The Dark Arts of Blood (4 page)

“That’s heart-warming,” said Ilona. “And Violette?”

“We’ve not seen much of her lately. She’s busy with her ballet academy in Lucerne, and touring again. She throws herself into work rather than brood, but Charlotte and I prefer a quiet life, at least for the time being. Why do you ask? If you are bored and planning mischief,
please
keep well away from us.” Karl spoke with polite menace.

“So suspicious!” Pierre rolled his eyes.

“We might be looking for mischief,” said Ilona, “but not here. We thought of trying Russia for a while, just to see how the revolution is progressing.”

She gave a sweetly demonic smile.

“And if that’s no fun, there is China… India…” said Pierre. “I don’t much care where we go, as long as there’s mindless amusement to be had, and a rich supply of human blood.”

“So we found you to say
auf Wiedersehen
, Father,” said Ilona. “It’s only for a year or so, I expect. But if you can’t find us – assuming you might ever
wish
to find us – you’ll know why.”

Karl took his daughter’s arm and drew her aside. He wasn’t particularly shocked by her news, but he was surprised – considering how much trouble Pierre and Ilona had caused in their time – to realise he would miss them.

“Ilona?” he said gently. “All I can say is that I wish you a pleasant journey and a swift return.”

“Swift return? I thought you’d be glad to have us out of your hair, dear Karl.”

“Only because…”

“We cause you so much grief and disruption?”

“Well, I can’t deny that, but I think we’ve all grown up since Violette came among us. We’ve no need to fight among ourselves any more.”

“True. And I do love you, Father,” she murmured. “But all of this new-found wisdom and solidarity among vampires will not stop me having fun. What? Why are you frowning at me?”

“I’m not, but…” Karl glanced at Pierre, who was gazing into the air and waiting with an exaggerated show of patience. “Am I imagining this, or are the two of you going as a
couple
?”

Ilona laughed. “Oh, did I forget to tell you? The wedding invitation is in the post! Will you give me away, Father?”

“Very amusing. You and Pierre don’t even like each other.”

“Nonsense.” She gave an insouciant lift of her eyebrows. “I can bear him for… minutes at a time. Longer, if he’s busy pleasing me. He’s handsome enough, and surprisingly attentive…”

“Spare me the details,” Karl interrupted drily. He knew that Ilona and Pierre were casual lovers, but preferred to put the thought out of his mind.

“Father, he’s lonely. So am I, a little. We’ll be perfectly happy together, at least until I can’t stand him a moment longer. Then I’ll take an axe to his neck and find some luscious young Russian Cossack to amuse me instead.”

With a teasing grin, she kissed him and went back to Pierre. Karl, finding nothing else to say, only shook his head. His heart gave a slight tug as his wilful daughter began to walk away with the hopeless rogue, Pierre, of all people.

“What shall it be?” Pierre said. “Taxi cab, horse and carriage, train? I’m not travelling through the Crystal Ring.” He turned and called back over his shoulder, “
Au revoir
, Karl. Stay out of the other-realm. It’s like hell tonight.”

Karl ignored the warning.

Later, replete with blood, he drifted through the Crystal Ring above Prague. He felt the cold flow of ether over his flesh, saw his own hands outstretched like claws against the stormy purple cloudscape. The other-realm distorted his human form into a slender amorphous shape, a blend of winged demon and jet-black serpent. After a hundred years and more he should be used to it, but the change still amazed him.

He hoped Ilona would be happy, with or without Pierre.

He undulated through Raqia more as if swimming than flying. He longed to float into a trance – the closest vampires came to sleep – but the Ring was too stormy. Massive thunderheads surrounded him. The void between them was an ocean of thick blue fog cloaking the Earth. He rose and dropped on rough air currents. No hope of rest tonight. Better to make for home before the storm carried him away.

Even his extra-sensitive sight could not penetrate the murk. All that helped him to navigate was the Earth’s magnetic field: faint ribbons of light that mapped the Crystal Ring on to the contours of the real world. The seventh sense.

With fearful exhilaration, Karl turned headlong into the gale.

The Crystal Ring was the natural habitat of vampires, but that did not make it safe. Every time they came here, they ran the risk of staying too long, growing too cold and exhausted to escape.

According to Charlotte, Raqia was the massed subconscious of humankind, formed from their dreams, nightmares and myths. As the zeitgeist shifted, Raqia echoed the changes in its own surreal way. Clouds became fortresses, phantom armies marched across the vast sky, angels manifested only to go mad and vanish again. Disconsolate voices echoed from nowhere.

Looking up, Karl saw a clear space in the fog and a dozen columns of red and silver light shooting up from the Earth towards the unseen heights of the
Weisskalt
.

What did that mean?

Sometimes Raqia threw out mirages of pure, enigmatic beauty. Everyone had theories, but no one really
knew
. Was it God, or the Devil, or mankind itself playing unconscious games?

Full of wonder, mystery and danger, the Crystal Ring was as addictive as blood itself.

All he wanted now was to be at home with Charlotte.

Although he tried not to distress his victims, he had tormented Charlotte beyond reason, thanks to the simple misfortune of falling in love. Eventually, against all his instincts, he’d transformed Charlotte rather than lose her. Karl thanked all the powers of the universe that she’d survived, but he had vowed never to transform anyone, ever again. The initiation held too much danger and pain. Last year he’d witnessed a rash attempt by a power-hungry madman to turn a large number of humans into his own vampire army. The experiment had ended in horrific failure. The Crystal Ring itself would not allow too many vampires to exist.

And that is no bad thing
, Karl thought.
We are predators, after all. The Earth needs no more of us, especially if something worse is brewing in the human world. Up here, ever since Violette opened our eyes to the dangers, I sense mankind sleepwalking from one devastating war to the next and there is not a damned thing we can do to stop them. A cynic might conclude that the sole purpose of vampires is to feed on the remains of humanity, like vultures on carrion.

He fought to stay on course as the storm closed in. Karl could see nothing but wild indigo cloud. When he looked up, though, he saw a new apparition: an ebony mass, flickering with blood-red lightning… A shape that coalesced out of nothing.

As he watched, it dived straight towards him – a coal-black comet the size of a house.

Karl swerved, thrown sideways by turbulence. Hot damp air filled his lungs. Powerful instinct told him that the thing was sentient, and intent on killing him.

With an instant survival reflex, he arced out of its path. His hands formed claws, his fangs unsheathed. He was ready to fight – but the entity went roaring straight past, vanishing into the muddy lower layers of the atmosphere.

Karl took a few moments to recover from the shock. An illusion, no doubt, but the encounter left him with a clear impression of a gigantic death-like figure in a hooded robe, with a huge skull head and a staff like a lightning bolt.

Only an energy-projection, someone’s dream. Not really there.

Whatever it was, it left turmoil in its wake. Raqia began to roil violently, the storm whipping up into the worst tempest he’d ever encountered. He lost his sense of direction. Couldn’t see, let alone navigate.

Enough of this mad, nightmarish troposphere. All he wanted was the firelight of his own parlour and Charlotte’s arms around him…
Focus on her
, he told himself, closing his eyes. Focus on Charlotte, a tiny golden beacon so far away…

If only he could find his way back to Earth.

* * *

The knife lay in the centre of a small table, gleaming against the dark walnut surface. Stefan and Charlotte sat on either side, studying the weapon. The blade fitted into an ivory haft that appeared hand-carved. The ivory was smooth, with a repeated motif along its length and a ruby cabochon set into the pommel.

Charlotte thought it appeared more of a ceremonial item than one made to cause real harm. Not an army-issue knife that an old soldier might carry, but an unearthly thing with its own glow. Now and then it would tremble, as if someone had knocked the table.

The parlour was lit by a single stained-glass lamp. The home she and Karl shared, a black timber chalet poised on a hill, stood high and remote amid pine forests, surrounded by a wild and lovely green landscape. The Alps floated like monumental clouds, draped with snow. All around were farms and tiny villages where she and Karl tried never to feed. They had no wish to harm their neighbours, but… once or twice, thirst had got the better of them, and that was all it took to start rumours.

Charlotte wrapped her arms around her waist, trying to suppress shivers. She didn’t want Stefan to see her in pain or ill. The wound should have healed by now. Still she felt tendrils of cold poison spreading through her veins.

Yet nothing poisons vampires
, she thought.
At least, nothing we’ve discovered… yet.

Niklas sat on a sofa a few feet away, gazing at the knife without blinking. She wondered if he had any thoughts at all, and simply couldn’t express them.

“Have you seen an artefact like this before?” she asked Stefan.

“Many knives, but never one like this,” he replied.

“And you are not kicking the table?”

Stefan half-smiled. “I haven’t moved.”

The knife spun in a slow quarter-turn on the polished wood.

“This is like a seance,” he added. “We should put the letters of the alphabet around it, and see if it spells out our doom.”

“I assume you’re joking,” said Charlotte with a grimace. “That’s a perfectly terrible idea.”

“You should know by now that I’m full of terrible ideas.”

When the dagger came to rest, she went to pick it up. As she touched the handle, cold shock numbed her whole arm. The pain in her stomach flared as if claws were gripping her insides.

“Charlotte?” Stefan came to her side and knelt by her, holding both her hands. “Come away and rest.” He stroked her cheek. “You look awful. When I held the dagger, I’ve never felt a force so… repellent. I shouldn’t have brought it here. Don’t touch it.”

“Obviously I
can’t
touch it.” She pressed against the chair back to steady herself. “But we need to know what it is. And the man who had it, who was he?”

“I don’t know, but we’ll find out. Will you please rest a while? Until you’re restored to health, nothing else matters. Where the devil is Karl?”

His eyes were tender with worry, but she didn’t want to be nursed.

“Stefan, dearest, I’m all right,” she replied. “The trouble is that resting doesn’t help us as it helps humans. It’s always blood we need.”

“True,” he said softly. “You should feed.”

“I’m not hungry. Not for blood, at least. I need knowledge.”

She stood up, restless, scratching at her arms as if ants were swarming over her. She went on, “No poison harms us. None that we’ve ever found, at least.”

“We?”

“I mean Karl and me. He conducted research in my father’s laboratory, when my father wasn’t looking.” She smiled. Even the effort of smiling made her head spin. “We found nothing except the extreme cold of liquid nitrogen… or of the
Weisskalt
. But this feels different. Weapons are inanimate. They don’t shine or move or radiate a force that disables vampires. Someone with too much knowledge has manufactured this, but who, and why?”

Stefan blinked at her, shaking his head. “I’ve no idea, but…”

“We have a magnifying glass, microscope, other testing equipment set up in the library. If I wrap it in cloth and carry it on a tray, I can take a proper look.”

“Yes,” Stefan said, frowning, “but surely that can wait? Until you recover, it’s secondary.”

“Not to a scientist,” she retorted. She paced, full of manic energy, talking too fast. “My father was a physicist. He taught me everything he knew. I helped push his experiments further than he would have gone without me. I was a scientist in life; why should that stop, because I became a vampire? The researcher in me is still there.”

“A fair point.” Stefan caught her arms to stop her pacing. “And she’ll still be there once you’ve fed.”

“I’m not hungry,” she repeated. “I don’t need a victim.”

“I’m worried about that wound. Blood will help you heal.”

“Will it? I need something, but not…”

Stefan looked more worried than ever, but Charlotte could barely focus on him through the white storm of her vision. She needed to take urgent action, but how?

“Yes, blood,” he whispered. “I’ll help you to the nearest farm. It will take only minutes.”

“No, I need the Crystal Ring.” Surely the other-realm would soothe her restlessness.

“We’ve already tried that.”

His voice faded as she tried to step into the hidden dimension. It was like stumbling down a non-existent step. A pale snowstorm whirled around her. Instead of taking flight, she found herself on the floor. There she lay like a melting snow-figure, with no strength to move.

“Charlotte.” Stefan was gathering her in his arms, Niklas helping.

“I’m all right,” she murmured, aware she was slurring.

“Clearly you aren’t. Stop arguing with me!”

Charlotte let Stefan help her upstairs into the large bedroom. Although vampires did not sleep in the conventional sense, beds had other uses. He wrapped a blanket around her, propped her on pillows, and offered her his wrist.

“I don’t want it.”

Stefan paused, let his hand fall. “It’s human blood you need.”

“I can hardly move, let alone hunt. What’s happening to me? Am I dying?”