The Dark Blood of Poppies (65 page)

Shuddering violently, she turned her face away and said, “Just do it.”

He stopped. Lilith was also Violette, forcing herself with every mote of her formidable will through a nightmare. He couldn’t comprehend what it cost her, to put herself at his mercy. She was all willpower and defiance. But behind the glaze was a frightened, human girl, whose dread filled him with sorrow.

“No,” he said. “You’re still expecting me to violate you, and I won’t. Come here.” He sat her up with her back to him, and began to stroke her shoulders. She remained tense under his hands. “Unless you can bear me to touch you, there is no point. Has no man ever treated you with tenderness?”

“Never.”

“Then life has been cruel to you, but we are not all cruel.”

She spoke in a low voice. “I hated and feared my father, but I didn’t
want
to hate him. I danced on Janacek’s grave, but I felt no pleasure. I drank Lancelyn’s blood, but I didn’t want to! They all forced me to fear them. I can’t forgive that. I believe some part of me even wanted to love them. So why, if they couldn’t treat me kindly, if they could only bully and abuse me, why couldn’t they leave me alone?”

“Control,” said Karl. “Possession. And I agree with you, it isn’t love.”

“I don’t require you to love me,” she said. “You despise me, so don’t pretend. I’d rather have honesty.”

“Look at me,” he said. She looked sideways over her shoulder. As if she’d passed the peak of fear, she leaned into him. His hands slid over her long, flat stomach. The tension between them was formidable, their words running together like the heat and rhythm of sex. “I never hated you,” said Karl. “All I feel for you now is tenderness. All I’ll show you is tenderness. If you can read the truth in people’s faces, you must believe me.”

“I thought I could bear it with Lancelyn, but at the last moment I couldn’t, because like all men he only thought of himself. His urges, his ambition.”

“Too many make that mistake, but I learned long ago always to put my lover before myself. That isn’t pride, Violette. Simply the way things should be.”

“Your hands feel nice,” she said. “Gentle.”

“When we become vampires, being male or female loses its meaning. We change. Our desires become the same. We are outside the human race but we grow ever closer to one another. So, can you see nothing feminine in me? Nothing you can forgive?”

She almost smiled. “Don’t ask too much.”

“But how can there be transformation, unless we both lose ourselves to pleasure, and to the darkness?”

“Oh,” she whispered, her eyes intense. “Oh, you do understand.”

“And you will be in control, so there’s nothing to fear.” Karl lifted and turned her to sit on his thighs with her legs around his waist.

Of her own accord, she slid forward, clasped her hands behind his neck, and kissed him. The kiss was electrifying. After a moment, her tongue quested hesitantly into his mouth. Desire surged, a sword of crimson heat, a weight drawing him breathless towards the edge of a chasm. He thought of Charlotte as the ritual drew him past the point of no return.

He found the moist folds within the soft hair between her thighs, stroked her there. She caught her breath. Ending the kiss, she rose up to guide him. Now he was poised against the tender portal. She lowered herself, easing onto him until he felt the tight flesh yield; and she slid onto him, and he was inside her.

Violette gasped. Her eyes were glazed sapphires, blank but for a faint etching of anxiety. He clasped her head, made her look at him.

Something changed. A new current flowed between their eyes. A rueful kind of acceptance; he couldn’t define the feeling, but it came with an intense mutual wave of compassion. They shared this with tenderness as intense as grief.

They sat still. Enveloped in her fire, Karl was suspended between peace and the divine ache of need. The moment was golden, wrapped in sorcery.

Words from another time unspooled a filament of dread.
Those who dare to unveil the Black Goddess receive wisdom, or madness, or death…

Violette’s arms glided over his back. Karl dropped his head and they clung together hard, almost weeping, overwhelmed, as if mortal enemies clung together in a shipwreck: the only survivors.

As they embraced, she began to move tentatively against him. If somehow he could feel nothing, if he could let the pleasure be solely hers, perhaps that would absolve him… impossible. Trails of exquisite fire spread upwards to his throat and the tips of his fangs.

Violette stared at him, her palms resting on his back. She showed no emotion, no discomfort; only detached curiosity, as if she were thinking,
So this is the mystery.

The sensations were burning now, excruciatingly sweet, building by degrees as Karl forced himself to hold back and let her have her way. Her warmth and her subtle perfumes wove around him. Her presence engaged all his senses.

Violette. She was lovely, so lovely.

Then something happened. She gasped. Her face tautened and flushed, her gliding movements grew stronger and more insistent. He smiled to see her ambushed by her own capacity for pleasure; her complete amazement.

Blue-black energy ignited around them, softly sparkling. Their tension became incandescent. Karl’s consciousness slipped, as if he’d entered Violette’s mind, and she his. They undulated together in a dark, infernal realm, serpents swaying to a primal drumbeat.

Abruptly she pushed him back, making him lie flat. Kneeling astride him, hands on his shoulders, she thrust onto him with increasing intensity. Her face was savage.

Karl closed his eyes. In an agony of need and pleasure he surrendered, letting her sweep him towards the fire…

He
was
Violette. Her emotions crowded into him: her earlier dread, the instinct that nevertheless forced her down this dark path – and then a softening, a trust of Karl’s gentleness, enabling her to follow Lilith’s quest to its end.

Then the unexpected, devastating surge of lust. She had expected a mechanical act. Not this. Wonderful beyond description. And essential… Without mutual pleasure, the rite would be for nothing.

And behind everything rose her true self, Lilith. As hungry and accurate in her flight as a horned owl.

Now the anguish of bliss held them both, too much to bear. Karl opened his eyes and saw her above him. He witnessed her eyelids falling shut, her face contorted. Then her whole body went into spasm and she cried out, head falling back to expose her long throat.

Her rapture brought him to the edge. He spilled over, all sensations converging to a searing, perfect, fire-tipped arrow of release.

It seemed to go on forever, unwinding into the darkness.

He seized her arms by reflex to drag her down towards him – but she was already swooping, her lips drawn back, fangs fully extended. The pain as she struck was as violent as a second orgasm. Somehow, out of his mind, Karl twisted his face into her neck and found a vein.

Her blood was a wave of light; indigo, garnet-red, sharp as silver, intoxicating. His pleasure surged again, unending. Lilith caught him, flung him spiralling into the realm of visions.

In the ring of blood-crystal, toothed serpents mated.

They were equals, their joy and love untainted by subjugation. A woman and a man, entwining like bejewelled snakes. The goddess and her consort.

Rain fell. Wheat ripened. Red rain… blood spilled upon the earth, running between the ploughed furrows.

Blood gushed from the mother-goddess as she laboured to deliver new life. The blood of her consort, the sacrificed king, flowed out in emulation of her magic.

Rain washed the blood into the earth. Saplings sprang up, becoming a dense forest as time flowed at manic speed.

And then a woman was running through the forest, pursued by faceless hunters. Her hair was wild, her face wrought with fear, anger and terrible knowledge.

They caught her. They burned her alive.

Karl writhed, feeling the flames on his skin, sharing her agony.

Lilith’s rage flared brighter than the flames. She burst out of the fire and soared into the sky like a meteor.

Never again
, she vowed.
I’ll hide in darkness. I’ll come to you in nightmares. Deny me, reject me, use all your power to destroy me, I’ll still be waiting for you at the end of all. No man, however righteous, has yet escaped the judgement of the Crone, the Black Goddess of death…

The vision ended.

Violette collapsed on Karl’s chest, breaking the circle of blood. Her hair spilled over his arms. He put his arms around her and held her.

Presently she looked at him with solemn eyes. “This isn’t finished,” she said.

“I know.”

“We’ve lifted the veil, but we’re still on the threshold. We need the courage to go inside… to look full on the face of the Black Goddess. We need light.”

Karl sat up, lifting her with him. He had not died, and wasn’t sure that he’d received wisdom either… He realised he could see, and that the room had changed. Although still dark, there were definite features and dimensions. He felt a carpet beneath him, and saw the bulky shadows of a wardrobe, a dresser, chairs, a large bed.

A hint of Regency elegance and lush fabrics; the resemblance to the guest room he’d once occupied at Parkland Hall was uncanny. The bedroom where he had first seduced Charlotte… but that was impossible.

So
, he thought,
does this mean the remaining possibility – that I’ve gone mad?

“We should find somewhere more comfortable to talk,” he said.

“Talk?” Violette blinked at him. Her eyes were magnificent. “You always want to talk, but it won’t help us now.”

She rose and went to the bed. Karl watched the pale curves of her hips and buttocks, closed his eyes briefly. He felt warmth for her, but said nothing. To express the feeling was pointless, and a deeper betrayal of Charlotte that he could never make. Violette showed him no affection and seemed to expect none in return.

He thought,
Where can this lead
?
Of course, if we can’t escape and I never see Charlotte again, it’s academic. But if we do… Too late to undo this. We have not merely lifted the veil but rent it, and it can never be repaired.

“We need…” Violette whispered, pulling back the bed covers. Karl went to lie beside her on the clean white sheets. A blade of grey light fell through the curtains, but he had no desire to see what lay outside: the Earth, the Crystal Ring, or limbo. He still feared that Violette would regret what they had done, but when he put his arms around her she relaxed against him.

“Give me your blood again,” she said. He lacked the will to object. He simply lay still as she lapped softly at his throat.
Too late now
, he thought, caressing her wondrous hair.

Has she changed me? I don’t know… but nothing can be the same after this.

Karl felt visions of blood, flight and rejection crawling through the back of his mind, a pressure that must be released before the spell would break. But what more was there to do? He had encountered the Death Goddess. Now he lay with her in his arms and was not afraid. All he wanted was to sink into her rose-red core again, and if he died there, if he went mad, he didn’t care.

Violette raised her head. “We need light,” she said again.

He kissed his own blood from her lips.

“Wait,” she whispered. “We need Charlotte.”

* * *

A profound sense of ceremony permeated the castle. Werner felt proud, excited and nervous, like a soldier going into battle. The same look blazed in the eyes of the young men all around him.

The meeting chamber was ablaze with torch-flames. The air was hot, golden, smoky, sweltering with the heat of mortal excitement. Ten minutes to midnight; the transformation was imminent. Soon Werner and his comrades would no longer be novices but initiates, steeped in the mysteries of the Crystal Ring.

Werner thought of his mother. John had tried to stamp her out, but he still kept a small shrine for her in his mind.
If only she could see me now, how proud she would be!

It did not occur to him that she might have been horrified. He saw nothing but perfection in immortals.

The vampires, all dressed in scarlet satin, were awe-inspiring, like fallen angels in cardinals’ robes. The humans were in white. Empty vessels to be filled, Cesare said.

Gathered in two separate groups, they waited for Cesare to enter. Werner’s eyes were moist, his breath shallow. No one said a word. Vampire thirst pressed on the air as heavily as the novices’ apprehension.

There was a stir. The Leader, at last! Cesare entered, flanked by Simon and John, all three in red. Their arrival generated a bow-wave of power; solid, certain, absolute.

A cheer rose as Cesare seated himself in the ebony throne.

Werner saw him as a vessel of pure light, a prophet, a messiah. Such love shone from his silver eyes!

Werner was overwhelmed.
Under such leadership
, he thought,
I shall want for nothing, I’ll never stumble and fall. This is the first day of the future, a new world, for ever and ever.
Moisture gathered and spilled from his eyes as Cesare raised his hands and began to speak. Simon and John, standing on either side, were smiling as Werner had never seen them smile before.

“Some news, my friends, before we begin,” said Cesare. “For too long, our brotherhood has laboured in the shadow of the Enemy, Lilith. Lives have been lost in the fight against her. However, tonight… It’s my joy to inform you that threat is over. Lilith came here tonight, as predicted. John, Simon and I overpowered her, bound and destroyed her. She surrendered because she knew –” Cesare had to shout over the exuberant swell of voices “– she knew that her time is over! God was with us and we did His will. All of you helped defeat the Enemy through your devotion! And now the future is ours.”

An explosion of cheering; Werner shouted himself hoarse. How terrible that day had been when Lilith invaded the castle. This news was almost unbelievable, the end of a nightmare.

With a gesture, the Leader instantly changed the mood to one of solemnity.