The Dark Blood of Poppies

by Freda Warrington

  Far from seeming impressed by this statement, Pierre groaned, “Mon Dieu.” He covered his face with his hands, muttering.

  “What are you saying?” Cesare snapped, gripping Pierre’s shoulder.

  One blue eye blazed up at him from the tangle of hair and fingers. In it, Cesare saw the cynical spirit of the atheist. Pierre, though, seemed to think better of arguing.

  “Nothing, nothing. I don’t care what you do. Dress this up as a religious crusade if you like – only please get rid of that damned woman! I see her in the corners when the candles burn out. Please.”

  Cesare let go, and smoothed Pierre’s crumpled shirt as if petting a dog. How pleasing to see Pierre with his blasphemous insolence knocked out of him. Like a bud, a tiny hope for the future.

  “I’ll crush her like a wasp.” Cesare dropped his hand on Pierre’s head in benediction. “Come and pray with me, my brothers.”

  Pierre shrank away, shaking his head.

  “John?” Cesare held out his hand.

  The other vampire came to Cesare, pausing only to glance at Matthew’s head. Pierre, too, stared at it as if to say, Don’t leave me alone with that thing! But as John and Cesare left, Pierre did not follow.

  “Let him be,” said Cesare. “I’ll make a believer of him eventually.”

  Cesare led John to Kristian’s inner sanctum, a cell tucked beside the meeting chamber that contained the ebony throne. Inside, he knelt on the bare stone floor, John facing him. This is now my sanctum, Cesare thought.

  “Concentrate,” he whispered. “Let your mind flow towards God. This is our prayer for guidance, and more: a call to his messengers. A summoning!”

  The chamber was lightless, but with vampire acuity, Cesare saw the livid red scabs on John’s skull, the raddled hollows of his face.

  “This is blasphemy,” John whispered. “We’ve no right to call on God’s name. We’ll be struck down!”

  “Still clinging to your old ways? Find some pride, some courage! John, I never questioned Kristian’s doctrine.” As Cesare spoke, tears flowed down his cheeks. “But Kristian died to force us to think for ourselves! And I’m so happy.”

  “Happy? When we’re in hell? We’re damned souls; silent penitence is our only hope of redemption. We must submit to His will, not demand help!”

  Cesare looked into the baleful eyes. “You’re wrong! Very well; let this prayer be proof. If angels come and strike us down, then I am wrong. But if they answer and help us, then you’ll know that I am right! Do you agree?”

  The swollen skull dropped in acquiescence.

  “Good. Pray with me.”

  Cesare let his vampire sight dim. He drifted into the Crystal Ring, hovering between the two realms. The flagstones seemed to soften, holding him like an ant in molasses. The sanctum became featureless, like the inside of an egg, flushing from black to deepest purple.

  Cesare began to pray silently. Very far above, he felt a cold black energy gathering, feeding him. He thought, I could begin a new religion here and now. Kristian could be the vampires’ Saviour: a prophet murdered by his enemies only to live again. But with no resurrection…

  He began to tremble. In truth, Cesare no longer wanted Kristian reborn. His own ego had flourished too vigorously to tolerate competition.

  He chastised himself for this heresy.

  A compromise, he thought, bowing his head. I’ll call on God to send a sign. If Kristian appears, I’ll submit to his will and establish the Church of Kristian. But if not – dear Lord, send me guidance!

  His lips began to move.

  “Almighty God, Lord of All, Creator and Destroyer, hear me. In the name of Kristian our Father, I beg for guidance. I am thy humble servant, a thought in thy great Mind. I beg thee, send forth thy thoughts as envoys to do thy will in the world…”

  Something happened. The purple glow above him flushed to gold.

  “Oh, Kristian, beloved Father, manifest unto me, tell me how best to continue thy work. In the name of God, appear!”

  The light swelled to a sphere, and Cesare’s heart swelled with it. John groaned.

  “God hears us!” Cesare cried. John moaned in terror and keeled over, face down, arms outstretched.

  The light birthed a shape, a long glowing figure that hovered before Cesare’s wondering eyes. A force pulsed from it, invisible but icily bright. Cesare pressed his hands to his chest, overawed.

  “Kristian?” he whispered.

  “No, not Kristian,” said the light. “I am your holy messenger, your sword of flame.”

  “God be praised!” Cesare cried. “Speak, tell us who you are!”

  “My name is Simon.” The light dissipated to reveal – not an angel, but a tall blond man in modern clothes: white shirt, fawn trousers. Yet his eyes were suns, and he was as golden as Cesare was colourless. “Although I have been called Senoy.”

  To Cesare’s astonishment, this glowing creature gathered both him and John in his arms and hugged them hard to his chest.

  “God be praised, indeed,” Simon-Senoy whispered, biting into Cesare’s neck.

  * * *

  Simon had felt the call as he wandered through the Crystal Ring, brooding on his losses and failures.

  To be needed, he was thinking, that’s the essence.

  Fyodor and Rasmila begged me to take them back but they’re children; they need a nursemaid, not a soldier of God. And Sebastian never needed me, but perhaps it’s for the best. He is a loner, and I need a pair to recreate the magic trinity.

  Yes. The alchemy of three.

  He thought of Karl again.

  I need…

  He floated in silence, wrapped in violet clouds, webbed by rainbow lines of magnetism. He watched a knot of darkness far above, perceiving it as a hole through which all the energy and beauty of the Ring was leaking away.

  Panic and despair flashed through him…

  And then he felt the pull. The magnetic lines thrummed like violin strings. The ether shuddered. He felt his hands turn hot, and saw that they were glowing, as they used to when he was God’s envoy.

  Simon gasped. “Dear God, what is this?”

  He felt power returning. Not a blaze of ineffable light this time, but enough to prove that he was still an angel, that someone on Earth had empowered him by needing him.

  And Simon went with the call, diving towards the source as if winged. He heard the prayer, bathed in the beseeching, honeyed words, slipped softly to Earth to greet his summoners.

  His glorious manifestation was an act, for his new-born strength was fragile. Still, it was enough to convince them that he’d answered their prayers.

  A sword of God to slay Lilith.

  So someone had finally realised the danger and called for Simon’s aid! He was so grateful, he couldn’t help but embrace them in his joy.

  When Simon stood back, he was far from enraptured by what he saw. A mousy choirboy with a visionary light in his eyes, and a mutilated little man like a leper from a medieval woodcut. No beauty here. Yet there was something, a feeling of inchoate power that excited Simon beyond reason. So he clasped them, bit their throats and swallowed their blood in ecstatic greeting.

  Because it was better than nothing. It was a start, at least.

  * * *

  The day after the party, Robyn walked to the Public Garden and sat under the willows by the lagoon. The gold-leaf dome of the State House glinted through the trees, bright against an overcast sky. She wished the sun would shine. The weather was so capricious in early June, changing from chilly to hot in an hour. Still, the park was always green and lush; the dogwoods laden with blossom, purple beeches and maidenhair trees shimmering all around her.

  Robyn watched the swan boats circling the small lake. Round and round they went in genteel procession, each with a man pedalling stoically between the wings of a carved white swan, families seated in rows on the benches, children throwing bread to the ducks. She stared at the boats until she was hypnotised.

  She’d put
off Harold, invitations to lunch, everything, saying she was unwell. She wasn’t lying. She was in a state of shock.

  When Karl caught her on the terrace, she’d put on a show of levity. “Oh, how foolish of me to miss the step, no harm done, how lucky you were there…” But he knew there was something wrong; she saw concern in his eyes. God, Karl’s eyes… too much like those of the stranger in the garden for comfort.

  He and Charlotte had been solicitous, as if they feared she’d been in danger. Robyn, however, said nothing about Violette or the strange male. None of their business, really. She only wondered why they were so concerned.

  Josef wasn’t himself, either. Preoccupied, he’d insisted on leaving the party early. So Robyn asked Wilkes to drive him back to his hotel, but Josef wouldn’t say what was wrong, only that he was tired.

  Now she wished that she’d dispensed with social niceties and asked Karl and Charlotte directly, “What exactly is going on?”

  At the time, though, it had been impossible. Why, when they were so lovely, so charming and kind, had she felt so uneasy with them?

  After seeing Josef safely to his hotel, she’d gone home and to bed. No hope of sleep. In the middle of the night, she’d gone to Alice’s room and woken her.

  “I met a ghost last night,” Robyn had said. “Or an angel of death, maybe. He told me that Russell Booth intended to commit suicide. Or already had.”

  Alice sat up in bed, half-asleep. “You woke me to tell me this?”

  “Did you hear me?” She told her bemused companion everything.

  “But, madam, if he’d killed himself, they wouldn’t be holding a party, would they?”

  “That’s what I said.” Robyn exhaled. “I know what it was – his god-damned brothers playing a sick joke on me! Funny. I never took any of that family to have a sense of humour.”

  Later, as Robyn ate breakfast, Alice went out to visit a friend. She returned within minutes, looking stunned.

  “I just met the housekeeper from the house next door to the Booths. First thing this morning, the family found Russell dead in his study.”

  Now Robyn sat by the lake, her stomach a cold knot. Russell’s death, however tragic, barely touched her heart, but last night’s eeriness persisted.

  Maybe I imagined the man after all. Some ghastly premonition?

  Josef’s hotel on Tremont Street was only minutes’ walk away, but she suspected that even if she asked him outright who his strange friends were, he wouldn’t give a straight answer.

  As she sat watching the swan boats, she became aware of a shadow in the corner of her eye. He appeared as suddenly as before: a dark figure in a black overcoat, his face pale against the material. He stood beside her bench, hands in his pockets, silent as the air.

  Robyn looked at him in a mixture of shock and relief. Her heart was pounding. So I didn’t imagine him!

  “Good afternoon, Mrs Stafford.”

  “Good afternoon… I’m afraid I don’t recall your name,” she said, with all the poise she could gather. She wouldn’t let any man think he’d unsettled her.

  “I am Sebastian Pierse,” he said, “and I owe you an apology.”

  His words, spoken in a low, contrite tone, took her aback. She studied his profile and saw a high, curved cheekbone, well-shaped nose and jaw, long black lashes. Features a sculptor might have moulded with idealistic fingers – but they told her nothing about his character. The distant look in his eyes could have been arrogance, or something subtler and darker.

  “Yes, perhaps you do.”

  He only stood there, watching the swan boats as if transfixed. Eventually she said, “Why don’t you sit down, Mr Pierse?”

  “Because I wait until I’ve been invited.” He came to sit beside her with a dancer’s effortless grace. As he half-turned towards her with one arm along the back of the bench, she saw him clearly for the first time.

  “It was unforgivable of me to approach you without warning,” he said.

  Difficult to tell his age; he might be anywhere between twenty-five and forty, a world away from the brash, scrubbed American men who were considered handsome. His was an old-world beauty, chiselled but not polished, the fair skin radiant with a particular Celtic translucency. Despite his pallor, he seemed all shadows. His hair – darkest brown, soft, formless and too long – shaded his forehead. Dense black eyebrows and lashes gave alluring depth to his eyes. The irises were hazel-green, like woodland pools.

  “You must understand,” he went on, “I was upset about my friend’s death. That is no excuse –”

  “No, it isn’t,” Robyn said coolly. “You were rude, and I certainly did not deserve your insinuations.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.” The timbre of his voice lulled her towards forgiveness.

  “Was he dead when you came to me?”

  “Yes.”

  “How did you know before anyone else?”

  “Others knew,” he said. “They didn’t want to distress the party guests by announcing it.”

  This statement didn’t quite ring true, but she let it pass. “Did you know Russell well?”

  “As I said, he was a friend. I know nothing about you, Mrs Stafford, except what he told me.”

  “And what did he tell you?”

  “That without you, he had no reason to live.”

  His head was turned slightly away, but looked sideways into her eyes; aware of her, but inwardly distracted. Certainly not attempting to flirt. She was irritated yet intrigued.

  He was beautiful, in his understated way, like a creature of another race, another time. Not unlike Karl… different, but with the same ability to confuse and captivate…

  Oh, no, she told herself firmly. He won’t get me like that. I’m immune.

  “Look, Mr Pierse, I know you’re upset by Russell’s death. So am I. I was fond of him.” Half-truths and lies slid out with equal ease. “But our relationship had no future. He was so young. I was hardly the ideal daughter-in-law. So I had to end it, for his sake. I thought he’d get over it, never dreamed he’d…”

  Sebastian sat forward, looking straight at her. “Would you have acted differently, if you’d known how desperate he was?”

  “Why should I?” A smile iced her lips. “A threat of suicide would have made our liaison no more feasible. I have an aversion to emotional blackmail.”

  “Quite so. All the same…” As he spoke, she received the impression that Sebastian Pierse actually did not give a damn about his so-called friend. “I can see why he felt as he did.”

  This remark took her off-guard. Not that she was unused to compliments, but she hadn’t expected them from someone so aloof. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Now I’ve compounded the sin,” he said. “Mrs Stafford, would you consider forgiving me over dinner?”

  His lovely eyes were suddenly all over her. Robyn felt a dart of triumph. It seemed she’d misread him. He was no phantom, only a man, and he was falling for her after all, so predictably, like all the others.

  In that moment, a delightful intention uncoiled like a snake’s tongue inside her. I’ve got him, she thought. And he thinks it’s so easy. But I’ll have him, and I’ll make him pay for thinking he can manipulate me.

  “I hardly know you.”

  “All friendships have to begin somewhere. Please,” he said with endearing sincerity, “let me make amends.”

  “Well… all right.” She spoke with careful indifference, letting her eyelids fall. Then she looked up with the innocent, enticing expression that made idiots of most males. “If you think we have anything to discuss.”

  “As long as we’ve laid Russell to rest, we can begin again with anything in the world.” He sounded positively tender. “Anything you desire.”

  * * *

  Alone in his hotel room, Josef felt at home. The solitude of a plain, comfortable room, a lamp pooling yellow light on the desk, an open book; all pleasantly familiar. It was his habit to read long into the night. He sat in shirt-sleeves, reading
about the long-haired demon of the night, Lilith.

  He felt certain that Charlotte would visit him tonight.

  The previous night at the party, she’d admitted that Violette had met Robyn in the garden.

  “Nothing happened,” Charlotte had tried to reassure him. “And I’ve told Violette to leave her alone.”

  “Will she?”

  “Yes. She doesn’t take victims indiscriminately. She has no reason to attack you or Robyn.”

  Josef was not reassured. The danger had come too close. Robyn alone with a vampire, all unsuspecting… the thought chilled him. Charlotte’s attempt to placate him only underlined how dangerous she felt Violette to be.

  His head ached. He pinched the skin between his eyebrows. If anything happens to Robyn, if Karl or Violette touches her, it will be my fault! God, how did I get into this?

  Everything in his research portrayed Lilith as an uncontrollable, negative force. The dark side of the psyche. How could anyone contain a creature as wild as Lilith, except by destruction? The word of God, or a stake through the heart?

  Josef, despite everything, still believed in the forces of good and evil.

  He willed Charlotte to arrive, wanting to emphasise his concern for Robyn. She always arrived without sound. He should be used to her by now, yet it was always a shock: the spidery realisation that he was no longer alone.

  Now he felt her standing behind him, more tangible than a ghost. He caught a hint of perfume, a soft footstep on the carpet. Without looking round, he drew and released a controlled breath.

  “Guten Abend, my dear,” he said warmly. “I hoped you would come.”

  “I’ll bet you did.”

  The voice was not Charlotte’s. It was low, accented, sharp as glass. And her perfume was wrong, too heavy…

  He twisted round, one arm gripping the back of his chair. The slight figure at the foot of the bed was Charlotte’s opposite. A bright young party creature, dressed in sparkling crimson. Her face was a bleached heart under a feathery bandeau, but her beauty was distorted by the livid black hunger in her eyes. Dark roses, the same red as her hair, trailed over the shoulders, suggestive of congealed blood and sweet, musky decay…