A Dance in Blood Velvet by Freda Warrington Page A

growing old. His motive had been love, but Ilona had hated him for it. She’d even killed Charlotte’s sister Fleur, just to hurt him. Yet there was a complicated affinity between her and Charlotte that neither could explain. Charlotte was not vengeful by nature. Settling the score with Ilona would border on hypocrisy, since Charlotte had chosen to join their dark clan. So they maintained a fragile truce. In her heart, she would never forgive Ilona for Fleur, but she pushed her rage and grief to a corner of her mind where it lay dormant.
    For now.
    “I wish it hadn’t happened,” Charlotte sighed. “But now she’s here I can’t expect Karl to turn her out for my sake. I shouldn’t even think it. I’m being selfish, but I can’t shake off the feeling.”
    “Why should you? I’d feel the same, but I wouldn’t be so noble. While he’s out -” Ilona mimed an axe-blow.
    “What are you talking about?”
    “For heaven’s sake, why are you agonising about this? You’re jealous. It’s perfectly normal.”
    “No!” Charlotte said, too vehemently. “I don’t wish her harm. I just wish she wasn’t here.”
    “But you’ve every reason to be jealous.” Ilona spoke in a confiding tone. “Karl and Katerina were very close, you know.”
    “How close?” Charlotte asked before she could stop herself.
    “Ask him.” Ilona grinned. “No, don’t ask. Just watch them together.”
    Charlotte knew what Ilona was doing, but fear rushed through her regardless. She suppressed it. “You’re trying to cause trouble,” she said calmly. “Don’t. It won’t work.”
    Ilona shook her head. “Oh, Charlotte. You’re such a fool for love. God, you even have to fall in love with your victims before you can feed! It’s terribly sweet, and terribly... bloodless, if you’ll excuse the phrase. You’re missing so much!”
    “I don’t think so.”
    “You try so hard not to frighten them, let alone kill them. I’m amazed you don’t send a written apology afterwards! Karl is as bad. Seizing strangers so their faces don’t haunt him.”
    Stung, Charlotte said, “Is your way so superior?”
    “God, no. It’s worse. It’s horrible,” Ilona said with relish. “Don’t you know? I like to seduce mine. No, I mean really seduce them, make them fall in love and drag me to their beds. Haven’t you discovered what fun that is?”
    “I’ve no desire to. It would be repulsive.”
    Ilona nudged her. “I only do it with attractive ones, darling. God, they’re such fools! If they please me, I’m kind; I keep them for a few months before I kill them.”
    “And if they don’t please you?”
    “I let them live.”
    “Is that unkind?”
    “Mutilated, most men find it intolerable. I feed from the part that has most displeased me, you see.”
    Charlotte made a noise of revulsion in her throat.
    “So squeamish?” Ilona laughed. “I despair of you. But don’t change, Charlotte; you’re so funny.”
    No point in arguing with Ilona; it only made her worse.
    Charlotte said, “What I don’t understand is why you are helping Karl. When I first knew him, he said you hadn’t spoken for years. You still act as if you loathe him at times. Why help Katerina now?”
    “Because I’m enjoying myself,” Ilona replied. “He’s always been too fastidious to kill on his own doorstep. What fun, to bring victims here and see their blood staining his carpet, while he has no choice but to condone it.”
    “Was Katerina your friend?”
    “Never. I hated the bitch.”
    “You hate everyone.”
    “Not you, dear.” Ilona put an arm around Charlotte’s shoulders. “However, if Katerina comes between you and Karl, that will be even more amusing. They invented the word schadenfreude for me, didn’t you know?”
    “I don’t believe a word you’re saying,” Charlotte murmured. She shrugged Ilona’s hand from her shoulder. One glance seemed to dissolve Ilona’s mockery. The humour bled from her face and voice.
    “Aren’t you