by Колин Глисон
“Mama, I’m not going to marry again, so you can cease and desist in attempting to fling me at every bachelor who shows his nose at court. And aside of that, Rutledge has a son only ten years my junior, so if he knew de Lacy at university, they must be of an age. If I were interested in marrying again, it wouldn’t be to a man fifteen years my senior!”
She stood. “I must be going-but, Mama, if you should like to plan a wedding so much, why do you not put Lord Jellington out of his misery and marry him?”
“Yes, indeed, Melly,” Lady Nilly jumped in. Victoria wasn’t certain if it was because the lady felt sorry for her, or because she was such a romantic that she wanted to see her friend wedded off again. In either case, Victoria rejoiced in the diversion, edging toward the door.
“Indeed not,” said Melly. “I-”
“But why not, Melly?” the duchess put in, spraying crumbs with abandon. “It would be such fun, and Jellington is simply besotted with you. Has been for years.”
“I have no interest in getting married again,” Melly replied, for once on the defensive herself.
“But think of the gown you could wear,” Nilly sighed, pressing a hand to her nonexistent bosom.
“And the food,” added the duchess. “I would even loan you my Mildred to do the wedding luncheon.”
Victoria felt the doorknob under her hand and turned it silently. Melly was no longer looking at her, but had become wholly distracted by the bombardment of her friends.
Taking the rare opportunity of her mother’s inattention to slip out, Victoria eased through the door, her mother’s shrill refusals ringing in her ears.
Their volume and pitch made her particularly relieved to be out of direct range.
Once out the front door and in her carriage, Victoria had a decision to make.
A great part of her wanted to simply return to her comfortable bed and sleep a bit longer. Although her vis bullae provided her with fast healing and other protection, she still had injuries that made her weak and sore.
But going back to the town house meant that she could come face-to-face with Max, and after their conversation this morning about Lilith, she wasn’t certain she wanted to see him. As expected, when she announced her intention-a rather logical one, she thought-to hunt down the vampire queen herself, Max had not accepted it.
There was no need to relive the scene that followed, the lethal tone to his raised voice as he told her how foolish she was.
He would not listen, no matter how calmly she spoke, reminding him that it was her responsibility to rid the world of vampires, and that destroying their leader would be a great victory that would likely lead to a serious annihilation of the undead.
Perhaps in retrospect, she should not have told him anything at all until the deed was done.
Victoria sighed. Perhaps by telling him her plans, she had merely achieved the result of driving him from London all the more quickly.
As she shifted on the seat, rearranging her skirts, her hand brushed against something hard and metal. Curious, she picked it up-a small coin that she recognized immediately. Her mind flashed back to the evening before, when George Starcasset had sat in this very seat and fumbled with something jingling in his pockets.
Very interesting. Perhaps…
She realized the carriage had stopped at the end of the drive, waiting for her direction. Opening the window, she made her decision and called up, “The Claythorne residence, in St. James.”
Several minutes later, upon arriving at George Starcasset’s family home, Victoria sent Oliver, acting as footman, up to the door with a card for George. Fortunately, her carriage-having been inherited from Aunt Eustacia along with her London town house-was unmarked, and thus unidentifiable to any random passerby-or neighbor.
Moments later, the footman returned with the news that George was at his club, Gellinghall’s. This information being what Victoria expected, as well as the most expedient way to find out which club George frequented, she ordered her groom to drive the carriage over to Gellinghall’s.
Upon arrival at the gentlemen’s club, she again sent Oliver to call for George. Not more than ten minutes later, she was rewarded (if one could call it that) by George’s arrival at the door of her carriage.
“I trust you were discreet in your leave-taking,” Victoria asked, although it wasn’t of great concern to her whether George’s companions knew it was the Marchioness of Rockley who called him away. The only reason she cared to protect her reputation any longer was because she wished to avoid as many lectures from her mother as possible.
She smiled to herself as George settled into the seat across from her. It wasn’t lost on her that she had no desire to avoid superhumanly strong demons and vampires in the dead of night, but went out of her way to escape seeing her mother in a sunlit parlor.
“Do hope this is important, as I was winning, first time in two weeks,” George said by way of reply as he settled in the seat across from her. “Come to collect your favor already?”
Victoria shook her head. “No, I came for information. What does the Tutela know about the increase in demon activity here, and in Paris?”
“Haven’t talked to anyone in the Tutela-”
“Save it, George. You were fumbling with the coins in your pocket on the way to your house last night, and dropped one of the Tutela markers in this very carriage. I sincerely doubt you’d be carrying one if you hadn’t been in recent contact with them.” The Tutela used coinlike metal disks as tokens of identification for entrance to their secret meetings, as Victoria had cause to know. She’d nearly been mauled at a Tutela meeting in Venice, after having gained entrance by presenting her own token.
She forestalled any further excuses by handing him the coin.
George, well caught out, pursed his lips. The expression made him look more like a spoiled boy than ever, with his cheeks pudging out and his round chin smooth and shiny. “To be truthful, Victoria,” he said, glancing sidewise at her to see if she objected to his use of her name, “the undead have been well aware of something perking beneath the surface in the last months.”
Along with his reticence, George had also abandoned his affected speech pattern common to many of the ton’s dandies. These facts had Victoria sitting straighter against the back squabs of the bench and watching him sharply.
“What do you mean?”
“They’re frightened, if you want the bloody truth. Lying low, hiding. ’S why Lilith was so quick to leave London, and took the rest of them with her.”
Victoria contemplated him thoughtfully. She’d assumed that Lilith had taken her minions with her and retreated somewhere to lick her wounds after having been bested by the Venators. Was it possible that there was more to it than that?
“What else do you know? I want all of it, George.”
He shifted against the cushions and loosened the neck cloth that had been tied in an intricate knot that even Sebastian might have envied. “I don’t know much, to be sure. Just that there’s something might happen, and the vampires ain’t too pleased with it.”
Demons and vampires, both creatures of Hell and minions of Lucifer, were lethal enemies. The demons, who were angels who had fallen from divine grace aeons ago, claimed Hell for their own because of their longstanding alliance with Lucifer, the most powerful of the demons.
But Lucifer had wooed Judas of Iscariot to his side after Judas’s betrayal of Jesus Christ, contending that he’d never be forgiven for his actions. He induced Judas to hang himself, and promised that he’d make him the father of a powerful new race. Thus Judas was the first of the vampires-immortal creatures who were half demon and half human, immortal, and destined to take from man in order to subsist.
Thus, the struggle between the demons and vampires for Lucifer’s favor over the millennia had been vicious and violent.
“What else? You’ve given me nothing worthwhile, and I’ve interrupted your card game,” Victoria said. “What’s going to happen? What are the vampires
doing about it? And when?”
George shrugged. “Don’t know.”
Victoria bared her teeth in a false smile and leaned forward, grabbing his wrist with her fingers. “That’s all you have? After I did you the favor of eliminating your houseguest?” She tightened her grip slowly, and felt his bones shift beneath it.
“Stop,” he gasped before she’d hardly squeezed at all. “I don’t know, but I know someone who might.”
“Take me to them.”
George flickered a look at her, then sagged back in his seat, a decidedly sulky look on his face. He rapped on the roof and leaned toward the window to shout directions up to the driver.
When he was finished, he sat back in the corner, looking speculatively at Victoria. He opened his mouth to speak, his expression shifting from sulk to interest, and she raised her hand, palm out.
“Don’t bestir yourself, George. I’ll toss you from the carriage if you even think to make an inappropriate remark… or suggestion.”
The sulk returned, and she had to bite her lips to keep them from quirking. He looked as though he’d just had his favorite toy taken away.
His directions took them to an area fairly familiar to Victoria from her first days as a Venator. The dirty, poor, and dangerous neighborhoods of St. Giles were where, for a time, Sebastian had owned and operated the Silver Chalice-an establishment that had catered to both mortals and undead. She hadn’t been to St. Giles since shortly after Phillip died, when she went to look at the ruins of the Chalice, which had been destroyed when the vampires came after Sebastian and Max.
The streets looked the same during the day as they’d done at night: crowded, dark, close, and strewn with offal and other refuse. Beggars, thieves, and whores populated streets that weren’t known for producing honest tradesmen or crafters.
George glanced at Victoria, as if to measure her reaction to this dangerous place, but she had no reason to be frightened. Her strength and speed worked just as well against mortals as it did against the undead.
When they alighted from the carriage, he lingered close by her, and Victoria had to prod him-roughly-to keep him moving. Reluctantly, he led the way down an alley so narrow that nary a beam of sunlight made its way into its depths. At last, Victoria became impatient with his reticence, and despite the fact that her hem-which only brushed the tops of her shoes-dragged through the muck, she grabbed him by the arm and propelled him forward.
“Here,” he said at last as they reached a wretched-looking door in the back of the dead-end alley. Low, warped, and with dirt and mildew decorating the wood, the entrance looked much less inviting than even that of the Silver Chalice had.
Of course, Sebastian Vioget had run a clean and well-ordered pub, so that was no surprise.
The back of her neck did not feel cold, nor did she smell anything like demons lingering above or below the environment’s normal stench. She sensed nothing to fear, no trap, nothing out of the ordinary.
Victoria didn’t bother to knock. She kicked at the door, and it splintered easily. George could have done it himself. She glanced at his round face and pudgy gloved hands. Perhaps.
He lingered again, but she snagged him by the arm and yanked him behind as she ducked through the door. Inside, the small space looked just as miserable as its exterior suggested, with broken crates and sparse furniture in shambles. Dark, dank… and empty.
Before Victoria could turn to George to demand an explanation, he shrugged off her grip and walked to the center of the room. Turning around in a circle, looking about him in dismay, he said, “They’re gone!”
Eight
Wherein a Frothy Pink Confection Leaves Little to the Imagination
“It’s worse than we thought, isn’t it?” Victoria asked as soon as she saw Wayren’s face. She’d been summoned to her presence the moment she walked in the door of the town house. It was already late in the afternoon the day after they’d rescued Wayren from the cemetery.
So many things had happened since Victoria had left for the dinner dance in her red dress, less than twenty-four hours earlier.
The older woman nodded and gestured for Victoria to sit. “The fact that those demons had not only the power, but the insolence, to attack me… It has weighed heavily on my mind since yesterday.”
Victoria sat, regarding the taut expression on Wayren’s face. Her aura of serenity faltered, yet strength glowed in her eyes. Whatever evil they faced, it would not be simple or weak.
Not for the first time, Victoria acutely felt the loss of her aunt Eustacia, and simultaneously, a wave of relief and affection for the wise, peaceful woman in front of her.
Wayren seemed to understand, and she reached for Victoria as she often did, closing her fingers over her wrist. As always, tranquillity seeped into her and the leaping of her nerves settled. We’ll do this together.
“What have you learned?” she asked, slipping away from Wayren’s grip, unwilling to cause the woman further weariness.
“As you have remarked, the demonic activity you experienced at the cemetery is unusual, and carries a malevolence that has not often been experienced on this earth. Those demons were from true fallen angels, Victoria. Not merely creatures that have been imbued with the spirit of evil, as Akvan-and other demons you’ve previously faced. The fallen angels have great power, and are not so simpleminded as those of Akvan’s ilk.”
Wayren shifted in her chair to reach toward her ever-present satchel. “It’s my belief,” she said, pulling a crackling parchment tube from the depths of the bag, “that these demons are escaping through the Midiverse Portal.” She slipped square glasses on and unrolled the brown paper.
“The Midiverse Portal?” Victoria repeated. “Portal… like an entrance?” She frowned, yet that uneasy feeling continued to build inside. This was so different from anything she’d encountered. She felt rather like she had when she first began hunting vampires: nervous, unsettled… yet determined. “From where?”
Wayren nodded. “Yes, indeed.” She settled in her seat, her slender hands moving as she continued. “An entrance from Hell, Victoria. These demons once were angels, and roamed freely throughout the earth and heavens. When they fell from divine grace, and decided to follow Lucifer, they were banished from Heaven and Earth and sent to Hell with their new master. They cannot move easily onto this earth. They can only gain access through certain passages. Or portals. They’ve all been sealed for millennia, but it seems as though one has been opened. Or at least, the seal is broken.”
“Fallen angels,” Victoria repeated. “Why would they want to harm you?” But even as she spoke, a little shiver traveled up her spine.
“Because they know me. Because they know I am here to help you. And because once, countless aeons ago, I knew them.” She nodded at the question in Victoria’s face. “Because they fell… and I did not.”
Because she didn’t fall…?
Prickles exploded over her shoulders as Victoria looked at Wayren, aware of the shock and sudden comprehension that must be washing over her face. That simple statement explained so much about this woman, who never seemed to age. Who seemed to be able to be anywhere she was needed, whenever she wanted to be. Who knew so much about everything.
And how she could fit so blasted many books in a satchel that was too small to hold them.
Victoria wondered absurdly why an angel would wear reading glasses.
Wayren merely smiled at her, as if she knew what she was thinking, and replied, “We’re not perfect either.”
At that moment, the door to the parlor opened, and Max came in. Victoria couldn’t help but notice the weariness in his demeanor and the strain around his eyes. Doing the work of a Venator, without the blessing of a vis bulla, took a great toll on a man.
She wondered if he knew that Wayren was an angel; then she realized. Of course he did. It seemed as if Max knew everything.
He probably assumed she knew.
Max flashed a glance at her, but said nothing. Instead, he too
k a seat near the cabinet that housed the Gardella Bible. “Wayren,” he said by way of greeting.
She smiled at him, but by the tightening of Max’s mouth, Victoria knew that he, too, saw the cracks in her calm facade. “I was just telling Victoria that I believe the demons we’ve been encountering here, and those in Paris, are escaping into our world through the Midiverse Portal. It’s in Romania, in the mountains,” she said, tracing a half-moon fingernail over the rigid parchment. “And…” Her voice trailed off as she became absorbed in whatever she was reading.
“And their target is Wayren,” Victoria finished tightly. “Perhaps others, but Wayren for certain.”
“Did you go to the cemetery today?” he asked sharply.
Victoria shook her head. “No, I meant to, but-”
“I did. There is nothing there any longer.”
“You went alone?”
His mouth tightened. “In broad daylight, Victoria. Even I am in no danger in bloody broad daylight.”
They lapsed into silence, stress zinging in the air between them. Before now, the last words he’d spoken to her had been in anger and frustration in her bedchamber, punctuated by the slam of the door. He’d acted only as she’d expected, and, in fact, anticipated… but there was no sense in keeping her plans from him.
If he knew she was going to go after Lilith, he’d either be moved to go with her, or try to find a way to keep her in London-or at least otherwise occupied. Either way, they’d be together and she’d have the chance to wear down the resistance he’d erected.
But deep in her heart, she knew that until Lilith was gone, Max would not be wholly free.
Of course, any plans she had to find the vampire queen must be delayed until the demons were contained. Wayren’s safety was of paramount importance.
“Yes,” Wayren said, breaking into the charged silence as she looked up from her reading, “it’s as I feared. It must be. The portal has either cracked or somehow been opened, for the only way those types of demon could find their way out beyond the protections that have kept them locked in Hell is through that opening.”