In the corner behind him, two vampires had obviously been fighting over the last living creature in the room, a woman perhaps in her forties, whose eyes reflected madness and horror. Her family had been butchered by monsters in front of her eyes.
“My pleasure,” drawled Zoltán.
He’d had time to prepare, to assume this position of careless power while Saloman and Dmitriu had openly crossed the field. He was a big, fair vampire, a lock of his untidy hair falling across his forehead. His face was not that of a thoughtful being, but it reflected a certain amount of intelligence and cunning as well as considerable self-confidence—and strength. He was stronger than Dmitriu remembered.
His gaze locked on Saloman’s as the Ancient stepped over the bodies in his path. Zoltán smiled, lifted one hand, and snapped his fingers. “My guest is hungry. Since you can’t agree, give her to him.”
“You’re too kind.” Saloman didn’t so much as glance at the outraged vampires or their traumatized victim.
“You need to gather your strength,” Zoltán said with such obviously false consideration that Dmitriu had the urge to kick him. “Three hundred years is a long time to starve.”
“Tell me about it,” said Saloman. “I take it I need no introduction.”
“I take it neither do I.” His malevolent gaze flickered to Dmitriu in contempt. Dmitriu contented himself with a curl of the lip.
Saloman said, “Of course not. I can see at once that you are Zoltán, the great leader.”
Zoltán’s eyes narrowed with suspicion, but he’d learn nothing from Saloman’s face. The two squabbling vampires, meanwhile, had dragged the terrified woman to the side of Zoltán’s chair.
“That disobedient idiot was not my hospitality,” Zoltán explained. “This is.” He jerked his head, and with ill grace the two vampires pushed the woman at Saloman, who caught her before she fell. However, he didn’t feed at once, but instead held her to his side. “He imagined that by killing you, he would become strong enough to usurp my place.”
“Idiot indeed,” Saloman agreed. The hand that held the woman slid up her shoulder to her throat and began to stroke idly.
“Obviously,” Zoltán said, “I told them all you were not for the likes of them.”
Dmitriu stiffened, recognizing a challenge when he heard one.
“Assuredly not.” Saloman continued to stroke the woman’s neck while regarding Zoltán. The woman turned her head and stared up at Saloman, confused, presumably, by his entirely misleading gentleness. She had a tired, overworked look mixed with the remnants of youthful beauty that reminded Dmitriu a little of Maria.
Refusing to be distracted, Dmitriu took another swift glance around the room, confirming everyone’s position in his mind. If it weren’t for Zoltán, he and Saloman could take the others easily. But Zoltán . . . Zoltán could be their undoing. He wanted to shake Saloman.
“The woman is not a bribe, by the way,” Zoltán said. “Nor is she poisoned.”
“I know. A great leader like you would not fear me enough to commit either offense.”
Saloman’s sarcasm was beginning to sound too much like flattery for Dmitriu’s taste. He wondered when the hell they were going to leave, or at least do whatever they’d come here for.
“I don’t,” Zoltán said too quickly.
“And yet my blood is a draw. The blood of an Ancient is powerful.”
“I could take it,” Zoltán said. His hands, resting on the arms of his chair, convulsed, and Dmitriu tensed.
“My good sir,” Saloman said, turning the woman in his arms, “I didn’t come here to do anything so foolish as to fight with you.”
The woman gazed up into his face, trustfully now—mistake. Saloman spared her a quick glance, a half smile before he bent toward her neck. At the first touch of his lips on her skin, she gasped and threw back her head. The scratches on the faces of the quarreling vampires bore testament to her previous fights, but Saloman she didn’t even try to resist. She welcomed him, as they all did.
Wouldn’t make her any less dead.
Saloman drank. The woman clawed his shoulders in agony and ecstasy, and then gripped hard, as if holding him to her. The other vampires gawped, openmouthed.
Zoltán snapped, “Then why?”
Saloman lifted his head and licked a drop of blood from his lips. The woman moaned. “I would suggest an alliance,” he said, and returned to her wounded throat. She sighed with satisfaction.
Dmitriu’s grunt was anything but satisfied. Alliance? What the... ?
Zoltán laughed. “An alliance? Why would I need an alliance with you? I control all the vampires in three major countries. Those in three others would not dare to cross me. I have dominion over zombies and worldwide support. What do you have, apart from your bitch?”
He cast a contemptuous glance at Dmitriu who curled his lips once more and watched Saloman finish his meal. Her fingers no longer gripped him as she hung nearly lifeless in his arms. One more pull of his savoring lips, and he’d had it all.
Releasing her, he let her slide to the floor at his feet. Despite witnessing the unspeakable horror that had clearly unhinged her mind beyond any power of healing, she died happy in the end.
Saloman, unstained by as much as a droplet of blood, said, “My—er—bitch has more strength in his little finger than you will ever possess. Without me. You need wisdom as well as brute force, my friend.”
“To do what?” Zoltán jeered. “What more is there? Conquer America?”
He was a smug bastard, overly pleased with himself. Dmitriu began to wish he’d killed him after all, decades ago when no one would have minded.
“You think too small,” Saloman chided. “You said it yourself—you rule the vampires of three major countries. How many beings is that, precisely? Even throwing a few mindless zombies into the calculation, not many. The majority of the population of those countries, as of all others, even America, is—er—human.”
Zoltán frowned, still not getting it. Dmitriu got it, though—and was appalled. Saloman would turn the world upside down and regain the power that was his at the dawn of time. Humans would be his slaves once more, because they had betrayed him three hundred years ago.
Not just Elizabeth Silk, but the world would pay for Tsigana’s actions.
If he succeeded. But either way, Dmitriu knew his peace was over.
More annoying than anything was Saloman’s refusal to talk about it. As they watched the farmhouse burn, he wore a serious frown that repelled discussion. And then, appearing to throw off his somber mood, he strode back through the trees in the direction of Bistriƫa with nothing more than the beauty of nature on his lips, whatever was in his head.
“You don’t understand the modern world,” Dmitriu burst out. “It’s not a few thousand people now, under the thumbs of a handful of the powerful. This is an age of democracy and superpowers and money!”
“It is fascinating,” Saloman agreed, gazing upward at the moon. “Do you know, when I was first reborn, I almost hated the moon? I felt I would gladly shoot it out of the sky just for a ray of warm, soothing sunshine. And yet now, after staring so long at a stone ceiling, making pictures in my head from every crack, counting the strands of cobwebs and grains of dust . . . I truly value the beauty of the night sky.”
Dmitriu glanced at him uncertainly. His words struck a chord as well as a memory, and it was the first reference he’d made to his three-hundred-year “sleep.” On the other hand, Dmitriu refused to be manipulated away from his point.
“You’re moving too fast—you can’t take over the world when you can’t even find your way up an escalator!”
“What’s an escalator?”
“See? It’s a moving staircase, powered by electricity. They’re all over shopping centers and airports. . . . You don’t know what they are either, do you?”
“Large indoor markets, and ports for airplanes. You explained airplanes on our journey here—noisy but effective vehicles, though bad for
the environment.”
Dmitriu’s mouth fell open. In fact, he stopped in his tracks, and for a moment Saloman appeared to him as he would to any watching human—a patch of pale, glinting light flashing through the trees, almost like a sped-up film. He wouldn’t know what that was either, would he?
He ran to catch up. “I suppose you know how airplanes are bad for the environment too?”
“I picked up bits and pieces.” He spared Dmitriu a glance. “But you’re right. My knowledge is sketchy. I’ve collected books—this age has a truly impressive number, even in such a backwater—and newspapers, but I think I really need a television. And Internet access.” He smiled beatifically at Dmitriu’s expression. “Yes, I do know what that is. Amazing age for fun, isn’t it?”
They were entering the town now. Quiet, suburban streets flashed past. One couldn’t even smell the smoke from the farmhouse here.
“Yes,” Dmitriu snapped. “But you have to know what the hell you’re doing! And you obviously don’t! Allying with a mindless, untrustworthy thug like Zoltán? Can you really not see how far beneath you that is?”
Saloman slowed to normal walking speed, watching with apparent admiration as a car drove past. “These are amazing,” he observed. “And so many of them, even here, and in the villages. How in Hades do they work?”
“Internal combustion engine. Do you have any intention of answering my questions?”
“Eventually.” Saloman glanced up at the sky again. “So much paler in the town. The stars fade from view. Street lighting is a mixed blessing.”
“You should see Budapest. It glows at night, almost like the sun.”
“I will,” Saloman promised. “I’m weak, Dmitriu.”
It was so unexpected after the evasion of the last half hour that Dmitriu stumbled. Saloman smiled faintly. “But I can’t be still anymore—I need to move forward, even while I’m learning, even while I’m gaining strength. I need time, and alliance with Zoltán buys it for me. He won’t keep our agreement for long, and frankly, neither will I, but for now I have space to act without immediate threat.”
Dmitriu swallowed. He couldn’t remember Saloman’s ever admitting vulnerability before. “Kill the Awakener,” he pleaded. “Let me find Karl and Lajos for you, even if Maximilian is lost. . . .”
“I know where they are. I can sense them already.”
“Then your strength is returning.”
“Slowly . . . It’s a delicate balance between the pleasure of vengeance and the strength I’d gain from it. As for the Awakener . . .” A smile flitted across his face. “She’s like a fine wine I’m learning to appreciate.”
They were in the brighter lights of central Bistriƫa now, and the modest weekend crowds of locals and tourists filled the bars and cafés, spilling onto the pavement.
“All very well,” Dmitriu observed. “But you’ll have to drain the bottle eventually.”
“Believe me, I’m looking forward to it.” He frowned. “What is the matter with these people? They can’t all be mad, clutching their heads and talking to themselves.”
Dmitriu followed his gaze to the loud man outside the bar, to the two babbling women on the other side of the street, who seemed to be competing with each other for the most spoken words in a second, and began to laugh.
“They’re talking into mobile phones—communication devices. Everyone has them now.”
“Do you?”
Dmitriu took his from his pocket.
“Whom do you talk to?” Saloman asked curiously. “Do you call other vampires for a chat?”
Dmitriu flushed. “Hardly. Mostly services like taxi companies and laundry, and the odd trustworthy human to prepare for my return. One gets bored with sewers and cellars—and crypts.”
“Unutterably,” Saloman agreed. “What goes on in here?”
He’d stopped outside a hotel, from where the thump of relentless music beat through the pavement.
“They have a nightclub on weekends. Dancing. Loud music. Wine. Women.”
“I have much to learn,” Saloman observed, turning his feet toward the door. “Perhaps there will even be an escalator.”
In the light of day, the rotting supports of Elizabeth’s skepticism revived. She didn’t know how or why such a trick had been perpetrated on her, but what she did know was that vampires did not exist. Therefore, she would ignore the bizarre side of the vampire hunters and ask to see their documents on Saloman.
She’d arranged to meet them in a café, because it seemed impersonal and down-to-earth, and because a public place might stop them from talking about vampires as other than myths.
But after a poor night’s sleep, she was early, and rather than wait half an hour in the café, she walked across the square to look at the fourteenth-century church. It had suffered a mysterious fire recently, but damage had been minimal.
Elizabeth liked churches. Not a deeply religious person, she nevertheless appreciated their beauty and the peace that often filled them. The door was open, so she walked inside. Vaguely surprised to find it empty of either worshippers or tourists, she walked the length of the aisle, gazing about her at the stained glass and carved stone, before sitting down on the end of a pew to soak up the atmosphere.
Atmosphere? That was what had gotten her into this mess in the first place, although part of her strongly denied being in any mess. She was merely researching.
What an unexpected pleasure.
The voice made her leap up, glaring wildly around her. Worse, it seemed to plunge her heart straight down between her thighs where it continued to beat and throb, for the voice, deep and somber despite its note of mockery, was unmistakably that of last night’s “Saloman.”
Angry with herself for such a stupid reaction, she snapped, “I can’t say the same. Where are you?”
He didn’t answer.
Refusing to leap about searching for him, she sat back down on the wooden pew. “I see. Hiding again. Where this time? Something a little more mundane than a sarcophagus, perhaps?”
Why, no. I’m beginning to think it’s not mundane at all. I’m in your head.
She froze, paralyzed, unable to think or speak. She knew it was true, even before he said it, not just because she couldn’t see him, but because she could feel him. His low, powerful voice seemed to fill her mind from the inside. It didn’t echo as it should have in the empty church. Panic surged, threatening to consume her as even last night’s fear had not.
Relax, he mocked. I’m only talking to you. Not raping your mind.
How do I know that? she wondered in panic. And how do you know that’s what I fear most?
I hear you went back to Sighesciu. Were you looking for me?
“For Dmitriu,” she whispered, “and for proof of your death.”
Gone. Weren’t you afraid to go back?
“No. Are you stalking me?”
Yes.
Oh shit. Oh Jesus, oh crap . . .
The maddeningly calm voice went on. I’d be very interested to read your thesis when it’s complete. Perhaps I can assist you with it.
“For the price of a drink?” she retorted before she could help it, and his unexpectedly warm laugh brushed her mind.
Was that an offer? he mocked.
“No.” With relief, she realized she was safe, that it was daylight, when he couldn’t come out. My God, I’m starting to believe it. And yet what else is there to do now? How do I blame this on trickery?
Wherever he was, physically, it was far away from here. Unless . . . Her heart jolted. “Are you in the church?”
What, an unholy undead like me?
She swallowed. “Are you really?”
Am I really what?
“Unholy. Undead. Saloman.”
And if I am?
“When and how did you die? Who killed you? Why?”
Again, his laughter echoed around her head and, dangerously, she felt herself drawn to it. You’re still researching your thesis. Very well, do you mean my first de
ath or my staking?
She swallowed. “Your—er—staking.”
An alliance of hostile vampires and greedy humans killed me in the year 1697, in Sighesciu. By means of treachery. Why? Because I threatened them, which I understand fits your theory. However, unfortunately for you, I was already a vampire, and rather than using that as an excuse, they covered the whole incident up to the best of their poor ability.
“You’ve been talking to Dmitriu,” she whispered. Where else would he have learned of her thesis, of her work?
Someone has to. Poor fellow gets lonely.
She gazed upward at the high, Gothic ceiling, wondering how it was possible to sit in this holy place and talk so calmly with a mythical creature of darkness. “Is he a vampire too?”
Of course.
“But I saw him in the sun.”
In the shade, perhaps.
But if that was all it took, was she really so safe from him? She hurried back into speech. “He did send me to you. He did set me up.”
For dinner and dalliance, mocked the voice inside her head, and in spite of everything, her body heated.
Appalled, she stood so abruptly that she surprised herself. “But not today,” she said with fierce triumph. “Not ever.”
And that’s when she saw him right in front of her, standing tall and erect in the shadowed aisle. Her breath vanished.
He wore plain dark trousers and an equally plain white shirt, open at the throat to reveal the strong, pale column of his neck. His long black hair stirred in a draft from the open door. In the night, half-covered in dust, he had been mesmerizing. In the light, even in dim church light, he was stunning.
Even the simplicity of his clothing looked both stylish and expensive.
His full, sensual lips tugged in the way she remembered, and she glimpsed those white, wicked teeth that had torn her flesh. She wanted to throw herself onto them; she wanted to drown in his shining black eyes, in the depths of his mouth.
Instead, she gasped out, “What do you want? What is the point?”
“Of existence?” He spoke normally now, leaving her head strangely empty. “It’s an end in itself. What else is there?”
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