by Колин Глисон
"What in the hell are you doing? I said two Imperials." He wrenched at her arm, and, surprised, she stumbled backward. "Polidori's not there."
"Let go," she snarled, flinging off his grip. "I've got a job to do. Where is he?" Victoria looked at him, struck by the look on his face. She'd seen Sebastian only with his calm and charming persona, not this intense, angry mood. But she was the one in command here. Not him. "What I'm doing is what I must. Remember? My choice—to stand and fight, rather than to turn tail and run."
"You against two Imperials and a Guardian… don't be foolish. Besides, he's hiding." He pointed to a room across the hall from where she'd been ready to burst in. "Whoever let the vampires in told them where he slept, and they're searching the room for him. There are two others outside, watching the windows." He spoke quickly, his words like angry raps in her ear. "We haven't much time before they realize he's gone."
Then she noticed. "What is that you're holding—a sword?" Victoria barked a short, nervous laugh. "What do you expect to do with a sword?"
Annoyance in his eyes, he shoved her away. "Think what you will. Are you—" Whatever he was going to say was cut off as someone behind them shouted. They turned to look back down the hallway, where a cluster of party guests were still standing in a wide-eyed group. Several of the men had retrieved pistols, and were starting toward Victoria and Sebastian.
"Get back!" Sebastian shouted, turning toward them. "You don't understand what is happening here. Get back in your rooms and lock the doors! You will only endanger yourselves!"
"Lady Rockley, what is going on? You must come to safety! What is it?" Mr. Berkley, still looking rumpled, but a bit more clear-eyed, ignored Sebastian.
Loath to take the time, Victoria nevertheless turned and faced him and the others. She spoke calmly, strongly. She knew they had to see the honesty and earnestness in her face. "You cannot help. You must listen to me. Save yourselves and do as I say. Lock the doors to your rooms and do not come out until it is safe. There are vampires in this house, and pistols will do little to protect you." Victoria yanked the crucifix from over her head. "This will protect you," she said, tossing the heavy amulet to Gwendolyn, who hovered behind the men. "Now lock yourself away."
"Vampires?" Mr. Berkley backed up, his eyes wide. Another man holding a pistol like a shield took a step toward her as though to argue. Before he could speak, a door slammed open and a tall, glowing-eyed vampire strode out.
Screams echoed through the hall as Gwendolyn and some of the more fainthearted of the men turned and scrambled away.
The sight of the Imperial, with his magenta eyes and long silvery hair, was enough to deflate any argument from the bold man with the pistol. He goggled at the evil-eyed undead and backed away, pointing a shaking firearm at him.
Victoria and Sebastian did not move.
"Where is Polidori?" snarled the Imperial, surging toward them as his companions flowed into the narrow corridor behind him. Through the open doorway, Victoria caught a glimpse of an overturned bed, shattered bedposts, and a splintered dressing table. Shreds of bedding and other fabric scattered the floor, which glittered by lantern light with tiles of glass.
Victoria stepped forward, keeping her stake hidden in the folds of her night rail and careful to keep her eyes averted. "He's not here." She wanted to add, What a shame that you'll have to report to Lilith how you've lost your prey, but she was hoping to keep the fact that she was a Venator a secret for a bit longer. Just long enough to find an opening for the stake that itched in her hand.
"You lie," the Guardian said, pushing his way between the two Imperials. His breath hissed like a kettle of evil steam. "I can smell the dog. Tell me where he is or you die."
Sebastian shifted beside her, but Victoria took a step to the side and gestured behind her at the long hallway stretching back toward the stairs. Distractions. She had to create distractions. And she had to get him close enough so she could stab him. One chance was all she would get.
"What do you want Polidori for? Is there not enough fresh blood right here?" taunted Victoria.
The other two vampires crowded in the hall behind their leader. In some deep part of her mind—the part that was not focused on the large hand from the Guardian that was reaching toward her—Victoria was glad that the corridor was barely wide enough for three men to walk abreast. The Guardian, by virtue of his stocky body, effectively blocked his companions from moving forward to attack.
Now if she could just get them to move down the hall, away from the room where Polidori was, perhaps Sebastian could help him escape. Somehow. While she attempted the divide and conquer strategy that was her only option.
All other thoughts disintegrated as the Guardian's hand closed over the top of her shoulder and squeezed. Just where she wanted him… close enough to strike. Don't look at him, she reminded herself. It would be much too easy to be caught by his enthralling gaze.
Sharp nails dug into her tender shoulder, and she focused away from the discomfort as he bent closer and hissed in his low, menacing voice, "Right here is some fragrant fresh blood. Shall I feast on your lovely neck right now?"
She was tipped off balance by the thrust of his hand as it jolted her shoulder, or the stake might have found its mark when Victoria reared back and propelled it forward.
Instead, the pointed ash stick slammed into his arm as though she were driving it against a brick wall. The shock of the sudden impediment stunned her, numbed her arm, and she felt an ugly click in her wrist. And pain. Shooting, sharp pain in her awkwardly bent wrist. Victoria gasped and stumbled back, dark spots whirling in her vision before she shook them away.
"What have we here?" growled the Guardian, his burning eyes narrowing as he looked down at Victoria, whose head reached only to his shoulders. He still had a strong hold on her shoulder, but she twisted away when he would have drawn her near.
Don't look at him.
"A bold little girl. Perhaps she will be my reward for a job well-done."
Victoria had blinked away the black spots in her vision, but now as she tried to focus again, she was caught in the vampire's gaze as though he'd yanked her back from a dead run.
The effect of the thrall was instant. She felt as though she were falling into a soft pool of pink velvet folds. Her breath shifted, slowed; her limbs felt like feather pillows. The pulse in her neck surged. She could feel the blood vibrate, yearning for the smooth, sharp bite that would release it.
It was warm in her veins, warm, hot, tingling. It leaped and lapped as though the vampire called the liquid of her life to him, ebbed and surged with each breath. Her body became aware… alive, yet dull… tantalized, yet sleepy… as though she were turning to Phillip's body in the night, half-awake, half-aroused.
Faintly, trying to claw to the surface, to break the spell, her consciousness fought. She had to stop the tug. But the pull… it enwrapped her, like the flow of water suddenly undammed and rushing to drown her. She struggled… if she could blink, make her dry, open eyes close, even for a moment… Dimly she felt and heard movement, shouts… but she could not respond. Couldn't identify them.
Her arms clunked against each other as though someone was moving them, the stake fell from loose fingers; something hard bumped into her sore wrist… something curving and hard that was out of place… Her head tipped to one side, the heat of her shoulder warming one side of her neck, the other damp and cool and vulnerable.
Her hands fluttered as though to fight him away, but he was too close… too strong. Burning pink and ruby filled her world. Hot breath came close, fangs, alluring and promising relief, glistened yellow-gray in the dim light.
Victoria felt the hard, slender thing under her sleeve again as her arms were pushed up against her body, helpless, and she suddenly had a burst of clarity. It was the vial of holy water.
Pater noster. She thought it. Then she said it aloud. "Pater noster, qui es in caelis …"
It was like a jolt of lightning through her mind, a streak
of consciousness. Focus. She'd been given focus.
A low laugh sounded near her ear. "He to whom you pray cannot help you now." The vampire was too close; she couldn't get it in time, though his moving toward her seemed to take hours… days. Her fingers fumbled, clumsy; he came closer; she fought to blink, to break the connection; she pulled on the vial.
As their gazes disconnected, as he came that last inch closer, the vial slid free and she fumbled as the gentle prick of his fangs touched her skin. With the last bit of her strength, she buckled one knee and tipped to the side, twisting the cap off the vial. She fell, throwing the water full into his face as he bent after her.
The Guardian screamed and tore away, hands over his eyes, murderous rage coming from behind them. Victoria scrabbled for the stake she'd dropped, but before she could find it, she saw something better.
The glint of a sword lay near her feet: an Imperial's weapon, dropped and forgotten. She swooped for it and rose, holding the heavy blade.
With a quick slice, like the one she'd used to behead the demon at the Silver Chalice, she rose up and swung it just as the vampire started toward her again.
His head lopped off, tumbling into dust before it hit the floor.
Victoria whirled, the last vestiges of his control over her lifted, and was suddenly back in the present. She saw to her amazement that Sebastian had engaged one of the Imperials with his own sword.
Blades flashed, clanging in rhythm as the two parried in the narrow hallway. Sebastian matched the Imperial blow for blow, blades scraping against each other as they fell away. The other Imperial was nowhere to be seen; but the door to the other room was open.
Victoria hesitated for a moment, but Sebastian shouted, "Go! Polidori!" He was outmatched, and she knew that if she left, he would die. A sword was effective against a vampire only if it was used to behead him. However, a sword against a mortal could wound, maim, or kill in any part of the body.
Sebastian did not have the strength or speed to match the vampire for long, she did not know how he'd managed it so far. It was a blessing that the low ceiling prevented the Imperial from floating and swooping like a bird of prey, or the battle would have been over before it was begun.
"Victoria! Go!" he shouted, and she made her decision. She could wonder later why Sebastian was willing to endanger himself. Bending in a graceful move, she scooped up her stake, and, still holding the sword, darted to one side of the Imperial.
She was not to make it past him, though, for he saw her and spun, whirling with one last blow meant to slice into Sebastian, then arc into Victoria. The clang and slide of three blades meeting was a satisfying yet ugly sound.
Seizing the opportunity, Victoria pivoted and brought her blade around as she slipped to the side of the vampire, who raised his own sword to meet Sebastian's. As she swung with all of her might, slicing toward the vampire, he one-handed his own blade, somehow broadsiding Sebastian while reaching for her.
She brought the blade down, cutting through his arm and missing the vulnerable neck, spinning around behind him.
The arm burst off his body, exploded into dust, and in the blink of an eye another one appeared to replace it.
Victoria swung her blade again, noticing Sebastian crumpled against the wall, and brought it up and around as the Imperial whipped back to meet her. Their blades clashed, sliding angrily along each other, and just as they reached their zenith, separated. Victoria's went up, the vampire's went down, and hers bit into his neck as searing pain exploded along her thigh.
With a scream of determination, she kept her momentum in force, and felt the release as the second sliced through his neck.
She collapsed onto the floor as the Imperial poofed into nothingness. Blood streamed down her leg, sopping her silk night rail and pooling onto the polished floor beneath. She had executed her first Imperial, thanks to Sebastian's assistance.
Shakily, she pulled to her feet and stumbled toward Sebastian.
When she pressed a hand to his chest, sliding her fingers into the opening and over his warm skin to feel whether he was breathing, and tipping his head to one side so she could probe for a pulse, he shuddered a deep breath and forced his eyes open. Weary humor glinted in their amber highlights. "Not now, Victoria… but later, I promise."
With an unplanned grin, she pulled herself away, still shaky. She staggered to her feet, satisfied that he wasn't about to expire on the spot. "One must have one's fantasies," she told him, then gasped at the pain in her leg.
Still holding the sword, heavy in her sore wrist, she used it to help propel herself to the room in which the author was purportedly hiding. The door was open, hanging half from its hinges.
The Imperial vampire, the last one remaining, spun from the bed to meet her. He did not have a sword; it must have been he who dropped the one she had. Looking past him, Victoria got the impression of blood, a vat of blood spilled over the body that lay there, thick and rust-smelling. The scent of evil, of death.
Her leg screaming, her wrist protesting, she lobbed the sword up, but the Imperial lunged toward her and stopped the blade. It smacked into the palm of his hand, and he caught it, flat against his palm, twisted it from her weakened grip, and sent it flying across the room. His face burned with anger, edged with blood at the corners of his mouth, and his eyes blazed as he came at her again.
Victoria felt herself lifted and tossed across the room. She slammed into something hard, and everything went black.
Chapter 7
In Which a Disturbing Question Remains Unanswered
The stench of death roused her.
Victoria opened her eyes, gathering herself to leap back into battle with the Imperial, pushing away Sebastian, who had his hand on her chest and was looking down at her with flat golden eyes.
"He's gone," he told her, removing his hand deliberately. "The vampire."
"Polidori?" She pushed herself up on her elbows, then her palms, and saw that her twisted white nightgown was stained dark red.
"Dead."
"No!" She pushed Sebastian away and dragged herself to her feet, allowing him to help her after she'd gotten her legs straightened. Her right thigh hurt, stung, ached like a stone was crushing it, and she felt a warm trickle rolling down and curling around her ankle. She turned and saw the bed.
There was Polidori, or what remained of him. Victoria had seen carnage like this before, but it did not make it any easier to observe. What had been unruly dark curls were plastered to one side of his face by crusty brown blood, his hips twisted one way and his torso facing the other. What had been a taupe-and-brown-striped nightshirt had been ruined by dark red splashes. His throat gaped like the entrance to a yawning cavern, and three X marks—in memory of the thirty silver pieces Judas received for selling Jesus—had been carved into his chest.
"The Imperial is gone? I don't remember what happened," Victoria said.
"I'm not certain… but he was gone when I came in. You haven't been unconscious for very long, and when I came to, I heard a loud thud. I presume it was you going against the wall. He had to have gone out the window, because I looked in right after I heard the crash."
Then Victoria remembered. "You wanted me to save Polidori—you were fighting the Imperial and you wanted me to leave you. You could have died."
"Quite a surprising turn of events, my bravery, hmm? Well, perhaps it was merely an accident—after all, I had to step in when the Guardian was about to feast on your lovely neck, because the Imperial was right behind him. If I had not engaged him with the sword, that would have been the end of you… and then where would we have been?"
Mockery glinted in his eyes. "Presumptive though it might have been, I figured that even I could hold him off for a few moments. And it was certainly accidental that I distracted the Imperial enough for you to slice his head off. But I must say"—he inclined his head coolly—"it was a relief when you broke the thrall of that Guardian. I was a bit worried there for a moment. You looked as though you were
ready to do anything he wanted, with your parted lips and heavy eyes."
Victoria walked toward the bed and drew a sheet up over the dead man. "No one should come in here. We must hide what happened tonight." She looked at Sebastian.
"I'll take care of Polidori. And the room here. We can burn everything."
"My maid can help. And perhaps I can send to London for my aunt. She has a way of… relieving people of their memories in situations like this."
"Her golden disk—yes, I've heard about the spinning amulet that helps… er… adjust what people remember. That would be most helpful. If you send for her now, she could be here by tomorrow afternoon. Surely we can keep everyone here until then. It would not be prudent for tales of what occurred tonight to be spread all over London. We'd have mass hysteria—"
"Not to mention a slew of would-be vampire hunters. A very dangerous vocation for one who is not trained."
He looked at her as though trying to determine whether her comment was directed at him. "Anyone can stake a vampire," he replied coolly.
"If they can get close enough," Victoria said. She looked back at the carnage on the bed. "With all he knew about vampires, you'd think he'd have protected himself somehow. Worn a crucifix, carried a stake… something."
"A crucifix wouldn't have helped him—Polidori was an atheist. So the holy relics, which meant nothing to him, would have provided no protection."
"How can one believe in immortal evil and damnation without also believing in divine goodness? One cannot exist without the other."
Sebastian shrugged. "You and I know better, for we have understood and experienced this aspect of our world for a time. I think Polidori was still coming to accept that there truly is palatable evil in this world: paranormal, immortal, inherent evil."
"Perhaps. But why were they after him, anyway? You were going to let him tell me… but surely you know something."
"All I know is that the Tutela is rising up in Italy, and Polidori knew something about it and its leader, Nedas. Something that the vampires needed to silence, possibly some secret vulnerability or weakness. Or some detail of their plans. But he told me nothing more. He didn't trust me. He allowed me with him because he had no choice, but he did not extend his trust far enough to tell me everything."