As Shadows Fade (The Gardella Vampire Chronicles 5)

Kritanu, who’d stepped away to give the butler, Charley, some murmured orders, turned to the large cabinet that sat in this small parlor. As he fumbled with its latch, using his one hand, he asked, “What happened? Victoria? The others?”

Max shrugged and felt a renewed twinge in his shoulder. His knees trembled. If he didn’t sit soon, they’d leave him no choice. If he did succumb and sit, he’d not stand again. “Fighting the demons that took Wayren. The others held them back so we could get away.”

Kritanu turned from the cabinet, and Max saw that he held the Gardella family Bible. An ancient tome, made up of hand-bound pages yellow and brittle with age, this book held the names of those called to the Gardella Legacy-both Venators born, as Victoria was, and Venators chosen, as Max was.

Had been.

Damn Lilith.

She’d taken everything from him.

Max gave in. His knees bent, and he slid into one of the chairs, using his grip on its arm to give his acquiescence an appearance of grace.

He watched as Kritanu brought the Bible to Wayren and rested it, open, on her lap. It dwarfed her, hanging over the edges of her slender legs and dirty, torn gown. She placed her hands on it, closed her weary eyes, and Max watched as color began to seep back into her face.

Her pale lips moved silently, flushing slowly with pink. Her fingers stopped trembling and the tension in her face eased.

Suddenly she opened her eyes and looked at him with clear gray-blue orbs. “Thank you, Max. I know how difficult it was for you to leave.”

“I was ordered to go.”

She opened her mouth as if to say something else, then paused, tilting her head to the side like Myza. Her eyes glittered brightly and she exchanged a quick look with Kritanu, who’d received a bowl of water from Charley and curled his maimed arm around it. In his other hand, he held a soft cloth. It dripped, and some pungent smell wafted from it.

Wordlessly, Max took the cloth and buried his face in it, inhaling whatever herbal decoction it had been steeped in, scrubbing away the blood and grime. Every muscle in his body ached, yet they gathered beneath his skin, demanding to be put to use, taut and ready.

He couldn’t sit here. And wait.

And wait.

He rubbed his face harder.

“Thrush has returned.”

Wayren’s quiet words brought Max’s hands down and his face from the damp cloth, which had cooled in the interim. Then he heard a soft clinking tap at the window, but Kritanu was already there, unlatching it and pushing it open.

If Thrush had returned…

Max felt jittery and cold.

“I cannot find a message.” With only one hand, Kritanu couldn’t easily remove the small tube from the bird’s leg; but instead of bringing it to Max, he offered the bird to Wayren.

Hell. Did he look that bad?

Wayren looked up from the pigeon. “There is no message.”

No message .

Max started to rise, but Wayren glared at him, raising a hand. It was surprisingly steady. “Be still. Thrush would not have left Myza alone. They had nothing with which to send a message.”

Was he that damned transparent?

He remained in his seat and tried not to look toward the window, tried not to appear as though every bloody creaking board in the house snapped him to attention.

“Max, it’s time that you returned to the Venators.”

Despite the hollow of pain and pounding anxiety in which he sat, Max heard and understood Wayren’s words. “It’s impossible,” he said, taking no care to hide the bitterness. Lilith had made certain that when he broke her hold over him, he would be unable to become a Venator again. Her bite, enhanced by a special salve that bound him to her, had tainted his blood. “You know it. And without a vis , I am nothing but a liability.”

“Indeed. You were quite the liability tonight,” Wayren said drily.

Max lifted his eyes to meet hers, and his sharp retort remained unspoken. Nevertheless. “My blood is tainted by Lilith. I cannot pass the Trial again, even if I should wish to try.”

“You don’t wish it?”

To become whole again? With all of his being.

And yet… never again.

“I won’t go back… to that.”

Wayren looked steadily at him. “Ylito has been studying your blood,” she said as though he hadn’t spoken.

“My blood?” Then he remembered. He’d sliced his arm open during that black ordeal in Roma. Victoria had needed blood in order to help fight back Beauregard’s blood as it attempted to turn her undead. Because his blood was not of the Gardellas, it was useless, but… “Ylito kept it?”

Wayren nodded. “That was why I asked for you to give some, even though we did not believe it could be used for Victoria. I asked Ylito to study it, to see if Lilith’s taint was real. Or if she lied.”

He didn’t ask. Max closed his mouth.

The Trial to become a Venator for one not called by the Gardella Legacy, one without the blood of the family in his veins, was a life-or-death proposition. Max had not cared about dying the first time he’d undergone the test.

In fact, he’d fairly wished for death. Yearned for it, for years.

But now.

He wasn’t afraid of it.

He just… didn’t want it. Yet.

He looked at Wayren and read the answer to the unspoken question. “Ylito believes there is no taint,” she said, reaffirming his thoughts.

Just then, his keen ears recognized a new sound from the front of the house. Max surged to his feet, ignoring the rush of light-headedness and the renewed flow of warmth down his arm, moving toward the foyer.

Flinging the door open, he saw the shadowy figures sliding from their horses. The big, burly Brim, moving slowly, but on his own, thank God. The tight strawberry blond curls of Michalas as he dismounted his horse.

There was another person turned away, pulling a limp body down from a horse.

Max hurried down the steps… without appearing to hurry. Hiding his fear.

The figure turned, steadying the inert bundle, and Max saw that it was Victoria, bloody and wild-faced, helping Sebastian stagger toward the house.

Six

An Unwelcome Summons

“Wayren?” asked Victoria as soon as she saw Max coming toward her. She didn’t have to ask the other question that had burned in her mind all during the long ride home. Though his face looked haggard in the early dawn, and she could see bloodstains all over his clothing, he was walking. Limping, moving slowly, but walking. Thank God.

Thank God.

“Recovered,” he said.