The Bleeding Dusk

Sixteen In Which Lady Melly’s Courtship Takes on a New Twist

The Conte Regalado, or Alberto, as he’d insisted she call him, was the most charming man Lady Melisande Grantworth had had the pleasure to meet. Or be courted by.

And she was indeed being courted by the bald but dapper Italian count.

The first time she’d met him, when he had found her and Winnie and Nilly in the depths of that spooky old villa, he’d been gallant and gracious—and even though he hadn’t actually taken them to find the treasure and had disappeared most inexplicably, he’d still been intriguing and kind.

And well turned. Indeed, perfectly groomed, with his small, trimmed black mustache and the briefest of beards. His clothing was expensive and fashionable, he wasn’t too tall, and best of all, he had a lovely accent.

Then, of course, there was the day following the treasure hunt at the Villa Palombara, when, instead of calling on her, he’d only sent flowers…that had had her sniffing in disdain. The men in London had done the same; even Jellington had thought to woo her interests by plying her with flowers and jewels and the like.

But Lady Melly desired much more than cold fripperies and greenery that would die after a day or two in a vase. She wanted companionship, and wit, and above all, a man who worshiped her.

“He should be here any moment.” Nilly squealed, her pale face flushed with excitement. She was peering out the window of Melly’s dressing room from between lacy curtains, watching the street below for a sign of the conte’s barouche as her friend was putting the final touches on her toilette.

“I cannot imagine where he is going to take you on such a horrific afternoon. Why, there isn’t a sunbeam to be seen, and the air is positively gray with rain,” Winnie said disdainfully from her chair in the corner. “Your hair will be droopy, and those bonnet feathers! They’ll be plastered to your head before you climb into his carriage.”

“The Conte Regalado offered to drive me to see the Colosseum, and perhaps to Janiculum Hill. I am certain, though we might be a bit chilly, that we shan’t be wet at all.”

“The conte? I thought you were to call him Alberrrrto.” Winnie sniffed, but a smile hovered about her lips.

“Alberto, then.” But Melly smiled at the mirror, admiring her dimples as well as the slight pink to her cheeks.

“He’s here!”

Winnie hauled herself to her feet and lumbered to the window. “Indeed, he is, dressed as though he were going to the theater. Well, I hope you shall return before supper tonight so that we can hear all of the details before bedtime.”

“And I,” said Melly, flouncing toward the door as if she were once again a young debutante, “hope I don’t.” She paused to look back at them. “After all, I am a widow, we aren’t in London, and he is…very handsome. Perhaps we shall take an extended drive.”

Nilly squealed again, but this time with disappointment. “Don’t frighten him away, Melly!”

Winnie laughed. “The poor man hasn’t a chance with our Melly on his trail,” she said fondly, watching her oldest and dearest friend sweep down the stairs with more energy than she herself had ever possessed. “I only hope this turns out better than the last matchmaking she did—with Victoria and Rockley.”

Nilly nodded. “But of course it will.”

The two ladies were beginning to make their way down the stairs to the parlor when Victoria’s maid—the one with the unfortunate bushy orange hair—appeared.

“Excuse me, madam. Your Grace,” she said, bobbing a curtsy.

Startled that she should have spoken to them, the two women swiveled their heads in unison.

“Yes?” asked Winnie in her duchess voice, pausing on the stairs, one hand clutching the handrail.

“I don’ mean to interrupt,” said the maid with a bit less deference than Winnie would have expected. “But…did ye say that Lady Melly was going with a conte?” Regalado’s title came out sounding like “con-tayy,” but Winnie knew what the bold-faced girl meant.

“Yes.” Again the imperious duchess tone.

“Oh, dear…the Conte Reg’lado?”

“Yes!” Winnie was becoming impatient. “If you have something to say, spit it out. I cannot stand here all the day long. It’s nearly time for tea.”

“Oh…Your Grace…Lady Melly is in grave danger.” The maid’s eyes were sparkling blue, and her round cheeks were flushed pink.

“Why, what do you mean?” Nilly spoke at last in a soft little sort of gasp.

“The Contay Reg’lado…why, we must help my lady!” As if suddenly galvanized into action, she whirled, starting down the hall in the opposite direction.

Lady Winnie’s imperative voice stopped her. “Young miss, I daresay you’d best not run off without telling us exactly of what you’re speaking!”

“Beggin’ yer pardon, Your Grace, but milady’s in great danger, an’ we have to help her,” she said over her shoulder, then opened the door to Victoria’s bedchamber and dressing room. She disappeared inside, disregarding the other women.

“Danger? From what?” Winnie didn’t want to believe the little maid, but when she came back out of Victoria’s bedchamber holding something that looked like a wooden stake, her heart nearly stopped.

“What are you doing with that?” asked Nilly faintly.

The maid was slipping on a large silver cross. “I’m goin’ vampire huntin’.”

Zavier waited in the heavy afternoon drizzle, a hat he would normally disdain tipped low over his face to keep the rain from getting in his eyes. The chankin and wet didn’t bother him at all; growing up in the Highlands, he’d had enough of it so that he’d become immune. The hat, something with a curling brim a London numpty would wear to protect his sensitive skin, served another purpose altogether: to keep his face from being seen.

He wasn’t certain how long he’d have to wait. Despite the miserable weather, his worst discomfort came from the memories that plagued him, since he had nothing to do but think about things as he stood there, tucked into a nook between two narrow plastered buildings.

The carnage was bad enough…the image of Mansur sprawled on the brown grass, drenched in his dark blood, made Zavier’s own blood churn and his stomach swish as though he were drunk from too much whiskey.

A waste. A fagging bloody waste.

And a betrayal.

Victoria wasn’t seeing clearly. She couldn’t be. She wasn’t weak like that, and Zavier wasn’t about to watch her tumble further. Aye, she’d hurt him; he could accept that, though it still burned his gut. But he couldn’t accept that it had been with the arse-dicht Vioget. The boughin’ bastard who couldn’t dirty his hands enough to fight with his kin. Unbelievably, apparently, he was a Gardella too, from somewhere back in the ages of his family. They all were.

How could he have turned his back on them?

The arse-dicht and Victoria had been locked away for too long in the same small chamber where Vioget had been held during the battle outside Santo Quirinus. They’d been in there so long it made Zavier’s fingers tighten into one another, his short, blunt nails creasing his leathery palms.

He didn’t want to think about the boseying that was going on in there. But he couldn’t help it.

It made his head spin as if he were rubbered.

So he took himself outside and waited in the rain, and hoped for it to help make him a bit steadier.

But the anger built inside, simmered, sometimes roaring into his ears as he remembered the deaths last night, the intimacy and the expression he saw on her face when she was with Vioget. The Venator betrayer.

He didn’t believe Wayren when she said he wasn’t the cause of the attack. How else could it have happened?

It was well nigh onto noon when Zavier sighted his quarry. He waited until he walked past, head foolishly bent against the rain so that he didn’t notice when Zavier slipped from the corner of a building to follow.

Fool.

Perhaps it was best that he’d stayed away from the Venators if he was that careless.

Zavier stayed in the distance behind him, considering his options. He knew little about Vioget, but what he did know was enough to identify the influence behind the bastard and his defection: the legendary Beauregard.

Zavier’s hand searched the depths of his pocket, fumbling for the stake there. It was just about time that the vampire met his own damnation. He’d be pleased to help him. And whoever else dared get in his way.

“Where is the key?” Max asked as Victoria approached. Her skirts were drenched to her knees and so were her shoes. She should have found a pair of boots to wear before leaving the Consilium, but it was too late now.

They had reached the stone wall on which the Door of Alchemy stood, after traipsing quickly through the tangled gardens with Max in the lead. He’d seemed to be in a great hurry to get here, and Victoria, who couldn’t quite tell where the sun was because of the clouds, didn’t argue. She was still more than a bit unsteady from the kiss they’d shared.

Although shared wasn’t exactly the word to describe the experience. Received, perhaps. Became immersed in. Was surprised by. Nearly lost her balance because of.

“Victoria.”

She snapped her attention back to the matter at hand, realizing he’d asked a second time. “It’s here.” She had to shrug out of her heavy man’s coat in order to get to the armband, which was pushed up under the long sleeve of her simple gown.

Max watched as she pulled off the wide silver armband and then bent it at the small hinge that divided its two halves. When the bracelet opened, the key was there on the inside of the cuff, fitted into a small nook.

Victoria thumbed it out and handed it to Max, who kept looking darkly at the sky. “Let’s hurry,” he said, taking the tablike key and pushing the scrubby bushes away from the door.

He knelt as Victoria had done a week ago, when she’d come with Ylito and Wayren, and scratched away the moss and dirt so that the small metal tab would fit into its place.

As he worked Victoria examined the other two keyholes—one had been filled before, and the other she hadn’t seen until now. She could see only the back edges of the flat little keys—for once slipped into the narrow openings, the thin metal rectangles fit into place and couldn’t be removed until the door was opened.

“Ah.” Max pulled to his feet and glanced at her. “Shall we?”

He grasped the round stone disk in the center of the door and began to turn it. When the circle actually moved in a clockwise direction, Victoria found herself holding her breath. She couldn’t quite believe the door would actually open.

There was a dull clunk, and Max glanced at her with a sharp nod. And then the door rolled to the side.

To her surprise he stepped back and let her enter first. Doing so, Victoria walked directly into a screen of cobwebs. Hiding an automatic shudder as she pushed away the stickiness, she brushed furiously at her arms and hair to make certain none of the spiders were crawling on her.

“You’re afraid of spiders?” Max said, amusement coloring his voice.

“I’m not afraid…Ugh!” She barely held back a shriek as one danced across her hand and she whipped it to the floor. “I don’t like them. They’re like little vampires, sucking blood, and they have too many legs.”

Once she’d cleaned herself off she stepped completely through the door and stood inside a dark chamber that smelled of age and damp. But she needn’t have feared, for just at the edge of the doorway was a sconce. Below it was a small tin kettle and a little table with flint and a coil of very old thread to start a flame.

There was oil in the kettle, she presumed, and she lifted it off its hook, pouring it onto the dry, brittle sconce. Max stepped in to help light a small piece of tinder, and only moments after the door was opened they had a blazing torch.

“Let’s close the door,” she said. The back of her neck wasn’t chilled, but it was best to take no chances. She had no idea how long they would be here.

The stone door rumbled back into its place, and Max said, “Bring the light here. I think we can remove the keys from the inside.”

She did, angling it over his shoulder as he bent toward the inside of the middle of the door. A few quick movements, the dull scrape of stone on stone, followed by a small grunt, and he produced the little silver key they had just slipped into its place on the outside of the door.

“Clever…so that one cannot get locked inside,” he said. She held the light and he removed the other two keys—one in gold and one in bronze—and slipped them into his pocket.

Then he stood and they were facing each other in the small circle of light dancing around the dusty chamber.

“Let me have the shard,” she said, resisting the urge to step away even as her lungs constricted.

“No. Didn’t you learn anything from last time?”

Victoria bristled, drawing herself back to argue, but he reached out, captured her left wrist, and said, “Look.”

He lifted her hand, palm up, and brought it into the light. When she uncurled her fingers Victoria saw with a shock that the inside of her hand—the one that had held the shard—and her fingers were marked faintly with blue.

“What is it?” she said, handing him the sconce and opening her other hand to compare. When she saw that the bluish cast on the skin that had gripped the shard was no trick of the low light, she tried to rub it away.

“When the obelisk touches flesh for any length of time, its power begins to seep in, leaving such a mark. If you’re lucky it may fade in time.” He looked at her, his dark eyes flat and hard. “Don’t touch it directly again. Or who knows whom you’ll beg to kiss the next time.”

And he turned away, taking the sconce with him, leaving Victoria with burning cheeks and a flood of annoyance…and embarrassment. Beg?

Beg?

But he’d wanted to. She’d seen it in his eyes.

Giving her head a little shake, Victoria turned around to look at the chamber for the first time and saw now that it wasn’t a small chamber at all. The room was quite large and had been set up as a well-equipped laboratory. The single torch that Max held did little to light the room, but when Victoria saw another sconce on the wall she moved to light that one, and its illumination showed more details: long tables, five or six stools of varying height and condition, utensils, and scatterings of metal shavings and curds. There were shallow wooden bowls, deep metal ones, round and softly triangular, large and small. Goblets, corked jars, tiny carved boxes were all littered about, covered with dust, and some of them with dark stains. Larger chunks of silver, bronze, copper, iron, quartz, and marble were piled on the tables or littered on the floor, which was filthy with dust, dirt, and most definitely animal droppings.

She walked along one of the tables flanking the wall, quickly examining the remains of Marchese Palombara’s alchemical experiments for whatever it was the undead—and others—wanted so badly. But there was nothing that caught her eye, nothing that looked important enough to be notes or journals about the mysterious pilgrim’s work.

As she turned to look at another of the worktables, her wet slippered foot knocked against something on the floor. It made a soft metal clink, and she would have disregarded it as just another piece of scrap metal if it hadn’t rolled in front of her, spinning in smaller circles until it spiraled to a halt. Victoria bent to pick it up, the hair on the back of her arms lifting.

She’d seen this…something like this before.

It was a band—similar to Aunt Eustacia’s plain silver armband that had held the silver key—but this was made of copper, and it was more distinctive. While Aunt Eustacia’s ornament had been solid silver, as wide as three fingers, this band was made of three tendrils of copper, each perhaps the width of a finger and woven into a solid band. A smooth, elliptical shape had been formed where the ends of the three copper strands merged together, as if they’d been melted down and pressed flat. A symbol was etched into it.

One she’d seen before. Somewhere.

“Ah. And here we find our friend the Marchese Palombara,” Max commented from across the room, drawing Victoria’s attention.

Slipping the bracelet into her pocket, she walked over to find him standing above a skeleton, still dressed in the rotting clothes of two hundred forty years earlier. “Is that what we’ve come for?” she asked, noticing the yellow, curling packet of papers clutched by two bony hands. “I see nothing else that could be of interest to vampires and mortals alike.”

“I would suspect.” Max bent forward, the lantern casting long, eerie shadows over the gray bones of the long-dead marchese. When he touched the skeletal arm it fell away, bone and fabric crumbling to dust in the same way an undead disintegrated when staked. And yet…not.

He lifted the papers gingerly, taking care to keep them intact, and handed them to Victoria. They were sewn together by a leather cord, and, when she gently lifted the top page, she found faded ink writing, mathematical equations, and diagrams and sketches.

“Ylito will be overjoyed to see this,” she commented with a smile.

“Indeed. So, now that we’ve retrieved what we came for, shall we get it safely back to the Consilium?”

“Were you planning to take the obelisk shard with you?” she asked sharply.

“Of course not. While you were gawking about the room like a girl at court, I’ve already placed it over there.”

She looked and saw a small trunk in a dark corner. With a withering glance at him, she walked over and lifted the lid, still carrying the sheaf of papers. Inside the trunk was the shard of Akvan’s Obelisk.

“You didn’t believe me.” Max’s voice behind her was soft and…she could only describe it as menacing.

“You of all people ought to understand duty,” she replied coolly, looking at him. “I needed to make certain that the evil that I brought upon the Consilium has been contained. I needed to see for myself.”

He gave a short nod, and when he replied there was satisfaction in his voice. “You’ve begun to learn, Victoria.”

She started to turn away and noticed that his dark shirt, which was cravatless, had gaped away from his throat. “Those are new bites.”

His hand jerked slightly, as though he’d begun to raise it to close his collar and stopped himself in time. “Unfortunately.”

“Was Sara right? Did you go to Lilith?”

“Let’s go. We’re wasting time.”

“Why would you do such a foolish thing?”

He spun away as if to start to the door, and she reached out and grabbed his arm. Hard. “Max.”

His muscles flexing under her fingers, he turned back, his expression flat except for furious eyes. “Yes, I went to Lilith. Yes, she left me with yet more marks of her possession.” This last word came out with rank bitterness. “Why it can make any difference to you, or to our current task, is not clear to me. Let’s go.”

“Alone? With her? Surrounded by all her guards? Max, she could have killed you.” She couldn’t let it go; she couldn’t drop the subject. How could he risk himself that way?

What would have happened if he’d not come back?

Or…worse? Dear God.

At her rapid questions he paused and looked down at her. Now his eyes were bleak. “You understand nothing of her, do you? Victoria, if I were to give you one last piece of advice, it would be this: Find out who Lilith is, or she will beat you as she has beaten so many others before.” He pulled firmly away and started toward the massive stone door.

Victoria followed, anger still spiking through her. He was so high-handed, so reticent. So cold and removed. Why did he still act that way, treat her like a naive girl, after all they’d accomplished together?

He had the door open before she reached him, and the pale gray that came through the crack was ominous in its dimness. The sun was nearly down, and Max was right—they needed to get the papers safely back to the Consilium before Akvan or his followers realized they’d come and gone from the very chamber the demon had been trying to gain access to.

Just as she was about to walk through the door, where Max waited on the other side, Victoria remembered the leather cord in her pocket, and its small splinter of obsidian. Although she had considered keeping it as a potential way to draw Akvan out of his lair, after what Max had shown her in regard to its power, she realized it would be foolhardy to take that chance.

No one could say she didn’t learn from her mistakes. Even Max.

But when she reached into the small breast pocket of her man’s coat, it was empty. Empty! The cord had fallen out somehow…sometime since she’d left the Consilium.

It had to have been, she realized, when she removed her coat just outside the Door of Alchemy in order to take off Aunt Eustacia’s armband. The necklace must have fallen on the ground then, when she slung the coat over her arm and worked the bracelet down from her upper arm. It had to be on the ground outside.

“Are you coming?” Max, at the door, sounded impatient as usual.

She didn’t respond, but instead, with one last look about the laboratory, she slipped out through the narrow opening. It was going to be difficult to find in the lowering light, but they would have to try. She couldn’t leave it for someone else to stumble upon. “Max, I—”

“Shh!” he hissed suddenly, coming to attention.

She would have heard it too if she hadn’t been focused on the loss of the little splinter: a crashing in the brush very nearby. Coming vaguely from the direction of the villa, it was loud enough to portend either a cluster of newcomers, or a very large, very careless person.

And then Victoria heard voices. Shrill voices, raised much too loudly in argument.

Her entire body went cold and then rigid.

And it wasn’t because there was a vampire sending a chill over the back of her neck; indeed, there weren’t any undead in the near vicinity.

No, this was much worse.

Max’s face changed from one of arrested expectation to one of confusion. If Victoria hadn’t been so disconcerted, she might have found it amusing. As it was, she started toward the noise just as something—someone—blundered through a pair of overgrown bushes spreading over an old path.

“…daresay, you should have stayed home, Nilly! That little stick—Oh!” Lady Winifred, the Duchess of Farnham, shambled to a halt so quickly that her companion plowed into her from behind, sending her curls and jowls jouncing. The reticule-size silver cross around her neck bounced into the air, then thunked heavily onto the duchess’s bosom. “Victoria, what on earth—Oh! Oh, my!”

“Oh!” squeaked Lady Nilly, peering from behind the duchess’s broad shoulder.

Victoria had stepped toward them, followed by Max—whose dark look had been the catalyst for their choked gasps.

“Stand back,” Lady Winnie said fiercely, brandishing an unwieldy wooden pike the length of her forearm and thick as her wrist. She aimed the pointed end at Max. “Has he hurt you, Victoria? One further step, and—”

“Did he bite you?” asked Lady Nilly, her voice breathless and her eyes so wide that white appeared all around her irises. “Did it hurt?”

“What are you two doing here?” Victoria asked, gently taking the duchess’s wrist and lowering the ridiculous stake.

“We’re hunting vampires,” replied Lady Winnie in a stage whisper, still eyeing Max balefully. “You poor dear. I don’t mean to frighten you, but I’m certain that man is a vampire.”

“He’s not a vampire,” Victoria told her, trying to keep her lips from twitching. A quick glance at Max told her he was not finding the situation amusing in the least. “Although I can understand the mistake.”

The sound he made could only have been described as a growl. “Victoria, it’s nearly dark,” he said, warning in his voice.

“Indeed. Duchess Winnie,” she said, using her pet name for the woman, “what on earth are you doing here?”

Suddenly there was more crashing in the bushes—although, to give her a bit of credit, it wasn’t quite so ferocious as that from before—and a puff of orange hair appeared, followed by the flushed-cheeked face of Verbena.

“Beggin’ yer pardon, my lady,” she said to Victoria, giving a brief curtsy. “I tried t’keep ’em from doin’ it—”

“Hmph.” Winnie sniffed. “If it weren’t for her, we would be back sipping tea and preparing for dinner.”

“What are you all doing here?” Max thundered.

Lady Nilly squeaked, her eyes popping again. Lady Winnie drew herself up bravely, but scuttled back a few steps as she closed her fingers around the crucifix, brandishing it like a talisman.

“A bit on th’ huffy side,” Verbena said to Victoria, casting a glance at Max. She must have seen the impatience in her mistress’s own expression, for she hurried on. “Lady Melly’s been taken off by th’ Conte Regalado. ’E’s been courtin’ her, milady, an’ I didn’t know until t’day when I heard ’em talkin’ about it.”

“Regalado has my mother?” Cold fear rushed through her, and her mouth dried. No, was her first thought. No. Not again. Not like Phillip…

Verbena nodded vigorously. “An’ the ladies there—they d’cided t’ come wit’ me when I come ’ere to see to ’er.” Now she produced her own stake, which, again to her credit, was much more of a comfortable size. And it looked a bit familiar, with its pink sequins and the remnant of a white feather still attached to the blunt end.

“When did they leave? How long have they been gone?”

“N’more than two hours,” Verbena replied earnestly. “He said he’d take ’er for a drive. Th’ ladies ’ere thought he’d bring ’er h’ere, if he was gonna—y’see—hurt ’er, and since they’d been here for that party, they insisted on coming wi’ me.”

Her mother, in the clutches of Regalado. The thought made Victoria’s insides churn like a sea storm.

She focused her sharp mind, pushed away the worry that threatened to turn her senses frantic.

Were they at the villa? If so, it was a blessing that she was already here herself…but there were any number of places he could have taken her. Victoria realized Max was looking at her, that he’d stepped closer, almost as if to offer assistance. He’d help her comb through the villa, go with her to delve down into the underground lair of Akvan and search for her mother.

Victoria looked directly at him, her veins singing and her mind working furiously, and pushed the numbing worry back. She could fret later. It was getting darker by the moment. She made her decision in that instant.

“You’ll have to take that back to…back,” she finished firmly, looking at the bundle of papers he still had. “I’ll see to my mother.”

He looked as though he might argue, but it was only for a moment. Then he nodded. “It’s important that we get this safely to Wayren,” he said.

“Take them with you,” Victoria added, gesturing to the ladies, feeling the brittleness in her movements. “I don’t need them—”

“I ain’t leavin’ ye alone, milady,” Verbena said, stepping toward her.

“I daresay, you cannot think to order me about,” said Lady Winnie, looking down her humped nose at Victoria. “Melly could be in danger! I shall not rest until—”

“Shh!” Victoria snapped to attention as the rush of a chill moved over the back of her neck. She and Max exchanged glances; he felt it too. “Go,” she told him, gesturing toward the rear of the estate grounds, where the darkness seemed to be growing even faster. He would go out the way he and Victoria had come in.

With a last, steady look, followed by a sharp nod, he disappeared soundlessly into the overgrowth, leaving Victoria with three ill-prepared would-be vampire hunters.