Winthrop remembered Albright's dry corpse and tried to envision the thing which had emptied him in mid- air.
Ten Brincken was agitated when one of his associates, a Dr Krueger, pointed out some were getting ahead of themselves. Stalhein's head was thrown back, eyes glazing as Faustine nibbled him. An attendant pulled the girl away and held her back. Her eyes were red and she had a full set of fangs. She panted like a cat, tiny blood dribbles on her chin.
'You must not drink from these men,' Ten Brincken ordered, 'you must let them drink from you. This is of vital importance. Those who disobey will be punished.'
The stress Ten Brincken laid on the word 'punished' was curiously sickening. I did not wish to discover what punishment he had conceived for us immortals.
Stalhein adjusted his collar and shook his head. Lothar was still trying to coax the Baron, who stood with arms resolutely crossed, Blue Max glinting on his breast.
As I said, many elders drink only the blood of other vampires. It is a way of taking on the strength of new lines. But the diet does not suit most new-borns. The Circus are, mainly, young in darkness, barely a year or two out of their graves. It is common in Germany and Austria-Hungary for the sons of the aristocracy to be turned in their eighteenth or nineteenth year. The blood of Dracula's immediate get is strong. The merest pinprick, squeezed onto your tongue, would be enough to turn you ...
Winthrop had the impression Mata Hari was flirting with Beauregard. He wished he had been present at the interview; so much meaning was lost without the inflection.
... and a taste would be enough to madden most new-borns. When
go mad, they lose control of their shape-shifting talents. It is not a pleasant way to die. Ten Brincken was playing a very dangerous game. Either he cared not for the survival of these heroes, or else he was confident of their qualities. I have no doubt the first condition is in some measure true: Ten Brincken strikes me as a warm man fascinated and terrified by vampires. But I also think it a fair bet that any flier who had earned a place in JG1 would have the right stuff to taste the blood of Dracula’s get and profit from the infusion.
'Drink their blood,' Ten Brincken ordered, 'it is important.'
Lothar opened his mouth, transforming it into a snout bristling with teeth, and fastened himself to Marikova's swan-neck, chewing flesh, lapping spurting blood with a long tongue. The elder's wounds healed instantly, so Lothar tore again, smearing his face with precious gore.
'See, Manfred,' he said, voice surprisingly human through wolfish lips, 'it is not so difficult.'
Lothar's clawed hands rent Marikova's ball-gown, and his jaws tore her breasts and belly. He pushed the elder on to a divan and licked her open wounds. Lola-Lola held her mistress down, whispering soothing words into her ear, gripping her hand like a midwife helping a woman through childbirth. Marikova's face was frozen in indignation, but she was strong with the strength of centuries. I did not know if I could survive the rough treatment Lothar von Richthofen was meting out to Dracula's wife.
'Baron von Richthofen,' General Karnstein addressed the flier, 'it is necessary. For the war.'
The Baron looked at me without passion, without contempt, without interest. I cannot convey the emptiness of his eyes. Some
have a deadness in their heart that has nothing to do with true death. We vampires exaggerate the qualities of our warm days. You can imagine the traits I have carried over and amplified from life. In Richthofen, there .must have been a coldness, a need to retreat from physical and emotional contact. For such a man to be a vampire, to be eternally dependent on such contact, must be very like perdition.
Winthrop could not bring himself to pity the Bloody Red Baron.
'Very well,' Manfred said, the good soldier obeying an order. He stepped forwards, close to me. I saw healed scars on his handsome, square face. Under his cropped hair was a fading red weal. He had recently been shot in the head.
'Madame,' he held out his hand. I took it. A queerly boyish look passed across his face, as if he did not know what to do next. I believe he had never before been with a woman.
Ten Brincken nodded to one of the attendants, who slipped my peignoir from my shoulders.
'You appear to be in excellent health,' he remarked.
Other fliers followed Lothar's example. Stalhein had Faustine pinned down, and drank from her slit wrist as from a public water fountain. Meinster opened his dressing gown like batwings and moaned in a species of pleasure as Murnau knelt before him, sucking intimate wounds.
Manfred dipped his head and touched a sharp tongue to my neck. When I say sharp, I mean it literally. Some vampires have barbed points in their tongues, to pierce their companions' skin. The Baron clamped his mouth to my wound and sucked, ferociously. I felt points of pain and an ocean of pleasure. I was near swooning. The experience had not been this intense since Dracula took me for the first time. I was warm again, alive.
'Not too much, Baron,' said Ten Brincken, tapping Manfred's shoulder. 'It can be dangerous.'
I wanted to push him away but I had to hold him to me. I felt myself dwindling.
'Baron,' Ten Brincken nearly shouted, fear lost in his devotion to science, 'enough!'
