The Bleeding Dusk

Fourteen Wherein Wayren Reveals a Disturbing Prophecy

“No matter what you think of me otherwise,” were Sebastian’s first words as Victoria blazed, limping, into the chamber where Wayren had put him earlier, “you must believe me. I took great precautions that no one would follow me, especially Beauregard. I left during the early part of the day, when the sun was still out.” He lurched to sit upright on the bed on which he’d been resting.

The room was small, one level below the rest of the Consilium, and outfitted almost as if it were a prison cell. There was a small bed, a table, a chair, and a thick rug on the cold stone floor. And an unlocked door. She closed the door behind her, locking it, and turned back to face him.

Still energized and alert from the fight, and filled with fury that two of her own had been killed, Victoria stood in front of the door, her hands planted on her hips. She was going to get some answers from Sebastian, and there would be no equivocation.

Wayren had done the right thing, incapacitating him so that she, Victoria, could handle the threat above. It wouldn’t have been prudent to leave him mobile, for even now Victoria wasn’t certain of Sebastian’s loyalties or his purpose in coming to the Consilium. It was best that he, an unknown entity, not be free to walk out when they were fighting a battle for the safety of their stronghold.

“Why are you still here?” she asked, intentionally baiting him. “The door wasn’t locked. You could have left when you awakened. Isn’t that your usual course—slipping off into the shadows at the first sign of danger?”

“I wanted to make certain I spoke to you.” He was propped up on one elbow, his legs in dark trousers stretching the length of the bed, rich blond curls winging every which way about his face. He eyed her speculatively, as if wondering how to approach her mood. “And then there was the fact that I still feel a bit dizzy from whatever it was Wayren did to me.” Ah…now, there was a bit of that self-deprecating humor. “Perhaps you would like to take a seat? I’m afraid I’m not quite able to stand as I no doubt should. Manners and all.”

“No, thank you. I’ll stand. Though I’m certain that if your hide was in danger, you’d find yourself on your feet in an instant, running through the doorway.” She was angry with him. She felt betrayed, and she was still reeling from the furious battle with the demons and vampires, knowing how close they’d come to discovering the Consilium. The wound on her hand had been bandaged, and her wrenched knee had screamed pain with every step down the stairs to this level. Even now it still throbbed.

Yet…she was here.

He was watching her, for once seeming to understand that the moment didn’t need coy comments or halfhearted jokes. He didn’t even take the opportunity to mention that they were alone in a room with a bed, a fact Victoria forced herself to dismiss. After all, the last time they’d been alone they’d been on a bed. Or, rather, she’d been on the bed, tied to it, after Sebastian had kidnapped her so that she couldn’t disrupt Max’s plans.

Annoyance fired in her again. She felt the tingle of it skimming along her arms to her fingers. They flexed.

“It was the shard from Akvan’s Obelisk that drew them here, not you,” she said, focusing on the matter at hand. The shard would have to be moved. But since it was almost sunrise, Victoria knew they had at least until the new nightfall to deal with that problem. She would take the shard away today, and she thought she knew exactly where to hide it.

Sebastian’s full lips tipped in half of a gentle smile. “Ah, my suspicions are confirmed. So the shard is still here. Beauregard is unaware that you have a piece of the obelisk, for no matter what you might think of me otherwise, Victoria, I did not tell him that interesting bit of information.”

She believed him, because once she’d realized what had happened, everything made sense. The small piece of the obsidian obelisk on the leather thong had obviously been near Akvan, and likely he’d roused, or somehow imbued it with power. That would explain the blue sparking that occurred when the two pieces had touched in the storage room—the influence had thus been transferred to the larger one, or at least had triggered its own inherent powers.

“Akvan knew where to send his people because he could sense the location of the obelisk shard,” Victoria said, trying not to notice the deep, narrow vee of Sebastian’s open shirt. Somehow he’d moved, and the shirt, which she could have sworn a moment earlier had still been knotted at the neck, had gaped open, showing rich, golden skin beneath. She remembered with startling clarity that moment earlier today when her hands, sliding over the warmth of his skin and the ridges of his belly, had found the small silver vis.

This was not the time to be thinking of that, although from the sudden upswing in her heartbeat, Victoria knew it was too late to push the thought completely aside. Instead she focused on her anger and the vitality that still sang in her veins.

“Victoria.” His voice, low and gentle, was more sensual. And it contrasted directly with her current on-edge nerves, which she steeled against his sensuality.

“It’s not going to work, Sebastian. You can save your flirtations for another day. And another woman.”

“Your rejection devastates me. I thought perhaps you’d come—”

“I just lost two of my own to demons and vampires who had come after the shard from Akvan’s Obelisk. They could have found us, assaulted our sanctuary, and destroyed what we’ve built.”

“And so now you’ve come to flay me with your frustrations and your anxieties? To vent your spleen about something for which only you can be blamed?” Blast him, but the expression on his face was much too knowing, too complacent. Yes, there was guilt bubbling beneath her animation. Guilt, and an edginess that nipped at her, threatening to burst free.

“Did you know the shard would draw Akvan out, call his people here? You knew I had it; you must know more than you divulge. As usual. You could have told me.”

“I didn’t know you had it here in the Consilium—”

“But you knew I had it.”

He shrugged, graceful and unhurried, unaffected by her anger and her accusations. “I am not your keeper, Victoria. Unless you want me to be. In which case we can certainly discuss the terms.” The smile he sent her was lascivious and meaningful.

She whirled away in frustration, nearly cried aloud in pain from her wrenched knee, then spun back, gesticulating in frustration. “Sebastian, can you never—”

Her words were cut off as she found herself suddenly pitching toward him, yanked off balance by a strong hand closing over her arm as she’d pivoted back. The combination of her weak knee and being taken by surprise landed her half on top of him on the narrow bed, hands splayed one on the blanket and the other, the one he’d pulled on, the unbandaged one, smack in the middle of his chest. She barely missed slamming her head into the wall behind him.

“Do you remember, Victoria,” he said, grasping her wrist before she could pull away from touching him, “that first night in the carriage, in London? Before we were interrupted by the vampires?”

She tried to pull away, but he had no reason to hide his Venator strength now, and it was difficult. Especially since he’d quickly scissored his legs around her good knee, leaving only her injured one with any mobility, wrapped in tangling skirts. His fingers were tight over her wrist, holding her hand stamped on the warmth of his chest, half on skin, half on linen. He was leaning over her from his half-sprawled position, and she looked up into his amber eyes.

“Do you remember? You were just as angry, simmering under the surface with frustration and guilt and need, just as you are now.”

“Let me go, Sebastian. I don’t want to hurt you.” She’d stopped struggling, but the tension hadn’t left her body. His weight, half on her, wasn’t unpleasant; nor was it confining or even threatening. She suddenly felt drained and resigned. And expectant. Alive.

“And you might, at that, but not in the way you imagine,” he murmured, never taking his eyes from her face, never giving an iota of release. “You were angling for a fight then, that night in the carriage, just as you are now. That’s why you came down here to me. You can admit it.”

“You’re mad.” Her heart was thumping so hard surely he could see it, feel it, as it pounded through her body.

“Mad…yes, indeed, I don’t deny it. I am mad.” Those last words came out like a confession as, with one smooth movement, he shifted his weight and bent his face to hers.

The smell of cloves came with him, faintly, as it always did, along with tobacco and something else that was Sebastian. He was close enough that his lips hovered above hers, but he didn’t touch her. “This is what you wanted, really, isn’t it?” His voice was low, not quite a whisper, feathering over her skin.

“No,” she replied.

She felt, rather than saw, his mouth curve into a smile. “All that passion and heat and anger…this is the best way to let it all out. You know that. You’ve missed it.”

“It was only one time, Sebastian.”

“Twice.”

“No…we only…just once, in the carriage, last fall.” He was so close, yet he still didn’t kiss her. She would not lift her face that last bit to meet his.

“I seem to recall,” he murmured, now brushing his lips ever so lightly along her jaw in a quick swipe, “having to stifle your cries of pleasure in that small parlor of your villa.”

“But…that wasn’t…” He’d moved back so that when she talked her lips brushed against his when they moved.

“It was enough for me.”

His mouth, just as coaxing as she remembered, covered hers with a deliberate firmness that told her he wasn’t going to let her change her mind. She kissed him back, assuring him she didn’t intend to, and then she gave way and let herself enjoy the moment—and all of the lovely sensations that came with it.

He released her hands and moved her closer, driving his tongue in deep as it swept and swirled around hers. The slick movements tugged down through her belly, sending pleasant little pangs between her legs.

“I want to see your vis bulla,” she whispered against him.

Rolling partly away and up against the wall, he smiled with such pleasure that her stomach dipped again. He pulled off his shirt, and for the first time she saw his golden chest bare—lightly haired and muscled and square-shouldered, tapering into lean hips. The dark blond hair grew down around his navel, where the small silver cross nestled, and a slender line led down into his breeches. The rest of his torso was as bare and firm as Michelangelo’s statue of David.

Victoria’s mouth dried, then moistened as she skimmed her hands up and over his shoulders. Pleasure indeed.

Clearly enjoying her touch, Sebastian pulled her down so that she lay on top of him, her breasts smashed against his bare skin, their legs mingling with her skirts, her left arm scraping against the rough stone wall. He kissed along the side of her jaw to her ear as his clever fingers flipped open the two fabric-covered buttons at the back of her bodice.

The neckline gaped away, and she lifted up from Sebastian’s mouth as he tugged at the edges of her gown, pulling it down over her shoulders. The subterranean air was cool on her bare skin, raising little prickles there in the hollow of her collarbones. With two quick motions he yanked down her corset and her breasts tipped free, hovering and trembling above his face.

Hands sliding to hold her at the hips, pressing the juncture of her thighs into the bulge between his, Sebastian lifted his head to take her breast into his mouth. His tongue slid over the tip of her nipple, sending a renewed rush of pleasure down to where their hips ground together. She was breathing faster now, feeling the sweet build as he tugged and sucked and licked. Her arms trembled as they held her upright, and at last Victoria pulled away from his demanding mouth, sitting back on his thighs to look down at him.

His face was flushed with pleasure and his lips swollen, and when their eyes met a most mischievous grin quirked his lips. “Well, now,” was all he said as he groped under the mess of cotton and lace and muslin to slide his hands up her bare thighs. She lifted so he could pull the skirts up, placing her hands on the center of his chest for leverage and rustling her nails through the hair covering it…but when he slipped his fingers in and around the moistness between her legs, Victoria bent forward to kiss him with a ferociousness that spoke of her impatience.

They breathed together, gasping for air between kisses that moved from mouth to mouth, and then along jaws and cheeks and with teeth and delving tongues…and then he moved his hand, and they were both fumbling at the fastening of his breeches, the string of his drawers. She rolled to the side as he shrugged out of them, his legs solid and muscular, just as tanned as the rest of his skin.

“Shall we?” he murmured, standing over her, for the first time completely undressed, looking lean and toned and all shades of gold and bronze. Her legs hung off the edge of the bed, and with a half smile he lifted her skirts again, parted her thighs, and, his hands on her shoulders, fitted himself into her in one smooth slide.

Victoria caught her breath, sighed, and closed her eyes as the sweetness blazed through her. She met his rhythm, rose and fell, greedy and demanding—if she were going to take pleasure, she would take it all—until the wave finally rolled over, undulating through her core to her belly and out to every limb.

Sebastian arched into her with one last stroke, his hands leaving her shoulders to curl into the blanket, tangling painfully into her hair as he matched her.

And then there was nothing but their bodies collapsed together, breathing heavily, hot and damp and sated.

After a while Sebastian moved, lifting his face to look at her and using one finger to trace along her jaw. “Feel better?” he asked, his voice low and full of amusement.

Victoria shifted, and he let his weight slide onto the bed next to her. She smiled over at him and saw the way his eyes darkened from gold to brown when she did. “What is it?”

“Your smile is quite entrancing—all those tiny dimples—yet you don’t show it often enough.”

She sat up, working her chemise and corset up to cover her breasts again, and shrugged. “Perhaps I find little to smile about as of late.”

“At least you’re smiling about this. I thought perhaps you might hold my little secret against me, and deny both of us this pleasure.”

She looked at his vis bulla, the only cold, silvery relief on his bronze and gold figure, and some of her pleasure slid away. “You deny your fate and your duty. I can’t understand that any more than I can understand your leaving your grandfather—and other undead—to exist. You have a responsibility to take them out of this world.”

“And send them to Hell? For eternity? No, Victoria, I told you…I won’t have that on me. They were once mortals, fathers, sisters, lovers. I can’t damn them for something they cannot control.”

“But you have…you’ve done it, Sebastian, or you wouldn’t have this.” She brushed her fingers over the warm silver cross. “You had to have killed at least one vampire to get this.”

“Two. I’d killed two before…before last autumn, when the obelisk was destroyed. Exactly two vampires. And then…I killed another the night your aunt died. I told you, but you didn’t believe me.” He reached for his breeches, no longer looking at her, but at them.

It took her a moment to realize what he was talking about. “You said you saved Max’s life. That night? You killed a vampire to save him?” She paused in the action of reaching around to button her dress. Impossible to do alone. “Why? You and Max…”

“Despise each other? Hmmm…that word might be a bit strong…. No, no, it isn’t. Yes, there is quite a history between us. I didn’t do it to save him, Victoria.”

“Then why? Why shatter your own moral code, nonsensical as it might be, for a man you dislike?”

He pulled the trousers up over his hips, busied himself tying them. She waited until he looked up. And then she saw the answer in his eyes.

“For me?”

He reached over to pull on his boots.

“Sebastian.”

“He can be what I cannot. You need him.”

She stared at him, felt her face warming and stupefaction letting her jaw drop, just a little. “Need Max?”

“If you’re going to persist in this battle against the undead, you need someone like him. It pains me greatly to admit it, but he’s the best Venator alive. He can be what I cannot.”

“Will not, you mean to say. You will not.”

Suddenly the door rattled, sending Victoria leaping guiltily off the bed, her loose bodice flopping. She’d locked it, and a good thing, too, for they could have been interrupted at a much more compromising moment.

Dear God, she hoped it wasn’t Max on the other side, she thought as Sebastian quickly buttoned her.

But when she opened the door, it was to find Ilias there. “The sun is up,” he said. To his credit, he barely glanced at Sebastian and his dishabille. “You are needed, Illa Gardella.”

“I must go,” Sebastian said, standing and swiftly pulling his shirt back on.

“Wait,” she said, noticing the mark on the back of his shoulder. “What is that?” It was a small black mark, intricate and circular. It looked like the tattoo Max wore, signifying his membership in the Tutela. But the symbol on Sebastian’s golden skin was much different, and smaller.

“Beauregard’s mark.”

He looked at her steadily, and she understood. Her stomach soured, sending a nasty taste into the back of her mouth. He might wear the amulet of the Venators, but he also wore the mark of the vampires. And he would not choose between them.

Before she could stop him, he pushed past Ilias and strode down the passageway, leaving Victoria to gather up her shoes.

“Why didn’t you send for me?” Max growled, trying to shake off the grogginess. “And what in the bloody hell did you give me last night?” He hadn’t slept so hard and dreamlessly for more than a year.

Wayren, as quiet and calm as she always was, merely looked at him. Her face was a bit more drawn than usual, and instead of flowing in long strands over her shoulders, her pale blond hair was pulled back into a wrist-thick braid.

Max didn’t ache as much as he’d suspected he would, after two bullet wounds and innumerable punches and cuts. Perhaps whatever she’d given him to help him sleep had also leached away the pain. Regardless, as a Venator, he’d be completely healed within a matter of days.

Still. “I should have been there. So close to Santo Quirinus? And the Consilium? You could have sent Myza for me.”

“She’s a pigeon, Max. Myza wouldn’t have been able to wake you, even by tapping her beak on the window.”

“You made damned certain of that.” He sat up and gulped down a mug of watered wine. “You said there was something else.”

Wayren didn’t blink. “Sebastian Vioget was in the Consilium with Victoria.”

Max stopped the mental barrage of thoughts and questions that image brought and focused on the important one. “Beauregard?”

She shook her head. “No, he didn’t bring him. He—”

But Max didn’t want to hear her platitudes about Vioget. “If he betrayed us, I’ll kill him.”

“He’s a Venator—”

“Then I need say no more.”

Wayren pursed her lips in a sign of annoyance, but didn’t comment further on his interruption. Instead she continued, “He had Eustacia’s armband, Max. We have the last key to the Door of Alchemy.”

“Bloody nice of him to return it.”

“He could have given it to Beauregard,” she replied with just a bit of archness in her tone.

Max gritted his teeth but said nothing.

“Victoria will want you to go with them to attempt to open the door, most likely later tonight, when it’s still dark but nearing dawn. You’ll be less noticeable, and the undead will be seeking shelter from the sun.”

Ah, yes, he’d be one of the contingency: Zavier, Vioget, Michalas, Ylito, himself. Was that what Victoria thought?

Max realized he must have grimaced when Wayren asked, “Do her bites pain you?”

“Of course they do. You know that.” His hand went involuntarily to the never-healing scars on his neck. There were new ones, too, only a month old, on the tender part of his shoulder.

“How often do you feel her pull, Max? Tell me the truth.”

Unreasoning rage bubbled in him. “I don’t want to discuss it.”

“I’m not asking, Max. I’m demanding to know. We have to rid you of it.” Now she was beginning to sound like Eustacia.

“She doesn’t control me. She’d like to; she finds it amusing to play at it.” Bitterness sat in his mouth. “She’s not made me do anything against my will.” At least, not to anyone else’s knowledge.

“Akvan is back, Max. You know she must have realized that when you destroyed his obelisk, Akvan would be called back to earth.”

The grogginess had completely slid away, leaving his mind sharp again. “At one time I would have disagreed…but now I know better. She would rather battle a demon than her own son. Her son, who tried to unleash the powers of the obelisk, could have taken over Lilith’s reign—or at least weakened it. Whereas a demon would cause all of the vampires to unite behind her.”

“Indeed. I believe you are absolutely correct. All of the vampires would unite with Lilith except those few who have allied themselves with Regalado since the downfall of Nedas. Even Beauregard and his minions would join Lilith; he’s no fool.”

“True. There are few vampires who will join the ranks of a demon, or support one in any way, unless they have some grief or complaint with their own vampire leader. Regalado has managed to convince only a relatively small number to join him. Then, too, there are some members of the Tutela, those who are still mortals and who were led by Regalado, who are still loyal to him.”

“Indeed,” Wayren agreed again. “The battle for Hell rages between the demons and the undead, and there are few who cross from one side to the other.”

“Thus the threat from Akvan must be great enough to convince at least some undead—and Regalado himself—to join his ranks.”

“His power is very great. When he was still ensconced in Hell and only his obelisk was here, there was the chance that the obelisk could be roused to imbue its possessor with great power—the power to raise the souls of the dead into an immortal army. Of course, that was Nedas’s plan, which you foiled by destroying the obelisk—at Lilith’s request. Now Akvan is here, and his presence brings that same power, but it’s already inherent in his being. It doesn’t need to be activated.”

“Then why, if he’s been back for more than three months, have we seen no sign of him?”

“He is still weak. He’s gathering his strength, likely with the help of the Tutela and Regalado and his followers.”

“Hence the reason for the event at the villa. He needed to feed.”

“We cannot wait for the vampires to come together to fight him. He must be slain before he reaches his full power.”

“I called him back. I’ll do it.”

“It will be no easy task, Max.” Wayren looked at him so long and seriously—almost sorrowfully—that Max felt the urge to twitch.

“What is it?”

“It’s written—”

“That I’ll die doing it? I’ve no fear of that. You know that, Wayren.” It was true. He’d be free, and he’d willingly give his life, as Eustacia had, as countless others had, for the mortal world’s safety. “I’m bound as a Venator to give my life in the fight.”

“It is written…in a prophecy translated from the Persian by our own Lady Rosamunde Gardella…‘Neither Venator nor undead immortal shall slay Akvan; ’tis only a mortal man shall send him permanently to the bowels of Hell, using his own strength against him.’”

Max’s mouth dried and he felt energy drain from him. Who else would be equipped, trained, prepared enough to slay a demon? Surely not any mortal man. Only a Venator would know how, would be brave enough. Would have the skills.

Only a Venator who was not a Venator.

Wayren leaned forward to touch his hand, but he pulled away from her slender fingers, reaching for his black stake. “You knew it would come to this. You knew it when I first brought you the salve.” Though he tried, he couldn’t summon the anger. It was what it was. His path would be thus.

He lifted his eyes and met her blue-gray ones and gave a short nod. “Tomorrow.”