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  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 coronari, 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 terracotta 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.”

  “I can scarcely comprehend that less than two years after I had the dreams that led to my calling to be a Venator, I’m now the one to whom everyone will turn. Even those who have been Venators far longer than I.” Victoria’s aunt had been eighty-one, one of the longest-living vampire hunters ever, when she died. As the only other person bearing the direct bloodline of the Gardella family, Victoria had inherited the title—and responsibility—of Illa Gardella: the Gardella.

  “You may be younger—in fact, you may be our youngest Venator,” Wayren told her with that same smile, “but you are well deserving of your title. What you have accomplished in the last eighteen moons would have been a challenge for even your aunt when she was in her prime fighting years.”

  Victoria looked away from Wayren’s serene gaze, focusing on the spill of glittering holy water next to her. She hadn’t accomplished running off Lilith last year in London, or killing Nedas, the vampire queen’s son, a month ago, without Max’s help.

  Wayren was speaking again, perhaps in an effort to draw Victoria from her unpleasant thoughts. “The vis bullae are precious amulets. They cannot and should not be destroyed, and they are worth nothing to one who is not a Venator. Did your aunt tell you from whence they come?”

  “The crosses are forged from a silver vein under the hill at Golgotha, in the Holy Land,” Victoria replied. “And they are held in holy water blessed by the pope”—she gestured at the fountain—“until they are given to the Venator for whom they were intended. But…is not each vis bulla made for one particular person? Can another Venator wear one not made for herself?”

  Wayren was nodding. “Yes, one and only one vis bulla is forged for the person for whom it is intended. As you see, the one that belonged to your aunt Eustacia is different from the one that Max gave you. But as you are aware, the power of a vis bulla can strengthen any Venator.”

  Victoria didn’t need to look at the small crosses, each of which hung from its own silver hoop, to recall which was which. Aunt Eustacia’s had tiny beveled edges, and the ends of each bar of the cross were pointed. Max’s was sli
ghtly thicker and sturdier, without any ornamentation. Both crosses were no larger than her thumbnail.

  Victoria’s own vis bulla had been torn from where she wore it pierced through her navel on the same night that Aunt Eustacia had died, during a fierce battle with Lilith’s undead son, Nedas. Hers had been slender, with delicate filigree along its edges, so minute she could not comprehend how anyone could have worked silver into such an intricate design.

  “Well?” asked Wayren after a moment. “Shall I ask Kritanu to prepare for two of them?”

  Victoria nodded slowly, wondering if wearing two amulets would make her feel any different. Would it make her twice as strong? Or would they cancel each other out? She made the decision; if there was a problem she could easily remove one of them. “Yes. I’ll wear them both.”

  During their conversation, the other members of the Consilium had been walking about the chambers, in and out and through, some pausing to dip their fingers in the fountain or to speak to another. They were all men of varying ages and appearance. Victoria was the only female Venator of the hundred in the world, and there were only two dozen Venators in Rome, at the Consilium, at any given time.

  “Then I shall inform Kritanu, and we will proceed in a few moments. I know you have missed being on the hunt this last month while your wound healed, and you were closing up your aunt’s properties in Venezia and Florence.” Wayren gave her another soothing smile, then moved away in such a graceful manner that she appeared to glide.

  The reinserting of her vis bulla was brief and less painful than Victoria recalled the first piercing being. Perhaps it was because the pain of its being torn away was more prevalent in her memory than the quick, smooth piercing. Kritanu, the elderly man originally from India who had been Aunt Eustacia’s companion and Victoria’s trainer, was quick and efficient with the long, curved needle. Since Victoria had decided to wear the two amulets, Kritanu inserted them separately, so that they each hung from the top of her navel and brushed against each other as they settled into the small hollow below. The moment the first one slipped into place, Victoria felt a renewal of energy, a familiar surge tingle through her body.

  She felt as if she’d become whole again.

  And, now that she was wearing something from her aunt, perhaps she would not only have her aunt’s strength of spirit with her, but also begin to heal her grief.

  “Beheaded dogs and cats?” Victoria said, looking from Ilias, the keeper of the Consilium and one of the eldest Venators, to Michalas, one of the Venators who lived permanently in Rome. It was nearly two months since Victoria had had the two vis bullae inserted, and although she’d been out several times after sundown searching for vampires, things had been relatively quiet.

  Michalas nodded, his russet curls so tight they moved but a whisper. With his fair skin and very blue eyes, he looked more like a young boy than a feral warrior, despite the fact that he was a decade older than Victoria. “A pile of them—perhaps three dozen. In various stages of decay, so it appears the pile was started some time ago, and has been added to. I saw it two weeks ago, but many of the carcasses had been there much longer. Perhaps two or three months.”

  “That doesn’t sound like vampires,” she said, looking at Ilias for confirmation. “They prefer human blood, and certainly would have no reason to cut off the heads of their victims, at any rate.”

  “Yes, and it’s for that reason that I waited until today’s gathering to apprise you of it,” Michalas said, glancing at Victoria and then back at Ilias. “There’s no urgency, nothing to indicate any connection to the undead or any other nonhuman threat.”

  The older man nodded his head in agreement. Ilias was well over fifty, perhaps approaching sixty, and had watery yet wise eyes that crinkled at the corners, matching the furrows on his forehead. When he was deep in thought, as now, he pinched the end of his sharp nose with his thumb and forefinger. “Vero, not vampires. But something unpleasant, to be sure. It could be as simple as the leftovers from a butcher shop—some of the Oriental pilgrims have unusual eating habits. This was two weeks ago? Has the pile grown?”

  Michalas smiled ruefully. “I confess, I didn’t deem it important enough to check on it again. With the city preparing for Carnivale, and all of the tourists arriving for the festivities, I’ve been busy in the more populous areas.”

  “Where did you find this?”

  “In the Esquiline,” Michalas said. “I saw no undead in the area, but there were some about. I could sense them.”

  “The Esquiline. That’s near the Villa Palombara,” Ilias said, his pale blue eyes suddenly sharp. Sometimes they appeared rheumy, but that affect seemed to disappear when something of interest presented itself.

  Victoria looked at both of the men, natives of Rome, and waited for an explanation. Having lived her first twenty years in England, she was at a disadvantage in this city, the home and birthplace of the Venators. Nevertheless, despite the fact that she was a woman, and much younger than either of them, they were respectful and forthcoming with whatever information she needed. She was the Gardella.

  “The Villa Palombara has been empty for a hundred and forty years, since its marchese disappeared under unusual circumstances. He was an alchemist, and had quite a popular salon with others of his inclination—trying to find the way to transmute any metal to gold, that process which, of course, is believed to be the source of immortality.”

  Victoria felt that it would be in poor taste to mention that one could easily achieve immortality by having a vampire turn one undead. Of course, there was the disadvantage of being damned for all eternity and being relegated to drinking human blood if one was turned. Instead, she said, “Perhaps we could go tonight and see if anything has changed. As well, I’m not familiar with that part of the city and would like to see it with someone who knows it well.”

  “That would be a pleasure,” Michalas said with a genuine smile. “I would enjoy hunting with you.”

  They were interrupted from their conversation, which had taken place in one of the alcoves adjoining the fountain chamber, by a handsome man with red-gold hair. His arms were heavily muscled, a feature that Zavier tended to display by wearing unfashionable shirts with the sleeves cut off, much as he might have on the farm his father and brothers worked back in Scotland. It made him look slightly barbaric, and Victoria felt mildly embarrassed at all of his exposed skin.

  “Come, ye gabblers—Wayren is gathering us in the Gallery. Victoria, ’tis good to see your bonny face again. Ilias, Michalas, come along with ye.”

  “Zavier.” She turned toward him, smiling. “I knew you wouldn’t miss our celebration today! I can only imagine how delighted you’ll be to see Aunt Eustacia’s new portrait unveiled in the Gallery.”

  Though his brawny physique bespoke great strength, his blue eyes were kind and his smile warm, particularly when he was in Victoria’s presence—a fact that had not been lost on her. He’d left Rome just after Aunt Eustacia died to investigate rumors of vampire activity in Aberdeen. Wayren, with the use of the well-trained pigeons that clustered around Santo Quirinus, had learned that Zavier was on his way back to Rome, but she hadn’t been certain he’d be there in time for the portrait unveiling, a bittersweet tradition that honored each Venator after his or her death. But she should have known Zavier wouldn’t have missed the honor to the oldest Venator.

  Somehow, as he ushered her out of the alcove, he managed to place himself between her and Michalas and Ilias, drawing her back to walk behind them. “And you ken that I have been attemptin’ to wheedle out of Wayren whether the painting of Eustacia is one of her in her younger years or as we ken her.”

  Victoria slipped her hand into the tiny crook of his arm, aware of the unusual fact that her fingers were touching a man’s bare skin. He’d been the first of the Venators to befriend her when Aunt Eustacia brought her to the Consilium for the first time. Not that the rest of them had been standoffish or looked down on her for being a woman—only Max had done that, and
only until he’d seen her at her most vulnerable moment—for they were all well aware of the power and skill her aunt had wielded, and thus they held no prejudice against the female gender.

  “She hasn’t told me either,” she replied, glancing at him.

  “Well, soon enough. Tell me, when will ye be having your vis bulla replaced, and be able to go out on the hunt?”

  “I have already done so, Zavier. Whilst you were gone back to Scotland.”

  “Och! And I meant to be there for it,” he said, a gleam of humor in his cornflower eyes. “I would have offered to hold your hand.”

  Victoria couldn’t stay the blush—and, truly, it was mortifying for her, a Venator, to blush over something like this!—and she looked away.

  Despite the fact that every Venator wore his vis bulla somewhere on his body, pierced through the skin so that it became one with the being of the person, Victoria had not relished the thought of being surrounded by a group of men whilst her belly was bared and her navel poked. And along with that resolution, she’d also made it a point not to consider where Zavier—or any other Venator—wore his. She felt it was a private thing.

  “Well, you were not, and Kritanu and Wayren were the only ones there. Just as I preferred.”

  Zavier chuckled. “Ye canna blame a man for tryin’ his best.”

  Victoria changed the subject as they wandered past the fountain and through the alcove that led to the Gallery where portraits of all of the Venators through the years were hung. “Did you dispatch the vampires in Aberdeen?”

  “Indeed I did. Five of the demmed leeches were living beneath the construction of the new Music Hall, coming out at night to feed on the locals. I never heard of any undead that far north before; I thought Scotland was too cold and rough for them.”

  Victoria smiled. “I’m certain it was pleasant to have a reason to visit home, after living here for several years. I’ve been in Italy for only six months, but already I do miss London. Have you had any more thought on the paintings? Perhaps the months away from them have given you a different theory.”