Written in the Blood (9 page)

The woman took a sip of her coffee and bit into her pastry. Not in an attractive way. She opened her mouth wide and tore off a huge piece, chewing it quickly, as if she hadn’t eaten in days. In another two bites the pastry was gone, leaving nothing but a few flakes dusting the woman’s dress. She opened a paper bag and removed a second, devouring that one in the same fashion. Crumbs clung to her lips or fell into her lap. She swigged down coffee and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. Seeming to notice Angel for the first time, she smiled.

Angel flinched, impaled by all that human beauty concentrated purely on her. It felt like staring into a supernova. She felt compelled to say something. ‘I like your necklace,’ was all she managed.

‘Thanks,’ the woman replied. Her voice was deep, far richer than Angel had expected. Stupid, but those green eyes seemed to reach inside her head, reading every thought she’d ever spun.

‘How are the pastries?’ she asked, and winced. Such a dumb question.

The woman laughed. ‘I need to brush up on my table manners, huh?’ She inclined her head towards the front of the building. ‘Did you arrive in the RV?’

Angel nodded.

‘Big family. Are they really all your brothers and sisters?’

‘Two of them. The others . . . they’re my mom’s boyfriend’s kids.’

‘Where are you headed?’

‘Yosemite first. For some
bonding
time.’ She heard the childish derision in her voice, and instantly regretted it. ‘Then on to Vegas.’

‘You don’t want to go?’

‘I . . .’ Angel shrugged. ‘I don’t know what I want.’

‘Feels like a big change.’

‘Yeah, I guess.’

‘Well, big changes are coming.’

‘What do you mean?’

The woman stood, brushing crumbs from her clothes. ‘Exactly that.’ She reached up to the back of her neck and removed the necklace. ‘Here. I think you should keep it.’

To have this flawless creature suddenly so close was strangely disconcerting. Her perfume was spicy and floral. Overpowering. Angel felt a prickling along her spine, as if a locust had been tipped inside her shirt and was crawling around on her skin. ‘No, I couldn’t. It’s—’

‘Oh, hush.’ The woman draped the necklace around Angel’s shoulders. ‘You can do anything you like. Life’s for living, and you never know how much longer you’ve got.’ Turning, she walked to the picnic area’s gate and let herself out.

Angel watched her disappear past the side of the diner. A few seconds later an engine roared and a black Chevrolet Chevelle, with two white stripes painted on the hood, accelerated hard down the road, leaving a cloud of tyre smoke.

Now, sitting on the rock beside Regan, watching the moonlight rippling on the water, listening to the sounds of a radio playing inside someone’s RV, Angel found herself wondering who the blond-haired woman had been, and where she had been going.

Big changes are coming.

‘You know, my dad can be kind of a geek,’ Regan said. ‘But he’s OK. If you give him a chance.’

‘I know.’

‘For what it’s worth, he loves your mom.’

‘I can see that. I can see he’s good for her.’

‘But?’

Angel shrugged. ‘I’m not sure there is one.’

Regan reached out and squeezed her hand. ‘That’s good. Because I—’ The girl stopped.

‘Because you what?’

‘Keep your voice down.
Look
.’

Angel raised her head, and that was when she saw the bear. The animal was on their side of the river, following the curve of the bank directly towards their boulder. It swung its muzzle from left to right as it approached, its head like a bullet between its shoulders.

Fear slid into her, squeezing her lungs.

‘Stand up,’ Regan whispered, and Angel could tell she was scared too. ‘Remember what Dad said. Let’s back up a bit. I don’t think it’s seen us.’

Angel pushed herself to her feet, willing her sneakers not to slip on the wet rock. Their RV was only fifty yards away. But the bear was closer. She heard it grunting now - a sound like a saw cutting timber.

It paused. Raised its snout to the moon. Lowered its head and stared at them.

‘OK, we’re leaving,’ Regan said.

‘Should we shout at it?’

‘Do you want to?’

‘No. I don’t think that’s a good idea. Definitely not.’

They backed away, covering the fifty yards to their site in silence, eyes straining towards the bank. The bear didn’t move. But it followed their progress until, eventually, it lost them behind the trees.

Perhaps it was the adrenalin still running through her from that encounter, or perhaps it was the altitude of the Sierra Nevada, or perhaps it was none of those things; but for whatever reason, Angel found she couldn’t sleep. Long after they had rolled out their beds and switched off the RV’s interior lights, she lay in the darkness next to Hope, listening to her sister’s steady breathing.

When she heard the motorhome’s side door open, and the subtle shifting of the vehicle’s springs that suggested someone had stepped out, Angel rolled onto her side. Their bed was situated in the elevated section above the driving compartment, what Regan’s family called the attic. Beside her head was a tiny curtain drawn across a twelve-inch-high window stretching the length of their mattress. Reaching out a hand, Angel pulled the curtain aside and pressed her face to the glass.

Below, she saw Ty appear from under the awning above the RV’s door and stroll over to the embers glowing in the fire pit. In one hand he held a bottle of Blue Moon. He took a swig from it, then he reached into the breast pocket of his shirt, pulled out a joint and screwed it into his lips. After spending a few moments lighting it, he took a long pull.

Oh, Ty. I’m learning something new about you every day, aren’t I? Does Mom know about this, you sly old hippie, you?

Angel grinned in the darkness, watching as her future stepdad took another hit, breathing marijuana smoke up at the leaf canopy. She was about to drop the curtain back in place and give Ty some privacy when she spotted something else, lurking just beyond the circle of light thrown by the dying camp fire. A movement, in the shadows of the trees.

Angel frowned, pressing her face closer to the glass. What she saw next made her mouth fall open in surprise. It made no sense, but there could be no doubt. She recognised the cobra-skin boots and the shock of pale hair, luminous in the moonlight. The stranger from the diner was as beautiful out here beneath the stars as she’d been back in the picnic area outside Fresno.

Ty continued to smoke. The tip of his joint burned a bright orange. He arched his back and rolled his head, like a cat unwinding from a dream. The woman emerged fully from the cover of the trees. She took two steps towards him. Her shadow fell behind her. Away from Ty.

Angel had begun to breathe faster. She tilted her head to avoid fogging up the glass.

What’s she doing here? Did she follow us?

Idiot. Of course she followed us.

But why? Is Ty screwing her?

Of course not, you freak. Look at her!

The woman took another step, closing the gap to only a few yards. Her snakeskin bag hung over her shoulder, the scales shimmering as if the bag were alive and coiling against her torso.

She was right behind him now. He took another drag, swigged from his beer. And then he turned and faced her.

The woman’s eyes widened. Even from where she lay, Angel could see the green fire in them.

Ty exhaled a plume of smoke, like a steam train venting. He frowned, but the corners of his mouth curled upwards, as if both surprised and pleased at the arrival of his guest. He licked his lips.

The woman in the snakeskin boots reached out a hand to Ty’s face. He flinched away, just a fraction, just for a moment. And then he stopped himself, staring into her eyes. His jaw dropped open.

Her fingers were long-boned and graceful, the nails painted with a clear gloss. They hovered beside Ty’s cheek, tantalisingly close. Finally, she touched him.

Angel could not explain what happened next. The instant the woman’s fingertips made contact with his flesh, her legs gave out beneath her and she collapsed into a heap, head smacking against the forest floor.

Ty stared down at her body. He took another hit on his joint, blew out smoke and flicked the butt into the fire. Then he looked straight at Angel.

She dropped the curtain back into place and rolled onto her back, gasping. Her heart slammed in her chest.

Christ, what the hell? What was that? What WAS that? What did you just see, Angel? What the hell did you just see him do?

She strained her ears, mouth parched of moisture. Now she heard a dragging sound outside, a scuffling. Terrified, but compelled nonetheless to take a second look, she bent her head back to the glass and lifted a tiny corner of curtain, just in time to see the woman’s legs slide around the side of the RV, her snakeskin boots ploughing two black furrows through the pine needles.

A clunk from the back of the motorhome. The rear baggage storage opening. A thud. The sound of something sliding. The almost imperceptible sagging of their vehicle as it adjusted to a new weight. Angel caught sight of Ty returning.

She dropped the curtain back in place before he saw her. Lay down on the bed. Gripped the amber necklace in her fist. Prayed. Not for anything particular. Just prayed.

Oh Lord. Oh Lord. Please. Oh Lord.

The side door opened. The motorhome dipped as Ty stepped inside.

Angel heard the door swing shut behind him. Heard the sound of her blood pumping in the darkness.

C
HAPTER
9

Interlaken, Switzerland

W
hen Leah pulled back the curtains in her room the next morning she revealed a different world from the one she had relinquished for sleep. Clouds had rolled through overnight, but they were gone now; the sky was the fragile blue of a robin’s egg. In their wake a covering of snow had unfurled across the landscape, bringing with it a startling silence. The air seemed poised, expectant.

And on Leah’s tongue that sensation was back, a subtle sourness, somewhere between the taste of lemon and olive.

I
was
right, she thought. I
can
sense it. And how wonderful is that?

The sun was a pinwheel of fire in the east, hanging low in the sky. It infused the morning snow with a copper hue, violet in the shadows. To the south, the three giants of the Bernese Alps appeared unreal – jagged expressions of a Cubist’s art.

Leah was about to turn from the window when she saw them in the snow, on the balcony outside her room: a double row of individual depressions, each one sinking four inches to the wooden deck beneath.

Prints.

They were circular in shape, as if someone had stilt-walked along the balcony wearing tin cans on their feet. But whatever had left these tracks had walked upon four feet rather than two.

Leah groped backwards through her memory for the image she had glimpsed the night before as she broke the surface of a dream and caught a shape moving beyond the glass. At the time she had barely considered it; a fleeting dream shadow, something that had lingered a while and then faded. Now, staring at the prints, she tried harder to remember. She recalled a dark mass; a blast of condensation against the glass; a jewel-like flickering of deep-set eyes.

Something else remained of whatever had visited. It clung to the glass at about chest-height: a curving slick of mucus, like a question mark shaped from ghee. Frowning, Leah unlocked the French window and slid the panel of glass sideways along its runners. A frozen slab of air pressed inside, pinching her skin.

She stepped onto the balcony and gasped as her bare feet plunged into snow. Turning back to the window’s outer pane, she bent closer to the glass and examined the yellowish smear. It was streaked with a darker pigment. Leah reached out, hesitated, then slid a finger through it, grimacing at its cold, gelatinous texture. She raised her hand. Sunlight glimmered on the secretion attached to her finger.

The stench of it hit her then: a foulness in her airways, lodged deep and clinging. Alive, like a curling slug in her throat. Spluttering, repulsed, Leah shook her head to repel it. Crouching down, she pressed her hand into snow and wiped the residue away.

She saw something else, then: a hair. It stood straight, trapped against the wall of one of the depressions. After her experience with the mucus she didn’t want to touch it, but she forced herself, plucking it from the snow and holding it up to the light. Close up, it looked more like a bristle than a hair, a serrated shaft of stacked arrowheads, with a pale bulb and a sharp, hard tip. Leah stepped to the balcony’s railing and dropped it over the edge, watching it spiral away.

She suddenly needed a shower. Needed to scrub her hands, inhale good hot steam and rid the last clutches of that corporeal stink from her nose.

Afterwards, skin red from its water blasting, she dressed in jeans, checked shirt, jumper and boots.

Someone knocked at the door. ‘It’s open,’ she called.

The maid, Ede, slipped into the room. ‘If you’re ready for breakfast, I’ll take you down.’

Something different about her this morning, Leah thought. A distance. She watched the woman for a moment and then shrugged, following her out of the room.

She found her hosts in the first-floor living room, where she had dined the previous evening. A Kutya Herceg sat at the head of the table; his son to his left. The remains of an enormous breakfast lay before them. Silver tureens contained steak, sausages, bacon, black pudding and scrambled eggs. She saw fried tomatoes, hash browns; a bowl of steaming mushrooms; triangles of toast; smoked mackerel and salmon. Splayed out in a fan among the jars of jam, marmalade and pepper sauce lay the morning editions of papers from around the world.

Ágoston, sitting erect in his chair, was reading the front-page story from
Le Monde
. Luca Sultés, in contrast, slouched in his seat. He smoked a panatela, the cream smoke snaking up to the ceiling where it hung above his head like a raincloud. Beside him stood a silver coffee pot and a half-drunk glass of grapefruit juice.

He watched her approach the table. ‘Leah. I trust you slept well?’

‘I’ve had better nights.’

Frowning, he turned to the maid. ‘Thank you, Ede. That’ll be all.’

A Kutya Herceg folded up his newspaper and laid it down. He examined Leah with lukewarm detachment. ‘My son,’ he said, ‘believes I owe you an apology.’

She met his eyes, relieved to see that the violence they’d contained the previous night had all but disappeared. ‘What do you believe?’

He grunted. ‘I believe that on occasion, as men begin to age, a certain irascibility can creep into their nature.’

She nodded. ‘I’ve had a few experiences of that.’

Ágoston stood up, and Leah realised that his admission was as close to an apology as she was going to get.

‘I have a shoot this morning, and I must get ready,’ he announced. ‘So I’ll leave you in the hands of my far less irascible son. Please try not to corrupt him.’

Once the old man had gone, Leah picked up a bowl and scooped muesli into it from a tub. She added milk to her cereal, poured herself a glass of juice, and sat down. The sight of the cooked meat, cooling in its juices, reminded her of what she’d seen clinging to the glass of her bedroom window. She paused over her breakfast, a worm of nausea curling in her stomach.

‘Something wrong?’ Luca asked, crushing out his panatela.

‘You had visitors last night,’ she replied. ‘
We
had visitors.’

‘Oh?’

‘Don’t pretend you didn’t know.’

He poured himself a cup of coffee, stirred in sugar. ‘You saw?’

‘I saw.’

He nodded.

‘What were they?’

‘I thought you were
hosszú élet
.’

‘So?’

‘So perhaps it’s time you started to educate yourself.’

‘Are you going to tell me?’

‘Not over breakfast.’

‘Are they dangerous?’

‘To some.’

‘To you?’

‘Not as much.’

‘Then who?’

He stared. ‘My father advised you not to come What might you infer from that?’

Leah took a sip of her juice. ‘Something was outside my window last night. I don’t know if it was one of them, or something else. But it was on the balcony.’

Luca opened a silver cigar box and removed a fresh panatela. He lit it with a slim gold lighter. Puffed out smoke. ‘Impossible.’

‘I saw it.’

‘The security sys—’

‘Go upstairs if you don’t believe me. Whatever it was, it left tracks. Smeared something godawful on the window.’

His eyes still hadn’t left hers. Did she see a trace of unease in them?

Luca went to a bureau and opened a drawer. He removed her Ruger and placed it down on the table. Last night she’d returned it to his care. ‘Keep it with you from now on,’ he said, and strode out of the room.

After finishing her breakfast, Leah poured herself a coffee and took it to the viewing window, staring out at the mountains beyond.

Luca returned a few minutes later, his eyes troubled.

He checked. And now he knows it’s true.

‘Come on,’ he said, throwing her a coat. Not a fur, this time. A mountaineering jacket.

‘Where are we going?’

‘You wanted to speak to one of the
kirekesztett
women.’

‘I want to speak to all of them.’

‘You can speak to one, and I want to be there. Depending on her reaction, maybe more.’

‘Who is she?’

‘Are you coming or not?’

Pulling on the jacket, Leah pocketed her pistol and raced to catch up.

Outside, the morning air was frigid, but the sunlight, where it touched Leah’s neck, conveyed a delicate warmth. Luca tossed her a pair of gloves. ‘It’ll be colder where we’re going.’

‘Which is?’

‘You’ll see.’

The doors to the five-car garage were rolled up into their recesses. Overnight, someone had cleaned the Phantom and parked it back in its bay.

Now, an enormous Ford pick-up waited on the tarmac. Luca pulled a set of keys from his pocket. The truck’s door locks jumped, and its indicator lights flashed. A few moments later they were heading down the hill, the vehicle’s oversized tyres crunching over snow.

Interlaken’s snowploughs had been busy overnight. The main road had been scraped clean, revealing a smooth grey strip split by a single white line.

Luca headed south, following the route’s curves in silence. To their left a mountain stream tumbled and hissed, swollen with the morning’s snow melt. To their right, a high wall of flat-edged bracing stones kept the mountainside from spilling onto the roadway.

The sun climbed higher, its light scattered by the branches of trees. All around, the slopes were dense with scrubby mountain pine laden with powder.

When their road broke out into a grassy plateau, Luca ducked his head and peered up at the sky. He seemed to concentrate for a moment, and then he slammed on the brakes, swerving into a rest area where five snow-dusted picnic tables stood in a row.

‘What’s wrong?’ Leah asked, hand braced against the dash. Luca threw open his door and climbed out. ‘OK,’ she said, addressing the empty seat. ‘Best not tell me.’ In turn she jumped down and walked to the back of the vehicle.

Luca was staring up at the sky. He raised a finger. ‘Look.’

She cast her eyes upwards and saw it wheeling above them, wings outstretched, a wide brown shape against the morning: the unmistakable silhouette of a raptor.

‘Golden eagle,’ he said, smiling. Luca put the fingers of his right hand to his mouth and whistled, high and mournful, two individual notes.

Above, the bird adjusted its wings and arced away from them. Then it looped back and dived. For a moment Leah thought it intended to strike, but it levelled out just in time and skimmed over their heads, close enough for her to feel the turbulence of its wake. The eagle banked, swooped back towards them. Legs thrust forward, with a mighty beat of wings, it landed on the truck’s tailgate.

Leah gasped. She watched it tuck away its wings, talons clicking and scraping on metal. It turned its head to study her with flat amber eyes.

‘Stunning,’ she said. ‘Beautiful.’ Neither word really did it justice.

‘Deadly, too,’ Luca told her. ‘And intelligent. They’ve been known to drag goats off cliff tops. Easier to kill them that way.’

‘Right up your street,’ she said. ‘Is it male or female?’

The bird opened its beak and cried, a hooting high-pitched call.

‘This one’s a girl.’

‘How do you know?’

‘She just told me.’

Leah’s mouth dropped open. ‘That can’t be true.’

He paused, and then he was laughing. ‘Your face,’ he said. ‘No, it isn’t true.’

‘Funny,’ she snapped, feeling her cheeks beginning to burn. ‘Hilarious, actually.’

His laughter abating, Luca considered her. ‘You still have a lot to learn, don’t you?’

‘About what?’

‘About you. About us. The
hosszú életek
, I mean. About what’s possible, and what isn’t.’

She prickled with irritation. ‘An ignorant little girl, you mean.’

‘Not at all.’ He nodded back towards the bird. ‘The females are always larger. That’s how you can tell.’

‘I’m surprised you haven’t tried to stuff her and take her home for your father’s collection.’

‘I think he has one, actually.’

‘Will you teach me that call you used?’

‘Perhaps. Watch this.’ He extended his arm and clicked his tongue. The eagle flapped its wings once, then hopped on. Luca’s arm dipped as it took the bird’s full weight. The creature’s talons closed around his woollen jacket, cutting into the fibres.

He’s showing off
, she thought, with a jolt.
Luca Sultés is trying to impress me.

As if receiving from him some silent signal, the bird launched itself into the air and flapped into the sky.

A single feather had fallen into the truck’s bed; a shaft of white, the vanes a mixture of coffee and cream. Luca picked it up. ‘Here,’ he said, handing it to her. ‘For you.’

Leah rolled her eyes. ‘So chivalrous.’

Be careful. And don’t be stupid. You don’t want to get into this.

She was still holding the feather as she climbed back into the passenger seat.

They followed the road further south, winding through scenery that looked like it had been carved open with a knife. The river beside them boiled with white water. Already the morning sun had melted most of the overnight snow, revealing lush meadows and delicate Alpine plants.

They passed a sign to Stechelberg, the road straightening as it led them along the wide floor of the Lauterbrunnen valley. She saw cows grazing its pastures. Higher up, black and white long-horned goats.

The town itself was tiny: a bed and breakfast, a hotel and a scattered collection of homes. Luca steered the truck into a car park beside a huge concrete building. One side was a gaping hole from which four heavy cables rose up and out, climbing at a steep angle. A large sign read:

Stechelberg
867m 2844 ft

‘You’ve got to be kidding.

Luca switched off the engine. ‘It’s the only way up.’

‘She doesn’t live in Stechelberg?’

‘Nope.’

‘I can’t do it.’

‘You’ve heard of exposure therapy?’

‘Yeah. And you can keep it.’