Winter drifted down on Salzburg, an ermine cloak pricked by the black of church spires and treetops. Steel clouds pressed down. Icy gales blew off the Alps, whipping the world to pearl-grey nothingness.
Through the storm, Lilith brought them safely home.
Karl’s skin was as white as Fyodor’s as Charlotte helped him to a chaise longue in Violette’s apartment. She offered him her wrist, and he was so famished that he didn’t even try to refuse. How bitter-sweet, to cradle his head and kiss his dark, red-sheened hair, to be clamped to him by pain, his need pulling at her veins, pulling her into himself.
Violette paced behind them, as if restless to be somewhere else. “I don’t want thanks,” she said, businesslike. “I don’t want to discuss it.”
Nothing’s changed, Charlotte thought sadly. She rescues us but there’s still no reconciliation!
“But why did you save us?” Charlotte asked, exasperated.
“How could I not?” Violette exclaimed, as if that were sufficient explanation. “Do you still think I have any reason to fear Cesare? I could have snapped his neck. And if he comes near my ballet again – I will. God help me, I will.”
Charlotte gently stopped Karl feeding before he weakened her. He let her go without protest and sat back, clasping her hand to his chest.
“Cesare’s strength comes from Simon and John,” said Karl. “He would be nothing without them. But Cesare’s zeal is what holds them together. What kind of immortals his human flock will make, I dread to think. I don’t think they’ll be… ordinary.”
“You mean the Crystal Ring will have unpredictable effects on them, as it did to Simon and –” Charlotte thought better of adding, Violette. “And John?”
“Possibly. Or their fanaticism gives them unnatural strength. The pure power of will. Perhaps it’s the same thing. All I suggest, Violette, is that you don’t take for granted that you are untouchable.”
Violette became still. Charlotte glimpsed her inner pain.
“The time will come, I know,” Violette said quietly. “Until then I must be left alone to complete Witch and Maiden. I’ll protect you, if you help me protect my dancers against that fiend. But I must produce one last ballet!”
Violette refused to talk any more. Instead, Charlotte took Karl outside in the snowstorm to hunt. There was no one to see them in the whirling gloom, but on a mountain path behind the house, near walls of a monastery, they met a young novice monk.
Charlotte let Karl take the prey alone, watching with tears of desire in her eyes. After a time, unable to stop herself, she clamped her lips to the other side of the boy’s throat. She and Karl held each other through a crimson storm as the boy died between them.
All through the feast, Violette’s words hung in her mind.
One last ballet.
Afterwards, Karl fell to his knees in the snow as if in despair. Charlotte knelt beside him, her head on his shoulder. Both were shuddering with the sensual aftermath and stark awareness of what they’d done. No need to speak. The snow swiftly made the corpse an amorphous cocoon.
As they walked back to the house, Karl said, “Well, this has taught us our limitations, at least. Violette may be able to defy Cesare, but you and I cannot.”
He seemed his normal self again. Charlotte was inexpressibly relieved. In a way she loved the exquisite tenderness of caring for him, yet to see him vulnerable distressed her.
“Will Cesare and Simon leave us alone, from fear of Violette?” she asked. “Or will it make them angrier?”
“As Violette said, the time will come,” he sighed.
“What did she mean, ‘one last ballet’?”
Karl shook his head. “If only we could vanish and live quietly, like Stefan or Rachel…”
“I wish we could, too,” Charlotte sighed. “But we can’t.”
“We steal life to live,” said Karl, “yet we still hold the principle of protecting life against tyranny. Who can fathom us? Well, we’re not allowed to thank Violette, but…” He took Charlotte’s hand and kissed the inside of her wrist where his fang-marks were fading.
“Beloved,” he said softly, “thank you.”
* * *
When the blizzards abated, the sun appeared as a pale yolk in a blue eggshell, and the town glittered under a crust of sugar. Children skated on the river. Enthusiastic tourists, muffled against the cold, were everywhere, taking photographs.
Karl watched them with pleasure, with detached, dual appreciation of them as objects of fascination and as potential prey. How lovely, the Austrian winter.
Violette had ensured that all traces of the fire were obliterated. Builders and carpenters worked flat-out for Madame Lenoir. Damage was repaired, walls scrubbed clean and repainted, inside and out. New doors with stronger locks, fire escapes and alarms were installed. Extra seamstresses were taken on to replace destroyed costumes. Then Violette brought her corps de ballet and staff home, continued rehearsals for Witch and Maiden as if nothing had happened. The fire, she told everyone, was an accident.
But the acrid smell of smoke lingered, and the atmosphere, Karl noticed, had changed. Joyful innocence had gone. Everyone was serious, loyal, and driven.
In the studio, the dancers wore woollen leggings and took greater care to warm up before rehearsal. Violette wanted no pulled muscles if the ballet was to open in early spring.
Karl and Charlotte had little to do but watch over the household, to cast their senses wide for human or vampire threats. Karl thought Fyodor might return to complain of Simon’s heartlessness, but no one came.
Whether Cesare was too nervous to attack, or trying to make Violette complacent, Karl was unsure.
He’d lived too long to fall prey to prosaic boredom; but all the same, he wished they were not bound here by a sense of duty. He longed to leave Cesare to his games, take Charlotte far away and forget it all. But for Charlotte’s sake, from love and loyalty and knowledge of what was right, Karl stayed.
“There’s only one way to end Witch and Maiden,” Violette said one day. “Anna and Siegfried trick Lila. Pretending to make up their quarrel, they invite her into their cottage, where she is trapped and killed. Children reunited with mother; everyone lives happily ever after. And a glorious death scene, of course.”
“Sounds wonderful,” Charlotte said, but gave Karl a dubious look.
Later, as he and Charlotte walked through wind-sculpted white streets towards the old town, Karl said, “The ballet is about Lilith, is it not? Lila is the witch and outcast, as Violette sees herself.”
“That’s what she told me,” said Charlotte.
“Then you can read her fate in the ending she’s chosen.”
Charlotte looked sideways at him, her eyes large with anxiety. “In what way?”
“She isn’t going to fight Cesare and Simon. She doesn’t want to win. She wants, or thinks she deserves, to die. The last ballet, a blaze of glory, then…”
Charlotte said nothing for a long time.
“And an enemy trapped by a pretence of love?” she whispered eventually. Worst betrayal of all. Ghosts of Kristian and Katerina flickered between them. “Does she fear that from us?”
“Yes. I think that’s why she sometimes provokes us so severely. Prophecy fulfilled.”
“Why is she like this?” Charlotte asked softly. “Josef’s explanation was plausible, but it doesn’t ring true. There’s something more.” She caught Karl’s arm. “How did Lilith and Simon become as they are? Could it happen to us, if we let it?”
“Beloved, don’t.”
“Perhaps it’s already happened, and we’re just playing out some role for the Crystal Ring.”
“Or are we playing a role, simply in being vampires?” Karl said thoughtfully. “No, I don’t accept it. Saying free will is an illusion is like believing in Simon’s and Kristian’s God. It negates our independence, which would leave us no will to fight.”
And in the bright crisp day he felt darkness; the crushing machinery of fanaticism rumbling towards them, like the dark tumour in the Crystal Ring.
There are ways to flee, or surrender, or die, Karl thought; but no way to win.
* * *
As Ireland’s lush hills rose around her, as soft as cloaks, Robyn kept asking herself, What am I doing here?
Sebastian had his arm around her, but she was cold. He insisted on making the last stage of the journey on foot and she’d never before felt so invaded by the elements. Wind, mist, drizzle: at least it wasn’t snowing – yet. Dusk faded through thick layers of cloud. The landscape was saturated, brooding, mystically silent.
He’d travelled the Atlantic with her from Boston to Cork. She hadn’t expected his company. She knew he could move invisibly through some mysterious ether, so why was he on board the ship? He often disappeared on the voyage, and she knew he was drinking the blood of some poor passenger or crew member. The number of unexplained illnesses had been alarming.
This disturbed her terribly. When he came to her, she knew what he’d been doing… yet there was no clue in his appearance or his manner. He was composed, elegant in his mildly bohemian way, with the same candid, affectionate light in his eyes. Perhaps a faint flush of colour in his cheeks. And Robyn still couldn’t resist him. Her own sinful knowledge almost unhinged her at times.
They travelled on false documents that Sebastian had obtained with no apparent difficulty. Robyn was now an Irish Bostonian called Maeve O’Neill. Vampires, it seemed, could seduce whatever they needed out of humans: blood, money or forgery. Now no one could trace them… Not a comforting thought, Robyn reflected.
Everything must be done in secret.
“After we disembark at Cobh,” Sebastian had said, “no one will see us together. I shall disappear. Go and eat, then at dusk hire a car to Lismore in County Waterford. I’ll meet you there.”
“Where, exactly?”
“I’ll find you,” he said, smiling.
Uneasy, she did as he said. At Cobh harbour she found a garage with a garrulous, obliging driver willing to chauffeur her anywhere. She ate lunch in a public house, then passed the time wandering along the waterfront, gazing at the charming houses and the great silver-grey cathedral.
She had expected Ireland to feel like home, but it was a foreign country, she realised as the car carried her along narrow roads. The trees were leafless, but the pasturelands were a rich saturated green, the air like iced honey. They drove past low, white-washed cottages where she saw old men leaning on half-doors to watch the motor car go by, saw children’s faces in windows no bigger than handkerchiefs.
Time and again they had to stop for slow traffic. Horse riders, bright carts drawn by donkeys, herds of cattle; everyone had all the time in the world. Robyn saw a girl in long skirts, carrying a baby in a shawl. She carried herself like a princess, not a peasant.
In the distance, the mountains were grape-blue against a vast sky.
The driver kept up a running commentary all the way, but Robyn was listening to something else. Music in an eerie key, emanating from the land itself.
They turned a corner and she saw a great castle poised on a forested rock. The castle floated on darkness like the moon, remote, enigmatic, silvered by the last trace of light. Its flanks fell, fold on fold, into the black-sapphire depths of a river.
“What is that?” Robyn gasped.
“Lismore Castle.”
“Let me out here.”
“Are ye sure? Is it not the town you’re wanting?”
“No, here. I’m being met. It’s all right.” She gave him a large amount of money, enough to make his eyes stretch. “A little extra, to tell no one you brought me here.”
The driver nodded and tipped his cap knowingly.
The car had barely turned and driven away, leaving her on the roadside by a wooded shoulder of rock, when Sebastian appeared beside her. She was relieved, and scared. It had taken two hours to travel thirty miles.
“It’s a long walk, but there’s no other way to reach Blackwater Hall without anyone knowing. It’s easy for me to come and go, but not for you.”
“I’m out of my mind,” she murmured. “I’m alone with a vampire, and no one in the world has the remotest idea where I’ve gone.”
Sebastian did not reply.
He took her past the castle, over a bridge to the far bank of the river, and into a dew-drenched field. The ground rose slowly. Robyn was soon out of breath, but Sebastian seemed disinclined to let her rest. He led her through a copse studded with rocks and treacherous hollows; she could barely see, but he guided her surely. They walked for three hours. The moon peeped through the clouds and the landscape changed subtly. Its contours were mellower, sure sign of man’s intervention. There were sweeps of grass, magnificent lone trees, copses, a lake and river gleaming like milk in the vaporous gloom.
“We’re on the estate now.” Sebastian sounded excited. “You’ll see the house in a moment.”
Must be quite wonderful, thought Robyn.
They came around the skirt of a hill and there it stood: a great mansion, broodingly desolate and ugly. Three storeys with tall imposing windows, a soaring pillared portico. The walls were mottled and crumbling. The windows, fogged like cataracts with dirt, stared indifferently at long-neglected gardens and stables.
Robyn couldn’t speak for disappointment. What a hideous pile! Just as well she didn’t put this thought into words. Sebastian was clearly enraptured.
“Was this your home?”
“I never lived in it,” he said, “and I don’t legally own it. After I left – vanished, undoubtedly wanted for murdering my wife and her lover – the Hall was confiscated and given to some English Protestant family. But I built it. I still feel it’s mine. It is mine.”
He led her across a weed-infested drive and through an archway with carriage houses and storerooms on either side. The arch gave onto a courtyard overlooked by rows of grim windows. Sebastian led her to a small door of thick, aged wood. “The house hasn’t been lived in since 1864. The last owner was an eccentric bachelor who left no progeny. So the distant relatives who inherited the place care nothing for it. Daren’t even come here. Strange folk, that family.”
He lifted the latch and the door swung open. Inside was a huge grim kitchen with floor-to-ceiling cupboards, a black range, a cracked sink full of debris; fallen plaster, broken glass, leaves, rust, cobwebs.
“It’s colder inside than out,” she said, hugging herself.
He turned away with a faint look of disapproval. “No one’s touched this place for over sixty years. When the bachelor died, the executors locked it up and left.” He went to the kitchen table, took matches from his pocket and lit candles in a branching candlestick that was more black oxide than silver.
“I shall have to get oil for the lamps,” he said. “I forget humans need light, because we don’t. But we find it pleasant.”
He picked up the candelabrum and turned away. She followed him, shivering, through a narrow passageway. “How often do you come here?”
“Once a year, once every ten years, as the whim takes me.”
“But you think of this as home?”
He glanced at her with a wry smile. Candlelight gave his face sinister illumination. “I’m the ghost, dear. I was the reason the family moved out.”
They emerged into a square hallway with a stairwell looming up into the shadows. As Sebastian led her up the first flight, candle flames threw a spectral glow over dust-covered banisters, wooden panelling, portraits in thick gold frames on discoloured walls. On the half-landing, light gleamed on the treacly wood of twin double doors. Sebastian opened the left-hand door and ushered Robyn into the room beyond.
A cavernous space opened around her; a room of eerie grandeur with a ceiling of carved and painted plaster, two storeys high. An impressive fireplace at the far end was surmounted by a coat of arms. Two rows of long windows filled the right-hand wall, one above the other, the lower ones hung with dusty-red velvet curtains. Faded rugs lay on bare floorboards. She saw a full-sized billiard table covered by a sheet, glass cases full of posed dead animals. One, directly in front of her, contained a huge crocodile skull. All along the walls were the antlered heads of stags, staring out with black marble eyes. And countless dark portraits of ancestors, fixing their painted gazes on hers.
“This is the salon,” said Sebastian. “Or the madman’s museum.” Placing the candle holder on a table, he began to light more candles around the chamber. She walked slowly through the great room, fascinated and repulsed by this surfeit of taxidermy. Case after case of finches, owls, birds of prey, and gulls lined the walls; and then mammals, reptiles, amphibians. Astonished, she forgot everything else. Then she came upon butterflies. Even in half-darkness they glowed with preternatural intensity, sulphur-yellow, electric blue, iridescent green… faerie creatures pinned in rows.
She opened the drawer of a cabinet and found scores of monstrous beetles attached to cards.
“Sebastian.”
He didn’t answer. He was brushing dust from a display case. The dust, though thick, was nothing compared to the grime of the kitchen. It struck her that this place had not been entirely neglected for sixty years. Someone had looked after it.
She circled the room, finding new treasure in every cabinet: shells, minerals, fossils, birds’ eggs. The journey was haunted, grotesque, filled with the whispering of all the unknown lives on the walls above her, a thousand eyes watching from the darkness. And the vampire in black, his face lit from below by wavering flames, his pale hands resting on the dark glass; expressionless, aloof, his lowered eyelids forming two black crescents against the fine skin. Death in repose.
When she came to his side, she looked through the glass that he’d cleaned and saw hundreds of ancient coins on bottle-green velvet.
“Who brought all this here? Not you?”
Sebastian was contemplative, as if he’d forgotten she was there. Perhaps he wished he was alone.
“Not me. The whole family was eccentric. The last one to live here was an obsessive collector.”
“So all these things were left here when he died?”
He nodded. “And after his heirs deserted, I decided to look after the place a little.”
He walked away. Robyn followed. He looked completely at home here. She could imagine him in sombre Victorian clothes, or in an eighteenth-century tailcoat, white lace at his wrists, drifting from room to room; the solitary lord of the manor, eternally in possession, while the other inhabitants were mere tenants – and knew it. She imagined their insecurity, their paranoia. A woman’s voice, low and frightened.
“He was there again in the library, Father. I didn’t see him but I felt him. This house is so cold. It hates us!”
Now Robyn was the one who felt utterly out of place.
Another double door led to a drawing room that was insistently golden; wallpaper, frames, curtains, the scrolled woodwork of chairs, all gold. Sebastian pulled off dustsheets to reveal chairs lush with needlepoint roses, tapestry stools and fire screens. Too many ornaments: clocks, statuettes, stuffed birds under glass domes, black onyx elephants. More glass cases filled with shining semi-precious stones. More paintings and huge mirrors rimmed with gilt.
“This is how the family left it,” said Sebastian. “I rarely move anything.”
He led her through a library with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, a fireplace flanked by two chaises longues, paintings of racehorses on the walls. Beyond lay a snug, a room more ugly than cosy with its green wallpaper mouldering and falling away, its velvet hangings turning grey with age. There were cabinets full of porcelain that Robyn guessed was priceless.
“The family’s taste was lamentable,” Sebastian murmured. “The house is not as I would have had it, but after all this time it would seem sacrilegious to change anything.”
He led her in a circuit through a grand dining room with marble pillars, a smaller breakfast room, and back to the salon. Everywhere was the same decaying grandeur. The house smelled of damp and mildew, emanating a dank chill that seeped into her bones.
She would rather have settled in the gilded drawing room, which had a semblance of homeliness, but Sebastian seemed to favour the salon. Standing in front of the fireplace, he faced Robyn and removed her hairpins so her hair fell loose over her shoulders.
“There are old clothes here, too. I hate modern clothing. I’ll find you something to wear, a tight bodice and long skirts…”
Her throat went dry. She looked into his eyes, which glowed intently under his soft dark hair. His hands were firm on her shoulders. “So I can’t run away?”
A shadow creased his brow. “Why would you be wanting to run away?”
“Just a joke. It’s quite… extraordinary here.”
“I’m glad you think so.” He glanced at the wedding-cake ceiling. “By the way, don’t go upstairs for the time being.”
“Why not? Will I find the skeletons of other women you’ve brought here?” Her attempt at grim wit didn’t seem remotely funny. Fear clenched a fist round her throat. No joke at all. Sebastian could tell any lie, assume any disguise.
He seemed distracted. He didn’t react to her remark, and his attention was still on the room.
“You are the first and only person I’ve brought here,” he said softly. “If you want to go up, you can. I’ve done no work upstairs, so you’ll find it damp, dirty and generally unpleasant. That is all.”
“Worse than down here?”
She realised that the easiest way to offend him was to insult the house. “I appreciate that this is not the luxury you’re used to,” he responded icily.
She was afraid, and then she was angry. “Do you intend us to stay here?”
He let his hands fall away from her shoulders. “Yes.”
“How do you expect me to live? Is there any food here?”
“Of course not. I have no need of it.”
“Well, I can’t live on air, nor on –” She couldn’t say the word, blood. “Is there a village nearby?”
“Four miles away. But you can’t be seen coming and going, and we can’t ask tradesmen to call because we’re not meant to be here.”
“Otherwise you’d be happy for me to walk eight miles to fetch the milk, is that it?” she gasped. “For pity’s sake, Sebastian, there is no water!”
“There’s a well in the garden.”
“You’re not listening. There is no functioning plumbing at all, is there? Human beings have certain inconvenient requirements, in case you’d forgotten. You may have dispensed with them, but I haven’t!”
He looked straight at her. “Then find a suitable receptacle, and acquire the habit of feeding the roses. I don’t care what arrangements you make.”
Robyn was close to hitting him. “Why do we have to stay here at all? You could take me to a hotel!”
“But I love this house.”
“What does that make me? Another ornament for your collection? You could have me stuffed and put in one of those cases, all your problems solved!”
He turned away. “I’m tempted.” His callousness stabbed her. “You don’t have to stay, Robyn. Leave. Straight down the drive, turn right; the villagers will point you in the direction of Cork.”
“I’m tired,” she said. “My feet hurt. I’m cold. If you can’t say anything helpful, at least let me make a fire. Don’t tell me: we can’t have a fire because someone might see the smoke?”
He exhaled. “I always have a fire. If anyone comes… well, it won’t be the first time. I set their minds at rest and send them away.” His tone was sinister. “Didn’t you notice the logs on the hearth?”
“If they’re not too damp to light.” She went down on her haunches, pushed her coat sleeves back, and picked up a log. Dust blackened her hands. “The least you can do is help me! Are those newspapers to light it?”
Sebastian crouched beside her, very close. He took her face between his hands and kissed her.
“Beloved child, I’m only teasing. I can’t resist it. But you’re right, I am a fool; I’d forgotten that humans don’t live on… air. Will you forgive me?”
“Will you bring me something to eat?”
“Of course. I don’t want you to leave. Forgive me.”
He crumpled up brittle sheets of old newspaper – with headlines about Lloyd George’s treaty with Ireland – and piled logs on top. Damp or not, the wood caught light magically for him. Sparks flew, scarlet light danced. And at last she felt warmth brush her palms. Unfastening her coat, she knelt on the hearth rug and watched the fire blossoming.
Sebastian knelt beside her. Sliding his arm under her hair, he kissed her again, deeply and tenderly, his tongue tasting hers and lighting the nerves all through her body; simply went on kissing her until she turned fluid, like mercury.
“Well?” he said, after a time.
“You’re forgiven,” she said, “conditionally.”
He stood up, lifting her with him. “Depending on my future good behaviour? Stay here and keep warm while I’m gone. I have been many things but never a grocery boy.”
“But it’s the middle of the night!”
“So? I don’t want anyone to see me. I’ll take what we need and leave the money. They’ll think the faerie folk have been a-visiting. Now, what would please you?”
“I’ll make a list,” she said grimly.
While Sebastian was away, she sat huddled on the edge of the hearth, aware of the age and immensity of the mansion around her. She longed for her cosy home in Boston. Perfect madness to come here.
I’ve never been the same since the first time he… she rubbed her neck, where many wounds had opened and healed. Do I love him? Is this what it feels like? Am I sitting in this godforsaken hole for love?
Half an hour passed. She was bored and uneasy, an unpleasant combination. She tried to sleep but couldn’t; too many dead eyes were staring at her. Everywhere she looked were birds, mammals, painted humans, all dead and staring in accusation.
I wonder how Alice is? Hope she’s forgiven me for leaving just a brief note to say, “Sorry.” Hope I left them enough money.
She stood up, wrapped her coat around herself, and went to explore. From the half-landing, she mounted the stairs, the candelabrum in one hand. The treads, covered by worn carpet, creaked alarmingly under her feet. Rosy-cheeked, wooden-looking children in eighteenth-century dress stared at her from paintings. They looked little adults.
One flight up, she found a gallery that overlooked the salon. Dust, moonlight, a view of the estate from the murky windows. How bleak the landscape looked. She found bedrooms with fourposter beds draped in rotting fabrics, wallpaper curling off the walls, more paintings, priceless furniture, an obscenity of neglect. One room contained no bed, only an oblong shape covered by a dust sheet. A huge coffin? She lifted the corner of the sheet. Nothing more sinister than a packing case. Further on, she found a four-room apartment that was a treasure trove of junk: more glass cupboards full of shells and stones, stags’ heads and framed pictures in disarray, boxes full of tools, books, toys and military regalia. Nothing, it seemed, had ever been thrown away.
The topmost floor was disappointing. Narrow, dilapidated corridors with paint and plaster flaking off the walls. Servants’ or children’s rooms, some empty, some filled with drifts of clutter, all unspeakably depressing in their starkness. Their windows overlooked the central courtyard. The flagstones were overgrown with moss. The mottled walls could have been those of a prison.
Don’t go upstairs, indeed! He must have known his words would awaken her curiosity. Don’t open the box, Pandora.
Then she found a nursery. A large room, barely lit by moonbeams through a single big window. No echo of childish joy; the chamber was cheerless, grey, haunted. On naked floorboards, several generations’ worth of toys were shored up against discoloured, peeling walls. Robyn picked her way through the room, looking at rusty prams, doll’s houses, a rocking horse on massive green rockers, waiting in vain for a small rider. She touched its grimy mane, saw that its legs and neat Arabian head were riddled with woodworm. Dolls lay among wooden guns and toy soldiers like eyeless babies.
This house was haunted. Desolate with loss and regret.
Robyn began to weep, unable to help herself. She wept for the children who no longer filled this place with life; she mourned the children she had never borne, because God had seen fit to tear them prematurely out of her. No, it was my husband who destroyed them… or maybe I did it myself to spite him, because I wouldn’t perpetuate his bloodline.
She sobbed without restraint. Desolation everywhere.
If Sebastian were my husband instead, could I have happily given him sons and daughters?
In response, she felt sexual warmth spread through her abdomen. She fell to her knees. Oh God, so I do love him. Oh God, oh hell.
Carefully she put down the candelabrum. She leaned on the rocking horse’s foreleg, her breath quietening. A foolish spasm. Over now.
In the darkness that lay heaped in a corner to her left, something moved.
Robyn jerked backwards. A scream rose into her throat and caught there, fluttering.
I must be seeing things…
The shape moved again.
She leapt to her feet, nerves shrieking with the urge to flee. Yet she froze. The thing that unfolded and groped towards her was human-shaped. A glossy black head. Slender dark limbs.
It looked up, and she saw black irises ringed with white.
Fleeing would not make it go away. Her instinct was to keep the thing in view, but she dared not bend down to pick up her source of light. Very slowly, she began to back away towards the door.
The apparition stretched its hands towards her. Then it spoke. The sound of its voice made her catch her breath in shock.
“You have forgotten us.”
Robyn collided with something soft behind her. An arm came round and gripped her across her chest; her heart almost failed, and she cried out.
A second later she realised that it was Sebastian who held her. Ambivalent feelings assailed her. Was he trying to protect her – or had he lured her here to throw her to this demon?
The first feeling won. She swivelled in his arms and clung to him. In that instant, she realised that the apparition was addressing Sebastian, not her.
“I have not forgotten you,” he said.
Robyn forced herself to look round. Now she saw that the creature was female, brown-skinned, naked but for a mass of blue-black hair. And she also had an unearthly vampire glow about her… Yet she seemed vulnerable, huddling among the debris, stretching imploring hands towards Sebastian.
“What is she?” Robyn whispered.
His arms were firm and protective around her. She felt his breath on her neck as he answered with a soft sigh, “One of my ancient gods.”
* * *
Charlotte was not unhappy, but… unsettled was a better term. The Ballet Janacek’s home had become a fortress, there was constant tension between Violette and Karl, and the looming threat of Schloss Holdenstein. But things could be worse, she thought. We might have been prisoners of Cesare, or dead. At least we’re alive and free – for now.
“Charlotte?” Violette’s voice made her start. She and Karl were in the dancer’s sitting room, talking, but Violette had left only ten minutes earlier to supervise morning practice. “My secretary just gave me a letter addressed to a Mrs Charlotte Neville-Millward. Is that you?”
Charlotte took the ivory envelope and sat on a chair-arm, too shocked to speak. Karl’s gaze followed her, darkening with concern. “Er… yes. Or used to be.”
“I thought your surname was Alexander,” Violette said crisply, “but… I suppose we all pretend to be someone we are not.” She glanced at Karl. “Well, it’s none of my business, so if you’ll excuse me… Rehearsal, for which I’m now late.”
She left, closing the door behind her. Charlotte stared at the firm, neat handwriting on the envelope, the British stamp. Mrs Charlotte Neville-Millward, c/o Ballet Janacek, Salzburg, Austria. “Who could possibly know I was here?”
“Do you recognise the writing?” Karl asked, looking over her shoulder.
“It looks like Anne’s.”
“She has certainly taken no chances with your surname.”
She opened the envelope with apprehension. My family are trying to find me again, she thought in dismay. They still can’t give up.
My Dear Charlotte,
With no other clue to your whereabouts, I am writing to the Ballet in the faint hope that this letter may be forwarded to you. It is clear that you want no further contact with us. I’m sure that’s for the best. However, if I owe anything to the years of our friendship, it is to tell you this. Your father is dying. If you still care, if your goodbyes were not as final as they seemed, you may wish to come home.
Yours sincerely,
Anne Neville.
The abrupt style was alien to the warm, irreverent Anne she remembered.
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.”
“So leave them to it! Isn’t that what you want?”
She raised her chin and glared at him. He leaned down to her. She hesitated, then accepted his hand, letting him lift her to her feet. Her satiny dark skin enthralled him.
“All of this is Lilith’s fault! She sundered us from Simon. Without divine guidance he is too headstrong, uncontrollable like her. They will disrupt the Crystal Ring. The damage has already begun. Have you not noticed?”
The hostile storms of the Ring, the knot of darkness… Sebastian had noticed, but tried to ignore the changes.
“Of course, but there’s nothing I can do, is there?”
“Help us against Lilith. Help us show Simon that he cannot defeat her without us!” She pressed closer to him. “We created you for the benefit of immortal-kind. Why do you refuse to understand?”
“I do understand. However, I refuse to be used.”
“We made you! We never choose at random.”
“You chose badly, all the same.”
“You are betraying us,” she said, stroking his cheek. “Running away from your responsibilities.”
“I have none. I’m not in your debt.”
She slid one leg around the outside of his. “Don’t you remember how it was when we transformed you?”
He remembered. The dark cellar. Three fallen angels, capturing his soul and delivering him into a state of undeath… and in the darkness, Rasmila drawing him to her. Naked beneath her robe. Blind lust possessing him… the absolute, wanton sweetness of her, making him forget Mary and all that went before.
Now her mouth and eyes shone as she unfastened buttons one-handed and pulled at his clothes. Her legs went round his waist, supple as a temple-dancer’s. Weightless, she impaled herself on him and he thrust to meet her, sinking down onto the floor with her limbs entwined around him.
The aching compulsion was almost painful. He gasped with wonder. His body and the whole room came alight with jewels. Rasmila clawed at him, uttering a soul-deep cry. Sebastian dropped his head into her shoulder as a sharp, soundless explosion convulsed him.
Now he was tearing into her throat, streams of light on his tongue. The pleasure was less focused but more intense, unearthly rapture taking him so far out of himself that only the pain of Rasmila’s bite could bring him back.
The divine exchange of blood… something Robyn could not give him. He drew hard on her, merciless, but every drop he took, she stole back. Neither could win. Sated and in equilibrium, they ceased and lay still, smiling at each other.
Then he felt bleak. She was not Robyn.
“Now my blood is in you,” Rasmila said. “You can’t deny me.”
“You don’t know me,” he said pleasantly, refastening his disarrayed shirt and breeches. “When you changed me, I felt I’d become the Devil. Of course you could not ‘mentor’ me, nor could I ever share your beliefs.”
She shook her head. “No, you are not the Devil, Sebastian.” She sat up. “And you’ve given me something after all: your blood, your strength.”
Rising to her feet, she was magnificent against the window. A deity, Hindu or Celtic, there was no division: Kali and Cailleach were the same goddess.
“I hope you’re suitably grateful.” He stood up, brushing dust from his clothes.
“You are involved, whether you wish it or not,” she said. Her expression was sweet, but as strong as steel. “And so is your lover.”
“This has nothing to do with Robyn,” he said grimly.
“But it will, if you turn your back. Are we enemies?” Rasmila touched his cheek.
“No.”
“I came to warn you, not to threaten. I am not Simon, demanding acts of heroism. I ask only for friendship, a little help in protecting us all from Lilith. I’m going to find Fyodor now; we’ve been apart too long. Help us, and we’ll help you in turn.”
“I need no help.”
Her serene face showed amusement. “But if you change your mind, call and my blood will hear you.”
Rasmila moved away, seeming more an icon than a living being. In a column of smoky-bronze light, she stepped into the Ring. He was alone.
He stood among the detritus of long-vanished childhoods, feeling like a ghost among ghosts. Now I need to hunt, he thought. I need a human struggling in my arms and their hot blood… and then the solitude of the Crystal Ring.
Robyn was in his mind, but she was an abstract image, not a breathing reality.
* * *
“Do they feed on each other’s energy, as we do?” Cesare asked. “Karl, Charlotte and Lilith?”
His eyes were red, like those of a man who’d been working frantically for days and nights. His face shone with mania. “If she were separated from them, would she become weaker?”
“Possibly,” said Simon. They were in the sanctum with John: the supposed triumvirate. Lilith’s attack had petrified everyone. It had taken all their energy to keep control of their terrified human disciples. Something had been lost. John had sunk even deeper into his need for vengeance, while Cesare clung to the very lip of sanity.
Simon regarded Cesare with despair. If you were Karl, he thought, you would be rational, not crazed; and if John were Charlotte, we might have constructive suggestions in place of baleful silence. “I felt power between her and Charlotte.”
“There is nothing to do with Karl and Charlotte but kill them,” said Cesare. “An execution for the good of the majority.”
Would you extend the threat to me, thought Simon, if you saw that behind my smiling mask, I actually despise you?
“Killing them won’t stop Lilith,” Simon said wearily. “We’ve seen her strength. It’s a wonder she didn’t decapitate you on the spot, Cesare.”
“You urged me to anger her! ‘Kill the humans she loves,’ you said. ‘We are God’s fire. Annihilate her ballet, and Lilith will be nothing but a cloud of wailing anger!’ But her damnable ballet is still intact, while two of my flock are dead at her hands!”
“I hope you aren’t insinuating that it’s my fault,” said Simon. “We made her angry; wasn’t that the aim? In that, we succeeded admirably.”
Cesare lowered his head, collecting himself. “Simon, I don’t mean to rail at you. But we must bring the transformations forward. I need my army. Lilith frightened them, and I cannot afford to lose them to mortal fear.”
“The transformation is a simple matter,” Simon said. “It can be done whenever you wish, all in one day, one hour. However… neither Karl, nor your new army, is central to this.”
“Then what, precisely, is central?” Cesare asked icily.
“You’ve already given me the answer yourself.”
“Have I?”
“Sebastian’s message,” said Simon. “One word. Samael.”
“Just a name. What does it mean?” How desperate Cesare sounded.
“It means that only one vampire is capable of destroying Lilith. And that vampire is Sebastian. He’s like her: Samael was the Devil, Lilith’s husband. Her equal and opposite.”
“Who refuses to co-operate.” Cesare exhaled.
“But who thinks he can use this knowledge to manipulate us. He was trying to show he is cleverer, more knowledgeable than us! Well, let him think that. All we need is for Sebastian and Lilith to loathe each other, and to meet.”
Simon had expected to impress Cesare with this insight, but the leader only folded his arms and spoke with scorn, “How could you hope to arrange that?”
“It’s already in hand. Rasmila is assisting.”
“Rasmila, who has no thought in her head but you?”
“Exactly. She will do anything for me.”
“But I’ve met Sebastian. As I said, he and Lilith have no interest in each other. He cares for nothing but himself. No, Simon, forget him.” Cesare gazed at Simon with the fervour that had swayed his disciples. “He’s like Karl, an unreliable, useless subversive. Such men are powerless because they throw power away! But we three understand. Simon, if you and I and John lack the strength to defeat Lilith, what are we worth?”
Simon examined his perfect fingernails. There was something in what Cesare said.
“If only Charlotte and Violette were not joined at the hip,” he murmured. “If only Charlotte would leave her… and come to me.”
Cesare seemed not to hear him. As if possessed, he lunged forward and shook Simon, his eyes burning white.
“What if Samael and Lilith came together and created something worse?”
* * *
A sound disturbed Robyn’s sleep: the echoing cry of a woman in pain – or extreme pleasure. Her eyes snapped open. She stared at the embers of the fire, slept again.
When she woke properly, it was light. The fire had gone out and her coat had fallen to the floor. Numb with cold, she ached all over from sleeping in one position.
For a moment, she had no idea where she was. Thousands of books in faded reds, blues and browns towered around her. A mirror above the fireplace reflected a window framing a cloudy sky. Figures in oil paintings stared at her. Oh, this place, she thought, feeling sick at heart.
She sat up stiffly, swearing.
“Your language doesn’t improve,” said a voice.
She twisted round and saw Sebastian, a graceful silhouette against the window.
“How long have you been there?” She was angry at first; then, seeing the look on his face, the feeling deepened to suspicion.
“Not long.” He came to the chaise longue.
“Why didn’t you wake me?”
“I love to watch you sleeping,” he said. His eyes were very soft, too tranquil. “Are you cold?”
“Frozen.”
“Then I’ll attend to the fire.” He began to move away, but she caught his wrist.
“Have you been gone all night?”
His eyes slid sideways under lowered lids. Shame? “There were certain things…”
“So you just left me to sleep on a couch again?”
“I meant to prepare a bed, but certain matters intervened. Forgive me, Robyn. I’m still unused to considering your needs before my own.”
“Damned right you are.” Her breathing quickened and her blood rose. He sat beside her and stroked her hair, but she folded her arms.
“And now you are angry with me,” he said ruefully.
“Has she gone, your uninvited guest?”
“She’s gone.”
“So you persuaded her, did you?” Her venomous tone appeared to startle him. “Your powers of persuasion are as impressive as ever. I hope you enjoyed it as much as she did.”
“What are you talking about?” he said quietly.
She could have screamed. Pulling away, she grabbed her coat as if it, too, had wronged her. “Don’t treat me like an idiot! You had her, didn’t you? I won’t even grace it with the term ‘seduction’.”
His lips parted, ready to deny it. Instead he hesitated, frowning. “How did you know?”
“I just know. I saw how you were with each other; there was a bond between you, two hundred years separated or not. It’s all over your face, damn it, that shameful glow.”
He seemed bemused. “I never thought you would be jealous.”
“And you’re amazed by that?” She buttoned her shoes, rose and threw on her coat. “You are absolutely amazed.”
“What are you doing?”
“Looking for my purse.” She found the purse under the chaise longue, checked how much money she had. Enough. “My God, all that garbage about not sharing me with Harold!”
She hurried through the door and into the salon, her footsteps ringing. She was more than hurt. She felt annihilated.
Sebastian followed her. “Robyn, don’t leave.”
“No, I’ve had enough.”
“Where do you think you’ll go?”
“Cork. Home.”
“Stop, will you?”
She halted, three-quarters of the way across the room, keeping her back to him so he wouldn’t see her crying. Beside her, the crocodile skull grinned in its glass case.
He said, “Anything between Rasmila and myself is separate. I won’t insult you by saying it meant nothing, but it was to do with blood, which I can’t explain to a mortal…”
“And I don’t want to hear it! You’re a monster. You must take me for such a fool.”
“Please don’t leave.” His voice almost broke. He sounded desperate.
“You’ve got yourself; what more do you need?”
Without looking back, Robyn resumed her walk to the door. She took four steps; she neither heard nor felt him move, but suddenly he seized her from behind, his arms locking across her ribs.
She struggled, outraged and terrified.
“Don’t go!” He turned her round in his arms, holding her with unholy strength. “I should die if you left me!”
She almost wriggled out of his grip, but he thrust her against the closed door and held her there.
“Why the hell should I stay?” she cried.
He spoke fervidly into her ear. “This morning I came in from the outside world and the otherworld and the arms of a vampire where it was bitter-cold, and I saw you lying by the fire and you were warm, you were a living fire, the most beautiful sight I’d ever seen, with your hair like brown flames. And I realised you are all that matters to me, your heat and your precious life. All Rasmila wanted from me was blood. She is like ice and I could never love her, because –”
She waited for him to go on, her eyes tight shut. “Why can’t you say it?”
“I’m telling you that I cannot endure my life without you.”
“It’s not enough! Let go of me!” She fought him, but he held her. “What’s the point, when you won’t say the one thing –”
“Do you want blood from me?” he whispered.
“Say it!”
“If I do, will it make you stay?”
“Nothing else will.”
He went quiet, his mouth in her hair. She felt his grip loosening, his whole body softening. “Have my blood, then. I love you, Robyn.”
Her breath whooshed out in a laugh of sheer astonishment.
“Now, will you please stay with me?” he said.
Not a struggle between them now, but an embrace. “I’ll stay,” she said. They clung together, lost to each other and ashamed of it, pinioned by the dreadful joy of surrender.
But I won, Robyn thought in bitter-sweet triumph. I’ve changed him, I’ve soured all his other victims; I made him fall in love with me and I forced him to admit it.
I won!