“Not since he left here - with you,” said Cesare. “And you’re right, it is almost two years. Where is he?”
“I don’t know,” Karl said truthfully.
Other vampires appeared, drawn by Karl’s arrival. He counted seventeen. Like Cesare and Maria they all wore black monastic robes. Although their faces were half-hidden by hoods, Karl recognised them all. His gaze moved over them.
“Are you all that’s left of the faithful?”
“We wait for our leader,” said Cesare in strange tone. “Some drifted away, claiming that Kristian had deserted us - for you, Karl. But we never give up hope that the Father will return.”
“So no one here has seen him?”
The hooded ones murmured denials. Karl touched Katerina’s fingers, a secret communication of relief as he dared to believe that no one had resurrected Kristian. That they were truly free of him forever.
“I have something important to tell you,” said Karl. “I’ve called other immortals here; when they arrive, I want everyone to meet in Kristian’s chamber. Will you come and listen?”
The acolytes nodded. Their eyes, lit from within like the eyes of cats, rested hungrily on Karl as if he held all the answers.
The Schloss felt austere and frigid. Karl had always loathed it. Even in the master’s absence, he noticed, the atmosphere hadn’t changed. No laughter, no affection, no humanity was allowed to dwell here. Only celibate adoration of Kristian, and worship of his singular savage God.
No wonder so many of us risked hideous punishment for the sake of freedom, he thought.
Ilona arrived first with Pierre, an immortal who was sometimes an enemy and occasionally a friend to Karl. He had curly brown hair and cold blue eyes, a handsome, sardonic face. Pierre and Ilona were allies in their flippant attitude to life, yet here they were subdued. For once they made no sarcastic remarks, no cruel jokes.
Next came the blond twins, Niklas and Stefan, like porcelain angels. They were physically identical but for their eyes; Stefan’s were blue and mischievous, Niklas’s topaz-yellow and blank. Stefan was full of life, while his brother followed in mute, emotionless compliance. A law unto themselves, these two, though Karl trusted Stefan.
The newcomers in modern dress made a striking contrast to the hooded disciples, who greeted them with searchlight stares, deep suspicion on both sides. No love lost here. The atmosphere was thick with shadows.
No sign of Charlotte.
Karl couldn’t wait for her. He was sure, now, that she would not come. Presently he called everyone into the deep windowless chamber where Kristian used to hold court. As he watched them filing in, he thought, I should have gone to find Charlotte myself... Perhaps she takes my failure to do so as rejection, but surely she knows me better than that? I will not be heavy-handed. That was Kristian’s way, not mine.
Katerina whispered in his ear, too softly for anyone to overhear, “Don’t worry. Kristian is gone for good, I’m certain.”
“I knew of no more than sixty vampires,” said Karl, “and Kristian claimed to control them all. Nearly half are here. It’s possible that someone unknown could have healed him... but I knew him. If he could, he would have come back by now.”
“Well, everyone’s here,” said Katerina. “Will you begin?”
Everyone except Charlotte, Karl thought. Her absence deepened his sense of foreboding.
The chamber was bare, but for a carved black chair that stood on a stone dais like a throne. Torches flamed on the walls. There was no sign here that the world had moved beyond the Middle Ages. As Karl went to the dais, the vampires waited in silence, Katerina and his friends standing apart from the hooded ones.
Cesare, with his hands folded inside his wide sleeves, headed the faithful. Looking into their solemn, guarded eyes, Karl felt no regret for what he was about to say. He had no pity for them.
“Nothing stays the same forever,” he began. “Not even for immortals. I fear you’ve wasted two years waiting for your master to return, because Kristian is dead.”
A moment of stillness, like a held breath. A female voice, Maria’s, cried, “No!”
Someone else shouted, “Liar!” and then a wave of angry denial began. The only one who did not react was Cesare.
Karl’s voice cut through the uproar. “It is the truth.”
Dull silence rolled in, broken by whispers and moans.
“And how would you know?” Cesare said hoarsely. “What proof do you have?”
“That he hasn’t returned.”
“But he went away with you. You are the one he placed so far above us! What happened to him?”
Karl closed his eyes briefly, sickened by the pain in the priest-vampire’s voice. “I killed him.”
If they decided to take revenge, he was ready. For long seconds no one moved.
“Impossible,” Maria moaned. She started forward, but another vampire held her back. She doubled up, her hands clasped over her heart.
Cesare said bitterly, “We know he’s dead. We know!”
The uproar began again, this time directed at Cesare. He faced them and shouted in anguish, “It’s no good! We all felt the vibration of his death; the whole Crystal Ring shuddered and wept with outrage. And we have wasted all this time pretending it never happened. Admit it!”
His passion shocked Karl. Cesare forced acknowledgement from the others like blood. Their grief was a tangible web. Karl almost felt sympathy... almost. As Cesare confronted him, he was unafraid.
The fair vampire said, “Why in the name of God have you come to tell us what we already know?”
Karl rested a hand on the high-backed chair, fixing them with baleful eyes. All at once he realised they were afraid of him, as they had been of Kristian. “If you knew, you plainly did not want to face it, but you must. Your master is dead. You should consider how you are going to exist without him, for there’s no need for you to live like slaves a moment longer.”
Cesare’s boyish face twisted with loathing. “Kristian trusted you, Karl. He loved you more than he loved all of us together. He chose you!”
“Well, perhaps he chose me as his executioner,” Karl said acidly. “Listen to me. He was a tyrant. He had to die so that we could think for ourselves, and it has never been more important that we think. Someone such as Kristian cannot die without affecting everything. When he died, Katerina woke from the Weisskalt. Other vampires may also have woken. Have any of you seen unknown immortals in the Crystal Ring, or sensed unexplained presences?”
A hesitant murmur of assent. A woman wept on her neighbour’s shoulder; Maria was down on the flags, arms outstretched in grief. Karl took any reaction as a sign that there was still hope for them.
Cesare said, “How did he die?”
“You don’t need to know.”
“But we do. We won’t believe it until we do!”
So Karl began to tell them. Why spare them anything? They were vampires, not children. He would not implicate his accomplices, unless they chose to stand with him, but he had no reason to deny his own guilt.
As he spoke there was movement in the corridor outside. Smoke and flame flared in a draught; a figure appeared in the doorway, hair shining bronze and gold under the torchlight, her gleaming eyes fixed on him. Karl’s hand tightened on the black chair, but he contained his reaction to the briefest pause between words. Then he went on describing Kristian’s death in passionless, clinical detail.
* * *
When Charlotte left Violette, she fled straight home - but Karl, again, was not there.
Her attack on Violette, the whole of their disastrous relationship, had shattered her. It was all she could do to think of anything else. She found the note, stared distractedly at the words. Schloss Holdenstein? Why, what does this mean?
She had to go, for Karl’s sake, if nothing else. She obeyed the request mechanically, feeling only a wisp of anxious curiosity as she travelled through the Crystal Ring. Her mind was elsewhere, bound up in barbed wire.
She was horrified at herself for betraying Violette’s trust. Worse was her own hypocrisy; the betrayal only mattered, she knew, because it caused Violette to reject her. Never mind the harm I’ve caused, she thought wretchedly. If she hadn’t minded me drinking her blood, that would have made it all right. But she was disgusted and I can’t bear it. That’s all. I wanted her to love me, despite what I am...
Why? Because Anne couldn’t? Yes... but I’ve only done to Violette what I desired from the moment I saw her. How dare I pretend to be so amazed at my behaviour, or so aggrieved by her reaction?
But I never wanted to hurt her... Oh God, this is what Karl used to tell me. “I want you, Charlotte, but I cannot have you without destroying you...” But we went on anyway, because it was too delicious to stop.
The ballerina’s blood danced through her in thrilling lines of garnet light. Too delicious, too gorgeous to stop... and I felt such passion for her that I couldn’t believe she didn’t share it. I thought, I thought... I don’t understand any of this. How can I face Karl, feeling like this? Ashamed. A violater. I can’t.
Charlotte stepped through the thick stone walls of the castle and sensed vampires gathered in a deep chamber. The meeting had begun. This place held unpleasant memories... Kristian had imprisoned her here and forced Karl to discard her, the worst moment of her life... and then he’d starved her of blood, unspeakable torment to a new vampire. But now the pain was distant. She saw the world through a frost of numb shock.
She walked the corridors until she saw torchlight spilling through an open doorway. The vampires - silent monk-like figures whom she hardly knew - were gathered in Kristian’s audience chamber. Karl stood on the dais, one hand resting on the ebony throne, addressing the group.
He was explaining how Kristian had died.
Charlotte entered softly, but everyone looked at her. Karl barely paused, but as he went on speaking he gazed at her, his eyes intense - with relief, passion, anger? All of those. His gaze scalded her like liquid fire in the eerie light. And as he described how he’d lured Kristian to the manor house and hacked him to pieces, he went on staring at her.
Charlotte knew all this; she had been there and she’d helped. But to hear him describe it, in cold blood, to disciples who had revered Kristian as their prophet... Even Pierre, Ilona and Stefan seemed stunned. She pressed against the stone archway, shivering.
Karl. She saw him as if for the first time. Graceful, lean and imposing, his red-tinged dark hair massed softly around a sculpted face. So finely carved, his features, a seraphim’s face darkened by suffering that had pooled into deadly tranquillity in his eyes. A heart-stopping combination of beauty and strength. His presence never ceased to invade her, thrusting into every cell like the thrill of blood itself, igniting her with scarlet flame. And his power enveloped the stone chamber like a blood-red velvet cloak, as Kristian’s once had.
He finished, having shaped the narrative to sound as if he’d acted alone. He protected us, his accomplices, she thought with surprise.
Why weren’t Kristian’s devotees demanding Karl’s execution in revenge? Instead she sensed grief, confusion, directionless outrage. A fair-haired male vampire at the front said, “You cannot take away our leader and give us nothing in return.”
“I’m not asking for understanding, Cesare, still less forgiveness,” said Karl. “I came to tell you the plain truth. Also to suggest that we could help each other.”
“If you want to help us, become our leader,” said Cesare. “Take Kristian’s place!”
Karl was visibly shocked. “No.”
“You must. We need someone. You cannot slay the king and not replace him!”
“My intention was never to usurp him.” His voice was subdued, full of anger. “I did it to free us all.”
“We didn’t ask to be free!” Cesare exclaimed. Cries of assent. “We needed him!”
“You are intelligent beings with powers that humans would envy. So why are you behaving like sheep without a shepherd?”
Cesare’s eyes widened with rage. “Even the strongest need a spiritual guide. What would the Church be without the Pope -and what are we without Kristian?”
The darkening of Karl’s face held Charlotte mesmerised. Easy to forget how forceful he could be when the need arose. The very strength he used to reject the suggestion only drew them towards him. All the more startling because he showed this side of himself so rarely. His strength was as magnetic as his beauty.
“Be whatever you wish,” he answered. “Learn to think for yourselves - unless you don’t want to. You were willing slaves; for that you deserved Kristian, and you deserve this limbo you are now in. I will not take his place.”
Cesare was shaking. Tears ran down his face. “You can’t imagine the agony of being without him! You’ve no soul! How dare you call us slaves, when we loved him; how dare you take him from us and give nothing in return? You killed him to free yourself, not us. Never say you did it for us!”
Bronze fire glinted under Karl’s dark brows. “Is freedom ‘nothing’?” He spoke with stony contempt. “I don’t know whether to pity or despise you. This meeting is over.”
With a roar of anguish, Cesare drew his hands from his sleeves and rushed at Karl. A glint of steel; Charlotte saw with horror that he had a cleaver, and was swinging it two-handed at Karl’s neck. No one was close or fast enough to protect Karl.
Rather than backing off, Karl met the attack. As Cesare lunged, Karl’s hands shot out and seized his left wrist. In the same movement he turned, using the attacker’s momentum to heave him over his shoulder and onto the floor.
He lay helpless, Karl leaning over him. The cleaver was still in his left hand, but Karl forced his wrist back and down until the blade cut deep into Cesare’s own throat.
Blood sprayed from crescent wound. A scream became a bubbling rasp as his body arched in pain. His hand sprang open, releasing the handle. The blade remained stuck in the wound, then slid sideways under its own weight and clattered onto the flagstones.
Karl let him go and straightened up, his expression coldly furious. “Does anyone else wish to vent their feelings on me?”
Horrified silence, thick with unease. Charlotte could only press against the wall in relief and shock.
Cesare lay convulsing on the dais, slow blood oozing from his throat. Karl could have beheaded him, Charlotte knew, but had spared him. Cesare’s wound would heal. And although Karl could have drunk the acolyte dry to prove his superiority, the fact that he disdained the blood only made him seem stronger.
The immortals knew, and dared not challenge him. Only Ilona smiled, whispering to Pierre.
Maria spoke. “But you have proved your power. That makes you our leader, whether you want it or not.”
“Take responsibility for yourselves,” Karl said in a low voice. “No one rules over me - and I refuse to rule over others.”
He strode off the dais and towards the doorway. Charlotte saw Ilona, Pierre and Stefan glancing at each other as they turned to follow him. Niklas and Katerina were behind them. As Charlotte waited for them to reach her, she saw Cesare rise up on the dais, hanging unsteadily onto the throne with one hand, the other pressed to his gashed neck. His face was a ghastly bluish-grey.
“You have made bad enemies here, Karl.” His voice was a thick, fluid rasp.
“Enemies, for telling the truth?” Karl said coldly. “The worst foes you have are yourselves.”
“We’ll wait for a new leader to come - and one surely will. Leave and never come back!”
With a look of disgust Karl turned away, not bothering to reply. Reaching Charlotte he stopped, letting his companions go through the archway before him. Ilona and Stefan acknowledged Charlotte with brief smiles as they entered the corridor and vanished into the Crystal Ring. Then she found herself facing Karl, alone.
His eyes moved over her. She had no idea what to say. Karl held out his hand to her, but she saw no warmth in his face.
He said, “
Are you coming home?”
* * *
“Why didn’t you finish off that idiot Cesare?” said Katerina.
The seven immortals had gathered in the drawing room of the chalet. Charlotte watched, contributing little to the conversation. Pierre, whom she’d never trusted even though he had helped transform her, leaned on the mantelpiece. Niklas sat like a goldenhaired doll in a chair, with Stefan - deceptively sweet-natured -perched on the arm. Ilona was as striking as ever; fashionable in a black, beaded dress, her hair cropped and wavy. She stood by the gramophone, looking through their record collection; an exact replica of a bored debutante.
Katerina was stretched out on the sofa, Karl standing near Pierre by the fire. Charlotte sat in an armchair, separated from them by her own black guilt.
“I think they’re all mad,” Karl said, “but if I can’t change their minds, I won’t kill them just for disagreeing with me. As long as they leave us alone, I have no desire to trouble them.”
“But Karl, what did you expect?” said Pierre. “All those with any sense have already left. The ones who remained were bound to act like idiots, because they’re idiots to have stayed!”
“Some will have listened to you,” said Katerina, “but they wouldn’t dare admit it in front of poisonous fanatics like Cesare.”
How extraordinary they looked, thought Charlotte, glowing with the enticing radiance that only vampires possessed. She could barely believe she was one of them; she felt like an outsider, filled with human wonder.
“It doesn’t matter,” Karl said wearily. “The point was to make sure that Kristian is dead.”
“And are you?” snapped Ilona.
“As sure as I can be.”
Stefan said with good humour, “To be honest, Karl, I think you made a mistake. Why not agree to lead them?”
“Because I refuse to behave like Kristian.”
“Your pride will kill you, one of these days.”
“It’s nothing to do with pride,” said Karl. “If they want to live on, worshipping Kristian’s memory, they’re free to do so. The point is that Kristian gave us no choice. That was why he had to die.”
A Dance in Blood Velvet Page 24