The Dark Blood of Poppies (68 page)

Werner saw the immortals staring at each other in consternation. Their alarm was infectious. Unmanned by terror, he began to scream without sound.

The unseen army trampled him underfoot.

Hysterical, he sobbed for mercy. As marching boots passed over him, leaving him crushed in their wake, he glimpsed the amorphous shape of the future.

Horror and pain ground him to nothing. He couldn’t even cry out for Cesare. When the castle walls congealed around him once more, no glory awaited. All promises were broken. Lying untended on the flagstones, with his last breath running gurgling from his mouth, Werner died.

* * *

As they dressed, Violette became aware of how real the room felt. It was shabby, cold and haunted – but obstinately solid. This was not the Crystal Ring.

Charlotte slipped into her dress and Karl buttoned it for her, his eyes tender. Watching them, Violette couldn’t believe she’d had such a violent urge to tear them apart.

I’m glad
, she thought.
I never wanted them to be unhappy.

Lilith, too, had changed. She was less cynical, more tolerant. Just a little.

When Karl and Charlotte turned to her, she smiled. No guilt, no regret. Warmth flowed between the three of them, the delicious bond of shared secrets. Sweetest of transformations.

Outside the room, they found a narrow corridor with a high ceiling and bare, flaking walls.

“This is the real world, without question,” said Karl. “How did we get here?”

“I don’t know, but I know where we are,” said Violette. All Lilith’s calm strength was suddenly upended in turmoil. “It’s the house where I found Robyn. If she’s here, this time I’m taking her with me. And if she’s gone, I’ll find her!”

Dull grey light filtered through windows along one side. Looking out, Violette saw a courtyard with crumbling yellowish walls.

“Oh my God,” she breathed.

“What is it?” said Karl over her shoulder. Then he and Charlotte saw what Violette had seen. The long, thin white corpse of a vampire lay sprawled like a broken crane fly on the flagstones. The head was still attached, only by ribbons of flesh; the skull was crushed, the spine obviously severed.

“That’s Fyodor,” said Karl.

Without speaking they walked the length of the corridor, dusty floorboards creaking under their feet. Although Violette sensed no presences in the house, human or vampire, as they turned a corner she stopped in her tracks on a wave of dread.

“What is it?” Charlotte asked.

“Don’t you feel something?” Not waiting for an answer, Violette walked on.

The next corner angled onto a wider corridor that led to the master bedrooms. Violette recognised it. Her step slowed; the corridor seemed endless. In the wintry light, she saw, at the far end, the doorway to Robyn’s bedroom standing ajar.

She had no sense of Robyn’s presence…
So why does the atmosphere feel so wrong? I perceive no one, yet I’m sure there’s someone here.

Violette went on, the others behind her. When they reached the door, Karl said, “Let me go in first.”

Charlotte placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. Violette quailed, thinking,
I can’t go in. What’s the matter with me? I must!

With Charlotte beside her, Violette entered.

The curtains were drawn, the only light coming from a dying fire and an oil lamp. An odd shadow like a discarded coat lay near the fireplace. Violette took in the canopied four-poster, draped in lavish embroidered silk of cream and dark blue, saw Karl in silhouette inside the doorway, and another figure beside the bed. The stranger was a vampire she’d seen before, tall and dark-haired with a softly luminous beauty about him. His hands were folded and his head bowed, as if he were standing beside a deathbed.

The vampire said softly, “Don’t come in. Please don’t.”

The plea was half-hearted. Nothing could stop Violette. She walked past Karl and looked down at the bedcover.

Then she fell apart. Her composure, her very soul disintegrated. She flung herself down at the foot of the bed with a raw shriek of pain.

She knew Robyn was dead, without studying the pallid face or touching her stone-cold hands. Robyn’s lovely warm life-aura was gone.

I should have known
, Violette thought in anguish.
Oh, Goddess, why didn’t I stay with her?

Grief flattened her with iron chains. No one spoke, no one touched Violette as she remained on the floor, clinging to the bedcover, fingers crushing the delicate fabric. Her shock was so extreme that she couldn’t speak or move.
Robyn Robyn Robyn
… She could only stare at the body that had once been replete with luxuriant life. Then she turned her gaze from the waxen mask to the dispassionate face of the vampire who had killed her.

Sebastian.

In a cat-leap, Violette flung herself over the corner of the bed and seized him. His expression flashed into rage; madness swam in his eyes.

“You did this!” Violette screamed. She was Lilith again and she was going to rip open his neck, snap his spine and tear off his head as she’d done to Matthew a lifetime ago–

But he was strong. He fought back, gripping her wrists, straining to reach her throat. Grief weakened her and strengthened him.

“No,
you
killed her,” he snarled. “You turned her against me.”

His fingernails tore like scalpels into her throat and chest. She lunged, slit his cheek with her fangs – then someone grabbed her from behind. Charlotte was trying to pull her away, while Karl got between them and forced Sebastian backwards. For a few moments Violette and Sebastian continued fighting like maddened dogs. Then they were dragged apart, struggling to reach each other across a space magnetised by hatred.

Two feral demons, fighting to the death. Lilith and Samael.

“Stop!” Charlotte yelled. “This is what they wanted! This is what Simon, Rasmila and Fyodor wanted!”

Her words sliced the air like a bright sword. Violette froze.

In the silence, from the corner of her eye, she saw that the shape near the fireplace was a vampire corpse. Its severed head gazed at the ceiling from a pool of blood.

Rasmila. Violette felt nothing; she had nothing left.

“What happened to Robyn?” Karl asked, his voice icy calm.

“What do you think?” Sebastian snarled. He bit Karl’s restraining arm, but Karl only flinched and held on.

Violette hissed, “Murderer!”

“No!” Sebastian said furiously. “We tried to transform her but it failed. The Crystal Ring refused to accept her.”

“So you blamed Rasmila and Fyodor?” said Charlotte. Her voice was ragged, but her hands on Violette were firm. “Was it their fault?”

Sebastian pointed a pale finger at Violette. “It was
her
fault. She came here and poisoned Robyn against me.”

“I made her see the truth, that’s all,” Violette retorted. But she thought,
If I hadn’t, would she still be alive?

“Truth? What the hell is that? She knew she’d die if I didn’t transform her. That’s why I tried, so she wouldn’t die!”

“But you killed her,” said Violette. “She died because she didn’t want to be like you.”

“If that is so, it’s still as I said.
Your fault
.” Sebastian made another lunge. Karl hung onto him with deadly strength.

“No,” said Charlotte. “There’s disruption in the Crystal Ring. That may have prevented her transformation. It doesn’t always work, anyway; you must know that! It’s no one’s fault.”

Sebastian, motionless in Karl’s grip, said, “If there’s disruption, Violette is the cause.”

“If anyone is the cause,” Karl said bitterly, “it’s Cesare, Simon and their like. They’re the ones who corrupted Raqia – not Violette.”

“Cesare,” Sebastian said flatly. Violette saw his hazel eyes go dull, like claws drawn in. Like her, he was hanging from wires of grief, but she felt no sympathy. His self-pity only inflamed her hatred.

Violette put a hand to her throat, to stifle a scream that threatened to tear her mind out of her body.

“I did not kill her,” Sebastian said quietly. “I wanted her to live.”

“So did I,” Violette whispered.

“Come away from here,” Charlotte said into her ear. “Come on.”

She began to coax Violette away. Violette resisted, then gave in, letting herself be drawn towards the door. But the scene branded itself on her mind; Karl in shadow against the wall, Sebastian’s hatred and grief searing into her, Rasmila’s pitiful corpse lying ignored.

And Robyn on the bed with all the dear, precious life bled out of her. Never to stir or speak or smile again.

“All my power,” Violette said faintly, “all Lilith’s power, and I can do nothing to help her. What use is it, when I cannot bring a single soul back to life?”

T
orn from the Crystal Ring, Cesare pitched forward onto cold stone, dragged down by the two corpses who still gripped his hands.

He couldn’t open his eyes. He knew what he’d see. Couldn’t bear it.

He heard voices around him, groaning, crying. Death was a leaden grey emanation in the air.

Cesare looked. He saw heaps of blood-splashed white satin in a deformed circle around the meeting chamber. Vampires in red were rising unsteadily to their feet as if they’d taken part in an exhausting ritual slaughter. Cesare got up and stood swaying, seeing everything as if through water. Nothing seemed real.

This could not be real.

With a scream, Cesare fell to his knees.

His heart was broken. All these young men who should now be standing before him in proud splendour – instead they lay drained and lifeless, mouths open, faces blue. And he almost despised them, because they were not immortals: they were only dead humans.

They had let him down.

Yet he wept bitterly, because they’d been so beautiful and full of hope. They had not deserved this.

All round the chamber, his followers were crying out in disbelief, some shaking the humans as if to force them back to life. A few lay weeping on their partners’ breasts.

Four of his flock rushed at Cesare as if they’d lost their minds. “Father, what are we to do?”

Cesare rose from his knees and pushed them away. “Don’t touch me!” Tears of rage and grief flowed down his face. “Calm yourselves. This is not the end! We’ll start again!”

All the vampires looked at him as if he were crazed.

“It is the end,” said a voice. Cesare turned and saw Simon standing like a statue amid the devastation, unmoved.

“You told me this would work!” Cesare raged.

“It should have worked. Nothing went wrong, but –”

John came to them, his outstretched arm trembling with tension. “It was her,” he said. “She broke the circle!”

John was pointing at Ilona. She stared back in defiance, hands on hips, her eyes like blood-drops. And Cesare knew. His anguish was magnesium fire flashing through him.
Never, never should I have trusted her!

All Cesare could say was, “Take her away.”

John strode to Ilona and seized her. Pierre, in a rare burst of chivalry, tried to protect her, but John only shoved him aside. Ilona let herself be led out of the chamber without protest; only looking back at Cesare with a cold smile.

“You had to blame her,” Simon said in scorn. Cesare turned to him, burning with suspicion.

“Do you care more about her than
this
?” He swung round and snapped at his followers, “Don’t stand there! Lay out the bodies in some dignity. Attend to it!”

They obeyed slowly, casting sullen looks at Cesare. He turned back to Simon and lowered his voice.

“They think I’ve let them down. But we’ll try again!”

“I don’t think so,” Simon said woodenly. “I could have told you it was a mistake, trying to make so many vampires, but you would not have believed me without proof. So here is your proof. It’s no one’s fault but yours, Cesare.”

Cesare stared, incredulous. For a moment he felt like a child, betrayed and abandoned. He howled with inward rage. But the flame of self-belief came to his rescue.

There is something wrong with Simon
, he thought.
Not with me
.

Simon’s topaz eyes were empty and coldly mad.

“We’d better have this discussion in private,” said Cesare.

“No, let them hear,” said Simon. “You are finished. You were never more than a poor substitute for a leader. When Ilona said you were my last choice, she was exactly right. Fifth-best, tenth-rate.”

“I was right not to trust you,” Cesare retorted, enraged. “You used me!”

“Yes, of course! I never wanted you, I wanted Karl and Charlotte! I needed to absorb power from you to win them.”

“A vampire who preys on vampires? Is that all you are?”

“All?” said Simon. “Don’t you know why I need such power? Power is light to illuminate the hidden wisdom of God. But all you care about is your earthly empire. You’re a creature of clay, Cesare, a blind mole.”

Cesare didn’t understand. He didn’t want to. “Liar,” he said. “Traitor. I’ll go on without you. I don’t need you!”

“Blind, Cesare.” Simon’s voice was hollow. “Or you would have seen, while we were in the Crystal Ring, that we are all finished.”