The Bleeding Dusk (8 page)

The smile he gave her there, in the cold cemetery, warmed Victoria from her cheeks down to her toes, and she had to glance away for fear her face would start to glow. Although fighting her way through undead immortals and evil demons was becoming second nature to her, she was less sure of herself when interacting with men.

She'd debuted into London Society just about a year and a half ago, and had been in mourning for her husband Phillip, for a twelvemonth of that period, during which, of course, she'd worn black and stayed cloistered in her husband's home—far away from members of the opposite sex. No fetes, no balls, no theater engagements. She'd been lonely and grieving and trying desperately to determine how to fit the two parts of her life together.

Since then, she had come to the realization there was no way to have a real life, with a real relationship with a man. Her life was with the Venators, especially now, as
Summa
Gardella. She would touch Society from time to time, but she would never be immersed in it as she once had been. She'd never marry again and certainly never have a child, much as her mother might wish it.

But then, as she looked over at Zavier and saw the admiration and attraction in his face, she wondered if it had to be thus. If she really did have to be alone and keep anyone who might care about her—or whom she might care for—at arm's length. The last vestiges of her annoyance filtered away.

“I hope that ye will forgive me,” he was saying, and somehow he'd taken her hand in his large warm one. The one that wasn't holding the stake. “'Tis just that I am—that a man is—bound to protect a woman. And I dinna think of you as a warrior, yet I ken that you are a fierce one. 'Tis hard to reconcile that with…well…” His voice trailed off, and Victoria would have believed he was blushing if his face weren't already a bit ruddy from the cold.

“I'm not angry,” she said, when he appeared unable to select the words to finish his thoughts. “I'm glad you understand. Zavier, if ever I need assistance, it will be obvious.”

He was looking down at their joined hands, her small white one in his, and when he raised his face again she felt her heart begin to pound.

Before he could speak, a rustling in the bushes near a large tomb drew their attention. Zavier's hand tightened on hers in warning, and then released. They moved silently across a fenced expanse of grass toward the stone structure. It was nearly as large as a small home, its cream-colored stucco appearing gray and forbidding in the sliver of moonlight.

The front of the mausoleum was grand, its upper edge topped with a wide, jutting cornice and studded at its corners with curling plaster leaves. The family name carved into the frieze was covered with moss, and illegible from where Victoria stood. A square cupola that might have contained a bell was perched in the center of the flat roof. What must be the main entrance, set partially below the ground and reached by a few descending steps, was flanked by two columns. The bushes that had rustled were part of a large clump of pines and holly oaks that grew in a thick cluster close to the tomb, casting the area in wide shadow.

Victoria's neck was no colder than the February air made it naturally, so she was certain the only vampire in the vicinity was the one Zavier had staked. Perhaps there was no threat at all, and it had been merely a hedgehog or hare that bounded through the foliage.

But then she saw a flash of something light in the brush, and then heard more rustling as she and Zavier drew closer. To his credit he didn't try to hold her back, or even to take the lead. They hurried together, following the rustling bushes, but suddenly Victoria sensed something—or someone—behind her.

She whirled just in time to see a large black canvas whipping down toward her. With a shout to warn Zavier, she ducked away and spun back around to see two large men swooping toward her again. They'd come from the other side of the mausoleum.

Using a gravestone to leverage herself, Victoria kicked out and caught one of them in the gut, sending him sprawling, along with the blanket he'd been brandishing. The other reached for her arm, and she twisted away with such force she went sprawling into the bay laurel bush where she'd seen the flash of white.

The branches were tough and prickly, and it didn't help that her attacker had followed her and was trying to manhandle her out of the bush. She heard a shout, and looked up to see Zavier standing behind the man, hands on his hips, watching.

At least he'd learned.

But then something leaped on him from behind, and another large body crashed into the fray. She saw Zavier go down in a mass of fists and legs.

With a howl Victoria kicked out at her assailant, the force propelling her farther into the brush. But she managed to roll to the side, off the bush, and onto the ground. She swept to her feet and, as she spun around, caught sight of something in the dark foliage behind her.

A pale face, with light hair. A body that moved away through the bushes, using the same lithe movements as the one who'd thrown the sugarplum at her.

But before she could react, something shoved her to the ground again, and she landed with a
whump
, face-first into the slick grass. The black canvas came flying down over her, covering her face and down over the front of her before she could roll away, and it clung to her when her attacker lifted her up.

Strong arms wrapped around her, holding the canvas and her own arms close to her body. Suffocating under the heavy material, Victoria kicked and twisted until she landed two good blows against the legs of the man who held her, then slammed her head backward.

The satisfying crunch and the sudden loosening of her person told her she'd hit the mark, even as her head swam. She tumbled to the ground, and it took her too long to fling off the folds of the canvas and scramble to her feet.

By the time she was upright, Zavier was standing in front of her. His red hair stuck out in tufts at the edge of his crown, and he was breathing heavily. “All right?” he asked with a satisfied grin.

She looked around. Their assailants were gone and it was just the two of them, panting in the middle of a dark graveyard. She turned toward the brush, where she'd seen the face she was sure she'd recognized. Nothing was there but flattened bushes and broken twigs—both from her own tumble into the foliage and whoever had been watching.

“They got away,” she said.

“Aye, they did. Surprised me—three of them all at once. A stake wasna much use against 'em,” he said companionably.

He was right, and Venators didn't generally fight with guns or knives. Their prey was the undead, not human threats. But it didn't seem to bother him that their attackers had gotten away.

“Who were they?” she asked, looking around. “And why did they want to abduct me? Did they try to kidnap you too?”

“No, it just seemed they wanted me out of the way so they could get to you. They all ran off when they saw they couldn't get the best of us.”

Victoria looked up. The wall of the mausoleum stretched above her, and she could see the impressions of the family name. She couldn't make out all of the letters, but she saw enough to know that the face she'd seen in the bushes, the person who had caught her attention by throwing the sugarplum so hard, had indeed been Sarafina Regalado.

But the question was, what was Max's fiancée doing at her family tomb in the middle of the night?

+ Five +

A Message is Delivered

On the last night of
Carnivale, the Corso was filled with a blaze of light.

The entire population of the city seemed to fill the broad
strada
and its connecting piazza to bursting before it spilled into the narrower Ripetta and other streets. Each person held tightly in one hand to a large twisted candle, or
moccoletto,
and a long switch topped by a handkerchief in the other. The small blazes danced and glowed, painting the buildings and masked faces and elegant carriages in a yellow-white splash as the partygoers used their handkerchiefs to flick at the flames of nearby candles.

The game was to extinguish someone's light or have one's own extinguished, all in a frenetic, rollicking mass of milling Romans.

Victoria had never seen the like, this blast of illumination from thousands of Romans crowding the street. They even called down from crimson-draped balconies—one of which hosted Lady Melly and friends—holding their
moccoli
aloft. Victoria could barely breathe, the area was so thronged with bodies and carriages, and tinged with the scent of burning wax, the smell of so many people packed so tightly in the street, the overriding crispness of the cool air. Victoria was thankful the propellants of last night's plaster sugarplums had given way to the friendlier, softer touch of flapping handkerchiefs.

This final night of revelry, the eve of Ash Wednesday, was the wildest, loudest, most beautiful festival she'd ever experienced, and although she would rather have been seated safely in a high barouche where she could gape all she liked, Victoria had other responsibilities.

Her switch, in fact, was more than a bit thicker than the ones other revelers were holding. In fact, it was not only thicker, but had been whittled to a lethal point on the bottom end.

Eschewing the long-beaked peregrine mask she'd worn the night before, Victoria had donned a more manageable one tonight. The upper part of her face was covered by a gold mask painted with glittering streaks of blue and green, sparkling curlicues of orange and pink, and had no protrusions that would catch on nearby shoulders. White feathers sprouted from the top and sides, and long curls of red ribbon hung from the edges to her shoulders. Only her mouth and chin were free, which made eating those delicious roasted chestnuts and speaking much easier than the previous evening's disguise.

“
Senza moccolo!
”
a man masked as a
banditto
shouted in her ear, and he flicked his switch toward her candle.

As she had quickly learned to do, Victoria shielded her flame whilst grabbing at the handkerchief, and plucked the switch from the person's hand. With a nod behind her own mask, she tossed away the handkerchief, but left off from dousing the switch holder's taper.

Zavier looked at her. “You are very quick,” he said with a smile beneath the heavy-brimmed sombrero he'd chosen to wear this night. She wasn't certain how he'd gotten away without wearing a mask when Ilias had insisted she do so. “You protect your candle like you protect those of this city.”

“This is madness,” Victoria said, looking about. All she could see were large, painted masks and acres of shoulders and necks and throats everywhere, everywhere. Cast in shadows below arm level, lit from above, glowing and stark by turns in the night, loud and more of a crush than any ballroom back in London, the extinguishing ceremony was by turns breathtaking and horrific. “Even if I knew a vampire was about, I'd never be able to identify it, let alone get to him or her.” She had to raise her voice to be heard above the din.

“Aye, so perhaps we ought to just enjoy the festivities as much as possible until the candles are doused at midnight and everyone begins to go home. After that it will be much easier to move about.” The way he looked at her, so intently for a moment, as his hat brushed the feathers of her mask, made her stomach do a little flip.

But before Victoria could reply, a sudden prickle at the back of her neck intensified into a chill. She turned quickly, sensing the presence of an undead in close proximity, and her shoulder slammed into the angel next to her, and then into a gypsy, and then into an owl, as the masked people pushed past her.

Glancing back toward Zavier, she saw him starting off in the opposite direction as if he, too, had felt something and was pursuing it. Despite their agreement about the difficulty of identifying undead in this crowd, neither of them would stand aside and do nothing when a vampire was near.

They were well separated by now, and as Victoria turned once again and tried to move in the opposite direction from the people near her, she scanned the crowd, looking for red irises behind the masks that streamed past her, or for a disguise that could be covering the face of Sara Regalado.

She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to sense which direction to go after the creature that skulked nearby, and finally set off toward the left, through the milling people. The chill at the back of her neck began to intensify as she made her way through to the edges of the crowd. Suddenly, not so far from the darkness that lingered beyond the revelry, she saw the glowing red orbs in a masked face two persons away.

Edging her shoulder through the throng, playing the
senzo moccoletto
game, Victoria squirmed along until she was close enough to touch the vampire. Her neck was frigid, and she felt the odd rush of the presence the undead gave in close proximity. Angling her switch cum stake, Victoria turned to face him—or her; she wasn't certain of the creature's gender—and closed her fingers around an arm.

The crowd was so thick and full of shouts and movement and the flicking of switches that Victoria could have slammed the stake into the vampire's chest before he realized that she was a Venator, and without drawing any attention to herself, but she didn't.

Instead she said, “Tell Beauregard the female Venator is looking for his grandson.”

He looked down at her, fangs gleaming. “I'm no message boy.”

“You aren't? Well, then, my apologies.” She moved easily, angling her stake, plunging it up and into his chest.

The vampire disintegrated, as vampires did, into a poof of ash that burst over the partygoers, causing a dainty little shepherdess to forget about protecting her
moccoletto
for a moment in favor of brushing away the sudden gust of foul-scented dust.

The chilly prickling at the back of Victoria's neck had eased, but had not disappeared completely. There were other vampires in the vicinity. Perhaps one of them would rather be a message boy than a pile of dust.