Her hands fluttered as though to fight him away, but he was too close… too strong. Burning pink and ruby filled her world. Hot breath came close, fangs, alluring and promising relief, glistened yellow-gray in the dim light.

Victoria felt the hard, slender thing under her sleeve again as her arms were pushed up against her body, helpless, and she suddenly had a burst of clarity. It was the vial of holy water.

Pater noster. She thought it. Then she said it aloud. "Pater noster, qui es in caelis …"

It was like a jolt of lightning through her mind, a streak of consciousness. Focus. She'd been given focus.

A low laugh sounded near her ear. "He to whom you pray cannot help you now." The vampire was too close; she couldn't get it in time, though his moving toward her seemed to take hours… days. Her fingers fumbled, clumsy; he came closer; she fought to blink, to break the connection; she pulled on the vial.

As their gazes disconnected, as he came that last inch closer, the vial slid free and she fumbled as the gentle prick of his fangs touched her skin. With the last bit of her strength, she buckled one knee and tipped to the side, twisting the cap off the vial. She fell, throwing the water full into his face as he bent after her.

The Guardian screamed and tore away, hands over his eyes, murderous rage coming from behind them. Victoria scrabbled for the stake she'd dropped, but before she could find it, she saw something better.

The glint of a sword lay near her feet: an Imperial's weapon, dropped and forgotten. She swooped for it and rose, holding the heavy blade.

With a quick slice, like the one she'd used to behead the demon at the Silver Chalice, she rose up and swung it just as the vampire started toward her again.

His head lopped off, tumbling into dust before it hit the floor.

Victoria whirled, the last vestiges of his control over her lifted, and was suddenly back in the present. She saw to her amazement that Sebastian had engaged one of the Imperials with his own sword.

Blades flashed, clanging in rhythm as the two parried in the narrow hallway. Sebastian matched the Imperial blow for blow, blades scraping against each other as they fell away. The other Imperial was nowhere to be seen; but the door to the other room was open.

Victoria hesitated for a moment, but Sebastian shouted, "Go! Polidori!" He was outmatched, and she knew that if she left, he would die. A sword was effective against a vampire only if it was used to behead him. However, a sword against a mortal could wound, maim, or kill in any part of the body.

Sebastian did not have the strength or speed to match the vampire for long, she did not know how he'd managed it so far. It was a blessing that the low ceiling prevented the Imperial from floating and swooping like a bird of prey, or the battle would have been over before it was begun.

"Victoria! Go!" he shouted, and she made her decision. She could wonder later why Sebastian was willing to endanger himself. Bending in a graceful move, she scooped up her stake, and, still holding the sword, darted to one side of the Imperial.

She was not to make it past him, though, for he saw her and spun, whirling with one last blow meant to slice into Sebastian, then arc into Victoria. The clang and slide of three blades meeting was a satisfying yet ugly sound.

Seizing the opportunity, Victoria pivoted and brought her blade around as she slipped to the side of the vampire, who raised his own sword to meet Sebastian's. As she swung with all of her might, slicing toward the vampire, he one-handed his own blade, somehow broadsiding Sebastian while reaching for her.

She brought the blade down, cutting through his arm and missing the vulnerable neck, spinning around behind him.

The arm burst off his body, exploded into dust, and in the blink of an eye another one appeared to replace it.

Victoria swung her blade again, noticing Sebastian crumpled against the wall, and brought it up and around as the Imperial whipped back to meet her. Their blades clashed, sliding angrily along each other, and just as they reached their zenith, separated. Victoria's went up, the vampire's went down, and hers bit into his neck as searing pain exploded along her thigh.

With a scream of determination, she kept her momentum in force, and felt the release as the second sliced through his neck.

She collapsed onto the floor as the Imperial poofed into nothingness. Blood streamed down her leg, sopping her silk night rail and pooling onto the polished floor beneath. She had executed her first Imperial, thanks to Sebastian's assistance.

Shakily, she pulled to her feet and stumbled toward Sebastian.

When she pressed a hand to his chest, sliding her fingers into the opening and over his warm skin to feel whether he was breathing, and tipping his head to one side so she could probe for a pulse, he shuddered a deep breath and forced his eyes open. Weary humor glinted in their amber highlights. "Not now, Victoria… but later, I promise."

With an unplanned grin, she pulled herself away, still shaky. She staggered to her feet, satisfied that he wasn't about to expire on the spot. "One must have one's fantasies," she told him, then gasped at the pain in her leg.

Still holding the sword, heavy in her sore wrist, she used it to help propel herself to the room in which the author was purportedly hiding. The door was open, hanging half from its hinges.

The Imperial vampire, the last one remaining, spun from the bed to meet her. He did not have a sword; it must have been he who dropped the one she had. Looking past him, Victoria got the impression of blood, a vat of blood spilled over the body that lay there, thick and rust-smelling. The scent of evil, of death.

Her leg screaming, her wrist protesting, she lobbed the sword up, but the Imperial lunged toward her and stopped the blade. It smacked into the palm of his hand, and he caught it, flat against his palm, twisted it from her weakened grip, and sent it flying across the room. His face burned with anger, edged with blood at the corners of his mouth, and his eyes blazed as he came at her again.

Victoria felt herself lifted and tossed across the room. She slammed into something hard, and everything went black.

Chapter 7

In Which a Disturbing Question Remains Unanswered

The stench of death roused her.Victoria opened her eyes, gathering herself to leap back into battle with the Imperial, pushing away Sebastian, who had his hand on her chest and was looking down at her with flat golden eyes.

"He's gone," he told her, removing his hand deliberately. "The vampire."

"Polidori?" She pushed herself up on her elbows, then her palms, and saw that her twisted white nightgown was stained dark red.

"Dead."

"No!" She pushed Sebastian away and dragged herself to her feet, allowing him to help her after she'd gotten her legs straightened. Her right thigh hurt, stung, ached like a stone was crushing it, and she felt a warm trickle rolling down and curling around her ankle. She turned and saw the bed.

There was Polidori, or what remained of him. Victoria had seen carnage like this before, but it did not make it any easier to observe. What had been unruly dark curls were plastered to one side of his face by crusty brown blood, his hips twisted one way and his torso facing the other. What had been a taupe-and-brown-striped nightshirt had been ruined by dark red splashes. His throat gaped like the entrance to a yawning cavern, and three X marks—in memory of the thirty silver pieces Judas received for selling Jesus—had been carved into his chest.

"The Imperial is gone? I don't remember what happened," Victoria said.

"I'm not certain… but he was gone when I came in. You haven't been unconscious for very long, and when I came to, I heard a loud thud. I presume it was you going against the wall. He had to have gone out the window, because I looked in right after I heard the crash."

Then Victoria remembered. "You wanted me to save Polidori—you were fighting the Imperial and you wanted me to leave you. You could have died."

"Quite a surprising turn of events, my bravery, hmm? Well, perhaps it was merely an accident—after all, I had to step in when the Guardian was about to feast on your lovely neck, because the Imperial was right behind him. If I had not engaged him with the sword, that would have been the end of you… and then where would we have been?"

Mockery glinted in his eyes. "Presumptive though it might have been, I figured that even I could hold him off for a few moments. And it was certainly accidental that I distracted the Imperial enough for you to slice his head off. But I must say"—he inclined his head coolly—"it was a relief when you broke the thrall of that Guardian. I was a bit worried there for a moment. You looked as though you were ready to do anything he wanted, with your parted lips and heavy eyes."

Victoria walked toward the bed and drew a sheet up over the dead man. "No one should come in here. We must hide what happened tonight." She looked at Sebastian.

"I'll take care of Polidori. And the room here. We can burn everything."

"My maid can help. And perhaps I can send to London for my aunt. She has a way of… relieving people of their memories in situations like this."

"Her golden disk—yes, I've heard about the spinning amulet that helps… er… adjust what people remember. That would be most helpful. If you send for her now, she could be here by tomorrow afternoon. Surely we can keep everyone here until then. It would not be prudent for tales of what occurred tonight to be spread all over London. We'd have mass hysteria—"

"Not to mention a slew of would-be vampire hunters. A very dangerous vocation for one who is not trained."

He looked at her as though trying to determine whether her comment was directed at him. "Anyone can stake a vampire," he replied coolly.

"If they can get close enough," Victoria said. She looked back at the carnage on the bed. "With all he knew about vampires, you'd think he'd have protected himself somehow. Worn a crucifix, carried a stake… something."

"A crucifix wouldn't have helped him—Polidori was an atheist. So the holy relics, which meant nothing to him, would have provided no protection."

"How can one believe in immortal evil and damnation without also believing in divine goodness? One cannot exist without the other."