A Dance in Blood Velvet

by Freda Warrington

  The chime of bells grew louder. Life-sized automata acted out the tiny loops of their existence as he passed; a swan turned its head from side to side, a ballerina pirouetted, an angler played for a metal salmon, a revolutionary lost his head, and a black-clad executioner waited for a struggling wax queen to place her head on the block... and each one had its own music box, producing a weirdly celestial dissonance.

  Benedict was transfixed, until the last model - a magus pouring chalices of wine at the altar - threw back its hood and revealed itself. Not an automaton, but Lancelyn.

  Ben was so shocked that he could not react. He walked to his brother, speechless.

  “Welcome, Benedict,” said Lancelyn. “You look cold and you appear to have mislaid your robe - but never mind, you survived.”

  Lancelyn wore a black robe under a white cloak, a ten-pointed star on his chest. Otherwise, he looked as plainly familiar as ever. Ben’s heart twisted in rage and regret.

  “You bastard, what the bloody hell is the meaning of all this?”

  “Such language.” Lancelyn tutted, and smiled broadly. “I’m sure postulants in ancient times never swore at their examiners.”

  Ben leaned on the altar before he fell. The surface was inlaid with white, black and red marble in a pattern of stars within circles. An inch from his fingertips lay the Book, like a block of slate. Ben groaned. After all this, he flaunts the Book at me.

  “I’m sure they were never so sorely tried,” he said. “I’m disgusted that you would defile a sacred ritual for the sole purpose of mocking me. On second thoughts, I’m not surprised at all. It’s just about on your level.”

  Lancelyn blinked, raising his unruly eyebrows. “No, Ben, you don’t understand. I am not mocking you. This is a genuine initiation.”

  “Into what?”

  “You’ll find out. But you’ve endured a lot; won’t you have a drink?”

  Lancelyn indicated two glass goblets, one silver and one gold. Both brimmed with red wine. Ben looked at them with suspicion. “Is this part of the initiation?”

  “The final part. And I do mean final. One of these goblets contains wine, the other a lethal poison. Choose one and drink it.”

  “All right,” Ben said, holding the omniscient gaze. “I will, if you’ll drink the other.”

  “What?”

  “Well, it’s not much of a choice, is it, if I’m to be killed for refusing?”

  Lancelyn paled a little, but he said, “Very well. It’s fair. You choose.”

  When Ben took the silver goblet, Lancelyn expelled a little breath of approval. Ben’s apprehension surged and his stomach churned. “Cheers,” he said flatly. Eyeing each other, they raised the goblets and drank.

  The wine tasted bitter. Ben waited for pain or some ghastly symptom to start; all he felt was warmth. He glared at Lancelyn, hating him, but his brother only looked back with an arch, sly expression.

  Suddenly he grinned and clapped Ben on the shoulder. “Neither was poisoned. Just as well; you got the one with a drop of myrrh in it.”

  “I know.” Ben adopted the same steel-edged, cheerful tone. “After all, you’d never set up a situation that put your own life at such obvious risk, would you?”

  Lancelyn laughed. “A nice guess; still, I’m proud of the way you passed the tests of endurance. I know it was unfair, but that was part of the trial.”

  “But Karl would have killed me. I could have died!”

  “Of course. It would not have been a true test otherwise. Still, you came through. I trained you well.”

  “Oh, you did,” Ben spat. “No doubt of that.”

  He flung the goblet away, heard it smash as he swung a hard, accurate punch at Lancelyn’s jaw.

  The magus went down, landing with his legs splayed naked, his robes settling like a heap of unwashed laundry. Eyes brimming with water, he stared up at Ben in stunned indignation. It was a sharp reminder that, however bright Lancelyn might be, Ben had the advantage of youth and strength.

  “What was that for?” Lancelyn exclaimed, his voice muffled, fingers pressed to his swelling chin.

  “For Holly!” Ben shouted. A pathetic retaliation, he knew -but it had felt wonderful. “Can your daemons get here before I kill you?”

  Lancelyn looked scared, his smugness gratifyingly knocked out of him. He clung to the edge of the altar and dragged himself to his feet, keeping his distance from Ben. “What about Holly?”

  “I know you’ve got your claws into her mind, you pervert! Whatever designs you have on her, you can just -”

  “Ben. Ben.” He raised his palms in contrition. “Come with me. I need to sit down, if you don’t.”

  Ben had released a lot of anger in the blow. Smouldering quietly, he let his brother lead him up a spiral staircase into the main body of the house. Ben looked back at the doorway, which in his childhood had been a plastered alcove with a bookshelf... Ah, but this room, Ben thought, staring around him. Everywhere was light and colour; magnificent windows casting gorgeous hues over the furniture. Ruby-red and green, azure and gold. God, how I’ve missed this place, he thought, taken aback.

  “Sit down,” said Lancelyn. “You can have a nice hot bath and breakfast, but first let’s talk. Whisky?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “Oh, come on.” Lancelyn pressed the glass on him anyway, and they sat in armchairs on either side of the fireplace. “We should celebrate our reunion.”

  “What the hell have we to celebrate? Holly is ill and out of her mind because of you! You will let her go, because you’re not having her!”

  Lancelyn gave him an indulgent look. “My dear chap, I don’t want her. Not in the way you think, at least. Who’s the one with the filthy mind, h’mm? On the contrary, her illness concerns me greatly, but it happened because you forced her to break her oath not to spy on me. So, if you want to help her, look at yourself -not me.”

  The words filled Ben with horror and impotent rage. He knew by instinct that Lancelyn was right, but it galled him to accept it. “If I’m to blame, we both are! And what about Father? What the hell have you done with him?”

  “Don’t jump to conclusions. The old man is getting on, you know. He couldn’t cope with this place on his own, so I packed him off to a cottage in the village, with a couple of servants. He’s perfectly happy, which is more than he deserves.”

  Ben felt relief, even though he’d had little affection left for their father. “But why?”

  “Why do I want Grey Crags, you mean? To do it justice. To open up the old passageways, to appreciate the full glory of a nineteenth-century folly. It’ll pass to both of us when the old fellow goes.”

  “No,” Ben said impatiently, “why go to all this trouble with me?”

  “Haven’t you realised? It was a test.”

  “So you said.”

  “No, I mean it was all a test. Everything, for a very long time.”

  Aghast, Ben sieved his memory. “Since the time James died, followed by Deirdre?”

  “No, long before that. The moment I met you in Italy, I knew you’d grow away from me and rebel. So I made preparations to bring you back.”

  Ben uttered a humourless laugh. “By running a brothel and drugs den under the guise of the Hidden Temple?”

  Lancelyn tutted. “The Hidden Temple, my dear boy, was a shell concealing the Inner Sanctum of the Veiled Goddess. I was exploring the magical energy of sexual union, spiritually through the Neophytes, physically through the Temple - which by its nature attracted the morally dubious. I had to make them pay for their shallow disrespect.”

  “Financially?”

  “Financially, and in sleepless nights worrying about their jobs, reputations and marriages. But this is irrelevant now. In reality it was another path to the Goddess.”

  Benedict didn’t believe him, but strangely, he wanted to. The loss of Lancelyn-as-hero had hit him hard. “Are you suggesting that Deirdre lied?”

  “She told you what she believed to be true. I wanted to
see what you’d do if you thought me a murderer, a procurer and blackmailer; to see what extremities you’d go to, what inner resources you’d find. And I was richly rewarded. You made instinctive use of the Book, allowing it to amplify your natural power. You summoned dangerous beings and handled them with skill.”

  “So you set me up for all this? I did nothing of my own volition?” Ben said sarcastically.

  “On the contrary. Your actions provoked me to bring my own daemons into their full power. Don’t you see? We are not enemies, Ben, and never were. I started this because I love you and I want you at my side. War was necessary to bring out the deepest courage in us both!”

  Benedict stared. He couldn’t believe Lancelyn was sincere. “All this trouble and pain... just a test?”

  “A crucible. You cannot refine base metal without fire.”

  Ben was still raw with anger, yet he thought, What if I assume Lancelyn is telling the truth? He tried, and was astonished by the perspective that unfolded... “Are you telling me you haven’t abandoned the search for truth in favour of money after all? But how can you excuse the wicked things you’ve done?”

  “Imagine a higher plane where morality is subservient to the greater good.”

  “Complete amorality, you mean.”

  Lancelyn sat forward, his bruised face shining. “In the search for the Veiled Goddess, any means may be employed. And I’ve found her, Ben. I’ve found the Meter Theon, the Black Goddess.”

  Ben gaped at him. Lancelyn meant it. “And this is not Holly.”

  “Nothing to do with Holly. There is to be a marriage.”

  “What are you telling me?” Ben was shaking his head, incredulous.

  “A story, dear boy, in which you’ve played a noble part. My daemons are intermediaries between the astral world and me. They are Senoy, Sansenoy and Semangelof, the angels who always accompany Lilith. They came back to Earth to find her, and she came into existence for them. And they came to help me because they saw my unique qualities, and they’ve awoken the Black Goddess in all her guises - Sophia Nigrans, Cybele, the Black Virgin, Lilith - to be my bride. This is a circle of causality at work, without beginning or end. Our marriage will be the union of Earth with Heaven, the Goddess with the Dying and Rising King, God with the Shekinah, Lilith with Samael. I shall do what no mortal has achieved: uncover the darkness of ultimate wisdom.”

  “Are you saying that the Goddess is a real person?” Ben’s anger dissolved in confusion, but his suspicions lingered.

  Lancelyn’s narrow eyes sparkled. “Yes, and she’s the most beautiful creature you’ll ever set eyes on. Come and meet her.”

  “What?”

  Lancelyn rose and beckoned, his face full of joy. Bemused, Ben followed him down a short corridor towards the family chapel.

  “Three of your vampires were with me all the time, Ben.”

  “How? They couldn’t be in two places at once.”

  “Let’s say they were halves that have been reunited; Senoy with Simon, Sansenoy with Fyodor, Semangelof with Rasmila.”

  “So I never stood a chance?” Ben said acidly.

  “You have great talents; all you lack is the confidence to use them.” Pausing with his hand on the chapel door, Lancelyn turned to him, his expression sincere. “Benedict, you still see this as a battle. It isn’t. Your vampires didn’t betray you; as they became whole, they drew us back together. We’re all on the same side, and this is a new beginning. I need you as my right-hand man.”

  “Nothing’s changed, then. You’re still the leader.”

  “Someone has to lead; to be first through the gateway and take the risks. You will follow. In our new state, hierarchy will be irrelevant.”

  Benedict saw Lancelyn in conflicting lights; one as hero-brother, the other as cynical manipulator. He could hardly voice the question. “Do you mean we shall become vampires?”

  “Immortals, please. Yes, but by entering Raqia through the ecstasy of union with Meter Theon, we shall be immeasurably greater than any other immortal, even my angels.”

  He opened the chapel door. Ben’s scepticism lingered until that moment - then vanished in a downpour of brilliance.

  Light flowed around the crucifix above the altar, bounced off brasswork, pooled on the marble floor and the polished oak pews. The source of radiance was a magnificent trinity of seraphim that seemed to fill the whole chapel. Rasmila’s beauty was a dark, shimmering veil; Fyodor, a white magnesium fire; and Simon, the lion, was a rippling fall of gold between them. Where their auras blended, arcs of glorious colour sprang out. The air shimmered with eldritch music.

  Ben cried out in awe, all doubts annihilated.

  Lancelyn said, “Bring Lady Sophia into view. I want my brother to see her.”

  Rasmila obeyed, somehow human-sized yet infinite at the same time. Ben blinked, his vision confounded as she guided a slight, black-clad figure into the aisle. The veiled woman moved in a dream. She was like a frail, graceful widow, tiny in comparison to her guardians. Yet she captured his attention like a single star in the vault of heaven.

  Then she lifted her veil.

  Down the length of the aisle, Ben glimpsed beauty that felled him like a shaft of sacred light. Her face was a creamy cloud, with huge dark eyes, her black hair a wreath of thorns. The veil fell. Ben couldn’t speak.

  He forgot Holly entirely.

  “She is the future,” Lancelyn said reverently. “Wouldn’t you forsake your earthly wife for such a bride?”

  As Lancelyn’s letters used to lift him out of the misery of the Somme, so the words lifted him now. Truth blazed in glory. Lancelyn-as-hero regained his mystique. “Oh God, yes,” said Ben. “Yes, I’d do anything.”

  “Today your role is to act as guardian, an utterly vital role to prevent any interruption to my wedding - but believe me, Ben, your time will come.” Lancelyn turned Ben to face him, his smile one of blissful contentment. They clasped each other in a heartfelt embrace, and Ben felt a wonderful surge of faith and optimism. Holly, Karl, everyone else was forgotten.

  “Welcome to the Inner Sanctum, brother,” Lancelyn said with tears in his eyes. “Welcome home.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  PRIEST OF NOTHING

  Charlotte and Katerina found the village in a chill grey dawn. In London, a spellbound gentleman had offered them a lift in his Bentley. He had driven them much further, and given them far more, than he’d ever intended.

  They abandoned him when his motor ran out of fuel and he passed out from blood loss, and walked the last few miles. There were cottages along a curving street, houses built high on tree-covered hills. Autumn fog clouded the landscape, dripping from red and bronze leaves. Charlotte asked a startled milkman for directions. He sent them past the railway station, up a narrow lane alongside a stream.

  Beyond the village, the trees thinned and houses were few. There were barren sweeping hills crowned by rock. Where the lane petered out, a high-roofed black Morris stood crookedly as if left there in a hurry.

  “That is Benedict’s car,” said Katerina.

  “It’s cold,” said Charlotte, touching the bonnet as they passed.

  In the neck of the valley, there was no human habitation, only high, bare hills steeped in fog. A stream cascaded towards the village, sheep bleated on the peaks.

  Charlotte saw the house rearing out of the greyness. She reached out with her mind for the presence of vampires, felt nothing. Too far away. The scents of earth, rock and wet grass invaded her, muffling her senses.

  Despite the blood she’d taken, she was still weak from the attack of Violette’s “angels”, and not fully herself. “I can’t find anyone...”

  “They must be here. Come on,” Katerina said firmly. Arm-inarm, they climbed a footpath that was little more than a sheep track.

  As they climbed, three figures came rushing towards them. The angels again? Charlotte clutched Katerina’s arm in warning - then the forms resolved themselves into friendlier shapes. Andreas, Stefan and
Niklas!

  “Oh, Charlotte, thank heaven,” Stefan exclaimed, hugging her tightly. Startled, relieved, she clung to him, her calm centre of safety. Katerina took Andreas in her arms and they held each other, hard. “We found the message at Benedict’s house,” said Stefan. “We came as fast as we could and found Andreas; he’s told us all he knows, which isn’t much. Violette’s inside, I can sense her.”

  Charlotte received the news more with dread than relief. “I thought she might be. And Karl - is he here?”

  “Yes.” Stefan looked gravely at her, as if to break bad news. “But his presence is very weak. He may be in danger. Does anyone know what happened?”

  Charlotte and Katerina each told their stories of the vampire-angels who’d abducted Karl and Violette; Andreas added his account of Benedict entering the house.

  Charlotte said, “So, you haven’t been inside?”

  “Not yet,” Stefan replied. “We’ve only been here a short time, talking.”

  “I’ve warned Stefan it would be suicidal to go in,” said Andreas, “but I suppose we must.”

  “Of course we must!” said Charlotte. “That, or stand here agonising until it’s too late!”

  “Well, we have a choice,” said Katerina. “We can all go in together, or enter separately to cause confusion.”

  “Then what?” Andreas broke in. “This is madness. We’ve all seen those three daemons and we know we can’t defeat them! We have no weapons against them, nothing.”

  Charlotte turned on him. “But what choice have we? To leave Karl and Violette here and save our own skins, not even knowing what the three want with them? How long before they come after us?” She began to climb briskly the path towards the forbidding edifice. “I’m not running away.”

  Without hesitation, the others followed. Stefan caught up and took her arm. “Charlotte,” he said firmly, “we’ll all go in together.”

  * * *

  Violette had overcome the thirst. She placed it outside herself, like a huge pane of glass between her and the world, or a gauzy shroud, clinging to her, webbing her down. She distanced herself, but couldn’t escape entirely.