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began to draw out deep, warm notes. He played a nocturne in a minor key, mournful and evocative. Charlotte, arrested, blew out her match and closed her eyes. He saw her body tauten, saw the tip of one fang indenting the rose-red curve of her lower lip.
    The solitary line of music expressed all that had happened this evening. The mad leap from the mountain, the mutual bliss of killing.
How easy it was
, he thought,
when we hunted alone, to pretend we’re better than we really are. Until thirst comes in a primitive rush and we fall on our prey like animals… And, dear God, it was so like making love. Devouring each other while that poor woman faded between us…
    As Karl played, Charlotte rose to her feet and began to dance. So hard, even now, not to see her as the sweet young mortal he had first met. So hard to believe she had shared the kill with him! In a dress of cream, rose and gold lace she was slender and graceful, her upright back and neat square shoulders swathed by waist-length hair. Her hair was a shimmering wreath of soft brown and gold, framing her lovely, ageless face. She smiled as she danced. She looked so carefree, so heartbreakingly pretty, no one would believe that blood had ever touched her lips.
    Only her eyes had changed. The amethyst-grey irises were layered with experiences and sorrows that no mortal could imagine.
    She was an elemental, a nymph, an enigma. Karl watched her rippling hair, the subtle roundness of her breasts, hips and thighs moving beneath the lace. He felt an intense longing to make love to her… but that could wait. They had all night.
    The nocturne wound to its sombre end. Charlotte curtseyed, her arms stretched behind her like wings.
    “I’m not Violette,” she said apologetically.
    “Thank God for that,” said Karl.
    She came to him and stroked his hair. “Do you still dislike her so much?”
    “
Liebchen
, as I keep telling you, I don’t dislike her. I meant that I want to be with you, no one else. And I do not want to talk about Violette.”
    “But we must.”
    “Why?”
    “Well, we can’t talk about…” She gestured at the window, meaning the outside world, the forest, the shared feast. “Can we?”
    He folded his fingers around her hand. “Not yet.”
    “I’m sure Violette will be all right. As long as she goes on dancing, there’s hope.”
    “That she won’t destroy us?”
    “That she’ll keep her sanity, and not be unhappy.”
    “And not carry out her threats against us?” Karl said.
    “Dear, she wasn’t herself.”
    “Yet she said it. She threatened to take you from me, and change us both into people we would not recognise. I can’t afford to ignore that.”
    Karl wished Charlotte would forget Violette, but it was Charlotte’s obsession that had made her into a vampire. Now she felt endlessly responsible for the dancer.
    “However,” he went on, “I won’t live under the shadow of any threat. I had enough of that with Kristian. We’re free now. I refuse to fear Violette.”
    “I’m not afraid of her. I made her.” Charlotte knelt beside him, her face shining in the candlelight. “She’s like my mother, daughter, sister –” Karl was glad she didn’t add
lover
“– and I won’t turn my back on her.”
    “Of course not, but that doesn’t mean she’s not dangerous. The last time I saw the three supposed ‘angels’, they warned me against her. Although I don’t trust them, I think the warning was genuine.” Memory enveloped him. He felt the frost-burn of the
Weisskalt
and saw the three – angels or devils, they had been more than vampires – leaping like jets of fire into the black cauldron of space. Simon, Fyodor, Rasmila – who also called themselves by mythical names: Senoy, Sansenoy, and Semangelof.
    Karl wondered what had become of them.
    “We should be cautious, that’s all.”
    Her hand, rosy with stolen blood, rested on his thigh. “Yes, but we must remain friendly with her. If we avoid her, that may make her