Blood Eternal

by Marie Treanor

  “You’ll attack Luk outside?” she guessed, brightening.

  “He’ll be expecting that. We’ll wait for them in the library as I planned. Dmitriu, Maximilian, and I.” He smiled and kissed her bewildered lips. “I learned enchanting from Luk. I can unravel his enchantments almost as easily as he can unravel mine. In effect, I have my own key.”

  Elizabeth’s lips fell apart. “Then you could have entered the hunters’ building whenever you chose?”

  “I could. Until now, there has been no point. They had nothing that I wanted.”

  Elizabeth balled her hands into fists and thudded them into his chest. “Saloman, you . . . you . . . !”

  “What?” he asked, pushing against her fists until she half lay under him against the arm of the sofa.

  “Nothing,” she said with a sigh, and slid her hands free to hold him instead. His mouth bore down on hers, and after that, sex was inevitable.

  It began quick and fierce, with urgent pulling and throwing off of clothing, until Saloman found his way inside her. Once there he groaned and paused, unmoving, his eyes closed in obvious bliss. Elizabeth gazed up at him, feeling the mad surge of lust morph into a slower, deeper love that made her want to weep. She touched his face with her fingertips.

  “Saloman. Saloman.”

  His eyes opened, like pools of darkness glinting in moonlight. He began to move inside her. “I could make love to you forever.”

  “I wish you could.”

  His eyes changed, darkening with grief before he buried his face between her breasts and dragged his mouth across to her peaked, begging nipple. “Elizabeth . . . my dawn, my light . . .”

  She smiled, holding his head to her breast. “I like that.”

  “I watched you in the sun today,” he murmured, giving her nipple one last brush between his lips before he lifted his head to gaze down into her face once more. “I’ve never seen you so beautiful.” His movements grew deeper, harder inside her, mirroring a new wildness in his profound dark eyes, and yet as she writhed beneath him, his voice dropped to an unbearably tender whisper. “I want you to know that I wish I could walk there with you.”

  Her lips parted with shock, and she lost the rhythm of the loving. His words brought a rush of longing she could neither fight nor articulate. There was no point. She drowned in the tragic darkness of his eyes, in the sweet, relentless urgency of his thrusts, and clung to him.

  “I wish you could too,” she whispered. As she wrapped her legs around him, massaging him toward climax, her mind flooded with visions of Saloman in the sunshine, walking with her on the beach in St. Andrews. Blurred visions, because they were so impossible. “Nothing’s perfect, is it, Saloman?” she said with a gasp.

  “No,” he agreed. “If it were, there would be nothing left to fight for.” His fingers caressed the wetness of her cheek. “I didn’t mean to make you cry. I just wanted to tell you.”

  She smiled, kissing him deeply, because there was more, much more than regret in her heart; there was knowledge that he’d never said this to anyone before, and probably never felt it so strongly. It was more than enough; it was joy.

  But Saloman could never walk in the sun, not without ending his existence.

  His tongue teased and pleasured her nipple. She pushed farther onto his shaft and twisted as the tide began to rise.

  He could die with her, ending his existence and all the good he could do for the world.

  Or she could die for him, and go on forever.

  Saloman’s thrusts grew wilder, faster, out of control. His mouth left her breast, brushing greedily at the other nipple on its way to her throat. His teeth pierced her vein and she cried out, reaching for the pleasure of his suck even before her blood began to flow into his mouth.

  It wasn’t wrong to live like this. It wasn’t wrong to be a vampire.

  As the tension broke and ecstasy swamped her, convulsing her body under him, he released her throat and pounded into her harder. She smiled through her discovery and his exploding orgasm, and as their minds and pleasures became one, she basked in the moment of complete, utter joy.

  Sated and helpless, she lay under him, stroking his soft hair with trembling fingers, loving the feel of his smooth, hard flesh against her sweat-slickened skin. If she were a vampire, that was one sensation she would lose.

  Her fingers stilled. Another truth was fighting its way into her head and heart, one she didn’t want to listen to, not now. Desperately, she roved her hands down his back, feeling his instant response, trying to drag back the moment of uncomplicated happiness.

  It wouldn’t come.

  She’d finally learned to be at peace with herself. To like herself. To be a vampire was to lose the humanity, the compassion that made her who she was, the woman Saloman loved, who could temper his inhumanity and make his domination more like cooperation. Not just she but the world needed her humanity.

  You mustn’t lose who you are.

  Tears mingled with the sweat of love as Saloman eased his body out of hers. Tears of grief as well as love, and, somewhere, joy too, because she’d broken through another barrier and made another good decision.

  So long as she didn’t die fighting Luk.

  Saloman said, “I won’t let you die fighting Luk.”

  Although Luk had hunted and fed last night, Dante found him with his face buried in the brunette’s throat. Without ceremony, Dante threw the newspaper on the floor where he could see it.

  “The hue and cry is up for them,” Dante said grimly. “Their photos are all over the papers. We have to get rid of them.”

  Luk sealed the woman’s puncture wounds with one flick of his tongue and dropped her to face Dante. “Nonsense,” he said. His wild eyes had a new look of intensity that was increasingly scary. They seemed to burn in his pale face. “After tonight, they’ll be able to live in a palace instead of this dump.” He gave a shout of laughter. “Saloman’s palace.”

  But Dante had latched onto another point. “Tonight?” he repeated. “After tonight? Why?”

  Luk smiled and stood up to stretch. The roof beams got in his way. “I’ll be so glad to get out of this place,” he remarked. “No more hiding.”

  Dante said breathlessly, “We attack tonight?”

  “Tonight,” Luk confirmed. “I’m as strong as I’m going to get without killing Saloman. And I certainly don’t want to give him any longer to figure out where I intend to strike.”

  “Shall I inform our contacts?”

  “Not yet,” Luk snapped. “Bring them here and I’ll mask us all up until we attack. I can’t have word leaking to Saloman in advance—he still has far more followers to call on than we do. After tonight that will be different. Then, when he knows it, I’ll kill him.”

  Luk spun around and around, holding both arms out like a child playing airplanes. “This will be such fun! I shall kill his Awakener and watch him suffer. . . .”

  “But we don’t want him there tonight,” Dante argued.

  “Oh, yes, we do. And trust me, he’ll come. Too late. We’re not just destroying the library; we’re taking the building, and Saloman and his very odd choice of whore will walk right into our trap.”

  It was all coming true. With tonight’s kills, Dante would grow massively in strength, and soon he’d be able to return to America and take over his world. He grinned at Luk like a schoolboy with a special treat. “May I kill Dmitriu?”

  Luk laughed. “Of course. But you’ll need help—ask Maximilian.”

  “There,” Elizabeth said, throwing her sleeping bag in an untidy bundle at the foot of the nearest bookcase. “Behold my fearsome weapon.”

  Mihaela smiled sourly and dropped her own bedroll next to it. “In this fight, it’s likely to be as much use as Miklós’s cupboards full of stakes.”

  Elizabeth nudged her. “Don’t despair,” she said lightly. “Saloman won’t desert us, whatever Miklós decrees.”

  Mihaela stared at her, then glanced around to make sure no one else
was within earshot. In fact, there was no one else in the library, apart from Konrad on the other side of the entrance area, standing in the doorway of Miklós’s office, presumably listening to instruction.

  “Of course,” Mihaela whispered. “Once Luk’s in, Saloman will be able to join the fight without anyone’s consent. Which might just save our hides. Only, what if we kill the wrong vampires?”

  The wrong vampires. Oh, yes, there was hope.

  Elizabeth smiled. “I think we’ll recognize our friends.”

  Mihaela sat on her rolled-up sleeping bag, frowning up at Elizabeth with fresh anxiety. “But won’t Luk be expecting something like that? Won’t he have some precaution in place against it? Saloman could walk right into a trap.”

  She could tell Mihaela the truth, force her to lie to Konrad and her other superiors. Or not.

  “Trust in Saloman,” she said lightly, and looked directly into her friend’s eyes. “I do.”

  Mihaela got it. Her smile was slightly twisted. “Maybe you do.”

  Satisfied, Elizabeth waved one expansive arm around the library. “So what’s the deal here? Is the library officially closed for the duration?”

  “No, they can’t do that. But it’ll close at five each evening, giving us time to prepare before the sun goes down. No researchers or admin staff will be allowed in after that, only hunters.”

  “How many do we have?”

  “Tonight? Five hunters. The three of us and two of the second team—one of their members is in the hospital. The third team’s in Croatia, and should be back by tomorrow night.”

  “Six, then, counting me. We’re outnumbered, even if Luk has no other support in Budapest.”

  “Lazar will fight with us. He used to be very good, and he’s still a strong hunter. And, of course, you’re our secret weapon.”

  “Not so secret,” Elizabeth pointed out as István wandered in. Lifting one casual hand in greeting, he threw his sleeping bag down against the bookcase opposite Elizabeth and Mihaela and jerked his head toward Konrad, who’d left the departing Miklós and was standing by the window in an expectant sort of way, with two vampire detectors in his hands. Lazar and two hunters whom Elizabeth recognized by sight sat at the table in front of him.

  Sighing, Mihaela got to her feet, and, together with her and István, Elizabeth walked up to join the party.

  “The plan is simple,” Konrad explained. “We operate a watch system from five o’clock onward each night. The sun doesn’t set until after seven, but we know that Ancients can walk openly in the dusk, and Luk may have some means of sheltering his less powerful followers. We’ve no idea how many vampires will attack, or even which part of the building they’ll infiltrate first. But the library will be their ultimate target.”

  He raised the detectors. “We all have these, and there are larger, more sensitive ones scattered throughout the building. We’ll know when the attack is imminent. So that the vampires won’t be aware until the last moment that they’re expected, the detectors will be silent. Those on watch must keep their eyes on the computer display.” He waved his hand at the reception desk computer.

  “There are seven of us tonight, hopefully ten from tomorrow night on. Watch teams will be: Mihaela and Elizabeth; Lazar, Karoly, and Seb; myself and István. As soon as the detectors go off, the watchers will wake everyone. I don’t need to tell you how to fight. Some of the vampires may use swords against us, so use your own—or spares you’ll find in Miklós’s office—for protection and the longer reach. Remember that although a sword can’t kill a vampire, it can slow him down. You should all be aware of the difficulty as well as the priority of killing Luk in particular. Elizabeth, as an Awakener, is the only one of us who can kill him without direct help. Let’s try to make that happen.”

  He shrugged and glanced at Lazar to see whether there was anything else he should add. “Okay. Apart from Mihaela and Elizabeth, I suggest we all get our heads down. We’re going to need all the energy we can muster for this fight.”

  “And then some,” Mihaela muttered.

  From the barstool beside Maximilian, Angyalka looked around her busy club. There was no live band tonight, but the music was loud and lively and appreciated, judging by the numbers on the dance floor.

  “Quiet tonight,” she observed.

  Maximilian knew what she meant. Apart from himself, the guests were all human.

  “Something’s going on,” she said. “Or is about to. Where is Saloman?”

  Maximilian shrugged. He turned away from the crowd of human revelers and gazed instead at the beautiful, piquant face of his old friend. Subtle, clever, elusive, strong in self-preservation, she’d still been, to his knowledge, unswervingly loyal. For once, with difficulty, he said what was in his heart.

  “I’m glad I met you again.”

  Her eyes widened. “Are you leaving?”

  “Yes,” said Maximilian, already turning his back and walking to the door. “I’m leaving.”

  Eleven Budapest vampires came in to Luk in the end. It would have been ten, but hearing that the hunters were the target, one persuaded a wavering friend at the last minute. It wasn’t a huge haul, Luk acknowledged, but with Saloman present in the city, he couldn’t have expected more. The icing on his cake was made up of the vampires who’d drifted in from Romania and Croatia: seven so far, and they were still coming. Together with himself, Grayson, and the five remaining Turkish vampires, Luk knew there would be enough. Even if Saloman followed—and he was bound to—it would only bring other vampires to the site. And what vampires would be able to resist beating up their old enemies the hunters? Even Saloman couldn’t stand in their way. If he’d want to.

  Euphoria had Luk literally hopping from one foot to the other in desperation to be off. In the dark, they stood together like a line of crows on the roof of the apartment building, above the attic that had sheltered him since his arrival here. But Luk hesitated to give the order to move.

  “Now?” Grayson asked impatiently again. “Now?”

  Luk ignored him. He felt the unmasking of the vampire he’d been waiting for. An instant later, a dark figure in jeans and a T-shirt leapt from the next roof and landed by his side, almost shoving Grayson off his perch.

  “Maximilian,” Luk said fondly. “So glad you could join us.” Now they had more than enough. Maximilian’s strength—to say nothing of his propaganda value as Saloman’s “child” and onetime leader of the Hungarian vampires—more than made up for the poor Budapest turnout. He was the difference between victory and total, overwhelming success.

  And this time I’ll see him betray you. How will you like that, Saloman?

  “Stop!” Cyn yelled. She threw herself forward as if she meant to yank up the handbrake herself, but fortunately, Rudy’s steady hand was before her.

  “What?” he demanded, sparing her a glance as he slowed down. “What the hell is it?”

  They were all tired after their long flight to Budapest, and John was looking forward to nothing more than a bath and bed. And yet at Cyn’s cry, his weariness fell away from him like a blanket. It reminded him of sudden night alerts in Afghanistan.

  “Look,” Cyn commanded, pointing out of the window of the large car they’d hired at the airport. John followed her finger through the darkness to two men hurrying along the quiet road. They were quaintly dressed, a bit like untidy versions of the Gypsies in old-fashioned films, but Cyn was a New Yorker and unlikely to be so struck by the mere dress sense of passersby.

  Rudy pulled to the side of the road just a little ahead of them, and Cyn inched open her passenger door. “Can’t you feel it?” she whispered. “They’re vampires!”

  John glanced at her, impressed. “You could sense that from inside the car?”

  “No; they just moved wrong, too fast. But I can feel it now.”

  “Want to say hi?” Rudy asked casually. All his passengers sat up. Excitement surged around the car at the prospect of a fight.

  To see if he could, Joh
n flung out a mental feeler and brushed up against cold, angry purpose. “Wait,” he said, grabbing Pete’s arm as it stretched across him to the car door. “They’re up to something.”

  Ignoring them, the vampires strode past the car.

  “What?” Cyn demanded.

  John opened the car door and got out. “I don’t know. Why don’t I ask?” Leaning his arm on the top of the car door, he called out with his mind.

  Hey, where are you going?

  One of the vampires paused and turned his head. Cyn and Rudy scrambled to get out of the car; there was a flurry of movement as everyone reached for the meager stakes they’d hidden through customs.

  The vampire found John’s gaze. His lip curled. Fuck off, he said distinctly, and he and his companion moved forward so fast that they seemed to glide.

  “Follow them,” John said grimly, diving back into the car. “They’re too secretive, and they’re ignoring us because they’re focused on something else entirely.”

  “What?” Rudy asked, starting the car again.

  “I don’t know,” John said, “but I’m afraid it’s Elizabeth’s big fight. I’m afraid she needs us.”

  “Elizabeth,” Mihaela whispered. “Are you asleep?”

  “No.” Elizabeth turned her head to face Mihaela. Although they lay in sleeping bags side by side on the library floor, Elizabeth had never felt more wide-awake. Perhaps it was too difficult to fall asleep with the library lights on, even dimmed as they were. Perhaps she no longer needed the rest. Or perhaps it was just impossible to get any when her nerves hovered on a knife-edge, waiting for attack. “Why aren’t you?” she whispered back.

  “I don’t know. I think I almost fell asleep. I keep imagining shadows down there.” She jerked her head to the far end of the cavernous library, which was lit up only on the rare occasions anyone went that far.

  Instinctively, Elizabeth raised her head to peer past Mihaela into the dark, almost eerie distance. The library was so silent that if she hadn’t known better, she would have imagined that Konrad and István, on watch at the reception desk, must have nodded off. The others lay, if not slept, closer to the library entrance.