"So it would seem." He looked at her, stepped away. "All the more reason for you to go back to London. You will be needed after this is all over."

"After what?"

"Go back home, Victoria."

Then he reached over and smashed the window next to her. Before she could react, he picked her up and shoved her out, and she found herself tumbling to the ground below. It was not a long fall, and she landed on a small bush.

Struggling to her feet, she looked up, but Max did not follow.

Max made his way out of the opera house, leaving behind a smoke-filled cave and who knew how many victims of fire and vampire.

He had one thing left to do this evening, and it would not take long.

Indeed, he found Bertrand strolling along toward the place the Tutela and the vampires were all to meet. It was just up one more block and down a narrow alley—Fettuch's Locanda, a place not so very different from the Silver Chalice Vioget had owned.

Max greeted him. "Pleasurable evening, was it?" he asked the vampire.

"In some ways," Bertrand replied. "I did not finish what I set out to do, but I have some glad tidings to bring to Nedas this evening. The woman Venator I thought I'd killed in England is here."

"Indeed? He will be greatly pleased." He made a show of pausing to look into a long, narrow shadow. It was the last alley before the one they must turn down. "What, say? What is this?"

When Bertrand followed him into the darkness, Max spun around, slamming the stake into the vampire's heart before he drew another breath.

Pocketing the stake, Max brushed off the last bit of vampire dust and continued on his way.

Chapter 19

Santo Quirinus's Secret

The morning after her experience at the opera, Victoria received a message from her aunt, requesting her attendance at a small church located across the Tiber River from the most populous area of Rome. The message came by way of a peddler delivering milk at the back entrance of the villa, and was brought to Victoria as she ate breakfast.Thus it was shortly thereafter that she entered the small church, Santo Quirinus, and found her aunt, swathed in black veils and holding prayer beads, kneeling in a pew near the altar. Unlike many of Rome's other churches, Santo Quirinus was not overwhelming in its splendor. Its windows were few and plain. No marble floors or painted murals. It smelled of age and holiness, and wisps of long-used incense hung in the air.

The decor was stark and simple: brick swaddled with mortar in thick bands down the walls, leaving wide, naked brick stripes separated by the cream-colored mortar. Fourteen tarnished silver crosses, numbered in the Roman style, hung on the walls, seven on each side of the small nave, on the mortared sections. The pews were stained dark and uncushioned. The altar itself was little more than a stone table on a dais one step up from the congregation. The ceiling of the little church rose into a small round dome with three circular windows that allowed matching beams of afternoon light to shine down through their wrought-iron filigree. There were no stained-glass windows in sight.

As she walked through the church, which was empty with the exception of one other man sitting in the shadows, also kneeling to pray, Victoria felt her vis bulla sway against her navel, something she had not noticed it doing since she had become accustomed to wearing it.

But today she felt particularly aware of it, and the strength that it gave her sizzled through her belly and out into her limbs. She felt warm and confident, almost like a renewal of the intent she'd had when she had first accepted the strength amulet.

Not wishing to interrupt Aunt Eustacia, Victoria knelt next to her to pray, and waited until she finished her rosary. At that time, without speaking, her aunt stood and beckoned for her to follow.

Instead of leaving the church, Aunt Eustacia walked toward the altar, past the iron railing that separated the priest from the congregation, and up two steps on the left side.

When Aunt Eustacia opened the small door of a confessional at the edge of the altar, Victoria hung back in confusion. But her aunt gestured her to follow, so Victoria joined her in the small room, the door closing after her.

She watched in wonder as Aunt Eustacia reached behind the small screen that would separate the penitent from the priest—if there were one in attendance—and flip a latch. A well-hidden door popped ajar, and the older woman led the way into the opening.

"Have a care, and do not tread on the middle stair," Aunt Eustacia told Victoria, gesturing to the three steps that led from the hidden door into a narrow hallway stretching approximately fifty paces before it ended in a stone wall. The passage was lit by sconces, and icons painted on wood hung all the way to the end, where a life-size statue of Saint Quirinus stood holding a sword.

Victoria closed the door behind her and, taking care not to step on the middle stair, followed her aunt as she paced down the hall. At the end, Aunt Eustacia shifted aside a small icon of Jesus with the two Archangels, Gabriel and Michael, to expose the brick wall behind it. "Step here," her aunt commanded, gesturing for Victoria to move next to her.

As Victoria watched, her aunt pushed on the intricate brickwork that had been hidden by the painting, and suddenly, the floor on which she'd been standing only moments before slid away to reveal a set of spiral stairs that led down into darkness.

"The Consilium is below," Aunt Eustacia told her, haltingly leading the way down, one of the lanterns bobbing in her hand.

The Consilium? A jolt of excitement ran through her at the realization that she was to be introduced to it. Victoria knew very little about the Consilium, other than that it was the formal entity that oversaw the Venators.

When Aunt Eustacia had mentioned it once more than a year ago, Victoria had been surprised that there even was such a group. But her aunt had explained that someone needed to report to the pope, and that there had to be a way to manage and pass on the knowledge of the Venators over the ages. There had to be some way for them to share what they learned, and to band together if necessary.

Now, as she descended in her aunt's wake, Victoria felt that same renewal of energy she'd felt upon entering the church, and she thought she understood why. This was the center of the Venator world, the place where decisions were made, where the vis bullae were forged and blessed, where the leaders met and prayed and discussed.

"Anyone could come in here," Victoria whispered to her aunt, somehow feeling as though a normal-toned voice would be blasphemous. "The door wasn't locked."

Aunt Eustacia stepped from the last stair onto the stone floor and turned to look back at her. Her eyes were dark and lively in the glow from the lantern. "Indeed not. Did you not see the others in the church? They are our trainers, our Comitators, every one of them."

"I saw only a man praying."

"Si, and two beyond him near the door through which you entered. And another in the apse across from the statue at the top of these stairs. You did not see them, for they were meant not to be seen, but they were there." She smiled, her elegant face creasing in slender lines next to her mouth. "Wayren and Santo Quirinus have ensured that we are well protected here. Even if the vampires or Tutela learned that this tiny, simple church led to our Consilium, they would not be able to cross the threshold. The doors are lined with silver and covered with crucifixes; holy water is sprinkled throughout several times a day. And our Comitators, though not Venators, are well equipped to deal with any intruders."

Victoria nodded in understanding and anticipation. Her palms tingled as her aunt drew off the dark veil she'd huddled under. She smoothed her sleek black hair, which was caught into an intricate, curling coiffure studded with pearls and emeralds, giving her a queenlike look. When she slipped off the heavy black cloak, she showed a magnificent green gown under a tight-sleeved, long pelisse of brocaded forest green so dark it was nearly black.

In a matter of moments Aunt Eustacia had gone from the image of a hunched, prayerful crone to an elegant, powerful lady.

It made Victoria glance at her own attire in rueful dismay. Certainly her hair was done, the thick, dark curls pinned up in their own pretty mass; but not studded with jewels or pearls. Not even a ribbon, come to think of it. Although Verbena had slipped in one slender stake, just in case. Nor was Victoria's gown anything more than a simple afternoon calling dress, made of pale yellow silk with a basic cream lace overlay.

She felt like a little girl still in pinafores.

Aunt Eustacia bundled up her veil and cloak and rested them on a small table near the door at the bottom of the stairs. Tall and regal, she opened the door and walked through.

Victoria followed.

She found herself in a vast chamber that brought to mind how a cathedral would look if it were circular. The walls and floor were marble; heavy, shining, black- and gray-threaded marble. Around the entire room were columns of the same marble, and between them pointed arches that gave way to smaller alcoves or doorways. It was through one of these arches that Victoria and her aunt entered the room.

The chamber was large, and the center of it was broken up by a large round pool, with water cascading down a fountain in the center of it. The space was so cavernous, Victoria could not see what was on the other side. There were chairs and tables, benches and desks scattered throughout the room, which, though it was underground, was exceedingly well lit by torches and lamps. The tables held books and papers, inkwells and pens, even some stakes and other weaponry. Except for the fountain and the churchlike arches, it felt rather like the gentleman's club in which she'd had to stop a vampire raid last year.

And there were Venators. Or, at least, men who looked as though they belonged there, and Victoria presumed they were either Venators or Comitators. As they became aware of the presence of the two women—for there were no other females that Victoria could see—the occupants of the room put aside what they were doing—reading, writing, talking, fondling stakes—and rose if they were sitting, and turned if they were not, and looked at them.

There were perhaps a dozen in all, and, Victoria noted, none of them any older than forty, perhaps fifty at the outside. The youngest was likely about her age. Some of the men had the swarthy skin of Italians; others had even darker skin, perhaps from India or Egypt; whilst there were others who were fair enough to be Celtic or English.