Vampyre Bride ✔️

XXIII⎮The Vampyre Ball

"There now, nothing like a little music to steel one's courage." He pressed his lips languorously to the sensitive skin below her ear.

"And nothing," she quipped, her voice thick with desire, "like a little darkness to steal a kiss."

Winterly pulled himself away from her with an appreciative laugh. "Touché, Miss Lucas. There is, however, time enough for kisses, but not just yet; and this dank tunnel won't do at all. We've tarried quite long enough." He held out his arm to her. "Shall we?"

He was right. Do, in future, stop being so demmed gothic, Emma! she chided herself silently, slipping her hand once more over his lordship's waiting arm. "I think we'd better."

"Have I told you yet how exquisite you look this evening?" said Winterly, his footsteps as quiet as before.

"Indirectly," she assured him, blushing in the darkness, pleased to note that the music had amplified exponentially. She no longer felt so alone with him.

"Are you ready?" There was note of relish in his words as they reached a second pair of doors that were almost an exact replica of the first they had passed through. Two wooden relicts, at all appearances.

As before, these too were opened to them betimes by two more morbid footmen also masked and disguised as plague doctors. But that was not what drew from her a dazed gasp. No, indeed! She was met with such an impressive spectacle as could not have been imagined even in her strangest dreams.

They had indeed entered an underworld — a magnificent and vivid one. It was some sort of vast and pillared undercroft, the stone walls bathed in a subaqueous candlelit gold. And all around them, for Winterly was now leading her into the crush, a glittering array of bejeweled gowns and frightening masks.

There were no pastels here, and this was no debutante ball. All was bold; and dark; and rich: emeralds, sapphires, rubies, and suchlike. As she watched, a woman in a peacock mask was whisked past them in the waltz, the velvet of her dress a deep viridian. Next followed a Cytherean beauty, her hair as fiery as her garnet gown and her eyes concealed by a black strip of gauze. Then came an ice queen in dark silver crape with a white mask of glittering diamonds.

With grand and effortless grace were the movements of the dancers orchestrated; they floated about, these mysterious guests, as though silk upon air. Emma's eyes flickered every which way, at once beguiled, stunned, and intimidated.

She gave another startled gasp as a man in a black vulpine mask — which, unlike Winterly's, covered even his mouth and nose — leapt at her with alarming precipitance, laughing like a jackal as he frisked about.

"O Rose, thou art sick!" cried this leering fox. "The invisible worm that flies in the night, in the howling storm, has found out thy bed of crimson joy. And his dark secret love does thy life destroy!"  And then, with another vulgar whoop and a valedictory salute, betook himself elsewhere.

Winterly's smirk perfectly suited the satyrical shape of his mask as he watched the fox gambol away. "I've always liked that poem."

"Who was that?" she asked, unaware, at first, of the fact that she'd moved instinctually closer to him. Ironic, really, for he was the greater danger.

"William Blake," said he, unnecessarily.

"I meant the fox." She knew very well who had penned the verses.

But Winterly, ostensibly deeming the query satisfactorily answered, progressed their tête-à-tête. Either that or he cared not to answer her. "I'm quite partial to his darker verses. Are you an admirer of his works?"