The Bleeding Dusk (20 page)

“Heel?” she muttered, thinking that she was dealing with more heels than the ones on his boots.

“It slides off. Inside are small wooden sticks. Don't…drop them! And a piece of sanded paper.”

“Ah, the work of the famous Miro, I'm certain,” came Sebastian's patently bored voice from across the room.

“How do you know about Miro?” asked Victoria in surprise, prying at the heel of Max's boot as quickly as she could. It came off more easily than she'd expected, and then, feeling around, she could tell it was nothing more than a little box with a lid.

“I know much about everything.”

Max's breath caught audibly, as if he'd heard something humorous—or a new wave of pain had slammed into him—but he replied, “And do little with it, is that not…right, Vioget?”

“I have the little sticks and the paper. Now what shall I do?”

“Find something…to burn. One of those absurd flowers on your gown. Put them to use.”

Victoria bit her lip instead of replying. The man was in great pain, Venator or no, so she could give him a bit of an excuse for his rudeness. Carefully she cut off one of the satin roses from above the hem of her gown and realized Max was right—it would make a good candle. How clever, and she was abashed he had thought of it before she did.

Made from tightly twisted and sewn satin ribband, the flower was about the size of the center of her palm. It wouldn't burn forever, but she had many flowers, and surely each one would last for several minutes. “Now what shall I do?”

“Bring them…here. Give me one of the sticks. And the paper.”

She moved back up toward Max's head and their hands found each other easily. His fingers were frighteningly cold, and they shook slightly as he took the slender wooden stick from her, and then the paper.

Victoria heard a faint
snick,
and suddenly a little burst of light illuminated Max's face. It looked like a hollow-eyed, grimy mask, his dark hair plastered to his forehead and temples, his full, angular lips tight and flat.

“Where's the bloody flower?”

Victoria pointed to the floor and watched as he shifted to the side and held the little flame to the red flower. She could see the fire dancing nearer his fingers, watching how he struggled to keep his hand steady as he tried to light it. With her own sigh of exasperation, she picked up the flower and held it to the flame.

One satin petal lit, and she put it on the floor next to them as the flower kindled to life. Lifting her gaze, she found herself face-to-face, very close to Max, and their eyes met over the tiny flame on the stick before he huffed it out.

There'd been pain there. She'd seen it in the unguardedness of his expression for a moment, the deep, bone-crunching pain swimming in his dark eyes.

“Where are you shot?” she asked in a kinder voice than she'd used recently.

“My shoulder. My right leg, though I think it isn't more than a graze.”

A normal man would still be unconscious—between the chill of the dungeon and the loss of blood, not to mention the battering he'd taken under the hands of the vampires.

Before she could move he was shrugging painfully out of his heavy coat, which smelled like bloody, wet wool. Victoria helped pull it away from his left shoulder and saw the huge bloom of darkness glistening on his white shirt. It was, she realized suddenly, just above where the tiny
vis bulla
hung from his areola.

Her stomach squirmed, remembering how he'd forced her hand to touch it when she needed power and strength, and how warm and firm his skin had been under her reluctant fingers.

She reached to help him, but he batted her hand away.

“Tear the coat and I'll use it to bandage this. Then we have to find a way out of here, or it won't matter,” he said.

“Your coat? Don't be ridiculous; the wool will be too prickly.” She tore at her chemise and wadded up a large piece of the fine cotton, handing it to him when he made no move to allow her to bandage him herself.

“What have you found, Vioget?” asked Max.

“Little to assist us. The door is bolted solidly from the other side, and the hinges are outside as well. The door is made of wood, banded with iron, so unless you happen to be carrying some much larger accoutrements in your unmentionables, my dear Victoria, we shan't be leaving this chamber until they open the door. And we certainly don't want to wait for that.”

“No,” Max agreed.

“Sara Regalado and her father—and likely all of the Tutela—have allied themselves with Akvan, then,” Victoria said. “And they tricked people into coming here to feed the vampires, I presume.”

“Not all of the Tutela,” Sebastian corrected. “A great number of them are still loyal to my grandfather.” There was a bit of stiffness in his voice.

After Akvan's Obelisk had been destroyed—and with it Nedas, who'd been the most powerful of the vampires in Italy—there had been a great power struggle between Beauregard and Sara's father, Conte Regalado. As a newly turned vampire, the
conte
wasn't nearly as powerful as Beauregard…but by allying himself with Akvan the demon, perhaps he thought he could overcome Beauregard.

Not a bad strategy.

And now she understood what Beauregard had meant when he spoke of Regalado's new alliance.

“And not only for the vampires,” Max said. “Akvan will feed…from the mortals trapped here.”

Victoria looked at him and read the expression on his face. “What does he do to them? Drink their blood?”

“Human heads,” Sebastian said flatly. “But you're wrong, both of you.” Grim satisfaction laced his voice. “It's not so much the mortals they wished to draw here. I cannot believe you don't see it for yourself.”

“Of course I do. It was Victoria all along.”

The understanding blossomed inside her. They'd been kidnapping mortals—and before them, dogs and cats—to feed Akvan for months. “Sara tried to capture me before…this treasure hunt was nothing more than a way to get me to come.” She looked at Max. “They want the key, Aunt Eustacia's key.”

“Or they simply want you. Which I can understand most readily,” Sebastian added dryly. “It seems to be quite a common ailment as of late.”

“Don't let that go out,” Max said suddenly, gesturing toward the dying rose blossom.

Startled into action, Victoria quickly sliced off another flower and used the burning one to light it. When she looked back at him, he was drinking from a small vial.

“What is that?”

Swallowing, he looked at her darkly, then corked the tiny bottle and slipped it into a pocket. “Is that a window?”

Victoria looked up and saw, for the first time, right at the junction of ceiling and wall, the faintest rectangle of dark gray. Really, it was barely discernible from the other bricks on the wall, except that it was bigger, and just a bit lighter in color.

“Sebastian, let me stand on your shoulders,” she said.

She could see the amusement on his face when he approached the small circle of light they shared. “What an excellent opportunity to refresh my memory about what's under your skirt,” he murmured, drawing her toward the wall.

Victoria didn't deign to acknowledge the comment. Instead she used her fingernails and the crevices between the bricks to steady herself as she climbed onto Sebastian's bent knee, then onto his shoulders, and then even higher as he rose to a full standing position.

The top of her head brushed the stone ceiling, and she said, “It's a window. Too small for any of us to pass through.”

“What can you see?”

Sebastian's fingers had moved from steadying her ankles to sliding up her calves over the silky stockings she wore, creating a delicate, delicious friction—and causing the stockings to sag. She gave him a little jab with her toe and replied to Max, “The window is level with the ground. I can see very little. A wall. The sky—it's nearing dawn, and the sky is turning gray.”

“Can you see a small iron gate? Low in the wall?”

“It's very dark, Max; I can't see much of anything.”

“Here.”

The light below her in the small room moved closer, and Victoria reached down carefully to take the small rose from Max, who'd stood, but was now leaning against the wall. He was holding his right hand over his shoulder wound, though his face looked a bit less tense. Whatever was in that vial had begun to work quickly.

When she rested the little candle on the narrow sill of the window, Victoria could see into the yard in front of the opening. “Yes, I see a small thing—it looks like a grate. It's very small, though, Max…”

“As I thought. You can come down now.”

She carefully handed down the candle, and found Sebastian to be exceedingly helpful in assisting her to get down from the window, his hands groping about and assisting in areas that weren't off balance in the least.

When Victoria got back on the ground and extricated herself from Sebastian's questing fingers, she saw Max on the floor by the wall.

“Max? Are you all right?”

“Stop blocking the light,” he snapped.

“What are you doing?”

She crouched next to him, aware that Sebastian was standing behind, likely watching the areas he'd recently had occasion to caress.

“That iron grate is just outside the Magic Door,” Max told her. “I saw it earlier tonight.” She could see he was moving the candle around the floor near the wall. “It confirmed what Ylito and I had suspected—that this wall is next to Palombara's laboratory.” He looked up for a moment, his eyes faint with wry humor. “I, unlike you, have an excellent sense of direction when inside a building.”

“Whatever it is you're doing,” Sebastian said from his pose against the wall, “I suggest you do it quickly, for I expect our hosts to be returning shortly. I'd prefer not to be here when they return, if we can arrange it otherwise. I'm certain my relationship to Beauregard will hold me in good stead only long enough for Akvan to ask me a few pointed questions about my grandfather before he makes use of my head and its contents.”

“Then perhaps,” Max said between obviously clenched teeth, “you might bestir yourself to assist. I have reason to believe there must be a way from the laboratory to this chamber.” He must have heard Victoria draw in her breath, for he added, “Don't waste time asking. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong—but there is no other way out of this room. But…” And he paused, then continued, “Apparently I'm not wrong, for here it is.”

He pushed back onto his knees. Through the streaks of dirt and blood on his face, the hollowness in his cheeks, Victoria saw satisfaction. “A door?” she asked dubiously.

“A drop of gold. Melted gold. Going under the wall here…see this brick…here.”

Victoria needed no further instruction or information. She began to work with Max, feeling around with her fingers to fit them into the groove under the brick.

But then, as a familiar, portending chill scuttled over the back of her neck, Victoria turned and met Max's gaze only inches away.

“Damn,” was all he said.

“They'll be coming for me,” Victoria said. “Most likely.”

“Or to find out what the grandson of Beauregard might know that would be helpful to Akvan,” Max said, a hint of relish in his voice. “Or for any of us.”

“We'll make it look like we're still tied up,” Victoria said. “Then we can take them by surprise when they come in. Max, you can still be unconscious.”

“Why, thank you.”

“Sebastian, if you can manage to do so without getting distracted, tie my wrists again. Quickly. Wait.” She turned and slid her hand up under her skirt to the side of her corset opposite where the knife had been hidden and quickly slid out the slender but deadly stake that was hidden in the same way the stiletto had been.

Slipping it into one of the small loops at the back of her gown (ones Verbena had insisted upon adding for just such an emergency), she allowed Sebastian to bind her wrists loosely enough that it would be no problem for her to slip free. Then, awkwardly, she did the same to him.

Max arranged himself on the floor where he'd been before, and Victoria slumped against the wall near his feet. Then she stomped her foot on the last of the burning satin flower.

Only the faintest smell of smoke hung in the air now, and the room became silent.

The back of her neck was colder, and her heart thumped faster as she felt the undead coming closer.

“Max? Do you have the knife?”

“Yes. And a stake in my boot. Don't attack until we're out of the room.”

“Seb—”

But a rattle at the door silenced her, and Victoria closed her mouth and waited.

When the door burst open, Victoria watched again through slitted eyes. There were only three of them. Three!

They were tall and had red eyes, and she could see their fangs gleaming, even through the tiny slit of her gaze.

Two of them stayed at the door. Max was right; they couldn't make a move to escape until they were safely out of the chamber, for fear they'd get locked back in. The third vampire, a tall woman, stepped farther in, and Victoria saw the glint of a pistol in her hand as she strode toward them.

She opened her eyes fully and looked up into the gaunt face of the female. Her eyelids were dark, her chin narrow and pointed. Long blond hair fell in ugly hanks over her shoulders, and it swayed as she slammed her boot into Max's side so hard he jolted closer to Victoria.

He didn't move, nor make a sound; even his breathing remained silent.

Now the vampire moved toward Victoria, looking down, pointing the gun directly at her. “Akvan is waiting for you,” she hissed, sliding a tongue over her fangs.

Dressed in the convenience of men's clothing, she wore a jacket and a shirt that had possibly once been white, or some color close to it. When she bent toward Victoria, a leather thong around her neck fell from the opening of her shirt, knocked out by the weight of the short, black object that hung from it. Victoria caught her breath—the slender pendant was shiny, sharp, and glinted blue-black. She recognized it—a splinter, like the shard from Akvan's Obelisk that she herself had locked away in the Consilium.