The Rest Falls Away

Chapter Eighteen Interlude in a Carriage

Victoria sent a note to Madame LeClaire, canceling her fitting due to illness. The word would be out soon enough, she knew, that the engagement of the Marquess of Rockley had been broken. It would be in the paper within days—either the Society tattletale section, or the announcements; it depended who got the news first.

She didn't have the heart to tell her mother. Not yet. Perhaps in a day or so, when the pain wasn't so raw. Lady Melly was so happy to be bringing a marquess into the family, Victoria didn't have the heart to tell her she'd called it off.

Verbena tsked over her red eyes, but said nothing save, "I'm so sorry, miss. It's not the same, but I felt pretty bad when I lost my Jassie to another woman. Leastwise you know it ain't that."

If that item was supposed to make her feel better, it didn't. Victoria only sent Verbena from her room and stared out the window, watching the screeching blue jay as it visited the tree.

She begged off from attending a dinner party that night; instead, as soon as her mother left to trade gossip and jokes with the other ton ladies, Victoria slipped out of the house from the back door. She was dressed in her split-skirt gown, specially made for hunting vampires.

That night she tracked and staked five undead.

The next night, three more.

The third night she only found one. It felt bloody good when she drove that stake into the vampire's chest.

But it wasn't enough, so she wandered the streets near Covent Garden and allowed herself to be accosted by several mortal criminals. After showing them her pistol and the expertise with which she could kick and punch, Victoria ran them off into the darkness and felt a bit more satisfied.

She didn't return to Grantworth House until after dawn. Then she fell into bed and slept restlessly.

When Aunt Eustacia sent a summons on the fourth day after Phillip burst into Victoria's bedchamber, she considered ignoring it. She didn't feel the need to meet with her aunt or Max, who would certainly be there. She was doing her job hunting and killing the undead; they'd retrieved the Book of Antwartha, which she had hidden at the chapel at St. Heath's Row before she and Rockley broke things off.

What could her aunt want to meet about?

Her decision was made when Lady Melly poked her head in her bedroom. "I'm attending tea at Winnie's; she and Petronilla were hoping you'd come too so we could discuss seating arrangements for the wedding. I haven't seen Rockley for a few days, Victoria. Is he ill?"

Apparently her mother didn't see the red rims of her own daughter's eyes, nor the black circles underscoring them. "Not that I know of. He's been very busy. And, unfortunately, I promised Aunt Eustacia I would visit today. It's been nearly a week."

She really did have to tell her mother.

Every day she didn't, she risked its appearing in the papers before Lady Melly knew. It wasn't fair to her mother that she might be blindsided. The Society ladies would have a field day at her expense if that happened.

"Mother, I have to tell you something. Rockley and I had an argument. We…" Her voice trailed off when she saw the stricken look on Lady Melly's face.

"Well, surely you can mend the fence, Victoria! You cannot ruin your future over one small argument!"

One small argument.

"I wanted you to know in the event that you heard any rumors," she added lamely. Blast. She could single-handedly take down three vampires; why couldn't she tell her mother the truth?

"Well, I expect you to speak with him at the Mullingtons' ball next week and fix things! No excuses, Victoria. It's the duke's fiftieth birthday; everyone will be there. Including you."

Victoria nodded. She had no choice, and Phillip possibly wouldn't attend anyway. He hated those affairs. And if there was even a hint of a rumor that he was eligible once again… well, he would be cornered before he took three steps into the room.

"Now, I will see you tonight. We leave at seven thirty. Be ready. And put something over those black circles under your eyes, Victoria. You look horridly exhausted."

But in the end Victoria didn't go to Aunt Eustacia's. She sent a message back, after her mother left, that she was obligated to spend the day making calls.

And she spent the rest of the afternoon in her room.

That night she had no choice but to attend a musicale with Lady Melly. The only redeeming factor was that it was sure to be an early night, which would allow her to sneak out of the house and go what she had come to think of as patrolling for vampires.

The musicale was just as unexciting as the one she'd attended at the Straithwaites'; perhaps more so, since this time Rockley didn't make an appearance.

Neither, unfortunately, did any vampires.

It was after midnight when Grantworth House had settled to sleep, and Victoria slipped out the back door.

Barth, her trusty mode of transport, was waiting just around the corner, and as had become their habit, he merely nodded as she climbed into the hackney. He knew his duty by now and drove the carriage to a dangerous part of town. It varied each night; Victoria didn't care. She trusted Barth to know the best places to go and to take her there.

The cobbled streets were damp from a light summer rain, glistening like gray teeth in the moonlight. Victoria left the hackney and told Barth to come for her in two hours.

As the carriage trundled off, she walked to the center of the empty street and stood there, looking around. Daring any danger to accost her.

Everything was silent. Gray and black and silent.

She favored this section of the city—wherever it was; she didn't care and didn't need to know—because the street lamps had either burned out or not been lit tonight. It was the perfect breeding ground for vampires… or other thieves who needed to be taught a lesson. She wasn't particular.

After the first night of patrolling by herself, dressed in men's clothing, Victoria had elected to wear her split skirt on subsequent trips. Garbed as a woman, she attracted more attention from those who wanted to prey on the weak.

But tonight it appeared that the streets were devoid of any dangers for men or women.

She walked down the center of the road, bold and quick, watching for anything that might move in the shadows. Feeling for any faint chill over the back of her neck.

Nothing.

Nothing until she rounded the corner of her third block and saw the shift in an alley. And the back of her neck chilled.

Her lips stretching in a nasty smile, Victoria started toward the shadowy movement. She had her stake in her hand, hidden in the folds of her cloak, and she walked along nonchalantly. She passed the alley, her movements nearly shouting innocence and temptation.

She expected him or her to charge out and attack her, but when nothing had happened after half a block, she stopped and turned to look behind. No one was there; the coolness at the back of her neck had eased.

Just as she turned to walk back to the alley, a black carriage, high sprung and elegant, wheeled around the corner. Victoria turned to look; it was unusual to see such an expensive coach in this part of town.

The carriage eased to a stop in the street in front of her. Its two black horses rolled their eyes, the only pure white in the gray of night, and stamped their feet. The driver did not look at Victoria as he sat unmoving.

Then the door opened.

"Victoria."

It was Sebastian, and he was beckoning to her; just his gloved hand was visible, but she recognized his voice, the way he said her name.

She stepped toward the carriage, walking up to the door, and looked in. Sebastian sat alone inside, leaning forward from his seat just enough to stretch his hand out. Offering his assistance to her in climbing in.

"Come. You won't find anyone to hunt tonight, my lovely Venator."

"Why is that?" She stood directly in front of the door, hands on her hips, suddenly unaccountably angry.

"Come for a ride with me. We can enjoy the full moon and I will tell you all about it."

"Unless there's a vampire in there that's ready to die, I'll walk. Thank you." She turned and started away.

He moved so quickly she had no time to react; he was out of the carriage and had his arm wrapped around her waist, whirling her back toward the vehicle in what seemed like an instantaneous movement. She stumbled over a stone that marked the edge of the road, falling toward the carriage. Her hands slamming into the wall were the only things that kept her from landing in the mud.

"So you're in the mood for a fight, are you?" Sebastian said in her ear as his hands planted on either side of hers. "That's the word on the streets. It's been the talk at the Chalice."

She whipped her arms out, knocking his hands away, and turned. He was right there, so close she could count every eyelash and smell cloves on his breath. "You're no match for me," she hissed. She didn't understand where this anger was coming from; she just knew she needed an outlet.

"Try me."

She moved, but he was fast, and he caught her wrists, one in each hand, and pulled them straight down so her arms were extended past her hips. Victoria struggled, but before she could break his grip he placed a foot next to hers and yanked her to the side. She lost her balance, and he picked her up and shoved her into the carriage.

Sebastian was up and inside before she could scramble to her feet, locking the door. He pounded a long walking stick on the ceiling for the driver to start just as Victoria sprang up from the floor.

"Have a seat, my dear," he said, looking up at her standing over him as if she'd just called for tea. "If you want to fight, I'll fight. You appear to be in need of some kind of… release. Or… you can take a seat safely over there."

Victoria sat. She was breathing hard, and a little shaken at how easily he'd bested her. Well, not bested her exactly—he'd caught her off guard, but she was not subdued. Not by any stretch of the imagination.

"What do you want?"

"That, my dear, is a dangerous question to ask. Are you quite certain you want my answer?"

She considered him, the way his eyes gleamed and a half smile curved his lips. And decided she wasn't ready to have the answer. So she asked a different question: "What did you mean, that I wouldn't find anyone to hunt tonight?"

"I mean that the undead have made themselves scarce on the streets the last few nights because of the rampage you've been on. They've all been biding their time at the Chalice, padding my pockets." He smiled fully. "So I thought that I might find you walking the streets, frustrated at your lack of success."

"Rampage? Hunting and staking vampires is what Venators do. No different from what Max has been doing for years."

"Maximilian is known for his cold and calculating kills, true, but apparently your particular technique of late has sent the undead scurrying. It may have something to do with the fact that you still have in your possession the Book of Antwartha and are one up on Lilith; I am not certain. I just know that the vampires have been more wont to drink kegged blood than fresh in the last few nights."

"So you've come to take me to the Chalice, so I can hunt there?"

A look of horror washed the charm off his face. "Absolutely not!" And then when he saw the faint smile she'd allowed, he laughed. "Touché, my dear."

"Why do you want to protect the vampires?" asked Victoria, feeling a bit less restive. A little more relaxed.

"I don't protect vampires."

"By offering them a safe place to congregate, you certainly do."

"Perhaps I find it beneficial to provide a place where they will come and take their ease. Perhaps having that public place where their tongues will loosen and information might flow is valuable to me, as well as others. And there is, of course, money to be made—both from the undead, and from the ones who merely wish to interact with them."

She raised an eyebrow.

"Some people find it pleasurable to allow a vampire to drink their blood."

"Pleasurable?"

"You've been bitten by a vampire, Victoria. You know what it felt like just before he sank his teeth into your neck. And how, after he did, you wanted to just let go and let him take you."

He was looking at her in such a way that she felt hardly able to breathe. But she managed to reply, "How do you know I was bitten by a vampire?"

Suddenly Sebastian was on the seat next to her, his walking stick clattering to the floor. His leg pushed into the side of her thigh as he turned to lean over her. Stripping off his glove, he reached for the collar of her cloak and pulled it away. The fresh air rushed over her skin. "Because I saw this the first time we met."

He traced his bare finger over her neck, following the tendon that led to the small pool at the base of her throat. He dipped his thumb there, filling the soft, elastic indentation as the rest of his hand moved to cup the side of her neck that was not scarred.

She couldn't move away. She could barely breathe as her pulse throbbed in the vee of his hand, making his grip tighten and then loosen in rhythm with her heartbeat.

"Remember this?" he murmured, tipping her head so that she rested in his hand, opening the marked side of her neck to the whole of the carriage, open and vulnerable as he bent toward her.

She closed her eyes and felt it: lips, tongue, teeth; biting, licking, scraping gently over her sensitive skin, coaxing and convincing. She wanted to twist from him, to sigh, to press into him for more.

Her cloak loosened and fell away, her shoulders bare to the top of her low bodice. His weight pressed down on her more now, his warm hands—one bare, one gloved—moving over her shoulders. The leather of his covered hand moved like sticky flesh against her skin, the thick seams and buttons rough where they touched her.

Victoria's mouth was still free; she breathed a long sigh; perhaps she said his name, she wasn't sure. He raised her arms above her head, pushing her wrists into the corner of the carriage where she lay. This brought his face close to hers, his clove breath warm on her chin, his fingers tangling in the hair at the top of her head.

Victoria closed her eyes. She could pull away; she could break his grip and sit up and shove him back to the other side of the carriage for the liberties he was taking… but it felt so delicious, so reckless, so right for the way she was feeling.

Phillip—dear Phillip—had made her feel warm and liquid and malleable when he kissed her… but he was gone now, and Sebastian's mouth on her neck evoked a different sort of response… sharper… deeper and improper, and made her hungry for more of whatever he was offering. Or taking.

"So easy," he was whispering into her ear. "You are yearning for passion, Victoria. Is your marquess nothing but a cold fish?"

She was too lulled to experience the annoyance his comment should have sparked. "My marquess is no longer my marquess," she replied in a voice that was not her own.

"Indeed?" Sebastian pulled away so quickly that she opened her eyes. "Well, if that is the case, then I will feel not the least bit of guilt for this incident."

Despite the fact that her lungs seemed too full to draw in another breath, Victoria replied, "I doubt that guilt is an emotion that ever crosses your mind, regardless of the circumstance."

He laughed, dropped a brief kiss onto her lips for the first time, and said, "Well, one must at least appear to make the effort." And then, as if realizing how good her mouth tasted, he kissed her again. Hard and rough were his kisses, and Victoria, as though released from some sort of restriction, kissed him back.

This was nothing like Phillip. In the back of her mind it saddened her, because their passion had been true, without the underlying brutality of the one she shared with Sebastian.

When he moved, releasing her wrists and allowing her hands to delve into his loose curls, she shifted her hips to keep from sliding off the seat, and her foot landed, unbalanced, on the round walking stick. Sebastian pressed his weight into her, as if to implant her into the bench, and matched his hips to hers. A kind of burning tingling between her legs surprised her, and she pushed up closer, wanting more, feeling the hard ridge of him through their clothing.

Sebastian moved again, and suddenly Victoria felt cool fresh air splay over her breasts. She gasped in surprise and her first instinct was to struggle away, but when he laughed over her skin and closed his lips over one of her nipples, she fell back against the seat.

Good heavens… she'd had no idea!

He tugged and sucked, and she pulled him closer, and even when his hands whisked impatiently at her split skirt, niching each half up to the top of her hips, she didn't push him away. There was freedom in knowing she could at any moment.

And for the moment, she was going to indulge in whatever this was. She needed it.

Sebastian had known she needed it.

When his hands slid to the tops of her thighs she pressed them together as much as she could, but one of his legs was trapped between them. He chuckled against the underside of her breast and looked up with gleaming golden eyes half hidden by the jut of his brow and the tips of curls falling over his forehead with the rhythm of the carriage movement. "Are you still an innocent, my dear?"

"In some ways," she replied with more honesty than she should have been able to at that moment.

He withdrew his hands from her skirt and moved to her waist, pulling the waistband down and baring her cotton shift to the bare flashes of street lamps and moonlight. He gave a soft, low sigh when he found what he wanted.

Both hands cupped around the slight swell of her belly and slid together until his fingers touched her vis bulla. "Ahh," he said in a molten voice. And he lowered his face to the warm silver.

The faint brush of lips over her skin made her want to jerk and twist away—and press up into his mouth for more.

But then suddenly, like a dousing of cold water, she realized that the back of her neck was cool. Victoria stilled, listening. Yes, it was.

Sebastian stopped as though he too had noticed a change in the air, just as the carriage lurched to a halt.

"Vampires," Victoria said, pushing him away and her skirts down. She pulled her bodice back up over her breasts and felt the iciness at the back of her neck with an unusual portent. Checking to make sure her stakes hadn't become dislodged during this last interval with Sebastian, she stood, shook out her skirts, and reached for the handle of the door.

The night was uncomfortably silent.

Sebastian reached out just as she would have turned the handle. His fingers closed over her wrist. "Be careful, Victoria."

She looked down at him. "I am a Venator." And she opened the door.

Standing in the gray street stood an Imperial and three Guardian vampires. They ringed the door side of the carriage. She understood: This was not a random attack; they were waiting for her.

An ugly yet unsurprising thought snapped into her mind. She turned back to Sebastian, closed the door and barred it. "Did you bring me to them?"

His expression was unreadable. "Why would I have saved your life by telling you about the Book of Antwartha, then do such a thing?"

A loud thud against the carriage door caused the vehicle to lurch to one side, then rock back into place. Victoria reached for the walking stick at the bottom of the carriage and, resting its metal tip at the edge of the seat, slammed her foot down on it. The end broke off, leaving a lethally jagged end and turning it into a stake that could be used to combat a sword like the ones the Imperials carried.

Her hands were damp, her heart racing faster than usual. She'd never fought an Imperial. Nor taken on three Guardians alone.

"Venator! Show yourself!"

She was no coward, but she knew the odds were completely against her.

One of the windows shattered, spraying glass over Sebastian's black wool coat draped over the seat. He hissed angrily and gathered it up, sending the glass tinkling to the floor. Yet he said nothing to Victoria.

A leering vampire face showed in the broken window, reaching in to scrabble his hand around to find the door latch. Victoria reacted, shoving the stake through and miraculously catching him in the chest. Poof! One Guardian was gone.

But she couldn't stay in here forever. They weren't going anywhere, and Sebastian didn't appear to be promising any help.

Victoria leaned out of the jagged window and said, "Who calls 'Venator'?"

"I do." The Imperial vampire stepped toward the carriage. It was a greasy-haired woman, and her eyes were the red-violet hue of her status. She carried a sword, as had the ones Max had battled, and she wore trousers—slim, leg-hugging trousers that afforded greater movement than the ones Victoria wore.

"What do you want?"

"I have come to bring you to my mistress. She wishes to meet the newest Venator."

Victoria dodged back in as one of the Guardians lunged toward the carriage in a vain attempt to catch her and pull her out. "Please give Lilith my regrets, but I receive callers only on Tuesdays and Wednesdays between the afternoon hours of two and half past three. Unfortunately, we do not serve her favorite beverage."

She reached out and grabbed at the vampire who'd just missed closing his hand around her. Her fingers gripped his jacket, trying to pull him into the coach. If she could just… get… them… one by one…

He slipped free of her grasp and thudded to the ground, and suddenly what had appeared to be a stalemate took a turn for the worse. The remaining three vampires moved toward the carriage as though flying, and slammed into it with the entire force of their power.

The carriage rose up high on one side, held for a moment in midair, then slammed onto its other side.

Victoria and Sebastian landed in a heap on the far windows, and in the furor, a slim pale arm reached in from what was now the top and had been merely a broken window, fumbling around for the door catch.

Victoria scrambled to her feet, climbing on the vertical seats. She ignored the pain in her head and stepped over Sebastian, who lay in a heap on the floor.

The door opened before Victoria could prevent it, but she was ready with her stake and stabbed out at the torso that came through the entrance. With a grunt of triumph she drove it into the body, and blood spurted out.

And then she realized, as it was flung away, that one of the vampires had used what had been Sebastian's driver as a human shield.

But that was her last thought, for suddenly everything went dark and close as something heavy was thrown over her. Victoria struggled, but whatever was holding the stifling cloth down over her person was strong and unmoving.

She couldn't breathe, couldn't take in any more lungfuls of oxygen that weren't laden with lint or dusty or stale or tight… too tight. She struggled against that tightness and tried to pull in more air… and finally lost the battle.

The blackness became reality.