Judging by the distance in his cool, blue eyes, Konrad was remembering too. Then, he seemed to jerk himself into the present with a quick smile. “Yes, well, they wouldn’t have let us be on the same team if I hadn’t asked for you.”
István blinked. “You asked for me?”
“I saw you fight in Romania, remember? Even then you were strong, instinctive, unhesitating in the kill. And yet you were never greedy. Some young hunters get addicted to the rush of strength they receive from a kill, but you never fought with that in mind, just got the job done.” Konrad shrugged. “And of course, I found your improvements to the detector bloody useful. Of course I wanted you on my team.”
István held his gaze. “You were my hero, you know,” he said casually. “At first because of what you got through with such strength, and then just because of your hunting.”
He was on uncomfortable ground, and Konrad’s shift on his chair warned him to back off. “Don’t push it,” Konrad said dryly. “We didn’t always agree.”
“No,” István admitted. “But I think that was part of our strength. There was always respect, and we always listened to each other.”
Konrad glanced at the computer, which had stopped whirring, and then back to István. “You’re not listening to me now.”
“You’re not listening to me,” István returned. “We should change that, Konrad. We should have talked weeks ago, but most of me was tied up in my own recovery.”
“I don’t blame you for that!”
“I have nightmares about it,” István confessed for the first time. “About Luk biting me, draining the life from me. About being hurled at the floor and breaking like a glass bottle.”
“They’ll fade with time,” Konrad said gently. Then, with more effort, “Mine did.”
“Did they?” István asked deliberately.
Konrad stared at him.
“We have human serial killers too,” István reminded him. “Human sadists and all-round sick bastards. Violent humans out of control—like the ones who attacked me last night outside the Angel.”
That definitely got a reaction. Konrad’s eyes widened, his pupils dilated, and his lips parted while his hand suddenly grasped at the desk. His knuckles were white. “You were at the Angel?” he said.
“Yes, but the point is we’ve dealt with the bad guys who attacked both of us. We can’t fight them anymore.”
“There will always be others.”
“So there will always be hunters. We just need to identify our targets with more precision.”
“Why were you at the Angel?” Konrad blurted.
“Researching enchantments. Someone tried to blow it up.”
Konrad’s gaze dropped back to the computer screen. It looked casual, except there was nothing to see there. István’s heart began to ache.
He said, “A hunter was there too, just before the bomb was planted. Please tell me that wasn’t you.”
“You weren’t meant to be there.”
István kicked Konrad’s chair around, forcing his friend to look at him. “Fuck, Konrad, anyone could have been there. Mihaela, Elizabeth, countless innocent humans besides all the vampires you don’t even know. Or do the humans not even matter anymore because they’re consorting with vampires? Is Elizabeth the enemy now? Is Mihaela, for God’s sake?”
Konrad whitened. “If that’s their choice. It doesn’t change right and wrong.”
“No, it doesn’t. You staked the vampire at the door, didn’t you? You’re bloody lucky not to be a human-murderer. How would you live with that?” He leaned forward, grasping the back of Konrad’s chair. “You have to stop this now. You’re out of control.”
Something glimmered in Konrad’s eyes then, like fear or misery, giving István the faintest hope to cling to. “Konrad, I need to talk to you about stuff. I need you back. We all do.”
Konrad rose to his feet, brushing István off him to snatch the memory stick from the computer.
“That wouldn’t be me, would it?” he said coldly. “Because I’m not out of control. I’m finally in control, and you, Mihaela, and the rest of the network had better wise up quickly.”
“Or what, Konrad? Or what?”
Konrad looked back over his shoulder. “Or everything we ever feared will come true. When you want to talk about that, find me.”
****
Konrad strode straight to the library, scene of István’s appalling injuries and the so-called victory of the hunters against Luk’s renegade vampires. There was no sign of that night’s devastation now. Like so much, it had been covered up.
He found his favorite corner seat without difficulty and took out his phone. There was a text from Rabbat, of the second team, his only ally here in Hungary.
“Angel still standing. Much activity.”
Frustration fed his annoyance. How the fuck could it still be standing? He’d given that stupid vamp enough explosive to bring down most of the street. Had the idiot ditched some of it? Saved it for later?
His blood ran cold. He really did not want a vampire running around the city with explosives in his pocket. Bloody vampires. You just couldn’t trust them. Without exception, every single alliance, however temporary, that Konrad had ever formed with one, had always gone horribly wrong.
Next time, he’d use a human.
He texted back, “Been rumbled. Time to get out.” And time to find his undead tool who’d planted last night’s useless bomb.
He left the library and the building as briskly as he’d so often done in the past.
Only this time, he wasn’t coming back.
****
From headquarters, István had a powerful urge to return to the Angel. He could justify it to himself in several ways—needing to check on Angyalka after his discovery of Konrad’s guilt, to track down Konrad’s tool, the vampire bomber—but the truth was, he just wanted to see her again. He wanted to inspire that hazy lust in her dark blue eyes, lose all this other crap in the exquisite distraction of blind, sexual pleasure. Angyalka. Just for a night, a few hours. Angyalka.
But he had another visit to make first.
Mihaela and Robbie were having dinner in their bright, newly fitted kitchen.
“Want some?” Mihaela said, ladling her own rather delicious version of goulash onto a third plate. István sat with alacrity. “You’re clearly far too active,” she observed. “Time you were back at work.”
“I’ve been in to talk about it,” István said vaguely. He didn’t mention the offer of the Operations Manager job, just in case they did rethink and offer it to Mihaela. He didn’t want her imagining she was second choice. And actually he doubted she would be if only Mikl?s could get over the hurdle of promoting a woman. He’d only recently come to accept that women could be equally as good hunters as men. “Saw Konrad.”
Mihaela sat back down and pushed Robbie’s fork toward him. The boy, his fingers buried in the goulash, grinned, quite unabashed, but did pick up the fork.
“I think he’s calmed down,” Mihaela said. “We’re working together on something—a rogue vampire with sadistic tendencies here in Budapest. And you know, it seems really hopeful to me that he came to the party.”
“I think he might have been giving himself an alibi,” István said ruefully, “and saying good-bye at the same time.” And he told her about the bombing of the Angel and Konrad’s part in it.
“Oh God,” Mihaela exclaimed, tugging at her hair in frustration. “Why did we not see that he’d go that far?”
“Didn’t want to. Didn’t want to grass him up. I still don’t want to.”
Mihaela let go of her hair. “He’s dangerous, István,” she said flatly. “And we need to find that vampire before the others discover a hunter put him up to it. Can you imagine what this could do to Saloman’s alliance?”
“I’m going back to the Angel tonight, see what I can learn there. Apparently Saloman was tracking the vampire from Angyalka’s description.”
“I don’t know
whether that’s good or bad.”
“Neither do I.”
Mihaela glanced at Robbie. “I can’t even come with you. Max has just left—on earthquake business.”
Maximilian was one of the vampires who, through his affinity with stone, could sense imminent earthquakes. It was part of Saloman’s system of détente that they’d do their best to warn and evacuate humans before such natural disasters overcame them.
“I’m probably less threatening on my own.”
Mihaela looked him in the eyes. “Can you fight?”
“For a minute. I’d rather not have to.”
“Do you reckon Saloman’s protection will survive Konrad’s betrayal?”
István closed his eyes. “It isn’t betrayal to him. He’s holding on to principles formed in exceptional circumstances.”
“I think if I can let go, so can he,” Mihaela said tightly.
“He was older than you, Mihaela. Adults are less—adaptable.”
She frowned. “What happened to him? He never told me.”
“He doesn’t tell anyone.”
“Except you.” There was hurt in her voice.
István gave her a twisted smile. “He didn’t tell me either. I was just an observer.” He stood up. “Damn fine goulash, Mihaela. Thanks. I just wanted you to know, I don’t think he’ll be coming back.”
****
Andrea had just got in from work and was closing her front door when she glanced across the street and saw Mihaela’s door opening. She paused and saw last night’s crush on the doorstep, exchanging words with his hostess. István, ex-teenage hooligan, murderer, and security consultant, if you believed everything you heard. To Andrea, he looked more like a geek. A sexy geek with dangerous eyes. She had a softness for both, and her curiosity was piqued by his sudden disappearance from the party last night.
Midweek parties were a bad idea. She’d barely got through today’s hangover, and yet, as she watched István jog down the road to a parked, rather battered old car, she suddenly found a new lease on life. Before she could change her mind, she slipped back out of her front door, closed it and locked it, then dashed off to her own car, keeping her eye on which direction István took when he pulled out.
As dusk darkened to night, he drove through the winding streets in the direction of the river but didn’t cross it. Instead, he parked in a quiet dull street full of warehouses, used and disused. The sort of street where you were liable to get mugged by the kind of teenager Lara claimed István had been. At least until István had smiled at her, and then she’d stopped talking about his past. As if association with Mihaela lent him respectability—which it probably did. Or as if she was thinking inside her pants because he’d smiled at her.
Well, he’d smiled at Andrea first, and Lara was practically married.
István got out and wandered across to a slightly incongruous-looking shop. Angel Art, according to the sign. But he merely glanced in the window before walking past it to the next doorway, an appallingly dingy and quite unappealing place. He pushed open the door and vanished inside.
Andrea climbed out of her car and locked the door before she followed in his footsteps as far as the Angel Art shop. It seemed to be some kind of art gallery. She couldn’t see inside, but the window displayed an oddly gothic painting and a couple of big, eye-catching necklaces.
She glanced upward. Did István live up there? Was he just visiting the owner? And what the hell was she doing spying on him? Apart from anything else, this wasn’t the kind of neighborhood she was comfortable hanging around in after dark.
Still, she’d come this far; the least she could do was push open the same door he had and just glance inside. Perhaps there were names on apartment doors.
As the door eased open and she stepped inside, an icy shudder shook her body. The place stank of dampness and worse. Plus there were no doors that she could see, just a dark, endless staircase dimly lit by a solitary, bare electric bulb.
Well, István might be intriguing, but she was damned if she’d follow him up there. The door swinging closed behind her made her jump. In panic, she reached for the handle, scrabbling to find it. At last, she found it and wrenched the door open with relief. A man stood in the darkness, staring at her.
Her heart thudded in terror.
“What’s the matter?” the man demanded. “What are you doing here?”
“Nothing,” she mumbled. “I’m just leaving.”
“Did you go up there?”
“No! I mean, none of your damned business.”
The man stood aside to let her out but said urgently, “It is my business. Trust me, bad things happen up there. You shouldn’t go. Ever.”
Something in the serious voice struck her, and she peered at him in the darkness. Young, fair, strong, the sort of man who could take care himself. Yet he didn’t look immediately threatening. For some reason, he reminded her of István.
“I just saw a friend of mine go up there,” she said reluctantly. “That’s why I looked.”
“I know,” the man said. “He’s a friend of mine too.”
****
It was only just dark when István got to the Angel, and there was no bouncer guarding either the street door or the club entrance. But if he’d hoped to find the club quiet at eight o’clock in the evening, he was disappointed.
Clearly, it was a grand reopening. Although the stairway was even dingier than ever with thousands of workmen’s boot marks all over it, the club itself was immaculate. A fresh black marble bar top, new mahogany tables and red velvet sofas, either new or speedily reupholstered, according to how much damage they’d incurred. A plush new carpet covered the floor. Everything smelled and looked new.
And the music, traditional gypsy music, came from a solitary fiddler among the crowd. István could make out no more than a flashing arm and a glint of the bow, but the musician was good. No doubt he’d had many decades to become so.
Most of the current guests appeared to be vampires, and they all turned and stared at István as he strolled in.
Well, they would. He was a hunter.
A dead hunter, probably, if they’d discovered Konrad’s involvement in the bombing.
He kept walking toward the bar, scanning for signs of attack. Which required a ridiculous amount of willpower after he’d spotted Angyalka, since his eyes kept trying to return to her.
The shaven-headed vampire—Béla?—who’d ejected the troublemakers yesterday, appeared to be dancing barefoot along the length of the bar top, with Angyalka sitting on his shoulders, her long, alluring legs dangling down his chest. Both of them held glasses of pink champagne—at least István hoped it was pink champagne, but the coloring could easily have come from blood—which they strove to hold steady while Béla danced and Angyalka swayed and the vampires clapped along.
Saloman himself leaned against the bar, looking as only he could, at once amused and immeasurably above the amusement. But he clocked István’s entrance, even inclined his head, which appeared to be the greeting he accorded everyone he was prepared to tolerate. There was no way of telling from those veiled ancient eyes if he knew of Konrad’s treachery or what he thought of István’s presence.
Now, at last, István allowed his gaze to focus on Angyalka’s dance. One of Béla’s hands held quite casually on to her white, shapely leg, just above the knee. A surge of jealousy shot through István, together with a quite unreasonable anger that she was allowing such intimacy.
But then, for all István knew, they were lovers, and had been for centuries. István had no hold over her, no control or say…
She flung up both arms, holding the glass steady above her head, revealing the delicious outline of her pert, beautiful breasts. Her dark, sparkling eyes found István’s, and she smiled, a smoldering, promising smile that was only half teasing as she danced past him on Béla’s undulating shoulders. Desire surged through István, draining the blood from his head as efficiently as her bite would.
No, he had
no hold, no control; but fuck, he did have hope. He was a hunter, and he was hunting angels now. Tonight, whatever happened, he was hunting this angel.
Béla knocked back the last of his champagne and threw the glass upward. Angyalka caught it without even looking. Either they’d rehearsed this or it was vampire reflexes in action. She held both glasses high now as the dance went on. With both hands, Béla reached up to her waist and lifted her above his head. Angyalka raised each glass to her lips while the fiddler played and the audience clapped.
And then Béla hurled her at the ground.
Chapter Eight
István’s arrival took her by complete surprise. She’d resigned herself to returning to her fantasy world and looking out for him in vain. The sense of his presence hit her like a shock wave. She had no idea where astonishment ended and pleasure began, but tonight, she knew she’d have him.
He would be a disappointment, of course. That went without saying. But it didn’t stop her wanting, and it wouldn’t stop her extracting all his other secrets, the ones that would change the balance of power back in her favor and enable her to protect her own weakness. So she flirted with her eyes and her body and saw its effect. She was glad to have Béla under her, stimulating his jealousy and his lust. Humans were just so damned predictable.
And this one really was good enough to eat. She could smell his rich hunter blood from up here, and the combination of the music and the movement and the sight of him, so muscly and lean, casual and handsome, the man who’d once held her immobile, was enough to arouse all her desires. Her breasts felt heavy and tingly as she rubbed her nipples against the silk of her dress. Dampness pooled between her thighs. She’d do it now. Dive into his arms, dance him round the club and into her bed. Or perhaps she wouldn’t wait that long. She’d seen humans as well as vampires fingering and copulating on the dance floor. And this time she’d hold the hunter immobile.
Maybe.
Blood of Angels (Book 2 of the Blood Hunters Series) Page 10
