"Warrington, Freda - A Taste of Blood Wine" - читать интересную книгу автора (Warrington Freda)

Kristian recognised Pierre's tall figure, swathed in an expensive dark coat. His prey was short and solidly-built, middle-aged, slightly drunk. Kristian observed the man's attitude shifting from nonchalance to unease. Abruptly sober, he made an excuse and tried to break awayЧthen Pierre's arms shot out like two black cobras, seized him and pressed him against the hedge.
The vampire's face was hard and gleaming as ice, his eyes ghostly blue, his hands like bleached, gnarled wood. In an instant of dazzling horror, the man realised what was about to happen. His mouth fell open but no cry came out; he wriggled as uselessly as an impaled maggot, while Pierre merely looked at him with amused condescension. He lifted his lips, let the man see the shining ivory thorns of his canines. In no hurry. Gloating, yet abstracted, as if about to take a bite from a delicious fruit, while his mind was on the higher plane of musicЕ Basking in the luxury of sensuous pleasure.
His eyes wide and misted, Pierre leaned slowly towards his prey; not oblivious to the man's terror, but relishing it. The scarlet tip of his tongue touched his own lips, then the man's neck; he paused there a second, taut with anticipation, his icy breath flowing over the victim's throat. Then he struck.
The man's body convulsed as the fangs went in. Kristian felt an empathic surge of excitement, which turned as swiftly to revulsion. If only all vampires would sip auras instead of blood; if only they wanted to. There was something sinful about this lust for human contact. The pleasures of the flesh, Kristian believed, were to be despised.
To drink from other immortals was different, of course. That was a show of love and power.
The man's hands were white as putty against Pierre's sable coat, waving with outstretched fingers, imploring. Their movement grew feebler as the vampire sucked out his strength; and now they were clutching pathetically at the fabric as the man slid down towards the ground, eyes dropping backwards in his head, jaw hanging slack. Pierre, still clutching him loosely, leaned back against the hedge in a stupor of pleasure, his face flushed and a lock of curly brown hair hanging down over her forehead. Kristian strode forward and seized his coat collar.
"Fool!" he hissed. "Do you want to be discovered? I could see you a mile away."
From Pierre's shocked reaction, he'd clearly had no idea that Kristian was there. He started, and his victim dropped out of his hands and lay at his feet, groaning. But he quickly regained his composure.
"So?" His red mouth curved up at the corners. "If I took someone in broad daylight outside St Stefan's Cathedral, what could anyone do about it?"
"That's not the point," Kristian replied. "Every time a vampire is seen or a victim found, rumours run wild. Less so in this sceptical century, I know, but it still happens. I cannot tolerate their superstitious assumptions, their incomprehension; invoking their pathetic religion against us, who are closer to God than they'll ever be! The dark wings of heaven should be silent and invisible."
"I fear," said Pierre, "that my own spirit is too mean to encompass your ideals, beloved master." He shook himself free of Kristian's grasp and smoothed his coat. Pierre chose expensive clothes yet there was always an untidiness about him which hinted at the poverty he had known in life. A spirit burning with anger and injustice, Kristian remembered; ripe, just after the French Revolution, to be initiated into his deathless flock.
"That is no reason not to strive for perfection," said Kristian, unaware of any irony in his words. "You should have known I was watching you. You should have been more alert."
"I was occupied," Pierre said, unabashed. "And you almost frightened me to deathЕ so to speak." He grinned, but Kristian kept a dour expression and poked at the victim with his foot.
"You are careless. If he diesЕ "
"Oh, he'll go home, have a few bad dreams, perhapsЕ then he'll forget about it. But what if I had killed him? Why is it acceptable to kill in your way, but not in mine?"
Kristian was in no mood for his flippancy. "A thousand times I have warned you! If you cannot kill invisibly, do not kill at all!" Seizing Pierre, he dragged him deeper into the archway, tore his left sleeve open and ran a sharp fingernail down the inside of his forearm.
Pierre yelped with pain. A string of claret beads seeped out and hung there. Kristian drew the arm to his mouth and licked the blood away in one smooth motion. A new line oozed out slowly. "You cannot die but you can still feel pain," he said, "and how sensitive vampire flesh can be."
An old fear clouded Pierre's blue eyes, knowledge of the older vampire's capabilities. Kristian made a second slash beside the first, more vicious and ragged. At that Pierre burst out furiously, "What the hell have I done to you, Kristian? Haven't I always been loyal? Let me go!"
"Loyal, you?" Anger boiled like tar within him. He tore Pierre's wrist open with his nails, smeared the blood on to Pierre's shirt. "If you don't know, let me help you remember."
"I swear to God I don't know what you're talking about," Pierre cried.
"I am God as far as you're concerned! Tell me where he is!"
"Who?"
"Karl. Tell me."
"Oh. So that's what this is about." The French vampire's eyes narrowed. "You're wrong. I haven't seen Karl for years. What made you think I had?"
There was the merest touch of shiftiness in Pierre's face. Kristian tightened his grip. "Don't lie to me. Ilona told me you know where he is. It's very hard to understand why you failed to tell me."
"NoЧyou've got it wrong. For God's sake, let me go and listen to me!" Kristian did so and Pierre relaxed, gasping and holding his injured arm. The wounds were already beginning to heal. "It's Ilona who's lying. She knows, not me! Damn it, I wish you'd both keep your games to yourselves."
"This is no game. What are you talking about?"
Pierre steadied himself. "Ilona always makes it her business to know where Karl is. It's as if she doesn't feel safe unless she can find him. So why don't you ask her?"
Kristian didn't reply. Horrible revelation, that Ilona could do such a thing without his permission. Deceitful. She's betrayed meЕ He said, "How dare she do this without telling me?"
Pierre shrugged. "She's a madwoman. She's perverse. She hates Karl but she can't leave him aloneЕ It's some game she's playing and I wish to God she had left me out of it!"
Kristian's hands snaked out and he forced Pierre back against the hedge. The stiff branches yielded to his weight. "You will wish she had told you. It's time for Karl to come back, and you are going to find him for me."
"Why don't you do you own dirty work?" Pierre said, struggling as uselessly as his victim had struggled. "You presume too much on love. You chose us for our spirits, yet when we desire a little freedom you crush us! Find Karl yourself!"
Pierre's throat moved as he spoke, pale and gleaming in the folds of his shirt and coat. His words enraged Kristian so deeply that he felt himself enter a higher state of deadly calm insanity. "Not this time," said Kristian. "It would be according him far too much importance. I will have loyalty, Pierre. I will have obedience." Then he stabbed his fangs into Pierre's neck.
He drew the dense, ice-bright vampire blood into his mouth and he went on swallowing and swallowing; wanting to steal not just the blood but Pierre's glittering defiance with it. To suck him dry and leave him humiliated, terrified, pleading forgiveness.
At last he let go and Pierre slumped forward, catching at Kristian's stiff black clothing. His head drooped forward, brown curls dishevelled. "Yes," he gasped. "Anything for you."
Kristian felt almost tender towards him then. He cupped his hand round the back of Pierre's head. This was the way of power; a vampire who could drink another's blood proved himself the stronger, and the stolen blood made him more powerful still, his victim weaker. Kristian had done this countless times to countless vampires who had defied him. He always won. Always. "I know, my dear beloved one," he said. "I know."
"I am so thirsty. You must let meЕ " Pierre strained towards the man who lay slumped on the ground by their feet, but Kristian held him back.
"Wait," he said. "I need to be sure you understand why I had to punish your defiance and your lies."
Pierre looked up. His face was deadly white but his eyes shone feverishly. "Kristian, you know I would never do anything to hurt you. I swear I don't know where Karl is, but I'll find him, if it's what you want. Trust me, as I love you."
"I do, my dearest friend."
"But it would save us both trouble if you only asked Ilona."
Kristian thought of Ilona, sleeping in the highest circle of the Crystal Ring. Again he saw her eyelids closing, their darkness whitened with frost; her stiff mouth uttering a last tantalizing lie, "Pierre knowsЕ "
"Impossible, at present. When you find Karl, don't approach him, and be careful not to let him know you are there. Just come back to me straight away. Then I will tell you how to proceed."
"You are a hard master," said Pierre, with a half-hearted gleam of spirit. "But how can I refuse you?"
Ah, how he loves me. "Regain your strength quickly. You'll need it." Kristian kissed him on both cheeks and dropped him. With a kind of affectionate disdain he watched Pierre crawl over to the unconscious victim and begin to suck back the strength that his master had taken from him.
Now the man would die, for certain.
***
Charlotte slept badly and when morning came she lay in a restless doze, haunted by ridiculous and unpleasant dreams. She was married to Henry, but Henry was actually a teddy bear who sat brooding and moth-eaten in the corner of a huge, medieval hall. And at the far end of the hall hung a portrait of Karl, a luminous Pre-Raphaelite portrait with every detail painfully sharp. The eyes seemed alive, shining under the dark brows, swallowing her. Her breath quickened and a strange hot fear pulled at her stomachЕ
"I tried to tell you he was just a painting," said Edward, pointing with his stick, "but no one would listen."
She woke. A figure moving through the room had woken her. Someone pulled back the curtains and silver light spilled into the room, dazzling.