A Dance in Blood Velvet

by Freda Warrington

  “Don’t,” Charlotte said quietly. “You’re upsetting yourself.”

  Violette put a black-gloved hand to her lips. “I loathed him, but I don’t know what I’ll do without him. He was all I had.”

  “There must be something better.”

  “But what? How is my life any of your business? You still haven’t explained who or what you are. A too-persistent devotee, I thought at first; I’ve met enough of those. You’re not a ballet teacher, nor a journalist.”

  “I never said I was. And I’m no witch, I promise. You said I forced you to talk to me, but I cannot force you to do anything at all.”

  “Can’t you?” Violette’s eyes were netted sapphires. “When you know things about me that no one could? When you can kill a man, so you imply, without even touching him? I suppose you could kill me too. With those eyes, you could make me do anything. All I’m asking is that you tell me why. What do you want?”

  “To be your friend, that’s all. To watch you dance.”

  The ballerina’s stare was cynical. She looked ill. “My friend? You scare me to death. Does that satisfy you? But I warn you, I’m no coward. I will not give in.”

  Violette’s fearful defiance made Charlotte feel ashamed, hopeless. She dropped her gaze and said, “I admit, I frightened you because it was the only way to catch your attention. Despicable. I thought that once we met, you’d feel differently, but all I sense is... dislike.”

  “You are correct. I dislike you intensely.”

  “Then I’ll leave.”

  She gave Violette the umbrella and turned to walk away. To her surprise she felt the dancer’s hand catch her elbow. The neat fingers in their black satin sheaths seemed to fire a chain of lights in her arm.

  “Don’t go.”

  It was a command. Charlotte stopped and turned back. “Why not?”

  “Because you are a trial to be faced. It’s no good trying to escape you.”

  Charlotte was stunned. She feared Violette was unbalanced; was it grief for Janacek, or a pain far older and deeper? “What do you mean? I’m not here to torment you.”

  “Perhaps you don’t know it, but you are my punishment. I don’t want you near me, but I can’t send you away. You have a greater hold on me now than Janacek ever had. It’s what you want, and what I deserve.”

  Aghast, Charlotte said, “What punishment? I can’t imagine you have any cause to deserve that.”

  Violette smiled. “You mean there’s something about me you don’t know?” She pointed to the distant carriage. “Come with me. Come back to Salzburg.”

  * * *

  Karl waited a long time for Charlotte, but she still did not come home. Every time she goes out, he thought, she stays away longer.

  Katerina occupied his attention, so the hours passed swiftly and Charlotte would return before he knew it. This evening, however, he was alone. Too much time to dwell on Charlotte’s absence.

  He sat in the library, gazing out of the window at the forested hills and cloudy night sky. Firelight filled the room with flickering shadows, glowing orange on the book that lay open on his knee. He tried to read, but the words failed to engage him.

  Where did the rift begin? he thought. Was it when Katerina came... or did Charlotte’s obsession with Violette begin before that? Have I driven her away - or simply given her an excuse to seek freedom?

  It’s hard to forgive her for Janacek, but I miss her... desperately. How dare I condemn her for killing, when I made her what she is? The human Charlotte would not have harmed a fly.

  I never rejected Ilona for her cynicism and brutality; not for long, anyway. But to think Charlotte killed a man, not from hunger but from malice, as Ilona might... Why is it so hard to accept?

  Because, he thought, I expected Charlotte to be perfect; no, not perfect. I only wanted her to remain herself. I dreaded her changing, as Ilona changed when I made her immortal. And I hoped, because her self survived the transformation, that all would be well. I assumed that the change would occur drastically or not at all; never that it would be slow and insidious.

  The person she is now seems so unlike the innocent, passionate girl I first knew... or has this been dormant in her all the time? That’s what she used to say. “The fact that I am with you proves I am a bad person.”

  It doesn’t matter what I tell myself. I don’t know her. That is the sad truth. I do not know her.

  I suspect she attacked the choreographer because he came between her and Violette... But I won’t know the truth until I talk to her. I should have given her a chance to explain; but if she can’t forgive me for Katerina, and thinks I cannot forgive her, will she ever come back?

  Karl closed his eyes against a stab of fear. He had lost so many people he loved: Therese, Andreas, Katerina - Ilona, too, emotionally if not physically. Now it seemed his happiness with Charlotte was too bright-burning and fragile to last. Immortality and contentment were incompatible conditions; but still, to lose her, for whatever reason, would be unbearable.

  His thoughts began to circle endlessly, self-destructive. He needed rest. Katerina had gone out to feed; she was physically strong now, but still mentally exhausted. If she didn’t recover soon, Karl decided, he would begin the search for Andreas alone.

  Now he found relief in blending into the Ring, arcing upwards through the roof of the chalet like a seal through water, leaving the human world behind. Karl fell through the firmament, found a pathway, and began to climb towards dappled cloud-hills.

  The Ring was dark, all violet, blue and black. He climbed higher than usual, looking for light. Floating in a swirl of peacock radiance, half hypnotised by the slow-rolling motion of the peaks below him, he sank into a trance.

  Visions came. Memories. He was back in the nineteenth century, a lost country of elegance and squalor, of bright satins and drab stinking shadows. The exquisite red fire of blood... and the black cold emptiness of undeath. A time dominated by Kristian’s all-pervading power.

  Kristian: a great dark figure of a vampire, who believed himself the chosen prophet of a vengeful God. His fanaticism and his irresistible strength had made Karl’s existence a misery.

  In the Vienna of 1820, Karl had been mortal, perfectly happy with his wife Therese and their baby daughter, Ilona. But Kristian, scouring Europe for beautiful disciples, abducted him and transformed him into a vampire. The next time Karl saw Therese, she was dead; butchered at Kristian’s command, to sever him from earthly bonds. Incredible, after that atrocity and others, that Kristian had still expected Karl to love him!

  The pain of losing Therese - of failing to save her - was intolerable. Karl bore it, but he could never forgive.

  As often as possible, Karl would escape the drab castle on the Rhine where Kristian held court, and live alone until his master came to fetch him back. He hated what Kristian had done to him... and yet, he could not regret becoming immortal.

  In many ways, Karl was an excellent predator. He fed without compunction, not merely to survive, but because the rapture lifted him beyond conscience. He would walk softly through the streets -in a huge city, or a remote village - looking for a person alone who dawdled with no sense of danger. It was a rare human who sensed him before he struck. And he did not discriminate; he didn’t seek derelicts, criminals or prostitutes, thinking they had less right to life and health than others; nor the rich to punish their privilege. He wanted to know nothing about his victims. Whether a drunk lying in an alley was a loving father, or a woman walking demurely from church a sadist who beat her servants, he did not wish to know.

  Strike like a bolt from God, Kristian had told him; but that was not the reason Karl took victims at random. He simply accepted he had no right to judge them.

  Kristian, who loathed humans, believed that taking their blood was disgusting and sensual. Like an archbishop preaching that although sex existed, they must not indulge, he required his vampires to feed only on life energy. An austere commandment that Karl, like most vampires, found impossi
ble to keep. (Kristian knew, of course; but what use was his band of sinners, if they failed to sin?) Taking blood need not kill, but stealing life energy nearly always did. And to have a human in his arms, to feel the soft warm weight against him and the red pulse of their heart... it was the only release.

  Hardest for Karl to tolerate was his appalling loneliness. Great, passionless sweeps of existence were punctuated only by the hot red bliss of killing. For company, there was only Kristian, whom he despised, or Kristian’s acolytes, who were worse. Although he would glimpse a spark of rebellion behind another vampire’s eyes, it was a caged passion that dared not break free. Perhaps he should have stayed and nurtured potential rebels, but they were too set in Kristian’s ways, dry creatures scratched in chalk.

  The only vampires to whom he felt attachment were Andreas and Katerina, despite the fact they’d helped Kristian initiate him - or because of it. Transformation was a raw, overwhelming experience that forged complex bonds. Katerina’s statuesque warmth and Andreas’s dark neurotic beauty drew him, but he kept his distance because they seemed devoted to Kristian. Yet they often spent time away from Kristian in a small house in Paris. Sometimes Karl detected irony in their devotion that their egotistical master did not perceive.

  Wishful thinking, perhaps. He dared not risk friendship with anyone.

  Karl had to fill the emptiness between skirmishes with Kristian and the pleasure of hunting, or go mad. He didn’t brood on Therese or the life he had lost. Being a vampire was to be an ice-hard creature, touched but not torn apart by mortal loss, set apart from mortals but still able to pass among them.

  There was still the world: cities, with their theatres, taverns, art galleries, busy squares. With sensitive vampire perception, he gained more from aesthetic pleasure than he had as a human.

  Once he went to Paris when he knew Katerina and Andreas were there, although he had no intention of visiting them. He went to The Marriage of Figaro, and minutes after the house lights went down, he noticed a woman watching him.

  She was seated in a box opposite to his across the auditorium. Her eyes gleamed like diamonds in the darkness. She was half-visible in the shadows, in soft shades of crimson. Her hair was deep brown... Like a flood of fire, memories of his long-dead wife leapt into his mind. Not only Therese, but the loneliness he’d endured since... He’d thought the grief bearable; but in the light of a stranger’s eyes, it became a torment.

  The woman was alone. At the interval, Karl asked if he could join her. She assented, clearly delighted. Close at hand, she hardly resembled Therese at all; she was taller, much quieter in manner. They said little, but there was no need; understanding flashed between their eyes.

  False understanding, Karl thought sadly. She saw a handsome man to whom she was deeply attracted, not knowing what he really was: a crystalline replica, animated by stolen blood.

  He had no intention of harming her. Sitting beside her in the warm darkness, he shut down his vampire instinct. All he wanted was her company, to be close to a human for a while, as he hadn’t been for what seemed eternity. To pretend he was still mortal. Then he would kiss her hand and leave.

  When the music ended, she told him her name, Yvette. Her story followed; and although Karl did not want to hear it, by telling him she unwittingly protected herself. She was married, she confessed, but her husband was old and they’d never loved each other. Besides, he was away in the country and she hated staying in the town house alone...

  The invitation was not blatant, but sad, poignant. She was genuinely lonely. And Karl, against his better judgment, accepted. Why am I doing this, he thought, when I cannot give her what she wants?

  As they travelled through the dark wet streets in her carriage, Karl found himself becoming more aware of her, not as a potential victim, but as a woman. Her creamy shoulders, the crimson velvet sculpted to her body, the soft loops of her hair. Her natural scent was delicious. To his own amazement, he felt no need for her blood; only a longing to kiss her... to let velvet and satin fall to the floor, and to feel her flesh pressed against his.

  Yvette was talkative now, showing no concern that he said little. In fact, he could hardly speak. Since his transformation, he’d never felt natural passion for a woman; only a desire for blood, which was lust of a different kind. Kristian encouraged the belief that vampires had no needs other than to steal human life. What was the point? And yet...

  Kristian the puritan would not have approved... but Kristian was the last thing on Karl’s mind as Yvette led him into her house.

  The rooms were huge and draughty, much of the furniture covered with dust sheets. A few candles barely made an impression on the cavernous darkness, and her two elderly servants seemed as lifeless as the house itself. But in her chamber, she and Karl gathered all the lamps and made a bower of honey light around the four-poster bed.

  God, this desire was real, so strong. He couldn’t say no; it was like falling. He felt euphoric, as if she’d broken the curse, and by some wondrous holy magic made him mortal again.

  Yvette welcomed him into her arms with joy. She was no innocent, but an experienced, passionate lover who’d been alone for longer than she could bear. She made Karl feel purely, blessedly human. He sank into her warmth with complete abandon.

  No thought but to please her; no fear of harming her. His only emotion was this river of joy and heat... and so natural, then, in the delicious bliss of release, to lower his face to her neck, to kiss her skin through the damp tangled strands of hair...

  There was no warning of the treachery. With a soft motion as gentle as a breath, Karl’s fangs were in her throat, her blood surging into his mouth, and he could not stop drinking. Could not stop.

  At first she pulled him hard against her with a cry. Then she seemed to realise what was happening, started to struggle and push him away. But the compulsion was sovereign, a blind impulse he couldn’t fight. This was the treachery, that it felt too beautiful to be wrong; as if they were inside each other, every cell united in rolling red fire that pulsed on and on... slower and slower... into stillness.

  Karl came back to himself as if drenched in ice. His lover’s mouth was open, her eyes staring upwards past his shoulder, her body limp and waxen...

  He pulled away, dizzy and intoxicated. Yvette lay beneath him like a ravaged mannequin, her cheeks sunken. Her white skin was turning blue... and on her throat was a purple wound, across her shoulder a splash of crimson the colour of her discarded dress.

  He staggered back, half-sliding off the bed, the floor a swaying deck beneath him. All his pleasure turned ash-cold with her death. I never intended this, he thought in blank self-loathing. Dear God, this was the last thing, the last thing...

  But even as he stared at the result of his desire, he understood.

  This was inevitable. The uncomplicated lust he felt for her had been a posturing liar. Pursuing it could have no other end. If I’d known, he thought, if I’d only known, I would never, ever have let it begin.

  Now it was not Therese but another’s wife who lay murdered; and this time, he, not Kristian, was the killer.

  Karl hardly remembered gathering his scattered clothes, dressing, fleeing into the Crystal Ring; despair and a red haze of tears blinded him.

  He spent a long time alone, but coming to terms with what he’d done was impossible. Eventually, in complete despair, he went to the house of Katerina and Andreas.

  Katerina was there on her own; uncannily similar to Yvette in the candlelit parlour. Creamy skin, long brown hair. But she was no lonely innocent in danger from him.

  “Karl, what a wonderful surprise,” she said. “How lovely to see you.”

  Unable to utter the most basic pleasantry in response, Karl began to pour out the story. He held nothing back; she was the only one he could talk to, and he was beyond caring what she might think. He paced the room until the candles died, and starlight fell silver through the darkness.

  When he finished, Katerina rose and lit fresh candl
es, shaking her head. She looked both astonished and sad. Karl’s agitation had faded at last to leaden dullness.

  “Even another vampire is disgusted,” he said. “Or are you amazed that I’m such a poor disciple of Kristian’s, not to delight in causing horror?”

  “No, dear; it’s only that I’ve never known you so upset, or pacing about like a lunatic. This is the first time you’ve spoken to me so openly. I’m glad you felt you could tell me. Ah, liebe Gott; what you have been through...”

  Katerina’s strong face was receptive and warm, but he felt she was making light of the matter. “Me? What about her?”

  “Well, at least she enjoyed herself. I trust you saw to that?” Katerina said acerbically.

  “For God’s sake.”

  “Of course you did; it’s not in your nature to be selfish. The irony, Karl, is that you don’t actually need to be an unselfish lover; with beauty like yours, one look would send any woman into raptures. There are worse ways to die.”

  He sat down, his white hands stiffening on the chair arms. “You’re being ridiculous,” he said in a low voice. “Can’t you be serious about this?”

  “But I am, dear.” He felt her hand on his arm and jumped; she approached so softly. “There would have been a worse way. Alone in that ghastly house, of some horrible disease passed on by her husband. Of consumption. In childbirth. Of old age, waiting in vain for children who’ve long since abandoned her... oh, there are many worse ways than with an angel sucking gently at your throat.”

  Karl remembered Yvette’s dead eyes, and shuddered. “There’s no way you can soften this.”

  “No.” Her whisper cut like diamond. “This is the hard truth; you cannot have contact with humans except to drink their blood. Don’t you see? You told yourself, ‘I won’t harm her,’ but your need for blood is cleverer; it took down your intellectual defences with sexual desire. That’s why we still feel these desires, my dear; didn’t you realise? Kristian never told you, but he wouldn’t. He deplores sex, just as he despises anything passionate or physical.”