The Dark Blood of Poppies by Freda Warrington Read Free Book Online Page B

until revealing themselves as dual beings: heavenly envoys whose purpose was to tame Lilith.
So
, Karl wondered,
were they all suffering the same delusion
? Lancelyn, too, had seen extraordinary qualities in Violette. Calling her the Black Goddess, he had sought immortality and enlightenment through her.
And
, Karl reflected,
he would have made a formidable immortal…
    But Violette had left Lancelyn writhing in madness. Devastated by his brother’s fate, Benedict had turned away from the occult.
    And the angels?
    They’d been ruthless in helping Lancelyn to control Lilith. They’d kidnapped her, tortured Karl, almost killed Charlotte and Stefan. Yet when Violette-as-Lilith rejected their authority, they had fled.
    Karl recalled his last encounter with Rasmila, Fyodor and Simon in the
Weisskalt
, the highest glacial layer of the Crystal Ring. Before vanishing, they had delivered a simple warning:
“For as long as she roams free, Lilith will cause untold harm and sorrow… One day you will have to stop her.”
    He wished Charlotte had never met her. But perhaps the Crystal Ring – or Raqia, as Benedict called it – had used Charlotte as a catalyst in Violette’s fate.
    “That would make sense, if I believed in such things as fate,” he murmured.
    An oil lamp burned; beyond its glow, the library lay in shadow. Suddenly aware of an intruder, Karl looked up and saw a gilded figure manifesting by the far window. The newcomer’s clothing was modern, unremarkable, but his appearance was striking. Golden skin, a bright halo of hair, topaz eyes. He looked like a Grecian deity, or a lion in human form.
    After their last encounter, Karl had neither expected nor wanted to see him again. The intruder smiled as he approached.
    “Simon,” Karl said, sitting back in his chair. “I would thank you not to walk in unannounced.”
    “My dear fellow, what sort of greeting is this? You surely don’t expect me to knock at the front door like a human?”
    “It would have been courteous.”
    “Then I apologise for violating your privacy,” Simon said with apparent sincerity. “What are you writing?”
    “Nothing that concerns you.”
    Simon chuckled. “Be careful what you write, Karl. It may come back to haunt you.”
    “What do you want?” Karl couldn’t forget that Simon had tortured and tried to kill his friends. “I thought I’d seen the last of you.”
    “I hoped so too.” Simon gave him a cool look. “But things change.”
    “Where are your companions? I thought you were inseparable.”
    Simon wandered to a bookshelf and chose a book at random. “After the matter of Lilith, we had a difference of opinion and went our separate ways.”
    “And I thought you had ascended to heaven.”
    “There is no need for sarcasm, Karl.” He flicked through the book without interest, pushed it back on the shelf. His presence was intimidating, dazzling like the sun, but Karl suspected he was troubled. “No, we returned to Earth.”
    “In what sense?”
    “In every sense. When we failed to tame Lilith, God had no further use for us. He abandoned us. Fyodor and Rasmila blamed me.”
    “How unfair.” Karl rose and moved in front of the table, half-sitting on its edge. “So, are you still the angel Senoy, or a mere vampire?”
    Simon looked away, brooding. “I don’t know. Can you imagine how it feels, having looked upon the ineffable face of God, to be cut off from the light?”
    Curiosity got the better of Karl. “To be honest, I can’t. What happened?”
    To his surprise, Simon was in a confiding mood. He answered, “After we left you we flew above the
Weisskalt
as if we were invincible… Perhaps euphoria made us overconfident. We became cold and lost our way. The light blinded us. We fell a long way back to Earth. Fyodor almost died. And we realised that God had forsaken us. To teach us humility, I suppose.”
    “That must have been devastating,” Karl said without inflexion. “But before, how did it feel to be an