Blood on Silk

by Marie Treanor

  “I will never forgive you.”

  Dmitriu closed his eyes, not in fear, just to avoid the suffering fury in Saloman’s.

  “I curse you, with the last beat of your treacherous heart, which is imminent.” Saloman’s grip tightened. The air seemed to whoosh as the Ancient swooped for his throat. To drain him dry, break his neck, and turn his body and soul to dust. He was of no more account than the bestial fledgling who had tried to molest the Awakener. That hurt. More than death, that hurt. He didn’t even care that Saloman would see the blood-tears squeezing from his eyes. They might comfort him in his loneliness.

  But it was taking time. No teeth pierced his throat for several heartbeats, until he opened his eyes to the fierce contempt in Saloman’s.

  “You are nothing,” Saloman whispered. “Exist with your pain.” He pushed Dmitriu away from him. Dmitriu skidded along the wall and fell to the floor as Saloman strode to the door.

  “How did you know?” The words broke from him without permission. He didn’t even know if he’d said them aloud.

  Saloman paused but didn’t turn. “Elizabeth Silk told me. ‘Zoltán betrayed you,’ she said. Not ‘Zoltán tried to kill me’ or even ‘Zoltán broke your alliance.’ ‘Betrayed’ sounded like your understanding. And I’d wondered how the hunters found out about me so fast. Besides”—he curled his lip—“you have their numbers on your phone.”

  “It’s the only way I speak to them,” Dmitriu pleaded. “I’ve done it for years—fed them tidbits in return for a peaceful life. And for amusement, if I’m truthful. I wanted to tell you. . . .”

  Saloman walked through the doorway. “Why didn’t you?”

  “Because I knew you’d kill me.” Dmitriu struggled to his feet and followed Saloman into the messy living room. “Are you going?” he added, baffled.

  “In this case,” said Saloman, “I’ve decided life is a crueler punishment than death. Good-bye, Dmitriu. Make your own way to hell.”

  The front door shut noiselessly, leaving Dmitriu staring openmouthed across the dirty, straggling mess of the room. It seemed to mirror what was left of his existence.

  Dmitriu wasn’t stupid. He knew he’d been banished. A great yawning chasm of emptiness waited to swallow him. He wished Janine would come home so he could feed from her. He needed to get blind drunk.

  Striding along the dark, threatening streets of Leith, Saloman’s whole body ached with unreleased fury. He wished he’d killed Dmitriu after all, lashed himself for letting the treacherous bastard go. It had been another on-the-spot decision, like not killing Elizabeth Silk. Instead, he’d left both alive to add to the threats surrounding him.

  He hadn’t expected the hurt to be so strong. Suppressing it for weeks, he thought it was under control, but it wasn’t. And he’d wanted to kill Dmitriu so badly it hurt. Like when he’d killed his cousin Luk. That was what had scared him in the end. Decisions over life and death should not be made in the heat of hurt and fury when one couldn’t see the consequences. That’s what had saved Dmitriu in Bistriƫa.

  And again now, even though it had long been his plan to kill Dmitriu when they next met, his very rage had held him back, and then he just needed to get out. But the urge to kill was still strong, unquenchable.

  When the local human thugs attacked, it was a gift to him. There were four of them, lean, mean wrecks of humans, obviously seeking money to buy the drugs to ruin what was left of their pitiful bodies and not fussy about who got hurt in the process. Hunting in packs, like curs. They rose out of the shadows before he paid them any attention, and jumped on him, knives flashing in the dim lamplight.

  He broke the first man’s neck and drained him as he died, while seizing another in front of him as a shield. There was a sharp pain where a knife bit, but it was easy to ignore it in the elation of drinking.

  Dropping the first body, he bit into the second, spinning in a fast, whirling kick that knocked the remaining attackers to the ground. They should have fled when they had the chance, but something, amazement, curiosity, or sluggish reflexes, seemed to have paralyzed them. One crawled now and ran for it. Saloman let him go—he despised greed—but he caught the fourth man and drank him dry too. It made a sour dessert. And it would take all the power of his Ancient blood to combat whatever poisonous substances flowed in their veins. Nevertheless, it assuaged most of his ill humors at once.

  Dropping the fourth man on top of his dead comrades, Saloman spared a glance at the carnage. His lip quirked. “Call it ‘hello,’ Zoltán,” he murmured, “and do your worst.”

  Flexing his knees, he leapt onto the roof of the nearest building, from where he gazed out over the docks and the Firth of Forth. On the opposite shore stretched Fife, St. Andrews, and Elizabeth Silk.

  He had been here before, once, long ago, when it was still called Kilrymont. Macbeth had been king, and by the day’s standards, the country had prospered in relative peace. Then he’d had to go south and been called back to Hungary, and affairs in blossoming Scotland went to hell in a handcart. He liked that phrase.

  St. Andrews was very different now. Although there were many old buildings, little survived from those early days except the tall tower, which had once been part of the Celtic Culdees’ little church and was now overshadowed by its massive neighbor, the rather beautiful cathedral lying in elegant ruins above the shore.

  The town was full of young people walking in crowds, some carrying books and bags, some serious, some laughing, some heading homeward or into the many pubs scattered along the main streets.

  She was here. He could feel her, like the warmth of the sun, and elation rose above the loneliness of losing Dmitriu. After all, he’d learned to live with the betrayal in Budapest. Dmitriu wasn’t the first old friend to have been lost to him in this way. In time, others would become old friends too. Besides, he had no time to wallow. He had plans to make, to finish this, and clear his way to power. Tonight was an indulgence.

  He found her on the beach, a wide, sweeping stretch of sand along which a few people strolled with their dogs. A young couple dawdled, arms around each other as they paused for frequent kisses.

  Elizabeth stood out because she didn’t stroll. She strode in a brisk, determined manner, as if, like him, she was working off excess energy. He halted on the grassy bank that divided the beach from the road, far enough away from her to make it impossible for her to make out more than a blur in the darkness, even if she looked right at him. But with the powerful eyes of a vampire, he could see her clearly, her fragile, beautiful face whipped into high color by the cold. Her loose, tangled hair streamed out behind her, and she held her head into the wind as she marched along. She wore jeans and a woolen jacket.

  It was good to see her. He’d missed her presence. He wanted to leap down on the sand in front of her and take her warm little body into his arms, press her close, take her on the beach while the wind lashed them and the waves rushed nearer. It was very, very tempting.

  I slept with you to save my life.

  But not so tempting that he couldn’t fight it. He knew she would side with the hunters in the coming fight. She had to, and he wouldn’t make it harder for her. So, as she glanced over, as if sensing his silent, watchful presence, he moved back and, from the rooftops, watched her march up to the street.

  Still at a smart pace, she walked along the road, greeting a few of the people she passed. Then she disappeared into one of the many pubs. Saloman perched on the roof and waited for her to emerge, listening for her voice in the throng of laughter and chatter and clinking glasses within.

  She didn’t say much, but she was at ease, talking with people who were obviously friends. He wondered what it would be like to talk to her under normal circumstances, without the threat of death or seduction hanging over her.

  Perhaps normal was overrated.

  She stayed for only half an hour before emerging with another woman to whom she said good-bye at the door before continuing her smart walk up the street. At the last buildi
ng, she put her key in the lock and went inside.

  He could look at her home, at her life. He could go inside and sit on her bed as she slept, just as he’d done before. He could drink her sweet blood again, make love to her as she began to wake up.

  He could, except his indulgence hour was up. It was time now to find Maximilian before Zoltán did.

  He could hire a boat, like Zoltán, to take round Scotland’s opposite coast, sailing through the mists of the Western Isles until he found Maximilian’s hiding place. If he was close enough, even Maximilian couldn’t hide from his senses.

  Or he could simply call him.

  Maximilian, I’m back.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Elizabeth woke in darkness, her heart pounding. Her breath came in pants, and her whole body sweated. Heat pulsed between her legs.

  It had become familiar since her return to Scotland, waking like this, agitated and aroused from the dreams. And this one had been more intense than ever—scarlet blood spilling over white sheets, and her body on fire from the caresses of the beautiful, merciless vampire who held her in thrall. In all the dreams, she knew it was wrong, but she surrendered anyway, because she wanted it, and it felt so good.

  Waking was a different matter. With sweat and sexual moisture drying on her skin, it didn’t take long for the cold fingers of loneliness and despair to close around her heart. Because she wanted and rejected at the same time, amid a swirl of confused emotions she couldn’t fathom and didn’t want to. They were already driving her to the verge of insanity.

  She propped herself up on her elbow and switched on the bedside lamp. The familiar room sprang to life around her: her replica of a famous medieval tapestry hunting scene on the wall; her books in the secondhand bookcase she’d so lovingly restored; her parents smiling together in the photograph by her bed, taken in the happy days before illness had reared its ugly head.

  But instead of comforting her as it usually did, something jolted inside her—a memory, a too-familiar image. This dream had been different from the others. His silk sheets had been there at the beginning, but before she woke, they’d been her plain cotton ones, along with this bed, this room, this flat she’d bought last year with the money inherited from her parents.

  She dragged her shaking hand through her hair. Even here was sullied now with her lust and shame, with him. She had just about been able to cope with the flashback dreams. Why did she have to dream of his being here too?

  There had been bodies on the bed, she remembered, fine trickles of blood dripping from puncture wounds in their throats. She’d been angry, grieving, remonstrating with him for his taking of life, although for some reason the corpses strewn across her bed had seemed a normal occurrence. None of it had mattered, though, when he’d touched her and laid her naked among the blood and the dead—wasn’t he dead, anyway?—and made love to her.

  She’d tried to remain angry, to keep the grief, but it had gotten lost in the storm of passion as he’d loomed over her, moving on her, in her, bringing her the wild, relentless joy she’d never found with anyone else and never would.

  She’d wakened on the edge of orgasm, furious with fate for waking her, and now, in shame, she could only be glad.

  But the obscene visions weren’t dispelling as they should. The hot, steamy dreams had become familiar to her, welcomed in sleep, if rejected with revulsion when awake. Over the six weeks or so since her return, she’d learned to cope, to thrust them aside, and get on with sleeping and living. But this one lingered because the vision was here, not just in Budapest. No doubt that was inspired by the other night’s nearby attack, but for this dream to be of her home was like an invasion, intolerable but insidiously exciting.

  The hairs on the back of her neck stood up in the cold night air. She could almost feel Saloman’s presence. He’d haunted her last evening as she’d walked on the beach, sat in the pub, prepared for bed. And he was still here, mocking her strength, her ability to fight him on any level.

  She slid out of bed and walked to the window, pushing open the curtains. Below her, the street was quiet, with no traffic, no pedestrians, no vampires perched on the roofs.

  She padded out of the room, across the square hall to the kitchen, and put the kettle on. It would be dawn soon. She could read in bed for a while, over coffee, then get up and let the day frighten away the nightmares of guilt and lust, loneliness and grief—the nightmares of wanting.

  She drew in a ragged breath, gazing out over the sea while the kettle fought its way to a slow boil.

  He could be here. Perhaps the vampire attack the other night was somehow related to his presence. A local vampire made suddenly aware of an Awakener in his neighborhood? Or an east European vampire who’d followed Saloman to find her? Were there others here too, just waiting for their moment to kill her? It wasn’t beyond the bounds of possibility. And yet it didn’t scare her as much as the idea of Saloman’s watching her.

  She had no way of telling if he regarded her farewell as final or as a challenge. He had no real reason to come here . . . and yet, not for the first time, she wished she’d kept in touch with the vampire hunters, just to be sure.

  She’d overreacted there, spoiled some promising friendships. But the truth was, she couldn’t live with all that crap over her head all the time. She took her hat off to Mihaela, Konrad, and István and to all the others who fought the shadows in secret without any thanks from the world. But such a life wasn’t for her. She preferred books—and people without pointy sticks or fangs.

  So live, Elizabeth.

  Maybe Joanne was right. Existing in quiet and safety without love, lust, or excitement was mere half life. Being alive didn’t mean fighting—or fucking—vampires. Or at least not all the time. It was time to move on, to be aware and watchful, yes, but also to experience life and maybe even love with an attractive man. She’d take Richard up on his invitation, go with him to the sociable Harpers’ “Not Halloween” party, and see where it led.

  In fact, her last tutorial finished at three o’clock. She had judo at three thirty, but after that, she could head into Edinburgh and buy a new outfit. It was Thursday, late-night opening at the shops.

  Pleased at last with this decision, she took her coffee and a collection of second-year essays into her bedroom, and settled down to read.

  The skirt and top were a good choice. Since she’d no idea how formal the party was—just that it was to involve absolutely no reference to Halloween—it had been hard to find just the right thing, but in Jenners, she finally bit the bullet and spent far too much money on an outfit that was both casual and elegant.

  Satisfied, she walked out into Princes Street and began to make her way through the late-night shopping throng toward the bus station. It was dark, and she felt pleasantly tired after her strenuous day. Judo had been hard work as usual, but exhilarating, even though she had to force her reactions to slow in class now, and practice the movements at home later. It was the same with the fencing lessons. She learned twice a week, and she practiced every day. If vampires ever came looking for her, whether Saloman or anyone else, she’d at least give them a fight.

  As if she’d conjured him up with the thought, Zoltán walked past her.

  It took a moment to register. She almost didn’t realize who it was she’d seen. Then she stopped dead, causing people to bump into her. Apologizing with mechanical, meaningless words, she stared after him. It was Zoltán; she was sure of it, even from one glimpse. That shock of fair hair and that brutally handsome face with its annoying trace of smugness were unmistakable. He wore a biker-style leather jacket, but otherwise, he looked exactly as she remembered him when he’d grabbed Mihaela by the throat and reached for her. . . .

  He was in a hell of a hurry too, scampering off around the corner in the direction of Leith Walk as if all the fiends of hell were after him. Perhaps that was why he hadn’t noticed her.

  Stunned, she let herself be swept forward by the crowd and turned up toward the bus stati
on. While her brain was busy with possibilities—what the hell was he doing here, if he wasn’t after her, and if he was here, was Saloman?—she went through the motions of checking her bus times and buying the evening newspaper to pass the waiting time.

  That was when she began to understand Zoltán’s agitation. Word was out.

  The newspaper headline screamed, BIZARRE MULTIPLE MURDERS IN LEITH. Three men had died with puncture wounds in the neck from which they had apparently bled to death. The police suspected some depraved, sadistic gangland killing.

  Elizabeth suspected no such thing.

  As her bus pulled out of the city and headed for the Forth Bridge, her mind began to claw its way out of numb horror.

  Whatever the reason for the battle moving here, she had no doubt now that Saloman was involved somewhere, and that sooner or later she would be dragged in. Well, she wouldn’t wait for that. She would act now. She was the key, something they both wanted. She could end their particular evil, along with the unendurable churning of her own soul, if she just stopped running and faced her responsibilities along with her demons.

  At least in her fury and hurt she hadn’t deleted their numbers. As soon as she got home, despite the fierce rumbling of her neglected stomach, she threw off her jacket and sat on the comfortable old sofa, with her phone in her hand and scrolled down the contact list.

  Since she’d no idea how any of them felt about her now, she went with Mihaela. Perhaps it would be best if she was transferred to voice mail, so they could get used to the idea of her again.

  “Elizabeth?” Mihaela’s anxious voice echoed in her ear, as if she were in the same room. “Are you all right? Where are you?”

  “I’m fine, and I’m in St. Andrews.”

  “Listen, Saloman has disappeared from Hungary and Romania. So has Dmitriu—and Zoltán too. We’re afraid they’re in Scotland—and coming after you.”

  “I don’t think so. A vampire did attack me the other night—I dealt with it—but Zoltán just walked past me on Princes Street and didn’t turn a hair. I think he has other things on his mind.”