by Колин Глисон
His red eyes moved closer, and she waited until he was just about to press his lips to her skin. Then, using his hold on her for balance, she raised both legs and slammed her feet into his calves.
It surprised him enough that she was able to twist free and reach for the second stake in her hair, but it had fallen when he yanked her to her feet. Victoria lunged at the vampire, knocking him off balance, and started off toward the faint light.
He was behind her, not far, but enough that she had a lead. She tried to reach under her skirt to pull her last stake out, but it was too long and she couldn't find the slit while she was running.
Please, a door. Please.
She was close enough now; it was a crack of light. She slammed against the wall, which had to be a door, had to be, and felt him coming up behind her. Scrabbling around with her fingers, she felt for a latch again, praying for sunlight. She had no idea how much time had passed since coming to the meeting, but it had been hours…
Sunlight, please.
She slipped her fingers into a crack just as he slammed up behind her. He grabbed her by the shoulder and whipped her to the ground, hoping, obviously, to slow her down. But he'd actually given her an advantage. She flipped back and kicked her feet up into his abdomen, sending him sprawling as she rolled back around and grabbed with her nails under the bottom of the door.
Pull, pull, pull…
And it opened. Dear God, it opened!
And a low beam of light flooded into the tunnel.
The vampire screamed and rolled away and Victoria followed him, slipping the last stake from under her skirt. She drove it into his back, straight through to his heart, then turned to stumble into blessed, blessed dawn from a sun just peeking through the trees at the horizon.
She slammed the door behind her and staggered three or four steps away from the building.
She ran, her eyes smarting from the sudden brightness, blinded again, brushing through trees and bushes until she crashed into someone.
Two someones.
"My lady?"
"Lady Rockley?"
Victoria picked herself up from the grass and, still blinking away sunburst tears, said, "Verbena? Oliver? What on earth—"
"My God, she is bleeding!" Oliver's horrified voice penetrated, and she was finally able to focus on him.
"Everywhere." His voice cracked, easing into a horrified hush.
"We have a boat, my lady; come, come." Verbena was tugging on her, and although Victoria could hear the fear in her voice, she also heard her trademark bossiness.
She allowed her maid to lead her back to the same canal on which she and Alvisi had traveled hours ago.
A half a day ago.
The voyage along the canal took well over an hour, during which Victoria had the overwhelming impression of warm yellow sunlight and of little else. Later, she recalled certain moments: The agony when Verbena liberally doused her wounds with salted holy water. The sudden listing of their gondola when Oliver's pole caught on something. The snatches of hissed conversation between her two companions.
"She looks so white."
"O' course she does! She's been bit five, six times, ye oaf!" And then the splash of water followed by the excruciating sting of salt. "Can ye not row any faster?"
"I'm not rowing. Do you see an oar? A paddle? No, it is a stick, and it's not like rowing in the pond back in Cornwall."
"Watch where ye're—"
And then a great lurch, a muffled curse, and the resulting jolts as the vessel went on its way.
Then, later… "If you weren't being such a stubborn nanny goat about me going, and delayed me, we wouldn't have been so late getting there."
"Ye weren't goin' wi'out me."
"Lot of help you were, yelling and squawkin' like a hen out on the canal."
Followed by an angry huff and jerk of the boat, as though someone had spun away and folded her arms over her middle. "Ye were goin' in the wrong direction."
"So we wouldn't be followed."
"We were doin' the followin'!"
"You can't be too cautious in such matters."
Then another great jolt of the boat. She must have turned back toward him. "What d' you know about fightin' vampires?"
"More than you do, which, by the look of it, says very little."
Likely it was fortunate that Victoria drifted off at that point and didn't hear Verbena's response. She wasn't aware of anything else until more jolting and then a sudden lurch told her they'd arrived at the dock.
She could walk, she told Verbena, and proceeded to demonstrate just that. The salted holy water had already begun to do its job, and although she was weak and sore and exhausted, she knew she would feel better by the next day. Venators healed quickly and easily, even from vampire bites.
At the villa, however, Verbena insisted that Victoria repair to her chamber to be washed and changed instead of sending word over to Aunt Eustacia.
"Oliver'll take a message to 'er while we get ye cleaned up."
Victoria didn't like to admit it, but she was shaken by her experience, and although physically she knew she would feel perfectly fine in a matter of a day or so, the memory of the vampires tearing at her amidst the fog and incense and inexorable chanting made her fingers shake and her stomach ball up in an ugly knot.
She slept after Verbena's ministrations, and woke hours later, judging by the position of the sun outside her window. Victoria rolled out from under the light blanket and went to take a look at the damage.
She counted eight bite marks, and six more that were more like gouges, scoring like jagged ribbons into the skin of her neck and shoulders. The blood had been washed away, but the bruises had already begun to show dark purple and black beneath the marks. Victoria touched one of the bites and realized how close she'd come to dying.
She wondered what happened to the other women. Had they been torn apart or had they been set free after their trauma?
She couldn't have saved them; she'd barely been able to save herself. But the knowledge that they'd faced a horrifying, painful death stabbed at her. She was a Venator. Her task was to save lives by stopping the demons and vampires from taking them. She'd failed last night.
She'd seen it happen and been powerless to stop it.
She'd been too late to save Polidori; but at least she'd tried.
She hadn't tried to save the women.
Pushing away from the mirror, Victoria washed her face with a bit of water, using her damp hands to slick back the wisps of hair that had escaped from her braid while she was sleeping.
At the bottom of the stairs she met the Italian butler, a trusted member of Aunt Eustacia's household, who gave a little bow and said, "Your aunt and two gentlemen have availed themselves of the parlor, signora."
Two gentlemen?
Victoria hurried to the parlor and opened the door.
It wasn't Max. "What are you doing here?" She stopped short inside the door.
"Bloody hell, Victoria!" Sebastian stood, starting toward her, then stopped in the middle of the room. "Your maid said you'd been hurt, but this is much worse than she indicated."
"What is he doing here?" Victoria asked her aunt, ignoring Sebastian to sit down next to her on a divan. Of course she looked like hell. She'd been mauled by three vampires.
But he didn't need to sound so blasted surprised. Or repulsed. And just because he looked as handsome and well-groomed as he always did, with his artfully tousled gilt curls and perfectly folded neck cloth…
"It looks as though you had a rather close call," Aunt Eustacia told her, peering at the bites, even poking at one with her finger. "These are quite nasty, and even though you are a Venator, these kinds of wounds can have consequences, cara. Your maid said she treated you with salted holy water; and I have something else that will help the bruising disappear." She began to rummage in the small reticule she'd pulled from her wrist.
"We are very glad you didn't suffer any worse injuries," Kritanu said in his soft v
oice. He reached over from the chair on which he sat and patted Victoria's hand, ending with an affectionate squeeze. "And to answer your question, Monsieur Vioget arrived at your aunt's villa late last night."
Victoria turned to look at Sebastian, who had not stopped watching her since she came in the room, and raised her eyebrow in condescending query.
"I did not know where you were staying here in Venice," he explained, settling back in his seat in an obvious attempt to appear relaxed. He crossed his arms over his middle, his well-cut jacket straining gently over his broad shoulders. "But I did know how to reach your aunt and presumed she would put me in touch with you, particularly since I came with information that I believe you will welcome. It is unfortunate that I arrived a day late, or I could likely have prevented your bloody mishap last evening."
"And how is that?" Victoria asked. She was beginning to become weary of his sudden appearances and mysterious pronouncements. He always seemed to be obscuring something. Or trying to get something.
"I could have told you that Nedas is in Rome, not here in Venice. And if you wish to infiltrate the Tutela in hopes of stopping him, you will not do so here in Venezia. And certainly not on the arm of Count Benedetto Alvisi."
"And you waited until now to apprise me of this? Why did you not tell me this before I left London? In the carriage?" Her wounds throbbed along with the angry veins in her neck.
He spread his hands. "I did not know it at the time."
"Victoria, do tell us what happened last night," Aunt Eustacia interrupted. She closed arthritic fingers around her great-niece's hand. They were chilly, but strong, and her skin was soft and textured with thick weals of veins. "And here is some cream for your bites."
With relief, Victoria turned from Sebastian and gave a detailed description of the Tutela meeting.
"So you went alone, without taking any precautions should something go wrong."
Victoria skewered Sebastian with her look. "I'm a Venator and we must take chances, dangerous though they might be."
Aunt Eustacia drew in her breath as though to speak, but Victoria stepped on her words, not wishing to be reprimanded, particularly in front of Sebastian. "I will, however, acknowledge that I should have prepared for the possibility that things were not as they had seemed. Without Max, I had to act on my own; there was no one else who could have followed along and been able to assist me had things gone awry. Which, of course, things did go wrong. As it was, I was fortunate enough to make my own escape, and to come upon Verbena and Oliver, who were able to take me home. It is not"—she nodded at Kritanu and her aunt—"an experience that I would wish to repeat."
"You did not arrange for your maid to follow you, then," Aunt Eustacia said in a carefully modulated voice, which told Victoria that she was annoyed or angry.
"I did not. She did that on her own."
"You did not send a message asking for Kritanu to come with you. He could have followed you as well."
"I did not have the luxury of time to send to you; for I received the message from Alvisi less than a half hour before he was to pick me up."
"A conscious decision on his part. He has long been trying find his way into the inner workings of the Tutela," Sebastian added.
"You seem to be exceedingly well versed in the Tutela yourself, Monsieur Vioget," Victoria responded archly.
His smile was bland. "I am very pleased to be of service to you and all of the other Venators. Now, if you will permit me, I will be more than happy to assist in connecting you with the appropriate people in Roma"—he rolled his R with an authentic Italian purr—"so that you can continue your quest to find Nedas."
Victoria looked at Aunt Eustacia. She nodded. "Si, we shall all make our way to Roma. By ship. It will be safer than by land, where the Tutela might spot us or follow us."
Chapter 12
In Which Monsieur Vioget Calls a Bluff
"Enjoying the moonlight, or patrolling the ship for nasty vampires in order to save the rest of us mere mortals?"
Victoria was not startled; she'd sensed Sebastian's presence as he came up behind her on the ship's deck. She turned easily to face him, leaving one arm propped on the corner of the ship's railing. "No worries, Sebastian, darling. There's not a vampire to be found on this vessel."
"Did you just call me darling, or was I dreaming?" He selected a spot to stand next to her, far enough away that her skirts, lifting and shifting in the breeze of the Adriatic Sea, did not brush his trousers. "Perhaps I am making progress."
She just looked at him, ignoring the curls that fluttered like pennants around her temples. When he appeared content to stare out over the glittering sea, colored black and midnight and gray by the moon and stars, she commented, "I didn't think it would take long for you to seek me out." She hated to admit it, but she was glad he had.
"I hope I am not too terribly tardy."
"Not so very."
"But late enough that you were getting impatient, true?" He turned his face to look at her, his elbows remaining on the railing. "Perhaps I don't wish to be predictable either."
"The only thing predictable about you is that you consistently appear when you suppose I least expect it. Perhaps that will be your undoing; for now I shall expect to see you every time I turn around."
"You were very foolish to go to the Tutela meeting on your own. You nearly died, Victoria. They nearly tore you to shreds."
"Do you think I do not know that?" She looked away from his face, which had turned to stare out to sea, and followed his gaze. "I had no choice."
"You always have a choice."
"I don't. I'll see this through until the end, and on the way I'll take as many of them with me as I can. I owe it to Phillip."
"You speak about violence so matter-of-factly, Victoria. Will that always be your life? Your focus?"
"It can be no other. You don't understand; you cannot know what it's like, Sebastian. I'm a Venator, and that will never change."
He was silent for a long time. She glanced at him once, saw the shift of his jaw bringing his cheek into shadow and back out of it again. "When I saw you in Venice, all those bites and scars, I… well, I realized it would be quite a loss if the worst had happened to you."
"Don't worry, Sebastian. There are other Venators to protect you. Or is it the balance on my debt that you are more concerned about?"
He chuckled, but there was an edge to it. "I know where the Tutela meets in Rome. You won't have to go alone."
"So you've said, but I cannot help but wonder why you would endanger yourself so, O man of no violence."
"Why are you angry with me?"
"With you? Don't flatter yourself, Sebastian. It is anger at this whole life of mine that digs into me right now. I carry this responsibility that, despite your naive assumptions that there is a choice, I cannot choose to shirk. I am lonely and see no end to it. I am widowed and can see no other future for myself. I could have died two nights ago, and yet I willingly go back for more. Sometimes…" Here her voice broke at last. "Sometimes it becomes too much, and it turns into anger. And other times… other times, it is the only me I can be. The true Victoria."
"There are very few of us who know what sacrifices you and the other Venators make. How your lives are not your own, though you might wish them to be. But without you and your kind, how different would the world be."
Victoria was silent again. The anger she'd exposed roiled, then ebbed away, leading into an excruciating awareness of the scent of cloves mingled with salty sea, and a long-fingered hand clasping the railing next to hers. She became conscious of the night, and the fact that they stood at the corner of the ship's stern, shadowed by mast, sail, and the poop deck, for all intents and purposes, alone. She heard the soft flap of the sails and the distant shout from one of the sailors.
"How odd." She didn't realize she'd spoken aloud until she felt Sebastian move next to her; not to look down at her, but to adjust the lapel of his jacket.
"What is that?"
"To stand outside in the night, alone with a man, and not to have to fear for my reputation. I could not help but think of all the times during the Season when I was coming out how careful one had to be not to be found alone with a gentleman, even when I was in no danger of having to protect my virtue. And now that I am a widow, it is no longer such a concern."
"Indeed." He sounded bemused. "I'm wondering if I should be distressed at being considered no danger to your virtue."
"If you were a danger to me, you would have stopped with the gentlemanly repartee regarding compensations. And I would have cut you off at the knees, just as I did some other gentlemen who thought that suggesting a walk outside on a terrace would give them the opportunity to be free with their hands. Among other things. However, I am sure you would not be so foolish, knowing that I am no ordinary chit."
"I am not. And don't believe for one moment that I will be led, Victoria. You are much smarter than that, and so am I."
"I am not interested in leading you anywhere."
He laughed then. Not as though he'd heard something uproarious, but a low, rolling, knowing laugh that made Victoria more than a bit uncomfortable. "I could play along, ma chère. In fact, I am tempted to do so. Very tempted."
He moved quickly, smooth as a scarf of silk, and suddenly she was caught between the rail and Sebastian, one of his hands on either side of hers, wrapping around the rail. Long arms settled along her own, keeping her centered between them.
His breath was warm at the back of her neck, where her upswept hair left her skin bare and vulnerable. "It would be very easy to allow you to provoke me into doing what you are too cowardly to do yourself." The words prickled there, sending echoes all the way down her back.
"And what, in your warped mind, can you imagine I am too cowardly to do?" She was pleased that her voice remained steady and as easy as the sea breeze when she could feel his height behind her, his proximity, yet, disturbingly, no contact but for the bare touch of his hands alongside hers.