Blood on Silk (32 page)

But social work held no place in Dmitriu’s plan. As soon as it was dark, he’d go over to the docks to wait for Saloman, who’d finally bestirred himself to deal with the Zoltán problem. He’d said he was coming on a cargo ship—down-market for Saloman—arriving tonight, and as always at the prospect of reunion, excitement simmered in Dmitriu’s veins.

He drew back the dirty curtain. A band of dusky light showed across the top of the sunken window. He could go out now and hang around the docks. He should be able to find someone to feed off before Saloman arrived.

He remembered to pick up his stolen jacket from the mess on the floor. He didn’t feel the cold, and the Scots were a hardy bunch—even on a cold, dank October night, there would be several of them heading for the pub in thin, sleeveless T-shirts. But Dmitriu looked and sounded foreign. He had no desire to draw attention to himself.

Halfway across the room, he paused. His ears tingled. So did the hairs on the back of his neck. He turned, gazing toward the source. Behind the bedroom door lurked an intruder.

Crime was rife in this neighborhood, but it was a bloody good burglar who could break into a vampire’s lair unheard.

Dmitriu couldn’t smell human. But he sensed presence—a masking vampire.

Zoltán.

Dmitriu had taken good care in the long stages of the journey to Scotland not to be observed. He masked continuously and shielded Janine’s house. But Zoltán was a strong vampire, and he was looking for others. It wasn’t beyond the bounds of possibility that he’d found Dmitriu, almost by accident.

Dmitriu crossed the room silently and speedily. He could take Zoltán, but it would be a hard fight, and he needed all the advantage he could gain from surprise. He flung open the door, fangs bared, fists and right foot at the ready as he swung to cover all angles.

He lowered his fists.

Saloman sprawled across Janine’s unmade bed. He appeared to be reading her diary in the darkness. “What a tragic human being,” he observed, “and she doesn’t even realize it. Good evening, Dmitriu.”

“Saloman. You’re early.”

“I’ve found it necessary to be one step ahead of my enemies—or one hour at the very least.”

Dmitriu frowned. “Zoltán knows you’re here?”

“Did you tell him?”

“Of course I didn’t bloody tell him! I thought he’d tracked me down at last. I never thought of your sneaking in. Listen, I know what he’s up to.”

Saloman closed the diary, tossing it onto the floor where, presumably, he’d found it, but otherwise didn’t move so much as an eyebrow in interrogation. He was going to pretend he knew already.

Dmitriu said, “He’s courting powerful humans at home, whether to control them by mesmeric feeding or to turn them later, I’m not sure, but one way or another he plans to enslave them. That’s set in motion, and then he travels here. Why? I thought at first he’d come for the Awakener. But he hasn’t gone near her��yet. Nor has he been south to London where the people of greatest power in this country tend to congregate. I wondered if he was looking for support, raising a foreign vampire army with which to face you. If he looked powerful enough, he’d have a chance of attracting the old guard back to him. But that isn’t it, either. He’s only searching for one vampire.”

He paused, looking Saloman in the eye for maximum effect. “Maximilian.”

Saloman nodded, as if it was old news and he was waiting for more.

“Maximilian?” Dmitriu repeated. “Your enemy? The one who led your staking and usurped your power? And Saloman, I’m pretty sure Zoltán knows where he is. He’s been raking up records of ownership and occupation of all the small western islands. And—he’s hired a boat and crew. He’s still in Edinburgh, but it’s my belief he won’t be much longer. He’s going to meet Maximilian.”

“Do you suppose Max will kill him?”

“He couldn’t before. Or didn’t bother. Don’t you understand this, Saloman? These two have nothing in common except hatred of you! Maximilian knows you’re bound to come after him. Even if just for a peaceful life, he’s going to have to stake you again. Which he couldn’t do then without some powerful allies, and he can’t do now without Zoltán at the very least. It’s my belief Maximilian’s been hiding out on some island for decades, passively gathering the strength of increasing age. I doubt he’s looking for trouble, but he’ll be ready for it if anyone finds him. If Zoltán finds him. Together, they could bring you down, Saloman.”

Saloman stirred at last, rising fluidly to his feet. “So you called me here, far away from my existing power base in Hungary and Romania, where I have the allegiance and the support of all vampires, to face this threat alone?”

Dmitriu blinked. “Forgive me. I thought you might like to find Maximilian for yourself.”

Sarcasm was never lost on Saloman, but this didn’t even alter his expression. “I know where he is—roughly. Lajos knew and told Karl, who told me. And if Karl told me, it was reasonable to suppose he’d blabber to anyone else he was remotely afraid of, including Zoltán.”

Deflated, Dmitriu stared at him until unease as well as irritation spurred him into speech. “You mean I followed the damned thug all the way across Europe for nothing? I’ve been living in this hole, turning metaphorical somersaults to watch and elude Zoltán at the same time, all for nothing?”

“Oh, I doubt it was for nothing.”

“What the hell do you mean by that? And why did you bother coming if you already know everything?”

“I came to deal with Maximilian—and you.”

The bottom seemed to drop out of Dmitriu’s stomach. He felt sick. Saloman’s still figure was clear to him in the darkness. It was the occasional dim flashes from car headlights outside that made his face look sinister.

“Are the hunters here yet?” Saloman inquired.

Fuck and fuck and
fuck. “How should I know?”

Dmitriu flew backward into the wall with enough force to blind him with pain. He didn’t even know if Saloman had hurled him there with his mind, or if he had moved so quickly that Dmitriu hadn’t even seen him. Either way, the Ancient’s strength had increased a hundredfold since Bistriƫa, and as his brutal fingers closed around Dmitriu’s throat, death was a certainty.

“You betrayed me to the hunters,” Saloman said, his voice husky enough to reveal his pain.

“I told them you’d been wakened,” Dmitriu croaked. “They’d have found out soon enough anyway. I even told them I was petrified to scare them into inactivity. . . .”

“You can’t play the informant around me, Dmitriu. There’s only one side, and you didn’t choose mine.”

“I sent you the girl!” He wasn’t pleading for his life now, but for understanding, to take away the blackness of his friend’s hurt. Every other friend Saloman had had before the staking had betrayed him, and Dmitriu couldn’t bear it. He couldn’t endure the Ancient’s terrible loneliness, even by proxy.

Rage blasted him from Saloman’s eyes. “To awaken me for
this
?”

“Forgive me,” Dmitriu whispered.

“I will never forgive you.”

Dmitriu closed his eyes, not in fear, just to avoid the suffering fury in Saloman’s.

“I curse you, with the last beat of your treacherous heart, which is imminent.” Saloman’s grip tightened. The air seemed to whoosh as the Ancient swooped for his throat. To drain him dry, break his neck, and turn his body and soul to dust. He was of no more account than the bestial fledgling who had tried to molest the Awakener. That hurt. More than death, that hurt. He didn’t even care that Saloman would see the blood-tears squeezing from his eyes. They might comfort him in his loneliness.

But it was taking time. No teeth pierced his throat for several heartbeats, until he opened his eyes to the fierce contempt in Saloman’s.

“You are nothing,” Saloman whispered. “Exist with your pain.” He pushed Dmitriu away from him. Dmitriu skidded along the wall and fell to the floor as Saloman strode to the door.

“How did you know?” The words broke from him without permission. He didn’t even know if he’d said them aloud.

Saloman paused but didn’t turn. “Elizabeth Silk told me. ‘Zoltán betrayed you,’ she said. Not ‘Zoltán tried to kill me’ or even ‘Zoltán broke your alliance.’ ‘Betrayed’ sounded like
your
understanding. And I’d wondered how the hunters found out about me so fast. Besides”—he curled his lip—“you have their numbers on your phone.”

“It’s the only way I speak to them,” Dmitriu pleaded. “I’ve done it for years—fed them tidbits in return for a peaceful life. And for amusement, if I’m truthful. I wanted to tell you. . . .”

Saloman walked through the doorway. “Why didn’t you?”

“Because I knew you’d kill me.” Dmitriu struggled to his feet and followed Saloman into the messy living room. “Are you going?” he added, baffled.

“In this case,” said Saloman, “I’ve decided life is a crueler punishment than death. Good-bye, Dmitriu. Make your own way to hell.”

The front door shut noiselessly, leaving Dmitriu staring openmouthed across the dirty, straggling mess of the room. It seemed to mirror what was left of his existence.

Dmitriu wasn’t stupid. He knew he’d been banished. A great yawning chasm of emptiness waited to swallow him. He wished Janine would come home so he could feed from her. He needed to get blind drunk.

Striding along the dark, threatening streets of Leith, Saloman’s whole body ached with unreleased fury. He wished he’d killed Dmitriu after all, lashed himself for letting the treacherous bastard go. It had been another on-the-spot decision, like not killing Elizabeth Silk. Instead, he’d left both alive to add to the threats surrounding him.

He hadn’t expected the hurt to be so strong. Suppressing it for weeks, he thought it was under control, but it wasn’t. And he’d wanted to kill Dmitriu so badly it hurt. Like when he’d killed his cousin Luk. That was what had scared him in the end. Decisions over life and death should not be made in the heat of hurt and fury when one couldn’t see the consequences. That’s what had saved Dmitriu in Bistriƫa.

And again now, even though it had long been his plan to kill Dmitriu when they next met, his very rage had held him back, and then he just needed to get out. But the urge to kill was still strong, unquenchable.

When the local human thugs attacked, it was a gift to him. There were four of them, lean, mean wrecks of humans, obviously seeking money to buy the drugs to ruin what was left of their pitiful bodies and not fussy about who got hurt in the process. Hunting in packs, like curs. They rose out of the shadows before he paid them any attention, and jumped on him, knives flashing in the dim lamplight.

He broke the first man’s neck and drained him as he died, while seizing another in front of him as a shield. There was a sharp pain where a knife bit, but it was easy to ignore it in the elation of drinking.

Dropping the first body, he bit into the second, spinning in a fast, whirling kick that knocked the remaining attackers to the ground. They should have fled when they had the chance, but something, amazement, curiosity, or sluggish reflexes, seemed to have paralyzed them. One crawled now and ran for it. Saloman let him go—he despised greed—but he caught the fourth man and drank him dry too. It made a sour dessert. And it would take all the power of his Ancient blood to combat whatever poisonous substances flowed in their veins. Nevertheless, it assuaged most of his ill humors at once.

Dropping the fourth man on top of his dead comrades, Saloman spared a glance at the carnage. His lip quirked. “Call it ‘hello,’ Zoltán,” he murmured, “and do your worst.”

Flexing his knees, he leapt onto the roof of the nearest building, from where he gazed out over the docks and the Firth of Forth. On the opposite shore stretched Fife, St. Andrews, and Elizabeth Silk.

He had been here before, once, long ago, when it was still called Kilrymont. Macbeth had been king, and by the day’s standards, the country had prospered in relative peace. Then he’d had to go south and been called back to Hungary, and affairs in blossoming Scotland went to hell in a handcart. He liked that phrase.

St. Andrews was very different now. Although there were many old buildings, little survived from those early days except the tall tower, which had once been part of the Celtic Culdees’ little church and was now overshadowed by its massive neighbor, the rather beautiful cathedral lying in elegant ruins above the shore.