As Shadows Fade

Twenty-Three In Which Victoria Receives the Most Unpleasant of Surprises

Victoria lost sight of Max as she fought her way deeper into the caverns.

Brim slashed and stabbed nearby, and she caught a glimpse of Michalas’s red-blond curls once before she had to turn away and concentrate on her own battle.

The back of her neck burned as though ice slid over it, back and forth, without relief. Her back raged with pain from the claws and scrapes from last night, but as she moved more, it loosened and the discomfort faded to a throb.

She couldn’t and wouldn’t be distracted from her goal: Lilith.

In fact, as soon as Victoria had the chance, she slipped off to the side of the battle, snaring a handy vampire by the neck and whipping him around and against the stone wall in a natural little alcove. “Where is Lilith?” she demanded, poising the stake to strike.

“There,” he said without hesitation, pointing farther down the passage in which they stood. He had squinty piglike eyes that glowed red.

“And her prisoner? Beauregard’s grandson? Where is he?”

“There, too.”

“Take me to them and I’ll spare you. Trick me and you’ll die.” He might die anyway, but she’d worry about that later.

He nodded against her hand, and she released him from against the wall. Shoving him ahead of her, stake close at his back, she followed him down the passage.

Her instincts told her that he was interested in saving his own neck-slight though that possibility might be-and as they moved farther, leaving the altercation behind them, she noticed details that confirmed that suspicion: smoother walls studded occasionally with small torches-which Victoria found interesting, as vampires could see in the dark-their sides rounded into a curved ceiling, a floor clear of dirt and random stones. Turning around a little corner, they came to a large wooden door flanked by two torches. It certainly seemed an appropriate entrance for Lilith’s private chambers, although the presence of torches still intrigued Victoria. Perhaps it was more for heat than for light, she thought, remembering that Lilith always seemed to have fires blazing.

She stopped and faced the vampire, slamming him once again up to the stone wall. “Are there guards inside? Is she in there? Speak true or you die here.”

“Four guards, always hiding in the corners of the room. She was inside last I know of.”

“Will she have heard the fight in the front?” Victoria asked. “Is there another way out of the room?”

He swallowed behind the hand clutching his throat. “I don’t know. I don’t know about another way out either.”

“Call two of the guards out. Now. Give no indication that I’m here.” She shoved him toward the door, considering whether she should actually let him go. It went against her grain to do so, but she might be feeling generous if he really had brought her to Lilith.

The vampire knocked on the door as she stood and watched. Even if he betrayed her, she’d have the advantage as the guards came running out the door. And she almost hoped he would so that she wouldn’t have to decide whether to kill him.

But he did just as she’d ordered, and when the two Guardians with their blazing pink eyes came out the door, closing it behind them, Victoria went into action. She vaulted herself away from the wall and rammed into the first Guardian. Succeeding in knocking him against the other set both undead off balance, and she used the opportunity to shove the stake into the heart of the nearer one.

When she turned to get the other, however, he was already waiting for her, and he shoved her up against the wooden door so hard it jolted in its place. The dull clunk repeated as he slammed a fist into her face, whipping her head back against the door’s metal trappings. Pain burst in the back of her skull, and Victoria felt her knees weaken and her gut tighten. Lights sparkled in her vision, vying with the red-orange flames in the torch next to the door, uncomfortably close to her face.

Fingers closed around her throat, and she gasped a breath, then made herself go limp, holding the stake hidden behind her. The cross she wore around her neck did little but cause the vampire to falter for a moment-he must be very powerful. As he held her, the pendant slipped out from beneath her shirt, and he yanked at the chain. It snapped and the cross fell to the ground.

Her breath still stopped in her throat, she counted, holding her limp position as the vampire squeezed his fingers, willing herself to remain still and not to faint.

At last, when she could bear it no longer-the throbbing of her head, the lack of air, the feel of his undead hands on her flesh-he loosened his grip just a bit. Snatching in a breath, she whaled out with her knee into his gut, then her foot, twisting desperately away.

He released her in surprise, and she crumpled to the floor, gasping for air and trying to steady her vision. The vampire reared over her, then lunged down as she positioned her stake. Slam. Up and into his heart as he bent.

He froze, then exploded. Putrid, dry ash burst over her.

By the time she staggered to her feet, Victoria realized that the vampire she’d threatened had disappeared. Not, she hoped, to get more reinforcements.

Her head pounded, and she still felt the remnants of fingers tight around her throat, the feeling of being unable to draw a breath. But she stood up and steadied herself again. That would be nothing compared to what she’d face with Lilith behind that door.

She heard a shout on the other side of the wood and, grabbing one of the torches from its perch, steeled herself. Someone was going to come through.

She was right. Seconds later, the door flew open, and she thrust the torch at the first creature that came out. Flames didn’t burn vampires, but the fire served as a distraction as it caught his hair and clothing, giving her time to shove her stake into the undead that came behind him.

Her motions practiced and smooth, she slipped through the open door and slammed it closed behind her, ignoring the shriek of frustration from the burning vampire.

Then she turned.

Her first impression of the room was red. And heat. And heaviness.

But she allowed herself little but a quick scan over the silk-hung walls and rug-covered floor, the flames blazing in two fireplaces, and the variety of furnishings also covered in the color of blood.

And finally, Lilith. Who, for once, appeared to be surprised to see Victoria.

The vampire queen stood, arrested in some movement, and looked at her visitor. Then she straightened and her face smoothed of surprise. “Victoria Gardella.”

“Where is Sebastian?” she asked, allowing her eyes to dart about the room again.

“Why, he is there.” Lilith gave a careless gesture with her slender hand, and Victoria saw him then. “Come out, my dear.”

He’d been obscured by Lilith as she stood, and now Victoria could tell that he sat on a settee of sorts, tucked in a corner. Now, at the vampire queen’s bidding, he moved forward. Like Max had been when she came to rescue him in London, Sebastian wore only trousers. Bite marks marred the smooth golden skin of his neck and shoulders. The vis bulla glinted proudly at his navel.

“Victoria,” he said, “what are you doing here?”

She turned her attention from him, relieved that he seemed to be unharmed except for some bite marks. “I’ve come for Lilith.”

The queen laughed. “And so you have. Where do you plan to take me? And where is my dear Maximilian?”

“It’s not where I intend to take you,” Victoria replied, fingering her stake. “It’s where I want to send you: Hell.”

Lilith laughed again, moving her hand languidly over Sebastian’s curling hair. “I regret to inform you that I’ve already been there. And prefer not to go back.”

“Only one of us will leave this room. And it will be me.” With that, Victoria launched herself at the tall woman.

Lilith’s face metamorphosed into a horrific bansheelike mask, her face growing long and gray, her eyes burning like blinding beacons: red surrounded by glowing blue. Nails shot longer from her hands, curving like ten scythes. She whipped her palms up and stopped Victoria in midleap, sending her crashing to the floor.

Still feeling the imprint of those skeletal fingers and deathly nails raking over her arm and chest, Victoria scrambled to her feet, her ears ringing, careful to keep her eyes averted from the dangerous gaze. Lilith had eased back into her normal visage, and now she looked down at Victoria with scorn and dark wickedness. All trace of humor and benevolence had disappeared.

“Maximilian tried that one time, long ago,” Lilith told her with disdain. “If I didn’t want him so much, I would have killed him then. I have no such compunction regarding you.”

Victoria didn’t respond. She stood, gathering her wits and her strength, cataloguing the arsenal of weapons available to her. A quick look around the room confirmed that there was nothing to help her: nothing of wood, no sword. Even Sebastian appeared unable-or unwilling-to move. He merely knelt on the floor next to Lilith’s chaise, the same sort of empty expression on his face that Max had had while in the vampiress’s presence.

All she had were the stakes on her person, the holy water. Her wits.

And, possibly, the secret Adolphus had told her.

She had only a moment to assess all of this, for Lilith had been angered, and she no longer played the gracious sovereign. No sooner had Victoria steadied herself than the vampire queen flew at her.

Fangs sharp and extended into her bottom lip, and her long coppery hair swirled with the horrible scent of roses. Lilith knocked her to the ground, then reached down and grabbed Victoria by the front of the shirt and slammed her to the wall.

The impact set her head to bobbing and pushed the air from her lungs, but Victoria held the stake and made a swipe at Lilith. It scraped along the vampiress’s face, leaving a long gouge and blood dripping from it.

Victoria gasped, twisting from Lilith’s superhuman grip. Fumbling in the pocket of her trousers, Victoria found one of the bottles of holy water, and, ducking and rolling away from the vampire, she tried to pry the top off.

Lilith slammed into her, knocking the bottle out of her hand, and swooping toward Victoria with a delighted shriek, fangs ready and wide. Her eyes blazed now, and Victoria felt herself snagged in them, slowed, and the thrall begin to wrap around her.

No.

She shook her head, forced the hold to sever, and twisted along the ground toward the lost bottle, stake still close in her hand. Lilith followed, but Victoria was faster. She bucked back and flipped the vampire over her with a quick kick, lunging for, but missing, the bottle, thankful that the stopper hadn’t come loose.

With a shriek and a swirl of hair, Lilith rose as Victoria came to her feet, holy water in hand. As the vampire lunged toward her, nails curving wickedly in the air, Victoria ducked, and as she twisted around the queen, grabbed a handful of that awful snakelike hair.

Though it glowed like copper fire, it felt like wire, thick and hard, not springy at all. Victoria wrapped it around her wrist quickly and gave a good hard jerk, pulling the vampire off her feet to the sound of a great shriek.

Victoria dashed herself against the vampire queen, her arm still coiled in the hair, and they crashed into a wall, then tumbled to the floor. The bottle of water was just… there. She shoved the stake down the front of her trousers and reached for the vial… crying out with relief when her fingers closed around it, just as Lilith arced out with a long, powerful leg.

Bringing the bottle of holy water to her face, Victoria used her teeth to pull the stopper out as she kicked and yanked at Lilith, who scratched and clawed viciously back at her. But the crazy, twisting creature beneath her couldn’t get free from the trap of her hair, and the two scrambled across the floor, rolling, bucking, twisting.

At last the stopper came free and water splashed out, but Victoria managed to redirect the small flume onto the vampire writhing beneath her.

“Help me!” Lilith cried, then screamed as the water spilled on her face. Her bucking motions grew stronger, the horrible sweet scent of roses climbing up and around Victoria, but she kept her head clear.

Now. Victoria reached for the stake at her waist, closed her fingers around it, pulled it free.

She swiped her arm up and around, toward the writhing, snakelike vampire body linked to her by a length of long hair. She stabbed the stake down, aiming for the bony chest of the undead.

Slam.

Lilith twisted hard just as the stake pierced into skin with the familiar little pop, and Victoria felt strong hands pulling at her. She looked up into Sebastian’s face.

And his glowing red eyes.