Blood Eternal (46 page)
Abruptly, Luk sat down.
Dmitriu said, “What the fuck does that mean?”
And Maximilian laughed, a sound rare enough to bring a smile to Saloman’s lips. Elizabeth stirred, and Saloman cradled her in his arms as he rose to his feet.
“It means this fight is ended,” he said sternly. “Luk’s challenge is over and all his followers will swear allegiance to me or die. This building is henceforth sacrosanct once more.” He swept his gaze around the hunters. “I can’t remove the knowledge of where it is; the secret can never be restored. But I can make it impossible for it to be entered by any without your permission.”
“Including you?” Konrad demanded.
“No,” said Saloman. “But I agree to knock first in the future.”
“I think we’re all glad you came without invitation,” Lazar said reluctantly.
“Ambulance,” Mihaela’s voice interrupted, speaking into her mobile phone. “Urgently.” Her attention was on István. “Will he be all right?”
It was impossible to tell whom the question was directed to. István said, “Yes.” But Saloman, sensing in the hunter’s body as he’d once sensed in Elizabeth’s, was not so sure.
He said, “She’s taken your pain and healed the pierced lung that might have killed you. But your injuries are still severe.”
Elizabeth’s breath stirred his throat, making him shiver. She said huskily, “Who has?”
“You,” Saloman said. “You.”
After Lazar and the hunter Karoly had removed their colleague’s decapitated body, the paramedics were allowed in to take István to the ambulance and to check out the walking wounded. Still dazed, Elizabeth watched, curiously detached and yet with every nerve ultrasensitive to her surroundings.
She wasn’t dead; she wasn’t dead at all.
Saloman sat on the floor by her side; and despite the human deaths and injuries, the battle was won and her friends were alive.
Saloman was scribbling something on a piece of paper, which he passed to Mihaela. “Those missing women. You might want to alert your police and paramedics to this address.”
Mihaela’s eyes widened. “How do you know?”
“Luk,” Saloman said briefly, and without further questions, Mihaela got on her phone once more.
“Hey.”
Elizabeth glanced up to see Rudy, Cyn, and John Ramsay. They crouched down facing her. Cyn said anxiously, “You really okay?”
“Sure!” Elizabeth shared her smile between the three of them and their remaining wounded colleague on the other side of the room. “I’m so sorry about your friend.”
“It’s the risk we’re all prepared to take,” Rudy said gruffly.
“I want to say thanks for coming, but it sounds so trivial, as if you turned up to a birthday party, instead of making the difference here. Without you, I doubt we’d have won this.”
Cyn cast a glance of hatred at Saloman. “I’m still not sure what the hell ‘this’ was.”
Mihaela said, “It’s all right. The good guys won.”
“Did they?” Cyn snapped.
Saloman smiled and stretched out his long legs among the fallen books.
“At a price,” Konrad said bitterly from across the room. “Can I talk to you?”
As Rudy and Cyn moved away with Konrad, John hesitated. His gaze was riveted to Saloman’s face. “You saved my life. In Afghanistan.”
“I may have done. I didn’t save them all.”
John’s lip twitched. “You’re not
all
the bad guys, are you?”
all
the bad guys, are you?”
“No,” Elizabeth said quietly.
Dmitriu said, “You’re telepathic. You’ve got the Ancient gene.”
“What?” John said, baffled.
Saloman regarded Dmitriu with only slightly mocking pride. “I’m so glad to see you’re taking up your new duties so quickly.”
The library door clicked closed behind István and the paramedics, and as John, together with Rudy and Cyn, prepared to follow them, Elizabeth opened her mouth to release her flood of questions. But Dmitriu was before her.
“What about him?” he asked Saloman, jerking his head at the passive Luk, who still sat in the middle of the floor amid the carnage, apparently deep in thought.
Elizabeth slid her hand into Saloman’s. Her hatred had vanished in understanding. “His pain was worse than anything,” she said, low.
“I know.”
Luk lifted his gaze. “I should never have been awakened.”
“No,” Saloman agreed.
“I would like to go back.”
“I know.”
“Will you do it now?”
“Not here,” Saloman whispered, and Luk smiled. It was a curiously sweet smile, allowing Elizabeth a glimpse of the true person he’d once been.
“No,” Luk agreed. “Not here, now. I’m sorry, Saloman. It must be hard to be the last.”
“It was.” Saloman’s fingers tightened on Elizabeth’s, and with wonder, she realized she’d come to fill another emptiness for him.
Luk climbed to his feet. Saloman said, “Maximilian and Dmitriu will take you home. I have something to do before I can bring you peace.”
Luk’s strange eyes focused on Elizabeth. “From her will come the peace of the world,” he said dreamily. “I like that.”
He turned to go, Dmitriu by his side. Maximilian hesitated, then walked to Saloman. Unexpectedly, he dropped to his knees, took Saloman’s hand, and kissed it. Elizabeth had the impression of some intense, unspoken communication between them. An instant later, he was walking on Luk’s other side to the library door.
“Farewell,” Saloman said softly. A human wouldn’t have been able to hear over that distance, but Maximilian’s nod showed that he did. It seemed that Maximilian was leaving again.
Mihaela, watching curiously from her sitting position against the wall, dragged her gaze back to Elizabeth. “Are you sure you shouldn’t be going to the hospital too?”
“Oh, no,” Elizabeth said hastily. Although she felt as weak as a newborn kitten, she couldn’t bear the idea of a hospital, of parting from Saloman. “I’ve never felt better in my life. I just need to sleep.”
Mihaela glanced at Saloman, as if for confirmation, then got to her feet. “Okay. I’m going to the hospital with István. Konrad?”
Konrad, moodily chewing his finger as he propped up a bookcase with his shoulder, straightened. “What about . . . ?” he began, with a jerk of one hand toward Saloman, who would thus be left alone in the library with Elizabeth.
“He has spells to cast,” Mihaela said dryly, catching Konrad’s arm and dragging him with her. “Come on.”
Elizabeth gazed around the carnage. “I wouldn’t like to be the one to clear this up.”
“It could have been worse.”
“It could have been a lot worse,” Elizabeth agreed fervently.
Saloman released her hand and stood, walking to the window wall, where he jumped and clung to the sill with one hand while reaching into the open space with the other. His voice intoned an enchantment that sparked visibly through the air to the broken windows on either side, and then he dropped back down.
“That should hold them in the short term.”
“What happened to me?” Elizabeth blurted, because she could no longer wait to understand it.
Saloman walked back toward her. “You came into your potential. Which is the rare and powerful gift of healing. You tried to take the pain of the whole world and, not surprisingly, your brain shut down in protest.”
With his foot, he cleared a space amid the carnage and crouched down beside her, taking her hand once more.
“It’s been building in you, I think. What I mistook for telepathic sympathy was your not just feeling but
taking
other people’s pain. John Ramsay, who so benefited from your brief visit. You thought it was just because you believed him when no one else did, but it was more than that. You helped him, physically and emotionally, and maybe even helped a few others on the side as you left the building. You didn’t recognize or understand what you were doing, so you had no idea how to control it.”
taking
other people’s pain. John Ramsay, who so benefited from your brief visit. You thought it was just because you believed him when no one else did, but it was more than that. You helped him, physically and emotionally, and maybe even helped a few others on the side as you left the building. You didn’t recognize or understand what you were doing, so you had no idea how to control it.”
“That’s the truth,” Elizabeth said shakily.
“It would probably have been best for the gift to go on growing gradually, but I suspect István’s injury triggered its massive release and now you’re stuck with it fully fledged.”
“I felt so guilty,” Elizabeth whispered, “because I went to you when I knew in my heart he needed my help more.”
“He made his choice, and it almost worked too.”
“I’ve been realizing what a wonderful person István is, and how much I like him. I couldn’t bear his suffering. . . .”
“You did bear it,” Saloman disputed. “And you kept him alive.”
“Will he recover?” she asked eagerly.
“I don’t know. But you can probably help.”
Elizabeth gazed at him, awed and wondering. “I can do good in the world. Beyond killing bad vampires and—”
“And tempering my excesses?” Saloman suggested. “Yes. Yes, you can. This was the prophecy Luk saw all those years ago. He saw the woman as Tsigana, when in reality she was Tsigana’s descendant, but he knew she would be with me. Elizabeth . . .”
He touched her face, her lips. “Your time is so short in this world. You have a gift now, a unique and wonderful gift that I cannot separate from you. I’ve rarely seen it so powerful in any of my people. So although I love you, I have to ask you again: Will you not consider eternity with me?”
She caught his hand against her lips, kissing it passionately. “I hardly consider anything else,” she whispered. “I long for it, but I’ve been so afraid. . . .”
“Of what?”
“That I won’t be Elizabeth anymore. That any good in me will be lost. That you won’t love me anymore.”
He carried their joined hands to his own mouth. “I will always love you. Turning you will not alter who you are. Not when I do it. Your soul remains. Everything that makes you Elizabeth will still be there, but stronger. It will make your healing powers easier to bear and to practice.”
“And yet,” she said, smiling through the ache in her throat. “I sense an ‘and yet.’ ”
“And yet,” he said, “you’re still the sun to my night. I can’t bear you to lose the sun.”
Slowly, she let her forehead drop forward to his. “The sun doesn’t make me Elizabeth.”
He was very still. Elizabeth could almost hear the silence. “What do you mean?” he whispered.
She twisted her hands in his, clutching him closer. “Give me time, Saloman. I won’t ask you today or tomorrow, or even this year, but I will do it.”
He closed his eyes as if she’d kicked rather than pleased him. “As your duty to the world. Because of your gift.”
“Yes,” she said, bewildered. Something was leaking from the corner of his eye, frightening her.
Do vampires weep?
she’d asked him once.
she’d asked him once.
Yes, but I won’t.
“Saloman.” She touched his cheek with her fingertip and found blood. He was weeping blood. “It changes everything. Duty, yes, and desire to do it too. I feel all of that, but more than anything, do you not see it makes me your equal? Almost. It makes me worthy.”
His eyes opened, spilling another stray drop of blood that he didn’t seem to notice.
“I have something wonderful now,” she whispered.
“You have always been wonderful.”
“But with it, I can welcome eternity with you and have a chance—”
“A
chance
?” Abruptly, he pushed her back and leaned over her, his mouth so close to hers that one tilt of her head would bring them together. “Of love?”
chance
?” Abruptly, he pushed her back and leaned over her, his mouth so close to hers that one tilt of her head would bring them together. “Of love?”
“Of
keeping
your love.”
keeping
your love.”
“It doesn’t work like that.”
“How does it work?”
A half smile formed and died on his lips. “I don’t know.”
“I thought you knew everything.”
“No, you didn’t.”
She made the tilt, brushing her lips against his and feeling the familiar electricity spark through her entire body. She felt the caress of his mind and opened to him.
“I can wait to turn you,” he whispered against her lips. “I can even wait to love you. I never dreamed—” He broke off, drawing back to stare at her. His hand slid down from her cheek, over her breast, to her stomach, where it stilled. “Elizabeth. Oh, Elizabeth.”
“What?” Suddenly frightened that after all this, he’d found the elusive illness, she grasped his wrist. “Is something wrong?”
He stared at his hand on her stomach and slowly lifted his gaze to her face. “Feel it. Reach inward with your mind. There is more than one life force in you. Touch it. Touch your womb.”
“Touch my—Oh, God,” she whispered. Seeking inside herself was difficult, but following his mind, she managed it. A tiny, budding life pulsed frailly within her, its pure, unformed spirit nestling in her own. A stunned, wild rush of love swept through her, embracing it and Saloman together.
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