Blood on Silk

by Marie Treanor

  As the Romanian closed with her and they fell onto the carpet, Elizabeth twisted in an effort not to be trapped beneath, as the brutish vampire had done to her the night before last.

  She was learning already. It made him curious. He wanted to see her defend herself in reality, her red-blond hair flying out from her soft, delicate face, as she fought and defeated her enemies. Her small-boned body, which looked and felt as if it might snap under his hands, was in fact strong and flexible. But then she bore Tsigana’s blood, and Tsigana was one of his “killers.” Elizabeth had strengths she didn’t yet dream of.

  He knew an urge to tear down the shutters and crash into the room, to hold the others captive with one commanding point of his finger while he pressed Elizabeth’s delectable little body into his.

  She would fight it as she always did, but before he took her, he would make her respond with the passion he sensed that she needed. He was sure she wasn’t a virgin—how refreshing of this age to disregard that “virtue” once more—but she was largely un-awakened. Her unconscious responses, as well as her shock, told him that. It would make it all the sweeter to take her, to push inside her hot, welcoming depths and give her pleasure as he drained her blood.

  He stepped back. He could no longer see into the room, watch her gaze at the German with trusting concentration, or observe the Hungarian boy staring at her with disguised lust of his own. She didn’t see it. He suspected she saw none of it, lost in her academia as much as in her own faulty view of herself. She intrigued him, not just by her pale, refined beauty of which she seemed quite unaware, but by her contradictory characteristics: lonely and self-sufficient; unworldly and cynical; solemn and humorous; fearful and unexpectedly courageous; standoffish and passionate. . . .

  Fuck. He could break in and end it now, take all the semimystical strength she had to offer, both as his Awakener and the descendant of his “killer.” It would be useful in Budapest.

  But on the whole, he preferred his original plan. He’d let her find him, buoyed up with hunter training. He would enjoy the fight all the more, and her end would be all the sweeter.

  A man and woman passed in the street, a dog at their heels. The dog whimpered and cowered in at their legs, casting quick, furtive glances into the garden where he stood. Saloman didn’t trouble to soothe the animal. He tensed his legs and soared into the air.

  Feeling stronger with each leap, he ran west with ever-increasing speed into the Carpathian Mountains, following the sour stench of Karl’s fear. He didn’t trouble to mask his identity or his presence. There was nowhere left for Karl to hide, and it did his vengeful soul good to know the vampire was fleeing before him in panic.

  Saloman’s honed senses would have found him alone on any mountain peak. Karl clearly knew that. He sought refuge in a crowded village tavern. He may have imagined Saloman’s senses wouldn’t be able to distinguish him there. He may have imagined Saloman would choose not to kill him before human witnesses—though where such an absurd notion would have come from, Saloman couldn’t imagine.

  He halted at last in the street outside the tavern, once again merely a leather-clad man to any passing human—or perhaps not. An old woman sat on a stool by her gate across the road, enjoying the cool of the night. Most humans he’d encountered so suddenly since his awakening ignored him, assuming they just hadn’t noticed his approach. This woman made the sign of the cross with one hand, and the sign against the evil eye with the other, and fled inside, abandoning her fallen stool as she hobbled away.

  Saloman curled his lip. A place of old knowledge, it seemed; yet Karl had just arrived here—on this visit, at least.

  Saloman strolled up to the door, nodding at the men he met in the doorway. They muttered polite greetings and stood aside for him to enter.

  The place was noisy and smoky. Several men glanced at him as he entered, but Karl wasn’t one of them.

  The vampire sat at the back of the bar, sharing a table with several burly farmers who all but squashed him into the corner. Karl’s face was turned toward one of them as if deep in some interesting conversation. He might have been. Karl was quite a charming fellow at one time. In fact, it offended Saloman to see him like this, pretending, cringing, masking with desperate futility, consumed by fear of the stronger being he had betrayed and joined with others to kill. There was no more fun to be had here. This was one to finish quickly.

  Saloman looked neither to the left nor right, although he was aware of every gaze that followed him. He ignored them, walking straight toward Karl, staring at his face until everyone at the table looked up expectantly at Saloman, and at last Karl was forced to do the same.

  Miserable worm. He lacked even the courage to face the consequences of his actions. Saloman halted and reached across the table. Karl jerked back as if to avoid him, moving fast enough to be a mere blur to the humans, but Saloman found his shoulder.

  “Karl, my friend. At last.” As he pulled Karl toward him, the men at the table made way. They couldn’t see that Karl pulled back, resisting all the way, or that Saloman had to use considerable force. The struggle was secret, desperate, but the result of the encounter was never in doubt, at least not to Saloman, who pressed the vampire into his side and marched him from the tavern.

  Across the road, curtains twitched. Saloman didn’t care what the old woman saw. He lifted off into the air, taking Karl with him. He bounded across the village rooftops, coming to rest on the high, stout branch of an ancient willow tree.

  Karl moaned, as if aware at last of the precise stage of Saloman’s recovery. To him, Saloman was the same powerful being he’d been at his “death.”

  He wasn’t, of course. But no one, let alone this worm, needed to discover that.

  “You disappoint me,” he said in a low voice. “I expected at least a fight, a chase. But you’re barely worth the kill. The strength of your blood is outweighed by the meanness of your spirit.”

  “Then don’t kill me,” Karl almost squeaked. “I made a terrible mistake, but come on, Saloman, it’s been three hundred years! Can’t you forgive and forget?”

  Saloman curled his lip, more at the use of his name than the wheedling that made him feel physically sick. At this rate, he’d have trouble keeping the bastard’s blood down. He should have taken Elizabeth Silk with her strong, sweet blood and alluring body that would have trembled with desire as well as fear as she fought him. The puny, mortal woman had a spirit and courage way beyond this five-hundred-year-old vampire’s. Karl would always be paltry.

  Finish it. As the first blood of vengeance, it’s pretty poor—but very necessary.

  “I can’t forget. And I never forgive.” Saloman bent to his throat and, with the night world spread out below him, felt immeasurably better. Perhaps it helped that his victim began at least to scrabble at his hands, in a vain and feeble attempt to release himself. The willow branch swayed under them—another pleasing sensation.

  The funny thing was, one serious blow would have damaged Saloman, but the idea never even crossed Karl’s mind. Fear was a powerful weapon. He’d taught that knowledge to many human princes in the past.

  Karl was still gibbering. “I never acquired the strength of the older vampires. I never sought it. Spare me and I’ll give you Lajos, whose blood is far stronger than mine!”

  Ignoring him, Saloman closed his mouth over Karl’s throat and bared his fangs.

  “I’ll give you Maximilian!” Karl screamed.

  Saloman paused. For the first time, possibly ever, Karl interested him. He lifted his head. “Maximilian,” he repeated. “You really know where Maximilian is?”

  Even Dmitriu didn’t know that, and Saloman’s senses couldn’t reach him—yet. But the worm was babbling again. “I had it from Lajos, and you know how thick the two of them used to be. . . .”

  “Speak,” Saloman interrupted.

  “Scotland,” Karl blurted.

  Saloman blinked. “Scotland? Why Scotland?” He laughed. “Surely not for the climate.�
��

  “But yes, for the mist,” Karl babbled. “Lajos says he learned masking from an Ancient. That, combined with the mist, means even an Ancient could never find him. But I told you where to look!”

  “So you did,” Saloman said. “Thanks.” And tore his throat out.

  The blood was good.

  Chapter Eight

  “This is amazing.” Elizabeth gazed around in wonder. Although the building above was unexceptional, if old and spacious, the basement housed a huge library that seemed to stretch forever. The walls were lined with apparently infinite mahogany and glass bookcases. Tall filing cabinets were scattered among dark wood desks and tables, several of which supported computer terminals. Large and lavish Turkish rugs covered the floor, adding a bizarre air of opulence to the otherwise austere academic surroundings.

  At the nearest computer, housed on a high, round table like an old-fashioned library-issue desk, stood a middle-aged man in spectacles, which gleamed at her benignly.

  Konrad said, “This is our librarian, Miklós. Miklós, Elizabeth Silk from the UK. She’s helping us with the Saloman problem.”

  Elizabeth had the grace to blush as she accepted Miklós’s proffered hand. “I’m sorry. I’m afraid I caused the Saloman problem.”

  “These things happen,” the librarian said, and a breath of laughter escaped Elizabeth because he might have been excusing her for having damaged a book by leaving it in the rain instead of unleashing on the world the most powerful and evil vampire of all time.

  Covering her inappropriate mirth, Elizabeth wandered over to the nearest bookcase, gazing in wonder at the ancient bindings. “All this is purely vampire related?”

  “Directly, or indirectly,” Miklós said. “We have the general reference books necessary to any decent library, plus several related to the paranormal, biographical, and historical areas. We have all the demonologies and supernatural works ever published, plus several that never saw the light of day. We had our own printing press for a while, so there are many learned texts published privately by our predecessors. Every document collected over the centuries pertaining to vampires or the supernatural world in general is kept here, indexed and catalogued. Diaries, letters, confessions, witness statements, even scraps of partially destroyed documents. We never throw anything away. We also have painstakingly compiled genealogies and biographies of all the known vampires born in eastern Europe or living here, which account for more than half of the world’s vampire population.”

  Elizabeth’s researcher’s heart beat faster. What she could learn here . . . ! “And you maintain this huge collection all on your own?”

  “Hardly,” Konrad answered. “Miklós has a team of assistant librarians and researchers, all dedicated to getting us the information we need as fast as possible. We also have our own medical staff. Others are field operatives, like István and Mihaela and me.”

  Elizabeth frowned. “Are you government controlled? Funded?”

  “Oh, no,” Miklós replied. “Our funding is private and comes from a variety of sources, all expertly and wisely invested: trusts and funds begun all over the world centuries ago; treasure confiscated from several wealthy vampires we’ve terminated over the years; donations of all sizes from many sources, including grateful would-be victims we’ve helped, as well as individual hunters.”

  Miklós smiled slightly at Elizabeth’s obvious surprise. “Hunters are salaried, but their life tends to become their work, and much of it is given back to the organization at death, if not before. The same is true of the upper administrative staff such as me, and even the Grand Masters themselves.”

  Before Elizabeth, insatiably curious, could ask about the Grand Masters, Miklós hurried on. “As for government control, I’d say we are government-tolerated. But only a few at the very heart of government have ever known of our existence. The Communist regime ignored us almost completely, which was actually more comfortable than the occasional curious visitors from the present government. But secrecy is maintained. It has to be.”

  “Why?” Elizabeth asked. She could guess some of the reasoning, but she was eager to hear it all.

  “Well, for one thing, the population would demand we be shut down as crackpots,” Konrad said dryly. “For another, we don’t want to be pestered by lunatics and attention seekers who’d waste our time. Nor do we want to advertise our location to vampires. This building is shielded and has never been breached. We need it to remain that way. And then, of course, there is the matter of human panic. Most people would not be happy in the knowledge that they share their planet with monsters from horror movies. We don’t want to precipitate a full-scale war between the species. It’s a war that humans, despite their overwhelming numbers, could only lose. So, for all these reasons, very few people are ever told of our existence.”

  “I feel incredibly—honored,” Elizabeth murmured.

  “You are,” Konrad said with a twisted smile. He turned to Miklós. “Can you find Elizabeth everything we have on Saloman?”

  “Everything?” For the first time, Miklós looked daunted.

  “Everything,” Konrad repeated. “But there’s no rush. Elizabeth will be with us for some time.”

  “I can’t stay indefinitely, though. I have to be back in Scotland in a couple of weeks. Three at the most,” she amended, with a quick glance around the shelves. “Um—can we catch Saloman in that time?”

  “Oh yes. We all need to do a bit more research, a bit more training. His awakening rather caught us off guard. But we have all we need here to get up to speed on him. And then we can return to Transylvania and nail the bastard.”

  Elizabeth looked at him, but he’d already turned away, ready to leave the library and continue the tour. She closed her mouth, keeping the churning excitement to herself for now. There would be other times to say she didn’t believe they’d need to go back to Transylvania. Saloman had told her so. He was looking for “urban” fun. He’d come to the biggest city in the region, and he’d challenged her to follow.

  Emerging from Mihaela’s spare bedroom, Elizabeth hesitated at the living room door. Mihaela was curled up in an armchair, nursing a glass of wine and reading a book spread open on her lap.

  Elizabeth had gone along with the hunters’ plans for her to stay with Mihaela in Budapest, but she felt unsure of her place here—lodger or guest?—and was reluctant to butt in any further.

  This flat was clearly Mihaela’s escape from work. Light and bright and modern, it contained no obvious reference to the supernatural world, which had to be a huge part of the hunter’s life. Elizabeth felt like an intruder.

  Mihaela twisted around to face her and gave a quick smile. “Glass of wine?”

  The invitation seemed genuine. Gratefully, Elizabeth walked into the room and settled in the vacant armchair while Mihaela poured red wine into the empty glass already waiting for her on the low table.

  “There’s a casserole in the oven,” Mihaela said. “It should be ready in half an hour.”

  “This is very good of you,” Elizabeth said awkwardly, picking up the glass.

  “Nonsense. All part of the service.” With another grin, Mihaela raised her glass, and Elizabeth smiled back before leaning over to “clink” with her.

  “You mean you often have to take in waifs and strays in the line of duty?” Elizabeth asked.

  “Homeless victims usually stay at headquarters until they’re ready to return to their lives. But you’re not really a victim, are you? More of a temporary recruit.”

  “Do you have many of those?”

  Mihaela sipped her wine. “Victims or recruits?”

  “Both.”

  Mihaela shrugged. “Too many victims, not enough recruits. Ours is a rather specialized field of work.”

  Elizabeth regarded her curiously. Mihaela was an attractive woman, probably in her thirties. She wore no wedding ring. No photographs around the flat advertised the existence of children or other family. Elizabeth wondered what went on in the othe
r woman’s life; how much time she spent here in this cozy yet impersonal apartment. Not much, she guessed. Mihaela wasn’t driven toward home-making,

  “So how did you come into it?” Elizabeth asked. “Is vampire hunting a recognized career path in this part of the world?”

  Mihaela gave a hiss of amusement. “Hardly. Most of us were witnesses of vampire attacks, or even victims, and were helped by the organization.” Although she spoke lightly, matter-of-factly, a shadow seemed to pass across her dark eyes and vanish. “Like you.”

  Elizabeth didn’t take the hint. “Which were you? Victim or witness?”

  “Both, as it happens. Don’t look so surprised.”

  “Sorry.” Elizabeth took a quick mouthful of wine before setting down her glass. “The way you dealt with those vampires the other night, the way you just got up and got on with it after Zoltán’s attack . . . It’s hard to imagine you terrified and helpless.” Like me. “You always seem so strong and capable and aware.”

  Mihaela’s eyes dropped to her wine. “If I am, it’s because I’ve learned to be.”

  “When did it happen?”

  “When I was a kid.” For a moment, Elizabeth thought she wouldn’t say any more. Then she carried on almost abruptly. “My parents were killed at home by a fledgling vampire. I was rescued by hunters who arrived in time to kill it and save me. They were too late for my parents.” Mihaela drained her glass in one quick, jerky movement. It was the only sign of distress she betrayed.

  Elizabeth felt the blood drain from her face. There were worse, much worse experiences than her own. As Mihaela raised her dark, haunted eyes, Elizabeth glimpsed there the quiet, driven child who’d turned into this fearless, dedicated woman, determined never to be too late for anyone else.