As Shadows Fade gvc-5

by Колин Глисон

  “Twelve thousand people buried here,” Sebastian said quietly. “Most of them on top of each other, in layers upon layers.” He stood near her, occasionally offering a gentlemanly hand to help her over a jutting stone.

  “Where is Katerina?” Victoria asked, realizing the back of her neck hadn’t changed in temperature-as it would if there were another vampire nearby.

  “I don’t know. She should be here,” Antonнn insisted, leading them on, deeper into the center of the cemetery. Victoria saw a grave that looked like a large stone bed, complete with head and foot, and at about that moment, she realized the air had begun to stir.

  Not a breeze… no, not even the chill that lifted hair at the back of her neck when she sensed the undead. Victoria lifted her face, flaring her nostrils to draw in the scent on the air.

  A blast of chill swept over her as she smelled it… and felt the air’s movement grow stronger. She looked at Sebastian, read the recognition in his eyes, and turned back to their vampire companion. “What is it? Why have you brought us here?” she demanded, her hand falling to the sword at her side.

  But he seemed just as shocked as they, his red eyes wide and frightened. “I… What is this?” he cried, stumbling backward over a jumble of headstones.

  He tried to run away, but Sebastian caught him by the arm, slamming him into a nearby headstone. The vampire fell as Victoria’s hair lifted and swirled in the rising breeze. “What is it?” Sebastian demanded.

  “I don’t know! On Lucifer ’s sword, I swear it… I don’t know!”

  Victoria drew her sword, looking up to see that the scattering of stars and the half-moon had become little more than a dull glow behind a billowing black cloud.

  Again. No, not again.

  Chill that had little to do with undead presence battled through her body, freezing her fingers and slowing her reflexes. One look at Antonнn’s face told her that no matter what trap he’d led them to, he hadn’t expected this.

  “Stand up, you bloody fool,” Sebastian roared, yanking the vampire to his feet. “You’ll stand with us or see the end of my stake.”

  “But they’re… demons,” he said, his voice distorted by the rising wind. The horribly familiar black clouds stewed above them, wind tossing Victoria’s short hair wildly. “They’ll kill us.”

  “Or I will,” Victoria muttered, turning away from the ridiculous undead as the first swipe from the black-clawed, red-eyed creatures scored over her scalp.

  She cried out and swung up with the sword. The blade sliced through, and ice shivered along her weapon, through her arms, and up into her body.

  Staggering, Victoria stumbled into a tombstone and fell, crashing into another nearby stone. She screamed in rage and arced the blade up again. Fallen leaves and old sticks lifted from the ground, battering against her like pummeling fists. She pulled to her feet, using the point of her sword against a moss-covered stone, felt it scrape metal against rock, and battled back at the black demon.

  Another swipe, and she slowed further, slicing the wraith’s head while accepting the paralyzing cold that trammeled through her body. Sebastian bumped into her and their backs came together. His warmth bled into her, and she was able to move again.

  “Idiot,” he shouted at Antonнn, who cowered down between the cluster of stone markers. Sebastian swiped up with his own blade.

  Digging beneath her coat, Victoria ducked as another black creature swooped close again. A small jug hung at her side, protected by a snug leather holder and a strap that went over her shoulder. She pulled it out, feeling Sebastian struggling against the demons above her, protecting her as she worked the cork free.

  “Ready,” she called over the rising gale, turning toward Sebastian. He struggled for a moment, pulling out his own store of holy water as she sliced at one of the black creatures. Again the unbearable cold shocked her, staggering her.

  Sebastian caught her arm before she lost her balance on the unsteady ground and spilled her holy water. They looked at each other for a moment, barely able to discern the other’s features in the maelstrom of leaves and fog, gauging the moment.

  “Go!” shouted Victoria, and they both whirled, winging the holy water from their bottles up and around into the hurricane about them.

  Sizzling sounds, fizzing and even a scream of rage… The winds settled as the water spewed into the clouds and onto Antonнn, who’d remained huddled against one of the taller gravestones.

  Victoria considered leaving him, but instead, she grabbed him by the sleeve and dragged him haphazardly behind her as they dashed around and through the cluster of headstones. She had to swing up with her sword only once more before they found the cemetery entrance. The cold wasn’t as daunting as before, but it slowed her enough that she gasped in pain.

  Once they were out of the cemetery, as before, the demonic cloud lost its strength and remained behind them, rumbling and gurgling wickedly. Then, as Victoria watched, it swirled into itself and settled into the darkness below.

  “Did you have to do that?” Antonнn cried.

  Victoria turned and saw that the holy water had caught him straight in the face. His skin had peeled away, leaving one of his eyes sagging in its socket. He held a hand to his destroyed flesh, but seemed less concerned over that than the mass of evil they’d left behind.

  And indeed, as before in London, they’d left it behind, weakened by the holy water.

  Or it had chosen not to follow.

  Victoria wasn’t sure which.

  She shivered and whirled at the vampire. Before he realized what had happened, her stake was poised over his chest and a great handful of his shirt was clumped in her fist. “What kind of trick was that?”

  “No trick, no trick!” he cried. “I swear it! Do you think I would have gone into that if I had known?”

  “If you don’t take us to Katerina-” Sebastian began, but Victoria interrupted.

  “No, he’ll come with us now, and we’ll find Katerina in the morning. When the sun is risen.” She bared her teeth at the vampire, furious. “We’re in need of undead blood, and he looks more than willing to share.”

  Sebastian nodded and helped Victoria bind the undead’s hands together behind him.

  “I’ve never seen anything like that,” he whined. “I’ve never seen it. I swear it. I heard something… Just let me go, and I’ll take you to Katerina.”

  “You heard something?” Victoria repeated as they climbed back onto their horses. She glanced back over the cemetery and saw that the angry cloud had all but dissipated. She hadn’t noticed the malingering fog when they’d arrived at the cemetery, although she’d been more distracted, having expected an ambush of undead… not one of the frightening demons. “What do you mean, you heard something?”

  “Recently,” Antonнn said, “there have been incidents… I’ve heard about them. And Katerina seemed to be a bit worried about her cemetery. I didn’t lie about that,” he added defensively. “She usually is there at night. But I didn’t know. It was horrible.” He shuddered. His vampire countenance twisted with fear, made all the more grotesque by the ragged flesh near the one side of his mouth.

  Victoria ignored his last statement and looked at Sebastian. Her rising worry was reflected in his set face, even though she couldn’t see the details of his expression.

  More demons-demons that even frightened the undead.

  Demons that had driven a powerful vampire from her cemetery lair.

  That realization as much as anything else worried her. Vampires hated demons, but they didn’t fear them.

  At least, they never had before.

  Twelve

  Wherein Sebastian Is Reminded That Hell Hath No Fury

  “The only way you’ll get the ring from Katerina is by killing her,” said Antonнn companionably, apparently having recovered from the unexpected demon attack. His face had also begun to show signs of healing, the peeling skin falling away to reveal fresh baby pink flesh beneath.

  Victoria swa
llowed a drink of wine from where she sat on the edge of the bed and replied, “I don’t anticipate a problem.”

  She’d kept Antonнn out of sight and quiet while Sebastian found a room at a small inn, and now the three of them had settled into the chamber for the night. At least, she and Sebastian had settled in. The vampire was well and truly trussed in a corner, yet he seemed to be feeling rather talkative.

  “I wouldn’t mind something to drink,” he said at that moment. “Perhaps a wrist or arm?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Sebastian said, looking up from a sheaf of curling papers. A dusky blond curl fell from his forehead and into his eyes, reminding Victoria that he still had the ability to make her insides go soft.

  “I’m thirsty. Unless you wish to offer me even a drink of wine if you won’t give me a wrist? You could hold the cup.” His voice lifted in a bit of a whine.

  Victoria ignored him and looked over at Sebastian, wondering not for the first time what he was reading. He’d pulled the pages out more than once during their trip, even late at night, often sitting in the small circle of candlelight to pore over them, while she and Max pretended to ignore each other.

  Or, at least, she pretended. She didn’t know about Max.

  “She’s not so easy to kill,” Antonнn persisted.

  Victoria looked at Sebastian. “If I give him something to eat, perhaps he’ll stop talking.”

  He glanced up, and she noticed that the gleam of humor was missing from his eyes. “You could knock him on the head, too,” he said. “Or, better yet, stake him. We don’t need him to find Katerina.”

  “But I have other plans for him,” she replied, looking at the vampire speculatively. The more she thought about it, the more pleased she was with the undead candidate for Max’s Trial. Max could take him blindfolded and with one hand behind his back, even without a vis and after three days of fasting.

  “I see.” Sebastian looked back down.

  Victoria had traveled since dawn, and had slept little for the last ten days while they journeyed, so she was tired. She’d ordered a bath earlier, using another chamber for privacy. More than a week’s worth of grime and dirt had layered her skin, and it was the first chance she’d had to wash in more than a small basin.

  The window of their room faced east, toward the sun that would rise in a few hours, and toward Tэn Church, which stood on one of the city’s central hills. She found her eyes continuing to stray in that direction, and she had to pull them back. More than once.

  Perhaps she ought to try to sleep, especially since tomorrow, when the sun was up, they would go after Katerina. But something bothered her, niggled at the corner of her mind.

  She wasn’t worried about sleeping with Antonнn in the room-he was bound tightly, wrist to ankle, and tied to the post of a heavy bed on the floor. He was going nowhere unless she released him.

  Which was probably why he continued to talk. “She’s a bit mad, as Vioget has cause to know.”

  Victoria glanced at Sebastian, who didn’t flicker an eyelash. He reached for the cup of wine and drank without lifting his eyes from the pages.

  “She won’t take off that ring, either, because she hopes it’ll be a bargaining chip to bring back her husband.”

  “Is her husband dead?” Victoria asked in spite of herself.

  “He was one of the architects trying to repair the Stone Bridge five hundred years ago. It fell apart after the king threw the queen’s confessor into the Vlatava because the priest wouldn’t tell him whether the queen was cuckolding him. Someone decided he should be sainted for that, too.”

  “So Katerina’s husband was repairing the bridge?”

  “Trying to. It kept falling down. Lucifer had been delighted by the murder of the priest, and he amused himself by continuing to destroy the bridge every time they thought it was going to stand. Finally, Brughard, Katerina’s husband, made a deal with him and agreed to give Lucifer the soul of the first creature to cross the bridge after it was repaired.”

  “He gave his wife’s soul?” Victoria asked. No wonder the vampiress was mad.

  “Not intentionally.” Antonнn sounded annoyed. Perhaps she had ruined the suspense of his story. “He finished the bridge, and told the workers to release a cock to cross over first. But Lucifer sent Beauregard to bring a message to Katerina that her husband had been injured. She fled from her house and ran across the bridge, and was the first to cross. Thus she lost her soul, and Lucifer gave her to Beauregard to sire. Which of course he did.”

  So that was why Katerina wasn’t very fond of Sebastian. His grandfather had tricked her into becoming a vampire. “But what about Brughard?”

  “She turned him herself, but he was slain some years ago.” Antonнn’s gaze drifted to Sebastian. “By a young Venator staking his first undead.”

  At that, Sebastian looked up, brushing the hair from his face. “Why don’t you put a stake into him, Victoria? He’s beginning to annoy me.”

  “And so now her husband is damned to Hell… not a bad thing in my book, of course, but apparently Katerina meant to keep him alive for a lot longer.”

  “She thinks the ring will bring him back?” Victoria asked. “How?”

  Antonнn shrugged as well as he could, bound thus. “I said she was mad. But she believes a bargain might be struck with some holy or divine entity. She gives them the ring, and her husband is rescued from Hell.”

  “There is no way to rescue an undead’s soul from Hell,” Sebastian spoke suddenly. His face looked grim in the low light. “Once an undead drinks from a mortal, he’s damned for eternity.”

  “I have heard otherwise,” replied Antonнn loftily. “Lucifer doesn’t like it one bit, but he’s had to release more than one of the vampire souls he’s collected over the millennia.” He nodded knowingly. “It’s never a pleasant time for us, of course. Lucifer is-”

  “Give him some wine and shut him up,” said Sebastian suddenly. Victoria was struck by how much he sounded like Max at that moment-sharp and terse. Perhaps he was as tired as she felt.

  Or perhaps there was something else bothering him… besides the reminder of what he’d done to Giulia. And Burghard.

  She rose and found some salvi in her pack. The potion worked quickly to put mortals to sleep, but she wasn’t certain whether it would affect an undead. However, she was willing to try.

  Antonнn was thirsty, and gulped the wine she held to his mouth. When she pulled the cup away, he looked up at her with hopeful red eyes. “How about a bit of something else?” he asked thickly. “Your wrist… I could make it easy and quick.”

  “Why would I do anything for you?” she asked, although a thought had been teasing her mind.

  “Because I’ll tell you how to get Katerina. The way to get to her.” His voice lowered, and he glanced at Sebastian as though afraid he would hear.

  “The same way you took me to her lair at the cemetery?” Victoria said.

  “I didn’t expect those demons to be there.”

  “You said you’d heard about the demons, stories. How long ago did you start hearing about them?”

  “More than a month.”

  “Is Katerina frightened, too? Or merely inconvenienced?”

  “She is frightened. All of the undead are frightened. There’s been nothing like this before.” His eyes were fastened on her white wrist, showing from the cuff of the clean man’s shirt she’d donned after her bath. “Please. Just a bit. It won’t hurt you.”

  Victoria didn’t reply. “Is it true that an undead soul isn’t damned if he didn’t drink from a mortal? Is it true?”

  Antonнn looked at her, and she allowed herself to meet his eyes. The tug of his thrall, weak though it was to someone like her, tickled around her, and she allowed her breathing to grow heavy. Yet she was aware of everything. She knew she could blink, could turn away at any moment. “Is it true?” she asked.

  Phillip. Oh, Phillip, I’ve always believed it was true.

  What if it isn’t?r />
  She allowed Antonнn to lure her, to tease and pull and to think he was gathering her in with his strength. She felt it, felt the curl of warmth and pleasure slip under her skin… but not completely. Raising her arm, she watched his attention move to her wrist as though it slogged through water. The gleam in his eyes burned hot and red, and his breath whistled from behind his teeth and fangs. Warmth… softness…

  “Victoria!”

  Sebastian was there suddenly, and Victoria turned in surprise.

  Before she could react, he pulled her from the vampire, jerking her up and away from where she’d crouched. The heat still simmered in her veins as she caught herself from falling. She steadied her staggered breath, dragged in air from between her lips.

  “What are you doing?” he demanded over Antonнn’s cry of annoyance.

  She glanced briefly at the vampire. She’d known exactly what she was doing, but she wasn’t about to explain it to Sebastian.

  “Isn’t it enough that you had to bring him here? And now you do this? What are you trying to do?”

  “Sebastian,” she began, the last remnants of the vampire’s thrall slipping off her like a silken shroud. His fingers dug into her arms, and she pulled away with such force that she bumped into the table. The pages he’d been reading fluttered onto the floor, but before she could bend to retrieve them, he caught her shoulders.

  Not so roughly this time, he closed his fingers over her. “Is it that you didn’t trust me?” he asked. “Or that you didn’t trust yourself?”

  Then she understood. They would have been alone in the chamber with Max gone; Sebastian thought she’d brought Antonнn as a chaperone of sorts. “It’s neither, Sebastian. You know that.”

  She stooped, pulling away from his grip, and picked up the papers from the floor. “What have you been reading all this time?” But when she saw the ornate R on the bottom of one page, she didn’t need him to tell her. She recognized Rosamunde’s sign. “Do you find them fascinating?”