Blood on Silk (18 page)

Weird how normal such thoughts had become.

Dried and dressed, she shouted good-bye to the coach, then headed down to the library to continue her research into vampires in general and Saloman in particular.

She had her own table now, near the front of the library, piled high with bound volumes and document folders. Just about over her awe of the age and rarity of the material, she was working her way through it, learning about the contribution of vampires—especially Saloman’s—to the history of the region. So far as she could tell, the contemporary documents were genuine, and mostly supported by other sources, even if she’d never heard of those either. Miklós was happy enough to discuss sources with her, telling her the most trustworthy. But if only half the stuff she read about Saloman was true, he’d had just about as much influence on this part of the world as Jesus Christ. Military commander, governor, friend of princes and kings, diplomat, politician—it seemed there was nothing he hadn’t done in the five hundred years of records covering his first life—or at least his second.

Frowning at the sudden thought, she glanced across at Miklós, who was fetching a large volume from the glass case nearest her. The only other occupant of the library she could see was a researcher, tapping away at one of the computers.

“Miklós? May I ask you something?”

“Of course.” He came toward her, laying the book on the edge of her desk.

“How did the Ancients come about? From what I can gather, modern vampires—that is, all other existing vampires apart from Saloman—are some sort of hybrid of dead human and Ancient. What exactly are the Ancients?”

Miklós sank into the seat beside her and took off his spectacles. “Well, that’s a difficult one. Their origins are lost in the mists of time. Most of the documents we have are only speculation, and the Ancients themselves were oddly reticent. I don’t think they knew either. But look, there’s something in here, a fragment, possibly from a letter, written by Saloman himself. . . .” Miklós rummaged among the document folder until he came up with a brittle piece of vellum.

Elizabeth, her mouth inexplicably dry, gazed down at it. A jumble of medieval Latin danced before her eyes. Miklós’s finger pointed to the signature at the bottom, one word, Saloman, in bold, sloping letters. The “S” was large and ornamental, the upper loop covering half of the rest of his name. Her stomach twisted.
He
wrote this. Centuries before Vlad the Impaler. Before the Romanian principalities were even formed.

“It’s undated,” Miklós observed, as if reading her mind, “but that doesn’t really matter for our purposes. He’s defending the alliance of humans and vampires—possibly to a churchman or a prince; it’s impossible to tell from this fragment—by stating that humans and vampires were once the same species, but that at some point, they diverged, like races within humanity. When some died, they died, their souls moving on. But others, it was possible to revive with the blood of others, and these so-called vampires were more or less immortal. They were given this gift, he says here, in order to protect their weaker, mortal cousins.”

Elizabeth dragged her eyes away from it. “Is that true?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. I have no reason to doubt it. He sounds like an eminently sane and compassionate being, does he not? The contrast with the later Saloman in the seventeenth century is sharp and tragic. The collapse into insanity of the last Ancient, and with him, any real control of the far more bestial modern vampires.”

Elizabeth swallowed. Compassion for Saloman—if that’s what she felt—would not help her here. “What happened to the others?”

“Records are scarce. We believe some went similarly insane and either ended their own lives or were executed like Saloman. Saloman himself is said to have killed the only other Ancient, barely two years before he was staked himself. Apparently they quarreled over a human woman, Tsigana, who is named as one of Saloman’s killers.”

This part of the story she knew. “Thanks, Miklós,” she murmured. “You’ve made it much clearer.”

“Any time.” Miklós stood, hoisted his book once more, and took it to the researcher at the computer. Elizabeth returned to her own documents. Not for the first time, she wondered which of them she could get away with using in her thesis. Saloman had turned the whole premise of her thesis on its head. Was any of that stuff still valid?

Sighing, she tried to lose herself in the books. But despite the conducive surroundings, the peace, and the fantastic nature of the material, she could never quite do that here. Her nerves were too on edge. Her stomach twisted whenever she read Saloman’s name. She imagined him whispering in her head, in her ear, stirring her skin without the faintest breath as he murmured hot words of lust.

She burned with shame, with unsatisfied need. And she hated Saloman for that, almost more than for the people he’d killed and would kill.

“What are you reading now?” Mihaela’s hand on her shoulder some time later made her jump.

“How to kill the Ancients,” she said with a quick grin. “You weren’t kidding when you said it wasn’t easy.” Though as soft to the touch as anyone else’s, their skin was believed to be largely impermeable, with an extra layer of hardness beneath the epidermis, which grew stronger with age. The first blow was vital. It had to be accurately over the heart, forceful, and performed with the sharpest possible wooden weapon. One source recommended the weight of several people behind the stake—which might explain why Saloman had so many slayers.

“You leave the killing to us,” Mihaela soothed. “Are you ready to go back there now?”

Elizabeth blinked. “Back where?”

“Bistriƫa. Transylvania. Saloman, remember?”

Elizabeth noted the page and closed the book. “Mihaela, I don’t believe he’s in Transylvania anymore. I think he’s here, in Budapest.” Saying it, like thinking it, sent a strange tension twisting through her body. It might have been dread, or hate, but it felt perilously close to excitement.

Mihaela’s hand paused in midair, halfway to her hair. “You’ve seen him here?”

“No, no. It was just something he said about the new urban world and fun. I
know
he meant he was heading for the bright lights of a fun, modern city.”

“It could be,” Mihaela admitted. “We’ve heard nothing recently from our informant in Transylvania, so it’s possible he’s moved camp. On the other hand, it’s been quiet here. And the vampire Lajos, one of the ‘killers,’ remains unmolested. He’d go for him first.”

“Would he? Don’t you think he likes playing cat and mouse, raising a bit of fear first? I’m sure that’s part of his revenge.”

Mihaela rested her hip on the edge of the desk, a frown furrowing her forehead as she regarded Elizabeth. “You think that’s what he’s doing to you?”

“I know that’s what he’s doing to me. Only I can’t see why I’m due the punishment. I awakened him, didn’t I?”

“Well, that may be the source of his ambiguous attitude. He’s grateful to you, but he needs the blood of his Awakener to achieve full strength.”

There was a slight catch in Elizabeth’s laugh. “Well, that’s a bloody stupid rule.”

“It’s a perverse and unnatural science,” Mihaela agreed. “Though in this case, it serves the purpose of discouraging awakenings after executions. Isn’t evolution marvelous?”

Unexpectedly, Elizabeth wanted to discuss vampire evolution with the vampire himself—the vampire who believed in the evolution of his own and her species several hundred years before Darwin. She stood, thrusting aside the unwelcome notion.

“We’ll mention your theory to the others,” Mihaela said, “but not tonight. You remember about the concert?”

“Looking forward to it,” Elizabeth assured her.

With the familiar distinctive sound of the orchestra tuning up, Elizabeth sat back in her seat and began to relax. She was so looking forward to this: a couple of hours to lose herself in music, in something that had nothing to do with all this scary crap, and yet everything to do with Hungary—a concert of Liszt and Bartók at the National Music Academy.

Perhaps it was because of the odd cloud of dread and excitement that she was living in, but on this, her third visit to Budapest, she’d begun to appreciate the city’s beauty: the clean, classical lines of Pest spreading outward from the broad, curving Danube; the majestic bridges spanning the river to the ancient, picturesque city of Buda on the opposite bank, rising up the hill to the castle that had guarded it for centuries.

When she’d been walking with Mihaela along the river in the gathering dusk, after their pleasant meal in a small, family-run restaurant, Elizabeth had found herself wondering if she’d only ever been half alive before. She’d registered that she liked the place, yet had taken no time to know it better, to soak up the ambience. She’d merely moved between her hotel and libraries, airport and railway stations. In the villages, it had been different, of course; she’d had to go out, mix with the local people to talk to them and ask her questions about vampire superstitions, but had she really appreciated her surroundings?

Perhaps everything simply looked sharper, more attractive, when the threat of death hung over one.

Or perhaps she just finally felt useful. Ever since awakening Salomon, she’d shared a clear purpose with the hunters.

Elizabeth gazed up at the ornate walls and ceilings—it was a beautiful hall, in a beautiful building, not too big, very art nouveau and, Mihaela assured her, boasted excellent acoustics. They had seats near the front of the stalls, and the balcony on three sides above, full of fellow music lovers, made her feel almost cozy. On top of that, she’d begun to value the quiet, no-nonsense company of Mihaela, an unexpected friend in the midst of her suddenly insane life.

The auditorium quieted, then erupted into polite applause for the conductor, before silence descended once more and the music began.

It worked. For a time, it really worked. She really did lose herself in the music and in her surroundings. The back of her neck didn’t begin to prickle until halfway through the second piece. She covered it with her hand, casting a quick glance behind her at the rows of people who were paying her no attention at all.

Curling her lip at herself, she returned to the music. She watched the pianist, enjoying the wild concentration on his young, intense face—a future international star, already producing exquisite music. Her gaze moved upward, along the line of violinists and cellists to the carving on the balcony above. As the music began to take her again, a shadowy movement caught the corner of her eye, and she jerked her gaze around to the balcony door. God, she was jumpy. She’d almost imagined a dark figure stood there, but the only people on the balcony were seated, and none of them looked remotely threatening. However, the balcony door was open a crack. She must have glimpsed one of the theater staff passing in the corridor beyond.

Was it always going to be like this? Living on the edge of her nerves, afraid of every shadow?

Only if you let it.

She took a deep breath and gazed determinedly at the pianist. By the interval, she’d regained her calm and her appreciation of the music.

“Drink?” Mihaela suggested. “We’ll have to fight our way into the bar, but I know one of the waiters.”

“Lead on,” Elizabeth said with enthusiasm, and they joined the throng surging out of the auditorium. However, before they even reached the bar, Mihaela broke into smiles and began waving madly to a waiter who was easing through the crowd. He grinned back and gave her the universal thumbs-up sign.

“He’ll hold them for us,” Mihaela said with satisfaction, beginning to extricate herself from the crowd. “Which is good news, because I so need to go to the restroom.”

“I’ll wait for you,” Elizabeth said, following her. It seemed preferable to fighting her way into the bar with everyone else.

Since there was a crowd at the ladies’ room too, Elizabeth strolled on to find a quieter spot to await Mihaela. As she went, she found herself admiring the whole interior of the building, particularly the beautiful murals, and as the stairs up to the balcony were deserted, she decided to have a quick look up there too.

The upper hall was empty and silent. As she walked, still examining the murals, her gaze slid ahead to the open balcony door. Mihaela was probably waiting for her by now. She should go back downstairs, yet she didn’t. The shadow she’d imagined earlier slid back into her mind, almost drawing her on to prove it didn’t exist—again.

Idiot.

She halted at the door, listening to the faint hum of conversation, and then glanced inside. A few idly chatting people still occupied their seats, although most were empty. With a vague idea of checking the view of the orchestra from up here, she stepped inside.

Her neck prickled. She spun around to face the door, and her heart jolted hard enough to make her dizzy. The blood rushed through her veins. She couldn’t breathe.

Saloman stood just to one side of the door, leaning his shoulder against the wall, watching her impassively.

He wore black: black trousers, a black shirt, open at the collar, with no tie, and no jacket. His black hair gleamed against his pale skin, a lock falling across one side of his forehead. God, he was beautiful. He looked stylish, bohemian, and could be mistaken for a music student, perhaps a contemporary of the stunning pianist.