As Shadows Fade

Twenty-One In Which Our Heroine Chafes at the Bit

There was no thought of sleeping that night, for a variety of reasons-the least of which was that Victoria absolutely couldn’t keep her eyes closed for more than a moment.

For a woman used to always doing, a day and night of sitting and waiting was like a personal hell.

Especially since those hours of nothing, nothing, nothing! gave her plenty of time to imagine Max in the hands of Lilith. The crafty demon had pulled all the terrible thoughts and images from the depths of Victoria’s mind, from where she’d stuffed them deeply so that she could concentrate on the matter at hand… He’d tugged them free, releasing them into full-blown terror, and now they constantly assaulted her.

Along with those images teased the secret he’d told her about Lilith. Was it true? Could something as simple as a stake of virgin ash paralyze the great vampiress?

Why would he lie about that?

To give her a reason to leave.

Or… to give her the weapon to destroy Lilith.

It tantalized her, that possibility.

There were no vampires to hunt in this small town, likely run off by the demons. And now that the sun had disappeared completely, the clouds hung heavy and thick, obscuring the moon so darkly that nary a whisper of a beam escaped. The night sat, dark and leaden, over the cemetery. Even the white gravestones appeared no lighter than the dark ground in which they sat.

Victoria had Tached’s Orb safely in her pocket, in the event that the clouds shifted and there was the chance to use it. But for now, she sat on her mount on the same small hill overlooking the cemetery. Watching. Waiting.

Hoping something happened.

The village clustered behind her, close enough that she could hear voices from the tavern, where Brim and Michalas remained. She’d instructed them to stay there, to watch the clouds and to come at the sign of any movement. They were close enough that she could call for them if something changed. But for now, Victoria wanted only to be alone. They tried too hard to be jovial and to keep her mind occupied.

The last time she’d checked the time, midnight was near.

If anything meant to slip through the crevice of the portal, it would be in the darkest part of night. The demon’s attempts to entice her away earlier today confirmed Victoria’s suspicions that something would happen soon. He’d been so intent on getting her away tonight… and though she’d run him off, Victoria was under no illusion that he’d given up.

As she watched, she kept her attention on not only the small, squat building, which acted as a visual placeholder for the portal, but also on the sky above. The clouds had begun to move, fat and heavy, limned with the silver of a hidden moon.

Hope had Victoria backing her horse up, keeping an eye on the cemetery as she moved back toward the tavern, ready to call for Brim and Michalas. The clouds had definitely started to shift and churn, and at the same time, a darkness gathered below.

The demons.

They were released.

Victoria’s heart picked up speed, and she turned her horse now, ready to ride back into the village, keeping her gaze over her shoulder as she kicked the flanks of her mount.

The street was empty and dark, but raucous laughter and warm light spilled from the tavern. Just as Victoria was ready to slide off her horse and dash in to call the others, she saw him at the end of the street.

Max.

Her heart stopped, and she looked again at the unmistakable figure, tall and easy in the saddle, moving quickly down the road toward her.

It was impossible.

It was Adolphus, drawing her away from the cemetery as his demons escaped.

She kicked up her mount and started toward him, glancing back at the stirring clouds and the rising black fog.

It can’t be him.

Hope rose; then she pushed it back.

He hailed her with a raised arm, and her heart kicked up a notch… then sagged back into ugly despair. He was alone.

Sebastian had gone to save him. Surely Sebastian would be with him if he’d succeeded.

Victoria thought to ignore him. She turned her horse, ready to gallop back to the cemetery and fight the demons there. A wordless shout stopped her, and she saw that he’d kicked his horse to catch up to her in the street.

She saw his face, weary and stubbled, his eyes deep and dark in their sockets, hair hanging in straggles. It was too dark to read his expression-but whatever it was wouldn’t be true. This wasn’t real.

Pulling her sword free, galvanized by fury driven by her dashed hopes, she swung toward him. If she killed him, would that stop the flood of his minions?

A blow to the neck. A good one.

He dodged, pulling his own sword free in a smooth movement. He gave an exclamation as their blades clashed, startling the horses into skittishness.

Clamping her legs tightly, Victoria held on as the horse stumbled and shifted. Then she blasted out with her sword, aiming for his neck.

The demon pulled back, blocking her every move while making no effort to slash at her.

A glance over her shoulder told Victoria that the roiling black cloud had risen higher at the cemetery, and she noticed a glimmer of moonlight.

Desperate for one last chance, she propelled herself upright in the saddle and brought the lethal sword out and around, in a long, vicious swipe. He dodged at the last minute, and the blade cut into the top of his arm, slicing down and across his coat. “Victoria!” he roared.

The momentum of her strike kept the sword in motion, swinging the heavy blade up and around again in a powerful arc-and then she saw the blood.

Blood.

She barely caught herself before the weapon sliced fully into his side, and that last-minute restraint, along with his quick dodge, saved him from nothing more than a graze down the side of his other arm.

“Christ Almighty. I know you’re angry, but-”

“Max!” she cried, in a combination of horror, shock, and disbelief.

“-try to damn near kill me.”

“It’s really you!” She nudged her horse up next to his, keeping the sword down at her side.

Max reached over and grabbed her by the front of the shirt, hauling her across the divide between their saddles, and slammed his mouth onto hers. She half fell into his lap, her hands clamping over his shoulders-one of which was damp with blood-and kissed him back crazily.

“Dammit, Victoria, what the bloody hell were you doing?” he said after a deep, desperate moment of holding her close, crushing the breath from her lungs. She felt the damp on his cheek as his eyelashes brushed against her skin.

“I thought you were a demon,” she said, pulling away long enough to shove her weapon back into its sheath. But before she could lunge back into his arms and touch his face, make sure it really was him, his expression changed.

“Look,” he said in a stricken voice.

Victoria saw that he was looking over her shoulder, in the direction of the cemetery. Forgetting her joy for the moment, she twisted around to look.

“Oh my God.” Her stomach plummeted as she saw the extent of the writhing, coiling black over the cemetery, and she settled back fully in the seat of her saddle. With insistent knees and the pull on her reins, she wheeled her horse around and kicked it into a gallop.

This was why the demon tried so hard to tempt her away. Adolphus must be cracking the portal open.

Thank God she hadn’t listened to him.

Thank God she hadn’t slain Max in her confusion.

Max wasted no time in following her. As they stampeded past the tavern, she saw Brim and Michalas already on their way out the door to join them.

Her sword back out of its sheath again, Victoria bent low over the neck of her mount, its mane flying up and into her face, stinging her eyes, as they pounded along the dusty road. The darkness had been relieved by the barest spread of clouds, allowing, miraculously, a tendril of moonlight to shine through.

Victoria took the chance to look up as they galloped and saw the edges of the clouds lined by moonlight, and saw that it was possible… a bit possible… that they could widen more, and allow even a larger swatch of light to beam through.

Please, God. Give me another miracle.

They could fight back the demons with their swords, trying to beat them as they had in London, and she could pull the orb from her pocket and hope there was enough moonlight to strain through it and close the portal.

As if reading her mind, Max looked over, his horse even with hers. “Do you have the orb?” he shouted.

“Yes.”

He gave a grim smile, then turned forward again, his sword ready. Victoria let him pull ahead of her just the slightest bit, remembering with a burst of joy that he was back. Max was back, fully empowered, fully restored-except for the wound from her own sword.

And at that moment, she remembered Sebastian. Where was he? Hadn’t he gone for Max?

“Where is Sebastian?” she shouted. “Did you see him?”

Max shook his head, dark hair flying. “He stayed. With Lilith.” His face remained grim.

He stayed with Lilith? No. Not Sebastian.

She drew in a deep breath, and pushed away the instant fear. This first.

And then… she’d go back to her original plan of finding Lilith and killing her. This time, she’d be going in to free Sebastian instead of Max.

She only hoped he’d still be in one piece.

As they pounded down the small hill into the stony area that cupped the graveyard, Victoria fumbled in the pocket inside her trousers. The orb felt small and warm from the heat of her body, and she closed her hand tightly around it.

The crystal sphere fit easily into her palm, small enough that her fingers nearly met around its circumference. She wouldn’t easily drop it.

The black fog writhed and battered them as they came closer, revealing the same glowing red eyes as the flying wraiths they’d met in London. Leaping over the fencelike pile of stones, still astride the horses, they guided them into the midst of the nasty black clouds.

As soon as they broke the invisible wall of the graveyard, the shadows began to surge toward them. Swords flashing, Brim and Michalas remained close on their heels as Max and Victoria sliced and swung at the sweeping, lunging demons.

She found herself clinging to the horse with only her knees, guiding it deeper into the swirling fog as she protected herself with the sword while holding the orb, ready at any moment to pull it from her pocket and lift it into the moonlight.

Without speaking, Victoria and Max moved in tandem, urging their reluctant horses toward the little building, where the roiling fog concentrated. She watched the sky, ducking red-eyed shadows while looking for the moon, aware of Max’s powerful blade slicing and slashing near her.

As they drew nearer the building, the darkness became more complete, the buffeting force of their attackers stronger, colder, more paralyzing. Victoria felt claws scrape over her shoulders, grab at her hair, and set her horse to squealing and stumbling beneath her. In fact, her mount was panicked and stamped desperately, trying to get away, tipping and tilting her off balance as she was badgered from above.

Her sword cut through the neck of a flying demon, and as it puffed into little whorls of black smoke, she whirled to stop another one from latching its claws on to Max’s shoulders. The battle became a mess of stamping hooves, the cry of gale-force winds in her ears, the scrape of claws and the rank smell of demons and death ash.

“Victoria!”

She swung her sword up in an arc as she heard her name on the wind, nearly lost in the maelstrom, and looked toward Max. He moved slick and smooth, ducking and dodging, arcing and slashing through a new surge of demons, but she saw what he meant for her to see.

A slender beam of moon shone on the black ground.

At that moment, a shadow swooped close. Her horse gave a sudden, frightened twist, and she lost her balance, tumbling off, managing to keep her sword in one hand and the orb in the other. She crashed onto a gravestone, landing on her side, and it knocked the breath out of her for a moment.

Talons shrieked down onto her, scoring her side, then her back as she rolled off the marker and onto the ground. She gasped for air, fighting the blazing pain in her side as she struggled to stand. The orb still in her hands, fingers closed tightly around it-she’d die before she released it-she staggered against a hip-high stone and shoved herself to her feet on shaky knees.

Something slammed into the side of her head, and she nearly fell again, and then another round of claws and nails, and even a thrashing beak, diving, shooting toward her. Pulling the orb from her pocket, she half crawled, half stumbled toward the shining light, the miracle she’d asked for.

She was damned if she’d waste it.

A loud roar in her ears, and a rearing black shadow came upon her, and at first she ducked… but then in the fog, she realized it was Max, pushing his way closer to beat off the hordes of demons as they descended madly. Tucking the orb close to her belly, Victoria slung her sword blade up and then felt the shimmer of liquid in the air, spraying gently over her.

At first she thought it was blood, but then when the blackness seemed to rear back, take a breath, she realized it was holy water.

Max, Brim, and Michalas had formed a circle around her and their swords gleamed and clashed, sometimes even against one another as they battled the wraiths back. Victoria pulled the orb away from the safety of her body and stepped toward the moonbeam, shoving the orb into the glimmer of light as another wave of holy water-this time from Brim-set the demons back, gasping.

The light caught at the bluish orb, and suddenly a cast of blue glowed over her hand and arm, up around and shooting from the sphere. A shriek filled the air, streaking into her head, high and loud and long. She dropped her sword, nearly dropped the orb, as she tried to cover her ears, shaking her head to clear them.

The shriek went on, high and shrill, and she staggered, felt the same responses from her companions as their horses stamped and bucked and reared, hooves slamming down, trying to scatter through the gravestones as they were held in place.

The moonbeam. In an ellipse on the ground, there was a circle of pure light in the brown and crusty grass.

She focused on that, tried to ignore the debilitating scream as the orb captured the moonbeam. She saw that the light shone from the sphere in many directions, and, ready to scream herself in desperation, Victoria moved, trying to aim one of the bolts of blue light toward the narrow crevice of the portal.

The screams roared louder, higher, the wraiths came faster and harder, and the swords above slashed slower and more awkwardly. Someone fell next to her, and the slamming and clattering of hooves against stone and dirt told her that their horses had escaped.

But the black fog began to swirl, tighter and tighter, coiling, and screaming, and she saw… Oh, yes! It was being dragged back into the crevice, the red eyes of the wraiths wide and burning, then narrowing as they fought the draw, the pull down back into the depths.

She held the orb, watching that the light never wavered from the crevice, even as another swipe of claws set her to nearly stumbling… She saw smoke curling up, and suddenly, the red eyes were set in humanlike faces as they swirled and whirled into a powerful vortex back into the crevice.

The shrieks lessened, the black fog thinned, dragged below, and she still didn’t move, watching the orb send them all to Hell, even though her hand shook and her back screamed with its own pain. This went on and on, and she realized that the demons were not only coming from the whirling smoke around them, but from all over… for the sky streaked with dark roiling fog and clouds, even as the moon became more and more exposed… burning brighter and stronger through dark gray clouds tinged with white.

Suddenly, in front of her stood the man with empty eyes and the curly-brimmed hat. Adolphus. His eyes were burning, his teeth long and yellow and sharp, and he was lunging toward her, black and dark and evil… The smell of malevolence filled her nostrils as the careening shriek swelled in her ears, reverberating painfully through her body. And then he shriveled and wrinkled, his face melting into a long, drawn-out image, swirling down into the ground as his lips moved, shouting at her, screaming… And then he was gone, in a nasty coil of black smoke.

And at last, there was silence. The orb still glowed in her hand, but the fog had gone. The black wraiths sucked back down into nothing, and Victoria saw the black crevice begin to smoke harder and faster, thick and musty. Curls billowed up and out, and Max rode forward close to it, pouring holy water down into the crack from three different bottles.

A last puff of smoke, and the ground began to crumble into itself.

The portal was closed.