Read Online A Dance in Blood Velvet by Freda Warrington - Free Book Online Page A

her hands to protect them, she said, “I’ll bite my wrist and squeeze blood on your hand to free you. You’ll tear the skin otherwise.”
    Karl began to say, “No -” when the stick-creature thrashed into life and seized him. Its body was not fragile but heavy as stone, the thin limbs as strong as steel. Ice flared through him. He saw Charlotte over its shoulder, her eyes wide as she tried to drag the demon off him. Then he felt its fangs sink like sharp thick fossils into his neck.
    There was nothing harder to fight than a starving vampire. Karl couldn’t escape. He was paralysed, his ears full of the creature’s convulsive swallowing. His blood leapt painfully through his veins, pulsing out of him in time to the numbing suction of the mouth.
    He struggled, suppressing panic. It was vital his senses remained clear. “Charlotte, we must leave the Crystal Ring. Guide us down. Quickly, before she takes all my strength.”
    As he spoke, he sensed another vampire drawing close. No surprise, to see another dark form winging alongside Charlotte -red and violet glints on a swirl of blackness - nor to hear Ilona’s light, abrupt voice.
    “We’ll take him together. One on each side.”
    “Hurry,” said Charlotte. No time to be startled by Ilona’s appearance, only to be glad of her help. “Don’t touch the creature, she’s freezing.”
    Ilona retorted, “She’ll soon be warm as toast, if we don’t prise her off my father.”
    The Crystal Ring spiralled as Karl fell in the vampire’s grip. Ghastly, this helplessness. As his energy was stolen with his blood, he feared he would plunge through thin air to Earth - or be stranded in the Ring without hope of escape.
    But he felt sure hands on his arms, drawing him down curving paths of ether towards the lake of shadows below. All the time Karl battled to keep his bearings, and to prise the ravening blood-drinker out of his flesh.
    She was taking everything. Heat, strength, will. And as she surged frantically back to life, her self touched Karl and he realised who she was.
    Instantly he stopped fighting, held her to him with both arms, even while his power bled away and his vision turned white.
    Charlotte and Ilona pulled them both from the Crystal Ring and into the mortal world. He felt Charlotte’s energy tingling into him through her hands, the only warm spots on his body. She’d lent her strength to bring him back. And so had Ilona; why had she helped?
    As they tumbled to Earth, the creature’s fangs came out of Karl’s neck and she slumped in his arms. She was no longer stone-rigid but pliable flesh. In human guise again, all four collapsed exhausted on the ground. Karl blinked, and saw the faces of his lover and his daughter glowing ghostlike against darkness.
    They were lying on grass, on a roadside. Dawn glimmered on steep alpine meadows.
    “Karl?” Charlotte’s arms went around him. Her clothes were torn, her hair tousled. “Are you all right?”
    He hugged her, sat up, gently set her aside. “Yes, beloved. Thank you.” He looked at Ilona’s sharp oval face, pallid under her hair, the same near-black auburn as his own. Just a glance. She would only throw his thanks back at him.
    Between them lay the naked, piteous form of the sick vampire. She tried to claw at Karl, who held her down easily. Her form had changed with the transition to Earth, but she scarcely looked human. Her body was dead white and skeletal. Skin and muscle were pasted on her bones like papyrus. Mummified. A thing that should have been dead; instead she was writhing, sounds of agony rattling from her throat.
    Karl bowed his head. He was beyond weeping.
    The three immortals knelt around her, silent - not with revulsion, but with the knowledge that they could each be looking at their own fate. To suffer like this, unable to die...
    Karl pulled back his sleeve, and put his wrist to the vampire’s mouth.
    “What are you doing?” Charlotte cried.
    The white creature, closing her eyes,