"Who are you?" he growled, giving her a little shake.
She would have raised her stake, but he caught her hand in midair and shoved her up against the wall. It was cold, and she felt the grit of dirt and stone on her bare shoulders.
"Who are you that you have killed two of mine?" He moved closer, and she smelled the blood on his breath, old blood, and the stench of the damned.
Her other hand was free, and she tried to dig under her skirts to get the vial of holy water, but he was too quick and seized that wrist as well. Imprisoning both hands, pressing them back into the damp stone wall, he moved closer. His grip was vicious, and she dropped her stake. "A Venator, of course. I have never tasted a Venator."
His red eyes moved closer, and she waited until he was just about to press his lips to her skin. Then, using his hold on her for balance, she raised both legs and slammed her feet into his calves.
It surprised him enough that she was able to twist free and reach for the second stake in her hair, but it had fallen when he yanked her to her feet. Victoria lunged at the vampire, knocking him off balance, and started off toward the faint light.
He was behind her, not far, but enough that she had a lead. She tried to reach under her skirt to pull her last stake out, but it was too long and she couldn't find the slit while she was running.
Please, a door. Please.
She was close enough now; it was a crack of light. She slammed against the wall, which had to be a door, had to be, and felt him coming up behind her. Scrabbling around with her fingers, she felt for a latch again, praying for sunlight. She had no idea how much time had passed since coming to the meeting, but it had been hours…
Sunlight, please.
She slipped her fingers into a crack just as he slammed up behind her. He grabbed her by the shoulder and whipped her to the ground, hoping, obviously, to slow her down. But he'd actually given her an advantage. She flipped back and kicked her feet up into his abdomen, sending him sprawling as she rolled back around and grabbed with her nails under the bottom of the door.
Pull, pull, pull…
And it opened. Dear God, it opened!
And a low beam of light flooded into the tunnel.
The vampire screamed and rolled away and Victoria followed him, slipping the last stake from under her skirt. She drove it into his back, straight through to his heart, then turned to stumble into blessed, blessed dawn from a sun just peeking through the trees at the horizon.
She slammed the door behind her and staggered three or four steps away from the building.
She ran, her eyes smarting from the sudden brightness, blinded again, brushing through trees and bushes until she crashed into someone.
Two someones.
"My lady?"
"Lady Rockley?"
Victoria picked herself up from the grass and, still blinking away sunburst tears, said, "Verbena? Oliver? What on earth—"
"My God, she is bleeding!" Oliver's horrified voice penetrated, and she was finally able to focus on him.
"Everywhere." His voice cracked, easing into a horrified hush.
"We have a boat, my lady; come, come." Verbena was tugging on her, and although Victoria could hear the fear in her voice, she also heard her trademark bossiness.
She allowed her maid to lead her back to the same canal on which she and Alvisi had traveled hours ago.
A half a day ago.
The voyage along the canal took well over an hour, during which Victoria had the overwhelming impression of warm yellow sunlight and of little else. Later, she recalled certain moments: The agony when Verbena liberally doused her wounds with salted holy water. The sudden listing of their gondola when Oliver's pole caught on something. The snatches of hissed conversation between her two companions.
"She looks so white."
"O' course she does! She's been bit five, six times, ye oaf!" And then the splash of water followed by the excruciating sting of salt. "Can ye not row any faster?"
"I'm not rowing. Do you see an oar? A paddle? No, it is a stick, and it's not like rowing in the pond back in Cornwall."
"Watch where ye're—"
And then a great lurch, a muffled curse, and the resulting jolts as the vessel went on its way.
Then, later… "If you weren't being such a stubborn nanny goat about me going, and delayed me, we wouldn't have been so late getting there."
"Ye weren't goin' wi'out me."
"Lot of help you were, yelling and squawkin' like a hen out on the canal."
Followed by an angry huff and jerk of the boat, as though someone had spun away and folded her arms over her middle. "Ye were goin' in the wrong direction."
"So we wouldn't be followed."
"We were doin' the followin'!"
"You can't be too cautious in such matters."
Then another great jolt of the boat. She must have turned back toward him. "What d' you know about fightin' vampires?"
"More than you do, which, by the look of it, says very little."
Likely it was fortunate that Victoria drifted off at that point and didn't hear Verbena's response. She wasn't aware of anything else until more jolting and then a sudden lurch told her they'd arrived at the dock.
She could walk, she told Verbena, and proceeded to demonstrate just that. The salted holy water had already begun to do its job, and although she was weak and sore and exhausted, she knew she would feel better by the next day. Venators healed quickly and easily, even from vampire bites.
At the villa, however, Verbena insisted that Victoria repair to her chamber to be washed and changed instead of sending word over to Aunt Eustacia.
"Oliver'll take a message to 'er while we get ye cleaned up."
Victoria didn't like to admit it, but she was shaken by her experience, and although physically she knew she would feel perfectly fine in a matter of a day or so, the memory of the vampires tearing at her amidst the fog and incense and inexorable chanting made her fingers shake and her stomach ball up in an ugly knot.
She slept after Verbena's ministrations, and woke hours later, judging by the position of the sun outside her window. Victoria rolled out from under the light blanket and went to take a look at the damage.
She counted eight bite marks, and six more that were more like gouges, scoring like jagged ribbons into the skin of her neck and shoulders. The blood had been washed away, but the bruises had already begun to show dark purple and black beneath the marks. Victoria touched one of the bites and realized how close she'd come to dying.
She wondered what happened to the other women. Had they been torn apart or had they been set free after their trauma?