And it opened. Dear God, it opened!
And a low beam of light flooded into the tunnel.
The vampire screamed and rolled away and Victoria followed him, slipping the last stake from under her skirt. She drove it into his back, straight through to his heart, then turned to stumble into blessed, blessed dawn from a sun just peeking through the trees at the horizon.
She slammed the door behind her and staggered three or four steps away from the building.
She ran, her eyes smarting from the sudden brightness, blinded again, brushing through trees and bushes until she crashed into someone.
Two someones.
“My lady?”
“Lady Rockley?”
Victoria picked herself up from the grass and, still blinking away sunburst tears, said, “Verbena? Oliver? What on earth—”
“My God, she’s bleeding!” Oliver’s horrified voice penetrated, and she was finally able to focus on him. “Everywhere.” His voice cracked, easing into a horrified hush.
“We have a boat, my lady; come, come.” Verbena was tugging on her, and although Victoria could hear the fear in her voice, she also heard her trademark bossiness.
She allowed her maid to lead her back to the same canal on which she and Alvisi had traveled hours ago.
A half a day ago.
The voyage along the canal took well over an hour, during which Victoria had the overwhelming impression of warm yellow sunlight and of little else. Later, she recalled certain moments: The agony when Verbena liberally doused her wounds with salted holy water. The sudden listing of their gondola when Oliver’s pole caught on something. The snatches of hissed conversation between her two companions.
“She looks so white.”
“O’ course she does! She’s been bit five, six times, ye oaf!” And then the splash of water followed by the excruciating sting of salt. “Can ye not row any faster?”
“I’m not rowing. Do you see an oar? A paddle? Nay, nay, it’s a stick, and it’s not like rowing in the pond back in Cornwall.”
“Watch where ye’re—”
And then a great lurch, a muffled curse, and the resulting jolts as the vessel went on its way.
Then, later…“If you weren’t being such a stubborn nanny goat about me going, and delayed me, we wouldn’t have been so late getting there.”
“Ye weren’t goin’ wi’out me.”
“Lot of help you were, yelling and squawkin’ like a hen out on the canal.”
Followed by an angry huff and jerk of the boat, as though someone had spun away and folded her arms over her middle. “Ye were goin’ in the wrong direction.”
“So we wouldn’t be followed.”
“We were doin’ the followin’!”
“You can’t be too cautious in such matters.”
Then another great jolt of the boat. She must have turned back toward him. “What d’ you know about fìghtin’ vampires?”
“More than you do, which, by the look of it, says very little.”
Likely it was fortunate that Victoria drifted off at that point and didn’t hear Verbena’s response. She wasn’t aware of anything else until more jolting and then a sudden lurch told her they’d arrived at the dock.
She could walk, she told Verbena, and proceeded to demonstrate just that. The salted holy water had already begun to do its job, and although she was weak and sore and exhausted, she knew she would feel better by the next day. Venators healed quickly and easily, even from vampire bites.