“I wish I knew when he was joking,” Angyalka said.
“You do better than most.”
Angyalka glanced at him. “He doesn’t like this, does he?”
Dmitriu steered clear of the personal baggage. “He’s already had to kill Luk once. But Luk’s a formidable opponent. Especially in some sort of thrall to Grayson Dante.”
“He’s made Dante too strong for a fledgling.” Angyalka cast an anxious glance over her shoulder at her beloved club. “There’s going to be a huge battle, isn’t there?”
“I hope it isn’t huge, but yes, there will have to be a fight.”
“Saloman will win.” It wasn’t quite a question.
“Oh, yes,” Dmitriu agreed. But at what cost?
Chapter Twelve
Rudy Meyer shut his front door after the last American vampire hunter, with obvious relief, and turned to face Cyn, who leaned against the living room wall.
Cyn scanned his face with some anxiety. The hunters were a revelation: fascinating, organized, knowledgeable, strong, and—
“Assholes,” Rudy commented.
Cyn let out a laugh of relief. “No, they’re not; they’re just stuck in their ways and convinced they’re superior.”
Rudy ran his hand through his graying hair with uncharacteristic agitation. “Maybe they’re right. I’m getting old, Cyn. Maybe we do go about things all wrong. Maybe we need the organization.”
“They’d put you in an office and make you do research and write reports.”
“I’m sixty years old.”
“You’re fifty-four, and fit as a fiddle, with more kills under your belt than that damned annoying kid in the green vest.” Cyn walked back to the lumpy old sofa and sat down, waiting for Rudy to join her.
“You’re young and quick,” Rudy said. “You’ve got the skills they need and psychic abilities to top it off. You’d do well there. And get paid for it.”
“I’d be suspended in a week.” She twisted her hands in her lap and lifted her gaze to his familiar, rugged face. “They make me uncomfortable, Rudy. They’re too . . . inflexible. I mean, what the hell is this? ‘Normal people aren’t capable of dealing with the fact that vampires exist’? Really? That’s people like you and me! If you’d known about vampires before you were attacked, you wouldn’t have needed me to save your ass. How many other people could be saved if they just knew?”
“We’re just as guilty, Cyn. We never tell either.”
“Because we think we’ll be laughed at. I don’t know how we get around that one. And I don’t know what’s the deal about our redheaded vampire not killing Pete. They never explained that either. Guess we’re too normal to understand.” She straightened her back. “But you’re right about one thing, Rudy. We do need an organization. Just not this one.”
“What, then?” Rudy demanded, wandering through to his tiny kitchen to make coffee.
“Our own,” said Cyn.
Rudy stuck his head around the door. “You mean expand? Take on Pete Carlile?”
“Maybe Pete. And a few others. I’ve been looking on the Internet, and there are people out there, people in this city, who’ve had encounters with vampires. And what’s more, there seem to be increasing numbers of them.”
“Maybe they’re just coming out of the woodwork with the growth of the Internet.”
“Maybe. And maybe it’s because of the other things the hunters were telling us about. This power struggle over whether to accept Saloman. Humans will get caught in the cross fire, increasingly so. I’ve been e-mailing Elizabeth—”
“How is Mrs. Sherlock?”
“She’s fine. Apparently there’s a vampire war in Turkey too. Bad things are happening, and I think she’s worried.”
Rudy brought two mugs of coffee into the room and sat down beside her. “So what is it exactly that you want to do?”
Cyn drew a deep breath and gave voice to the bold idea growing inside her. “I want to form an army. A small mobile unit of hunters who can protect themselves while finding out what the hell’s going on. Who can go anywhere as fast as they’re needed and blast the bad guys, whoever and whatever they are.”
“You want to join the SEALs?”
“No, but I wouldn’t object to a bit of military training.” She grinned triumphantly. “And I think I’ve found just the guy to do it. He’s ex-army, an Afghanistan veteran, British. His name’s John Ramsay, he’s telepathic, and he wants to save the world from vampires.”
Elizabeth, summoned to the hunters’ headquarters by no less a person than the executive operations manager, was both relieved and puzzled to discover Mihaela, Konrad, and István already in the large, impressive office. She gave them a swift, interrogative glance on entry, and received minimal shrugs in response.
Like much of the headquarters building—which was situated in a quiet yet central Budapest street, protected from the curious as well as the ill-intentioned by an array of alarms and vampire detectors, and probably by some kind of masking spell too—the operations manager’s office gave an impression of faded grandeur. A Renaissance painting of the Madonna and child hung on the wall behind his large, antique mahogany desk. The high ceiling was divided into panels by ornately carved beams that showed traces of recent woodworm treatment.
Beside the stranger at the desk sat Miklós, the chief librarian and number two to the Grand Master of the Hungarian hunters. Elizabeth, whose dealings with Miklós in the past had been somewhat mixed, wasn’t sure how she felt about that. A small, intellectual man of middle years, wearing his usual suit and tie, he stood as soon as Elizabeth was shown in.
“Elizabeth. How nice to see you again. Let me introduce our operations manager, Lazar. Lazar, Dr. Elizabeth Silk.”
Surnames were never used among the network staff, presumably to lend the hunters some protective anonymity. Lazar, a large, bearlike man in his late thirties with a rather alarming scar running down one side of his face and neck and disappearing into his collar, rose from behind his desk to shake hands. He too wore a tie, perhaps to distinguish himself from the field hunters, who wore more casual dress, but it was loose, the knot pulled down below the open top two buttons of his shirt.
“Dr. Silk.” His handshake was brief and firm, his pleasant voice businesslike. “I can’t quite understand how we haven’t met before. Your name has cropped up so often in the last year that I’ve begun to think of you as a member of my staff.”
Elizabeth, who’d been wondering whether this meeting was about recruiting her to the network, smiled a little warily, and took the seat he indicated beside Mihaela.
Lazar resumed his own seat. “In case you don’t know, my job in the organization is to coordinate the various field teams. I assign the tasks and receive the reports, decide if further action is needed and, if so, what. Our lead team here”—he paused to indicate the three hunters—“is pretty independent, self-finishers as well as self-starters, so occasionally reports appear on my desk of missions not assigned by me. I’m happy with this—important work is done faster, and obviously it makes my job easier.”
He spared a glance and a nod of recognition for the hunters. In the short pause that followed, he picked up a pen from his desk and began to tap it rapidly and lightly on the paper in front of him, while his gaze slid from face to face and ended up fixed on Elizabeth.
“However . . .” he said ruefully. “I know you’ve all been waiting for the ‘however.’ And this is it. I’m worried the operation concerning the Ancient vampire Luk is getting away from all of us. Basic principles are being broken, threats ignored, lives endangered.”
Mihaela opened her mouth as if to speak, then with an impatient shrug closed it again.
Lazar threw down his pen with a small clatter. “And, Dr. Silk, I’m afraid this is down to you. I know the network’s gratitude has already been expressed to you for your cooperation in the initial mission against Saloman, for your help in trying to keep the Sword of Saloman out of the wrong hands, and for aiding in
the rescue of an American national from a nest of foreign vampires here in Budapest. I join my thanks to that. But I have to tell you all, I have some serious concerns now.”
His gaze moved to take in the hunters. “Dr. Silk is not a member of your team, or even of the hunter network. And yet lately it seems you have recruited not only Dr. Silk but Saloman, the most lethal vampire of all time and your natural, number one enemy.”
Miklós cleared his throat. “You used Saloman to locate Josh Alexander in May, and in the subsequent rescue of Mr. Alexander from the labyrinth. During which you allowed not only Saloman but two other vampires to escape. And now we understand that in Turkey you’ve been working with him to locate Luk, and had him living in your house—your safe house!”
“Not safe,” Lazar said severely. His gaze, no longer amiable, scoured the hunters and came to rest once more on Elizabeth. “My understanding is that this aberration occurred through you and some telepathic connection you have with Saloman, possibly stemming from the fact that you awakened him.”
Elizabeth, unable to dispute this or to think of anything to add, took a leaf out of Saloman’s book and simply inclined her head.
He turned back to the hunters. “This won’t do. Look, I’ve been a field hunter. We all have occasional informants, vampires or their human minders whom we can bribe or threaten into revealing important information. We’re human. Bonds form without our permission, but we have to be aware of their danger. And this isn’t just threatening to become a danger—it is one.”
He picked up the pen again, in both hands this time, as if he were about to snap it in two, while he positively glared. “You cannot, you simply cannot, regard a vampire of Saloman’s stature as some kind of pet.”
Elizabeth laughed. She didn’t mean to, but the idea of anyone regarding Saloman in this light was just so ridiculous that she couldn’t help it. Beside her, Mihaela’s breath caught in a slight choke.
Both Miklós and Lazar stared at Elizabeth with stony disapproval.
She tried to sober. “I’m sorry,” she said unsteadily. “I can assure you that none of us regards Saloman in that way.” She paused to let the hysteria die back and to haul her thoughts into some kind of order. Her heart beat too fast, but she had to take the opportunity. “Saloman isn’t like the other vampires any of us have encountered.” She cast a glance at the hunters. “I think we all agree on that, at least. He can impose order among his own kind, and on many issues he’s actually in agreement with us. On these issues, he’s prepared to ally with us. And in fact, without him we wouldn’t have retrieved Josh or prevented Dante from turning.”
“And yet Dante has been turned,” Miklós snapped.
“True,” Elizabeth returned. “But that wasn’t Saloman’s fault. It was mine. I wouldn’t let Saloman kill Dante when we rescued Josh.”
Lazar blinked. “Wouldn’t let him? How the hell—”
“It’s true,” István interrupted. “She talked him out of it. Although we agreed with her, we thought she was wrong at the time—for safety reasons—to insist. Time has shown Saloman’s instinct to be more right than ours.”
Lazar scowled at Konrad. “That wasn’t in your report.”
Konrad flicked imaginary fluff from his neatly pressed jeans. “It didn’t seem important at the time.”
Lazar’s gaze switched back to Elizabeth. It was one of those piercing stares that used to unnerve her. Not anymore. “Exactly how did you ‘talk him out of it’?”
Elizabeth frowned, trying to remember. It was Mihaela who said, “She stood in front of Dante when Saloman threatened him with his sword.”
“Yes, it wasn’t undiluted success, was it?” Miklós said waspishly. “You were meant to retrieve the sword.”
“How?” István said.
Miklós closed his mouth, his lips pursed with displeasure. He didn’t have an answer. Lazar returned to the main subject. “He could very easily have killed both of you.”
Elizabeth shrugged. “I knew he wouldn’t.” I will never kill you, he’d said the night she’d confessed her love, the same night they’d each tried to kill the other and failed.
“You can’t have known that! You awakened him; you’re descended from one of his killers. By rights he should have killed you a year ago.”
Elizabeth said, “We have an . . . understanding.”
Lazar leaned forward over the desk. “What kind of an understanding? Dr. Silk, did you make a deal with Saloman?”
Reluctantly, Elizabeth glanced down the line of her friends, all watching her. She drew in her breath. “Only an unofficial one. That we won’t kill each other. And he won’t kill them either,” she added, with a nod toward the hunters, “even though Konrad is descended from another of his killers.” She looked away. “Except, I suppose, in self-defense.”
“And you believed him?” Konrad burst out.
“We’re still alive, aren’t we?” Elizabeth retorted.
With a violent gesture, Lazar threw himself back in his seat and chucked the pen on the desk so hard that it rolled off onto the floor. “Have you considered, Dr. Silk, that Saloman’s using you? All of you?”
“He isn’t,” Elizabeth said quickly. “Or not in the way you mean. He wants them—and you—to understand the good he can and will do. Do you know what he did before the Peruvian earthquake? And the Turkish one last year? Do you really not see possibilities in that for humanity?”
Lazar waved it aside. “Again, we simply don’t know why he’s doing it. There must be a payoff. He wants us to turn a blind eye to his own vampires, perhaps, while he defeats the rest.”
“Or he wants our help to remove them!” Konrad exclaimed.
“No. He’s offering his,” Elizabeth insisted.
“You’re playing with words,” Miklós objected with a dismissive wave of one hand. “They mean the same thing: alliance with a powerful and extraordinarily dangerous vampire.”
“Unsafe,” said Lazar grimly. “Unwise and unacceptable.”
“Also unprecedented,” Elizabeth said. “Or so I understand.”
“There is a reason for that. A vampire has never been discovered who is not treacherous, murderous, and totally untrustworthy.”
“I don’t think that’s true,” Elizabeth said at once. “I’ve met at least two in the last year who are not treacherous or untrustworthy once you understand something of the way they think. As for murderous . . . I can’t deny there have been murders committed by those same vampires—including Saloman—but they were never random violence, or acts committed without justification, at least in their own eyes. I feel if you—”
“And how many vampires of any description did you meet prior to this last year?” Lazar inquired.
“None,” Elizabeth admitted.
“Then I really don’t think your experience qualifies you to lecture the rest of us on vampire behavior.”
Elizabeth flushed. She lifted her chin. “On the contrary, my experience is fresh and untainted by personal tragedy. Most of you became hunters through some vampire attack, either suffered or witnessed. Your experience dictates that you regard all vampires alike—bestial killers who must be exterminated. I can’t deny—and don’t want to!—that there are many like that. But all?” She swung around to Mihaela, and beyond her István and Konrad. “You’ve met Saloman. Is he like other vampires?”
“No,” said Mihaela, definitely enough, even though it wasn’t necessarily a compliment.
Elizabeth pursued her point. “What about Dmitriu? The first time you mentioned him to me, you said he wasn’t a bad fellow, despite being a vampire.”
“Yes, but you can’t say he didn’t turn out to be treacherous!” said Konrad.
“Yes, I can,” Elizabeth disputed at once. “He displayed loyalty to his friend and creator, whom he never has deserted. Your only issue with him is that he didn’t put loyalty to us first. Why should he? He knew Saloman for five centuries, you for what? Two or three years?”
She found she w
as talking more to her friends than their superiors, but instead of switching her attention, she just carried on, after a quick glance at the latter to make sure they were listening. “The trouble with hunters is they’re too focused to be impartial, too much on the front line to see things from the so-called enemy’s point of view. Look again at Saloman’s creations, Dmitriu and Maximilian. Look at his closest associates across the world and I think you’ll find more than the mindless killers you expect. As for Saloman himself, he could be humanity’s greatest asset.”
“Oh, too far, Elizabeth,” Konrad said, actually bouncing to his feet in his agitation to glower at her. “You’re obsessed—”
He broke off abruptly, most probably because Mihaela had aimed a kick at his ankle. Elizabeth bit back her retort, and the words seemed to dissolve in her dry mouth, leaving her witless. Stupidly, this had never entered her head—that the hunters would cover for her. It wasn’t just herself she was embroiling in this conflict of interest; it was her friends too.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck . . .
Lazar said, “What exactly is your relationship with Saloman?”
I love him. The words stuck in her throat, because it wasn’t any of Lazar’s business. She refused to allow her relationship to be analyzed and picked over by strangers. Fortunately, it appeared to be a rhetorical question. Or perhaps Lazar too was scared by the possibilities of her answer.
“Because it seems to me,” he said sternly, “that it lacks any sort of common sense or discipline. And I think that’s the problem. Circumstances have flung you into the vampire world without proper training or basic defenses. I know you did a little emergency physical training with us last year, but that really isn’t enough to deal with what you’re facing now. Relaxing your guard, relaxing the rules, is dangerous. That’s when people die, and it seems to me this whole team is being contaminated by your laxness.”
Blood Eternal Page 18
