Blood Eternal Read Free Page B

like this before, to his knowledge. If there was power to be had from awakening, he naturally wanted it for himself; but on the other hand, he needed Luk to be as strong as possible, which meant drinking the blood of his Awakener and killing him to absorb his life force. So far, Saloman had failed to kill Elizabeth, and therein lay his weakness. Dante did not intend for Luk to make the same mistake.
    It was a pity for Mehmet.
    Dante shone his flashlight unwaveringly on Luk’s dead face. It did indeed look like stone. He’d expected it to be more lifelike, to give some hint of his Ancient strength, a clue that he could be awakened. Tiny droplets of blood splashed on Luk’s cheek, his nose, lips, and chin. Nothing happened.
    Oh fuck. It isn’t enough. After all this, I needed more blood. . . .
    “Did you take it?” Mehmet asked.
    “What? Oh, the photograph—yes, I got it. Thanks.” He took a step forward, meaning to take back the vial and see if there was anything at all left in it. But before he could touch it, a sound like a faint groan issued from the carving.
    Oh, yes. Hallelujah.
    Under Dante’s riveted gaze, the dead eyes of the sculpture opened; the lips parted. The skin moved, shifting slowly into an expression not of triumph but of shock. Even . . . fear. Luk sat up and Mehmet fell back with a low moan of terror. Luk’s twisted mouth opened wider, revealing his long, terrifying incisors as he stared at Mehmet.
    The vampire’s scream started low, like a rattle in his throat, then rose quickly into the most horrific, gut-wrenching howl Dante had ever heard. Like all the pain of everyone in the world rolled into one pure, dreadful sound.
    This isn’t meant to happen, Dante thought in panic. Something’s gone terribly wrong. I must have gotten the wrong vampire. . . .
    Then, in fury, the creature who may or may not have been Luk swung himself off the stone table, and Dante stepped circumspectly behind Mehmet before giving the Turk a sharp, ungentle shove into the reaching arms of whatever they’d awakened.

Chapter Two
     
    A pale, watery sunshine shone feebly down on the grounds of Glasgow’s Southern General Hospital, flickering intermittently through the ward windows and across the floor in front of Elizabeth as she made her way to Private John Ramsay’s room.
    The British hunter, tied down in Cornwall tracking a bizarre but elusive vampire who seemed determined to introduce himself to every member of a village community, had sounded harassed when he’d asked her to get Ramsay’s story.
    “It sounds like a mixture of fever dreams and trauma to me, but we’ve been asked to look into it, so see what you think.”
    She’d been aware, then as now, that she was being used as a filter. The hunters, who were based in London, didn’t want to come all the way up here for nothing. If there was anything in Ramsay’s story, they’d make it their next assignment once the Cornish vampire was dealt with. If there wasn’t, they would simply report Elizabeth’s findings.
    And Elizabeth was glad to help, not just because she was bored, but because she valued their trust, perhaps as a counterbalance to the growing dis trust of her friends the Hungarian hunters, who’d recently discovered her relationship with Saloman, their greatest enemy.
    The final room in the ward, to which she’d been directed, contained three beds. Two were empty, and the third was occupied by a fully dressed young man stretched out on the top of it, staring into space. His shaved head revealed a long red scar above his left ear. He wore a short-sleeved khaki T-shirt; no arm protruded from the left sleeve.
    When Elizabeth gave a tentative knock on the open door, the young man’s eyes drifted toward her without much interest.
    “Are you John Ramsay?” she asked hopefully.
    “Aye.”
    Ignoring the lack of encouragement in his curt response, she stepped inside the room and held out her hand.
    “Hello. I’m Elizabeth Silk.”
    The