Victoria watched with increasing tension, impatience nearly sending her back to the top of the spiral stairs. At least there she could hear if the threat was coming closer.
But when Ilias removed his hand from the inside of the sconce, he also pulled back on the iron cup, and it fell away from the wall. A dull grating sound drew her attention, and she saw the wall behind the trunks shift.
Zavier was there before she was, only, Victoria knew, because he’d somehow been looking in that direction. He shoved the wall so that it opened wide enough to get through, and he dashed into the darkness beyond.
She would have followed him, but Ilias caught her arm. “You cannot come back in this way, so take care. It is only an exit.”
“Thank you,” she said, and ran after Zavier, noticing the splatter of blood he’d left on the floor. She didn’t know how badly he was injured, but she must rely on him. It was the two of them and the three guards who watched the church above; Ilias and Wayren would stay below as a last shield in the Consilium.
The secret door had closed behind her, leaving no illumination, yet Victoria did not slow her pace.
Her huntress blood was ready, her instincts on edge, when she saw gray relief ahead. Stake steady in her hand, Victoria slowed as she came around a corner and found herself at the bottom of a set of stone stairs. Up she climbed, the heels of Zavier in front of her becoming more visible as they ascended, and the pungent smell from the nearby umbrella makers more evident.
Then she followed him through a stone doorway that led to the street in front of Santo Quirinus church. The cobblestones were covered by moonglow. The sun had been set for some time.
As Victoria burst across the borghi and up the five steps onto the brick street, she noticed two things: first, the bloody heap of what had been a Comitator, and second, the dank, musty death-smell she’d smelled only last night.
A demon.
Sebastian had brought demons to the Consilium!
This fact was confirmed when Victoria saw Michalas, who must have been with Zavier before he came to sound the alarm, slam his stake into the chest of a red-eyed being. When he withdrew it and stepped back the creature leaped toward him, unharmed. Victoria vaulted herself at them and kicked into the demon, sending him off balance and slamming into the side of a building.
She rolled to her feet and looked around for something to use as a blade; demons had to be beheaded. A great force slammed into her from behind, and Victoria went sprawling onto the dirt, her knee twisting as she stumbled onto a large rock. She rolled away, kicking out with all the strength of her legs and painful knee as the demon with the vampire eyes lunged toward her again.
The shouts and blows around her ebbed into the distance as she fought hand-to-hand with the demon, who matched her in strength.
This one appeared human, except for the red eyes of the undead and his foul, dank smell. Her arms ached where he grabbed them; her stomach burned when he jabbed her with an elbow. His head snapped back as she whipped her arm up under his chin, and he tumbled to the ground when she followed that up with a sharp kick behind his knee. She shoved him into a small bush and whirled around, again looking for something to use as a blade.
“Victoria!” She heard her name and shifted her attention for the barest of moments. Something flew through the night toward her, something long and gleaming. She caught Zavier’s eye with a quick thanks and snatched the sword out of the air, barely feeling the blade as it sliced into her palm.
It was in her other hand a breath later, her fingers safely behind the guard, and Victoria leaped toward the demon with a great swipe toward the creature’s throat.
The blade cut through, and blood from her own wound splattered as she kept her momentum going. She didn’t see the demon freeze and then shrivel into a dark mass before it bubbled into the dirt and old grass; she was already turning toward another creature bearing down on her.
A kick, a shove, a whirl and a slice, and she severed the ogre-faced demon’s head from his doglike body. By the time she whirled back around, everything had stilled but for the ratcheting breathing of her companions. Michalas panted near the threshold of a building, sweat dripping from his tight curls.
“Bloody hell…” Zavier’s barrel chest heaved as he crouched against the corner of a small building that looked as though it might tumble over from his powerful weight.
“It is Stanislaus on the steps in the Icon Hall,” came a voice. Ilias stepped from the small doorway of the church, his face stern and weary. “He is dead. But the door was closed behind him, preserving the secret door in the confessional. From the looks of the blood streaking the tile, he crawled in there to die…and to loose the alarm bell.”
“They nearly found the kirk!” exploded Zavier, staring around with furious eyes. “If we had not been here they could have found it.” He rose to his feet, the man never seeming so large and ferocious as he did then.
Sudden comprehension welled inside Victoria, and she moved toward Zavier. That was when she saw there on the ground at his feet another body. This one had long dark hair in a crumpled braid, and his mahogany-colored face was turned to one side.
“Zavier, I’m sorry,” she said, bending to kneel next to the man. There was nothing that could be done; the blood and the awkward angle of his head told her that in an instant. Mansur had been a Comitator recently assigned as a permanent guardian of Santo Quirinus, but prior to that he’d worked with Zavier. She rose and placed her hand on the Scot’s arm. “I’m so sorry.”
A sick feeling rose in her stomach. Could they have prevented Mansur’s death? And that of the other Venator, Stanislaus? Had she made the wrong decision by delaying their arrival, taking the long way out?
They brought the bodies of the mortals into a nearby building, still taking care to stay away from the church. Their losses were one Comitator and one Venator, two-thirds of the guardians of the church. Victoria finalized the count of two demons dead, two vampires, and three mortals she didn’t recognize, but suspected they might be Tutela. All were slain on the deserted street.
“You are correct. The mark of the Tutela is on the three men,” Wayren said to Victoria after Ilias examined the bodies. There was worry in the older woman’s pale blue eyes.“Mansur and Stanislaus realized too late that they were fighting demons,” Victoria said, her mind back on the loss of her comrades. While all Venators and some Comitators could sense the presence of a vampire, not many also had the ability to identify demons, many of which could take any shape. “And Stanislaus warned us the only way he could.”