Blood Trust - Eric van Lustbader [0]
CONTENTS
Title Page
Dedication
Prologue
Part One: Blood Sport
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Part Two: Blood Ties
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Part Three: Cherry Bomb
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Part Four: Blood Trust
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Epilogue
Author’s Note
By Eric Van Lustbader
Copyright
PROLOGUE
Vlorë, Albania
TWO YOUNG women running. They look like girls, little slips of girls as they fly down ancient cobbled streets, past the blind facades of stone houses, darkened by another of the frequent blackouts. Pale candlelight flickers against windowpanes, medieval and mean, a city within a city. The younger is a girl, barely thirteen, though taller and more filled out than her companion, yet far short of womanly.
Cathedral spires, still silvered in moonlight, ignore the thin thread of red dawnlight tingeing the eastern sky. Stars glimmer defiantly like blue-white diamonds. There is no wind at all; the stillness of the trees is absolute, the shadows they cast impenetrable.
An old man, thin and brittle as the branches above his head, is roused from his drunken stupor by the anxious click-clack of shoes as the women cross his small square. He stirs, regarding them from the stone bench that serves as his home. His arms are crossed over his bony chest as if in reproof. Noticing him, one of the women stops abruptly, slips off her shoes. Now both barefoot, they silently flee the square like shadows before the rising of the sun.
They enter an evil-smelling alley. Garbage overspills dented cans. A creature lifts its head, growls, baring its yellow teeth. Its ears are triangular, and very large, making it look more like a jackal than a dog. The women swerve out of its way, race to the far end of the alley. The street beyond is nearly as dark. It is littered with ripped signs, shoes, and caps rioters left in their haste to retreat from the truncheons and guns of the advancing militia.
They turn a corner, the taller woman now in the lead. The smell of roasted corn and the sharp odor of urine assail them. Halfway along the street, the taller woman stops in front of a door. About to knock, she hesitates, turning to look into her companion’s eyes. Emboldened by the nod of encouragement she receives, she raps sharply on the door with her scabbed knuckles. No sound, and reaching past her, her companion slaps the flat of her hand insistently against the wood.
At last there comes a stirring from inside the house, a scraping followed by a hacking cough. The door opens a crack and a woman with gray-streaked hair and sunken cheeks opens her ashen eyes wide. She is gripped by the look of a hare who sees in the fox’s presence its imminent death.
“Liridona!”
“Hello, Mother,” the taller woman says.
Her mother gasps. “What have you done? Are you insane? How—?”
“I escaped.” Liridona gestures. “With the help of my friend, Alli.”
For just an instant, the expression on Liridona’s mother’s face softens. Then the abject terror returns and she says to Alli, “You stupid, stupid girl.”
“Listen, your daughter was a prisoner,” Alli says.
Liridona’s mother says nothing.
“Did you hear me? Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Her eyes are fixed on a spot above her daughter’s head, as if she is willing herself to be far away.
Alli turns Liridona around and pushes up her shirt to reveal a constellation of weals made by cigarette burns.
“What’s the matter with you?” she says. “We need your help. We’re both in terrible danger.”
The older woman has averted her gaze. “I know that better than you.”
Alli can tell that beneath the mother’s mechanical