A Dance in Blood Velvet

by Freda Warrington

  He spoke her thoughts.

  As the house lights dimmed, suspending them in crimson darkness, Karl looked at the programme. It was easy to forget that their ability to read in the dark looked strange to humans. “A small company, based in Salzburg,” he said softly, “with dancers from all over Europe. Director and choreographer, Roman Janacek. The prima ballerina, Violette Lenoir, comes from Anna Pavlova’s school in England. The critics are calling her the ‘new Pavlova’.”

  “Well, they would,” said Charlotte. “They always make such claims.”

  “And they’re always wrong,” said Karl.

  As he spoke, Charlotte experienced a flash of anxiety. She was too new a vampire to have left her insecurity behind. What if Karl is captivated by another mortal, as he once was by me? One of the dancers we’re about to see. What would I do?

  Music was flowing around them, the curtains sweeping open onto a faked yet vividly real otherworld. Charlotte relaxed and let the story take her.

  And found herself completely unprepared for her reaction.

  She was spellbound. This Giselle was the most moving interpretation she’d ever seen. Janacek took liberties, imbuing the traditional choreography with breathtakingly fluid emotion. His risks paid off; the result was timeless, ethereal, raw.

  Pain threaded through every joy; Giselle’s fragile happiness, then her collapse into grief as her lover deceived and betrayed her. Every nuance seemed to have deeper significance that struck right to Charlotte’s soul. And the heart of the enchantment was Giselle herself.

  Violette Lenoir’s dancing was transcendent. As she moved from innocence into passion, despair and death, Charlotte travelled with her. When Giselle died, Charlotte wept.

  At the interval, it was all Charlotte could do force herself back to reality.

  Karl smiled at her and said, “I wonder why it is so delicious to be made unhappy?”

  In the second act, through darkness and moon-white mists, Giselle came back from the tomb.

  Luminous in white and silver, she rose and whirled across the sweep of the stage, spinning, spinning. She seemed weightless, lost, as vulnerable as a dry leaf; an unbearable fusion of anguish and unearthly beauty. Charlotte watched with her hands tightening on the arms of her seat. The poignant story worked a sombre curse on her; death, resurrection, the undead haunting the living into their own graves... And Karl was right. There was terrible pleasure in the pain she felt.

  Charlotte grew increasingly curious about the ballerina who inspired such powerful emotions. It was far more than technical skill or sheer beauty. She had that indefinable quality: presence.

  With keen vampire sight, Charlotte watched every detail. Violette Lenoir’s face was a pale oval, her eyes kohl-smudged and lips darkened to compensate for the bleaching effect of stage lights. Her black hair, flowing loose and lily-twined over her shoulders, had a blue sheen that enhanced the colour of her irises. Large, intensely violet-blue lakes - Lenoir’s eyes were irresistible.

  Humans are not meant to mesmerise vampires, Charlotte thought with irony. It should be the other way round... but no, that’s not true. Didn’t Karl see something extraordinary in me, however well he hid his feelings? And don’t I feel perpetually drawn to humans - if only for their blood?

  Oh God, I can’t want to - no, she’s an artist. Artists are perfect and untouchable, like us. But... I wonder if I could make her look at me?

  Occasionally it happened that a performer would stare at Karl and Charlotte from the stage, as if, with heightened perceptions of their own, they sensed something amiss. But Violette Lenoir, although Charlotte willed her fiercely, would not look.

  The ballerina was wrapped up in the story; nothing else existed. One of a band of souls betrayed, a victim whose only power was to haunt... and yet, in the end, what an insidious, lethal power that was.

  The tragedy wound to its conclusion. The audience rose in wild applause and Charlotte rose with them, tears blurring her eyes. The stage was all light and colour again, the ghosts returning to vibrant life. Only a story.

  As Violette Lenoir took her curtain calls and accepted bouquets, it seemed to Charlotte that her dramatic passion had switched off like a light. She smiled, but her eyes were glaciers. Her sudden aloofness only enhanced her aura; her darkness and paleness. The pain that had burned radiant while she danced was now locked away inside her.

  And Charlotte went on staring, with a simple, burning wish to know what this mysterious creature was really like.

  “Bravo!” shouted the man beside Karl. His accent was American. “Oh, marvellous!” He leaned towards Karl, raising his voice over the roar of applause. “Isn’t she the most wonderful thing ever?”

  “Perfect,” Karl answered. “That was the most enchanting performance of Giselle I have ever seen.”

  The American was in his fifties, grey-haired, his neck webbed with lines like snakeskin. Charlotte tried not to notice the pulse jumping under his jaw.

  He said, “Wonderful actress, too. Better than you think.”

  “In what way?” asked Karl

  “They say she’s an absolute bitch in real life.”

  A nervous thrill went through Charlotte. She asked, “Have you met her?”

  The man glanced at her and huffed, embarrassed that she’d heard his off-colour remark. “Once or twice; I organised the publicity for their tour of the States last year. She makes the proverbial Snow Queen look as hot as Jean Harlow.” He cleared his throat. “She’s... chilly.”

  “Perhaps you got on the wrong side of her,” said Charlotte. Karl’s attention switched subtly to her. “I should like to make up my own mind.”

  “So would a lot of folk, but it’s impossible to break through her entourage. She may love dancing but she sure hates people; so how does she pour out all that emotion?”

  “She’s a genius,” said Karl. “Pavlova truly has a rival.”

  Charlotte was trying to gauge whether Karl found the ballerina equally fascinating. Unless he hid it well, she was sure he hadn’t. His appreciation was sincere but detached.

  “I’d like to see this again,” she said.

  “I got connections. I can get all the tickets you -” the American began, but Karl turned to Charlotte, cutting him off.

  “If you wish,” Karl said softly. “Now, shall we go?”

  Charlotte and Karl walked slowly from the theatre, through the cool starry darkness outside; past posters announcing the ballet, away from the knot of hopeful worshippers waiting at the stage door.

  The streets grew quiet and narrow. Charlotte couldn’t banish the dancer’s face from her thoughts.

  Karl drew her hand through his arm and said, “When we saw the Ballets Russes, you were on air afterwards. We talked for hours, don’t you remember?”

  “I feel like being quiet now.” She leaned her head on his shoulder.

  “You needn’t keep your thoughts from me. I have told you many times that there is nothing you can say that could shock me.”

  She looked sideways at him, startled. “Why would I be thinking anything that might shock you?”

  “Liebchen, I saw the way you watched Violette Lenoir.”

  Charlotte stopped abruptly. She glared at him, defensive. “How can you always know -” Her lips softened and she looked away. “You always do this to me. I don’t know why I fight you.”

  “You don’t have to fight me.”

  She had to explain, not leave him with the wrong idea. “Anna Pavlova was magical but she seemed a universe away from us. She’s part of a vibrant, energetic, real world that never touches the dusk we live in.”

  “And Violette?”

  “Different. She projected anguish, pure shimmering pain. I’d like to ask her, ‘What is it? Where does it come from, how do you turn agony into such magic?’”

  “She may not have an answer.”

  Charlotte tried to sound off-hand. “You mean that what I see isn’t who she really is. I know. I should like to ask her, that’s a
ll.”

  “If you want to meet Violette, do so,” Karl said reasonably. “What’s to stop you? In the Crystal Ring you can walk through walls, straight into her dressing room. Then what?”

  “I wouldn’t do that. It would be unfair and I’d hate to frighten her.”

  “Then, if the American gentleman is to be believed, you are unlikely to meet her.” Charlotte was silent. He continued, “Any immortal might have the power to step into the room of Pavlova or Lenoir and destroy a great and shining talent, but none do; not even those who claim to have no conscience, like Ilona or Pierre. There’s an unspoken law, an instinct. We still respect the human world. Why destroy the culture that gives us so much pleasure? Or ravage a world without which we could not exist?”

  “I agree completely. I never said I wanted -”

  “But understand, Charlotte! That is the very root of your fascination: your desire for her blood! So very like sexual attraction; the more enticing the human, the more you long to satisfy your thirst. Only for her it would be fatal. Do you wish to fulfil that need and stop her dancing?”

  “Of course not!” Charlotte raised her chin in anger. “Was I merely a source of blood to you?”

  “As I said, it is so like sex.” Karl held her gaze. “You don’t have to ask that, beloved. The more captivating the human, the more their blood means. That’s the danger.”

  She looked away. “I couldn’t bear to harm her. I’d simply like to reassure myself that she’s real... to discover how a mortal can seem supernatural. But I never shall; it would destroy the magic. Karl, I wish I you couldn’t see straight through me like glass!”

  “I can’t. I never could.”

  He bent to kiss her. She stretched her arms around his neck and pressed her mouth to his; eager, loving. A ruby-red flare of desire and thirst reminded Charlotte where she belonged now. Nothing mattered except being with Karl, and the taste of blood was a bitter-sweet ecstasy above all others. This was real; a distant figure on a painted stage was not.

  “Come with me, dearest,” he whispered, “into the Crystal Ring.”

  She went with him gladly. Like a doll in a music box, Violette pirouetted in a corner of her mind.

  * * *

  Deirdre stood at the post-box, the letter in her gloved hand.

  How can I send it? she thought. If Ben knows already, he’ll realise I’ve broken a binding oath to write this. But if he doesn’t, it’ll break his heart.

  Ben, forgive me for not telling you face to face. I couldn’t find the words. And if you think I’m a coward, don’t judge me until you’re as frightened as I am.

  She loosed the letter, heard it fall into the darkness of the box.

  A few minutes later, she was on the platform, waiting for the train that would take her to the ferry and safety. The occult had been her whole life, the Neophytes of Meter Theon her family... but all she wanted now was to escape. The wind blew fresh in her face and she tasted freedom. In her mind she saw the deep greens and the lovely, cloud-veiled mountains of Ireland.

  Then - she heard the beast coming.

  Again it began as a deep, rhythmic snuffling noise. A huge blind pig. She looked along the track in panic and saw the creature nosing towards her. The great eyeless head, the steam pouring from its joints, and the terrible stink of metal and oil...

  She was dizzy. The day turned dark and the crowd on the platform vanished. Deirdre was alone in a land of demons.

  It’s only my imagination, she told herself. Ben said it’s only in my mind! If I stand and face the beast, it will go away.

  Her heart was racing hard as she moved to the platform edge. It was clear she must do this. You don’t exist, she thought, jumping down onto the track. She flung up her hands, chanting a banishing spell, but the demon came on, huge, deafening, wreathed in steam. She yelled aloud, “You don’t -”

  Her cry was lost in the scream of brakes. The weight of the beast bore her down, crushed her, and passed blindly on.

  CHAPTER THREE

  INTO THIS SHADOW

  As the atmosphere enfolded the Earth, so the Crystal Ring surrounded a warped aspect of it that only immortals could enter. Some vampires equated it with hell, others with heaven. Karl and Charlotte had their own theories. Like the universe itself, it could be explained a hundred different ways and no explanation could yet be proved.

  Hand in hand, they let the world around them change. Trees became rustling black spires, walls snapped into impossible perspectives. Any witnesses would have seen Karl and Charlotte vanish.

  At ground level the Ring was a dark, demonic hall of mirrors, but its sky flowed with fire and liquid light. Karl and Charlotte soared upwards. The air bore their weight like water. Ahead floated a great ridge, a cloud-hill in constant motion like a wave of gold-dappled glass. This realm was like an epic sky painted by a deranged visionary, suffused with the light of heaven and the glow of hell. Far above, canyons soared up towards thunderous mountains, stained blood-red and purple. Like clouds, these features condensed from air then frayed to nothingness in an endless ocean-blue void.

  Radiant lines shimmered like an aurora, exerting a weird pull. This was the magnetic field of the Earth, made tangible and visible to immortals; the only constant by which they could navigate.

  The structure of this realm, according to Charlotte, was created by mankind’s collective subconscious, by the electrical outflow of minds. And its energy could warp humans into vampires, because vampires represented the most extreme of human emotions; the fear of death and of the dead returning to life; the desire for power and immortality.

  There must be even more, Karl thought, but her theory was easier to accept than Kristian’s doctrine: that this was the mind of a God who used vampires as pitiless envoys.

  Karl also wondered if the Ring was simply a matter of altered perceptions. Their bodies were different here, as objects in water appear distorted. They became dark, thin demons, their earthly garments also changing beyond recognition into spangled webs. Clothes, small personal possessions; the Ring, following its own capricious laws, would rarely allow anything heavier to be brought here.

  The Crystal Ring was empty, alien, hostile. Its sheer size was enough to provoke insanity. It could be lethally cold, even to vampires. Yet there was endless fascination in its wildness. The exhilaration of flying, climbing, floating in its strange atmosphere could be fatally addictive.

  No vampire could avoid the Crystal Ring. It made them what they were. Only in its frigid arms could they find the rest denied them on Earth - but if they stayed too long, the Ring might keep them forever.

  The distant moan of a gale rose and fell around them... then Karl sensed shapes around him, shadows printed on the clouds. He remembered the last time - when he’d been so shocked that he sprang out of the Ring in full view of a human.

  He controlled the lash of fear, caught Charlotte’s arm and held her. “Liebling, do you feel someone nearby, watching us?”

  She turned slowly, blinking, her eyes like golden glass in her lovely darkened face. Her hair floated against a dark blue void. “No. Who was it?”

  The feeling vanished. “No one,” said Karl. “Imagination.”

  “Are you sure? It’s not like you to imagine things.” She looked drowsy. He too felt tiredness creeping over him.

  “The Ring is enough, without conjuring anything worse.”

  “Perhaps it was Ilona.”

  “No,” he said.

  “She never hated you, Karl,” Charlotte said sleepily. “Not in her heart.” She stretched and turned over like a swimmer. “The Crystal Ring feels cold tonight. I am so tired.”

  “Then rest.” Lying outstretched on the sapphire ether, as if floating face down in the sea, Karl put his arm over her waist, his head on her shoulder. He felt her sigh faintly as she sank into meditation; and he let go of his own thoughts, and touched infinity.

  * * *

  This was the nearest state to sleep that vampires could enjoy. All emotion sus
pended, Charlotte gazed in a trance at waves rising and falling, golden-bronze against indigo; the world shrouded in shadow far below. Her mind wandered, not into dreams, but through strange waking visions...

  She imagined herself in an elegant garden; a terrace, wide lawns, trees and pools all silvered by moonlight. A huge plane tree cast a shadow on the grass. This was Parkland Hall, her aunt’s house, where all her most vivid passions had flowered; where Karl had turned from friend to lover, in those sweetly innocent days before she knew what he was. The garden would haunt her forever, even if she never set foot there again. It had become a realm in its own right: the secret landscape of her mind, symbolising all fulfilment and all loss.

  Her friend Anne was sitting with her on a marble balustrade that bounded the terrace. And Charlotte conjured a scene that she knew would never take place in real life...

  Their friendship had ended in bitter words. Who could blame Anne for rejecting what Charlotte had become? Still, it hurt. The wound gaped open and stung with salt.

  Yet here they were together. Anne was clearly nervous of her skin’s pale glow and the brilliance of her eyes, but Charlotte said, “It’s not so terrible. Please believe me. I’ve so wanted to come back and explain.”

  “I dreamed you would,” said Anne. “I regretted the way we parted, dreadful things I said. Who am I to condemn you? The shell seems evil, but there’s mystery and beauty inside.”

  “Beauty can be a warning of poison. I didn’t know until it was too late; that was my downfall. But not yours, Anne; you have more sense.”

  “Have I? That’s my trouble. I never understood what you were going through. I was only there to pick you up when you fell...”

  “No. You remained yourself because it didn’t touch you.”

  “Perhaps. But I couldn’t help wondering... was almost envious, in a way. What an awful thing to admit.”

  Charlotte said softly, “Dearest... I had no idea.” She rested a hand on Anne’s neck and stroked her throat. Anne shivered, but her eyes were fearless, captivated.

  “I’ll never forget you, Charli. I’ll never stop wondering what I missed.”