Blood on Silk (8 page)

“No, please, I’ll be fine here.” She gave a laugh that was both breathless and rueful. “After all, if Saloman’s ‘protecting’ me, I couldn’t be safer, could I?”
At least for tonight.

“Actually, yes, you could be a lot safer. I’ve just had word from my informant that Zoltán is in Transylvania.”

“Zoltán?”

“The regional leader of the vampires of Hungary, Romania, and Croatia. He’s heard about Saloman, and about you. And he wants you both dead. The attack on you tonight might even have been instigated by him, or by someone trying to curry favor. He’s summoned the local vampires to him. Elizabeth, it really is time you got out of here.”

Dmitriu wasn’t stupid. When they made it unmolested to the farmhouse door, he obligingly kicked it open and stood aside for Saloman to enter first. So it was that as Saloman strolled inside, it was he rather than Dmitriu who bore the brunt of the attack.

What interested Dmitriu was that although perhaps fifteen vampires filled that bare kitchen, just one of them flew at Salo - man’s throat. Dmitriu saw no reason to intervene. Saloman barely needed two hands to catch the stupid creature, before sinking his fangs and draining him dry. The body fell at his feet and exploded into silver dust that danced in the light of the flaming torches on the wall.

“Thank you,” said Saloman, as if grateful for the welcome, and walked forward into the room. Dmitriu elected to follow him.

The whole house reeked of human death. Zoltán was easy to spot, sprawled in the only armchair as if it were his throne. His foot rested on a pale, human body, which in death was bent into a grotesque shape.

In the corner behind him, two vampires had obviously been fighting over the last living creature in the room, a woman perhaps in her forties, whose eyes reflected madness and horror. Her family had been butchered by monsters in front of her eyes.

“My pleasure,” drawled Zoltán.

He’d had time to prepare, to assume this position of careless power while Saloman and Dmitriu had openly crossed the field. He was a big, fair vampire, a lock of his untidy hair falling across his forehead. His face was not that of a thoughtful being, but it reflected a certain amount of intelligence and cunning as well as considerable self-confidence—and strength. He was stronger than Dmitriu remembered.

His gaze locked on Saloman’s as the Ancient stepped over the bodies in his path. Zoltán smiled, lifted one hand, and snapped his fingers. “My guest is hungry. Since you can’t agree, give her to him.”

“You’re too kind.” Saloman didn’t so much as glance at the outraged vampires or their traumatized victim.

“You need to gather your strength,” Zoltán said with such obviously false consideration that Dmitriu had the urge to kick him. “Three hundred years is a long time to starve.”

“Tell me about it,” said Saloman. “I take it I need no introduction.”

“I take it neither do I.” His malevolent gaze flickered to Dmitriu in contempt. Dmitriu contented himself with a curl of the lip.

Saloman said, “Of course not. I can see at once that you are Zoltán, the great leader.”

Zoltán’s eyes narrowed with suspicion, but he’d learn nothing from Saloman’s face. The two squabbling vampires, meanwhile, had dragged the terrified woman to the side of Zoltán’s chair.

“That disobedient idiot was not my hospitality,” Zoltán explained. “This is.” He jerked his head, and with ill grace the two vampires pushed the woman at Saloman, who caught her before she fell. However, he didn’t feed at once, but instead held her to his side. “He imagined that by killing you, he would become strong enough to usurp my place.”

“Idiot indeed,” Saloman agreed. The hand that held the woman slid up her shoulder to her throat and began to stroke idly.

“Obviously,” Zoltán said, “I told them all you were not for the likes of them.”

Dmitriu stiffened, recognizing a challenge when he heard one.

“Assuredly not.” Saloman continued to stroke the woman’s neck while regarding Zoltán. The woman turned her head and stared up at Saloman, confused, presumably, by his entirely misleading gentleness. She had a tired, overworked look mixed with the remnants of youthful beauty that reminded Dmitriu a little of Maria.

Refusing to be distracted, Dmitriu took another swift glance around the room, confirming everyone’s position in his mind. If it weren’t for Zoltán, he and Saloman could take the others easily. But Zoltán . . . Zoltán could be their undoing. He wanted to shake Saloman.

“The woman is not a bribe, by the way,” Zoltán said. “Nor is she poisoned.”

“I know. A great leader like you would not fear me enough to commit either offense.”

Saloman’s sarcasm was beginning to sound too much like flattery for Dmitriu’s taste. He wondered when the hell they were going to leave, or at least do whatever they’d come here for.

“I don’t,” Zoltán said too quickly.

“And yet my blood is a draw. The blood of an Ancient is powerful.”

“I could take it,” Zoltán said. His hands, resting on the arms of his chair, convulsed, and Dmitriu tensed.

“My good sir,” Saloman said, turning the woman in his arms, “I didn’t come here to do anything so foolish as to fight with you.”

The woman gazed up into his face, trustfully now—mistake. Saloman spared her a quick glance, a half smile before he bent toward her neck. At the first touch of his lips on her skin, she gasped and threw back her head. The scratches on the faces of the quarreling vampires bore testament to her previous fights, but Saloman she didn’t even try to resist. She welcomed him, as they all did.

Wouldn’t make her any less dead.

Saloman drank. The woman clawed his shoulders in agony and ecstasy, and then gripped hard, as if holding him to her. The other vampires gawped, openmouthed.

Zoltán snapped, “Then why?”

Saloman lifted his head and licked a drop of blood from his lips. The woman moaned. “I would suggest an alliance,” he said, and returned to her wounded throat. She sighed with satisfaction.

Dmitriu’s grunt was anything but satisfied.
Alliance? What the... ?

Zoltán laughed. “An alliance? Why would I need an alliance with you? I control all the vampires in three major countries. Those in three others would not dare to cross me. I have dominion over zombies and worldwide support. What do you have, apart from your bitch?”

He cast a contemptuous glance at Dmitriu who curled his lips once more and watched Saloman finish his meal. Her fingers no longer gripped him as she hung nearly lifeless in his arms. One more pull of his savoring lips, and he’d had it all.

Releasing her, he let her slide to the floor at his feet. Despite witnessing the unspeakable horror that had clearly unhinged her mind beyond any power of healing, she died happy in the end.

Saloman, unstained by as much as a droplet of blood, said, “My—er—bitch has more strength in his little finger than you will ever possess. Without me. You need wisdom as well as brute force, my friend.”

“To do what?” Zoltán jeered. “What more is there? Conquer America?”

He was a smug bastard, overly pleased with himself. Dmitriu began to wish he’d killed him after all, decades ago when no one would have minded.

“You think too small,” Saloman chided. “You said it yourself—you rule the vampires of three major countries. How many beings is that, precisely? Even throwing a few mindless zombies into the calculation, not many. The majority of the population of those countries, as of all others, even America, is—er—human.”

Zoltán frowned, still not getting it. Dmitriu got it, though—and was appalled. Saloman would turn the world upside down and regain the power that was his at the dawn of time. Humans would be his slaves once more, because they had betrayed him three hundred years ago.

Not just Elizabeth Silk, but the world would pay for Tsigana’s actions.

If he succeeded. But either way, Dmitriu knew his peace was over.

More annoying than anything was Saloman’s refusal to talk about it. As they watched the farmhouse burn, he wore a serious frown that repelled discussion. And then, appearing to throw off his somber mood, he strode back through the trees in the direction of Bistriƫa with nothing more than the beauty of nature on his lips, whatever was in his head.

“You don’t understand the modern world,” Dmitriu burst out. “It’s not a few thousand people now, under the thumbs of a handful of the powerful. This is an age of democracy and superpowers and
money
!”

“It is fascinating,” Saloman agreed, gazing upward at the moon. “Do you know, when I was first reborn, I almost hated the moon? I felt I would gladly shoot it out of the sky just for a ray of warm, soothing sunshine. And yet now, after staring so long at a stone ceiling, making pictures in my head from every crack, counting the strands of cobwebs and grains of dust . . . I truly value the beauty of the night sky.”

Dmitriu glanced at him uncertainly. His words struck a chord as well as a memory, and it was the first reference he’d made to his three-hundred-year “sleep.” On the other hand, Dmitriu refused to be manipulated away from his point.

“You’re moving too fast—you can’t take over the world when you can’t even find your way up an escalator!”

“What’s an escalator?”

“See? It’s a moving staircase, powered by electricity. They’re all over shopping centers and airports. . . . You don’t know what they are either, do you?”

“Large indoor markets, and ports for airplanes. You explained airplanes on our journey here—noisy but effective vehicles, though bad for the environment.”

Dmitriu’s mouth fell open. In fact, he stopped in his tracks, and for a moment Saloman appeared to him as he would to any watching human—a patch of pale, glinting light flashing through the trees, almost like a sped-up film. He wouldn’t know what that was either, would he?

He ran to catch up. “I suppose you know
how
airplanes are bad for the environment too?”

“I picked up bits and pieces.” He spared Dmitriu a glance. “But you’re right. My knowledge is sketchy. I’ve collected books—this age has a truly impressive number, even in such a backwater—and newspapers, but I think I really need a television. And Internet access.” He smiled beatifically at Dmitriu’s expression. “Yes, I do know what that is. Amazing age for fun, isn’t it?”

They were entering the town now. Quiet, suburban streets flashed past. One couldn’t even smell the smoke from the farmhouse here.

“Yes,” Dmitriu snapped. “But you have to know what the hell you’re doing! And you obviously don’t! Allying with a mindless, untrustworthy thug like Zoltán? Can you really not see how far beneath you that is?”

Saloman slowed to normal walking speed, watching with apparent admiration as a car drove past. “These are amazing,” he observed. “And so many of them, even here, and in the villages. How in Hades do they work?”

“Internal combustion engine. Do you have any intention of answering
my
questions?”

“Eventually.” Saloman glanced up at the sky again. “So much paler in the town. The stars fade from view. Street lighting is a mixed blessing.”

“You should see Budapest. It glows at night, almost like the sun.”

“I will,” Saloman promised. “I’m weak, Dmitriu.”

It was so unexpected after the evasion of the last half hour that Dmitriu stumbled. Saloman smiled faintly. “But I can’t be still anymore—I need to move forward, even while I’m learning, even while I’m gaining strength. I need time, and alliance with Zoltán buys it for me. He won’t keep our agreement for long, and frankly, neither will I, but for now I have space to act without immediate threat.”

Dmitriu swallowed. He couldn’t remember Saloman’s ever admitting vulnerability before. “Kill the Awakener,” he pleaded. “Let me find Karl and Lajos for you, even if Maximilian is lost. . . .”

“I know where they are. I can sense them already.”

“Then your strength
is
returning.”

“Slowly . . . It’s a delicate balance between the pleasure of vengeance and the strength I’d gain from it. As for the Awakener . . .” A smile flitted across his face. “She’s like a fine wine I’m learning to appreciate.”

They were in the brighter lights of central Bistriƫa now, and the modest weekend crowds of locals and tourists filled the bars and cafés, spilling onto the pavement.