Instead of plunging into his heart, the point of her stake popped into his eye like a stick into a plump grape. He cried out and she slipped from under him, staggering to her feet.

With only the briefest of glances at the embattled Max, she took off running.

Victoria ran faster than she had ever imagined a human could run; the vis bulla had to be helping her. Or perhaps it was Divine Providence.

Whatever it was, she managed to keep the running vampire in her sight. He wasn't too far ahead of her; when they reached the corner of a mews he took a sharp turn, and she followed, plunging into a dark, narrow alley lined with thick bushes and shrubs that blocked what little illumination the partial moon offered.

Her night vision wasn't as powerful as that of a vampire, nor did she have the sense of smell… but she pushed her way blindly down the passageway. She couldn't stop—if she lost him, the book was lost. It was Lilith's.

She could not let that happen.

When she got to the end of the mews, Victoria had to pause. Which way had he gone? Nowhere to be seen… then the ever-present chill at the back of her neck heightened, and she felt him behind her. He'd ducked into the brush to wait for her to pass.

His mistake.

She turned and started back slowly. He wouldn't be able to squeeze all the way through the bushes; they were too dense, and on one side was the wall of a garden. She was thankful he was only a Guardian, and not an Imperial, some of whom could shape-shift. Guardians were fierce fighters and had strong pulls of energy, but they were more easily bested than an Imperial.

There he was.

She turned, thrust into the brush, and felt something solid. Not his chest—he leaped out and they were suddenly grappling on the ground, rolling across the pebbled pathway and into the brush. He had his hands around her neck; he wasn't wasting his time going for a bite, she thought as they tightened.

Her breathing became more difficult, and the edges of her already dark vision clouded more. She grasped the stake. One shot… Her fingers felt soft and wobbly. She clasped them, ordering them to tighten even as her mind fizzled.

Wham!

She struck as she had earlier, and got him in the eye. Two blinded vampires to her credit tonight; but that wasn't enough. Victoria rolled to her feet as he pulled himself up, one hand over the injured eye, struck… and then he was gone. Poof.

Panting, Victoria stood for a moment to catch her breath. Drawing the oxygen back into her lungs, she thought nothing had ever felt so good. And she listened.

Nothing.

Silence.

Only the faint rumble of a horse clopping on a distant street.

The book.

He had to have dropped it. Victoria grappled through the brush until she found it. She reached, hesitated, then, holding her breath, picked it up. Nothing happened.

With a sigh of relief, she hitched up the bulky bag and tucked it under her arm.

Now what?

Should she go back and see if Max needed help?

What if he didn't? What if he'd been…

No, she'd best get the book safely home, and then she would find out what happened to Max. If he was all right.

God, she hoped he was all right.

If he wasn't, it had been a noble sacrifice.

If he wasn't, she was on her own.

Victoria stepped from the mews and into the open night.

Chapter Thirteen

The Marquess Makes an Unwelcome Announcement

A hired hackney—not Barth's—took her home. Victoria kept the Book of Antwartha on the seat next to her in the carriage and tried not to think about Max. As he'd taken great pains to impress upon her, he was more than capable of taking care of himself.And she knew he would rather she take care of the book, now that it was in their possession, than take a chance on losing it while coming to his aid.

When the hackney reached Grantworth House, Victoria alighted quickly, carrying the heavy bag under one arm and slamming the door of the carriage behind her. The windows of the house were dark except for the one lamp burning in the front parlor window. It was nearly four o'clock; her mother should have arrived home from the ball she'd attended by now and likely was snoring in her bed. Victoria slapped a coin in the hand of the driver and turned to start up the steps to her house.

And felt a blast of chill over the back of her neck.

Bloody hell.

Again?

She groped for the stake she hadn't thought she'd need again this night and turned to look up the street. Now her entire body went cold.

Her mother was home, indeed. But she wasn't in her bed sleeping.

No. The Grantworth carriage sat gleaming green and gold under the street lamp, where it should not be. And the man sitting in the driver's seat, holding the reins of the abnormally still horses, was not the Grantworth groom.

Victoria glanced reflexively down at the bundle she held, then immediately back at the carriage. How many were there? How could she fight them with one hand holding the book? She couldn't put it down.

"Venator!" shouted a voice.

Victoria turned and saw four vampires—Guardians, she judged, based on the fact that their eyes were more ruby than garnet—stepping from behind the carriage. One of them, a tall, crimson-haired woman, had spoken.

"I hope I haven't kept you from your nightly excursions," Victoria replied with a calmness she did not feel. "It took a bit longer than I planned to finish this evening's task." As she spoke, she was looking around, her mind calculating even as she straggled to comprehend that her mother was in the custody of five vampires.

How many of the damned creatures were there in London?

The absurd thought was a testament to her weariness and frustration; but Victoria could not indulge it now. Mother was in the carriage and Victoria had to save her.

The crimson-haired vampire now stood close enough that Victoria could smell her dusky, dusty, dry scent. Taking care not to look her directly in the burning eyes, Victoria readied herself for any sudden moves. The other vampires flanked behind her in a vee arrangement.

"We provided your mother with an escort home this evening," the leader said in an unhurried tone that matched Victoria's. "She is well; we've resisted the urge to feed on her until now, Venator, because we knew that if you succeeded in your task and obtained the Book of Antwartha, you'd need a compelling reason to turn it over to us."

With a flick of her chin she gestured, and the carriage door opened. Lady Melly stumbled out, tangled skirts and all, tripping as she tried to descend the steps. But she was well, unharmed except for the bruises she would likely have on her knees and elbows from the fall.

"I can't give you the book," she said simply. "But I can give you your life… such as it is. If you prefer to keep it, and not to go the way of… oh, a dozen of your colleagues, you'll just toddle off into the night and find another tired Venator to harass." If there were any other Venators in London… tired or not.

In the back of her mind, she heard Big Ben strike four. In sixty minutes or a bit more, the sun would begin to rise…

Could Victoria stall them long enough?

And then a hackney cab turned the corner, bumbling along at an unusually fast clip. Victoria recognized its driver. What was Barth doing here?

But before she could form the question, the cab dashed by without pause, and a splash of water burst from its open window, catching four of the vampires.

Suddenly they were screaming and clawing at themselves wherever the water had touched them. Almost before she grasped the fact that someone—Verbena, perhaps—had dashed a bucket of holy water on them, she flew into motion with her stake.

By the time she'd stabbed two of the undead, the hackney had turned around and come back. Another splash of water drenched the vampire sitting in the driver's seat, and a smaller wave fell onto the last two companions standing in the street.

They were in such agony, it was easy—too easy—to take care of them; but Victoria didn't have the energy even to feel grateful for the simple, satisfying ending to a busy night.

Barth's hackney finally stopped next to her on the street, as Victoria wrapped one arm around her blank-faced, uncharacteristically silent mother and the other around the precious bundle of an ancient tome and worked her way up the steps to Grantworth House.

A frightened Lady Melly was just one of several things Victoria would have to deal with in the morning, not to mention what to do now that she had the Book of Antwartha—and the fact that her engagement was to be announced at a ball that evening.

But for now… she wanted the comfort of her feather bed, and a safe place to hide the book.

And the assurance that Max had survived the night.

As it turned out, handling Lady Melly was much easier than Victoria had anticipated. Verbena, who had indeed flung the holy water on the vampires, prepared and administered a sleeping draft for her that dropped her like a stone.

By the time Victoria woke in the morning, Aunt Eustacia had arrived at Grantworth House. She'd been summoned by Max, who had indeed survived his third Imperial in one night and who had arrived at Grantworth House only moments after Victoria hustled her mother off to bed. He'd come for his own assurances, of course; and once notified by the suddenly important Verbena that her mistress was home, unhurt, and in possession of the object of Lilith's desire, Max slipped off into the night, presumably to seek his own feather bed.

Aunt Eustacia had her own ways of dealing with the shock of vampire victims. Holding a small gold disk etched with a spiral design in front of her niece's face, she spun and swung it until Melly's face grew blank and her eyes unfocused.

"Why," asked Victoria when her great-aunt was finished erasing the memory of red-eyed, long-fanged undead from her mother, "must we do that? Would it not be better for those who aren't Venators to know what the risks are? To know that vampires do exist?"

They were sitting in the parlor of Grantworth House; it was nearing noon, and it was the first moment the two women had had alone.

"To have the panic spread, as it surely would? To give Lilith that added benefit of frightened humans, weakened by their fears? Or to give untrained, unprepared would-be heroes the false belief that they could kill and hunt vampires as easily as a Venator? To have unworthy ones call for their own vis bullae? No, Victoria, it is much better to keep the knowledge from those who are helpless to work against it. With the exception of a very few," she added as Verbena bustled into the room.