He knew she was right, but it made no difference. He could easily have given in to desire, taken her, tasted her blood... it would be wonderful but, in the end, it would be empty. He tried to shut away the winter landscape in his soul. “I never meant to upset you,” he said. “Katti, I love you and what you suggest would be very easy, but I can’t. After Charlotte - whether I see her again or not - I cannot feel passionate about anything. I’d be betraying her and lying to you. This is nothing to do with moral sensibilities. It is simply the way I feel.”
“Oh, God.” Katti turned away, briskly wiping her cheek. A blood-tinged tear soaked into the finger of her cream glove. “Forgive my outburst, and forget it ever happened. My dear, I hate to see you unhappy, but it won’t last forever. When your sorrow has passed, I’ll still be here.”
* * *
Holly lay in bed, dozing restlessly. The dark mood that preceded menstruation was on her, distorting simple unhappiness into grey webs of nightmare.
Ben’s strong smooth body was beside her, but she might as well have lain alone. He slept soundly, divorcing himself from worry as men could. The soft rise and fall of his ribs was like the Earth itself breathing in and out.
Holly wished she could escape as easily. Every time she looked at him, Maud’s sick lie hung between them, a demon of self-destruction.
We swallowed Lancelyn’s notions of sex being natural and sinless, she thought. I was the one who seduced Ben, down on the shore of that lovely blue ocean in Italy... I wanted it to be true, it should be true, but it isn’t. To think of him with Maud makes me ill! What did she offer that I couldn’t give? the demon whispered. What did I do wrong?
She was sure Maud was lying and yet... no amount of reassurance would ever expunge the doubt. It was like a sickness, her desperate need to trust and love her parents, Lancelyn, Benedict, someone - yet never being fully able to do so. Sometimes she felt like a child.
She kept seeing Lancelyn’s face, but the image was tainted. The idea of his “Hidden Temple”, where he used his followers as whores to exploit those with more money than sense, lay in her stomach like wet sand. Perhaps they deserved it, the thrill-seekers he blackmailed, but that didn’t make it right. She’d loved him as a father... heartbreaking to be told he was a villain. How can I possibly accept that I adored a murderer?
And Benedict... what has he become?
Sleep smothered her thoughts in heavy, roiling blackness.
A muffled storm raged, filling the sky with lightning and the streets with torrents of water. Holly floated, disembodied yet stifled by thunderous heat. Maud’s face solidified in front of her, her orbs brimming with disingenuous excitement.
“I must see you, Mrs Grey,” she said. “I’ve a message from Lancelyn. Meet me in the Temple at his house.”
Holly found herself in the street, frantically struggling through the storm. She was floundering towards Lancelyn’s house, wading through waist-deep floodwater. Debris surged past on the grey foam as the water invaded shops and dwellings, bringing down walls in its wake. The sky roared and flashed. There was not a soul about, no one to help her. Hot rain whipped her hair into her eyes and mouth. She stumbled and gasped as the water nearly carried her off her feet, but she kept going. Must know...
She saw figures on an altar. A woman, robe pushed up to her waist, a man’s hairy buttocks bouncing between her legs. Maud and Lancelyn. She almost retched.
Now she was free of the flood and running along the tree-lined street to Lancelyn’s house. She dreaded reaching it. But there it stood, red and shadowy under the swaying branches, the windows dead and empty; the boarded study window like a sewn-up eye.
Her perception shifted again and she was inside the plain grey room that was the temple. She was dry, the storm forgotten, but panic and exertion drained her. She felt heavy, powerless. The temple was dark, lit by a single mauve candle on the altar; the only furniture, three empty chairs. Maud was there alone, dressed in a ceremonial robe the same mousey-fawn as her hair. Her prominent eyes and teeth gleamed.
“Actually,” Maud said airily, “I was in the Hidden Temple all the time, so I know all Lancelyn’s secrets. Now I’m going to tell you the secret, Mrs Grey.”
In a flash of clarity, Holly knew that her dream was trying to reveal some fundamental truth.
“What is it?” she whispered.
“There’s going to be a Dark Bride. And guess what, Mrs Grey? The Dark Bride is you.”
“And the bridegroom?”
Maud sniggered, dipping her head. “Your bridegroom is Lancelyn.”
Holly gasped. “Do you expect me to believe this?”
She felt herself drifting upwards...
“Lancelyn will marry you,” Maud insisted, “and then I can have Benedict.”
...upwards and outwards, until she was looking down on herself: a woman under a black bridal veil, carrying a violet candle. Horror raced through her like floodwater. The bride moved slowly forward as if at a funeral, watched by three figures who now occupied the three chairs. They were silhouettes of angels; one black, one white, one red. They inclined their heads and applauded as she passed, their palms making the sound of rushing rain.
There was hideous logic in the vision. She thought, So Lancelyn always really wanted me after all?
“Where’s Lancelyn?” Holly asked. No answer. “Why isn’t he here?”
“It’s all a trick, really,” said Maud. Her face was inches from Holly’s and she was giggling, her eyes white and mindless. “Lancelyn told me to lure you here. Because the groom who really marries the Dark Bride, you see, is Death.” Maud put her hand to her mouth as if shocked at her own audacity. Laughter spilled between her fingers. “Ben and Lancelyn despise you, Holly. They want you dead so they can raise me in your place.”
Some force took Holly and threw her backwards onto the altar. The angels rose around her, now all inky dark, and she felt this had happened before, to someone else, and that other person had also drowned in despair. She tried to scream. Fear leapt like a cavorting devil inside her, and she could produce only whimpers of desolation.
“Oh, dear, dear,” said a voice from somewhere deep in the room.
Lancelyn.
“Oh dear, Maud,” he said with chilling joviality. “I wanted to see if you’d go to such extremes, and you have.”
Holly saw Lancelyn standing there, smiling, as real and ordinary as life. Maud turned, her hand falling from her slack mouth, her face suffused with terror.
“Someone has been tricked here, and it is not Holly,” he said.
The altar beneath Holly became a bed. She was in her room again, yet it was subtly wrong; Ben wasn’t there, and another bed appeared where the wall should have been.
In that altar-bed lay Maud.
Lancelyn stood over Maud, his gnome-like face radiant. Holly was an unwilling witness.
“You foolish girl, Maud,” he said. “You have the psychic ability and spiritual potential of a cockroach. Yet you would betray my brother and hurt my Holly, in return for a little flattery? Betray me to them in turn, just to boast of your exploits? And then you’d lure Holly to her death, like the cutthroat whore you are. Go back to your church pew, your Bible. Pray for your soul.”
Silence. In a faint radiance that fell through the curtains Holly saw a dark shape near the door; a tall shadow, nothingness.
Holly watched the shape drift into the gap between the two beds. Fear floated like an unattached entity inside her.
The figure was like an eclipse: black yet dazzling. She watched it move to Maud’s bed. Translucent, it obscured Maud’s shape under her eiderdown like an inky waterfall. It bent lower until it seemed to lie across her. The girl did not stir.
Then Holly became Maud.
She stared up into fierce silver eyes, felt its weight like a cold sheet folding over her. The coldness began to suck out her warmth, pitiless...
The vampire drank. Not blood but something more essential. The will to live.
&nbs
p; Holly surged up and out of the nightmare, drenched in sweat, noiseless screams tearing her throat. Ben slept as if dead beside her. Where Maud’s bed had stood there was only a wall.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
A DANCE IN BLACK VELVET
The Ballet Janacek’s Swan Lake was magnificent, as Charlotte had known it would be.
The critics greeted it with relief as “a glorious return to her true vocation by Violette Lenoir after the unfortunate diversion of Dans le Jardin”. At last, they said, she was realising her potential and lifting her company to the heights of the Ballets Russes.
Patronising fools, thought Charlotte. Who were they to pass judgment on Violette’s art, when she was so far above them? The company’s tour took them to the major cities of Europe. Charlotte watched every single performance, yet Violette’s spell never palled.
There in the darkness, Charlotte would sink into the green, silver and blue world of the swans as if drugged. Bliss, to have nothing in her mind but the beauty of this floating world; no thoughts of Karl or her family, no memory of Josef weeping over his dying sister; no reminder that after this she must walk through the darkness and drive hard fangs into some victim’s neck... No, here and now there was only Odette in white, and Odile, enthralling in gorgeous black. How like the Serpent from Dans le Jardin the dancer seemed then; sinuous, cruel, yet with a strange integrity that wrung sympathy for evil. As the virtuous Odette, Violette was acting; as Odile, she was so completely herself that it was frightening.
Charlotte always sat alone in a private box. She kept her distance from other members of the ballet, aware that they thought her strange. She saw little of Violette either. From a distance, it was easier for them both to be friends and business partners; easier not to torment each other. Violette seemed happy to know that Charlotte was nearby - but not too close.
Sometimes Charlotte would watch rehearsals. She became increasingly suspicious that the pain Violette suffered for her dancing was not normal.
She was taking longer to warm up, and sometimes her movements lacked their usual fluidity. At first Charlotte thought she was conserving energy for the performance, until she fell twice while executing simple pirouettes. Violette never fell.
Her performances remained flawless; but in Amsterdam, in rehearsal for their last night on the continent, Violette actually cried out with pain as her partner Mikhail lifted her. To his solicitous concern she insisted she was fine; but her face was colourless and she left the practice session early. Unprecedented.
Charlotte followed her to her hotel room. They were due to sail for England in the morning... Karl was there, but Charlotte tried not to think about that.
Violette had her back to the door and was executing slow pliés. How cautious her movements seemed. Her shoulders were rigid, her neck tendons standing out. Once or twice she gasped through her teeth.
“Violette,” said Charlotte.
The dancer started and turned round, raising a hand to rub her shoulders. Her skin, always pale, was more drained than radiant. “I wish you wouldn’t creep up on me like that. I should be used to it.”
“I’m worried about you. You’re obviously not well.”
A small dry smile. “No? What is your diagnosis, doctor?” Violette put on a robe and sat on the arm of a chair.
“I think you’re working too hard,” said Charlotte. “You will injure yourself.”
Violette hugged herself and stared down at her bare right foot, which she pointed, flexed, pointed, flexed. “Oh, you are a long way behind,” she murmured.
“What do you mean?” Charlotte moved towards her then stopped, her anxiety growing.
“I thought you would have guessed. Don’t you know everything?
“Of course I don’t. What’s wrong?”
“I’ve told no one yet. I can’t bring myself to.”
“But you can tell me.”
“Yes.” Violette went on staring at the movement of her flexuous foot as if mesmerised. And Charlotte realised that she was trying with all her strength not to cry.
The spasm over, Violette spoke, her voice low and hoarse. “I found out before we left Salzburg that I have a degenerative condition of my joints and spine. If I don’t stop dancing I’ll put myself in a wheelchair within five years.”
Charlotte swallowed the words like poison. God, how to react to such news! Whatever she said would upset Violette; sympathy worst of all. “The doctor might be wrong.”
“I’ve seen four doctors and they all say the same! I’m crippling myself.”
“What if you do stop?”
“Then I’ll have ten years of hobbling around, if I’m lucky.
“Can’t they do anything?”
“No.” Again the hard smile. “I wouldn’t trust doctors to touch my body, even if they claimed they could cure me. But there is no cure. If I rest, lie about in hot spas like an invalid, I will preserve my health a few years longer, that’s all.” She sighed, then looked straight at Charlotte. Unbearable, to see that hard pain in her face. “You see choreographers teaching and directing from wheelchairs, don’t you?”
“Yes,” Charlotte said fervently. “Yes.”
“But not me. You will never see me like that.”
Violette rose and came to Charlotte with all her dancer’s grace; silk robe floating, her hair loose on her shoulders. “I want people to remember me dancing.” She stopped inches from Charlotte, gazing at her. Dazzling, those indigo eyes.
She said, “Charlotte, kill me, please.”
Charlotte turned away, dizzy with shock. “No!”
“If you won’t, I’ll do it myself!”
“Don’t talk about death! Your doctors must be wrong. If you rest, you’ll get better. Cancel the remainder of the tour!”
“Never.”
“Then rest as soon as it’s over! You’re bound to feel better if you’d simply recuperate for a while.”
“Stop this, please.” Violette held out her white, expressive hands, curling the fingers. “Look. I can feel the disease, like sand in my joints, wearing them away. The pain when I get up in the morning... It’s not that bad, I suppose, no worse than any poor old woman has to suffer, but to me it’s death. I may have brought it on myself, by dancing too hard as a child, or at least made it worse. Now you look as if you’re going to weep. Please don’t. I can’t stand sympathy, that’s why I won’t tell anyone.” Violette’s voice was surprisingly gentle, but her face was china, containing no self-pity. “I shall dance until I drop, of course, but I won’t let them see me deteriorating; I won’t have them shaking their heads and muttering in pity. The moment I am no longer ‘the great Lenoir’ - I want you to do it.” Charlotte half-turned away, but Violette stepped around to face her. “Do what you did to me before, only don’t stop.”
As she spoke, she laid her hands on Charlotte’s shoulders.
The sensation was poignantly thrilling, bird-delicate. Violette rarely touched her voluntarily. Now she moved closer, and her body pressing lightly against Charlotte’s felt warm; so fragile and yet real, vibrant with blood. The blackness of her hair against the pearl of her skin...
Charlotte seized the dancer’s hands, thrust her away, and stumbled to the far end of the room. Thirst rushed crimson and silver through her. Almost impossible to think clearly, let alone to resist but she must, she must.
From the darkening of Violette’s eyes, she was clearly aware of Charlotte’s struggle; a stark reminder that she wasn’t human, that the blood thirst was not to be played with. She looked suddenly terrified, but did not react or try to escape.
“Don’t,” said Charlotte, moving behind an armchair and gripping its brocade back for support. “Never tempt me like that or I won’t be able to stop myself. You don’t understand how strong the thirst can be!”
“But I want you to.” Violette’s voice trembled.
“Not this minute, though, surely! And that’s not the point! I don’t want to kill you, Violette. I couldn’t bear it! You don’t know
what you’re asking!”
“Don’t I? Were you just playing with my life, Charlotte -wanting to be near a dancer for the glamour, like some star-struck girl? Or did you come to be with me through life and death?”
Charlotte turned away. Violette made her feel powerless, as if she were the vampire and Charlotte the mortal.
“I could kill myself, of course,” Violette added with chilling flippancy. “I thought it would hurt less if you did it.”
The thirst receded. Charlotte was in control again, or as near as she could manage.
And now that she saw clearly again, the solution hung bright and inevitable as the sun before her.
She remembered how Karl had resisted the decision to transform her for as long as he could. It is so lonely, he’d said. Your conscience could not bear it. You might change, as Ilona did. You could grow to hate me. You might die. God, a hundred reasons... and in the end, it was only love that had taken the choice out of their hands.
Amazing, then, that with Violette she could make the decision in a split second, with no doubts. Fear, yes - but no doubts at all.
However, Charlotte could not make the transformation on her own. She would need help.
“Listen to me.” She went to Violette and touched her cheek. No hunger in the gesture, only tenderness. “There may be something I can do to help you. I can’t promise, but as soon as we arrive in London I shall find out.”
“Whatever are you talking about?”
Violette closed her fingers over Charlotte’s wrist. Close enough to kiss, they looked at each other solemnly.
“Do you trust me?” said Charlotte.
“Yes,” said the dancer. “God help me. Why shouldn’t I? You’ve saved my ballet twice. Whatever you are... that hardly seems to matter. It all feels part of the plan.”
A Dance in Blood Velvet Page 33