Blood Guilt

by Marie Treanor

  Maximilian had shown her that vampires could suffer. Well, he wasn’t the only one. It was Ferdinand’s suffering that made her believe him, and she had no time to analyze the tragic truth behind the relationship that had formed with such apparently explosive spontaneity between herself and Maximilian.

  She shoved the crumbling pain aside. It didn’t matter. Even if Ferdinand was lying through his teeth, she couldn’t afford to take the chance. Only preventing the earthquake mattered. And saving Robbie. These things alone were too important to endanger. Everything else had changed, including her plans. It might have been reckless, but right now, her new plan seemed less dangerous than trusting in Maximilian.

  “Liar,” she said distinctly and hurled herself over the wall, plunging her stake for the kill.

  Ferdinand blurred into darkness. She landed on the stony ground. He moved with Maximilian’s speed, and an instant later, his powerful hand hauled her to her feet by the neck of her sweater. She took him by surprise, stabbing as he yanked her around. Her thrust was fierce, sure, unhesitating, and it drew blood before he casually knocked the stake from her fingers and secured both her hands brutally behind her back.

  She twisted once to test his strength and then was still.

  “Hey, Gavril,” he said. “I’ve got us a hostage to ensure everything runs smoothly.”

  All the undead heads turned in her direction. She had never been so helpless under the glare of so many cold, vampire eyes, and it made her spine tingle with revulsion and fear. Ferdinand shoved her forward with enough force to make her stumble.

  Then a tiny whirlwind flew across the ground from the temple with a cry of “Mihaela!”

  Robbie threw his arms around her waist in a hug that broke her heart. With her hands tied, she couldn’t even hug him back, although she bent toward him in an instinctive gesture of protection she hoped he’d understand.

  “Hello, Robbie,” she said as reassuringly as she could. “I thought I’d drop by and see how you are.”

  Behind him, Gavril loomed and began to laugh.

  You’re dead, she thought with a rush of hatred that shook her to her toes. She couldn’t afford that. She had to remain calm and focused, because she’d just changed the rules and the plan. She was on her own now, unless Cyn and John had made it in time.

  ****

  Maximilian was uneasy when he saw Ferdinand position himself at Mihaela’s hiding place. All his masking hadn’t hidden her from the old vampire. While Maximilian poised to rush to her aid—even for an experienced hunter, Ferdinand was a formidable opponent to face alone—he wondered what the hell was going on. Was Ferdinand checking out Maximilian’s story? Preparing to change sides and release Robbie?

  Maximilian blocked out the low-level noise of the other vampires and focused on Ferdinand. He heard it all.

  Bastard. Just enough truth there to sow suspicion. Maximilian didn’t need to see into Mihaela’s mind to feel the doubt and pain radiating from it. The pain pleased him in a perverse kind of way because it proved the depth of her feelings. And yet the pain would not have been there if some of Ferdinand’s barbs had not gone home.

  Don’t, Mihaela. Stick to the plan…

  She changed the plan. Which meant only one thing. She was on her own.

  For a moment during the brief struggle that led to her capture, the colors of the night faded to black, deep and impenetrable.

  One word from an unknown vampire and all her trust in Maximilian vanished into dust. Perhaps he was stupid to have imagined anything else. She was a hunter he’d known only days. And yet she was his lover.

  The betrayer betrayed, he thought bitterly.

  Then, as he always did, he began to plan again. With his brain working once more, he recognized another thing that had been wrong about Mihaela’s little struggle with Ferdinand.

  It had been too quick and just a little too easy. Mihaela had meant to be captured.

  To get close to Robbie, he realized, as the boy ran across the ground and flung his arms around Mihaela. She couldn’t trust anyone but herself to save him now.

  Ferdinand dragged her on into the midst of the vampires, who’d broken ranks to see what was going on. But Robbie clung around her waist, declaring his allegiance just a little too openly. The child had been brave and curious over the last few days, but he’d been without a human, without anyone at all who even pretended to care for him. Mihaela was his anchor, his lifeline.

  Good luck with that, small friend, Maximilian thought bitterly.

  Gavril produced rope from his pocket. Perhaps it had been intended to tie Robbie if he became recalcitrant, but it served now to bind Mihaela’s hands and ankles. Then she was thrown against the temple wall.

  With a cry of distress, Robbie ran to her again.

  “I’m staying with her! I’m staying with her!” he cried. “I won’t do it if I can’t stay with her!”

  Robbie was kidding himself if he imagined that would make any difference. Since he hadn’t really much clue exactly what he would or could do, he couldn’t prevent it happening once the vampires linked their minds through his and the stone. But Gavril, apparently, wanted him compliant. Certainly a small child in a tantrum was a problem, even for a vampire, if the vampire wasn’t prepared to kill him, and Robbie seemed to sense that much.

  Gavril shrugged, and Robbie tugged Mihaela, trying to help her to sit upright. She knelt, sitting on her heels with her back against the wall, and Robbie, apparently satisfied, stood in front of her like a tiny guard.

  “Now,” Gavril commanded without raising his voice. “We’ve wasted enough time.”

  The vampires reformed in their line against the temple wall. Maximilian watched through the gap in the stone as Gavril took Robbie’s right hand once more and swung it back so that both their hands touched the wall beside Mihaela’s head. On Robbie’s other side, another vampire did the same with his left hand.

  It was about to begin. Maximilian tensed, unable to move without detection until the vampires were distracted by focusing on the stone they touched.

  In eerie silence, they all closed their eyes, still as the temple stones which had stood there for thousands of years. A twinge of power glanced off Maximilian, like a first tiny flame sparking into life.

  Which was when Maximilian sensed the other presences. Humans. Psychic humans he’d met before. At the fight in the hunters’ library. The American girl who could sense vampires, and the young Scots soldier, a telepath. Their thoughts leaked as they approached, anxious, urgent thoughts that they’d be too late to save the child.

  Mihaela. Mihaela had seen them in Valetta. And she’d brought them here as backup. Well, perhaps it would do no harm. Although it worried him that their focus seemed to be on Robbie and not on Mihaela, who should have been their friend. But then, they weren’t true hunters; they were amateurs and their connection was really with Elizabeth, not Mihaela. Still, if they came from Elizabeth, at least there was hope.

  The flame of energy burned. The stones under his feet seemed to rustle and speak with millennia of profound magic that hurt his skin. Even more ancient than Saloman, the stones contained power that was way beyond Maximilian’s ability to understand or control. But it hummed through the vampires, through Robbie, whose eyes suddenly snapped open, staring. For the first time, Maximilian saw true fear in the child’s eyes. He couldn’t break free.

  Maximilian glided across the stones and jumped.

  ****

  Mihaela wanted to believe that Robbie read her intentions, and that was why he insisted on being near her. The alternative was too difficult to bear—that he simply needed a human presence as close to him as possible, because against all appearances to the contrary, Robbie was desperately lonely and desperately frightened.

  How could I have left him with them for so long?

  But she couldn’t be distracted by self-recriminations. She was exactly where she needed to be. As soon as the vampires were standing perfectly still, she straightened her
right arm. If any of them were watching, it would have looked like an involuntary movement to ease her muscles. Instead it brought the hidden penknife sliding down her sleeve and into her palm. A few twists and she’d opened it and maneuvered it to the right position for cutting the ropes at her wrists.

  Robbie’s breathing became more pronounced as she worked. Something was happening, exciting him. The ropes at her wrists fell away to the ground. Keeping her hands behind her back, she got the knife to the ropes above her heels and sliced through them. She had a feeling things were becoming urgent. Surely even the faintest tremor of the earth would feed their power and trigger damage of the kind she was here to avoid. She couldn’t afford to wait.

  As soon as her feet were free, she flexed the muscles to ensure they wouldn’t let her down and shifted her left arm to let the hidden stake drop into her palm.

  Robbie made a strange whimpering sound, all she needed to spur her to action. She’d never needed so much speed or accuracy. Gripping both weapons, she raised them and chopped down, hard.

  Gavril screamed. Not surprising, since his hand now hung from his wrist only by a lump of skin. The other vampire roared in pain, his back arching away from the stake stabbed into it. Mihaela leapt to her feet, forcing the stake up and up and into his heart. As the vampire exploded, she grabbed the abruptly free Robbie in her right arm and leapt away, running faster than she could ever remember and talking rapidly to Robbie as they went.

  “Robbie, you have to run, run away from the vampires. There are people coming, friends who’ll help you. John and Cyn. You might be able to talk to John with your mind—he’s telepathic like you. Go, Robbie, go!”

  On the last word, she released him, to drive her stake into the vampire who’d just drawn level with them. She missed his heart by inches, and she had to dodge his return blow. It was giving Robbie time to escape, and by some stroke of fortune, they weren’t all chasing him.

  But no, it wasn’t fortune that kept the other vampires away. It was Maximilian, who’d attacked after all.

  ****

  It was as if Robbie’s fear was the one thing that bound them, the one thing that compelled them to act in concordance. As Maximilian flew through the air, he saw Mihaela suddenly break free. She killed one and cut off Gavril’s hand, thus freeing Robbie.

  It was a nice move, spurring Maximilian to equal her style. He landed on one vampire’s shoulders and staked him through the heart while grabbing the vampire next to him, tearing out his throat and draining him with three swift, mighty sucks worthy of Saloman himself. By this time, he’d landed on the ground through vampire dust and spun to engage his next enemy.

  The odds were now better: four vampires left against him and Mihaela. And at least until they faced each other over the dust of the true dead, they would fight on the same side. Without a word, they protected each other’s backs and engaged two vampires apiece.

  Maximilian staked another vampire by the simple ruse of pretending to go for Ferdinand, and then, when the other vampire lunged, leaving his guard open, spinning back and stabbing him. Which left him with Ferdinand.

  Ferdinand was no fool. He must have seen it was over for tonight. There were only three vampires left, and of those, Gavril was still growing his left hand back. Robbie had vanished into the darkness, and although any vampire worth his salt could have found him easily, the child was no longer enough. If Ferdinand was here to play the long game, he’d disengage now and go after Robbie. Maximilian couldn’t allow that.

  “So, Max,” Ferdinand said casually, feinting and parrying, his sword against Maximilian’s dagger and stake. “Your proposition.”

  “Deal’s off,” Maximilian said, slashing at Ferdinand’s unprotected wrist. It let a goodly amount of blood before the wound began to close, although Maximilian only just managed to dodge the lethal swing of Ferdinand’s sword, which could have taken off his head. “You took my hunter.”

  “Oh, stop pretending,” Ferdinand snapped with rare irritability. “We both know you made the offer to avoid having to kill me. So don’t. Let’s find the child and get off this bloody island.”

  Ferdinand’s sword snaked past his dagger, slicing along Maximilian’s hand. Maximilian took the gambit, dropped his dagger, and seized Ferdinand’s blade, yanking the older vampire to him with a force that cut his hand to the bone. Ferdinand’s stake hand whizzed upward; his icy eyes gleamed with triumph. One way or another, he thought he’d won.

  Fool.

  With one casual kick, Maximilian swiped Ferdinand’s legs from under him, and as they both went down, he snatched the sword and sent it flying into the temple, a fitting offering to whatever gods they’d disturbed.

  Ferdinand’s eyes widened. “I gave you the child!” he screamed.

  “No, you didn’t. Mihaela took him in spite of you.” And he thrust his stake down hard. “You lost your chance to exist,” he told the dust as it exploded around him.

  It was only a moment’s distraction, an instant not of honoring a one-time friend but of remembering. But it was enough for Gavril to jump him.

  Abandoning his fight with Mihaela, the younger vampire leapt on Maximilian’s back, and Maximilian had to use all his superior speed to roll and dislodge him before the stake plunged into his back. As Maximilian leapt up again, he glimpsed Mihaela dispatching her last opponent. Excellent timing.

  Gavril surged up to finish the fight. He must have known it was no longer about earthquakes and power. It was about survival. His to be precise. Maximilian knocked him to the ground with one mighty smash of his fist, and before Gavril could recover his wits, he seized the younger vampire by his shirt, picked him up, and threw him at Mihaela’s feet.

  Over Gavril, for the barest instant, their eyes met. And it was almost like the first time. The hunter was afraid.

  ****

  Mihaela dragged her gaze free and dropped hard onto Gavril’s chest. Her stake jabbed over his heart. Gavril, blood oozing from the wound at the side of his face, grinned. “How fitting. You and me, hunter, after all these years. Perhaps I’ll have your ear this time, before I tear out your throat and savor that sweet, hunter blood.”

  A hunter should never hesitate if she wants to live to fight another day. Yet Mihaela hesitated. Not because she was unsure that he should die, but because the hugeness, the massive importance of this act was eluding her.

  “You’ve been the bogeyman all my life,” she told the vampire in a flat, casual tone that sounded wrong even to her own ears. “The reason I became a hunter. Every vampire I’ve killed has had your face. And yet now I’m finally killing you…you’re small, unimportant, unworthy of the years and the angst I’ve wasted on you. Even this idea that you stole, that you’re prepared to kill thousands for, is way beyond you. Do you know, I don’t even want you to die, particularly. I only want Robbie to live.”

  Gavril jerked up, knocking the stake aside before she could exert enough strength to do more than pierce his skin. “Hunter, you talk too much,” he snarled.

  She didn’t grace that with an answer, mostly because he leapt to his feet, shoving her off him. He sprinted away from her and from Maximilian, who watched unmoving from the sidelines. But Mihaela had had enough. It was time to finish it. She launched herself after Gavril with a power she didn’t know she had. Perhaps he was slowed down by the sight of the three figures walking toward him. Perhaps she was just faster than him. She didn’t care. Like a true hunter, she took her opportunity without hesitation this time, threw herself at him, and stabbed him through the back.

  The stake plunged into his heart, straight and true and Gavril, who’d murdered her parents and the innocent sister she could no longer even remember, who would happily have slaughtered thousands of humans through his earthquake, exploded into dust. Mihaela fell to her knees where he’d been, panting for breath.

  He was dead. And much, much more importantly, Robbie was alive, walking toward her between Cyn and John. Cyn held his hand and halted. Robbie tried to tug fre
e and run on, but the American held him tight.

  “Let him go, Cyn,” Mihaela called.

  Cyn’s eyes flickered to the left. To Maximilian. John Ramsay’s gaze had never been anywhere else. “I can’t do that, Mihaela. He can’t go to him.”

  Another unwelcome truth began to form in Mihaela’s mind. “To me, Cyn,” she pleaded.

  “Not here,” Cyn said. “Not now. I’m taking him back.”

  “Back where? Cyn, where are you taking him?”

  “To Konrad. Konrad asked us to come after you and save the boy. You’re compromised by him.” In her loathing, Cyn couldn’t even say Maximilian’s name. “So we’re taking him to Konrad.”

  The blood sang in Mihaela’s ears. “Without a passport?” she said desperately. “He doesn’t have one. You can’t get him off Malta.”

  “Yes, we can. The hunter network has arranged things with the Maltese authorities.”

  “Then I’ll come with you,” Mihaela said, getting to her feet.

  Cyn glanced at John, who said gruffly, “Not this time. You’ll see him in Budapest.”

  In Budapest. Konrad would never let her see him in Budapest. Konrad had turned against her, finally, because he thought her compromised by Maximilian. Well, that was another pain that could wait.

  Cyn half turned away, while John held a stake out warningly toward Maximilian. Robbie resisted.

  Maximilian said, “No.”

  “You have no say in this,” John warned. “Stay back.” Maximilian walked past Mihaela not hurrying, just inhumanly graceful. Robbie gazed at him. She heard the child’s breath catch, saw his eyes widen. She jerked her head round to stare at Maximilian; then, as Robbie moved, she whipped back to face him.

  Robbie raised his hand slightly, the one Cyn was holding, and tugged once. He was free, and with a cry, Cyn seized her hand as if some huge force had been exerted on it by a five-year-old child.