'Why didn't you finish the old devil off? You only wounded him!'
'I was interrupted.'
'What the hell do you mean — interrupted?'
So I tell him. Rupert rages. He paces, he punches trees, he weeps. Finally he turns to me like a man in the grip of a fatal illness, his face white and frail as the skin of a mushroom.
'This is a disaster!' he cries. 'If Meg and my father are lovers, then I have nothing left to live for. They'll have a child, and I shall have no inheritance, no house, no wife — nothing!'
He flings himself at me, grabbing the lapels of my coat. I am really enjoying this.
'Kill me,' he begs, tears running from his beautiful, anguished eyes. 'Kill me instead.'
Oh, my pleasure.
Only I can't do it.
I hold Rupert close and we are the same height so he looks into my eyes for an instant before my head goes down to his throat. He is tense, desperate for oblivion. But then the inevitable happens. He softens in my arms and clasps my head. He sighs. He forgets what he was angry about.
We are locked together, his blood running sweetly into my open mouth, his groin pressed hard against mine. And it happens. I fall in love with him.
And I'm satiated so I stop drinking; I just want to hold him against me. But I haven't taken nearly enough to kill him and he knows it.
'You bastard,' he says weakly. 'You liar.'
He faints. I let him go. I leave him lying there, slumped on the roots of a tree, and I run. .
I don't go far. There is an ancient rose arbour halfway across the grounds, with a dry fountain and some sad- looking, mossy statues. Here I hesitate, undecided, my mind full of Rupert and Meg and Daniel. I want them so badly. I am in anguish.
Karl startles me. I am not looking where I'm going and I don't see him there in the shadow of a rose trellis. I almost step on him. He's like a statue coming to life, with fire for eyes, and if I had been human I believe I should have died of fear. He's still following me, watching me, warning me — just for the hell of it, I swear.
'Are you simply going to leave him?' He grips my arms, forcing me to meet his gaze. 'You have a choice, Antoine. Go back and finish them all; or leave now, and never come back. Make a decision or this will destroy you!'
'Why don't you leave me the hell alone!' I growl, pulling free of him.
'I shall,' he says coldly. 'But I have seen so many of our kind sabotage their own existence through their obsession with mortals. I have even known them to kill themselves.'
'Kill themselves?' The idea is shocking to me. Abhorrent. What's the use of becoming immortal only to waste it?
'As soon as I am sure that you understand, then I shall leave you to your folly.'
I laugh. 'Karl, do you really not see? How boring do you want our existence to be? Oh, yes, I have tried all the things that new-made vampires think will thrill them. And it does thrill, for a little while. I have climbed mountains where the cold and the lack of air would kill humans. I have swum deep in the ocean. I have thrown myself like a bird off the Eiffel Tower and walked away with a broken wrist.'
'And have you not found wonder in any of this?'
'The thing is that when such feats come so easily to us, there is no point in doing them. No challenge.' My voice is throaty and I hate myself for being sincere and fervent in front of Karl, but there it is. 'All that's left, the only challenge, the only chance of passion' — I point across the garden at the grey-brown hulk of stone — 'lies in that house.'
'I disagree,' says Karl, but his eyes betray him.
'If you disagree, my friend, why are you pestering me? There is no reason under the moon for you to be haunting me, except that you get some frisson of excitement from it.'
Karl can find no reply to that. I dance away, quite pleased to have silenced him for once.
I am back at the house again. Moth to the flame. Of course.
I'm outside the parlour window and they are inside, sitting there by the light of an open fire and gas lamps. A brown scene, with little touches of green, red and gold. To my surprise, Rupert and his father are sitting in armchairs on opposite sides of the grate. They are not speaking but, my God! At least they are in the same room! They are sipping brandy from balloon glasses and the liquor shines like rubies in the fire-glow.
Meg is perched on a couch, sewing. She wears a simple skirt and cardigan — not the maid's uniform I expected — and her hair is coiled on her head, beautifully dishevelled. They are listening to music on the wireless — such a big box to produce such small, tinny, jaunty sounds! But this is not a scene of happy domesticity.
There is a dreadful tension between them. Even through the glass I feel it.
They're waiting for me, thinking of me. I can feel the heat of their dreams and desires. For me they would forget their quarrels, even forget their relationships to each other, just to feel my lips on them again and my fangs driving into them to lose themselves in bliss. I long to go to them. I want to feel their arms around me, and their bodies pliant under mine, and their genitals stiffening and opening like exotic flowers and their blood leaping into me, God, yes, their blood
The woman pricks herself with the needle. I watch the blood-bead swell on her finger. Then her lips close on the wound, and my desires throb like pain.
My hand is on the window
