As Shadows Fade (The Gardella Vampire Hunters 5)

The stones beneath his knees had long ceased paining him, but the moment he moved, the agony screamed along his joints. His legs felt leaden at first, and then as he moved them, nasty prickles traveled up and down and into his buttocks and down into his toes.

Colored light beams of red, blue, and gold glowed in the massive church nave, shining through stained glass and spilling over the altar and arches and pews. By their angle, he surmised that dusk was near.

The end of the third day.

Always knowing, always perceptive, Wayren had touched his shoulder to draw him from the deep meditation, then eased away to allow him time to come back to himself. Now he turned and saw her sitting in a pew beneath a low arch, where the only illumination was a few alms candles. For a moment, he saw a shimmer of light around her in the dusky church, and then it was gone.

He moved stiffly next to her and sat for the first time in three days.

“You’re here,” he said.

“I am indeed. ”

“Do we have the third ring?”

She gave a brief nod. “We do. Now to finish here and to retrieve the other two from Lilith. ”

He couldn’t think about that now. Not yet. One moment at a time. One task at a time.

Wayren seemed to understand, and she touched his hand, her fingers soft and cool against his rough ones. A surge of power sleeked through him. Power and peace. “You’re feverish. Are you ill?”

He shrugged. “I’ve been. A bit. ”

She offered him a flask of water, and he drank. He’d never tasted anything more pure, more cold and clean. The heat burning through his limbs eased a bit, but it still raged beneath. He was ill and bloody weak. Yet he had work to do.

“Did you ask Ylito what he thought?”

Wayren nodded. “He agrees that you should not remove the vis bulla during the battle. There is no reason to, and yours is a special situation. Never have we had a Venator need to pass another Trial, wearing his own vis bulla . You do have your own back, don’t you?”

Max shoved away the memory of the exchange with Victoria, when she had returned his vis bulla , which she’d secretly been wearing, and he had given her back her own. Which he’d been wearing. “Yes. ” He looked at Wayren. “Did you discuss with him the other matter?”

“He agrees that it would do no harm to try, Max. Normally, of course, we have the blood from the vampire waiting, with the vis bulla soaking in holy water. After the vampire is dead, then the vis is taken from the holy water and dipped in the dead vampire’s blood and then pierced through the flesh of the Venator. That is when the truth will out: either death or life as a Venator.

“But in your case, since you already wear the vis , Ylito believes you may be able to miss that step and finish the Trial sooner. We’ll pour holy water on the amulet before the battle. If blood from the vampire is wiped on the vis during the battle, it may indeed reactivate your Venator powers. ”

“Or it may not. ”

“Or it may not. ”

Either way, the result would be the same. If it was meant to happen, it would happen, whether during the battle with the vampire, or after.

Max knew that he didn’t want to kill a vampire only to die afterward.

He didn’t want to die at all, he realized, for the first time in a long time. For the first time since he could remember.

But he might. And he was prepared. He stood. “I’m ready. ”

Fourteen

The Trial Commences

When he walked in, Max didn’t look at Victoria.

She supposed she wasn’t surprised-after all, this was Max.

But what if he never came out of that pit again? What if this was the last time she’d see him? And he wouldn’t look at her.

Victoria dug her fingers into the palm of her hand and tried not to notice how gray he looked in the face, beneath his olive skin. How exhaustion pinched his mouth and lined his eyes. A sheen of moisture glazed his forehead and cheeks. Was he ill or simply worn down?