Blood Guilt

by Marie Treanor

  Her eyes stared into his, hot and cloudy with lust. As if she couldn’t help it, she touched his lips with her fingertips, almost awed. But already, unbelievably, she was shaking her head.

  “No,” she whispered. “Not here. And not ever again.”

  It seemed she would always have the power to surprise him. He’d won her. They both knew it. And yet she could still say no and mean it.

  She rolled out of his arms and snatched up the stake before sitting back on her heels and cradling it against her cheek.

  Maximilian rose to his feet. Her eyes followed his every move, and he could have sworn there was at least as much desire as wariness in her scrutiny. And yet, although he gave her time, she didn’t back down. He saw, finally, that she wouldn’t.

  Knowing that, there could be no satisfaction in taking her, even in making her enjoy it. He walked across the room and took hold of the door handle once more before glancing back over his shoulder. She hadn’t moved.

  “Why do you do this to yourself?” he asked.

  Her lips tugged upward. And yet she looked as if she might cry again. She didn’t. She said, “Because it’s all I have.”

  Defeated, he walked out of the room and left the building as he’d come in.

  ****

  Mihaela was becoming a dangerous distraction. For the second time in one night, he let another vampire get too close because he was thinking about her. In this case, about her rejection, which he would have taken for granted before their interlude on the island. She was a bloody difficult mix of strength and damage. And she’d left him deeply frustrated and almost sick with hunger.

  It wasn’t surprising he headed straight for the sleaziest bar to find a girl—or several girls, he wasn’t fussy at that point—to slake both thirsts upon. What did astonish him was that he left the bar alone and from choice. He’d found someone to drink from easily enough. He’d barely had to speak to her to get her to wrap herself around him on the dance floor. He bit her right there, and as he swallowed her blood, he debated the merits of screwing her here among the shadows or getting her to take him home.

  Annoyingly, Mihaela’s tragic eyes blotted out the strange girl’s, whose blood was inferior and whose luscious body he suddenly realized he didn’t want. So he left her on the dance floor and walked out, pausing only in the foyer to drink from her friend, who had the nerve to accost him en route.

  And so his blood-thirst was slaked and his lust was out of control. It was still no excuse to let Ferdinand get so close.

  Not that it mattered. At that moment, he would have been happy to kill Ferdinand just for looking at him the wrong way. In fact, after the first shock, Maximilian realized what he chiefly felt was relief, because he could get over this hurdle now and move on.

  Ferdinand, however, kept his distance, walking parallel to him on the other side of the road. And when he broke the silence, it was only telepathically.

  So you’re back. And living in his house, they say.

  I’ve been back before, Maximilian said indifferently. There wasn’t this fuss.

  There was too much going on. Now everyone can watch your every move.

  Have you really nothing better to do?

  Than observe your rise and fall? Hardly.

  Maximilian allowed a trace of amusement to infuse his thought. Wouldn’t you be bored watching history repeat itself?

  I’d never get bored watching someone kick your arse.

  Why don’t you try it yourself? It might relieve your spleen.

  I’d rather watch you suffer longer.

  Longer than what? Maximilian asked dryly.

  Than this, Ferdinand said serenely. Anyone listening in might have missed the deep, menacing hatred behind his calm thoughts.

  Maximilian didn’t make that mistake. He glanced up at the clear sky. The lying snow would be iced up by tomorrow. You’ll go mad dwelling in the past, my friend.

  I have nowhere else to dwell, do I? You saw to that. You talked me into rising with you against Saloman, on the understanding that my creation Maria would be your companion. But even before he was in the ground, you’d taken the human, Tsigana. I overlooked that, since I had to. The fortunes of myself and my progeny were too dependent on you. And you, you yielded to the moron Zoltán.

  I was, Maximilian pointed out, defeated by the moron Zoltán.

  You could have come back from that. You could have thrown him out. You owed us that much. But you walked away. From a responsibility you should never have had.

  Maximilian smiled at the stars. He couldn’t dispute any of this. It didn’t make the pain easier to bear. But he’d been bearing it for two hundred years and more. There was no choice but to carry it some more. There was little purpose either in pointing out that he’d lost the confidence and the support of the majority, that any kicking-out of Zoltán could only ever have been temporary. If Zoltán hadn’t come back, someone else would have.

  Instead, he kept it personal, as it was to Ferdinand. Ferdinand, whom he’d once looked up to and loved almost as much as he’d loved Saloman. That was harder to bear.

  Of course I should never have had it. But you played your part in giving me it. Freely. I never took away your choice, and I never rejected Maria. The human Tsigana was never my companion. Maria…

  Maria is dead, Ferdinand said flatly. Grief forced its way through the old vampire’s anger and yet fed it further. It touched Maximilian, but like a remembered sadness rather than a fresh one. He’d lost Maria in any meaningful sense long ago. But he knew now there was no way he could ever reach Ferdinand, except with a stake. Hunters killed her in 1945. She lost her edge after you.

  So that was to be laid at his door too.

  Ferdinand said calmly, We lost everything through our support of you—wealth, influence… Zoltán took it all away. And Saloman was never likely to give it back after what we conspired with you to do to him.

  Even now, it could hurt, like a sharp twist of a sword in his heart. You should go to Saloman. You didn’t push in the stake. And he’s forgiven me.

  Oh, I doubt that. He merely has you where he can watch you. He hasn’t forgotten, and he can never trust you any more than he could ever trust me. Your only route to power now is by yet another act of treachery, betrayal, conspiracy. I shall enjoy watching it.

  Ferdinand moved, the swift, sudden motion Maximilian had been waiting for. And the years hadn’t dulled the old vampire’s speed. Ferdinand had been around since the age of Charlemagne, and he’d never been anyone’s “walk-over.” Not even for Maximilian, who carried Saloman’s uniquely powerful blood in his veins.

  So Maximilian took no chances. He leapt high into the air, hoping to take Ferdinand by surprise, and landed in the middle of the road, poised for defense. A car swerved, screeching, to avoid him, horn blasting. Maximilian spun around. And around.

  Ferdinand was nowhere to be seen.

  As he straightened, scanning the rooftops without success, he heard the old vampire laughing inside his head.

  Chapter Twelve

  Mihaela found Saloman’s house ridiculously easily, considering she’d searched for it in this street before and failed to find any trace of it. Elizabeth had assured her she would, the implication being that Saloman was now prepared to tolerate her. The caveat, “Don’t bring Konrad with you,” was more blatant, although understandable considering her leader’s hostility. It all added to Mihaela’s sense of unreality.

  Saloman’s elusive “palace” was a large, aristocratic mansion in the early nineteenth century part of Pest, where great noblemen had once made their town homes. In the days of Communism, if not before, they’d all been divided into much smaller dwellings. Saloman, she suspected, had rejoined his together. It still took her breath away what he could do without being able to go about in the daylight, without even existing in a legal sense.

  But any doubts she might have had as to the ownership of this house vanished as she opened the iron gates and walked up to the front door. The d
etectors in her pockets began to vibrate. At least two vampires, then. One Ancient, one modern. Her throat constricted. Please not Maximilian…

  She rang the bell, and almost at once, she heard footsteps dashing toward the door, which was flung wide to reveal Elizabeth, dressed for work in a long, dark green wool skirt and cream sweater with a matching green velvet scarf pinned around her throat.

  She grinned at Mihaela. “Told you you’d find it this time. Come in.”

  “Doesn’t he mind?” Mihaela had asked her on the phone last night when Elizabeth had called to tell her about Robbie’s location and to suggest she come over to talk first thing in the morning.

  “Saloman? If he did, you wouldn’t find it,” Elizabeth had replied.

  Mihaela walked into the vampire’s lair. At least it didn’t smell of mustiness and death. In fact, it was surprisingly clean, without any of the cobwebs and other signs of neglect Mihaela had more than half expected. Like a horror film.

  Somewhere in the bowels of the house, Elizabeth had obviously left music on; Mihaela could hear it trailing faintly downward, as if from a great distance.

  “Shouldn’t you be at work?” Mihaela asked, looking around her at the imposing staircase and the large oil painting on the opposite wall.

  Elizabeth glanced over her shoulder, leading Mihaela through a wide, gracious hallway toward the back of the house. “In theory. In practice, I’ve no teaching until the afternoon, so I’m working here. Sort of.”

  “Where are they?” Mihaela asked flippantly as they entered a surprisingly modern, well-equipped kitchen. “Tucked up in their coffins?”

  Elizabeth picked up a coffeepot and poured out two large mugs full. “I suppose Maximilian might be,” she said wryly. “I’ve no idea where he spends his time, but at least I don’t fall over him on the stairs these days.”

  At the sound of his name, everything in Mihaela seemed to contract. He’d invaded her home, her haven; he’d seen her out of control and weeping—for what, even she didn’t fully understand. He’d even kissed her tears, lapping them up as though they were blood. She shivered, for the sensation had been curiously soothing as well as deeply sensual.

  And then she’d sent him away when part of her—a very urgent if frightened part—had wanted nothing more than to take him into her bed for a repeat of what had occurred on Maximilian’s island. She couldn’t, she really couldn’t see him again now. She’d forced herself to come as promised only because she despised cowardice.

  “Saloman,” Elizabeth added, “is playing the piano while juggling business deals and political negotiations online.”

  Mihaela, picking up the mug of black coffee while Elizabeth sloshed milk into the other, blinked. “Saloman plays the piano?”

  “Can’t you hear him?”

  Mihaela closed her mouth. “I thought it was a CD,” she murmured, following Elizabeth back along the hall to the staircase. As they climbed, the music got louder—a rather exquisite rendering of a Chopin nocturne. You couldn’t play like that without profound feelings, without a soul…

  Unbidden, Maximilian’s dark, savage paintings sprang into her mind. And the stone angel… She blinked them away.

  In her pocket, the vibrating Ancient detector was going mad. Mihaela switched it off with a flick of one finger. Saloman was undoubtedly behind the double doors Elizabeth was walking toward.

  Impossible to make a fuss, so she merely drew a breath and steeled herself against whatever was to come.

  But only Saloman waited for them.

  Only Saloman. Once, every briefest encounter with the Ancient had made her shake. “That guy scares the shit out of me,” she’d told her colleagues only three months ago. When had Maximilian become a larger bugbear?

  Saloman stopped playing and rose politely to his feet as soon as they entered. Mihaela hadn’t laid eyes on him since the battle in the hunters’ library, but he hadn’t changed. He was still an impressive bastard: tall, splendidly built, and ridiculously handsome, his long, thick black hair tied carelessly behind his head, his dark, almost-black eyes piercing. His ruthless, sensual lips curved into a faint smile, just as if he were genuinely pleased to see her. It was never easy to be the focus of Saloman’s attention, for even without moving a muscle, he radiated power and all the sex-appeal that went with it.

  He walked out from behind the baby grand piano, and Mihaela noticed a laptop balanced there. The whole room was like Saloman himself: big, luxurious, bordering on the opulent, but always within the bounds of good taste. Dark red velvet curtains kept the sun from the room, which was brightened instead by the artificial glow of many lamps. Dark wood floors were scattered with fine, large Turkish-style rugs. A red velvet chaise longue and other sofas furnished the room, along with tall mahogany bookcases and chests, and an incongruously high-tech sound system.

  “Thank you for risking my lair,” Saloman said gravely.

  “I laugh in the face of risk,” Mihaela returned, waving one hand around his home. “It’s like discovering Xanadu. Though I have to wonder why I’m so honored.”

  “It seemed sensible to discuss this all together,” Saloman said, civilly gesturing her to sit. She did, on the sofa beside Elizabeth, and Saloman lowered himself on to the chaise longue, leaning forward with his legs apart. His feet were bare—yet another bizarre discovery of the day. “We need to rescue Robbie before Gavril uses him to set off a major earthquake.”

  “I still don’t get how that’s even possible,” Mihaela said. “Can Robbie really make that much difference?”

  “Yes. He’s a very strong psychic, and Gavril seems to know how to tap into that. We think they plan to cause a major quake along the existing fault line that runs across the Mediterranean from Africa into Europe and Asia, perhaps even to cause a new fault to open and cross that one, somewhere near Malta.”

  Mihaela stared at him. “But that’s massive. Could you even do that?”

  “Possibly. With a little backup.”

  Shit, something else to worry about. “Are you saying Robbie is somehow as strong as you?”

  That caused a flicker of amusement in Saloman’s dark eyes, although he responded gravely enough. “No. He’ll need a lot more back-up. But from what Maximilian has told me, he somehow amplifies the power of the others.”

  “Like the stone compass,” Mihaela said, looking at Elizabeth, who nodded. “Robbie is a walking stone compass?”

  “The compass only points. Robbie does.”

  “Could he refuse?” Mihaela asked, thinking aloud more than expecting an answer, but she got one anyway.

  “I don’t think he can control it,” Elizabeth said. “Like me, with healing. The power just surges up, and unless you know what to do with it, it consumes you. It’s not consuming Robbie because the vampires are absorbing it and focusing it. But none of them have Saloman’s knowledge. Even if they wanted to, Saloman doubts they could save Robbie once they let the power loose. And Robbie won’t be the only casualty by any means. Thousands could die. And if Robbie survives, by some miracle, then thousands more could die in the next earthquake too.”

  There were no words for that. It was unthinkable. So Mihaela concentrated on what they did know. “So, Robbie’s with them in Malta. It’s a small island. We can find him there easily, with a little hunter espionage on hotel and villa rentals, plus detectors—”

  “You can’t take Gavril and the others on alone,” Saloman interrupted.

  “I don’t plan to. Konrad will come with us. Elizabeth?”

  Elizabeth looked away, exchanging fleeting eye contact with Saloman instead. She said, “I can’t come on this one, Mihaela. It’s—not a good time for me.”

  Saloman smiled faintly but said nothing. Mihaela sat back on the sofa, looking from one to the other, and didn’t bother hiding the curl of her lip. She was conscious of more hurt than contempt, but one certainly fed the other.

  “Won’t Saloman let you?” she drawled. “You know, there’s never been a time since we met when
you didn’t stand beside me in a fight. Even at the beginning, when you couldn’t have fought a pillow and won, you were there, doing your best. And now, he crooks his finger and you can’t exert yourself to save a child from his fellow-monsters.”

  Elizabeth flushed, as well she might. Her eyes were stricken, like a dog that’d been kicked, and Mihaela was fiercely, unkindly glad.

  Mihaela swarmed to her feet so suddenly that she almost didn’t hear Elizabeth’s muttered words. “It isn’t like that Mihaela. I can’t fight right now.”

  Frowning, Mihaela paused, scanning her friend. Again Elizabeth exchanged looks with Saloman. She could have sworn the vampire gave an infinitesimal nod.

  “Are you ill again?” Mihaela demanded, all anger forgotten. “Is this healing power eating you up?”

  “No. No, it’s nothing like that.” Elizabeth reached up and caught Mihaela’s hand, tugging her back down to the sofa. “It’s… I can’t risk myself right now because…because it’s more than me who’d be hurt. The world… I have to look after… Oh shit, Mihaela, I’m pregnant!”

  If she’d said she was shape-shifting into an aardvark, Mihaela couldn’t have been more astounded. “You’re—” She broke off almost before she started, glancing wildly from Elizabeth’s excited, ridiculously happy face to Saloman’s bland one.

  As far as Mihaela was aware, there had never been a time in the last fifteen months when Elizabeth had even looked at another man. It had always been Saloman.

  Mihaela blurted, “But I thought you couldn’t—”

  “Apparently, I can,” Saloman interrupted smoothly. “Although it took both of us by as much surprise as it obviously has you. The point is, the child Elizabeth’s carrying is a secret known to very few, because this new life is precious not just to us but to the world. It wouldn’t merely be uncaring to let Elizabeth risk herself right now. It would be irresponsible.”

  He rose to his feet. “So, I would deal with this trouble myself, except I have every faith in Maximilian to do it just as well.”