Eric Lustbader - Blood Trust

For Victoria

PROLOGUE

Vlor, 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 companions 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 foxs 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 Liridonas mothers face softens. Then the abject terror returns and she says to Alli, You stupid, stupid girl.

Listen, your daughter was a prisoner, Alli says.

Liridonas mother says nothing.

Did you hear me? Do you understand what Im saying?

Her eyes are fixed on a spot above her daughters 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.

Whats the matter with you? she says. We need your help. Were both in terrible danger.

The older woman has averted her gaze. I know that better than you.

Alli can tell that beneath the mothers mechanical tones lie glimmers of pain, fury, and, worst of all, resignation.

Will you help us get to the ferry for Brindisi? In Italy well be safe.

Youll never be safe.

Alli is undeterred. Please. We have nowhere else to turn.

Another cough explodes from behind Liridonas mother. All at once, the door is almost wrenched off its hinges and Liridonas mother is shoved out of the way to make room for a huge, hulking man dressed in a sleeveless undershirt and pajama pants. His darkly bristled cheeks and close-set eyes give him the appearance of a wild boar.

He spits heavily, then, stepping out into the street, he peers beyond them, looking both ways. Foolish girl! His hand lashes out, striking Liridona across the face. Go back to where you belong. Youll get us all killed!

As Liridona cowers, Alli shoulders past her. This is your daughter.

The boar-man glares at her.

Liridona flinches, then bursts into tears. I tried to tell you, she sobs.

Alli says, Shes your child, your flesh and blood.

He takes one more look around. Christ!

He hurriedly steps back into the shadows of the doorway and slams the door in their faces.

Alli pounds on the door with her fist, but to no avail. She is about to try to find another way in when her gaze is drawn to the eastern end of the filthy street. The sun, rising, spills its light along the cobbles like liquid fire. Out of that dazzle emerge two men armed with handguns. The instant they realize theyve been seen they sprint toward the two women.

Alli grabs Liridona by the back of her shirt, whirls her around, and pulls her along. Liridona stumbles after her as they run in the opposite direction. But they are already winded from their long run, and the two men gain on them at an alarmingly rapid clip.

Up ahead, Alli hears the chiming shouts of sounds like a demonstration. Changing direction, Alli heads them toward the boiling knot of students occupying a nearby plaza ringed with rugged hawthorns and lindens. Like the trees, banners rise ahead of them, calling for bread and clean water, decent sanitation, heat and light. Power! Power Now!

Young people are everywhere, piling into the plaza, fiercely determined expressions on their faces as they begin to chant in unison. The raw, seething power of youth shakes the lindens like a sudden storm, and it seems as if hope is rising as inexorably as the flowers of spring.

Grabbing Liridona by the hand, Alli plunges into the maelstrom of bodies. All around them, the air shudders with the angry shouts of the demonstrators. Fires are being lit, fueled by the garbage piled in the gutters. Acrid smoke swirls, mingling with a fog that seems to have risen from the sewer grates, overrunning the streets and the plaza like an army of vermin.

A great shout erupts as a group of about ten young men rock a car back and forth, harder and harder, until, with their combined strength, they upend it. The massed shout gains hurricane force. There the car sits like a turtle on its back. Someone opens the gas tank.

At almost the same moment, the morning trembles to the high-low wail of police sirens. Everything starts to happen in double-time. A length of rag is inserted in the cars gas tank, its visible end lit; the mass of humanity seems to hold its breath.

The car explodes just as the militia appears, pouring out of fog-bound streets into the plaza. Harsh orders, magnified through a portable amplifier, are fired like flares over the heads of the protesters. Then guns are fired, and the melee commences.

Among it all, Alli and Liridona dodge and sidestep their antagonists, sweeping aside fluttering banners, leaping over the fallen, trying to keep themselves from being trampled by the mob, which flows first one way, then another. A clear line of sight is all but impossible, eyes tear from the smoke and debris.

It is then that the two men appear out of the blur of bodies and faces. They grab Liridona and, as Alli tries to attack them, one of them slams the side of her head. She staggers, loses her grip on her companion, and, slammed by rushing bodies, goes down facefirst. Sprawled on the ground, she is kicked and struck by fleeing feet and tramping boots. She almost loses consciousness, but, gathering herself, manages to regain her feet just in time to see the two men dragging Liridona away.

Wading deeper into the growing madness, she fights her way after them. The car fire has spread, and one of the hawthorn trees becomes a column of flame, its widening plume of smoke a dark banner rippling ominously over all their heads. Alli coughs, her lungs burning. A young woman hits her in the face, a boy drives his elbow into her side in his panic to get away from the militia. The armed men wield metal truncheons, which rise and fall in concert like a thresher in a field of wheat. She gasps and continues on, reeling and in pain, but she will not allow Liridona out of her sight. But the fog, a metallic brown from gunpowder, garbage, and the grit of the streets, thrusts itself against her like a living thing. She is buffeted by the currents of running people. Screams find her as insistent as the tolling of bells from the cathedral, which seems to watch indifferently with its elongated El Greco face.