Blood Eternal (33 page)
Elizabeth curled her fingers around the stem of her glass. “That doesn’t make sense.”
Saloman sipped his wine elegantly. “Prophecies don’t, as a rule. The art of the seer, the Guardian, was more in interpreting the visions than in simply receiving them. The future isn’t written in stone. Events, people, choices, change all the time. A vision, at best, is only ever one possible future.”
Elizabeth raised her glass and took an almost angry gulp. “Then what the hell use are they? Why did Luk get so wound up against you?”
Saloman shrugged. “Because his vision confirmed some deep-seated fear in him. Because he could no longer analyze clearly. Because he was insane and he didn’t want me to have Tsigana.”
“Tsigana . . . She keeps cropping up.” Elizabeth set down her glass and forced herself to think rationally. “What was it about her? Not one but two Ancient vampires running after her. To say nothing of Maximilian. For a young human, however beautiful, she must have had one hell of a personality. Or did Luk just want her because he thought she was yours?”
Saloman regarded her thoughtfully. “I’ve always assumed that to be the case. And yet his grief for her on awakening implies the feeling went deeper. The truth is, I lost Luk a long time before I killed him. I have no idea what goes on in his mind anymore.”
Luk disengaged his teeth from the woman’s throat with a grunt of satisfaction, and reached for her friend. “You know, I think my cousin might be onto something. Keeping his meals on the premises. There’s nothing like coming home to a favorite dinner. Except coming home to two,” he added, sinking his teeth into the second woman’s throat.
The first, a brunette with blond roots, scooted away from him and huddled in the corner. She was pale from blood loss. Her eyes were huge, both anxious and fervent as they watched him feed from her friend. He’d picked them both up in his fit of euphoria after breaching Saloman’s defenses, and brought them here to this attic, where, on a whim, he’d kept them and fed them between his own feedings.
The second girl wrapped her legs around his hips, pressing herself into him, and Luk was briefly tempted to fuck her while he fed.
“Oh, for God’s sake, do you have to do that here?” Grayson complained from the doorway. Returning from his hunt with the Turkish vampires, he appeared to be offended by the sight of Luk sprawling on the old mattress and cushions while being caressed by his luscious prey. Grayson had a very peculiar puritanical streak.
Luk healed the second girl’s wound with a flick of his tongue and turned to face Grayson. Just to annoy him, he put his hand over the woman’s eager breast.
“Do what here?” he inquired provokingly, and gazed up out of the open skylight to the stars, inhaling the scents of the night.
“Screw your . . . dinner,” Dante said in disgust.
“Modern language is so picturesque. I have not, er, screwed my dinner. Too much pleasure would disturb—and indeed drain—the energy I need to mask all of you all of the time. To say nothing of this place. All it takes is one second for Saloman to be onto us.”
One of the Turks knelt down by the brunette, tugging her toward him with clear intent. Luk swatted him away without so much as a glance, more irritated by the discourtesy than the territorial invasion. He didn’t like living this close to uncivilized vampires. In fact, even Grayson’s whining was becoming annoying. He couldn’t remember any of his other creations ever telling him off or commanding him as Grayson seemed inclined to, even after Luk had been forced to show him physically who was in charge.
Unbidden, a memory of Saloman flashed into his mind, a mere couple of weeks after being turned. A young, eager, awed Saloman, desperate to learn, to fly before he could walk, answering him back with a fearless impudence he had always forgiven because it had never descended to insolence. Besides, there had always been a certain wit about Saloman, a charm that had shone as brilliantly as the sun. . . .
Luk shook his head like a dog trying to dislodge a troublesome insect. It had been fun rooting about in an Ancient mind again. In Saloman’s mind in particular. So many layers and locks and depths. And such desperation to resist him. Euphoria rose once more, fierce and consuming. The being who’d outstripped him, eclipsed him, defeated him at every turn had been easy to trick after all, to best in his own palace. It didn’t matter that between them, Saloman and his Awakener had managed to push him out. They all knew who’d won that round, and who would therefore win the next. Luk had learned what he’d gone for: Saloman’s strengths and weaknesses.
“Then why do you keep them here?” Grayson carped. “All it takes is for one of them to escape and our cover is blown.”
Luk spared each of the women a dispassionate glance. “Look at them. They can’t exactly run fast. They’ve lost too much blood.”
“Then you’re going to need stronger blood soon. Why don’t you just kill them, or let the boys kill them,” he added with a wave of his hand toward the Turkish vampires who were now settling down to play backgammon.
Something twinged in Luk. He couldn’t recognize it. He just knew he didn’t like the feeling, the impression that something wasn’t right. Confusion, never far away, began to churn his mind up, reminding him how little he knew about this new world and the creatures who inhabited it. The unfamiliarity scared him, until he focused on the well-remembered hatred of Saloman to bring everything back into place.
Somewhere he longed for the peace of the sleep Grayson had wakened him from. But that was impossible now. He had an older, more important mission to fulfill. Even the new world was changing. She, the Awakener, was the missing piece who would cause Saloman’s power to wane. And he, Luk, would win at last. Over whatever was left. But he wouldn’t think of that.
He reached for the first woman again. She couldn’t lose much more and not die, but he wanted another mouthful to calm himself. When her eyes closed, he pushed her aside angrily and turned on the other vampires.
“I need fresh blood! I hate being cooped up in this stupid box! Did any more vampires approach you tonight? How many can we count on now?”
“
Count
on? Maybe five, but how can people even join us when all we do is hide? Five in the whole of Budapest!” Dante said disgustedly. “They’re the ones who contacted me during your little battle in Saloman’s palace and liked your style. And someone spoke to Timucin tonight—he seemed stronger, at least. I’ll meet with him tomorrow. But the rest are still on the fence. Waiting.”
Count
on? Maybe five, but how can people even join us when all we do is hide? Five in the whole of Budapest!” Dante said disgustedly. “They’re the ones who contacted me during your little battle in Saloman’s palace and liked your style. And someone spoke to Timucin tonight—he seemed stronger, at least. I’ll meet with him tomorrow. But the rest are still on the fence. Waiting.”
“Of course they are. Hybrid vampires have very little honor.” Luk leapt up through the skylight and onto the roof, from where he surveyed his motley group of followers and slaves in the room below. “It doesn’t matter. When we strike, they’ll flood to us so fast that Saloman will simply get washed away.”
Meeting with Saloman’s world that night turned out to be a not undiluted pleasure. The civilized vampire haunt of the Angel Club gave way to glimpses of the darker side of human nature, the side Elizabeth had always avoided.
Teetering with him on a rotting roof, his arm steadying her, she gazed in horror at the room lit up like a goldfish bowl in the building opposite. Small children huddled in a corner like puppies while an angry man punched a woman full in the face, then picked her up by the hair while the children seemed to scream silently.
“Stop it,” Elizabeth whispered, though to whom wasn’t clear.
“What should I do? Jump through the window and kill him in front of his children?” Without warning he dived off the roof onto the road, sweeping her along with him, cushioning her landing as he always did, before running along to the next street. He pointed out two youths breaking into a house, a woman beating a whining dog with a stick, kids setting fire to an abandoned car, two men beating up a third in an alleyway.
At the last, unsure whether she was angrier with the thugs or with Saloman, Elizabeth broke away from him, shouting, “Enough, Saloman! I get it, all right?”
The men in the alley paused, and with a quick glance in Elizabeth’s directions, the two attackers ran. In fury and pity, Elizabeth made a move to the bleeding man left behind. But another figure detached itself from the shadows and knelt, phone already clamped to his ear—presumably the victim’s friend, who’d been too late, or too afraid, to help against the attack.
With a swallowed sob, she swung away again and hit the wall of Saloman’s chest. “Why are you doing this?” she whispered as he swept her around the corner in the circle of his arm. “I know what humans are! I’ve always known.”
“I want you to
feel
it too. Like you feel the brutality of vampires. And I want you to feel safe with me.”
feel
it too. Like you feel the brutality of vampires. And I want you to feel safe with me.”
She stared at him in outrage. “
Safe?
For God’s sake, how is forcing me up against
that
going to make me feel safe?”
Safe?
For God’s sake, how is forcing me up against
that
going to make me feel safe?”
His long eyelashes swept down like a veil and lifted to reveal only blackness. He said steadily, “I want you to be aware that if you leave me, you won’t have left violence and darkness. It’s present in all beings.”
It took a few moments to sink in. Something cold and furious squeezed around her heart as she backed away from him. “That’s how you do it, isn’t it? Teach your flock to toe the line with little demonstrations of cruelty or benevolence or whatever the problem calls for. Well, I’m
not
one of your bloody flock, Saloman, and I
won’t
toe your line.”
not
one of your bloody flock, Saloman, and I
won’t
toe your line.”
Spinning on her heel, she marched away from him. She didn’t care where she was going; sheer anger propelled her, to the extent that if he’d dared to follow her she’d have snarled at him like a bitch dismissing her annoying suitor. And yet the fact that he didn’t follow only fed her rage.
Safe, my arse!
Finally, as she hit the busier part of town, she calmed down enough to laugh at herself. She didn’t, since it would probably make her cry instead.
A few yards in front of her, a nightclub was emptying, and the cobbled street became suddenly full of people. Elizabeth moved forward into the brightly dressed, happy crowd, weaving between them until, by the next junction, their numbers had thinned. Elizabeth paused, glancing up the narrower, badly lit street, which looked more like a delivery alley, looking for a street sign to give her a clue where she was. She’d been walking so furiously, paying so little attention, that she’d lost her sense of direction.
There were no street names to guide her. A few yards down the alley, shadows moved in a shallow doorway, and Elizabeth’s spine prickled.
Vampire
.
Vampire
.
Instinctively, she moved down the alley, her hand inside her shoulder bag, finding and gripping the sharpened stake as her heartbeat increased to welcome the sudden danger. A burst of loud laughter from the crowd of young people outside the club reached her ears, and then she heard nothing except the rustling of clothing in front of her, a tiny moan that could have betokened anything from terror or pain to sexual pleasure.
As her eyes adjusted to the deeper darkness, Elizabeth could see two people clinched in the doorway. The shape was unmistakable as the male figure’s head bent over the female’s neck. She could have stumbled on lovers groping in the dark, perhaps about to enjoy a quickie, as she’d done with Saloman up against the rocky hillside in Turkey. The unmistakable slurping sound told her the rest.
Elizabeth leapt forward before they could register her presence and thrust the stake up against the vampire’s back, just over where his heart should be.
“Stop,” she said harshly. “Right now. Let her go.”
The hunters would expect her to kill the vampire instantly. It was the only safe course. But she’d just spent a civilized evening drinking wine with several vampires whom she’d have needed a damned good reason to kill.
Compromised? Me?
Compromised? Me?
The vampire released his victim. Bizarrely, the girl said, “What is it? What’s the matter?”
“A hunter has a stake held to my heart,” the vampire explained.
Am I? Am I a hunter?
Perhaps the vampire sensed her distraction, for without any warning, he grabbed his chance, knocking her backward with one elbow in the chest. The pain was sharp, winding her, but as he leapt after her, she acted from instinct, kicking out at his legs and throwing him to the ground. She landed on him with deliberate force, her stake raised for the kill.
The girl, his victim, let out a low, moaning scream. “Oh, don’t hurt him; don’t kill him, oh, please!”
Elizabeth paused. With the vampire immobilized, she spared the girl a frowning glance. There was softhearted and there was stupid. “He was biting you,” she pointed out.
The girl trembled from head to toe, her eyes wide with fear and panic, her young face almost contorted with ridiculously intense pleading. “Of course he was. He’s my boyfriend.”
There was no sound but the beating of her own heart. In the grip of her legs and hand, the vampire lay very still. Staring at the girl, Elizabeth couldn’t even see his face, but with a mental push she found quite suddenly that she could speak to his mind.
She knows what you are?
She knows,
the vampire answered. Hope mingled with smugness in his mind.
She likes it.
the vampire answered. Hope mingled with smugness in his mind.
She likes it.
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