Blood Eternal (39 page)
Behind the fear, he felt the erratic, inexplicable pains and short-lived illnesses that had plagued her in recent weeks. Although her doctor had found nothing wrong, the symptoms continued, stronger and more frequent. She didn’t let them hold her back, but she couldn’t ignore them or her belief that they were important. She didn’t know what caused them, had wondered about everything from cursing to cancer, and could rule nothing out. Torn as she was between worry and self-ridicule, she’d told no one apart from her doctor and Mihaela, who, according to Elizabeth’s mind, had fed her fear by taking it seriously.
“I’m no healer,” Saloman said steadily. “I couldn’t make you well if you were sick or injured. But healing used to be a gift among my people, and if you let me look, I can at least tell you if everything is as it’s supposed to be.”
“Look?” she repeated doubtfully. “Look where?”
He smiled. “Telepathically. Like this.” He laid his hand on her forehead, concentrating, and moved it slowly across her face and head. Focusing hard on the health and rhythm of individual organs, he worked his way around her whole body.
“I can find nothing wrong, no intrusions or interruptions,” he said at last. “I believe your doctor was right.”
She drank in his soothing words like water in a desert, her whole body relaxing under his now blatantly caressing hand.
“They could be caused by the stresses of coping with your increasing powers,” Saloman said. “And they’re probably something to do with telepathic pain transference—you felt Max’s cut hand, and you say you felt something when you visited the injured soldier in Scotland, and when Konrad was bitten by the vampire in Turkey. You are developing fast, perhaps too fast. We should slow it down if we can.”
Or turn you so that your body can cope without pain.
He didn’t say the words; he didn’t need to. Along with his explanation, she was considering it at last, with an open if slightly fearful wonder, and Saloman’s hopes grew.
He didn’t say the words; he didn’t need to. Along with his explanation, she was considering it at last, with an open if slightly fearful wonder, and Saloman’s hopes grew.
“Bugger!” Elizabeth exclaimed.
Saloman’s hands paused on her breasts as he regarded her in some amusement. “What?”
“I forgot to go the university the other day. I got sidetracked into fencing with you.”
“Won’t today do instead?”
“I missed the deadline yesterday. They could be offering it to someone else as I lie here.”
“Then stop lying here and go,” Saloman advised.
“But I have to be at hunter HQ. . . .” Her hands fell away from him. “Maybe I shouldn’t do it. Maybe I should just be a hunter.”
“A new breed of hunter,” said Saloman with some satisfaction.
Elizabeth flung herself out of bed, padding naked across the room in search of her phone. Saloman watched her, enjoying his inevitable surge of arousal as much as the beauty of her body and the swift, unconscious grace of her movement.
“I need to talk to them,” she muttered, grabbing up the phone from the floor where it had spilled out of her bag. At the sight of her bottom at such close quarters, Saloman felt a growl rising in his throat. Lust was now critical and would have to be assuaged. But as she straightened, the phone rang.
“Hello, Joanne,” she said in some surprise. Saloman remembered Joanne, one of her friends in St. Andrews—funny, eccentric, fiercely intelligent, and comfortingly loyal. Apparently, Elizabeth had asked her to check on the flat while she was away, for she seemed to be inquiring where to send mail on to.
“Oh, just leave it,” Elizabeth said vaguely. “I’ll be back soon enough.”
“One’s from our agent,” Joanne said dryly. “Your book, remember?”
“Really? Open it,” Elizabeth commanded, and Saloman watched indulgently as she grinned at the good news. Another academic success was on the way. When the celebrations had calmed and her smile died, she said ruefully into the phone, “And, Joanne, I think there’s a letter addressed to Budapest University on the arm of the sofa. You might as well tear it up.”
“Can’t,” said Joanne with unexpected satisfaction. “I posted it already.”
Elizabeth sat down too fast, fortunately landing on one of Saloman’s spare cushions. “When?” she asked faintly.
“The day after you left.”
“Joanne, you’re amazing.”
“I know,” said Joanne comfortably.
When she finally broke the connection she looked at him and said, “Phew! I’m a lecturer for the next year.”
“Good,” said Saloman. “You mustn’t lose who you are.”
Her gaze clung. Her lips parted. “No,” she agreed, her voice oddly husky. “I mustn’t.” She jumped to her feet and ran for the ivory silk robe he’d given her. “I’m going for a shower and then I have to see the hunters.”
He could have distracted her, but he chose not to. She had many things to clear up in her head and in her life, and he wouldn’t stand in her way. In any case, he needed her now to be close to the hunters if his ultimate plan was to succeed. And they needed to be warned of Luk’s plans as quickly as possible.
He liked to listen to the mundane sounds of her washing and dressing while he worked. And when she flew back into the room and kissed him breathlessly before rushing on downstairs and out of the front door, he felt curiously content.
He rose and walked to the window to watch her as she hurried out into the sun. Her beauty caught at his breath all over again. In a simple, well-worn print dress, she looked cool and vital, so alive it made him ache. Her hair shone, seeming to glint all the colors of a sunrise as she turned her face upward to the warmth. She raised both arms, as if embracing the day, confident, alert, and happy; and then she spun around to glance up at his window. Seeing him, she grinned and waved and half ran along the road to do her duty and face the dangers. His Elizabeth.
Slowly, Saloman let his forehead fall forward onto the smooth, hard glass. Her figure was blurred, but he couldn’t stop looking.
I can’t do it. I can’t take the sun from her. She belongs in the light and I in the shadows.
He’d always known it, and yet it had never hurt so much. Because he’d let himself hope. A drop of blood spilled on the sill, showing a deep, dark red against the stark white of the paint. He hadn’t wept in three hundred years.
Elizabeth . . .
Elizabeth . . .
Behind him, the door opened, and he wiped his shoulder against his eye like a boy caught crying by his father. Perhaps that had happened too; he could no longer remember it all, it had been so long ago.
Dmitriu said, “Where did Maximilian go last night?”
The pain went on and on.
The Grand Master of the Hungarian Order of Hunters was regarded largely as a mere figurehead. In any case, he wasn’t in the country. In his absence, the early morning meeting took place in the office of his number two, Miklós, off the main library. At Elizabeth’s request, Lazar was present too, along with Konrad, Mihaela, and István.
“I only have ten minutes,” Miklós warned as everyone filed in. He flapped one impatient hand around what seats there were in the room, which, like the librarian himself, was small and austere and just a little grubby.
Elizabeth chose to stand. Lazar and Mihaela sat on the rickety seats across the bare, dusty desk from Miklós. Konrad propped up the wall by the door, and István leaned one casual hip on the corner of Miklós’s desk. The librarian glared at him, which István appeared not to notice, and in the end Miklós apparently decided they wouldn’t be cluttering up his office long enough for it to matter, for he turned his glare on Elizabeth instead.
“What is it? If you have an announcement about accepting the position of hunter, you should put it in writing. I offer you my congrat—”
“It isn’t about that,” Elizabeth interrupted. “It’s about Luk. Only, the fight’s gone beyond him and Saloman. He isn’t just threatening the stability of the vampire world anymore—he’s threatening everything, including our knowledge.”
“How?” István asked at once. “Has Saloman discovered something more?”
Elizabeth nodded. “He knows where the attack will be.”
“Where?” barked Miklós.
Elizabeth waved one hand around the room. “Here. Hunter headquarters. In particular, the library.”
It didn’t quite have the impact she’d imagined. Lazar actually grinned, while Miklós snapped, “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“What makes him think that?” Mihaela asked, and Elizabeth had the lowering feeling that her friend’s unease was more for Elizabeth’s dignity than anything else. “Has he seen into Dante’s mind again?”
“No,” Elizabeth admitted. “Apparently Luk’s making sure no one gets in there. Saloman gets occasional glimpses of Dante and the Turkish vampires, but only for brief moments, and rarely enough to read them. It just came to him last night when we passed this building.”
Now she had silence, and the full attention of everyone. Even her friends stared at her with accusation and a disappointment that was peculiarly hard to bear. But while words of denial stuck in her throat—after all, how long would it have been before she
did
tell Saloman?—it was Lazar who voiced what they were all thinking.
did
tell Saloman?—it was Lazar who voiced what they were all thinking.
“You betrayed this place to
Saloman
?”
Saloman
?”
Elizabeth lifted her chin, feeling like a defiant schoolgirl. “I didn’t need to. He already knew.”
“He can’t have—” Miklós began.
“Yes, he can,” Elizabeth interrupted. “He’s been around longer than this building, longer than the hunters, longer than any of your documents, which, like any historical text, don’t always give the full facts.”
“Why do you think no vampires have ever attacked our headquarters at any time in history?” Miklós said with exaggerated patience. “This building is shielded, masked—”
“And who the hell do you think masked it?”
Perhaps it was the spurt of anger or bad language that finally pierced their too-comfortable, long-standing confidence, but all of them began, finally, to think about it.
“Saloman?” Mihaela said, her voice husky with dread.
“Worse,” Elizabeth replied. “Luk.”
“Oh, no,” Lazar said, as if in relief that he could now safely discount her ravings. “I’m not buying that.”
“Why not?”
“What reason could he possibly have had to mask this building from his own kind?”
Elizabeth gave a quick lopsided smile. “Your oldest documents only hint at that, and you have to read between the lines, but it
is
there. I found several texts last year when I was studying Saloman in your library.”
is
there. I found several texts last year when I was studying Saloman in your library.”
She began to pace the confined space in front of Miklós’s desk, because she couldn’t be still as she told the story Saloman had explained to her last night.
“The Ancients never used to be regarded as the enemies of humanity; they worked openly or in secret with rulers, princes, churchmen, scholars, and whatever the local equivalent of the police was at the time. Back in the Dark Ages, when the Ancient race was being outnumbered by unruly human-hybrid vampires, humanity needed a means of protecting itself from the vampire threat. They created the hunter organization, with the full cooperation and help of the Ancients, who even enchanted the site of their safe building for them.”
She stopped pacing and turned to gaze directly at Miklós. “The Ancient who performed the enchantments was Luk. He made them strong enough to last for centuries, millennia, probably forever, even through leveling and rebuilding. They’d have been hard for most Ancients to break through, and as they died out and only modern hybrid vampires remained, there’s been damn-all chance of anyone ever discovering this place.”
Miklós’s spectacles seemed to glint at her. For once, the librarian was speechless. István eased his hip off the desk. “And now Luk is back as our enemy. And the one being who can destroy us.”
Elizabeth inclined her head. “Who
wants
to destroy us, and Saloman, and whatever order there is left in the world.”
wants
to destroy us, and Saloman, and whatever order there is left in the world.”
“But why?” Mihaela burst out. “Why does he want those things? Insanity just doesn’t cover it!”
“Saloman thinks it’s hate. He hates the world, almost without realizing it, because he was dragged back into it.”
“By his awakening?”
“Exactly.”
István took a step nearer her, peering into her face. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but Saloman has never given me that impression. He relished his awakening.”
Elizabeth couldn’t help the quick smile flitting across her face, although she tried to hide it by pushing at an imaginary stray lock of hair. “Yes,” she agreed. “But their positions were very different, remember? Saloman wasn’t insane when he was staked. Luk was. Luk had had enough of the world, even if his mind wasn’t capable of recognizing the fact. And Saloman gave him peace, performing some ritual enchantment that took away his pain and gave him the rest that we might think of as death.”
“Heaven,” Mihaela said. “To all intents and purposes, Luk was dragged out of heaven.”
“Something like that.”
“Then why doesn’t he want to go back?”
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