“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?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
WHITE TO CONTAGION, PRESCIENT TO FIRE
Torn 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.”
* * *
In a copse on the long green flank of a hill, Charlotte held Violette and kissed her dry cheeks. Violette was ashen, but Charlotte knew she didn’t really want sympathy. She wanted Robyn. And Charlotte thought, How am I going to tell Josef?
“You should have let me kill Sebastian,” said Violette.
“Perhaps, but it won’t bring Robyn back,” said Karl.
Sebastian had let them leave the house without argument. Now they were in the countryside, half a mile away.
“How wonderful.” Violette’s tone was softly bitter. “I know all about taking life but nothing about giving it back. I’m certain Robyn didn’t want to become one of us. She let herself die, rather than let it happen. Why couldn’t I have died, too?”
“Don’t,” said Charlotte, anguished.
“The Crystal Ring decides,” said Karl. “It’s as arbitrary as nature.”
“We should go home,” Charlotte murmured.
Violette mastered herself, and clasped their hands. What had pa
ssed between the three of them could never be forgotten. Sensual magic, shadowy with grim wisdom, had changed them for all time.
“Oh no,” said Violette, with a demonic, chilling smile. “We have unfinished business at Schloss Holdenstein.”
* * *
Charlotte had been prepared for a battle. Instead they found the castle in deathly stillness.
As they walked along corridors to the heart of the castle, they heard soft voices, moans. Scents of congealed blood and sour human excretions met them, but no sign of life.
Entering the meeting chamber, they found carnage.
Human corpses everywhere. Thirty young men in white lay like scythed lilies, leopard-spotted with blood, bathed in dying torchlight. All of them drained of blood, cheated of eternal life.
There was a sudden weight in Charlotte’s chest. Mingled with relief she felt sorrow for the waste of life, the betrayal.
There were some thirty vampires in the chamber, all Cesare’s flock. Some were dragging corpses into rows, others sitting dazed on the floor. Pierre was with a group in a far corner, talking quietly. Charlotte saw one yellow-haired male vampire clinging to a corpse and weeping steadily. She thought of Robyn and tears came to her throat.
Cesare and Simon were near the ebony throne, engaged in a quiet but rancorous argument.
Karl, Charlotte and Violette entered softly. For a moment, no one took any notice. Simon saw them first but barely reacted, only gazed flatly at them and stopped responding to Cesare’s words. After a few seconds Cesare froze, and turned to see what had caught Simon’s attention.
Cesare staggered backwards, tripped on the dais and rescued himself on the arm of the throne. His face turned the horrible colour of the dead mortals around him.
“How did they escape? You told me they were trapped there forever!”
“A misjudgement,” Simon said dully.
“What? How can you claim to be from God when you’ve failed me in everything?”
“Can’t you understand?” Simon said viciously. “They are the new leaders, not you. That’s why we can’t contain or destroy them! They are the future!”
“If only,” said Karl.
Cesare looked so heartbroken that Charlotte sincerely pitied him.
Violette walked to the centre of the chamber and looked around. This time she came not as a storm but as her quiet self. Yet everyone stared and backed away, as if she had died and risen again from the underworld.
But that’s what we did, thought Charlotte. They’re not only frightened of Violette, but of us all.
“Well, which of you shall be first?” Violette said conversationally. She was a goddess of ice-crystal, her hair the night sky, her eyes arctic violet-blue. “Simon?”
Simon walked to her as if he couldn’t resist. What’s wrong with him? Charlotte thought, chilled. His eyes were like glass: dead.
“Your friends were killed,” said Violette-Lilith, taking his hand.
“Friends?”
“Fyodor and Rasmila. By Sebastian. Do you care?”
Simon only frowned. “How did you escape?” he asked.
“Let me show you.”
“Yes. Show me what I already know.”
No one moved as Violette stood on tiptoe and pressed her lips to Simon’s throat. He stood like a gilded figurine in his blood-red satin robe. Her arms went around his shoulders, the widow’s veil of her hair half-covering them both. Simon’s face became immobile, his eyes hooded, lips parted. A frown indented the skin between his eyebrows.
Cesare clung to the throne, aghast.
In the silence, Karl said, “Where’s Ilona?”
Pierre rushed forward and tugged at Karl’s arm. “I’ll take you.”
Charlotte watched them pass through the archway. Then she looked at Cesare. He approached her, lips parting to reveal his fangs.
“Don’t touch me,” said Charlotte, putting up her hand. Cesare stopped. She thought, Do I have power over him, like Lilith… or Isis?
“This will never be forgiven,” he said. “God will be your judge.”
“It’s not our fault the transformation failed,” she said angrily. “This is all a lie! Fanaticism is a human disease. We should know better.”
“We failed because we were betrayed!”
“No, you failed because the Crystal Ring has more sense than you.” Charlotte walked past him and went to look at the bodies. The other vampires watched her expectantly.
“Well?” she said. “You were all there; didn’t you feel what was happening? The Crystal Ring itself won’t allow so many immortals to be created. Something worse than you is coming, Cesare. The world can conjure its own nightmares without your help.”
“Liar!” said Cesare, frantic, helpless.
“We’ve seen the future,” said Charlotte. “Earth has no place for you and your empire.”
She heard the rustle of a robe behind her. When she glanced back, Cesare had disappeared.
Charlotte looked at the others. “Do you still love him? Still believe him?”
No one responded. The yellow-haired vampire, still clinging to his dead friend, looked up at her with piercing black eyes but said nothing. Sighing, Charlotte gazed with sad detachment at the corpses. Trying, like Karl, not to turn away in horror.
I have been sealed in a coffin and buried and I’m still alive…
One of the bodies twitched.
She bent down and felt a pulse, a weak life-aura. His face was drained, his breathing shallow – but he was alive. Still human.
“What’s your name?” Charlotte asked in German.
The man’s eyes fluttered, trying to focus.
“Werner. Am I in hell?”
“More or less.” She knew she must get him out of the castle before someone decided to stamp out his tenuous life. “Get up,” she said, holding his arm. “I’ll help you.”
He was well-built, but she had the strength to half-carry him along narrow twisting corridors until she found a door to the outside. Like the others, he was blond, handsome, not very bright. He had worshipped Cesare and yet, for some reason, Charlotte wanted him to live.
She dragged open the door and thrust Werner out onto the hillside. He stood blinking at her, confounded.
“Go on!” said Charlotte. “It’s a miracle you’re alive! Just go!”
The youth went, stumbling, into the darkness.
Then the stench hit her.
The warmth of other humans, steaming from below. The sourness of sweat and excrement. Charlotte ran down a spiral stair, wrenched open a cell door, and saw three dozen pairs of eyes glaring through the dark in terror and supplication.
She gasped, holding her throat. She knew what they were. Victims, held ready to feed Cesare’s new-fledged race of immortals.
“You’re free,” Charlotte said, almost losing her voice. She pointed. “Up the steps. The door is open. Come on!”
* * *
“What happened?” Karl asked as Pierre led him to a passageway lined with iron doors. Kristian had used to lock up recalcitrant disciples here; Karl had been imprisoned here more than once. He shuddered, thinking, If John has harmed Ilona, he’ll think I am Kristian, come back from the dead…
“It all went wrong,” Pierre said with a shrug. “John and Cesare blamed Ilona for breaking the circle.”
“Insane, trying to transform them all at once.”
“Simon swore it would work. Maybe he knew it wouldn’t. He admitted he’s been using Cesare. They had a glorious argument. And what now?”
“You tell me,” said Karl.
Pierre caught Karl’s elbow. Their eyes met; Pierre looked exhausted and afraid for his life. “My friend, you’re the one who brought Lilith here again. I don’t know what the hell you are playing at! Since she nearly destroyed me I’ve thought of nothing but how to escape her.”
Without sympathy, Karl said, “Have you considered facing her instead?”
Not answering, Pierre brought him to the open door of a cell.
Inside, Karl saw Ilona confronting the grotesque figure of John.
“Daughter of Lilith,” said John, his voice the whisper of an inquisitor. “You betrayed us. You are a serpent.”
Ilona smiled at him. “Flatterer,” she said.
She was unhurt, Karl saw in relief. She and John were like wolves circling, each waiting for the other to attack first.
“Shameless whore,” said John.
“You couldn’t afford me.”
“Witch!”
“And you are scared to death of witches, aren’t you?”
Karl walked in and seized John’s arm, making him growl in pain. He glared at Karl with hellish strength, rage seething in his disfigured face. Yet he’d lost some spark of courage. His jaw dropped, and he vanished into Raqia.
Karl looked at Ilona. “Are you all right?”
“I hate you, Father,” she said, her mouth sulky. “I was enjoying that.”
Then she ran into Karl’s arms.
As they returned through the corridors and stairways, Karl asked, “Did you really sabotage the transformation?”
“Oh, yes,” said Ilona. “I broke the circle and I did so on purpose. Also, I didn’t quite kill my partner, so he would block the energy.”
“Why?” Karl said in astonishment.
“Because I’m Lilith’s daughter in spirit.” She smiled thinly. “I have my pride; I never thought anyone could break me until I met her, and I wouldn’t admit I was broken until I found myself being used by Cesare. By then I was too busy hating Violette to care.”
“What changed your mind?”
“Realising the perfect insanity of Cesare’s plan. My God, to think I was helping that halfwit become a tyrant, just to revenge myself on her! Eventually I saw that Violette acts as she does because she’s exactly like me.”
Karl and Pierre shared a look of surprise over Ilona’s head.
“I couldn’t face what she’d done to me,” Ilona went on. “She makes you look at yourself and it’s not a pretty sight. Is it, Pierre?” She grinned at him. “I thought I was being clever, not giving in to her. But my idiocy lay in coming to Cesare, instead of facing the truth. Still, unlike some, at least I came to my senses.”
Back in the main chamber, there was no sign of Cesare or Simon, Violette or Charlotte. The vampires in scarlet lingered restively.
The Dark Blood of Poppies Page 53