The Dark Blood of Poppies (50 page)

She thrust the letter at Karl and waited for him to read it. Shock washed slowly over her, like some vast invisible horror descending from outside.
Not my father
, she thought.
It’s impossible, he must go on forever. Father, no.

Karl said something. She looked up in a trance.

“Will you go?” he repeated.

“How can I? I can’t possibly leave with things as they are. And you’ll tell me not to.”

“I would advise you against it, with all my heart.” As Karl spoke, she had a vivid image of him in her father’s house; his lethal charisma, radiant against the comfortable banality of the life she knew. Inevitable, her seduction. “Vampires shouldn’t care, yet we still do. Caring baits the trap for us. Our loved ones change. They grow old and infirm and they die, leaving us behind. And because we haven’t been part of the process, we can’t accept it. They won’t be the same, Charlotte. They won’t know you. What can you do, except cause them more pain?”

“Then why did Anne write to me?”

“A sense of duty.”

“But what if Father’s asking for me? How can I not go?” Anguish seized her, an iron spear in her heart. “I said such bitter things when I left, and so did he. I resolved not to go back, but…”

Karl’s hand rested on hers. “Life consists of unresolved pain.”

“But they’ve offered me a chance… I don’t expect forgiveness. It doesn’t matter what they think of me. Just to be with him… but how can I leave Violette? It’s impossible.”

“Charlotte,” he said gravely, “if you want to go, you must. It’s your decision. I’ll watch over Violette. If anything happens, I’d rather you were out of harm’s way.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “I’m sure you would, because that has always worked wonderfully, hasn’t it? We’re stronger together.”

“Unfortunately, you can’t be in two places at once,” he said dryly, “unless you happen to have a
doppelgänger
.”

“I have to go to him, Karl,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

“You owe me no apology, love.” He stroked her hair, and she leaned into him. “Go swiftly, come back safely: that’s all I ask.”

“Gods, I wish you’d come with me, so they could see…”

“That I’m not the Devil? But by their standards, I am. It would do no good. They think we both belong to Satan, Charlotte, so be very gentle with them.”

Telling Violette was harder than she anticipated. Charlotte caught her alone in her dressing room after morning rehearsal. She thought the dancer would be unmoved, but to Charlotte’s dismay, she looked panic-stricken.

“No, you can’t go!” Violette exclaimed.

“It’s only for a few days.”

“Or weeks, or months.”

“No. It’s my father, Violette.”

“But what will I be without you?”

“What do you mean? You don’t need me that much!”

“Don’t you know?” Violette caressed Charlotte’s shoulders and arms. She looked exquisite, her hair a soft silken mass, ruffled from dancing; but she was also Lilith, seductive and terrifying. Suddenly she kissed Charlotte full on the mouth, a lingering, sensual kiss, charged with all her yearning. Then she clung to Charlotte, trembling from head to foot. “Where do you think my strength came from, to save you from Cesare? It came from you. Without you, I’d be lost.”

Stunned, Charlotte could only hold her, but Violette was a creature of thorns, impossible to comfort.

“A few days,” Charlotte promised helplessly, and fled before she gave in.

* * *

Robyn watched the goddess kneeling among discarded toys. She was naked, hair cloaking her like a midnight waterfall. Against the dusty grey clutter she was a polished, nut-brown icon.

“Is this why you told me not to come upstairs?” Robyn said. “How many others are there?”

He spoke quietly into her ear. “Robyn, I had no idea she was here. I have not seen her for more than two hundred and twenty years.”

Putting her gently aside, he went towards the creature. He was now dressed exactly as she had pictured him; dark tailored cloth, white lace. Her heart jumped. She pressed herself to the door frame and watched in bewilderment.

“What do you want?” said Sebastian.

The woman’s eyes were white crescents, tipped up towards him. “You have even forgotten my name, Sebastian.”

“No, never.” He crouched in front of her. “You are Rasmila.”

She nodded. “Though I have had other names.”

“Haven’t we all?” he murmured. “So, why after all this time –”

Her hand shot out to rest on his collarbone. He gripped her wrist, and Robyn thought,
He’s afraid of her!

“I’ve been waiting for you. I know you always come back here. I have nowhere else to go, no one…”

“I’ve seen Simon. He told me you’d fallen out. He wanted to use me, as if I were just a wind-up doll you’d set in motion all that time ago, but I told him no. I’ve nothing to offer him. Nothing to offer you, either, and I don’t want you here.”

“You can’t deny what you are!” said the woman, shaking him. However alien she seemed, her despair was genuine.

“I never asked you and your friends to do this to me.”

“But you wanted it.” She rose onto her knees and pressed her lips to Sebastian’s. The kiss lingered. Robyn’s jaw dropped. “We gave you the gift; now you must help us in turn! Our power is diminished…”

Sebastian pushed her away and stood up. “I don’t care. Leave my house.”

Rasmila sank down again, head bowed. “I won’t go until you listen to me.”

“Rot here, then.”

Ushering Robyn out of the nursery, he shut the door and led her downstairs to the saloon.

“Who is she?” Robyn demanded.

“I told you, one of the vampires who made me.”

“Why wouldn’t you listen to her?”

“It was their choice to transform me. I’m not in debt to them, and I don’t care what problems they’ve brought upon themselves.” He threw logs on the fire, stabbed at them with a poker.

“But she seemed distressed,” Robyn said cautiously. “Can’t vampires suffer?”

“We can. But she was more…” He stopped without elaborating.

“So you’ve no compassion for her?”

“She’s not an orphan in the storm. It’s a miracle she didn’t attack you! Lack of blood makes us weak, but it can also make us horribly strong.”

“You think she was just hungry? I don’t think so.”

“She is not my concern! I want her to leave.” He held out his hand. “Come on, you need to rest.”

Robyn was eaten up by curiosity, but he refused to answer her questions. She wasn’t tired, but as soon as she sat on a couch that Sebastian dragged near the fireplace, she fell asleep.

Sebastian’s hand on her arm woke her. She groaned. “Leave me alone, I only just closed my eyes.”

“No, you closed your eyes eight hours ago,” he said, “and we have work to do.”

Robyn only believed him when she saw light in the windows. Full daylight made the room look bleak and grey, revealing every mote of dust, every moth-hole. Cold and dispirited, she shook herself awake.

“Is Rasmila still…?”

“I’m afraid so,” he said. “Never mind. Come on.”

Together they drew water from a well in the overgrown garden, carried containers into the kitchen, and cleaned an old tin bath. Sebastian even managed to light the kitchen range. She wondered if he would have been so industrious if he hadn’t been trying to ignore Rasmila’s presence.

She heated water, scoured cooking pots, plates and cutlery. The cupboards were packed with china. She could almost feel the ghosts of maids, cooks and footmen moving around her… and she cursed at having to do this menial work herself. Oh, for Mary, Alice and Mrs Wilkes…

I have twenty thousand dollars’ worth of diamonds in my suitcase, and here I am…

At last she was able to make a pot of coffee. Back in the salon, she drank cup after cup with cream and sugar, and made toast over the fire. Half an hour of heaven. It was the first time she’d felt warm since the previous night.

She stared around the cavernous room. A thousand pairs of eyes stared back.
This place was designed for vampires
, she thought.
I can’t live here!

She found Sebastian still in the kitchen, wearing a voluminous old-fashioned shirt in which he looked irresistible. He was filling the bath with buckets of hot water.

“If you love this house so much, why don’t you buy it back legally?” she said. “Then we could restore it. If I want coffee I like to ring for Mary, not break my back for three hours.”

Sebastian looked coldly at her, as if she’d uttered heresy. Again she felt like a trespasser. And she hated him for it, as he sometimes seemed to hate her. “Your bath, madame,” he said aridly.

She undressed quickly and stepped into deliciously hot water. To her surprise, Sebastian knelt beside the bath and began to wash her, as if she were a little girl. His hands felt wonderful, sliding all over her body on a layer of soap. He seemed enraptured by the way her limbs gleamed through the lather, by the flashes of light on her glassy-wet skin. His long, green-brown eyes were contemplative under half-lowered lids.

“Do you really hate it here?” he asked.

“It’s – magnificent. Not what I’m used to, that’s all.”

“Be patient.”

He helped her out of the bath, wrapped her in a towel and held her. She found it madly arousing, to be all but naked while he was clothed. But when she began to respond and kiss him, he held her away and smiled. “Later.”

She looked up, thinking of Rasmila. “Is it because…?”

“We have more work to do to make you comfortable.”

Refusing to put on any heavy, ice-cold Victorian garment that had lain in a chest for sixty years, she dressed in the warmest clothes she’d brought: a skirt, sweater and cardigan of russet wool. While she made another attempt to render the kitchen usable, Sebastian fetched more water and chopped logs. He’d even brought extra candles, matches and oil from the village.

While he was outside, Robyn loathed being alone in the house. The shadows seemed to move. She couldn’t stop thinking about Rasmila, brooding in the ghastly ruins of the nursery.

It was dark by the time they finished. Robyn, finding the library the least unfriendly room, had lit a fire there. Now she was glad to collapse on a chaise longue in front of the smaller fireplace. Sebastian leaned on the rolled back, hands folded.

“Is she still here?” said Robyn, glancing at the ceiling.

“Yes.” He sighed.

“She’s making me uncomfortable.”

“I don’t want her here any more than you.”

“So do something! At least find out what she wants!”

He was silent, pressing his fingertips together.
God
, Robyn thought,
does he have to be such an enigma?

“Very well,” he said. “Stay here. I’ll try a little persuasion.”

When he’d gone, Robyn fetched her coat, which she’d left on the billiard table in the salon. Returning to the library, she wrapped herself up and settled down to wait in her nest of warmth.

Why did I let myself in for this? Alice, I wish I’d stayed home with you…

Her thoughts sank into the red glow behind her eyelids. She slept.

* * *

“So, Rasmila,” said Sebastian, “I almost did not recognise you. Such a long time.”

“Your memory is poor,” said the figure in the shadows.

“My memory is perfect. I hardly saw you when you transformed me, if you recall. It was dark, and you all three had a glow that made it hard to look straight at you. I thought you were gods. Beautiful pagan spirits. You, Simon, and the pale one.”

“Fyodor,” she said. She was kneeling as he’d left her, like a statue. A Hindu goddess, perhaps. He’d felt almost nothing for Simon, but Rasmila aroused painful and incomprehensible emotions.

“And where are they now?”

“Our trinity was broken. We served our purpose as angels to guide Lilith, but when she rejected us, our power was gone.”

“I’ve seen her,” he said darkly, thinking of her leaning over Robyn’s bed. “Violette Lenoir.” He rested a hand on the rocking horse’s head. Even to his sensitive eyes, everything looked grey, decaying in the musty air.

“We were meant to be shepherds, too,” Rasmila continued. Her accented voice, calm and precise, conveyed her deep sense of loss. “I chose you. We should have stayed to mentor you – my mistake, to think you could find your way alone – but you wanted nothing of us. We tried to guide Kristian, but he was betrayed by love.”

“I heard. Tragic.”

“And Lilith, who should never have been created, and Lancelyn, who overreached his powers.”

“A catalogue of misjudgements.”

She spread her hands, palms upwards on her knees. He saw the triangle of black hair gleaming between her thighs, and sudden memories flowed and burned.

“We let God down, so He abandoned us. Simon blamed Fyodor and me and cast us aside. But Simon still needs us, if only he would admit it.”

“So, are you no longer a goddess?”

“I never was. I am a vampire. I’ve existed for a thousand years. I carried heavenly messages to and from Earth… but God is now blind and deaf to me.”

“And Simon?”

She paused. “If Simon, too, rejects me forever… that would be far harder to bear.”

Sebastian smiled. “So, what do you expect me to do about it?”

“Help me. I am afraid.”

“You? You came to me clothed in the night, like Kali.”

She bowed her head onto the floor, trailing her arms behind her. Her hair made a raven shawl over a shoal of broken toys and dismembered dolls. He watched her, enthralled despite himself.

“You are too proud,” she said. “You refuse to acknowledge any vampire but yourself. You wish you were the only one, but you are not! You must accept this.”

“Why?”

“If Lilith has not touched your life already, she will.”

Sebastian couldn’t answer that. He saw images of Violette and Robyn in the garden, heads close, whispering secrets; the dancer hovering by Robyn’s bed in her icy, silk-veiled beauty. Robyn threatening him with Violette! Ilona, Simon and now Rasmila with that name on their lips, affecting to despise her while their terror was painfully naked.

“Simon and Lilith are both dangerous,” Rasmila went on. “They will try to destroy each other.”