Blood on Silk (19 page)

In this new, urban world of wealth and freedom, music and technology? I want to have fun.
Somehow she’d never regarded this kind of concert as the fun he meant.

Was it possible he’d come here for the
music
, not for her . . . ?

He stood very still, as only he could, his dark, steady gaze on her face.

Convulsively, she grasped her bag, feeling through the soft leather the shape of the stake she always carried now. Her heart seemed to be beating in her ears. What the hell should she do? Warn everyone? Run for it? Try to stake him in front of all these people?

These people whose blood he must have come here to drink. Shit, he could have done so already. There could be a trail of undiscovered bodies all the way down some back staircase. . . .

His full lips curved, softening his hard eyes. He looked almost welcoming, not at all like a monster who’d just drained several music lovers of their blood.

“Did you?” The incomprehensible words spilled out without permission. He looked amused. Lifting one finger to his lips in mock disapproval, he took a step closer, and her breath caught in panic. But he stopped there, not touching her, yet close enough that she’d have felt his breath if he’d had any.

“A light snack, I believe is the modern term.” It seemed he understood her after all.

“Are they dead?” Appalled by her own words, she cast a nervous glance around the scattering of people. A woman in the front row had twisted around to look toward the door, but otherwise no one was paying them any attention. It was as if she and Saloman were isolated in some private, intimate bubble.

Saloman said, “Of course not. I’m saving my main meal.”

Bastard.
“Me? Why don’t you just kill me and be done? Why these cruel games all the time?”

His brows lifted. They were well defined, perfectly shaped, distracting her by the texture of the short black hairs. “Cruel? Life is to be valued. I’ve already let you live a week more than I could have.”

“I’m overcome with gratitude.”

“No, you’re not, but you should be. Don’t tell me you haven’t appreciated this week more than any other in your life.”

She stared at him, shaken to the core.

His lips quirked. “Are you enjoying the concert? You like this music?”

“Yes . . .” Still too baffled to do more than give the bare truth, she imagined the familiar mockery had vanished from his compelling eyes. They looked unexpectedly serious. “Do you?” she asked, just as if they were genuine acquaintances who’d met by accident.

“It’s like court music, only with more musicians. Very different from other modern music—although, of course, you won’t regard this as modern. Variety is good, but not at the expense of everything in the past.”

She swallowed, parting her dry lips. “I could almost believe you meant that.”

He shrugged. “Nostalgia is the curse of the old. I love the energy of your rock music. I love the exquisite melody and technique of
this
. And yet I miss the rough, untutored music that came before, passed on through generations for hundreds of years. Even the Gypsies no longer play it.”

“Not here.”

His eyebrows lifted again.

“In the villages,” she blurted. “In the mountains, you still hear it. Or something like I assume it might have been.”

His eyes held hers. They seemed to flare until she imagined a flame dancing there, then blinked. He inclined his head. “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.” Laughter was fighting its way up through her, hysterical and undignified. As if he recognized it, he smiled, and her loins melted. He might have been touching her, intimately, her lips, her breasts, the aching tenderness between her thighs. She was so glad he wasn’t. She despaired because he wasn’t. And yet, for the first time she recognized something else in his smile, what it was that made him trouble to converse with her, what shone and flamed in those otherwise dark, opaque eyes.

Reciprocation.

It stunned her, as if she weren’t helpless enough already. Of course, she didn’t doubt for a moment that Mihaela was right. He would take her blood with her body and slaughter her without compunction. But it wouldn’t just be an act of excessive teasing, or stupid male domination or whatever else she’d been imagining. For whatever reason, he wanted her,
her
, and with a lust that burned as forcefully as everything else about him. The knowledge was elating, terrifying, huge. . . .

Laughter, oddly discordant, sounded in the corridor behind her. Someone brushed against her and apologized. She stepped aside as more people came in, separating her from Saloman.

Elizabeth backed out of the door. From the corridor, she glimpsed his tall figure towering over the jostling crowd.

Deliberately, he closed one eye.
Have fun
, he said inside her head. And then she turned and ran in search of Mihaela.

C
onvincing the others of Saloman’s presence in Budapest turned out not to be so difficult, thanks to the encounter at the concert. Although Elizabeth didn’t see him again and Mihaela hadn’t seen him at all, they could both vouch for the way several patrons absently rubbed their throats throughout the second part of the performance.

“I might have directed him back to the villages,” Elizabeth confessed. “But I’m sure he’ll return here.”

“You’re right,” Konrad agreed. “Lajos is here, as well as you. And the largest concentration of vampires, whom he’ll need on his side before he can move any farther. So Plan A still stands. The location is merely altered, which makes it rather harder to find him.”

“Konrad, he’s finding us,” Mihaela argued. “Or at least finding Elizabeth.”

Was that true? Had he gone there in search of her? She was sure now that he
had
seen her in the audience; he might even have drawn her to him by some supernatural power. But she still wasn’t convinced that he’d come looking for her rather than the musical experience—and for fresh blood. The fun of the game for him now was for her to find him. And he must know she wouldn’t come without the hunters at her back.

“Well, let’s not wait until he breaks into your flat,” Konrad said. “Let’s start looking!”

“Where?” István demanded.

“Nightclubs,” Elizabeth said, as she should have at the beginning.

“What?” They gawped at her.

“Nightclubs. He’s been frozen for three hundred years. He wants action, and he likes rock music.”

Mihaela began to laugh.

Discovering the Angel was an accident brought about on the second day of searching by a chance encounter with a researcher who complained about his little sister frequenting dangerous, unlisted, and unregulated nightclubs.

Even so, provided with a vague address, they nearly missed it. But at the last moment, Mihaela noticed the uninspiring stone angel above the door.

Gazing up at it, Elizabeth felt her insides tighten. The more she looked, the more exquisite the carving appeared, its lines sharper and more expressive—and more familiar. “This is it,” she said positively. “It’s like the angels in his crypt.”

Istvan frowned. “There shouldn’t be a connection. This place must have been built well after Saloman was staked.”

“Vampire artist?” Mihaela suggested.

“Let’s find out.” Konrad pushed open the door, and the detectors began to vibrate as one.

“Wow. They’ve masked it,” Konrad said, peeking at the larger instrument inside his backpack, “but I’m getting loads of vampire readings. Two present right now.”

“Remember, he doesn’t show on the readings,” István warned.

“Oh, I remember,” Konrad said grimly. “Stakes ready. No killing without my say-so.”

Mihaela opened her mouth, as if to object, but closed it again with an irritable little shrug. It struck Elizabeth that she’d ignore his orders if she thought it best, and didn’t know whether or not to be comforted.

In contrast to the dingy staircase, sunlight flooded through the glass roof and the huge window that took up one entire wall of the club. Through it, Elizabeth could see the glistening Danube, and beyond it, the domed roof of the Parliament building and church spires of Pest.

“Human,” Konrad breathed as a young woman approached them, smiling. “Are you open for coffee?” he inquired.

“Always. Please . . .” The girl indicated a table at the picture window, surrounded by large comfortable sofas.

A couple sat some yards away, ignoring everything but each other.

“Human,” Konrad murmured again. “Bar staff the same. The vampire readings are farther away. Asleep, I suppose.”

“Beautiful place,” Mihaela observed when the waitress returned with the cups and coffeepot. “Is it new?”

“Oh no, been around for years,” the girl replied.

“Have you worked here long?”

“Just over a year.”

“Is it a good place to work?” Elizabeth asked, adding by way of an excuse, “I need to get a job.”

“There are no vacancies just now, but yes, it’s a good place to work. The management looks after you, pay’s decent. I’ll leave your name with Angyalka if you like.”

“Angyalka?”

“The owner.”

Konrad nudged Elizabeth’s elbow, urging her on. “Could I speak to Angyalka?” she asked.

“She’s asleep.”

Vampire!

“I won’t wake her. She’s up all night at the club and clears up afterward too. Come back this evening. She doesn’t bite.”

Oh, I rather think she does.

“That’s the place,” Mihaela crowed when they again made it out on to the street. “Run by vampires, with ignorant human help. If he hasn’t found it yet, he will.”

Elizabeth’s laugh was shaky. “Then let’s bait the trap. Wire me up and send me in.”

Saloman knew as soon as he entered the Angel that she’d been here. He could smell her and felt his loins stir with triumph and need. Well, they more than stirred, judging by the direction of Angyalka’s gaze as she came toward him. She might misinterpret it, but he didn’t mind that either. They’d been circling each other all week, revealing and hiding attractions that were at least partly genuine.

And once he’d had Elizabeth Silk, it was the sort of sophisticated and civilized liaison he might consider. Hell, he was considering it now, just to take the edge off his lust. And by the warm smile in her seductive eyes, she wouldn’t be averse.

“You’re early this evening,” she purred.

“I couldn’t wait.”

“To see me?”

“To see Lajos,” he corrected, indicating the uneasy figure who sat as if frozen in the corner. No one sat near him. Saloman smiled and the vampire looked away, picking up his beer. It was bravado that had brought him here, hearing no doubt that Saloman had become a regular visitor. It might have been bravado that motivated his rudeness now—or fear.

“Why don’t you put him out of his misery?” Angyalka almost snapped. “I didn’t peg you as small-minded enough for torture.”

“Torture?” He glanced at her with sufficient force to drive the color from her dramatic face. “My dear, you don’t know the meaning of the word. Let’s talk about something else.”

“Like the hunters who were here this afternoon?” Clearly, she hoped to surprise him. “Strong ones. Their energy shone like beacons.”