The Bleeding Dusk

Eleven In Which Michalas’s Wish Is Granted

As so often occurred when kissing Sebastian, Victoria found herself more helpless than not, with her hands still tied and her balance precarious. Yet she closed her eyes there in the dark and opened her mouth when he opened his, accepting his slick tongue and offering her own. The aches in her hand and leg eased, fading away in the wake of the deep kiss that reminded her how much she had missed this—intimate touching, passionate kissing, Sebastian himself.

She couldn’t see him, just barely the dark shape of a shadow close to her, blocking her vision. But she pictured his handsome face and the sensual curling of his tawny, lion’s-mane hair, surely tousled from battle with the vampires. His eyes were a darker shade of the same hue, a chestnut, and his skin—so unlike his grandfather’s pale visage—was golden. He looked like a bronze angel, she’d often thought. An ironic description.

His lips were soft and smooth, fitting to hers and then drawing closed to lick and then nibble at the corner of her mouth, his teeth gnawing gently at her bottom lip, right where his grandfather had bitten her the night before. Victoria started when she realized this, when she felt his teeth on the tender part of her lip, and tried to turn away. But he was cradling her face in his hands and only kissed her more deeply than ever.

“I thought…you preferred…carriages,” came a raspy, annoyed voice from across the room, “Vioget.”

Victoria started and twisted her face violently from Sebastian, who seemed to have no inclination to release her. “Max? Oh, thank God, you’re alive!”

“Your…concern…overwhelms me.” There was a soft shuffling sound, a sharp intake of breath. “Perhaps…you could be…so kind as to…bring that knife…here. When”—his voice trailed off, then picked up more strongly—“you’ve finished…of course. I cannot…imagine…it should take…very long…at all.”

“Carriages, parlors, dungeons,” Sebastian said carelessly, “wherever the opportunity presents itself. Which it does rather more often than I would expect you’d imagine—or be familiar with.”

But as he spoke Sebastian had released her, mainly, Victoria thought, because she’d mutinously kept her face away from his seeking fingers and mouth, twisting back when he tried to renew the kiss. Now he moved behind her, his hands on her hips as he found his position.

Too late, she realized she was at an even greater disadvantage with him kneeling behind her, knife in hands. “Don’t move now, Victoria,” he said, his voice curling in her ear like soft smoke, his breath warm on her skin. “This knife is very sharp, and I cannot see what I’m doing. I’d hate to slice into your beautiful flesh…the fresh blood would draw the hungry vampires here in a moment.”

One of his hands moved aside the great mass of hair that had fallen down from her coiffure, when her stake had been removed, and now his lips pressed gently to the sensitive skin there on the top of her shoulder, at the juncture of her neck. Featherlight at first, then heavier, then with a sleek brush of tongue, he kissed her flesh while he sawed away, one-handed, at her ropes.

She couldn’t help the smallest of gasps when he mauled and sucked at the tendon there, where he knew she was most sensitive. And Max couldn’t help but hear her reaction, the faint sound of breaking suction, the quiet lapping of Sebastian’s mouth.

He did it purposely—whether it was to titillate and arouse her or to annoy Max, she wasn’t certain, but the only thing she could try to do was ignore the swipe of his lips, the warm slide over the top of her shoulder, up along her neck. But when one of his hands—the one not holding the knife, fortunately, slid around to cover one of her breasts, Victoria couldn’t hold back a sudden intake of breath.

Sebastian laughed softly against her skin, leaving a hot, moist puff there at the side of her throat, and Victoria pulled so hard to the side that she lost her balance and tumbled to the floor. But as she fell her hands moved automatically to catch herself, pulling at the ropes. She was strong enough—and they were already frayed enough from the knife—that they tore free, and even though she landed half on her cheek on the cold, gritty floor, her hands were loose.

She rolled away from Sebastian before he could grab her again, though she felt his swipe through the air. “Your games are at an end, Sebastian. May I have the knife back?”

Half expecting him to taunt her with it, to demand a kiss or some other payment, Victoria was surprised when she heard it drop to the floor in front of her.

“If we only had something for illumination,” she said, feeling on the floor until her fingers brushed the stiletto. Gingerly she followed the blade until she found the handle and picked up the knife. It was no longer than the length of her longest finger to the end of her palm, and about the same width as her little finger. The entire dagger was nearly as flat as the piece of boning it had replaced, but was deathly sharp.

Miro had made the weapon specially for her, casting it to certain specifications. The silver handle was very short, extending only one knuckle’s length from the small, flat hand guard. This was so that the blade could slide into the slit in her corset, and the handle would protrude just a small distance past the bottom end of her stays, keeping the metal from poking into her leg when she walked or bent. The other unique thing about the knife was that for perhaps another inch past the hand guard, the blade itself was covered with the same silver as the handle, so that Victoria could wrap her fingers around the hand guard and allow the blade to protrude between them without cutting herself. Since the handle was so short, it was the only way she could comfortably hold the dagger.

It certainly had worked, cutting easily through the ropes.

“I have something for light,” Max’s voice rumbled, a bit stronger now. “But I’ll need…some help.”

Victoria felt Sebastian moving, but he seemed to be farther away. “Sebastian? What are you doing?”

“I’m examining the door to determine whether there might be a way to open it, of course.”

Victoria wanted to protest that she would need his help with Max, but she did not. Instead, she felt around on the floor and finally brushed against something solid and warm. And very, very wet. Stickily wet.

“My God, Max…” She started in shock, moving her hands frantically around, trying to determine what part of him had been injured, and accidentally poked him in the face.

“Christ, Victoria…are you trying to blind me?”

She slowed her jerky movements, brushing over his warm, moist cheek and down along his neck, staying far away from his sharp mouth. “You needn’t be so profane. I cannot see a thing!”

“Obviously,” he grumbled on a long breath. “I have a light. After you cut these blasted ropes.” His breathing was heavy, and she could feel it now, feel the exertion in his body as he struggled to keep it steady.

She quickly sliced through the ropes that held his wrists behind him, and heard his moan of relief when his arms fell back into place. With trepidation she asked, “Where is the light?” The last thing she wanted was to be groping around Max’s long, powerful body. Especially when he was injured.

“My left boot.”

Relieved, Victoria gingerly skimmed her hands lightly along the side of him, taking care not to investigate anything mortifying, and noting with increasing anxiety that there were several places that were soaking wet. The stench of blood was strong, and she could nearly taste the iron in her mouth. “Are you bitten?” she asked, reaching the bottom of his calf and finding the smooth, supple leather of his boot. “Again?” she added, remembering Sara tearing away Max’s collar.

“No, I’m shot,” he replied, as if she should somehow have known. “And it hurts like the damned blazes, so if you could please…hurry.”

Like a valet, she knelt at his feet and tugged at the boot.

“No,” he snapped. “Under. In the heel.”

“Heel?” she muttered, thinking that she was dealing with more heels than the ones on his boots.

“It slides off. Inside are small wooden sticks. Don’t…drop them! And a piece of sanded paper.”

“Ah, the work of the famous Miro, I’m certain,” came Sebastian’s patently bored voice from across the room.

“How do you know about Miro?” asked Victoria in surprise, prying at the heel of Max’s boot as quickly as she could. It came off more easily than she’d expected, and then, feeling around, she could tell that it was nothing more than a little box with a lid.

“I know much about everything.”

Max’s breath caught audibly, as if he’d heard something humorous—or a new wave of pain had slammed into him—but he replied, “And do little with it, is that not…right, Vioget?”

“I have the little sticks and the paper. Now what shall I do?”

“Find something…to burn. One of those ridiculous flowers on your gown. Put them to use.”

Victoria bit her lip instead of replying. The man was in great pain, Venator or no, so she could give him a bit of an excuse for his rudeness. Carefully she cut off one of the satin roses from above the hem of her gown and realized Max was right—it would make a good candle. How clever, and she was abashed that he had thought of it before she did.

Made from tightly twisted and sewn satin ribband, the flower was about the size of the center of her palm. It wouldn’t burn forever, but she had many flowers, and surely each one would last for several minutes. “Now what shall I do?”

“Bring them…here. Give me one of the sticks. And the paper.”

She moved back up toward Max’s head and their hands found each other easily. His fingers were frighteningly cold, and they shook slightly as he took the slender wooden stick from her, and then the paper.

Victoria heard a faint snick, and suddenly a little burst of light illuminated Max’s face. It looked like a hollow-eyed, grimy mask, his dark hair plastered to his forehead and temples, his full, angular lips tight and flat.

“Where’s the bloody flower?”

Victoria pointed to the floor and watched as he shifted to the side and held the little flame to the red flower. She could see the fire dancing nearer his fingers, watching how he struggled to keep his hand steady as he tried to light it. With her own sigh of exasperation, she picked up the flower and held it to the flame.

One satin petal lit, and she put it on the floor next to them as the flower kindled to life. Lifting her gaze, she found herself face-to-face, very close to Max, and their eyes met over the tiny flame on the stick before he huffed it out.

There’d been pain there. She’d seen it in the unguardedness of his expression for a moment, the deep, bone-crunching pain swimming in his dark eyes.

“Where are you shot?” she asked in a kinder voice than she’d used recently.

“My shoulder. My right leg, though I think it isn’t more than a graze.”

A normal man would still be unconscious—between the chill of the dungeon and the loss of blood, not to mention the battering he’d taken under the hands of the vampires.

Before she could move he was shrugging painfully out of his heavy coat, which smelled like bloody, wet wool. Victoria helped pull it away from his left shoulder and saw the huge bloom of darkness glistening on his white shirt. It was, she realized suddenly, just above where the tiny vis bulla hung from his areola.

Her stomach squirmed, remembering how he’d forced her hand to touch it when she needed power and strength, and how warm and firm his skin had been under her reluctant fingers.

She reached to help him, but he batted her hand away.

“Tear the coat and I’ll use it to bandage this. Then we have to find a way out of here, or it won’t matter,” he said.

“Your coat? Don’t be ridiculous; the wool will be too prickly.” She tore at her chemise and wadded up a large piece of the fine cotton, handing it to him when he made no move to allow her to bandage him herself.

“What have you found, Vioget?” asked Max.

“Little to assist us. The door is bolted solidly from the other side, and the hinges are outside as well. The door is made of wood, banded with iron, so unless you happen to be carrying some much larger accoutrements in your unmentionables, my dear Victoria, we shan’t be leaving this chamber until they open the door. And we certainly don’t want to wait for that.”

“No,” Max agreed.

“Sara Regalado and her father—and likely all of the Tutela—have allied themselves with Akvan, then,” Victoria said. “And they tricked people into coming here to feed the vampires, I presume.”

“Not all of the Tutela,” Sebastian corrected. “A great number of them are still loyal to my grandfather.” There was a bit of stiffness in his voice.

After Akvan’s Obelisk had been destroyed—and with it Nedas, who’d been the most powerful of the vampires in Italy—there had been a great power struggle between Beauregard and Sara’s father, Conte Regalado. As a newly turned vampire, the conte wasn’t nearly as powerful as Beauregard …but by allying himself with Akvan the demon, perhaps he thought he could overcome Beauregard.

Not a bad strategy.

And now she understood what Beauregard had meant when he spoke of Regalado’s new alliance.

“And not only for the vampires,” Max said. “Akvan will feed…from the mortals trapped here.”

Victoria looked at him and read the expression on his face. “What does he do to them? Drink their blood?”

“Human heads,” Sebastian said flatly. “But you’re wrong, both of you.” Grim satisfaction laced his voice. “It’s not so much the mortals they wished to draw here. I cannot believe you don’t see it for yourself.”

“Of course I do. It was Victoria all along.”

The understanding blossomed inside her. They’d been kidnapping mortals—and before them, dogs and cats—to feed Akvan for months. “Sara tried to capture me before…this treasure hunt was nothing more than a way to get me to come.” She looked at Max. “They want the key, Aunt Eustacia’s key.”

“Or they simply want you. Which I can understand most readily,” Sebastian added dryly. “It seems to be quite a common ailment as of late.”

“Don’t let that go out,” Max said suddenly, gesturing toward the dying rose blossom.

Startled into action, Victoria quickly sliced off another flower and used the burning one to light it. When she looked back at him, he was drinking from a small vial.

“What is that?”

Swallowing, he looked at her in annoyance, then corked the tiny bottle and slipped it into a pocket. “Is that a window?”

Victoria looked up and saw, for the first time, right at the junction of ceiling and wall, the faintest rectangle of dark gray. Really, it was barely discernible from the other bricks on the wall, except that it was bigger, and just a bit lighter in color.

“Sebastian, let me stand on your shoulders,” she said.

She could see the amusement on his face when he approached the small circle of light they shared. “What a serendipitous opportunity to refresh my memory about what’s under your skirt,” he murmured, drawing her toward the wall.

Victoria resisted the urge to acknowledge the comment. Instead she used her fingernails and the crevices between the bricks to steady herself as she climbed up onto Sebastian’s bent knee, then onto his shoulders, and then even higher as he rose to a full standing position.

The top of her head brushed the stone ceiling, and she said, “It’s a window. Too small for any of us to pass through.”

“What can you see?”

Sebastian’s fingers had moved from steadying her ankles to sliding up her calves over the silky stockings she wore, creating a delicate, delicious friction—and causing the stockings to sag. She gave him a little jab with her toe and replied to Max, “The window is level with the ground. I can see very little. A wall. The sky—it’s nearing dawn, and the sky is turning gray.”

“Can you see a small iron gate? Low in the wall?”

“It’s very dark, Max; I can’t see much of anything.”

“Here.”

The light below her in the small room moved closer, and Victoria reached down carefully to take the small rose from Max, who’d stood, but was now leaning against the wall. He was holding his right hand over his shoulder wound, though his face looked a bit less tense. Whatever was in that vial had begun to work quickly.

When she rested the little candle on the narrow sill of the window, Victoria could see into the yard in front of the opening. “Yes, I see a small thing—it looks like a grate. It’s very small, though, Max…”

“As I thought. You can come down now.”

She carefully handed down the candle, and found Sebastian to be exceedingly helpful in assisting her to get down from the window, his hands groping about and assisting in areas that weren’t off balance in the least.

When Victoria got back on the ground and extricated herself from Sebastian’s questing fingers, she saw Max on the floor by the wall.

“Max? Are you all right?”

“Stop blocking the light,” he snapped.

“What are you doing?”

She crouched next to him, aware that Sebastian was standing behind, likely watching the areas he’d recently had occasion to caress.

“That iron grate is just outside of the Magic Door,” Max told her. “I saw it earlier tonight.” She could see that he was moving the candle around the floor near the wall. “It confirmed what Ylito and I had suspected—that this wall is next to Palombara’s laboratory.” He looked up for a moment, his eyes faint with wry humor. “I, unlike you, have an excellent sense of direction when inside a building.”

“Whatever it is you’re doing,” Sebastian said from his pose against the wall, “I suggest you do it quickly, for I expect our hosts to be returning shortly. I’d prefer not to be here when they return, if we can arrange it otherwise. I’m certain my relationship to Beauregard will hold me in good stead only long enough for Akvan to ask me a few pointed questions about my grandfather before he makes use of my head and its contents.”

“Then perhaps,” Max said between obviously clenched teeth, “you might bestir yourself to assist. I have reason to believe there must be a way from the laboratory to this chamber.” He must have heard Victoria draw in her breath, for he added, “Don’t waste time asking. If I’m wrong, I’m wrong—but there is no other way out of this room. But…” And he paused, then continued, “Apparently I’m not wrong, for here it is.”

He pushed back onto his knees. Through the streaks of dirt and blood on his face, the hollowness in his cheeks, Victoria saw satisfaction. “A door?” she asked dubiously.

“A drop of gold. Melted gold. Going under the wall here…see this brick…here.”

Victoria needed no further instruction or information. She began to work with Max, feeling around with her fingers to fit them into the groove under the brick.

But then, as a familiar, portending chill scuttled over the back of her neck, Victoria turned and met Max’s gaze only inches away.

“Damn,” was all he said.

“They’ll be coming for me,” Victoria said. “Most likely.”

“Or to find out what the grandson of Beauregard might know that would be helpful to Akvan,” Max said, a hint of relish in his voice. “Or for any of us.”

“We’ll make it look like we’re still tied up,” Victoria said. “Then we can take them by surprise when they come in. Max, you can still be unconscious.”

“Why, thank you.”

“Sebastian, if you can manage to do so without getting distracted, tie my wrists again. Quickly. Wait.” She turned and slid her hand up under her skirt to the side of her corset opposite where the knife had been hidden and quickly slid out the slender but deadly stake that was hidden in the same way the stiletto had been.

Slipping it into one of the small loops at the back of her gown (ones Verbena had insisted upon adding for just such an emergency), she allowed Sebastian to bind her wrists loosely enough that it would be no problem for her to slip free. Then, awkwardly, she did the same to him.

Max arranged himself on the floor where he’d been before, and Victoria slumped against the wall near his feet. Then she stomped her foot on the last of the burning satin flower.

Only the faintest smell of smoke hung in the air now, and the room became silent.

The back of her neck was colder, and her heart thumped faster as she felt the undead coming closer.

“Max? Do you have the knife?”

“Yes. And a stake hidden in my boot. Don’t attack until we’re out of the room.”

“Seb—”

But a rattle at the door silenced her, and Victoria closed her mouth and waited.

When the door burst open, Victoria watched again through slitted eyes. There were only three of them. Three!

They were tall and had red eyes, and she could see their fangs gleaming, even through the tiny slit of her gaze.

Two of them stayed at the door. Max was right; they couldn’t make a move to escape until they were safely out of the chamber, for fear they’d get locked back in. The third vampire, a tall woman, stepped farther in, and Victoria saw the glint of a pistol in her hand as she strode toward them.

She opened her eyes fully and looked up into the gaunt face of the female. Her eyelids were dark, her chin narrow and pointed. Long blond hair fell in ugly hanks over her shoulders, and it swayed as she slammed her boot into Max’s side so hard he jolted closer to Victoria.

He didn’t move, nor make a sound; even his breathing remained silent.

Now the vampire moved toward Victoria, looking down, pointing the gun directly at her. “Akvan is waiting for you,” she hissed, sliding a tongue over her fangs.

Dressed in the convenience of men’s clothing, she wore a jacket and a shirt that had possibly once been white, or some color close to it. When she bent toward Victoria, a leather thong around her neck fell from the opening of her shirt, knocked out by the weight of the short, black object that hung from it. Victoria caught her breath—the slender pendant was shiny, sharp, and glinted blue-black. She recognized it—a splinter, like the shard from Akvan’s Obelisk that she herself had locked away in the Consilium.

With effort Victoria drew her eyes away from the glistening black fragment. The vampire was so close, breathing so heavily, she could smell the blood on her breath and knew she’d just fed.

Victoria drew in a deep breath and grieved for the mortals who’d obviously been her meal. The mortals who hadn’t had a Zavier or a Sebastian to help get them out of the villa.

“Tell your friends not to move,” said the female. “Or I’ll shoot you. Now get up slowly.”

As Victoria shifted to struggle to her feet, keeping the stake hidden, hands bound behind her—albeit loosely—she brushed against Max and felt his fingers fumble against hers. In that instant she slowed her movements, made them more awkward so that he could slip something slender and smooth into her hands.

The vial he’d been drinking from.

Victoria closed her fingers around the tiny bottle and pulled to her feet, and this time her awkwardness wasn’t feigned. Her right leg was still aching, but she was able to walk on it. When she started toward the door, the female vampire followed close behind.

A quick glance behind told Victoria that the gun was still trained on her. There was no chance for Max—or Sebastian, should he be willing to risk it—to jump to her assistance without getting her shot.

She wondered, as she stepped out of the chamber and heard the door close and its lock clang behind the three vampires, whether she would return.

And if she did, whether Max and Sebastian would even be there.

Flanked by the two silent vampires, Victoria walked down the hall, the presence of the female with the gun—and what could only be a piece of Akvan’s Obelisk around her neck—slightly behind her.

They were taking her to Akvan, but she wouldn’t go quietly. The female had foolishly allowed the pistol to sag away from Victoria’s person as soon as the door closed. She seemed distracted and was walking faster, almost as if she were in a hurry to return.

Victoria had other ideas. She walked as slowly as possible, exaggerating her limp so as to give herself time to flip the cork from the small vial Max had given her. She’d started fiddling with it as soon as she’d risen to her feet, back in the chamber.

She wasn’t sure what the liquid inside was, but at the very least it would give her an element of surprise. Max wouldn’t have pressed it into her hands unless it would be useful, and he certainly didn’t expect her to drink from it.

When the tiny cork popped free, Victoria carefully twisted her wrists, trying to keep from alerting the vampires to her acrobatics. But the female was muttering indistinctly—and with annoyance—to the vampire on the left, and the other appeared to be intent only on watching the placement of his feet as they strode down the gray-stoned passage. The female was obviously the leader, and her companions merely empty-headed guards of exceedingly large proportion.

Fortunately for Victoria, stakes were equally effective on all sizes and shapes of vampires, and unfortunately for them, she had a more than adequate one up her sleeve. Figuratively speaking.

Now she lifted one arm slightly, so that the ropes that had appeared to be tight around her wrists when they were crossed were now loose enough for her to free her hands.

They’d walked perhaps only a dozen paces and were still within sight of the chamber door they’d left when Victoria sprang into action.

She held the vial in one hand and the newly released stake that she’d slipped from its loop in the other. As the rope dropped away she flung the contents of the vial at the two vampires on her left. As they screamed she spun, stake in hand, to jam its slender point into the heart of the undead on her right. He poofed into dust before he realized what happened to him, and Victoria pivoted back just as quickly to face the other two.

Whatever was in the vial had splashed fully on the vampire closest to her, but some must have gotten on the female with the gun as well, for both of them shrieked in surprise and pain.

The one with the wet face clawed desperately at his skin and eyes, stumbling away, but Victoria caught him by his shirt and shoved him at the female just as she raised her pistol.

The crack of the shot snapped much too loudly in the hall. The vampire under her hands jerked as the bullet went through him, and then pain streaked along Victoria’s side. As she staggered back in surprise, she saw the female fall under the weight of her agonized companion.

Pushing herself away from the wall there in the narrow passage, Victoria gripped her stake tighter and yanked the screaming vampire away from the female, tossing him aside for the time being.

The pistol had done its job but was no longer a threat, even when the female flung it at Victoria’s head. She easily ducked and, despite the burning along her hip and the tangling weight of her skirts, she dove back toward the female.

Stringy hair plastered to both of their faces as they grappled on the floor. Victoria felt the wetness of her blood seeping through her gown, and the slam as the vampire landed a blow on her wound.

Smothering her cry of pain, Victoria grabbed the vampire by the shoulders and smashed her head back into the wall behind her, sending the female’s red eyes rolling frantically. Her attention caught again by the leather thong and the obsidian chip that hung there, Victoria reached for it, yanking on the leather, and the necklace snapped free.

The vampire gasped, coming back to awareness, but Victoria gave her no time to recuperate. She slammed the stake down into the filthy white shirt, feeling immense satisfaction as the wood pierced flesh and bone as easily as if she’d shoved it into an egg: the slightest of hesitation whilst it broke through the outermost shell, then eased in slickly and easily. Poof!

The female’s dust had barely begun to settle when Victoria turned toward the third vampire. She was just about to stake him when she noticed the clanking of keys at his waist. Reaching down she felt the throbbing pain at her hip more strongly and plucked the keys away before putting the stake through his heart.

It was an odd thing about staking a vampire: Not only did the creature’s flesh and person disintegrate, but also all of his personal belongings—clothing or anything else on his body. The only exception appeared to be items made of copper—which was how the Venators had been able to acquire one of the five special rings Lilith had made for her closest Guardians.

Wayren had described it as a sort of imploding that happened to the undead; but even she didn’t have a real explanation for it. Instead she suggested, in a rare moment of levity, that perhaps it was merely Providence’s way of making the Venators’ duty that much easier: no remains, bodies, or personal effects to dispose of or explain away.

Whatever the reason, Victoria was glad she’d seen the keys and snatched them up before staking the vampire. As she stood, breathing heavily and now feeling pain on both sides of her body—in her leg and her opposite hip—she saw the female’s necklace where she’d dropped it moments earlier. Picking it up, she felt a sharp tingle as she stuffed it into one of the pockets Verbena had sewn inside the skirt of her gown.

Again she could feel pure malevolence permeate the splinter from the obelisk, and was relieved that she’d found it after losing it in the battle. It would be much safer with her, and in the Consilium with the other, larger shard.

Now…she had a ring of keys that she presumed would open the chamber door if she could get back there before anyone came to see what was delaying the delivery of the Venator to the demon. Victoria paused a moment to listen but heard nothing. Apparently no alarm had been given, and no one had heard the brief, volatile battle here in the passageway.

The demon and his court must be farther away than she’d imagined.

The third key worked to open the heavy lock on the chamber door, and Victoria called out softly as she entered. Light from the passageway behind her spilled into the room.

“Back at last,” Max said from his position against the wall, but his eyes were sharp. “It’s unfortunate you couldn’t manage it without getting yourself shot.”

“Shot? Victoria.” Sebastian was already moving toward her, his loose ropes in a bundle on the floor behind him. He didn’t pull her into an embrace, for which she was simultaneously grateful and annoyed, but he did brush his hand over the huge splotch of blood flowering like an oversize rose over her waist. She was going to have a devil of a time explaining that to her mother. That and the missing rosettes.

“You can play nursemaid later, Vioget. Perhaps there will even be a carriage handy.”

“I got the door open, so you can lead the way,” Victoria told Max, ignoring his comments, watching as he moved carefully toward the entrance. Obviously his pain was back. “Since you have the direction of a pigeon. And I don’t.”

Just before Max led the way into the passage, she saw him tip a small vial to his lips again and sip from it. “I thought you gave me—”

“Quiet.” And Max stepped cautiously out of the room. She noticed he held the stiletto in one hand and a stake in the other.

Curious. Perhaps he’d had two tiny bottles—one of holy water, which he’d given her, and this other one. She would find out later…and also find out about the bites on his neck.

She had a suspicion she knew from whom they’d come, and the thought made her stomach shudder.

To her relief, Max did not take the hallway where the vampires had led her, but turned in the opposite direction and set a surprisingly rapid pace down the hall. For all his injuries, he still moved with the grace of the hunter he was.

With an impatient gesture he motioned for Sebastian to close the door behind them, but didn’t wait while he locked it again.

Apparently Max did have the directional sense of a bird, for he led them unerringly down the passage and through a door that opened to a flight of ascending stairs. Just as she stepped onto the first one Victoria heard shouts of alarm behind them, and felt the sudden wave of increased chill over the back of her neck. The door closed after them, and she followed Max up the stairs, hearing Sebastian pounding along in her wake.

At the top Max turned left and hurried off down another passage. Victoria realized he was stumbling a bit at about the same time she felt her breath drawing in more sharply, and the increased dampness at her hip. The edges of her vision were shaky, and her knee nearly buckled once as they turned a quick corner, but if Max could move like that with two more serious bullet wounds, she, with dual vis bullae, would keep up with him.

At last they came around another corner and up a second flight of steps and into the hallway that looked familiar to her…the room just beyond the ballroom, where all the people had been gathered.

She stopped, and Sebastian nearly plowed into her. “We can’t go without the others.” She dug into her pocket, her fingers tangling in the leather thong necklace and receiving a shock from its smooth pendant before finding the wooden stake.

“Victoria, no,” he began, but Max had heard them and he spun around.

His normally swarthy face was tinged with gray. “They’re all dead. The vampires fed on them—didn’t you smell it? There’s no one here to save but us. For now.”

“Much as it pains me to say it, he’s right,” Sebastian said. “Most of the guests made it safely from the villa, but the ones who didn’t…they were dead long before we were even untied.”

Victoria wanted to argue. She wanted to snap at them and tell them they were wrong. The sudden wave of black fury was so surprising that her breath caught and she coughed on the malignant words she’d wanted to speak.

Max looked at her strangely; then he grabbed her arm and began to pull her after him. Not the least bit gently.

She remembered little of the next few moments, and then suddenly they were out of the villa, out into the crisp dawn air where the faint yellow in the sky brought texture and shape to the unkempt gardens.

Max whirled her around to face him, his hands on her shoulders as his eyes blazed down into hers as if trying to find something that was missing. As if he wanted to shake her. Victoria dragged in a breath of clean air, and the dull fog slid away taking with it that frightening anger. She blinked.

He released her abruptly, muttering something she couldn’t hear, and turned to Sebastian, who’d stood there watching. “Go back to Beauregard,” he told him shortly. And then something else, low and staccato.

“No,” Sebastian said quietly, and with unusual brevity. Then he turned away. He looked at Victoria, and she realized they’d all begun walking and were approaching the wall of the villa’s grounds. Beyond it was the street, and perhaps even Oliver, waiting with the carriage.

Or—Victoria’s thoughts flew away as she was caught up in Sebastian’s strong hands and pushed against the stone wall. He’d surprised her, and before she could shove him away, he was holding her shoulders there, pinned under his fingers as he leaned close. She drew in her breath, half wanting him to kiss her and half wanting to send him spinning away for his effrontery.

But before she could make her decision, he spoke. “I don’t know when I’ll see you again, but stay away from my grandfather.”

“He deserves to be staked,” she replied smartly, just before he bent to kiss her, catching her off guard again. When, moments later, he released her, Victoria opened her eyes to see both Zavier and Max standing there.

Sebastian was gone.

Max looked bored.

And Zavier looked as though she’d just turned into a demon herself.