Blood of Angels (8 page)

“Do hunters also have an arrangement with Budapest University?” she enquired.

“No, but I can hack in, if you like.”

The laugh escaped her before she knew it was there. She waved one arm in invitation and this time watched his face as he wormed his way into the files. In the throes of concentration, his eyes were serious, oddly appealing.

“Model student, mostly,” István said. “No discipline required, no crime. Nothing more serious than a couple of late essays.”

“And yet he deliberately caused trouble in a vampire bar. He’d been fighting with other people too in the last three days or so, even hit his girlfriend. Maybe he had a brain tumor or something.”

“Maybe.” István pushed the keyboard back to her and met her gaze. “You think this is somehow related to the bombing?”

She shifted restlessly and stood up. “I don’t know.” She waved him to sit on her chair, and yet when she bent to pick up the stool against the back wall, he was there before her, too close and too casual. As if he were stronger than she. Which he wasn’t, even when he was fit.

And yet he’d once held her helpless for several minutes.

Covering her sudden upsurge of lust, she said, “We’ve had the human troublemakers before. Just none that hung around for revenge after being thrown out. Bruno… I saw his face when he was jumping you, and it was murderous. He didn’t just want to hurt, he wanted to kill.”

“People snap,” István observed. “Especially after a few pints.”

“Trust me, I was very polite about evicting him. I even offered to let him come back, until he bit me.” They were at the computer again by now and sat side by side. “He wanted to
hurt
me. He wanted to kill both of us.”

“And the vampire bomber?” István asked, beginning to set out the instruments from his pocket along the counter, as if looking for something he was failing to find.

“A stranger. Little more than a fledgling, weak enough to do as he’s told. Saloman will find him.”

“And then?” István prompted.

She shrugged. “Saloman likes the Angel. He gets free drinks.”

“I thought you said he had an account?”

“He does. He just never pays it.”

Without warning, the smile in his eyes caught at her stomach. To hide it, to stop it, she dropped her gaze to her own hands.

“Angels,” she said with a hint of desperation she hoped he’d miss. “What do you want to know?”

“Everything.”

“Your faith is touching. But I have to start somewhere.”

“Then start with the angel over the street door. How does that enchantment work?”

She frowned. “You know that. It’s no secret. Maximilian carved it and showed me an enchantment that would protect the building, centered on the angel. It’s Ancient magic, learned from Saloman or Luk or both. That’s why it’s so strong.”

“When I stare at it, I can see the true beauty of the sculpture,” István said. “But that doesn’t change the protective spell around the club, does it?”

She shook her head.

“I’m pretty new to this study, but other enchantments I’ve discovered don’t work that way. They hide something; you stare until you see clearly. The enchantment is broken until next time.”

“In this case, seeing it is only part of the enchantment.”

“It must be very strong. It’s the best-kept secret in more than two hundred years.”

“It is,” she agreed.

He seemed to wait for more, but Angyalka had nothing else to say on the subject.

He stirred and she found herself aware of his every movement in relation to herself. His bare, muscled arm now leaned on the counter very close to hers. His knee had inched farther away.

“Saloman says angels have special, supernatural power. And that power lies in the
word
, not the object.”

“I suppose Saloman would know.”

He frowned. “Do you not?”

She stared. “He’s more than ten times my age. Ancient knowledge had died with him before I was born, let alone turned.”

“No, it didn’t.” In his enthusiasm, he leaned nearer, and his breath stirred her hair, the skin of her forehead. “Even when he ‘slept,’ for want of a better term, there were others who shared at least some of his knowledge.”

“Maximilian and Dmitriu,” she agreed. “Maximilian used some Ancient enchantments, one or two of which he taught to me.”

“Involving angels?”

“Only the one above the door, and it might as well have been a dog or a gargoyle!”

“I don’t think so. It
holds
power. Gathers it, saves it, and holds it until it’s needed. I think the very name of this place helps. Every time someone says the word. Every time someone says
your
name.
Angyalka
. Angelic. Like angels.”

“Now you’re talking complete nonsense!” She backed off, because much as she liked his nearness, his earnestness was frightening. “I’m a mere two hundred years old, with no power but Saloman’s friendship.”

“Well, that’s another thing. You were turned in 1801, should have been a drooling fledgling for ten years at least. And yet within six, a vampire of Maximilian’s caliber has given you this place, and you’re single-handedly running a successful business.”

“So?” She slid off the chair to get away from him, but unexpectedly, he got up too, backing her into the corner. She could smell his blood, feel the warmth of his body almost touching hers. She wanted to hit him. She wanted him pressed against her.

“How, Angyalka? How did you bypass the fledgling stage?”

She laughed. “I recited my own name fifty times every sunrise and every sunset.”

“Liar.”

She felt desperate, just didn’t know why. “What do you want me to say?”

“The truth.”

She stared at him. She could distract him. She knew how to distract him. You didn’t need to be empathic to recognize the lust struggling for dominance in his eyes. One kiss and he’d forget the question. Which was good, because she might just forget not to give him the answer.

“Angyalka,” he whispered. Without warning, his fingers touched her cheek, and she closed her eyes to blot his out. She couldn’t deal with human feeling, human lust. Not this human’s. “Share the truth with me…”

But of course she could deal with anything. She always had. She opened her eyes and smiled and lifted her face to his. “Share your body with
me
…”

He gave a funny little laugh that was half groan. “If I thought you meant that—”

“There’s only one way to find out.”

“But I’d be dead before I knew I was wrong.”

“Aren’t I worth dying for, hunter?” she whispered, mocking, and yet somewhere she found herself wishing that she
was
worth dying for, that someone, that
István
, would risk it all for one night with her. Wasn’t that human love?

How would I know?

His eyes scanned hers, one to the other. His breathing was unsteady, his parted lips dangerously close. She’d distracted him without the kiss. Yet she might take it anyway…

His mouth edged even closer. His breath touched her lips. “I’m inventive,” he murmured. “Maybe there’s a way to share without death.”

“Not for me. I’m dead already.”

“But I want you to live.”

Her mouth, her whole body ached for the kiss, but still he didn’t take it. His breath hitched, and she knew with a fierce triumph that seemed to melt her sinking stomach into the sweet dampness below, that he’d finally do it.

The shop door swung open, and he moved away. She stared at the two chattering women who marched in, as if she could annihilate them. But the moment had passed—which was just as well. István was already gathering his instruments off the counter, putting them back in his pockets.

She’d got away with it. This man already knew too many of her secrets, and if Angyalka had learned anything in the two hundred years of her existence, it was that knowledge was power.

What did she know of him? That he wasn’t yet as fit as he pretended. Hardly gold dust. She needed more if she was to tip the balance in her own favor. But then, it looked now as if that would be unnecessary—he slung on the denim jacket so briskly that he was obviously anxious to be gone. She’d scared him off.

Thank God. She could go back to watching in vain for him to enter the club every night. That had been so much more comfortable than
this
… Whatever
this
was, she shied away from it, just looked on with raised brows and a mocking smile as he faced her from a safe distance.

“I have an appointment,” he said with apparent regret.

She laughed. “Of course you do.”

His lips twitched. “I’ll be back.”

No you won’t.
“I look forward to it,” she purred. She smiled brightly to the chattering ladies, who’d just discovered Maximilian’s
Budapest in the Snow,
while the hunter’s footsteps took him away from her, beyond the shop door and outside.

Something wound around her heart, squeezing, constricting. It felt like pain.

Chapter Seven

It wasn’t easy for István to walk into the hunters’ headquarters.

Once, the place had felt more like home than his cramped, untidy flat. It was where missions started and ended, where he researched and learned his craft, and where he had the company of other hunters, other people who knew the score and took the same risks he did.

A hunter had died the night of István’s injury. So did another man István had never even met, one of Rudy and Cyn’s unofficial roving “army.” He never forgot those people through the months of his own pain and helplessness and sheer bloody effort that followed the fight in the library. He hoped his colleagues didn’t either, for he really wasn’t the one who should be pitied.

He hadn’t been looking forward to his first return. Yet, weirdly, when he took a deep breath, pushed open the door, and walked inside, it was as if he’d never been away. And right now, the biggest thing in his life since he’d last been here seemed not to be the recovery of his spine but that he’d met Angyalka again.

He greeted passing colleagues cheerfully as he made his way to Lazar’s office, all the while remembering every moment of their encounter in the gallery. He hadn’t really expected to see her there, but he admitted to himself that he’d hoped, that trying out his new disruptor on her had been an excuse. In reality, he’d just wanted to see her again, to find out if she still believed the worst of him. Because she fascinated him, with all her strength and odd vulnerabilities, her combination of siren and innocent. To say nothing of her sheer, seductive sex appeal.

Many older vampires had that. He’d dealt with it before over the years—in males as well as females, which had been a bit of a shock to him as a young heterosexual hunter. However, it was the female form he’d always found most alluring, so perhaps he was fortunate that older vampiresses were rarer than their male counterparts…

And none rarer than Angyalka. Her body spoke to him in ways he just wasn’t prepared for. Up close to her this afternoon, he hadn’t just wanted to kiss her. He’d wanted to tear off her clothes, lay her on the counter among all her papers and his own instruments, and fuck her senseless.
Oh yes.

Mind on the job,
he reminded himself as he knocked on Lazar’s door, and swung his satchel around to cover his inappropriate erection.

To his surprise, Operations Manager Lazar wasn’t alone. Mikl?s, Librarian and number two to the Hungarian Grand Master of the Order, was with him.

Lazar beamed as István entered and strode across the room to embrace him. “István! You look great!”

“Thanks. I feel pretty good,” István said, clapping his superior on the back. Between István and Mikl?s there was a much more reserved shake of the hand, which Mikl?s got out of pretty quickly. He didn’t really care for human contact.

“Sit down,” Lazar invited, settling himself behind his own untidy desk. “Glad to see you doing so well, István. Have you had any thoughts about returning to work?”

“I’d like to,” István said at once. “But I’ve enough sense to know I’d seriously endanger my team. I’m too slow just yet.” Soon, though, thanks to Elizabeth’s latest healing…

“For field work,” Lazar said.

István wrinkled his nose. “I’m not cut out for research.”

“On the contrary,” Mikl?s said unexpectedly. “Your scientific research has brought us on leaps and bounds in the last five years.”

“I enjoy that,” István allowed. “Just not all the time. I’d go mad stuck in a lab. Which reminds me…” He opened the satchel and took out the disruptor. “This might be useful for disguising our approach in raids. Vampires can recognize strong hunters from a distance—this disguises their presence.”

They both looked satisfyingly impressed. “Wow,” Lazar said, picking it up. “Have you tested it?”

“Unofficially. You can play with that one if you like. I’ll e-mail you the details if you want to start production.”

“Good. Well done,” Lazar said, eyeing him over the top of the unassuming little box. “You haven’t been idle, have you? How’s your other project going?”

“Supernatural power storage? Slowly. I’m not even sure it can be done artificially yet, but I’m still trying.”

“You have vision,” Lazar said. “We like that.”

István glanced from him to Mikl?s. “Do we?”

Lazar began rummaging on his desk as if looking for something. “Without doubt. Vampire hunting is going through unprecedented changes. The whole network is in upheaval as it tries to adapt to living with vampires in alliances and eliminating only those who break the rules. We need people in positions of authority who can direct and control that change, in day-to-day contact with field hunters.”

Lazar pounced with obvious relief on the pen he’d finally managed to uncover and began to tap it rapidly on the desk. His gaze lifted once more to István’s. “Your name has come up,” he said carefully, “as a candidate for promotion.”

István’s eyebrows flew up. “Promotion? I’ll have my own team?” Without Mihaela and Konrad… He wasn’t sure he wanted that, although with Konrad being so difficult and Mihaela’s new child-care responsibilities, the first team was more or less finished in any meaningful sense. His smile was twisted. “Ask me again in another month. As it stands, I’d endanger any team, whatever my position in it.”

“Actually, we weren’t thinking of you as a team leader. Rather as operations manager.”

István stared, pulling up his falling jaw before it became too obvious. “But
you
’re operations manager,” he pointed out.

Lazar’s smile was about as twisted as István’s had been. “There may be promotion for me too,” he admitted.

“I’m retiring,” Mikl?s said abruptly.

Good thing. Mikl?s, like Konrad, could never adjust to this new-world order. Whatever his head told him, his heart would never believe in it.

Konrad…

Shit.

Lazar would make a good boss for the network… But István running Operations? Sending out teams on impossible tasks that he had nothing more to do with? Counting hunters out and in, keeping track, judging and organizing backup. It was responsibility.

It was a desk job. More than the research or scientific one he’d been almost resigned to, but still a desk job.

And there was Konrad. Shit again.

He rubbed his forehead. “You’re overlooking others. Team leaders. You can’t give such an important job to me just because I’m a crap hunter right now. Or take it from others just because they can still chase vampires and I can’t. I know now I won’t be crippled forever.”

Mikl?s began to speak, while Lazar’s tapping pen went into overdrive. In the end, when Mikl?s drew breath, Lazar threw the pen down and said abruptly, “In six months, you’ll be as fit as you ever were. You’ll still be István and right for this job. In six months, Konrad will still be Konrad.”

István had avoided saying the name, but of course Lazar had seen through him. Konrad was leader of the first team and should have been the prime candidate for any promotion.

István drew in a careful breath. “You have to give Konrad time to adjust. Let me talk to him.”

Even as he said the words, he knew there was no point. Konrad would never adjust to this. Even if he could be prevented from sabotaging Operations, his heart would never be in running things according to the new goals. He’d save human lives by the score, and the vampires would drop like flies until their fellows had had enough and rebelled. He’d be disastrous without some kind of epiphany—and where the hell could István find one of those for his hopelessly troubled friend?

“We don’t need to rush into this, do we?” he said.

“No,” Lazar agreed. “But your reaction is that of a good staff manager. If anyone can manage Konrad and other brilliant hunters like him, it’s you.”

No, it bloody isn’t
. “Actually, you may have overlooked another, better possibility. Mihaela is the best manipulator of people I know. And she has a child to care for now. A desk job may suit her new circumstances.”

Mikl?s glared at him. “Anyone would think you had no ambition,” he snapped.

“Then anyone would be wrong,” István said lightly. He rose to his feet and swung the satchel over his shoulder. “I’ve always had ambitions. They’ve just never been the same as anyone else’s. Thanks for your confidence in me—I appreciate that, and I’ll think about your generous offer.” He smiled lopsidedly. “If you do the same.”

****

Although there was no sign of Mihaela, he found Konrad alone in the small office all the hunter teams shared. He was at the computer and switched to screen saver as soon as István opened the door, before he even turned to see who was strolling in. From the whirring of the computer, István guessed he was copying files. Lots of them.

At least he looked pleased to see him. “István! How does it feel to be back?”

“Weird. Familiar and completely different at the same time. Just sustained an interview with Lazar and Mikl?s.” Ignoring the scattering of hard chairs about the room, István chose to perch on the corner of Konrad’s desk. It made it harder for Konrad to avoid his gaze that way.

“Desk job?” Konrad asked sympathetically. “Science and research?”

“Sort of. I said I’d think about it.”

“But you’d be good at it, István. And it wouldn’t be forever, surely. No one can doubt your full recovery now. Surely they wouldn’t sideline such a strong, gifted hunter.”

“Thanks,” István said, surprised by the compliment.

Konrad gave an awkward little shrug but didn’t avoid eye contact. “I probably thought it unnecessary to say before. But you and Mihaela were the best hunters I ever worked with, the best team I was ever on in any capacity.”

István smiled lopsidedly. “We were pretty shit-hot, weren’t we? Funny, because I wasn’t sure how it would work, you and me on the same team.” Time to talk about the difficult things, the things they always avoided. Hell, if Konrad was throwing compliments around like a resignation speech, it was way past time.

“I thought they wouldn’t let us,” István continued. “Because of how we first met.”

István as a youthful delinquent breaking into a big house where Konrad was tied to the dining table like a meal for the particularly vile nest of vampires who were drinking from him and torturing him in between card games and sexual orgies…

Konrad had been a hairsbreadth from death when István had freed him, so only one vampire, possibly motivated by István’s fresh blood, had troubled to chase them. István, letting Konrad crumple into a bloody heap on the floor, had broken a table over the bastard’s head and then stabbed him with one of the broken, spindly legs. It had been luck, of course. He hadn’t known then what the creatures were or what killed them, but it had got him and Konrad out of the house.

Later, his hunter trainers had explained to him why it would have been bad for him and Konrad to hunt on the same team, that Konrad might feel inferior because of being rescued by a younger colleague. István had been stunned that anyone at all could see things that way, because he knew what Konrad had not only endured but risen above. He’d been devastated not to hunt with Konrad.

He’d never discovered why all that changed only a couple of years later. He was promoted to the first team, along with Mihaela, and Konrad was their leader.

Judging by the distance in his cool, blue eyes, Konrad was remembering too. Then, he seemed to jerk himself into the present with a quick smile. “Yes, well, they wouldn’t have let us be on the same team if I hadn’t asked for you.”

István blinked. “You asked for me?”

“I saw you fight in Romania, remember? Even then you were strong, instinctive, unhesitating in the kill. And yet you were never greedy. Some young hunters get addicted to the rush of strength they receive from a kill, but you never fought with that in mind, just got the job done.” Konrad shrugged. “And of course, I found your improvements to the detector bloody useful. Of course I wanted you on my team.”

István held his gaze. “You were my hero, you know,” he said casually. “At first because of what you got through with such strength, and then just because of your hunting.”

He was on uncomfortable ground, and Konrad’s shift on his chair warned him to back off. “Don’t push it,” Konrad said dryly. “We didn’t always agree.”

“No,” István admitted. “But I think that was part of our strength. There was always respect, and we always listened to each other.”

Konrad glanced at the computer, which had stopped whirring, and then back to István. “You’re not listening to me now.”

“You’re not listening to me,” István returned. “We should change that, Konrad. We should have talked weeks ago, but most of me was tied up in my own recovery.”

“I don’t blame you for that!”

“I have nightmares about it,” István confessed for the first time. “About Luk biting me, draining the life from me. About being hurled at the floor and breaking like a glass bottle.”

“They’ll fade with time,” Konrad said gently. Then, with more effort, “Mine did.”

“Did they?” István asked deliberately.

Konrad stared at him.

“We have
human
serial killers too,” István reminded him. “Human sadists and all-round sick bastards. Violent humans out of control—like the ones who attacked me last night outside the Angel.”

That definitely got a reaction. Konrad’s eyes widened, his pupils dilated, and his lips parted while his hand suddenly grasped at the desk. His knuckles were white. “You were at the Angel?” he said.

“Yes, but the point is we’ve dealt with the bad guys who attacked both of us. We can’t fight them anymore.”

“There will always be others.”

“So there will always be hunters. We just need to identify our targets with more precision.”

“Why were you at the Angel?” Konrad blurted.

“Researching enchantments. Someone tried to blow it up.”

Konrad’s gaze dropped back to the computer screen. It looked casual, except there was nothing to see there. István’s heart began to ache.

He said, “A hunter was there too, just before the bomb was planted. Please tell me that wasn’t you.”