“You wouldn’t need any,” Elizabeth pointed out. “He’s on your side.”
“Why?” Konrad demanded. “Why would he be?”
“Because he needs to defeat Luk before there’s any further discontent and all he’s built slips away. He’s holding on to Turkey by a thread, but if Hungary falls, it all collapses like a house of cards. And because knowledge in all its forms is important to Saloman. So is cooperation with you, as he explained in the Angel.”
While they considered that and Lazar sat back down, dragging another pen from his jacket pocket to tap on his knee, Elizabeth pressed the case.
“Also, consider what strength you have. Even if Lazar fights and you have all the Hungarian hunters present, you’ll still be outnumbered. Possibly badly. Together, without any other distractions, you could probably kill Luk. But there will be other distractions; he’ll be surrounded by devoted protectors who’ll lose everything if he dies. They’ll keep you apart. I’m the only one who can kill Luk without help.”
Her smile felt twisted. “But anyone can kill me. Anyone at all. And they’ll all want to. Without Saloman, I don’t really have much chance. None of us do.”
That went home. It was almost tangible.
“For what it’s worth, he has also offered the help of other powerful vampires whom he trusts: Dmitriu, Angyalka—”
“No.” They all spoke at once, in such perfect time that Elizabeth threw up her hands in surrender.
“All right. We both thought you’d say that. They would bring us extra strength, but Saloman’s presence isn’t conditional on theirs. It’s him we really need.”
“That’s debatable,” Lazar said. “I don’t deny his strength would be bloody useful, but once we let one vampire in here, we’d never be safe again.”
“Lazar, we aren’t safe now! Luk can come in here whenever he likes. Saloman can help us defeat him, and he can reenchant the place afterward.”
Lazar looked at Miklós. Mihaela exchanged glances with István and Konrad. There was a long, drawn-out silence during which Elizabeth was chiefly conscious of the word “please” repeating in her head over and over like a prayer.
At last, Lazar swung around on his hunters. “Well? You’ve had more to do with him than I have. What do you think?”
Mihaela’s intake of breath shuddered. “I think we have to take the chance. I’ve come to believe he doesn’t mean us ill, whether or not I agree with him. We have to trust him or go under.”
Elizabeth smiled. As an accolade, perhaps it was lacking, but nevertheless, knowing Mihaela’s feelings about their relationship, it warmed her.
“I agree,” István said quietly.
Konrad lifted his shoulder from the wall and walked into the center of the room. He was the leader of the team. His opinion counted; it counted a lot.
He said, “I don’t agree.”
Elizabeth closed her eyes.
“I don’t care how plausible the bastard is,” Konrad’s voice went on, hard and implacable. “He’s a vampire. I don’t even care that he’s on our side in this venture—and he probably is; I don’t see any other alternative for him. But he’s still a vampire and our fundamental enemy. If we let him in here, we lose more than we would if Luk simply took it from us. We have to rely on our own strength and pray it’s enough. It always has been in the past.”
“That’s no guarantee of the future, Konrad,” Mihaela said, low. Proud of her, Elizabeth opened her eyes again.
“We have to find a way that doesn’t involve him,” Konrad insisted. “For God’s sake, we’re vampire hunters ! That’s why Luk’s after us in the first place!”
“And if we die,” István said conversationally, “if the library and the whole network are destroyed because we refused to bend, will it still be worth it?”
“Or will you not care, because you’ll be dead?” Mihaela added. The decision wasn’t yet made, Elizabeth realized with hope. Mihaela and István frequently disagreed with Konrad, but when it came down to the wire, they backed him. She hadn’t expected them to go this far to support her against him. Of course, it had as much to do with the impression Saloman had created on them in the last couple of weeks as with friendship.
“It’s a belief I’m prepared to die for,” Konrad said steadily.
“It’s possible there will be more than you who die for it,” Lazar pointed out. He got to his feet again, pacing the room. He shot Elizabeth a penetrating stare on the way past, then spun around and fixed his stormy gaze on each of the hunters in turn before resting it finally on Miklós. “I don’t like this,” he said. “I don’t like it at all. They may be right that we can trust Saloman; we have no precedent to base any decision on. But I think—at least until we know more, if we ever do—I have to side with Konrad on this.”
Elizabeth sat down in Lazar’s vacant chair. Miklós was nodding. “As do I. Lazar, you’re in charge of defenses.”
“What defenses?” Elizabeth raged. “What can you possibly do to defend against this? You’ve relied on enchantments you don’t even understand for hundreds of years!”
“We have detectors,” Miklós said with dignity.
“Which have never gone off in my lifetime,” Mihaela muttered. “Do we even know they work?”
“Yes,” Lazar said seriously. “Large and small, integrated and mobile, they’re all tested and reset every afternoon at five o’clock, three in the winter.”
Elizabeth frowned, distracted. “Why is resetting them so important?”
“Er . . .” Clearly baffled, Lazar glanced at István.
“Over time, they adapt to changes in the atmosphere—temperature, moisture, light, even the chemistry of passing people. It gets too jumbled for them to pick up any changes—such as vampire presence—accurately. So they’re switched off every morning to recharge, and reset every night. As you know, the mobile units, especially the pocket ones, are switched off until we enter a place of possible danger, which is effectively resetting them. The new ones we developed to detect Ancients—”
“Yes, exactly, we get the point,” Miklós interrupted. “Which is that we have them and they work and they will give us warning and locations of any attack.” He turned back to Lazar, saying fussily, “We have to be ready for this by tonight, because it could come at any time—”
“Wait.” Elizabeth sprang to her feet once more. “You’re prepared to believe Saloman about the attack but not about anything else? Can’t you see the inconsistency of that? If you trust him, you trust him!”
“We don’t,” Konrad said simply. “The defense is a precaution.”
“Oh, no. You know it will happen, and you know the chances are you and all of us will die and leave the world unprotected. Or do you expect Saloman to do that for you? Supposing he survives Luk?”
Catching the flash of anger in Konrad’s bright blue eyes, Elizabeth swallowed more hasty words and tried, deliberately, to rein in her temper. “Okay. I know you don’t trust him. It’s a huge leap of faith for someone who’s been a hunter all his adult life. I get that. But you trust me, don’t you?”
“I trust you,” Mihaela said staunchly.
“And I trust you,” István said.
Konrad didn’t glance at them. “I do trust you, Elizabeth. Just not in this, not about . . . him. I know you wouldn’t mislead us, not knowingly. I just believe you’re mistaken.”
Elizabeth’s lips twisted. It wasn’t quite a smile. “The feeling, as they say, is mutual. But I’m not mistaken, Konrad. In the last year, I’ve grown to respect my own beliefs and conclusions, my own instincts. I haven’t always acted on them, and that’s when I’ve been most miserable and things have gone wrong.”
She looked around at them all, desperate to make them understand. “Everything changed for me when I awakened Saloman. I had to look beyond academia and trust my decisions in real life as well. And do you know what? They’re good decisions. I chose to trust you. I chose to believe Saloman is not evil, that he can do good in the wor
ld. Over the last year, I’ve been tugged both ways, and done things I knew were wrong in order to please you. I tried to kill Saloman; I did kill the vampire Severin in America. I’ve hidden information both from you and from Saloman so as not to betray the other. These things ate me up because I knew in my heart I was wrong, even while I was doing them.”
She grasped the back of her chair, holding on hard, as if the force of her grip would somehow compel her audience to believe. “When we rescued Josh, when we tried to stop Dante and find Luk in Turkey, I was at peace here in my heart.” She thumped her chest for emphasis. “Because that’s when you and he were pulling together. That cooperation is what my instinct tells me is the right way to go, not just in this crisis but in the whole future. Every instinct I possess screams this at me, including those I’ve acquired as the Awakener and a part-time, unofficial hunter. My intellect tells me the same thing. I learned to trust that before I even met you. I wish you would too. Please let Saloman help us. We need him.”
For the first time that she could remember, István put his arm around her shoulders. It wasn’t just a gesture of comfort, although now that her speech was finished, she had an overwhelming urge to lean into it for strength. It was proof of solidarity.
Mihaela gave her a slightly watery smile of stunned approval.
Miklós stood up. They’d had rather more than his ten minutes. “You are eloquent, Elizabeth, but I’ve made my decision.”
Oh, Jesus Christ help us! After all that, she’d failed.
“As I think you’ve made yours,” he added into the silence that could be cut with a knife.
“I have,” she said, low, understanding him at once. “I can’t become a hunter.” She wiped her eyes on István’s suddenly too-inviting shoulder and straightened. After their sheer, wasteful stupidity, she wanted to shout and stamp; she wanted to slam the door and ignore them forever.
Instead, she said, “But I’m still the Awakener and I’ll do my best to kill Luk.”
Saloman sat down and faced the only two vampires he had created throughout his long existence. He’d just informed them of Luk’s chosen target.
“Fair enough,” Dmitriu said. “I never liked the hunters anyway.”
Saloman aimed a kick at his ankles, and he shifted his feet. “All right, all right, I’m joking. I’ll go and fight for the unspeakable hunters. Although I can’t see them being exactly delighted to have the Antichrist in their midst.”
“Elizabeth is trying to persuade them to the contrary.”
“Good luck to her,” Dmitriu said fervently. “Can you get into Dante’s mind to find out when it will be?”
“Not yet. The odd glimpses I’ve had, he’s always thinking of something else, which makes me think the decision as to timing is not yet made. When it is, hopefully Luk’s protection will relax through his inevitable excitement and I can get a closer look. I doubt that will be long. The vampires traveling from Romania and Croatia will make it to Budapest tonight.”
“On your side or his?” Dmitriu asked.
“We have to hope for the former. And plan for the latter.” Saloman sat back and crossed his bare ankles. “But it’s time to look beyond the coming fight, which has already been far too distracting. We must prepare now to move forward.”
Dmitriu looked nervous. “Where else is there to go?” he demanded. “Either Luk wins and we’re all in the shit, which I refuse to think about. Or we win, Luk is dealt with, and you’ll have a little punishment, a little more consolidation to take care of. That will leave you in complete control of the vampire world. No one else is strong enough, or stupid enough, to oppose you. America is loosely allied, thanks to my pal Travis; Turkey is quiet again. At least while Luk is. And you’re wealthy in human terms. You have the power of influence and friendship among the strongest governments in the world. Your boat is sailing just fine, Saloman. Take my advice and don’t rock it any more.”
“Dmitriu,” Saloman mocked. “When did you grow so timorous?”
“I’m not timorous,” Dmitriu retorted. “I just appreciate what I have—and so should you.”
“I do. And I have identified two steps that I would like your help with.”
Dmitriu sighed and pushed himself back in his chair. But it was Maximilian this time whose head snapped up in alarm. “What steps?”
“To help humans with the movements of the earth that cause natural disasters. And to introduce humans, peacefully, to vampires and their benefits. I believe these steps rely on each other and will advance us significantly.”
“Do you?” said Dmitriu dubiously. “And exactly what is it you expect me to do?”
“Research. Find those with the Ancient gene and introduce yourself. Recruit them to our cause. Make a team of vampires to help you.”
“How the hell—”
He broke off under Saloman’s steady gaze, and swore under his breath. “All right, all right. I’m on it.” He stood up, already striding to the door as if in annoyance, but Saloman wasn’t fooled. Dmitriu was intrigued by his new task and even anxious to make a start on it. Saloman couldn’t help smiling. “You’ll be good at it, Dmitriu. Human interaction was always your forte. I’m relying on you, and whoever you choose to help, to make the noblest impression.”
Dmitriu didn’t look back, but he did incline his head before he closed the door.
Maximilian said, “You play him like that instrument over there.”
“Piano,” Saloman said mildly. “And if I do, it’s because I know him. It doesn’t make what I say any less true.”
“And how will you play me?”
“By asking. Your feeling for stone has been intensified in your vampire existence. You can hear the earth, as I do, help the humans avoid the tragedies from earthquakes, volcanoes, and tsunamis.”
“Perhaps,” Maximilian said, with a curl of his lip. “But I see no way of making them believe me.”
Saloman shrugged. “I managed it. But those incidents were largely luck, and I take your point. I aim to set up new seismic study centers—in fact, I’ve already begun them. I see you in an official advisory role, traveling and listening and pointing scientists in which direction they should look. Find ways to make their instruments tell them what they need to know, until they trust us and we can be more open.”
Maximilian met his gaze, frowning. He looked oddly helpless. “You place a lot of trust in me,” he said, low. “I can’t imagine why.”
“I can.”
Maximilian closed his eyes. “There are others you could train in this role.”
“There are,” he admitted. “But I would rather have you.”
Maximilian’s teeth pulled at his lower lip. Abruptly, he stood and strode to the velvet-covered window before he spun around to face him again.
“What do you say?” Saloman asked softly.
Maximilian opened his mouth. “Saloman, there’s something you should know—”
The drawing room door burst open, and Maximilian closed his lips.
Elizabeth stormed into Saloman’s drawing room. “They wouldn’t listen! They won’t let you in the damned building! I can’t bel—” She broke off, finally realizing that Saloman was not alone. Maximilian was with him, but staring at her so intently from his place by the curtained window that she wondered whether her words had some special interest for him.
“I have to go,” he muttered, breaking eye contact and striding from the room. Distracted, Elizabeth watched him leave. Like Saloman’s, his face was hardly an open book, and yet when their eyes had met just now, she’d imagined some profound, desperate grief in them that went way beyond her own anger and frustration. As he passed her, she had to grab hold of the sofa back to steady herself from the sudden dizziness.
As she forced the feeling back, she felt rather than saw Saloman rise from the piano stool and come toward her. “What is it?”
At least the incipient sickness attack didn’t come to much—perhaps because she felt so much better about the episodes af
ter talking to Saloman this morning. She straightened, dragging her gaze away from Maximilian’s retreating back. “Is he all right?”
“Max? Oh, yes.”
“I don’t think he is,” Elizabeth argued. “I felt some kind of pain when he passed me—emotional pain. It felt like . . . guilt.”
“That’s Maximilian. He has a lot to be guilty for. Why are you so upset? Because the hunters wouldn’t play?” Taking her hand, he led her around the sofa and sat beside her.
“I nearly had them, Saloman,” she said tiredly. “So damned nearly. I put everything into it, including some stuff I didn’t even realize until I said it. But I couldn’t persuade them.”
“None of them?”
“Mihaela and István would have played. They agreed with me, even spoke up for our plan. I think Lazar might have gone for it too, but he was swayed by Konrad in the end. It’s just too hard to get over their conditioning that all vampires are bad, that their very existence is evil and you certainly can’t have one running loose around hunter HQ, even if he’s all that can save the world. Better all just die in a blaze of useless glory!”
“It won’t come to that,” Saloman said quietly. He touched her cheek. “Well-done. I think there’s great promise in Mihaela’s and István’s reactions.”
“What use is that if we’re dead? If the library’s destroyed and Luk’s rampaging across the world, the vampires back to their brutal, chaotic worst, and—”
“I won’t let that happen,” Saloman interrupted.
Elizabeth squeezed his hand hard. “Will you show me how to kill Luk?”
“I will kill Luk.”
Elizabeth blinked. “Before he attacks the library? How?”
“If opportunity arises, then yes. I doubt it will. If it doesn’t, I will kill him in the library.”
“You can’t! ” Elizabeth had never found him remotely obtuse before. It crossed her mind that he was too obsessed, that she’d explained the situation badly. “They won’t let you in.”
“Elizabeth.” He lifted her hands to his lips, one after the other, and kissed them. “They don’t need to let me in.”
Blood Eternal Page 29
