The room was light and warm, a fire crackling in the red marble fireplace. The curtains were open, the windows holding two worlds in one shiny black plane; the reflection of the bright domestic scene and the silver trails of raindrops lashing the glass. Charlotte’s gaze drifted to Madeleine’s face and she noticed that her sister was staring at the french windows even while Karl was speaking to her, the lost look in her eyes again. How cosy and safe it seems in here, Charlotte thought ironically, and as she thought it, she saw Madeleine’s expression change. Her eyes enlarged, her mouth opened, and she cried out, “He’s there!”
All within a split-second it happened; Charlotte glanced towards the french windows, saw something dash across the terrace, and then there was a tremendous boom that seemed to shake the whole house as a figure flung itself against the glass like a crashing bird. Everyone leapt up, exclaiming with shock.
There was a man pressing himself flat against the windows, arms outstretched, staring into the room with a wild grin and wide, mocking blue eyes. Just standing there, leering at them.
David was moving to the window, her father pulling the bell rope to summon the servants, Elizabeth rushing to comfort the distraught Madeleine. Anne came to Charlotte, saying, “Who is that lunatic?” But Charlotte stood petrified because she recognised the face; it was the man she had seen outside the Cavendish laboratory, whom she had thought was an hallucination. He was watching their panic, laughing at them.
“What’s your game, sir?” David shouted through the glass. “Infernal bloody cheek!”
He grasped the handle, and Elizabeth said, “Oh, don’t open the door, David, for God’s sake! Make sure it’s locked!”
“I’ve no intention of letting this madman in. Where’s Newland? Father, when he comes, have him send some men into the garden. I’m not letting this beggar get away.”
In the midst of this, Karl stood still and quiet in the centre of the room. “There’s no need, David,” he said.
“What?”
Karl paused. “It’s someone I know.”
Elizabeth laughed in disbelief. “What strange friends you have, Karl. Couldn’t he use the front door, like everyone else?”
Madeleine would usually have been the first to make a joke of it, but now she only sat round-eyed as if too stunned to speak.
Karl moved to the french window. Although he was as self-contained as ever, Charlotte realised with a shock that he was furious. She had never seen him angry before. The stranger put his head on one side and blinked at him through the glass.
“Excuse me, please, David,” said Karl, reaching past him to unlock the french window.
“What the devil are you doing? Don’t let him in!”
“There appears to be no choice.” He opened the glass doors; the stranger thrust himself into the room, still grinning, but Karl caught his arm and stopped him. They all backed away, and Karl said, “I must apologise for this.”
The stranger said loudly, “Why, what have you done, Karl? This is no way to greet a friend, trying to break his arm. Aren’t you pleased to see me?”
He spoke with a French accent, but his English, like Karl’s, was near-perfect. He was a tall man in his late twenties, in an expensive dark coat and cashmere scarf, but no hat. He had angular, slightly exaggerated features, with full lips and a cleft chin. His hair fell brown and curly across his forehead. He was handsome, Charlotte thought, except for his eyes; they were intensely blue, too large and heavily lidded, with a cold humour in them that repelled her. Yet there was something about him that was similar to Karl; a power of presence that seemed to eclipse the whole room. It is him, the man I saw in Cambridge, the one who vanished!
“Good heavens, Karl, do you really know this person?” said Elizabeth.
“I’m afraid so,” Karl replied.
Undaunted, the Frenchman kissed Karl on both cheeks. “My dear fellow, how well you look! The English air must suit you. And the English food, eh?” He winked at Elizabeth, who looked astonished. “You must excuse the unusual manner of my arrival but it is such fun teasing Karl. He’s so terribly conventional, don’t you find? I would do anything to drag a reaction from him.”
Karl’s face remained expressionless. “What are you doing here?”
“At the moment, I am waiting to be introduced to this charming company.”
Karl smiled, but his eyes were red ice. “I am hardly going to do that, Pierre.”
Pierre beamed around him with a very white smile, as if he found Karl’s attitude mildly exasperating. His gaze rested on Madeleine. She stared back, blank-faced as if about to faint. Then he looked at Charlotte and she had the terrible impression that he knew all the secrets of her soul and found them rather amusing.
Newland was in the doorway, whispering to Dr Neville.
“Oh, but you must forgive me for intruding on your party,” said Pierre. “I was so eager to see my long-lost friend, my manners have deserted me—as his sense of humour seems to have deserted him.”
David said coldly, “I don’t think any of us found it funny that you frightened my family half to death. Karl, I don’t care if this fellow is a friend of yours or not. He must leave immediately.”
“Of course,” said Karl. He tightened his grip on Pierre’s arm as if restraining a dangerous dog. “If you will first allow me to talk to him privately for a few minutes.” David started to object, but Karl went on, “I have known Pierre for a long time, but you see, he is rather to me as Edward is to you. Unpredictable, sometimes disastrously volatile—but I cannot disown him.”
“Oh.” David looked taken aback.
“You patronising devil!” said Pierre to Karl. “Are you suggesting I’m some kind of maniac?”
“You make it quite obvious, without any suggestion from me.” Karl looked at Elizabeth. “You will excuse us while we withdraw to another room for a few minutes?”
Pierre objected extravagantly. “Oh, Karl, how can you take me away from these charming people, when we have only just met? You are too cruel.” He looked pleadingly at Elizabeth. “He is always dreadfully cruel to me, Madame, the tales I could tell you… “
“Goodness, I’m sure we’d all be fascinated!” Elizabeth said, raising her eyebrows. “You can take your friend in the library, Karl. Er—would he like a drink?”
“Oh, you are too kind!” the Frenchman exclaimed. “But I fear my taste would prove very expensive for you… “
Karl interrupted, his voice as softly imperative as a razor. “You have forfeited any claim to hospitality, Pierre. I’m sure you have a lot to tell me that could not possibly be of interest to anyone else.” He gripped Pierre’s elbow and guided him to the door, past the astonished butler.
“Do you wish me to escort the gentleman off the premises, madam?” he said.
“No, it’s all right, Newland,” said Elizabeth. “Everything’s under control now. But I think the rest of us need a drink, after all that. Whisky, anyone?”
Trembling, Charlotte sat down by Maddy, who was quiet now but listless, her eyes dull. “Are you all right?” Charlotte asked.
“Yes… yes,” Maddy replied, but she spoke without conviction and she seemed miles away, unreachable.
David and her father were discussing the intruder, verging on an argument about it. Charlotte looked round for Anne and realised that her friend was no longer in the room. “I didn’t see Anne go out, did you?”
“Don’t go after her,” Madeleine said in the same flat tone. “Stay with me, Charli.”
***
Anne had slipped out of the french window a few moments after Karl and Pierre had left, while the other had been too busy talking to notice. She went along the terrace until she reached a grainy lozenge of light falling from the library windows and there she stopped, peering through a tangle of wisteria tendrils to the lighted interior. Their voices drifted through an open vent.
She intended to eavesdrop and she felt absolutely no conscience about it. She had Charlotte’s interests at h
eart.
Pierre was browsing idly along the bookshelves, all languid animation. Karl sat on the arm of a chair, motionless as a cat watching a bird. His face was serene, a china mask, but his very lack of expression held a menacing quality.
“Why are you here, Pierre?” Karl’s voice was calm, almost conversational, but with a paper-thin blade of ice hidden within it.
“That’s an unfriendly way to greet an old friend, especially after all these years,” said the Frenchman. “Show me a little warmth, at least.”
“After the way you announced your presence? I knew it was you, when we found Madeleine.”
Anne thought, What the hell does he mean?
Pierre put back his head and laughed. “Don’t look so grim; I did her no lasting harm. You know it was only a joke.”
“Your sense of humour and mine are a world apart,” said Karl.
“I know. That makes it even more amusing. It would be no fun to torment you if you only laughed.”
Karl paused, suddenly looking towards the window. Nothing in everyday life frightened Anne, but now gooseflesh stood up on her back. He can’t know I’m here!
But Karl whispered something she could not hear. Pierre laughed and exclaimed loudly, “So what if anyone is listening? Do you have something to hide? Let them listen!”
Anne drew back, shocked. Then a thread of angry determination went through her. Right, if you don’t care, I’m staying here!
“He sent you, I suppose,” said Karl.
Pierre selected a volume and reclined on the couch as if he owned the place. “Come now, did you expect to escape forever? He’s given you years already; all good things must come to an end. And this, I must say, is a very good thing. How did you find this beautiful family? All under the pretext of studying science, too! Mon Dieu, Karl, I have to hand it to you; you certainly have style.”
Karl’s eyes turned a little colder. “You’re wrong, Pierre. Quite wrong.”
Pierre dropped the book aside. “Oh no, don’t give me that! They are too beautiful. Isn’t it thrilling to know that with one look, one word from you they’d all forget each other and fall in your embrace? I wish I had half your charm.”
“And I, half your imagination. I do not touch those I know.”
“Hypocrite.”
“It may well be hypocritical, but it’s the rule I live by.”
Pierre sneered. “Then you must get some perverted pleasure from tormenting yourself.”
“No, but neither do I relish tormenting others.”
“Unlike myself, I suppose. But I say you are lying, Karl. Not to me, perhaps, but to yourself.”
“Meaning?”
Pierre paced around the room. His tone was taunting. “I saw you with your arms around Charlotte, having such a very interesting conversation—when you could keep your lips from hers. My God, how long do you think you can hold out? Is this a scientific experiment to test the limits of your willpower? If you start feeling other desires for her, she had really better beware, but who’s going to warn her?” He laughed.
Karl’s eyelids swept up; the light caught his irises like tiny flames igniting. “You know nothing about it,” he said softly. For the first time Anne saw something truly dangerous in Karl; behind his beauty and gentility, a cold and menacing darkness that was far more chilling than Pierre’s surface spite. She was horrified, but not for her own sake. Oh, Charlotte, do you know anything about this man?
“If you were sincere, you would not have gone anywhere near her,” said Pierre. “If she means so much to you, it proves you enjoy playing with fire, so don’t pretend otherwise.”
“You had better stop this, Pierre.”
“Why? I like embarrassing you.” The Frenchman stared at the window. “So what if they hear too much? They can always be silenced.”
Anne drew back, and found herself retreating along the terrace almost at a run. I won’t let them frighten me, she told herself fiercely. What I’ve overheard doesn’t prove anything.
But she was going to tell David, before it was too late.
***
Karl sensed the human presence moving away. It had been Anne, he knew; God knew what she had made of their conversation. But he couldn’t concern himself with that until he had dealt with Pierre. No witnesses now.
“Ah, mon cher, what difference does it make whether you know them or not?” Pierre went on. “You cannot imagine yourself to be ruled by human sentiment. For God’s sake, Karl, accept your nature!”
“I’m sure that God would be the last to appreciate the effort,” said Karl with a brief and sardonic smile.
“Spare me the theological arguments, will you? I have enough of that from Kristian.”
“I suppose he sent you to fetch me.”
“Not exactly.” Pierre sat down again, leaning on the rolled leather arm of the couch. “He knows you won’t come just for the asking.”
“And he’s right. How did you find me?”
“Sheer persistence, but I have something rather funny to tell you. The one person who always knows where you are is Ilona. She has shadowed you on and off for years!”
Karl was caught off-guard; disbelief and other emotions flamed through him. “That’s impossible. I would have known.”
“Why should you? She can creep up right behind me and I don’t know she’s there; even Kristian can’t always sense her presence easily. We may be sensitive, but we are not psychic, more’s the pity.”
Karl paused, brooding. Then he said, “I suppose Kristian sent her. Of course, it would be foolish to think she sought me of her own free will. But where is she now?”
“Ah well, that brings me to Kristian’s message. All this talk of, ‘Karl must come back of his own accord’ and then he resorts to the basest form of emotional blackmail… “
“What do you mean?”
Pierre held up his hands, as if to say, “Don’t blame me!”
“Kristian took her into the Crystal Ring. Up into the Weisskalt. He said she will remain there until you go back and talk to him… I think he has come to the end of his tether, as the English say… as I think you are about to do also.”
Pain so great Karl could not speak. Ilona, frozen in death-like sleep… alone. He could have torn the bearer of his message apart with fangs and bare hands, but that would solve nothing. He waited until the feeling had pooled itself into deadly silence inside him. Eventually he was able to say calmly, “I should not be surprised by this. I shouldn’t ask, ‘How could he?’ but, Why has he waited so long?’ Kristian has never had a principle to his name.”
“But what have principles to do with us?” Pierre said with sudden passion. “What use have the wolves for principles—or the angels, for that matter? If you dropped your stupid ideas of morality, Kristian would not be able to use them against you!”
“Since when have love and morality been the same thing? So I should just leave her there? How good of you to give me this advice, having come here as Kristian’s errand boy.”
Pierre’s mobile face became vindictive. “What am I? One of the arms of the octopus, as we all are. Even you.”
“But wouldn’t you prefer to be free?” Karl said. He thought he had escaped the weariness and desperation that Kristian’s possessiveness induced in him, but now they crept over him again. I knew this would come… I should have been ready.
“My dear, I am free. I worship Kristian’s strength of my own free will, as I’d worship the perfection of a Michelangelo sculpture. It’s a work of art.”
“You talk nonsense, Pierre. You drift with every wind that blows, and then you try to justify it to yourself.”
“I do his will because it pleases me, but I don’t obey slavishly in every detail,” said Pierre, his lips drawing back in an unpleasant smile. “For example, Kristian ordered me not to touch this luscious family but I chose to disobey and I intend to do so again. How is he going to know, unless you tell him? Better run to him and beg for his help, Karl. He is the only one who ca
n stop me. Not you.”
Enough. Pierre had taken one step too far. Karl had hoped to send him away unharmed, but in the space of a breath he saw that it was impossible. Without hesitation, without anger, he moved like light to seize Pierre and pull him to his feet. “We’ll see, shall we?” Karl said, very softly. For a few seconds they struggled, not violently but in stasis like arm-wrestlers. Karl slid his hand up into Pierre’s hair and slowly dragged back his head. His mouth opened, his blue eyes seemed to plead silently with the ceiling. Then Karl closed his mouth on the cool smooth skin of Pierre’s neck.
Karl had not fed this evening and suddenly he was ravenous. Vampire blood was not rich like that of humans, but there was a different compulsion in this, a thinner, fiercer fire blazing through his body and mind… and that was why he did not sense that another human was nearby until the red veil subsided, and it was too late.
* * *
Chapter Eight
Crystal Visions
When David reached the library window he stopped, transfixed by what he could see within, Karl, with his back to the window, was embracing Pierre, face buried in his neck. Not kissing; something worse. In that horrible attitude they stood motionless, except for the twitching of Pierre’s stiffly outstretched arms. Presently a trickle of blood appeared from his sleeve, made a red rivulet over his hand, and dripped on to the floor.
What the devil are they up to? David thought. Anne said there was something strange going on, but this?
Eventually, slowly, Karl raised his head. His grip slackened; Pierre’s knees buckled suddenly and Karl let him down gently on to the couch, where he lay with his long limbs in disarray and hair tousled around his slack face. There was a crimson stain on the collar of his shirt.
Anne had also warned David that they might know he was there, but they showed no awareness of him. Pierre uttered an obscenity in French. Then he said, “I hate you,” as if he were actually saying, “I love you.”
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