Blood Sin (2)

by Marie Treanor

Konrad, more suited for action than for research, had already put his books away. Like herself and István, he dutifully came here to pursue the ongoing case of Saloman whenever he had a spare moment. But they were heading for the Transylvanian mountains as soon as István got here, and Konrad clearly figured his research time was over.

  Apart from the librarian himself, she and Konrad were the only occupants of the library, so Mihaela broke with custom, raising her voice to call, “Konrad, come and look at this.”

  Her excitement must have leapt through her voice, because Konrad actually brightened as he came back to the table, and even Miklόs’s frown of disapproval quickly vanished. Shifting position, Mihaela pushed the sixteenth-century book across the table, jabbing her finger at the passage that had caught her eye. “Read that. It’s a prophecy supposedly made by the Ancient vampire Luk, Saloman’s cousin.”

  Konrad groaned at the Latin. “Why couldn’t these guys write in Hungarian?”

  “Read it,” Mihaela commanded, and with a sigh Konrad did.

  “ ‘She who stirs the Ancient,’ ” he began haltingly, “ ‘will end his power and make way for the rebirth of the world, for the dawn of the new vampire age. She will smite his friends and . . . cleave? . . . to his enemies, who would end all undead existence. To see the new age, she must give up the world.’ ”

  Konrad raised his head, frowning at Mihaela. “It’s contradicting itself. Someone will end an Ancient’s power, and yet will cause an era of vampire domination? Doesn’t make any sense to me.”

  “Prophecies rarely do,” Miklόs observed, peering over Mihaela’s shoulder. “What book is that?”

  “Memoirs of Szilágyi Gabor, the sixteenth-century hunter. He had a few run-ins with both Saloman and Luk, and lived to tell the tale. Seems to have been during one such encounter that Luk suddenly sat down and made this pronouncement. Although Luk was apparently vulnerable during the time he was speaking, Szilágyi was too ‘awed’ to attack him.”

  “Interesting,” Konrad allowed with a hint of impatience. “But what makes you think it’s important?”

  “ ‘She who stirs the Ancient.’ ” Mihaela stabbed her finger at the gothic line of text as she spoke. “What if the Ancient is Saloman, and ‘stir’ means awaken?”

  Konrad’s eyebrows lifted. “Elizabeth?” he hazarded, and Mihaela sat back watching him read it again. His breathing quickened, but his expression remained calm as he raised his gaze to Miklόs.

  “Prophecies are bunkum, right?”

  “Not necessarily.” Miklόs straightened and took off his glasses to rub his eyes. “Their problem is in the interpretation, and it’s only too easy to make a later event fit some old and vague prophecy. The early texts are full of them, though, showing that both vampires and humans took them seriously at the time.”

  He bent and carefully picked up the book, supporting its spine in both hands. “This one is intriguing. I’ve never seen it before. And I thought we’d checked through everything surrounding Awakeners last year. I think it’s never been filed correctly, but you could well be right, Mihaela, and it does refer to a future Awakener, possibly Elizabeth.”

  “Then Elizabeth really could be destined to bring him down?” Mihaela heard the eagerness in her own voice, and yet behind that, fear for her friend rose up and drowned the excitement.

  “Let’s hope not,” Miklόs said dryly, “since it seems she would be doomed to leave this world—to say nothing of the new vampire age she would apparently facilitate!”

  “It doesn’t make much sense,” Mihaela agreed. “If she can defeat Saloman and smite his friends, you would expect that to curb vampire activity.”

  As the library door opened and István slouched through, she turned her worried gaze on Konrad. “I don’t think we should tell her about this. It might make her take risks if she believes in some dubious destiny thing.”

  “It might also,” Miklόs pointed out, “cause you to urge her toward a path she isn’t capable of taking. Prophecies are fickle and vague and should never be accepted at face value. They should certainly never form the foundation of hunter strategy.”

  “Then we shouldn’t tell her,” Konrad said decisively, and stood up as István approached the table.

  “Tell who what?” István asked.

  Mihaela rose to her feet. “We’ll explain on the way. But if any of this stuff can be believed, Elizabeth might have been prophesied.”

  “Cool,” said István.

  Inevitably, despite the warning phone call for directions, Elizabeth was nowhere near ready when her doorbell rang on Saturday. Mostly because Joanne had come over and hung around the flat asking questions about her “date,” as she insisted on calling Josh. On the other hand, when Elizabeth had invited her to stay and meet him, Joanne had grabbed her coat and fled, intoning, “No, no, my dear. Far be it from me to stand in the way of love’s young dream. I’m off.” She turned and winked. “Just get his photograph for me. The more intimate the better.”

  Elizabeth shooed her out the door, laughing, and went for her long-delayed shower. At least she was dressed in decent jeans and a newish green shirt by the time Josh arrived. And although her hair was still damp, it was combed and loose about her shoulders.

  He smiled when she opened the door, and strolled in. Dressed casually in designer jeans and a loose sweater, expensive sunglasses dangling from one manicured hand, he looked remarkably glamorous for her humble abode. Elizabeth wished Joanne had stayed to appreciate him.

  Vaguely, she knew she should be more fazed by Josh Alexander’s walking into her home. But she had switched into what she thought of as “hunter” mode. This weekend was not about socializing and certainly not about dating, whatever Joanne chose to imagine. It was about hunter business and making Josh understand he was in danger before it was too late.

  “Cup of coffee while I sling some things in a bag?” she offered, ushering him into her living room.

  Josh glanced around him. Although her modest flat could hardly have been what he was used to, he took the trouble to look appreciative, even murmuring, “Nice place,” before politely refusing the coffee.

  “Sit down,” Elizabeth invited. “I’ll just be a couple of minutes.”

  Bolting through to the bedroom, she jumped up to grab her old traveling bag from the top of the wardrobe. She wrenched open the zipper and tossed it on the bed before throwing in the toiletries she’d already collected from the bathroom, and her only decent pair of dress shoes.

  Opening all the dressing-table drawers at once seemed the quickest way to grab what she needed in the way of underwear, night things, tops, and jeans, although even so, she rummaged so much for her favorite sweater that the clothes began to spill out of the bottom drawer and it wouldn’t close. She ignored it and spun around to the wardrobe, examining her poor collection of dresses and skirts. Most of them came from charity shops, or were at least five years old.

  The only decent clothes she possessed were the outfit she’d bought from Jenners last year and the emerald green evening gown acquired in the spring sales for the graduation ball. She’d refused to buy it at first, insisting to her encouraging colleagues that it was bad luck to make the assumption that she’d get her PhD this summer. Richard had ended the argument by inviting her to go as his partner. Much to Joanne’s barely concealed amusement.

  Josh’s voice from across the hall dragged her out of the memory.

  “Sorry?” she called back, grabbing the evening gown off the hanger and tossing it on top of everything else into the bag. With a slightly irritated sigh, because she didn’t know or care much about clothes, she turned back to the wardrobe and took the other outfit too.

  Josh’s mild voice came from the doorway. “I said, do you need any help?”

  Elizabeth glanced up to see him scanning her bedroom with appreciation. Annoyance prickled her skin. Although she was happy to invite friends into her home, she didn’t feel comfortable with strangers in her bedroom.

  “It lo
oks just like you,” he observed. “Pretty and untidy.”

  “Well, thanks for the pretty,” she muttered, folding the dress so that it wouldn’t get too crushed and closing the zipper. “I’m ready.”

  But Josh’s roving eye had landed on her bottom drawer and all the clothes spilling out. “Hey, that’s gorgeous,” he said, crouching down without embarrassment for a better look.

  Irritated further, she followed his attention and felt her heart lurch. It was the jeweled fastening of Saloman’s cloak.

  Without thought, she strode around the bed and brushed past him, dropping to her knees to hide it from him.

  “Looks like an antique,” Josh observed. “Why don’t you take it with you? Dante’s got some antiquarian experts coming this weekend.”

  Damn it, why couldn’t she have taken more care? What was the point of hiding the thing at the bottom of her drawer if she then churned everything up so that it sprawled over the top?

  “It’s not valuable,” she said hastily. “Except to me.”

  Josh moved slightly out of her way as she seized the cloak and began to fold it. “Ah, you have a family heirloom too,” he said.

  “No. Just a gift from a friend.”

  He’d wrapped her in it when she was unconscious and nearly dead from his bite, and carried her in it across Budapest from his palace to Mihaela’s flat. Whether it was the memory of that, or some magic that came from simply touching something of his, emotion flooded her.

  She’d tried to give it back to him before he left her at dawn on the first day of last November. He’d taken it from her and gazed at it a moment, as if remembering the three hundred agonizing years he’d spent wearing it before she awakened him. It couldn’t have inspired many fond memories in him. And yet he’d smiled and swung it around her shoulders, carefully fastening it at her throat before, still holding the clasp so that his fingertips brushed the sensitive skin of her throat, he’d bent and kissed her mouth with slow, thorough sensuality.

  “I wore it when you awakened me, and for that reason, that value, I give it to you.”

  She’d covered his hand on the jeweled clasp, threaded her fingers through his. “I don’t need this to remember you,” she’d whispered.

  “Then take it to comfort you.”

  He’d known, more clearly even than she, that she’d need every ounce of strength, every comfort she could find to survive their parting. And when he’d gone, swooping through the window into the gray mist of the dawn sky, she’d sat in the corner for hours, huddled in his cloak, resting her cheek on the folds that lay across her drawn-up knees while her tears stained it.

  She’d wept all day, and then stopped.

  Carefully, she laid it in the drawer, smoothed it out, and covered it with another old, tumbled sweater.

  “Ready?” said Josh lightly.

  “Ready.” She smiled brightly, rose to her feet, and reached for her bag.

  “Let me take that,” Josh offered.

  Elizabeth was almost surprised not to discover any of his entourage in the unassuming car parked outside.

  “I’ve escaped.” Josh grinned, opening the door for her before walking around to stash her bag in the boot. She gathered, from the scrape of luggage rearrangement, that she was traveling rather more lightly than he.

  “Okay,” Josh said, sliding into the driver’s seat and fastening his seat belt. “Sat nav on; Highlands, here we come.”

  Elizabeth couldn’t help smiling. “You sound excited. Weren’t you filming up there already?”

  “Actually, we did most of it in the Borders. Only one day at Glencoe—wow, that is one spectacular place!—just enough to give me a taste for the country. I’m really looking forward to seeing more.” He glanced at her as he changed gear. “Your turn. Spill.”

  “Spill what?” she asked, amused.

  “Why did you agree to come with me to this party?”

  “Josh, women must fall over themselves to go to parties with you.”

  “Yes, but those women want me. Either me or my money or whatever influence they imagine I have in the industry. You don’t give a shit about those things, do you? For the record, that’s why I invited you. You might end up falling for me after prolonged exposure.”

  Elizabeth gazed at his sharp, handsome profile for a moment. “I hoped prolonged exposure might convince you I wasn’t insane.” Then, before discomfort could set in, she added, “But what I want to know is why you agreed to go to the party at all if it’s so boring you need someone as annoying and insane as me to liven it up.”

  Josh laughed. “Dante and I always go to each other’s parties when we can. His presence lends me gravitas, and apparently I supply some glamour to his serious affairs. I’ve known him for years, on a superficial level, but recently—since his wife died, I suppose—we’ve become better friends, do each other favors when we can.”

  “Like turning up to dull parties?”

  “Exactly.” Josh grinned, checking out the car behind in his rearview mirror. “I think he wants me to impress someone. I have to be charming and splendid and tell the guy how helpful Dante can be. In return he gets his antiques experts to value my sword.”

  “Your sword?” Startled, Elizabeth stared at him. “Is . . . is that what you meant by heirlooms? You mentioned something at the flat.”

  “Yes. It’s a beautiful thing, been in my family forever.”

  My God, it can’t be. . . . But of course it could. According to legend, Saloman’s sword, which had been missing when she first awakened him, and which she had read about in the hunters’ library last year, had remained in the possession of Tsigana’s family for generations. It was more than possible that this was Josh’s heirloom.

  Not quite sure how she felt about that, she managed to ask, “How old is it?”

  Josh pulled out and overtook a lorry. “To be honest, I don’t know a damned thing about it. I’ve brought it with me to let Dante’s experts give it a poke.”

  Elizabeth blinked as they sped along the clear road. “You brought it from the States for that?”

  “Nah, I guess I’m paranoid about theft,” he said ruefully.

  “But not about airlines losing your luggage?”

  “Everyone has their foibles,” Josh said easily. So easily that she wondered if there was a deeper reason behind his traveling with the heirloom.

  Leaving that for the time being, she asked instead, “So who’s the guy you’re meant to impress? Some British politician?” God, she really was going to be out of her depth, dining with government ministers, rich actors, and industrialists. . . .

  “No, some foreign business rival. Simon Adam? No, Adam Simon! Ever heard of him?”

  “No,” Elizabeth said apologetically. “I don’t know much about that kind of thing, and I’m afraid I don’t move in wealthy social circles.”

  Josh shrugged, slowing down to round a bend in the road. “Even if you did, I doubt you’d know this guy. Apparently he’s Eastern European.”

  “Yes? Whereabouts?” Elizabeth asked eagerly, then added apologetically, “I did most of my thesis research in that part of the world—I have a fondness for it.”

  “Well, that’s good—gives you something to talk about. I’ve never been there in my life.”

  “I have to impress him too?” Elizabeth asked wryly, holding on to her seat with both hands as Josh broke the speed limit. “You didn’t say that was part of the deal.”

  Josh cast her a quick smile. “It isn’t. But if opportunity knocks, schmooze the guy.”

  Elizabeth laughed. “Josh, I couldn’t schmooze a pussycat. Don’t you want to go left here?”

  “Maybe I should put the voice on the sat nav. . . .”

  Josh was easy company, and as they drove through Fife and Perthshire and on up into increasingly spectacular scenery, Elizabeth began to think the weekend might not be so bad after all. In fact, if she could just have had the weekend in his company without the party and the senators and the business rivals, s
he’d have been quite happy—although that might have given Josh the wrong idea.

  “Why aren’t you taking some glamorous actress?” she blurted out, as the thought came into her head.

  “Don’t want to,” he said simply. Then, with a boyish wink: “Actually, you’re my protection from them too.”

  Elizabeth raised one skeptical eyebrow. “I doubt anyone will mistake me for serious competition.”

  “Of course not. You’re my cousin.”

  And that, she thought, admiring the flow of steep-sloping hills into the glen they were driving through, was probably the truth. He wanted a break from his reality, and she was the comfort of family. It didn’t matter that they hadn’t known each other a week ago. Blood often was thicker than water, and in fact, she felt far more comfortable with Josh Alexander than she should, considering his fame and standing.

  The house Senator Dante had rented for the week was a great Victorian folly of a place near Loch Tummel. Even the inevitable rain and gray skies that had followed them for the last two hours couldn’t spoil its splendor. All romantic towers and turrets, it had clearly been built at the height of Queen Victoria’s love affair with the Scottish Highlands, and the resulting popularity of the region with rich and aristocratic families from all over Britain.

  Although they’d made good time for most of the journey, the last part was covered on mainly single-track, muddy roads with even more bends and bumps and hills than Josh must have grown used to in the preceding hours. To make things worse, it began to rain and visibility grew tricky. But at least they met few cars coming in the opposite direction.

  As Josh finally pulled up outside the impressive front door, a man leapt off the steps to come and park the car. Someone else would, apparently, fetch the luggage. Another man in a suit stood by the open door. Too young to be Dante, Elizabeth thought, although Josh appeared to recognize him, greeting him by name.

  Inside, despite the daylight, the entrance hall was lit by a blaze of electric light shining down on splendid parquet flooring, faded tartan carpets, and polished wood paneling.

  A man strode across this gracious space, his hair glinting silver from the chandelier above. He moved with such spryness that Elizabeth was surprised to see, as he came closer, that he must have been around sixty years old.