The Dark Blood of Poppies

by Freda Warrington

  So Lilith had risen up and destroyed Lancelyn, before the violation – magical or not – took place.

  I had to do it, she thought. Could he have taught me anything? He was the only one who even partly understood what I am. However, because he chose to put his own selfish whims before true understanding – he paid the ultimate price.

  One thing helped her cope: the self-discipline of her lifelong ballet training. She forced herself to think of nothing but her steps.

  As she danced, she became aware of shadows solidifying around her. Watching her. Judging.

  The three angels again? She thought she’d seen the last of them. Anger rose in her chest. No, she thought. You can’t return to haunt me again! Your power over me is gone. You no longer exist.

  She danced wildly, as if to repel them, experiencing a sense of danger so extreme that at last she stopped dead.

  Blending partway into the Crystal Ring, she saw the intruders vividly. Five elongated, jet-black demons, glittering dimly against the distorted cobweb walls. Vampires.

  Not her three former persecutors… but who were they?

  As Violette slipped back into the solid world, they came with her, taking human form in the studio. Four men and one woman, with radiant skin and the mesmeric stillness of cobras. Violette recognised two of them: Charlotte’s friend, blond Stefan, and his mute twin Niklas. Stefan had assisted Violette’s transformation. She was unsure whether that made him her friend or her enemy.

  Facing her, they gave minimal nods of respect. Their eyes were guarded, impassive and accusing all at once, like those of a hostile jury. She was intimidated, outraged.

  “Violette?” Stefan said softly. He had the grace to look apologetic, at least. “Please forgive the intrusion. My companions wish to speak with you. I don’t think you’ve met Rachel –” he indicated the woman, a tall, thin creature with hair like apricot flames “– and this is John, and his companion, Matthew.”

  John and Matthew were small, slight and pale, with dour faces and dark hair cropped short. They had the look of monks from medieval portraits, and they stared at her with suspicion and loathing. Witch-finders, she thought.

  “What do you want?” There was no courtesy in their invasion, so she showed none in return.

  “Madame Lenoir,” said Rachel. Her polite tone was razor-edged. “You don’t know me, but you knew my closest friend. Katerina.”

  A flash of ghastly memory. The screech of train wheels, sparks, blood smeared on a steel rail…

  “You killed her,” said Rachel.

  “I don’t deny it,” Violette said thinly. “But she was trying to kill my dearest friend, Charlotte. Have you come for revenge?”

  “No.” Rachel’s face was like ice, translucent, her lips vivid scarlet. “Only justice. We want you to do the right thing.”

  “Which is what?”

  “To give up your ballet and your public appearances.”

  Violette laughed in astonishment. “Why in the world should I do that?”

  “You are breaking the laws,” Matthew said harshly. He was smaller than John, more belligerent.

  “What laws?”

  “The laws of God, of Satan, and of our nature.”

  “Oh, do tell me about Satan!” Violette said with rising anger.

  “As vampires, we are possessed by the Devil,” stated Matthew. “You must know this! We are being tormented for sins we committed in life. As Satan’s instruments, therefore, we serve and appease our master until it pleases God to release us – because, you understand, even the Adversary is part of God’s great plan. We submit in humility to our role. But you, Lilith – you serve neither God nor Satan. You are outside. You are too arrogant, too dangerous.”

  “Females of our kind are more deeply corrupt than males. They lack humility or a sense of duty,” said John, his voice quiet yet harsh. “But you are the worst, Lilith. It ill befits our kind to make lascivious displays in public.”

  “Immortals should vanish from mortal eyes and prey upon them at night,” said Matthew. “You are not like us.”

  “Of course I’m not like you,” Violette said contemptuously. “You two haven’t left the thirteenth century.”

  Rachel said, “You may think John and Matthew old-fashioned, but they have a point. Vampires are designed to be discreet, yet every other person in the world knows your name. Your photograph appears in newspapers. How long can you sustain this charade? Someone is bound to notice that you are not growing older, or that your nocturnal habits are strange. Some sharp-minded victim will recognise you.”

  “None of this is your concern.” She gazed at the golden-haired twins. “Stefan, you don’t agree, do you? I thought you were my friend!”

  “I am,” he said softly. “But they have a point. You can’t go on trying to live a human life.” Although he had the grace to look shamefaced, he held her gaze steadily.

  “It is our concern,” Rachel said coolly. “You could bring disaster to all of us. We’re not infallible. You cannot go on flaunting yourself.”

  “Can’t I, Rachel?” Rage filled her. Their impudence! “Who are you to come here uninvited and dictate how I behave? I don’t believe you’re frightened of humans. We can disappear; what can they do to us? No, it’s something else.”

  “You killed a vampire.” Rachel compressed her lips.

  Violette moved closer to her. “Are you afraid of me?” She looked hard into each face in turn. Their nervous response both excited and alarmed her. Provoking them was unwise, since she was outnumbered, but she had to speak her mind. “Do you think I’m trying to be another Kristian? Is that what this is about?”

  “Kristian also broke the laws!” Matthew exclaimed. “He, too, was arrogant! That was why he had to die.”

  Rachel turned and glared to quieten him. Then Violette knew for certain. They were afraid of her. So afraid that they wanted her dead. Even kind Stefan!

  “How dare you assume I would want to emulate Kristian! Or that I’m remotely interested in your concerns!” As she spoke, Violette-Lilith was filled by strange energy. Their primitive fears and threats inflamed her.

  “You must obey God’s law,” said John.

  Violette shivered. Talk of God made her ill. It brought back memories of three dark shapes standing over her, the wings of cruel angels beating around her.

  “So, you want me to disappear, but what if I refuse?”

  No one answered. She sensed their combined will weighing her down. Did they speak for all vampires, even for Karl and Charlotte? Lilith would not submit. She rose like a great shadow in Violette’s soul, ready to fight or flee.

  Lilith did not need to ask why they dreaded her.

  “Well, you’ve asked and my answer is no,” said Violette. “Now if you would kindly leave?”

  Matthew looked at the ceiling, his face ghastly in the starlight. “Sweet mortals, sleeping peacefully above. Have you never partaken of their blood? You must have been tempted.”

  She thought of Ute. Painful shame suffused her. “I’ve sworn not to touch them.”

  “You can protect yourself, but you cannot protect them,” Matthew said softly.

  “What?”

  “Matthew,” Stefan chided, but it was too late, the threat had been uttered. Violette felt her fury gathering in a great wave.

  “I can disregard threats to myself,” she said, “but not to my company.”

  The wave of fury broke, exploded through her.

  She lunged and seized Matthew by the throat. He tried to slip into the Crystal Ring but she went with him, dragged him back. His sombre expression flashed into hideous panic as she squeezed his neck, shook him, pierced the skin with her nails.

  John, Rachel, Stefan and Niklas grabbed her. She threw them all off with one hand, heard them spinning across the floor, colliding with the mirrored walls. Lilith’s strength seemed limitless.

  Tightening her grip on Matthew’s neck, she snapped his spine, wrenched back his jaw until the skin ripped. Muscl
es and fibres tore, blood oozed from the wound. Vampires clung to life like cockroaches. She strained until the vertebrae parted and the spinal cord finally broke with a dull, moist popping sound. Then she bent and drank from the stump of his neck.

  Blood flowed through her like sexual pleasure – only for a second or two. Her victim was dead.

  Violette flung him aside in disgust. Lifting her head, she saw the others staring, their eyes glazed with horror. Stefan put his arms around Niklas, as if to protect his mute and near-mindless twin.

  Then Violette realised what she’d done. Decapitated a vampire with her bare hands.

  But Lilith had not finished.

  She went after Rachel next. The woman tried to flee but Violette was too fast. She snagged the flame-red hair and wound Rachel towards her. Biting into the white neck, she sucked hard. Scarlet light filled her. Rachel thrashed in helpless terror.

  All the time, Violette moved with the weightless grace of her art. It wasn’t that she felt unnaturally strong, more that the others seemed as fragile as paper in her grasp.

  John ran past her. Still feeding, she grabbed him one-handed. Over Rachel’s shoulder she saw Stefan flee into the Crystal Ring. Dragging Niklas with him, he glanced back in horror – then they vanished, as if the mirrors had swallowed them.

  If they hadn’t fled she would have attacked them too, friends or not. Lilith had no pity.

  Now she held Rachel and John together, one in each hand, writhing helplessly against her. Both were spattered with their own blood. She did not bite John, only ploughed his flesh with her fingers.

  Then Violette found herself descending from fury into shock. As the fever subsided, she emerged shaking, aghast at herself. What have I done? Dear God, it was so easy!

  She shook her two captives. They were like sacks of flour in her hands.

  “Now leave my property,” she hissed. “If ever you return, or threaten any human associated with me, if I so much as see you near this place, you will think Matthew fortunate.” She raised her voice. “Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” Rachel gasped. Her face hung with fear, colourless.

  Then Violette flung her and John on top of Matthew’s body. “Get out. And take that thing with you.”

  John’s eyes lanced her with venom. Now she’d slain his friend, as well as Rachel’s. Now she had two mortal enemies. It would have been safer to decapitate them too, but her killing frenzy had subsided. She couldn’t do it.

  “We can’t take a corpse into the Ring,” Rachel whispered.

  “Then leave by the back stairs. Just go!”

  They obeyed. John hefted Matthew’s body over his shoulder, his face a mask of blood and tears. Rachel took the head, a grisly burden. And with blank looks, like two demons carrying a soul to hell, they fled.

  Violette listened to their soft footsteps descending, an outside door opening and closing. Their auras dwindled along the riverbank until she could no longer sense them.

  She was alone. Silence settled like snow around her.

  She wanted to weep, but couldn’t. Her reflection showed not a winged and clawed monster, but a young ballerina: composed, beautiful, incapable of harming a soul.

  Violette went to the mirror and stared at her doppelgänger. Their fingers met and trailed across the glass; their faces bore the same cool expression. The mirror held no answers.

  “Help me,” she said to no one in particular. “Help me.”

  Her gaze moved to the smears of spilled blood on the floor, thick and luscious as berry juice. She caught a succulent aroma. Oh God, blood…

  As if pulled by puppet-strings she knelt, arching down to breathe the scent, to touch the blood with her tongue…

  Movement made her freeze. A large black-and-white cat strolled into the room and began lapping at the same deep red stain. Suddenly Violette saw herself as a beast, part-serpent, part-wolf… She leapt up in horror, panting for breath.

  “No,” she gasped, digging her nails hard into her own arms. “No, I am not an animal!”

  The cat lost interest in the blood and came to Violette, mewing and weaving around her legs. Violette bent down and scratched the top of her pet’s head.

  “Magdi,” she whispered. “Tell me it didn’t happen.”

  Then Violette went to the dressing room and filled a bucket with water and detergent. With the same diligence she applied to perfecting her ballets, she dropped to her knees and began scrubbing the bloodstains out of the smooth, varnished floor.

  CHAPTER TWO

  FRIENDS AND STRANGERS

  On clear cold nights, when a full moon hung over the Swiss Alps, Karl and Charlotte often walked for hours through the magnificent peaks. In temperatures no human could endure, they climbed impossible slopes with ease. Anyone seeing them would think they were ghosts.

  As compensation for the darkness of immortality, Charlotte reflected, this was among the greatest: to stand on a mountain summit with the world rolling away in white silence below, Karl’s arm around her, their coats blowing in the icy wind.

  Below the peak on which they stood was a straight two-hundred-foot drop. Irresistible. Detaching herself from Karl, she went to the very edge and hesitated, drunk with euphoria. Then she spread her arms, and dived into space.

  Freezing air made a banshee wail in her ears. She felt weightless and completely at peace. This is what it means, to be mortal no longer…

  She landed in deep soft snow. Plumes of white powder rose and blew away on the wind. She lay on her back, staring at the sky: a glorious arch of black velvet clustered thickly with stars. There was another explosion of snow nearby; Karl had jumped after her. Finding his feet, he waded towards her.

  “Charlotte!”

  She accepted his hand and stood up, shaking snow from her coat. The spark of anger in his eyes startled her.

  “Have you gone mad?” he said, staring hard into her eyes. “If you want to fly, enter the Crystal Ring. Don’t attempt it on Earth.”

  His fervour took her aback. “I wanted to see how it felt to jump. I knew I couldn’t kill myself.”

  “No, but you might have been badly hurt. Our flesh can tear and our bones can break. We heal, but the pain is terrible.”

  “I know.” She lowered her eyes. “I’m sorry. But there’s no harm done.”

  He relented with a rueful smile. “You must forgive me, also, for being overprotective. Sometimes I think you are still human.”

  “Well, I’m not.”

  Karl shook his head, more amused than annoyed. Her beautiful demon lover.

  “Shall we go home?” he said. “Now we’ve taken the shortcut.”

  On a winding path though a pine forest, they walked arm-in-arm like an innocent couple out for a stroll. Charlotte loved these times when she could forget the blood thirst. Simply bask in the pleasure of being alone with Karl.

  Both sensed the presence before they saw her: a peasant woman, heavily wrapped up against the cold, walking towards them. Charlotte smelled animal blood on her, and guessed she’d been up half the night helping cows to calf. Now she looked forward to her warm bed.

  In the two years that Karl and Charlotte had been together, they preferred to hunt separately. Both felt that the drinking of blood was too personal to be witnessed. Perhaps it was a form of denial. To hunt together would have been conscious collusion, a step too far across the borderline of evil.

  Normally they would have let the woman pass by. Nothing was different this evening…

  Yet something happened.

  Unbidden, mutual need flowed between them. No word was spoken. As the peasant woman reached them they stopped, blocking her path.

  She appeared to be in her thirties, fresh-faced and charming in her headscarf, shawl and long skirts. A benevolent soul. But Charlotte, seeing her through a mist of hunger, perceived her as prey; as meaningful and precious as a sacrifice, but prey all the same. And Karl, his eyes like flames behind amber glass, no longer looked human at all.

  The wo
man froze in shock. Gently they closed in, embracing her with tender hands. Charlotte fed first, then held her while Karl sank his wolf-teeth into the plump throat. Moving behind the victim, Charlotte fed again, breaking the virgin skin on the other side of her neck.

  Her hands met Karl’s around the human’s hot body as they fed. They clasped each other with the victim between them. The moment was eternal, primal, throbbing with heat and blood. Transcendent.

  It was the first time they’d fed together like this. More than lust, this was a blood-ritual, connecting them to the darkest side of their natures. Entwining them in wordless ecstasy… and damnation.

  Afterwards, they carried the woman to the edge of a farm to be found, either to live or die. Then they went home without a word.

  What was there to say? They were both shocked to the soul, swimming in the same shadowy lake of passion. Moved, excited, afraid.

  Home was an isolated black chalet poised high in a pine forest beneath the Alps. The peaks of the Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau floated on the horizon. Within, the rooms had a timeless, faded luxury. Dark pine walls and high ceilings supported by rafters. Persian rugs, panels of muted floral wallpaper, elegant furniture; a library lined from floor to ceiling with books; a music room; a kitchen used only by their housekeeper, who climbed the steep hill twice a week to clean the house. If she thought her employers strange, she was too well paid to ask questions.

  Vampires had few material needs – only human blood was essential – so they could have lived naked in graveyards, if they wished. Charlotte did not know of anyone who did. They still preferred to live like humans. The trappings of ordinary life were a fascinating luxury to some; to others, a poignant connection to their lost humanity. In this, Charlotte and Karl were no different.

  In the drawing room, Charlotte forced Karl to look at her. He seemed hardly able to do so. His exquisitely sculpted face, dark eyebrows giving bewitching intensity to his lovely eyes, his soft full hair of darkest mahogany – black in shadow, red where the fire caught garnet lights on the strands – still stopped her heart with their beauty. But sometimes he scared her to death. Tonight had added another irrevocable layer of darkness to their relationship.