Slowly, she extended a hand and took the bulky envelope from him. Her hands were shaking as she tore it open. Some kind of necklace fell out and clattered onto the floor. She ignored it. She scanned the letter once, then read out in a level voice:
“My dearest Charlotte,
In the hope that this will reach your hands, here is a token for your comfort and protection. Be assured that you are in our thoughts every moment of the day and night and we are praying and working constantly for your safe release. You have done no wrong, only been the victim of your old father’s selfishness. For the words that passed between us recently I beg your forgiveness; you are the most precious thing to me in the world.
Do not despair, but join us in praying that we shall very soon be reunited. All our love is with you and this darkness will soon be behind us. Have faith!
Your very affectionate,
Father.”
Karl bent down to pick up the necklace from the floor, found it was a gold chain with a cross made of tightly woven hair. When he straightened up, Charlotte was weeping, her face in her hands.
“Your father sent this for you,” he said softly. “Won’t you wear it, for his sake?”
She raised her head, wiping the tears away with the back of her hand. “Oh my God, it’s my mother’s cross.”
“It is strange, isn’t it,” he said, “the way Protestants suddenly embrace Catholicism in an emergency.”
“People sometimes used to have crosses made from their loved ones’ hair. It’s my mother’s hair, you see. Father never parts with it.” She broke off, staring at the cross dangling from Karl’s fingers. “But you can touch it!”
“Of course, it is well-known that vampires cannot abide crucifixes. That is obviously why he sent it for you,” Karl said, amused. He fastened the chain around her neck and kissed her lips. “There, now you will be safe from me.”
She blinked. “So it’s not true that the sign of the cross terrifies you? I hadn’t even thought about it.” She rubbed her arms as if chilled.
“No, it’s not true. But don’t disillusion your father. He is trying his hardest. You had better write back and reassure him that you are well.”
“Yes,” she said vaguely, but he saw the disturbing thoughts and the questions in her face. He wondered if he would ever see her smile again. “But are any of the superstitions about vampires true?”
“I have never discovered any symbol, herb or plant, that holds any more terror for me than it does for you. I cast a shadow and a reflection like a human being. Holy water does not burn me, nor do I find priests unduly repellent.”
“But you never came to chapel with us.”
“Because I don’t believe in God,” said Karl. “Actually I like churches; didn’t we once agree that King’s College Chapel was one of the most exquisite buildings we know? I love to go there.”
Charlotte looked shocked. “Don’t you—don’t you worship anything?”
“Such as the Devil, you mean?”
Her eyes widened. “I must know.”
“No, I do not worship the Devil. I told your father I was an agnostic and that was true; there may be more to life than we can see, but I don’t pretend to know what it is.”
She was looking at him in obvious disbelief. He added, “What did you expect me to say?”
“How do I know?” she flared. “You tell me you are some supernatural creature, then you say you believe in nothing—it doesn’t make sense.”
Karl sat down on the floor beside her, resting one arm across her knees. “Satan was not waiting to initiate me personally into an evil existence, nor God to vent His wrath. That isn’t to say they are not there; some vampires still believe in them passionately. There is no simple answer.” A weariness of spirit crept over him; he didn’t want to talk, only to sit quietly with Charlotte, to pretend that there was nothing else; no distance between them, no blood-thirst, no humans holding them to siege. But it was impossible, and Charlotte’s distress was inside him like flame.
“I’ve got to know how you became as you are. You said you’d tell me.” Her voice was soft but insistent. Then her face changed and she touched his cheek. “Karl, you look so sad. It’s hard for you to talk about, isn’t it? I didn’t realise.”
“Yes, it is difficult,” he said. “Still, they are only words, beloved; how can they have this power over us? I know you believe in God and that makes this doubly hard for you, the notion of sin.” She bowed her head, her hand tightening on his. “Well, that is ingrained in all of us,” Karl went on. “My family were Roman Catholics; belief was unquestioned, a habit of thought formed from babyhood. Unless you repent of your sins you will be forever damned in the fires of hell; so the priests told us.
“Certain things you know about me are true. I lived in Vienna and I was a musician there. I could never be specific about the date because I was born in 1793.” He heard Charlotte draw in a breath. “My parents were not rich; my father was a schoolmaster, my mother worked hard to bring up her children. I had two sisters and a brother; there were others who died in infancy. My mother’s life must have been one of drudgery, yet it did not seem so at the time. She never lost her beauty, and my memory is of her always laughing and singing. But although my father was good to her, he was never warm, and she did so crave affection. Certainly she received it from her children. We adored her; she was so lovely, dark red hair like rose leaves… “
“Do you look like her?” Charlotte asked.
“I suppose so. Ilona certainly does.” Karl stopped. The memories were so vivid that he only had to speak of them to see their faces, hear their voices.
“Was Ilona one of your sisters?”
He paused. Should I tell her? Everything, I said. “No, she’s my daughter.”
“Daughter?” Charlotte looked utterly dismayed. “But you said you weren’t married, I never thought—”
“I was once. Now you look more shocked than when you found out I was a vampire. But it was a long time ago, liebchen, and I want to explain it in order.”
“I’m sorry. Go on.”
“It was not an easy time. We lived through two French occupations of the city and all the deprivation that entailed, then after the Congress of Vienna there was the repression and censorship of Metternich. But this was also the time of Schubert and Beethoven; I saw them, I played their music while they were alive and working. I still see the buildings of the Ringstrasse as new and gaudy, because when I grew up the Ringstrasse did not exist. Charlotte looked incredulous. “It seems so far in the past.”
“Yes, but still vivid to me. Vienna has always been addicted to music, so it was natural that I grew up surrounded by it. I began as a chorister, and my parents made every sacrifice to give me a good education at a seminary where I could learn the piano and the cello. Later, when I joined an orchestra and could earn extra by teaching, I was able to give back all they had given to me. Treatment in the best clinic when my mother was ill, a maid to keep house for her. But she had tuberculosis, there was little they could do in those days. My father only outlived her by a year or two. Yet they were both in their fifties when they died; a fair age, for those times. I became a vampire ten years before they died, but I thank God they never knew it.”
“I was twenty-seven; I played with an orchestra at the palaces of the Hapsburgs, at the Opera and the finest houses; and my wife had just given birth to our first child. I was so perfectly happy it seemed nothing could go wrong.”
Not quite able to disguise the emotion in her voice, Charlotte said, “Your wife—what was she like?”
“She was small, dark, very sweet, but she could terrify grown men with her temper. We met rehearsing a Mozart opera. Therese sang in the chorus.” He smiled sadly. “Other faces I remember clearly, but hers is elusive, impossible to recapture. I don’t know why.”
“And you loved her very much. It’s in your voice.”
He clasped her hand and said gently, “I lost her a long time ago, dearest.” He fo
und it more painful than he had imagined to recall the past. He felt the touch of Charlotte’s hand on his hair as he went on, “Therese was my life. We named our baby daughter Ilona after her mother, who was Hungarian. I was completely wrapped up in them. It never occurred to me that anything could intrude.
“I began to notice a man who came to every performance we gave. His appearance was so very striking; he was extremely tall, not exactly handsome, but he had a strong, brooding face that fascinated me. His clothes were old-fashioned and severe, which gave him a puritanical look quite out of place in the flamboyance of Vienna. Hard to describe the magnetic glow of strength and power about him; I often noticed others looking at him, too. But he always seemed to be watching me. Dark eyes, never blinking. He unnerved me a great deal.
“After he had stared at me through perhaps seven or eight performances, he approached me and introduced himself as Kristian Müller. He spoke Hochdeutsch—I mean high German, rather than the Wienerisch dialect—with an accent I could not place. He wanted me to give a private performance to his family, and he offered a sum of money that staggered me. Therese and I were not in poverty, but a wealthy patron could make all the difference to our lives, make our families comfortable and ensure our daughter’s future. I saw no harm in it. So I went alone to play my cello for Kristian, and he rewarded me generously and invited me again.
“He lived in lavish apartments but he looked out of place among them, like an actor in a set; there was nothing of his personality in the rooms at all. I was relieved that there were always others with him, graceful men and women with shining eyes who intrigued me almost as much as Kristian himself. But he was always the centre of things. I can’t emphasise enough the curious presence he had, like a mountain—drawing people to him, then crushing them.
“It amused me at first, the way his clique revolved around him, but then it began to seem sinister. An evening of Kristian’s company exhausted me, and I could not wait to escape the smothering atmosphere and return home to Therese and Ilona.
“And soon I began to realise that Kristian resented me putting my family first. He would find reasons to make me stay longer. He was so powerful, so hard to defy. I was growing quite nervous of him. Sometimes Therese would say, ‘Don’t go again, Karl. It’s not just music he wants from you.’ Yet I ignored the warning signs and I dismissed him as an eccentric. A great mistake.
“One evening, on about my sixth or seventh visit, Kristian was there alone. I played for him as usual and he plied me with wine and schnapps, trying to make me drunk. I was beginning to wish I’d listened to Therese and wondering how I could escape; but he never touched me. Instead he began to talk of God.
‘“Do you not realise how wretched your life is?’ he said. ‘Humans think they are alive but they walk around with their eyes closed. They think they know God but they are worshipping a painted idol, wrapping themselves in delusions. They separate good from evil and pretend evil cannot touch them; Lucifer, they call it. But God and the Devil are the same being,’ said Kristian. ‘One dreadful and avenging God who covers the world with his dark wings… ‘
“Kristian was like the most charismatic of preachers; you could imagine people falling at his feet, thinking they had seen a terrible and awesome light. His words had a devastating effect on me. He was an instrument of this dark God, he went on. He was proof of God’s existence, a dark angel walking the earth to do God’s work. And he said, ‘I have chosen you, Karl, as one who has the courage not to die in ignorance but to walk on the edge of life and death with me; to be eternally enlightened.’
“I had never really questioned my own faith, yet Kristian seemed to expose my beliefs for what they were; fragile, nonexistent. And I suddenly felt bereft and afraid, and it mattered greatly to know whether God existed or not. And here was Kristian, hypnotising me with promises of truth and salvation.” Karl paused, drew and released a breath. “A very old trick. And what made it so very effective was that Kristian truly believed what he was saying; he believed it so completely that he convinced others too. He was like a prophet. When you were with him, you could see nothing else. He filled the sky.
‘“I am offering you life everlasting,’ he said. ‘I can make you one of God’s dark agents on Earth. I can give you the power to walk inside the mind of God, which is heaven.’
“He overstated his case with these words, and that sobered me. I thought, this is not a prophet but a madman, and I started making excuses to leave, humouring him. ‘I should love to receive such enlightenment, if I had no earthly ties—but I have a family, and it is really time I went back to them.’ And I stood up and began to put my cello in its case, trying to seem unhurried although I was trembling.
“I shall never forget the way he was staring at me. I should explain a little about Kristian. He hates humans, yet he searches among them, as if trying to find diamonds in sand, for those he considers would make perfect vampires. And for some reason he had fastened on me to join his brood. He thought I would fall under his spell automatically; his ego is so great that he simply could not believe I was rejecting him. I don’t think it had ever happened to him before.
‘“Leave your family and come with me, Karl!’ he said. He caught my arm and I felt coldness bleeding through me, as if he were made of frozen granite. ‘Once you have seen the wonders I can show you, the love of mortals will seem like dust.’
“That made me angry. Who was this man, who thought he could take over my life and dismiss my love for my wife and daughter as dust? What did he want of me? I was afraid he would not let me go, but he released my arm and opened the door, saying, ‘Come again tomorrow, my friend. By then you will appreciate what I offer.’ But I fled, with no intention of ever going near him again, however rich he was.
“The next evening, when Kristian expected me, I stayed at home with Therese and the baby.” Karl closed his eyes briefly, forced himself to continue. “I was completely happy that night. I felt released, as if Kristian had been a massive weight on my mind, and I’d only just realised that it was within my power to free myself. Liebe Gott.
“We went to bed without a care in the world. When I woke I was alone, tangled up in the sheets, feeling desperately ill. I was confused; all I could think about was finding Therese, but when I tried to stand up I almost fainted. It took me some time to realise that I was not at home, but in Kristian’s apartment.
“That night still seems blurred and endless in my mind; perhaps I remember several nights, run together. I thought I was alone, then there were three figures around the bed. They pulled me upright and I passed out, and came round again to find myself in the salon where I had played for Kristian. It was all lit up with candles like a cathedral. These two people were holding me and Kristian was facing me, looking savage. He said, ‘Why didn’t you come back, Karl?’
“The other two were members of his clique, Andreas and Katerina. They looked very beautiful to me, but unreal, as if they were made of porcelain and diamonds… How can I explain how I felt? Perhaps you have had a dream where the most innocuous object fills you with terror; I was certainly in a dreamlike state, and it seemed to me that it was no more logical to fear them than to fear a china figurine. Yet I did. They terrified me as they closed in and I felt their breath like frost on my neck. I knew what they were going to do, and that this was not the first time. They both struck at once, Andreas burying his fangs in the right side of my neck, Katerina, standing behind me, in the left. The pain was like being bound and stretched on a rack, as if their pulling on my blood was pulling every vein in my body.
“Then, perhaps you have had the converse dream, where you look on something horrific and remain unmoved. Your reactions are irrational; nothing is as it should be, and therein lies the real nightmare. This was the state I entered now. I couldn’t breathe; I seemed to be floating, a horrible sensation, as if everything that anchored me to safety had been cut. And these impressions overwhelmed me so completely that I had no capacity left to feel horror. I reme
mber thinking, Ah, this would explain why I feel so ill. Detached. The pain was a dark gold sphere in which I was weightless; an hallucination, I suppose, as I came near death. It did not even seem surprising any more that these were vampires. I had the most weird, irresistible sense of pre-ordination.
“When Katerina and Andreas had finished, I stood half-fainting between them, seeing everything through the thick golden light. A huge dark figure came towards me, rippling and distorted as if moving through water. Kristian was coming to finish it. Yet he didn’t drink my blood; instead he touched my chest and I felt an overwhelming sensation of coldness. Not fear. I wanted only to sleep, like a man buried in snow.
“Death is only oblivion, Charlotte. It does not hurt, any more than sleep. And I was certainly dead. Yet they brought me back to life, or a form of it.
“I felt them carrying me somewhere. We seemed to be floating underwater. Strange noises and colours. I know now what was happening to me, but at the time there were only these impressions. I became aware of a red light throbbing through me, and it went on for what seemed years. I was struggling to take a breath, never succeeding, and yet not suffocating. Yearning towards something. I had no conscious thoughts; there was only this hot ruby glow pulsing through me, drawing me up towards some profound ecstasy.” Karl looked up and found Charlotte’s grey-violet eyes fixed on him, rapt. “Mingled with this were such dreams, such feelings beyond my experience. It was as if another world had entered me. The light throbbed brighter and brighter and it came to me that I was part of a circle and therefore complete. I was actually made of crystal. And when I opened my eyes I found the three vampires around me and we formed a circle in a vast painted landscape which was tilting around us into breathtaking perspectives. Energy flowed between us. It was like love; perfect happiness, no doubts—heaven, as Kristian had promised.
“But when Kristian saw that my transformation was complete, he broke the circle. And I felt, I was actually certain, that I had been dropped over the edge of a cliff. I don’t think I have ever been so completely terrified. Slowly I realised I was not falling, but standing in the centre of the salon.
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