Blood Eternal

by Marie Treanor

  “The owners are British,” István explained as he unlocked the front door. “They rent it for most of the summer. Fortunately for us, they had a cancellation.”

  “Best of both worlds,” Elizabeth observed, looking around her at the curving marble staircase before wandering into the open-plan living area, where rugs were scattered across the ceramic-tiled floor and red plush sofas faced the bay window and a large television. Beyond was a dining area and a well-appointed kitchen with a washing machine and dishwasher. “Turkish style and British convenience.”

  István took her upstairs, where there were three bedrooms. “Share with Mihaela if you like—there are two beds in there—or there is a large attic room upstairs. The ceiling beams are too low for me. I got bruises just looking at it.”

  “It’ll be fine for me,” Elizabeth said quickly, and went on up the staircase. Right now she suspected Mihaela needed some space between them. And besides, there was Saloman. . . . Her desire for him was like a pain, mocking her anger.

  “Hungry?” István asked, laying her bag on the double bed while Elizabeth took in her spacious surroundings. There was even an en suite bathroom. “There isn’t much in, but the village shops are open late. Or we can go out when the others come back—there are a couple of decent restaurants.”

  “Whatever you guys want to do,” Elizabeth said, and he left her to shower. She wasn’t hungry. She felt too churned up with Luk and Tsigana, with Saloman and sex. Standing under the shower, her body still tingled with remembered pleasure, with excitement, because at last they were in the same country again. And yet it had been too quick, too much taken for granted by Saloman, and too easily welcomed by herself. It wasn’t the steam that made her body flush when she remembered what they’d done almost within spitting distance of the hunters who were searching so anxiously for her. “What the hell is the matter with me?” she whispered, letting the water into her mouth and blowing it out again.

  The same thing that had always been the matter, ever since she’d first wakened Saloman from his three-hundred-year sleep. Lust.

  And he knew it, as he’d always known it. He didn’t need even to crook his finger, it seemed. He just had to approach her and she opened her legs like a bitch in heat. He’d taken his pleasure without any lead-in, and left immediately about his own business, as if she were no more than a convenience. Which was what she’d made herself, when in fact she wanted to be so much more, to be to him what he was to her. Everything.

  She turned off the shower and reached for the towel. She’d never been ashamed of sex before. Not with him.

  Emptying her bag, she found some clean underwear, an old skirt, and a loose top, and dressed. Then, while she combed out her hair, she examined the views from the two large windows in her room. Both opened onto balconies. One looked onto the village and some holiday apartments beyond, the other onto the swimming pool and the majestic hills. It was beautiful at night. She stepped out onto the second balcony to appreciate the sights and sounds of a new country and breathed in the fresh, calming air.

  When she walked back inside, Mihaela stood by the bedroom door in white cotton trousers and a red top. Elizabeth paused, hating that she no longer knew what to say to her once-close friend. Saloman stood between them now, a beloved barrier she couldn’t remove if she wanted to. And yet it was through him, and the hunters’ determination to exterminate him, that she and Mihaela had met in the first place. At that initial encounter, Elizabeth had thought them either pranksters or nutters. There was no way she could have known then how much the hunters—or Saloman—would come to mean to her.

  “You okay?” Mihaela asked at last.

  Elizabeth nodded. “Are you?”

  “Of course. Want to eat?”

  In a small, basic restaurant five minutes’ walk from the villa, over a delicious meal and unexpectedly fine wine delivered in an old Coca-Cola bottle, things were more normal.

  “I thought Muslims didn’t drink wine,” Elizabeth said, after the waiter had left their bottle.

  “They don’t, for the most part,” said Konrad, lifting his glass to her. “Doesn’t mean they can’t make it or sell it. Cheers.”

  “It’s good,” Elizabeth exclaimed, after a very tentative taste.

  “Local,” István said. “Made by a man who understands what he’s doing. But don’t touch the stuff at the back of the corner shop. You’ll go blind.”

  The restaurant had a convivial atmosphere with a friendly, attentive staff, and Elizabeth found herself relaxing back into the old ease of banter. The hunters called her “Dr. Silk” and asked her about jobs and career moves. Elizabeth thought of the envelope still lying on her sofa in St. Andrews and mentally, ruefully, kissed the post in Budapest good-bye.

  As she always did, she warmed to the hunters all over again, and found herself wishing it could be as it was before. But nothing ever stayed the same. Everything moved on.

  They walked back to the villa in companionable silence. Only when Konrad pushed open the gate did unpleasantness intrude. István seized his wrist. “Wait,” he breathed. “My detector’s just gone off.”

  Elizabeth’s, in her handbag, was silent. She took out the sharpened stake.

  “Which one?” Konrad whispered. “Where?”

  “Ancient.” He pointed his thumb toward the swimming pool end of the garden, invisible from the gate.

  Konrad jerked his head, and, stakes in hand, he and Mihaela crept around the back of the house. Elizabeth and István advanced toward the swimming pool.

  The pool lights were on, and in their glow, a dark figure sprawled on a sun lounger. Supremely elegant and at ease in light trousers and white shirt, one foot crossed over the opposite knee, the sword that she doubted the hunters could see dangling over one side of the lounger, he looked impossibly handsome. His long black hair was tied behind his head, although a stray lock had escaped to fall fetchingly across his sculpted cheek.

  Elizabeth’s heart beat harder, yet for the first time since those very early days, her pleasure in seeing him was mixed with dread. She wasn’t ready for this meeting, because she hadn’t yet managed to deal with the last. Tough.

  She caught István’s wrist to show there was no danger and said loudly, “Don’t you ever phone first?”

  “Modern man is too dependent on those things. Besides, I told you I’d call.”

  Anxiously, Elizabeth watched Konrad and Mihaela advance on him from behind, their stakes still raised. Saloman didn’t betray by so much as a twitch that he knew they were there, but surely Konrad would not be stupid enough to risk attacking him? He’d be dead in an instant.

  “What for?” Konrad demanded. “What do you want?”

  Still, Saloman didn’t turn. “You have a problem, do you not?”

  “One we are capable of dealing with,” Konrad said stiffly.

  Saloman’s lip curved. “Really? You couldn’t deal with me. What on earth makes you imagine you can deal with my cousin in thrall to your old friend Senator Dante?”

  For the first time, he turned his head and looked directly at Konrad and Mihaela. Mihaela, as if embarrassed at being caught out in an impoliteness, hastily lowered her stake. Konrad kept his where it was.

  “Is he?” Elizabeth blurted, as much to distract their attention as because she wanted to know.

  “In thrall to Dante?” Saloman rose fluidly to his feet. “It would appear so. Certainly, when Dante calls, Luk runs.”

  “Why?” István demanded, moving closer. A concentrated frown marred his brow. “How is that possible? If Dante’s a vampire at all—”

  “He is,” Saloman interpolated.

  “—he can only be a fledgling. Luk is an Ancient, as powerful as—”

  Again, he broke off with a quick glance at Saloman, as if suddenly remembering to whom he spoke.

  “At least as powerful as I,” Saloman said mildly. “But power is pointless if you can’t use it.”

  Elizabeth walked over and sat down on a garden chair
on the other side of the white plastic table from Saloman. “Why can’t he use it?”

  Saloman met her gaze. His eyes were opaque, and yet she was that sure behind the glassy screen, emotion was boiling. “Because he doesn’t yet remember how. Or even, probably, what power is.”

  “It didn’t take you long to remember those things,” Mihaela pointed out, moving around so that she could see Saloman’s face. For all the world like the host of his own party, Saloman graciously indicated the nearby chairs.

  “I never forgot them,” he said, and Mihaela sank onto the nearest lounger, perching precariously on its edge.

  “Then why did Luk?”

  Gracefully, Saloman resumed his seat. “Our cases are very different. I was conscious the whole time. Luk slept as the dead are supposed to.”

  Konrad let out a crack of sardonic laughter at that. Saloman acknowledged it with a faint curve of his lip but said nothing. Elizabeth wanted to ask, Why didn’t you? But István was before her, saying briefly, “How?”

  “I gave him the enchantment of peace.”

  “That was big of you, after killing him,” Mihaela observed.

  Saloman didn’t bat an eyelid. “I thought so. It wasn’t a courtesy later granted to me, but then, I was the last Ancient, and there was no one left to perform it. The point is, at this moment, I very much doubt Luk remembers as much as his own name.”

  “He remembers something,” Elizabeth said with odd reluctance. “He called me Tsigana.”

  Saloman nodded. “He smelled her blood in your veins. That’s what drew him away from Dante and the others. But I imagine it was instinct rather than true memory. When he found you, he didn’t recognize that you weren’t Tsigana, and his distress at learning of her death makes it clear he has no understanding of the time that’s passed.”

  “Will he start to remember?” István asked curiously, dropping onto one of the chairs and sprawling across the table to lean his head on his hand.

  “In your opinion,” Konrad added with contempt.

  “In my opinion, yes. And that is when the true danger will begin.”

  “When he starts to hunt you down?” Mihaela inquired.

  Elizabeth stared from her to Saloman, who merely smiled. “Will he?” she asked.

  Saloman’s eyebrow lifted. “I am his killer and my blood awakened him. Assuredly, he must hunt me down.”

  “In hatred? Will he be . . . as he was before?”

  “Insane?” Saloman supplied blandly. “Probably. Unless his rest soothed his mind. If it did, I imagine being dragged without warning from something resembling your Christian idea of heaven into the hell of life with Dante will have pushed him back over the edge.”

  For the first time, Elizabeth caught the tinge of anger in his beautifully modulated voice. This time, it seemed, Dante had done something truly unforgivable. Like Zoltán summoning zombies, Dante had committed some sacrilege in waking Luk from his peace. Saloman, she realized, felt his cousin’s pain as if it were his own. And this time, there would be no saving Dante from him.

  “What about Dante?” István asked, as if he read her mind. “I’ve never heard of a fledgling maintaining any control over himself, let alone over another vampire. Isn’t he more likely to try to kill Luk?”

  Saloman seemed to hesitate. Then it was to Elizabeth he looked, as if directing his answer to her.

  “Among my people, over the centuries, Luk revived many souls—made many vampires, if you like. Including me. Modern vampires have forgotten that there is more to the ritual than exchanging blood at the moment of death. There are ways of preserving the soul of the creature you revive, and once that is achieved there are ways of teaching the new existence. Luk became Guardian of the Ancient rituals as well as of the prophecies. They are part of him. So while he may have forgotten the teachings, at least for now, to create correctly would come to him as instinctively as drinking blood. I’m afraid what you have now is Dante himself, with all his human failings and all of a modern vampire’s power.”

  István lifted his head. “Then your own creations, Maximilian and Dmitriu, missed the bestial fledgling phase?”

  “Of course,” said Saloman with a touch of hauteur. “If your records state otherwise, they lie.”

  “Will Dante have an Ancient’s strength?” Elizabeth asked hastily.

  “No. But he will be stronger than the average fledgling.”

  “Why are you telling us all this?” Mihaela asked.

  A smile half formed and died on Saloman’s lips. “Perhaps because you need to know.”

  “Why?” Konrad demanded. “You want us to take your cousin out for you?”

  “You are trivial,” Saloman remarked. “Like your ancestor.”

  Konrad flushed in the dim light. He was proud of his ancestor Ferenc’s part in Saloman’s murder and clearly didn’t care to have him insulted. “And you aren’t welcome in our house,” he snapped. Turning on his heel, he stalked away. More reluctantly, no doubt because they sensed there was more to learn from Saloman, Mihaela and István rose to display solidarity with their leader.

  Elizabeth stood also, and Mihaela glanced at her with a relief she couldn’t hide before hurrying toward the French window with István.

  Loud enough for them to hear, Saloman said, “The eastern commune is moving to meet Luk and Dante. Their strength is growing.”

  Mihaela and István turned back briefly, made almost identical nods, and walked on.

  As Elizabeth hesitated, Saloman said, “I’m not Dracula. A lack of invitation cannot keep me out. Unless it comes from you.”

  Elizabeth looked up at the stunningly clear stars. “Tonight, Saloman, maybe it does.”

  She couldn’t look at him, couldn’t bear to see that it made no real difference to him. But she felt, rather than saw, the inclination of his head.

  He said, “I see. You’ve had enough sexual fulfillment for one day.”

  Her head snapped around without permission. “Fulfillment? You used me and discarded me like a toy you’d finished playing with!”

  He didn’t move, just held her angry gaze. “I wanted to give you pleasure. And I thought you needed the comfort.” As I did.

  He didn’t say the last words aloud; she didn’t know if he’d thought them or if the idea simply entered her own head for the first time.

  She said, “You’re going to have to kill him again, aren’t you?”

  He didn’t answer, and her pain intensified, fed by his own silent hurt. Her fingers clenched and released as the confusion of shame and rage dissolved into something far simpler that should have overridden all the rest. Love.

  She reached out her hand to him. “Come to bed,” she said softly.

  He rose and clasped her hand, but he didn’t smile or take her in his arms. “We were never about pity fucks, Elizabeth. I’d rather remember the way you melted into my arms on the hillside. Instinctive passion, instant gratification. Blood and sex and Elizabeth. I want them all.”

  He released her hand, and only when she realized he was walking away did she understand how much she needed him to stay. Not just for the sudden lust inspired by his words and by memory, but because he was hurting, and whatever the cause, she couldn’t bear it.

  “Saloman, they’re all yours,” she whispered. “They always were.” Although she was sure he heard, he didn’t turn back.

  Chapter Five

  Elizabeth woke at dawn to the Muslim call to prayer. Since it sounded as if it were right outside her window, she’d shot out of bed in alarm before she realized what it was. Investigation from the window revealed a loudspeaker attached to the streetlight at the villa gate.

  Calmed by the explanation, she went back to bed. But it was too late. The birds were singing. The sun was up, and so were the village animals. Cockerels were screeching at one another as if in some ridiculous deejay contest, a dog somewhere close to the villa was barking erratically, and any spare silence was filled with the braying of an unhappy donkey.

&
nbsp; Elizabeth rose and dressed and went to hunt down some coffee. Somewhat to her surprise, the others were already up, sitting around a table on the shaded porch, eating fresh bread and drinking orange juice and Turkish coffee.

  Elizabeth’s mouth watered. “That bread smells good.”

  István pulled out a chair. “We let you sleep after your long journey yesterday.”

  Konrad cut her some bread; Mihaela poured her coffee.

  “We heard from Mustafa, one of the Turkish hunters,” Konrad said. “The commune he mentioned yesterday has gone. We think they might have joined Luk and Dante.”

  “Saloman said they would.”

  Konrad shifted irritably. He didn’t want to be reminded of that. “The Turks are looking for them, using both forms of detector, but so far, there’s no trail to follow.”

  “Not even bodies?” Elizabeth said.

  “Mercifully, no. Not yet,” Konrad amended.

  Elizabeth dipped her bread in some olive oil and ate. It tasted divine.

  Abruptly, Konrad said, “What does Saloman plan to do?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know.” In fact, she rather thought Saloman didn’t either.

  “If he finds them first,” Mihaela said carefully, “do you think he’ll kill them? Or convert them to his cause?”

  Elizabeth set down her coffee cup. “I don’t think ‘conversion’ is an option here, do you?”

  “So we sit back and wait for Saloman to kill them for us?” Konrad said disgustedly. He was addressing István and Mihaela, who had clearly already mooted this possibility.

  “I think we have to find them before there are any more deaths,” Elizabeth said quietly. “And before they get so much stronger that they become a threat to Saloman.”

  Konrad scowled at her. “Is that your priority now, Elizabeth?”

  “Konrad!” Mihaela said sharply.