She is lovely. Dark brown hair flowing loose over the white gown. Ah, such colours in it, the lovely strands of bronze and red. She has the sweetest face. Dark eyes and brows, a red, surprised bud of a mouth.
She's coming towards the bed. Daniel rasps, "Meg, no!" and then she sees us, sees the blood on his neck and on my mouth. The candle falls to the carpet, her hands fly to her face. She is backing towards the door crying, "Oh, God, no! Help! Murder!"
I have to stop her. I launch myself at her, pinning her to the door before she's taken two steps. I'm in a frenzy now, I must have her, I can't stop. I savour his blood still in my mouth as I bite down, and then he is swept away by the taste of Meg flooding over my tongue. Ripe and red and salty and
Her head falls back. She clings to me. It is so exquisite that I slow down and draw delicately on her until she presses her body along the whole length of me and I feel her heart pounding and the breath coming out of her in little staccato cries of amazement.
For some reason I can't kill her. My fangs slip out of the wounds they have made and I hold her close as she sighs. I haven't the energy or will to finish it. No, I like her alive. I love the heavy warmth of her body slumping against mine, and her hair soft against my wet red mouth.
We stand like that for a few minutes. Then I feel Daniel touching my shoulder. He has staggered from his bed. "Who are you?" he whispers. His big hand wanders over my arm, my shoulder blade, my spine. It slides in between me and the woman and lies warm against my ribs. He's resting against my back. The three of us, pressed together.
Well, this is cosy.
I am in the garden again when she finds me. I am pacing back and forth on the grass beneath the cold windows of the mansion with the moon staring down at me; and suddenly there is Charlotte. She steps from the shadow of a hedge to walk at my side.
"It's difficult to leave, isn't it?" she says, slipping her cool hand into mine. "What are they like, your family?"
"Interesting," I say. "Rupert, the son, is in love with the delicious housemaid, Meg. How am I to tell him that Meg slips in regularly to service the father? No wonder Daniel has forbidden Rupert to see her."
Charlotte utters a soft, sensuous laugh. "Oh, Antoine, hasn't Karl told you what a mistake it is to ask their names, to become involved in their lives? You know you shouldn't, yet you can't stop. That's always my downfall, too."
Ah now, Charlotte. She is Karl's lover and her presence is all it takes to reveal the folly of Karl's advice. Don't get involved with humans, he tells me? Hypocrite. For he took Charlotte when she was human, couldn't stop himself, couldn't leave her alone. And who could blame him? There is something of the ice-queen and something of the English rose about her. She is the perfect gold and porcelain doll with a heart of darkness. She's like a princess who ran away with the gypsies, all tawny silk and bronze lace. But ask which of them is the more dangerous, the more truly a vampire — it is Charlotte.
She is the seducer. She is the lethal one. You will never see Karl coming; he takes you swiftly and is gone before you know what happened, no promises, no apologies. But Charlotte will worship you from afar, and bring you flowers, and run away from you and come back to you, until you are so mad with love for her that you don't know which way to turn. Oh and then she'll turn on you and take you down, our lady viper, and soak your broken body with her tears.
Not that I was her victim, you understand. But I have watched her in complete admiration.
"Why must it be a downfall?" I ask, annoyed.
"Humans are so alluring, aren't they? You can't go only for one taste. You can't be like Karl just strike and never look back. You're like me, Antoine. You want to play with them, to get to know them, to love them. Is the pleasure worth the pain? I never quite know. You have to do it again and again, to see if it will be different this time."
"It's only a game to me. I don't care about them. I'm doing it for money, that's all."
"Really?" she says. "Then why couldn't you kill them? Why are you still here?"
Charlotte stands on tiptoe and presses her rosy mouth to mine; and she's gone, in a whisper of silk and lilac.
Behind this hedge I find a kitchen garden, where Meg's father lovingly grows vegetables to feed the household. Ah, now I see. He is a man who despises flowers and prettiness, loves prosaic potatoes and beans — just like his employer. The air is thick with the rot of brussels sprouts, the scent of wet churned soil and compost. Through a gap I see the cold shine of the greenhouse, and where the garden meets the servants' area of the house — the tantalizing glint of glass in the kitchen door.
When Rupert discovers that I have not killed his father, he is volcanic with rage.
We meet beneath a line of elm trees. The rooks squawk and squabble in the bare branches above us.
"You liar!" Rupert screams. "You traitor!"
He flies at me, arms going like windmills, but I hold him off. He's useless at fighting, as he is at everything. Perhaps he is a useless artist too, merely in love with the idea of brooding and suffering and being misunderstood.
"Why didn't you finish the old devil off? You only wounded him!"
"I was interrupted."
"What the hell do you mean — interrupted?"
So I tell him. Rupert rages. He paces, he punches trees, he weeps. Finally he turns to me like a man in the grip of a fatal illness, his face white and frail as the skin of a mushroom.
"This is a disaster!" he cries. "If Meg and my father are lovers, then I have nothing left to live for. They'll have a child, and I shall have no inheritance, no house, no wife — nothing!"
He flings himself at me, grabbing the lapels of my coat. I am really enjoying this.
"Kill me," he begs, tears running from his beautiful, anguished eyes. "Kill me instead."
Oh, my pleasure.
Only I can't do it.
I hold Rupert close and we are the same height so he looks into my eyes for an instant before my head goes down to his throat. He is tense, desperate for oblivion. But then the inevitable happens. He softens in my arms and clasps my head. He sighs. He forgets what he was angry about.
We are locked together, his blood running sweetly into my open mouth, his groin pressed hard against mine. And it happens. I fall in love with him.
And I'm satiated so I stop drinking; I just want to hold him against me. But I haven't taken nearly enough to kill him and he knows it.
"You bastard," he says weakly. "You liar."
He faints. I let him go. I leave him lying there, slumped on the roots of a tree, and I run. .
I don't go far. There is an ancient rose arbour halfway across the grounds, with a dry fountain and some sad-looking, mossy statues. Here I hesitate, undecided, my mind full of Rupert and Meg and Daniel. I want them so badly. I am in anguish.
Karl startles me. I am not looking where I'm going and I don't see him there in the shadow of a rose trellis. I almost step on him. He's like a statue coming to life, with fire for eyes, and if I had been human I believe I should have died of fear. He's still following me, watching me, warning me — just for the hell of it, I swear.
"Are you simply going to leave him?" He grips my arms, forcing me to meet his gaze. "You have a choice, Antoine. Go back and finish them all; or leave now, and never come back. Make a decision or this will destroy you!"
"Why don't you leave me the hell alone!" I growl, pulling free of him.
"I shall," he says coldly. "But I have seen so many of our kind sabotage their own existence through their obsession with mortals. I have even known them to kill themselves."
"Kill themselves?" The idea is shocking to me. Abhorrent. What's the use of becoming immortal only to waste it?
"As soon as I am sure that you understand, then I shall leave you to your folly."
I laugh. "Karl, do you really not see? How boring do you want our existence to be? Oh, yes, I have tried all the things that new-made vampires think will thrill them. And it does thrill, for a little while. I have climbed mountains where the cold and the lack of air would kill humans. I have swum deep in the ocean. I have thrown myself like a bird off the Eiffel Tower and walked away with a broken wrist."