Blood of Angels (12 page)

****

The difference between the total pain and exhaustion of the previous morning and the mere lethargy of this one was remarkable to István. Of course, he’d slept like a log and woken rather later than he’d intended, but the combination of Elizabeth’s massive healing and Angyalka’s explosive sex seemed to have exerted a miracle cure on his traumatized body. Not that he felt capable of running a marathon just yet, or even going a round with an aggressive vampire, but for the first time since his injury, he could imagine being capable of those things very soon.

After showering, István munched some toasted not-quite-fresh bread held in one hand while with the other he cleared a space on his dining table—which was full of circuit boards and electronic gadgetry and leftover spare parts—and placed the statuette of Angyalka in the middle. He set up the device he’d just concocted, made from something very like a battery combined with a battery charger, and a sensor, like the ones he used in the detectors, and aimed it at the marble Angyalka.

Angyalka, stretched and bound under him, moaning and writhing with passion. Angyalka’s wet, welcoming depths drawing him in, massaging him.

Fuck. Mind on
this
job, István.

Nothing on the battery device lit up. If there was any energy to be had from the statuette, he hadn’t collected it. But then, he couldn’t enchant.

Why should a word have such power?

“Angel,” he said aloud, gazing at the ornament. A jumble of images swirled through his mind: a childish idea of a beautiful, winged lady; a church painting of the Archangel Gabriel, an insubstantial impression of God’s light shining through winged beings; and the little angelic statue with Angyalka’s face.

“Angyalka,” he said. And along with the mind-image of the vampiress as he’d last seen her came a glimpse of the previous ones of mythical angels. His mind associated them in the word. The chances were, most people did.

But István couldn’t enchant. He had no magic spark to ignite the little angel’s power.

However, he knew a woman who did.

He’d see if he could catch Elizabeth at the university. She could enchant. He stood, straightening his legs carefully. Elizabeth had been right about his body feeling tired this morning, and just a little stiff, but there was none of the pain of yesterday, and, considering how he’d finished off a busy day with extremely energetic sex, he was delighted with his whole progress.

Well, Elizabeth’s progress, he allowed wryly. Perhaps it was weird, but besides his fear of exhausting her and making her ill as she had been immediately after the fight in the hunters’ library, one of his reasons for refusing too much of her healing was a stubborn desire to do it himself. Stupid, because if a doctor had come up with a miracle cure, he’d have grabbed it with both hands.

His phone interrupted this rare moment of self-understanding. He grabbed it up. “Mihaela. How are things?”

“Not sure,” came Mihaela’s rueful voice. “We found another mangled body. Magda thinks it was the same vampire who killed on the Széchenyi Bridge. And I’m afraid Konrad’s done a runner. He isn’t at work, and his apartment’s empty.”

“Not surprised. Saloman knows he was behind the Angel bombing.”

“Fuck,” Mihaela groaned. “Did you warn him?”

“Konrad? No need. Saloman’s leaving him to us to deal with. At least for a while.”

“And how the hell are we going to do that?”

“Well, we can’t kill him,” István said briskly to cover the ugliness of the words he was forced to consider. “And we can’t let him run amok blowing things up. So we’ll have to draw his teeth.”

“I repeat: how the hell are we going to do that?”

“I haven’t the foggiest idea. But I think we have to find him first.”

There was a tiny pause; then Mihaela said, “How well do you know Rabbat from the second team?”

“Not very. Quiet, intense bloke.”

“That’s him. Apparently he isn’t in work either and hasn’t phoned in sick. He was away on a mission during the battle with Luk.”

“Meaning he might not be so influenced by gratitude to Saloman as the rest of us are? You think he’s part of this new force Konrad’s been trying to form?”

“Maybe,” Mihaela replied unhappily. “I’m heading round to his place now.”

“Okay. I’m going to try and find Konrad.”

“Any ideas where to look?”

“One or two,” István said vaguely as he stuffed the marble Angyalka and the ad hoc storage device into his rucksack. “I’ll let you know what happens.”

****

After a great deal of thought, Andrea kept her promise to the mysterious Konrad, and decided not to follow István anymore. It wasn’t a difficult decision since she’d no idea where the man lived or where he was now. Frankly, she couldn’t have followed him if she’d tried.

On the other hand, the whole mystery-criminal bit was highly intriguing, and she wanted to know more. Since Friday was her day off from the hotel where she worked, she gave her house a cursory clean and then went out for a walk. She tried to pretend to herself she wouldn’t, but her feet turned at once toward the river, and the same route she’d taken by car yesterday evening.

Well, why not? She liked art and wouldn’t be averse to buying a new piece or two if they appealed to her strongly enough. Her ex had cleared off with more than his fair share of stuff they’d once bought together, so maybe she’d buy herself something charming and send him the bill. That would teach the greedy bastard.

And maybe she’d find out something new about what was going on, something that might help István and Konrad. And Mihaela of course, though Konrad had seemed to think her friend wouldn’t like Andrea to be involved.

She only recognized the street when she saw the “Angel Art” sign. It seemed different in the daylight, although no more salubrious. Strange place for an art gallery. She slid her glance along the road to the door through which she’d followed István. There was a dull, featureless angel carved into the wall above it, so maybe there was a connection between the criminals’ club and the art shop.

The thought made her heart beat faster as she pushed open the gallery door and went in. A young man was polishing glass cabinets and humming to himself. He paused long enough to smile and say “Good morning,” then returned to his work and let her browse.

She almost forgot why she’d come in. A few of the paintings were, in her opinion, tacky, but there was enough good stuff among it to keep her interest genuine. There were a couple of classical paintings she’d have loved to hang on her front room walls, and some of the jewelry was to die for. Unfortunately, none of it was priced, and she had a horrible feeling it was out of her league. However, at least it gave her an excuse to turn to the busy young man and enquire the cost of the fabulous red necklace.

“Oh, try it on,” he urged. “It’ll look beautiful on you with your dark hair. Here. Let me help you.”

Before she could express her doubts—after all, he still hadn’t told her the price—he swept it out of the cabinet and fastened it around her neck, and she found herself admiring it in the mirror above the display.

“It looks as if it was made for you. You’ll never spend a better thousand forints.”

Relieved, she said, “I believe you. I’ll take it.”

“Thank you!” Carefully, he unfastened it again and took it away to wrap. “Is there anything else I can interest you in?”

“I love some of the paintings,” she said. “But I can’t make up my mind—and I haven’t even seen them all yet!”

“Take your time,” the young man invited, placing the necklace in a box.

“What an unexpected gem of a place,” she said admiringly. “Have you been open long?”

She trailed along a series of seascapes, one of which caught her attention. She wasn’t quite sure why, because it wasn’t particularly striking, not as magnificent as the one on its left, nor as peaceful as the one on its right. It was dark, almost dreary, yet inspired no powerful emotion—even depression.

“Only a month or two, but word’s getting around.”

“Are you the owner?” she asked, moving on from the miserable seascape.

“Oh good grief, no. Angyalka owns it, as well as the club upstairs.”

Andrea glanced at him over her shoulder. “Angyalka?” she prompted, hoping for a second name or at least some more details.

But the young man only said pleasantly, “Yes. Angyalka.”

She looked back at the paintings and found herself focused again on the dreary seascape. What was it that kept drawing her eyes? Was it really that good? The brushstrokes were sweeping and confident, the scene deep and almost three dimensional in effect. It was good. But she didn’t really want it on her wall, depressing the crap out of her every night. Maybe she’d buy it and give it to Lara.

She examined it some more and realized she’d been wrong before. It did arouse emotion. She could feel it swirling through her. But the emotion wasn’t good. It felt like—anger. She couldn’t recall ever getting angry at a painting before, not even that awful portrait of herself that her parents had once commissioned. But this—it was almost as if the stormy sea was transferring its rage to her. Intrigued, she opened herself to it, let herself feel, as she always did with art.

“Yes, this is an interesting work isn’t it?” the young man said at her elbow. “Do you like it?”

Irritated, she swung on him to tell him in no uncertain terms to bugger off. Then, over his shoulder in the shadows at the back of the shop, she saw a woman watching her. A beautiful woman Andrea had never seen before. And yet the chemistry was bad; it was awful. Andrea hated her.

The young man shifted slightly to catch her eye, blocking her view of the lovely, hateful woman, and abruptly, Andrea knew there was only one way to get at her—through him.

She shot up her hand in a vicious punch that should have surprised the crap out of him when it connected. Only it never did.

Her hand was held in the other woman’s steely grip.

“No,” the woman said. “No one hits my staff. What’s the matter with you?”

Several thoughts rushed through Andrea’s head. That the woman must have moved far too fast for reality. That Andrea had actually been going to hit someone for no reason. That she’d put herself in the wrong and would be ejected from the shop before she’d learned anything. That now she wouldn’t be able to help István. And all those things combined into the same result, the same source—she hated this elegant woman with the pale skin and the weird eyes that managed to look both unspeakably profound and scarily dead.

She brought up her free hand to hit, and abruptly it was twisted painfully behind her and she was being marched toward the door. The young man held it open, and the woman threw her out like the rubbish. It felt like she was pushed from a long way and yet she carried on, rushing out into the street until the door slammed behind her.

It all happened so quickly, there was no time to do or even feel anything before she was outside, staring at the blinds over the door’s glass top half.

What the hell just happened?

I just tried to hit two people because I didn’t like their painting. Now I don’t even have the necklace. What is the
matter
with me?

****

Angyalka stared at her human henchman for an explanation.

Justin shrugged helplessly. “I have no idea. One minute she was nice as nine pence, saying how wonderful the shop was—she even picked out a necklace to buy, although I suppose that’ll be a lost sale now—the next she turned on me as if I were some hateful worm!”

“She looked as if she was going to tear my eyes out,” Angyalka observed.

“I’d like to see her try,” Justin said with incongruous pride. He frowned suddenly. “You know, she’s not the first customer this week who’s turned as suddenly as that. There are all sorts of weirdoes out there, so one or two and I don’t really notice, but this is becoming a habit.”

Angyalka lifted her brows, gazing thoughtfully from him to the paintings the violent woman had been looking at. “I had one like that yesterday too. She backed down and apologized, but for a moment, she looked almost as angry as that woman there.” She moved toward the pictures, gazing at each of the seascapes in turn.

“Justin, were your weirdoes looking at these pictures too?”

He walked over to stand beside her. “Do you know, I think they were.”

What’s more, Bruno Geller, the man she’d killed the night of the bombing had been skulking around this area when he’d been in with his girlfriend. Before he turned inexplicably violent.

“Something very strange is going on here,” she said softly. Two of the pictures were Maximilian’s, the others local human artists’. But if any of them were enchanted, it was so well done that she couldn’t spot it.

On impulse, she told Justin to stare at each of them in turn. From the first two, he showed no reaction whatever. On the third, after a few moments, he swung on her with impatience. “What’s the point of this? Staring at these bloody ugly pictures…”

“Again,” Angyalka said. “Same one.”

He muttered under his breath, which was so out of character for the good-natured Justin that she watched his face as he gazed again at Maximilian’s dreary seascape. He was frowning with irritability, anger building behind his normally placid eyes.

“Okay, enough,” she said.

Justin ignored her, so she laid her fingertips on his arm. “Justin,” she said sharply.

He flung her off. “Get off me, bitch! Don’t think for a minute I don’t know what you are—evil, bloodsucking cow!”

“Well,” she said softly. “And how much of that is you, my friend?”

By this time, she’d caught his gaze and was holding him captive through it. His eyes widened, as though with shock at what he’d just said.

“Are you calling me a vampire, Justin?”

His mouth curled downward with shame or misery, she wasn’t sure which, but another spark of anger lit up his eyes, almost drowning the sudden fear.

“What do you want to do to me?” she asked.

“Kill you!” he exploded.

Enough was enough. She stared deep into his eyes and beyond, right into his mind, following the surge of hate to its source. It wasn’t a complicated compulsion, and it was easy to unravel before she slid as gently as possible from his mind and, without further ado, picked up Maximilian’s seascape and marched with it toward the office. She got no identity, no reading from it.