Written in the Blood

by Stephen Lloyd Jones

  The landscape seemed to evolve every hour, the sun, clouds and sky conspiring to mix an artist’s palette of colours on the water’s surface. This afternoon, a thick mist had unfurled across the lake and rolled up its shores, the moisture-laden air bleaching the shouldering mountains to grey. It seemed reluctant to release the two vessels that slipped from its clutches, chasing them with ghost-like tendrils as the craft approached the dock.

  They came from different directions, as silent as basking sharks; the first appeared from the north, its twin emerging from the south.

  Leah watched them drift closer. The moment they bumped against the landing stage, their crew leaped out and began to tie up.

  Hands cradled around her swollen belly, Soraya moved to the window. ‘Do you recognise them?’

  Leah shook her head. ‘Not from here.’

  ‘Were we expecting anyone?’

  She didn’t know the answer to that. When the Főnök was in residence at the villa, as she was now, the woman received a steady stream of visitors, and while most of them arrived by road, many chose to enjoy the drama of the lakeside approach.

  At the dock, the crewmen finished tying up. Now the two vessels disgorged further arrivals. Even from here, Leah could tell that they were, all of them, hosszú életek.

  They seemed in no hurry to climb the staircase to the gates of the lower terrace. Instead, they gazed up at the villa.

  She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Maybe.’

  ‘Strange for them to appear at once like that, from different directions.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Leah moved closer to the window. Below, on the lawn outside the music room, she could see seven-year-old Emánuel and his brother Levi playing an improvised game of croquet with little Pia and her younger brother Alex.

  Leah’s heart began to beat a fraction faster. She glanced across at Soraya, saw the frown creasing the woman’s forehead. Her friend had always been petite, but her pregnancy seemed to accentuate it tenfold. Face as pale as the mist that languished on Lake Como’s waters, feet bound in her favourite Chinese slippers, she seemed as delicate as a lily petal. Leah didn’t want to worry her unduly. Still . . .

  ‘Not sure I like this,’ she said.

  Flecks of copper had appeared in Soraya’s eyes. ‘What shall we do?’

  ‘Those boats won’t have gone unnoticed. Stay here. I’ll be back.’

  The first-floor hall served rooms that for the past year had become living spaces for many of Calw’s volunteers, partners and children. Leah darted along it, taking a left-hand fork to the building’s west wing. Her blood was pumping faster now, and she felt her stomach shrinking away. Something about this felt wrong; badly wrong.

  At the end of the hall she crossed the landing of a grand staircase, threw open a door and burst into the room beyond. Its only window faced west, offering a view back across the peninsula to Villa del Osservatore’s roadside entrance.

  A stone-built wall contained the grounds of the western border, culminating in a dramatic gatehouse. Usually, even during the day, its gates were closed. Now they gaped open. A dark-clad group stood on the roadside beside them.

  With Jakab gone these last sixteen years, Leah’s fear of being hunted had slowly faded. But the memory of it never had. Now it leaped at her, jubilant, clawing the air from her lungs and squeezing her chest tight.

  Light-headed, she reached out a hand to steady herself. Who were they? Not tolvajok, surely. Too many of them for that.

  Have you caused this? Is this happening because of you?

  Nausea rolled in her. She thought of all the people in the villa to whom she owed a debt. The four children playing on the lawn. The others still inside the house; their mothers.

  Go. Now. They’re depending on you.

  But the wrong decision, made in haste, might lead them further into danger. Did she go first to her room, to collect her gun? What about Soraya? Could she risk leaving the woman alone?

  As clearly as if Hannah had been standing beside her, Leah heard her mother’s voice. One word: Act.

  Grimacing, teeth clenched against the return of that fear she’d thought she’d long since escaped, she bolted across the room and into the corridor outside.

  Catharina Maria-Magdalena Szöllösi, Örökös Főnök to the hosszú életek, sat at the reading table inside Villa del Osservatore’s library and listened as Ányos Szilágyi, most senior of her Belső Őr, gave his report. Ányos stood by the window, hands clasped behind his back, feet restless, looking like he wanted to pace the floor.

  Except for Gabriel, she’d known him longer than anyone alive – knew, especially, how much he hated to be indoors, even during weather such as this. Despite his seniority he remained a cloistered man, presenting the latest intelligence succinctly, yet reluctant to offer his counsel unless asked.

  Also around the table, Ferenc Werkner, Ányos’s lieutenant, and his aide. Standing by the library’s door, another of her Belső Őr.

  A silver tray of crushed ice sat between them, upon which lay a spiral of oysters, their inner shells iridescent. Ányos knew they were her favourite delicacy, and he’d arrived back from England with a sack of them.

  Unfortunately, the news he brought hardly whetted her appetite. ‘So the trail is cold, then,’ she said. ‘We don’t even know if the group hunting Leah is still in Wales.’

  Ányos shook his head. ‘I’m afraid not.’

  Catharina turned to Ferenc Werkner. ‘What’s the latest from America?’

  ‘Our biggest challenge,’ the man replied, ‘has been separating what might be incidents of tolvajok activity from the more regular – if you’ll excuse the term – instances of abduction. Luckily for us, group abductions are relatively rare, which helps somewhat. We have the two families from Oregon that went missing last year, somewhere between Yosemite and Vegas. The mother’s body was discovered a few months later, but none of the others was ever found; it certainly looks like the work of a tolvaj. Before that, we had the Swedish exchange students snatched from Lake Tahoe. Then there were those hockey players in Utah; again, never found. Two more groups disappeared not long after. First the ranchers in Colorado. And you’ve heard the Renata Hernandez story from Kansas: a young mother put her and her neighbours’ kids in the car one morning for the school run and was never seen again. The police there are treating it as an abduction-suicide. We think differently.

  ‘A few other things we can surmise. First, obviously, they’re surviving on simavér hosts, which is why these disappearances are so frequent. Second, the frequency is increasing, which indicates they’re not in the best shape. Third, the fact they’re snatching whole groups rather than individuals suggests a certain amount of desperation.’

  She nodded. ‘And they’ve been heading east.’

  ‘Over time, yes. It looks like this started on the West Coast. Those incidents follow a steady line through the centre of the country. Latest news is this: two days ago, an Atlanta parking attendant discovered five incredibly old men and women locked inside a van. Two of them died on the way to hospital, and the other three aren’t communicating. The government agency there is holding it back, but they ran DNA tests and came up with matches to five teenagers snatched only a few days earlier.’

  ‘A few days?’ Ányos asked.

  ‘That’s what I heard.’

  ‘If they’re deteriorating that fast, they really will be desperate,’ the man replied. ‘Which makes them even more dangerous. Where exactly did they find this van?’

  Werkner’s face was grim. ‘About seven miles south of the business district. Right outside Hartsfield-Jackson. It’s one of the busiest international airports in the world.’

  Quietly, Catherina said, ‘They’re coming.’

  The room fell silent. And then, from somewhere, a soft trilling. She glanced up, irritated. ‘I thought we had a rule about phones in here.’

  Reddening, Werkner pulled a handset from his pocket and examined the screen. ‘Not me,’ he sai
d.

  ‘Sorry, Cat.’ From the window, Ányos took out his phone and held it to his ear. He listened in silence, switched it off, and turned to face the room.

  ‘Well?’ she asked.

  He nodded.

  It happened so quickly. The Belső Őr by the door walked up behind Ferenc Werkner. Simultaneously, Werkner’s aide rose to his feet. He was holding a knife. With the deftest of movements, he opened a wound in Werkner’s throat so deep that the man had no hope of closing it on his own.

  Werkner’s eyes bulged and he tried to stand, but the two men grabbed his arms. Bright blood fountained from his neck. Droplets splashed into the oyster shells.

  Catharina watched from her chair, rigid. She knew she was about to die in this room. Strange, how for a moment that image of Werkner’s blood falling into the oyster shells mesmerised her with its terrible beauty.

  She thought about all the things she’d failed to achieve, all the things she’d hoped to make right. When an image came to her of the children playing in the villa’s ground-floor rooms, her throat grew tight.

  A red tide cascaded down Werkner’s chest. He kicked his legs, trying to throw off his assailants, but they held him firm. ‘Don’t fight it,’ his aide whispered. ‘There’s nothing personal in this. Die well.’

  Either the words themselves finished the man, or he had already lost too much blood. His struggles weakened and he slumped, head lolling forward, chest still.

  Werkner’s killers eased him out of the chair and laid him on the library floor.

  Catharina glanced up at Ányos, and when she saw his expression she felt a hollowness in her chest. He moved towards her.

  ‘Whose order?’ she asked tonelessly.

  ‘Tóth initiated it. But the tanács voted. It was unanimous in the end.’

  She nodded. ‘Then I join an exclusive club.’

  In their entire history, only two previous Örökös Főnöks had been unseated.

  He edged closer and she saw that he held a blade of his own. ‘Let’s do this gracefully,’ he said, and when she caught the anguish in his voice it angered her.

  ‘You’d presume to make the cut?’ she asked, with ice in her tone. ‘I think not, Ányos. There is a historical precedent for this, is there not?’

  He hesitated. Then he retreated and his face relaxed. ‘I had hoped you would remember that.’

  ‘As if I could forget.’

  When Csontváry Kisfaludi István had been usurped in Budapest, back in the fifteenth century, he had chosen to take his own life rather than die at the hands of his guards. Irinyi Gábor, a few hundred years later, had followed his predecessor’s example.

  Catharina went to a table beside the fireplace. On its surface rested an intricately carved box. Lifting the lid, she looked down at what it contained: an ancient déjnin blade. She removed it, feeling its cold weight, feeling the press of history in its metal. Drawing her thumb along its blade, she saw the scarlet line it scored. Still sharp, after all these years: the same knife Csontváry Kisfaludi István had used to take his life.

  She turned back to face Ányos.

  ‘I’m sorry, Cat,’ he told her. ‘I never wanted this. But what’s happening here. It can’t be allowed.’

  ‘I take it you’re not referring to my death.’

  ‘You know what I mean. No one wishes you any malice. You made some mistakes, that’s all. Everyone wants this to be as bloodless as possible. I wish we could include you in that. But you know it would complicate things. We need a fresh start.’

  He dropped his eyes to the déjnin blade in her hand, and his chest swelled. ‘I knew you’d choose the old-fashioned way. I’ll make sure it’s recorded. You have my word on that.’

  Catharina turned her wrist upwards. Studied, with quiet contemplation, the raised blue veins just below her skin.

  ‘Do you want to sit?’ he asked.

  ‘I prefer to stand.’

  He nodded. ‘Very well.’

  Catharina lifted the blade. And then she threw it.

  Realising how badly he’d misread her, Ányos began to move. But already it was too late. The déjnin knife, flashing like sun on water, whipped through the air and into Ányos’s mouth, puncturing him with a sound like a bitten apple.

  He staggered backwards. Biting down reflexively on the handle, his front teeth shattered. He dropped his own knife, lifting his hands to the one buried inside his mouth.

  ‘I never liked the old-fashioned ways,’ she said. ‘And I can’t abide traitors.’

  Ányos fell to one knee. Sat down heavily.

  Catharina dismissed him with her eyes, turning to his two conspirators. They closed on her, eyes wary, knives drawn.

  No way she could defeat them both. At the other end of the room she saw a bust of her mother. Thankfully, the woman’s eyes were cast towards the window. Bizarrely, it made the prospect of dying here a little easier to face.

  She scowled at the two men edging towards her and opened her arms in invitation.

  As Leah ran back along the first-floor hall to the map room where she’d left Soraya, she heard the bell in Villa del Osservatore’s watchtower begin to toll. Someone else, at least, had realised they were under attack.

  She burst into the room.

  Soraya twisted towards her, face pale. Through the window Leah saw that the hosszú életek alighting from the two vessels at the dock had grown in number. An advance party was climbing the stone staircase to the lower terrace.

  On the lawn outside the music room, the children dropped their bats and balls. They fled towards the house.

  ‘It’s a coup, isn’t it?’ Soraya asked. ‘They’ve found out about us.’

  Leah only nodded.

  They ran into the hall, skidding and sliding along the marble floor until they reached a staircase. No time to check what lay at the bottom. Together they flew down it.

  Perhaps they wouldn’t kill everyone, she thought. Apart from Soraya, none of the mothers in the building was kirekesztett. But her friend’s life, should she be captured, would almost certainly be forfeit. And what about the children?

  Don’t think. Act.

  Down the last few stairs. Into a foyer with four huge doors, three of them closed. She saw Soraya hurrying to keep up, hands cradling her belly. Heard voices, growing closer.

  Leah threw open the music-room door, waiting until Soraya rushed across the threshold before slamming it shut and locking it.

  One of the mothers in the room, Ara Schulteisz, had shepherded the last of the children inside. Now she began to lock each of the six doors that opened onto the loggia.

  It wouldn’t help them. They were mostly constructed from glass.

  Outside, Leah saw eight grim-faced hosszú életek crossing the lawn. She cast her eyes around the room. The children old enough to know that death approached stared at her, faces hollow. Even those too young to understand had sensed the growing panic. Two of them began to cry.

  She took in their faces: the brothers, Emánuel and Levi; twins Carina and Philipp; Pia and her younger brother Alex; Dávid, Lícia and Tünde; cradled to Flóra’s breast, tiny Elias.

  Ten young lives. Not, by any stretch, all of the children from Calw. Catharina had set up a second residence on the shore of Lake Maggiore. Others, too. Leah did not want to think about what might be happening there. The possibility that the tanács remained ignorant of their existence was slight.

  Along with herself and Soraya, she counted four other adults, mothers all: Kata Lendvai, Ara Schulteisz, Lidia Montigny and Flóra Glaus.

  ‘What do we do?’ Flóra asked. ‘We can’t stop them.’

  ‘But we might be able to get the children out. Close the drapes. They know we’re surrounded. I don’t think they’ll hurry.’

  Leah went to a door behind one of the concert grands and yanked it open, revealing a servant’s corridor, narrow and dark. From that lightless avenue, most of the villa’s ground-floor rooms were served. To the children, she said, ‘We’re going
to play a game. Who wants to do that? Yes? Then all of you, in here.’

  The four mothers helped her coax the children through. ‘That’s it,’ one of them called, her voice hitching. ‘Quickly now. Do as Leah asks.’

  In the far wall, the handle of the locked interior door began to turn. Leah heard voices behind it.

  Six of the children had filed into the passage. Two stood on the threshold.

  ‘We can’t all go,’ Flóra said. ‘And I’ll slow you down.’ She held out her son to Soraya. ‘Please. Take Elias for me.’

  Soraya’s face crumpled. She gathered the boy into her arms. Elias struggled away from her, reaching for his mother.

  Flóra kissed his head. ‘Go, kicsikém. Soraya will keep you safe.’

  The handles on the loggia doors began to rattle.

  Leah pushed the last two children into the passage. She picked up Tünde, one of the youngest, and turned to the mothers. ‘Come on. Before it’s too late.’

  But they were shaking their heads. ‘You’ve a better chance alone,’ Kata Lendvai said. She smiled, tears on her cheeks. ‘And I’m not leaving Flóra.’

  ‘You can’t just—’

  ‘Go, Leah. Now.’

  Heart aching at their bravery, she stepped into the passage and flicked on a wall switch. Four dim bulbs winked on along the ceiling. The door slammed shut behind her. From the other side, she heard glass breaking.

  Leah squeezed past Soraya and the children until she was at the front. ‘Everyone stay close. Keep your eyes on me. Let’s go.’

  When the boats had arrived at the dock, the Főnök had been in the villa’s library, in council with members of her Belső Őr. The hosszú életek leader might still be there.

  The door that served the library was up ahead. Leah led the children towards it. Pressing a finger to her lips, she urged them to be as quiet as they could. She placed her ear to the wood, straining to hear anything from the room beyond.

  Commotion behind them. The music-room door crashed open, filling the passage with light.

  A man shouted.

  Knowing they had no time left, Leah burst into the library. leading the children after her. As soon as everyone was through, she slammed the door and used a key to secure it.