The Dark Blood of Poppies (32 page)

She was unconsciously fingering her throat, trying to gather the collar of her nightdress like a fragile shield. “Oh, I love the way you sit there and admit it! Is this the end, then? You’ve come back for the blood you didn’t steal before?”

He caught her wrist before she could evade him. He was so fast.

“If I wanted to,” he said, “there’s nothing you could do to stop me. Scream and fight all you like. If anyone comes to help, they won’t stop me either; they could get rather badly hurt, actually, and I’m sure you wouldn’t want that. Oh, Robyn, you’re trembling.”

He pressed her fingers and let her go. She snatched her hand away and cradled it against her chest. The skin felt ice-cold and numb. Yet her loins contracted and tingled with the memory of his body against hers.

“Of course I’m trembling. Wouldn’t you, if you were about to die? But I suppose you wouldn’t know what it feels like, since you only pick victims who are too weak to fight back!”

He was quiet for a time. His silence made her more wretched. Defying him was like defying a thunderstorm.

Eventually he said, “This is why I came back.”

“Why? Why are you doing this to me?”

“I could have killed you, my dear. I meant to drain all your lovely blood… but I stopped. Why did I spare your life, do you think?”

“To prolong the torture? I’ve hardly left this bed since you were here. I’ve had such fevers and nightmares. I think I’m still dreaming now. But I guess you’re happy to hear that.”

“No. It’s an unfortunate side effect for those we leave alive. Our bite causes madness, to one degree or another.” Then he added, unbelievably, “I’m sorry.”

“What?”

“It gives me no pleasure to see you suffering.” Another pause. He dropped his hands to his knees, leaning towards her. “Do you want me to leave?”

“I – I don’t know.”

“I’m not here to prey on you. I only want to talk. I give you my word, though you may be disinclined to believe me.”

But Robyn did believe him. Even if he’d said he wanted more blood, her answer would have been the same. “No, I don’t want you to leave. I’m curious to know what someone – some
thing
– like you could possibly want to talk about.”

“God, you’re a hard one, aren’t you?” said the vampire. “I spared your life, and I don’t know why. And you want me to stay, even knowing what I am. This is an interesting situation that requires discussion, does it not?”

Robyn drew herself into a sitting position against the headboard and stared at him, chilled. “Do you always kill your victims?”

He shrugged. “I take what I want. If it kills them, that is their affair. What I mean is that I don’t usually force myself to stop before my thirst is sated.”

“And do you always make love to them first?”

“No, of course not. Far too much trouble. The blood is essential, sex only a pleasurable distraction. I do so quite often, I suppose… but no, not always.”

“I think,” she said, her throat in spasm, “that you are an utter fiend.”

“And what about you, Robyn? You have a nice line in making men lose their heads over you. Are you any better than me?”

“I don’t kill people.”

“Just drive them to suicide.”

“I don’t rape them, either.”

“Nor do I, my angel. I’ve never taken anyone who wasn’t willing. And if I’m in a generous frame of mind, I ensure they experience so much pleasure that they’re willing to die for me anyway. Isn’t it so?”

“Ah yes, that,” she said bitterly. She resented him for dissolving her self-control with rapture. Conflict raged inside her; how could she accept him as a vampire, an impossible mysterious demon – yet speak to him as if he were a man?

She knew the answer. Her scepticism had been eroded by Violette, Karl and Charlotte without her even realising. And Sebastian had torn down what remained of the veil. These demons were reasoning creatures who appreciated the weight of their own actions. Her mouth dry, she said, “So you – your kind – like to seduce before they attack, do they? Make the victim a willing participant, share the guilt. Subtle.”

“You don’t hate me for giving you pleasure, surely?” he said.

“Oh, I do. Manipulator
and
fiend.”

“Have you not manipulated me?”

“How?”

“I’m here now against my will,” said Sebastian. “I didn’t mean to come back, but, well…”

She looked at the shadow-figure, motionless with his hands resting along the chair arms: a patriarch in a gothic throne. He looked solitary, tormented, lethal. Not a man she could dismiss like one of her lovers. A vampire haloed by the moon.

And yet so nearly human. A creature she could engage in battle, mind to mind.

“How did you come to be like this?” she asked on impulse. “Are you very old?”

“Not old enough. Too many questions, beautiful child. Don’t expect me to shriek at the sight of a priest, or to catch fire in the sun. Can I see you again, when you’re better?”

He was so charming, when he chose. Almost touching, the way he asked permission, as if he needed it. A wave of fatal excitement rose in her throat, capsizing all common sense.

“Can you make love to me without…” Her fingernails grazed the place where he’d bitten her.

“It’s extremely hard not to.”

“Then it will happen again.”

“Every time.”

“And will it kill me?”

“Eventually,” he said very softly, “if we don’t stop.” He stood and leaned over her. “Well? Knowing this, do you still want to see me?”

And knowing it was suicidal, Robyn said, “Maybe once.”

The vampire bent to kiss her. She stiffened; her terror was instinctive. But his mouth only met hers in the gentlest kiss, warmly tantalising. His hair brushed her cheeks. She slid her arms around his neck, only to find herself embracing air.

After Sebastian had gone – vanished – Robyn turned on her side and lay curled up like a child. After a while she fell sound asleep, undisturbed by fever or dreams.

In the morning, she woke feeling well and manic with excitement, as if she’d volunteered for some insane, exhilarating stunt, like flying on the wing of a biplane.

I’m going to see him again. He will not kill me, or even harm me. I shall get the better of him! What a challenge, to outwit him; not a mere man, but an actual devil!

Will he come tonight?
A warm tremor of desire went through her. She danced around the room.

Then she noticed how late it was. Why hadn’t Mary come in with her tea?

Pulling on a dressing gown, Robyn went onto the landing and saw that the door to Alice’s room was still closed. Softly opening it, she found the room in darkness, the curtains closed.

“Alice?”

She looked at the figure in the bed, and shrieked.

Now she knew why no one had heeded her cry in the night. From Alice’s room, she ran upstairs to Mary’s, her heart racing and her mouth sticky with fear.

Like Alice, Mary lay unconscious and pallid, breathing in shallow sighs. And on her throat, too, were the fading crescent scars of Sebastian’s fangs.

* * *

Cesare’s plan took shape swiftly. Now, when he addressed his followers, he did so from the dais, one hand resting on Kristian’s ebony throne. No one suggested that he was being presumptuous.

There was much to do before Violette returned from America. The date of her arrival in September loomed in Cesare’s mind like doomsday. “When Lilith comes,” was a phrase he often repeated to his flock. It always sent a wave of terror through them, like the backdraught of Satan’s wings.

Cesare felt happy, fulfilled. Vampires were arriving at Schloss Holdenstein unbidden, alarmed by rumours, by the growing knot of blackness in the Crystal Ring, or by some instinctive knowledge of Lilith that rippled through the ether. His little band numbered twenty, and more would come.
They know they’re in peril
, he thought,
and they’re coming to me for help!

Further proof that my leadership is ordained by God.

The need to survive had tamed even Ilona. Cesare was paradoxically grateful for her mischief-making; it had revealed Simon as less than perfect, thus enabling Cesare to be more forceful. The trinity was powerful – Cesare saw Simon, John and himself as fire, earth and air – but he was careful to keep slightly apart. John was right. He should trust only himself.

The plan was going well. More vampires joined the crusade every day, and Ilona was beginning the work she did so well. In secret, though, Cesare’s happiness was tainted by doubt.

Despite Simon’s assurance, “Not the first, but the best,” Cesare couldn’t force Sebastian out of his mind. He remembered Sebastian’s visit in the last century; a vampire more wayward even than Karl, who’d dared to challenge Kristian. Cesare hated to think that Simon had asked such a rogue to take power.

And what arrogance, to have turned Simon down!

Sebastian became a shadow in Cesare’s mind that had to be exorcised.

And then there was Lilith herself.

In moments of clarity, when his crusading fervour cooled, Cesare would sit alone in the inner sanctum and dredge through his deepest fears.
I’m bringing an army together, united by hatred of the Enemy – but what do I really know of her? How can I send them against her, when I haven’t faced her myself?

Am I a coward?

No!
He clenched his fists on his thighs, but the words circled like a litany:
when Lilith comes, when Lilith comes…

Cesare looked up to heaven and thought,
I must prove my courage.

I must face her alone. Just once.

He called John and Simon and asked gravely, “How can we actually destroy her?”

“I don’t think she can be destroyed,” said Simon, “but she can be hurt and bound. Ask yourself what would hurt her most.”

Cesare couldn’t conceive of vampires caring for humans, so he couldn’t answer. John, though, spoke at once.

“Destroy her ballet! She killed Matthew because he threatened her dancers.”

Cesare was suddenly full of excitement and ideas.

“We can’t touch her yet, but we can strip away everything around her,” said Simon. “Take her ballet, take those who shelter her. Leave her alone, exposed.”

“Alone and threatened, she’ll be at her most dangerous,” Cesare said, shuddering. Sometimes he felt the ache of long-faded scars on his back, childhood terrors.

“Yes, but also at her most vulnerable.” Simon’s gilded face showed no fear. “When she returns from her travels, we’ll wait a while to lull her suspicions…”

“And then,” Cesare breathed, “then we’ll welcome her home.”

* * *

Every Sunday, Robyn went to Trinity, the Episcopal Church in Copley Square. This was part of her pose, to seem more acceptable to Boston society; what could they say about a woman who attended church and did charity work? The word “hypocrite” sprang to mind, but she didn’t care.

She wasn’t religious, but she loved the church, with its Romanesque solidity, its arches, turrets and pointed roofs. The interior, all dark wood with a wealth of paintings and decoration, felt warm. She liked to sit in the gloom and study the glorious La Farge and Burne-Jones windows. To flood her senses with their stormy purples, bright greens and peacock blues was spirituality enough for her.

But this Sunday she prayed.

Please, God, let Alice and Mary get better.

Please forgive me. Let them get better and I’ll never fall again.

* * *

To tease Robyn, Sebastian kept away for a few days; to tease her, and tantalise himself. Meanwhile, he explored the city, enjoying the separate worlds of wealth and poverty, the churches, burial grounds where he could seize a victim between the gravestones as befitted his true nature. From the grand bow-fronted houses of Back Bay and Vermont Street to the tenements of the North End, he hunted invisibly in the night; and then he’d walk along the harbour, staring past ships and ferries to the black-sapphire water. Clearing his mind.

Yet everywhere he went, he imagined Robyn beside him, sharing the silver beauty of the night… imagined himself driving his fangs into the tender flesh of her neck.

The worst she could do to me
, he thought,
is to leave home and vanish by the time I go back for her. And she might do so to spite me… but I doubt it.

One evening he crossed the Charles River to explore Cambridge and amuse himself among the students. There, as he wandered through the stately tree-filled squares of Harvard University, he realised he was being followed.

Strange sensation of dimensionless entities watching him, like the time Simon had found him in New York… And then, with a stab of alarm, he saw two glimmering figures, one pale, one dark.

If Simon found me, why not Fyodor and Rasmila?
he thought.
But why?

For a moment he was back at Blackwater Hall, two hundred years falling away… He took a step forward. The black shape resolved into a lamp post, the white one a sliver of light between two buildings. Sebastian stood aghast at the tricks of his own imagination.

Again he found himself thinking of Simon and Ilona – and of Violette. He loathed these intrusions. His gaze swept up, past a library’s pillared frontage, past shimmering elms and beeches, to the night sky.

“If you interfere with my existence,” he said softly to Violette or anyone; perhaps to the demons in his own soul, “you will regret it.”

The sensation of being followed faded, but left him empty, unsettled, thirsty for more than blood.

That feeling drove him back to Robyn’s house.

He stood on her terrace, watching her in the parlour: a glowing jewel-box of safety. She was alone and looked so innocent, curled up with a book like a little girl. But she kept breaking off to sigh and gaze at nothing.

Sebastian watched for a long time, motionless. Second nature for a vampire to observe as if he’d turned to stone, transfixed by the object of fascination.

Thoughts of other vampires left sourness in his mouth. He needed Robyn to wash the taste away.

Presently she put her book aside and walked around the room, adjusting ornaments. She appeared to sense something… And at last she came to the French doors.