“Instead, others began to leave him. Strange as it seems, Andreas and Katerina became my dearest friends and they came to live with me. Pierre too, though he could never make up his mind about anything. Kristian could not tolerate it. He is a jealous lord who could not believe I had not the remotest desire to steal his flock from him. I think that was when he began to hate me more than he loved me.
“Meanwhile I often went back to Vienna, while my family still lived. It was a shock to see them. Vampires do not change, you see; I was used to their porcelain beauty around me every day. But in my loved ones I saw every line, every grey hair, the subtle changes in their gait. I could see the blood rushing through Ilona like sap through the petals of a flower. She grew so fast that I wanted to seize her and say, ‘Stop! The faster you grown, the sooner you will die!’”
Charlotte said, “Did she—did she know you?”
Karl nodded. “She looked on my sister and brother-in-law as her parents, but she knew I was her real father. She’d been told I could not be with her because I was playing with an orchestra abroad. She was the sweetest child. I adored her with human and vampire intensity. I couldn’t bear her sadness, when I left again—and I never dared stay long—yet she accepted it. It was my sister who looked at me with suspicion, though she never said anything.
“Then one time I returned to find that Ilona was married. I could not believe it. She was twenty-three already… and it is a terrible thing to admit, but I was jealous of her love for her husband. But that was not why I made the decision.
“It was so long since I had last visited that I did not even make myself known to them. I followed Ilona and my sister as they went to visit our parents’ grave and I was shocked to see how old my sister had become. She was grey-haired, stout, slightly breathless as she walked. She wept a little, as she always did at the grave. God, I would have done anything to go to her, to put my arms around her and say, ‘It’s all right, liebchen, I am here… ‘ But it struck me that I actually could not approach her; the visible disparity of our ages was too great. What could her reaction have been? And the knowledge that she would shrink from me in terror was agonising. So I stayed where I was, under the branches all outlined with silver by the rain, watching.
“Here she was, weeping in a graveyard, she who’d been so young and full of life… and I looked at Ilona beside her and I thought, You too. I shall have to watch you grow old and die, my daughter, while I remain here like a stopped clock on a desolate landscape, watching your life shine and flicker and go out in the distance…
“I couldn’t bear it, Charlotte. I went to Ilona’s house that night and took her away. She was so delighted to see me, it never seemed to strike her that I showed no signs of age. She trusted me so completely. And I thought I was thinking of her, but the truth is I was thinking only of myself as I put her in a coach and took her to a hotel.
“I did not give Kristian a thought; it was Katerina who warned me that he would be furious, but she and Andreas were persuaded to help me. And that night we made Ilona into a vampire. I never told her what we were going to do; I thought, quite rightly, that she would be horrified. I took such pains not to frighten her, and I don’t think she suspected anything until the very last moment when I… when I drank her blood and killed her. I was terrified that the process would fail, that she’d remain dead—because it can happen—but the three of us gave our energy back to her and her eyes opened again.
“And I shall never forget the anguish and loathing on her face when she realised what she had become. From that moment she hated me.
“She had every right, of course. What I had done to her was no better than what Kristian had done to me; I’d taken her without consent, sundered her from her husband and everything human. I had what I wanted; Ilona, unchanging, to look at forever. But such a price to pay. She changed completely; she lost all her sweetness, became cold and vicious. A perfect vampire, perhaps; no longer my daughter.
“Kristian allows no one else to create new vampires, so he was outraged. With more subtlety than I realised he possessed, he knew that the best way to punish me was to leave me alone and destroy those I loved instead. He took Andreas and Katerina from me and condemned them to the Weisskalt—for the sin of loving me more than they loved him. I feared he’d do the same to Ilona. But no, he was entranced by her and she, perversely, decided to adore him. To this day I do not know if that was simply her revenge on me. Kristian’s perfect angel she became.” Karl fell silent. Such pain in these memories.
Eventually Charlotte asked, “What did you do?”
“What could I do? I tried again and again to talk to her. She was implacable. In the end I had to accept it and let her go. But I still love her. That will never end.
“Since then I have lived alone. Anyone who befriended me was in danger of incurring Kristian’s jealousy; I could not take that risk with anyone’s life. Oh, there is more I could tell you, of the travels I have made in search of some kind of meaning, the wretched confrontations with Kristian… but it would add little to what I’ve said.
“There are only a few dozen vampires in the world, Charlotte, all of us subject to Kristian. He is always there behind everything, like a great dark storm. I kept hoping that he would give up and leave me in peace, after all this time… I should have known it was a vain hope. His patience with me is running out. He’s so desperate that he has even resorted to harming Ilona, his favourite. He sent Pierre to tell me that she was in the Weisskalt and would remain there unless I went back to him.”
“But you didn’t go,” said Charlotte.
“No. The night I was missing, I went to rescue her myself. Kristian attacked me, and that was why I was too weak to spare poor Edward.”
“Oh, Karl,” Charlotte said softly. “Did you save her?”
“For the time being.” Karl shut his eyes for a moment, weighed down by dark hopelessness, soothed by Charlotte’s touch. “But while Kristian lives no one is safe, no one free.”
In a cautious, soft tone, she said, “Could he be killed?”
“Try beheading a vampire; they just slip away into the Crystal Ring laughing. And to take him to the Weisskalt would be impossible. He’s too strong. That was why I came to your father, Charlotte. Not the only reason, but the main one; to find something that would be fatal to Kristian, perhaps a substance created artificially in a laboratory that is never encountered in nature.”
Charlotte looked startled but intrigued. “Did you find anything?”
“No corrosives affected my flesh, radium did not burn me, no gas poisoned me… I am coming to the conclusion that only the extreme cold has any effect on us at all.”
“You were trying these things on yourself?”
“Natürlich. How else could I find out?”
“But you might have killed yourself!”
“Yes, there was that risk,” said Karl. “But it was one worth taking, if there was a chance of destroying Kristian. Does it sound heartless, to speak so coldly of killing one of my own kind?”
“Yes, but I’d feel heartless too, if he’d done those things to me. I’m not very good at being sympathetic. I never know the right words… but I am so sorry, Karl… especially about Therese.”
He stroked her arm. “It’s all right. I cannot change what happened so I have learned to accept it The sorrow is distant now.”
“I wish you could have told me before,” said Charlotte. He looked into her eyes, trying to read the changing shadows in her violet irises. He saw no hostility there, no condemnation. Rather, she looked contemplative.
“So do I,” he said softly. “There it is; I don’t know what I am, or why I exist. I have encountered no gods, no demons. I wish I had Kristian’s faith; but what is the use of searching for an invisible God when you can see the very essence of life pulsing through plants? What does it mean to be immortal, when the universe itself cannot last forever? I am still looking for the answers; I hoped to find them through science, but I think if there i
s anything to be found, it is inside us.”
Charlotte was silent for a time. The fire crackled; a slight wind curled around the house, bringing faint voices from outside. Then she said, “I don’t know what I expected you to tell me, but what you’ve said is so different from anything I could have imagined. There’s one thing I’m sure of; you are not evil, Karl.”
“I doubt that your father and brother would look on my story so favourably. Don’t lose sight of what I am. I was human once, but if I still had a conscience I would never have survived this long.”
“But who can claim to be completely good?” she said fervently. “The War, all those young men who never came back, or who came back like Edward—” she stopped, swallowed. “That was the doing of men, wasn’t it? Or are you going to tell me that you and Kristian started it between you?”
Karl laughed, despite himself. “No. Men perpetrate evil to match that of vampires, it’s true. Ours is on a small scale by comparison.”
“You said you’d always been yourself with me,” she said, her face intense. “I don’t doubt it at all now. I still love you, Karl. I can’t help it. I can’t just make it stop… “
“Nor can I,” he said.
She was leaning towards him. He only had to slide his hand through her hair and draw her head down a little for their mouths to meet. And at the silvery warmth of her he felt the heavy pull of desire falling through him, her compliance drawing him down into it… it would be so sweet to make love to her again, but at the last moment, that exquisite loss of control that still felt so poignantly human, would he have the strength to turn his face away from her throat as he had before? He doubted it. Not this time. He forced himself to end the kiss, to hold her away from him. She stared at him, lips parted, eyes misted over with longing and dismay.
“Charlotte, please… “
“What? What am I supposed to do? I cannot believe you are evil! You’re like light streaming through the door from another world. I was scared of it at first, I thought it would burn me to cinders, but you, you told me not to be frightened. You can’t just take the light away.”
“Oh God.” He held her wrists so tight that he must have hurt her. “You know we can’t stay here. It’s not only my need for blood, Charlotte. I have to ensure that Pierre doesn’t come back.”
“Why should he come back?”
“He has a very dangerous sense of humour. He’s already attacked Madeleine, and he threatened to do worse once he recovers his strength. He knows the best way to hurt me is to hurt your family. I can only control him as Kristian does, by physical dominance.”
“To hurt my family?’ Charlotte turned pale with helpless fury. “What about them? He can’t, how dare he even think of it!”
“It’s my fault,” said Karl. He relaxed his grip and held her hands lightly, his voice calm. “I never meant to endanger your family, but by coming to them, I’ve drawn other vampires after me.”
She stared at him, aghast. “What are we going to do?”
“Initially, I am going to write a note to your brother informing him that I will release you in exchange for letting me go unhindered.”
“Why?”
“Because that is what I intend to do.”
“No.”
“Charlotte, this situation is impossible! We cannot stay together, whatever happens.”
Her lips were dark against the paleness of her face, her eyes circled with shadows of tiredness and strain, but that only seemed to accentuate her beauty. She was utterly different from Therese, yet now when he recalled his wife’s death it was Charlotte he saw there. Despair filled him. He wanted to forget the hopelessness in the warmth of their love… but in the circle of his arms she would only fall to the danger from which he wanted to protect her. Horrible, that in the midst of this he could still want her blood, yet he did. He wanted her silken skin against his, her love flowing all around him and into him… to pretend that he was human again, and that everything could be all right.
Cruel delusion.
She spoke, breaking his trance. “No, Karl, let me finish. I think I know how we can leave here without anyone seeing us.”
He looked doubtfully at her, then saw that he had misread the expression on her face. The look was not of fear, but determination. With a tentative smile she added, “You are not the only one who has secrets.”
* * *
Chapter Twelve
Written in Bones
Charlotte stoked the fire, then sat down in the chair opposite, watching Karl in the firelight; his pale skin burnished by a watery red glow, his hair a mass of black and deepest auburn, eyes shadowed pools of amber and jet. The more they talked, the closer she felt to him; yet, paradoxically, the more enticing and mystical he seemed.
“When I was a child,” she began, “my sisters and I used to come and play in this house. It had been left derelict for years and it was such a gloomy, haunted place, but we felt drawn here.”
Karl smiled. “Ah, the delicious torment of frightening oneself.”
“But that was all Fleur and Maddy wanted to do; they were insensitive to the real aura of the place, they had no regard for its age or its secrets… ” Charlotte paused. She had never realised how passionately she held these feelings, after all the years of keeping them to herself—partly for fear of ridicule. But I can keep nothing from Karl… and I don’t want to. “Once we came here when I was about nine or ten, and Fleur and Maddy were challenging each other to see who dared to go furthest into the cellar. I didn’t like the way they were carrying on; they didn’t even know what they were frightened of, except the dark and the spiders… but I felt there was a presence down there and I knew it was wrong to disturb it. Almost sacrilegious, like running and shouting in church. I was too timid to say so. They thought I was hanging back because I was scared, and they teased me until I got upset and told them how disrespectful I thought they were being. I probably sounded like a prig as well as a coward, so they decided to teach me a lesson. Fleur insisted we all three go down into the cellar together—and once we were down there, they fled and locked me in. Well, I was afraid, but—”
“Wait a moment,” said Karl. “Why would your sisters play such a cruel trick on you?”
The unexpectedness of the question deflected her thoughts and she felt the wings of self-concealment closing round her, an uncomfortable sensation. She didn’t want to talk about it, but his gaze was insistent. “It matters, Charlotte.”
“Haven’t you guessed, Karl? You’re so perceptive. You’ve seen pictures of my mother, you know how my father is with us… “
“Your sisters have always resented him loving you the best,” Karl said softly.
“But I didn’t want to be favoured—not if it meant they hated me for it! How can I explain? It wasn’t that I felt he loved me best, but that he was always expecting something of me that I couldn’t give.”
“And it made you feel responsible for your father’s happiness?”
“Yes. I suppose it did.”
“That is a dreadful burden to place on a child.”
“Oh, but I don’t blame him!” Charlotte said quickly. “He must have loved my mother so much. It wasn’t my sisters’ fault either. Father did tend to overlook them, so they took it out on me. They were lucky in other ways, both having such confidence in themselves, never any self-doubt. I was so timid, I never knew how to defend myself. My whole childhood seemed to be spent working out ways to win their love… letting them have their own way in everything.”
“And you found that you cannot buy love in that way?”
She nodded ruefully. “Yes, I know that now. All I achieved was to make them take me for granted. It made things worse, really. Oh, don’t misunderstand; I love them and they love me, in their way. But I have so longed to be like them, to be part of their world, and I never could. They’d think I’d gone mad if they knew.”
“But this has caused you real pain.” There was such concern in Karl’s eyes. “Haven’t you
ever told them how you feel?”
“I couldn’t. The roles we assumed as children are too ingrained; I couldn’t change now if I wanted to, and they could never see me any differently.”
“You are changing, Charlotte, and they are more afraid of it than you,” he said. “But they must realise you cannot stay the same, just to make them feel safe. You should talk to them.”
She swallowed. His words, the warm glow of his eyes, brought her close to tears. “I was telling you about the cellar.”
“Yes. Go on.”
“I was fearfully upset that they’d shut me in, and the atmosphere. A sort of heaviness, like layers and layers of age… like hundreds of voices murmuring, just out of earshot. So cold, so full of grief. I ran back up the steps and tried to open the door, imploring them to let me out, but they wouldn’t answer. I wasn’t going to humiliate myself by pleading with them; perhaps I had a subconscious desire to outwit them, I don’t know, but I went back down the steps and across the cellar. It was pitch dark, of course, and I kept tripping over things. Finally I stepped over the edge of a hole and really bruised myself, although I didn’t fall far. I’d landed on some steps. I sat there and cried for a short while, but when my bruises stopped hurting I went down the steps and found they led down to another cellar or a corridor. It was completely black, so I’d no idea where I was. There were twists and turns; I felt my way along a wall. I kept walking and walking.”
“Don’t ever again tell me you are not brave,” said Karl.
“I was nervous, of course, but more than that I was… fascinated. The harm intended to me came from my sisters, not from the house. Something drew me through that tunnel. So hard to put these feelings into words, Karl, and it must sound so strange—but whatever haunts this house is sad, not evil. I almost wanted to touch it.
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