Before the ashes hit the floor Max was on his feet, facing the other vampire, who was coming at him with a gleaming sword and a feral smile that sported two fangs digging into his bottom lip. With a quick glance at the rest of the room—Vioget was watching in amusement, his arms folded over his middle, and Victoria was nowhere to be seen—Max returned his attention to the vampire as the blade sliced in the air in front of him.
He leaped aside, vaulting over the wingback chair, then, standing behind it, hefted it by the arms and shoved it at his adversary. Max followed the momentum of the chair and came after the vampire, slamming him into the floor only inches from Victoria's draperies. He didn't need her assistance. She was probably cowering behind, too frightened to move.
She should have stayed home with her marquess.
Anger surged through him, and he used it to drive the stake into the second vampire's heart.
"Et voilà!" Vioget murmured as Max rose to his feet, breathing deeply, but by no means winded.
Keeping a steady eye on the other man, Max started toward the table where the book had been jolted to the edge during the fracas. He wished briefly for his pistol, but as Vioget stood with no indication that he would attempt to stop him, Max thrust the concern from his mind.
He reached the table and stretched out his hands to lift the heavy book… and stopped.
Two things occurred to him at that moment. First, Victoria's warning had been vehement. Second, Vioget had not touched the book himself, even when the vampires were looking through it. But the vampires had touched it.
Then a third realization: Victoria had been in the room before he had… she could easily have taken it if it had been her intent to one-up him. She, at least, believed there was a reason he should not touch the book.
He made a show of adjusting his sleeves, taking the opportunity to shift slightly to one side so he could better see Vioget from the corner of his eye, and reached for the book again… and again paused. Yes, it was there: the almost imperceptible change in Vioget's stance. Oh, he hid it well, but not well enough.
Yes, there was something about the book. Victoria, it appeared, had been right. And, Max realized with a suddenly bitter taste, quite possibly had saved his… what had she called it? His worthless life.
"You did come for the Book of Antwartha, did you not?" asked Vioget in that falsely pleasant tone.
Max stepped away from the table. What was Victoria waiting for? "You seem particularly interested in its fate," he replied. Perhaps giving it to Vioget would draw her out. "Did you not come for it as well?"
"What would I do with such a book? I won't stop you from taking it, Maximilian," Vioget told him. "I don't wish Lilith to have it any more than you do."
Before Max could reply, or make sense of that comment, he heard something that drew his attention from the matter at hand. From outside of the open window… a shout, a low scream.
Victoria?
He dashed to the window, yanking back the curtains. She was gone.
He looked down and in the darkness, broken only by a partial moon, he heard rather than saw an altercation below.
She'd gone out the window and gotten herself into a fight. She'd probably been gone the whole time he was fighting the Guardians.
Max cast a quick glance at Vioget, who'd turned, but made no move toward the window. "Go. The book will be safe here."
Max trusted Sebastian Vioget like he trusted a beggar in a room with a case of gems, but he had no choice. If he couldn't touch it, neither could Vioget.
Max looked out the window. If Victoria could go out this way, so could he.
Chapter Twelve
Our Heroes Commence with Much Poofing and Slicing
There were ten of them.And that was after Victoria had staked two; so an even dozen to begin with, plus the two that were in the house. With Sebastian.
Blast! Sebastian was here!
She tripped the vampire with bared teeth who came at her with his eyes glowing, and he went sprawling over the garden bench she'd been sitting on only a short time before. Whirling to face the one coming up behind her, she stabbed at him, missed, and kept her momentum going until she got the one behind him in the chest. Poof!
Nine to go.
The only good thing about there being so many was that they couldn't all jump on her at once; there wasn't enough room… so if she could just hold one or two off at a time, and send them to their destiny with her ash stick, maybe she could hang on until—
Victoria stifled an un-Venator-like shriek as something landed on top of her from the tree above. Make that ten left, she thought as her face slammed into the ground. Her breath knocked out of her for a moment, she couldn't move. But when she felt him, or her, pulling her lopsided twist of hair away from her neck, she found new strength.
Kicking back with the heel of her foot, she caught the vampire at the base of the neck, hard, and then a second time in rapid succession, but she was unable to dislodge him. Victoria felt a clawing of panic when another vampire swooped down and, crouching next to her, grasped one wrist in each hand, immobilizing her. Her nerveless fingers released the stakes she held.
Her cold neck suddenly felt bare and vulnerable, and she twisted and fought with less skill and more blind panic—opposite the way Kritanu had trained her. One hand grasped a hank of her hair, pulling back, baring her throat as a knee in the base of her back kept her hips grinding into the ground with her struggles.
She swallowed a thick, choking sob, difficult to do when one's neck was craned backward, looking up into the fiery eyes of a blood-craving undead, and gave one last thrust of effort. Wham! She brought both heels up as hard and fast as she could, her hips coming off the ground, and knocked the vampire forward so that he lost his balance and jostled into the one who held her wrists.
Victoria, huddled under two vampires struggling to gain their balance, twisted frantically and tried to slip from underneath, but strong hands grabbed her ankles, and all she could do was buck at the hips.
Then she felt a stirring in the air, a new presence, and in an instant her ankles were released. The unmistakable swish, the faintest crunch, and another poof. The one who'd been on her back was gone.
Her wrists were free, and she rolled half to one side to grab one of her stakes just as another vampire lunged toward her. She lifted the stake and he impaled himself. She leaped to her feet, pushing the hair from her eyes just in time to see Max stake two more undead in one smooth, brutal motion.
And then there was silence.
It was just the two of them, facing each other, breathing heavily, grasping lengths of pointed wood in the garden of Redfield Manor.
"You didn't touch the book."
"What in the blazes were you doing?"
They both spoke at the same time.
Then silence again. His face, harsh and handsome in the shadowy light, glistened with a stripe of perspiration. He whipped it away from where it clung to the edge of his jaw.
Victoria slipped her stake back into its loop at her waist and, using both hands, pulled all of her heavy hair back from where it drooped over her face and shoulders. Verbena was going to have to find a better way to contain it, or she was going to cut it all off. Long hair flying in her face was a liability, and she couldn't chance its obstructing her view as it had tonight.
Max stepped toward her, looming tall, blocking what little of the moon showed as he bent closer. One hand came up and grasped her jaw before she realized what he was doing, turning her head to one side, his long fingers sliding along her chin and brushing down the side of her throat. "You're not hurt," he said, then released her and stepped back. Several steps back.
"You didn't touch the book," she said again, resisting the urge to rub the skin he'd just touched.
"No. You told me not to. It's still inside, I believe. How many did you get?" His breathing had slowed, but the harsh, measuring look was still on his face. A dip of too-long hair brushed one cheekbone near a narrowed eye.
"Five, perhaps six. I lost count. There were twelve out here, and another two inside."
"I got the two inside. And four out here. There are still at least two." He turned to look up at the window from which Victoria had escaped the room. "But they've gone off. You climbed down that tree?"
Victoria nodded, then bent to pick up her other stake. Her breathing had gone back to normal, and it was just sinking in that not only had she been overwhelmed by the number of vampires and nearly lost the battle, but that Sebastian was the houseguest who let them in.
What was he doing here?
She dared not ask Max; to do so would be to admit that she knew Sebastian, and she was fairly certain that would be in violation of their agreement.
"Tell me what you know about the book."
"It's going to be stolen tonight by two—or more—undead. Once they remove it from the house of its owner, it is safe for us to take. But if a mortal takes it, touches it to steal it, he or she will die."
Max stared at her for a moment. "Where did you learn this interesting bit of information?"
"We should not be standing here," Victoria replied, starting to walk toward the front of the house. "If there are at least two vampires left, they are still after the book. We will have to take it from them once they leave the house."
"Victoria." His voice was pitched threateningly, meant to stop her.
But she paid him no heed and continued toward the front side of the house. If she stood in a certain place, she could see the front doorway and remain hidden… whilst also having a view of the garden.
Max stalked after her; she couldn't see him, but could feel the annoyance in the way he moved, silently, but purposefully in her tracks. She picked a place in the shadows of a spreading oak, standing behind its trunk. Max stood just behind her, looking over her head. A piece of bark drifted onto her shoulder from where his fingers touched the tree.
"Victoria, where did you learn this information?"
"It doesn't matter. And besides, I have not asked you how you learned what you know," she replied, still looking straight ahead at the house, trying not to shift. He was right behind her. "Do you think they will remove the book tonight?"