Blood of Angels (20 page)

“Almost certainly. And they know about Elizabeth. And they want my gadget.”

“Hmm.” Mihaela’s gaze grew speculative. “How’s that going? Any breakthroughs?”

“Actually, yes. It’s all to do with angels.”

“Angels,” she repeated.

“Saloman told me the power was in the word, and it is, but more than that, I think it’s in the idea, the concept. In just about every culture and religion of any time and place, including that of the pre-Christian Ancients, there are angels of one kind or another, guardians and messengers from heaven. Through that, the word has special significance in enchantments. And objects called angels, like sculptures, seem to absorb and magnify the power of any enchantment, just by being what they are and being called what they are. People too.”
Like Angyalka.
But the words hovered unsaid, as if voicing them would be betray her trust. How had that happened? This was Mihaela…

Mihaela’s eyes had grown wider at his enthusiasm. “I suppose it’s no weirder than being able to enchant at all,” she said faintly, then appeared to pull herself together. “And you can use this angel stuff?”

István nodded. “I think so.”

“Any way you can finish it quickly, while making everyone believe it’s very far from complete?”

“Maybe. I can probably disguise my presence at home, so they think I’m never there and never working on it.”

“Then, if they decide to strike without it because you’re taking too long,
we
’ll have it to use against
them
,” Mihaela said with considerable satisfaction.

István regarded her with amusement. “All very neat, but what the hell is it they’re going to strike?”

“Who?” demanded a voice behind their heads, and István swung round to face Mikl?s, Librarian and chief of the Hungarian order under the Grand Master. Mikl?s smiled thinly. “Good to see you working together. Are you back officially, István?”

“Not officially,” István replied.

Mihaela said, “We’ve stumbled across a group of overcurious foreign vampires who may be up to no good. Just learning what we can in case it leads to anything.”

Mikl?s nodded. The first team had always been given leeway to pursue their own leads and initiatives. He seemed to hesitate, then, “Has either of you heard from Konrad?”

They both shook their heads.

“He has to come in,” Mikl?s warned. “Or Saloman will find him before we do.”

They nodded again, like dogs in the back of a car, until Mikl?s, apparently satisfied they understood, walked on.

“Will he?” Mihaela asked with dread.

“Saloman? He told me that one way or another Konrad’s teeth would be drawn. I can’t see him balking at killing the Angel bomber, whatever Elizabeth says.”

“Could you do it?” Mihaela asked abruptly.

István frowned. “Do what?”

“Kill—” she began impatiently, and too loudly, judging by the glares emanating from a desk farther up and from Mikl?s at reception. She lowered her voice. “Could you kill Konrad?” she whispered.

István had thought about that already. He knew the answer. “No. No, I couldn’t.”

When they’d found all they could in the library, Mihaela e-mailed their American colleagues for any further information, and then they went to their favorite café across the road from the headquarters building for a quick coffee before Mihaela returned to work.

“What do you do in there all day without a team?” István asked curiously.

She shrugged. “A bit of admin, a bit of helping out with the other teams if required. I’ve been giving Lazar a hand with some stuff too.”

István glanced at her. “Interesting?”

“Oddly enough, it is.”

He nodded but said no more. It sounded like Lazar was taking István’s advice and sussing out a better replacement. István was glad. Mihaela was suited to this now in ways István never would be. He supposed that Mihaela had always craved security and peace, while István was too restless to settle to anything. Being a field hunter suited him because it involved so many different skills, so many different places.

With their coffee in front of them, Mihaela regarded István over the rim of her cup. “See anything of my friend Andrea?” she enquired.

“Funny you should say that. You didn’t mention anything to her about the Angel Club, did you?”

Mihaela’s mouth fell open. “The Angel Club? I should bloody well think not!”

István sighed. “That’s what I thought. She and Lara turned up there last night claiming a friend of mine had told them about the place. No, wait, there’s more.” And he told her about Maximilian’s enchanted picture and Andrea’s abortive attack on Angyalka.

“Fuck,” Mihaela said, awed. “I thought they were such
nice
people. The kind who never even
see
any trouble.”

“They probably were until they met you.”

“Hey, I knew them already,” Mihaela retorted. “It was meeting you that set them off.”

“It does seem to’ve set something off,” he agreed. “No hunter, without a very good reason, would send humans to a place like the Angel. And if it’s a vampire up to no good, I can’t really see the point.”

“Unless it was the same vampire who enchanted the picture?”

“That crossed my mind,” István admitted. “Could Maximilian tell who enchanted it?”

“Maybe, if he was here. He’s not planning on coming back for a week or so.”

István drained his cup and set it down in the saucer. “Miss him?” he asked casually.

She smiled. “Yes. I look forward to him coming home—like a kid at Christmas. And I have Robbie.”

“Is he managing school?”

“The teacher has difficulty keeping track of him—it’s an open-plan building. He’s as likely to join the older kids’ class, beard the headmaster in his office, or distract the dinner ladies as to sit down at his own desk, but he’s happy enough—and interested enough. He soaks up Hungarian like a sponge. What?” she finished as István continued to gaze at her.

He smiled. “Nothing. It’s all good to hear. Funny how things turn out.”

“Never in a million years did I imagine they’d turn out this way,” she acknowledged. “Me and a vampire adopting a psychic child and playing happy families.”

“You’re not playing, though, are you?”

She flushed slightly. “It’s an odd sort of family, but no, I’m not just playing.” She nudged his arm resting on the table. “Doesn’t mean it’s not fun.”

Mihaela had never been so contented as in these last three months. He couldn’t doubt she was having fun. The image of Angyalka and Béla drinking from the stranger flashed through his mind. With it came an echo of the same accompanying tangle of emotions, repulsions, and attractions.

He found himself rubbing the side of his neck. The skin still tingled where Angyalka had bitten him. Mihaela followed the gesture with her eyes, and he forced himself to stop and drop his hand.

She said, “You’re wondering how I deal with the…feeding stuff, when I’ve spent all my life trying to prevent it.”

“It can’t be easy,” he said as neutrally as he could.

“It’s an adjustment,” she confessed. “Like we adjusted to not automatically killing them. Like we adjusted to talking to Saloman. Then…” She shifted in her chair, wrapped her fingers around her cup, and rubbed it distractedly while her color rose. “We think of biting as brutal. When they aren’t fighting, it isn’t. According to Max, most humans never know it’s happened. If they do, it’s only as a sensual dream. Yes, it’s still an invasion of privacy, an assault in so far as it lacks permission. In most cases. Once you’ve…felt the bite yourself, you don’t object in the same way.”

Angyalka writhing on him in the throes of orgasm, sinking her teeth into his skin, his vein, sucking his blood into herself in a long, delicious stream of pleasure… Fuck, who’d object to that?

“It’s who he is,” Mihaela said.

“Then you don’t object to him biting other people?”

She thought about for a moment. “I know he won’t hurt anyone without reason. I suppose it’s the intimacy I object to. It’s like…kissing, if you like. There are many kinds of kisses. No one objects to their lover kissing a friend’s cheek, or an aunt’s, or even a stranger who’s just been introduced. It’s a politeness.”

Her eyes focused on him, a wry smile beginning to form there. “Does that sound like an excuse?”

“I don’t know anymore,” he said ruefully. Then, before her sudden frown could turn into questions he didn’t want to answer or even think about right now, he stood up. “I’m going to go and work on the gadget. Let me know if you hear any more about our American visitors?”

****

Angyalka sat back on her heels and gazed at Maximilian’s painting without seeing or appreciating the art. She was tracing the intricate pattern of the enchantments placed upon it. There were several, overlapping and tangled, which explained why she hadn’t immediately found them all in Justin’s head.

Centuries ago, Maximilian had taught her to enchant. He’d taught her well but in something of a hurry, since he was desperate to get away and wanted to leave her as safe as possible. Disenchanting, unraveling the spells of others, had got left off the curriculum. She’d no real idea how to neutralize the wretched picture. What she was hoping for was a clue to the identity of the enchanter.

Someone wily, elusive, and experienced. But there was no signature relating to anyone she knew well. Unless they were disguising their work.

Reaching out with both hands, she grasped the frame, then ran her hands over the picture, searching for the feel, the echo, of whoever had touched it.

But although many had touched and gazed, including Maximilian, Mihaela, Robbie, and Angyalka’s own helpers, as well as Bruno Geller, Andrea, and several unknown humans, she could tie none of them to the enchantment.

She frowned. Mihaela and Robbie had both touched this picture but suffered no ill effects—or at least none that she knew of. And surely she would have heard. A hunter with a frantic urge to kill vampires could have done a lot of damage to Saloman’s détente. Nor could a murderous child have slipped under the vampire radar.

So the chances were, the picture had only been enchanted after it came to her shop.

Her quick surge of excitement died. The knowledge didn’t really exclude anyone. The picture had been on open display for weeks.

A hunter with a frantic urge to kill vampires… The rogue hunter Konrad? Was he really just scared of détente, or had the picture driven him to bomb the club?

She could find no echo of him touching the picture. But then, she didn’t know him; he was little more than a few glimpses and an idea formed from other people’s words.

She sighed and turned the picture back to face the kitchen wall. It had better be wrapped up and safe before her cleaner came. She’d have to leave the detective work for Saloman or perhaps Maximilian.

In the meantime, she had a business to run. Several businesses, since her undead travel agency had begun to flourish. And a final date to look forward to with István.

As she sat down at her dressing table and picked up the scissors, she wouldn’t let herself think beyond tonight and the knowledge that this time it really would be the last. She knew in her heart he would only come tonight to keep his word.

With the speed of long, long practice, the scissors flew over her grown hair, cutting and styling it as she preferred. Each sunrise it grew back to the length it had been on her death, and before sunrise, before she even saw any other being, she cut it again. It was a symbol of who she chose to be in undeath, of rejecting the helpless creature she’d been in life.

She liked being a vampire. But the disgust on István’s face when he’d walked in on her and Béla feeding twisted through her like some sharp, tearing claw. She couldn’t exist with that, any more than he could live with what she really was. And so tonight, it ended.

Whatever “it” was.

****

When Jacob awoke, the sun hadn’t quite set. Basilio sat by the window, watching the light fade through a chink in the heavy curtains.

On the double bed, Gabby slept like the dead—well, like the very young undead—perfectly still. She was naked as she’d been when the sun began to rise and her lights had gone out. Jacob suspected Basilio had created her largely for the convenience of his sexual urges. At least he didn’t seem to hurt her
too
much, although Jacob, who normally didn’t give a damn what anyone did in front of him, felt uncharacteristically uncomfortable when they had sex in his company. It came to him that he really didn’t like Basilio. Sometimes, he even wished he hadn’t contacted the old bastard, and if it wasn’t for the fact that the Mexican was his best chance of freedom to make some serious money, he’d have left him here and gone back to New York.

With some surprise he realized he was homesick.

But at least his head had stopped hurting.

He sat up. “What’s happening?”

“We’ll never have a better chance than this,” Basilio said.

“To stitch up Saloman? Don’t suppose we will.”

“The trouble is, we don’t know when he’s coming back, and the Angel hostess is already giving me strange looks. She’s stronger than she appears, and she senses something.”

“Too much for you to deal with?” Jacob asked. He could never help riling Basilio, even though the old vampire would turn on him without a second thought. True death would be a welcome relief from whatever punishment Basilio dreamed up.

Basilio’s lip curled. “Hardly. But if she summons Saloman before I kill her, then all the magnifying tools in the world won’t be enough for us to hold Elizabeth Silk. We need to start now.”

Jacob tugged at his hair in agitation. “Basilio, without the tool, we can’t even
find
her. The hunter hasn’t made it yet.”

“Then he must be persuaded to hurry,” Basilio said, as if talking to an imbecile. “As for the Awakener… I think it’s time to round up our friends.”

Chapter Fifteen

István realized he was peering at the circuits from far too close. It had grown dark, and his only light was from the computer screen. He stood and switched on the overhead light, then stood for a moment, blinking. Pleased with his day’s progress, he swept the unfinished device into his rucksack, Angyalka statuette and all. He wasn’t leaving it around for Jacob or anyone else to find.

He showered and changed quickly, grabbed his jacket, and stuffed the pockets with a vampire detector, a bungee reel, one of the new disruptors, which had been on in the apartment all day, and his usual sharpened stake. Then, realizing he was starving, he shoved some cheese inside a chunk of bread and ate it as he slung the bag over his shoulder and left the apartment.

It was raining. As he walked toward his car, parked a few yards farther down the street, the vampire detector vibrated. István put his hand in his pocket and closed his fingers around the stake but kept going until he reached the car. Only then, did he give in to his prickling neck and glance casually around him while he fished the car keys from his pocket with his left hand.

His entire spine prickled with alarm. It could be any vampire—Jacob again, with backup this time, including the seriously threatening Basilio. Or Béla, hacked off by his relationship with Angyalka. You didn’t need to be telepathic to spot that Béla didn’t like him.

He couldn’t see anyone watching. He just had to hope the disruptor prevented any vampire from actually noticing him. His neck still tingling, István climbed into the car and started the engine.

****

Angyalka glanced toward the club door as it swung open, but it was two perfectly ordinary humans who walked in. She returned to her customer, realized she’d already served him, and found Béla sliding onto the stool in front of her instead.

Looking for someone?
he asked telepathically.

She shook her head.

Angyalka. He isn’t coming back.

He’d said he’d call for her at sunset. Two hours later and there was no sign of him. Could Béla be right?

It’s a good thing,
Béla assured her.
A human, a
hunter
, isn’t worthy of you.

She tried for a light touch.
Oh, I don’t know. He’s a fun human and has been useful to me.

Perhaps you’ve stopped being useful to him. Or perhaps he was just so appalled by what he saw last night that he’s run away.

She poured him a vodka shot.
Don’t be small-minded, Béla. He knows exactly what I
—we
are.

Béla shrugged and picked up the vodka.
Knowing and seeing are different things. Some humans put their lovers on pedestals. I expect he didn’t like your true nature being rammed under his nose.

He didn’t,
Angyalka agreed. Even if it hadn’t been there in his eyes, his shock had almost leaked from his pores. He’d been so desperate to get away from her that it had hurt. And yet she’d been so sure he’d come back. Just once to keep his promise.

You don’t need him, Angyalka.

It was true. She’d only ever needed the Angel. What she really
didn’t
need was feeling like this: churned up, angry, yearning…

She’d lost control. And that had always been what István was about. Because he’d taken control from her once during the hunters’ raid on the Angel, she’d wanted to turn the tables on him. And yet at the same time, she’d wondered what it would be like in a more personal sense. Well, now she’d found out. It had its highs—fabulously pleasurable sex and rich hunter blood. A temporarily helpless vampire certainly had a lot more fun than a continually helpless human, a position she’d wanted to die to escape from.

But she’d done the experiments now. It was time to take back control. Not with sex, since that was largely how she’d lost so much of it in the last few days. But by moving on. She’d go by herself to the end of the street, later tonight when the club was quiet. And gradually, she’d go further, lose her fear and her demeaning dependency on Béla, find her own prey and forget the human hunter who’d shown her the way…

“Well, I don’t need a pep talk either,” she said briskly. “If we have a quiet spell tonight, could you bring up some flattened boxes from the basement and leave them in my apartment? I want that damned picture wrapped and out of harm’s way until Saloman or Maximilian can look at it.”

Part of her wanted to destroy it utterly, but then their chances of discovering the culprit were severely reduced.

Béla drank his vodka in one. “Sure. Or I could just disenchant it.”

Angyalka regarded him thoughtfully. Béla was good with enchantments, particularly good at unraveling them. And she didn’t actually want to burn Maximilian’s picture. Hmmm…

“No,” she said at last, with reluctance. “We can’t risk anything being left behind. And if the enchantment’s gone, we’ll never trace it.”

Béla shrugged and slid off the stool. “I’ll bring the boxes up before the end of the night.” As he moved, his gaze fixed on someone walking toward the bar.

Angyalka’s heart jolted. István.

He wore faded jeans that emphasized the length of his legs and the leanness of his hips, and a denim jacket with the collar slightly turned up at the back—more from carelessness than a fashion statement, Angyalka suspected. His straight brown hair falling across his high forehead glistened with raindrops. It looked enticingly soft.

Although he knew where she was—he was heading straight toward her—he wasn’t yet looking at her. Instead, ever the hunter, he scanned the room, looking for trouble.

How does he do that?
Béla demanded.
He’s beginning to seriously creep me out.

Creeping out a vampire was no mean feat. Nor was disguising the approach of a hunter from one.

Science,
Angyalka replied.

He came right up to the bar and nodded to Béla before finally turning his dark gaze on Angyalka. His lips quirked upward in the way that made her want to kiss them. “Hello.”

“Hello. What will you have?”

“Nothing, unless you’re going to take half an hour to get ready.”

She lifted one eyebrow. “Is there a dress code for going to the end of the road?”

“In this weather, probably a raincoat.”

“I believe I won’t melt.” She nodded to Matthias, the human bar manager, to let him know she was leaving, and walked to the bar hatch. Béla still stood, leaning one elbow on the bar, watching.

You’re really going out?
he said in her head.

Yes, I’m really going out.

Should I wait up?
he enquired with heavy sarcasm.

No,
she said irritably. Although she wouldn’t be more than five minutes, his words felt constricting, interfering. She was rather more than a human child who had to be checked up on. Without looking at either of them, she sailed past István and Béla toward the club door.

Behind her, Béla stayed István with one word. “Hunter.”

There was a pause, as if István turned back toward him. Angyalka refused to look.

“I meant what I said before,” Béla said.

Another pause. “So did I,” István replied.

And then she was out of the door, and a second later, so was István. The two vampire bouncers nodded to them, and they walked down the long flight of dirty stairs in silence.

At the foot, Angyalka asked, “What did Béla say to you ‘before’?”

“That if I hurt you or even upset your day, he’d kill me. I might be paraphrasing.”

“And you replied?”

“That he could try,” István answered, opening the outside door and holding it for her.

She wanted to sail out past him like the aristocratic ladies she’d once watched sweeping past servants in the palace she’d worked in. It seemed appropriate. But the world was big outside. The knowledge of how big was pumping at her heart, sickening her stomach. She didn’t want to go out there. Not even with István. She had no reason to go out there.

Focus, Angyalka. Hide behind the conversation; that’s what you’re good at.

“Béla is overprotective,” she managed. Her voice sounded a little tight, but it didn’t shake, and even as she said the words, she drew strength from them. “He takes care of me. The trouble is, I’ve just understood that he isn’t helping me at all. Without Béla”—she forced one leg forward, then the other, and the first again, and she was outside—“without Béla, I’d have had to deal with my fear long ago, do my own hunting, or face true death.”

She came to a halt, trembling. István let the door close, shutting off her escape, and she had to squash down the surge of panic that rooted her to the spot. Then he stood beside her, the warmth emanating from his body like some soothing balm for her petrified soul.

She realized he held his crooked arm out to her in a half-mocking, old-fashioned gesture. Laughter caught at the back of her throat. She seized his arm as if it were her only lifeline, and he tucked her hand close into his body. They began to walk with slow, even steps.

He said, “Not quite the beer-cellar stagger this time.”

“Or the raunchy-rooftop grind,” she managed.

“More a civilized stepping out.”

“In the rain,” she said, finally noticing the damp and turning her face up to the sky. Soft raindrops pattered on her nose and cheeks and throat. Pale clouds scudded across the moon, allowing glimpses of winking stars. “Fuck, it’s beautiful,” she whispered. “The world is beautiful. István…”

“Yes?”

She moved her hand in his arm to find his bare hand and squeeze it. “Thank you. I’ll always be grateful for this. More than you’ll ever understand.”

“Hey, it’s not even dinner yet,” he said lightly. “I thought we could work up to that. Or maybe the theatre.”

“István, stop pretending. There’s no need. You know this is finished.”

His fingers grasped hers. “Angyalka, I don’t even know what this is.”

She smiled. Above her, the few visible stars seemed blurred. It must have been the rain. “Unfinished business. Inappropriate attraction. And a hell of a lot of fun.”

“Oh yes,” he breathed. “A hell of a lot. And yet our business is now finished?”

The question in his voice soothed her aching heart. “I’m a vampire. I love being a vampire and I won’t change. I couldn’t if I wanted to, and I don’t. I’ll never apologize for the things that disgust your human, hunter soul.”

“Angyalka—”

She turned into him, halting them both in their tracks under a flickering streetlight. She touched his lips with one finger. “Sh-sh. Don’t. The funny thing is, I like you all the more for your unchanging human, hunter soul.”

His arm came around her. He pressed his warm rough cheek to hers, and she closed her eyes. “Yet you’re sending me away.”

She slid her arms around his neck. “The sending was all done last night. This is our stolen time, our prize for all the fun.”

He stood quite still. Only his erection grew against her. The sexual chemistry was still there with a vengeance. She could never deny that. Slowly, he raised his head and gazed down at her. She couldn’t read his melting human eyes. They might have been desperate. They might have been relieved or just plain lustful. Somewhere lurked pain, but like her, he hid it.

“Then we have tonight?” he asked.

She ran her fingers through his soft, damp hair. “It’s our date.”

“I couldn’t go without kissing you,” he whispered and did with a sweet, aching tenderness that broke her dead heart. And when it was over, she stood on tiptoe and kissed him back. She meant it to be short, almost chaste, but when his tongue slid between her lips, passion flared, and suddenly their mouths were locked together as if they’d never part.

He pushed her back against the lamppost, deepening the kiss even further while his hips held her captive and he ground his erection into her.

“Give me tonight,” he whispered into her mouth. “One more night with you…one more long, amazing night. Angyalka.”

“I’ll bite you,” she said in anguish, nipping angrily at his lips to show him. But instead of wrenching free, he sank his mouth back into hers in another churning, arousing kiss.

“So bite me,” he said when he came up for breath. He even threw his head back, revealing his throat and the rich vein full of rushing, excited hunter blood.

Laughter and pain choked her together. “Last orders, please,” she said and grazed her teeth over his vein. He didn’t pull away, and the hunger overwhelmed her. She licked the skin over his vein, slowly, thoroughly, giving him time to push her off, to change his mind
. Oh Jesus, don’t change it now. I want this, I need this…

With a sound like a sob, she bit into his flesh. His gasp vibrated through her, urging her on. She growled low in her throat at the taste of his gorgeous blood in her mouth. She sucked, pushing herself hard over his erection, rubbing herself on it for her greater pleasure and his.

His hand clutched her hip, slid under her dress to her thigh and inwards. Although his fingers shook, he managed to shove aside her panties and bathe his fingers in the flooding moisture of her lust. She moaned at his touch, writhing, and his finger left her, twisting instead to get at his own zipper.

Oh yes, oh God, yes. Fuck me too.

She forced herself to slow her drinking until he pushed his hot cock inside her, and after that she clung with teeth and hands and legs, straining into him, thrusting and grinding with him in a hard, furious race for completion. He was panting, groaning her name when she took a last mighty suck and fell into orgasm with him. His seed burned its way into her womb, feeding her as his blood did.

It was an instant of perfection, of deepest union and sexual bliss in the beauty of the night. Rain trickled down his face onto hers. She released his throat and pressed her healing tongue to it until it stopped bleeding.

There was no sound but István’s heavy breathing and the patter of rain on the road and on a nearby parked car. The street was empty here, save for her and István still joined under the lamp’s warm glow.