****
István woke with one of those jarring, fall-off-a-cliff moments, only in his dream it was a sound, a loud bang that shook him like an explosion, and he woke with a jolt, his heart hammering.
Angyalka’s soft, sexy body was no longer beside him. He couldn’t help being disappointed in that, though he supposed it was as well for many reasons. Not least of which, the dreams of falling he’d had since Luk threw him off the book stacks in the hunters’ library.
Explosions were new to his nightmares, though. He listened intently. The building was absolutely silent and still. And yet something felt—off. Remembering the lamp by the bed, he reached out and switched it on. His clothes sat illuminated in a neat pile on a white wooden chair, so he stretched farther and dragged the chair nearer to him until he could grab up his jacket and rummage in the pocket.
The instruments were still there. Risky to have left them while he slept. He paused, staring at the environmental reader. The temperature was rising, the air was hot, and thick with dust particles. And it was getting worse.
From instinct, he sprang out of bed and grabbed his jeans. Warning pain shot up his back, and he staggered as he climbed into his jeans, stuffed the stake in his pocket, and grabbed up his instruments before bolting barefoot and bare-chested through Angyalka’s flat to the lift. But of course, it wouldn’t come when he called it—he didn’t have her code.
He wrenched open the door with his fingers and peered down into the darkness. From the flat light, he could make out the roof of the lift. He could smell it now, the stench of wreckage and explosive and charred flesh. His blood ran cold in his veins, but he had no time to speculate. He shot the bungee reel into the roof of the elevator shaft, tied the rope around himself, and lowered himself down to the lift roof. From there, it was easy to climb through the trapdoor into the elevator and wrench open the doors.
The smell was worse here, but the staff-area light was on, and apart from the doorway, there seemed to be little damage. He stepped over a broken chair into the bar—and carnage.
Most of the club lights had broken, but enough flickered and zinged around the room to illuminate the scene. There was broken glass everywhere. A chunk of the bar counter had disappeared amid the wreckage of broken tables and chairs and unidentifiable pieces of wood. In the midst of it, the slight, chic figure of Angyalka was hefting rubble off a groaning man.
István moved through the nightmare toward her, pausing only feet away to lift something—the missing chunk of bar—off someone whose eyes glared at him from below it. A vampire.
“What the hell happened?” István demanded, crouching to brush off the rest of the debris from the injured vampire.
Angyalka swung on him. Her eyes blazed liked burning coals, and her fangs were showing. “You tell me, hunter,” she hissed.
István shrugged and shoved a table off the vampire’s foot.
“I mean it,” Angyalka said, and suddenly she was right beside him, jerking him to his feet. “Tell me.” Her grip on his wrist was like steel. There was no teasing in her eyes now, only fury and something very like grief. She shook with it.
István didn’t pull away. “You think I did this? From up there?”
Maybe something about his carefully calm, reasonable voice got through to her, for the certainty in her eyes dulled to confusion. Her stare dropped and dropped farther, and then, as if suddenly aware of his bare chest and the intimacy of their position, she threw off his wrist like a poisonous insect.
Rubble crunched underfoot, and they both swung around to face the club entrance. The door, although still on its hinges, was wedged open by debris. Saloman and Elizabeth walked in and paused to take in their surroundings.
István looked with them. A vampire had been impaled by a large piece of wood very close to his heart, and he seemed to be wasting away. Several others, including the vampire at István’s feet, in obvious and acute pain, appeared to be slowly healing from horrific injuries.
Elizabeth took one look at István and Angyalka amid the wreckage, then went straight to the dying vampire. Her triage was obviously becoming quicker and more efficient.
Saloman picked his way across the floor to István and Angyalka and stood looking from one to the other. “What happened?”
“Someone killed György outside the front door,” Angyalka said in a small, tight voice, almost like the humans who survived vampire attacks and strove to hold things together, to push back the insanity.
Who the hell was György? One of her staff?
She said, “I felt his death and ran downstairs. A vampire passed me—I barely noticed him at the time, only as I came back in, he was fleeing. I caught a glimpse of his mind, knew he’d done something terrible in here. I tried to warn the others, but before they could get out, the place blew up.”
She spoke carefully, without expression. As if, somewhere, she still retained enough pride to hide that she’d never felt so lost in her entire existence. István’s throat closed up as he realized she was falling apart, held together only by the cold, terrible rage focused for some reason on him. Although she’d just said a vampire had done this.
Saloman said, “Your magic lit up most of Budapest. You contained the explosion very cleverly.”
István stared at her. Her gaze flickered to him and back to Saloman as she shrugged and muttered, “It was instinct.”
“And strength.” His eyes were intense, impressed as István had never seen them, not since the day Elizabeth had enchanted the entrances to their safe house in Turkey. “Even I have underestimated you, Angyalka. No fire, no death. Thanks to you.”
Interesting… Yet she suffered.
“György is dead,” she whispered. “Igor is dying.”
Saloman placed his hands on her shoulders. “We grieve for György. Elizabeth will save Igor.”
“Can she do that?”
“Yes,” Elizabeth said quietly, rising and going to the next injured vampire. She wasted no more words, but it seemed to be enough for Angyalka.
She swallowed. “There’s more,” she said harshly. “I think a hunter killed György. I sensed his presence outside at the moment of death and then he—or she—fled.”
A hunter? Her fury with him was at least more understandable, only…she had to be mistaken.
Even Saloman frowned his displeasure at the accusation. “Your vampire who planted the bomb could have killed György to get in.”
“Why should he? György would have let him in.”
“Not if he was leaking his intention to bomb the place.”
“Then why was the hunter here?” Angyalka demanded.
“Why is there a hunter still here?” Saloman asked.
Good question. Bare-chested and barefooted, he must surely be indicating the wrong answer. “Long story,” he said. “Involving human thugs.”
Angyalka looked István in the eye with contempt while she answered Saloman. “So I can ask him the question I just asked you.”
“István was the hunter you sensed outside?” Saloman’s incredulity was obvious.
“No. He was the decoy.”
“Decoy?” István repeated, startled. “If you remember, I was already trying to leave when your disgruntled customers turned up.”
She waved that away impatiently. “But you were here. Why?”
István closed his mouth, aware of Elizabeth’s suddenly interested gaze, as well as Saloman’s and Angyalka’s. He sighed. “I wanted to talk to you about angels.”
Elizabeth’s lips twitched as she brushed past them to the vampire at István’s feet. He shuffled out of her way while she knelt and smoothed the injured vampire’s brow. She closed her eyes, slid her hand down over his ribs. The vampire’s lips twisted, then straightened, and the strain in his eyes began to vanish. He even smiled at Elizabeth who, however, was beginning to look as ill as those she’d just helped.
“You should take Elizabeth home,” István said abruptly.
Elizabeth rose. “Hey. Al
l grown up. I remember the way.”
“I have a better idea,” Saloman said smoothly. “You take Elizabeth home, while Angyalka and I make arrangements.”
Elizabeth opened her mouth as if she would object, though in the end, she said nothing. Perhaps she realized István too needed her healing—she must have seen his new cuts and bruises from tonight’s fight—although he wouldn’t let her, not after what she’d just done here. She glanced at Saloman, then at Angyalka, and held her hand out to the vampiress.
Angyalka looked vaguely surprised, although, perhaps from leftover human instinct, she clasped it. For an instant, the two women’s eyes met. Angyalka’s widened perceptibly. Something tugged at her lips. She didn’t speak, but her lips formed a silent thank you. Perhaps she said the word in Elizabeth’s mind.
Whatever, she didn’t look at István at all as Saloman threw him his own jacket and he turned to leave with Elizabeth. For many years it had been István’s pleasure as well as his job to piss off vampires, but for some reason, this didn’t feel good. He supposed he wasn’t used to kissing vampires either and advised himself derisively to get over it.
As he reached the door, struggling into Saloman’s borrowed jacket, he heard Saloman say reprovingly, “Angyalka, I won’t allow you to imprison him, torture him, or kill him.”
“I’d have let him go in the morning,” she replied.
“Oh good,” István murmured to Elizabeth, understanding that he was meant to hear.
Elizabeth smiled and began to walk down the stairs. “You’ll notice she didn’t say which morning.”
“Yes, I did notice that. She really thinks I did this.”
“Too much coincidence.” Elizabeth glanced at István. “Saloman believes she wouldn’t have been mistaken about such a thing. There really was another hunter here.”
“They were all at Mihaela’s,” István said, frowning. “At least all the Hungarian ones. Maybe we have visitors. I’ll check tomorrow.”
“Check with who? Konrad?”
He met her gaze. Konrad had left the party before István. He could have been here. “But not in alliance with a vampire, surely,” István said aloud. “He’s made his position plain on that score often enough.”
Elizabeth shrugged. She looked exhausted. There were lines and shadows all around her eyes, her lips a tight line, and she seemed to be dragging one foot in front of the other. As they emerged into the first threat of light, István put his arm around her waist, and she leaned on him gratefully. Unexpectedly, her belly nudged him. Beneath the flowing red dress she wore, it was round and firm.
Startled, his gaze flew to her face.
“The car’s just here,” she said, opening the door of a black Jaguar with darkened windows.
Silently, István slid into the passenger seat. “Can you drive?” he asked.
“I’m pregnant, not drunk.”
“I get that. But I can see you’re shattered.”
“I can drive.” She started the car.
They were on the road bridge across the wide, still Danube before he said casually, “How pregnant?”
“Six months.”
He blinked. “That’s a well-kept secret.”
“It has to be.” Her eyes flickered to his face and back to the road. “No, of course not from Saloman, but you’re right, I shouldn’t be pregnant. Vampires don’t breed. Now. But apparently a thousand or so years ago, a few Ancient vampires did have children, one with a human man. I believe I’m the first human woman to bear the child of an Ancient.”
Her hands lifted and fell on the wheel. “Unbelievable, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” he admitted. “Only marginally more believable than you being unfaithful to him.”
“I never even looked at anyone but him. From the moment I met him.”
He smiled slightly. “I know.”
“We thought about pretending I’d been unfaithful, to give the child a chance, but we decided we have to be open if she’s to fulfill her destiny.”
“Which is?” István asked, fascinated.
Laughter caught in her throat. “I don’t know,” she confessed. “Luk prophesied something big. Saloman believes she’ll have a huge part to play in bringing vampires and humans together, because she’ll be of both races. All I can think about right now is keeping her alive.”
“Don’t you keep well?” he asked. Pregnancy and birth were unfamiliar territory, but he knew enough to ask that much.
“I’ve been fine. It’s just—no one’s ever done this before. I never knew you could love a child before it’s born, but I do. I do. And if I lose her…if we lose her…”
“You won’t. You have Saloman, for God’s sake. And you’re a healer.”
She nodded, swallowing her unexpected surge of emotion. Pregnant women had hormones that in anyone else would probably have scared him into a taxi.
“The point is, this baby could be a focus for everyone, vampire and human, who’s opposed to Saloman’s regime, to the alliance between hunters and vampires, and the gradual integration of the two races. That’s why we’ve hidden it for so long.”
He frowned at her. “You’ve been doing this alone for six months?”
“Oh, I do the hospital checks and so on—though it might get interesting if the baby takes a year to be born. Ancient women carried their children for that long. Anyway, only you and Mihaela know. And Dmitriu and Maximilian. But I can’t hide it much longer.” Another quick, sliding glance at István. “I think that’s why Saloman wishes you success with this new instrument that’ll harness supernatural power. He wants to use it to protect our baby.”
István closed his mouth. “No pressure, then,” he murmured.
Elizabeth pulled into the street by his apartment door and unfastened her seat belt.
“No, don’t come up,” István protested. “Unless you can’t drive the rest of the way home.”
“I can drive,” she said again. “I’m just not sure you can walk.”
“I can get home.”
“You’ve done too much. You’re in pain, and you need help.”
No one else would have spoken to him like that. He wouldn’t have allowed it. Regarding her ruefully, he said, “I need sleep. As you do. If you have time tomorrow, I’ll welcome you with open arms.”
He snapped open his own belt and climbed painfully out of the car. Her hesitation scared him, redoubling his determination not to let her heal him tonight. Then she called a soft good night and drove away.
István began the long journey to his front door. And bed.
****
Angyalka watched him go with rather more calmness than she’d greeted his arrival after the explosion. How the hell had he got down here anyway? It didn’t matter. The important point was that she knew her comfort now was down to Elizabeth. The Awakener couldn’t heal grief or fury, but she could help a disordered mind to deal with them more clearly. She hadn’t needed to do that for Angyalka. And Angyalka wasn’t blind to what it had cost her on top of what she’d already done, what she already bore—more than Angyalka had ever imagined.
“Do you ever think of when you were human?” Angyalka said abruptly.
Saloman, who appeared from his expression to be communing telepathically with other vampires, sat down amid the rubble and replied, “I never was.”
“When you were alive, then,” she said impatiently.
“No, not much.”
It was disconcerting how he could do so many things at once, but Angyalka had got used to it. “Were you a good man?” she asked curiously, kneeling down beside him.
He shrugged. “Concepts of good change with the centuries. Like most of us, I was good in places. Good enough for my people to turn me, at any rate. Were you?”
“I don’t know. Since I didn’t leave behind anything that mattered, I never thought of it before.”
He glanced round at her, a flicker of curiosity in his dark, all-seeing eyes. “Then why now?”
“Oh, I don’t k
now. It just suddenly struck me that I wished I’d been a human like Elizabeth.”
Angyalka had long since given up toadying to Saloman. Since he always saw through it, there was no point. Yet now, without trying, she realized she couldn’t have said anything to make him happier. His hard eyes warmed and his lips curved into a smile that was almost tender. Elizabeth was more to him than his Awakener whom he’d spared for purposes of sex, more than a companion. She was his love, possibly his greatest love in an impossibly long existence.
“She is a special being,” he allowed, “with a rare gift that she uses all she can.” The smile began to die on his lips, but his gaze didn’t release her. “I’ve always valued you, Angyalka, but I’m beginning to think we don’t yet know the extent of your gifts.”
She didn’t want to think about that right now. So she said instead, “Why do you think he was here?”
“István? To talk to you about angels.”
Angyalka lifted the splintered piece of wood she’d been playing with and threw it at him. He caught it in one hand without even appearing to look at it.
“Do you believe that?” she asked.
“He talked to me about them first. At Maximilian’s. If he has another reason for being here, I wouldn’t be surprised, but I doubt it was to blow up a building with himself in it. And make no mistake, Angyalka, the whole building would have gone up if you hadn’t contained and dispersed the explosion.”
She nodded, shivering at the thought of what she could have lost.
“If you’d come to Maximilian’s, he wouldn’t have had to come here at all,” Saloman added.
She shrugged. “I can’t leave the club just now—too much trouble.”
“Let the hunters in. They’ll march the troublemakers straight down to the police station.”
“And then my cover’s blown. I have no license, they’ll close me down and haunt me for petty infringements of their pointless little laws. I’ll deal with it my own way.”
“By killing them?” Saloman enquired. “Not really an acceptable policy, Angyalka.”
So the bastard already knew about the dead thug.
Blood of Angels (Book 2 of the Blood Hunters Series) Page 7
