The Dark Arts of Blood (11 page)

She tried to convince herself that the illusion of splitting in two had passed, but occasionally she would move her hand and see a ghost-trail. Sometimes she glimpsed a pale shape from the corner of her eye, or saw a figure in the distance who looked just like her.

Charlotte tried to ignore these illusions, but they wouldn’t go away.

Although tougher than humans, vampires were not indestructible. They were susceptible to emotion, to the dark underside of reality. For a long time she’d dreaded the bite of Lilith – a threat made by Violette, in her Lilith guise – but when it finally happened, the experience had been both fearsome and ecstatic. It had left her stronger, more clear-minded.

The stabbing had been the opposite, as if it could undo Lilith’s good work. The idea made her angry. Just when she was growing in self-assurance, the wound had thrown her off-balance.

Lilith’s bite was a sharp injection of wisdom, but it was not a miracle cure for all maladies of the soul.

Whatever’s happening to me, I’ll resist
, she thought.
Karl’s warned me often enough that we can take nothing for granted, least of all the caprices of Raqia.

They’d come to Violette’s new premises in Lucerne. The dancer had extended an open invitation, even while she was away.

Karl had several homes, including the chalet they’d abandoned: apartments in Paris, Vienna, and possibly others she didn’t know about. Charlotte wondered what else there was to learn about her vampire lover… But he’d lived for over a hundred and twenty years, so of course he had a past: previous lovers, and experiences both wonderful and terrible that had shaped who he was.

Did she wish he’d met her as an innocent youth who’d never fallen in love until he set eyes upon her? No. He would have been a different person: still beautiful, but shallow. She loved Karl as he was, however dark and complicated. She trusted him. All that truly mattered was trust.

So they could have gone anywhere, but they chose Violette. She was special. Charlotte was the one who’d initiated her from human to vampire, a decision that had brought near disaster. Now she and Karl were bound to the dancer in a thorny tangle.

The theatre was grand, if dilapidated, with a five-storey dance academy attached. The buildings were designed in the curvaceous Art Nouveau style, painted with soft greens and sunset orange. Restoring the facades and interiors to full glory was costing Violette a fortune. Charlotte knew, since she and Karl had made generous contributions.

Last year’s unsettling events had convinced Violette to move from Austria to Switzerland. Lucerne might not be a vast city, but it was popular with tourists, rich with history and gorgeously beautiful.

A fresh start meant a new name. Violette had dropped the name of her previous director, Janacek, and chosen to call the company Ballet Lenoir instead.

She was working manically, touring
Swan Lake, The Firebird
and her own ballet
Witch and Maiden
, almost before her dancers’ toes could touch the ground. On the surface, this made good use of their time while the theatre was being renovated. Underneath, Charlotte knew, Violette used frantic work to drive out grief.

Soon she would return, and the theatre would swarm with set builders, musicians and dancers in preparation for their grand opening.

At present the labyrinthine building stood empty. Charlotte sensed a handful of human staff as specks of warmth in far-off corners. All around her lay deserted rooms, as if she and Karl were the only guests in a vast, derelict hotel.

“Come to me whenever you wish,” Violette had said. “This suite will always be ready for you. And soon it
will
be refurbished to your taste, I promise.”

Charlotte caught her own gaze in the mirror. A shiver passed through her… but her reflection stayed in place. No hallucinations, no ghostly succubus to terrify her. While she’d never been vain, with a non-human eye she could appreciate the beauty that others saw in her: a slender curvy form, complexion like liquid moonlight, innocent violet eyes, a fall of golden-bronze hair… all too useful in snaring her victims.

Movement behind her made her freeze. This time she was very careful to make sure that the new arrival was Karl.

He’d been hunting, returning so discreetly that she hadn’t sensed him until he appeared from the Crystal Ring. She smiled at his reflection, experiencing a rush of sheer delight at seeing him. Most vampires were attractive – useful bait for their prey – but Karl had the loveliest male face she’d ever seen: coolly intelligent, serene and humorous. A face to make the angels fall in love. Strong bone structure, softened by full dark hair that took on a crimson sheen in any touch of light. And his eyes – such eyes should be illegal, she thought. Seductive, bewitching, they were amber-golden windows on to another world.

He took her off guard every time, as if she’d never seen him before. Karl simply had a dark allure that she could drink in forever and never be sated. Every time was like the first, and even more intense for all their precious shared experiences. A glimpse of him was enough to take away her breath, to ignite a sphere of heat that began below her heart and spread all through her. Her desire to wrap her arms around him and taste his mouth was as powerful as hunger.

“Have we been introduced?” he said.

Charlotte laughed. “Do you make a habit of surprising women in a state of undress?”

“This is an unprecedented delight.” He slid his arms around her waist from behind, resting his chin on her shoulder. “You look like Venus rising from the waves.”

He tangled his fingers in her hair with such obvious pleasure that she caught her breath. Her body softened with the sensual intimacy of his touch, and frustration at the layers of fabric between them.

“I don’t make a habit of admiring myself when you’re not here, I swear.”

“No one would blame you.” He ran a fingertip along the knife-scar. His touch made her gasp, not entirely with pleasure. “Does it still hurt?”

“Only slight soreness… but look, the wound’s healed. Sometimes I think it’s a shame our scars don’t stay.”

“For what purpose?” he said, surprised. “As a badge of… dishonour?”

“In a way, but more than that. Scars would be a map of our existence. Our history, engraved on our flesh.”

“Battle scars,” Karl said thoughtfully. “If that were the case, some vampires would be truly horrifying to behold.” He touched his throat. Charlotte’s brother David had once hacked him there with a bayonet in a bold but hopeless attempt to protect her. “After all the fights I had with Kristian and others… I would not be a handsome sight.”

“I’d love you anyway. No one could scar your soul. Well, I suppose they already have, but I love you, scars and all.” She leaned into him, her head resting back in the crook of his shoulder. “Instead, we’re all more beautiful than we deserve, as if we’re melted and poured into a fresh mould every night by the Crystal Ring.”

“Charlotte? Where is this train of thought leading?”

“I was remembering my hallucinations. The lamia. I’m reassuring myself that it’s only me in the looking-glass, and not a separate blood-crazed demon with staring eyes.”

“And what do you see?”

“I think the demon is me,” she said softly. “But I feel as if the knife cut her out of me, so she’s floating about, no longer attached. I know that sounds ridiculous, but Raqia plays games, leaving us to interpret what’s real and what isn’t. Like Violette, thinking she’s Lilith. Or our premonitions, when the three of us… when we saw all those visions together. The unearthly marvels we see every day in the Crystal Ring. They’re real, yet not real. I mean that although they’re visions, they point us towards reality.”

“Riddles,” said Karl. “It’s possible that the knife is an artefact affected by the Crystal Ring. The question is how.”

“You’ve been in Raqia more recently than me. Seen anything… worrying?”

“A few unusual phenomena. Rods of light shooting up from the Earth. Storms, spectres.” He gave a slight shrug. “Nothing coherent.”

“Nothing specifically dangerous aimed at us?”

Karl turned her to face him. His hands slid over her hair, along her cheekbones, gliding down her neck and over her shoulders. She pressed against him, pushing herself into his touch like a cat. Her breathing deepened. Karl responded, his mouth meeting hers, so delicious… The kiss ended too soon.

“Beloved,” he said, “I don’t think the strange moods of Raqia have any conscious intent behind them.”

“Probably not, but we know the collective subconscious affects us. The moods of Raqia, and the knife, and my hallucinations all seem tangled together.
Something
is wrong, but nothing makes sense.”

“We will find those men who attacked you. And answers, I hope. Don’t be melancholy.”

“I’m not.” Her fingers played, loosening his tie and working at his shirt buttons and waistcoat. “But you know me. I never can stop wondering. The attack was so strange and
wrong
. I can’t let this rest. I was a scientist in life, and I still am.”

“Yes, beloved. Always,” he whispered.

“And so are you. Furthermore, you play the cello better than I ever shall, with your miraculous fingers…”

When she’d been a very proper, studious model of virtue – only a few years ago – Karl had lured her into this secret world of passion, but he’d done so with such subtle, irresistible tenderness that she’d never felt they were doing anything wrong. In a society where unmarried intimacy was scandalous, the need for secrecy had made it all the more exciting.

In her own heart, their forbidden relationship had been the most natural thing in the world. The paradox between her duty to appear virtuous, and the reality of their hidden affair, had been unspeakably thrilling.

Until she’d discovered that Karl was a vampire, and the world had collapsed around her.

Not all the pieces could be picked up… but she and Karl still had the one thing that truly mattered: their mutual, obsessive love.

Now their hands slid over each other, caressing smooth milky skin, no area out of bounds. He raised her hand to his mouth, kissed her knuckles then ran the tip of his tongue over each one in turn. Her whole body clenched tight with bliss. Her head fell back. Always, always this heat swept over her, as if they couldn’t help but flow together like molten gold. Even when they were maintaining a decorous distance in public, the magnetic pull was there.

Other vampires joked that they could see it: a shared aura, like strands of glowing plasma between them.

She moved his hand to her breast, pressing herself into the warmth of his palm, then drew that hand all down the length of her body to the sweet ache where her thighs joined. Karl gave the softest gasp as his fingers felt gently, deliciously into her. The intimacy made her nearly swoon with joy.

With her free hand, she worked at his clothing until, smiling, he helped her.

“The faster we try to undress, the more everything gets into a tangle,” she breathed against his throat.

He laughed. At last he pressed against her, clothed in nothing but his smooth ivory skin: all hard flat muscle, like a dancer, but warm with stolen blood. His hair brushed her shoulders as he bent to kiss her neck. She felt the teasing touch of his fangs. Entwined fingers, hair, limbs… So exciting, the contrast between Karl as the self-contained perfect gentleman, and this secret Karl, uninhibited and sensual and ardent.

She was delirious. Nothing mattered except to feel him inside her, where he belonged, his swollen, eager flesh enveloped in hers, the pulsing focus of all heat, all the wordless passion in the universe.

He lifted her, with her legs wrapped around his hips, on to the bed. He made her wait, sliding lightly and teasingly just where she ached the most, and then he showed her mercy.

The feeling was pure heaven. And he knew how to draw out the sensations, playing, tormenting her, until she was in a different state of consciousness, flying through a cloud of bliss that built higher and hotter towards the ultimate peak… so slow, so exquisite, she almost did not want the journey to end but it must, she couldn’t contain this swelling knot of fire any longer…

All those feelings were washed away by a sudden horrible sensation: a silver river drenching her from head to foot, like mercury: heavy, toxic and icy cold. The room spun. She was suddenly
nowhere
, lost in a snowstorm or in the lethal cold of the
Weisskalt
. Her only clear impression was of a white shape oozing from her, as if she were an amoeba splitting in two.

Her ghost-double, the lamia, rose over the bed and floated, gazing down at her from above. Time stopped. The nightmare moment went on forever.

“Charlotte? What’s wrong?”

Karl’s voice shocked her back to reality. She pushed him away and sat up. Couldn’t think or speak or breathe. As their bodies disengaged she was left feeling empty, hot and slippery and unfulfilled.

Karl grasped her upper arms, looking alarmed. She was confused, unsure of what she’d seen. What
he
had seen.

“I don’t know,” she whispered. “Why did you stop?”

He was breathing hard, making a visible effort to calm himself. “You went deathly white and cold,” he said. “You were shaking, pushing me away. Your eyes were blank. Love, you haven’t fed enough and I didn’t even ask…”

“No, it’s not that. Did you see… did you see the ghost come out of me again?”

He shook his head. “I don’t think so. Only some mist that might have been anything. Steam from the bathroom drifting through the moonlight? Charlotte, beloved, it’s all right. There’s nothing there.”

She gave a low growl of exasperation, stared into his feverish eyes.

“What if the poison is still in my blood?” she said. “I daren’t risk infecting you!”

“If you have some contagion, I’d happily share it,” he responded.

“Don’t say that. I can’t risk contaminating you, even for love.”

“Dear heart, I’m sure you’re not ‘contaminated’ in any way. But if you feel… I don’t know that ‘unwell’ is the right term, but I don’t think you’ve fully recovered. I should have realised, before we went this far.”