“My pleasure. You’re a most intriguing young woman.”
Elizabeth blinked. “I am?”
The smiling blue eyes were steady. “You know you are. I’m in the presence of the Awakener, am I not?”
Elizabeth sat down slowly, heart and mind racing. She played for time while trying to straighten her thoughts. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
“You told Josh you awakened Saloman.”
Straight from the hip. They did say the senator was a straighttalking man. She said, “I didn’t realize Josh paid attention to anything I said on that score.”
“Josh can always surprise you. How in the world did you do it?”
She dropped her gaze, wondering if she could avoid the question. But it was too late for that. Dante was a believer. Worse, he seemed to know of the legendary Saloman.
“By accident,” she managed to say ruefully. “My finger was jagged by a thorn and I dripped blood on his so-called tomb. If you believe that sort of thing, it worked because I’m descended from his original ‘killer.’ ”
“You must have been terrified.”
“I’ve never been more frightened in my life.” That, she could say with complete candor.
“He didn’t kill you,” Dante observed.
“I think,” Elizabeth said, “he was too weak at the time. I bolted.”
“A wise precaution.” Amusement as well as admiration seeped into his smile. “So where is Saloman now?”
You mean since he left your house? “I haven’t the foggiest idea. Probably Eastern Europe, where most of his kind are found.”
The senator continued to gaze into her eyes, blinking so seldom that it made her thoroughly uncomfortable. Worse, his eyes were sharp and perceptive, and Elizabeth had too much to hide. She went on the offensive.
“You amaze me more at each encounter, Senator. You should be calling me batty, not believing what I tell you about vampires—which I’ll have to deny in public, by the way. I have a very precarious reputation as a serious academic to preserve.”
Dante’s smile came back. “I’ll keep your secret, if you keep mine.”
“Sure,” Elizabeth agreed, relieved that the senator seemed ready to leave.
“I’m sure we’ll meet again,” he observed. “Interests such as ours are rare. We have to stick together.”
Elizabeth smiled and offered her hand again. “Good-bye, Senator. Thanks for dropping in. Enjoy your golf.”
“Oh, I will, I will.”
From the window, she watched him climb into his large, sleek car and be driven off down South Street.
“Now, what,” she murmured to herself, “was that all about?”
From the roof of his London hotel, Saloman was irritated to witness the young vampire, Del, stalking the waitress who’d served Saloman earlier in the evening—in more ways than one. Having accepted the wine she’d brought to him and his new business associate in the hotel bar, Saloman had followed her into the quiet passage between public and staff entrances. She’d seemed glad enough to be accosted, and her blood was good. Saloman had taken care, as he always did, to seal both wound and memory, and the girl had still been smiling at him in a coquettish sort of way when he’d finally left the bar.
Although young, Del was more than a fledgling, perfectly capable of controlling his hunger to the point where he didn’t kill the girl. On the other hand, by now he should also have smelled Saloman on her and backed off to look for other prey. And so Saloman watched him leap on the girl, clap his hand over her mouth, and sink his fangs into her throat, no doubt right over her other healing bite. The girl struggled, her legs kicking uselessly, trying in vain to scream for help.
Saloman had seen enough. Although it was easy for him to access the thoughts of most beings, he generally didn’t, partly because reading everyone’s thoughts all the time was a quick road to insanity, and partly because he generally respected people’s rights of privacy. In this case, only one thought could save the attacking vampire’s life, and Saloman was pretty sure he wouldn’t find it. He didn’t.
Saloman stepped off the roof. Before the idiot vampire had even registered his presence, Saloman landed on the ground behind him and jerked him away from his victim, who stumbled back into the wall, falling onto her weakened knees.
Del’s eyes were wide with more than fear. It wouldn’t save him.
“Saloman,” he whispered. “I didn’t kill her! I didn’t!”
“She’s barely alive. You took her to defy me, to make some display to the others because you thought I’d gone. I’m never gone. Learn the lesson.” The last was for the local vampire community, whom he was admitting to the show telepathically. It was too late for Del to learn anything, for Saloman, ignoring his demented struggles, dragged him close and bit into his flesh until the body exploded to dust in his hold.
That done, he went to the almost unconscious girl. Her head lolled when he moved her, but though she whimpered with fear, she gasped in welcome when he covered her wound with his mouth. It was harder to find and oust the frightening memories from her traumatized and untidy mind, but rummaging deep, he healed the worst of them and left her sleeping in relative peace in the doorway. One of the hotel staff would discover her soon enough.
Next time, Saloman announced to the awestruck community he’d made his own, police yourselves. I trust I’ve made my point.
There was no dissent, not even in the recesses of the stronger vampire minds. Satisfied, Saloman leapt onto a third-floor windowsill and made his way around to his own room.
Stepping inside, he registered the insistent knocking on his bedroom door. Nicola Devon’s scent drifted in to him, and he sighed as he brushed the dust off his clothes. He considered ignoring her, since in his mind he had already moved on. But in fact, it would do no harm if the business community got to know that you couldn’t put one over on Adam Simon. So he called a negligent, “Come in,” while he continued his interrupted task of throwing clothes in a suitcase.
Nicola entered, wearing her favorite smart business suit and carrying a newspaper. She scanned the living area quickly, then caught sight of him in the bedroom and walked toward him.
“Sorry to drop by so late, Adam. At least I didn’t wake you. This was outside your door.” She laid the newspaper down on the bed and her gaze dropped to the suitcase. “Are you leaving London?”
“Tonight.”
“Oh.” She sounded deflated. “Where are you going?”
“Here and there.”
She’d come close to him, as if plucking up the courage to embrace him. Obviously she didn’t find it, for she swallowed and said in an oddly small voice, “Have you time for a drink?”
“No.”
She sank slowly down on the bed, watching him close the suitcase lid and zip it. “I need to talk to you, Adam. I . . . I haven’t been entirely straight with you.”
“I know.”
Her gaze flew up to his. “You know? How?”
“You’re too inquisitive, and Dante’s people always learned the things I fed you.”
A spark of indignation mingled now with what was probably genuine shame. “You’ve been feeding me false information?”
Saloman picked up the early-edition newspaper. “It’s been very useful. Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet,” she said bitterly. “I didn’t tell him about the oil shares. I thought that was doing you a favor.”
“Made no difference.” Opening the newspaper, he scanned it quickly for anything of interest, and found his gaze halted on the name Bill Cartwright.
Nicola said, “Dante’s furious. He told me you now have the controlling share in his pharmaceutical company.”
“I do.”
“What do you want with a drug company?”
Saloman shrugged. “Humans need drugs.” Bill Cartwright, an American antiquarian, had been found stabbed to death in Glasgow’s city center. “I don’t want to be rude, Nicola, but I have to leave tonight.”
“You’re not even angry at me, are you?” Now she did seize his arm, gazing up into his eyes with miserable intensity. “Adam, I agreed to do this for Dante before I’d even met you! I thought pleasing him could only be good for my career, for my company, but I never lied to you!”
“Er—good.”
“Did you always know? Didn’t you mean any of it?”
“Any of what?”
“You and me!”
Saloman folded the newspaper. “There is no you and me, Nicola. We used each other; that was all. I just happen to be better at it.”
“I can work for you,” she blurted. “I can do it the other way around, let you know what I can about Dante. . . .”
He didn’t even need to reply to that. Her gaze and her hand fell away from him.
“You don’t trust me, do you?”
“No.”
“And that’s it? Wham, bam, thank you, ma’am?”
“That’s it, certainly. So long, Nicola. Stick to the advertising. You’re good at that.”
He was aware, as he watched her defeated exit from the room, that he hadn’t been entirely fair to her. He’d taken her without love, as he’d taken many women in the last six months. And the fact that she’d been betraying him hadn’t really made any difference to his feelings. Her only importance had been in scratching his sexual itch. Elizabeth would call that unkind at best. And she’d be right.
Saloman moved to his laptop, calling up sites and files with a speed that would have bewildered any watching humans. When he found what he wanted to know, he postponed his flight to America and booked a different one for tonight.
Elizabeth woke before dawn, as she often did. But before she even thought about making coffee—normally her first act of the day—she reached for her laptop to see if there was any reply from the hunters about Saloman’s sword.
Settling back on the pillows with the computer on her knees, she downloaded her e-mails and saw at once that there was one from Mihaela. Excitedly, she clicked on it and began to read.
The beginning of the e-mail was mostly a reiteration of the information she’d found digging around for herself last summer: that the sword had been taken by Tsigana and passed on to her descendants, and that the sword was reputed to have special powers.
“If you believe everything you read,” Mihaela wrote, “then this sword could do everything from winning you a battle to making your dinner. Very little of this stuff is substantiated, but what is clear is the importance accorded the sword by Tsigana’s descendants. And the fact that they were largely left alone by vampires because of it. It’s also mentioned in prophecies, although its purpose isn’t. What facts there are do point at some genuine power in the sword. Most important, it is reputed to make the wielder invulnerable to any attack. And I’ve seen repeated in several different places that if a human is killed by this sword and subsequently turned into a vampire, then this vampire will be stronger than all others. No evidence of the latter so far, but I wouldn’t discount it.
“I’m busy tomorrow; got a lead on some business connection of Saloman’s. But I’ve asked Miklόs to keep researching this for you and if he finds anything else, he’ll be in touch.”
There followed what looked like a more personal paragraph, but before Elizabeth could read it, some soft, unusual sound from the kitchen distracted her. Her head snapped up, and she listened intently.
Damn, do I have mice?
Not unless they opened windows for themselves. That was definitely the creaking sound of the window being pulled down. Her heart thudding, Elizabeth wriggled out from under the laptop and reached for her phone. But she held it in her left hand. With her right, she picked up the sharpened wooden stake from her bedside table.
Burglaries were comparatively rare in St. Andrews. So were vampire attacks on her person, but neither was unheard of. She moved softly, every sense straining to determine which threat had invaded her house. Pausing in the hall outside the kitchen door, she could hear nothing except the rapid beating of her own heart. No movement, no breathing. Her fingers tightened on the stake and she pushed open the door.
She didn’t see it coming. She didn’t even see the stake being snatched from her grip. But the next instant arms seized her and she was gazing up in bewildered shock at Saloman. His black hair tumbled forward across his face; a sardonic smile curled his lips and vanished.
For a moment she couldn’t think, let alone speak. She swallowed. “What’s the matter?” she managed at last. “Did I finally manage to frighten you with a stake?”
“There’s a history of that particular combination,” he observed, his gaze dropping to her lips and lower. “It makes me nervous.”
“Liar.” Why was she wearing the scabby old T-shirt instead of a sexy nightdress? Why did she care? She took a deep breath. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m delivering your newspaper,” he said, releasing her to indicate the paper that lay on the kitchen table.
Elizabeth felt cold. He hadn’t come just for her. She moved nearer the newspaper and saw that it was folded to show a particular article on the second page.
“ ‘Bill Cartwright, antiques . . .’ ” she read, raising her gaze back to his. “Is that Dante’s Bill?”
Saloman nodded once and she quickly scanned the rest of the short article.
“Mugged in Glasgow, died of his injuries . . . His car was discovered a few miles away. He was in Glasgow for an antiques convention.” Elizabeth sat down at the table. “How awful . . . It always seems worse when something bad like this happens to someone you know.”
“I think Dante happened to him,” Saloman said wryly.
She blinked. “Dante?” Though the senator was a little stranger than she’d expected of such a distinguished political figure, blaming a mugging on him seemed a step too far for sanity.
Saloman was gazing around her kitchen, as if remembering the last time he’d been here—the longest and yet the shortest night of her life. Almost casually, he said, “I think Bill took the sword on Dante’s orders, and when Dante got it back, he killed him to keep him from telling.”
Elizabeth closed her mouth. “Bill can’t have taken the sword,” she objected. “Josh made Dante check up on all the guests before we left that morning and they were all still in the house.”
“But Bill was tired. I doubt he’d had any sleep. I think he hid it somewhere—I can’t sense it beyond the range of a mile or so—or got someone else to carry it on to Glasgow while he hurried back to the house. He’ll have gone on to Glasgow later, where either Dante or another of his followers met him.”
“Do you know this? Do the police?”
His gaze came back to her, oddly serious behind the mockery. “Don’t be silly. Dante was officially in London on Tuesday, at the time of the murder. And now he’s gone back to America. I’m sure the sword went with him.”
“Then it wasn’t discovered among Bill’s things?”
Saloman shook his head and sat down at the opposite side of the table. It seemed a ridiculously mundane setting for so exotic a creature, and yet she liked to see him there. She liked it too much.
She said, “You came here to tell me this? Why?”
“Because I think, at last, we have a common enemy that we both need to eliminate.”
Elizabeth stared. “Eliminate?”
Saloman shrugged elegantly. “Neutralize. Stop. Oppose. Whatever.”
She drew in her breath. “You mean Dante? He’s a respected politician, not a crook.”
“You know very well one does not preclude the other. But I believe Dante’s gone way beyond ‘crook.’ I think he’s risking everything in a play for ultimate power. And judging by his business interests and his political methods, you don’t want him in that position any more than I do.”
Elizabeth stood up and began to fill the kettle, more for something to do than because she actually wanted coffee.
“I’ve read that there are whispers against him in America,” she confess
ed. “Complaints that he’s too powerful, has too much influence; but most of it seems to come from the conspiracy theorists, not his political opponents.”
“Dante is so completely rooted in their political establishment, it doesn’t really matter whether he represents Republicans or Democrats. His connections are so wide, he can influence just about any decision, whether that’s political or commercial. And he has so many friends in foreign governments that his personal reach extends well beyond the United States. Wealth and connections are what rule this world, and Dante has far more than his fair share of both.”
Elizabeth reached for the coffee, regarding him sardonically over her shoulder. “You mean he has what you want?”
“In a nutshell.” Saloman sounded pleased by her understanding.
“So you want to bring him down.” She shoveled coffee into the cafetière. “I understand that. What I don’t get is why in the world you imagine I might want to help you. At least Dante is part of a democracy.”
“He’s aiming well beyond that.”
“Same as you,” she shot back, pouring boiling water over the coffee with unnecessary force.
“On the contrary. I aim at benevolence. Dante . . . doesn’t.” Picking up the cafetière, she plunked it down on the table and grabbed two mugs from the cupboard. She couldn’t work out why she was so angry, unless it was his complete failure to understand anything she’d said last autumn, when, her heart breaking, she’d sent him away. She knew then, as she did now, that she couldn’t find happiness with an ancient vampire.
“What sort of benevolence does Dante fail to appreciate?” she demanded. “Toleration of murder, coercion, and tyranny? Does he dislike the idea of vampires rampaging through his country, openly drinking the blood of his people?”
She threw herself into her chair, glaring at him. He didn’t appear to be remotely angry. He merely raised one eyebrow. “Actually, I don’t think he objects to any of those things.”
With the grace and delicacy he brought even to the most mundane tasks, he pushed down the plunger on the cafetière. Elizabeth remembered those long, clever fingers on her body, caressing, stroking. At the very idea, her whole body began to burn and tingle. It made it hard to appreciate the outrageous nature of Saloman’s last remark.
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