Written in the Blood (35 page)

C
HAPTER
37

Calw, Germany

B
y the time Hannah Wilde let herself out of the complex and crossed the courtyard to the chalet she shared with Gabriel, the day was drawing to a close. She could feel the weak rays of the sun, low in the sky, as they struggled to warm her face. The last begonias wilting in the chalet’s hanging baskets laced the air with a lemon and cinnamon fragrance.

Hannah opened the front door and went inside, and as it closed behind her she straightened, surprised that Ibsen hadn’t padded into the hall to nose her hand in his traditional greeting. From the kitchenette she had expected the clatter of saucepans and the steamy aroma of cooking as Gabriel prepared dinner. But the chalet was silent, and all Hannah could smell, coiling towards her, was the hard odour of blood – so out of place in this gentle haven of theirs that it tossed her insides into free fall.

‘Gabe?’

As soon as she called his name she regretted it. But the sound of the front door opening would have alerted any intruder to her presence. A multitude of dark scenarios flashed through her head. Despite them Hannah remained still, head cocked and mouth tightly closed, straining to detect anything other than her own accelerating heartbeat.

There
.

Faint, oh-so-faint, from somewhere deeper inside the chalet; a scratching, like the surreptitious investigations of mice inside the walls. Except that never in their time here had they suffered the incursions of rodents.

Gabriel had left her only ten minutes earlier. She’d stayed back at the complex, wanting to catch up with some of its volunteers. What had happened since? How much could her life have changed in that short interval?

Hannah reached out until her fingers touched the wall. Maintaining a light contact, even though she knew the layout of these rooms as well as the inside of her head, she moved along the hall towards the kitchenette at the chalet’s rear.

The tang of blood grew richer.

Locked inside her sightless world, expecting at any moment to feel the touch of an assailant’s hand or the prick of a blade, Hannah’s fingers found the kitchenette’s painted wooden doorway. Her feet moved from soft carpet to hard linoleum.

She could hear the rush of her breathing, the pulsing of her heart. From the living room behind her, the tick of a cheap plastic wall clock. And from somewhere else, perhaps from one of the two ground-floor bedrooms, that scratching sound.

She fought the urge to turn and run, to lunge back to the front door and slam through it, seeking help. Whatever had happened here – and
something
had happened while she’d been catching up with her friends – had happened because of her. If an intruder lurked inside the chalet, it was Hannah he sought. And if Gabriel were held captive somewhere in these rooms, she would not desert him. Even if she did attempt to flee, her chances of escaping from anyone who chose to pursue her were almost nil. Few of her potential aggressors would have any difficulty overpowering her. Not these days. Not now.

Considering anew what might have happened to Gabriel, Hannah began to shiver. Gabriel: endlessly patient and nurturing. Her friend of sixteen years; her laughter therapist; her cheerleader. With him she had found a different kind of love to that she’d experienced with her late husband Nate, but it was no less powerful. If Gabriel, too, had lost his life because of her—

Don’t. Don’t think about it.

It was the only defence she could muster. Laughable, really. Knowing that she made herself an easy target, doing it anyway, Hannah straightened her back and raised her head. She tried, and failed, to stop herself from shaking.

Another step further across the kitchenette floor and this time, when she lifted her left boot, the lino seemed unwilling to release it, parting with a sound like the smack of chewing gum. Her right boot landed in a pool of what could only be blood, and with her next step she nudged up against something large and soft.

Hannah closed her eyes in denial of what she felt just then. She crouched, reaching out her fingers, needing to know but desperate to delay the moment as long as she could.

Finally her hand touched smooth short hair. A curve of firm flank.

Ibsen.

She spread her fingers wide, feeling the warmth of him, waiting for what seemed like the passing of a season for the chest of her old companion to rise. But it remained still.

Hannah stroked him, moving her hand up towards his head. When she felt the wet tack of blood around his throat and a ragged, fur-clogged wound, she sobbed, choked.

Gone, just like that. A decade-long partnership of love and trust, torn from her in a instant.

She whispered a quick prayer for him, and even though she felt an aching guilt at her betrayal, her thoughts marched in front of her.

Ibsen was dead. Gabriel might still be alive.

Don’t think. Act.

Her old adage. It had served tolerably in years past. Perhaps not so tolerably now, tethered in this prison of darkness.

Hannah rose to her feet. With slow, deliberate movements, hands outstretched, she stepped over the lifeless body of her dog and crossed the kitchenette to the countertop.

The drawer beneath the sink contained knives. She paused in front of it as a thought struck her, so obvious that only her seesawing emotions could have concealed it until now. Sliding her hand into the back pocket of her jeans, she withdrew her phone.

From the far side of the breakfast bar, a voice said, ‘I’d been looking for that.’

Hannah’s heart almost seized, and then it began to gallop. She flinched away.

It was a man’s voice, but its timbre was high-pitched, the tone mocking and effeminate.

‘Where is he?’

He laughed. ‘You obviously haven’t read the script, Hannah. That’s not what you’re meant to say at all. You’re meant to say,
Please don’t kill me
. Or,
What do you want?
’

‘What do you want?’

‘Ah, a little late, now. You’ve ruined the moment. What do I want? Well, I suppose I want to kill you, Hannah.’ He paused. ‘Actually, that isn’t entirely true. I bear you no personal animosity. I rather admire you, if truth be told. Perhaps I should say instead, I wish to do my job.’

Even though she did not recognise this particular voice, she recognised, now, the soprano pitch of a castrated
Merénylő.

It’s over, then. You can’t survive this.

‘What’s stopping you?’ she asked, gritting her teeth.

‘Unfortunately, not everyone in this splendidly dark world of ours is as efficient in their given tasks as I.’

‘Have you killed him?’

‘You ask a lot of questions,’ he replied thoughtfully. ‘I hadn’t expected that. I’d expected a fight, actually. Perhaps even a chase. Although, considering your condition, a chase sorely lacking in any real sport.’ Through his nose, he made a peculiar snuffling sound. ‘Like hunting a stag whose hamstrings have been cut.’

‘Please. Where’s Gabe? What have you—’

‘Ah, there it is.
Please
. I thought I’d hear it eventually. Was Gabe the Irishman with the soulful blue eyes?’

She nodded, knowing that he toyed with her, lengthening her anguish, but she had no power in this exchange. None at all. ‘Have you . . .’

‘Questions, questions. Let me ask a few of my own. Here’s your first. It might be your last. Where’s Leah Wilde, Hannah? Where’s your daughter?’

Only the
Örökös Főnök
could instruct a
Merénylő
. Hannah knew that Catharina would never have sent this creature, which meant one of two things. Either the assassin was working on his own – unlikely – or the
tanács
had instructed him. If the latter were true, it meant Catharina had lost control of her council. Worse, it meant the
tanács
had discovered Calw’s secrets, and this was their brutal response.

If the
tanács
had acted here, they would have acted in Italy too. Hannah knew they would have timed their attacks to occur simultaneously. If the
Merényl
ő
was asking questions about her daughter, it meant Leah must have evaded capture. It also meant that now, instead of receiving a quick death at the assassin’s hands, Hannah was being recruited into the hunt. But if the creature in front of her thought she would become an accessory to that, he was deluding himself.

She felt the handle of the knife drawer pressing at her back. The
Merénylő
was still on the other side of the counter. She might just be able to yank the drawer open before he reached her. She could not hope to overcome him, but if she could find a blade quickly enough, if she could open her wrists . . .

And then Hannah realised something else: all he had to do was incapacitate her, and then he could pump his own vile blood inside her, reviving her for long enough to do as he pleased.

She shuddered. Remembered her urging from earlier:
Don’t show your fear
.

With a clearer voice, she said, ‘What you’re asking, is a trade.’

He paused a moment, and when he spoke next, it was around a smirk. ‘An unusual way of viewing it. Quite wrong, of course.’

‘It’s the only way you’ll get what you want.’

‘Again, quite wrong, Hannah. I know your story. I know what you’ve endured. But you’ve never endured
me
. Come, don’t prolong this. Tell me what I need to know.’

‘Is he dead? Gabe? Tell me that, at least.’

She heard him sigh. When she realised he was enjoying the cut-glass shrill of silence that followed, she felt a hatred for him so extreme that had it found physical release, he would have dropped to the floor with every bone in his body shattered.

‘You know,’ he continued, ‘I can’t quite remember what I did with poor Gabriel. Perhaps you could help me jog my memory. Perhaps we could start by talking about Leah.’

‘Is he
dead
?’

Another sigh, followed by a flutter of air as he plucked the phone from her fingers. ‘I’ll indulge you, why not. Allow me to go and bring you what’s left.’

Even though she heard nothing to mark his departure, she knew, from a subtle change in the silence, that she was now alone in the room. She heard one of the chalet doors unlocking. Heard a few muffled sounds, something heavy being dragged across the floor.

She sensed Gabriel then, caught his scent: the peculiar sharp maltiness that belonged only to him.

The tornado swirl of emotion nearly knocked her off her feet: elation, that her lover still lived; horror, at what might already have happened to him, and what she might be about to witness.

From the floor, Gabriel whispered her name. She sank to her knees and embraced him. His flesh was cold, shockingly so. Hannah ran her hands over his face, across his cheeks. Finding his ear, she murmured into it. No words, just comforting sounds.

‘You know, Hannah,’ the
Merényl
ő
said, ‘the
tanács
are terribly upset about this litter of
kirekesztett
bastards you’ve unleashed on the world. I’ve never studied the text of the
Vének Könyve,
so I couldn’t comment on their justifications, but they do intend to wipe the slate clean of them.’

‘They’re crazy.’

‘It does seem that way, doesn’t it? But I want you to know that they gave me no instructions about what to with Gabriel, here. The discretion is mine. OK, here’s the question, and before I ask it, let me remind you of this.’ She heard two hard strikes: edged steel rapping against the formica countertop. ‘You’d be surprised what a blade this sharp can do to a man. So tell me, Hannah Wilde. Where can I find Leah?’

She took a shuddering breath and thought of her daughter, out there somewhere in the world. Tightening her arms around Gabriel’s body, she felt his shoulders tremble.

The two people she cared most about, and both of them beyond her protection. It was, even as she considered it, a ridiculous thought. What protection could she have hoped to offer either of them? She couldn’t even protect herself any more.

Even in her grief, a thought formed. Her own life, she knew, had begun to wind down to its conclusion the moment she had entered this room.

She didn’t really believe the
Merényl
ő
’s words about Gabriel. Despite what the assassin had said, she suspected he would take as much pleasure in ending her lover’s life as he would in ending her own. But there was always a chance.

If Leah had managed to evade her pursuers, then perhaps Hannah could give this creature a snippet of information and secure Gabriel’s safety without endangering her daughter’s.

Decision made, she swallowed, lifted her head. ‘Italy,’ she said. ‘That’s where she is. Villa del Osservatore, on Lake Como.’

The
Merényl
ő
’s fist struck her cheek, hard enough to fracture bone. Her head snapped backwards.

‘I
know
she was at Villa del Osservatore, Hannah. But she’s not there now, as I’m sure you’ve guessed. What I
want
to know is where she’s going.’

He tapped the blade of his knife against the countertop, and when he spoke next, there was a hardness to his voice that had not been there before. ‘Oh, this is growing tiresome. You have until the count of ten.’

Etienne stared out of the window at the passing scenery as the van rolled along the road, her body so weighted by helplessness that she felt as though she were sinking into the seat, as if the world’s gravity had magnified, sucking her down.