Blood on Silk

by Marie Treanor

  “No, I was always an opinionated cow. I was happy to state them on paper for posterity.”

  “And quiet as a mouse in tutorials. For a while we thought someone else was writing your essays.”

  Elizabeth laughed. She thought it was probably true. She turned back to the sink, giving each mug in turn a thorough rinse. “What can I do for you?”

  “Two things. First, tell me how the teaching’s going—in general terms. Any problems?”

  “Not that I know of. Actually, it’s going surprisingly well. I’m enjoying it. I suppose the proof will be in the exam results.”

  “I’m impressed.” He eased his hip onto the corner of one of the three jammed-together tables around which she sat with her students. “To be honest, I didn’t think you’d take to the teaching side of things half as well as you have.”

  She blinked at him, setting the last mug on the draining board and reaching for the towel. “Then why did you give me the job?”

  He tapped his head. “You’ve got it up here. And you need the experience. But plenty of the most respected university academics are crap teachers. I fully expected you to be another in this long and honored line.”

  “Thanks. And second?”

  He smiled. “Want to go to Chris Harper’s ‘Not Halloween’ party?”

  “I haven’t been invited. I don’t know him,” she added, just in case he imagined she felt slighted by the omission.

  “I have and I do. I was hoping you’d come with me.”

  Her eyes widened as the significance sank in.

  My God. Richard Kennoway, subject of my unrequited crush, has finally asked me on a date.

  Now what the hell do I do?

  Because unfortunately, since her return from Hungary six weeks ago, she just didn’t feel the same. She liked Richard, got on well with him, but those butterflies that used to haunt her stomach whenever she was in the same room with him had flown away for good. In her more honest moments, she acknowledged that the only too real physical attraction to Saloman had made nonsense of her vague infatuation with Richard.

  Richard, presumably staggered that she didn’t jump at the chance, stood up, saying, “Let me know, Elizabeth. I have a lunch appointment in half an hour.”

  Still stunned, she watched him stroll out of the room. That would probably gratify him, if he noticed.

  “Sorry!” said another voice in the corridor, presumably after colliding with Richard. It was Joanne, collecting Elizabeth for lunch. And Elizabeth remembered that she and Joanne were having dinner at her flat next Saturday—Halloween. She had a perfect excuse, if she chose to take it.

  “What’s wrong with his face?” Joanne asked, bustling inside. Some ten years older than Elizabeth, she was a plump, eccentric Glaswegian with spiky, partly purple hair, who accorded few people the respect they felt they deserved. She was also the deputy head of the department and a very distinguished academic and writer. Elizabeth liked her.

  “I might have hurt his feelings,” Elizabeth confided. “He asked me to a Halloween party, and I didn’t exactly jump at it. You’re risking my cooking that night. But he didn’t wait to hear my reason.”

  “Your excuse?” she asked shrewdly.

  “Not sure,” Elizabeth confessed, reaching for the jacket on the back of her chair and slinging it round her shoulders.

  Neither of them said any more until they’d left the department building and were walking down South Street. Then Joanne said, “You’re not afraid of him, are you?”

  “Afraid?” Fear was for vampires, for monsters who killed, and creatures who could make you feel what you knew you shouldn’t, what wasn’t real. “Why in the world would I be afraid of him?”

  Joanne shrugged. “He’s a womanizer. The whole university knows it. Never stops each woman he asks out thinking she’s special and that she can be the one to change him. He does have a certain engaging charm, all that boyishness on top of that huge intellect. Irresistible.”

  Elizabeth glanced at her sideways. “Do you think?”

  “If you can get past his ego.”

  Elizabeth laughed.

  “And it sounds like you have,” Joanne said approvingly. “A few weeks around him can work wonders for wearing the shine off a sex idol. On the other hand . . .”

  Elizabeth stopped in alarm outside the ice cream shop until Joanne pulled her along. “On the other hand,” Joanne continued, “he’s actually quite a nice bloke. He won’t marry you. He probably won’t even call you for weeks. But if you don’t expect any more than that, he can be fun.”

  Elizabeth didn’t reply until they’d stopped to gaze out over the ruined cathedral. Then she said, “You sound as if you speak from experience.”

  “I’ve had fun with Richard Kennoway, and he didn’t break my heart. Nor did I break his. You’re probably ready for him now.”

  The wind blew her hair in front of her eyes, and she dragged it off with her fingers. “What do you mean?”

  Joanne shrugged. “I mean I’ve known you since you were a shy first-year with a brain the size of a planet and less than no ability to show it. I’ve watched you grow as you graduated and began your thesis. I’ve seen you in his company often enough to see the signs of unhealthy infatuation.”

  Elizabeth smiled ruefully. “You think going out with him would be a kill or cure?”

  “Oh no, I think you’re cured already. If you’d gone out with him last year, it would have been disastrous. But this year . . . This year you don’t blush when he speaks to you. You don’t notice his teasing except to give back as good as you get. In fact, I think he began to look at you differently this summer. Seems to me that you’ve finally intrigued him when you’ve no real time for him.”

  “Really?” It was a little funny, a little pathetic. She was aware, even, of a little triumph. But it barely touched her. She liked her new life at St. Andrews. She liked teaching, and she liked her colleagues. But beyond that, she felt emotionally numb, as if she’d lost it all in eastern Europe.

  Be honest, you dumped it all in eastern Europe, where you found it in the first place. . . .

  Joanne cast her eyes upward at a threatening dark cloud. “You meet someone this summer?”

  Elizabeth wanted to laugh. “Sort of.”

  “You going to see him again?”

  “I sincerely hope not.” It was the truth, and yet in spite of herself, even the thought made her heart jolt in her chest.

  “I see.”

  She didn’t, of course. She couldn’t.

  “Well, if you fancy a little no-strings romance on the rebound,” Joanne said, moving back toward the ice cream shop where she had clearly determined to have lunch, “Richard’s your man. I’ll happily butt out for Halloween. You can feed me on Sunday instead—dinner as well as gory details.”

  Elizabeth regarded her as they walked, mulling it over. It was time she lived again, as intensely as in eastern Europe, just without all the scary vampire crap. She ruffled Joanna’s spiky, surprisingly soft hair. “You’ve got quite a wise old head under that fluffy exterior.”

  “For the ‘old,’ you get to buy lunch.”

  The attack came out of nowhere as she walked home late from the department that evening.

  She’d taken the quiet route because it suited her mood and because St. Andrews had never seemed a threatening place, even at night. Her mind was not on danger, but on the complicated wording of one passage in her thesis, so she was taken completely by surprise.

  Something prickled at the back of her neck, enough to make her head jerk up toward the high wall on her right, but it was already too late.

  A shadow leapt at her, instantly gaining solidity as it crashed down on her. She twisted as she fell, just as she’d done in those mock fights with Mihaela as well as with the combat coach in Budapest, and heaved upward, so that almost before they landed on the ground, she was on top of her attacker. He snarled like a dog. Long, vicious fangs gleamed in the darkness.

  There was no ti
me to think. His hands grabbed at her, his mouth lunged, but already the stake from her coat pocket was in her hand and plunging downward. The vampire exploded into a cloud of silver dust, and Elizabeth, jolted by a fresh burst of energy, leapt to her feet, the stake still poised as she hastily scanned the road and the top of the wall, listening for any nearby movement.

  That was when she began to shake, so it was fortunate the vampire was a lone attacker. She fumbled the stake back into her pocket and walked forward on trembling legs.

  She’d killed a vampire. She, who couldn’t even remember hitting anyone before, had committed murder without compunction, without any thought, acting completely, it seemed, on reflex. The whole incident had lasted seconds, and there was nothing left to show it had ever occurred.

  Well, the training works.

  And we have vampires here too. . . .

  Oh shit, what if he followed me from Hungary?

  She walked swiftly, trying to maintain her awareness and watchfulness while she came to terms with what she’d done, with what had been done to her, and with what it all meant.

  She’d entered her flat and hung up her coat before she remembered what she’d felt at the moment of her first kill. It wasn’t shame, or even triumph, but something physical, like an energy burst.

  She sank onto the floor of the hall, oblivious to the draft whistling under the front door.

  “It’s true,” she whispered. “Fuck, it’s true. You do feel something; you do gain something from a kill.”

  It meant something else too. Her attacker hadn’t been a fledgling. According to the mythology she’d read up in the hunters’ library, fledgling kills gave you no extra power. But she felt different. She felt . . . strong.

  That’s just reaction. . . . You have more important things to worry about, such as where the bastard came from, why he picked on you, and if there are any more of them.

  One thing was certain. She couldn’t just hide here. She’d always known that. It was why she continued training in judo and fencing and always carried a stake in her pocket wherever she went. But in the six weeks since she’d come home, she had been lulled.

  Tonight’s attack was a timely reminder. It wasn’t over yet.

  In a basement flat near Leith docks, in one of the old buildings untouched by modern redevelopment or the influx of wealthy young professionals, Dmitriu watched the daylight darken behind the thick but faded, dirty curtains of his hostess’s living room.

  Janine, the occupant of this hovel, was out working. She was a prostitute, too amiable or too strung out on drugs and alcohol to object to his staying with her. He’d had sex with her and fed from her the night he’d found her and come here. He’d even paid for it. Since then, although she appeared to remember very little about it, he hadn’t touched her, sexually, a circumstance that appeared to have raised him to the status of friend. He’d fed from her once or twice since, but it was more of an end-of-night treat than a proper meal—a quick way to get high. God alone knew what she abused her poor young body with.

  But social work held no place in Dmitriu’s plan. As soon as it was dark, he’d go over to the docks to wait for Saloman, who’d finally bestirred himself to deal with the Zoltán problem. He’d said he was coming on a cargo ship—down-market for Saloman—arriving tonight, and as always at the prospect of reunion, excitement simmered in Dmitriu’s veins.

  He drew back the dirty curtain. A band of dusky light showed across the top of the sunken window. He could go out now and hang around the docks. He should be able to find someone to feed off before Saloman arrived.

  He remembered to pick up his stolen jacket from the mess on the floor. He didn’t feel the cold, and the Scots were a hardy bunch—even on a cold, dank October night, there would be several of them heading for the pub in thin, sleeveless T-shirts. But Dmitriu looked and sounded foreign. He had no desire to draw attention to himself.

  Halfway across the room, he paused. His ears tingled. So did the hairs on the back of his neck. He turned, gazing toward the source. Behind the bedroom door lurked an intruder.

  Crime was rife in this neighborhood, but it was a bloody good burglar who could break into a vampire’s lair unheard.

  Dmitriu couldn’t smell human. But he sensed presence—a masking vampire.

  Zoltán.

  Dmitriu had taken good care in the long stages of the journey to Scotland not to be observed. He masked continuously and shielded Janine’s house. But Zoltán was a strong vampire, and he was looking for others. It wasn’t beyond the bounds of possibility that he’d found Dmitriu, almost by accident.

  Dmitriu crossed the room silently and speedily. He could take Zoltán, but it would be a hard fight, and he needed all the advantage he could gain from surprise. He flung open the door, fangs bared, fists and right foot at the ready as he swung to cover all angles.

  He lowered his fists.

  Saloman sprawled across Janine’s unmade bed. He appeared to be reading her diary in the darkness. “What a tragic human being,” he observed, “and she doesn’t even realize it. Good evening, Dmitriu.”

  “Saloman. You’re early.”

  “I’ve found it necessary to be one step ahead of my enemies—or one hour at the very least.”

  Dmitriu frowned. “Zoltán knows you’re here?”

  “Did you tell him?”

  “Of course I didn’t bloody tell him! I thought he’d tracked me down at last. I never thought of your sneaking in. Listen, I know what he’s up to.”

  Saloman closed the diary, tossing it onto the floor where, presumably, he’d found it, but otherwise didn’t move so much as an eyebrow in interrogation. He was going to pretend he knew already.

  Dmitriu said, “He’s courting powerful humans at home, whether to control them by mesmeric feeding or to turn them later, I’m not sure, but one way or another he plans to enslave them. That’s set in motion, and then he travels here. Why? I thought at first he’d come for the Awakener. But he hasn’t gone near her��yet. Nor has he been south to London where the people of greatest power in this country tend to congregate. I wondered if he was looking for support, raising a foreign vampire army with which to face you. If he looked powerful enough, he’d have a chance of attracting the old guard back to him. But that isn’t it, either. He’s only searching for one vampire.”

  He paused, looking Saloman in the eye for maximum effect. “Maximilian.”

  Saloman nodded, as if it was old news and he was waiting for more.

  “Maximilian?” Dmitriu repeated. “Your enemy? The one who led your staking and usurped your power? And Saloman, I’m pretty sure Zoltán knows where he is. He’s been raking up records of ownership and occupation of all the small western islands. And—he’s hired a boat and crew. He’s still in Edinburgh, but it’s my belief he won’t be much longer. He’s going to meet Maximilian.”

  “Do you suppose Max will kill him?”

  “He couldn’t before. Or didn’t bother. Don’t you understand this, Saloman? These two have nothing in common except hatred of you! Maximilian knows you’re bound to come after him. Even if just for a peaceful life, he’s going to have to stake you again. Which he couldn’t do then without some powerful allies, and he can’t do now without Zoltán at the very least. It’s my belief Maximilian’s been hiding out on some island for decades, passively gathering the strength of increasing age. I doubt he’s looking for trouble, but he’ll be ready for it if anyone finds him. If Zoltán finds him. Together, they could bring you down, Saloman.”

  Saloman stirred at last, rising fluidly to his feet. “So you called me here, far away from my existing power base in Hungary and Romania, where I have the allegiance and the support of all vampires, to face this threat alone?”

  Dmitriu blinked. “Forgive me. I thought you might like to find Maximilian for yourself.”

  Sarcasm was never lost on Saloman, but this didn’t even alter his expression. “I know where he is—roughly. Lajos knew and told Karl, who told me. And if Ka
rl told me, it was reasonable to suppose he’d blabber to anyone else he was remotely afraid of, including Zoltán.”

  Deflated, Dmitriu stared at him until unease as well as irritation spurred him into speech. “You mean I followed the damned thug all the way across Europe for nothing? I’ve been living in this hole, turning metaphorical somersaults to watch and elude Zoltán at the same time, all for nothing?”

  “Oh, I doubt it was for nothing.”

  “What the hell do you mean by that? And why did you bother coming if you already know everything?”

  “I came to deal with Maximilian—and you.”

  The bottom seemed to drop out of Dmitriu’s stomach. He felt sick. Saloman’s still figure was clear to him in the darkness. It was the occasional dim flashes from car headlights outside that made his face look sinister.

  “Are the hunters here yet?” Saloman inquired.

  Fuck and fuck and fuck. “How should I know?”

  Dmitriu flew backward into the wall with enough force to blind him with pain. He didn’t even know if Saloman had hurled him there with his mind, or if he had moved so quickly that Dmitriu hadn’t even seen him. Either way, the Ancient’s strength had increased a hundredfold since Bistriƫa, and as his brutal fingers closed around Dmitriu’s throat, death was a certainty.

  “You betrayed me to the hunters,” Saloman said, his voice husky enough to reveal his pain.

  “I told them you’d been wakened,” Dmitriu croaked. “They’d have found out soon enough anyway. I even told them I was petrified to scare them into inactivity. . . .”

  “You can’t play the informant around me, Dmitriu. There’s only one side, and you didn’t choose mine.”

  “I sent you the girl!” He wasn’t pleading for his life now, but for understanding, to take away the blackness of his friend’s hurt. Every other friend Saloman had had before the staking had betrayed him, and Dmitriu couldn’t bear it. He couldn’t endure the Ancient’s terrible loneliness, even by proxy.

  Rage blasted him from Saloman’s eyes. “To awaken me for this?”

  “Forgive me,” Dmitriu whispered.