As Shadows Fade

Seven Wherein Sebastian Swears Off Women

Sebastian did not return to Victoria’s chamber after all.

He thought to have had his mount saddled in order to take himself off to the rooms he let while in London, but something drew him back to the sitting room. He had a compelling desire to see if the Gardella Bible, about which he’d heard so much, was there. An odd thought, to be sure… It certainly wouldn’t be sitting out, and, furthermore, why did he feel the need to see it? It had never occurred to him to care before.

Nevertheless, that persuasive thought directed him to the small room when he would have left the house, plagued by other unpleasant thoughts instead.

Though Victoria had said that Wayren was resting, she seemed to be waiting for him. He would have backed out of the room if she hadn’t fastened those all-seeing blue-gray eyes on him from her half-reclined position on a chaise.

“Sebastian. Come.”

“But you’re weary.” Something niggled uncomfortably inside him, something that told him he would be happier if he left.

“Please.”

Before he realized it, he was limping into the sitting room, as though drawn by some invisible thread. Wayren had always unsettled him-from the first time he met her, years ago, when he first learned of his Venator calling… to less than six months ago, when he was discovered sneaking about in the Consilium, the secret headquarters of the Venators in Rome.

Yet she seemed to mean him no harm, and unlike Pesaro, she had no condemnation in her eyes. They were peaceful. Serene.

And perceptive. His self-deprecating charm would be out of place in the face of such bald honesty and sincerity.

“Do the dreams still plague you?” she asked as he began to sit.

Startled by her question, Sebastian froze, half poised above the seat cushion. “Dreams?” How could she know?

But as soon as he thought it, he knew the question was foolish. Wayren knew many things-of past, present, and future. Of truth and deceit, of promise and threat.

Her weakness wasn’t knowledge. Wayren’s limitation was her inability to change what she knew-or portended. Or even, sometimes, to simply divulge her information.

She didn’t respond-merely looked at him. Sebastian allowed himself to sink into the chair. Devil take it. He should have left when he had had the chance. But now he had become entwined.

“I dream of Giulia, if that’s what you mean.” Sebastian could hardly believe he’d admitted it aloud. The dreams he had of the woman-girl, really-he’d loved all those years ago were a private thing. By admitting it aloud, he felt as though he tainted those nocturnal images and memories-at least, the pleasant ones. Yet he was compelled to speak honestly and without prevarication.

Wayren nodded. “Tell me about the dreams.”

Sebastian looked down at his hands. His fingers trembled in his lap. “I dream over and over again of the moment when I saw her… and realized she’d been turned undead. Her eyes turned red for only a moment, then dissolved back to normal mortal ones.”

Normal mortal ones that he saw every time he looked at Giulia’s brother. Max Pesaro.

“Your antipathy for him has not affected your work as a Venator… now that you’ve returned to us,” Wayren said quietly. It did not surprise him that she knew the trail on which his thoughts had gone. “I find that commendable.”

Antipathy? What Sebastian felt for Max Pesaro went deeper than antipathy. It had been Max who’d taken Giulia-as well as their elderly, crippled father-to the secret society of vampire protectors, believing that the Tutela could help prolong their lives. Even give them immortality, through the vampires.

Giulia, beautiful and gentle as she was, had always been a sickly girl, unlike her twin brother. Pale, delicate, and with a persistent cough that worried those who loved her.

In his more generous moments, Sebastian almost understood Max’s intent, naive as it had been: to protect and save his family.

But that empathy usually dissolved when Sebastian reminded himself that because of Max, he’d not only lost the woman he loved, but had been forced to send her to Hell by slamming a stake into her heart. Giulia had been the second vampire he’d slain, and she became the last undead he killed… until last autumn in Rome. Nearly fifteen years later.

Sebastian realized he’d been silent for too long, and looked up to find Wayren’s eyes focused on him. Patience limned her gaze, patience and sympathy.

“I dream it over and over: that her eyes turn red and her fangs… extend… and then moments later, she returns to normal. A mortal. Unchanged. But I slay her anyway. I slam that stake into her heart even as she opens her mouth to plead with me.” He swallowed. “And then the dream shifts, so I don’t see if she turns to ash… and I wonder if I was mistaken… if I was wrong, and she hadn’t been undead. And if I killed her for no damn good reason.”

He didn’t care that those last words came out tight and low and hard, that fury burned through him. Moisture stung the corners of his eyes and he closed them tightly.

And now he was about to lose the second woman he loved. To the man he hated.

“It is said that those turned undead have souls damned for eternity upon the destruction of their physical body,” Wayren said. Her voice remained easy, soothing. And despite the turmoil inside, the anger and pain, Sebastian felt a vestige of peace slide over him. “And that is why you turned from the Venators for years, is it not? The belief that you had no right to send any soul to its eternal damnation.”

“Yes. How could I make that judgment? How would I know who was… deserving? For if they had been good in life…” To his great mortification, his voice cracked with emotion. Sebastian swallowed and forced himself to go on. “If they had been good, and blameless in life, and then unwillingly or unwittingly turned undead… how could I thrust eternal damnation upon them?”

“You believe that there might be hope for those undead.” Wayren did not ask a question; she stated a fact, a hope that had been buried so deeply inside Sebastian that he’d never really allowed himself to think it. Let alone to bring it to life by putting it into words.

Emboldened now-or, perhaps only dispirited-by her question, he looked at her. “Is it possible?”

Her eyes remained clear; he could read nothing there. But she replied, “Anything might be possible, Sebastian. I may know much, but I do not know all. I suspect that divine judgment considers many factors that we cannot comprehend. And that all we can do here is what we are called to do. No matter how difficult it might be.”

Sebastian sagged back in his seat. An answer that was no answer. He stood, brushing self-consciously at his rumpled shirt. “Thank you, Wayren.”

Her smile held a tinge of amusement and a bit more of sorrow. “I thank you, Sebastian. I know it was difficult for you to return. And to have this conversation with me.”

At this, he allowed his lips to quirk on one side. “I’ve had many difficult conversations with women in the last weeks,” he said, recalling the moment when Victoria attempted to tell him what he already knew: that she loved Max in a way that she’d never love him. “I begin to think that it would be best for me to avoid females until such a time as when my luck has changed.”

“I am sorry for your pain,” she said. “Sometimes, it is through pain that one discerns one’s true path.”

Sebastian would have liked to return with a quip about figurative stakes through the heart, but something stopped him. He closed his lips and bowed, relieved to quit the room.

“We couldn’t find you anywhere,” Lady Melly shrilled.

Victoria shifted her position slightly so that the high pitch of her mother’s voice didn’t go so directly into her ear. As she was sitting next to her, that was a bit of a feat, but she did the best she could. “I was there for a time, Mama,” she said, then glanced at their hostess. “The duchess saw me, indeed.”

Victoria had managed a brief nap after her bath and subsequent meeting with Sebastian and Max in her chambers, but she was still weary and achy. The only reason she’d left the house to join the triumvirate of ladies for an early tea was because the alternative would have been hosting them at her house.

At least here it was possible for her to make an escape.

“Lovely dress, my dear,” Duchess Winnie said, leaning forward to take up a little biscuit topped with strawberry preserves and a dollop of cream. Despite the fact that she’d hosted a dance the night before, it was her pleasure to have her dearest friends over the following day in order to scale through every bit of on dit or gossip that might have occurred. And aside of that, it was a well-known fact that her cook made the best, most unique biscuits and sweets. “A bit scandalous, to be sure, but you aren’t a virginal debutante anymore, are you?”

Lady Melly shot her a silencing glare and turned back to Victoria. “But where did you go off to? I never got to talk to you, and I intended to have Jellington introduce you to Davington’s heir, just returned from the Continent.”

“Mama,” Victoria began, but it was to no avail.

“Never say that you still harbor the idea that you might have an attachment to that Monsieur Vioget,” Melly said, her spoon clinking noisily as she stirred her tea. “Why, he wasn’t even there last night, and I just could not abide that your second husband should be French. And not of the ton. I simply would not permit it.”

“But, Melly, you cannot ignore that he is a handsome gentleman,” said Lady Nilly, who’d just returned to the room.

In light of her conversation with George Starcasset last evening, Victoria couldn’t help but examine the long, papery skin of Nilly’s neck for vampire bites. Unfortunately, Lady Nilly was wearing a wide choker that, as Victoria knew from personal experience, could work very well to hide fang marks. “What a lovely cameo,” Victoria said.

Her rising from the sofa, which she shared with her mother, had a dual purpose: one, to get her away from the shrill voice, and second, to examine the brooch… and its wearer ’s neck.

“Oh, do you like it?” asked Nilly, moving closer so that Victoria could see.

Victoria lifted the (quite ugly) cameo of a… well, she wasn’t certain what it was, but it wasn’t immediately recognizable… from the hollow of Lady Nilly’s throat under the guise of examining it more closely. As the wide lace lifted, Victoria saw that there were no marks on her mother’s friend’s neck, and allowed the cameo to settle back into place.

And now Victoria had no choice but to settle back into her place.

“And the other thing,” Lady Melly continued as though there’d been no interruption in her lecture, “I was certain you’d find it fascinating to hear that they have notified the new heir to the Rockley estate.”

“Indeed?” In spite of herself, Victoria was mildly interested. “After they’d searched so hard and long for James Lacy, I thought it would take much longer to locate the next in line.”

“But no, Victoria, for it wasn’t that they didn’t know who the heir was… It was where to find him,” Melly told her archly. “Surely you knew that.”

Victoria didn’t have the heart to tell her mother-who had memorized the lineage of every noble family in England-that her interest in Phillip had not extended to learning every branch of his sparse family tree. She’d been much less interested in his wealth than his generous and caring personality.

Blast. A tear pricked the corner of her eye. Would she never be able to think of Phillip without that happening?

“He has been living in Spain for the last ten years,” Melly told her. “But of course, now that the current marquess has disappeared and has not been heard from in weeks, the worst is believed to have happened.” She frowned thoughtfully. “What bad luck those de Lacys seem to have. Pardon me, dear,” she added hastily, realizing she might be infringing upon her daughter’s grief.

“He’s not the only one to have disappeared quite suddenly,” Lady Nilly said, lifting a biscuit genteelly to her lips. “Didn’t your friend Miss Starcasset-who was to marry the Earl of Brodebaugh-also go missing? After he was found dead in his own parlor?” She shuddered, but bit into the biscuit with gusto. Cook Mildred’s strawberry-cream biscuits were not to be missed for any reason. Since the berries were only in season for a short time, one could not squander the opportunity.

“Ah, indeed,” Victoria replied, wondering if Nilly had learned of that information about Gwendolyn through her interactions with her brother, George. “But, though I dislike spreading gossip”-she looked pointedly at the ladies three-“I do have it on good authority that Gwen has eloped with an exceedingly unsuitable man.”

It was gossip, but a better tale than the truth. And even Victoria, for all of her virtuous activity hunting the immoral undead, was not perfect. She still felt the sting that her good friend, as a vampire, had planned Victoria’s demise simply because it had been Victoria-and not Gwen-who’d caught the eye of Phillip de Lacy, Marquess of Rockley, when the two girls debuted into Society. If the gossip behind Gwen’s disappearance was juicier than the oranges she’d had in Rome, Victoria figured it was only fair.

“Indeed?” Duchess Winnie’s eyes widened. “How unsuitable?”

“We can talk about that later,” Lady Melly interrupted, though the gleam of interest burned in her expression as well. “But I was telling Victoria about the new Rockley heir, which I am certain she will find most interesting. Of course, no one is certain what happened to the previous Rockley, our dear James, but since he’s disappeared without a trace, the lawyers have gone on to find the next in line in the event that he doesn’t return. Mr. Hubert de Lacy will arrive in London next week, so they say, and I believe it would be most fitting for the Marchioness of Rockley to attend his welcome-home ball.” She looked at her daughter. “He is a widower of five years, after marrying a Spanish girl and staying there on her family’s land after the war. A bit longer in tooth than your dear Rockley, Victoria, but as my mother always said, ‘what’s in the pocketbook before the measure of teeth’… or something of that nature.”

“Welcome-home ball? The man is not already here, and you’ve planned a welcome-home ball?” Victoria could not help but roll her eyes, but she took care to keep that unladylike expression out of her mother’s sight.

“I’m not hosting the welcome-home ball, my dear,” said Lady Melly with a gush of surprise. “If anyone in this family should be doing so, it would be you. But as you’re doing your best to deny your societal duties, I suppose I can have nothing to say about it. The party is being hosted by Viscount Rutledge, as he and Mr. de Lacy knew each other at Oxford… or somewhere from their youth.” Her eyes narrowed as she looked at her daughter. “I do hope you will make an appearance so you can at least meet the presumptive new Rockley.”

“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!”