The Bleeding Dusk (30 page)

He lifted her hand, palm up, and brought it into the light.

When she uncurled her fingers Victoria saw with a shock that the inside of her hand—the one that had held the shard—and her fingers were marked faintly with blue.

“What is it?” she said, handing him the sconce and opening her other hand to compare. When she saw that the bluish cast on the skin that had gripped the shard was no trick of the low light, she tried to rub it away.

“When the obelisk touches flesh for any length of time, its power begins to seep in, leaving such a mark. If you're lucky it may fade in time.” He looked at her, his dark eyes flat and hard. “Don't touch it directly again. Or who knows whom you'll beg to kiss the next time.”

And he turned away, taking the sconce with him, leaving Victoria with burning cheeks and a flood of annoyance…and embarrassment. Beg?

Beg?

Oh, but he'd wanted to. She'd seen it in his eyes.

Giving her head a little shake, Victoria turned to look at the chamber for the first time and saw now that it wasn't a small chamber at all. The room was quite large and had been set up as a well-equipped laboratory. The single torch Max held did little to light the room, but when Victoria saw another sconce on the wall she moved to light that one, and its illumination showed more details: long tables, five or six stools of varying height and condition, utensils, and scatterings of metal shavings and curds. There were shallow wooden bowls, deep metal ones, round and softly triangular, large and small. Goblets, corked jars, tiny carved boxes were all littered about, covered with dust, and some of them with dark stains. Larger chunks of silver, bronze, copper, iron, quartz, and marble were piled on the tables or littered on the floor, which was filthy with dust, dirt, and most definitely animal droppings.

She walked along one of the tables flanking the wall, quickly examining the remains of Marchese
Palombara's alchemical experiments for whatever it was the undead—and others—wanted so badly. But there was nothing that caught her eye, nothing that looked important enough to be notes or journals about the mysterious pilgrim's work.

As she turned to look at another of the worktables, her wet slippered foot knocked against something on the floor. It made a soft metal clink, and she would have disregarded it as just another piece of scrap metal if it hadn't rolled in front of her, spinning in smaller circles until it spiraled to a halt. Victoria bent to pick it up, the hair on the back of her arms lifting.

She'd seen this…something like this before.

It was a band—similar to Aunt Eustacia's plain silver armband that had held the silver key—but this was made of copper, and it was more distinctive. While Aunt Eustacia's ornament had been solid silver, as wide as three fingers, this band was made of three tendrils of copper, each perhaps the width of a finger and woven into a solid band. A smooth, elliptical shape had been formed where the ends of the three copper strands merged together, as if they'd been melted down and pressed flat. A symbol was etched into it.

One she'd seen before. Somewhere.

“Ah. And here we find our friend the Marchese Palombara,” Max commented from across the room, drawing Victoria's attention.

Slipping the bracelet into her pocket, she walked over to find him standing above a skeleton, still dressed in the rotting clothes of two hundred forty years earlier. “Is that what we've come for?” she asked, noticing the yellow, curling packet of papers clutched by two bony hands. “I see nothing else that could be of interest to vampires and mortals alike.”

“I would suspect.” Max bent forward, the lantern casting long, eerie shadows over the gray bones of the long-dead
marchese.
When he touched the skeletal arm it fell away, bone and fabric crumbling to dust in the same way an undead disintegrated when staked. And yet…not.

He lifted the papers gingerly, taking care to keep them intact, and handed them to Victoria. They were sewn together by a leather cord, and, when she gently lifted the top page, she found faded ink writing, mathematical equations, and diagrams and sketches.

“Ylito will be overjoyed to see this,” she commented with a smile.

“Indeed. So, now that we've retrieved what we came for, shall we get it safely back to the Consilium?”

“Were you planning to take the obelisk shard with you?” she asked sharply.

“Of course not. While you were gawking about the room like a girl at court, I've already placed it over there.”

She looked and saw a small trunk in a dark corner. With a withering glance at him, she walked over and lifted the lid, still carrying the sheaf of papers. Inside the trunk was the shard of Akvan's Obelisk.

“You didn't believe me.” Max's voice behind her was soft and…she could only describe it as menacing.

“You of all people ought to understand duty,” she replied coolly, looking at him. “I needed to make certain the evil that I brought upon the Consilium has been contained. I needed to see for myself.”

He gave a short nod, and when he replied there was satisfaction in his voice. “You've begun to learn, Victoria.”

She started to turn away and noticed that his dark shirt, which was cravatless, had gaped away from his throat. “Those are new bites.”

His hand jerked slightly, as though he'd begun to raise it to close his collar and stopped himself in time. “Unfortunately.”

“Was Sara right? Did you go to Lilith?”

“Let's go. We're wasting time.”

“Why would you do such a foolish thing?”

He spun away as if to start to the door, and she reached out and grabbed his arm. Hard. “Max.”

His muscles flexing under her fingers, he turned back, his expression flat except for furious eyes. “Yes, I went to Lilith. Yes, she left me with yet more marks of her possession.” This last word came out with rank bitterness. “Why it can make any difference to you, or to our current task, is not clear to me. Let's go.”

“Alone? With her? Surrounded by all her guards? Max, she could have killed you.” She couldn't let it go; she couldn't drop the subject. How could he risk himself that way?

What would have happened if he'd not come back?

Or…worse?
Dear God.

At her rapid questions he paused and looked down at her. Now his eyes were bleak. “You understand nothing of her, do you? Victoria, if I were to give you one last piece of advice, it would be this: Find out who Lilith
is,
or she will beat you as she has beaten so many others before.” He pulled firmly away and started toward the massive stone door.

Victoria followed, anger still spiking through her. He was so high-handed, so reticent. So cold and removed. Why did he still act that way, treat her like a naive girl, after all they'd accomplished together?

He had the door open before she reached him, and the pale gray that came through the crack was ominous in its dimness. The sun was nearly down, and Max was right—they must get the papers safely back to the Consilium before Akvan or his followers realized they'd come and gone from the very chamber to which the demon had been trying to gain access.

Just as she was about to walk through the door, where Max waited on the other side, Victoria remembered the leather cord in her pocket, and its small splinter of obsidian. Although she had considered keeping it as a potential way to draw Akvan out of his lair, after what Max had shown her in regard to its power, she realized it would be foolhardy to take that chance.

No one could say she didn't learn from her mistakes. Even Max.

But when she reached into the small breast pocket of her man's coat, it was empty. Empty! The cord had fallen out somehow…sometime since she'd left the Consilium.

It had to have been, she realized, when she removed her coat just outside the Door of Alchemy in order to take off Aunt Eustacia's armband. The necklace must have fallen on the ground then, when she slung the coat over her arm and worked the bracelet down from her upper arm. It had to be on the ground outside.

“Are you coming?” Max, at the door, sounded impatient as usual.

She didn't respond, but instead, with one last look about the laboratory, she slipped out through the narrow opening. It was going to be difficult to find in the lowering light, but they would have to try. She couldn't leave it for someone else to stumble upon. “Max, I—”

“Shh!” he hissed suddenly, coming to attention.

She would have heard it too if she hadn't been focused on the loss of the little splinter: a crashing in the brush very nearby. Coming vaguely from the direction of the villa, it was loud enough to portend either a cluster of newcomers, or a very large, very careless person.

And then Victoria heard voices. Shrill voices, raised much too loudly in argument.

Her entire body went cold and then rigid.

And it wasn't because there was a vampire sending a chill over the back of her neck; indeed, there weren't any undead in the near vicinity.

No, this was much worse.

Max's face changed from one of arrested expectation to one of confusion. If Victoria hadn't been so disconcerted, she might have found it amusing. As it was, she started toward the noise just as something—someone—blundered through a pair of overgrown bushes spreading over an old path.

“…daresay, you should have stayed home, Nilly! That little stick— Oh!” Lady Winifred, the Duchess of Farnham, shambled to a halt so quickly that her companion plowed into her from behind, sending her curls and jowls jouncing. The reticule-size silver cross around her neck bounced into the air, then thunked heavily onto the duchess's bosom. “Victoria, what on earth—Oh! Oh, my!”

“Oh!” squeaked Lady Nilly, peering from behind the duchess's broad shoulder.

Victoria had stepped toward them, followed by Max—whose dark look had been the catalyst for their choked gasps.

“Stand back,” Lady Winnie said fiercely, brandishing an unwieldy wooden pike the length of her forearm and thick as her wrist. She aimed the pointed end at Max. “Has he hurt you, Victoria? One further step, and—”

“Did he bite you?” asked Lady Nilly, her voice breathless and her eyes so wide that white appeared all around her irises. “Did it hurt? Did you like it?”

“What are you two doing here?” Victoria asked, gently taking the duchess's wrist and lowering the ridiculous stake.

“We're hunting vampires,” replied Lady Winnie in a stage whisper, still eyeing Max balefully. “You poor dear. I don't mean to frighten you, but I'm certain that man is a vampire.”

“He's not a vampire,” Victoria told her, trying to keep her lips from twitching. A quick glance at Max told her he was not finding the situation amusing in the least. “Although I can understand the mistake.”

The sound he made could only have been described as a growl. “Victoria, it's nearly dark,” he said, warning in his voice.

“Indeed. Duchess Winnie,” she said, using her pet name for the woman, “what on earth are you doing here?”

Suddenly there was more crashing in the bushes—although, to give her a bit of credit, it wasn't quite so ferocious as that from before—and a puff of orange hair appeared, followed by the flushed-cheeked face of Verbena.

“Beggin' yer pardon, my lady,” she said to Victoria, giving a brief curtsy. “I tried t'keep 'em from doin' it—”

“Hmph.” Winnie sniffed. “If it weren't for her, we would be back sipping tea and preparing for dinner.”

“What are you all doing here?” Max thundered.

Lady Nilly squeaked, her eyes popping again. Lady Winnie drew herself up bravely, but scuttled back a few steps as she closed her fingers around the crucifix, brandishing it like a talisman.

“A bit on th' huffy side,” Verbena said to Victoria, casting a glance at Max. She must have seen the impatience in her mistress's own expression, for she hurried on. “Lady Melly's been taken off by th' Conte Regalado. 'E's been courtin' her, milady, an' I didn't know until t'day when I heard 'em talkin' about it.”

“Regalado has my mother?” Cold fear rushed through her, and her mouth dried.
No,
was her first thought.
No. Not again. Not like Phillip
…

Verbena nodded vigorously. “An' the ladies there—they decided t' come wit' me when I come 'ere to see to 'er.” Now she produced her own stake, which, again to her credit, was much more of a comfortable size. And it looked a bit familiar, with its pink sequins and the remnant of a white feather still attached to the blunt end.

“When did they leave? How long have they been gone?”

“N'more than two hours,” Verbena replied earnestly. “He said he'd take 'er for a drive. Th' ladies 'ere thought he'd bring 'er h'ere, if he was gonna—y'see—hurt 'er, and since they'd been here for that party, they insisted on coming wi' me.”

Her mother, in the clutches of Regalado. The thought made Victoria's insides churn like a sea storm.

She focused her sharp mind, pushed away the worry that threatened to turn her senses frantic.

Were they at the villa? If so, it was a blessing she was already here herself…but there were any number of places he could have taken her. Victoria realized Max was looking at her, that he'd stepped closer, almost as if to offer assistance. He'd help her comb through the villa, go with her to delve down into the underground lair of Akvan and search for her mother.

Victoria looked directly at him, her veins singing and her mind working furiously, and pushed the numbing worry back. She could fret later. It was getting darker by the moment. She made her decision in that instant.

“You'll have to take that back to…back,” she finished firmly, looking at the bundle of papers he still had. “I'll see to my mother.”

He looked as though he might argue, but it was only for a moment. Then he nodded. “It's imperative we get this safely to Wayren,” he said.