“Why did you do that?” She ignored his hand and rolled easily to her feet, barely breathing hard, stake again in hand. For a moment she wanted to plant it in that big barrel chest in front of her. Damn and blast! The first vampire she’d seen in a week, and he was gone before she could talk to him. Now she’d have to find another one tonight—although it shouldn’t be hard, really, since they were bound to be out on the Corso.
“Why, I was helpin’ ye.”
“I had things well in hand. I didn’t need help. I wanted to talk to him, not kill him.” The thrill of the fight had gone out of her and left Victoria with a rumbling annoyance and the feeling of unfinished business. Not to mention covered with vampire dust.
“Ye appeared to be in danger, so I wasna going to stand by and watch him maul you.”
Victoria looked at him as she brushed the dank ash from her hair and clothes. They were nearly the same height, although he was much bulkier than she. “I am capable of staking a single vampire,” she said slowly and distinctly, her nerves still wanting to jump. “I’ve done it many times before. In fact,” she said, closing her eyes to finger away the dust on her lashes as much as to retain the evenness of her voice, “I have fought five at a time, and won. I purposely didn’t kill him because I needed him to take a message for me.” A message to Beauregard that she was looking for his grandson.
But, of course, Zavier wouldn’t have—couldn’t have—known that. He didn’t even know anything about the Door of Alchemy.
When she opened her eyes, Zavier was still looking at her. But instead of bafflement or chagrin or even annoyance, his expression was filled with admiration. “Of course,” he said. “Fool that I was, I forgot that you of all women dinna need protection.”
The smile he gave her there, in the cold cemetery, warmed Victoria from her cheeks down to her toes, and she had to glance away for fear her face would start to glow. Although fighting her way through undead immortals and evil demons was becoming second nature to her, she was less sure of herself when interacting with men.
She’d debuted into London Society just about a year and a half ago, and had been in mourning for her husband, Phillip, for a twelvemonth of that period, during which, of course, she’d worn black and stayed cloistered in her husband’s home—far away from members of the opposite sex. No fetes, no balls, no theater engagements. She’d been lonely and grieving and trying desperately to determine how to fit the two parts of her life together.
She had come to the realization that there was no way to have a real life, with a real relationship with a man. Her life was with the Venators, especially now, as Illa Gardella. She would touch Society from time to time, but she would never be immersed in it as she once had been. She’d never marry again, never have a child, much as her mother might wish it.
But then, as she looked over at Zavier and saw the admiration and attraction in his face, she wondered if it had to be thus. If she really did have to be alone and keep anyone who might care about her—or whom she might care for—at arm’s length. The last vestiges of her annoyance filtered away.
“I hope that ye will forgive me,” he was saying, and somehow he’d taken her hand in his large warm one. The one that wasn’t holding the stake. “’Tis just that I am—that a man is—bound to protect a woman. And I dinna think of you as a warrior, yet I ken that you are a fierce one. ’Tis hard to reconcile that with…well…” His voice trailed off, and Victoria would have believed he was blushing if his face weren’t already a bit ruddy from the cold.
“I’m not angry,” she said, when he appeared unable to select the words to finish his thoughts. “I’m glad you understand. Zavier, if ever I need assistance, it will be obvious.”
He was looking down at their joined hands, her small white one in his, and when he raised his face again she felt her heart begin to pound.
Before he could speak, a rustling in the bushes near a large tomb drew their attention. Zavier’s hand tightened on hers in warning, and then released. They both moved silently across a fenced expanse of grass toward the stone structure. It was nearly as large as a small home, its cream-colored stucco appearing gray and forbidding in the sliver of moonlight.
The front of the mausoleum was grand, its upper edge topped with a wide, jutting cornice and studded at its corners with curling plaster leaves. The family name carved into the frieze was covered with moss, and illegible from where Victoria stood. A square cupola that might have contained a bell was perched in the center of the flat roof. What must be the main entrance, set partially below the ground and reached by a few descending steps, was flanked by two columns. The bushes that had rustled were part of a large clump of pines and holly oaks that grew in a thick cluster close to the tomb, casting the area in wide shadow.
Victoria’s neck was no colder than the February air made it naturally, so she was certain the only vampire in the vicinity was the one Zavier had staked. Perhaps there was no threat at all, and it had been merely a hedgehog or hare that bounded through the foliage.
But then she saw a flash of something light in the brush, and then heard more rustling as she and Zavier drew closer. To his credit he didn’t try to hold her back, or even to take the lead. They hurried together, following the rustling bushes, but suddenly Victoria sensed something—or someone—behind her.
She whirled just in time to see a large black canvas whipping down toward her. With a shout to warn Zavier, she ducked away and spun back around to see two large men swooping toward her again. They’d come from the other side of the mausoleum.
Using a gravestone to leverage herself, Victoria kicked out and caught one of them in the gut, sending him sprawling, along with the blanket he’d been brandishing. The other reached for her arm, and she twisted away with such force she went sprawling into the bay laurel bush where she’d seen the flash of white.
The branches were tough and prickly, and it didn’t help that her attacker had followed her and was trying to manhandle her out of the bush. She heard a shout, and looked up to see Zavier standing behind the man, hands on his hips, watching.
At least he’d learned.
But then something leaped on him from behind, and then another large body crashed into the fray, and she saw Zavier go down in a mass of fists and legs.
With a howl Victoria kicked out at her assailant, the force propelling her farther into the brush. But she managed to roll to the side, off the bush, and onto the ground. She swept to her feet and, as she spun around, caught sight of something in the dark foliage behind her.
A pale face, with light hair. A body that moved away through the bushes, using the same lithe movements as the one who’d thrown the sugarplum at her.
But before she could react, something shoved her to the ground again, and she landed with a whump, face-first into the slick grass. The black canvas came flying down over her, covering her face and down over the front of her before she could roll away, and it clung to her when her attacker lifted her up.
Strong arms wrapped around her, holding the canvas and her own arms close to her body. Suffocating under the heavy material, Victoria kicked and twisted until she landed two good blows against the legs of the man who held her, then slammed her head backward.
The satisfying crunch and the sudden loosening of her person told her she’d hit the mark, even as her head swam. She tumbled to the ground, and it took her more than a moment to fling off the folds of the canvas and scramble to her feet.
By the time she was upright, Zavier was standing in front of her. His red hair stuck out in tufts at the edge of his crown, and he was breathing heavily. “All right?” he asked with a satisfied grin.
She looked around. Their assailants were gone and it was just the two of them, panting in the middle of a dark graveyard. She turned toward the brush, where she’d seen the face she was sure she’d recognized. Nothing was there but flattened bushes and broken twigs—both from her own tumble into the foliage and whoever had been watching.
“They got away,” she said.
“Aye, they did. Surprised me—three of them all at once. A stake wasna much use against ’em,” he said companionably.
He was right, and Venators didn’t generally fight with guns or knives. Their prey was the undead, not human threats. But it didn’t seem to bother him that their attackers had gotten away.
“Who were they?” she asked, looking around. “And why did they want to abduct me? Did they try to kidnap you too?”
“No, it just seemed they wanted me out of the way so they could get to you. They all ran off when they saw they couldn’t get the best of us.”
Victoria looked up. The wall of the mausoleum stretched above her, and she could see the impressions of the family name. She couldn’t make out all of the letters, but she saw enough to know that the face she’d seen in the bushes, the person who had caught her attention by throwing the sugarplum so hard, had indeed been Sarafina Regalado.
But the question was, what was Max’s fiancée doing at her family tomb in the middle of the night?
Five
In Which a Message Is Delivered
On the last night of Carnivale, the Corso was filled with a blaze of light.
The entire population of the city seemed to fill the broad strada and its connecting piazza to bursting before it spilled into the narrower Ripetta and other streets. Each person held tightly in one hand to a large twisted candle, or moccoletto, and a long switch topped by a handkerchief in the other. The small blazes danced and glowed, painting the buildings and masked faces and elegant carriages in a yellow-white splash as the partygoers used their handkerchiefs to flick at the flames of nearby candles.The game was to extinguish someone’s light or have one’s own extinguished, all in a frenetic, rollicking mass of milling Romans.
Victoria had never seen the like, this blast of illumination from thousands of Romans crowding the street. They even called down from crimson-draped balconies—one of which hosted Lady Melly and friends—holding their moccoli aloft. Victoria could barely breathe, the area was so thronged with bodies and carriages, and tinged with the scent of burning wax, the smell of so many people packed so tightly in the street, the overriding crispness of the cool air. Victoria was thankful the propellants of last night’s plaster sugarplums had given way to the friendlier, softer touch of flapping handkerchiefs.
