“Why are you staring at me like that?” she asked, frowning. “Maybe I don’t look so nice in daylight.”
She knelt on the edge of the bed, knees parted, the contrast of pale silk on her coffee skin breathtaking. Her messy, wavy hair was the same rich brown as her eyes.
“You look glorious,” he said.
A small bathroom led off the room, the door only three feet from where he lay. He got up dizzily, entered and locked himself in. He was still wearing trousers, but no socks or shirt… There he drank a glass of water, washed himself at the sink, cleaned his teeth as best he could with a fingertip dipped into some mint-flavoured tooth powder he found on a shelf. Then he stood glaring at his reflection in the mirror. The worst of the swelling had gone down, but he still looked dreadful, his eyelids livid brown and purple. His eyes were vacant, dead.
Was this to be his future, without Violette? Drinking himself into oblivion, being pummelled by thugs in alleys, waking up next to prostitutes?
Wait. He couldn’t assume she was anything of the sort. Surely a whore would have described what a wonderful time he’d had, and what a shame he couldn’t remember. She would not have said, “Nothing happened.” Nor was she a stage-door worshipper who’d been dazzled by his athleticism on stage. She’d only seen him as an inebriated wreck.
Perhaps she simply pitied him.
“Emil?” A tap at the door. “Are you all right?”
“Yes.” He unlocked the door and went to sit on the bed, leaning back against the carved headboard. “Why did you bring me here?”
“I don’t know.” She looked sombre now. She knelt facing him, picking at the edge of the quilt. “I have never done such a thing before. I was married – my husband died three years ago. We met in Algeria. He was a French soldier, stationed on the Ruhr after the Great War ended… a fever took him. I’ve been alone since. I don’t know… I saw you, and I thought… that you looked kind, and lonely. Like me.”
“I’m in love with someone else,” Emil said harshly. “She doesn’t want me. That’s why I was drunk and miserable. I can’t love you, I’m sorry.”
“Oh. Well.” Her lovely dark eyelids fell. “I wasn’t expecting love from someone I met yesterday. But… that doesn’t mean we can’t comfort each other, does it?”
She crept forward as she spoke, let her hands steal over his abdomen to caress his bare chest. Emil surrendered, blood rushing through him, delicious sensation turning him to molten sunlight… She kissed him and he clasped her head, sensual memories of the previous night becoming warm reality. Almost at once he was hard, and struggling with the dilemma of wanting to keep his hands in her hair as her tongue eased between his lips… to tear off what little clothing she wore, and to free his own swollen flesh so he could feel her nakedness against him.
“God, I should have eight hands,” he murmured, and she laughed.
“We have four between us. Slowly. One thing at a time. I’ll guide you.”
Did she think he was a virgin? In truth, he was inexperienced. A village girl or two, a cabaret dancer in Paris… then he’d joined the Ballet Lenoir, and barely had time to think of anything but work. Months of frustrated passion filled him now. As a dancer, he was finely attuned to every sensation of his own body in a way that no ordinary mortal could understand…
There was no more talk.
He set his jaw, fighting to control the sensations building in his loins. Beneath animal impulse, he kept enough intellectual control to know that he must hold back. His pride insisted that he prove himself a good lover, not an inept youth. He held his breath as her fingers worked at his buttons and freed him from his trousers and undergarments. His phallus sprang free, engorged above his muscular thighs. He fought hard to control his pressing need for climax; held back to enjoy a greater pleasure, Fadiya’s expression of wonder as she admired his physique. She actually gasped out loud.
He knew he was splendid, and vain – why not? He’d worked damned hard to look like a sculptured god. He felt like laughing and weeping in sheer joy that this gorgeous exotic woman was astride him, appreciating his body like a work of art. As if she’d never seen anyone to compare.
She sat upright, rolled her chemise over her head and tossed it aside. The sight of her slim brown body as she arched her back and threw back her head was magnificent. Her hair was a mess, her eyes glistening. No longer brown but jade-green, like a cat’s. The pale eyes against her dark skin were enchanting, maddeningly beautiful. And then she eased into close contact, hot and intimate… he groaned, pushing up to meet her. Her hands were on him, guiding him inside her as she enveloped him a little at a time, rising again to torture him, sliding deeper… rising and falling on him until he floated in sea of mindless bliss.
How long? Time didn’t matter: the minutes seemed to go on forever. Her hands explored the muscles of his arms and thighs. A hot, slippery, agonising ache built between them, welding them together. She rose and fell on him, faster and faster…
Her breathing quickened, her movements grew convulsive and her cries so loud that anyone nearby must have heard. Her obvious pleasure was enough to trigger an explosion in him, so violent it was nearly a fit. He gripped her hips. Every touch of yearning he’d ever felt, he poured into Fadiya.
She collapsed on to him. He traced her back with gentle fingers, learning every detail of her spine and shoulder-blades and ribs under the lovely flesh. She attended to his chest with kisses, touches of her tongue and light scrapes of her teeth. After a long time he realised…
He had not once thought about Violette.
* * *
Emil looked at the bedside clock. If it was correct, he had precisely forty minutes to reach the academy in time for the pre-rehearsal warm up…
“Am I keeping you from somewhere?” Fadiya asked. She lay across his chest. They were both too warm and languorous to move.
“No. There is nowhere else I wish to be.”
She raised her head, resting her chin on her hand. She must have heard an edge in his voice. “I don’t believe you. Tell me the truth. Tell me about this woman you love.”
He was silent for a while, reluctant to speak. Yet somehow she coaxed the words out of him, and in his unguarded, relaxed state, he told her everything.
“I was mad to think she could return my feelings. I should not have told her, but I couldn’t not tell her – do you see what an impossible position I was in?” He gazed at the ceiling without focus.
“She sounds cruel,” said Fadiya. “It’s love you need, not cruelty. You deserve love.”
“No, it’s not her fault. I did this to myself. Her friends told me that she… she only likes other women, and that she loved someone who died. But that’s none of my business, is it? I thought I knew her, but I don’t. I had this fantasy in my head that I could be her soulmate, possess her as she possesses me… but it can never happen. I cannot go back to the ballet, Fadiya. But if I don’t – what am I? Nothing. A dancer, her partner, is all I ever wanted to be. But I’ve thrown it away. I can hear my father’s laughter now.”
“Well, your father sounds cruel, too,” she said. “May I give you some advice, Emil?”
“If you must.”
“Go back to the ballet.”
“What? I can’t!”
“Yes, you can.” She rose on braced arms. Her face underwent a change from sweetness to hard-eyed determination. “That’s why you were looking at the clock, isn’t it? There’s something you should be doing.”
“Nothing. Practice. It doesn’t matter.”
“Yes, it does. Do you know how self-pitying you sound?”
“I what?” His blood rose.
“Go to your practice. Face her. Perhaps you can’t have her, but you can have your career. You still have your pride.”
“Too much of it, according to some.”
“Dear, beautiful Emil, if you spend enough time with me, I promise you will have no amorous thoughts left over for your ballerina.” Her face softened into a spa
rkling, wicked smile. “But you must go back to the ballet. You cannot walk away! Go back and prove to her how magnificent you are.”
“Why does this matter to you?”
“Because I see clear through you. You, Emil Fiorani, were created to be the greatest dancer in the world. And there is no one else in this room to tell you but me.”
He caught his breath. She was right. Damn it, he would go back.
He sat up. “If I go now – if I hurry, I can be there just in time.”
“Then go!” She got off the bed. Laughing, she began to pick up his clothes and throw them at him. He dressed in a rush, hopping as he tried to fasten his trousers and put on his shoes at the same time.
Emil made for the door, only to stop and turn back. He caught Fadiya around the waist, buried his face in her neck and felt her body arch against his.
“When can I see you again?” he whispered.
* * *
Charlotte and Karl rose floated through Raqia from the dim lower levels to the rich blue air above. Sunrise lit the cloud-mountains from bronze to honey. A sharp cool breeze carried them gently up and down, like seaweed on an uneasy sea.
Charlotte felt strange. This was the first time she’d entered the Crystal Ring since the night of the stabbing. It took energy to enter the other-realm, and she’d been too weak, and Raqia too wild with storms.
“Thank goodness it’s calm at last,” said Karl. His voice was more in her head than in her ears.
Raqia changed perceptions. Their bodies became a hybrid of dark angel and dragonfly, tiny in the void. Joined by their entwined fingertips, they drifted above a vast golden-cream plain of cloud, like swimmers floating face down on a clear lagoon. Vampires did not sleep – least of all in coffins – but they needed the subtle replenishment of the Crystal Ring as much as they needed blood.
It’s another way of feeding off humans, Charlotte thought. Absorbing their thought-waves and dreams.
“How are you, beloved?” Karl asked.
“I didn’t realise how much I’ve missed this,” she said. “It’s like diving into a mountain stream after being locked in a stifling cell for days. Like stretching out in a clean bed after trekking across the desert.”
“Rest,” he said. She heard a slight catch in his voice. Then she slipped into the divine waking trance…
Odd, she couldn’t properly remember the previous night. She recalled trying to reason with Emil, but everything after that was vague. She’d been restless… Karl had taken her to hunt, and she remembered feasting upon a slim young man, shorter than her and so light that she’d actually lifted him off his feet as she swallowed his delicious hot blood… And being with Karl in their living room, listening to Strauss on the gramophone… dancing together, pressed close, aching with the blissful pain of touching yet still holding back.
At one point, Charlotte had thought, To hell with this, I can’t bear it, what harm would it do if we fell into bed after all. Wanting Karl so desperately that she simply didn’t care any more. Only for the lamia to appear and seep between them like a wall of icy fog. Mindless, emotionless, simply staring at Charlotte like the reflection of a corpse.
Every day she insisted she was getting better. Every day she tried to convince herself that the poison was leaving her system, but she knew the truth.
The lamia would not go away. Perhaps it never would.
Worst of all, the idea no longer upset her as much. She was beginning to accept it, as a dying human accepted death.
She barely remembered Karl bringing her into the Crystal Ring, but what a relief to find herself here again. It was wonderful, like sleeping after days of insomnia.
“Look,” she said, pointing at an uprush of crimson light. The light was not random but travelled in straight columns, shooting from the Earth up towards the Weisskalt.
She heard murmuring voices. Felt vibrations, like distant explosions, that made the whole of Raqia shudder.
“How beautiful,” said Charlotte. “What is it?”
“I’ve seen it before,” said Karl, stirring from his trance. “Caused by human activity, I suspect. I wish we knew what it means.”
“If every human stopped dreaming and thinking altogether,” she said, “would we cease to exist?”
“As if that is ever likely to happen.” Karl smiled, but his eyes – glowing amber in a coal-dark face – held concern.
Charlotte knew why. She would usually be answering such questions, not asking them. She wasn’t herself, and they both knew it, but her real self seemed to have slipped just out of reach and she couldn’t catch hold…
Soon the phenomenon faded. No cause, no logic – just the emanation of a powerful mortal emotion or dream.
Presently they descended and stepped back into the real world. They were always careful to do so somewhere secluded, away from humans. Today they returned to Earth in the edge of a forest near Lake Lucerne. A church clock struck eleven as they walked arm in arm along the shore. The day was blue and green, almost too bright. Although they preferred the subtlety of dusk and night, sunlight did them no harm. And in spite of everything, she felt calm and relaxed, almost ecstatic.
“You look happy,” said Karl, with a smile that went straight to her heart.
“To be walking with your lover on a perfect morning: what more could anyone want?”
“Nothing,” he agreed. He stroked her hair, kissed her hands, leaving trails of rushing starfire wherever he touched her. “We should pay a visit to Stefan,” he said.
“Should we? All right, that will be nice.”
“Nice?” Karl gave her a curious look. “We could take a pleasure boat across the lake, since there’s no great hurry.”
“Even better.”
As they passed Hotel Blauensee near the lake’s edge, Charlotte saw a familiar face. The woman was sitting at an outside table with a cup of hot chocolate. Sky and water were intensely blue.
“Isn’t that the girl from the cinema?” said Karl. “Amy Temple?”
“Yes. I wasn’t paying attention.” Charlotte had been in a reverie until he spoke. Now she recognised the open, attractive face, small pointed nose, light brown hair cut in a bob. She recalled carrying Amy up to the huge white house, only to have the door shut in her face. The memory was odd because it seemed to have happened years ago, a long-forgotten event.
“I’d like a word with her,” she said to Karl. “Go on without me. I’ll catch you up.”
“As you wish.” Karl raised one eyebrow in the subtlest possible warning.
“Don’t give me that look. There will never be another Violette. Trust me, for once.”
“I do trust you, dearest,” he replied softly. “I’ll meet you at Stefan’s.”
With a brief, affectionate kiss, he walked away. Green dappled light through the trees moved over him as he wove through the folk strolling on the lakeside. She smiled to see their heads snap round as he passed: Karl drew attention without trying, and not only from women. Charlotte didn’t blame them. His dark, serene beauty always stopped her heart, too.
And not daring to make love is killing me. I can’t even remember why it’s so dangerous, I only know that it is because I feel like a leper…
She pushed those thoughts firmly aside.
“Hello, Amy,” said Charlotte, sitting beside the other woman. “How are you?”
“Quite well, thank you.” Amy looked calm and poised, if pale. “I didn’t expect to see you again, my rescuer. What a pleasant surprise.”
“I’m Charlotte.”
“I remember. May I buy you a coffee, Charlotte?”
“No, thank you. I only wanted to make sure you’d recovered from that night.”
“Completely, thank you. I’m sorry they were so rude at the house – I can’t tell you how embarrassed I was, nor how relieved that someone friendly found me. It wasn’t what you think.”
“I wasn’t thinking anything, except that you needed a doctor.”
Amy stirred her chocolate
, making patterns in the foam.
“Yes, you were. Wondering, I mean.”
“Are you here on holiday?” asked Charlotte, trying to sound less curious than she actually was.
Amy gave a hollow laugh. “Not exactly. My uncle Godric… My life is rather a mess, to be honest. Look at the sunlight on the lake! How can anyone be miserable on such a beautiful day?”
“It is lovely. Is your uncle Swiss? You sound English.”
“Yes, but his sister, my mother, married an Englishman. She’s quite a lot older than Godric so they hardly know each other. I was brought up in London, but my dear father ran off with another woman when I was eight and my mother was rather horrible to me after that. Now I’m grown up, we really don’t get along. When I told her I wanted to be an actress – you’d think I’d announced I was going to sell myself on the street! So I came to stay with my uncle last year. He makes me feel useful, at least.”
“He has a very grand house,” Charlotte remarked.
“Yes, he’s quite rich. He was an army officer during the War, but he’d already inherited money from his father. Then he worked in a bank for a while and got to know all sorts of important people who helped him set up his business. He makes films. But you know that.”
“Reiniger Studios,” said Charlotte.
Amy stared at the table and sighed. “I saw you at the cinema the other day, but I daren’t say hello, because uncle was furious at the audience for laughing. I could have died.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” said Charlotte. “May I confess something? I recognised you from The Lion Arises. I was watching it for the second time, to make sure.”
“Oh, lord.” Amy bit her lower lip. Charlotte watched the lip redden, and felt a stir of appetite. Her blood smelled so enticing and wholesome, and it would be easy to gain her trust… She crushed the impulse. “You sat through it twice? Wasn’t it perfectly dreadful? I was only in the background. I’m amazed you noticed me.”
“You looked lovely. Your uncle should give you better roles.”
Amy smiled, colouring. “No need to flatter me. My dancing is dreadful, and as for my acting – the truth is, I can’t act to save my life. I wish I could afford lessons. No one would give me a part at all, except my uncle, who makes the worst movies ever seen! Oh, don’t tell him I said that.”
The Dark Arts of Blood Page 19