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

"Like me," he said to himself. "Like us."
When Kristian spoke of "us" and "we," he meant himself and God.
Inside the castle lay the web of bare corridors, cells and chapels through which his vampire flock moved softly as monks. They numbered only a few dozen; there had been more in the past, but Kristian had had to destroy so many who were not perfect. The ones who remained were obedient. They went away to feed but they always came back to their master, carrying with them the dark aura of what they were; an aura that over the centuries had seeped into the very stone of the walls. Delicious, blood-dark power.
Ilona was in the castle. Kristian had sensed her presence the moment she had arrived. She was like quicksilver, the elusive way she came and went. Humans he could always sense, of course; they were like furnaces, scattering their auras wastefully around them. But vampires were cool as diamonds; some, like Ilona, so transparent as to be almost invisible. Nevertheless, she could not hide from him.
Kristian did not go down to meet her. He was waiting for her to come to him, and as he waited he brooded on Karl.
It was five years since he had confronted Karl in the infernal landscape of the War. It had been a painful decision to let Karl follow his own misguided path for a while longer, but it was for the best. Let him learn by his own mistakes.
"My children all come back to me in the end," Kristian said softly. Five yearsЕ so little time against the great fiery arc of eternity across which he sailed like an ever-rising sun. "My patience is boundless." Kristian looked up at the clouds. "Our patience, Lord, endures forever."
Yet the thought of Karl was a stitch in his heart, and each pull filled him with rage. And when the rage rolled away, the emptiness and silence of Karl's absence were still there.
Kristian gripped the rail, feeling the wood fibres fraying under his fingers. "You presume too much on my mercy, Karl," he whispered to the air. "If I am forced to harm my angel Ilona, it's your fault. You have driven me to it. You were warned."
"Gut Gott, Kristian," said a crisp female voice. He wasn't startled. He knew Ilona was there before he looked round to see her in the balcony doorway, gypsy-brilliant against the cool dark interior of the castle. This time she had adopted a Bohemian style, rich embroidered silks and a tasselled shawl, and she had dyed her hair againЧno realistic shade, but brilliant scarlet.
Her appearance displeased him. She grinned, all rebellion and bravado, pleased to have shocked him. But her adoration of him was clear in her liquid brown eyes.
"Kristian?" she said. "Are you going to stare at me all day?"
"What have you done to your hair?"
"Don't you like it?" She stepped forward into the light, daring him to be angry with her.
"This is vanity, Ilona. It is a mortal weakness, to paint and colour yourself in this way. We should be above such folly."
"It's not vanity, it's camouflage," she retorted. Her rose-red lips thinned slightly. She defiantly shook the offending hair free of her shawl, so that it flowed over her shoulders like arterial blood. However she changed her guise, her face remained the same. A milk-white oval; the perfect features of a statue with dark unhuman eyes, all the more shocking when the expression came to life. Like Kristian's own face. Like Karl's. "How do you expect me to move among humans without looking like them?"
"I don't believe there is any fashion for scarlet hair."
His displeasure made her defensive. "Since the War, Kristian, anything goes, the more outrageous the better. If you were not such a recluse you would know that. Do you expect me to dress like a nun?" She laughed, revealing small neat teeth; no visible fangs. "Actually, why don't I? It would be perfect."
Her mirth was a glittering play of light and sound that struck no chord in Kristian. "You think your irreverence can shock me," he said. "But the trappings of religion are only another example of human delusion. They imagine that layers of cloth can bring them nearer to God, when in truth they can never hope to know Him. They use cloth to disguise their spiritual emptiness. So your attempt to goad me means nothing, my beloved. It is shallow."
Her smile vanished, her eyes turned glass-sharp. "Don't call me shallow, Voter. Don't ever call me that."
He let his mouth relax into a smile. He could afford to be indulgent; his power over her was complete. She always tested him, but beneath her brittle surface her love and awe blazed like a sun.
"Then be your courageous self," he said.
He moved towards her. She folded her arms as if to keep him away. "It would take more than you to frighten me," she said scornfully. "I'm not afraid of anything. Why should I be, when you're always there to remind me that I'm immortal?"
Ignoring the barrier of her forearms he placed his hands on her shoulders, kissed her on both cheeks, then locked his arms around her. She resisted him stiffly for a few moments. Then she sighedЧhalf in resentment, half in pleasureЧand freed her hands to return the embrace.
Kristian rested his lips lightly on her neck, felt her shiver as he whispered, "You will need your courage." He opened his mouth, pressed his teeth into the flesh, felt the canines lengthen until they broke through the sweet cool skin. Vampire flesh healed so swiftly that he had to keep his fangs in the wounds, sucking until the slow blood turned liquid.
Kristian never drank from humans. He could not bear to touch them. Everything about them disgusted himЧtheir heavy, hot blood, laced with smoky mortal odours. But vampire blood was clear as crystal, the divine exhalation of rubies.
Just a taste, crisp as champagne in his mouth. Just a reminder; a gesture of affection, really. Ilona tensed and made the faintest sound in her throat.
Retracting the stabbing teeth into their sockets, he drew back and held her at arm's length.
"I didn't need courage for that, " she said, but her brown eyes had softened and her voice was lazy.
"What kept you away from me for so long, my lamb?"
"Only some foolish young man who was in love with me. Are you jealous? Oh, I forgot, such human emotions are beneath you."
He nodded, but her frivolity made him want to crush her bones between his fingertips. That made the knowledge of what he had to do easier. "Where is he now?"
She shrugged. "Dead. I grew bored with him. That's the trouble, they all bore me in the endЕ "
"All except me," said Kristian. "Did you miss me?"
"With all my heart." She drew her fingers across her throat and held them up, smeared with gelatinous blood. The marks of his fangs had already vanished. "As much as I would miss this."
Absently licking the blood away, she moved across the balcony and sat on the rail, leaning against a pillar. This looked dangerous; the stone was crumbling and the woodwork rotten in parts, but if she fell it hardly mattered. She would land on her feet like a cat, or curl away into the Crystal Ring like a bird taking flight. Cupping her elbows in her hands, she stared at the river curving between the misty walls of the gorge.
She asked, "Why did you send for me?"
"I need you."
"I am flattered, but if you are lonely it's your own fault. I don't know how you can spend so much time hereЕ "
"I always have company."
"Е waiting for the world to come to you, I was going to say."
He leaned on the edge beside her. "But they do come, don't they?"
She looked at him with a touch of haughtiness that was almost a sneer. "To the Court of King Kristian. Oh yes."
He smiled. What she meant as an insult he took as a compliment. "Not the Court, but the Temple. The unseen Church. I asked you to come home for a reason."
He saw the tension flicker through her. He had not expected her to guess what he meant, and her hair-trigger reaction irritated him. His tone hardened. "I last saw Karl during the Great War."
"Really," she said flatly.
"He was beyond the reach of reasonable argument. I decided to leave him alone, until he came to his senses in his own time."
"A good decision. And final?"
"No, not final."
Her sweet face became pinched and bitter. "I knew that was too much to ask."