Soon they were covered in long, layered creamy robes, with head cloths to veil their hair, tough sandals for treading the sandy ground.
“Now we separate,” Violette said softly as they walked out into the white-hot street. “Can you sense any vampires nearby?”
“No one,” said Charlotte. “That doesn’t mean there aren’t any.”
“I know. I’m worried that someone’s already watching us, but we have to take the chance. You know where we’re going? Stay behind me, at least two hundred yards back.”
“Don’t worry,” Charlotte answered. “You won’t see me, but I’ll be there.”
Karl hadn’t been happy at her going with Violette, but he had understood. Charlotte was always grateful for his common sense. However much he might wish to protect her, he knew she was strong, and that he could not always keep her out of danger.
They could have swapped places, but that would have meant Charlotte staying with Stefan and Amy, and facing a potential visit from the unpredictable Godric Reiniger. And Karl hadn’t regained enough strength to enter Raqia, let alone make the long, breakneck journey with Violette.
After a discussion – not an argument, never that, she thought with a private smile – she and Karl had reached the most practical decision.
At times like this, she wished they had more friends – but even those closest to them, such as Pierre and Ilona, were hardly the most reliable allies.
Some distance ahead, Violette walked into a public square: a white and golden space, with a charming fountain and palm trees grouped on the far side. In the shade of their fanned leaves, a man stood waiting. He was all in blue, no flesh visible except around his eyes. His skin was like ebony.
Charlotte hung back, hoping he hadn’t seen her. More importantly, that he could not sense her. She heard their voices, far off but clear.
“Istilqa?” said Violette.
“Istilqa,” he echoed. “I am Nabil. I will take you to Emil.”
“Where’s Fadiya?”
“With him.”
“Can you show any proof that you have him?”
Nabil looked irritated that she asked, but produced a white shirt from the folds of his robe. Charlotte watched with her heart in her throat as Violette lifted the garment to her nose. She would distinguish his scent as keenly as a hound. The man gave her something else, too: a small gold item. A cufflink?
Violette had given all her male dancers cufflinks inscribed with Ballet Lenoir as gifts last Christmas. Her face, in profile, turned to limestone as Charlotte saw the reality of the situation hit her. Fury and fear.
“Is he here in the town?”
Nabil shook his head. “Out in the desert, beyond Djelfa. We’ll go through the Crystal Ring.”
“Wait. Do you swear that you’ll release him in exchange for me?”
“That is the promise made by Zruvan, Lord of Immortals. Yes, he will keep his word.”
“He had better,” Violette said with soft menace. “If he does not, this ‘Lord’ of yours will be sorrier than he can imagine.”
Nabil stayed impassive. “Come with me.” He paused: for a frightening moment, Charlotte thought he’d seen her, but he seemed to be checking for danger without actually noticing her.
There were people around, but no one saw Nabil and Violette vanish into Raqia. Charlotte gave them two seconds: she daren’t wait longer, in case she lost them. Then she followed. The world changed, becoming a dim and eerie version of itself. Humans turned into fireflies, only their auras visible. All normal sound stopped. As Charlotte began to climb through the ether, a low, hissing moan filled her ears, like the wind moving over desert sands.
* * *
Violette and her companion travelled miles to the south, a journey that would have taken many hours in a motor vehicle. They flew low. Distorted through the medium of the ether, she saw the extraordinary landscape below: sandstone mountains shaped like fantastical pillars and spires, dyed purple and red by the sinking sun. There were deep violet chasms. Salt flats. Stretches of sand marked by giant black circles: the remains of spent volcanoes.
Violette caught a clear view of their destination only when they dropped out of the Crystal Ring. They were in the open desert, a sweep of orange rock and sand that spread to the horizon in every direction.
A thrill went through her. She’d always felt drawn to desert places. This was the clean wilderness where she could be free… a memory from Lilith’s past, not her own, but still powerful. Her soul was entwined with that of Lilith, a wild spirit who had fled to the desert rather than submit to the will of men or God.
She saw a ruined fortress, worn away by sandstorms for hundreds of years. The shell of jagged walls was sinking back into the desert, all features worn away, nothing inside but swirling sand. Curving around the ruins were rock walls striped with red and gold layers, glowing as the sun set. The rock faces were pocked with caves.
All this she took in as they glided in from above and landed on the sand, light-footed as birds.
“Where are we?”
“We call it Al Bir,” said Nabil. “It no longer appears on any map.”
“And is there water here? I mean for Emil. Humans can’t survive on air alone.”
He pointed at the ground. “A river runs deep below. There are wells. We are looking after Emil; we don’t wish him to die.”
“I want to see him.”
Nabil led her towards the ruin, through a rock arch into a kind of courtyard with the crumbling fortress walls in front and the caves to their right. “It is not permitted until you have surrendered yourself to our Lord Zruvan.”
Violette held back a flare of rage. A voice roared in her mind, How dare you do this? Who do you think you are? She knew that if she unleashed her anger, the Lilith part of her wouldn’t hesitate to tear off Nabil’s head, or that of anyone who tried to stop her.
She kept her fury down, well aware that if she lost control, Emil would certainly die.
“What does your Lord Zruvan want with me?”
“That is for him to tell you.”
“He’s had every chance,” Violette said tightly. She stopped, forcing Nabil to turn and face her. “Wait a moment, and tell me the truth. A huge figure in dark-brown robes, with a skull-mask covering his head and a staff glowing in his hands: wasn’t that your Lord Zruvan, stalking me through the Crystal Ring? If he could keep following me and finding me there, why couldn’t he speak to me?”
“His ways are mysterious,” said Nabil. She knew by now he wouldn’t give a clear answer. “But he never leaves his dwelling. He cannot. That’s why he instructed us to bring you here.”
“He can’t leave his dwelling,” she echoed. “So what did I see?”
“The power of his will.”
“You mean a thought-form. A kind of astral projection. That’s what I thought. He’s very good.”
“Good? He is a great deity, beyond your comprehension.” Nabil turned and began walking again. She fell in beside him.
“And yet he can’t physically go out?”
She was goading him, trying to get at the truth, but Nabil would not play. She saw a glitter of anger in his eyes. His reply was low and abrupt. “You cannot understand.”
Cannot, she thought. That’s rather more judgemental than, “You do not…”
“I fear that once I go to him, I may not come out again.” She tried to hide the genuine fear in her voice. “What proof will I have that Emil is safe and free?”
“I am sorry, my lady.” Nabil bowed, inviting her forward with an open hand. “I like this no more than you. But I ask respectfully that you follow me.”
His deference surprised her – but she was a goddess, after all. And, however reluctant he was to acknowledge it, he knew.
* * *
Charlotte’s journey through the Crystal Ring was one of the hardest she’d ever made. The layered robes weighed her down, as they would in water. The weight sapped her energy. From Raqia, the vista of sand and mountains seemed to boi
l. Keeping sight of Violette and Nabil, while staying far enough behind to avoid notice, was nearly impossible. Her mouth was dry, every bone aching with effort.
Finally she lost them.
Panic rose, but she controlled her anxiety. Karl would not panic, she scolded herself. Violette most definitely would not. Stay on course. Observe.
Minutes later she sensed specks of warmth, far below her on the veiled surface of the Sahara where mountains gave way to the desert. Human? Certainly not vampire. Animal, perhaps.
She dropped lower in her flight. The Crystal Ring’s glow above her faded. She was dangerously close to the ground now. Huge cliffs thrust out of the land, tiered around what appeared to be an oblong ruin. The heat-motes grew stronger. Just as she made to step from the firmament into the solid world, she saw Violette and Nabil together on the sand.
Charlotte veered away, willing herself invisible. High up on a wall of rock, concealed by sandstone outcrops, she re-entered reality and crouched there to watch.
The last of sunset turned the world to a flood of red and bronze. The two robed figures talked for a while – even her acute ears couldn’t discern their words – then they walked away, vanishing inside the ruins.
Dread washed over her. Where was Nabil taking Violette? She might as well be walking into the underworld, like Demeter trying to rescue Persephone. The dancer was the toughest, most wilful woman Charlotte had ever met – yet she meekly gave herself up to unknown danger in the narrow hope of saving Emil? Charlotte thought, Does she know something I don’t?
What if I never see her again?
Utter silence lay across the wilderness. Darkness came swiftly, and the stars blazed as thickly as falling snow. Charlotte began to make her way down the rugged slope, focusing hard on the dust-motes of warmth she could feel. They grew more vivid, like fingertips pressing her forehead.
The rock wall was full of caves. She imagined people living here, in aeons past. Now there was only emptiness… with three specks of life. A familiar, animal scent emanated from a cave mouth at ground level. Horses?
And from another cave, a few yards away, came the rank scent of human sweat, dehydration, illness. From her vantage point, directly above the entrance, she leaned out and saw two heavily robed figures standing guard. They might have been rock pillars: shapeless, motionless, emitting no blood-warmth.
Vampires.
The last thing she wanted was to reveal her presence and start a fight. Her only way into the cave was to go back into the Crystal Ring and force her way through the rock.
She hated doing this. When she’d feigned her own “death”, some perverse impulse had made her endure the entire funeral: being sealed in the coffin, the burial, then clawing her way up through clay soil to escape afterwards. It was a kind of self-punishment for her family’s grief. Even when she could avoid such horrors, she would make herself go straight through the heart of them instead.
But the feeling of being trapped, suffocating, swimming through rock or earth as if it were quicksand, always brought dread. Now she floundered through viscous slabs of stone, breath held even though she didn’t need oxygen, praying she had the energy to stay in Raqia. If she slipped back into the real world now – she would be entombed in rock forever.
Thin air. She fell a few feet, then let herself back into reality, drawing deep breaths as if she’d nearly drowned. Darkness lay around her, but she could see well enough. Starglow filtered in to illuminate the rough walls of a cave. A cell, in effect.
Emil lay on a bed of palm leaves. It looked uncomfortable, but he was in a deep sleep of total exhaustion. They’d put him into a djellaba, but she saw his trouser hems and plain black shoes jutting below the hem of the garment. He looked dirty, his hair an unwashed mess, sand stuck to his face and hands. Tragic, to see his muscular dancer’s body limp and helpless.
Charlotte looked down at him with mixed emotions. Thank goodness, he really is here! Then, Poor lad, he doesn’t deserve this. His misfortune was to fall for one vampire, and then to be seduced by another. This could have been me – in fact it was me, until Ilona rescued me from Kristian. Humans tangle with vampires and this is the result: ruin.
She wondered how to get him out of the cave. She couldn’t escape the way she’d arrived, since it was impossible to take a human through the Crystal Ring. Even if she confronted the guards, there would be a hellish fight, and they were bound to have comrades. And even if she won – how to take Emil across hundreds of miles of desert and mountain? He’d never survive.
If she tried, the repercussion for Violette, too, might be instant death.
Charlotte sat beside Emil, her arms wrapped around her bent knees. She watched him, aware that, if he woke, her priority was to stop him crying out. Would he realise she was here as a friend?
He’d already run from her in terror. More than once, she’d seen him recoil from her. He knew she was a vampire. Such knowledge could unhinge human minds.
Something moved in the gloom. Charlotte jumped to her feet and found herself looking straight into Fadiya’s dark, gleaming eyes.
* * *
Violette followed Nabil into a narrow fissure and down through a winding fault in the rock structure; tight passages, with twists and drops that no human could have negotiated. She’d thrown off her robes and djellaba at the entrance, realising they would be a hindrance. All she kept on was the grey silk dress that she’d travelled in from home. Now she was glad of her dancer’s training, as well as her vampiric sinuosity.
At first there was no light. Even her sensitive sight perceived nothing in the pitch blackness. She followed Nabil by touch and sound as well as the higher senses that helped her locate him in the convolutions of the tunnel. Presently a dim glow appeared, gleaming sand-red on the narrow rock walls. The temperature grew warmer.
She’d expected chilliness down here, and instead felt she was walking towards a fire.
They entered a larger tunnel that seemed to be floored with cobblestones and sand brushed into the seams. Here there was room to stand up straight. The passageway stretched for an indefinable length – at least three hundred yards – straight and purposeful like the entrance to a tomb. At the far end she saw the red glow. A furnace mouth?
Then Violette went hot and cold with dread. Had these unknown vampires lured her here to burn her to ashes?
What is this place? she asked silently. If extreme cold can finish us, why not extreme heat? I understand why they might want to kill me, and they’re not the first, but who are they?
“Would you answer some questions?” she asked. It was the first time either of them had spoken since entering the warren.
“It’s not my place to do so,” said Nabil. “My duty was to bring you here, that’s all.”
The walls vibrated with unpleasant energy, a prickling static that numbed her hand whenever she touched them. Her feet hurt as if she were walking on knives. Something of Raqia penetrated the space: a clamour of dream-energies, the massed thoughts of humanity. Or nightmares, she guessed from the hostile atmosphere. Voices whispered. Thousands of voices.
Then she knew that this was an in-between place, lying both in the Earth and the Crystal Ring at the same time. The further they went, the more fiercely the unseen energies assaulted her, an invisible sandstorm. She tasted the bitter acridity of the bone-knives, and of Lord Zruvan’s staff.
“How do you bear this place?” she asked.
“We learn to endure,” said Nabil.
“Do you mean that you have to, as a form of penance?”
“You could say so.”
“Self-punishment – for being a vampire?”
“No more questions, my lady goddess.”
“That’s unfair. I’ve been forced to come here, I have done everything you asked, but you will explain nothing in return.”
He stopped and turned to her. “I apologise, my lady, but you are about to meet Zruvan, Lord of Immortals. He will choose whether or not to answer your questions.”
>
“Very well.” She kept her expression calm, but the growing heat was uncomfortable. She envisioned the goddess part of her psyche, Lilith, a desert dweller, writhing in a mad dance of ecstasy and pain as she died in flames. She tried not to wonder how agonising it would be. Nor would she think about escape, because she was not a prisoner. She’d come here voluntarily… not that she’d had much choice, since she could not leave Emil to perish. “I won’t ask any more,” she said. “I know you are only a servant.”
Nabil glowered at her.
“A servant who is honoured to serve Zruvan, and who thanks you for your cooperation. You may go on alone from here. Lord Zruvan waits for you in the Bone Well. Follow the light.”
Is Zruvan even real? She caught a dry, hot breath. Perhaps he perished in the inferno and they worship his ghost? And if I’m to be a sacrifice to him, that makes some kind of perverse sense.
If only they’d tell me who they are before it ends.
As a human, and as a vampire, Violette had endured fear, oppression, even persecution simply for being what she was: gifted, beautiful, powerful, disobedient and female. But every time, she thought, now walking steadily towards the hell-mouth, every damned time, instead of walking away I throw myself into danger. Lilith’s rage helped me in the past, but her anger has mellowed now. Too much. Perhaps fighting her, instead of accepting her, was what made me strong. I may have no defence at all against what waits for me in the fire.
The hall grew broader as she walked steadily along its length. Here it had obviously been carved out by hand, the last stretch forming a grand, intimidating antechamber to Zruvan’s lair. There were patterns in the walls. She recognised the sigil from the knife handle: a labyrinth enclosing a crude skull with its impossible closed eyes. The whole underground kingdom was the same dull ochre colour of sand and ancient bones, oppressive with sullen, fiery power.
The patterns were made of femurs, tibias and ribs inlaid into the rock. She realised that the “cobblestones” beneath her feet were also bones: ball joints from the hips and shoulders of countless individuals.
Human, of course. They were the source of the prickling, hostile energy. She saw, like a film projected across her imagination, tribal wars raging on the deserts above. People dying of natural causes. People dying from the bite of hidden vampires.
The Dark Arts of Blood Page 41