Blood on Silk (29 page)

Konrad met her gaze, his piercing blue eyes intense and challenging. For the first time she saw them also as intimidating. “To what, exactly, are you referring?” he asked with more than a shade of haughty contempt. That would be his aristocratic ancestor making his appearance.

“To your sending me into a lethal situation—namely into the Angel—without the full facts that might have made me more capable of dealing with it.”

“Nothing was left out that could have helped you,” Konrad insisted.

“You’re wrong. So wrong.”
I would have known it was revenge. I would have understood. It might have made no physical difference to what happened, but I wouldn’t have fallen for it.

“You’re being melodramatic,” Konrad said coldly. “And possibly transferring your own guilt.
You
’ve kept things from
us
. Such as what actually happened the night he took you from the Angel.”

Elizabeth felt the blood drain to her toes. Was it really that obvious? “I have,” she admitted, shakily. “I couldn’t tell you because I couldn’t handle it.” She lifted her head. “And guess what? Now I don’t need to tell you anything at all, because our association is at an end.”

She stood up, facing all four astonished expressions.

“At an end?” Mihaela repeated. “But why? You can’t leave now! It’s not safe!”

“Yes, I can, and it is safer than you know. I can take care of myself for the same reason I was in danger in the first place. I didn’t wake Saloman because I was the first person to stumble across his grave in three hundred years. I wakened him because I was one of the very few people who could. And he wanted my blood for the same reason. Tsigana was my ancestress.”

István closed his mouth. Konrad and Miklós exchanged glances.

“Shit,” Mihaela said. “That explains a lot.”

“Doesn’t it, though? As her descendant, I have the physical strength to survive on my own. I just need to cultivate it.”

“You’re an academic,” Konrad retorted, “a mere bookworm! You need us.”

“It’s true I was never terribly athletic. I’m crap at sports. I had no interest in any of them. But guess what? I’m a natural fighter.” She looked into Konrad’s eyes. “Like you.”

“If you’re not our friend, you’re our enemy. You have to go.” Konrad reached for her.

He hadn’t watched any of her sessions with the combat coach. Despite what she’d just said, he didn’t realize how far she’d come. She knocked up his arm so hard, he almost hit himself.

In shock, the others started between them, but somehow, through them all, Konrad still met her furious gaze. “I’m not a vampire, and I had no intention of hurting you.”

“No, possibly not. Just keeping me quiet. But they have to know.”

“Know what?” Mihaela demanded. “Elizabeth, what the hell is going on?”

Elizabeth held everyone’s attention. She wondered if history students would listen to her lectures with the same rapt concentration, and doubted it. She felt very tired.

She said, “I’ve read lots about the hunters now, right down to you guys. Did you never wonder why Konrad is so much faster than you in a fight, and yet never demonstrates to students? Why two of his previous teams died while he alone survived? Why he is so determined to be the one who takes out Saloman? He wants the power that comes with killing an Ancient. Twice.”

“Twice?” Mihaela was staring at her, eyes dilated. Konrad himself was white-faced and rigid.

“Twice. He’s descended from Ferenc, one of the human—” Her phone chose that moment to burst into Bach. “Killers,” she finished as Mihaela picked it off the desk and wordlessly handed it to her.

Miklós declared, “Mobile phones should be switched off in the library, or at least set to ‘silent.’ ”

Elizabeth rejected the call without even glancing at the number and pocketed the phone before reaching down to collect her papers.

“Elizabeth, you’re not really leaving because of this?” Konrad said. His voice was more controlled now, reasonable, almost cajoling.

“Yes. I really am. I can’t trust you, and I’ve had enough.” Perhaps she was being unfair. Mihaela and István had obviously been as much in the dark as she, but Konrad and even Miklós had known. And Mihaela, despite her obvious shock, was sticking by her colleagues. That seemed like a fresh betrayal.

Elizabeth was prepared to shoulder her way through them all. She felt bullish enough, but interestingly, they parted for her like the Red Sea.

“There’s nowhere to run from this, Elizabeth,” Konrad warned. “It’ll follow you.
He
’ll follow you.”

No, he won’t. He’s taken all he needs from me.

“I’m not running. I’m just facing it, whatever it is, on my terms, my ground. I can’t work on yours anymore.” She glanced at Mihaela as she passed, and paused to let her gaze embrace them all.

They had warned her at the beginning, looked after her in their own way, and in spite of everything, there was a fondness, a closeness she’d seldom felt before. It wasn’t their fault she’d discovered a complete aversion to all forms of betrayal.

“Though I won’t forget you,” she muttered, and walked through the stunned silence. It was a long way. Elizabeth wanted it to go on forever, because her next farewell would be even harder.

P
art of her hoped there wouldn’t be time. And yet Konrad had been right. If she didn’t see him, she would be running away.

So she cleared out of the hunters’ headquarters, packed all her luggage into the old car she’d bought here several months ago, and drove to the airport. She managed to get a seat on a night flight to Glasgow, which left her several hours of inactivity.

After a strong cup of coffee, she left the airport and drove back into the city.

Why am I doing this? For my own peace of mind? Or because I can’t stay away from him?

Because even shouting was better than the loneliness.

One night of false closeness had shown her what she wanted and had never found—that combination of exciting sexual ecstasy and companionship that had made her feel like a queen. And it wasn’t even real. Gullible Elizabeth Silk, duped again, by a monster whom even she should have recognized for what he was.

It was easy to find the right area of Pest. On the first day of her recovery, the hunters had spent some time here, after Elizabeth had shown them the network of streets on a map, looking for him or his house without success. The day after, they’d tried to narrow it down by using the phone directory together with ownership and tenancy records. But it was a minefield of changing and multiple occupations, and despite frequent patrols, no one had seen him, or any other vampire, go in or out of any of the buildings.

Elizabeth parked the car and walked. She had no clear idea of where she was going. She was just sure she would know the house when she saw it. She would smell him—or something.

But it was a large area, and she walked for a long time. It had been dark that night, and she’d barely seen the outside of the house. They’d landed on a roof and jumped down to the side of the house before walking around to the front door. She couldn’t even remember what color the door was. There were many buildings of a similar size and shape.

It was the curtains she recognized in the end. Thick, heavy velvet, and deep, dark red, they covered the two windows of his drawing room on the first floor, and two windows of his bedroom next to it.

Her heart beat hard. She knew this was it. She recognized the shape of the door now, the ornate, carved arch above it. The tall wrought-iron gates she hadn’t noticed before. They were pad-locked, so, careless of passersby, she climbed over the wall.

She’d been wrong, though. She couldn’t smell him. And as she approached the door, she even began to doubt this was the right place. She had a brief comic vision of barging in like a whirling dervish, brandishing her sharpened stake over a baffled family at the tea table.

As well she meant to ring the bell. What she had to say could be conveyed from the doorstep while he lurked in the shadows. It would be best that way. She wouldn’t have to look at the bastard.

On the other hand, when she pressed the bell, she didn’t hear any sound. She doubted it worked. It didn’t matter. If she didn’t smell him, he could certainly sense her, though he seemed to have no intention of answering the door. Interesting.

Unless he really wasn’t in. Dmitriu had moved about in the daylight, keeping to the shaded paths of Maria’s garden. She was sure Saloman had ways of doing the same in the city.

Well, damn it, she wouldn’t walk away with her tail between her legs. Lifting her hand, she grasped the door handle, more to test the strength of the lock before she kicked it in than with any expectation of its turning.

It didn’t need to turn. At her first touch, the door swung open.

Her breath caught. Had he gone already, sure she would tell the hunters about this house as she’d told them about the church in Bistriƫa?

How many horror films had she seen like this? Stupid lone female walks helplessly into a place of obvious danger.

Well, she’d just have to hope she was right and he wouldn’t kill her. After all, he’d had his revenge, which would, presumably, lose its sweetness if she was dead and unable to appreciate having been so utterly seduced.

And if she was wrong . . .
Just get it over with.

She pushed open the door and stepped inside. From meanness, she left the door wide, allowing a shaft of sunlight to fall across the hall.

There were rooms downstairs that she hadn’t been in. She wondered what he did in them, what he kept in them and the rest of the house. If he wasn’t home, she would look around, but she was damned if she’d lose her dignity by snooping in front of him.
What kind of weird dignity is that?

She moved toward the staircase, schooling herself to walk with firm, even steps, although her mouth was so dry she doubted she could speak and her heart hammered in her breast like a piston.

She’d rounded the curve of the staircase before she saw him. Her stomach and her heart both seemed to flip, as if they’d swapped places. He stood in the upper hall, leaning one shoulder against the wall as he watched her approach.

His long, slender feet were bare. With fresh shock, she remembered the sensual feel of them caressing her legs, and forced the memory down. He wore his usual plain but stylish black trousers with a loose white shirt, unfastened. Or perhaps it was the one he’d torn the buttons off in his urgency to make love to her the first time.

Don’t go there, for God’s sake!

His raven hair fell in unruly tangles about his face and shoulders, completing the impression of a man disturbed too early before appropriate grooming could occur. The thought was stupidly arousing, and she had to squash that one too, because his eyes were far too bright and far too piercing to allow her to slip back into that haze of blind, depraved, wishful thinking.

“Elizabeth.”

It was downright insulting that he should say her name like that. In a voice like that. It seemed to reach through her entire body and turn her outside in. But she was stronger now. Gathering the tatters of that strength around her, she imagined herself turning the right way out again.

“Saloman.”

“I didn’t expect to welcome you here again so soon.”

“I’m sure you didn’t.” She came at last to the top of the stairs, and he straightened, bringing his body far too close to her.

“Please.” Without taking his gaze from hers, he spread his hand toward the drawing room. Beyond the door, which stood ajar, open books and newspapers were strewn about the floor in a large, untidy circle with a bare patch of rug at the center, as if he’d been sitting there while studying in the semigloom. “Go in.”

“I’m not staying,” she said frigidly. “I’m leaving Hungary tonight. I just came to say that I know who I am and what my importance is. I know I can learn to fight you, and I will. Take what you have and leave the descendants alone. If you don’t, I’ll find a way to kill you.”

His eyes searched hers. She thought the gleam had gone, but otherwise his face was expressionless. Had she really imagined she could read him the other night?

“You’re a clever woman,” he acknowledged. “You probably could, given time.”

“Count on it.”

“So they finally told you about Tsigana.”

“They didn’t need to. I’m a clever woman.”

He inclined his head, apparently still unmoved. Because she had to, she said, “You’ve always known. Even Dmitriu knew. He sent me to you deliberately.”

“He was a friend who remembered enough to act on it.”

“He even planted a thorn to make me bleed.”

“It’s a simple matter for a vampire of his age to draw the blood from your veins without touching. He even followed you to make sure he kept the connection and the blood still flowed by the time you got to me.”

“Then I did see him on the road!”

A faint flickering smile on his lips reminded her that she’d slipped out of character—and that she’d come to tell him she understood everything now. She curled her lip in a sneer. “I hope revenge was sweet for you.”