Yes, he’d done the right thing, the only thing…but it had been repugnant. Heartbreaking.
And that was why he’d removed his vis bulla, walked away from Victoria and the rest of the Venators…and why he’d been reckless enough to come here.
A hero he’d been, true, but a repulsive one at that.
“Ah, Maximilian.” Lilith was speaking again, touching him again. Her fingers wove into the hair that brushed his shoulders, sending little frissons of unease into his scalp. “I do like your hair long like this. It makes you look so much more…savage. You would be a magnificent vampire.”
He closed his eyes. Waiting. Ignoring the leap in his veins, the obstinate awareness of her pull, the way his fingers trembled. The unbearable smell of roses from the hideous creature in front of him. The way his body responded to hers, and the knowledge that it wasn’t only because of the bites.
“I’ll never drink your blood.”
Lilith sighed against him, her breath not putrid, as one might expect from an undead…but tinged with the same floral scent that clung to the rest of her. But then, of course, she hadn’t just been feeding. “And that, my pet, is my greatest disappointment of the century. All right, Maximilian. I will allow you to be released from my thrall. Much as it will annoy me to do so.”
She released him and he opened his eyes. Wary.
Lilith stepped away, suddenly breezy in her demeanor. “I will release you. There is a salve, a balm you can apply to the bites…my bites,” she added, her blue-red eyes narrowing. “It will heal them permanently. We will no longer be bound.”
“And?”
Her smile came all the way to her eyes, drawing them tight at the corners and tightening the tops of her cheeks. But it barely touched her lips. “And…with the dissolution of my markings on you will also be the destruction of your Venatorial powers. The vis bulla will be useless to you. You will no longer sense those of my race.”
But he’d chosen to be a Venator; he could choose it again. He’d willingly go through the life-or-death test to regain any powers he lost.
As if reading his mind—perhaps it was as simple as her sensing the change in him—Lilith continued: “But, of course, since you are not of Gardella blood, my bites that you so disdain have tainted you and your blood. As such, you will not be able to pass the test to regain your lost powers. They would be gone from you forever. But never fear—along with the loss of your strength, you will be relieved of any memory of our times together, of your time as a Venator. It will all go away.”
“I will recall nothing of the Venators, of the vampires?”
“Nothing. Your ignorance will be your bliss.”
He could forget what had happened. Live a normal life.
“You’ve done your duty, Maximilian. Beyond your duty. You’ve done everything that’s been asked of you, and more. I would miss you, of course….”
Then he understood. “And, of course, I would be ripe for your plucking.”
“Oh, no, Maximilian. You would be just like any other mortal man. No longer a challenge. No longer exciting, a mixture of pleasure”—she stroked a hand over his cheek—“and pain”—and slipped her hand down under his shirt to brush against his vis bulla. And then she jerked away with the shock, and a breathless laugh. “I would have no further interest in you.”
His heart thumped quietly. “Why?”
Lilith placed both hands on his chest. “I would no longer have to contend with my greatest threat: you as a Venator.”
He took her wrists—the first time he’d ever touched her of his own volition—and forced them away.
“So what shall it be, Maximilian? A free, ignorant life…or the vis bulla and me?”
One
In Which Our Heroine Is Rearmed
On the west bank of the Tiber, in Rome’s fourteenth rione, lay a small quarter known as the Borgo. Beyond its narrow streets, farther to the west, perched the Basilica of Saint Peter, and just to its east was the massive fortress of Castel Sant’ Angelo. But within the small crisscross of borghi, a peaceful collection of hostels, shops, and churches attracted pilgrims from all over the world. Rosary makers, or coro-nari, had shops intermingled with osterie—the small eateries that offered meat and pastries—alongside the homes of artisans who worked at the Vatican.
Down one of the narrow borghi, near enough to smell the unpleasant aroma of oiled silk from the umbrella makers, was situated the unassuming church of Santo Quirinus. Made of yellowing plaster with curved terra-cotta tiles for its hipped roof, it was barely large enough to be considered a church rather than a chapel. In the shadow of the brilliant St. Peter’s and the low but imposing presence of Santa Maria in Traspontina, Santo Quirinus attracted no more attention than might a Roman cockroach.But deep beneath this tiny, simple church was a large, circular room. In the center of the secret subterranean chamber rumbled a fountain that spilled into a red-veined marble pool about the size of a bed. The water that tumbled from a slender column of pink marble was pure and clear and shimmered as though mixed with diamonds.
The chamber itself was accessible through a well-hidden spiral staircase. It acted as the hub to other rooms and galleries, reached by hallways that shot off like spokes through arched entryways, each flanked by two columns of black-and-gray-streaked white marble.
Lady Victoria Gardella Grantworth de Lacy, who back in her homeland of England was also the Marchioness of Rockley, stood at the fountain. Two tiny silver crosses dangled from her fingertips. The silk skirt of her long navy-and-black gown brushed up against a table behind her, where a piece of parchment that tended to curl back into itself was kept open by the weight of an inkwell and a small book.
She had not yet fully come to terms with the grief of losing her great-aunt Eustacia so horrifically a month ago, for it had happened only a year after her beloved husband, Phillip, had been turned into a vampire. It seemed sometimes too much for her to bear, to think about losing two people whom she’d loved so briefly, yet so deeply—two people who each understood a single side of her bilateral life.
“Why do you not wear both of them?”
“Wear two vis bullae?” Victoria watched as the woman next to her trailed just the tip of her forefinger in the brilliant water. “Is that permissible?”
Wayren, a tall, slender woman with hair the color of wheat, pulled her dripping finger from the water. As she had been every time Victoria had seen her, she was dressed in a long, simple gown gathered loosely at the waist with a woven leather belt. Her sleeves, fitted tightly at the tops of her arms, flared into wide points and hung from her wrists nearly to the floor. She looked like a medieval chatelaine, and even though she was wearing fashions centuries older than the flounce-hemmed, ankle-length gown Victoria wore, she did not look out of place.