The Bleeding Dusk (9 page)

Even so, she'd already given the message to two others last night, after returning to Carnivale from the graveyard and Sara Regalado's aborted kidnap attempt. Perhaps that would be enough to get the word to Sebastian.

Her neck still prickling, she began to push her way back through the crowd in search of Zavier. Behind her Victoria heard the shepherdess's shriek of annoyance as her candle was doused.

Suddenly something slammed into her from behind. She stumbled and would have fallen to the ground had she not knocked into a Pulcinella. Her flame guttered in its pooled wax, and the Pulcinella whipped his switch-laden handkerchief down on her
moccoletto.

When Victoria regained her balance and turned, her now-dark candle still steady in her grip, she found herself face-to-face with a masked man. His eyes weren't red, and she couldn't see the shape or color of them behind his black domino. But she recognized the angle of his chin, and the crop of fair curls that brushed the side of his neck. The smile he gave her was bemused, and laced with challenge.

Apparently the message had been delivered.

Before she could speak he moved sharply, yanking a nearby Joan of Arc between them and pushing off through the crowd.

Victoria shoved the laughing Saint Joan out of her way and followed, heart pounding. She didn't hesitate to go after him, even though she certainly recognized that she'd been followed twice in as many nights, despite wearing two different masks. It was a risk, but not an unexpected one.

A stake was in her hand, and another was in a deep pocket where she also had a metal dagger Kritanu had given her when she started her
ankathari
training. The
kadhara
had a curved blade and was about the length of her forearm. She was also protected by the large crucifix she wore beneath her costume, not to mention her duo of
vis bullae.

Watching the back of the shadowy domino and following its irregular path through the crowd was no easy task. He didn't carry a taper and Victoria's had been extinguished, so as they neared the edge of the light-filled festival, she paused to catch a flame from the fat wick of a donkey's candle.

When she pushed through the last barrier of people and found herself in a small, narrow
viuzza
—what she would call a mews or alley back in London—Victoria stopped and looked around. It was an odd setting: behind her thousands upon thousands of people laughing and shouting with their glowing yellow candles, and here, in front of her, a dark alleyway lit only by her single flame, and silent. Still as death.

Her neck was still cold, the hair still raised to attention, but she saw no one. He'd been there a moment before, just as she burst free of the crowd, but now she was alone.

Ripe for another black canvas cloth to come wafting down over her head.

Victoria braced herself, half crouched, turning slowly and peering into the shadows. Then she saw one of them move.

“Ah, it
is
you. I was not altogether certain, but the way you wielded that stake convinced me.” The voice was soft as the figure moved into the dim light.

“Beauregard.” Victoria stepped toward him, warily casting about to see if he was alone, or if someone lurked nearby to pounce on her from behind. Sebastian, perhaps. The stake was firm in her palm. The back of her neck remained cold and prickly. But it itched, as though there were something…or someone…else watching them. “Did you receive my message?”

“But why else would I seek you out?” His response was easy, yet she sensed the respect and wariness in his demeanor as he flipped back the hood of his domino.

“Perhaps the message was garbled, then,” she replied. “It was your grandson with whom I wished to speak. Not you.”

“You needn't brandish that stake as though you are a novice Venator out for her first hunt,” he said, crossing his arms over his middle in a picture of nonchalance that pulled up one of his sleeves and revealed a strong, elegant wrist. The stance, the expression on his face, reminded her again of Sebastian.

Although the two shared a similar, elegant facial structure and thick, curling hair, there wasn't a great resemblance otherwise. Beauregard, who must have been in his forties when he was turned, had a slightly wider nose and more delicate lips than his grandson, and his hair was more of a silvery blond than the tawny color of Sebastian's. He was handsome enough in his own cool fashion, and that, along with his persistent charm, and the fact that he was exceedingly well dressed, was what reminded her of the younger man.

“I've done nothing to threaten you or to harm anyone,” Beauregard continued.

“You've been undead for four hundred years; I'm fairly certain you've mauled at least one mortal during that time. And once you've fed from one mortal, your sentence of eternal damnation is assured. I thought I might help you more quickly on your way there.”

“Er…almost six hundred years, my dear Victoria. Six hundred. Yet, a pittance when one looks at the age of the elegant Lilith, yes?” He shifted, his eyes beginning to glow ruby, narrowing with annoyance. “Put the stake away. After all, you did send the message, and it's not as if I've tried to taste you.”

“I expect it will be only a matter of time until you do,” Victoria replied.

“As you wish.” Beauregard grinned, and now his fangs flashed. They were no longer than a man's first knuckle, but sharp as a razor. So sharp that the feel of them sinking into one's flesh would hardly be noticeable, more pleasure than pain. His lower fangs were much shorter, but just as lethal, and hidden by his lower lip.

During their banter she'd foolishly allowed herself to relax enough that her gaze drifted too directly to his, too tightly to his ruby irises. She was snared.

Guardian vampires, the ones with ruby eyes who also made up Lilith's personal guard, had especially strong enthralling powers. As Beauregard's control crept over her, Victoria felt her limbs begin to soften and her head to swim. The blood in her veins surged, swelling the vessels so that hot pressure pounded through her body.

His breath began to match hers, then fought to control their merging breathing. Victoria was sluggish, but she still held the stake, and the candle in her other hand. She had enough presence of mind to realize how incredibly strong his pull was, and how difficult it would be to fight it off.

Dimly she forced herself to blink, trying to break the connection. Drawing her eyelids down was like wading upstream neck-deep in a river: slow, deathly slow. She felt movement around her, then the brush of his hand against her neck, warm and strong.

She tried to blink again, tried to recover her own breathing and slowly force herself out of the pulsing red tunnel into which she'd begun to fall, clawing back to her reality by focusing on the feel of the stake in her hand and the force of the
vis bullae
at her belly.

Suddenly the thrall was broken. She snapped free and pulled in a breath all her own, then raised the stake, plunging it down toward his chest—a chest that had moved closer to her in those few moments of confusion. Everything in her mind was clear and crisp again—the night, the darkness, the smell of the city, the buildings looming over them. As the stake plunged, he threw up his arm to stop her blow, stepping back.

Their forearms collided with a force that would have broken bones had they not been Venator and vampire, and she drew in her breath in annoyance, twisting away. “I knew you were not to be trusted,” she snapped, whirling back toward him, stake at the ready. “Despite your grandson's arguments to the contrary.” She dropped her candle and leaped.

He blocked her again, and the force of her blow sent them into each other, breast-to-breast, in a parody of a lovers' embrace before she ducked down, seeking to surge up behind him.

He feinted away, but she launched at him. Beauregard caught her by the waist and shoved her so hard she stumbled backward, catching herself against a plaster wall. Her candle flame, still burning on the ground, flickered wildly as she looked over at him, recognizing they were at an impasse.

“Strong, brave, stubborn…and beautiful. Once again, I can understand my grandson's attraction for you.” His lips, thinner than Sebastian's, but of the same shape, curved in a familiar smile. The movement couldn't help but remind her of the many times she'd kissed lips rather like them.

Beauregard's eyes gleamed behind his mask, sweeping a pink gaze over her, trying again to capture her. “'Tis a shame he saw you first, Venator. But if he does not treat his ladylove with care and attention, perhaps you will tire of waiting for him and cast your affections elsewhere. Toward power. And immortality.”

“I'm as likely to be his ladylove as he is to be a Venator himself,” Victoria replied with a derisive snort, stepping back, but ready to propel herself forward. “I trust him no farther than I do you; perhaps even less. At least I know where you stand.”

“I see.” The way he looked at her, as though he were contemplating some great question, was so different from his earlier gaze when he'd tried to enthrall her that Victoria almost looked him straight in the eye. But she remembered how easily she'd fallen moments before and resisted. “Ah, well, at the least, as you said, you know where I stand. Now, do not strike at me again,” he added when she gathered herself up to do just that. “As that you've proven yourself just as enticing and capable as I'd hoped, let us get to business.”

Wary, but no longer breathing hard, Victoria didn't relax her stance. “Business? Was that your vampire I staked earlier? A lure sent to pull me from the crowd? As you did last night?”

She could almost see his eyebrows rising behind the hooded mask of the domino. “I'm afraid you must be mistaken. I was otherwise engaged last evening. It was a tedious thing, but one must feed at least occasionally. Although I will admit to using that young man you slayed as one of several…what did you call them? Lures? To help me locate you in the crowd. So that I could answer your call, so to speak.”

“Apparently he was expendable.”

Beauregard shrugged. “The young ones are so bloody sure of themselves they think they are invincible once they have been turned. They do not realize a Venator can just as easily end their immortality as they believe they can take from other mortals. It was a lesson for some of his other companions. It's fortunate for me that most of those young, weak ones have allied themselves with Regalado and his Tutela members.”

“And so the battle rages on between the two vampire factions.” Victoria swept up the candle, then straightened from her offensive stance.

“Battle? I'd hardly call it that. Regalado and his followers are no match for me, even with their new ally. Indeed, I have my own plan for dealing with them.”

Victoria pretended to yawn. “Vampire politics: not something I'm terribly interested in—I'd just as soon stake all of you, regardless of who allies with whom. Instead, let's talk about why you've enticed me into this dark alley. I can only assume the purpose is to exact some kind of payment for telling me what I want to know.”

“Ah, good. You've alleviated the awkwardness of the topic by mentioning it yourself.” Beauregard laughed, sounding uncomfortably like Sebastian. Then his charm vanished, and his eyes burned pink again. “Why do you wish to see him? I did not expect a woman of your stature and confidence to be chasing after the noncommittal rake that is my grandson.”

She bowed her head, taking care not to look directly into those dangerous irises. “I think the rake is more like an apple that has fallen not so far from the tree. Ancient though the tree might be. And the matter concerns my aunt.” There was no sense in being coy with Beauregard—she needed his help to find Sebastian.

“Your aunt?”

Then Victoria realized her mistake. She should have let him believe it was Sebastian himself that she, playing the woman scorned, was after. But perhaps she could yet save it. “He…sent me something that belonged to my aunt, and I…wished to thank him.”

She knew Beauregard was too smart to be fooled by a complete reversal of personality, but perhaps subtlety would be more effective anyway.

“Thank him? Ah…” The way he allowed that last syllable to ease from his mouth in a low sigh told her he had taken the bait. The pink glow faded from his eyes, to be replaced by smugness. “It has been months, hasn't it? And you wish to
thank
him.”

“I need to see him.” She allowed the desperation in her voice—let him think what he would. Let him tell Sebastian she was pining for him. It wouldn't matter in the end.

“As you might imagine, gratitude is something my grandson and I both appreciate. I might be inclined to pass on the message to Sebastian, in exchange for some from you.”

She didn't reply, merely tightened the grip on her stake and waited for him to continue. It was nothing more than she'd expected.

He bowed in acknowledgment, spreading his hands as if he had no choice. “I find that I have a curiosity…and a craving…that I desire to satisfy.”

Victoria knew exactly what he meant. Her palms grew clammy and her heart began to thump harder as she felt his control begin to swirl about her. He was very powerful, and likely as strong as she was, even with her two
vis bullae.

“You cannot feed on me,” she said, shifting the long stake at her waist. “I'll send you to Hell first.”

Beauregard looked affronted. “Feed? My dear, you needn't be crude. Feeding is like the rutting between hogs, or the mindless fucking of a whore. What I wish from you is much more than a mere gorging on your hot, thick blood. Your Venator blood.” His eyes were blazing ruby-pink, and she felt the insistent tug toward him. “Your sweet, female, Venator blood.”

His voice was hypnotic, but she remained clearheaded enough to feel the wood under her fingers, even the hot splash of wax that spilled down in a trickle from the taper in her hand.