“How can I explain how I felt? I was dizzy, floating, yet everything seemed wonderfully luminous and clear. There was a beautiful light in the room; I spent an age wondering where its source was, until I realised that it was my own eyesight that had changed. It was as if a grey veil had been taken from me. Such colours in everything. Even my own skin seemed to glow like opal. And while these impressions held me captivated, I also realised I was no longer human and that terrified me.”
Charlotte said, “But what had they done to you?”
“Replaced my mortal life with their own energy, which is something other than human. It transformed every cell of my body, changed me into something like a mineral replica of my former self. Yet it is anything but inanimate. It is something that has no real life of its own, yet craves the life and energy of others… if that is the definition of a vampire, that is what I had become.
“I was in no state to realise this yet. It was all too strange. Andreas and Katerina looked so lovely to me that it was as if I had never seen beauty before, never understood it. They watched my reactions with the sort of pleasure people take in seeing the first stumbling steps of a foal. Kristian’s face was sombre, but his eyes burned into me.
“My hearing was so acute that the silence seemed to echo… and I remember thinking, They only breathe when they are going to speak! And when I realised that I no longer needed to breathe, the horror of it rooted me to the spot. Yes, these are alien creatures but they’ve made me one of them! Yet the fear seemed thrilling, in a way, as if I stood on the threshold of a new universe.
“Outside the window the lights of Vienna scintillated like stars. I could see people moving through the dark streets as if it were day, all bathed in a beautiful soft light full of exquisite colours. At the sight of these people I felt something pulling at my throat… all through me, this yearning that I did not understand. When I eventually turned back into the room, Andreas and Katerina came to me like loving friends, stroking my arms and hair, so beautiful that I could not speak. Yet it was a cold beauty, like that of diamonds.
“I looked at Kristian and I said, “What have you done to me?’ ‘“Made you as myself,’ he said. ‘“But what are we?’
“And he replied, ‘Children of Lilith,’ and he began to laugh. “His laughter was quiet yet it seemed harsh to my oversensitive ears, malevolent. I felt the utmost revulsion towards him. Not that he was physically repulsive, it was simply the sense of domination that flowed from him, the way he made me feel trapped. It gave me a sense of foreboding. I could not cope with it, the inexplicable beauty mixed with the elements of a nightmare. It came to me that if I only left him and went home, everything would return to normal.
“So I began hunting round for my coat, but Kristian came and stopped me. He was like a great dark wall and he made me feel helpless. He said, ‘Don’t you realise I love you, Karl? I have given you this gift because I love you.’
“I was astonished, but these words only made me more determined to escape his lunacy. Like a drunk trying to sound sober I said, ‘I must go home now. My wife will wonder where I am.’
“At that his face turned livid. He had assumed that once I was changed I would forget my family and worship him. He knew nothing of earning love through friendship. It’s true that I was in awe of him—but emotionally I felt nothing for him. He saw it, but was incapable of accepting or believing it.
‘“You cannot go home, Karl,’ he said. ‘You are part of my family now.’
“I said, ‘Are you telling me I’m your prisoner?’ Kristian smiled, as if being patient with an irritating child, but I’d made him furious. ‘You don’t appreciate what has happened to you,’ he said. ‘It takes a little time.’
“I said something like, “You can’t keep me here. I’ll call the authorities,’ and at this, Andreas and Katerina went into peals of laughter. There was movement around me, doors opening and closing. I became aware that I felt strange, quite ill in fact. It was like a fever, a desire to tear my own skin apart to release the discomfort inside me. There was a strange scent in the air that made it worse… and I turned and saw that Andreas had brought a human into the room.
“It was a boy of about fifteen; a beggar with huge brown eyes gleaming in a grimy face. Just a boy. Yet I perceived him as if he were another species. Where the vampires were like ice, he positively glittered with heat. What can I compare it to? Imagine your first glimpse of countryside after years in the desert. The first taste of rain on your tongue, how your heart would ache for it…
“He wasn’t afraid. He thought some rich people had taken pity on him. Katerina was behind him and I don’t think he even knew, she struck so quickly. Showing me what to do. And when I saw, when I caught the scent of blood, it pulled me in like gravity.” Karl stopped. “I should not tell you this, Charlotte.”
“No, please go on,” she said. “I want to understand.”
“I was like two separate people. There was this unnatural thing I had become, moving towards the boy as Katerina held him for me. It seemed so natural to wrap my arms about him, to feel my newly sharp teeth slide down to reopen the wounds she had made, to feel the wondrous liquid flowing into me. There was nothing savage in it. It was the most luscious feeling of tenderness, relief. I was floating in a soft ruby light and I could feel tears flowing from my eyes and running on to the boy’s neck. Yet the other half of me witnessed what was happening as if I had come right out of my body. I was aghast. I am drinking blood. I am damned. God in heaven, how can I end this nightmare?
“When the blood ceased to flow, I wanted more. The compulsiveness of it sickened me, yet still I wanted him… I think Andreas pulled us apart, and if the boy was not dead already, the others finished him. Then I began to come back to myself. With the stolen blood inside me I felt very clear-headed, I knew exactly what Kristian had done to me, and I was devastated.
“Andreas and Katerina caressed me with unspoken sympathy for what I was going through. And Kristian spoke to me like a father confessor, kind and stern. ‘This is what you are now; a vampire. You cannot go back to being human. You cannot go back to your family.’ There was no way to deny or resist what I had become. Intellect could not overcome the instinct. I knew he was telling the truth, but I still refused to believe it.
“So when he had finished I said, “Now I am going home.’
“He looked at me in astonishment, and said, ‘I know you are not an imbecile, Karl, so why are you behaving like one? I have given you immortality, heightened perception, the power of life and death over mankind. It is a gift for which men would sell their souls! Mundane responsibilities have no hold on you now. They are ash. Attend to me and I will show you the face of God.’
“His words were very affecting, but he sounded desperate. He wanted me to say, yes, I will forsake my wife and daughter for you. I love you, Kristian; you are the centre of my universe. He wanted me to say it and believe it. But I could not. I said, ‘I don’t care what you have done to me or why; it was done without my consent.’
‘“That is untrue!’ he shouted. I don’t know what it was about me that made him so furious. I think it was that I was so calm. I stared straight at him all the time and I think he would have broken my back to squeeze a reaction out of me. ‘You told me that if you had no earthly ties you would accept the gift of enlightenment!’
‘“But I have earthly ties. And I do not know why you think I would leave my wife just for the asking.’ Although I spoked coldly, I was filled with dread.
“And Kristian replied, ‘You’re wrong, Karl. You have no bonds with earth. Come with me.’ He took me along a corridor, where the air was so thick with the scent of blood that my head swam. By the time we reached a servant’s room tucked away from the rest it was overwhelming. There was blood splashed everywhere; dark wet stains all over the floorboards, the walls, the furniture, seeming in my enhanced sight to glisten with a thousand shades of crimson and purple. In the middle of it, on the little white bed, was Therese. De
ad.”
“Oh, God,” said Charlotte, muffled. “Had Kristian… ?”
“He doesn’t touch humans if he can help it, but he’d ordered one of his brood to murder her. Not Andreas or Katerina; one whose name I choose not to remember. But I don’t blame that vampire; I blame only Kristian… and perhaps myself. In his twisted thinking, she had been an obstacle to my going with him—so if he removed the obstacle, I would be free. He had done it to demonstrate to me that if I actually lost her, I would not care; that vampires do not suffer human griefs. It was to prove that I was ready to sever myself from humans and to devote myself to him.
“But he was wrong. I was blind with grief. All I could think of was how she must have suffered, how I had not been there to protect her. I threw myself at him, determined to kill him—not realising it was impossible. Instead he seized me and fastened his fangs in my throat. All the strength went out of me. He pushed me into the room and, as if she’d been waiting for a signal, Katerina came in with a baby in her arms. Ilona.
“They locked me in the room with Therese’s body and my daughter, who was very much warm and alive. It was Kristian’s way to ‘break’ new vampires who were being difficult, as I was. And at the end of it, when the vampire was in despair, he would become the fount of all things; love, sustenance, spiritual guidance. Strange, though, he seems to learn so little when the method fails.
“I was left there for hours while my hunger mounted—my only source of nourishment my own daughter. I have told you how overwhelming the hunger can be, and I had no experience in controlling it. And outside I could hear Kristian talking to the vampire who had killed Therese. ‘Tell me what you did,’ Kristian would ask him. ‘Tell me what you thought… and what did she do? And how did you feel when… ‘ Hours of it. That conversation taught me more about Kristian than I ever wished to know.”
A sob escaped Charlotte. Karl folded his hand over her knee.
“But Kristian did not understand that there are stronger instincts than a vampire’s thirst. I would have starved to death before I harmed Ilona. She was round and warm and full of blood and I was in torment—but I did not touch her. Such a hideous situation; her own father this white, dead thing, dying again for want of her blood; and the voices through the door… it was so monstrous that I went completely out of my mind. I think that is how I found the strength to do what I did.
“There was one tiny window, too small for a man to climb through. I smashed it, tore out the frame and ripped away part of the wall. With Ilona in my arms I jumped down to the road, two storeys below—discovering in the process how resilient vampires are. I ran to my older sister’s house as if the Devil were after me—which he almost literally was.
“My sister was very shocked to see me in the middle of the night. I wonder if I looked like a vampire to her? I told her that Therese was ill, please could she look after Ilona while I went for the doctor? All the time I was talking to her I was aware of the human radiance she had, the beat of her heart pulling me towards her… My own sister. God. I left her as fast as I could and it was only a few yards from her door that I took my first real victim. He was a stranger; he could have been anyone. It could have been my own father, for all I knew when I dragged him into the shadows.
“As I fed on him I felt the tenderness swallow me again, relief and ecstasy so sharp it hurt. But afterwards—and whether he lived or died I did not want to know—desolation overcame me. There was no escape from the thirst. I would be compelled to do this over and over again. How could I stay with my sisters or my parents, how could I enter their houses or even speak to them on the street while this was within me? How could I look at them, when I could only see them as shimmering vessels of blood? How could I take them in my arms, when they might die there?
“That was when I understood what Kristian had meant. I could have no contact with humans; it would be a betrayal of them even to try. There was a gulf between us forever. I cannot express to you, Charlotte, how alone I felt at that moment.
“So I went back to Kristian; he found me half-way and we walked along the Karntnerstrasse together, like two Viennese gentlemen after the Opera. I told him my feelings. I told him I wanted to kill myself.
“He replied that if I was serious, there was a place where I could be frozen into oblivion forever, a place he called the Weisskalt which was so high and cold that even vampires could not survive it. The image of it frightened me, and I was so angered by the dispassionate way he spoke that I never seriously considered suicide again. To defeat him, I must live. I said I would go anywhere with him, do anything, if he would only leave my daughter alone.
“He agreed; I think he’d forgotten about her already. But he said, ‘It’s not enough, Karl. You must come with me because you want to, not because I hold some kind of threat over you.’ I was incredulous, that he could do this to me, murder my wife, try to make me kill my own child, then expect me to love him! Yet he did.
“No one could have brought him to justice nor held him in a jail. One thing I persuaded him to do; to help me cover up Therese’s death, which he did by posing as a doctor and claiming she had died of a sudden illness. Yes, it sounds sickening, Charlotte, but understand; if they’d known she was murdered, there would have been uproar and I would have been a suspect. Then if I disappeared it would have proved my guilt; I could never have seen my family again. But it Therese’s death seemed a quiet and ordinary tragedy, it would be understandable if I left Ilona and went away to get over my grief; and it would be acceptable to go back sometimes. It avoided so much unnecessary pain.
“So that is what I did, and then I went with Kristian and his other vampires, to keep them away from my loved ones.
“In many ways Kristian was right, there are things that can seem more profound than human love. It was wondrous, this strange new existence, and I fell in love with it despite myself. Vampires can move into another dimension, a world aslant from this, which we call the Crystal Ring. When we enter it we seem to vanish. We can travel through it to any part of the world—feed in a different place every night if we wish, and thus pass invisible and unsuspected among mankind. It must sound unbelievable to you… “
Charlotte looked thoughtful. “When Pierre came to Parkland, I recognised him. I’d seen him once in Cambridge and I saw him disappear into thin air.”
“But he didn’t speak to you or harm you?” She shook her head. Karl stroked her arm. “Oh, Charlotte. I didn’t know he was looking for me even then. I should have been more vigilant.”
“At least now I know I wasn’t going mad,” she said. “I saw a vampire disappear, so how can I not believe you? Tell me more about it, please.”
“Ah, too much to tell you, really. The Crystal Ring is beyond description.” Karl smiled. “It is like walking in the sky, but it can also be dangerous. It is another existence… no wonder, really, that Kristian calls it the mind of God. To give him his due, all the things he offered me were real.
“I cannot truthfully say that I regret what Kristian did to me. But I would have given it all for Therese to be alive… I can never forgive him for that, never. He elected himself king of vampires simply by being the strongest. I don’t know his origins, but I believe he has defeated immortals older than himself, and probably destroyed his own creators. He is the worst kind of egomaniac, one who believes he has God on his side. An avenging God who visits disasters on mankind to teach them their folly. Sometimes he believes he is God. And his little flock are his black angels.
“But Kristian’s fanatical passions never moved me. His view of immortality and the Crystal Ring were too narrow; he was capable of interpreting them only through the religious framework he must have known in life. Everything about him depressed me, his arrogance, his presumption, his brutality. Yet I can’t say I hated him; or if I did, the hatred was simply there inside me like a sheet of snow, boundless, implacable, absolutely cold. And it was the same with love. Although the grief I felt for Therese was overwhelming, I did not fall un
der the weight of it. It was so great it seemed to be outside me, while inside I felt deadly calm.
“And with killing; however appalled I was by the idea of drinking blood to live, this strange tranquillity enabled me to do it. It enabled me to accept what I was, to stay sane.
“I am not saying all vampires feel like this. It was simply my nature, accentuated by the transformation. Perhaps it was what first drew Kristian to me, my serenity, but later it began to drive him mad. However he provoked me, I would never react as he expected. I couldn’t be what he wanted me to be.
“But then, that was true of so many of those he created. Time and again he would destroy vampires who did not live up to his ideals. I have only escaped the same fate, I think, because he has a particular obsession with me. It has become his crusade, to see me go down on my knees and admit that I was wrong, that I adore him and need him; then he can destroy me, and pride will be satisfied.
“But I was telling you that when we left Vienna, I went with Kristian to his Schloss on the Rhine. He lived as austerely as a monk there. He was extremely rich, but earthly trappings were just a convenience to enable him to exist in the world. His craving was for devotion.”
“Do you mean he kept you prisoner?” Charlotte asked.
“Not exactly. We were free to come and go, but if anyone stayed away too long, he would always find them eventually. His punishments were horrible. The greatest fear he held over us was of being left to freeze in the Weisskalt, the highest layer of the Crystal Ring. A death sentence. The irony was that the very qualities for which he chose his vampires—independence, intelligence, boldness—made us intrinsically rebellious. Perhaps that’s what he wanted, the struggle of wills. He can’t see that, in the end, his domination over us can only be physical.
“Inevitably I stayed away from the Schloss longer and longer, until I simply did not bother going back. He came after me, of course. The fights we had… so pointless. Yet he always stopped short of punishing me. He kept letting me go, giving me one more chance to return of my own accord.
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