Blood on Silk (37 page)

It was
so
time to finish this.

She gave a slightly shaky laugh. “I suppose I wonder what might have been.” She watched Mihaela’s steady hands, patiently honing the blade of her sword, then slowly lifted her eyes to the hunter’s focused face. “Do you never imagine a different life from this? A ‘normal’ one with a steady office job, a husband, kids . . . ?”

“And an expensive car to wash on Sundays?” Mihaela interrupted with a faintly disparaging smile.

“That sort of thing. Don’t you ever want them?”

“Doesn’t matter. I’m not likely to get them.”

“You could give up being a hunter.”

“No, I couldn’t,” Mihaela said. For her, it wasn’t even an option. Her voice was far too steadfast for her ever to consider the alternatives. And yet Elizabeth detected a note of sadness too, a hint that maybe, deep inside her—some similar place, perhaps, to the one where Elizabeth suppressed all her emotions about Saloman—Mihaela did crave that “normal” life. But it was a life the hunter would never have, because her work was more important.

With a twinge of guilt, Elizabeth rose restlessly, then walked toward Mihaela and the swords.

“Is it enough?” she asked abruptly. “Are we really strong enough?”

“I think so,” Mihaela said calmly. “Zoltán, Maximilian, four medium-strength vampires, an army of zombies, six hunters—including Konrad—and you. Against him—and
possibly
Dmitriu, if he’s still walking.”

“I think he is. Zoltán would have gloated that he was dead. The older ones know when one of them dies.”

Mihaela looked surprised that she knew such a thing—it was something that didn’t impinge much on the hunters’ daily, often brutal dealings with the undead. “Whatever. The odds are still in our favor. Saloman isn’t infallible. He’s been defeated before and at the height of his strength. Admittedly by people he trusted, but that’s our lesson—be quick, sure, and unhesitating.”

Elizabeth nodded.
Just focus on that. One more night, just a few more hours, and it will all be over. . . .
Picking up her own sword from its position beside Mihaela’s leg, she touched the razor-sharp blade cautiously with one finger. She’d never be allowed to use it in the fencing club again.

Mihaela said, “He’s coming to stop Zoltán’s feeding from you. He won’t expect an army.”

“He’ll know you’re here, though. He’ll sense Konrad as he senses me.” They’d been over it before. She was going in circles. “But I know, he won’t expect the rest. Still . . . Mihaela? I don’t believe Maximilian will come. Zoltán may have found him, but I doubt he’s tempted him from his retreat. If he had, he wouldn’t have been so eager to accept our alliance.”

“We have to take the chance. Can you fight like that?”

Elizabeth glanced down at her full skirt. She had two reasons for wearing the new outfit—to keep up the pretense of being Zoltán’s victim; and to show Richard that she truly meant to come to the party later on. Having hesitated for so long as to whether or not going out with Richard was a good idea, she refused to go back on her final decision. There was no point in removing the obstacle to her living and loving, if she then blew it with a possible source of happiness.

“I can fight in anything,” she said grimly.

“All right.” Mihaela glanced out the window. It was almost dusk. “Five minutes, and then we should go.”

“Let’s go now—I need to call in on someone on the way.”

“Elizabeth!” Surprised, Richard opened the door wide by way of invitation. He looked pleasingly rumpled in casual jeans and a T-shirt. Folk music was blaring inside, a musical taste she hadn’t been aware of.

His gaze dropped, taking in her appearance, and a gleam of appreciation lit his eyes. It bolstered her confidence, her determination to move on with her life.

“I can’t stop,” Elizabeth babbled. “Something’s come up, so I’ll just meet you at the Harpers’ as soon as I can.”

“Oh.” Clearly, it wasn’t a situation that he encountered very often. He looked—deflated. “All right, then.”

“Sorry to mess you around, Richard—see you later on.”
I hope
. Impulsively, she reached up, gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, and ran back down the steps to the street before he could speak. She
would
make this up to him—and to herself. She needed to be rid of Saloman very badly.

“All right?” said Mihaela, trotting to catch up as Elizabeth passed her at a brisk walk.

“It will be. Let’s get this over with.”

Although the sun hadn’t set yet, they’d all learned from the experience at the Angel, and the other hunters were already in the cathedral grounds—the three UK operatives as well as István and Konrad—all standing in a huddle by the east gable arch.

Elizabeth had always liked the ruins best by dusk. She could almost imagine the ghosts of monks gliding along the nave, heads bowed, praying. As the shadows lengthened and vanished into darkness, she could rebuild the walls and turrets in her head, think herself back six hundred years, and let the beauty and peace enfold her.

The hunters said its holiness didn’t affect the vampires, because humans had abandoned the church, despoiled and neglected it as Reformation austerity took hold. They said it gave no advantage to good over evil, but Elizabeth thought they were wrong. She loved this place and knew now that it was the right, the only place in which to face him and finish this.

“They have keys,” Mihaela murmured, jerking her head toward the British hunters—who seemed to be the proverbial Scotsman, Englishman, and Irishman of a million bad jokes. “Alarms and cameras are turned off, and we can shelter in the museum if we need to.”

Elizabeth nodded. “Where is Zoltán?” she asked as Konrad came up.

“Here,” said the vampire, so close behind her that she jumped. Zoltán laughed. He wore a real sword quite casually at his belt and on the other side, two sharpened wooden stakes like her own. “That should give him something to think about. I’ve been unmasked all day. He knows I’m here, with you.”

“Then he’ll know you want him here. . . .”

Zoltán shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. He’ll still come.”

“And Maximilian?” Mihaela asked.

“Not here yet.”

“Can’t you sense him?” Konrad demanded.

“Of course not. He’s a master of masking. One more thing. I have a condition of my alliance.”

Konrad lifted his eyebrows, and Zoltán smiled. “
I
kill Saloman.”

“No,” said all the hunters together. It sounded like a football crowd.

Zoltán laughed again.

Konrad said, “Only if you meet our condition in return.” And the others stared at him with as much outrage as anxiety. It was not, clearly, a condition he was allowed to agree to by all the rules and guidelines of their organization. But then, Elizabeth suspected he had no intention of keeping it anyhow.

“I’m listening,” Zoltán said.

“Order your zombies to return to their graves as soon as he’s dead.”

Elizabeth’s stomach twisted. It still seemed terribly wrong to countenance use of the dead in this way. And yet to stop Saloman, they needed every advantage they could find. They needed to be pragmatic. But she was well aware that if Zoltán did kill Saloman, the hunters would stake him straight afterward. No one imagined the mercenary vampires would hang around in loyal outrage.

Zoltán shrugged. “I’ll make it part of my summons. We have company.”

Four men were strolling through the cathedral from various directions, stepping through arches and climbing over a low, broken wall. They didn’t speak to one another or to Zoltán, just nodded distantly, and stood around to await another vampire’s enemy whose death they hoped would strengthen them. They were the first native vampires Elizabeth was aware of encountering, and the sight of them, the knowledge of them, sent an odd shiver up her back.

Elizabeth walked a little away from the others and sat down on a stone step, gazing up at St. Rule’s ancient tower on her left. A thousand years old, it reached into the night sky like a stark but powerful symbol of stability. She scanned around the magnificent stone walls of the cathedral itself, watching the last of the light fade from its arched, upper windows, and moved on to the single tower and broken arch facing her. It was an iconic image for her, and she was damned if she’d lose it.

I will be strong. Directly or indirectly, I will kill you.

In the distance, she could hear loud hoots of laughter and voices calling. Local children were out “guising,” dressed as vampires and ghouls and witches to sing their songs and tell their jokes in return for sweets, cakes, and apples and whatever loose change they could scrounge. And, of course, the students would be around, partying, teasing the kids they encountered, trying in vain to scare one another because at heart none of them believed it was real.

She knew better now.

Removing her backpack, she took out the pouch full of the pointed wooden stakes she’d made over the last couple of weeks, and the sword so efficiently sharpened by Mihaela. She tied the pouch around her waist and weighed the sword in her hand, preparing to commit murder—again.

Konrad sat beside her, gazing with her at the movements of the sword. She waited for him to speak, to clear the air before the battle when they would depend on each other for survival.
Am I really thinking like this? Elizabeth Silk, unworldly academic, avoider of confrontation . . .

After a few moments, he said, “My secrecy wasn’t meant to hurt you. It was to protect you.”

“It doesn’t matter. Whatever the reason, I overreacted.” She lowered the sword and lifted her head higher into the cold air, trying to admire the stars and clear the air without emotion. “It was a difficult time for me. I felt betrayed by everyone. It was stupid, and I shouldn’t have stomped off like that.”

“No harm done. We have him now.”

I hope so. I bloody hope so.

“So,” she said, distracting herself, “did you always know about your descent? Is that why you became a hunter?”

He smiled faintly. “Yes, I suppose so. My mother always told me I was special, though I admit in my teenage years I rebelled and elected to believe she was mad. Until I witnessed an attack and was able to do something about it. Although I’d met one or two hunters before, that was my
real
introduction to them. I’ve been one ever since.” She felt his gaze turn to her. “It’s something you might consider. Even part-time.”

“I was a part-time vampire hunter,” she murmured. “I should write a book instead of a thesis, call it fiction. Only it would be rejected as too far-fetched.”

She stood up, shivering, and drew her jacket more closely around her. Could she face more of this? She did find pleasure in being asked to join them. The sharpened stake hidden in her sleeve poked out as she bent her arm, and she flicked it back in a practiced sort of way.

“He’s here,” said Zoltán, and the tense knots in Elizabeth’s stomach gave an immediate, violent twist. No, this wasn’t for her. Tonight was all about getting rid of all the vampire stuff, fulfilling her responsibilities to eliminate the evil she’d unleashed on the world. And when it was over, when he was dead—for good—and she was free of the churning guilt and shame and lust, she never ever wanted to be reminded of him again.

Zoltán stood beside them, scanning the sky and the ruins, much as she did. “He’s unmasked, letting me know—so he’s come for a fight.”

“Then let’s give him one.” Konrad signaled behind him to the other hunters before he too rose to his feet.

“Oh, I will. And when he dies, our alliance dies with it.”

“You took the words out of my mouth,” said Konrad.

Zoltán lifted his arms wide, forcing Elizabeth backward out of his way. He began to incant strange words, neither Hungarian nor Latin, yet containing something of each; he spun as he spoke them to encompass the entire cathedral—and the graveyard that surrounded it.

Oh shite . . .

A hand slipped into hers and gripped tightly. Mihaela. With gratitude, Elizabeth squeezed back and then let go in order to have both hands free when the horror began.

Smug and silent now, Zoltán dropped his arms to his sides. In the distance, someone shouted, and a burst of many-voiced laughter replied. The wind whipped Elizabeth’s hair out of her face. The gravestones on her right seemed to tremble in the darkness, the earth to move and undulate. Ahead, under the west gable tower, something stirred beneath the arch, like the figure of a wraith-thin human.

Familiar hysteria surged up, trying to make her laugh at the ridiculous image springing into her mind, of St. Andrew’s sacred bones carefully preserved in the museum in the cathedral undercroft—a bit of finger and knee bone, a shard of skull, whatever they were—rising up and trying to march out to Zoltán’s command.

She sobered. It was obscene. He shouldn’t be able to do this, not in this place. . . .

The back of her neck prickled.

“They’re coming,” Konrad warned. “But they’re not coming for us. Hold firm. They’re not our enemy.”

A bat screeched, so close she jumped and spun around, staring in the direction of the noise. Something swooped through the darkness from the top of the right-hand tower, diving lower and lower until it seemed to grow into a huge shadow, the quickly solidifying shadow of a man in a long black leather coat. Before the open coat settled around him, she glimpsed the shape of a long sword and scabbard at his thigh.