“What about me?”
He stroked her hair and her cheeks, because he could, because she let him, but he had no words to describe what he meant, what he felt.
The silence stretched until her mouth twisted into a wry smile. “I’m a damned good fuck?”
“Oh yes,” he said fervently. Incredibly, arousal began to gallop. He wanted her again. But that wasn’t part of his plan. He had to leave her wanting more, or he was finished. “You’re damned good everything…”
She scanned his eyes, as if searching for his meaning. He wasn’t sure of it himself, so he kissed her some more, because he couldn’t leave her alone and she seemed to like kissing him back. Then, forcing himself, he shifted down the bed and released her feet.
She flexed them, and he took one in his hand, running his finger over the slender instep and long, flexible toes. Even her feet were beautiful—and could, if she chose, kick him through the wall.
“Is it really in the word?” he asked.
“My power?” she mocked. “If I have any, it’s in this building, István, not in me.”
He considered it. The walls had contained the explosion. The angel over the door was very powerfully enchanted. For the first time, he wondered if it would actually be possible to manufacture that kind of power storage.
When his eyes came back into focus, Angyalka was gazing at him. She looked—stricken.
Or at least, just for an instant, he thought she did, but the expression vanished so fast, he could have imagined it. She drew her foot free, slid out of bed, and padded naked across the floor away from him.
She wasn’t just a different gender, she was a different species. It was doubly easy, it seemed, to offend her.
His blood rushed south as he watched her hips and bottom sway. She went to the wardrobe and reached inside, stretching the whole of her curvaceous body. He had a brief, tantalizing side view of her lifted breasts, enough for the lust to hit him full-on, and then she pulled a black dress from the recesses and climbed into it.
“Is that my hour up?” he asked ruefully.
“You had two. Be grateful.”
“I am. Fuck, I am.”
She glanced back at him, drawing a fresh black stocking over her long, white leg. The contrast was so erotically beautiful that he groaned.
“I have a club to run,” she said, her voice impatient, and yet he could have sworn he glimpsed uncertainty in her profound, dark eyes. He wanted nothing more than to explore this contradiction—all her fascinating contradictions. But overstaying his welcome—this time—would hardly help his cause.
He rose from the bed and collected his scattered clothes. It wasn’t easy stuffing his new erection into his underpants, dragging his jeans over the top. Extracting all his bungee reels from the wall and floor, he dropped them into his jacket pocket before removing his wallet and counting out a bundle of forints on the pillow.
He didn’t see her move, but abruptly she was beside him, and her face blazed with such fury that just for an instant he thought he was dead. “What do you imagine you’re paying me for?” she hissed.
He stared at her, letting his eyes widen with very genuine surprise. “Maximilian’s little carving of you. You said fifteen thousand forints.”
She blinked. The dangerous glow in her eyes died back. Her lip actually twitched. “Now? You want to buy it now?”
“I meant to pick it up this afternoon, but we got sidetracked.”
“You’re a lunatic, hunter.” She swung away from him, stepped into her abandoned boots by the door, and kept walking.
István slid his wallet away and followed her past the trail of her stockings and dress to the elevator. God, yes, tearing off her clothes, sliding into her cool, wet depths… The coldness had been weird, hugging him, enveloping him, and yet it had given him a strange, exquisite pleasure he’d never encountered before; and with the wild friction, she’d warmed deliciously.
And when he’d come…it had been amazing, as if the seed had been drawn from him, almost sucked, like she’d milked him…or drunk from him.
She didn’t speak in the elevator. Her face was a beautiful, devilish mask, her eyes thoughtful but so distant as to be repelling. He hadn’t expected that to hurt quite so much. Because although he’d worked out she needed to scratch this sexual itch as much as he did, he had the uncomfortable feeling his obsession had only just begun. He didn’t want hers to be over so soon. He was rather gambling on it not being.
The doors opened into the club.
“Wait there,” she commanded. “I’ll send one of the waitresses to fetch it for you. She’ll let you out of the gallery and lock up.”
Dismissed. He leaned his shoulder in the doorway. “Thank you,” he said. And meant for everything.
Perhaps she heard it in his voice, for she glanced back over her shoulder, and something flickered in her unreadable eyes. Her lips curved into the teasing, mocking smile that had first set his blood on fire. “You’re welcome. You’re a damned good fuck yourself.” And then she vanished into the depths of the club.
****
“Do you suppose she killed him?” Gabby asked anxiously when Angyalka—the beautiful vampiress who, according to their new undead friend, Igor, apparently owned the joint—returned to the club alone. Jacob hadn’t seen them leave, but he had observed them all over each other shortly before he noticed neither of them was there anymore.
Basilio snorted. “She hasn’t survived here two hundred years by killing hunters.”
“Fucking them’s a novel approach,” Jacob observed. “Not sure I’d care for it myself.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Gabby murmured. “That one’s kind of sweet.”
“Sweet,” Basilio repeated with distaste.
“Well, he is. He knew right away I was a vampire, but he treated me with perfect respect, perfect manners. Like a gentleman.”
Basilio curled his lip. To him, there were no human gentlemen anymore. He was descended from a noble Spanish conqueror of Mexico and considered everyone else, alive or dead, to be immeasurably inferior. He made no further comment on the issue, but Jacob knew he was considering how the hunter’s bizarre relationship with Angyalka could help them.
Go and look for the hunter, Basilio commanded Jacob. Find out where he lives, but on no account engage him, let alone kill him.
Despite his innate dislike of being ordered around, Jacob rose with alacrity. The rules of this place were too damned constricting. He wanted human blood and human money, and he wasn’t going to be able to steal either here. Outside, while keeping half an eye on the hunter, the possibilities were endless.
****
Since Gabby was eternally hungry, Basilio let her feed from the young man she’d picked up in the Angel, without transporting him farther afield.
Don’t kill him, he ordered, leaning against the high wall that bordered the Angel’s ground at the back of the building. Beside him, Gabby wrapped herself around her startled prey and bit. The young man was helpless to do more than yelp.
Basilio ignored them both. Being so much older, he was in no great hurry to feed. When he did, he’d no intention of doing it so close to the Angel. That would be to give away his presence before he was ready. But he was already convinced the foundations of his unformed plan were here. Which was why he masked Gabby’s feeding, and watched the premises.
He almost missed it, because someone else was masking too, rather more powerfully than he was prepared for.
A vampire holding a young woman in his arms leapt up the back of the building and sat on the open windowsill.
Basilio blinked. The vampire was one of the Angel bouncers. His strength was not negligible, but his approach had been disguised not just by his own masking but by another vampire’s, the one who waited inside now. The hostess, Angyalka. Together, they’d kept the approach from him. Until now.
And now he had the advantage because he could see them. They still couldn’t see him, or Gabby, still slurping away from
her weakening human. Without taking his eyes off the vampire at the window, Basilio plucked Gabby off her dinner. She gave a mewl of distress as her prey slithered down the wall.
More later, Basilio said coldly. She could feed again when he did, well away from here. He felt the need of a savage kill, the taking of a helpless human life, but didn’t want the ensuing trouble leading back either to him or to the Angel. Not yet.
At the window, the vampire pushed the young woman inside the building and gazed up at the night sky. A few moments later, he leaned inside and came back with the same woman in his hold. He jumped to the ground and ran off with her.
Bizarre. The bouncer was feeding his mistress humans. Why? Surely she was able to hunt for herself? She was two hundred years old, a friend of Maximilian and Saloman, and she had considerable strength of her own. Did she disdain to hunt for herself? Like some human princess keeping her hands soft and clean?
Or was there some deeper reason that kept her inside the Angel building?
This was something worth watching, worth knowing. He reached behind him, picked up Gabby’s prey, and, staring into his dazed, pained eyes, he hastily blanked the young man’s memory of Gabby and him.
Basilio wasn’t yet ready to show his hand. Especially when he wasn’t quite sure yet what he held.
****
The difference between the total pain and exhaustion of the previous morning and the mere lethargy of this one was remarkable to István. Of course, he’d slept like a log and woken rather later than he’d intended, but the combination of Elizabeth’s massive healing and Angyalka’s explosive sex seemed to have exerted a miracle cure on his traumatized body. Not that he felt capable of running a marathon just yet, or even going a round with an aggressive vampire, but for the first time since his injury, he could imagine being capable of those things very soon.
After showering, István munched some toasted not-quite-fresh bread held in one hand while with the other he cleared a space on his dining table—which was full of circuit boards and electronic gadgetry and leftover spare parts—and placed the statuette of Angyalka in the middle. He set up the device he’d just concocted, made from something very like a battery combined with a battery charger, and a sensor, like the ones he used in the detectors, and aimed it at the marble Angyalka.
Angyalka, stretched and bound under him, moaning and writhing with passion. Angyalka’s wet, welcoming depths drawing him in, massaging him.
Fuck. Mind on this job, István.
Nothing on the battery device lit up. If there was any energy to be had from the statuette, he hadn’t collected it. But then, he couldn’t enchant.
Why should a word have such power?
“Angel,” he said aloud, gazing at the ornament. A jumble of images swirled through his mind: a childish idea of a beautiful, winged lady; a church painting of the Archangel Gabriel, an insubstantial impression of God’s light shining through winged beings; and the little angelic statue with Angyalka’s face.
“Angyalka,” he said. And along with the mind-image of the vampiress as he’d last seen her came a glimpse of the previous ones of mythical angels. His mind associated them in the word. The chances were, most people did.
But István couldn’t enchant. He had no magic spark to ignite the little angel’s power.
However, he knew a woman who did.
He’d see if he could catch Elizabeth at the university. She could enchant. He stood, straightening his legs carefully. Elizabeth had been right about his body feeling tired this morning, and just a little stiff, but there was none of the pain of yesterday, and, considering how he’d finished off a busy day with extremely energetic sex, he was delighted with his whole progress.
Well, Elizabeth’s progress, he allowed wryly. Perhaps it was weird, but besides his fear of exhausting her and making her ill as she had been immediately after the fight in the hunters’ library, one of his reasons for refusing too much of her healing was a stubborn desire to do it himself. Stupid, because if a doctor had come up with a miracle cure, he’d have grabbed it with both hands.
His phone interrupted this rare moment of self-understanding. He grabbed it up. “Mihaela. How are things?”
“Not sure,” came Mihaela’s rueful voice. “We found another mangled body. Magda thinks it was the same vampire who killed on the Széchenyi Bridge. And I’m afraid Konrad’s done a runner. He isn’t at work, and his apartment’s empty.”
“Not surprised. Saloman knows he was behind the Angel bombing.”
“Fuck,” Mihaela groaned. “Did you warn him?”
“Konrad? No need. Saloman’s leaving him to us to deal with. At least for a while.”
“And how the hell are we going to do that?”
“Well, we can’t kill him,” István said briskly to cover the ugliness of the words he was forced to consider. “And we can’t let him run amok blowing things up. So we’ll have to draw his teeth.”
“I repeat: how the hell are we going to do that?”
“I haven’t the foggiest idea. But I think we have to find him first.”
There was a tiny pause; then Mihaela said, “How well do you know Rabbat from the second team?”
“Not very. Quiet, intense bloke.”
“That’s him. Apparently he isn’t in work either and hasn’t phoned in sick. He was away on a mission during the battle with Luk.”
“Meaning he might not be so influenced by gratitude to Saloman as the rest of us are? You think he’s part of this new force Konrad’s been trying to form?”
“Maybe,” Mihaela replied unhappily. “I’m heading round to his place now.”
“Okay. I’m going to try and find Konrad.”
“Any ideas where to look?”
“One or two,” István said vaguely as he stuffed the marble Angyalka and the ad hoc storage device into his rucksack. “I’ll let you know what happens.”
****
After a great deal of thought, Andrea kept her promise to the mysterious Konrad, and decided not to follow István anymore. It wasn’t a difficult decision since she’d no idea where the man lived or where he was now. Frankly, she couldn’t have followed him if she’d tried.
On the other hand, the whole mystery-criminal bit was highly intriguing, and she wanted to know more. Since Friday was her day off from the hotel where she worked, she gave her house a cursory clean and then went out for a walk. She tried to pretend to herself she wouldn’t, but her feet turned at once toward the river, and the same route she’d taken by car yesterday evening.
Well, why not? She liked art and wouldn’t be averse to buying a new piece or two if they appealed to her strongly enough. Her ex had cleared off with more than his fair share of stuff they’d once bought together, so maybe she’d buy herself something charming and send him the bill. That would teach the greedy bastard.
And maybe she’d find out something new about what was going on, something that might help István and Konrad. And Mihaela of course, though Konrad had seemed to think her friend wouldn’t like Andrea to be involved.
She only recognized the street when she saw the “Angel Art” sign. It seemed different in the daylight, although no more salubrious. Strange place for an art gallery. She slid her glance along the road to the door through which she’d followed István. There was a dull, featureless angel carved into the wall above it, so maybe there was a connection between the criminals’ club and the art shop.
The thought made her heart beat faster as she pushed open the gallery door and went in. A young man was polishing glass cabinets and humming to himself. He paused long enough to smile and say “Good morning,” then returned to his work and let her browse.
She almost forgot why she’d come in. A few of the paintings were, in her opinion, tacky, but there was enough good stuff among it to keep her interest genuine. There were a couple of classical paintings she’d have loved to hang on her front room walls, and some of the jewelry was to die for. Unfortunately, none of it was priced, and she had
a horrible feeling it was out of her league. However, at least it gave her an excuse to turn to the busy young man and enquire the cost of the fabulous red necklace.
“Oh, try it on,” he urged. “It’ll look beautiful on you with your dark hair. Here. Let me help you.”
Before she could express her doubts—after all, he still hadn’t told her the price—he swept it out of the cabinet and fastened it around her neck, and she found herself admiring it in the mirror above the display.
“It looks as if it was made for you. You’ll never spend a better thousand forints.”
Relieved, she said, “I believe you. I’ll take it.”
“Thank you!” Carefully, he unfastened it again and took it away to wrap. “Is there anything else I can interest you in?”
“I love some of the paintings,” she said. “But I can’t make up my mind—and I haven’t even seen them all yet!”
“Take your time,” the young man invited, placing the necklace in a box.
“What an unexpected gem of a place,” she said admiringly. “Have you been open long?”
She trailed along a series of seascapes, one of which caught her attention. She wasn’t quite sure why, because it wasn’t particularly striking, not as magnificent as the one on its left, nor as peaceful as the one on its right. It was dark, almost dreary, yet inspired no powerful emotion—even depression.
“Only a month or two, but word’s getting around.”
“Are you the owner?” she asked, moving on from the miserable seascape.
“Oh good grief, no. Angyalka owns it, as well as the club upstairs.”
Andrea glanced at him over her shoulder. “Angyalka?” she prompted, hoping for a second name or at least some more details.
But the young man only said pleasantly, “Yes. Angyalka.”
She looked back at the paintings and found herself focused again on the dreary seascape. What was it that kept drawing her eyes? Was it really that good? The brushstrokes were sweeping and confident, the scene deep and almost three dimensional in effect. It was good. But she didn’t really want it on her wall, depressing the crap out of her every night. Maybe she’d buy it and give it to Lara.
Blood of Angels (Book 2 of the Blood Hunters Series) Page 14
