Written in the Blood (36 page)

For so many years she’d lived a life absent of emotion or companionship or love. She’d functioned as an automaton, acting out her part without feeling, lacking even the introspection to ask why she’d cast herself in this role, or where it all might end. It hadn’t even been a lonely existence because she felt no loneliness; she felt nothing. Whereas now, she felt everything. Emotions festered in her; fear pecked like a carrion bird, guilt ripped and chewed. And, at her core, that crushing sense of hopelessness, threatening to consume everything that she’d started to become.

In the drawing room of her Mayfair town house, she’d been incapacitated by terror as the
tolvaj
approached:
crippled
by it. She’d watched, rigid, as the creature reached into her son’s crib and spirited the boy away.

Etienne had never heard of a baby being taken. An infant, yes, but not a newborn: the
tolvaj
would be trapped inside its host for years until its physical body matured; the nest they’d stirred up must be desperate indeed. She wondered whether that offered Elijah any hope – whether, just possibly, he was for the
tolvajok
an insurance policy; a plan B.

Elijah.

The source of every single one of the myriad emotions that churned in her. In his few short weeks of life Elijah had swept out the lightless chambers of her heart, had filled her with a glow so intense she’d been surprised not to see it radiating from her skin – a sense of rightness with the world; a wholeness; an unbroken chain of candlelight encircling her; a crackling bonfire of red flames and heat.

And despite
all
that, she’d done nothing to save him. Jakab had held her back, admittedly, but she had not really wanted to intervene. She’d watched that abomination cradle her son to its chest, watched its eyes appraise her as its tongue flickered over its lips, triumphant. It had turned away and stalked from the room, and she had done nothing.

But what could you have done?

In the presence of a
tolvaj
, she was as powerless as any other. She had known that the instant she grasped the nature of what had walked into her house. But what clove her, what clawed and ripped and shredded and chewed, was the knowledge she had not even tried.

She found herself thinking of Hannah Wilde, the woman she had met in Italy. That was the difference, she realised, between the two of them. Hannah Wilde – even if she knew the odds of victory were precisely zero – would, at least, have tried.

Thinking of Hannah and her daughter opened a fresh wound. The two women had blessed her with a son, and she’d repaid them with treachery.

During the drive, with little else to distract him, Jakab had talked. He had told her the story of the mill fire in which he and Hannah had burned. Had told her how, as the flames of that inferno seared him, he had found a broken window and toppled into the waters of the Vézère. How he had floated, almost dead, until he’d been fished from its clutches by a group of Eleni who had not grasped the nature of their prize. And what had happened after that.

From the passenger seat, she glanced over at him. Hunched forward, hands tight on the steering wheel, eyes so red it looked as if tiny beads of blood were seeping from them, Jakab stared at the road, the expressions on his face twisting, cycling.

She had given up trying to work out his thoughts. His mind was a broken thing now, impenetrable to reason or inquiry. Her revelations back in London seemed to have tipped him over the edge. Emotions churned in him, too, just as fiercely. She saw rage compete with grief, hope compete with despair.

Outside, the wet black trunks of pine trees blurred past the window, the forest beyond as dark and threatening as those of any Grimm fairy tale.

They crested a hill, rolled down the other side. The road slung them around a curve, straightened. And there, to the left of the road, she saw it: a narrow scar in the press of trees.

Wide enough for a single vehicle to pass, the track was crowned by foliage so thick that the fading light fled from beneath it.

Etienne raised her finger. ‘In there.’

Jakab nodded, pulling onto the trail. They bumped along in silence. A few minutes later he stopped the van and turned to face her. Staring with those bloodshot eyes, he said, ‘I need to put you in the back.’

For one of the first times in her life – perhaps also for the last – Hannah had lost the ability to think. She could see no way out of this. No chance of redemption.

‘Six,’ the
Merényl
ő
said. His voice came from a different place each time he spoke, as if he danced back and forth inside that tiny space, restless for the violence she knew would follow. ‘Seven.’

Damned either way. She accepted she was already dead. If she didn’t cooperate, Gabriel would join her. Perhaps even precede her. The thought of witnessing his last moments made her so ill she thought her stomach might purge itself.

‘Eight,’ the
Merényl
ő
counted.

Even if she betrayed her daughter and gave the eunuch what he wanted, she knew he would renege on his promise; the idea that he would show Gabriel a sliver of mercy was farcical. At least it seemed Leah – either through resourcefulness or good fortune – had managed to escape.

She tried to conjure her daughter’s face from times past. Images rushed at her: the night they fled to Llyn Gwyr all those years ago, Leah sleeping in the back of their 4x4; the day they rode up to Llyn Cau, Leah standing beside Gabriel and staring out across the lake; Leah, among the machinery at Le Moulin Bellerose, hollow-faced as she sent Jakab crashing to his knees.

For more than half her life, the girl had been at the core of everything Hannah thought, everything she did.

‘Nine,’ the
Merényl
ő
said.

She buried her face in the clean scent of Gabriel’s hair. ‘You know I love you,’ she whispered.

‘
Tell him nothing
.’

Speechless, she nodded.

‘Ten,’ the
Merényl
ő
said. ‘Time’s up. I need to know where Leah’s gone, and I need to know now. One last time. Where is your daughter?’

How badly she had judged this. Only here, at the end, did she learn how little she understood the society of which she’d become a part.

Turning towards that voice, she jutted her chin, feeling the nerves in her face begin to twitch. ‘Make it quick,’ she said. Gritting her teeth, entombed in the darkness that had claimed her these sixteen years past, Hannah listened to the
Merényl
ő
hiss with excitement as he closed the gap between them.

Balázs Jakab moved through trees and ferns, over pine-needle mulch that oozed a brackish water as it sank beneath his weight. His breath plumed before him, a white smoke in the twilight.

The monstrous pain that had throbbed behind his eyes for the last eight hours still pulsed, but in the shadows of these trees its power seemed diminished, offering him an opportunity to think with a somewhat clearer head.

He had not slept, had not eaten. His eyes were so grainy that even in the forest gloom it seemed as though insects crawled across their surfaces.

He had found them. And he did not know how to feel.

For sixteen years he had lived in a world where Hannah Wilde was dead and Leah Wilde was forever lost. Now that world had folded inwards on itself and collapsed into the cold earth, leaving him in a place that was as alien and frightening as it was wondrous.

He had found them. And he did not know how to feel. Did not know how to separate those two creatures in his mind.

Leah Wilde, as bright and as flawless as a diamond. Hannah Wilde, as cold-blooded and as poisonous as a gutter of snakes.

She had tried to kill him. He remembered it clearly. She had tried to kill them both. She had set a fire burning in their flesh, had roasted them until their skin crackled and crisped, sacrificing them to the wrath of those flames and that heat.

And for what? He wished he knew the answer.

Had she suffered as much as he? Did she remember that blistering inferno as vividly? Did she
relive
it the way he did?

All that pain. All that torment. All those years hungry for vengeance, knowing that vengeance could never be served. And now . . . 
now
the world had changed and the old one was gone. In this new reality, Hannah Wilde survived – untroubled, no doubt, by any shred of remorse for how she had brutalised him.

If that alone were not enough, Leah Wilde, shining beacon of innocence and grace, thrived in a place he could almost reach out and touch. Leah had been nine years old when last he had seen her; how she must have changed in those intervening years. How she must have blossomed.

He wanted to smile – or curse – but the pain behind his eyes had renewed its attack: a glowing cattle brand pressed to his brain. He raised a hand to his face, found tears tracing wet lines down his cheeks, and stumbled from the forest into the day’s dying light.

Ahead, in a clearing edged with gravel, stood the cluster of small chalets, just as Etienne had described. Jakab looked down at what he held. Tightened his grip.

What a reunion this would be.

The merest whisper of a draught as the
Merényl
ő
approached. Hannah could not tell from which direction he came. She felt nothing, smelled nothing, as if the room contained a vacuum that drifted steadily towards her. A faceless Death, silent and merciless.

She had promised herself she would hold onto Gabriel until the end. But she found, as another second ticked by, that she could not. Even if it was hopeless, even if all she did was prolong their pain, she could not stand here cowering and accept their fate without complaint.

Her father’s voice, inside her head:
Keep fighting until you have nothing left
.

Unfurling her arms from Gabriel, transformed suddenly from the pitiable creature she had been, Hannah pressed him down towards the floor.

She spun around. Yanked open the knife drawer. Pulled out the first blade her fingers touched. Lucky choice. A heavy-handled carving knife. It wouldn’t save them. But at least she’d die fighting.

Whirling back towards where she guessed the
Merényl
ő
lurked, she slashed out with the blade and met empty space, her arm swinging so violently it almost pulled free of its socket.

The
Merényl
ő
chuckled. The sound came from the right. She slashed again. Missed.

Another laugh. To her left this time? She bared her teeth, daring the darkness to attack. Angry now. Furious.

‘If we’re going to play that game,’ the
Merényl
ő
said, ‘then I believe it’s my turn.’

A whisper of air as his blade carved a searing line across her face. It was a deep cut, opening her cheeks, parting the soft flesh beneath her nose. A muscle below her eye went crazy, grabbing and releasing, tearing the skin even deeper. Blood gushed from the wound. She felt a sickening pain, dizzying and brutal.

Hannah lunged forward and stabbed with the knife, heard the
Merényl
ő’s
high-pitched cackle, felt the air part again, felt his knife gouge another channel across her face.

She cried out, screaming her anger, driving on her attack yet finding no target for her thrusts, and then –
then
– she heard, or thought she heard, a sound from far beyond her, outside the circle of space she knew the
Merénylő
must inhabit.

It came again, and she imagined he must hear it too, because the air moved once more, a breath of cold against the shuddering agony in her face. This time it was further away, as if her attacker had turned, and now she heard something strange, a wet sound, a
plummeting
sound, like an evisceration, an outpouring, and while she hadn’t heard a second voice announce its arrival she heard the violence that it brought, a meat-like ripping. Someone fell against her. She probed with her spare hand, felt the
Merénylő
, knew it must be him from his lack, even this close, of any identifying scent.

Hannah plunged the knife into him. It entered his flesh with the softest of resistance, as if despite his calling his body comprised more of fat than muscle. She screamed again, cursing him, stabbing and cutting, driving the blade in and out, until he toppled away from her and she couldn’t use her knife any more, couldn’t use it in case she hit Gabriel by mistake.

Whatever had arrived to save her had not spoken, had not announced itself with anything except the silent killing it brought.

But now it did. And when it spoke, it opened a window in Hannah, opened a grave.

‘Hannah,’ it said, and its voice trembled with emotion.

Its
voice.

Jakab
’s voice.

Her grip loosened on the knife. She heard it clatter to the floor.

She swayed, untethered. Felt the blood pouring from her butchered face.

Moaning, incredulous, she thrust her hands out in front of her, fingers splayed. She twisted left and right, felt the blood flying from her ruptured cheeks, heard it patter onto the linoleum floor like a sudden squall of rain.

It can’t be. But it is.

He’s dead. But he’s here.

He’s back.

C
HAPTER
38

Lake Como, Italy

E
nveloped in mist so thick she could barely see the surface of the lake, Leah ended the call with her mother and loosened her grip on the outboard’s throttle. The boat’s prow settled in the water and she canted her head to one side, listening intently for the sound of engines that would indicate either a pursuit or an approaching disaster in the form of another innocent vessel.

The faces of the children pointed towards her, searching her expression for signs that the danger was over. She wished she could offer them that.

At the front of the boat, Soraya still cradled one-year-old Elias. ‘Call Luca,’ she said. ‘It’s the only place we can go.’

Leah nodded. She dialled his number, and when it began to ring she twisted the throttle, planting her feet as the boat once again picked up speed.

He answered on the first ring. ‘Leah.’

‘I don’t have much time. We need help.’

‘Tell me.’

She swallowed, perilously close to crying. Refused to show her desperation to the young faces that studied her. ‘The
tanács
. We were ambushed, Luca. The
Főnök
is dead. Others, too.’

‘Where are you?’

‘You don’t need to know. But I have the children with me. They need protection.’

‘Then bring them. Do you have transport?’

‘Not yet,’ she replied. ‘I’m working on it.’

‘How far away are you?’

‘Not far. A few hours.’

‘Leah—’

‘It’s OK. Soraya’s with me.’

An expelled breath. ‘Is she hurt?’

‘No. She’s fine.’

‘You saved her.’

‘We saved each other. I’ve got to go.’

Leah stuffed the phone into her pocket. Ahead, she saw a gap in the mist. She increased their speed and there, through a sliding curtain of grey, she recognised the stone-walled harbour of Menaggio.

The moment their boat bumped up against the dock, Leah jumped out and tied up.

On the lake, the mist seemed to be thinning. Not good news. Menaggio was one of the nearest towns to Villa del Osservatore; the
tanács
would almost certainly send one of their boats here.

‘I’m going to find transport,’ she told Soraya. ‘If I’m not back in two minutes, get them out.’

Leah ran along the top of the harbour wall, eyes scanning the town’s small square. Even this late in the season, tourists swarmed like bees: holidaying couples, families with pushchairs, coach parties following tour guides.

In the square itself, a car rally seemed to be in full flow. She saw polished rows of Volkswagen Beetles, Campers and Karmann Ghias. Leah slid into the crowd, allowing herself to be carried along towards the mass of enthusiasts chatting, laughing and drinking coffee as they hovered around their vehicles.

In a bay closest to this corner of the square, she saw an old split-screen VW bus. Wearing British plates, it sat low to the ground on polished chrome alloys. The driver’s door was open. A man in his fifties sat behind the wheel, nursing a Styrofoam cup of tea. His ears were pierced with rows of silver rings, and a cluster of feathered pendants hung from leather cords around his neck. Eyes closed, his lips moved in silent accompaniment to the music playing on the bus’s stereo.

Leah studied his face as she drew closer, and then she crouched down beside the vehicle, head bowed.

A long time since she’d done this. And always, before, in privacy and with the luxury of time. She concentrated, drowned out the sounds of the square, and waited for the pain to hit.

A minute later, face smarting as if she’d been punched, she rose to her feet, leaned into the van and shook the driver by his shoulder.

His eyes snapped open, and when he saw her face his jaw dropped and he poured the cup of tea into his lap. Blanching, he groped for words, finding none to help him.

‘I need your van,’ she said, although it didn’t sound like her voice.

He stared down into his lap at the spilled tea. When he found her eyes again he lurched upright, almost as if he were having a heart attack. He slid away from her onto the passenger seat. ‘Which . . . which year?’ he asked. When she didn’t reply, he swallowed, adding, ‘You don’t look any older, so that’s a clue. Aren’t we meant to – I don’t know – avoid each other?’

Leah stared at him, uncomprehending. And then she thought she understood. ‘You’re probably right,’ she replied. ‘I don’t have time to explain, but you need to leave. Now.’

He scrambled out. ‘Should I say the same thing? Next time?’

Leah slid behind the wheel of the bus, turned the key, heard its air-cooled engine splutter to life. ‘Yeah, you definitely should.’

The man nodded. Something seemed to occur to him. ‘Don’t forget about the clutch,’ he told her. ‘It sticks, remember?’

Waving an acknowledgement, Leah edged the camper van out of the square and nosed through the throng of tourists to the harbour edge where she’d tied the boat.

When she saw Soraya, she sounded the horn and waved.