For Saloman, there was no respite. Although he never doubted his ability to win, especially since Dmitriu had joined him, he had hoped for a few moments of peace, an interval, however short, when he could send the zombies back. But there was never an instant from the opening of the fight when either he or Dmitriu wasn’t beset by zombies or vampires or hunters—or any combination thereof. And now they all attacked at once.
He may have made a mistake. Perhaps he should have sent them back as soon as they were summoned, but that would have lacked the impact, the opportunity to show his enemies whom they were dealing with—and to create another legend.
Then, abruptly, another presence broke into his occupied senses—behind him.
Do it, Maximilian said, with more anger than he’d said anything on their previous encounter. Do it now.
Saloman smiled, then bowed out of the fray, allowing Maximilian to step smoothly in.
Having “killed” or disarmed the already long-dead golfers, Elizabeth tried to catch her breath while scouring the site for Saloman. To her surprise, he had stepped back from the fight. Another vampire fought side by side with Dmitriu, working to split up the hunters, while Saloman himself stood perfectly still, the wind just stirring the hem of his coat and blowing a lock of hair across his cheek as he threw his head back and began to speak.
His strange, incomprehensible words echoed around the walls of the cathedral, bouncing back on her ears, chilling her even as something like awe rose up to choke her. He sounded not just sepulchral but all-powerful, like she’d imagined God would sound when she was a child—like her father, only much louder. The sound reached through every nerve in her body, filling her.
Then she realized the zombies were no longer stomping over their fallen brethren. Their movements sped up to a blur. Running forward or backward, they all traveled outward from the fight like an explosion, blasting out of the cathedral. The fallen bones lifted into the air and rushed with them, whooshing through the night air and disappearing into the shuddering earth.
“We’ve lost the zombies,” Konrad shouted.
“I didn’t know he could do that,” Zoltán yelled in frustration. “I didn’t know anyone could do that!”
Saloman laughed. The sound chilled Elizabeth to the bone, filling her with anguish as well as fury. “Ignore everything else!” she cried. “Even Dmitriu! Throw everything at him!”
He didn’t hold back any longer, running into the fray with a speed no one expected after his recent physical inactivity. A Scottish vampire exploded in a cloud of dust. Saloman seized another as she fought through the cloud of spirits and goblins and sharp-toothed winged creatures to get at him.
István and Mihaela were fighting Dmitriu, trying in vain to disengage in order to fulfill the primary mission to kill Saloman. Protecting the Ancient, Dmitriu kept them occupied, but that still left Zoltán, four hunters, and Elizabeth to surround Saloman.
Another vampire disintegrated. Zoltán and Saloman circled each other in a blur of blows, kicks, and sways like The Matrix gone crazy. Konrad and the English hunter ran at Saloman’s back.
It’s almost over. . . .
The rushing emotion stopped dead as Konrad flew across the ground, felled by Saloman’s back heel. Zoltán leapt forward. The English hunter slammed downward with his raised stake and fell like a stone to another, unexpected sword.
Saloman whirled, knocking Zoltán over as he turned to face his rescuer—the tall vampire Elizabeth had first seen before the zombies disappeared.
“Maximilian,” Konrad croaked from the ground, picking himself up.
Maximilian. How the hell had that happened? Not only was he not with Zoltán, but he was with Saloman, whom he’d previously betrayed and staked. What was this? Reparation? Whatever, she had a bad, bad feeling. . . .
For an instant, as if everyone else was held in shock too, the tableau remained unchanged, with Zoltán, half risen, staring upward at the two facing vampires. Then, Saloman inclined his head.
“Don’t mention it,” said Maximilian, and staked the last Scottish vampire almost casually before turning and walking away.
“Bastard!” Zoltán yelled, staggering to his feet, and Saloman laughed, a great, booming sound that followed him as he seemed to fly through the air at Zoltán. Elizabeth seized a fresh stake from her pouch. She and Konrad both lunged forward to Saloman, but the two vampires were swaying together as if locked in an embrace.
Saloman’s head swooped downward. Elizabeth was close enough to see Zoltán’s hands squeeze on Saloman’s throat before they sprang open as abruptly as a trap. And Zoltán, leader of the Hungarian vampires, turned to dust.
Saloman smiled, redness dripping from his fangs, and with his freed hands, he reached for Konrad.
“No!” Elizabeth yelled, dropping her sword with a clank. “Oh God, no!”
Close enough at last, she plunged the stake, aiming at the middle of Saloman’s back. He twisted, deflecting the blow on his turned elbow, but he didn’t so much as loosen his grip while he drank Konrad’s blood. With a roar of rage, Elizabeth launched herself onto his leather-clad back, clinging there while she thudded the stake between his shoulder blades, tearing the protective leather of his coat, yet never seeming to penetrate his skin.
Of course, she needed help. It had taken three vampires and three humans to push the stake home three centuries ago. Alone, she could achieve no more than mere annoyance. But at least she’d managed that, for with a muttered expletive, he dropped Konrad and spun on his heel to dislodge her.
She fell to the ground. Konrad lay beside her. Fury and anguish such as she’d never known propelled her to her feet once more. But Saloman was speeding away from her, toward where Mihaela and István still battled Dmitriu. The remaining British vampire hunters fell back before him, running to Konrad. Elizabeth sprinted after Saloman, shouting for the others to follow. There was one more chance. If she could stake him from the front, where the leather coat couldn’t interfere, if she got a good angle and used every ounce of force she had, if the others would come and add their weight to hers . . .
But there would be only one chance; of that she was sure.
“Retreat!” Mihaela yelled through her pleas. “Just go, get the hell out! Elizabeth—run! We’re done here!”
“I’m not!” She spoke too quietly for anyone but Saloman to hear. She grabbed his arm, tugging with enough strength to have spun most grown men around to face her. Saloman chose to let her, turning on her with a snarl that bared his fangs in the splash of moonlight.
For an instant, his sheer fury held her captive. Time seemed to stop, like a paused video. She’d seen him mocking. She’d seen him kill more casually than most people cracked nuts. But the anger was new to her, and it stunned her because it mirrored her own.
The hunters, obviously assuming she was with them, ran in hectic disorder for the road, carrying the prostrate Englishman and Konrad with them. Dmitriu stood still, gazing toward her and Saloman, and then turned and walked off in the wake of the hunters. Even the ghouls and goblins seemed to know the fight was over, for they were disappearing into the distance, dissolving and fading into the air around her. She paid them no attention.
“You killed him,” she raged, the words spilling out with all her guilt and anguish. “You killed Konrad. . . .”
“I wish I had. You were annoying me, like a gnat.”
In spite of everything, a tiny ray of light fought its way through her anger. People and vampires had died, the night was lost, but if Konrad lived, then there was still hope. From nowhere she remembered the dusty tome in the hunters’ library, Awakening the Ancients, and her medieval predecessor who’d believed he had the power to kill an Ancient without any help. He hadn’t achieved it, and yet . . . What if he was right? What if it wasn’t his power but his execution that had failed?
Her heart beating fast with new excitement, new possibility, Elizabeth faced the Ancient with no leather between them now—his coat still gaped open at
the front—and a sharp stake in her right hand. She could do this.
His hands closed around her throat with terrifying strength. She had one chance before he lunged at the speed of light and pierced her vein with his fangs. There would be no added weight to push the stake fully into his heart. But she was the Awakener; the blood of Tsigana flowed in her veins; and she believed. One sure blow and her conviction, her sheer hatred, would do the rest. And he’d know why.
Accusations struggled for supremacy, to find a voice to match her fury, for she couldn’t go quietly, or let him.
“You betrayed me!” she shouted. Shit, not that one! Evil, bloodsucking bastard destroying the world for vengeance, that’s the one you want. . . .
His lips curled with ferocious contempt as he jerked her nearer to him. His fingers poised to snap her neck, either before or after he drank from her. “You betrayed me.”
One chance. She gathered the power and felt it collect and focus like a rushing stream of water into a bucket. Almost euphoric, she snapped back her arm and thrust the stake with all her strength and hate and belief.
She even stared into his cold, violent black eyes that mirrored his evil soul. She was moving too fast to think, and yet abruptly she wasn’t fighting him but her memory of those eyes alight with laughter and passion, with depths she never had and never would plumb.
She cried out in loss and fury—a sound of total desolation that echoed among the ruins—even as her fist flew open, and she let the stake fall harmlessly to the ground. “I hate you!”
His eyes narrowed, then widened, never leaving her face. His fingers moved on her throat, whether in a threat or a caress, impossible to tell. “I hate you.”
“Bastard.” Tears coursed down her face, rose up her throat to choke her. Because all that apparent hate—confused by inconvenient lust, all that churning fear, and all those other unnamable emotions that swamped her—had resolved into one terrible, unwanted truth. She was drowning in it, and still she couldn’t even go quietly.
“I slept with you to save my life,” she gasped out. “I did!” She squeezed her eyes shut, as if that would hide her tears or her agony. “At first. Partly, maybe. But God help me, I always wanted you, and you made me see . . . you gave me . . . you made me . . .”
She wrenched her eyes open, helpless to make him understand the feelings that tore her apart; yet she needed to say it, just once. His fingers lay still on her throat. He stared down at her, his dark eyes wide and blazing, a frown hovering between what might have denoted disgust or triumph, but looked almost—fearful, as if he was actually afraid of what she would say next—or of what she wouldn’t say.
With another gasp, she hurled herself into him, seizing his face between her hands, and stretched up through his suddenly passive fingers to thrust her mouth onto his.
“I love you,” she whispered brokenly against his still, stunned lips. “I love you.”
And then his fingers were not passive at all. They were all over her neck, and his other hand was tangling in her hair, holding her head steady for the onslaught of his mouth.
She stumbled backward under the force of his kiss, but he followed, sweeping her closer into his arms as passion flared. Mouths and bodies fused, they moved as they kissed, as if dancing, until she felt the cold of stone at her back and opened her eyes.
They stood under the arch between the towers of the east gable, which stood out, stark and beautiful against the moonlit sky. In the distance, students were singing some questionable song; a scream was followed by a burst of childish laughter; and a rush of footsteps ran along the street outside the darkness of the cathedral grounds. Life went on as if none of this had ever been, never was. . . .
“You love me,” he whispered. His head lifted. His eyes were still wild, still furious, yet the violence in them had altered with the intentions of his body. He’d been prepared to kill her—again. But he still wanted her. “You love me.”
She tried to speak, to explain how impossible it was and how it made no difference, but he silenced her with the force of his mouth, grazing his fangs along her tongue and lips. “There’s a time for words and a time for silence. You love me, so love me here.”
Since he had her pressed into the stone, his hands sweeping up her thighs under her skirt, his meaning was obvious. She should have been appalled, and yet everything in her leapt to meet his command—everything but her voice, which alone seemed to cling to sanity.
“I can’t. Not here, not ever. It breaks my heart. It breaks me, Saloman. Saloman . . . ,” she whispered as he kissed her again, devastating her. There was no planned seduction about his actions this time. They were spontaneous, like her kiss, and that was totally intoxicating.
Her pouch full of unused wooden stakes fell to the ground.
“You think too much,” he said between kisses, fumbling between their bodies for the fastening of his trousers. “Live for the moment.”
“Then how do I live for the rest of my life?”
He paused, staring deep into her eyes. She slid her hands down his face to his mouth, caressing along his lips with her fingertips. “Saloman . . . Saloman . . .”
“There is no life without love.”
“Then I’m dead,” she whispered.
“No. Tonight is a gift, as unexpected as it is sweet. Take it, and live.”
“And tomorrow?” In anguish and joy, she was kissing him back, because she could do nothing else.
“Tomorrow, I’ll go, if you bid me.”
She gasped as he pulled aside her panties and his naked erection slid between her thighs, unerringly finding its way to her entrance where it stilled. Impossible choices, impossible emotions. Fury rose again. Almost with frustration, she impaled herself on him.
Her cry was lost in his groan. There was no time to adjust to the size or the urgency of him deep within her, stretching her. He was already moving, thrusting, pushing her hard against the wall. She clung to him, helplessly, as everything in her welcomed him. After the first few stunned moments, she met him halfway, at least as urgent as he, writhing, twisting, reaching with wild determination for the fulfillment she’d craved since Budapest.
“Will you drink my blood?” she gasped.
“If you want me to.”
“Will you kill me?”
“I’ll never kill you.”
“Saloman,” she choked.
“Take it,” he said harshly. “Take it.” And with one more thrust she did, spinning with him into the darkness, where the joy no longer seemed wicked, and only the senses mattered.
Chapter Eighteen
Her heart in her mouth, she opened the front door of her flat and let him in. It felt more symbolic than her first kiss, more important than the hot, urgent consummation in the cathedral, because this small place represented all that was Elizabeth Silk—her private self.
As if he knew, he took time to look around him as he stepped inside and brushed past her. There wasn’t much to see except a mess in the small, square hall, just a clutter of coats and gloves and shoes, most of which had missed the hall stand.
She walked into the living room, and he followed, scanning the pictures on her walls, the wild seascape, the peaceful garden, the atmospheric antique print of a well-known Scottish castle, and the fun, crooked drawing of a St. Andrews street, done by an artist friend.
He smiled. “Facets of Elizabeth Silk.” Confused, she thought ruefully. Like the piles of essays on the sofa and the beginnings of her thesis on the old table among two used coffee cups, a women’s magazine, a broken wooden stake, and a chocolate wrapper—and the books that littered the house from obscure historical monographs to the trashiest novels. She was a woman without a clear identity. . . .
“Constantly changing, open to everything. I like that.”
She flushed at his flattering interpretation. He walked to the window, looking out over the dark North Sea. She said, “I wanted you to like this house. I don’t know why.”
He turned. “Th
ank you.” His voice was low and husky, and when he touched her, she melted into his embrace.
She’d texted Mihaela already, to say she was home and would contact her in the morning. She knew that Konrad was weak but alive. Her phone was switched off. The world was shut out. This was her stolen time now, and the theft was incredibly sweet.
Her awkwardness and fearfulness had vanished. While she showered, she heard him putting on music, trying and discarding many disks with the speed of familiarity, until he found a mood to please him—Billie Holiday; loving and poignant. She thought she might cry.
His shadow darkened the shower curtain, and her pulses began to race all over again. Opening it with one stroke, he took her hand and helped her out and into his arms. In silence, he wrapped a towel around her, drying her hair and her body, taking extra-tender care of the bruises and lacerations that littered her flesh from the night’s weird battle.
“Don’t you have any?” she asked.
“I heal too fast.”
She glanced up at his concentrated face and realized she didn’t want to blot it all out and forget it. She wanted to understand it, to understand him. “How did you compel Maximilian to fight for you? Or at least,” she amended, “to turn up for you?”
“I didn’t. I told him my thoughts and Zoltán’s, and I let him choose.”
“I thought you would kill him.”
“I contemplated it. But the thing about Maximilian is, he thinks for himself—always did. He was ambitious and thought he could rule better than I. And of course, he wanted Tsigana. But the reality turned his ambition to ashes. He would have seen very quickly that Tsigana was not worthy of immortality. I think he wished fairly quickly too for a return to my rule. Of course, factions emerged; Zoltán emerged. The desire for newness, for change that had allowed me to be ousted, worked against him too. Zoltán was the face of the new vampirism, brutal, thoughtless, selfish, and Maximilian couldn’t stomach it.”
Saloman smiled. “When I sensed him, I thought he had come to kill Zoltán. He owed him that, after all.”
Blood on Silk Page 27
