Blood Guilt (11 page)

“I know.” The whispers had already started, almost as soon as he’d left Switzerland unmasked, sounding him out, threatening from behind their shields all over the world. Coming clearest and least welcome of all was the malevolent voice of Ferdinand, not dead after all and someone he was going to have to deal with before much longer. For now, Maximilian ignored him along with the rest, but it was hardly a lasting kind of strategy.

He didn’t want to discuss such matters, and fortunately, Saloman appeared to believe he’d said enough.

“Gavril,” Saloman murmured instead, scanning the passing people and cars, “is one of those shady characters who avoids giving anyone their allegiance. He’s never sworn to me, and I’ve never met him. It makes him harder to trace. And no one has reported seeing him on any continent.”

“I couldn’t find any trace of him either, and I tried all the likeliest places to sense through the stone.” Maximilian shifted restlessly. “The hunters may know more about Gavril,” he said reluctantly. “He’s the one who killed Mihaela’s family. The hunter Mihaela,” he added to clear up confusion. “Elizabeth’s friend.”

It wasn’t often he got the chance to surprise Saloman. The coal-dark eyes swung back to his and held. “How do you know that?”

“She told me. She was there when the vampires tried to kidnap Robbie, and when they succeeded. She recognized Gavril by the missing bit of his ear which she bit off during the attack on her family. I think Gavril killed them for their research. They were scientists of some kind, and he stole papers from them when he fled.”

Saloman absorbed that without comment. “Where is Mihaela now?”

“Probably hot on my trail. She wants to find the boy as much as I do.” Maximilian stood. “I’m sure that somehow Gavril and his followers caused the earth tremor in Scotland. And I’m equally sure they plan to do it again somewhere a lot more dangerous. Using Robbie’s psychic power to help them.” He glanced down at Saloman. “Did I mention Robbie’s feeling for stone?”

“No, that’s something else you omitted.” Saloman’s eyebrows twitched. “I’m glad you were there to notice.”

“They—Gavril and his cohorts—have obviously noticed it too. If they use him somehow to cause earthquakes, the consequences could be catastrophic. Thousands, even millions of humans could die in weeks.”

Saloman continued to search his eyes, his own face unreadable. And yet Maximilian knew he wasn’t indifferent to the danger. “Any leads from the boy himself?” Saloman asked.

“Somewhere warm and agricultural. Which could be anywhere from southern Europe to Australia.”

“Well, the word is out. We’ll know as soon as they’re spotted.”

“And if they’re not?” Maximilian demanded.

Saloman rose smoothly and descended the steps. “I’m sure you have a plan.”

****

Before Mihaela had finished telling the story, Konrad was frowning. “I don’t get it,” he said, dropping his teaspoon into the saucer and lifting the cup to his lips. They were in the familiar café closest to hunter headquarters, and Mihaela felt as if she’d never been away. “Vampires want to cause earthquakes by means of psychic energy? Why? What would they get out of it? Apart from a lot of dead bodies. I suppose it might hold the injured down for them for a while, but it wouldn’t be easy to feed with the whole area swarming with rescue workers.”

She’d almost forgotten what Konrad was like. And yet it was largely to get away from him that she’d fled to Scotland in order to think in peace. He’d been her team leader for several years now, an experienced and successful hunter who took care of his partners. She’d run up against his rigidity before, many times, and was never afraid to argue with him; but lately, he’d become so blinkered she wanted to smack him. Since the battle in the library, even before that, their knowledge of the vampire world had been changing and growing. They’d had to adjust their views of vampires, to accept that, for good or ill, they could be so much more than blood-sucking monsters with one aim.

“Not all vampires,” Mihaela said impatiently. “Just a handful. And since they attacked Maximilian, I suspect they don’t like Saloman’s rule. Word must be out in the vampire community about what Saloman did in Peru, saving those villagers from the earthquake in the summer. Maybe they even know Saloman is helping us predict earthquakes.”

Konrad set down his cup, his mouth already open to object, but Mihaela leaned forward urgently. “What if Saloman gets it wrong? What if he told us there was to be a major quake in, say, Malaysia, and while we all rushed about evacuating people from the danger zone, the earth shook in California instead, killing hundreds. Or vice versa. What would you think?”

“I’d think he’d done it deliberately,” Konrad said, comprehension dawning.

“Exactly. Even without the apparent misdirection to Malaysia or wherever, even if a Malaysian earthquake eventually happened, at the very least we’d be disappointed he didn’t tell us about California. We wouldn’t trust him anymore.”

“I don’t trust him now,” Konrad said, but almost automatically as he mulled over the rest of her theory. Mihaela sat back with relief and finally picked up her coffee cup. She thought she’d finally got through to him.

“So you believe,” he said at last, “that the aim of those rogue vampires is to cause disharmony between humans and vampires, to break any alliance between us before it’s properly formed?”

“Exactly. They may even want to reduce human numbers to make us easier to dominate. I don’t know. But at the very least, they don’t give a damn about the massive loss of life. And it really could be massive, Konrad—thousands, even millions if they repeat it over and over. Christ, I don’t even know what that would do to the earth.”

Konrad nodded thoughtfully. It didn’t escape her that his own aim of breaking the alliance was similar. Only the terrible human cost was unthinkable to him.

“The child is another issue,” he said briskly. “I’ll put out a more urgent request for observation around the networks. And find out all I can about the vampire Gavril.” He glanced at her over his cup. “Does this mean your holiday’s over?”

“I’d rather have the freedom of going where I like. Let’s say I’m still on holiday.”

Konrad laid down his cup and stood up, feeling for his wallet. “Well, I’m not, and I have to get back to work. Where are you going?”

“István’s. Konrad?”

He paused and glanced down at her.

“Would you do one more thing for me?”

“Maybe,” he said cautiously.

“Can you find out if my parents were hunters?” she blurted. “Or if they ever worked on anything for the network?”

Konrad’s eyes widened, searching her face. His half-suspicious expression softened. “Of course,” he said gently.

Chapter Nine

It was Elizabeth who opened the door to István’s apartment. “Mihaela!” she exclaimed, throwing her arms around her. “What are you doing here? Scotland too dull for you?”

Mihaela returned the embrace and stepped inside, closing the door. “On the contrary,” she said ruefully. “Didn’t Konrad tell you?”

“Konrad doesn’t talk to me these days. I’m sleeping with the enemy.”

So am I…

“He doesn’t talk to me either,” István’s voice said from the kitchen doorway. “But only because he thinks I can’t handle the stress of vampire work. We talk about football. How are you, Mihaela?”

István propelled his wheelchair through the doorway into the hall, and Mihaela went to him and kissed his cheek. “Well. How are you?”

She scanned his pale, still slightly drawn face. Despite being unable to move for so long, he’d lost weight from his already lean frame. But she was glad to see him propelling himself so easily in the wheelchair. Formidable intelligence still shone out of his watchful dark eyes; his brown hair still flopped endearingly over his high forehead. Not for the first time, she thanked God—and Elizabeth—for his survival.

“Getting there,” he said lightly. “Elizabeth’s seeing to that.”

“Time she got on with it,” Elizabeth said briskly. “Come on—living room. Mihaela can bring lunch.”

Obediently, Mihaela went into the kitchen, found the light lunch of sandwiches and fruit already prepared and on a tray, added an extra plate, and carried it all through to the living room.

István’s living room generally resembled a workshop, and Mihaela was curiously relieved to see that it still did. The dining table was littered with circuit boards, wires and screws, and lots of little, misshapen objects made of metal and plastic. She’d no idea what any of it was for.

She laid the tray on the coffee table instead.

Elizabeth sat on the sofa, holding one of István’s hands between both of her own and staring into his eyes. She’d always been beautiful in a careless, unconscious kind of way, with unruly, strawberry-blonde hair, creamy skin, and stunning, deep hazel eyes. Watching her now, even as she frowned with the effort of concentration, Mihaela was struck by a new radiance to her beauty.

Saloman, it seemed, was making her happy. Against all the odds.

Well, at least now Mihaela had an inkling of how good the sex could be. Hastily, she squashed the persistent memory again, grabbed a sandwich off the plate, and began to eat, her gaze shifting between Elizabeth’s face and István’s.

Elizabeth had discovered her gift at a crucial moment during the fight in the headquarters library. Although it had been growing steadily for months without her realization, the instinctive urge to heal had suddenly galloped out of control as she reached out to the dying István. Her body had tried to absorb and disperse all the pain and suffering in the room, and then beyond to the whole world. No one could bear that, of course, and her brain had, fortunately, checked out temporarily. Only Saloman had seen what was going on and had done something in her mind to block the reach of her phenomenal power.

A year ago, Mihaela wouldn’t have believed a word of this. But she’d seen wounds, human wounds, heal in front of her eyes. Had watched Elizabeth secretly aid István’s recovery to the extent that the doctors were baffled.

“Better?” Elizabeth said at last, and István smiled without strain. The pinched look about his thin face had vanished.

“Better,” he agreed. “Thank you.”

Elizabeth dropped his hand and sat back on the sofa. There was no sign of pain or illness about her. She looked perfectly relaxed.

“You have no aftereffects of this?” Mihaela asked her.

István had been so afraid of this very thing that when he’d realized what she was doing, he’d put a stop to it for some weeks.

Elizabeth shook her head. “No. I barely even feel tired anymore. Saloman showed me how to pace myself and control the gift. And I’ve been speaking to doctors and alternative healers to try and focus my energy on the right places for István. It’s not exactly waving a magic wand, but at least he’s managed to stun the doctors with his progress.”

“That’s me,” said István. “Stunning.”

He was, in his own understated way, tall and handsome with even features, his dark eyes and sensual lips quick to laugh. In fact, just because Mihaela knew him so well, he was a little like a vampire enchantment—she had to look hard at him sometimes to see beyond the quiet, friendly front to the extremely attractive if complicated man he actually was.

Mihaela passed him the sandwiches. “Yes, you are,” she agreed. He’d come a very long and painful way from the night the vampire Luk had bitten him and hurled him to the floor from the top of a tall book stack. Almost entirely drained of blood, with his spine shattered, ribs broken, and skull cracked, to say nothing of internal damage, he’d been given very little chance of survival by the doctors, who couldn’t understand why he was still conscious and yet in no obvious pain. By the following morning, the internal damage was already healing, as was his head wound, and after an early visit from Elizabeth, the doctors prophesied that he would live, but be paralyzed in bed. Three months on, they limited themselves to the belief that he
might
never walk.

Patience had always been one of István’s virtues, but watching him now as he made light comments and ate and drank, Mihaela thought it was wearing thin. He needed to be active, to be useful. Instead, he spent his days and nights simply trying to get better.

“Hey, I saw an Ancient variation of the vampire detector the other day,” Mihaela said, seizing on something bound to interest him. “Only, it works over massive distances and detects people—beings—with similar gifts to the person holding it.”

István’s eyes brightened immediately, and he began asking questions. Before long, Mihaela’s story of Robbie and Gavril, Maximilian and the earth tremor in Scotland, had come tumbling out, carefully edited and finishing with her glimpse of the Ancient stone compass. And omitting, obviously, the part where Maximilian had, literally, jumped her bones and she’d screwed him until she was senseless.

“Wow,” Elizabeth said, awed. “So you finally found Maximilian’s hiding place—the island that’s eluded vampires and hunters alike for centuries!”

Mihaela waved one deprecating hand. “Following him helped.”

“Do you think he’d show this instrument to István?”

Mihaela shrugged. “I don’t see why not. He showed it to me.”
Right before he fucked me, drank my blood, and left me to go after Robbie on his own.
“You’ll have to find him first, though.”

“He’s here in Budapest,” Elizabeth said, and Mihaela’s mug clattered too hard on the table. She couldn’t help the speed of her glance or the lurch of her angry heart. She’d been too dizzy to drive when she’d finally got off the island. She’d had to stay in a bed-and-breakfast and sleep for twenty-four hours, by which time it had made more sense to return to St. Andrews, eat and sleep for another day, and sort out Elizabeth’s broken doors and windows. Which had given Maximilian lots of time, by vampire standards, to look for the child.

“Has he found Robbie?” she asked quickly.

“I don’t know anything about that. Just that Saloman went to meet him last night.”

Mihaela took a deep breath, aware that she was under the close scrutiny of the two people who probably knew her best in the world. Part of her wanted to pour out her heart, but the bigger, stronger part was far too humiliated and raw to confess her biggest sin to anyone.

“Why would Maximilian want to find Robbie before the hunters?” she asked Elizabeth.

“What makes you think he does?” Elizabeth asked, surprised.

“The fact that he skipped out on me while I was asleep,” Mihaela said dryly. “It struck me he might have an agenda that doesn’t include his new allies—us! Or even Saloman.”

“What agenda?” asked István. “You think he’s going to ally with Gavril instead?”

“If so, why come straight to Saloman?” Elizabeth asked reasonably.

Mihaela shifted restlessly and grabbed an apple from the table. “I don’t know. Anyway, he didn’t come straight to Saloman, did he? He had a head start on me, and he moves faster. If he didn’t get here until last night, what was he doing the rest of the time?”

While they both thought about that, she bit into the apple and swallowed the first mouthful before she added, “He may need Saloman to find Robbie.”

“Despite his magic compass?” István said.

Mihaela rubbed at her throat with the fingers of one hand. It was where Maximilian had bitten her. Guiltily, she dropped her hand. At least there was no sign of the puncture wounds now. “I don’t know. I don’t trust the bastard. From all I can gather, no one trusts him, least of all other vampires.”

“Saloman does,” Elizabeth said.

“Does he really, though?” Mihaela leaned forward, urgent now. “How do you trust someone who conspired to end your existence? Isn’t it more likely Saloman just has some kind of hold on him that keeps him in line, that makes Maximilian throw his weight behind Saloman in a crisis? And if that
was
the case, wouldn’t Maximilian want to break that hold?”

“By causing earthquakes?” István said doubtfully.

“Saloman wanted him to help with earthquake predictions,” Elizabeth added. “He has that gift. If he’d wanted to harm Saloman’s alliance with us that way, why wouldn’t he just use the opportunities Saloman offered? Why go to all this trouble?”

“Hell, I don’t know,” Mihaela muttered. She was aware she’d accused Maximilian with too much feeling, too much passion in her voice. “Perhaps the idea never struck him until he encountered Gavril, and now he wants to do it on his own. With Robbie.”

“Have you been talking to Konrad?” Elizabeth inquired.

Mihaela gave a twisted smile. “Yes, but this didn’t come from him.” She took another bite from the apple. It gave her something to do while the others watched her.

István said, “You’re pissed off because he left you on the island.”

“I’m
suspicious
because he left me on the island,” Mihaela corrected. “And history supports me.”

Elizabeth pulled the crust off her sandwich. “Vampires—especially if they’ve been as isolated for so long as Maximilian—don’t think like us. They see something that needs to be done, for whatever reason, and do it. Other concerns, like a sleeping hunter with the same agenda, wouldn’t necessarily weigh with them. In his own mind, he wouldn’t necessarily be betraying you by leaving you on the island. You should talk to him.”

“No!” It was too quick, too appalled, but there was no taking it back. Elizabeth’s perceptive gaze pierced her, and Mihaela suddenly realized that this was how
she
must have looked at Elizabeth when she first began to suspect her friend’s feelings for Saloman.

Well, Elizabeth’s feelings had proved to be unexpectedly profound. There was nothing deep or meaningful about Mihaela’s. Maximilian had been all about sex. Raw, urgent, and vital. She’d had her itch
well
scratched, and the only complication was her shame.

Fortunately, István took the heat off her. “Well, I’d be grateful if one of you got hold of this gadget for me.”

Mihaela, who knew him very well, was distracted. “Why is it so important?”

There was a definite spark in István’s dark eyes. It was good to see. “I’m not sure. But from what you say, it sounds like this instrument enhances the power of its holder. When
you
held it, it wouldn’t even point north, because you have no Ancient gifts, no Ancient gene. But Maximilian could get it to point north or to whoever he’s looking for. There could be some kind of communication between the instrument and its holder, each enhancing the other, the result being greater than the sum of its constituent parts, if you like.”

Mihaela nodded. “Possibly.”

“I’d like to see what it does if Elizabeth holds it,” he said enthusiastically. “And observe Maximilian himself with it, or even Saloman, although neither of these situations is very likely. Whatever, doesn’t it seem to you that its purpose is roughly similar to what Gavril and his cohorts want with Robbie?”

Elizabeth stopped eating. Mihaela frowned, remembered to close her mouth.

“You think that’s how Gavril’s guys caused the earth tremor in Scotland? Somehow, they combined their psychic energies… But they need Robbie’s special gift to boost their power if they want to cause any real damage?”

“That’s
really
worrying,” Elizabeth said slowly. “Considering they already have Robbie.”

“Do you think they have a gadget like Maximilian’s?” Mihaela asked.

“Not exactly like,” István said. “He told you it locates beings of similar powers to the holder’s, but it uses the holder’s own powers to do that. Why shouldn’t there be other tools for other purposes with the same technology?”

“I’ve never heard of any,” Mihaela said dubiously. “Maximilian said it was Ancient technology. Saloman gave him it—presumably before they fell out. Modern vampires don’t go in for technology.”

“They
didn’t
,” István said with emphasis. “Saloman’s changed a lot of things in the last year.”

“I’ll ask Konrad to look into Ancient technology,” Mihaela said. “Elizabeth, can you talk to Saloman about this stuff?”

“Of course, but…” She hesitated, then added awkwardly, “I’m not sure Konrad will help with this. You know he doesn’t want anything to do with Saloman’s alliance.”

It took effort not to look at István, but she managed it. Divided loyalties weren’t easy to deal with, but it just didn’t seem right for anyone else to know what Konrad had asked the fellow members of his team to do. Although Mihaela could acknowledge in her heart that Konrad was wrong, she couldn’t ignore a loyalty forged in danger and mutual dependence in battle, a loyalty that stretched back years before Elizabeth or Saloman came into her life.

“I know, but he’s still Konrad,” she said gruffly. “The old rules still apply with him. He’ll help us save Robbie, and he’ll find out about Gavril. It’s not in his nature to stand back while vampires cause earthquakes that could kill thousands of humans.”