Blood Sin (37 page)

I’m still here, Josh. Show me.

Warmth, relief flooded him, making her smile as they seeped into her too. Then he began to look around him at the square, bare room Saloman had shown her earlier. This time, however, it was in much greater detail. She could see the dampness glistening and dripping off the walls, could make out the texture of the ancient stones nearest Josh. She saw the shadows, and she saw the huddle of men and vampires asleep or playing cards.

Dante lay alone on a blanket, asleep. No wonder she had the impression his bed at the hotel wasn’t slept in. Josh’s gaze switched back to the vampires, two of whom were quarreling over the cards. Josh clearly wasn’t interested. He continued to look around the rest of the room, the familiar bundle of old coat where his eyes lingered.
The sword
, he said awkwardly in Elizabeth’s head.

I see it.

His gaze moved on and she saw chains attached to the wall. Chains that held a man’s arms on either side of his head. Not a man, a vampire.
Dmitriu
. His eyes must have been staring directly into Josh’s, for he seemed to look right at her. She felt the shock of dark, knowing eyes full of pain and hunger and fury. And behind them she seemed to see the blacker, denser eyes of Saloman, who watched Josh through Dmitriu.

The vision shimmered and broke and she blinked to find Saloman’s face so close to hers. He smiled.

“Saloman,” she whispered, “I saw . . . .”

“I know.” Without warning, he leapt to his feet, dragging her with him. There was a hug, brief and hard, and his lips pressed firmly to hers. “How clever you are,” he said, half proud, half mocking. “Now we have something. Let’s go.”

Elizabeth barely had time to grab up her jacket before he dragged her by the hand, rushing downstairs and out into the night. Catching his exhilaration, she ran with him along the dark, empty street until his arm encircled her waist and he jumped.

As she flew upward in his hold, she seemed to leave her swirling stomach on the ground. She’d traveled with him this way before, but she’d forgotten the sheer terror in being lifted so high, in being hauled with him at impossible speed across impossible distances, at heights that should have made her scream. More than ever, she sympathized with Josh. But after a few moments of alternate running and leaping with him over rooftops and lampposts, she felt her instinctive panic die and she gave herself up to the thrill of it, to the excitement of the chase, because now, at last, they had clues to Josh’s hidden prison.

“There
were
tunnels under the castle,” Saloman said as he ran across the Danube Chain Bridge with Elizabeth in his arms. There was no traffic, and no one watching would have seen more than a blur, a passing shadow. “Much more than the so-called labyrinth that they show to tourists nowadays, although like those, they were meant to provide cellars as well as hiding places and escape routes, spreading down either side of the hill. Some are far older than the first castle. But most of them collapsed and fell into complete disuse long before I was staked.”

“You think someone repaired those forgotten tunnels?”

“Let’s see if they’re there. Josh and Dmitriu could have been deliberately misled just in case I broke through to Dmitriu’s thoughts.”

Elizabeth’s spirits plummeted. “Really? Is that likely?”

“It’s possible. Travis is no fool.”

“You almost sound as if you like him,” Elizabeth said curiously.

“I might, given time.”

They entered the castle, much as she’d seen in Josh’s mind, by leaping over the walls and roofs and into the dark courtyards between.

“There’s nothing left of the palaces I knew here,” Saloman said. “It’s all buried and covered up.” Nevertheless, he seemed to know where he was going. Without obvious care about disturbing night watchmen or automatic alarms, he led Elizabeth to a sheltered indention at the base of the building and down some rough steps that had been blocked off with workmen’s planks and Keep Out signs. Blundering in the pitchblackness, Elizabeth drew a flashlight from her pocket to light the last few steps. There, at the bottom, on the bare, muddy floor below, was a cordoned-off tarpaulin.

Elizabeth’s heart beat fast. “This is it, isn’t it?”

Saloman stood very still, only his thin, delicate nostrils flaring. “They’ve been here. Dante. Travis, Travis’s vampires, other humans who smell of Dante.” He crouched on the ground, touching the earth, the tarpaulin. “I can’t find a trace of Josh or Dmitriu, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t here. If they were carried, their presence would be long lost in the air.”

His eyes became fixed on the tarpaulin as he concentrated deeply. His fingers curled in the muddy earth. “There
is
a tunnel. Very deep, but I can follow it.” Straightening, he leapt up the steps so fast she barely saw him move, and by the time she trailed after him, he was gazing straight at the building as if his stare could burn its way through stone.

Without a word, he slid his arm around her waist and jumped. Free of the castle, he dragged her down streets and alleys, over the tops of other buildings and walls and gardens and along other streets. To Elizabeth, it was more like her blind, endless search with the hunters than following a trail, but Saloman did eventually stop between a broken fence and the high wall of a dark, unknown building.

“We’re nearly at the river,” he said. “But this tunnel has no end, no way out.” He stared at the ground, and under Elizabeth’s anxious gaze, he eventually smiled. “Got you,” he said softly.

She hadn’t known she was holding her breath until it rushed out in relief. “Really? Josh
and
Dmitriu?”

“With Dante and several other humans and vampires. And my sword.”

“Can you get them out?”

“Probably,” Saloman said without expression. He glanced at the sky, as if gauging the time. He didn’t look daunted, let alone worried, but Elizabeth could tell by his stillness, by the steadiness of his cool, opaque eyes that he was deep in thought. He was planning, she realized with a sinking heart, not just how to rescue his friend and hers, but how to make this work for his larger plan. Slowly, his gaze came back to her and refocused. “First,” he said, “we need to talk. Come.”

“What’s the matter?” Elizabeth asked breathlessly as he leapt with her over rooftops and the spaces between until she could see the distinctive terraced walls and towers of the Fishermen’s Bastion. “Would Travis hear us? Sense us?”

“Not through my masking, if he can even sense through the stone. We just need space to think.”

The space Saloman had in mind turned out to be one of the Bastion towers, all turrets, archways, and walkways. Catching her breath, Elizabeth gazed beyond the fairy-tale tower across the city. The Danube lay black and still in the darkness, with only a few glinting reflections from the bridges’ lights; and beyond it stretched Pest, the newer half of the city. The view was magnificent, but Saloman chose to sit on the wall with his back to it, so that he could see only Elizabeth and the tower behind her.

“What are we thinking about?” she asked, just a little nervously. “How to rescue Josh and Dmitriu?”

“Of course. I could go in now and probably kill all those I need to. I can probably free Dmitriu to help, although he may be too weak to do more than watch my back. I’m fast, but I can’t be sure I’ll be fast enough to save the lives of our friends, should the vampires—or Dante’s human thugs—have orders to kill them.”

Elizabeth’s stomach twisted. “I can fight. I’m stronger than in St. Andrews.”

“Stronger even than in New York. I know.” He reached out and touched her cheek, her lips. “But you can be killed by guns. Dmitriu says each of Dante’s four thugs has one. I can’t save you from all of them and take care of the vampires at the same time.” His lips twitched. “Much as I’d love to fight back-to-back with you once more, this isn’t that kind of fight.”

“I think you’ve already made up your mind,” she observed. “You want other vampires in there with you.”

“Two, maybe three would be enough.”

She swallowed. “Would you kill Dante?”

“Yes.” For Dmitriu alone, that would be his justice. And he’d be saving the world from a dangerous threat. Dante as a vampire was too scary to contemplate. The breeze stirred his hair. Under the pale moonlight, his eyes were as steady and as open as she had ever seen them.

“And the other humans?” she asked hoarsely.

“If they stand in my way, I will kill them. I or my companions. Dante’s men have stakes as well as guns. So does Travis.”

Her stomach twisted, reminding her once more, if she needed reminding, of the huge gulf between her and the beautiful, lethal being who sat on the wall gazing at her. Happy to bring death in his wake to punish as well as to free his friend.

“But you would bring Josh out alive and unharmed?” she said anxiously.

His lips curved at one side. “Unharmed by myself and my vampires, you mean?”

There was no point in denying it. “Yes.”

“Since you wish it.”

She licked her dry lips. “And the sword?”

“I will take it, of course.”

Of course.

He slid off the wall, which brought him too close to her. She couldn’t think when every nerve was so aware of him, of what he could do to her. He said, “The argument against this plan is that it is probably too late to do it tonight. By the time I can bring Angyalka and the other vampires I’d prefer at my back, it will be too close to sunrise, and may be impossible to get out in safety.”

“Do they
have
another night?” Elizabeth asked in growing despair.

“Oh, yes, I think so. They’re feeding Josh, you know. Dante wants him healthy for when he drinks his blood. And Dmitriu can stand one more night unfed, since he knows I’m coming for him. But it will have to be quick. If Dmitriu doesn’t agree to change him by then, Dante and Travis will force him.”

“Force him? How the hell—” She broke off. “No, don’t answer that.” She stared at Saloman. “We need to be in place
by
sunset. Soon after may be too late.”

“It may.”

“Which makes it difficult for vampires.”

“We can walk in the dusk. Or in shadow.”

“Will that be enough?”

“I don’t know.”

“And you could be seen.”

“You are too concerned with secrecy. Sooner or later the world must learn about vampires.”

“That’s another day’s fight,” Elizabeth said impatiently, and he inclined his head, still watching her. She drew in her breath, running her teeth across her lower lip. “I have another plan. We make the hunters our allies in this.”

When his expression didn’t change, she hurried on. “They don’t care about sunsets or sunrises, and they can enter the castle when they choose without reference to official opening times.”

“I can see you would be happier with human allies,” Saloman said smoothly. “But they would not work with me, and I’m afraid I insist on being there.”

To make sure Dmitriu lived, and to take the sword. “There’s no choice,” Elizabeth said in a voice that sounded hard even to her. “We need you there.”

Again, he inclined his head, and Elizabeth had the bizarre, almost dizzying feeling that she’d just carried out his wishes. Was it possible he actually
wanted
the hunters there?

“The hunters must not kill Dmitriu,” he warned. “And I still take the sword.”

“No,” Elizabeth said.

Still his eyes did not change and she knew her veto made no difference. He would take it anyway if she could not convince him. And God knew she didn’t want to prod that particular wound. She gripped his arms, slid her fingers up to his shoulders.

“Saloman, I know what the sword means to you, but you must see that they can’t allow you to have this added power. It doesn’t matter to
you
; you’re already more powerful than any other being! The hunters would keep it away from your enemies, from all other vampires and humans, and never use it themselves. Knowing that, would you not let them have it? I’ve been thinking about this so much, Saloman, and I believe it’s the only possible solution.”

For a moment, he was rigid under her hands, neither throwing her off nor embracing her as she made her plea from the heart. Then, at last, his eyes softened and he took her in his arms.

“Elizabeth, this is one request I won’t grant.” He kissed her protesting mouth, silencing her. “But if I tell you the sword’s true power, I think you’ll no longer ask it of me.”

Elizabeth, trying to quell the leap of her body in response to his kiss, tightened her hold on his shoulders. Finally, she would learn the truth about the sword. She drew in her breath and said shakily, “Tell me.”

Chapter Nineteen

“
N
o” said Konrad, staunchly and predictably “I think we’ve already proved that alliance with vampires, even to catch other vampires, is unreliable and counterproductive.”

They had met her, as requested, in the underground station at Heroes’ Square. The platform was quiet in the middle of the morning. A train had just been through, and now there was no one there but Elizabeth and the three hunters.