The Bleeding Dusk (34 page)

Whoever—or whatever—it was had meant to leave him near death…yet not dead.

Enough that he would be found. But unable to be saved.

The thought plunged Victoria into burning fury. She stood, barely keeping her fingers from shaking, and made herself move slowly and deliberately…because if she didn't, she'd explode.

She bent, placing her hands over Zavier's head, whispered a small prayer in his ear, a plea for him to forgive and to return…and then placed a gentle kiss on his cheek.

When she stood, Wayren's gaze caught hers, and Victoria knew the other woman understood.

She started toward the door and was out in the corridor, just entering the empty main chamber of the Consilium, before she heard Wayren behind her.

“Victoria.”

“I need to find Max,” she said, pausing near the fountain, realizing that of anyone, Wayren would know where he was. She fingered the copper bracelet in her pocket. “I'm going to find Beauregard and kill him. I want him to go with me.”

Victoria drew in a deep, calming breath, pushing away the fury and grief, reminding herself of Kritanu's admonishments never to let her emotions carry her away. “I need Max. Do you know where he is?”

Wayren's face did not change, but she reached out and gently grasped Victoria's arm. “There's something else you need to know.”

Victoria went cold at the expression in her eyes. “What is it?”

“Sit down, Victoria.”

+ Nineteen +

Wherein Michalas's Other Wish is Granted

Sebastian heard voices
just in time to slip into one of the empty rooms—at least, he hoped it was empty. It would be exceedingly difficult to explain why he was lurking in the catacombs of the Consilium, near the workshop of the dark-skinned man the Venators called a hermetist.

He wasn't quite certain he could satisfactorily excuse his presence even to himself.

A little chill lifted the hair on his arm as he recognized Wayren's voice. He didn't want to be found, and he certainly didn't want to be found by her. Before yesterday's brief, unsatisfactory meeting, he hadn't seen her for years…but he remembered that she had a way of looking at him, at anyone, that gave the impression she could see right into their deepest hearts.

Not that Sebastian was ashamed of what was in his deepest heart. No, if nothing else, he had a loyalty to those he loved. Perhaps one that was inconvenient, or too strong at times, but it was all he had.

That and his good looks, which he was, of course, never shy about using to get his way.

As soon as Wayren walked past—on her way out of the workshop, and quite fortuitously accompanied by the owner of said workshop—Sebastian made a speedy, silent beeline to the closed door.

Holding his breath, he tapped the door open slightly, listening in both directions.

Silence greeted him, so he pushed harder, making a large enough gap for him to ease through.

The papers should be here—it was the logical place, and if Wayren was anything, she was logical. The hermetist—Sebastian wished he could remember the man's name—would be the one studying them, so it made sense.

The workshop was well organized: clean, neat, spare. A small pile of books rested on a slanted table, one of the tomes propped open with a curious metal object in the shape of an elongated S. Where were the journals from the villa's laboratory? Was he wrong in his assumption?

Then…he saw something that had to be it.

Thick brown papers, shiny, and coated with the thinnest possible layer of protective wax, bound together by a thin leather cord like a book.

Sebastian smoothed his fingers over it, then flipped quickly through the papers. He needed only the one page. Just one page, and it would hardly be missed. Especially since it had been locked away for nearly two hundred and fifty years.

But it could make all the difference to him. And Beauregard.

Ahhh.

This must be it.

He paused, quickly perusing the page. There was a drawing of an odd-looking plant—a flower, really—with a swath of petals that grew up and curled out like the inverted skirt of a woman, and a massive, upright stamen.
Amorphophallus pusillum,
read the faint script under it. And then a list of other ingredients, or so it appeared. Yes, this was most definitely it.

Carefully he tore the page from its leather moorings, trying to keep the wax cover from cracking, and taking care to make it as unnoticeable as possible. No one would see that a page was missing. Then he returned the journal to its position.

Slipping out of the laboratory as quickly as he'd eased in, he began to hurry along the corridor. This was the trickiest part now, as he traveled back up to the area where he was more likely to come across Wayren or Ilias, or, God forbid, Victoria.

Once, he thought he was caught, but he managed to duck into the dark corner of an intersecting corridor in time to keep from being seen. Good thing, too, for Victoria strode by in an angry swish—he could almost feel the fury blasting from her. Fury and something else.

But she didn't see him, and she was gone in an instant.

With a relieved breath, he slid out of the darkness and followed her. For she was leaving the Consilium, and, now that he'd retrieved what he came for, so was he.

 

+ + +

By the time Victoria reached the fresh air of the street above the Consilium, she was out of breath. Her throat was tight. The need to vomit lingered in her belly. But damned if she was going to shed tears again.

There'd been too many.

Her last conversation with Wayren, having begun with an air of desperation and determination, had ended with Victoria stunned speechless with disbelief and grief, and then great fury.

Max too?

She was filled with such blazing anger—at Beauregard, at Zavier, at Sebastian, and Max and even Wayren and Phillip and Aunt Eustacia—such blinding and numbing emotions that she blundered out onto the street several blocks from Santo Quirinus, exiting from the entrance on Tilhin that she'd used only once before. At first she didn't know where she was.

Only when she tripped over a broken step in front of the empty building she was skirting did Victoria gather herself together. She stopped and hugged herself under the coat she wore, blending into the shadows between two buildings to lean against the plaster wall…and mentally she pulled her thoughts, her scattering emotions, and her wayward instincts into line. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes and asked for guidance.

It was a while before she opened them, and she forced herself to focus. These were not the actions of
Summa
Gardella, this shattering of concentration, of instinct. She was glad no one had been there to see these moments of insecurity and loss.

She already knew what she had to do. And she'd hoped, planned, for Max to come with her.

But Wayren had told her it was likely she'd not see him again.

She explained that his memory of her, of them, along with his Venator powers, were gone. He'd had to do it to free himself from Lilith, and he would slip into the rest of the world to live out the remainder of his life.

He hadn't wanted to see her.

Perhaps that was the biggest blow of all.

Victoria didn't understand why…and yet perhaps she did now, as she drew in long, steady breaths and focused her attention on the smattering of stars above her.

He was so proud. So arrogant and proud and confident that he didn't want her, or anyone—she needn't take it all on herself—he didn't want
anyone
to see him weak or confused.

In spite of her anger with him and his high-handed ways, she understood, after a fashion. For if she had to give up part of herself in that way, she, too would be lost.

Being a Venator had become the largest part of her. Perhaps the only part.

Victoria felt her mouth twist bitterly as she remembered how blithely she'd attended balls and soirees, fending off suitors, flirting with Phillip, alternating her courtship with him and her nighttime adventures of staking vampires. Now being a Venator defined her. Almost wholly.

There was very little left of Victoria Gardella Grantworth, debutante miss, wife—and now widow—of the Marquess of Rockley.

If she had to give that up, who would she be?

So, yes, she understood.

Now, there in the cool evening, she understood and she wept and she grew angry and determined again.

She looked up when a shadow went by, hurrying along the street in front of her.

He didn't notice her, for she was backed into the shadows in the dark, but she saw him and recognized the smooth movements, the elegant stride. She knew the tousled, curling hair and the sweep of that well-tailored coat.

The nasty feeling swirled again in her belly, making the back of her throat dry and scratchy. He'd come from the same direction as she—from Via Tilhin, on which sat the abandoned building that gave access to the Consilium. So she hadn't
been mistaken when she thought she saw a flash of movement in that deserted corridor.

It couldn't be a coincidence he'd been back there again. Not tonight.

Not after what had happened to Zavier and Lady Nilly. Not after what Beauregard had done.

Firming her lips, she followed.

 

+ + +

The moment Max stirred, Wayren put aside the delicate, curling manuscript she'd been studying. She slipped it into her ancient leather bag, followed by her square spectacles, and waited.

She didn't know how long it would be until Max woke, but since this was the first time he'd so much as altered his breathing, she knew it wouldn't be long. She knew she had to be on hand when he became aware. The only thing that had taken her away was when Zavier's unconscious body had been brought to the Consilium hours ago, and then Victoria's subsequent arrival.

Wayren wasn't given to sensitivity, but the recollection of Victoria's face when she'd seen Zavier, the shock, anger, and fear that had passed over her beatific countenance, would long be in her memory.

Such anger.

It worried her.

Max groaned softly, drawing her attention again. The golden disk lay on the table next to him, its chain coiled around it in serpentine fashion. He shifted again, becoming restless, his large hand rising as though to ward off something, then falling heavily onto the table, sending the lamp and the earbobs that had belonged to his sister jiggling.

Hoping to calm him, Wayren took his warm hand in her smaller ones, noticing scraped fingertips and cracked nails that looked as if he'd tried to climb a stone wall.

She knew many things of past and future, of possibility and truth, of good and evil…but she did not know whether Ylito's plan would succeed. She wouldn't know until Max awakened and she used the golden disk into which she had collected his memories.

As if she'd called him to waken, his eyes fluttered open, suddenly clear and dark. He looked around. She released his hand, watching as he curled his fingers closed.

“Max.”

He looked at her, half sitting, the blankets falling to his hips. “Yes. Where am I?”

The bites were gone, she saw. His neck was smooth and clean, sweeping gracefully into powerful, broad shoulders. But he recognized his own name, seemed comfortable with his body.

“You're safe, Max. I'm Wayren.” She waited.

He nodded, but she knew he didn't remember. “Wayren. What am I doing here? Have I been ill?”

“In a fashion, yes. Please. Drink this and let me talk to you.” She handed him a metal cup filled with another of Ylito's concoctions.

He hesitated, sniffed at it. Hesitated more.

She smiled. “If I wanted you dead, I had ample opportunity while you were sleeping.”

He nodded and drank.

When he looked back at her, she had the golden disk spinning eerily in her hand. She began to murmur again, calling down the power of the Spirit, asking for help, and watched as his eyes were drawn irrevocably to the flat pendant.

Wayren knew the moment he remembered it all…a tightening of the face, a tension in the shoulders, a return of the sharpness to his eyes. He reached for the tiny, delicate
vis bulla.
Closing his fingers around it, he picked it up, shuttering his eyes, and drew in a slow breath.

And then opened his eyes. They were bleak. “Nothing. I feel nothing.”

Wayren nodded. “But you remember.”

“Yes.” He swung his feet off the bed. “What time is it? I must go.”

“It's midday. But you cannot go hurrying off, Max.”

He'd half risen, but at her words he sat back heavily. “Of course not. I'm the shell of a Venator now. I have the knowledge and the skills, but not the strength or the powers. A shell.”

“You'll not go alone.”

His beautiful lips snarled. “I may not be a Venator any longer, but I'm not helpless. I killed vampires and at least one demon before I earned the
vis bulla,
Wayren. You know that.”

“Do you remember what you told me to tell Victoria, just before you went to sleep?”

He stilled, his face going very blank. “You didn't bring her here.”

Wayren shook her head. He'd made her promise not to let anyone see him—anyone, especially Victoria. “Only Ylito.”

“What did I say? Did you tell her?”

She felt his tension; it was as if it hung in the air over them like a heavy blanket. She knew much, but now she knew even more. She chose to lie to him, just as she'd done to Victoria. “You wanted me to tell her you were sorry.”

Because they were bare, she could see the slight shift in his square shoulders, the bit of ease that came over him. “I can only imagine how she received that bit of information.”

Wayren couldn't hold back a smile. It wasn't amusing, not at all, not in these moments, not ever. But the look on his face…it was the Max she knew.
Thank God.
“She had a few choice words.”