The Bleeding Dusk (The Gardella Vampire Chronicles 3)

Victoria must have dropped off to sleep at some point in the labyrinth of her thoughts and debates, for she dreamed of things: slow, sensual, curling, arousing things…dark, strong, metallic, angry things…loud, putrid, frightening things.

She woke, not because of the dreams, she realized belatedly, but because Verbena stood over her bed. Her hands were on her shoulders, as if she’d been shaking her.

“My lady. My lady, you must awaken.”

Victoria sat up abruptly, the last vestiges of the nightmares dissolving and clarity resuming in her mind. “What is it?”

Verbena handed her a small paper. It was tiny and rolled, as if it had come from the tiny container on a bird’s leg. A quick glance at the window told Victoria that Myza wasn’t there, waiting to bring a response back to Wayren. It was daylight, well past sunrise.

She unrolled the paper, her mouth dry. Come at once.

She didn’t wait to change her damp, wrinkled clothes, just yanked on the man’s coat she’d worn the night before and left. It took Victoria less than thirty minutes to get to the Consilium. Oliver drove her in the carriage and let her off many blocks away, after ensuring that they hadn’t been followed.

Crossing herself as she dashed onto and then off the altar inside Santo Quirinus, she hurried through the secret door of the confessional, leaped lightly past the rigged middle step in the hidden hall, and ran down the revealed spiral staircase.

Ilias was waiting for her near the fountain. His face was grave, the lines next to his mouth deep and cutting. “Follow me.”

She hurried behind him down a stone-cut corridor through which she’d never had cause to go before. When he stopped in front of a door and gestured for her to precede him in, she did.

As she opened the door, Hannever looked up, gave her a brief nod, and moved his short, wiry body out of the chamber as if to leave her alone.

The room was small, but well lit and warm. A rug covered the floor; a bed lined one wall. Victoria’s chest felt tight as she walked in, toward the unmoving figure that lay under the blankets. Harsh breathing filled the room, as if it were the last gasps of life coming from the man on the bed. Indeed, when she stepped closer and saw his face, smelled the blood, she knew that was exactly what it was.

The last gasps of life.

A small cry escaped from the back of her throat, and she reached out to touch him: his straggly, half-braided red hair, the brawny arm that lay crossed over his barrel chest.

“Zavier,” she murmured. “What has befallen you?”

A quiet movement behind her told Victoria she was no longer alone; whether Wayren had already been in the room when she’d arrived or had just come in, she didn’t know. “’Tis desperate he is,” she said in her calm voice. “Ylito and Hannever have done all they can. We will know by tomorrow if he will stay with us.”

“Or if we will be hanging another portrait in the gallery.” Victoria’s voice cracked. Not another. Not so soon. She lifted her face to look at Wayren. “What happened?”

“He went after Sebastian. And Beauregard.”

Victoria’s stomach dropped like a stone. “No.” He wouldn’t have.

Oh, God, yes, he would. She hadn’t forgotten the look of betrayal on his face. The stunned hurt. The disbelief.

Was this another death that would be laid at her door?

Another that could have been prevented if she had made different choices?

Bloody hell, she’d done nothing wrong! She’d not brought Sebastian here. She’d not betrayed them.

“I do not know all that happened…. He was barely conscious when we found him. He said only the words ‘Vioget’ and ‘Beauregard’…the rest we have surmised. But”—she gestured to the patient—“as you can see, the evidence is there.”

Victoria looked again and saw that he’d shifted, revealing tears in his flesh, ribboning through his neck and down beyond the blankets. It wasn’t only fangs that had caused such destruction.

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’s breath caught 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.