The Bleeding Dusk

Twenty-Two Wherein the Worst Possible Happening Occurs

“So you leave us once again,” Wayren said, looking shrewdly at Max.

He nodded, his hand on the doorknob of her library. He hadn’t said so, but Wayren was no fool. She understood him.

“Now that Akvan and his obelisk are no threat and you’re useless, you see no reason to remain. Such self-pity doesn’t become you, Max.”

“Self-pity? I bathed in that enough in the year after my father and sister died.” He turned the knob and heard the gentle click of the door’s latch releasing. “I have no illusions that Lilith will not be furious when she learns of my…defection…and she’ll soon be searching for me. My intent is merely to disappear for a while.”

“Again.”

He looked at her. “Again.”

“Without saying good-bye.”

“I see no need to belabor things.”

“Zavier is dying.”

“I know. I’m sorry for it, too. He is a good man.”

Wayren nodded. Then she looked at him again with those sharp, pale blue eyes. “Will you leave Victoria’s vis bulla?”

Max’s hand tightened, but he didn’t allow it to rise to his chest and touch the amulet beneath his shirt. “She doesn’t need two.” He knew it was an equivocation, but it didn’t matter.

“She already wears two vis bullae.” Wayren was looking at him, her head tilted to one side like a wren.

“Then she doesn’t bloody well need three,” he snapped. He wanted to leave this blasted place before Victoria came back from wherever she was. Before he had to talk to anyone else. “Good-bye, Wayren. I will be in touch. Essere con Dio.”

He closed the door behind him and hurried away before he saw anyone else, or before Wayren tried to stop him with another of her blasted cryptic comments or knowing looks. The hidden entrance near the library was closer and less noticeable. He wouldn’t have to walk through the fountain room and chance running into anyone.

Moments later he ascended the dark, narrow stairs that opened into a small cellar in an abandoned building blocks away from Santo Quirinus. As he stepped out of the rickety structure, he realized he might very well be doing so for the last time.

He ducked out of the small opening at the rear of the building and then moved silently through what passed as a courtyard, but was really no more than a gap five paces wide and filled with rubble and dirt. The sun had begun to rise, sending a soft glow over the ramshackle buildings, and Max drew in a deep breath of chill air, this first full day of his bloody, detestable freedom.

He was free, yet still trapped by his memories and knowledge. He should have had Wayren use the golden disk to capture them again and take them away. At least then he would have some peace.

But he kept going, walking away from the Consilium and the world that had been his life for more than a decade.

Fast footfalls from behind drew his attention, and he reached automatically for his stake before realizing he had no way of telling whether whoever approached was friend or foe.

“Pesaro!”

“What the hell do you want, Vioget?” Max released the stake and kept walking, head high, shoulders straight. He was acutely aware of his lack of power, the weakness that seemed to pervade every step he now took.

“Victoria. It’s Victoria.”

Max stopped, but he didn’t turn around. There was something in the bastard’s voice….

“Beauregard has her.”

Now he turned back, and what he saw made his spine turn to ice. The blasted fop’s face wasn’t so pretty any longer, and he limped, but it was the expression in his eyes that made Max cold.

“Has he…” The word dried in his mouth, but Vioget knew what he meant.

“Not yet. But he will if we don’t stop him.”

Max looked at him, every bit of antipathy he felt for the other man rising to the surface. He knew precisely where to place the blame for this travesty.

But instead he turned to start back toward the Consilium. If Vioget had lowered himself to ask Max for assistance, Victoria’s situation must be bad, very bad indeed. They would need others. “Have you seen Wayren?”

“Yes. She sent me after you; the Venators are waiting.”

So Sebastian knew.

Max closed his mind off from that path and gave a short nod. And he said words he never thought he’d say to Sebastian Vioget: “I’ll follow you.”

Sebastian gritted his teeth. “Yes, I am aware that Beauregard will be expecting us.” Although he was a man who avoided violence, he thought he might just forget about it for a moment and plow a fist into…something.

But that would mean he’d have to stop, and it would waste time he already didn’t have. They had no time. No time. Thank God they were nearly to the house where he and Beauregard lived, albeit in separate quarters, the five men half running as he explained the situation.

It was early morning, perhaps an hour since he’d stumbled out of the underground lair, and the sun was high enough in the sky that the undead would be safely below—sleeping or otherwise. The slowest-moving carriage ever had dropped them off near their destination, but not close enough to be seen by those who stood watch over their master’s domain from dark buildings or underground nooks. Sebastian knew how to get there without being seen by them, but it necessitated traveling on foot.

Too slow. They were moving too slow.

“Then we cannot all go in together.” Pesaro’s voice had an edge to it—it always did, but this was different. There was some odd air about him.

Sebastian’s fingers itched. “I was just about to say, before you interrupted me, that very thing.” He turned his attention from the cold-blooded bastard and glanced at the other three Venators who had come with him to rescue Victoria. For a moment he couldn’t keep away the terror of what might happen to her.

What might be happening.

Or have already happened.

How long had he been gone now?

Too long.

Long enough.

Sebastian marshaled his concentration, focusing on their path as they hurried along through courtyards and between closely built buildings. Losing his focus would do no good for her, regardless of what had happened.

Pray God it hadn’t.

How long? How long would Beauregard play with her, kiss her, touch her, before making her drink?

Sebastian’s stomach rolled greasily. Once that happened, there was no hope.

Gritting his teeth again, pushing away the paralyzing worry, he barreled along, keeping his mind on a straight path. What they had to do.

How they could save her.

He couldn’t remember the names of two of the others who’d been chosen to go with him—it had happened so quickly—but one was Michalas. Sly, wiry, and sharp-eyed Michalas he’d met once briefly, many years ago.

“There are two known entrances to Beauregard’s main quarters,” Sebastian said, speaking quickly and quietly as they ducked behind the wall of the courtyard behind his house—the very one into which Victoria had dropped during her escape from his fourth-story window last autumn.

The memory threatened his control, but he recaptured it. “And a third secret entrance that only I know of—besides Beauregard.”

“He’ll expect you to use it.”

“So we must split into two groups. One group will go to make a disturbance and draw away the undead that guard and serve him.”

“How many undead?”

“Ten or more. A dozen—perhaps you can handle that task, Pesaro. You can easily take on a dozen undead, or so I hear.”

For a moment Sebastian thought Pesaro was going to strike him, but he just gave that proud, sharp nod of his.

Michalas spoke for the first time. “We now have a fine way of making a disturbance, do we not, Max? All thanks to Miro. Yes, we’ll draw attention away from you so you can enter the secret way.”

There was a deliberate sneer in Pesaro’s voice. “And what will you do once there? Ask Beauregard to hand Victoria over to you? I’m certain he’ll do that without a thought.”

In this Sebastian was completely forthcoming. “He won’t expect me to fight him, but I will. I’ll kill him if I have to.”

Pesaro looked at him sharply and gave another single nod. “I believe you will.”

Sebastian gave them terse, sharp directions, and they split up appropriately: Michalas and a blond Venator accompanied Pesaro, and the other one called Brim was to follow Sebastian.

As they began to walk away, Pesaro turned back to Sebastian and grabbed his shoulder in a hold that dug in too deeply to be friendly. “Bring her back.” His dark eyes, flat and cold, told him everything that remained unsaid between them—now and in their past. At least in this their wills were united.

And then he spun away, hurrying off with harsh footsteps to follow Michalas and the blond Venator.

And Sebastian, fear banding his chest, started into the deep, narrow tunnel beneath the house where he did not want to go.

Because he was terrified of what he might find within.

They were nearly to the secret entrance when Sebastian heard it: a dull, rolling boom in the distance, above and from the other side of Beauregard’s private chambers. He realized it was the sound of the promised distraction.

There was no worry that the three of them, including the legendary Pesaro, would hold back a dozen undead. For all that he hated the fact that he’d had to ask for his help, Sebastian knew there was no one better for this task.

Another boom sounded a bit closer, echoing in the distance, and Sebastian knew it was now up to him to do his part.

At the secret door he turned for one last look at Brim. The man towered over him, and he was ebony-skinned, with unfashionable close-cropped hair; he wore his vis bulla through a slender, well-tended eyebrow. Like his name, he brimmed with energy. He gave a brief nod of understanding, and Sebastian turned to the door.

He hesitated then, again afraid of what he might find, then steeled himself and barged in, feeling the entrance of Brim behind him, hearing the flap of the tapestry as it closed. A vampire waited just inside, grabbing for him, but Brim had his stake out, and Sebastian heard the quiet poof as he charged toward the red velvet bed and the two figures on it. The sounds of struggle behind him told Sebastian that Brim had found others waiting for them, and was holding them back—but Sebastian had no goal except to get to Victoria.

He couldn’t tell. He couldn’t see—his legs didn’t seem to be moving him closer fast enough…. It was as though he were slogging through a river, trying to rush through pounding water. But the stench of blood was deep and metallic in the air.

Suddenly Beauregard was in front of him, his eyes pink and his fangs long and sharp. “You are too late. Pardon me if I don’t offer my condolences, but that’s because I know that someday you will thank me.”

“No,” Sebastian said, his attention flickering to the prone figure on the bed. Her long hair obscured her face, and a blanket covered her body. “I don’t believe you.” He couldn’t. Wouldn’t.

“Believe what you must, but she is mine now. See?”

He showed Sebastian his arm, a long lean one, bared by a rolled-up sleeve, corded with muscle and decorated with the damned copper band. A deep cut above the wrist, between it and the armband, still oozed dark, glistening blood.

“She drank willingly, greedily. She enjoyed it, Sebastian.”

“No…” He started toward the bed, and to his horror Beauregard didn’t try to stop him. That was the worst sign of all.

So then he knew.

“With her power and my blood, by Lucifer’s sword, she’ll be as powerful as Lilith.”

“Damn you.” Everything slowed again, but this time Sebastian was focused on his grandfather. The stake, the weapon he’d disdained for more than a decade, felt light and useless in his hand after the guns and swords he’d taken to using in hunting and fencing. But it was lethal, and he would use it.

By God, he would.

Beauregard stopped the blow, blocking Sebastian’s wrist with the flat of a sword that seemed to come from nowhere. “Sebastian, you are overwrought,” he said with a calm that burned Sebastian. “I’ll share; I promise you this. And now, with the page you obtained from the journal, we’ll have the power—”

With a grunt Sebastian reared toward him again, caught his grandfather by the neck in his long fingers instead of in the chest, as the older man had expected. With a shove, with power long dormant and a strength he’d forgotten he had, he slammed him back against a tapestried wall. The bed curtains next to them brushed their legs as Beauregard struggled, dropping his sword with a clatter, and trying to pull Sebastian’s hand from his throat.

“Damn you,” Sebastian said, readying his stake.

“You cannot do this,” Beauregard wheezed, his fingers still pulling at him. His sharp nails tore into the tender flesh on the back of Sebastian’s hands. “After all I’ve…done for you.”

“You took her from me.”

“She was pulling you from…me. I did it for both…of us.”

Sebastian tightened his fingers, ignoring the blood that was streaming down onto his wrist. He steadied the stake. One plunge and it would be done.

“I raised you…when no one else…would.” His eyes were no longer pink; his fangs had retracted.

“Because my father was taken by your lover!” Sebastian spat. “She mauled him, remember?”

“She was…jealous…of him.” Beauregard’s throat convulsed under his hand as he coughed. Sebastian wasn’t fooled. He couldn’t strangle a vampire; this would merely slow him down, cause him pain enough to hold him until he could stab the heart. “And he…like any Vioget…could not resist…a beau…tiful…woman.”

Sebastian became aware that the sounds of struggle behind him had ended. He glanced back and saw nothing but the signs of their battle. Brim was nowhere in sight.

They were alone.

“Don’t, Sebastian. Don’t do it.” Beauregard’s breaths were stronger now. His hand wrapped around Sebastian’s wrist instead of pulling at it, scratching at it. Gentle. Imploring. “You’ll regret it. You know it. You’ve lived with it for—”

“Stop.” Sebastian felt his fingers cutting into the flesh beneath them, tearing into his grandfather’s throat. He lifted the stake. “I do love you.”

The door burst open at that moment, and Pesaro charged in. His arms and shirt were streaked with blood, his face hardly recognizable in its intensity.

He didn’t hesitate but went straight to the bed, and Sebastian watched as he yanked back the blanket with a bravery he himself hadn’t had.

Victoria murmured, moved sinuously, and her eyes fluttered, then closed completely. The hair fell away from her face when Pesaro lifted her, her head falling back to show the bites and blood streaks on her throat and shoulders. Her lips curved in a sensual smile, and a quick trickle of blood spilled from the corner of her mouth.

“Christ Jesus,” Pesaro breathed. He lifted his face, and Sebastian was struck by the loathing there. The stark fury. The same madness he knew was on his own face, grinding in his own gut.

Everything else fell away, and Sebastian plunged his stake.

The soft poof resonated, the ashes scattered, and he heard the tinny clatter of the copper armband as it fell to his feet.