Karl hesitated, breathed out imperceptibly. "I think perhaps I did. And for the reasons he gave; that he was the centre of things. Never changing. But I could not admit it to myself. By loving him I betrayed Therese, Ilona, I betrayed everything I believed in… and I think that in killing him, I was trying to bury my own guilt."
The confession shook her so much that she couldn't respond at first. Eventually she said, "I wonder if I would love you so much, if you did not take out a knife and dissect yourself at every opportunity?"
Karl laughed. "It seems to me that vampires are no different from humans. We need a leader, and once we have him, all we want to do is destroy him. Strange… but I never envisioned outliving Kristian."
"You aren't sorry, are you?"
"That I'm still alive? Still walking the Earth, at least." His hand reached for hers; two pale unnatural hands twisted together like white coral in the moonlight. She moved towards him and his other hand slid beneath her hair to caress her neck. "We carve a path through to what we want, in the end. All I wanted was to be with you, Charlotte. And now we have that, regardless of whom we have trampled over on our way."
"I wish I could see Anne again," Charlotte said suddenly. "I tried to explain to them… It was so painful. Worse for them than for me. It will hurt forever, won't it? All of us."
Karl made no comment, but she knew he understood. She was glad he didn't say, "I warned you."
After a while he said, "I have sometimes wondered if there is not another circle of vampires who have somehow kept themselves hidden from the rest of us, even Kristian. I wonder what knowledge lies inside the strange book we found in the tunnel."
"Do you want to go back and look?"
Karl smiled sadly. "You would, wouldn't you? No, Charlotte. Perhaps one day… but not now. I just want to forget. If the book does hold any answers, at this moment I simply do not care."
But Charlotte's memory leapt in a thrill of excitement. "But Karl, I was going to tell you about the Crystal Ring! When you took me there I understood; it's made of the energy of human minds, human consciousness recreating a spiritual essence of the Earth itself; and for some reason we can perceive it as a material realm and move through it. Kristian threw me into a cell for saying that. But when I died and the Ring's energy replaced my own and transformed me, I knew, I simply knew. Do you believe me?"
There was a sceptical lift to Karl's mouth, but his eyes were warm. Fascinated. "I have no reason not to. But why should the energy of that realm make us into vampires?"
"What is mankind's greatest fear?" Charlotte asked eagerly.
"Of death, I suppose."
"Yes, but beyond that… the fear of the dead coming back. It's a universal terror, the ultimate violation of nature. And their greatest hope?"
"That there is life after death," Karl said, smiling.
"Yes. And the two contradict each other, but they are equally powerful. Don't you see? We are the inevitable creation of people's most powerful nightmares and dreams. Kristian wanted to destroy mankind, but he never saw that, without them, we could not exist. They created us."
"Oh, Charlotte," said Karl. He kissed her mouth, then rested his head against hers. "If what you say is true, we have an answer to the question of immortality. We shall live for as long as the human race continues to fear us and desire us."
* * *
ENVOI: DARK UPON LIGHT
You'll find him hard to recognise
Cos he won't dress in black
He wears a suit of gold lame
With velvet front and back
But he can touch your trembling heart
Can touch your very soul
He'll take you with him when he leaves
He'll make your dreams turn old.
He alone can read the signs
And he can read them well
But where he gets his power
There's no one here can tell
So if you're out alone at night
Be sure to take a friend
Cos he gets vicious lonely
In a world that never ends…
—Horslips
Ride to Hell
Kristian's body lay scattered and buried, yet some essence of him was still travelling. Through darkness for a long time… and then towards a single white star that expanded as he rose towards it. The Crystal Ring.
Though he had no physical sensation, somehow he knew he was still within his body. The Ring had drawn his remains into itself and was delivering them up as an offering to God…
Kristian lay in the Weisskalt, drifting under the eye of the Creator. A single blazing cold eye, focussed by the dizzying walls of the aurora that soared up and up towards the glory, like the song of angels made visible… But he could not join them. He could not free his spirit from the frozen ruins of his body.
This is immortality.
"Did I not serve you well, O Lord?" he said. "I have failed. I have brought you only children who turned their faces away from you. I could not make them see the truth. 'Honour thy father and thy mother,' you say… but they did not honour me! They have buried me, their creator. And it had to be Karl. The most wayward child is always the most loved… The prodigal son who never returned… "
All around him lay the bodies of other vampires—rows of black crosses against the snow as neat as war graves—sleeping forever in a realm that was too beautiful, too burningly cold for any creature to bear. He had condemned them to this; now he lay among them, like some monstrous dismembered snake on the ice-crust. But with a rush of passionate will, Kristian thought, Perhaps there are others who will not fail, Lord.
He could not even remember now why he had brought them here. For disappointing him, failing him… the reasons now seemed trivial, lost. No crime so great as the one Karl perpetrated against me.
Their bodies were not ruined. They slept, but they were not dead.
"Wake," said Kristian. His will drove him. "Take revenge. Don't let them forget me. You are my children. I commanded you to sleep and now I command you to wake!"
And he felt something break and fall away from him. He was relinquishing his power over them; he wanted to set them free, like a flock of dark birds to soar over the Earth. Imperfect envoys… but better than none at all.
But he was losing the battle. His tenacious immortal consciousness was slipping away at last, all the world shimmering and coalescing into a single white circle of light.
Now the eye of his creator was all he could see, blazing frigid silver. Nothing else. There was no anger within him, no pain, no sense of betrayal. No thoughts at all. Stillness.
While all around him, on the crystal-white sweep of the plain, the dark forms of his children were stretching and stirring into life.
A Taste of Blood Wine Page 56