Written in the Blood (44 page)

C
HAPTER
49

Interlaken, Switzerland

I
n the last moments before the
tolvajok
reached her, even though her head felt light from lack of blood, even though her heart pumped what little remained so fiercely she thought it might tear itself apart, Leah sent her mind somewhere else.

It tumbled through days and weeks and years, gifting her not with visions of horror or pain, but with memories of joy and love. She saw her father’s smile, his twinkling eyes. She heard his laughter. So long since Leah had seen him, but time had not abraded her memories. She wondered if he watched her now. She wondered if he waited for her.

She thought of her grandfather, of Gabriel, of all the others she’d met and loved. And finally, she thought of her mother.

If there remained in this world one person to whom Leah owed so much, it was Hannah Wilde. Her mother shone in her thoughts, glorious: warrior, teacher, friend. Even after everything Hannah had lost, she’d always retained her ability to look into her daughter’s soul and know the words Leah needed to hear.

If her mother had taught her one lesson above all others, it was to
believe
.

Believe in your strength. Believe in your power. Believe you can face the impossible. Believe that your spirit can endure.

She knew what she had to do. And she was scared. Terrified. But she couldn’t let her mother down, not after everything Hannah had sacrificed.

Leah took a step back. Her spine pressed against the drapes hanging beside one of the windows. In front of her, the creature wearing the body of Krištof Joó hissed. Its eyes were globes of darkness.

Her legs trembled, the last threads of her energy dissolving away. She wrapped her arm around the curtain, determined to maintain her dignity, determined not to fall to her knees.

Her heart was beating even faster now. Surely close to breaking. A yard of empty space separated her from the clutching hands of the
tolvajok
. She wanted to close her eyes. Instead, she tried to raise the gun.

Couldn’t.

But she didn’t need to. Not for this.

The first time she’d been in this room with Luca, she’d nearly fainted away. Perhaps it was a tacit acknowledgement of her tendency to find danger, to gravitate towards self-destruction, but she’d been terrified of heights all her life.

She stared at the glass floor of the sun room – a polished black face, like the entrance to another world.

No time left, Leah.

She aimed her gun and pulled the trigger. Seven shots, rupturing the air like cannon fire.

Beneath her feet, the floor became a sea of ice. It cracked, splintering and popping, like the calving of an iceberg.

For a single frozen moment, the floor held, and then the glass slab she’d imagined as the entrance to another world
became
another world, one that was infinitely more dark than this.

Shrieking with rage, the
tolvajok
plunged down into it. Leah felt the floor beneath her own feet disintegrate. Pistol tumbling from her fingers, she fell.

Weightless, her stomach lifted into her throat. A brutal wind blasted her.

The drape tightened around her arm like a tourniquet and suddenly she was dangling over the brink. A flurry of snowflakes erupted out of the darkness, stinging her cheeks.

Below her, the five black shapes of the
tolvajok
tumbled into the abyss, flailing like broken marionettes. With a dull whump they hit the first rocks jutting from the cliff face and ricocheted off into darkness. Awaiting them, a fall of three hundred feet before they met the jagged snow-covered landscape below.

Leah managed to grasp the curtain with her other hand. Its fabric was attached to the rail by circlets of steel stitched into the cloth. But while the curtain would hold her weight, the rail itself would not. Already, she saw one of its fixtures pulling loose.

Where the glass floor had met the wall, only a single horizontal retaining strut remained. Leah swung onto it, but because the viewing window remained intact she couldn’t balance there and, even if that had been possible, her legs would no longer support her weight.

Clinging to the curtain, she saw, above her, the first of the railing’s fixtures pop loose. She dipped a few inches. Held her breath.

A foot to her right, a vertical strut divided two of the window panels. On the other side of that, another curtain, flapping like a shackled wraith. If only she could get to it, it could support half her weight.

And then what? Even if she managed that, the only way out of this chamber was either via the archway at her back or the door in the far wall. Both meant crossing yards of empty space. It would have been a daunting leap even without her injuries. With her wounded leg, it was impossible.

She rappelled sideways, bloodied jeans smearing the window glass. Reached for the second curtain. Missed. Felt her grip loosen. Dropped another foot towards death before she managed to anchor herself. Snowflakes lashed her face like nipping teeth.

Above, another railing fixture began to work loose.

This time, Leah used every last shred of energy to grip the curtain with her left hand before rappelling across and reaching out with her right. She grabbed the second drape just in time.

The last two retaining bolts popped loose from the wall and the first rail crashed onto her head. It bounced away and the curtain tightened around her arm.

Leah clung to the second drape with both hands. It held. But now there was nowhere else to go. Glancing down, she saw the rail swinging loose below her, connected by the strip of curtain wound around her arm. She sank her teeth into the fabric, biting down with all her strength as she shrugged herself out of its folds. Slowly, she began to reel it up.

The curtain still supporting her trembled. Looking up, she saw the first of its three fixtures beginning to buckle. Plaster rained down on her face. She felt her hands numbing. Wondered whether they would give out before the brackets.

If she bridged the gap across the floor with the broken rail, maybe she could drag herself across it. But to avoid the risk of it plunging into the abyss while she placed it, she would have to slide down the curtain until she hung at floor height.

A fixture above her popped loose. The second bracket began to bend. Leah loosened her grip and dropped another foot closer towards death.

Blood ran down her forehead and into her eyes. The world swam.

Teeth clenched, she rested one end of the rail on the lip of the support encasing the window at floor height. She eased the rest of it out across the gap. It wasn’t going to be long enough. The metal was greasy in her fingers. She was going to drop it.

But somehow, she didn’t. The far end clanged down on the living-room floor. It reached, just. A hand’s span of grace.

Above, the second bracket popped loose from the wall. The bar began to bend outwards, dangling her further over the void.

She had seconds now. Gripping the curtain in both hands, she lowered herself down it until she felt the cold pressure of the lifeline between her legs. It bowed a few inches, the ends lifting in a grin.

The final wall bracket surrendered with a pop and the remaining curtain rail tore loose. She screamed as it plummeted past her. Letting go of the drape just in time, she grabbed onto the bar in front. Both hands now. Beneath her, empty space and glittering rocks. A long fall to a violent death.

The mountain wind shrieked, tried to tear her loose. Her wounded leg swayed useless under her. Blood poured off the toe of her boot like a waterfall, whipped into spray by the wind. The pain was brutal.

Breath coming in staccato rasps, Leah leaned forward until her chest pressed tight against the bar. With excruciating slowness, she began to drag herself, hand over hand, along it. Beneath, she felt that hungry mouth opening wide in anticipation.

She heard words tumbling from her lips, a repeated prayer –
please don’t let me fall, please don’t let me fall.

If she moved too quickly, she risked dislodging the support. If she moved too slowly, her weight would likely buckle it. Either outcome would see her spiralling down after the
tolvajok
into the waiting darkness.

Halfway across now, and no way back. She could drag herself along, but she couldn’t turn around, couldn’t retreat. The metal support bowed beneath her. She could see the tip resting on the living-room floor lifting up. Grimacing, she pulled herself forward. Two yards to safety. One yard.

She screamed again. Frustration and rage. Her hands were shaking so badly she hardly dared to raise them. Clenching her teeth, she willed her muscles to obey. Inches now.

Leah reached out, felt the living room’s smooth wooden floor. She flung out her other arm. The curtain rail vibrated beneath her. And then it fell away.

The world turned white.

The brightness dazzled her, and for a moment she thought she had slipped, and in falling towards the rocks below her mind had acted to extinguish those final seconds of terror.

But she wasn’t falling, not yet, and this was not a brightness from within her head. It came from without.

She lifted her head to its source. There, through the archway, she saw two figures she had not expected to meet again in this life.

The first, standing further back, arms crossed against her chest, was her mother.

The second lingered a few feet away, in the archway itself. And while she did not recognise his face, she recognised his eyes.

It could not be, but it was.

It was Jakab.

C
HAPTER
50

Interlaken, Switzerland

H
e watched her through flat grey eyes, his expression impossible to read. In one hand he held a pistol.

Leah moaned. Her mother had killed him, had burned him to a cinder at Le Moulin Bellerose. Yet somehow that couldn’t be true, because he was here, staring at her. Complete.

She saw Jakab blink, and then something strange happened to his eyes. They seemed to shine. Specks of amethyst appeared, bright chips of jade. Moments later a shadow crossed his face, and those eyes grew lifeless once more.

She wanted to call out to her mother, wanted to tell her that she didn’t face Jakab alone. But if Hannah heard her daughter’s voice she would doubtless run to it and, with no knowledge of the chasm in front of her, she would fall to her death.

Leah’s grip slipped on the floor and she slid backwards, fingers squealing on the wood.

Jakab moved closer, and now he knelt, placing the gun down beside him and reaching out. Breath spiralled from his mouth like smoke. ‘Take my hand.’

How can this be? How can this be?

She stared, tried to read his eyes, but they were as unknowable now as the time, all those years distant, he’d stolen her father’s face. Was he pretending to offer salvation only to pitch her to her death moments later? Did she even consider accepting help from this creature who had robbed her of so much?

She slipped another few inches. Felt the void sucking at her. The wind shrieked, victorious.

‘Take my hand,’ he repeated. ‘I won’t let you fall.’

Pointless to question the sanity of it. Leah reached out, and a moment later Jakab grabbed her.

C
HAPTER
51

Interlaken, Switzerland

J
akab seized her hand, and Leah clenched her teeth against a scream. Pain rushed up her arm. Exploded in her shoulder.

She dangled there, staring into Jakab’s eyes, so close that she could see the pores of his skin, the spittle on his teeth, the beads of sweat like moon-kissed jewels studding his brow.

He grinned, panting with the exertion of holding her, and she saw those glints of colour in his eyes rise to the surface once more, a panoply of twinkling minerals and precious stones.

Was this why he had rescued her? So that he could suspend her over the brink, savouring the moment, forcing her to acknowledge the power he held over her before opening his fingers and watching her plummet to her death on the rocks below? His eyes, rich with vengeance, would be the last thing she saw before the void swallowed her.

Jakab opened his mouth and she realised he was talking, even as he dangled her above that hungry darkness. ‘I
know
,’ he said, the lights in his eyes rising. Louder, now: ‘I know what you are.’

She saw her own breath, a ragged cloud of white. Felt the sting of snowflakes boiling up from beneath, the sweat from her hand beginning to lubricate their grip. She heard the rush of mountain wind. Sensed the clamour of the darkness below.

The tendons bulged in Jakab’s neck. And then he began to lift her. Leah rose an inch. Two, three. She managed to swing her free arm over the floor’s lip. Jakab pulled harder, and then her torso was over and she was writhing, eel-like, until she lay on her back, stunned, listening to her heart as it crashed in her ears.

Jakab crouched on his haunches. Already he had retrieved his gun. He climbed to his feet, and then he held out a hand to her.

Leah ignored it, rolling onto her front. She managed to raise herself on to all fours. Through sheer will, she dragged herself upright. Jakab withdrew his hand, mouth tightening.

Waiting at the far end of the dining table stood Hannah. Earlier Leah had not dared to call out, fearful that her mother might rush towards her voice and topple out into the night. Now, she cried her name.

‘Leah?’ Hannah’s shoulders slumped.

‘There’s a drop. Stay where you are. I’m OK.’

You’re bleeding from a wound that’s going to kill you. That’s if this monster from your past doesn’t do it first.

Hardly OK.

‘Is he still here?’

Leah opened her mouth, but Jakab interrupted. ‘Quite the reunion, don’t you think?’

Hannah stiffened. It was a while before she spoke. Finally she said, ‘What now? What do you want from us?’

Jakab glanced down at the gun he held. He laughed. ‘What do I want?’ His eyes moved back to Leah. She could feel them scuttling across her skin, like the legs of inquisitive locusts. ‘What do I want?’

From the confusion in his expression, she sensed it was a hopeless question. He did not know. Years of hate and obsession had twisted and poisoned him, had wrung from him every surviving drop of humanity.

And then, with a gasp, Leah realised something else: that this was no longer a reunion of three, not at all, but a gathering of four.

Because the prickling sensation on her skin was not the crawl of Jakab’s eyes, but a warning transmitted by some half-grasped
hosszú élet
sense. It scoured her, shrinking her scalp, itching behind her eyes. Finally, she understood what it meant.

In the doorway leading out into the hall, a stranger had appeared.

The woman moved with a slow and terrible grace. She stepped around the fallen bodies and empty shell casings, careful not to dip the soles of her snakeskin boots into the blood pooling on the floor.

Her beauty was matchless, face so elegantly crafted that she appeared ethereal; unreal. But while nature had clearly bestowed the gift of physical perfection, it had not breathed the warmth of humanity into its creation.

Before her, Leah acknowledged, stood the immaculate nightmarish marriage of
lélek tolvaj
and
hosszú élet
.

The woman’s eyes glimmered, only a few errant striations of green lacing that ebony stare. Her cheeks were flushed red, her wheat-blond hair dusted with melting snowflakes. In her hands she held her instruments of death: two enormous pistols, so highly polished they looked as though they’d been forged from silver.

Leah cast her eyes over to Jakab, and saw that he, likewise, was entranced – similarly gripped by that strange prickling sensation. His fingers twitched.

Only one person this woman could be.

‘Where are they?’ Izsák’s daughter asked, and her voice was like syrup flowing over ice. She raised her silver pistols, revealing the midnight circles of their barrels. One of them pointed at the back of Hannah’s head. The other aimed at Jakab. ‘Where are they?’ she repeated, and this time Leah thought she heard a note of desperation in her words. ‘I won’t hesitate. I’ll kill all three of you right here, right now. Where are my babies? Where are my darlings?’

So this was how it ended. To Leah’s left, the man who had killed her father. In front, the thing that would kill her mother. And, at her back, the waiting chasm of darkness that had consumed this creature’s brood.

It was over. All her mother’s years of work and sacrifice. The
tanács
had destroyed any chance of a future, and now this last
lélek tolvaj
would steal what remained.

‘They’re dead,’ Leah said, and when she realised how softly she had spoken, she raised her voice and said it again. ‘All of them. They’re dead. I killed them.’

A flicker of fear crossed the woman’s face, followed by disbelief. ‘Liar.’

‘If you don’t believe me, take a look.’ With a flick of her head, she indicated the destroyed floor of the sun room behind her. ‘There won’t be much left of them. It’s quite a fall.’

The woman’s eyes narrowed to slits. The barrels of her pistols trembled. ‘That’s not right,’ she said. ‘That’s not right.’

Senseless to prolong what little time remained. Leah smiled, matching the woman’s arctic stare with one of her own. Goading her. ‘But it
is
right. They’re gone. All of your babies. All of your cursed darlings. Smashed on the rocks. Dead in the snow.’

‘If you killed them—’

‘Pulverised. Destroyed. Lost.’

– ‘then I’ll kill you.’

‘No. You won’t.’

Not Leah’s voice, that one. And when her eyes moved back to the doorway that had produced the
tolvaj
, she saw that they were no longer a reunion of three, nor a gathering of four, but a pitiable
family
reunion of five.

Balázs Izsák stood in the doorway. He held a gun of his own, and he pointed it at what once had been his daughter.