The Dark Blood of Poppies (69 page)

* * *

In a copse on the long green flank of a hill, Charlotte held Violette and kissed her dry cheeks. Violette was ashen, but Charlotte knew she didn’t really want sympathy. She wanted Robyn. And Charlotte thought,
How am I going to tell Josef?

“You should have let me kill Sebastian,” said Violette.

“Perhaps, but it won’t bring Robyn back,” said Karl.

Sebastian had let them leave the house without argument. Now they were in the countryside, half a mile away.

“How wonderful.” Violette’s tone was softly bitter. “I know all about taking life but nothing about giving it back. I’m certain Robyn didn’t want to become one of us. She let herself die, rather than let it happen. Why couldn’t I have died, too?”

“Don’t,” said Charlotte, anguished.

“The Crystal Ring decides,” said Karl. “It’s as arbitrary as nature.”

“We should go home,” Charlotte murmured.

Violette mastered herself, and clasped their hands. What had passed between the three of them could never be forgotten. Sensual magic, shadowy with grim wisdom, had changed them for all time.

“Oh no,” said Violette, with a demonic, chilling smile. “We have unfinished business at Schloss Holdenstein.”

* * *

Charlotte had been prepared for a battle. Instead they found the castle in deathly stillness.

As they walked along corridors to the heart of the castle, they heard soft voices, moans. Scents of congealed blood and sour human excretions met them, but no sign of life.

Entering the meeting chamber, they found carnage.

Human corpses everywhere. Thirty young men in white lay like scythed lilies, leopard-spotted with blood, bathed in dying torchlight. All of them drained of blood, cheated of eternal life.

There was a sudden weight in Charlotte’s chest. Mingled with relief she felt sorrow for the waste of life, the betrayal.

There were some thirty vampires in the chamber, all Cesare’s flock. Some were dragging corpses into rows, others sitting dazed on the floor. Pierre was with a group in a far corner, talking quietly. Charlotte saw one yellow-haired male vampire clinging to a corpse and weeping steadily. She thought of Robyn and tears came to her throat.

Cesare and Simon were near the ebony throne, engaged in a quiet but rancorous argument.

Karl, Charlotte and Violette entered softly. For a moment, no one took any notice. Simon saw them first but barely reacted, only gazed flatly at them and stopped responding to Cesare’s words. After a few seconds Cesare froze, and turned to see what had caught Simon’s attention.

Cesare staggered backwards, tripped on the dais and rescued himself on the arm of the throne. His face turned the horrible colour of the dead mortals around him.

“How did they escape? You told me they were trapped there forever!”

“A misjudgement,” Simon said dully.

“What? How can you claim to be from God when you’ve failed me in
everything
?”

“Can’t you understand?” Simon said viciously. “They are the new leaders, not you. That’s why we can’t contain or destroy them! They are the future!”

“If only,” said Karl.

Cesare looked so heartbroken that Charlotte sincerely pitied him.

Violette walked to the centre of the chamber and looked around. This time she came not as a storm but as her quiet self. Yet everyone stared and backed away, as if she had died and risen again from the underworld.

But that’s what we did
, thought Charlotte.
They’re not only frightened of Violette, but of us all.

“Well, which of you shall be first?” Violette said conversationally. She was a goddess of ice-crystal, her hair the night sky, her eyes arctic violet-blue. “Simon?”

Simon walked to her as if he couldn’t resist.
What’s wrong with him?
Charlotte thought, chilled. His eyes were like glass: dead.

“Your friends were killed,” said Violette-Lilith, taking his hand.

“Friends?”

“Fyodor and Rasmila. By Sebastian. Do you care?”

Simon only frowned. “How did you escape?” he asked.

“Let me show you.”

“Yes. Show me what I already know.”

No one moved as Violette stood on tiptoe and pressed her lips to Simon’s throat. He stood like a gilded figurine in his blood-red satin robe. Her arms went around his shoulders, the widow’s veil of her hair half-covering them both. Simon’s face became immobile, his eyes hooded, lips parted. A frown indented the skin between his eyebrows.

Cesare clung to the throne, aghast.

In the silence, Karl said, “Where’s Ilona?”

Pierre rushed forward and tugged at Karl’s arm. “I’ll take you.”

Charlotte watched them pass through the archway. Then she looked at Cesare. He approached her, lips parting to reveal his fangs.

“Don’t touch me,” said Charlotte, putting up her hand. Cesare stopped. She thought,
Do I have power over him, like Lilith… or Isis?

“This will never be forgiven,” he said. “God will be your judge.”

“It’s not our fault the transformation failed,” she said angrily. “This is all a lie! Fanaticism is a human disease. We should know better.”

“We failed because we were betrayed!”

“No, you failed because the Crystal Ring has more sense than you.” Charlotte walked past him and went to look at the bodies. The other vampires watched her expectantly.

“Well?” she said. “You were all there; didn’t you feel what was happening? The Crystal Ring itself won’t allow so many immortals to be created. Something worse than you is coming, Cesare. The world can conjure its own nightmares without your help.”

“Liar!” said Cesare, frantic, helpless.

“We’ve seen the future,” said Charlotte. “Earth has no place for you and your empire.”

She heard the rustle of a robe behind her. When she glanced back, Cesare had disappeared.

Charlotte looked at the others. “Do you still love him? Still believe him?”

No one responded. The yellow-haired vampire, still clinging to his dead friend, looked up at her with piercing black eyes but said nothing. Sighing, Charlotte gazed with sad detachment at the corpses. Trying, like Karl, not to turn away in horror.

I have been sealed in a coffin and buried and I’m still alive…

One of the bodies twitched.

She bent down and felt a pulse, a weak life-aura. His face was drained, his breathing shallow – but he was alive. Still human.

“What’s your name?” Charlotte asked in German.

The man’s eyes fluttered, trying to focus.

“Werner. Am I in hell?”

“More or less.” She knew she must get him out of the castle before someone decided to stamp out his tenuous life. “Get up,” she said, holding his arm. “I’ll help you.”

He was well-built, but she had the strength to half-carry him along narrow twisting corridors until she found a door to the outside. Like the others, he was blond, handsome, not very bright. He had worshipped Cesare and yet, for some reason, Charlotte wanted him to live.

She dragged open the door and thrust Werner out onto the hillside. He stood blinking at her, confounded.

“Go on!” said Charlotte. “It’s a miracle you’re alive! Just go!”

The youth went, stumbling, into the darkness.

Then the stench hit her.

The warmth of other humans, steaming from below. The sourness of sweat and excrement. Charlotte ran down a spiral stair, wrenched open a cell door, and saw three dozen pairs of eyes glaring through the dark in terror and supplication.

She gasped, holding her throat. She knew what they were. Victims, held ready to feed Cesare’s new-fledged race of immortals.

“You’re free,” Charlotte said, almost losing her voice. She pointed. “Up the steps. The door is open. Come on!”

* * *

“What happened?” Karl asked as Pierre led him to a passageway lined with iron doors. Kristian had used to lock up recalcitrant disciples here; Karl had been imprisoned here more than once. He shuddered, thinking,
If John has harmed Ilona, he’ll think I am Kristian, come back from the dead…

“It all went wrong,” Pierre said with a shrug. “John and Cesare blamed Ilona for breaking the circle.”

“Insane, trying to transform them all at once.”

“Simon swore it would work. Maybe he knew it wouldn’t. He admitted he’s been using Cesare. They had a glorious argument. And what now?”

“You tell me,” said Karl.

Pierre caught Karl’s elbow. Their eyes met; Pierre looked exhausted and afraid for his life. “My friend, you’re the one who brought Lilith here again. I don’t know what the hell you are playing at! Since she nearly destroyed me I’ve thought of nothing but how to escape her.”

Without sympathy, Karl said, “Have you considered facing her instead?”

Not answering, Pierre brought him to the open door of a cell. Inside, Karl saw Ilona confronting the grotesque figure of John.

“Daughter of Lilith,” said John, his voice the whisper of an inquisitor. “You betrayed us. You are a serpent.”

Ilona smiled at him. “Flatterer,” she said.

She was unhurt, Karl saw in relief. She and John were like wolves circling, each waiting for the other to attack first.

“Shameless whore,” said John.

“You couldn’t afford me.”

“Witch!”

“And you are scared to death of witches, aren’t you?”

Karl walked in and seized John’s arm, making him growl in pain. He glared at Karl with hellish strength, rage seething in his disfigured face. Yet he’d lost some spark of courage. His jaw dropped, and he vanished into Raqia.

Karl looked at Ilona. “Are you all right?”

“I hate you, Father,” she said, her mouth sulky. “I was enjoying that.”

Then she ran into Karl’s arms.

As they returned through the corridors and stairways, Karl asked, “Did you really sabotage the transformation?”

“Oh, yes,” said Ilona. “I broke the circle and I did so on purpose. Also, I didn’t quite kill my partner, so he would block the energy.”

“Why?” Karl said in astonishment.

“Because I’m Lilith’s daughter in spirit.” She smiled thinly. “I have my pride; I never thought anyone could break me until I met her, and I wouldn’t admit I was broken until I found myself being used by Cesare. By then I was too busy hating Violette to care.”

“What changed your mind?”

“Realising the perfect insanity of Cesare’s plan. My God, to think I was helping that halfwit become a tyrant, just to revenge myself on her! Eventually I saw that Violette acts as she does because she’s exactly like me.”

Karl and Pierre shared a look of surprise over Ilona’s head.

“I couldn’t face what she’d done to me,” Ilona went on. “She makes you look at yourself and it’s not a pretty sight. Is it, Pierre?” She grinned at him. “I thought I was being clever, not giving in to her. But my idiocy lay in coming to Cesare, instead of facing the truth. Still, unlike some, at least I came to my senses.”

Back in the main chamber, there was no sign of Cesare or Simon, Violette or Charlotte. The vampires in scarlet lingered restively.

Karl saw one he knew, Maria. She stood passively, head bowed and dark gold hair escaping the hood of her robe. “Where are Cesare and the others?” he asked.

“They left separately,” she replied tonelessly. “First Cesare, then Charlotte. And when Lilith let Simon go, he walked away, speaking to no one. Then Lilith vanished. But they are still in the castle, I believe.”

“Why don’t you leave?”

“Where would we go? Only Cesare can protect us from Lilith.”

“We’re waiting,” another vampire said acerbically, “for Cesare to tell us what to do.”

“Why do you need anyone to tell you?” Karl said, exasperated.

“We need answers!”

Turning away, Karl moved through the grisly scene of devastation, compelled to look at every corpse. Such young faces, no longer plump with health but drained, empty, discoloured. Life cared what it looked like; death did not. He took in their slack mouths and sightless eyes, their outflung hands. Crimson maps stained their virginal robes. Not just their own, but also the blood that had spurted from their comrades’ torn arteries. No survivors.

He saw visions of past and future: thousands of young men felled in their prime to fulfil the ambitions of ideologues…

A small group of vampires huddled in a corner, weeping. One had collapsed over a corpse as if all his hopes lay dead.

Some of them believed in this
, Karl thought.
Some of them truly cared.

He was aware of Ilona and Pierre watching him. Then, making him start, Charlotte touched his arm. “Karl? Don’t brood on this. It’s not your responsibility.”

“Where have you been?” he asked.

“One of them was alive. I set him free. And some prisoners. Captive prey.”

“One,” Karl echoed. “Did Cesare explain the risk? Did they know he was gambling with their lives?”

“That wouldn’t have stopped them,” said Ilona.

“I wonder if he’ll give them a decent burial,” Karl said darkly.

“Should I feel guilty?” Ilona asked. “For my sabotage?”

Karl shook his head. “If Cesare had succeeded, this would have been a disaster of a different order. But the transformation would probably have failed anyway.”

“Oh, don’t tell me that! At least I tried.”

“I’m sure Cesare blames you, anyway,” said Charlotte.

“Oh, he must have someone to blame.” Ilona laughed. “Oh yes, let him think that I had the power to ruin him! By the way, don’t tell Violette what I did. I don’t want her thinking she’s won me over. My pride won’t allow it.”

“She’ll know,” said Charlotte.

Pierre broke in, “And you’re going to let her run amok? Your worship of Madame’s artistic talent has blinded you to the fact that she’s insane! She tried to kill me!”

“Pity she failed,” said Ilona.

“You’re a perfect bitch.”

“At least I’m perfect. There’s always one who can’t or won’t face the truth about themselves.”

Karl gave Pierre a cold look. “Violette made mistakes. Which of us hasn’t?”

“Pierre’s trouble is his illusion that he’s strong and pitiless.” Ilona went to Pierre and leaned on his shoulder. He looked sour. “How dreadful, to be confronted with your own weakness – with the truth that you regretted your first victim being your mother, after all.”