As if the night air and István’s blood between them had given her a massive energy surge, she felt capable of anything. And most importantly, she had to keep the club safe. So as she walked around the tables collecting empty glasses, she let down the guards she normally kept up against vocal and telepathic speech.
This was one of the first things Maximilian had taught her. Most fledglings picked up telepathy and accompanying defensive blocks gradually with age and experience. With Angyalka, hearing undead thoughts and the babble of human voices had rushed upon her with unbearable suddenness. The noise had been deafening, unendurable, and she’d have gone mad without Maximilian to show her how to filter out the backgrounds and hear only what she wanted to. Now it wasn’t even second nature; it was first.
So she drifted from table to table, listening. A few vampires were discussing the recent explosion in terms that left Angyalka in no doubt of what they wanted to do to the perpetrator. The sentiment warmed her. She’d worked damned hard for a long time to make the Angel the safe haven it was, and it was good to know her people appreciated it.
At the next table, some humans were discussing work and relationships, while one girl ogled an oblivious vampire drinking by himself on the other side of the room. Angyalka picked up an empty glass and kept moving. She ignored the seductive or just plain dirty chatter she overheard. Whatever turned people on was fine by her. She had a pretty good line in seductive looks and patter herself, although she rarely took it further. Most of the time she didn’t mean it.
Did István mean it?
István making love to her under the stars. István’s blood, rich and heady, flowing from his body into hers. Oh, but he tasted good, and his blood was strong and powerful. She imagined she felt it flowing through her veins now, nurturing her body, and she wanted to hug herself because part of him was still inside her.
Damnation, Angyalka, get a grip…
“I was there,” said a vampire voice at a table two or three away from where she was grabbing empty highball glasses. “And trust me, Angyalka is one vampire you do not want to cross. She stood there with her arms in the air, actually dissolving the explosion. That is serious strength.”
It was Igor, the vampire who had so nearly died that night. He wasn’t troubling to mask his conversation, although he spoke too quietly for humans to overhear. With him was the young American vampiress and an older vampire. Their interest was palpable. Angyalka turned her back, moving toward another table, but focused still on them, because they were speaking in English.
“I’ll tell you someone else who has power,” Igor revealed. “The Awakener, Saloman’s companion.”
“She’s human,” the older vampire sneered. His accent wasn’t American or British. Spanish, maybe.
“True,” Igor allowed. “But I was almost true dead. I lay there with a shard of wood as big as a chair leg grazing my heart. I couldn’t move. I could feel the life force ebbing away. I almost imagined I was dust already. Then she was there and touched me. I didn’t even feel the wood being drawn out. And in seconds, I was healed. Within a couple of minutes, I walked out of there.”
“You healed yourself, fool,” the older male said contemptuously. “The wood missed your heart completely.”
“It didn’t,” Igor insisted. He sounded indignant, almost frosty now. “Elizabeth Silk is a healer. She healed vampires and humans in the hunters’ battle.”
“You can’t know that. You weren’t there,” the old vampire objected. Softly, warily, Angyalka brushed against his mind. It was like walking into a stone wall. She didn’t even bounce. His mind was totally impenetrable.
For an instant, astonishment and panic both surged inside her. Only Saloman himself could close himself off from her quite so utterly. This vampire was not only old and strong. His power was a potential threat neither she nor Saloman could ignore.
“I hear things,” Igor said defensively. “Elizabeth Silk’s a most interesting case.”
Derision leaked from the older vampire’s mind. As if feeling it, Igor said, “I’ll tell you something else too. When her energy flooded into me, I could feel her strength as if she was giving it to me. And I heard not one heartbeat but two.”
Angyalka froze. Oh shit… Igor, shut up. But Igor was too agitated to hear her without more obvious intervention.
“The Awakener has two hearts now?” the old vampire mocked. “One for Saloman, one for the rest of us?”
“If she has two hearts in her body,” Igor said patiently. “One must be her child’s.”
Idiot! Almost blindly, Angyalka carried the dirty glasses back to the bar. Of course it should have been obvious. Elizabeth hadn’t told Angyalka about the baby. Angyalka had sensed it, heard its heartbeat as Igor had. Every vampire Elizabeth had healed that night must know. Whatever masking she and Saloman had used before was no longer strong enough when Elizabeth opened herself for healing. Speculation would soon be rife. If it wasn’t already. Angyalka could have missed it, too taken up with István and her own petty desires and fears.
Saloman, Angyalka called over the miles that separated them. And more urgently, Saloman!
Yes, my angel? His mocking reply sounded in her head as if he stood behind her. She resisted the temptation to turn and check.
Your secret’s out. The vampires Elizabeth healed sensed it. They’re talking about it.
There was a pause. He must have known this had to come out sooner rather than later.
Thank you, he said at last. Keep your promise to me.
Of course, Angyalka replied automatically. She wondered if she could now. As she felt Saloman’s presence slip away, she tried to imagine herself going out, crossing the street, walking across the bridge that spanned the Danube. So many places to see, enveloped in the beauty of darkness. To follow her nose, choose her own prey from the hundreds of thousands who swarmed around the city… It was a huge, terrible thought, frightening, sickening, and yet massively exciting.
Could she? Could she really leap across the city to a house she’d never even seen, except in other beings’ heads, to protect a human woman’s unborn child?
There were worse causes to push yourself for.
She’d dumped the dirty glasses behind the bar and was sallying forth for a second sortie when she felt his presence. Everything tingled, from her skin to her womb, and for the first time, she admitted to herself that it was more, much more than the awareness of a vampire to the presence of her natural enemy, the hunter. It had always been more.
She savored the feeling, moving slowly, refusing to look at him just yet. Did he know, did he fully understand what he’d done for her?
Why had he done it? Just because he wanted her? Carefully, she scanned the tables at the front of the club, gradually making her way to him.
Her gaze passed over two young human women and jolted back to them. One was the woman she’d thrown out of the art gallery today. Her hair was done up in a more glamorous style, and she wore a lot more makeup, but it was undoubtedly the same person. Angyalka could smell her anger from several feet away.
But the woman wasn’t looking at her. She was gazing in the opposite direction—at István.
István, still sexily rumpled from their rooftop encounter, stopped in his tracks, then swerved not to her but to the two human women. The angry one beamed like a cat with the cream and pulled him onto the sofa beside her before kissing his cheek. István didn’t appear to mind. He nodded more distantly to the other woman.
How did he know them? What was his connection to the angry woman, to the enchanted picture? A hundred questions surged into her head, not quite covering the disappointment that seeped through her being, because after what they’d done on the roof, he hadn’t come straight to her.
I’m just the exotic fuck, she thought, stricken all over again, just as she had been after their first time last night. I’ll never count as high as a human being.
So why did he let me drink his blood?
Because it’s exciting. It’s ne
w. It’s forbidden. And he misses that. He’s a bad boy gone straight and still pushing at the boundaries.
She drifted away, going through the motions, picking up glasses, smiling, chatting to the regular guests, but all the while her focus was on István’s dangerous friends. For the first time, she wished he were telepathic so she could tell him this was the star of Justin’s story.
“What on earth brings you here?” István asked the women.
The quiet one answered. “Andrea heard about this place from your friend. She came to look after you.” She spoke with an odd, mocking defiance, as if the whole situation, including István, at once attracted and repelled her.
Angyalka turned toward them, saw István’s gaze move between the two women until it settled on the quiet one. “Did she? And why did you come, Lara? To look after Andrea?”
“No,” Lara said with more blatant defiance. “To see if it was true.” She stared back at István’s watchful, carefully expressionless eyes.
István stirred. “To see if what was true?”
“She can’t say it here,” Andrea hissed.
István’s lip quirked, although he didn’t take his eyes off Lara. “Actually, she can say anything she likes here. Everything can be overheard, and nobody cares.”
Angyalka picked up a fresh surge of anger from Andrea. The woman’s gaze flitted between her friend Lara and István, and she quite clearly didn’t like what she saw. Warning bells chimed in Angyalka’s head. She laid down the dirty glasses on the nearest table.
“Well, whatever it is, is it true?” István asked softly. He was clearly feeding Lara’s reluctant attraction in order to get answers, and it seemed to be working. Lara’s pink lips stretched into a rueful smile, and Andrea lost it.
“Get away from him,” she raged, lunging across the table at her friend.
Prepared—after all, Andrea was behaving just like Bruno Geller—Angyalka leapt and landed between the two women. Not that she really minded if they scratched each other’s eyes out. Her primary motive remained keeping order in the club.
Andrea and István both blinked. They probably hadn’t even seen her arrive because she’d moved so fast.
“Fighting earns you instant exclusion,” Angyalka said mildly. “Although in your case, I believe you were excluded earlier. The ban extends to all my premises. I’d like you to leave quietly. Your friends may stay or go as they please.”
She knew it would happen of course. The sight of Angyalka was tantamount to a red rag to Andrea’s bull and the suggestion that Lara and István stay at the club together without her wouldn’t have gone down well either.
Andrea went for her, nails at the ready to claw and hurt. She couldn’t have harmed Angyalka, of course, but unexpectedly, it was István who grabbed Andrea and yanked her back, capturing her with the same speedy, effective hold that he’d pulled on Angyalka eighteen months ago.
“What do you think you’re doing?” he said harshly.
“It isn’t her,” Angyalka said. “She’s the one I threw out of the gallery earlier. Sit her down.”
István yanked Andrea back to the sofa and sat beside her, holding her arms behind her back while Angyalka hemmed her in from the other side.
“What are you doing?” Lara demanded. “Get off her! Leave her alone!”
Angyalka ignored her. István said soothingly, “We’re not hurting her. Couldn’t you tell she’s not herself? She’s been hypnotized. Angyalka here has some skill in—er—de-hypnosis.”
If Angyalka hadn’t been holding Andrea’s wild stare, she’d have rolled her eyes at that. De-hypnosis? However, she concentrated on forcing her way into the woman’s mind and loosening the compulsion. Remembering Justin, she delved deeper, found an almost hidden trigger linked to the club via an image of the angel over the door—clever. With it came a little aggression booster.
When she released Andrea, Lara, still tense with suspicion, had sunk onto the sofa opposite and was watching intently. Andrea blinked a couple of times. Her lips parted, her eyes widened as she took in Angyalka, but she made no move to break free. Instead, her eyes closed with very obvious shame.
Angyalka nodded to István, and he let Andrea go. However, the woman suddenly fell on his chest, and István put one arm around her to comfort her properly.
It was almost as if the human’s rage had transferred to Angyalka. She wanted to drag Andrea off István and hurl her across the room. He’s mine.
Jealousy was not an emotion she could remember encountering before, and it took a helpless moment to recognize it and ignore it. For he wasn’t hers, and whatever they’d done last night and tonight, he never would be.
Forcing herself, she looked away and stood up. She paused, her blood freezing in warning.
At the entrance to the sofa-enclosed booth, a vampire was watching intently. An old, strong vampire, heavily masked. The one who’d been talking earlier to Igor.
He smiled, inclined his head civilly to Angyalka, and moved on. He liked information. He was collecting it. Why?
Angyalka forced herself to look at Lara. “She’ll be all right now.”
“I don’t understand,” Lara said, her mouth tight with anxiety. “How could this have happened to her? It can’t have been a stage hypnotist—”
“No, I’m afraid it happened in my art shop when she dropped in earlier today. Someone was fooling around. We didn’t realize the damage it would cause.” Deliberately, she avoided looking at István and Andrea. “When she calms down, pass on my apologies. Obviously, neither of you is banned.” She forced a smile onto her lips. “In fact, your drinks are on the house.”
Chapter Thirteen
By the time Basilio and Gabby returned to the hotel, Jacob’s wound had almost healed. But his head still throbbed like he was being hit repeatedly with a hammer. He lay stretched out on his bed, waiting for it to go away, when they walked into his room without even knocking.
“I’m glad to see the old-world courtesies aren’t dead,” he said waspishly.
They both looked pretty pleased with themselves as they strolled in. Right now, Jacob resented that.
Basilio arranged himself in the armchair by the heavily curtained window. Gabby sat down on Jacob’s bed and demanded, “What’s the matter with you?”
“Nothing now. A hunter just stabbed me in the head.”
Basilio’s lips twitched, as if the old bastard found it amusing. “Well, I hope you at least got what you went there for, since the hunter himself is not lying dead and drained in his own home but running loose around the Angel Club—fucking the hostess.”
“Eww,” Jacob commented. “Fucking a hunter? I must admit I haven’t encountered many, but that does seem to be carrying détente too far.”
“Her smell is all over him,” Basilio said.
Jacob sighed, pulled himself into a sitting position, and clutched his throbbing head. “Shit. Basilio, you know I love gossip as much as the next man, but I fail to see how Angyalka’s weird sexual arrangements help us. You said yourself she’s Saloman’s and no ally of ours.”
Basilio shrugged. “Information is power. Human affections make them weak. It may give us a hold over the hunter that we can use. But I’m still waiting for an answer to my question: did you get the tool?”
“I didn’t even see the fucking tool,” Jacob said irritably. “I turned the whole place upside down, and then the annoying shit came home. I tried to get my attack in first, but he’s bloody strong.”
Basilio curled his superior lip. “You do know he’s only recently started to walk again? He’s still on sick leave.”
Distracted, Jacob stared at him. “Fuck.”
“Be that as it may, did you achieve anything at all—apart from a monumental headache and a bad temper?”
“He said it isn’t finished yet. That it has a long way to go and that I should tell my fellow conspirators so.”
Basilio nodded, thoughtfully. “And then he left you alive so that you could indeed pass this on?
”
“He could have killed me,” Jacob admitted with reluctance. “For a moment, I knew he would. Then he started asking questions and let me go. Does it matter at this stage? There is no gadget. And in any case, we have no plan that could possibly involve it.”
He knew from Gabby’s excited wriggle on the bed that things had moved on. Basilio himself gave very little away. But he still looked slightly more smug than usual.
“Actually, we do,” Basilio drawled. “In Angyalka’s art gallery hangs—or at least hung—an enchanted picture that inspires humans to violence, largely against vampires who’re in turn pissed off by humans and therefore Saloman’s regime of détente. That brings us more ready-made allies. Plus…”
Basilio smiled, and Jacob knew that this was, finally, the crux of the matter.
“Plus your friend Igor turns out to be an absolute fountain of information. Saloman’s companion is pregnant.”
Jacob blinked. “Well, he should either kill her at last or generously allow someone else that privilege.”
“Imbecile. It’s Saloman’s child she’s carrying.”
“Crap,” Jacob said roundly. “He’s a fucking vampire, remember?” He didn’t get many opportunities to question Basilio’s intelligence but he began to think now that the supercilious asshole was going senile. Jacob seemed to have run out of luck with allies recently.
“Oh, trust me, I remember,” Basilio said, apparently amused, and for some reason, Jacob began to feel he was the senile one. “But you must remember Saloman is an Ancient. Anything is possible. When I was young, there were rumors that Ancients could breed with humans. Not that any of them did, to my knowledge. But then, there were only about three left in the world. Now, there’s one, and he’s breeding with his Awakener, a human woman who carries the Ancient gene in her blood. This will be one powerful child.”
Jacob took that in. His headache seemed to have disappeared in the shock. “Fuck.”
“As you say. This child will be Saloman’s natural successor, and in the meantime a fantastically powerful ally and tool. He’ll be unstoppable.”
Blood of Angels (Book 2 of the Blood Hunters Series) Page 18