The Dark Blood of Poppies (66 page)

“Conserve your energy, my friends,” he said. “Never in history has our gift been bestowed on mortals in such numbers. All of you stand here now because you proved worthy to enter the Crystal Ring. Well, there’s nothing more to say. The time is here. I hand you to Simon. You have an abyss to cross – but God will go with you, and I will be waiting on the other side.”

Utter silence. Suddenly Werner was very scared. He looked at the man beside him but his eyes were fixed ahead. Each of them was alone.

Simon stepped off the dais, and the humans flocked around him. He was like a winged archangel and yet so warm, so benevolent.

“Place your trust in God,” he said in reassurance. “Each of you will be paired with an immortal who will take your blood and your life. There’s nothing to fear, because you’ll receive it back, and more. Then we shall form one great circle, a rosary, if you’ll excuse the analogy, to generate a flow of power and lift you into the Crystal Ring. A process so simple that there’s only one thing more to say: God be with you.”

Werner was trembling as the vampires, who’d been allocated their partners in advance, began to move among them. The leaders themselves were taking part. Werner prayed to be paired with Simon or Cesare – anyone but John.

Instead he found himself looking into Ilona’s eyes.

A thrill went through him. He hadn’t been allowed to see her for weeks. How perfect that it should be Ilona!

Werner smiled, but her darkly burning eyes looked straight through him. He was puzzled, thinking,
Doesn’t she know it’s me, doesn’t this mean anything? It must!

She placed her hands on his shoulders. Around them, other couples were doing the same, as if about to begin a bizarre courtly dance. Her lips, satin cushions in which two daggers nestled, were as red as her robe. Werner’s pulse drummed so hard he thought he would faint.

Then, at some unheard signal, Ilona struck.

A violent shock of coldness and pain. Werner had anticipated pleasure: receiving none, he was stricken. Instead he felt he was in a cage of freezing iron bars, and Ilona was a winter sky looming over him, or a crone, pushing his cage under the surface of an icy black flood.

He felt her lips on his neck, taut with the urgency of thirst. Her slender body was hard against his, no consideration in her mind beyond her own need.

Werner was choking, drowning. Then, with a hideous sense of disconnection, he found himself floating near the ceiling, watching the scene from above.

He saw his comrades, each in the same lethal embrace, faces turning bluish-white, eyes closing, mouths opening. Some fought, some were passive, others responded like passionate lovers. All were dying.

Then, as one, each vampire released their partner and joined hands, with their own victim and with the one nearest, until a great circle was formed; red, white, red, white, like rubies and pearls on a necklace. The vampires pressed shoulder to shoulder to hold the wilting men on their feet. Werner could see himself, pressed between Ilona and Pierre. Oh, and some lucky soul with Cesare and Simon.

He felt no emotion. Only curiosity.

An invisible string tugged him. With a rush, he was back in his body. Still alive, barely. His vision was a mosaic of colours and faces. His heart and brain felt ready to explode. The hands that held him were stone.

Then emotion rushed back. Wild panic, black terror.
Mother, help me, what am I doing here, I didn’t mean to –

Ilona sucked out what little remained of his energy.

The chamber swirled and vanished.

And the visible world rolled back to reveal the fires, the writhing smoke-clouds and the livid red chasms of hell.

C
harlotte raced through the Crystal Ring, so far beyond sanity that it was as if she’d ceased to exist. Her madness was not a prison of mortal anguish, but a complete loss of her
self
.

She soared between mountains, arms outstretched, rising away from the Earth. Raqia flowed around her: lava and blue flame. A dazzling light drew her upwards; she was nearing the
Weisskalt
but she was beyond fear. Even the cold could not touch her.

Faint doubts played a counterpoint to her mania.
But the
Weisskalt
means death. Am I like a human, throwing herself from a cliff in the crazed belief she can fly?

Charlotte couldn’t stop.

She ceased to be aware of her body’s dimensions. Her skin was no longer a membrane separating her from the Crystal Ring. Its energy flowed freely into her, until she encompassed the whole firmament…

This is what Simon has done to me
, she thought.

Or am I doing this myself?
Simon’s voice:
We’ll be angels together, Charlotte. If it happens to you, you’ll know…
And her own words:
You forget who you are. You lose your sanity. You become just a cipher for the Crystal Ring.

Dear God, it’s happening.

Heart-stopping, wondrous, terrifying. And she had no power to resist.

The snowy blaze of the sun drew her. Its searing light filled the sky, a veil between her and the ineffable light of heaven…

Charlotte arced high above the electric white plain of the
Weisskalt
. She was a comet with a tail of glittering ice-dust, and the cold was no more than dew sifting over her.

She pierced the veil. Blinding radiance possessed her.

This was the light Simon called God. She understood now. Knowledge came like a clear, purposeful voice.
You cannot change what you have done. It is past. There are others who need you now, and knowledge to be discovered. Seek. Your only purpose now is to unlock the truth.

A revelation – but not of God. To Charlotte, the light revealed not one presence, but a billion. There could be no deity in the light because it had no prejudice, no chosen ones, no judgements to make. It was pure energy, the impartial fire of wisdom, life.

She saw stars, planets, galaxies whirling in the void. She touched the edge of the universe.

The brilliance began mercifully to fade. Passing the apex of her flight she curved downwards, out of the
Weisskalt
and into a sea of storms. She noticed that her demon-form had changed from dark to bright. Her limbs and body were glistening alabaster, webbed with rainbows of opal and palest gold.

Yet all this seemed natural. As if in a dream, Charlotte observed without analysing. She was out of her mind, but fearless.

Descending, she saw a dark mass floating below her: the amorphous fortress that she dreaded. No surprise to feel a powerful emanation, pulling her down until the vast sable bulk filled the world. She dropped clean through its fabric into absolute darkness.

Angel, goddess, cipher: whatever she had become, she was afraid.

Black walls enclosed her. Although she could see nothing, she felt a profound change in the atmosphere. This wasn’t the Crystal Ring, nor Earth… more like some strange limbo in between.

A wash of light appeared. Charlotte was in a corridor with soft carpet beneath her feet, paintings on papered walls.

Instinct made her look down at herself. She was in human form again! Two selves at once; the immortal, and the innocent girl, walking along this corridor to an encounter with Karl that would leave her changed forever…

Karl was waiting for her, she knew. The knowledge filled her with anxiety and delicious excitement.

A door stood ajar, and through the gap fell the glow that drew her. She pushed open the door, and there was Karl, caught in the evocative flicker of candlelight. He was naked, his body a long white flame on the darkness. A lean, beautiful sculpture, exquisitely lit and shadowed.

In her trance-state, Charlotte’s mind asked no questions. Their meeting was inevitable and perfect. The sight of him brought an intense thrill of anticipation, as if they’d never met before. His gaze, absorbing her, was dark, reflective, sad, fiery, alluring, all at once. And Charlotte knew that if she had changed, so had he. They were strangers to one another… yet there was a deeper recognition between them. No need for words.

Karl took her hand and led her into the room. She made out detail and lovely soft hues in the shadows; damask, brocade, Regency furniture. She caught her breath. So like the bedrooms at Parkland Hall… exactly like Karl’s room, where they’d seduced each other that first, magical time.

This could not be Parkland… but the goddess inside her accepted this strange magic.

Charlotte saw a large four-poster bed. On the disordered covers lay a lily-pale figure. Violette. With a languid hand she brushed her raven hair out of her eyes and looked up at Charlotte.

Then the dream began to twist and darken. Charlotte felt incredulous, fearful, confused.
Karl would never betray me but… Violette in my place? Violette and Karl?

Looking enquiringly into their faces, she saw no guilt in their eyes, no apology; only dark intelligence. Tender, seductive invitation.

And she knew that Violette had fed from Karl. His unnatural flesh had erased the scars, but a single bloodspot remained on his collarbone like a birthmark. And it showed in his face: a haunted look. Of course she had fed.

So Lilith has finally had her way
, Charlotte thought, in a state of weirdly calm horror.
All her threats… “How strong is your love, if it can’t survive my bite? I’ll take you away from Karl… and you’ll never see me coming.”

And Charlotte hadn’t seen. Violette had got to Karl first. Intense love brought intense fear of loss, and sometimes Charlotte had wanted that agony to end. To detach herself from Karl, not to care so desperately. In reality, losing that passion would be infinitely worse, it would be hell, but now it was too late.

If Lilith had drawn Karl down into Hades, Charlotte had no choice but to follow.

Without a word, Karl drew Charlotte towards the bed. Violette stretched out her arms and spoke her name. Her tone was raw with need. “We’ve been waiting for you.”

Karl kissed Charlotte’s neck from behind and began to undress her. He lifted her dress over her head and threw it aside, and with the garment she shed the lingering horror of the burial. Karl and Violette no longer seemed the people she knew and loved, but strangers with enigmatic, sinister intentions.

Even through her fear, she was wildly excited. The new power inside her asked no questions but simply drifted along, accepting, welcoming.

Naked, Charlotte lay on the bed between Violette and Karl. Their hands flowed lovingly over her, their hair brushed her skin. The beautiful sensations made her weep.

She bathed in memories like fire. Ah, the first time, when she’d come to Karl’s room in innocence, only to find she couldn’t leave… That imperative passion heating the air between them. Both aware it was wrong, but knowing, deliciously, that they couldn’t stop. And the breathless miracle… no longer to behave as decorous strangers, but to lie mouth on mouth, flesh on flesh, melting into each other, sated and insatiable.

Now they lived it again. And how strange and wonderful that Violette was here with them, that they could all share this without jealousy or guilt.

None of this can be wrong
, she thought,
when my whole life has been leading me to this place.
Charlotte sank in ecstasy. Karl was inside her, where he belonged, his face soft with rapture. Violette’s mouth and hands were travelling over her. Incandescent pleasure.

Charlotte’s lips found the dancer’s neck. She bit down. First taste of her blood for such a long time. The wine of purest love. Charlotte cried out through the blood. More than love, this was sorcery.

Then came the moment Charlotte had dreaded.

Lilith’s devastating, transformative bite.

Her words again, “
I’ll come back for you and Karl. I’ll do it. I’ll take you away from Karl and you won’t care…”

In her bliss Charlotte had half-forgotten the threat. She’d been trapped, seduced into this, yet it had to happen. There was nowhere else to go.

Except into each other.

“Do it, Violette,” she whispered. “If Lilith’s taken Karl, you can’t leave me behind. I know you’ve always wanted this.”

Writhing against Charlotte in her own bliss, Violette’s canines stabbed into her throat. Charlotte gasped. Karl’s hands held her shoulders and his body was pressed to hers, their legs entwined. Violette’s arms went around her waist with her hands resting on Karl’s flanks. The three of them spiralled outwards on the crest of enchantment to a different level of consciousness.

A single, slow heartbeat. Their faces and crystalline eyes floated close to hers. And in their eyes – amber and violet jewels – visions floated, layers of mist peeling away to reveal forgotten histories.

Karl and Violette hovered on the edge of truth, but seeing only darkness they hesitated. They had lifted the veil but they had not entered the shrine.
They waited for me
, Charlotte thought in joyous amazement.
They needed me and they waited for me!

Now she understood. Losing her mind in Raqia, she had absorbed the persona of a goddess, just as Violette had become Lilith. Charlotte was Isis, empowerer, interpreter, light-bringer.