He staggered, losing his footing, and she shot to her feet, still clutching the tray. Grabbing the sofa, he propelled himself around toward her, his eyes back to burning red, his mouth grim. Victoria said a prayer and swung the tray in a mighty blow, into and through his neck, severing the head in one powerful, ragged stroke.

His eyes rolled back and his head lopped to the floor, and Victoria braced herself, waiting, trembling, panting as though she'd fought ten vampires.

As she watched, the face changed… it shrank and deflated, turning leathery brown with sunken eyes and shriveled lips, and metamorphosed into ribbony black… then sank into the floor and disappeared.

Chapter 2

In Which Lady Rockley Disdains a Discussion Regarding Fashion and Becomes Overset

"It had to have been some sort of demon," Victoria said when she finished describing her experience. It was early the morning after she had visited the Silver Chalice, and she had slipped out of St. Heath's Row long before most of the ton would have been stirring. "Even though I've never met one before, and there haven't been any in England for centuries, it couldn't be a vampire. I couldn't kill him with a stake. And he changed appearance."Aunt Eustacia, whose glittering eyes had grown worried during the telling of the tale, nodded. "A stake to the heart will always kill a vampire, cam; you are correct. Even Lilith would fall to that, though it might be difficult to drive it into her."

Her blue-black hair, still without a trace of gray in its coiled coiffure, gleamed and rippled like ink. Even her face, more than eight decades old, bore little sign of her age… but her hands—the ones that held the small metal amulet Victoria had given her—twisted old and gnarled, with arthritic joints that made it difficult for her to grasp a stake.

"I stabbed him two times," Victoria continued. Her heartbeat still hastened when she remembered those moments of panic. Unlike the time in the alley of The Dials, where it had been all too easy to nearly kill a man, this had been a nightmare in which she couldn't kill a vampire. "Two times, full in the chest… it slowed him, but when I removed the stake it was as if nothing had happened."

"You say he was with a vampire? That is peculiar. Demons will never coexist with vampires if they can help it. They are as much enemies as we are."

"I don't see why they wouldn't, for both races do the bidding of Lucifer."

Aunt Eustacia nodded. "One would think. But we are fortunate that they are too jealous of the other to do so. Both races vie so mightily for the partiality of Lucifer that they would never wish to allow the other to attain any great favor from him."

When one considered it, it made sense, in a warped sort of way, Victoria thought. The demons had been heavenly, angels before turning to follow Lucifer, long before human history began.

In comparison, vampires were relatively young. Judas of Iscariot, the infamous betrayer of Jesus Christ, had been the first of these immortal undead. Unable to believe that he would be forgiven after turning his friend over to his enemies, Judas had committed suicide and chosen immortality, aligning himself with Lucifer, who in turn gifted him by making him father of the vampires, a new breed of demons. In a horrible irony, the devil had taken the words of Jesus—"This is my blood, take and drink of it"—and deemed that Judas and his vampires would be required to do just that in order to survive.

It was no wonder those two races of creatures were rivals for the powers of Hell. One had been with Lucifer for an eternity; the other had been created by him, wooed from the side of Jesus Christ by thirty pieces of silver and the promise of protection from the wrath of God. Apparently these detestable beings were no different from their human counterparts in their zest for power and recognition.

"Victoria?" Aunt Eustacia looked at her as though a new thought had placed itself forefront in her mind. "I must ask you—and think on it before you answer—after you had killed the vampire, did you sense the presence of another one? Was the back of your neck cool? Do you recall?"

Victoria stilled and took herself back, reviewed the conversation she'd had with him and tried to remember… had her neck been cold? At last she had to shake her head. "No… it wasn't like I was sensing a vampire, but there was something. I smelled something… odd. Off. Strange, but I cannot say it was as discernible a sensation as when I am near a vampire."

Aunt Eustacia smiled. "Well, that is quite interesting. Most Venators cannot sense the presence of a demon like they can a vampire; in fact, most cannot sense the presence at all. If you felt something, anything, that is unusual for a Venator." Her smile faded. "I shall contact Wayren and show her this. Perhaps she will have an idea what would bring a vampire and demon together." Aunt Eustacia looked down at the bronze disk Victoria had found where the creature's body had sunk into the floor. "Whatever it is, it cannot bode well."

The disk was perhaps the size of a large man's thumbnail, stamped or engraved with a sinuous doglike animal. Although she couldn't be sure it had come from the creature she'd decapitated, Victoria's instinct told her that it was important. When she'd touched it to pick it up, an uneasy sensation skittered along her arms, flowing over the back of her shoulders so that she'd whipped around as though someone had come up behind her. Or something.

"Where is Wayren?" Victoria asked, wondering about the serene, yet mysterious woman Eustacia often consulted when research needed to be done. Her attention darted to the small bookcase of aging, fraying manuscripts. They looked like something Wayren would have loaned to Aunt Eustacia—old, important, sacred. Perhaps they were part of Wayren's library, which she managed and studied… somewhere. Victoria had never learned exactly where Wayren lived.

Her aunt placed the amulet on the mahogany piecrust table next to her favorite chair. "She was with Max, in Roma, but she will come if I send for her. She was helping him with a problem."

"Max has a problem?" The sarcastic words slipped out before Victoria could catch them. "I would never have guessed it. In truth, I'm flabbergasted to hear that all things are not splendid in his world. So how does Max fare, back in your homeland?"

"He has not been in contact for several months." Her aunt kept her eyes downcast; perhaps she didn't wish Victoria to see the expression therein. "Victoria, I realize it seemed rather callous that Max returned to Italy so immediately after the events last year with Lilith… and what followed, but he had been called back by the Consilium—the council of Venators—weeks earlier, and had chosen to stay until we could stop the threat of Lilith here in London."

"Callous? No, that thought never crossed my mind," Victoria said. "It was past time for Max to return to Italy, indeed. You and I are well able to handle any vampire threats here in London. Until tonight, I hadn't even seen a vampire since Lilith left."

Aunt Eustacia reached over and patted Victoria's hand. Her gnarled fingers were warm, and their pads were soft and smooth. "It's been a difficult year, cara, I know, and the last few months especially, as you've begun to receive some of your family's close friends and think about your return to Society. With all the questions about Phillip, and—"

"The most difficult part has been that I've had nothing to do!" Victoria heard her voice spiraling up into a wail, and she stopped. If Max were here, he'd make some sardonic comment about how good Venators couldn't let their emotions get in their way, citing himself as the perfect example of one who did not.

But… perhaps not. The last time she'd seen him, Max had said something that was high praise coming from him. He'd called her a Venator. As if he'd accepted her as his equal.

"It may be that you haven't had much to do in the last months," her aunt said, "but what you did in your first months as a Venator far surpasses what anyone could have expected. And after what happened… Victoria, you needed a rest. You need to let yourself heal."

"I need to stake vampires. Not just one. More. I need to get back to work." Victoria was on her feet, her heavy ink-colored skirt swaying. "You cannot imagine how it is, Aunt! I sit in my black gowns, drab as a scarecrow, and do nothing all the day, unless Mother or her two friends come to visit. And then we speak of inane things. Of gowns, and jewels, of who's marrying whom, and who's fornicating with whose spouse. Apparently now that I am a respectable widow, I can be privy to these conversations.

"But outside of that, and a few other visitors like my friend Gwendolyn Starcasset, I hardly leave the estate. And I do not know when I will be asked to leave Phillip's home. The new marquess is in America, of all places, and has not responded to any of the letters sent by the solicitors. We do not know when, or if, he will be coming to claim the title and estate. I'm fortunate that Phillip had the foresight to settle quite a bit on me, or I would be forced to move back in with my mother." She had paced over to the streetside window and looked out at the dreary, rainy streets. July was supposed to be green and pretty, not drab and gray.

"That might not be such a travesty, Victoria. At least you would not be alone."

Victoria let the curtains fall back into place. "Aunt Eustacia, how could I live with my mother—especially after what happened? Endanger her again? She knows nothing about my life as a Venator. She and the rest of London have no concept that vampires and demons actually exist! Besides, she will try to find me a husband again as soon as I am out of these widow's weeds. And after what happened with Phillip… well, of course I cannot marry again."

"It seems to me that you could have been in half-mourning gray for months now, Victoria," her aunt replied gently. "A lovely pearl gray that will make your complexion look rosy and your dark eyes brighter. You are well past the year's mark of mourning. I think you are still wearing black only to keep your mother at bay."

"Please, Aunt! You are beginning to sound like my mother. Let us talk about stakes and amulets and… and stopping the evil in this world—instead of gowns and fashions. I do not care if skirts are beginning to grow wider."