Written in the Blood

by Stephen Lloyd Jones

  She turned, saw the hairless creature in the next chair, a more recent abductee but almost as badly ravaged. Its eyes, as they watched her, were hard pale stones. No blame resided there. Only fear.

  ‘I won’t let it happen,’ she said. ‘I won’t.’

  ‘Too late, I think, soon. Too late.’

  Its breath was laced with decay. She stroked its hand, felt the ridges and valleys formed by the veins beneath its skin. ‘I promise you.’

  She stumbled through the house and found her way outside. The midday sun’s dry heat was a sharp contrast to the room’s cool shadows. Bending over, she vomited until her stomach was purged.

  She took out her phone, dialled a number and heard a recorded message. ‘Call me,’ she muttered, and hung up.

  She bowed her head and closed her eyes. Her phone rang.

  ‘Talk,’ he said, and she wondered how his voice could sound so close when she knew he was so far away.

  ‘He died.’ Her shoulders started shaking. She clutched her hair, pulled out a fistful. ‘We can’t wait any longer. We can’t.’

  His voice, when it returned, was wretched. ‘The others?’

  ‘Exactly the same.’ She lifted her eyes to the sky. ‘What are you doing over there? What are either of you doing to prevent this?

  ‘We’re close.’

  ‘Close isn’t enough! He’s dead, do you understand? I had to look into his eyes and watch the life go out of them. Have you ever seen that? Do you know what that’s like? I need to move them.’

  ‘If we move them too early—’

  ‘If we don’t, they’re going to die anyway. They can’t survive on simavér any longer. While the pair of you saunter around Europe looking for meat, your children are dying.’

  He hissed in a breath. ‘That was tasteless.’

  ‘I didn’t mean it.’ She collapsed into a crouch. ‘I’m sorry. I’ll do what you say, you know I will. But I think we have to come to you.’

  ‘Arrange a flight,’ he said, and his voice was cold.

  ‘Where to?’

  ‘I don’t know yet.’

  ‘Then how will I know where—’

  ‘Charter a plane. Get to an airport. I’ll phone you back and tell you where you’re going.’

  ‘When? I’m sorry, I don’t mean to sound like this, but wh—’

  The line went dead.

  She stared at the phone. Blinked.

  Gritting her teeth, she staggered back inside the ranch.

  CHAPTER 33

  London, England

  Lit by flames flickering from a candelabra in Etienne’s drawing room, Jakab bent over her baby’s crib and traced his finger down Elijah’s cheek.

  ‘He’s a miracle,’ he whispered. ‘Those eyes. You must love him more than life.’

  She would have responded had she known what to say. But Jakab seemed so unstable as he stood there, so unknowable, that she feared the wrong comment might incite him to further violence. Already he had committed two murderous acts this evening, and she knew they could not have been his first; the deaths of Jackson and Bartoli seemed not to weigh on him at all.

  He turned to her. ‘I think,’ he said softly, ‘you’d better tell me everything.’

  Etienne nodded. ‘I will. I’ll tell you. And then . . .’ She closed her mouth, horrified that she’d been about to press him. He raised an eyebrow, daring her to continue. She cringed. ‘I’ll tell you.’

  And she did. Everything she’d seen, every conversation she’d had, everything she’d managed to piece together. She knew she held the key to only a fraction of Hannah and Leah Wilde’s history. The two had never mentioned this man, and throughout all the hours of Etienne’s acquaintance with Jakab he’d never spoken of the reason for his obsession. She had no idea at all what thread linked the three together.

  But he knew. And the longer she talked, the more animated he became. Jakab’s face was a canvas of shifting emotions. He laughed, tears shining on his cheeks, and then his expression darkened and he clasped his shoulders, baring his teeth. Occasionally he would spring to his feet and she thought he was going to attack her. But then he’d retreat to Elijah’s Moses basket, and the sight of her sleeping baby seemed to calm him.

  Outside, the wind railed, pressing its face to the windows and howling its dismay. Ghost breath twined down the chimney, rocking the flames of the candles. The door to the drawing room swung gently.

  ‘Where is Hannah now?’ he asked.

  Etienne didn’t have a definite answer to that, but she had a good idea, and she told him, heart breaking at this latest betrayal, persuading herself there was time, should she survive, to put this right and warn the woman and her daughter of what was coming.

  She was still talking when she noticed it: a vague note of putrescence in the air, an odour of bloated meat, sick-sweet. Casting her eyes past Jakab’s head, staring into the slab of darkness revealed by the swinging door, she thought she caught sight of something. A glimmer of movement.

  Jakab stiffened, and Etienne realised that he sensed it too. He turned just as a buzzing bluebottle looped out of that rectangular chasm. The fly arced around the room, heavy and slow, wings chattering as they strained to keep it aloft. Rising up, it flew over the candelabra, shadow flitting across the ceiling like a rat.

  In the doorway a figure loomed: tall, almost seven feet in height. In its hand it gripped a walking cane, and between its fingers Etienne saw the scales of a silver python’s head, the serpent’s eyes picked out in gold.

  Triggered by that graveyard stink, a memory surfaced: the night, all those years ago, that a nightmare had visited Tansik House, spiriting the boy János away. As the recollection grew clearer, she understood what stood before her. The knowledge pierced her heart.

  The lélek tolvaj raised its head and sniffed. The stench of decay was now so ripe in the room – so thick – that Etienne felt her throat closing in protest, her bile rising.

  It took a step towards them and the candlelight revealed more of its horror. Its eyes were recessed so deeply it seemed to regard them from scooped-out sockets. The flesh of its face was thick and glutinous, sagging from the skull to which it was attached. Its hat, a fedora with a single jay feather, covered a wormy straggle of dirty blond hair, matted with grease, that reached all the way down its back.

  Without doubt, the creature was in desperate need of a new host.

  In front of her, Jakab stared, his jaw slackening. She’d never seen fear on his face before but she saw it now, and felt it herself. A terrible, smothering terror, bowing her with its intensity and flushing her limbs of strength. ‘Oh, what have you done, Jakab?’ she moaned. ‘What have you brought on us?’

  The tolvaj tapped its cane against the floor, the hammer strikes like a punctuation to its thoughts. At the sound, two flies shook themselves loose from its clothing and spiralled towards the ceiling, where they buzzed and looped.

  Their visitor swept the room with its gaze, face puckering. Spying the Moses basket, its mouth opened and it drew in a rattling breath.

  Etienne tried to force herself forward. Tried to make her legs move and intercept it, even though she knew her attempt would be futile. She felt a pressure on her arm, discovered that Jakab had retreated to her side.

  He gripped her, knuckles white. ‘Don’t,’ he hissed. ‘Be still.’

  She tried to shrug him off, but it was a feeble protest; she didn’t really want to intervene. It was what shocked her most of all. Even though Elijah lay alone in his crib, her terror consumed her so completely that she could only watch, paralysed, as the tolvaj approached.

  When it looked down into the Moses basket it seemed to grow in stature, chest swelling, shoulders filling. It dropped its cane to the floor and its jaw hung open like a hound’s. Saliva glistened on its teeth.

  ‘What we need,’ it whispered. ‘Young, but what we need, we need.’

  It reached its hands into the crib and Etienne screamed.

  CHAPTER 34

&n
bsp; Budapest, Hungary

  Ivan Tóth sat at the oval table in the debate chamber of the tanács town house, elbows resting on its surface, fingers steepled. A display of white lilies stood in the centre of the table. Their symbolism was not lost on him: white for remembrance, lilies to signify a passing. Their presence, he knew, was coincidental, but they bothered him nonetheless.

  He felt watched; was watched. From the ceiling fresco above, the painted eyes of the gods seemed to regard him with looks no less disinterested than those around the table.

  Although most of the chairs were filled, two remained vacant. One belonged to Anton Golias. The other, at the head of the table, belonged to the Örökös Főnök. Although he refused to look at it, he saw the eyes of those around him cast their eyes towards it every now and then. In the silence its emptiness seemed to scream.

  Tóth stared at each tanács member in turn, refusing to move on until he had met their eyes. In some he saw anger; in others, fear.

  Good. He would focus their anger. Manipulate their fear.

  Satisfied that he had the room’s attention, he placed his hands palms down in front of him and grimaced. ‘I’ve lost count of the times I’ve sat at this table over the years, listening, debating, offering counsel. We’ve made decisions in this chamber affecting the lives of everyone we represent. Not all of those decisions have been the right ones, I’ll admit. We’ve made mistakes, haven’t we, in our time together? But at least we can say that our decisions have always been made for the good of our people, and with the intention of maintaining the purity of our race.’

  In front of him, he saw Oliver Lebeau flinch at his choice of words.

  ‘Yes, I’ll say it again: the purity of our race. Since when did we begin to shrink from that word? Since when did we begin to shrink from that task?’

  He waited, silent. The man did not reply.

  ‘We’ve made difficult decisions, and while we haven’t always been unified in our thinking, we’ve always been unified in our actions. We’ve never kept secrets around this table, never indulged in brinksmanship. None of us has ever acted unilaterally.

  ‘When our forebears were murdered during the Éjszakai Sikolyok, we inherited an unenviable task. Our future looked bleak. To some, it looked as if we had no future. We inherited the leadership of a crippled society, a scattered and terrified people.

  ‘But we didn’t flinch from our commission. We worked hard. We spread our population far and wide. We rebuilt. And through it all we remained true to our laws and true to our history.

  ‘I know some of you continue to worry about the future, but I tell you there is no need for fear. We continue to hold a végzet. And while for years, admittedly, the numbers were in decline, in our most recent season we saw the greatest attendance for eight years.’

  Again, he glanced around the table. ‘When you’re part of a minority – even one which, on the surface at least, seems to enjoy such advantages as our own – the actions of a few can have far-reaching consequences. We only need to examine the legacy of the kirekesztett to see proof of that. You’ll never hear me lay blame for the Éjszakai Sikolyok at anyone’s door other than the Eleni’s. But we can still ask ourselves whether the Crown would have sanctioned their actions if we’d punished more severely the crimes of our own kind. Only sixteen years ago we lost our Örökös Főnök Éva Maria-Magdalena Szöllösi due to the actions of our most infamous kirekesztett son. And let’s not shy away from the reality: her replacement has been less than satisfactory.’

  The silence was charged now, primed for the spark that would ignite it. ‘But even through her missteps,’ Tóth continued, ‘even though she’s divided us more than any Főnök who’s gone before, we’ve remained loyal. She’s made contentious decisions and we’ve supported her, even when we’ve disagreed.

  ‘You all know of my personal opposition to some of those decisions. Still, like you, I recognised her ultimate authority, and I have always respected the right of our leader to cast the deciding vote in areas where we’ve failed to reach consensus. But I’ll ask you this: it is the role of our Főnök, is it not, to forge consensus? And it is also our Főnök’s responsibility to keep her tanács informed in all areas of our governance. How else can we fulfil our role effectively?

  ‘For over ten years I’ve held my tongue. I counselled against the founding of this fertility programme, counselled against the principle of introducing kirekesztett and simavér blood to the line. I was shouted down by some of you, ridiculed even. As a result, that programme has operated cloaked in a secrecy impenetrable even to those of us who sit around this table, at the specific orders of our own leader.’

  Lajos Horváth, sitting opposite, cleared his throat. ‘We all know the reasons for that. Besides, we imposed strict conditions—’

  Tóth laughed. ‘Ah, yes, the conditions. Let’s examine those conditions, shall we? First, we would endanger no lives. Remember that one? Yet I hear that during the last year we’ve lost perhaps half a dozen of the very women we were elected to protect.

  ‘As troubling as that discovery may be, over the last few days I’ve learned of something so reprehensible it’s given me no choice but to summon you all here and demand that we act.

  ‘It’s always been clear to me that this scientific meddling is a heresy. While the success of our végzet continues to grow, the work of Hannah Wilde, and her supporters, has produced nothing except the deaths of those volunteers naive enough to support her, and the birth of a handful of children who are little more than kirekesztett-spawned bastards themselves.’

  He saw bristling now, from all around the table. He wanted to rile them, wanted to inflame them. ‘Whatever your view on that – and I know mine is not without controversy – at least we’d put controls in place. At least, one could argue, the influence of kirekesztett blood could be diluted over the coming generations: a distasteful but necessary evil.

  ‘Over the last few days, however, I’ve learned that one of our most sacrosanct conditions has been breached. With the express approval of our Főnök, kirekesztett volunteers have been recruited into their ranks.’

  Outraged gasps. Tóth was careful to keep his smile at bay.

  Only Horváth now, and perhaps I can accomplish this without spilling too much blood.

  ‘You’ve learned this how?’ the man asked.

  ‘The kirekesztett women are receiving treatment both at the original centre and also at Villa del Osservatore. I have eyes inside the Belső Őr who have confirmed it. Gentlemen, we’ve been duped, and history will judge us on the actions we take today. We have allowed ourselves, however unwittingly, to become accessories to the greatest threat facing us since the Night of Screams over a hundred years ago. Right now, even as I speak, Hannah Wilde’s programme, in collusion with the Főnök, is impregnating kirekesztett women with kirekesztett life, in direct contravention of the laws laid down within the pages of our Vének Könyve. I spoke earlier of the purity of our race, and I tell you I am here to defend it. I already have the majority I need to force a change of leadership, but what I want is consensus.’

  ‘What you want,’ Horváth said, ‘is a coup.’

  ‘I’ll tell you what I want,’ he replied, straining to keep his voice calm. ‘Let me lay it before you as clearly as I can. I want us to act before it’s too late. I want us to disband this programme. I want us to end the senseless deaths of the very women we’ve sworn to protect. I want us to unite behind a leader who respects the counsel we offer. And I want us to prevent the inevitable decline into depravity that will result if we sanction the creation of an entirely new generation of kirekesztett.’

  He looked around the room. ‘Shall we vote?’

  Only Horváth met his eye. ‘What of Hannah Wilde? What are you proposing we do about her?’

  ‘She’s a Balázs, by inheritance if not by name. You know as well as I what needs to be done.’

  ‘Then say it.’

  ‘Hannah Wilde is a threat. We eliminate threats, o
r they eliminate us.’

  ‘And her daughter? Do you intend to eliminate her too?’

  ‘That’s for us all to decide.’

  ‘You think, if you kill her mother, you won’t create an even stronger adversary in Leah Wilde?’

  ‘Are you frightened of a young girl?’

  The man stared. ‘Why is Anton not present?’

  ‘Anton made his choice.’

  ‘Not what I asked. Where is he?’

  Tóth didn’t blink. ‘He’s dead.’

  He waited for that news to sink in. Then, in a softer voice, he added, ‘Anton died trying to warn the Főnök that we’d discovered her duplicity. I grieve his loss, and I hope his death won’t be in vain – that it can avoid greater bloodshed.’

  Horváth’s mouth dropped open. ‘This is how you build consensus, is it?’

  Sitting back in his seat, Tóth glanced across at Joó. The man barked a command and the chamber’s double doors banged open. Twelve black-clad tanács guards swept into the room, taking up positions behind the table’s occupants.

  ‘The Főnök can no longer be trusted,’ Tóth said. ‘I intend to remove her from office, and I offer to rule temporarily until a replacement is chosen. Do I hear objections?’

  Horváth’s face had drained of colour. He stared around the room at the assembled guards. ‘You call this a choice?’

  ‘Do you object?’

  ‘God forgive me.’ He paused. ‘No.’

  Tóth turned to Joó and nodded.

  The man raised a phone to his ear. ‘Do it,’ he said.

  CHAPTER 35

  Villa del Osservatore, Italy

  Leah Wilde was standing with Luca’s sister Soraya by the tall windows of the villa’s first-floor map room when she noticed the two vessels approaching the dock at the base of the peninsula.

  For five months of the last twelve she had made Villa del Osservatore her home; but however long she stayed here, she knew she would never grow tired of this view.