Blood Guilt (22 page)

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 free 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.

Robbie absorbed power. And Maximilian had given him some. Like Gavril, he’d read her parents’ research.

Robbie grabbed his freedom with glee, bounding out of reach of John’s out-flung hand to rush on Maximilian, who caught him up in one arm. Which still left him with one free, and no one made the mistake of forgetting it.

Cyn cried out, “No!” Baffled, angry, she turned on Mihaela. “Is he hypnotized or something?”

“No. He loves him.” Mihaela’s voice cracked.
Oh God, we both do.

Maximilian wasn’t even looking at her. He began to run with the blurring speed of the strongest vampires. Robbie managed to grin and wave to her over Maximilian’s shoulder. And then they were both gone.

Chapter Eighteen

He knew she was coming.

If he was there, he knew. There was no way to surprise him. All she could do as she walked along the familiar passage to the hotel room door was let the hidden stake in her sleeve drop down into her palm.

The night had turned chilly in the hour before dawn, and she shivered. He’d been at least one step ahead all through the second part of the night. While Mihaela had gone to the vampires’ farmhouse to retrieve her parents’ research paper, John and Cyn had raced back to Mgarr, the ferry port on Gozo, arriving just as a ferry left. There had been no sign of Robbie or Maximilian on it. They could still be on Gozo for all Mihaela knew. But Cyn was sure Maximilian would make for the airport in Valetta, and so Mihaela had caught the next ferry, with Cyn and John.

Maximilian could easily have made the airport by now. Or any other shelter from the daylight. And yet as she’d stood on the ferry deck in the darkness, it came to Mihaela that he would simply go “home.” That he’d know she would come. There was unfinished business between them.

She’d held herself aloof from Cyn and John, who seemed to regard her, in an embarrassed sort of a way, as a still-good person led astray. Well, perhaps they were right there; she just wasn’t sure how. She just knew that the expression in Maximilian’s eyes when he’d thrown her Gavril had held the contempt and the pain not of the betrayer but the betrayed.

There had been too much going on at the time to properly recognize the fact or to think through the reasons behind it. But on the short ferry crossing, she’d known she would come here alone. And that she would say nothing to Cyn and John, whom she owed nothing after all. It wasn’t their betrayal that hurt—she barely knew them. It was Konrad’s.

And so here she was, outside the hotel room where she’d made love with the vampire Maximilian. She had to know Robbie was safe. But there was more, so much more.

The door swung open before she got there. Her step faltered, her fingers flexed, and she kept walking.

Maximilian stood just inside the door, watching her.

She lifted her chin to bear the coldness of his gaze and walked past him. Every nerve in her body shrieked awareness, of danger and of him. He wore T-shirt and jeans, as usual. Muscles corded his arms, arms that had held her, that she’d caressed.

And then Robbie bounded out of the bathroom, and she held out one arm to him—the arm that wasn’t concealing the stake. Robbie grinned with unabashed delight and ran to hug her.

“Mihaela! I knew you’d come! Max said you might have gone with the other lady and the man, but I was right!”

He twisted his head round to grin at Maximilian in a crowing kind of way, and the vampire inclined his head very slightly by way of acknowledgement.

“They’ve gone to the airport,” Mihaela managed as Robbie pulled free. “I wanted to be sure you were all right.”

This time, the child’s smile faltered slightly. “I’m fine, ken?” he said.

“I ken,” Mihaela said gently. Her heart ached, but there was nothing more she could do or say at this point. He needed time, a very long time in a settled home with people who loved him and understood him.

“Hey, look,” Robbie said, grabbing a T-shirt off the bed. “Max says I can sleep in that—it comes down to my ankles!”

“And some,” Mihaela smiled. “Were you going for a shower?” He was grubby, as if he hadn’t washed under the new clothes the vampires had given him. And close up, his breath smelled.

“Max said I should.” Robbie wrinkled his nose.

“Quite right,” Mihaela approved lightly. She delved inside her bag and emerged with the toothbrush she’d managed to buy in an all-night shop by the ferry terminal. “I thought you might need one of these.”

Vampires didn’t need to brush their teeth, so toothbrushes were very unlikely to have entered the heads of any of them. Robbie snatched it as if it were a rare gift.

“Thanks,” he said eagerly. “Can I brush them now?”

“Absolutely.” She went into the little bathroom with him, helped him open the packet, and squeezed toothpaste onto the brush from her own tube, which was still sitting in the glass where she’d left it. Then she watched critically as he brushed his teeth. He’d obviously been taught the correct way to do this at some point, and he seemed to enjoy showing off to her.

She put the shower on, showed him her shower gel and shampoo, which he claimed to know how to use, and left him to it. Then, unable to put it off any longer, she walked back into the main bedroom.

Maximilian was sitting on the end of the bed, gazing at the window. Since the curtains were fully shut against the dawn light, he couldn’t have seen much of interest.

Unfinished business. If he were going to kill her, he’d do it now while Robbie couldn’t see. But he didn’t even turn. Mihaela stood very still and waited.

He said, “Why did you believe Ferdinand?”

She let her breath out slowly. Everything that was said now would have critical importance. Words, mere words, could determine who lived and who died. “There was truth in what he said,” she answered. “And you avoided telling me.”

“There was a lot between Ferdinand and me. I was looking for a reason not to kill him. If he’d have helped us, I’d have had an excuse.”

Jesus.
It sounded so much like her and Konrad. She too would always try to find a way out for a former friend. Her fist clenched and unclenched at her side. “Could you not have told me that?”

“No. Not then.” He turned his head at last and looked at her. “But you didn’t tell me either about Cyn and John Ramsay.”

“I wanted them as backup,” she whispered. “To care for Robbie if we failed. I didn’t know Konrad had turned them against us.”

“Us,” he repeated, and she felt the flush rise into her cheeks. He rose to his feet and walked toward her. Her heart beat and beat. It was all she could hear. She had to force herself to meet his profound, reflective gaze, to look up into his face as he came to a halt, close to her and yet not touching.

She palmed the stake in her sleeve. If he noticed the movement, he gave no sign.

“Mihaela. There is no trust between us. There is feeling. Attraction. Sex. But no trust.”

Misery swamped her because she couldn’t deny it. She couldn’t deny the feeling, the attraction, or the beauty of the sex either. What were any of these things without trust? Anything real between them had always been impossible, and yet the pain of loss and shame rose up from her toes, took hold of her heart, and squeezed until she gasped. His pale eyes glinted like dark, half-tarnished silver and yet remained reflective as they always were. And as she stared, unable to look away, because she’d never be able to look at him this way again, she saw that what they reflected was her own pain.

Her mouth opened to speak, but with one of his sudden movements, he’d already swung away.

Her phone rang into the silence, incongruously cheery. She fished it from her pocket and answered like an automaton.

It was Elizabeth. “Mihaela? Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.”

“I just got this panicked call from Cyn. She says the earthquake threat is over but that Robbie is still missing. Only then she said Maximilian had him, so I don’t know what’s going on. To be honest, she wasn’t making a lot of sense. I didn’t even know she was out there.”

“Robbie
is
with Maximilian.” Her throat closed up. “And me. Konrad sent Cyn and John Ramsay to take Robbie. Not to help me. He used Cyn’s hatred of vampires to get her to do it.”

She closed her eyes, aware the step she’d been putting off had to be taken now. Truth be told, she’d made her decision long ago, on the night of the battle in the hunters’ library, but it was time to face it and take the consequences.

“Elizabeth, we can’t trust Konrad anymore.”

Elizabeth’s voice came back at once, little more than a whisper in her sympathy. “I know. I’m sorry, Mihaela. He isn’t a bad man, just a blinkered one.”

“He’s doing wrong things.”

“Then we’ll keep making them right until we can make him see sense,” Elizabeth said robustly. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine. I just need to sleep. Thanks for calling me.”

“Go to bed, Mihaela. Call me later.”

“I will.” She broke the connection and went to fish Robbie out of the shower.

Because Robbie seemed to want it, she and Maximilian sat on either side of his bed in the room Mihaela had used the first night here. Drowned in Maximilian’s T-shirt, he looked tiny but cozy and contented as he closed his eyes and drifted almost at once into exhausted sleep.

“Is he?” Mihaela blurted as Maximilian stood up. “Contented?”

“He’s at peace for now.”

Mihaela swallowed, lifting her gaze from the boy’s angelic face to Maximilian’s. “What are we going to do?” she whispered.

Again, he turned away from her. “Go to sleep, Mihaela. You’re dead on your feet.”

Like you.
The silent joke made her lips curve into the semblance of a smile. But she stood like an old woman and made her way slowly into the bathroom to shower off the dirt and the blood and the feel of death.

Then, without even glancing toward the main room, she tumbled into the bed next to Robbie’s and slept.

****

Although she didn’t think she’d slept for very long, she woke to a beam of sun on her face and immediately turned her head to the next bed. It was empty.

In a panic, she leapt up and hurried to the door into the main room, where she came to an abrupt halt.

Robbie sat cross-legged on the big double bed, opposite Maximilian, who’d assumed the same position. Between them were sheaves of papers and a number of pens and pencils, as if they’d been drawing together. But for now their heads were together, and they were deep in quiet conversation. Robbie didn’t even notice she was there. Maximilian knew. It was in the tension of his shoulders, but he didn’t once take his eyes off the boy.

New pain closed around her heart. She turned and padded back to bed. But as she drew the covers up to her ears and stared into the curtained window, she realized with surprise that the pain was pleasant. More of a pleasurable ache, because it was so intensely good to see the two of them together.

Mihaela closed her eyes. Impossible dreams of a faithful lover, of a home and family and happiness seeped back into her heart and mind. Because, when he’d told her there was no trust, her pain had been reflected in his eyes. Maximilian hurt.

But she was tired, so very tired, and it seemed she could no longer recognize the impossible.

The next time she woke up, Robbie was asleep in his bed. His body clock must have been completely disrupted by living with the vampires. Mihaela crept out of bed. She thought of getting dressed, but she didn’t want to wake him just yet. Besides, there were things she needed to say to Maximilian while Robbie wasn’t around to hear.

She’d never gone in for sexy nightwear, so the sleep-shirt she wore was neither revealing nor alluring, although as soon as she saw Maximilian stretched out on his own bed, fully dressed, she became ridiculously aware of the fact that she wore no underwear.

He must have known she was there, but he didn’t look at her until she sat down on the very edge of his bed. Then he turned his dark head, and his gaze struck her like a blow that left her winded.

“You’re right,” she said quietly. “There is no trust between us. I’ve been killing vampires all my adult life, and before that, I was killing them in my head. The only people I care for kill them too. And yes, you were right in Scotland as well: I don’t care for many people. After my family, there were only the hunters who looked after me, and then more hunters that I worked with. Elizabeth is the best friend I should have had at school but didn’t.”

He could have sneered. But he didn’t. On the other hand, he didn’t say anything either, just searched her face while she spoke, mostly her eyes and her mouth. Her words stumbled under his expressionless scrutiny, but she was determined to get them out.

“Outside of that world, I care for nobody. I don’t have relationships with men. The bastards I’ve known you couldn’t even call lovers, because there was no love involved. On either side. It was only sex. And if the truth be told, it wasn’t even very good sex.”

Maximilian stirred. “Are you including sex with me in this category?”

She drew in her breath, threading her hair between her fingers and hanging on to it like a lifeline. “No. I’m telling you about them to try and explain why it doesn’t come easily to—to
do
relationships. With you.”

“I know that.” He turned and drew himself into a sitting position, his back against the pillows.

“I don’t trust men. Lovers. I’ve had no reason to. I’ve always picked bastards quite deliberately.”

“It made it more exciting for you.”

She smiled unhappily. “Perhaps.”

“And a vampire bastard was even more exciting. You liked the danger.” His voice was flat, expressionless, and she had to hang on to the memory of the pain in his eyes in order to keep going.

“I think I did. It wasn’t an attraction I understood or wanted. Until Elizabeth’s thing with Saloman, I didn’t even know vampires
had
feelings. But that night, I saw them together after the fight in the library and even I couldn’t doubt the depth of his love for her. That’s what made it worse with you. I wanted you very badly, and no matter how much I told myself it was just sex, there was always the possibility of more hidden at the back of my mind.”

She tugged on her hair. “And then it
became
more. Here, in Malta. I felt it grow. I don’t know you, Maximilian. You’re hundreds of years old, and there’s too much to
ever
know. But I think you felt it too.”

He didn’t deny it. He didn’t do anything except look at her, and she might have imagined the silver glinting in his pale, gray eyes.

“Things like this don’t happen to me, Max,” she whispered. “I was just waiting, waiting for something to pull it down. I thought it was Ferdinand who did. But it wasn’t. It was me.”

Tears choked her, and she had to swallow them down, swiping her shoulder against her eye to hide the emotion.