A Taste of Blood Wine Read online

  Kristian's expressive face relaxed. "You are a liar, my beloved. You care." He came close enough for Karl to feel the soft, resentful breath on his cheek. The older vampire's presence was oppressive, a wall of blackness across the sky. Karl hid the despair that pierced him. "You may not be afraid for yourself, but what about the ones you love? The sins of the fathers… " He opened and closed his hands expressively, his skin gleaming through the dirt in bone-white lines.

  "There is no one left."

  "Don't pretend Ilona means nothing!" Kristian exclaimed. "There, I have only to mention her name to see the pain in your eyes."

  Karl kept the anxiety out of his voice, but it was a struggle. "You love her. You would not harm her."

  "Wouldn't I?" Kristian said savagely. "How else can I make you understand, that I would make any sacrifice to bring you back?"

  Karl turned to him in shock, giving Kristian his brief moment of triumph.

  "Kristian, in God's name—"

  "Ah, now the heretic calls on God? I won't do it yet. I'll give you time to think." As he spoke, he lifted his hands and began to scrape Karl's dried blood from under his fingernails, as if cleaning a dagger. "But don't think for too long. Such a shame, if Ilona has to pay for your waywardness."

  Before Karl could respond, Kristian stepped away, opening his hands in malediction. Then his body elongated to a dark streak that arced away and vanished into the Crystal Ring. Only the after-image of his face—cloud-white, etched with the severe brows, the dark pits of his eyes, the single black mole—lingered for a second before dispersing into nothingness.

  Kristian was gone, but his threat hung in the air like a column of smoke. Harmless in itself, the sinister flag of destruction. Karl began to feel cold. The noise of battle seemed muffled now, but the voices of the dying came through clear as trumpets, and pain rose from them in silvery waves.

  He had to stay. A painful decision, callous—but the only one he could make. To heed the threat was to let Kristian win.

  There is no God here. No revelations in Kristian's words or in medieval superstition to explain any of this, he thought. Science then… what can that tell a vampire, who by the laws of natural philosophy should not exist?

  One voice in particular drew him now; a German, crying pitifully over and over again, "Mufti… Mufti, hilf mir… "

  He went towards the sound. A strange breast-high mist was drifting across the battlefield, like a vampire of another kind, sucking the last remnant of warmth from the dead. It crept down into the shell-hole where the young English soldier lay drained of life; not the first of the wounded to whom the vampire had brought swift oblivion that night, nor the last.

  This night would be endless.

  * * *

  PART ONE

  I lived alone without you

  Shadows on my wall

  Ghosts in my looking glass

  Voices in the hall

  At first I didn't understand

  I had nothing left to sell

  And although I played with fire

  My life was cold as hell

  —Horslips

  "Ghosts"

  * * *

  Chapter One

  Outside the Rain

  Fear was such an irrational predator. Charlotte Neville stood on the edge of the crowd, blinking at the glitter of beads on evening dresses, lights blurring in a blue haze of smoke. The gramophone's cheerful rasp curled through the babble of voices like the buzzing of a fly. The whole room seemed to shimmer and expand with her heartbeat.

  This fear had stalked Charlotte all her life, but the more she tried to reason it away, the deeper it dug its claws. Shyness, others called it, but that soft word did not even begin to encompass the dread that lay clotted inside her, ready to flame up whenever she was required to be sociable.

  This is only Fleur's house. It's not as if it's a grand affair, she told herself angrily, but logic could not break the perverse functioning of her subconscious. Seeing an empty armchair near the door, Charlotte made her way shakily to it, grateful that no one took any notice. If anyone had, she would have answered in monosyllables until they left her alone.

  I want to be friendly, she thought unhappily. Why do I always feel so out of place and tongue-tied? They must think I'm such a fool.

  It had been her Aunt Elizabeth's idea to launch her into London society, an attempt to kill or cure. And like learning to swim by leaping into the Arctic Ocean, it was killing her. The whole Season had been a nightmare. If only Anne were here, at least I'd have someone I could talk to. But her friend Anne had more sense than to waste her time in what she scorned as "a rich man's marriage market." I wish some of Anne's good sense would rub off on me, then perhaps none of this would matter so much…

  Charlotte could not account for her fear of people, but it was very real and it filled her with shame. It was so ridiculous, compared with the genuine terrors that her brother David and his friend Edward must have faced in the War. But the guilt she felt only served to heighten her anxiety.

  She watched her slender, copper-haired sisters circulating around the guests; Fleur tall and elegant, Bohemian-looking in floating scarves and long loops of pearls, always with a slight smile as if she knew an interesting secret. And Madeleine, pretty and animated, a touch of naïveté about her that was charming because it never quite tipped over the edge into gaucheness. With a cigarette in a long holder, she looked far more sophisticated than her eighteen years. And I'm nearly two years older, Charlotte thought. I wish I could be like them. How did they acquire such poise?

  She closed her eyes, imagining she was at home in Cambridge. Ah, that was better. The closed, quiet world of her father's laboratory… the bulky curve of his back as he leaned over a piece of equipment, while she sat with her notebook making sense of his tangential commentary. The cellar walls dank and bare, but safe, because they were so familiar. No sound except the dull hum of the generator and the gurgling of water pipes. No one there except herself, Father and their assistant Henry, a large, untidy young man with a brilliant mind so focussed on physics that he gave no thought to his appearance or social skills. Henry she could tolerate because she was used to him, and he demanded nothing of her; not like these society people who expected her to sparkle and parade her attributes like a circus horse, who then regarded her with disdain when she failed.

  Her chair sagged suddenly under the weight of someone sitting on the arm. She opened her eyes and found Madeleine beside her, the beads on her oyster silk dress straining the frail fabric as she leaned down towards Charlotte. A scent of smoke and perfume clung to her.

  "Charli, when's Father giving his lecture to the Royal Society?"

  "Oh—next Friday evening." Charlotte was startled. Madeleine had never shown any particular interest in their father's lectures before.

  "What's it about?"

  '"The Electrical Structure of Matter'."

  "The electric—what? Oh, never mind. I'll tell him it's terribly interesting."

  "Tell who?" said Charlotte.

  Madeleine swung one leg, all nervous energy. "I've met the most delicious young man. He's from Vienna, his name's Karl von Wultendorf, and he's frightfully interested in science. That's why he came to England, to study. When I told him my father was Dr George Neville, Karl had heard of him!" She mimicked an Austrian accent. '"Ah, he is a very eminent physicist. I should be very interested to meet him.' So I've been telling Karl that he really should come to Cambridge, that's where all the exciting discoveries are taking place. Isn't that true? You know better than me."

  "Well, yes, but—"

  "But what? He's the most wonderful man I've ever met! If he comes to the lecture I can introduce him to Father, and persuade Father to invite him to Cambridge… "

  Charlotte's stomach tightened. She hated strangers coming to the house at the best of times. She had been clinging to thoughts of home to get her through the last of these wretched parties, and at this moment, the thought of her refuge being invaded
was unbearable. "When did you ever go to one of Father's lectures?" she said.

  "I'll make an exception for Herr von Wultendorf." Madeleine's eyes elongated like a cat's. "I'd make an exception to anything for him."

  "Where is he?"

  Madeleine leaned towards her and whispered, "Over there by the window, talking to Clive. Don't stare."

  As discreetly as she could, Charlotte looked at the stranger who was with a little group framed against the red velvet curtains. But Fleur's husband Clive was standing alongside him and she could only make out that he was just over six feet tall and slim, his hair dark with a reddish glow. It was enough, though, for her to see that he was attractive, imposing. A threat. She looked away quickly.

  Charlotte usually suppressed her feelings until they choked her, rather than cause a scene, especially with Madeleine. Now her misgivings overcame her. "No," she said sharply.

  Madeleine's face fell. "What d'you mean, 'No'?"

  "You can't invite complete strangers to Father's lectures, let alone to our house."

  "I can do what I like!" Madeleine's mouth became a sulky rosebud.

  "You had better not."

  "I don't know what's the matter with you, Charli. You're being utterly ridiculous. I—no, I'm not going to argue with you here, it would be too undignified." Madeleine slipped gracefully to her feet and walked away to rejoin her friends, her sulky expression vanishing as if nothing had happened.

  Charlotte was shaking from head to foot. Much as she loved Madeleine, her love was sometimes spiked with irritation—and envy. She would have done anything to share her sister's easy confidence.

  Charlotte had not gone to school with Fleur and Madeleine but had been educated at home by her father. Their mother had died when she was a child and he had been her constant companion, training her in science so that she could work with him. She had taken willingly to the role, but it had meant a sheltered life in the dry, donnish atmosphere of his circle. Had it shaped her, or had she chosen its security because she was reclusive by nature? She avoided the wilder side of Cambridge life, the end of term celebrations and May Week, keeping to the well-worn comfortable paths on which she met no challenge and no danger. She was happy to be a quiet presence at her father's side, respected because she was his daughter and his assistant.

  And yet… she must have wanted something more, or she would not have given in so easily to her aunt's wishes.

  "Charlotte will suffocate," Aunt Elizabeth had said. "It's essential for a girl to be introduced to society, especially with the shortage of eligible men after the War. Look what a good marriage Fleur has made. You must let me bring her and Madeleine out together—or do you want her to grown into a dried-up old spinster, George?"

  He father had not replied to that, but neither had he tried to stop Charlotte as she gave herself over to her aunt to be presented at Court and all the palaver that followed.

  But Charlotte was no debutante. She had wanted to succeed, she longed to be charming and confident, to make friends and attract admirers, but the cold reality was that she hated it. She seemed to have nothing in common with these brittle insincere people, who all knew each other, who judged everyone they met by their status and social adeptness and dismissed anyone who did not fit in. Once outside her own safe world she had fallen apart.

  So much for Elizabeth's hopes of marrying her off. If a man showed more than a passing interest, she would freeze involuntarily with a dread that turned her eyes to ice and her tongue to stone. However polite she tried to be, everything about her cried, "Don't come near me!"

  And then she would overhear comments that destroyed what little self-esteem she still possessed.

  "Madeleine and Fleur are such lovely girls; it's a shame their sister's so stand-offish. Pretty, I know, but I shouldn't bother, old chap; she's as miserable as sin."

  So the more she hated it, the more she withdrew; and the more people ignored her, the more she hated it. It was the serpent gnawing its own tail. Only the dread of incurring Elizabeth's wrath had kept her from fleeing back to Cambridge weeks ago. Her aunt and sisters made a great show of despairing of her, and that was the most painful thing of all.

  Yet inside her, besides this incapacitating shyness, there was something else; a streak of cynicism, almost a contempt for this social circus. These people were all affectation, so shallow compared with the ones she really loved. Her father, David and Anne.

  Nearly time to go home, she reminded herself, and everything will go back to normal… yet that knowledge, however comforting, did not ease the sick ache of failure within her. And now Madeleine would begin dragging these awful people back to Cambridge.

  I've had enough, she thought suddenly, sitting up. The thought of drawing attention to herself by leaving the party was almost as bad as remaining there, but panic won. Charlotte reached the door. No one seemed to notice, and she made the mistake of glancing back into the room to make sure.

  The stranger, Karl von Wultendorf, was staring straight at her.

  In that moment, everything changed. It was as if the world had ceased to exist for a heartbeat then recreated itself, the same yet indefinably askew. A shadow was whispering to her…

  The attention of any man alarmed her; someone like Clive, handsome, brash and cynical, was deeply intimidating. But this man was not merely handsome. He had an aura of dark beauty that seemed to magnetize the whole room in the most sinister way, as indifferent to the people who were drawn to him as a candle is to a moth. It was not his beauty that arrested her so much as his air of complete self-containment; and the way his gaze cut as softly as a light beam through everything that separated them—cold and dispassionate, straight into her soul.

  The look flatly terrified her. She fled up the stairs, hoping and praying that she would never see him again.

  ***

  "Who is he?" Madeleine asked at the breakfast table the next morning, wilting over a plate of toast. Her tiredness had the charm of a sleepy kitten, and her red hair was aglow in the flat grey daylight.

  Fleur was not really listening to Madeleine's chatter, Charlotte observed, but kept gazing distractedly into the conservatory, where her easels and canvasses stood amid a tangle of greenery. Fleur had always been creative; her paintings were landscapes, flower studies, and portraits of friends, freely worked in delicate colours. Clive affected to belittle her talent, which infuriated Charlotte. Although Fleur serenely took no notice, it was such a foolish habit, to disparage everything for the sake of it. Now Clive sat behind a newspaper as if in silent disapproval of his wife's sisters. Madeleine didn't care, of course, but his presence made Charlotte uneasy.

  "Who is who?" said Fleur.

  "Karl von Wultendorf, of course."

  "I don't know. A friend of a friend… all sorts of odd people get dragged along to my parties, I never know who half of them are anyway."

  "They're brought along for their novelty value," Clive said from behind The Times. "Anyone strange or foreign, preferably with a tide, and we're supposed to find them entertaining… bloody ridiculous. Don't know why we have to put up with them."

  "Don't be such a misery, dear," Fleur said mildly. "Even if he gate-crashed, he was too lovely to turn away. I should love to paint him."

  Clive gave a disapproving grunt. Fleur didn't react. She was so uncharacteristically listless and pale that Charlotte was worried about her. It seemed more than tiredness or the after-effects of drink.

  "Well, I'm in love," Madeleine declared. "If I find out he's married, I shall die. He isn't, is he?"

  "For goodness' sake, Maddy, I don't know!" said Fleur.

  "Don't snap at me! Is your hangover that bad? I expect Charlotte to be miserable and boring, but not you!"

  Charlotte toyed with a boiled egg. Maddy's remarks were thoughtless rather than malicious. They were also accurate. She had nothing to say to her sisters. She loved them, yet from childhood—to her perpetual regret—she had seemed to have little in common with them.

 
; Fleur sighed. "Sorry, Maddy. I'm not miserable. It's just that I had a wonderful idea for a painting last night and I can't wait to start."

  "Wonderful idea?" Madeleine said archly. "You should keep away from the strange substances brought by your strange friends."

  "You should try it, dear." Fleur stretched, arms lily-slender. "It makes one feel so marvellously creative."

  Charlotte swallowed a mouthful of toast whole, almost choking on it. They were talking about cocaine. How horrified their father would be if he knew, and even more furious at Fleur for trying to corrupt Maddy. She tried to hide her shock, but failed.

  "Oh, don't give me that old-fashioned look, Charli," said Fleur.

  "But it's illegal!"

  "All the best things are," Fleur said dismissively. "To be honest, I rather wish you chaps would go home. You are darlings, but you know I can't bear any distractions when I'm working. You don't mind, do you?"

  "Well, I do rather," said Madeleine. "I was hoping to stay a few more days."

  "You can go back to Auntie's house."

  "You know perfectly well Aunt Lizzie left town last week. She's gone back to Parkland to organise my birthday party."

  Unmoved, Fleur responded, "You'll have to go back to Cambridge then. You don't mind, Charli, do you?"

  "Of course not!" said Charlotte, too fervently.

  "Oh well, Charlotte wouldn't mind," said Madeleine. "She's hardly been the life and soul of the party, has she?"

  "Do be grown up about it, Maddy." There was a touch of irritation in Fleur's tone. "It's really important that I work. I'll telephone Father and ask him to send Maple to fetch you."

  "God, home. What a bore," said Madeleine, but Charlotte felt a wave of relief. Discovering what sort of company Fleur kept was the last straw. She wanted to escape, to forget it all.

  "Buck up, Maddy, it's not long to your party, is it?" Fleur stood up and moved to the conservatory as she spoke, turning round in the doorway.