She has recently completed 'The Jewelfire Trilogy' for Simon & Schuster's Earthlight imprint, comprising the British Fantasy Award-nominated The Amber Citadel, The Sapphire Throne and The Obsidian Tower. A new novel , Guiltless Blood, is scheduled for 2002 .
' I love the paradox of vampires,' explains Warrington. ' They personify things we dread, such as death or (horrors!) the dead coming back from the grave, yet also attributes we may covet, such as eternal youth, power over others, guilt-free sensuality. The possibilities offered by vampire characters are endless. Away with cardboard heroes chasing cardboard monsters! In A Taste of Blood Wine and its sequels, my characters Karl, Charlotte, Violette and their friends took me down many fascinating dark labyrinths exploring themes of love, pain, jealousy, psychology, philosophy, religion, sex I found no limit.
' ' The Raven Bound' came about when a French editor, Lea Silhol, asked me to write a story for her vampire anthology , De Sang et d'Encre. She hinted strongly that she would like to see an appearance of her favourite characters from the books, Karl and Charlotte. I had an idea all worked out until I actually put pen to paper, when something entirely unplanned came out instead! I don't know where Antoine came from, but I think he would smile at a quote in my desk diary by the writer Susan Ertz, which turned up in apposite fashion shortly after I'd written his story: 'Millions long for immortality who don't know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon''
I walk a tightrope above an abyss. The silver line of wire is all that keeps me from 1,000 feet of darkness yet I feel no fear. I flit across the rooftops of London like a cat, I lie flat on top of underground trains as they roar through sooty tunnels. I climb the ironwork of the Eiffel Tower and I dance upon the girders at its pinnacle, daring gravity to take me. And all of this is so dull.
Dull, because I can do it.
I move with the lightness and balance of a bird. I never fall, unless I throw myself wantonly at the ground. Then I may break bones, but my bones heal fast. It is not difficult. It will not kill me. All these wild feats bore me, for they hold no challenge, no excitement.
What is a vampire to do?
I see him in a nightclub. He could be my twin: a brooding young man with a lean and handsome face, dark hair hanging in his eyes; his eyes lovely miserable pools of shadow. How alone he looks, sitting there oblivious to the crush of bodies, the women glittering with beads and pearls. He is hunched over a glass of whisky and he raises a long, gaunt hand to his mouth, sucking hard on a cigarette stub. Dragging out its last hot rush of poisons.
'May I join you?' I say.
'If you must.' His voice is a bored, English upper-class drawl. I love that.
'There is no free table.' I wave to emphasize the obvious; the club is crowded, a sepia scene in a fog of smoke. 'My name is Antoine Matisse.'
'Rupert Wyndham-Hayes.' He shakes my hand half-heartedly. His cigarette is finished so I offer him another, a slim French one from a silver case. He accepts. I light it for him — an intimate gesture and he sits back, blowing smoke in sulky pleasure. 'Over from Paris, one assumes? First visit?'
'I have been here before,' I reply. 'London always draws me back.'
He makes a sneering sound. 'I should prefer to be in Paris. Funny how we always want what we haven't got.'
'What is preventing you from going to Paris, Rupert?'
I look into his eyes. He doesn't seem to notice that I am not smoking. He sees something special in me, a kindred soul, someone who will understand him.
He calls the waiter and orders drinks, although I tip mine into his while he isn't looking. Presently his story comes tumbling out. A family seat in the country, a father who is proud and wealthy and mean. Mother long dead. Rupert the only son, the only child, with a vast freight of expectations on his shoulders. But he has disappointed his father in everything.
'All the things he wanted me to be — I can't do it. I was to be a scholar, an officer, a cabinet minister. Worthy of him. Married to some earl's daughter. That's how he saw me. But I let him down. I tried and failed; gods, how I tried! Finally something snapped, and I refused to dance to his tune any longer. Now he hates me. Because what I truly am is an artist. The only thing I can do, the only thing I've ever wanted to do, is to paint!'
He takes a fierce drag on his cigarette. His eyes burn with resentment.
'Isn't your father proud that you have this talent?'
'Proud?' he spits. 'He despises me for it! Says I'll end up in the gutter.'
'Why don't you leave?' I speak softly and I am paying more attention to the movement of his tender throat than to his words. 'Go to Montmartre, be an artist. Prove the old man wrong.'
'It's not that easy. There's this girl, Meg'
'Take her with you.'
'That's just it. I can't. She's the gardener's daughter. My father employs her as a maid. D'you see? Not content with being a failure at everything else, I go and fall in love with a common servant. So now the old man tells me that if I don't give her up and toe the line, he'll disinherit me! And Meg's refusing to see me. Says she's afraid of my father. Damn him!'
I have not been a vampire so very long. I still recall how hopeless such dilemmas seem to humans. 'That's terrible.'
'Vindictive old swine! I'll lose her and I'll be penniless! He can't do this to me!'
'What will you do about it, Rupert?'
He glares down into his whisky. How alluring he looks in his wretchedness. 'I wish the old bastard would die tomorrow. That would solve all my problems. I'd like to kill him!'
'Will you?'
