The Bleeding Dusk

Victoria jerked her face away, anger spiking through her again. He acted as if that were the most important issue at hand. “If you find it necessary to hide your calling, why do you bother to wear a vis bulla?” That was perhaps what incensed her the most—that he wore it, but didn’t use it. It was blasphemy.



And it also explained, perhaps, the contempt in which Max seemed to hold Sebastian.



Max had handed his vis to her when he walked away from the Venators, and Victoria herself had removed hers when she took a year to grieve for Phillip, knowing that she didn’t trust herself to wear it. She’d almost killed a man—a mortal—because she’d been overcome with grief and anger about Phillip, and the vis was a convenient weapon. It had been much too easy to let her fury get away from her and take over her actions. But once she regained control of herself, she’d worn it again, just as Max had done.



“I move among vampires, and among them it’s known that I’m of Gardella blood, and also that I’ve been Chosen. Beauregard, as I said, appreciates the irony, and the others respect me. I’ve taken great pains to keep it a secret from everyone else.”



“That was why you were so comfortable being around the undead when you owned the Silver Chalice. It was a way for you to protect your grandfather’s friends.”



He must have read the abhorrence in her face, the confusion in her eyes, for he took her reluctant hands and tugged her out of the chair with ease.



And this was why, she realized now, he’d always seemed unusually strong. Even from the beginning.



Anger shot through her, sparking her emotions so that her cheeks burned hot. He’d taken care not to appear too strong or too capable as they’d faced vampires last year when Dr. Polidori was killed by the undead after writing a novel that told too many of the vampires’ secrets. He’d done just enough to let her think she’d saved them both, that she’d been the one to protect them all. She’d almost died, and so had he. And he’d never told her.



And last autumn, at the theater where Akvan’s Obelisk was being kept and when Aunt Eustacia was killed, he didn’t tell her then.



He’d even made self-deprecating remarks about himself in comparison to her, the Venator, the warrior. Now that she thought about it, she remembered bitterness in his voice when he spoke of her skill, and her assumption that he had none.



Anyone can stake a vampire, he’d told her once.



If they can get close enough, she’d replied flippantly, clearly implying that he hadn’t a prayer of doing so.



“You stood by and watched my aunt die last fall,” she said, anger bursting forth. “You watched it all happen, and you did nothing!”



His hands were tight on her upper arms, and this time he didn’t bother to hide his strength. “What could I have done? What could you have done? It was two of us—three, with Pesaro—there was nothing that could have stopped those events. You know it.”



She knew he was right, but the anger didn’t slide away. “That night—when Polidori died…Sebastian, if I’d known you were a Venator—”



His sharp bark of a laugh cut her off. “You wouldn’t have disparaged my skill with a sword? You would have expected more from me? Victoria, it was I who held back the Imperial while you were nearly mauled by that Guardian vampire. If you’d been less self-absorbed you would have realized you could never have matched against a Guardian and two Imperial vampires on your own, and wondered how a fop such as I could have matched swords with an Imperial.”



While the pink-eyed Guardians were powerful in their own right, Imperials were even more fearsome. With blazing purple-red irises, Imperials were the strongest, fastest, and most powerful beings in the vampire race. They were often centuries, even millennia old, and not only glided through the air, but also wielded deadly swords as their weapons.



“I was the one who’d been charged with protecting Polidori, until you waltzed into the picture and insisted on taking charge,” Sebastian continued.



“And you were only too eager to let me! If there was someone else to do the dirty work, you’d step back and let them. If you hadn’t disappeared—run away—from the Silver Chalice when Lilith sent the Guardians after you, Phillip might still be alive! You might have been able to help him!”



“Perhaps. But likely not. There were eight Imperials, along with a myriad of other vampire patrons who would have leaped to their defense, and only Pesaro and myself. I am sorry, Victoria. I’ve told you before that I wholly regret what happened to your husband. I would not have wished that on anyone. Believe me.”



Her face was wet with tears, and she’d stopped trying to pull free from his arms. But though her muscles eased, her fury and disappointment did not. “And that night in the carriage in London…you tried to seduce me and then delivered me to those vampires. You let them take me away!” Once finding herself alone with Sebastian, she’d nearly allowed him to make love to her—until they were interrupted by an angry group of vampires. She’d always suspected he’d delivered her to them on purpose.



Sebastian was shaking his head. “As lovely as that distraction was, do you truly think I’d allow my attempt to seduce you to be interrupted by something as unpleasant as the undead? I realized they were present just when you did. I tried to keep them from taking you, but I wasn’t able to. It was I who found your driver and told him where you were so that Pesaro could extricate you from Lilith’s minions. She was too angry at me for helping you, and was watching me too closely to allow me to do any such thing.”



“You mean you wished not to tip your hand to her that you were playing both sides of the game. What is it, Sebastian? Whoever is winning is the side you choose?”



He looked as though she’d slammed him in the stomach with all of the force of her two vis bullae. “Victoria, you cannot—”



“I certainly—”



A noise behind her had Victoria whirling to see Zavier come to a stunned halt from what must have been a run from the back of the Consilium. “How could you!” His face was tight with accusation, and he was breathing heavily. “Victoria, do ye know what ye’ve done? You may be Illa Gardella, but this is wrong.”



His ruddy face flushed with anger as he strode toward her and Sebastian, his arms bunched in a threatening manner. In his hand he held a stake. “First ye kiss the man; then ye bring him into our sanctuary. And now we are found!”



“Stop yourself there, Zavier,” Victoria snapped, still reeling from the maelstrom of disappointment and fury Sebastian had raised in her. Stepping between the bristling Scot and her lover—former lover—she faced the redhead. “You do not know of what you speak.”



Looking in his eyes, she saw mostly pain, and she realized how it must appear to him: a tryst being held in the most secret of places. As if Victoria were compromising security and secrets in exchange for a bit of a tup, as Verbena would say.



She had difficulty not being furious that Zavier assumed the worst of her, but Victoria managed to tuck that emotion away—for the time being. Her voice gentled, but still kept a hint of steel in it. “It is not what it appears.”



And then she smelled the blood and noticed the stain on Zavier’s torso.



Before she could speak, a low, rolling sound, like the tolling of a bell, clanged. The sound filled the room, dull and ominous, and Victoria turned to look at a large bell high in one of the corners. She’d hardly noticed it before, but now it seemed to swell inside the whole chamber. The deep sound reverberated through her limbs, and she saw the vibration in the feather of an old-fashioned quill that sat on one of the tables. Then more running feet grabbed her attention. Ilias hurried into the room from the opposite direction Zavier had come, Wayren close behind him, her gown billowing behind her.



“What is it?”



“The warning bell. Someone has tripped the alarm above in Santo Quirinus,” Wayren said, hurrying toward them. “There are trespassers near.”



Victoria drew back as if she’d been slapped, whirling to face Sebastian in horror. “You!”



“I swear it was not me, Victoria! I swear it!” He looked as disconcerted as she, his attention flashing to Wayren, who did not appear at all surprised to see him. “It was—”



Wayren reached for him, her fingers closing over the juncture of neck and shoulder. “Later, Sebastian. We will talk later.” She twitched her hand, and his eyes rolled back in his head as he crumpled to the floor. Obviously Wayren didn’t trust him either.



Victoria looked sharply at her—she’d known all along about Sebastian! Why had she never told her?



“The vampires haven’t found us yet, but there are undead and mortals above, in the streets and buildings nearby. Something has brought them here.” It was Zavier, speaking to Ilias as though Victoria were not present. His normally jovial face bore darkness and accusation when he finally looked at her. “We must drive them away.”



He started off toward the alcove that led to the spiral staircase Victoria had descended only thirty minutes earlier, but she called him back.



“No, Zavier, wait. We cannot go that way, for if we suddenly appear from the church they will know our secret.”



Ilias kept hidden guardsmen within the small church and in the areas surrounding it: one Venator along with two Comitators, who were martial-arts experts like Kritanu who taught the Venators their fighting skills. If there were vampires about, threatening their security—which Victoria had no reason to doubt—presumably the guards were already engaged. Still, it would be rash to come from the church and confirm to the undead where the entrance to the Consilium was.



“This way,” Ilias ordered with a sharp gesture. Victoria and Zavier followed the older man, who obviously knew more about the secrets of the Consilium than anyone else, back down the steps and through one of the pointed archways that led to a chamber Victoria had seen only once before. It was bare and dusty. Trunks and several wooden crates were stacked against one of the walls, but Ilias hurried past them toward the back corner. He reached up to one of the iron sconces that were studded throughout the entire Consilium and lifted the torch from its place. Fumbling around with his fingers inside the empty sconce, he grunted in satisfaction, then withdrew his hand.