Still clothed. One in a dress. The other three in breeches and shirts.
Humans.
Headless.
Just like Aunt Eustacia.
The memory shot into her mind. Blood everywhere.
Victoria took a deep breath, closed her eyes. Her heart was slamming hard. Her stomach roiled, but she managed to keep from losing control. She waited a moment, swallowing hard. “What are they doing? Why cut off their heads?”
“They were taking them somewhere, probably out of the estate. ”
Victoria looked at Michalas. “No coincidence that there’s a pile of beheaded animal carcasses nearby. Let’s go see if…if there are other bodies there. But…we can’t leave them here. ”
“No…eh…shall we bring them somewhere outside these walls so they’ll be found? So perhaps they’ll be identified? I’ve not heard any reports in the city about finding headless corpses,” Michalas added. “I’ve a cousin who works with the polizia, and he tells me of all the goings-on. ”
“But why take off their heads? They’re vampires,” Victoria asked again, if only to keep her mind from thinking about the morbid task at hand. They certainly couldn’t leave the bodies; Michalas was right.
In the end they moved the four corpses and left them in a small courtyard several blocks away from the Palombara estate. Michalas would suggest to his cousin that he might wish to investigate that particular viuzza, and then the police could at least attempt to find the families of the victims.
By the time they completed the task of moving the bodies, Victoria was filthy and bloody and quite nauseated, but she still wanted to see the pile of animal carcasses, so Michalas took her to where he’d found it, which was only two streets away from the broken wall of the estate.
The pile was still there, in the darkest corner of an overgrown courtyard behind a half-burned-out apartment. She had no idea how Michalas had ever come upon it.
According to him, the pile was larger now. Rotted. The stench was stomach-turning. And it was composed only, as far as they could tell, of dogs and cats, perhaps a wolf or two.
But it would be too much of a coincidence to believe that the four dead humans were not intended to be added to the pile.
“Now we know there are undead involved,” Victoria said as she and Michalas walked away from the dark courtyard, still on the alert for more undead. “But the question becomes: What are they doing with the heads?”
Three
In Which Victoria’s Idyll Is Invaded
Victoria and Michalas finished the night by patrolling the rest of the rione near Villa Palombara. They staked a measly three more vampires before returning to the Consilium at sunrise to report their findings to Ilias. They found him on his way to speak with Wayren.
After their brief discussion, Ilias suggested that Victoria join him with Wayren in her private library. Michalas appeared relieved to be dismissed, saying with a crooked grin that he was ready to return home to his own bed. Victoria would have been pleased to do so herself, but of course she did not. She followed Ilias to the library. It smelled of old books—of paper and papyrus, of ink and leather. She had been there only once before—very briefly—so as she came into the dome-shaped room that was accessed by a locked door with hidden bolts, she took the opportunity to reexamine the chamber.
The ceiling of the round room was high above her head, and rows of books sat on shelves that appeared to be carved into the circular walls. On closer look, however, she saw that the shelves were stone ledges, and carved with letters or symbols in a language Victoria didn’t recognize. She presumed the symbols were some sort of code by which the books, scrolls, and laced-together parchments were organized.
Victoria stepped onto a thick white rug that covered half of the chamber floor and selected a straight-backed chair for her seat. In the center of the room was a large piece of glass situated like a tabletop. Wayren sat behind the desk, her square spectacles resting neatly on a wooden tray next to a spread-eagled book. Ilias, who’d followed Victoria into the room, closed the door behind him and sank into the final seat.
The room wasn’t as large as she would have imagined, knowing how many tomes Wayren had access to. A bevy of candles burned from sconces on the walls and some of the lower shelves, and from stands with multiple tiers and holders placed throughout the room. Despite being a deep flight of stairs underground, the room was lit as if it were noon in July.
Ilias glanced at Wayren. “Where is Ylito? Is he not joining us?”
She bowed her head easily. “He is in the midst of a procedure. I have already spoken with him, and he urges us to continue without him. ”
“Ylito?” Victoria was surprised at the unfamiliar name. She knew of all of the Venators by name, even if she hadn’t met them all, and the Comitators, their martial-arts trainers, but this was one she’d never heard mentioned.
“He is not a Venator, but an herbalist and alchemist who studies the properties of plants and metals and is very talented with his work. ”
Victoria looked at Wayren. “Do you mean to say he’s a wizard?”
The older woman looked pained for a moment, then smiled slightly. “He prefers to be called a hermetist, a sort of spiritual alchemist, which is a bit more palatable to him than the moniker of wizard or sorcerer. ” When Victoria continued to look at her with clear question in her eyes, she continued, “As powerful and daunting as our Venators may be, we’ve found over the years that someone like Ylito often provides skills beyond what a Venator can do: casting protections, creating infusions or distillations, and even drawing forth the energies and inherent powers of gold and silver—all for the purpose of annihilating the malevolence brought on this earth by Lilith and her kind. ”
“It is not surprising that you haven’t met Ylito, or perhaps even heard his name spoken,” added Ilias. “He prefers to remain cloistered in his workshop unless needed. Which is why he’s chosen not to grace us with his presence at this time. ” He shifted in his seat and raised a hand to scratch his chin. “So let us get to the matter at hand, Victoria. We have vampires who are cutting the heads off small animals and now, apparently, humans. ” He looked at Wayren. “That would be behavior more like that of a demon, so I am at a loss as to why the undead would do such a thing, particularly since they abhor demons. ”