The Dark Blood of Poppies

by Freda Warrington

  Not reacting, he asked, “Would you like me to come with you?”

  “No!” she flared. “No, thank you. I’d like you to protect my dancers. But you don’t have to. Leave, go to Charlotte: I don’t care.”

  Her fangs shone, indenting her lower lip. She seemed on the verge of fulfilling her threat to feed on him, transform him and destroy his soul. Karl turned cold, but didn’t move.

  “Why do you drive away everyone who wants to help you?”

  “I don’t need help.”

  “Or you think you don’t deserve it.”

  “You think I don’t deserve it,” she retorted. “Duty to Charlotte: that’s the only reason you’re here.”

  Karl was weary of arguing with her. Hurt, she was impossible to console. He was inclined to take her at her word, and leave.

  “Is duty such a repellent concept to you?” he said. “Yes, I think you are harmful to Charlotte, but I can put aside my personal doubts and do what is correct, because there is no point in doing otherwise. I am not your enemy. I couldn’t possibly compete with the loathing you feel for yourself.”

  White fire sparked in her eyes, then died. “Two good things have happened to me,” she said, more evenly. “I learned that Rachel has forgiven me, and my best dancer Ute came back. But I’d fed on them both. Some of my victims respond with love, others with terror and hatred. Of the two, it’s love I can’t cope with. I feel such rage, Karl, and fear. And the simple truth is that no one can help me. Not even you.”

  “Well, I’m not leaving,” Karl said dryly. “Go to Robyn. I’ll look after your dancers – out of love for art, if nothing else.”

  * * *

  The closer the ceremony came, the uneasier Pierre grew. He longed to leave. He wanted the bright lights of a city, theatre crowds, potential victims thronging around him, not a care in the world. But if he left, Violette would pounce and finish him. He knew it.

  So instead of the old life he wanted, he had Cesare and his insufferable henchmen, Simon and John; a castle full of sombre fanatics and wide-eyed gullible youths. And now there were yards of white and blood-red satin, being sewn into robes by conscientious Maria and her helpers. He felt he was trapped in the wardrobe department of some insane theatrical company.

  “How can this transformation work?” he asked Cesare. “Three vampires to change one human; that was Kristian’s way. The only way, so I was told. More vampires would be superfluous, but fewer than three would lack the power to make it work.”

  “This will work,” Cesare said with the tranquil self-confidence that Pierre found so irritating. He sat behind the table in his cell, his hands folded. “One vampire, one human. A necklace of power. Simon assures me that it was done in ancient times. Besides, it’s more than an ordinary transformation. It will be a ceremony ordained by God.”

  Cesare could go on like this for hours. Pierre groaned inwardly, thinking, I wish I’d never asked. When llona walked in, he was pathetically grateful. She was the only source of entertainment in this wretched pile.

  “You wanted to see me?” she said.

  Cesare nodded, and beckoned her closer. “I want to thank you for your efforts in recruiting our disciples. You’ve done well.”

  “I brought the best I could find,” she said, with a light shrug. “But if you want my opinion, they’ll still be no use against Violette. Any lumbering mammal can be killed by a little snake.”

  Cesare’s manner turned glacial. Pierre loved the way she provoked him. “You misunderstand. They are for the world after Violette. She will be gone by then.”

  “Always so serious, Cesare,” she said. “Don’t you ever smile? Or think about anything but your great plans?”

  Mon Dieu, she’s on dangerous ground, thought Pierre, watching in delight as she went around the table and sat on Cesare’s lap. She ruffled the cropped hair, kissed his forehead, moved suggestively on his thighs. “Why don’t you relax?” she said. “You can’t always be this dull, surely.”

  The leader froze. He looked revolted and furious. His hands came up to grip llona’s arms, clearly hurting her. She went white, and fear misted her eyes.

  “We are not beasts,” he rasped. “Humans may couple like grunting pigs; immortals do not. Blood is all we need. Carnality is a degrading sin and you, child, are no better than a whore.”

  “How dare you!” llona exclaimed. “How d’you think I lured your beautiful young men here?”

  At this, Cesare jerked her wrist to his mouth and bit. He ripped the flesh and fed brutally. Pierre watched in amazement.

  Cesare tore her wrist out of his mouth as if tearing flesh from a chicken leg. He leapt up, dumped her off his lap onto the floor. Ilona glared up at him, her eyes spitting fire.

  “Get her out of my sight,” said Cesare.

  Pierre helped Ilona up, and took her back to his own cell. He cradled her torn wrist as they went, licking it clean, watching the miraculous healing process.

  “Well, that was one of your more spectacular efforts,” he said.

  “Shut up! Don’t speak to me!”

  When they reached the cell, Simon was there, to Pierre’s annoyance. Seeing him, Ilona ran into his arms. Simon sat down with her on the edge of Pierre’s pallet.

  Matthew’s head, which got about, watched from the lid of a chest. Most of the flesh was gone from it now, leaving an ash-caked skull.

  “Cesare is inhuman,” she complained. “Worse than inhuman! How dare he call me names, after all I’ve done!”

  “What did he call you?” Simon raised his gilded eyebrows at Pierre.

  “I wouldn’t dare to repeat it,” said Pierre.

  “Oh, Ilona, you’re not happy, are you?” Simon said chidingly. “You thought helping Cesare was a game but it isn’t. You can’t wrap him around your finger as you could with Kristian.”

  “That’s a joke,” she said. “Kristian was completely sexless as well. I tried everything!”

  “Cesare isn’t Kristian. You cannot mock him and walk away as you please.”

  “Can’t I? So who is in charge; you or Cesare?”

  “Cesare, of course.” He added under his breath, “For now.”

  “There’s something wrong with men like that.”

  “Don’t be angry.” Simon stroked her hair with his golden hands, kissed her face. “Don’t run away. We need you.”

  Ilona let herself be consoled. Their kisses grew deeper. Pierre put his head in his hands. Couldn’t bear to watch, too apathetic to leave.

  If I’d known my coming here would spark Cesare’s madness, he groaned inwardly, I’d have crawled back to Violette and begged her to finish the job.

  * * *

  Karl was aware of humans going about their business: a few dancers lingering in the studio, others in the changing room or in their bedrooms. He could even pick out threads of conversation: the rehearsal pianist complaining to the ballet master that the piano was out of tune. The kitchen bustled with activity as the cooks prepared the evening meal.

  A noise penetrated the murmur. Quick footsteps, someone crying.

  Karl stood up. Geli rushed in without knocking, a heap of black and white fur in her arms. Seeing Karl, she stopped.

  “Oh – isn’t Madame here?” Tears were rolling down her face.

  “She had to go out.”

  The cat in Geli’s arms hung limp, foam streaking its open mouth. “I’m sorry, sir. I was taking some clean linen from the airing cupboard and I found Magdi –”

  “Lie her on the sofa,” said Karl. Geli obeyed, but he knew the animal was dead before he touched the cold fur. “It’s too late to help her, I’m afraid. Take her to the caretaker and ask him to bury her.”

  Geli broke into sobs again. “Do you think she ate rat poison somewhere? We’ve four cats, I’m worried about the others now.”

  The word poison electrified Karl. “When was she last fed?”

  “I don’t know. I can ask in the kitchen, sir.”

  He gathered the creature in h
is arms. “Come along.” Geli followed, trusting Karl completely, as unsuspecting humans so often did.

  Karl left Magdi’s corpse outside, entering the kitchen by the back door. The room was full of steam and cooking smells, which he found repellent. Three cooks and four maids turned to look at him, their faces red and shiny with heat.

  The other cats were fed at five, one of the girls told him, but Magdi hadn’t turned up with them. “She hangs around miaowing for treats when the butcher’s boy comes. I always give her a bit of sausage.. And she rarely misses her meals, so when she didn’t appear this evening, I thought I’d given her too much and spoiled her appetite.”

  “What meat did the butcher bring today?” Karl asked.

  “The usual,” said the head cook, a bony woman with grey plaits pinned around her head. “Bockwurst, Bratwurst, chicken and pork.”

  She indicated the big central table, where girls were shovelling sausage and sauerkraut onto plates.

  “Has anyone been served yet?”

  “No, we’re only just ready.”

  “Then stop.”

  The servers stepped back as if they’d been burned. Karl took a knife and sliced open a Bratwurst. The thought of consuming this dead object was alien and vile; vampires lost any pleasure in food at the instant of transformation. Still, he was capable of scientific objectivity. Under the fatty aromas he caught a false note. He touched his tongue to the cut surface and caught a malign flavour, some metallic chemical.

  “Throw all this food away,” he said matter-of-factly. “Tell the dancers to eat in the town tonight. Madame Lenoir will reimburse them.”

  The kitchen was in a mild state of uproar as he asked the horrified cook to show him the rest of that day’s delivery. In the pantry he prodded chickens and slabs of meat, tasted the watery blood oozing from the flesh. All contaminated.

  “Was this brought by the usual butcher?”

  “No, sir, a new boy. Never seen him before. Handsome lad, fair hair; could have been a dancer himself.”

  How did I miss this? Karl wondered. But looking back, he knew. Tradesmen called at the house every day; he’d barely registered the visit of a delivery boy.

  And if Geli had found the cat even five minutes later…

  “This must all be disposed of.”

  “I don’t understand,” said the cook.

  “Someone meant to make the dancers ill. Fetch all the food yourself from the market for the time being.”

  “But who would –?”

  “I believe I know,” Karl said, walking away.

  * * *

  He overtook the culprit near Ulm, halfway between Austria and the Rhineland. A young man riding a motorcycle along a snowy, tree-lined road in darkness. From the whispering shadow-world of Raqia, Karl saw him as a narrow yellowish-silver shape: an aura as plain as a signature. All the young men at Schloss Holdenstein radiated the same light: pure, fierce, devoid of compassion.

  Karl swooped. He snapped into the real world on the rider’s pillion, hands gripping the leather-clad shoulders in front of him.

  The young man screamed, lost control of the machine and swerved off the road. Hitting the snow-banked verge, the motorcycle somersaulted. The man was flung face down into a ditch and Karl fell with him.

  The ditch was thick with snow. A pine forest rose on their left, black and silent. Karl snatched off the man’s goggles and helmet then pressed his face into snow, twisting one arm up behind his back. The man grunted with pain.

  “Well, butcher,” said Karl, “who sent you?”

  “Sent me – to do what?” he rasped, defiant.

  “To poison a houseful of innocent young men and women.”

  No answer. Karl jerked the arm. The socket popped, the man shrieked. “Was it Cesare?”

  “Yes! Cesare sent me. Let me go!”

  Karl turned him over and saw a handsome freckled face under straw-pale hair. It was the man on whom Cesare had let him feed. He clearly recognsed Karl, but his stoic pride had vanished.

  “If you answer my questions. Are you hoping to become one of us?”

  “Yes. Cesare promised!”

  “Has he transformed anyone yet?”

  “Not yet.” He grunted and struggled, but Karl held him down.

  “How many does he plan to initiate?”

  “Thirty.”

  Dear God, Karl thought, thirty new vampires! “When is he going to begin?”

  “I can’t tell you – he – argh!” This as Karl pressed a thumb into his throat. “He will transform us all at once.”

  “How? That’s impossible.”

  “Not for Cesare. He knows a way. I don’t know how, but he does.”

  Karl believed him. “When?”

  “Soon. Stop, stop! In three days’ time. Midnight. Please, it’s the truth!”

  “Three days,” said Karl.

  “And then I’ll be like you. I’ll come after you and make you sorry for this!”

  “That’s not the cleverest threat to make at this moment.”

  “You can’t defeat our leader! Thirty of us will become sixty, then a hundred and twenty, then –”

  “I can add up,” said Karl, dread descending on him. “When will he stop?”

  “When he sees fit.”

  “The idiot means to conquer the world – but then it would be a vampire world, not a human one. But I like the human world. I wish to be a shadow in the darkness, not a daylight tyrant, an object of terror and loathing. Everyone will regret this, mortal or immortal.”

  “He was right about you! You’re weak. No use to the new order. Now I’ve answered your questions, so let me go!”

  “After what you’ve done?” Karl said icily. “I don’t think so.”

  “You promised, if I told you –”

  “You should know better than to trust a vampire.”

  The young man pulled feverishly at his jacket collar. “Take my blood,” he pleaded. “You know how good it tastes. Take what you want, only let me free.”

  Karl looked at the tendons gleaming through the skin, the sheen of sweat, the pulse ticking madly, and felt only distaste. “Your blood would be as polluted as the meat you delivered.”

  “Please.”

  Karl gripped the head at the chin and the crown. The man tried to resist, eyes bulging, but he might as well have tried to shift a boulder. With a deft motion, Karl broke his neck.

  If anyone from the castle finds him, Karl thought, they will take this as a warning – or provocation.

  “I have often felt pity for my victims,” he said aloud, standing over the corpse. “But for you, none.”

  * * *

  Charlotte lay couched in satin like a rosy-lipped angel, but no one looked at her. The coffin had stood in the drawing room for three days; they were waiting now for the funeral cortège, for the undertakers to screw down the coffin lid. Charlotte, hearing the murmur of unhappy voices somewhere in the house, drifted in a trance of quiet insanity.

  The charade had passed off smoothly, as she’d predicted. A sudden illness, a doctor who readily believed that Charlotte had collapsed with grief after her father’s funeral. Anne’s voice shook as she told the story.

  “We couldn’t wake her this morning. If we’d known she was so ill, we would have called you sooner!”

  Charlotte wondered, as the doctor probed her cold flesh, if he found Anne’s edginess suspicious. No, he simply assumed she was upset.

  “People do die of grief,” he said, “but she’s so young, I’m afraid there may be an inquest…”

  Charlotte’s eyes, glass slivers under half-closed lids, caught and held his. Sign the certificate, and leave.

  He wrote the cause of death as pneumonia, and departed.

  Afterwards, Anne was furious at having to tell lies, but Charlotte remained deadly calm. Madeleine was upset, while David simply washed his hands of the matter, which aggrieved Anne more. Even Elizabeth was on edge. The house seemed shrouded in greyness, full of ghosts and cobwebs.<
br />
  Charlotte hated inflicting such distress on them, but she couldn’t stop. It was a form of madness. The moment her father died, she had lost her reason.

  Three days to the funeral. The coffin lay empty, its lid in place so that their servants and visitors did not suspect. Charlotte vanished, haunting Cambridge for victims. That night she went out to the fens; the night was chill, flatly colourless. Dropping her unconscious victim, licking his blood from her lips, she thought, I rose from a coffin tonight and I shall return to it, in the best tradition.

  She shook with laughter. She was close to screaming.

  Sometimes, when the others were in bed, she sat in the drawing room staring at the coffin.

  Mine, she thought. I’ll never need it. If ever I die, I’ll be left to rot in some forest or I’ll vanish into the Weisskalt. No one but a vampire can know what it’s like to lie in their own coffin and actually be buried.

  The night before the funeral, Madeleine crept in and sat with her, as if they were holding a wake. In a way, they were: for their father, and for Charlotte’s lost humanity. She put her arms around Maddy’s thin shoulders and consoled her.

  “It’s only for Henry,” said Charlotte. “Only for legal reasons.”

  “Then why’s everyone so upset?”

  “They don’t understand what I am. I didn’t mean to disturb them so badly. Please don’t be afraid, Maddy. No need for nightmares.”

  “I had enough nightmares about Karl,” Madeleine whispered. “I’m past all that now. But they won’t actually bury you, will they?”

  “Of course not. David will weigh down the coffin with a rug or something and they’ll bury that. It won’t be real.”

  Madeleine seemed content with that. Charlotte stroked her hair, breathing the lovely fragrances of shampoo and soap and perfume, forcing herself to ignore the pulse of her blood. At least she could reassure Maddy. It was too late for the others.

  When Madeleine left, there was silence. The clocks had stopped without her father there to wind them.

  But what would it be like, she wondered again, to be buried?

  She was going to go through with it. To punish herself for the pain she’d caused her family. To atone, a very little, for Fleur’s death.