with ribbed wings. Night fell. Someone screamed.

When torchlight flared again, the female vampire and one of the human males lay dead. The vampire’s head had been severed, still in its hood. The male’s blood had sprayed everywhere.

And Lilith was in the room.

Charlotte’s heart flew in loops. Mortals and vampires were crying out and clinging to each other, while Cesare crossed the chamber towards the ebony throne, stumbling as if he might expire with fury and fear.

The terror Violette inspired was tangible, like booming sound waves. Charlotte, though, was not afraid; she was inexplicably part of it. She thought,
Violette followed us after all! What else matters?

Simon and John kept their grim hold on her and Karl.

Violette faced Cesare, her jet hair tangled with static, her eyes blue comets. Cesare stepped behind the throne, clinging to the back as if it were a shield. His voice, when he found it, was loud and commanding.

“Surrender to us,” he said, pointing at Karl and Charlotte, “or your friends will suffer.”

Violette blinked. Then she moved so fast that Charlotte hardly saw her, but somehow she had Cesare by the throat and was dragging him from his refuge. His attempts to shake her off were pathetic. His eyes bulged like huge grey pearls.

“On the other hand,” said Violette, glaring at Simon, “let my friends go or Cesare dies. Perhaps you’d like him to die, I don’t know.” She squeezed. Blood oozed between her fingers.

“Do as she says!” Cesare rasped. “Let them go!”

Karl and Charlotte were thrown suddenly together.

Lilith’s wings filled the chamber. She gathered Karl and Charlotte against her, and swept them into the Crystal Ring.

* * *

They had each tried to destroy the other, each tried to win, or at least to end the affair. Hopeless. Robyn and Sebastian remained fastened on each other, gorging on dark sensuality. A horrible and wondrous feeling, like opium addiction, wanton and irresistible.

“I’ll take you away from here,” he whispered, but she only laughed.

Sebastian began to despair of persuading Robyn to leave Boston. He wanted to free her from the chains of her past, her responsibilities, her lovers.

“No, this is my home, I belong here. Why should I move?” she would say, as if she had a choice.

He could not admit the truth:
“Other vampires know where you live. I must protect you, keep you to myself.”

If persuasion wouldn’t work, it followed that he must use force.
Place her in a position
, he thought,
where she can’t refuse.

“I can’t see you tonight; don’t come to the house,” she said one evening, but Sebastian went anyway.

He melted through the locked French windows, and found Harold Charrington, dressed up for an evening out, sitting in the parlour on his own. He was in an armchair by the fire, smoking a cigar and looking thoroughly at home.

If Harold had seen him appear from nowhere, perhaps he would have been less nonchalant. As Sebastian approached him, though, he didn’t turn a hair. He merely looked the vampire over with a knowing, worldly air that infuriated Sebastian.

“So, you’re the one,” said Harold. “The other man, the young lover. Pleased to make your acquaintance, sir.”

He rose briefly to shake Sebastian’s hand, sank back into the chair. Sebastian thought,
How can she let those hairy, veined hands touch her?

“And you, sir, must be Mrs Stafford’s grandfather.”

Harold laughed. “I may be well struck in years – but she ain’t thrown me over for you, has she?”

Despising him, Sebastian sat down opposite. “Well, I’m glad of this opportunity to insist you stop seeing her.”

Harold laughed harder.

“I’m serious,” Sebastian added.

The old man shook his head in amusement. “Sure you are. When you get to my age, you learn tolerance. I know that to keep her, I have to accept she has other admirers.” He chuckled. “You’ll learn.”

Sebastian stared, smelling Harold’s musty body-heat, his pulsing arteries.

Harold threw his cigar stub into the fire. “I guess one of us better leave. Wouldn’t want to embarrass the lady.” He looked pointedly at Sebastian, then at the door. No doubt his iron self-assurance terrified his employees.

Sebastian stood. “Allow me to point something out.” He beckoned. Harold rose, puzzled, the top of his head level with Sebastian’s chin.

Sebastian seized him. Harold cried out. His spectacles fell to the floor.

“Wouldn’t it be terribly embarrassing for your widow,” said the vampire, mimicking his educated accent, “if you were to be found dead in the house of your mistress?”

Harold gaped like a flatfish.

The vampire struck, feeding swiftly and neatly. The old man’s blood was thick with potential clots; his heart thundered, stumbled, exploded long before blood-loss would have killed him. When Sebastian dropped him back into the chair, he looked as if he had simply expired there. His expression was oddly indignant, his lips slate blue.

Sebastian replaced the spectacles on Harold’s nose and left, silently, the way he’d entered.

* * *

“I’m ready, dear,” said Robyn, entering the parlour in cream satin, with pearls in her hair: virginal, old-fashioned, just as Harold liked her. But Harold failed to leap to his feet. His head lolled and she thought,
I took so long he’s fallen asleep.

Then she saw his livid pallor. Saw two tiny marks in his throat, only because she knew to look for them.

“Mary,” she said, her voice hoarse but steady. She fumbled her way backwards to the door, and called again. “Mary, get the doctor, will you?”

Robyn managed to stay calm throughout the doctor’s visit, but inside she was in turmoil.

“He didn’t look well when he arrived,” she lied.

The doctor failed to notice the marks. They were flea bites, not gaping wounds. “Looks like a heart attack,” he said grimly, frowning at Robyn. He knew Harold’s family, and disapproved of infidelity. “Happens to men of his age, especially if they overindulge their… appetites.”

“Could you please arrange to take him away?” Robyn said sweetly. “He’s not my husband, as you know. He really shouldn’t be here. You understand.”

Once the body had been removed and the grumpy doctor was gone, Robyn sank down on a sofa, head in hands. Mary hurried to make tea, but Alice stood over Robyn like a prison wardress.

“Well, you’ll see sense now,” said Alice.

Robyn looked up, aggravated. “What are you talking about? He had a heart attack.”

“But you and I know damned well what really happened!” Alice retorted. “That devil almost killed me and Mary. Now he’s actually murdered someone. He’s killing you too. What will it take to make you stop?”

“Leave me alone,” was all Robyn could say. “You’re giving me a headache.”

She went to bed and lay awake, waiting for Sebastian. He never came.

The next day Robyn was calm and controlled.
Yes, like someone walking a tightrope over a fire-pit
, she thought.

She hoped Harold’s death would quietly be forgotten, but knew she couldn’t be that lucky. The following days were chaotic. Harold Charrington had been eminent in the business community. The fact that he’d expired in his mistress’s house could not be kept secret. Scandal broke and spread through the puritanical hierarchy of Boston society.

Robyn tried to brazen it out, but each day brought fresh horror. Reporters haunted her doorstep. Friends failed to call. The church congregation shunned her and she was discreetly asked to leave. The same happened everywhere she went. A hand on her elbow, the obsequious whisper, “Ma’am, your presence is causing, er, embarrassment so if you wouldn’t mind… I’m sure you appreciate…”

Jesus, I hate this!
she would rage in the privacy of her bedroom, withering.

One afternoon, Harold’s widow arrived, hysterical and baying for blood.

Thankfully, Alice and Wilkes saw the wretched woman off and spared Robyn a confrontation. Robyn was being forced into seclusion, and she couldn’t tolerate it.
Next the Beacon Hill Civic Association will be demanding I clean up the neighbourhood by moving out.

I don’t blame them. I blame myself. But most of all I blame you, Sebastian, you demon.

Sebastian hadn’t reappeared, which was as good as an admission of guilt. He must know the trouble he’d caused, realised she was fond of Harold. In fact, she missed Harold more than she believed possible; even wept for him, once.

On the fifth morning, she slept late and came downstairs to find her parlour full of visitors. Mary, Mr and Mrs Wilkes, the doctor, several police officers and a minister from Trinity Church. At the centre, radiating the grim resolve of a woman who’d reached the end of her rope, was Alice.