As Shadows Fade

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 swallowed 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?

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?”

But Sebastian had turned away. Victoria set the manuscript on the table, and as she took a step toward him, she heard a choking, snorting noise from the corner. A glance told her that the salvi had worked, and Antonнn was snoring with alacrity.

“It’s hard enough,” Sebastian said, looking out the window that framed Tэn Church, “to be here. In Praha, with you. Both of you. Stay away from Antonнn. Don’t tease him. You don’t know… you don’t know what you looked like, Victoria. Just now. Your eyes half closed, your face like that…”

She swallowed. Her throat constricted roughly, audible in the quiet moment. She had had a purpose; she would have let Antonнn feed from her, just a bit. She had a reason.

But she didn’t have to explain it to Sebastian.

“I told you that I wouldn’t be a gentleman about… it…,” he said, still looking out the window. “And so if you brought Antonнn here because of that, I suppose I cannot blame you.”

Victoria couldn’t hold back an angry snort. “Sebastian, the day I use a vampire as a shield from my own desires is the day I’m finished as a Venator.”

“Your own desires?”

“There’s no arguing the fact that we’ve been together, that there is attraction and affection between us. I wasn’t pretending. But I’ve no intention of acting on it again.”

“I told you I wouldn’t be a gentleman about it,” he said again, in a steadier voice. “But I was wrong. I don’t think he’s worthy of you, Victoria. And I don’t like the way he has acted toward you, in the past and during this trip. But you’ve made your choice, and if he makes it through the Trial, I’ll leave you be and wish you well.”

But if he doesn’t…

The words hung there, unspoken. But they both heard them, and they left Victoria cold.

If he doesn’t.

“I’ll go in first,” said Sebastian, his hand wrapping around Victoria’s arm to stop her. “Katerina will be suitably distracted, and then you can take her by surprise.”

They stood in the narrow passageway known as Goldsmith’s Lane. Prague Castle reared up beyond its stone wall, which made one side of the street. Tightly packed houses had been built flush against the stone enclosure, and another row lined the other side. This created a crooked little lane barely wide enough for two horses to pass through, side by side. The houses themselves were tiny, but decorated with colorful shutters thrown open.

The sun shone boldly down, more than halfway across the sky, but still high enough to burn hot and cast short shadows. People passed by on their way to and from the castle, the goldsmithies, and on other errands. Victoria and Sebastian had stopped in front of Number 75’s pie-sized stoop, but their destination did not lie through that red door.

Instead, a small staircase led down to a door directly beneath Number 75. The top of the flight was framed at the street level by an iron gate to protect unwary passersby from tumbling down the hole-a necessity in such a narrow thoroughfare. The subterranean steps reminded Victoria a bit of the entrance to the Silver Chalice.

“And if Katerina isn’t there?” Victoria asked, although she was quite certain Antonнn had been telling the truth about the vampiress’s location, for Victoria had promised him a reward when they returned if he had. He’d licked his lips hungrily and nodded enthusiastically, knowing that he had no chance of leaving the inn during the flush of sunlight.

Little did he know she had other plans for him.

“Unfortunately, I can fairly assure you that Katerina is here. We’ve met in this location before.”

Sebastian slipped past her and started down the steps, the iron gate clanging in his wake. Victoria was left to wonder in just what manner he’d “met” Katerina. At least she was certain they hadn’t been lovers.

Her stomach pitched when she considered the possibility of a mortal and a demonic undead being intimate. Black spots danced briefly before her eyes, and a definite nausea churned in her belly. That thought crept too close to those moments with Beauregard, in his chamber, when he drained nearly all of her blood… when she was helpless and under his thrall, wrapped in pleasure and sensuality… images that remained soft and vague in her mind, memories that she couldn’t allow herself to contemplate.

She didn’t know. She didn’t want to know.

And then there was Max. And Lilith. And her control over him, her obsession with him. The flat expression in his eyes could hide much horror.

Victoria swallowed hard, shoved the thoughts away and concentrated on the chill at the back of her neck. Stupid to allow her mind to open to such repugnant ideas. They only served to weaken and distract her.

And she wouldn’t wait any longer.

None of the pedestrians on the street around her seemed to notice when she lifted the latch on the iron gate and slipped through, then down the steps. It stank of urine and damp, and she found she needed to take care to avoid stepping on unpleasant substances as she descended. It certainly no longer reminded her of Sebastian’s clean and well-run Chalice.

The stairs went down below the earth, down, down, down so far that no sunlight filtered down the spiral stairs. When at last the steps ended, she saw a single horse symbol carved on the wall in front of her, next to a door. The Lone Horse.

The black door had an old-fashioned string latch. The string hung outside, and she pulled on it to lift the small wooden bar inside. The door opened with only a gentle shove, grating across a packed-dirt floor.

To her surprise, Victoria found herself in an establishment more than reminiscent of the Silver Chalice. Wooden tables and chairs lined the space, all fashioned of scarred, smooth, hand-worn maple. Lamps burned from the walls, and a fire in one corner brought a bit of warmth to the underground chill. The place smelled like sweat, damp soil, ale, and… blood.

There was no mistake; Victoria definitely knew bloodscent. Several patrons sat with various cups of libation in front of them, and she didn’t need to look closely to know what the beverage of choice was. A piano stood in the corner, being badly played by a woman with wheat-colored hair. A small counter laden with bottles edged up into the corner of the room, with a man tending to them. The low ceiling was lined with heavy beams between which Victoria could see roots growing.

And the back of her neck felt as though a pack of ice sat there.

Vampires everywhere.

Most of them looked up, showing burning red or pink eyes, lifting a lip to display the point of a fang. None of them, fortunately, glowed red-violet. Victoria wasn’t in the mood to fight an Imperial vampire, the type that was the oldest and most powerful of the undead. She wanted to make this a simple exercise: Get the ring, slay Katerina if necessary, and get back to Antonнn.

One of the vampires made the mistake of standing up and lunging for Victoria as she looked in the other direction. A quick shunt of her stake arm, and the foolish creature poofed into dust.

“That wasn’t a very polite way to greet a newcomer,” Victoria said to the room at large.

The lustful faces that had risen to look at her-fresh, young blood that she was-immediately dropped to look down at the cups on the tables in front of them, as if hoping that by ignoring her, she would ignore them.

For now she would. But only because she had other matters to attend to.

And as she swept the room with her gaze, she saw what appeared to be those other matters in a far corner. Victoria cast a sharp look at a vampire in her path. He moved and she scooted past him to the dark corner where Sebastian seemed to be attempting to extricate himself from a bit of difficulty.

“But, Katerina, chиre,” he was saying as Victoria approached. “Can we not let bygones be bygones? It was more than eight years ago.”

“Eight years?” repeated a tall, stout woman; presumably Katerina. She’d backed Sebastian up against the wall with a meaty hand, stabbing a finger in the middle of his chest. Though Sebastian had a stake in his hand, she didn’t pay it any attention. “Eight years ain’ barely a breath ago for someone living forever, Sebastian Vioget.”

“But surely you didn’t truly miss those casks-”

“Casks of the best French brandy? Casks I paid overmuch for?” shrieked Katerina, drilling her finger into his chest. Her nail must be sharp, for Victoria saw red blossom beneath Sebastian’s snowy shirt. Yet his charming smile didn’t falter. “You’re knowing as well as I that calf’s blood is all well and good for the likes of some customers, but the ones who pay well are expecting something even better. Are you knowing what business I lost when I couldn’t serve them?”

Sebastian gave a little laugh. “But I see that business is flourishing now. And aside of that-”

“I do hope I’m not interrupting,” Victoria said in unapologetic tones as she pushed over to stand next to them.

Katerina turned, but did not remove her hand from Sebastian, who gave Victoria a rueful smile. “Who are you?”

“I am Illa Gardella, and I’m here because you have something I require.”

“If it’s him,” she said, with a jerk of her head at Sebastian, “you have to wait a moment until I’m finished.”

“Now don’t be silly, Katerina,” said Sebastian, moving quickly and smoothly to get out from under her grip. “You know I prefer not to hurt a woman, but I will if I must. I intended to apologize, but if you won’t accept it, then it’s none of my concern.” He smoothed his rumpled coat and brushed off dirt that had crumbled onto him from the ceiling above. “As far as I’m concerned, you owed me those casks.”

Katerina, who had been blessed with a full head of black hair and pancakelike breasts during her mortal days, glared at him, her hands on her hips. She stood more than a head taller than Sebastian, and the top of her skull brushed the ceiling… hence the dusting of dirt that followed her every movement.

“I swore if I ever laid eyes on you again, I’d be squeezing every last koruna from you to pay for that brandy.” She tightened her ham-sized fists as though to put her words to action. “It was a years’ worth of income for me to buy them. And you taking them off with you to London was a dirty trick.”

Victoria decided it was time to intervene. The vampiress was massive in size and height, and with her pink eyes and poison-tipped fangs, she wouldn’t be an easy target. But Victoria had handled worse threats.

“You can settle your accounts with Sebastian later,” she said, giving him a sidewise glance, “but for now you can give me what I came for.”

“And what might that be?” The woman turned and focused her attention down, heavily, onto Victoria. Her pink eyes tried to capture Victoria’s gaze, but in vain.

“The Ring of Jubai that you have in your possession.”

Katerina began to laugh, a loud, uproarious sound that boomed in the small room and shook even her flat breasts. “And what makes you think I’d be considering giving it to you?”

“Because you don’t wish to join your husband in a pile of dust.” Victoria showed her stake and looked up boldly at the woman.

Sebastian winced behind her, and rolled his eyes. Victoria ignored him; perhaps his tactics might have been to charm the ring from Katerina. But Victoria intended no such thing.

Katerina lifted her hand, shoving it at Victoria, knuckles facing out. “Then it will have to be over my pile of dust, for the ring’s not going anywhere without me.”

And indeed, she spoke the truth. Only a slender line of copper gleamed on the vampiress’s ring finger. Flesh covered the rest of it, puffing over and around it like rising bread dough. The only way to get it off would be to kill Katerina, for, as Victoria knew, the only material that survived a vampire’s dissolution into ash was copper. Everything else would disintegrate along with the undead, which was precisely the reason Lilith had crafted her special rings of that metal.

“As I don’t intend to go anywhere… and as my patrons would be sorely missing me… I think you might perhaps be leaving empty-handed. If you leave at all.” Katerina bared her teeth, showing large ones that looked like yellow tombstones.

Victoria saw the warning in Sebastian’s eyes at the same moment as prickles rose at the back of her neck. She whirled to face two tall vampires just as they leapt at her.

Her timing was a bit off, and the force of their bodies slammed her into a nearby table. Victoria bumped her head on a corner dulled by years of use, and used the momentum of her fall to roll under the heavy wooden trestle. Ignoring the pain, she reached up and grabbed the long, slender leg of the vampire nearest her and slammed a fist into the back of his knee.

He collapsed, and as he fell, Victoria erupted from under the table and shoved a stake into his chest. The dust poofed in her face as she pulled to her feet, her breath faster but by no means labored, and she swung around to kick out at another attacker. Pushing, whirling, punching, shoving… she found the thrill of the battle coursing through her in a way she had been missing for a while. The spray of spilled drinks, the dull sound of wood crashing into flesh, the smell of undead ash, the satisfaction of seeing the vampire’s red eyes widen just as the stake thrust home… this was her world. Her moment.

This threat, of corporeal demons who lunged and shoved and kicked, was one she was well used to combating. She found herself slipping into her familiar kalaripayattu moves, ingrained by hours of practice with Kritanu. She used her strength and speed to upend a vampire, to knock another into his companion, to slam an elbow up into the chin of still another and then, each time, to finish it off with a stake to the heart.

Exhilarating. Exhilarating and-not simple or easy by any means-but familiar.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Sebastian join the fray, battling directly with Katerina. One of his wrists had been captured by the massive woman, and Victoria saw that he was doing everything to free himself but shoving a stake into her chest.

With a wave of exasperation at his sentimentality, Victoria finished off a sixth or seventh undead attacker and, grabbing the arm of yet another vampire, flung him out into the cluster of his companions. As the vampires tumbled to the ground, she turned and, with one sleek movement, shoved her stake into the back of Katerina’s torso.

The pike slid in, Katerina froze, and Sebastian cried out… Then, as Victoria pulled back, the vampire stilled and poofed into a dark cloud of dust.

The clang of metal told her where the copper ring dropped from the vampire’s person, hitting a wooden table, then falling silently to the dirt floor, and she dove after it.

Sebastian followed, and they found themselves face-to-face under the table. “I would have done it,” he protested immediately.

Victoria snatched up the ring and allowed him to help her surge back to her feet. She turned, bracing herself for a renewed onslaught, and found that the few remaining vampires had begun to flee. “Well. That was simpler than I expected,” she said, looking at the empty pub.

Sebastian pushed past her, stepping over a splintered bench as he made his way toward the counter, now vacated. He moved behind it and gave her an impudent smile as he raised a dark bottle to examine its label. “I don’t believe she’ll miss this at all anymore,” he said, pouring a generous draft into a glass. “Care to join me in a victory drink, Victoria?”

She navigated her way through the debris and selected a stool next to the empty counter. “I do believe I shall.”