Victoria glanced reflexively down at the bundle she held, then immediately back at the carriage. How many were there? How could she fight them with one hand holding the book? She couldn't put it down.
"Venator!" shouted a voice.
Victoria turned and saw four vampires—Guardians, she judged, based on the fact that their eyes were more ruby than garnet—stepping from behind the carriage. One of them, a tall, crimson-haired woman, had spoken.
"I hope I haven't kept you from your nightly excursions," Victoria replied with a calmness she did not feel. "It took a bit longer than I planned to finish this evening's task." As she spoke, she was looking around, her mind calculating even as she straggled to comprehend that her mother was in the custody of five vampires.
How many of the damned creatures were there in London?
The absurd thought was a testament to her weariness and frustration; but Victoria could not indulge it now. Mother was in the carriage and Victoria had to save her.
The crimson-haired vampire now stood close enough that Victoria could smell her dusky, dusty, dry scent. Taking care not to look her directly in the burning eyes, Victoria readied herself for any sudden moves. The other vampires flanked behind her in a vee arrangement.
"We provided your mother with an escort home this evening," the leader said in an unhurried tone that matched Victoria's. "She is well; we've resisted the urge to feed on her until now, Venator, because we knew that if you succeeded in your task and obtained the Book of Antwartha, you'd need a compelling reason to turn it over to us."
With a flick of her chin she gestured, and the carriage door opened. Lady Melly stumbled out, tangled skirts and all, tripping as she tried to descend the steps. But she was well, unharmed except for the bruises she would likely have on her knees and elbows from the fall.
"I can't give you the book," she said simply. "But I can give you your life… such as it is. If you prefer to keep it, and not to go the way of… oh, a dozen of your colleagues, you'll just toddle off into the night and find another tired Venator to harass." If there were any other Venators in London… tired or not.
In the back of her mind, she heard Big Ben strike four. In sixty minutes or a bit more, the sun would begin to rise…
Could Victoria stall them long enough?
And then a hackney cab turned the corner, bumbling along at an unusually fast clip. Victoria recognized its driver. What was Barth doing here?
But before she could form the question, the cab dashed by without pause, and a splash of water burst from its open window, catching four of the vampires.
Suddenly they were screaming and clawing at themselves wherever the water had touched them. Almost before she grasped the fact that someone—Verbena, perhaps—had dashed a bucket of holy water on them, she flew into motion with her stake.
By the time she'd stabbed two of the undead, the hackney had turned around and come back. Another splash of water drenched the vampire sitting in the driver's seat, and a smaller wave fell onto the last two companions standing in the street.
They were in such agony, it was easy—too easy—to take care of them; but Victoria didn't have the energy even to feel grateful for the simple, satisfying ending to a busy night.
Barth's hackney finally stopped next to her on the street, as Victoria wrapped one arm around her blank-faced, uncharacteristically silent mother and the other around the precious bundle of an ancient tome and worked her way up the steps to Grantworth House.
A frightened Lady Melly was just one of several things Victoria would have to deal with in the morning, not to mention what to do now that she had the Book of Antwartha—and the fact that her engagement was to be announced at a ball that evening.
But for now… she wanted the comfort of her feather bed, and a safe place to hide the book.
And the assurance that Max had survived the night.
As it turned out, handling Lady Melly was much easier than Victoria had anticipated. Verbena, who had indeed flung the holy water on the vampires, prepared and administered a sleeping draft for her that dropped her like a stone.
By the time Victoria woke in the morning, Aunt Eustacia had arrived at Grantworth House. She'd been summoned by Max, who had indeed survived his third Imperial in one night and who had arrived at Grantworth House only moments after Victoria hustled her mother off to bed. He'd come for his own assurances, of course; and once notified by the suddenly important Verbena that her mistress was home, unhurt, and in possession of the object of Lilith's desire, Max slipped off into the night, presumably to seek his own feather bed.
Aunt Eustacia had her own ways of dealing with the shock of vampire victims. Holding a small gold disk etched with a spiral design in front of her niece's face, she spun and swung it until Melly's face grew blank and her eyes unfocused.
"Why," asked Victoria when her great-aunt was finished erasing the memory of red-eyed, long-fanged undead from her mother, "must we do that? Would it not be better for those who aren't Venators to know what the risks are? To know that vampires do exist?"
They were sitting in the parlor of Grantworth House; it was nearing noon, and it was the first moment the two women had had alone.
"To have the panic spread, as it surely would? To give Lilith that added benefit of frightened humans, weakened by their fears? Or to give untrained, unprepared would-be heroes the false belief that they could kill and hunt vampires as easily as a Venator? To have unworthy ones call for their own vis bullae? No, Victoria, it is much better to keep the knowledge from those who are helpless to work against it. With the exception of a very few," she added as Verbena bustled into the room.
Then her sharp black eyes focused unwaveringly on Victoria. "But it is no use changing the subject, my dear. I understand you have achieved the goal which we had all been working toward. May I offer you my deepest congratulations, my heartfelt thanks, and—"
"—And my gravest anger."
Max, of course, standing tall and forbidding in the open door of the parlor. Verbena stood goggle-eyed and spasmic-haired behind him, and behind her was Jimmons, the red-faced butler, who should not have allowed the visitor entrance without warning. Although, knowing Max, Victoria acknowledged that she wasn't terribly surprised that it had happened.
He stepped fully into the room, dressed all in black, including his shirtwaist—Victoria didn't even realize they made black shirtwaists—and shut the door smartly behind him, nearly pinching Verbena's inquisitive nose.
"Just what did you think you were doing, Victoria?" he snapped, stalking toward her.