Blood Guilt

by Marie Treanor

  “I know,” the vampire said mildly. And when she cast him a quick glance, he said, “I can smell her.”

  “And Saloman?”

  He inclined his head. Robbie had wandered into the living room, looking around him with open curiosity. Mihaela walked into the kitchen to find him something to eat and drink, and was very aware of the shadow that filled the doorway, watching her.

  She found a can of beans in the cupboard and opened it, shaking the contents into a pan with unnecessary force before switching on the gas and shoving two pieces of bread into the toaster.

  As if he’d been mulling it over, Maximilian said, “You don’t like Elizabeth being with him.”

  “With Saloman? She’s my friend. Why would I want her to spend her life with a monster even other vampires are terrified of?”

  “She isn’t afraid of him.”

  “That’s my other reason.” She took a carton from the fridge and poured juice into a glass.

  In silence, he watched her prepare the simple meal and make coffee for herself. She said, “When he’s eaten this, I’ll take him back to Edinburgh.”

  “No.”

  She rounded on him. “Look, you can’t just abduct a child from his home, for whatever reason—”

  “I didn’t abduct him. He came to me.”

  She grabbed the plate of beans and toast in one hand and the glass in the other and brushed past him. “So you brought him here? Now I’m in on it. Do you know what the penalties are for this crime?”

  “They need him. He can’t help them from here. And he’s safer with you while I track them.”

  In the living room, Robbie had taken off his coat and was gazing at Elizabeth’s antique print of the cathedral, which hung on the wall.

  “Something to eat, Robbie,” she said, laying the plate down on the coffee table, and the boy ran over with alacrity. Probably the vampire had forgotten to give him food all day. Robbie knelt in front of the table and began shoveling in his beans on toast.

  Since Maximilian stood now in the living room doorway, she said, “You’re missing the point. You can’t just kidnap children from their parents. I’ll take him back and contact the local hunters to protect him. And hope I don’t get arrested in the process. You—”

  “They beat him,” Maximilian said casually. “He has bruises all up his arms and chest.”

  Mihaela spun round to stare at him. She dragged her hand through her hair, pulling convulsively. “Oh shit.” She found herself tying her hair back up in its severe knot behind her head, while she tried to squash emotional responses to his revelation—which she didn’t disbelieve. It was too easy to check, and besides, her instincts yesterday had all been against Jim and Peg. At the same time, she was aware he was using the undoubted tragedy to manipulate her into doing what he wanted.

  Robbie’s bruises had to be shown to the social services, and he had to be removed from Jim and Peg’s care. Unless she herself was accused of abducting him and beating him, in which case, she’d go to jail and Robbie would be sent back to Jim and Peg. And he’d run back to the vampires—Maximilian or worse.

  “This is impossible,” she said in frustration, throwing herself onto the sofa.

  “No, it isn’t. You can protect him.”

  “Me? I don’t know how to look after a child! I’m not even a national of this country!”

  “There will be no difficulty. If you travel with me, you’ll find you have all the correct documents.”

  Much to her discomfort, the vampire crossed the room and sat down beside her. Instantly, her body leapt to full alert. How could she be so aware of him when he gave off no heat, no breath?

  She glared at him. “You expect me to believe your top priority is the safety of one human child?”

  “Right now, it is.”

  She frowned. “Because you want to know what his value is?”

  Maximilian nodded.

  Without breaking his gaze, she said, “You wanted me to tell Dmitriu about him. Why?”

  “Dmitriu is looking for humans who bear the Ancient gene, who are open to supernatural experience.”

  That made sense. Some Ancient genes had been passed on from the live members of Saloman’s race who’d never become vampires themselves but who’d coupled with humans. Their descendants were believed to be those who showed some kind of genuine supernatural gift, like Elizabeth, Cyn Venolia in New York, and the telepathic Scots soldier John Ramsay. And, surely, Robbie.

  “Because Saloman told him to?” Mihaela guessed. “Part of his gradual educating- humans-to-the-existence-of-vampires campaign?”

  Maximilian nodded again. “It makes sense to begin with the humans who already have inklings of the supernatural.”

  Mihaela drew in her breath. “And if Dmitriu’s looking for such people, why shouldn’t other vampires be doing the same thing? Either to thwart Dmitriu and therefore Saloman… Or because they’ve discovered some use for psychic humans?”

  Maximilian didn’t answer, but she guessed from his lack of reaction that her reasoning mirrored his own. However, too many questions were left unanswered. Something elusive tugged at her memory, something important that refused to show itself.

  She leaned back, at least with the pretense of ease. “And you, Maximilian,” she asked. “Where are you in all of this? Why were you in Edinburgh?”

  “I was going home.”

  “To whatever island you isolate yourself on? Don’t get me wrong, isolation is a good thing for a vampire, but where were you returning from?”

  “Budapest.”

  “You left Budapest three months ago.”

  “It’s a long walk.”

  “It would be,” Mihaela said slowly. “Perhaps you found company. Perhaps a Romanian vampire called Gavril. What did you fall out about? Your proclivity for the bottle?”

  Maximilian regarded her as if she were some particularly rare insect.

  “What are you up to, Maximilian?” she asked, pushing harder. “Are you just betraying Saloman again?”

  That was an unexpected hit. His eyelids dropped, but not before she’d glimpsed some darkness that swamped his eyes. It could have been pain or guilt or simple anger. Whatever it looked bleak and corroding, and in a vampire, she had little hope of interpreting it. But at least she’d struck something.

  “Is it guilt?” she pursued. “Is that why you were so drunk?”

  “Yes,” Maximilian said unexpectedly. “That’s why I was so drunk.” He stood up. “You will protect the child.”

  “Oh yes,” she said, baffled. “I’ll do that. Where are you going?”

  “To Edinburgh. To kill the vampires.”

  “No,” she protested, jumping up in agitation. And now it was she who’d given too much away, and he whose eyes glinted with mockery.

  “No? You consider that form of murder to be your own prerogative? Or would you like to call the British hunters for permission first?”

  She curled her lip at him. It was the best she could do.

  He said, “Or should I just leave Gavril alive for you?”

  She dropped her gaze, tried to brush past him with annoyance while racking her brains for some way of going to Edinburgh tonight while still keeping Robbie safe. Maximilian didn’t budge from her path. Instead, his hand snaked out; his fingers gripped her chin and forced her to stop and look up at him.

  Tension crackled. He’d almost kissed her mouth last night, after drinking her blood. As if he’d liked her. As if he wanted her. The memory surged, heating her body from the inside out.

  He said, “What is Gavril to you, little hunter?”

  She clenched her fists, glaring at him, but wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of her struggling against a force she already knew to be superior. The strength in his fingers was terrifying, implacable, and he wasn’t even exerting himself. What had she been thinking of to give him her blood? To let him affect her like that? And God help her, it was happening again.

  She said stonily, “He killed
my parents and my sister, and would have killed me too if hunters hadn’t rescued me in time.” She gave a short, bitter laugh that only just avoided being a sob. “At least I think he did. I have to see his ear to be sure.”

  Maximilian’s lip twitched. “You damaged his ear? What did you do? Bite it off? How old were you?”

  “Seven. I was seven years old.”

  “I’m five,” Robbie offered, his voice muffled, as if full of food. It was.

  Maximilian released her, and she all but fell back down on the sofa. She rubbed her forehead with one shaking hand. Why was it so damned hard to think around him?

  “Is he safe from the vampires here?” she asked abruptly. “Can they sense him? Or you?”

  “I’ve masked us both.”

  “How will I know when the threat is over?” she asked, jerking her head toward Robbie.

  “I’ll come back for him. And you.”

  She felt her eyes widen. “Let’s be clear, Maximilian. Neither of us is going anywhere with you. I will not smuggle this child out of his own country or let you take him. And do you really imagine you can deal with all those vampires on your own?”

  Unfazed by her change of subject, he gave only a faint curl of his lips in response, lifted one hand to Robbie, who grinned at him, and walked out of the room. Mihaela hurried after him, determined to quarrel some more, but the front door was already closing behind him. By the time she got back to the living room window, he was little more than a shadow vanishing around the corner of the street.

  ****

  Maximilian found he was enjoying the experience of driving, now he was more used to the way the car worked. He’d stolen it from the hotel car park at dusk, and the journey up to St. Andrews had been more of an experiment than anything else, achieved by means of little more than his own fast reflexes and a one-hour observation of Saloman’s driving during his stay in Budapest. Now he rather liked pushing the car to its limit and speeding down roads, overtaking with, to mere human perception, too little space, time, or vision of the road ahead. For this reason, he traveled to the accompanying blare of other cars’ horns, which struck him as amusing.

  He didn’t remember very much else amusing him in the last couple of hundred years.

  It felt good to be entertained again. It felt good to be thinking and planning again—especially when he sensed Gavril and the other vampires traveling as they were meant to, straight to St. Andrews.

  Chapter Five

  Since there were no children’s toys or games in Elizabeth’s flat, Mihaela made do with a pack of cards and played snap with her young visitor. And while she did, she dredged her mind for a solution. Robbie could not stay with her indefinitely. In fact, he shouldn’t be with her at all. Yet to call social services and have him returned to Edinburgh would surely put him back in danger, at least until Maximilian had dealt with the vampires who were pursuing the boy.

  Which was another thing. It made her feel physically unwell to be leaving this to a vampire. To be giving anyone else the chance of killing her family’s murderer. But she couldn’t just park Robbie with a neighbor. Leaving aside the vampire danger, and Robbie’s propensity to run away whenever he sniffed an interesting presence, he’d surely been pushed from enough pillars to posts in his young life.

  Besides, rather to her surprise, she was enjoying his company. There was a rare bitter sweetness in having a child around the place. And although he provided an all too lively reminder of her secret, impossible yearnings for a normal family life, the truth was, she found she just liked Robbie himself.

  Watching his happy concentration on their game, Mihaela wondered what was really going on in his unique little head. Did he just make the most of every situation? Did he accept abuse as part of care, or believe it simply to be better than being alone? Or maybe the seeking out of telepathic beings was an excuse to be away from his carers rather than a quest for like minds.

  “You won’t run away from me, Robbie, will you?” she asked.

  Robbie shook his head, grinning shyly, and she knew with a sinking heart that if the notion came to him, then of course he would.

  “Nah,” he said. “I promised him I wouldn’t.”

  “Promised who?” she asked quickly.

  “Him. The vampire. Max.”

  Mihaela’s mouth fell open. She caught her jaw before it bounced off the floor. “You know what he is? The man who brought you here?”

  “He told me. He said the other men are the same.”

  “They are,” Mihaela said firmly.

  “But you’re not. You can’t talk without speaking, and you don’t drink people’s blood.”

  “That’s true,” she said faintly, then added more firmly, “But Robbie…you do know it isn’t right to drink people’s blood?”

  He glanced at her, head leaning to one side. “Is that why you don’t want to like him?”

  “Yes,” she said, dropping her eyes back to her cards. It was as good a reason as any other.

  “He likes you,” Robbie volunteered. “He drew a picture of you. So did I.”

  Startled, she played her card without looking at it, and Robbie gleefully took the snap.

  A vampire who drew pictures?

  Why was she surprised? In life, he’d been an artist, a sculptor. Even undead, he’d carved the exquisite angel over the vampires’ club in Budapest.

  “May I see your picture?” she asked Robbie, and the boy went and dug a crumpled piece of paper out of his anorak pocket. Smoothing it out, Mihaela discovered a little more than the expected child’s drawing of a head with arms and legs. Robbie had only drawn the head, as if that was all he saw. And despite its stark, childish nature, something about the eyes and lips really did look like her. She smiled. “You’re going to be an artist when you grow up.”

  He seemed pleased by that, so as he sat down again, Mihaela risked the questions she needed to ask. “When you were talking to these vampires, did any of them…hurt you? Drink your blood?”

  Robbie shook his head. His attention was back on the cards as if he sensed victory. “Nah. He asked me the same thing.”

  According to Elizabeth, it was one of Saloman’s rules that children never be bitten. It was an Ancient law ignored or forgotten by most modern hybrid vampires until Saloman enforced it. But Maximilian was Saloman’s “creation,” his “child.” Did he follow his upbringing or rebel?

  Even fellow vampires found it difficult to trust Maximilian, who’d betrayed his creator for power, which he’d subsequently lost; who’d emerged on Saloman’s side—the winning side—a couple of times since the Ancient’s awakening. And yet no one had been sure which side he was truly on in the battle for the hunters’ library. Both Luk and Saloman believed he was theirs, until he’d made his position plain by killing Luk’s followers.

  He saved my life that night. He was on our side.

  But whose side was he on now? Why had it taken him so long to get home from Budapest? If he meant to eschew the world again, why was he hanging around Edinburgh instead of skulking on his hidden island? There had to be some connection between him and the congregation of young, inexplicably strong vampires gathered in the same place. Whatever, it was, she didn’t trust him, and she didn’t trust whatever instinct had led her to save him with her own blood.

  Lust and curiosity, she slammed herself. Women’s besetting sins since Eve first walked the earth. At least according to men.

  Robbie gave a little crow of laughter and scooped up the last of her cards. “Want a dog’s chance?” he asked her. “I’ll deal my cards, and if you get the snap first, you get back in the game.”

  Mihaela smiled. “Dog’s chance it is, then. Give me a second, though.”

  She stood up from her lounging position on the floor and went through to the bedroom. She dragged her almost empty suitcase from under the bed and opened it. Inside one pocket were the two vampire detectors she’d brought with her and ignored until now. It struck her that it would be useful to know if Maximil
ian still lurked close by or if he really had gone back to Edinburgh. If he wasn’t close by, the detector couldn’t locate him, of course. But at least she’d know he wasn’t here.

  Extracting both detectors, she closed the case, shoved it back under the bed and stood up. She dropped the Ancient detector into the pocket of her long cardigan, since Saloman was the only vampire it was any use for, and switched the other one on as she wandered back to the living room.

  Robbie sat poised with his first card dealt and his hand hovering over the second. Laughing, Mihaela hurried over, put the active detector in her other pocket, and dropped down opposite Robbie.

  “Go!” she commanded, and Robbie began to deal. Mihaela did him the courtesy of concentrating this time and duly won back a handful of cards. “Always liked dogs,” she said, and Robbie laughed.

  She laid down her next card, just as the detector in her pocket vibrated.

  Jolted, she delved for it. The bastard hasn’t gone after all. What the hell is he up to? Why bring Robbie to me and then hang around?

  “That’s a funny phone,” Robbie commented as she stared at the LED. Yards away, probably in the street, and closing.

  Leaping to her feet, she ran to the front door, locking it and fixing the chain she knew Elizabeth never bothered with. Then she grabbed both stakes from her coat pocket and put them in her cardigan pockets instead.

  The directional needle was going haywire, and every time it moved, the distance indicator changed too. More than one vampire.

  Mihaela spun around and found Robbie staring at her from the living room doorway. “Can you feel them too?” he asked.

  “My funny phone can,” she admitted and took his hand to lead him back to the living room. “Is it Maximilian? Is he calling you?”

  “Not him. The others.”

  Maximilian had said the others couldn’t find him, that he’d masked Robbie from them. The lie shouldn’t have felt like a knife twisting in her gut. It was what she expected of vampires.

  “You mustn’t go to them, Robbie,” she warned, edging along the wall to the window, still holding his hand.