Blood of Angels (5 page)

“Angyalka?” His voice had changed from angry to concerned. Damn him. He dragged himself across the floor to her, until he touched her shoulder.

I’m back. I’m inside. Everything is all right.

But it wasn’t. Her whole body shook.

Very gently, the hunter turned her face toward him. “Angyalka, what’s wrong? Did you get hurt?” He sounded urgent, anxious.

She managed to shake her head. He hauled himself into a sitting position beside her, leaning his back against the wall. To her amazement, his hand stroked her hair.

“Then what’s wrong?” he asked again.

“Nothing,” she mumbled, forcing herself to sit. If he could do it, so could she. She just needed to stop shaking, to think before she blundered into speech. “I’m just—not used to—to going out.”

“Oh,” he said blankly.

She tried again. “It’s become a big thing for me. I—I haven’t been outside in a while. Outside the club, this building, I mean.”
Oh Jesus Christ, did I just say that? To
him
? The hunter?

She squeezed her eyes tight shut. This was worse than being outside.

Almost.

The silence went on a long time. Then the hand on her head slid down around her shoulders, and weirdly, it felt good there, as strong and secure as the door and the walls that surrounded her domain.

“How long,” he asked at last, “has it been since you’ve been out?”

“A hundred and two years.” Her voice sounded hollow, like her heart. But there was no point in keeping it back. She’d already given away all the rest. She couldn’t take that back. “Apart from the half minute I stood on the doorstep to watch Saloman destroy a couple of Luk’s followers. I got away with that.”

She opened her eyes and stared defiantly into his. “I believe nowadays they call it agoraphobia.” She smiled, knew it was twisted, and didn’t care. “My name’s Angyalka, and I’m an agoraphobic vampire.”

His eyes, such enticing dark eyes, widened. Then he blinked. His breath hitched, and then he did something totally unexpected.

He laughed.

If he hadn’t tightened his arm around her, drawing her close against his side—and if she’d had the energy—she might have been offended.

As it was, she said coldly, “I don’t see that it’s all that funny.”

“Oh, it isn’t,” he agreed, sobering, then grinning again. “But you must admit, considering I can’t walk and you can’t go out, we certainly kicked their butts.”

Laughter bubbled up inside her—probably hysteria, but there seemed to be nothing she could do about it. “We must have been pretty funny to watch.” She gasped. “Me yelling like a banshee and both of us staggering about like drunks in a beer cellar.”

He laughed again—he had a good laugh, low and musical and oddly infectious—and hugged her. She amused herself, since it was such a good distraction, by watching his face slowly right itself and return to seriousness.

He said, “I should get the body removed.”

“No need. Béla will do it.”
Béla
, she called telepathically to her henchman upstairs.
There’s a dead troublemaker outside.

On it
, Béla answered laconically. Hopefully, the body would be gone before the human staff went home.

“Not that I’m ungrateful,” István said carefully, “He came at me like a madman. But I can’t condone what you did. And for you, there may well be repercussions from a human murder. There were witnesses.”

“I’ll worry about it if it happens.” Which it wouldn’t, unless István spoke against her. The other witnesses would have to admit their own crime against István, and since they were drunk, even then their word would be regarded as less reliable than his. She frowned. “Interesting thought, though. In the past, the hunters have covered up murders committed by vampires—much more mindless and unnecessary murders than mine tonight—just to keep our existence secret. Will you
still
do that?”

“You mean will you have to deal with police hassle rather than hunter hassle? I don’t really know. These things are still being hashed out between Saloman and the big cheeses in the network. They’re trying to form some kind of council to make judgments.”

She glared at him. “And that’s supposed to be better? Sometimes I think Saloman’s insane.”

István wiped a trickle of blood dripping down his chin. His lip and cheek were cut. “Well, it’s better for humans. It’ll be one of the many things that don’t happen immediately, but on the other hand, it probably needs to be in place before too many humans catch on to vampire existence.”

She rested her head back against the wall as she continued to gaze at him. As her world and her stupid, terrified being began to right themselves, a bruise was coming up over his eye.

“So what will you do about this?” she asked. “Tell your people what really happened? Or keep it quiet?”

“Why would I keep it quiet?”

“You’re a proud man, hunter. You won’t like to admit you were so easily ambushed and overcome.”

His gaze remained steady. After a moment, his lips tugged into a rueful smile. “I’ve already lost that battle, and it was never with my colleagues. In the absence of aspirin—or even morphine—would you mind giving me a very large whisky? My ribs and my head are killing me.”

“I can’t help with the morphine,” she said. “But I can manage the rest. If you can stand, let’s do the beer cellar stagger back upstairs.”

Chapter Four

His breath of laughter warmed her as she rose to a crouch. He changed position, trying to get up without leaning on her shoulder.

“István,” she said quietly. “I’m a vampire. Use it.”

It went against the grain with him. He was a good human and naturally chivalrous. But he’d been around vampires for long enough to know their strength, and so he leaned on her and let her draw him to his feet. He was lean and hard. The powerful muscles in his arm flexed as he rose.

For Angyalka, the feel of the body that should have been so strong and fit underlined the tragedy of what had happened to him, the frustration caused by his physical weaknesses, and the fear he wouldn’t acknowledge that he’d never fully recover. The fear she suspected that had brought him here in the first place, propelling him into dangerous situations he’d have dealt with so easily before. She didn’t want to understand that. She didn’t want to feel for him. He was just a hunter who’d finally walked into her net.

She said calmly, “Can you walk?”

He nodded but kept his arm around her as they moved slowly to the elevator. Angyalka didn’t mind. She didn’t mind at all.

The staff room was empty, although various “good nights” were being called in the bar. István’s arm fell away. Angyalka hesitated. She could still take him into the bar. It was a line she hadn’t yet crossed.

The novel intimacy of shared weakness had thrown her. She didn’t like it, but she couldn’t deny it either. Outside, they’d saved each other. Neither of them had had to do that.

She pressed the code that caused the elevator doors to shut once more. István glanced at her, eyebrows raised.

“Bar’s closed,” she said.

She could hear his heartbeats. They’d calmed down after the street fight, but now they grew faster again. His blood smelled fantastic. Rich, strong, hunter blood…

The elevator halted, and the doors opened. She stepped out, and István followed her. So fast that he’d never see, she pressed the code that sent the lift back to the club floor.

“Maximilian taught me long ago always to have more than one exit.” She crossed the narrow hall into the living room without looking to see if he followed her. Weirdly, she could no longer hear his heart for her own. She didn’t need more than her fingers to count the number of beings who’d ever been in this space. Bringing István here was a big step, one she had a terrible feeling she’d regret.

The trouble was, killing him would piss Saloman off, which had never been part of her plan.

She paused by the seventeenth-century dresser she used as a drinks cabinet. “Go through and make yourself comfortable,” she said. “Undress so that I can see your injuries.”

She poured two large malt whiskies and picked them up along with the aspirin she’d removed from the bar by mistake one day.

István was still standing in the middle of the living room, despite the fact that he was about to fall over, without the aid of a thuggish boot this time. He gazed around the room, at her television, her laptop on the big knee-hole desk, her bookcases and DVD shelves, as though surprised she could have interests other than blood and her own bar. The case for the documentary about India she’d been watching this afternoon lay on the floor in front of the television. Most of her DVDs were about the places she’d never seen and never would.

He said, “I just need the drink and the aspirin.”

She walked past him into the bedroom and set the drinks down on the bedside table. Then she went back for him and took his hand, leading him into the bedroom.

“Angyalka, don’t do this to me.” His voice was light, and yet he wasn’t quite amused.

She pushed him onto the bed. “Do what?”

“Force me to see you and a bed in the same place. It isn’t kind. Not in my condition.”

“I’m a vampire. I’m not known for kindness.” His words didn’t displease her, though. She wouldn’t think about that. She pushed the glass into his hand and held out the aspirin.

After the faintest pause, he put the tablets in his mouth and knocked them back with the whisky. Angyalka knelt and lifted his legs, placing them on the bed. When he resisted, she placed her palm against his chest so that he fell back against the pillows.

“Be still. If your ribs are cracked, you’ll need a doctor. Or at least Elizabeth.”

“And how will you tell?” he asked politely.

“Magic,” she said and eased his jacket off his shoulders. He helped her with that, wincing almost imperceptibly, but when she reached for the buttons of his shirt, his hands lifted as if he’d stop her. Then he dropped them into his lap and just watched her face.

She smiled. “Good boy.”

There was a bruise, from a fist or a boot, on his left side. But she’d been right about his arms and chest. His upper body was thick and hard with muscle. His heart hammered under her palm. She inhaled the powerful scent of his blood as she closed her eyes and ran both hands slowly over his chest. His skin was hot and had its own distinctive smell—spicy soap and human male. Hunter.
This
hunter.

She could do it now. Chain his hands to her bedposts and have her way with his splendid male body. She smiled, counting his ribs, listening to his rushing blood, his very nerves. She opened her eyes and let her gaze drift downward over his abdomen and the line of tempting brown hair pointing down into his trousers.
Oh yes.

He might be dog-tired and bruised, but, judging by the bulge in his jeans, he wasn’t averse to a little sex. She wouldn’t mind going to work on that.

Arousal pooled damply between her thighs.
Mind on the job, Angyalka.

“I don’t think anything’s broken and you have no internal injuries,” she said calmly. “Wait there and I’ll clean up your face.”

“Angyalka, I can wash my own face,” he protested.

“Allow me,” she said, whisking into the bathroom and returning with a damp cloth. Although he blinked at her speed, he didn’t seem put out by it. “I owe you,” she added, sitting back down on the bed beside him.

“For what?” he demanded. “I’m not so full of shit that I can’t admit you saved my ass out there.
I
owe
you
.”

She shrugged. “You brought me back in.”
And made me feel safe.
She paused, the cloth just touching the cut on his lip, and stared at him, suddenly stricken.

She’d gone outside for him. Whether to preserve her revenge possibilities or her person from Saloman’s wrath, or because it was the right thing to do, she’d done it. And he’d got her back, made her safe, made her laugh.

He’d wiped out a debt, not begun a new one.

His brow twitched. “I won’t shout it from the rooftops, you know.”

She curled her lips and dabbed gently at the cut. He didn’t wince. “No. You’ll just add it to whatever biography of me you keep in the hunters’ infamous library.” She slid the cloth around his chin and neck, wiping off the dried blood. “You do have such a thing, don’t you?”

“A biography of you? Yes.”

“What does it say?” she asked, intrigued.

“That you were turned in 1801 by a vampire called Aranyi—not a particularly old or strong vampire—who was killed by hunters a year later. You then dropped out of sight for decades, and only came to our notice again two years ago when we discovered the Angel Club, which we now believe you’ve owned since around 1807, certainly since before Maximilian went into exile, because he gave you the building, carved the angel over the door, and helped you enchant the whole place. You gave allegiance to Zoltán while he led the east European vampires but switched to Saloman’s camp when he was awakened, before Zoltán was killed. There are no known atrocities or crimes against your name, and the Angel is permitted to exist because you run it with strict adherence to your own rules, which also suit the hunters.”

She felt his gaze on her as she stood up and returned the cloth to the bathroom.

“Is it accurate?” he asked with apparent curiosity.

“It isn’t inaccurate,” she admitted, sitting on the bed once more and reaching for her whisky.

He smiled lopsidedly. “Only because it doesn’t say much,” he guessed shrewdly.

“It’s still more than I know of you.”

“Which is?”

She sipped the whisky, savoring the slow, burning trickle down her throat. “That you’re a hunter, one of the so-called first team, and you’re Elizabeth’s friend. Saloman likes you.”

He looked slightly surprised by that statement but made no comment. So she added, “You’re a scientist. You developed detection units that can spot vampire presence, even Ancient vampires like Saloman.”

His lips quirked. “I hope there’s more to both of us.”

“I think we already established that.”

The smile in his eyes seemed to draw her in, conspire with her. But she wasn’t ready for that.

She stood abruptly. “Make yourself comfortable. Sleep. I won’t kill you now.”
Although I wouldn’t mind a bite, a drink of that delicious hunter blood…

There was nothing he wanted more than sleep. Not even sex. It was in every line of his exhausted body as well as his eyes as he protested, “I can’t take your bed.”

“I’m pretty much a nighttime person,” she said dryly.

Unexpectedly, he leaned forward and caught her hand. “Give me the excuse. Stay here with me.” His lips curved. “I’ll leave the stake in my pocket.”

She was as aware as he of the jacket and the stake. Unless he was talking of the one in his pants, which should also, undoubtedly, stay where it was. For both their sakes. Pity, but there it was.

She sat back down on the bed, leaned against the pillows.

He said, “I have so many questions I want to ask you.”

At last. Finally, he was prepared to reveal why he’d come to her in the first place. And yet she only said, “They can wait.”

“I guess they can.” The hunter’s heavy eyelids closed, flickered, and stayed closed.

Angyalka waited until he fell into a deep, exhausted sleep. She didn’t mind. She rather liked the feel of the hot, human body so close to her. And when she judged he wouldn’t wake up, she unfastened his jeans, and slid them down his legs. You’d never have known from looking at them that he hadn’t walked for three months and more. At full strength, he was a formidable hunter. She’d made a mistake once. Watching him slouch in behind his colleagues, the arrogant blond leader and the feisty Mihaela, she’d judged him by his unassuming, quiet appearance . None of them had reached Saloman, but only István had stopped her.

She pulled the quilt up over his lean body with curious reluctance. He may have been quiet, but he was handsome in a physically careless, cerebral way that in Angyalka’s world was unusual.

In a rare moment of tenderness, she smoothed his hair away from his face. Asleep, he looked like a little boy exhausted after a busy day’s play.

It came as a bit of a shock to her, but she still liked István.

****

Of course that didn’t stop her going through his pockets.

Wallet, phone, stake, a small instrument that she took to be a vampire detector, and a slightly larger instrument with lots of tiny holes and dials. Using her own mobile phone, she took a photograph of the last and picked up the final object, which looked like some kind of fishing reel or sewing reel, except it had two buttons on it. Insatiably curious, she pressed one and saw the reel whizz as the thread—it was thin nylon rope, not thread—propelled itself across the room and buried itself in the bedroom wall. An instant later, it flew out of her hand and clattered against the wall.

Glancing uneasily at István, she went to retrieve it. The thread was still held somehow into the wall. When she picked up the reel and pressed the other button, a tiny claw disengaged from the wall and the rope wound itself back in under a second.

Angyalka began to smile. So that was how he got up the stairs so fast. She’d sensed hunter when the trouble was in full swing—right before György had returned to deal with it. And only seconds later, István had walked in on his damaged, still-recovering legs. He’d obviously been making good use of his time when he couldn’t walk.

She put all the things back in his pockets and laid his clothes in a neat pile on her dressing table chair. Then she left the bedroom and glided downstairs to the club. The human staff had all gone home, leaving the club in readiness for the next shift—tomorrow’s daytime customers, they thought. In reality the next customers would be in the second part of the night—vampires only. The hour off between was like Ireland’s once-famous “holy hour,” the one hour in the day when the pubs were shut. The Angel shut for an hour at two a.m., cleaned up, and reopened at three, without the loud music. Sometimes they didn’t get any customers, but they were always open.

Béla was pacing about in his leather jacket, desperate to get out and hunt. But he paused long enough to say, “Who killed him so close to us?”

“Um, I did,” Angyalka admitted.

Béla frowned. “Well, what did you kick him outside for? It’d have been easier to get rid of him from the gallery.”

“I didn’t kick him outside. He
was
outside. With his pals. They had another go at our hunter friend.”

Béla stared. “What, and you went outside and bit him?”

“I did,” Angyalka said, her pride only half mocking. “I fought for the hunter—should score us some brownie points to stock up on.”

“Not if you did it
in front
of the hunter,” Béla said dryly. “They’re ungrateful bastards to a man and would rather eat their own stinking socks than admit a debt to a vampire. Shouldn’t you tell
him
?”

“Saloman? Probably,” she said with deliberate vagueness. She gestured to Béla to carry on. “It’ll be fine.”

He got all the way to the door before he glanced back at her. Béla was the only being, besides the hunter István now, who knew she didn’t go out. He often brought her prey, but he never asked questions.

“How did it feel?” he asked curiously. “To go out in the night again?”

An echo of the awful fear and helplessness hit her so that it took an effort of will not to hold on to the bar for support.