“I don’t know,” Angyalka admitted. “I haven’t been able to find him.”
“Oh shit.” Mihaela dragged her hand through her hair in a familiar gesture of frustration.
“Elizabeth is protected,” Angyalka repeated. She looked at István as she spoke. Her eyes were unreadable, yet they seemed to swallow him. One closed in a wink. Her shapely lips curved. And then she turned and walked out of the window as if she was on a level catwalk.
Mihaela let out a reluctant laugh. “She is pretty cool. But I asked her to look after Elizabeth.”
“She’ll have sent Béla,” István said. “He’s almost as strong and twice as mean.” He rubbed his head, trying to think. Somewhere his heart was singing, because she’d broken through her fear and come here. Not to do the right thing, or to please Saloman, but to save him. “And that’s where she’s gone now. Mihaela, we need to kill Basilio.”
“Let’s go.”
As one, both she and István turned to Konrad who stood silently at the door behind Lazar, who only just seemed to have noticed him.
“Coming?” István invited.
Konrad’s smile was twisted. “No. You kill that bastard for me. Trust me, it’s cathartic.”
István held out his hand. It was at least half plea, and Konrad probably understood that. “It means a lot that you came.”
Konrad’s eyes closed as he grasped István’s hand blindly. “Fuck, István, I couldn’t leave you to that.”
“Don’t leave Elizabeth either,” Mihaela urged. “Come with us. We need you.”
Konrad dragged his hand free. He shook his head. “Maybe. Humanity needs me more—needs you too, but you won’t come. And much as I value Elizabeth, I won’t lift a finger to save her vampire child.”
The words were like a slap. Mihaela gasped. Even Lazar stepped back in distaste. And so Konrad was able to walk out of the house without anyone stopping him.
“Mihaela,” István said more sharply than he intended. “Do you know where Elizabeth is? Can you find her?”
****
Basilio was almost dizzy with triumph. Possession of this magnifier more than outweighed the loss of Jacob and the two stupid vampires who’d helped guard the hunter. He would have liked to have eaten the hunter before he left, but no matter, that could wait. After tonight, he’d be able to eat as many hunters as he could stomach.
Plus, Gabby had brought another two vampires, her own recruits, and although even weaker than the ones he’d just lost, the device would take care of that. Already, he was almost flying across the city, faster than he’d ever gone in his entire existence, dragging the others in his wake. And he could smell Elizabeth Silk, feel the power of the Awakener, the healer, shining like a beacon through the tangled host of masking enchantments that bound Saloman’s hidden residence in the heart of Budapest.
He really was defeating Saloman. It was within his grasp. Once he had Elizabeth Silk and her unborn child, Saloman was his bitch.
He was almost there. Slowing, he soared down from the rooftops and came to land in a wide, gracious street lined by large nineteenth-century houses. Mostly, they’d been broken into flats, with ugly porches, and extra stairs added on to accommodate all the extra entrances. All except one that seemed to shimmer in the darkness, because it contained the Awakener and a thousand powerful enchantments.
With Gabby and the new vampires on either side, Basilio advanced upon Saloman’s shining palace. With his enhanced telepathy, he reached out, searching for her.
Elizabeth. Elizabeth Silk, I’ve come for you. Give yourself up to me, and I will not harm you or your child.
There was a pause, and yet he knew he’d reached her. He hoped it was fear that kept her silent so long.
No one will harm my child, she returned, and her telepathic voice was crisp with certainty. He could trace no fear, and that made him smile. He enjoyed dissecting and destroying a worthy opponent, reducing bravado as well as bravery to cringing agony for as long as possible before he took the once-great life force in their blood.
Not that he’d kill her, not until the child was born, or he’d lose any hold over Saloman, but he could enjoy her blood—the strong, rich blood of Saloman’s Awakener—and her pain.
I’m glad we understand each other. He came to a halt in the middle of the road and turned to face the closed wrought iron gates that guarded Saloman’s palace. So are you coming out? Or am I coming in?
No, Elizabeth said wryly.
The front door opened, and she stood there, a frail, puny human woman, all delicate bones and sunrise-colored hair, the bump of Saloman’s unborn child visible beneath the smocked dress she wore. She held a wooden stake in one casual hand. As if that would do her any good against him.
Basilio smiled and took a pace forward toward the gates. He reached out one hand in a dramatic gesture designed to intimidate, and the gates opened. He strolled forward, Gabby and the others at his side. How humiliating for Saloman. His woman stolen by one vampire and three younglings who were little more than fledglings. The world would laugh about how easy it had been in the end to tame the mighty Saloman.
His senses prickled. Shadows around the side of the house moved. Vampires stepped out on either side, gliding and dividing to form a line between him and Elizabeth. He knew the one in the middle. The shaven-headed bouncer from the Angel. And when Basilio stared with his awesome, magnified power, the vampire merely stared back.
Annoyed, Basilio decided to blast him as he’d blasted István only a few minutes ago. Then a voice spoke aloud above him. “I’d tell you to go home, but that’s no longer an option.”
Angyalka. On the ridge of the roof, with a line of vampires rising on either side of her. And on the roofs on either side too. On impulse, he twisted around and glanced at the houses on the other side of the road. More vampires on the roofs.
It was as if every vampire in the city, apart from the three at his side, had come out for Saloman.
But that wasn’t right. Vampires who didn’t have a direct stake in a power struggle didn’t behave that way. At best, they sat on the fence to see which way the wind blew. Yes, that was it. They’d come to watch. When they saw his awesome power, they’d jump to his side.
With a roar, he used his magnified mind-power to blast Béla and the vampires on either side of him, who flew backward into the unforgiving stone of the house. Basilio strode through the gates, and found that the hole he’d blasted in the line had closed up. Worse, Béla rose to his feet and retook his place. The others were struggling back too.
Damnation, that hadn’t been so much more effective than his unaugmented power. For the first time, an uneasy suspicion entered his mind that the hunter had tricked him, giving him something just powerful enough to make a difference, but nothing like rumor had promised.
Gabby whispered, “Let’s go, Basilio. There are too many. We misjudged…”
He shook off her clinging arm. “I do not misjudge,” he said haughtily.
Angyalka laughed. In the street, a car skidded to a halt.
Angyalka jumped off the roof and landed right in front of him. “Basilio, you misjudged everything.”
Which was when Gabby, the stupid little cow, threw herself at Angyalka like some catty high school diva. “How dare you speak to him like that?” she screamed. “How…?”
It was a pity. She’d just got the hang of giving him the sex he liked. Inevitably, Angyalka staked her without even looking at her, just as the smell of hunter overwhelmed Basilio. He was trapped, hunters behind, vampires in front.
Oh well, Elizabeth, his goal, was in front. He charged.
****
Angyalka was ready for his speed this time. It was not, after all, anything like as great as Saloman’s. She twisted out of his reach and leapt on his back, burying her fangs in his neck.
He howled with rage, shaking her like a rat, while his hands reached behind to pluck her off. He spun around, and her legs flew out behind her with the force of his fury. She o
nly just hung on to him with clinging arms and teeth, but it was like fighting against a tornado and she knew with sudden fear that it was only a matter of time. She couldn’t defeat Basilio.
His two remaining younglings turned to dust under hunter stakes as Mihaela and István ran in from either side. Angyalka sucked desperately harder, trying not to give in to the fear. She’d got this far on the strength of anger, but it wouldn’t win her the battle. At this rate, he’d have shaken her off and killed her before she could even humble herself by calling in other vampires.
His blood was old and strong, if slightly sour with corruption, but difficult to extract. Oh yes, he was strong, and he was making her stronger by the instant. And Angyalka had always been able to think as well as fight.
Basilio would not win this battle.
She could feel his magnified power flowing into her as she kneed him in the back, turning his chest toward István. Without releasing Basilio’s throat, she lifted her eyes to the hunter’s face.
He stared at her and got the unspoken message.
Raising his bloody stake, he plunged it into Basilio’s heart with all the skill of a great hunter.
He’d gauged the strength necessary to pierce an old vampire and used it. At the same time, Angyalka gave a last powerful suck, gulping Basilio’s blood, and as he exploded and she dropped back to the ground, his life force streamed into her and into István, uniting them in the kill, in almost orgasmic pleasure. She gazed into István’s face through it all, through the dispersing dust that had once been Basilio.
István. István. This really is the last thing I’ll ever share with you.
Elizabeth brushed past her, rushing to throw her arms round István’s neck. “Thank you!” she called, telepathically as well as vocally. “Thanks to all of you!”
Like Angyalka, she was surprised by the numbers that had had come out tonight. It was rare. But they weren’t just keeping their allegiance to Saloman. They chose to protect his child. For some reason the knowledge affected Angyalka. She wanted to weep.
The vampires, most of them, began to disperse and drift back to their own business with an air of satisfaction. Or at least, most of them did. Béla and a few others, always curious and opportunistic, wandered into Saloman’s house.
Angyalka followed them, couldn’t help gazing around the entrance hall of Saloman’s palace, large, opulent, with oil paintings lining a grand staircase. Halfway down the staircase stood Dmitriu, tall, distinguished, and enigmatic as ever.
“Hello,” he said mildly. “Have I missed some fun?”
Angyalka narrowed her eyes. “Where the hell have you been?”
Dmitriu raised one eyebrow. “Right here.”
Suspicion that was almost understanding began to form in Angyalka’s mind, but she had other things to deal with first, not least the vampires swarming all over Saloman’s ground floor.
“Hey,” she said in a distracted sort of a way. “Did Elizabeth invite you in?”
As if she heard, Elizabeth ran into the house. “Of course,” she said breathlessly, dragging István and Mihaela with her. “Saloman’s friends—and mine—are always welcome here.”
And suddenly the hall was full of vampires, and the noise was deafening. Angyalka had a glimpse of Mihaela’s face, frightened for Elizabeth, who appeared to be explaining there was no need to be. And right now, there wasn’t. No one had ever been safer in a house full of vampires.
“I need to talk to you.”
At the sound of István’s voice in her ear, Angyalka shivered, every nerve seeming to plunge straight to the pit of her stomach.
She shook her head automatically, but in the press of people, his arms went around her, clasping her hands behind her back.
“What…?” she began.
“Hold on,” István breathed, and without warning, she flew upward in István’s arms and came to rest two whole floors above. The bungee reel.
Dazed, she tried to speak, but István pushed her back into the wall. Her hands were bound as once before—oh God, don’t remember that, not now—and his hips trapped her against the wall between two sets of double doors. His eyes blazed into hers, exciting, melting her bones.
He said, “I need to know why you ended it.”
“Because there was nothing to end, István,” she said desperately. “We were only ever unfinished business, curiosity, a little obsession we wore off. Remember?”
“Mine hasn’t worn off. Has yours?”
Her lips parted in shock. He still wanted her? No, that wasn’t right. “You don’t accept what I am. I can’t exist with that. I can’t exist with the pain—”
“Pain comes with existence, with feeling. Feel for me, Angyalka. I feel for you.” And his mouth was on hers, hard and demanding. She opened to him from shock, and then from the beginnings of a frail, fluttering joy.
“You came for me,” he whispered incoherently against her lips. “You came outside for me.”
She couldn’t deny it. “You gave me outside. I couldn’t leave you with them.”
He pulled back far enough to look into her eyes. “Because you love me?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she whispered, taking back his lips.
The noise from downstairs seemed louder. She could hear footsteps on the stairs. She didn’t care.
“My hands are tied,” she got out.
“That’s the way I like you. At my mercy.”
“You really want more?” she said. “More of me?”
“All of you. If you’ll have me. I’ve never met anyone like you, anyone who moves me, touches me like you. Obsession, lust, love, I can’t tell the difference, and I don’t care. I’d die for you. I knew that today.”
“István…” She brushed her lips along his jaw, searching for his mouth. “I’d live for you, if I could. I couldn’t bear you to die. I couldn’t bear you to go or to stay.”
“There’s more to us than sex, Angyalka,” he whispered. “You must feel that too. Shouldn’t we seize this chance with both hands?”
She pulled back her head to stare up into his strong, lean face. He’d devoted his life to hunting. She’d devoted her undeath to the Angel. In their own ways, they’d both been losing so much, so many possibilities. Her throat closed up. Emotion struggled up and bombarded her, and for once, she let it.
“You make me whole,” she whispered, understanding at last. “István, my hunter, my nemesis. Is this love?”
“It feels like love.” He stroked her hair. With his other hand, he must have pressed the button that released the thin rope from her wrist, for she found she could lift her arms around his neck. In his dark, serious eyes, she imagined she saw the world opening up, and no longer feared its size nor what it had done to her or could do.
“Freedom,” she said with awe. “I’ve finally found freedom.”
“We have,” István said and bent his head to kiss her.
Chapter Twenty
On one level, Angyalka couldn’t quite believe that at last she was here in Saloman’s house—with her human hunter lover. On another level, it seemed perfectly natural, perhaps because of the bizarre nature of the impromptu party in Saloman’s drawing room.
Elizabeth Silk was pouring wine for her guests like a perfect hostess. Mihaela, glass in hand, seemed to have relaxed, although when she saw István and Angyalka enter, she left her place on the window seat and made her way through the vampires toward them.
But Elizabeth was there first, pushing glasses into their hands.
“Bloody hell,” István murmured, gazing around the room, because obviously Saloman lived in luxury and opulence, with fine antique furniture, heavy velvet drapes, and original oil paintings. There were Turkish carpets on the floor, a lot of books in dark wood bookcases, and a baby grand piano. “How come we never found this place? It’s not exactly insignificant, is it?”
“Magic,” Elizabeth said. She glanced at István. “I’d offer you a healing blast, but you don’t seem to need it.”
>
“I felt it earlier in the day, and Angyalka magnifies it.”
Did she really do that? For the first time, she wanted to explore her power.
István was smiling lopsidedly at Elizabeth. “Thank you.”
Elizabeth shrugged. “Well, if we’re being polite, thanks for coming from that to this.” Her eyes flickered to Angyalka and held. “Thank you, as well. I know a little of what it cost you.”
Angyalka narrowed her eyes. There was no malice in Elizabeth’s face, none leaking from her mind. “Do you? How much do you see when you heal someone?”
Beside her, István began to radiate alarm.
“Just the pain,” Elizabeth said ruefully. “But I understand I’m not invulnerable during the connection either.”
“Not just then,” Angyalka said. “I can hear it now, the tiny, pattering beat of your baby’s heart in among yours. We’ll all hear it.”
“It used to scare me,” Elizabeth said, glancing around her with a rueful smile. “Now I’m glad they know. I feel she’s safe.”
“It was a good turnout,” Angyalka allowed as Mihaela joined them, and Elizabeth tipped some more wine into her glass.
“Did it surprise you?” Elizabeth asked.
“No,” Angyalka said. “But it certainly surprised Basilio.”
Mihaela said, “The magnifier disintegrated with him. Sorry, István.”
István shrugged. “It was only half a magnifier with very little capacity. I can build a much bigger and better one now.”
“Say it a bit louder,” Mihaela advised. “There’s a vampire in the corner who might not have got all that.”
“He did,” Angyalka told her. “Which is a good thing. If everything’s in the open, there’s no place for those like Basilio to sneak around, taking advantage.”
“Speaking of which,” Mihaela murmured to István as Elizabeth drifted away. “Did you just do what I think you did? In Saloman’s house?”
István’s smile was slow and melted Angyalka’s bones. She wanted to do it again. But she realized she’d no idea how he felt about their relationship being in the open among his own people. Among hers, there was no choice. He’d been smelling of her for days.
Blood of Angels (Book 2 of the Blood Hunters Series) Page 27
