As Shadows Fade (20 page)

Or, at least, she pretended. She didn't know about Max.

“She's not so easy to kill,” Antonín persisted.

Victoria looked at Sebastian. “If I give him something to eat, perhaps he'll stop talking.”

He glanced up, and she noticed the gleam of humor was missing from his eyes. “You could knock him on the head, too,” he said. “Or, better yet, stake him. We don't need him to find Katerina.”

“But I have other plans for him,” she replied, looking at the vampire speculatively. The more she thought about it, the more pleased she was with the undead candidate for Max's Trial. Max could take him blindfolded and with one hand behind his back, even without a
vis
and after three days of fasting.

“I see.” Sebastian looked back down.

Victoria had traveled since dawn, and had slept little for the last ten days while they journeyed, so she was tired. She'd ordered a bath earlier, using another chamber for privacy. More than a week's worth of grime and dirt had layered her skin, and it was the first chance she'd had to wash in more than a small basin.

The window of their room faced east, toward the sun that would rise in a few hours, and toward Týn Church, which stood on one of the city's central hills. She found her eyes continuing to stray in that direction, and she had to pull them back. More than once.

Perhaps she ought to try to sleep, especially since tomorrow, when the sun was up, they would go after Katerina. But something bothered her, niggled at the corner of her mind.

She wasn't worried about sleeping with Antonín in the room—he was bound tightly, wrist to ankle, and tied to the post of a heavy bed on the floor. He was going nowhere unless she released him.

Which was probably why he continued to talk. “She's a bit mad, as Vioget has cause to know.”

Victoria glanced at Sebastian, who didn't flicker an eyelash. He reached for the cup of wine and drank without lifting his eyes from the pages.

“She won't take off that ring, either, because she hopes it'll be a bargaining chip to bring back her husband.”

“Is her husband dead?” Victoria asked in spite of herself.

“He was one of the architects trying to repair the Stone Bridge five hundred years ago. It fell apart after the king threw the queen's confessor into the Vlatava because the priest wouldn't tell him whether the queen was cuckolding him. Someone decided he should be sainted for that, too.”

“So Katerina's husband was repairing the bridge?”

“Trying to. It kept falling down. Lucifer had been delighted by the murder of the priest, and he amused himself by continuing to destroy the bridge every time they thought it was going to stand. Finally, Brughard, Katerina's husband, made a deal with him and agreed to give Lucifer the soul of the first creature to cross the bridge after it was repaired.”

“He gave his wife's soul?” Victoria asked. No wonder the vampiress was mad.

“Not intentionally.” Antonín sounded annoyed. Perhaps she had ruined the suspense of his story. “He finished the bridge, and told the workers to release a cock to cross over first. But Lucifer sent Beauregard to bring a message to Katerina that her husband had been injured. She fled from her house and ran across the bridge, and was the first to cross. Thus she lost her soul, and Lucifer gave her to Beauregard to sire. Which of course he did.”

So that was why Katerina wasn't very fond of Sebastian. His grandfather had tricked her into becoming a vampire. “But what about Brughard?”

“She turned him herself, but he was slain some years ago.” Antonín's gaze drifted to Sebastian. “By a young Venator staking his first undead.”

At that, Sebastian looked up, brushing the hair from his face. “Why don't you put a stake into him, Victoria? He's beginning to annoy me.”

“And so now her husband is damned to Hell…not a bad thing in my book, of course, but apparently Katerina meant to keep him alive for a lot longer.”

“She thinks the ring will bring him back?” Victoria asked. “How?”

Antonín shrugged as well as he could, bound thus. “I said she was mad. But she believes a bargain might be struck with some holy or divine entity. She gives them the ring, and her husband is rescued from Hell.”

“There is no way to rescue an undead's soul from Hell,” Sebastian spoke suddenly. His face looked grim in the low light. “Once an undead drinks from a mortal, he's damned for eternity.”

“I have heard otherwise,” replied Antonín loftily. “Lucifer doesn't like it one bit, but he's had to release more than one of the vampire souls he's collected over the millennia.” He nodded knowingly. “It's never a pleasant time for us, of course. Lucifer is—”

“Give him some wine and shut him up,” said Sebastian suddenly. Victoria was struck by how much he sounded like Max at that moment—sharp and terse. Perhaps he was as tired as she felt.

Or perhaps there was something else bothering him…besides the reminder of what he'd done to Giulia. And Brughard.

She rose and found some
salvi
in her pack. The potion worked quickly to put mortals to sleep, but she wasn't certain whether it would affect an undead. However, she was willing to try.

Antonín was thirsty, and gulped the wine she held to his mouth. When she pulled the cup away, he looked up at her with hopeful red eyes. “How about a bit of something else?” he asked thickly. “Your wrist…I could make it easy and quick.”

“Why would I do anything for you?” she asked, although a thought had been teasing her mind.

“Because I'll tell you how to get Katerina. The way to get to her.” His voice lowered, and he glanced at Sebastian as though afraid he would hear.

“The same way you took me to her lair at the cemetery?” Victoria said.

“I didn't expect those demons to be there.”

“You said you'd heard about the demons, stories. How long ago did you start hearing about them?”

“More than a month.”

“Is Katerina frightened, too? Or merely inconvenienced?”

“She is frightened. All of the undead are frightened. There's been nothing like this before.” His eyes were fastened on her white wrist, showing from the cuff of the clean man's shirt she'd donned after her bath. “Please. Just a bit. It won't hurt you.”

Victoria didn't reply. “Is it true that an undead soul isn't damned if he didn't drink from a mortal? Is it true?”

Antonín looked at her, and she allowed herself to meet his eyes. The tug of his thrall, weak though it was to someone like her, tickled around her, and she allowed her breathing to grow heavy. Yet she was aware of everything. She knew she could blink, could turn away at any moment. “Is it true?” she asked.

Phillip. Oh, Phillip, I've always believed it was true.

What if it isn't?

She allowed Antonín to lure her, to tease and pull and to think he was gathering her in with his strength. She felt it, felt the curl of warmth and pleasure slip under her skin…but not completely. Raising her arm, she watched his attention move to her wrist as though it slogged through water. The gleam in his eyes burned hot and red, and his breath whistled from behind his teeth and fangs. Warmth…softness…

“Victoria!”

Sebastian was there suddenly, and Victoria turned in surprise.

Before she could react, he pulled her from the vampire, jerking her up and away from where she'd crouched. The heat still simmered in her veins as she caught herself from falling. She steadied her staggered breath, dragged in air from between her lips.

“What are you doing?” he demanded over Antonín's cry of annoyance.

She glanced briefly at the vampire. She'd known exactly what she was doing, but she wasn't about to explain it to Sebastian.

“Isn't it enough that you had to bring him here? And now you do this? What are you trying to do?”

“Sebastian,” she began, the last remnants of the vampire's thrall slipping off her like a silken shroud.

His fingers dug into her arms, and she pulled away with such force that she bumped into the table. The pages he'd been reading fluttered onto the floor, but before she could bend to retrieve them, he caught her shoulders.

Not so roughly this time, he closed his fingers over her. His amber eyes blazed. “Is it that you didn't trust me?” he demanded. “Or that you didn't trust yourself?”

It took her a moment—then she understood. They would have been alone in the chamber with Max gone. Sebastian thought she'd brought Antonín as a chaperone of sorts. “It's neither, Sebastian. You know that.”

She stooped, pulling away from his grip, and picked up the papers from the floor. “What have you been reading all this time?” But when she saw the ornate
R
on the bottom of one page, she didn't need him to tell her. She recognized Rosamunde's sign. “Do you find them fascinating?”

But Sebastian had turned away. Victoria set the manuscript on the table, and as she took a step toward him, she heard a choking, snorting noise from the corner. A glance told her the
salvi
had worked, and Antonín was snoring with alacrity.

“It's hard enough,” Sebastian said, looking out the window that framed Týn Church, “to be here. In Praha, with you. Both of you. Stay away from Antonín. Don't tease him. You don't know…you don't know what you looked like, Victoria. Just now. Your eyes half closed, your face like that…”

She swallowed. Her throat constricted roughly, audible in the quiet moment. She had had a purpose. She would have let Antonín feed from her, just a little. She had a reason.

But she didn't have to explain it to Sebastian.

“I told you I wouldn't be a gentleman about…it…” he said, still looking out the window. “And so if you brought Antonín here because of that, I suppose I cannot blame you.”

Victoria couldn't hold back an angry snort. “Sebastian, the day I use a vampire as a shield from my own desires is the day I'm finished as a Venator.”

“Your own desires?”

“There's no arguing the fact that we've been together, that there is attraction and affection between us. I wasn't pretending with you—ever. But I've no intention of acting on it again.”

“I told you I wouldn't be a gentleman about it,” he said again, in a steadier voice. “But I was wrong. I don't think he's worthy of you, Victoria. And I don't like the way he has acted toward you, in the past and during this trip. But you've made your choice, and if he makes it through the Trial, I'll leave you be and wish you well.”

But if he doesn't
…

The words hung there, unspoken. But they both heard them, and they left Victoria cold.

If he doesn't.

 

+ + +

“I'll go in first,” said Sebastian, his hand wrapping around Victoria's arm to stop her. “Katerina will be suitably distracted, and then you can take her by surprise.”

They stood in the narrow passageway known as Goldsmith's Lane. Prague Castle reared up beyond its stone wall, which made one side of the street. Tightly packed houses had been built flush against the stone enclosure, and another row lined the other side. This created a crooked little lane barely wide enough for two horses to pass through, side by side. The houses themselves were tiny, but decorated with colorful shutters thrown open.

The sun shone boldly down, more than halfway across the sky, but still high enough to burn hot and cast short shadows. People passed by on their way to and from the castle, the goldsmithies, and on other errands. Victoria and Sebastian had stopped in front of Number 75's pie-sized stoop, but their destination did not lie through that red door.

Instead, a small staircase led down to a door directly beneath Number 75. The top of the flight was framed at the street level by an iron gate to protect unwary passersby from tumbling down the hole—a necessity in such a narrow thoroughfare. The subterranean steps reminded Victoria a bit of the entrance to The Silver Chalice.

“And if Katerina isn't there?” Victoria asked, although she was quite certain Antonín had been telling the truth about the vampiress's location, for Victoria had promised him a reward when they returned if he had. He'd licked his lips hungrily and nodded enthusiastically, knowing he had no chance of leaving the inn during the flush of sunlight.

Little did he know she had other plans for him.

“Unfortunately, I can fairly assure you Katerina is here. We've met in this location before.”

Sebastian slipped past her and started down the steps, the iron gate clanging in his wake. Victoria was left to wonder in just what manner he'd “met” Katerina. At least she was certain they hadn't been lovers.

Her stomach pitched when she considered the possibility of a mortal and a demonic undead being intimate. Black spots danced briefly before her eyes, and a definite nausea churned in her belly. That thought crept too close to those moments with Beauregard, in his chamber, when he drained nearly all of her blood…when she was helpless and under his thrall, wrapped in pleasure and sensuality…images that remained soft and vague in her mind, memories she couldn't allow herself to contemplate.

She didn't know what had happened then. She didn't want to know.

And then there was Max. And Lilith. And her control over him, her obsession with him. The flat expression in his eyes could hide much horror.

Victoria swallowed hard, shoved the thoughts away and concentrated on the chill at the back of her neck. Stupid to allow her mind to open to such repugnant ideas. They only served to weaken and distract her.

And she wouldn't wait any longer.

None of the pedestrians on the street around her seemed to notice when she lifted the latch on the iron gate and slipped through, then down the steps. It stank of urine and damp, and she found she needed to take care to avoid stepping on unpleasant substances as she descended. It certainly no longer reminded her of Sebastian's clean and well-run Chalice.