The Dark Blood of Poppies Read Online Free PDF

couldn’t. Her reflection showed not a winged and clawed monster, but a young ballerina: composed, beautiful, incapable of harming a soul.
    Violette went to the mirror and stared at her
doppelgänger
. Their fingers met and trailed across the glass; their faces bore the same cool expression. The mirror held no answers.
    “Help me,” she said to no one in particular. “Help me.”
    Her gaze moved to the smears of spilled blood on the floor, thick and luscious as berry juice. She caught a succulent aroma.
Oh God, blood…
    As if pulled by puppet-strings she knelt, arching down to breathe the scent, to touch the blood with her tongue…
    Movement made her freeze. A large black-and-white cat strolled into the room and began lapping at the same deep red stain. Suddenly Violette saw herself as a beast, part-serpent, part-wolf… She leapt up in horror, panting for breath.
    “No,” she gasped, digging her nails hard into her own arms. “No, I am not an animal!”
    The cat lost interest in the blood and came to Violette, mewing and weaving around her legs. Violette bent down and scratched the top of her pet’s head.
    “Magdi,” she whispered. “Tell me it didn’t happen.”
    Then Violette went to the dressing room and filled a bucket with water and detergent. With the same diligence she applied to perfecting her ballets, she dropped to her knees and began scrubbing the bloodstains out of the smooth, varnished floor.

CHAPTER TWO

FRIENDS AND STRANGERS
    O n clear cold nights, when a full moon hung over the Swiss Alps, Karl and Charlotte often walked for hours through the magnificent peaks. In temperatures no human could endure, they climbed impossible slopes with ease. Anyone seeing them would think they were ghosts.
    As compensation for the darkness of immortality, Charlotte reflected, this was among the greatest: to stand on a mountain summit with the world rolling away in white silence below, Karl’s arm around her, their coats blowing in the icy wind.
    Below the peak on which they stood was a straight two-hundred-foot drop. Irresistible. Detaching herself from Karl, she went to the very edge and hesitated, drunk with euphoria. Then she spread her arms, and dived into space.
    Freezing air made a banshee wail in her ears. She felt weightless and completely at peace.
This is what it means, to be mortal no longer…
    She landed in deep soft snow. Plumes of white powder rose and blew away on the wind. She lay on her back, staring at the sky: a glorious arch of black velvet clustered thickly with stars. There was another explosion of snow nearby; Karl had jumped after her. Finding his feet, he waded towards her.
    “Charlotte!”
    She accepted his hand and stood up, shaking snow from her coat. The spark of anger in his eyes startled her.
    “Have you gone mad?” he said, staring hard into her eyes. “If you want to fly, enter the Crystal Ring. Don’t attempt it on Earth.”
    His fervour took her aback. “I wanted to see how it felt to jump. I knew I couldn’t kill myself.”
    “No, but you might have been badly hurt. Our flesh can tear and our bones can break. We heal, but the pain is terrible.”
    “I know.” She lowered her eyes. “I’m sorry. But there’s no harm done.”
    He relented with a rueful smile. “You must forgive me, also, for being overprotective. Sometimes I think you are still human.”
    “Well, I’m not.”
    Karl shook his head, more amused than annoyed. Her beautiful demon lover.
    “Shall we go home?” he said. “Now we’ve taken the shortcut.”
    On a winding path though a pine forest, they walked arm-in-arm like an innocent couple out for a stroll. Charlotte loved these times when she could forget the blood thirst. Simply bask in the pleasure of being alone with Karl.
    Both sensed the presence before they saw her: a peasant woman, heavily wrapped up against the cold, walking towards them. Charlotte smelled animal blood on her, and guessed she’d been up half the night helping cows to