The Bleeding Dusk (The Gardella Vampire Chronicles 3)

For all her calmness, all of her knowledge and wisdom, she was a bit absentminded at times. Now, realizing what she’d said, Wayren softened and merely looked at him. Behind the perfectly square spectacles she wore, her wise eyes filled with understanding. “Of course. I’m sorry.”

“She gave me a salve she claims will release me from her thrall…but at a price.” He pulled the small garnet jar from his coat pocket and set it on the table between them. Though his fingers itched to open it, he’d not done so yet. During the last months he’d kept it with him at all times, but had never opened the shiny pot, which was made from a walnut-size jewel.

It had weighted his coat. Burned his hand when he brushed it. Called to him when he emptied his pockets at night. One morning he’d awakened with it clutched in his hand.

That was when he knew it was time to return to Roma, to speak to Wayren.

Wayren looked at it, but made no move to pick it up. Then she shifted her attention back to Max, and contemplated him as if she knew what he was going to say next.

“If I use the salve I’ll lose my Venatorial powers, and because her bites have tainted my blood, I cannot regain them, even if I attempt the trial again. I’ll forget everything I know of that world. As if I never had the knowledge in the first place.”

“Like a Gardella who has been called and refuses the call—as Victoria’s mother did—you’ll be ignorant and simply a man.”

Simply a man.

He couldn’t even imagine what that would be like.

“You wish to be free of Lilith, but you haven’t used it yet,” Wayren commented.

“I’ve decided not to.”

There were times, as now, when he was convinced Wayren could read minds, perhaps even see the future. God knew she’d been around long enough to have learned the skill, if indeed it could be learned. She looked at him, her blue-gray eyes calm and penetrating. “You’ve done enough, Max. You’ve given seventeen years of your life in penance for what happened to your father and sister. You can be free.”

Dear God, Lilith had said nearly the same thing. The vampire queen had tempted him. Now Wayren was giving him permission.

He knew it was true. He’d meditated on it, prayed on it, agonized over it…all these weeks since leaving Lilith’s stronghold he’d thought of little else. But…“Free? But what would I leave behind? More deaths? More destruction and evil?”

And what would he lose in the process?

“You’d no longer have the memories. It would all be gone. You could truly be free.”

“Don’t you think I know that? How tempting is the thought of not having this bloody nagging on my neck all the time? The pain that comes at her every damned whim?”

Wayren gave a gentle shrug. “Max, to live with guilt for one’s entire life, to use it as a shield against truly living, an excuse for feeling…is that so much better? It’s not something anyone is required to do for all his days.”

He looked at her and realized she didn’t really understand. “The guilt doesn’t burden me any longer, Wayren. It’s Lilith’s thrall that burdens me. I don’t flay myself for what I did, for the choices I made. Those decisions are in the past and cannot be undone, and I’ve done everything I can think of to atone for them.

“But as easy as it might be to contemplate the freedom of ignorance, I can’t do it. I know I’m needed. How can I live in ignorance when I’m needed? How many deaths can I prevent by staying? I have no right to turn my back when I am one of the few who can prevent them.”

Wayren had folded her slender fingers in her lap and was watching him during this impassioned speech. “You were not called to be a Venator. You made the choice. You aren’t obligated as those Gardellas who are called.”

“Do you not understand? I became obligated the moment I turned Father and Giulia over to the Tutela.” His jaw cracked beneath his teeth.

“You were barely more than a child. You thought you were giving your family a gift—immortality—which is precisely what the Tutela led you to believe. That’s how they draw in strong, smart young men like yourself.”

“You dare to excuse what I did? Feeding my father and sister to the vampires? At sixteen, I knew what was wrong and what was right. Yet I was blinded by the chance for power and wealth and immortality.”

“And for the next seventeen years, at the risk of your life, you’ve worn the vis bulla. You’ve paid your penance, and then some.”

Max stopped suddenly and glared at Wayren. Wayren, who had been as close to him as Eustacia. Wayren, who, with her wisdom and calm, gentle ways, had been more of a mother figure to him than even Eustacia had. Eustacia had mentored and challenged him as a fighter; Wayren had touched and taught him as a young man.

She had been the one to help him through the life-threatening trial of attaining the vis bulla. She’d been there when he reached the point where he would either live and wear the amulet of the Venators, or die when it was pierced into his flesh.

“Why do you want me to use the salve?” he asked abruptly. “Do you think I’m no longer fit to be a Venator? After what happened with Eustacia?” His throat was dry, his hand tightly fisted into itself.

“No, Max. No.” She stood, coming to him, resting her slender hand on his arm. Some of his tension eased at her touch, as it always did. “I fear only that one day Lilith’s hold on you will become too strong for even you to fight. Already she has caused you to do her work of destroying Akvan’s Obelisk, bringing about the death of her rival and son. You could just as easily have failed as succeeded. What will she require of you the next time? And the next?”

The anger and annoyance that had whipped up inside him settled as he listened to her reasoning. “I do not know. But she has yet to control me as she would like.” Max stepped away and walked across the small room. On a small table next to the narrow bed was his favorite black-painted stake. It was sleek and heavy and it fit his hand perfectly. A cross was carved into the blunt end and inlaid with silver. “Victoria told me about the Door of Alchemy. You’ll need me if they get the keys.”

“You spoke to Victoria?”

“Last night. Briefly.”

“I’m certain she was glad you’ve returned. It’s not been an easy few months for her—losing her husband, and then Eustacia, and you as well. Just as you disappeared after Phillip died, you disappeared after Eustacia’s death. This inconstancy is becoming a habit of yours.” Her head tilted to the side like a little wren’s, her bright eyes watching him.