She had hoped he had changed his mind; again the terrible pain, like cheesewires cutting her heart. "Best for whom?" she exclaimed. "I supposed it's easy for you just to go away and leave me!"
His gaze moved over her face, distracted, disturbed. "No, liebchen. I find it almost impossible. But you know we cannot stay together. You know what I am, and I know how much you care for your family… "
Every reminder seemed to tear her in two like a scrap of paper. What am I doing, this is a vampire, he almost killed me to live! And then there was an image in her mind of her family sleepless and wretched in the Hall while Pierre's face loomed like a death-mask at the window; and David outside the manor, waiting… She tried to close her mind to it, but it would not go away. All that anguish she could put right… yet the one prospect she truly could not bear was being parted from Karl.
An idea came to her, a reprieve. "Just let me come to London, at least. I can go to my sister's. It will give you a chance to get away."
"Your sister… "
"Yes, Fleur, in Bloomsbury. You know where she lives. I can telephone home from there and by the time they come for me you will have vanished before the police can do anything."
Karl hesitated, his eyes dark with fugitive emotions. Then he released a soft breath and said, "Very well. But don't let us delude ourselves; we are doing this for all the wrong reasons. It is only delaying the moment."
"This is very touching," said Pierre, "and God knows, I am a romantic at heart, but if you have managed to make up your minds, can we go?"
"Do you have a car nearby?" said Karl. "Charlotte cannot walk to London, she needs to rest."
"I came back by train and taxi-cab," said Pierre. "Where's your beautiful Hispano?"
"Still at the manor, unless someone has driven it back to the Hall. I can't go back for it; too much risk of being seen or heard. We shall have to find a car on our way."
"Steal one, you mean," Pierre said with a soft laugh. "What a deliciously human crime."
Another long, icy wave of doubt went through Charlotte. It's not too late to change my mind. But in her heart, the choice was made.
They crossed the lower lawn—passing the fountain where Charlotte had first fallen under Karl's spell—and descended a flight of stone steps into the woodland below. They walked through the woods until she was stumbling along in a dream, too exhausted to keep her feet without Karl's help. The loss of blood had caused this weakness—while the energy with which Karl moved was hers.
The trees flowed down to the boundary of the Parkland Hall estate, edged by a hawthorn hedge with a narrow lane beyond. They climbed a gate and turned left into the lane, taking the way that led south. The surface was rough and flinty, churned up by centuries of horses' hooves, rutted by the motor vehicles for which it had never been intended.
After they had walked for twenty minutes or so, Pierre and Karl looked at each other and drew back into the shadows of the grass verge. Charlotte could hear nothing at first; then an uncertain beam of light swung round the bend behind them, fanning over the hedgerow then swivelling on to the road. A car came bouncing slowly along the track, a black shape only half-seen behind the glare of its headlights.
The light blinded Charlotte, after so long in darkness. But Pierre calmly moved out into the middle of the road and waved his arms at the vehicle. It drew to a halt, braking with Pierre almost on the bonnet. A door opened and the driver got out, moving with ponderous self-assurance, curious rather than alarmed.
A policeman.
"Damn," Karl said under his breath. "And he has probably come down from the manor house. Stay here."
A chill gripped her stomach. "What are you going to do?"
"It's all right, Charlotte," he said, his voice strange and distant. "Don't move. Don't watch." The words fell into the silence like stones into a dark pool as he left Charlotte and moved towards Pierre. And in spite of his warning she could not stop herself from watching with horrified fascination.
"Good evening, sirs," said the constable. "What seems to be the trouble?"
"There's been an accident," Pierre said vaguely. "My friend… "
"Nothing to worry about," said Karl, his voice so coldly hypnotic that it was like icy fingers being drawn along her limbs. "But if you could come here a moment… "
The policeman stared at the two vampires, then his expression changed. His eyes widened with bafflement and fear. With the light shining from beneath, reversing the shadows, his face looked horrible. And suddenly Charlotte felt the terror as he must be feeling it, a great weight of ice on her chest; and she saw Pierre and Karl as he must see them.
White, luminous beings, spare and hard and pitiless. Not human. Not human. Impossible, turning belief upside down, tearing away the veil of normality to reveal the glittering evil beneath.
The constable muttered something. "What's going on? Just a minute—" but he was moving forward, a fly caught in honey. And it was Karl who struck. One moment he was standing as still as marble, the next the policeman was in his grasp—yet Charlotte had not see him move. And she saw the mutual convulsion of both their bodies as Karl's fangs drove into the man's neck.
"God, let me—" Pierre gasped. His blue eyes pure burning hunger, he moved behind the man, bent his face to the other side of his throat.
Charlotte stared at the hideous scene. Then she found herself running along the darkened road, sobbing for breath, out of her mind. The strange, dark swimming sensation was inside her, it could not be escaped. She felt she was flying and sinking, the feeling flooding her body like a drug; and at the same time she was alone on an infinite landscape, being drawn down into a warm darkness that she could not fight, almost did not wish to.
The feeling was unmistakably one of desire.
It only seemed a few moments before there was someone beside her, catching her, holding her up. But it was not Karl. It was Pierre. She recoiled from him, close to passing out with terror. His grip was inescapable and as he pulled her round she caught a glimpse of Karl still bonded to his victim.
"Don't be an idiot, I'm not going to hurt you, much as I'd love to," Pierre hissed. His lips shone dark with blood. With no strength left to resist, she let herself be guided back to the car.
She went with her eyes closed. God, let me wake up out of this dream.
Pierre stopped and she heard voices. At first they made no sense through the ringing of her ears, then she became aware that Karl and Pierre were arguing. "Of course we must take it with us!" said Pierre. "If we leave it here, they are going to realise you came this way."
"I am not taking it in the car," Karl replied adamantly. "Not with Charlotte there. We'll have to leave it under the hedgerow and take the chance."
She realised that they were talking about the policeman.
Pierre helped her into the back of the car; she felt the smoothness of the upholstery sliding against her clothes, but the leather smell made her feel sick. She did not watch what they were doing. Pierre's voice, just outside the window, made her jump.
"Awful, this starvation, isn't it?" For the first time a softer quality replaced the sneering tone, a hint of sympathy, a link between the two vampires that reminded her all the more that they were foreign beings of whom she knew so little. "You take someone and you simply cannot stop. Now you know how I felt, when you did it to me; fortunately it does wear off. Eventually."
"I know," said Karl. His voice went through her like an electric shock. "It's not the first time Kristian has done this to me. You drive, Pierre."
"Oh, must I? I want to sit in the back with Ophelia," the Frenchman said gleefully. But Karl gave him a hard look and he obeyed.
The car door opened and Karl slid onto the seat beside Charlotte. But he remained in the opposite corner, almost as if he did not trust himself to touch her. It seemed astonishing that he looked as composed and tranquil as he always did; although why she had expected otherwise, she didn't know.
"Are you all right?" he asked, as Pierre engage
d the gear and set off at reckless speed.
"I don't know."
"You know that you have no cause to be frightened of me."
"I wasn't frightened," she said tightly. "Please don't ask me to explain. It's too dreadful."
He looked at her and she could not avoid his eyes; they were sad, brooding. "I know what it was, Charlotte."
"You don't. How could you know?"
"You felt something that you think is unholy and alien to your nature. You were less frightened of what was happening than of your own feelings. That was what you were running away from."
She was horrified, because he was right. "Karl, please don't speak of it!"
"It has to be faced. I don't want you to be under any illusions about me."
"I don't think I am," she said. "Not now."
"Then you must look into your heart and face what is there. You don't have to tell me, but you must do it." He went on looking gravely at her. He offered no apology that she had been so upset, no words of consolation; but she understood and was glad. She wanted no comforting sophistry, only the truth.
"I don't know what I feel. It's all confusion, except for one thing… " She shook her head. Surely it was impossible to go on loving him after what she had seen, after what he had told her about himself, yet she could not stop. The longer she stayed with him the worse it became; a complete infatuation with his every look, every gesture. And the idea of leaving him became more and more impossible to contemplate.
"And the one thing… is what?" he said.
"God, Karl, you don't need to ask!"
"No," he whispered. "Any more than you need to ask what the gift of your blood meant to me." The hypnotic swaying of the car suspended them in a bubble of time, opening a dark communication between them which hardly needed expression in words. He said, "These bonds between us cannot easily be broken."
After a few minutes he reached out and clasped her hand; and now her fingers were icy, while his were warm.
***
Anne had gone back to Parkland Hall at David's insistence, but long before dawn she set out again for the manor. She went alone; Elizabeth and the Prof were dozing uneasily in the drawing room, Madeleine had gone to bed, and Newland—having considered it his duty to stay awake throughout the crisis—was red-eyed and largely indifferent to anyone's welfare except Elizabeth's. There was no one to stop her as she put on a pair of Wellington boots and David's old trench coat, picked up another bundle of food, and drove off in Edward's car.
It was five o'clock, the dreary time before dawn, when their hopes reached a nadir and the darkness massed within the trees seemed immovable. She parked some distance away and walked up the path until she found David, sitting on a folding stool under the scant cover of bushes.
"I've brought some more food for Charlotte," she said. "Anything happening?"
"Not much. Ash sent a man to report back to the police station a while ago, that's all." David looked at her with a kind of disapproving concern. "You should have gone to bed, Anne."
"I couldn't sleep, any more than you can. Any sign of activity?"
"See for yourself," he replied grimly. The upper window, which throughout the afternoon and evening had glimmered golden-red, was now blank as iron. "He's let the fire go out."
"Charlotte's probably asleep."
"I doubt it, and she must be freezing."
"I expect they'll light it again in the morning."
"It is morning!" David said bitterly. "For heaven's sake, how long does he think he can keep her in there?"
A policeman went to place the fresh bundle of food on the doorstep. He knocked at the door, but this time there was no response. Heavy wet twilight striated the sky, but the fire was not rekindled. David and Anne remained at their post, staring grimly at the sullen walls of the manor. More than ever it seemed an unbreachable fortress, and there was no sign of life inside. The windows remained dead and cold.
Inspector Ash came wading towards them through the wet leaves. "If I'm not much mistaken, Captain Neville, there's no one in there."
Anne's heart turned cold.
"That's impossible," said David. "Your men have been watching every possible exit, haven't they?"
"Of course."
"Have they been asleep at their posts?"
"Certainly not, sir," Ash said in a hard tone.
"Then they can't possibly have left, can they?"
Anne said, "Could they have slipped away under cover of darkness?"
"No, Miss Saunders, we've been watching every inch of the place. If they'd come out of one of the doors or even a window, we'd have heard them as well as seen them."
Quietly, she said, "It does look awfully deserted, all the same."
"Well, I'm going to try the door again," said David. He marched up the path, took the four steps in one stride and pounded hard on the dark, arched door. Anne followed. The sound resonated and died away as they stood side by side, looking up at the ancient stone walls. Minutes went by, but nothing happened.
David stood back and yelled at the top of his lungs, "Von Wultendorf! For God's sake, man, what are you playing at? Let me know my sister's alive, at least! Light a candle, let her come to the window!"
As soon as he stopped shouting, the silence billowed down again like a stage curtain. The manor remained lifeless, impenetrable.
For the first time Anne saw real fear in David's face. She shared that moment of helpless terror, heavy as stone and cold as the impassive, violet-streaked sky.
"Right," he said. He took Anne's arm and led her back to the bushes where Inspector Ash and two constables were waiting. "I think it's time we made a move, Inspector."
Ash looked dubious. "What did you have in mind, sir?"
"I am going to force one of the windows and go in."
"You realise he could be setting a trap—maybe waiting for us to break in one way so he can escape by another?"
"Forewarned is forearmed, isn't it, Inspector? Your men will be ready for him."
"Well, you have a point, sir. We could wait until kingdom come, at this rate. It looks as if something's happened… "
"I've got to know, one way or the other," David said grimly. "Would you have one of your men escort my fiancée back to the Hall?"
"Will you please stop treating me like a child?" Anne said indignantly. "If you're going in there, I'm coming with you!"
"Anne, it's much too dangerous!" He looked dismayed by her stubbornness, but she spoke calmly and insistently.
"If Karl is still there, I think he's more likely to negotiate with me and less likely to hurt me than you. Besides, if anything has happened to Charlotte, I should be there to look after her. I can try to act as a mediator—but if there has to be a fight, I can at least keep her out of it."
"Anne, I can't possibly expose you to the sort of danger Charlotte's in. I absolutely forbid it."
"I though you believe in equality for women!"
"I do—but this is different, old girl, you must see that."
"I'm not your old girl," she said thinly. "And it is not different. I've as much right as you to try to help Charlotte." Anne felt resolute as steel, able to outface David because she had no choice. "When it comes to it, you don't practise what you preach, do you? You had better have your ring back."
She took off her left glove, slipped the ring off her finger, and held it out to him. He stared at the diamond glitter, flummoxed. Finally he burst out, "Good God, is it a crime for a man to try to protect his fiancée these days?"
"We should protect each other! We agreed that we would be equal partners in marriage. If you didn't mean it, there's no point in us getting married, is there?" Her throat ached as she spoke. She had sometimes imagined a real test of their relationship, never thought this moment would actually come. Yet she had to see it through.
"You're being ridiculous!"
"If you think that of me, it only proves I'm doing the right thing. It's not because you want to protect me, David; it's becau
se you don't even begin to understand why I feel like this. I'm sorry, but I can't live with that."
"Anne—" David went on staring at her, hurt and angry. Then his expression softened into resignation, intense seriousness. "I do understand," he said in a low voice. "And you're quite right. Put the ring back on, please. All right, equal partners; but agree to one thing, will you? Let a couple of us go in through a window first; then if the coast's clear, we'll let you and the police in through the front door."
Anne nodded. She accepted the ring, replaced it on her finger; then they smiled at each other, a touch grimly, and David kissed her cheek. "I do love you, old girl," he whispered. "For God's sake, be careful."
"And you," she said. As he turned away, she drew a deep breath of relief, and found herself starting to tremble.
David and the Inspector drew up a plan of action, decided to tackle a window that gave on to the hall. They broke a pane and opened it easily enough; but Anne watched with heart in mouth as the two of them, followed by a constable, scrambled through the embrasure. However quiet they are, Karl's bound to know they're there. Oh 'Lord, David, don't take any risks…
Long moments of silence. Then the front door creaked open, and the inspector beckoned the four men he had detailed to go in with Anne.
David stood in the hall, white-faced.
"There doesn't seem to be anybody here," he said faintly.
The darkness soared over them, barely touched by their torch beams, vast and full of menace; like the vaulted heights of a cathedral… or the dead grey sky over a battlefield.
"Have you searched the whole house?" Anne's voice echoed.
"Just a brief look upstairs. We'll do it more thoroughly now, but I can just tell, Anne; the place is deserted."
"I feel it too," she said.
Side by side they went up the stairs, followed by the Inspector, while his men explored the lower rooms. The solar, from which firelight had shone and then waned during the night, was empty and cold as ash. There were signs that Charlotte had been here; the workmen's kettle on the grate, remains of food, clothes lying on the bed. While Ash moved slowly around the chamber—Looking for signs of blood? Anne wondered with a shudder—David went back on to the landing and shouted, "Charlotte! Von Wultendorf, if you're here, for God's sake show yourself!"
A Taste of Blood Wine Page 31