Blood Sin (30 page)

Dante held the sword in front of him with both hands. The thrill of it helped counteract the desperation, the failing hope that the hunters could fight this being without the wooden stakes Dante himself had forbidden. He needed Dmitriu alive. Or at least still undead.

“You can’t kill me with that,” Dmitriu observed.

“I don’t want to kill you,” Dante said. With renewed excitement, he realized Dmitriu’s gaze was riveted on the weapon. He recognized it, surely, knew its power.

But for several heartbeats, nothing happened. The sword did not compel Dmitriu to surrender. Perhaps it needed blood. Wildly, Dante thrust it into the vampire’s shoulder. He didn’t see Dmitriu move, but realized at once that the blow had been deflected to a mere graze. And that Dmitriu continued to gaze at him with curiosity but absolutely no submission in his dark face.

Shit. What the hell do I do now? How does this damned thing
work
?

“Three!” yelled the lead hunter, and once again all three of them launched themselves at the vampire, who shook them off like fleas.

Dante gave in and yelled for backup. He had a couple of moments to feel proud of his thugs, for Dmitriu clearly hadn’t expected them. As Dmitriu wheeled to face the new threat piling out of the car across the road, the hunters managed a few good blows that sent the vampire staggering backward. And by then the four thugs were upon him.

The scene degenerated into a confused mess of flailing limbs. Dante had to shake his head to try to regain focus, to make out what was going on. Bodies began to fly into the road with such force that Dante knew, sickeningly, that there would be broken limbs. And they weren’t Dmitriu’s.

He could make out the vampire now, holding one of his thugs in both hands. With monstrous ease, Dmitriu broke his neck and hurled him to the ground. Dante, gripping the sword hard, moved forward, and Dmitriu advanced once more to meet him. His fists flew, knocking the still-game hunters cold beside his fallen thugs, and unbelievably, Dante knew he’d lost.

At the same time, his heart soared with excitement, because of the sheer strength in Dmitriu. He couldn’t prevent the freezing, mind-numbing fear, but that didn’t change the surge of longing, his desperate knowledge that this
was
what he truly craved, this power, which would never die but only grow with the passage of time.

Dmitriu’s gaze dropped to the sword, which he wrenched from Dante’s grip without further warning.

“That,” said Dmitriu, “does not belong to you.”

“I have a proposition for you,” Dante croaked, just as one of his thugs lying at Dmitriu’s feet rolled into the vampire’s legs, trying to knock him off balance.

Dmitriu sliced down with the sword and the thug screamed. Dmitriu bent, dragging the man upright with his free hand. Under Dante’s appalled but fascinated gaze, Dmitriu yanked the thug’s head back by the hair and bit into his throat.

It was over with dizzying speed, the vampire dropping the drained body to the ground as if it were a finished beer can. The point of the Sword of Saloman pricked Dante’s throat.

Yes!
The desire for this death, anticipated so long and eagerly, filled him, almost smothering the need to negotiate.

Dmitriu’s brow twitched into a frown. “Interesting,” he murmured, searching Dante’s eyes.

“My proposition . . .” Dante began desperately.

But inexplicably, Dmitriu lowered the sword. “Oh, no. You want this too much. I won’t oblige you. But I thank you for the sword.”

And the vampire turned away, stepping delicately over his victims as he sauntered off down the road with the sword swinging from one hand.

“Dmitriu!” Dante yelled pleadingly. “Wait!” He tried to run after him, but his legs shook too much and he’d never felt so old in his life. By the time he’d cleared the last of his fallen henchmen, Dmitriu was out of sight, and Dante was left alone with at least two dead bodies and several unconscious victims of violence.

He wasn’t a politician for nothing. He averted his gaze and walked away.

Saloman. I have something of yours.

At the sound of the familiar voice, Saloman smiled.
I thought you might.

He was with Elizabeth in the airport departure lounge, waiting for their flight to be called.

You might have warned me
, Dmitriu complained.

I had faith in you to deal with him
, Saloman responded blandly.

I’m touched. What do you want me to do with it?

Keep it for me. I’m on my way.
Saloman sank into the seat beside Elizabeth, who was drinking coffee and turning the pages of a newspaper.
Where is Dante?

Fled the carnage. He had hunters with him, and American bodyguards.

Saloman glanced at Elizabeth.
Did you kill the hunters?

You know I like a peaceful life
, Dmitriu said reproachfully.
Why would I kill them?

Self-defense.

Well, that was the interesting thing. They had no stakes. And your man Dante has a death wish. Or is that undeath?

Elizabeth nudged him. “You’re in the newspaper,” she said sardonically, pointing at a photograph of him and an American businessman that had been taken at yesterday’s meeting.

Don’t grant it
, Saloman commanded Dmitriu.
Under any circumstances. And by the way, watch out for a visiting vampire from America. He’s called Travis and he’s strong
.

His senses prickled, reminding him of someone he’d almost forgotten. Breaking the connection with Dmitriu, he reached over and folded the newspaper trumpeting Adam Simon’s spectacular rise into the world of international business, and placed it in Elizabeth’s open bag.

She regarded him over her coffee cup.

“Your cousin is here,” he said, by way of explanation, and her gaze shifted with his to the door of the departure lounge, through which strolled Josh Alexander, stylish and handsome in dark glasses. He appeared to be alone, without any of the entourage of staff and hangers-on expected of a film star. Clearly, he was traveling incognito.

“Josh!” Elizabeth exclaimed, jumping to her feet and drawing his attention. His lips fell apart in obvious surprise when she all but ran to meet him. What had he imagined? That she wouldn’t recognize him in shades? That she wouldn’t be pleased to see him because she was with Adam Simon? Possibly. Certainly, suspicion oozed from his every pore as Elizabeth spoke to him, and took his arm to urge him to walk with her back to Saloman. Which was interesting too. She would have been forgiven for leading him in the opposite direction.

“Josh is going to Budapest too,” she said flatly.

Josh looked him in the eye. “I figure you go where my sword is.”

Saloman allowed himself a smile of delight. “You’re following us.”

Josh looked slightly disconcerted by this response. Then he sighed and, as if tired of pretending such distant dignity, took off his sunglasses to reveal the shadows of sleeplessness. He rubbed his eyes. “You don’t even object, do you?”

“No. In fact,” Saloman said, “I have no objection to our, er, pooling knowledge. At this moment, I think that would be to your advantage, since I know where the sword is.”

Elizabeth paused in the act of retrieving her coffee to stare at him. “You do?”

“With Dante,” Josh said at once.

“It was,” Saloman allowed. “A friend of mine has just taken it from him.”

Josh’s eyes widened; then his gaze dropped in what might have been no more than a blink. He replaced his sunglasses.

“Is Dante dead?” Elizabeth demanded.

“No,” Saloman said regretfully. “On the other hand, neither is he undead.”

Josh said, “Is this a trustworthy friend?”

“Is there another kind?”

“Yes,” said Josh fervently.

“Then, yes,” Saloman said, and abruptly, Josh laughed and flung himself into the seat beside him.

“So what’s your story, Adam? What have you got to do with the sword, with any of this?”

“Everything,” said Saloman.

When Dante finally opened the door of his modest hotel room, his feet were dragging and his head spinning with the speed of his defeat as well as with desperate efforts to think what this meant for his plans. After everything he’d done to get it, he’d managed to lose the sword. And he figured alienating the vampire Dmitriu was another mistake. He didn’t know whether it would be worse for Dmitriu to keep the sword for his own ends, or for him to return it to the legendary if shadowy Ancient Saloman.

And where in the hell
was
Saloman? Sooner or later, surely, the Ancient would enter the game to reclaim his sword. That was one reason Dante had wanted this done quickly, for once he had the immortal power and the sword, surely even Saloman couldn’t take it from him?

However, Saloman’s creation Dmitriu had taken it from him as easily as taking candy from a baby. As if it could sense his lack of power, the sword would not fight for Dante. Because he was not yet undead? Perhaps he should send the hunters out to catch him some slavering, bestial fledgling to do the turning.

But Dante had aimed high, once he’d understood something of the hierarchy of the immortal undead. And now, mere bestial vampirism wasn’t enough for him. He wanted to be reborn at least at Dmitriu’s level, with enough status and self-control to use the sword to his best advantage. Otherwise he couldn’t hope to present any meaningful challenge to Saloman, who would simply kill him when their paths eventually crossed. He needed to be turned with some form of Saloman’s blood—otherwise the whole endeavor was pointless.

There had to be another way to reach Dmitriu.

Closing the door, Dante leaned back against it and shut his eyes. In that instant, he felt the other presence in the room with a certainty that had him reaching, trembling, for the light switch.

Not Saloman! Oh, please, not Saloman.
Not before he had time to think, to plan . . .

The vampire Travis swung gently in the swivel chair by the desk, spinning his hat on one finger. “Evening, Senator,” he said amiably. “About your proposition . . .”

And suddenly, with the rush of relief came a wave of understanding. Whatever his earlier ambivalence in New York, Travis now wanted the sword enough to have followed him here. And Dante didn’t underestimate the difficulties involved in long-distance vampire travel. In fact, when he’d left the note for Travis, it had been intended as a polite dismissal rather than an invitation, to show him in a placating sort of way—after all, he was a vampire—that negotiations were over.

Dante felt his shoulders straightening, and the lost smile reforming on his lips. “Travis, my friend. What a welcome surprise. I have a slightly different proposition for you now, but I know you’ll like this one too.”

“What about Josh?” Elizabeth said suddenly, as they settled into the connecting flight at Zurich airport. She’d spent most of the transatlantic crossing asleep, as if the excitement and sleeplessness of the last several days had finally caught up with her. She’d slept curled into Saloman’s shoulder, although a couple of times she’d woken sprawled across his chest, as if clinging to him in sleep because the New York couple fantasy was about to end.

In Budapest, where Saloman had first seduced her, also resided her friends the vampire hunters, who would tolerate no alliance, let alone an affair, with the vampire who had defeated them in St. Andrews and eluded capture on two occasions since; who had drunk from Konrad as well as Elizabeth.
And killed neither
, she reminded them in her head, as if pleading his case. There would be no opportunity for that.

A Hungarian vampire now had the sword, and he would give it to Saloman. Elizabeth had to decide what to do about that. Loving him, and understanding the lonely, vulnerable side of him that missed the cousin he’d eventually killed, she wanted him to have it. But she couldn’t allow the massive increase to his power that it would bring. What chance would humanity have then? Already, apart from America, he had almost the entire vampire community at his beck and call; more slowly but no less surely he was building wealth and influence in the human world. She had no idea how it would eventually occur, whether he planned to keep his kingdoms separate or use one to rule the other, whether he planned to rule humans covertly through puppet leaders, or to engineer some violent coup. Neither was acceptable. But with the additional power of the sword, surely either was increasingly possible.

She would have to give the sword to the hunters for safekeeping, to hide it forever from all vampires. And from Josh.

And as her cousin entered her head, she wondered what the hell to do with him in Budapest. And ridiculously, she spoke aloud to Saloman, whom she was planning to betray again, because she couldn’t shake the recently formed habit of alliance with him.

“What do you want to do with him?” Saloman inquired, not even troubling to watch as Josh took his seat farther up the plane.

“Well, we can’t have him blundering about Budapest demanding the sword back. If Dante doesn’t kill him, one of the vampires will. A descendant who’s also your enemy is a desirable kill, and he has no protection whatsoever.”

“Give him to your hunters.”

Elizabeth glanced at him uncertainly. It was the obvious answer, of course, but it meant an early visit, which she wasn’t quite ready for. And he must have understood that without being told. He always understood too much. Deflecting his perception from herself, she spoke challengingly inside his head.
You’ve given up on killing Josh?

The hunters can’t protect him from me.

How safe are the hunters?
The question tumbled out to him only because she couldn’t stop it. Konrad, as a descendant of Tsigana’s partner in crime, was valuable to him, as was the propaganda value of killing a hunter. On the night of the battle in St. Andrews, she’d violently stopped him from finishing Konrad off, and later, in closeness, she’d pleaded for the hunter’s life and been granted it. She’d understood then that he spared all three hunters because she asked it. But how far would that promise stretch if she stole his sword?