The Dark Blood of Poppies (37 page)

I
n Sebastian’s absence, Robyn tried to carry on as normal. She would not let him rule her life. The thought of languishing in feverish love-sickness between his visits was abhorrent.

So she attended the usual charity and social functions, lunched with friends, drove down to Cape Cod with Alice in hope that the sea would work its calming magic on her.

She continued to receive Harold as if nothing had happened. But she put off a couple of prospective lovers, no longer interested. Now there was only one man whom she wished to pleasure, torment and ruin…

Sebastian presented the temptation of an impossible challenge.

Kneeling astride Harold, coaxing him to his brief little spasm, she recalled why she used to find sex so depressing. Fortunately he was easy to please. He never minded what mood she was in, never chided her for being brusque. But afterwards, as he entwined his sweating body around hers, he said, “You got someone new, h’mm?”

“Maybe.”

“I can tell. It’s like you’re not here.”

“Sorry.”

“I hope you’re not falling in love with him.”

She tried to smile, but her mouth wouldn’t co-operate. “I left that nonsense behind at school.”

“You’re never past it, believe me,” he mumbled.

“I’ll always be here for you, Harold dear.”

But she saw he was worried. Robyn wondered what she’d given away.

Alone, she thought about Josef and his relationship with Violette, Karl and Charlotte.
Does he know what they are? He must, of course! That would explain his evasiveness and strange remarks… “Some of these people are not so nice,” indeed!

And that time I found him in bed, hugging the covers around himself. Hangover, hell! Which one of them…?

She rubbed her forehead, trying to press out her frown. Worrying about Josef was pointless. He might be still in New York or travelling home. Even if she could telephone him this minute, what could she say? Warning him to be careful was only telling him what he already knew. Then he’d wonder how she knew… and she felt strongly that Sebastian must remain her secret.

Oh, there’s so much I’d like to ask you, Uncle
, she thought.
But you’ll never tell me unless I explain why I want to know, and I can’t.

She tried not to dwell on Sebastian, but sometimes she found herself wandering through the house as if searching for something. Often she would turn cold with a sense of being watched…

Infuriating that he could do this to her. She felt she was performing for a ghost audience; always moving, dressing, undressing as if Sebastian could see her.

And thinking,
When will you come to me again?

* * *

“Perfection,” Simon breathed, his cheek pressed to Charlotte’s as he held her on his thighs. “You and I and Karl. You can’t refuse me, because you know…”

He kissed her again and Charlotte let him, aching. She had only one chance to stop Simon, she knew. One chance to control herself.

Even through the rushing drumbeat of desire, with his whirlpool eyes sucking her down, his hands plucking at the buttons of her dress, she knew what to do. She must seem to surrender. Relax into him, like a warm helpless nestling in his lap, so he didn’t suspect…

While her mouth moved feverishly over his lips and cheeks, her mind stayed aloof, calculating. Assuming victory, Simon closed his eyes and sighed. Charlotte seized the moment. She drew back her lips and struck.

How strong and thick his neck was, like oak! She feared her fangs would break against his flesh – no, they were through, but she couldn’t find a blood-vessel and his fingers were tightening on her arms…

At last she broke through a vein-wall, and blood burst into her mouth. It tasted strange, like red wine turned to vinegar: too strong, but she couldn’t stop. This was the only way to weaken him.

“Not yet,” Simon whispered, trying quite gently to prise her off.

He hasn’t guessed I’m attacking him!
she thought. She sank her fangs deeper, drawing hard to drink as deeply as possible before he realised.

She shook with apprehension, even through the bliss of feeding.
If he stops me too soon, he’ll punish me and I don’t even know if he will weaken like other vampires…

“Don’t,” he said. “Charlotte, enough!”

Oh, he understood. She felt him go rigid, his desire swamped by rage. He began to resist, his hands so tight on her upper arms she feared the bones would break.

Simon’s strength was great – but so was hers. She stole it from him with every thick, sour mouthful of blood. And even he could not break her purchase.

His hands released her arms only to creep around her throat. Vampires could live without breathing so he couldn’t strangle her, yet the pressure still awoke a primeval terror. Charlotte felt the constriction tightening until she could barely force a trickle of blood down her throat… tightening until it seemed his fingers would crush her spine.

She could no longer swallow. Agony filled her skull, but she went on sucking at the wound, the blood escaping from her lips to bubble over her chin and his hands.

Just as pain nearly overcame her, the pressure eased. To her astonishment, Simon’s hands slid away and his head tipped back. Charlotte paused. If he was faking surrender to trick her, she couldn’t risk mercy. She drank again, wincing as she pushed blood past her bruised windpipe.

Red fire filled her, while Simon was slumped like a fainting human beneath her. Oh, his collapse was real after all…

“So beautiful,” he sighed faintly. “I could die for you.”

She was only sipping now, too caught up in the divine rhythm to stop. After a few seconds, she felt Simon’s hands caressing her back… and she sensed another presence, very dark and definite, watching them.

Karl.

With a stab of dismay, she wondered what he saw. That she was defending herself from Simon, or making love to him? Because she wasn’t entirely sure.

With an effort she wrenched her fangs free. Blood ran from her open mouth, soaking his collar. He was too weak now to prevent her escape. As she slithered off his lap, his hands fell away and he made no attempt to keep her there.

Purple-red blood drenched his hands and her dress. It was everywhere.

Charlotte fled to Karl, mortified. His face, half-shadowed, revealed nothing as he looked from her to Simon, who lolled as if someone had stabbed him where he sat. His golden skin was flat beige, all radiance lost.

Karl’s arm went around Charlotte. Before she could speak, Simon pushed himself to his feet with a magnificent effort.

To her embarrassment, he kissed her hand and gazed into her eyes.

“Was it as pleasurable for you as for me?” he asked silkily. She’d expected fury, but this was worse. Simon looked at Karl and added, “As they say in the parlance of these times, your wife, my dear fellow, is a jolly good sport.”

Karl merely looked at him, his expression frigid.

With that, Simon left – not through the Crystal Ring, but through the door. Charlotte emitted a sigh of relief and despair.

“What happened?” Karl asked coolly. With long, delicate fingers he brushed the drying blood from around her lips.

Charlotte told him everything, even how close she’d come to letting Simon seduce her.

“He wasn’t violent, just
persuasive
. Gods, I’m so sorry. The only way to stop him was to feed on him. And he won’t give up; I think he’ll come back when he’s recovered his strength, because he says he wants you, too.”

Blood-heat suffused her face. To her own shame, she felt intensely aroused and unable to hide it. She pressed herself to Karl’s body, feeling she would melt into him from head to foot.

“Karl…”

Rather than push her away, Karl responded, as if his sovereign compulsion was to please her. And this transition from detachment to passion, she found irresistible.

Later, as they rested on the bedcovers with the first glint of dawn turning their limbs to pearl, Karl said, “I hope you were not thinking of Simon.”

“I hope you weren’t, either,” she said reproachfully.

Karl smiled, his lids half-veiling his eyes. “Love, do you think you have no power to hurt me?”

“I think,” she said, looking down at their entwined fingers, “that I don’t always like myself, therefore I sometimes can’t understand how you can love me.”

“Really? If you suspect my love is so fragile, would that drive you to someone else? Violette, Josef, Stefan – even Simon? That’s my fear. If you are so unlovable, why do we all adore you?”

“I only want you, Karl,” she whispered. “You know I’d die without you. Frightening, but true. Simon tried to tempt me away, but he never could.”

“All the same, Simon is dangerous,” said Karl. Their faces were close together on the pillow. “Why does he want us both, do you think?”

“To take the place of Fyodor and Rasmila?”

“Or because he thinks we’re stronger than John and Cesare? Perhaps he wants us on his side because he’s afraid of us.”

The thought gave Charlotte, who’d often felt powerless, a thrill of excitement.

“You refused him,” she said, “but he won’t give up. Karl, I think he was trying to get to you through me. But I won.”

Karl breathed out softly, looking grave. “
Liebling
…”

“What is it?”

“Rasmila once played a similar game with me. I was starving and she gave me her blood, convinced me there was love or at least friendship between us. But her blood put me in her power for a time. Took away my conscience and willpower…”

Charlotte sat up, aghast. “You think Simon’s done that to me? God, no, you’re wrong!”

“I hope so,” said Karl.

Remembering the magnetic evil in Simon’s dazzling eyes, she shuddered, thinking,
I wouldn’t put it past him to set such a vicious trap.

“Look at me,” she said, turning to Karl and stroking his cheekbone. “Can you see anything wrong? Because if you can, I’ll go away. I won’t stay and risk betraying or harming you.”

Karl’s face was lovelier to her than Simon’s sun-bright beauty could ever be; his eyes, honey-brown crystal, were infinitely more alluring.

“No, don’t leave.” His tone was gentle, but the words were a command.

Her voice raw, she said, “But can you kiss me, and lie beside me, and hunt with me… without trusting me?”

* * *

The woman, Ilona, took Werner to a cheap hotel room. Once inside, she turned into a vampire.

Werner had never anticipated such pain, such pleasure and fear. His most lurid fantasies bore no resemblance to reality. Ilona rendered him helpless as if staked out for slaughter, and she led him into visions wilder than any fever.

She ravaged and hypnotised him. She dragged him through paradise and left him stranded on the other side, gasping, his body blood-streaked and throbbing with puncture wounds.

Afterwards, she sat above him like a cat, licking her lips. Huge, passionless, intent eyes… A cat seen from a mouse’s viewpoint.

He wanted her again. Wanted her forever.

He told her, and she smiled.

“You’re very good,” she said. “For a virgin, perfectly incredible.”

He hadn’t admitted that, so his pride was dented. “What makes you think…”

“Never mind. Just be thankful you didn’t disappoint me – because you would have found out the painful way if you had.”

Werner began to shiver, his teeth chattering. He seemed to see her through claret-coloured glass.

“But if you want this forever, you’ll come with me and do everything I say.”

“Anything.” He was losing consciousness, pawing at her for help.

“And when I say forever – what was your name?”

“Werner.”

“When I say it, Werner, I do mean
forever
.”

Then came a long interval of oblivion. A few times he bobbed to the surface of awareness, just enough to gain the impression of being carried by soft-footed monks… Then blackness again.

When he woke, he was lying on the floor of a dungeon. A lone candle flickered on dank walls. For minutes, certain he was dreaming, he could only stare at the barred iron door. Then horror struck him.
God Almighty, this is real!

Panic ripped through him. He sat up, only for an iron hammer to pound behind his eyes. He collapsed again, moaning.

“Ilona? Where are you? Let me out!”

“She can’t hear you,” said the dry voice of a spider.

The cell was full of shadows. Werner felt the same unreasoning dread that he’d felt as a child at night, fear of what lay in the dark corner of his bedroom. Now the dread was fulfilled, as a swathe of blackness detached itself and came towards him.

Bony hands grasped him, with nails like thorns. A ghastly face, all hooked lines of cruelty, glared down. Werner caught the abattoir stench of blood and stared in horror at the creature’s naked, red-raw scalp and its pointed teeth.

“She delivered you to us,” said the demon. “Do you fear God, human scum?”

Werner thought he was in hell, being punished by some mad demon-priest for the sin of fornication. The vampire’s fangs were lengthening, as Ilona’s had. He writhed in fear.

“Let me go!”

“No, you must repent. Do you fear God?”

“Yes, yes,” Werner cried, but the vampire kept repeating the phrase, his voice rising to a frantic shout, the mouth moving closer to Werner’s face, red tongue wobbling.

“
Do you fear God? Do you fear God?
”

Werner began to scream. He wet himself. Then, convulsing in the vampire’s claws, he began to sob and cry for his mother.

* * *

Outside the cell, Simon and Cesare listened to the screams of their latest recruit. Cesare stood with folded arms, nodding in satisfaction. Simon felt nothing; no pity, no pleasure.

“This Werner is a fine boy,” said Cesare. “Ilona chose well again.”

“I told you she’d have her uses,” Simon said without tone. His encounter with Charlotte had left him so despondent that he had no patience with Cesare’s banality. Important, though, to maintain his angelic mask. Draining three victims had partly restored Simon’s strength, but he still felt listless, frustrated.