She moved closer, raised a hand and stroked Charlotte's hair. It was like the cupboard love of a cat whose claws may be unsheathed on a whim. "Isn't it a nice thought, Charlotte, that all those humans who hurt you, you can hurt in turn? You can make them love you desperately then turn and mock them, destroy them, kill them. You can take revenge on the human race, over and over again."
"I think that is sick, Ilona. I think you are mad."
"Yes. Isn't there something romantic about a mad, sick woman who is also beautiful?" Ilona grinned in self-mockery. "Don't you want that, Charlotte? Revenge?"
"No. I did not become a vampire for that."
"That is very funny, considering you tried to kill me a few minutes ago. We are nearly all mad, dear. The awful thing for most of us if that we know it. Kristian is the only one who's insane and doesn't realise… and Karl, poor thing, is the only one who is sane. Or was, until he gave in to Kristian."
"I don't believe he's forsaken me. He wouldn't."
"But he has!" And suddenly Ilona's face was transformed with a flash of sheer pain. "You think he is so perfect. Let me give you a hint of what he is really like. I did not ask to become a vampire; he gave me no choice in the matter. He took me away from my husband, from everything I knew, and he expected me to love him for it!"
"I know," Charlotte said quietly. "He told me. But I don't believe you hate him for it, because you so obviously relish what you are!"
"I am a very good vampire, it's true. He wanted me as a vampire, so that is exactly what I gave him, to the very limit! But I would like to have been asked!" Ilona shouted. A visible shudder passed through her, chilling because it was unaffected. "So you think you know everything about me. But did he ever tell you about the child I lost?"
"No," Charlotte said, startled.
Ilona's misery was artless, all arrogance gone. "When he took me away from my husband, I was expecting a child. The transformation killed it. That's what I can't forgive him for. That's why I abhor him. None of the rest. Just that."
A wave of purely mortal horror crested over Charlotte's unhuman pain. "He—he never told me."
"No, he wouldn't," Ilona said shortly, "because he doesn't know. I never told him and I never shall."
"Why not?"
"I couldn't! It was too terrible to share with the one who'd caused it. And of course he would have been grief-stricken, devastated, all the human things Karl can be—but it would not have been my secret any more. It was my grief, my anger—too great to be shared—too great to be diluted by telling him."
She seemed about to go on, but stopped at the top of a breath. After a moment Charlotte asked, "Do you still feel grief for this now?"
"Not now." Ilona was gazing at the floor, pensive, withdrawn. "But that was where it began. This tree of bitterness, rooted in that one sorrow; he made me immortal, but he took my child, my real immortality, away… " She looked up and added softly, "You are the only person I have ever told."
Against her will, Charlotte felt sympathy for Ilona. "Why? To make me hate Karl?"
"Just to make you realise you don't know everything." Ilona's glass-splinter smile returned but with less conviction than before. "If it has the effect of making you see what Karl really is, so much the better. Selfish, arrogant, uncaring, guiltless—like father, like daughter."
"He knows he made a mistake with you. And he's suffered for it. He still loves you."
"No, he doesn't. He rejected me, Charlotte… because of your sister. All the things I have done and he's never once turned away from me… until I did something that hurt you." And Charlotte saw straight through Ilona's mask; however much she claimed to loathe Karl, his rejection had devastated her. Just as it had devastated Charlotte.
"Where is he?" Charlotte asked.
"I don't know. He and Kristian have gone away together. The moment Karl relented, Kristian forgot all about me and they both left you here to rot."
"Gone away? I don't believe it!"
"Believe it, darling." Ilona's expression was solemn, no mockery in it. She came to Charlotte, put a hand on her shoulder, then leaned her head there. "There is something about you, Charlotte. You defeat me. I want to be cruel to you but I can't. What's the point? I am not hurting Karl or annoying Kristian by it. They have abandoned us both."
She's speaking the truth, Charlotte thought. Karl isn't coming back. I saw it in his eyes. Despite the feeling that Ilona was trying to snare her into some sort of bond that she did not want, Charlotte's hand crept involuntarily onto the silky dark red hair, caressed it. And she stood frozen under Ilona's ivory-delicate hands, the futility of everything unrolling before her. What was the use of taking revenge on Ilona, when she herself would go out and feed on the brothers and sisters of others, if she had the chance? She could not hate Karl's daughter, however much she tried. Even as Ilona stood there with venom issuing from her blood-rose mouth, there was an awful charm about her. Something of Karl.
"We've both been betrayed," said Ilona. Then, "I can't watch you suffering, while my veins are overflowing."
A barbed thrill of hunger. "Don't mock me."
"I mean it." Ilona tipped her head a little to one side, curled one hand around Charlotte's head. Charlotte stared at the pale sweep of her neck. "I am giving you back your strength. Only don't drink me dry, darling."
She drew Charlotte down and Charlotte fell, biting so savagely that Ilona stiffened and gasped. Vampire blood burst into her parched mouth, sharp and strange; less satisfying than human blood, yet filling her with a thin, glittering energy. And she was ravenous. She forgot where she was and on whom she was feasting, until Ilona—with very little effort—pulled her away and held her off. "Enough," she said.
They looked at each other. Still a trace of bitterness and twisted humour in Ilona's eyes; but more than that, tenderness. Charlotte hated her and loved her. She put her arms round Ilona's neck and they held each other fiercely.
"Now, dearest," Ilona said softly, "I am going to let you out."
***
Karl had never expected to see this place again; the manor house in the silent woods, its stone walls dappled with age, the small leaded windows watchful. The sight of it arrested him with an unexpected surge of dread. Unreal, it looked, flickering a little as if on film; infinitely remote as a cinematic image, yet sinister, overdrawn and underlit in grainy monochrome.
The abandoned renovation work made it seem more desolate than if it had never been touched at all. A mistake, to interfere with its secrets. The cleared path was vanishing again under nettles and brambles, and ivy cleaved to the walls as if trying to pull them down into the embrace of the earth.
"What is this place?" said Kristian.
Karl ascended the steps to the iron-shod front door. It was padlocked but he opened it easily, breaking the lock like clay. "A derelict house," he said. "I came here with Charlotte. We found something in the cellars that may interest you."
A mass of cold air pushed against them as they entered the hall. Its cathedral chill enveloped them under the soaring, thickly shadowed vault of the ceiling. Karl found the stench of damp and ancient mortar shockingly familiar, redolent of so much. Trying to lull David's suspicions while his blood-thirst burned. The luscious heat of Edward's blood quenching his thirst… much to regret, but not those hours of quietness in Charlotte's company. Then their descent into the cellar. A fathomless darkness beside which even the terrors of the Weisskalt paled… from which only Charlotte's sweet blood had saved him.
Did Kristian sense the atmosphere? Karl watched him carefully, but his strong face was impassive, betraying no suspicion or unease.
"I am intrigued," said Kristian. "What do you mean?"
"Don't you know?" Karl looked up into the vault, let his gaze trail downwards over the stone walls, the landing, the dust-thick stairs.
"Tell me."
"This is an ancient house," said Karl. He spoke softly, but his voice echoed. "There is a tunnel far beneath that is even older. I believe
a vampire lived there once."
Kristian turned abruptly to face him, his eyes black pits in his white face. "A vampire?" he said sharply. "How do you know?"
"We found the bones of his victims in the tunnel. I could feel his presence, although he must have left here centuries ago. Do you know who it could have been, Father? Have you ever been here before?"
Kristian folded his arms. His expression was unreadable. There was a horrible suspense in waiting for his answer. Karl thought, If a powerful vampire lived here in Kristian's lifetime he must have known, and may even have destroyed the creature himself. In which case he would know about the danger. Is he hiding his knowledge—or his ignorance?
Eventually Kristian said, "No, I have never been here. As to whether your supposed vampire was known to me, I may be able to tell you if we go down and look."
Karl felt a grim thrill of reluctance and cruelty mixed; he subdued it, keeping his face calm, his eyes innocent.
"This way," he said, leading Kristian into the ashen light of the kitchen. Here the builders' debris lay untouched under a thick coating of dust. A big square sink, lengths of pipe, timber under layers of canvas. Lamps. He made to take one, but Kristian said contemptuously, "What do you want with that, when we can see better by night than humans can by day?"
Karl shrugged, and left the lamp where it was. Kristian was right. A beam of light might be deceptively comforting, but it was no more protection against the cold than a crucifix against a vampire.
As he opened the cellar door, the malodorous air reached up like clawed fingers. God, to face this again. It had not been so bad with Charlotte, when he had sensed the threat but not understood it. But now he knew what waited…
With Kristian behind him, he began to descend the stairs. The walls were slimy; the miasma of centuries flowed thickly around them. Even to his acute vision, the cellar was as gloomy as a crypt. No colour anywhere. Only shades of black and grey. Again, the aura of a film; larger than life, grainy, brooding. Stacks of barrels and chests stood under the arches, their outlines blurred and thick with dust, cobwebs roping them to the littered floor. Movement of rats in the shadows.
Rats, insects and darkness held no horrors for him, who could walk cheerfully through graveyards; it was the memory of the incinerating coldness that disquieted him. He could hear no ghost voices; but their silence was worse, as if they were holding their breath. Waiting.
Now and then Karl glanced at his companion, but Kristian's face remained the same; unmoved, merely curious. The moment he perceives the danger, he will guess my intention. Why hasn't he sensed it? Could it be that in his arrogance he is deaf to what dwells here—or worse, immune to it? Karl made his heart a sphere of metal, dewed with ice. It was the only way he could do this, to harden his heart and seal away his doubts.
The big iron-bound chest that he had pulled across to conceal the trap was still in position. Evidently Charlotte had never told anyone how they'd escaped, and no one had explored closely enough to find out. He dragged the chest away, grimacing as it screeched on the stone flags.
He paused, looking down into the black stairwell. It seemed he could hear the faint piping of the wind across a vast subterranean distance. The darkness lapped like a millpond that had claimed a thousand lives.
Kristian said impatiently, "Will you go first, or shall I?"
"Wait," said Karl. He let his anxiety creep into his tone. "It was very cold down there."
Kristian sneered. "A little earthly coldness never hurt us. Only the Weisskalt can do that."
"But this was an unearthly cold, Father."
Kristian started down the stairs. "Not afraid, are you, Karl?"
"It was very disturbing. It made me so ill I thought I was going to die! It's dangerous."
"Fear, Karl." Kristian's lips thinned in a smile and he shook his head indulgently. "I am surprised at you. What use have we for fear, when God walks with us? Nothing can harm us. Hold on to me."
Oh, I shall hold on to you, father, Karl thought grimly. It had worked; the truth and a child-like display of nerves—which really was no pretence—had deceived Kristian more effectively than any lie. But foreboding coiled around him, wintry as the sullen air. What if Kristian feels no danger because nothing here can harm him'? I may die—but there may be no hope of destroying him at all.
***
Ilona took Charlotte to a room high in Schloss Holdenstein, with small windows framing views of the river. Charlotte gazed out, finding it miraculous to see the outside world again after her imprisonment. She felt empty, squeezed dry of emotion, while the hunger for human blood lapped constantly through her.
There was no bed in the room, only wardrobes full of clothes, an enamel bath in front of a firegrate, and a full-length mirror.
"Why don't you bathe, and I will find you something to wear?" said Ilona. "So primitive, this place. I can't stand it. I must have luxury."
"You don't live here all the time, then?" Charlotte asked.
"God, no! I have houses in Paris, Budapest, Prague… I have rich human lovers. I don't kill them until they begin to bore me. You know, we should both leave here while we have the chance."
"Where will you go?"
"I haven't decided." Ilona searched briskly through a rail of dresses. "But one thing is certain, I have had more than enough of my immortal fathers."
"You don't want to find Karl and Kristian, then?"
"They can both go to hell! Come with me, if you like; I might go to Russia, or America for a change."
Charlotte smiled. "Don't you think the Russians have enough problems, without you? Thank you, but I have to go back to Cambridge."
Ilona gave her a look of exasperation. "Oh, not your precious family again. Then I suppose you are going to start looking for Karl, just to reassure yourself that he really did mean to kick you in the teeth."
A dull-edged knife of loss cut through her. "I don't know," Charlotte said. "I can't believe he really meant to reject me… but you're right, I can't forget how cold he was. If I found him and he was still the same, I couldn't bear it. I don't know what to do."
"Forget him!" Ilona pulled an armful of clothes from a cupboard and threw them on a chair. "Do you like these?" She shook out a dress of silvery crepe de Chine and a midnight-blue coat trimmed lavishly with fur. "You know, you will not be able to go into the Crystal Ring for days. Not until you have fed enough to recover your strength."
"I don't think it will take me days," said Charlotte. "I can sense the Ring now… I think I could enter it, if I were just a little stronger."
Ilona raised her eyebrows. "Already? To recover so fast is quite unusual. I wonder if Kristian has some reason to be afraid of you."
"Why should he be?"
Ilona smiled thinly and shrugged. "I have never heard him shout at anyone the way he shouted at you, when you told him there is no God. I should think the whole castle heard him."
When Charlotte had bathed and dressed, she left the castle and hunted on the hillsides above the Rhine. It grew a little easier each time, as if the intensity of her need carried her beyond conscience. She felt no horror, only a distant tenderness for her victims. They were only a means to an end; to go back to her family, so she could say goodbye.
Beyond that, she could see no future. I came into this for Karl. Without him what's the use? But the stolen life in her veins numbed her against the cruel wires of sorrow.
When Charlotte felt ready to travel, she did not return to the castle again, not even to see Ilona. There seemed no point. She stepped into the Crystal Ring and, terrifying though it was on her own, she found her way home along the paths that Kristian had taken.
In Cambridge, every familiar sight was a shock. It was as if she had been blind before, only knowing places by touch and sound; the sight of them was vivid, new. Delaying the confrontation, she wandered through the colleges for a time, unable to believe the soft granulation of their walls, their dignity and antiquity. She noticed some undergraduates from
the Cavendish staring at her as they passed her on King's Parade, unsure if they recognised her or not. "That's not Charlotte Neville, is it?" whispered one. "Never struck me she was such a beauty before." But it was not beauty they were seeing but the vampire aura, burning through their perceptions.
At last she stood outside her father's house. No sound except the soft rustic of trees against a broken sky, distant birdsong.
The cream-grey walls seemed closed against her, but she sensed motes of human warmth within. How long is it since I left?
No one had seen her yet. She entered the Crystal Ring briefly, passed through the walls and went up into the bedroom that had been hers.
A shock. It was like looking at a doll's house. She was entranced by the detail, yet—just as she could never step into the dolls' world and live there—she felt disconnected from it. There was no sense of her mother's spirit in the room any more. No sense of her self.
She caught a glimpse of her reflection in a mirror. Another shock. She looked just the same. There was nothing supernatural about her; she looked normal, if rather pale, her face almost lost between the swathe of black fur and the deep-crowned hat.
Charlotte felt light-headed with the passive, insidious horror of it. I can never live here again… even if I wanted to. She left the room and went downstairs in a trance, stopping abruptly at the bottom as Madeleine came out into the hall.
Madeleine looked up and stared at her in open-mouthed astonishment.
"Charli!" she cried, rushing forward and flinging her arms round Charlotte's neck. "You've come back! Oh, thank God!"
Charlotte was stunned. Her sister felt so soft, so pliant; it was not long since she had fed, but the memory only made the pulse of Madeleine's blood more poignantly enticing. She held her, staring at the creamy curve of her neck with its down of tiny pale hairs, conscious of the sweetness beneath the peach skin.
She held Madeleine away from her, shaken to the core. "I thought you were in London," she managed to say.
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