.
.
He had to be stopped.
Somehow, in Karl's madness, his strength had increased tenfold, and so it fell to Nathan as the strongest to bring him in line. "He is insane!" Amshel said. Nathan watched as Amshel paced, the growing panic over what they did rising in him like bile. "He obsesses over Saya like a goddamned lunatic," Amshel said. "Says she is the only one who can bring him release. Diva is so angry she will go mad."
"Some would say she already is," Nathan said. Amshel only stared.
He found him on the rooftop. Nathan watched, stone-faced and silent, as Karl fed luxuriously on the dead girl, draining her blood before letting her body fall with a dull thud.
"Subtlety was never your strong suit," Nathan said, and he stepped out from the shadows. "My sweet boy. I am all for theatrics as the next man, but this," and he spread his hands, waving at the cape and the mask and the two dead girls lying at Karl's feet. "Well. I think we can both agree this is a tad much."
"Hmph." Karl turned, his cape catching the wind and rising like a banner behind him. "I gave them a beautiful gift. Something you or I will never achieve." Karl glanced back, the fringe around his mask catching the moonlight as he did. Nathan shook his head, frowning.
"You are aware, then, what the French call orgasm?" Nathan asked. "That," and he gestured to the bodies, frowning with distaste, "is nowhere near the beautiful death to which you are referring. Darling, you are confused," Nathan said, and he stepped closer. "Running around all hours of the night, wearing that ridiculous cape and mask. Really. We must put a stop to this."
Above them, the clouds shifted, moonlight darkening then coming out again, washing everything with a pale silver glow. Nathan frowned and watched as Karl stood, still and unmoving with only his cape and hair catching the wind.
"It is hurting Diva," Nathan said, finally. Karl's eyes widened only slightly before taking that same disaffected look, a haughty knowing that only Nathan himself had mastered.
And then Karl began to laugh.
It started low, welling deep from the bottom of his throat, before spilling out like crashing waves, loud and unending and overtaking the silence of the night. He laughed and for once in Nathan's long life he wasn't sure what to do, wasn't sure how to react when he saw the madness darting in Karl's eyes or the laughter bubbling from his throat.
"Solomon put you up to this, didn't he?" Karl said. He laughed again, wild-eyed, then flash-stepped across the roof and to where Nathan was standing, lurching forward and invading his personal space. "Amshel is writing it in his little book. Isn't he? Isn't he?"
"Stop this," Nathan said, but Karl turned away. "There is an order to my house which you must obey. My house," Nathan said, but Karl stared at him, unblinking. "My rules."
"This is not your house," Karl said, and he launched skyward, leaping from rooftop to rooftop and disappearing into the fog.
xXx
.
"What did he do?" Solomon cried, when the other chevaliers crowded around the bedroom, horrified. Dead bodies strewn across the bed, naked and bloodied, black hair limp and cut like their Queen's, their pale cracked lips reddened with dried caked-on blood.
"This has got to stop," Amshel said. Karl smiled.
"I am acting only as I should," Karl said. "A blautsauger. Bloodsucker. Feeding on immoral flesh. Isn't that what you taught me, Amshel?" Karl said. Amshel shook with anger.
"Her blood has corrupted you," Amshel said. "Her blood has made you insane!"
"Her blood has set me free," Karl said. "Free from the confines of your so-called living. It isn't polite, is it, sucking on the wounds of a young girl's neck?" His eyes glittered. "Perhaps I should drink their blood from a crystal chalice? Isn't that right, Amshel-nii-san."
"Karl, please," Solomon said. Karl turned.
"I am a man who was born unwanted," Karl said. He looked at Solomon and for once his eyes seemed lucid. Clear.
"There is only one person who can give me that sweet release. Someday I will find her."