Blood Eternal by Marie Treanor Page B

others. Under the amazingly bright, unpolluted night sky, alight with its millions of stars, the beauty of the deep, jagged hills would have deprived Elizabeth of breath had she not had so many other problems on her mind. As it was, she found it hard to look away.
    After several phone calls and a long drive up steep hillsides that made her ears pop, István finally stopped the car in a roadside parking place with a water tap jutting out from the rock beside it.
    “I think they’re quite close now,” he said comfortingly, just as his phone rang again. He answered it as he climbed out of the car, then listened while he locked the car and began to walk. Elizabeth trotted anxiously beside him until he said, “Good, we’re right behind you.”
    Replacing the phone in his pocket, he said, “They’ve got a reading.”
    Elizabeth nodded, and as he strode away from the road toward a large, wooded area, she fell into step beside him. István reached into his backpack and withdrew a handful of lethally sharpened sticks. He passed three to Elizabeth, who took them with a murmur of thanks, stuck two in her jeans belt, and held on to the last.
    The hunter mantle seemed to fall about her shoulders and enfold her. Her heart began to beat faster as she strained every sense to pick up the sounds and smells of danger. She welcomed the rising excitement like an old friend. A fight was something she could deal with now. God, she’d even missed it.
    “Are they headed for a village?” she murmured. “How many?”
    “Not sure. The others will have the details. But we think there are several.”
    They found the others in a huddle near the edge of the wood—Konrad, Mihaela, and three Turkish hunters. Although they all glanced up as Elizabeth and István approached, there was little time for civilities or even greetings.
    “They’re on the move,” Konrad said at once. “One Ancient, three other vampires. And they’re going uphill for some reason, away from the nearest village.”
    “So what’s up there?” Elizabeth asked, crouching down by Konrad to examine a detection device she’d never seen before. Its main body resembled the usual vampire detectors, but from this one a number of spikes fanned outward. And as well as a small LED, it had a dial like a compass.
    “Nothing,” Mihaela said discontentedly. “They must be traveling.”
    One of the Turks said, “There is a vampire commune around ten miles east of here. A vampire could easily travel there over the mountains.”
    “Gathering support?” Elizabeth suggested.
    “It’s a long-standing commune,” the man explained. “Gives us little trouble. Occasionally it grows too large and we go in and clean it out. It re-forms around the older vampires, and operates more discreetly for the next few years. Your vampires will want to join with them.”
    “Dante and Luk, plus a resilient commune that survives frequent attacks?” Mihaela murmured. “I don’t like the sound of that.”
    Konrad nodded. “We need to stop them before they reach this commune.”
    “We can’t attack them in the mountains,” one of the Turks said. “A vampire has too much advantage there. Ideally, we should have trapped them in the cave and killed them as they broke out.”
    “Too late for that. We didn’t find them in time.” Konrad drummed his fingers on his backpack. “Distraction. Is there some way we can persuade them to turn around and come back?”
    “Do they know you’re here?” Elizabeth asked. “Are they running from you?”
    “The wood should have masked us from the ordinary vampires. What Luk can sense is anyone’s guess.” Konrad cast her a glance. “Can Saloman sense through forest?”
    “He can sense just about anywhere in the world if he has a connection to the subject,” Elizabeth said. “Luk has no connection, no knowledge of any of us, so he has no reason even to try. His—” She broke off, refocusing her gaze on Konrad while she drew in her breath. “I was