“I have no wish for immortality.”
“But you did at one time.”
“I did. Long ago.” There was no glossing over it. Max had learned to live with his choices.
“Not that long ago. Merely fifteen, perhaps sixteen years ago. And this last year you spent living among the members of the Tutela did not raise that desire in you again?”
The mark of the Tutela had first been burned into the back of his shoulder when he was a young, naive man of sixteen and had foolishly joined them and their cause: to protect and serve the vampires in the hopes of attaining immortality and power. Now the tattoo of the writhing dog—for that was really what the Tutela were: mortals who acted as bitches and whores for the undead—seemed to itch on his skin.
This last year when he’d lived among the Tutela again had been Hell on earth. Max had had to pretend not only to be one of them, desiring power and immortality while bowing and scraping to the vampire Nedas, but he had also carried on the charade of being engaged to Sarafina, the daughter of Conte Regalado, who had been the mortal leader of the Tutela.
He replied to Lilith, “I did what you asked because of your promise to release me if I succeeded with the task you set me to. Now I am here to collect on it.”
“And what of the woman you love? You left her?”
Max lifted an eyebrow in question, but did not speak.
“The girl you were to marry? Shall I be jealous of her? Is that why you wish to be released?”
His breathing smoothed. “I would not expect you to be jealous of a mere mortal.”
“Her father is a vampire now, and he might well sire her in his footsteps.”
“But she will be young and weak.”
“True.” Lilith looked at him, reached out her hand to touch his arm. “I cannot let you go, Maximilian, my Venator pet.”
“You lied, then.” He’d known it, known she would not release him. “I did your bidding and you never intended to do as you promised.”
“Come, now, Maximilian. You are fully aware that the secrets I gave you, the knowledge you had that enabled you to see to the destruction of Akvan’s Obelisk, were just as much to your benefit—and that of your race—as they were to mine. I would not say you have come out of this so very badly.”
Black bile burned the back of his throat. Oh, but what he had been forced to do to carry out Lilith’s desires and to save Roma—and the world—from the malevolent power of Akvan’s Obelisk…executing Eustacia, accepting her willing sacrifice by swinging the sword himself in the presence of Nedas. It had been the only way to prove his loyalty to the Tutela, the only way to get close enough to destroy the obelisk.
And Victoria. She’d seen it happen. She’d never forgive him.
Yes, he’d done the right thing, the only thing…but it had been repugnant. Heartbreaking.
And that was why he’d removed his vis bulla, walked away from Victoria and the rest of the Venators…and why he’d been reckless enough to come here.
A hero he’d been, true, but a repulsive one at that.
“Ah, Maximilian.” Lilith was speaking again, touching him again. Her fingers wove into the hair that brushed his shoulders, sending little frissons of unease into his scalp. “I do like your hair long like this. It makes you look so much more…savage. You would be a magnificent vampire.”
He closed his eyes. Waiting. Ignoring the leap in his veins, the obstinate awareness of her pull, the way his fingers trembled. The unbearable smell of roses from the hideous creature in front of him. The way his body responded to hers, and the knowledge that it wasn’t only because of the bites.
“I’ll never drink your blood.”
Lilith sighed against him, her breath not putrid, as one might expect from an undead…but tinged with the same floral scent that clung to the rest of her. But then, of course, she hadn’t just been feeding. “And that, my pet, is my greatest disappointment of the century. All right, Maximilian. I will allow you to be released from my thrall. Much as it will annoy me to do so.”
She released him and he opened his eyes. Wary.
Lilith stepped away, suddenly breezy in her demeanor. “I will release you. There is a salve, a balm you can apply to the bites…my bites,” she added, her blue-red eyes narrowing. “It will heal them permanently. We will no longer be bound.”
“And?”
Her smile came all the way to her eyes, drawing them tight at the corners and tightening the tops of her cheeks. But it barely touched her lips. “And…with the dissolution of my markings on you will also be the destruction of your Venatorial powers. The vis bulla will be useless to you. You will no longer sense those of my race.”
But he’d chosen to be a Venator; he could choose it again. He’d willingly go through the life-or-death test to regain any powers he lost.
As if reading his mind—perhaps it was as simple as her sensing the change in him—Lilith continued: “But, of course, since you are not of Gardella blood, my bites that you so disdain have tainted you and your blood. As such, you will not be able to pass the test to regain your lost powers. They would be gone from you forever. But never fear—along with the loss of your strength, you will be relieved of any memory of our times together, of your time as a Venator. It will all go away.”
“I will recall nothing of the Venators, of the vampires?”
“Nothing. Your ignorance will be your bliss.”
He could forget what had happened. Live a normal life.
“You’ve done your duty, Maximilian. Beyond your duty. You’ve done everything that’s been asked of you, and more. I would miss you, of course….”
Then he understood. “And, of course, I would be ripe for your plucking.”
“Oh, no, Maximilian. You would be just like any other mortal man. No longer a challenge. No longer exciting, a mixture of pleasure”—she stroked a hand over his cheek—“and pain”—and slipped her hand down under his shirt to brush against his vis bulla. And then she jerked away with the shock, and a breathless laugh. “I would have no further interest in you.”
His heart thumped quietly. “Why?”
Lilith placed both hands on his chest. “I would no longer have to contend with my greatest threat: you as a Venator.”
He took her wrists—the first time he’d ever touched her of his own volition—and forced them away.
“So what shall it be, Maximilian? A free, ignorant life…or the vis bulla and me?”
One
In Which Our Heroine Is Rearmed
On the west bank of the Tiber, in Rome’s fourteenth rione, lay a small quarter known as the Borgo. Beyond its narrow streets, farther to the west, perched the Basilica of Saint Peter, and just to its east was the massive fortress of Castel Sant’ Angelo. But within the small crisscross of borghi, a peaceful collection of hostels, shops, and churches attracted pilgrims from all over the world. Rosary makers, or coro-nari, had shops intermingled with osterie—the small eateries that offered meat and pastries—alongside the homes of artisans who worked at the Vatican.
Down one of the narrow borghi, near enough to smell the unpleasant aroma of oiled silk from the umbrella makers, was situated the unassuming church of Santo Quirinus. Made of yellowing plaster with curved terra-cotta tiles for its hipped roof, it was barely large enough to be considered a church rather than a chapel. In the shadow of the brilliant St. Peter’s and the low but imposing presence of Santa Maria in Traspontina, Santo Quirinus attracted no more attention than might a Roman cockroach.But deep beneath this tiny, simple church was a large, circular room. In the center of the secret subterranean chamber rumbled a fountain that spilled into a red-veined marble pool about the size of a bed. The water that tumbled from a slender column of pink marble was pure and clear and shimmered as though mixed with diamonds.
The chamber itself was accessible through a well-hidden spiral staircase. It acted as the hub to other rooms and galleries, reached by hallways that shot off like spokes through arched entryways, each flanked by two columns of black-and-gray-streaked white marble.
Lady Victoria Gardella Grantworth de Lacy, who back in her homeland of England was also the Marchioness of Rockley, stood at the fountain. Two tiny silver crosses dangled from her fingertips. The silk skirt of her long navy-and-black gown brushed up against a table behind her, where a piece of parchment that tended to curl back into itself was kept open by the weight of an inkwell and a small book.
She had not yet fully come to terms with the grief of losing her great-aunt Eustacia so horrifically a month ago, for it had happened only a year after her beloved husband, Phillip, had been turned into a vampire. It seemed sometimes too much for her to bear, to think about losing two people whom she’d loved so briefly, yet so deeply—two people who each understood a single side of her bilateral life.
“Why do you not wear both of them?”
“Wear two vis bullae?” Victoria watched as the woman next to her trailed just the tip of her forefinger in the brilliant water. “Is that permissible?”
Wayren, a tall, slender woman with hair the color of wheat, pulled her dripping finger from the water. As she had been every time Victoria had seen her, she was dressed in a long, simple gown gathered loosely at the waist with a woven leather belt. Her sleeves, fitted tightly at the tops of her arms, flared into wide points and hung from her wrists nearly to the floor. She looked like a medieval chatelaine, and even though she was wearing fashions centuries older than the flounce-hemmed, ankle-length gown Victoria wore, she did not look out of place.
“Permissible is an odd choice of word for the Gardella to use,” Wayren replied with a beatific smile. With her customary ease and grace, she moved the leather-wrapped braid that fell from her temple back over her shoulder, where it merged with the rest of her long hair.
Wayren was not a Venator. She was…Victoria wasn’t ever exactly certain who or what Wayren was, except that her library of old books and scrolls seemed infinite, and she was the one to whom the Venators always turned when they needed information and advice. “A single vis bulla is forged specifically for each Venator as he or she is called. As it is created for each one individually, there are no two alike, and the amulet becomes an intimate part of them. When possible, the vis is always buried with the Venator, but of course this didn’t happen in the case of your aunt. I’ve not known a Venator to wear two vis bullae, but there has probably not been a time when one has had the opportunity to have two of them. It is not as if there are extras lying about. And as you are the new Gardella, there is no one who should say you nay.”