Victoria watched, her emotions moving from horror to disbelief to hope. Surely, surely, this was all playacting—at least on Max's part. He didn't even sound like himself, even as he had been only days ago when they spoke.
But could Lilith really have sent him?
Her fingers were tight; all thoughts of the bow and wooden arrows had fled. A horrified fascination gripped her as she watched the tableau below. Her heart jolted rhythmically in her chest, and her throat was so dry that when she tried to swallow, it creaked.
Max, what are you doing?
A laugh came from below, from Nedas and Max, from some jest shared only between the two of them. And then Nedas, stepping away from the taller man, announced, "It is time! Where is that female Venator of whom you are so fond?"
Victoria's body turned to ice, and her heart stopped beating for a full breath. Her stomach dropped and pitched nauseatingly, and though she knew she shouldn't move, shouldn't attract attention to her location, she turned to look at Sebastian, fury jetting through her. He was staring down at the scene below just as she had been. Fingers closing around the wooden arrow, she looked at him, ready to drive the wood into his human heart in reparation for this last trick of his.
But then she didn't, for there was activity below. It was not directed up where she was hiding; they were not storming the room and dashing about in search of her.
No. For instead a small, slight figure in black had been shoved forward; she'd been standing next to Sara, there in the back of the room, both of them in matching black cloaks with hoods. Now that she came forward into the light, Victoria recognized her immediately.
Aunt Eustacia.
The female Venator they were expecting wasn't Victoria, but her aunt.
She swallowed the gasp of surprise and stared down. Her aunt shook off the hands that had been manhandling her toward the stage, and walked proudly toward it. She moved through the small cluster of vampires and Tutela. Up three steps, onto the stage.
Victoria could hardly breathe; she dared not blink.
Her aunt stood proudly, and as tall as her stature would allow. Her dark hair was pulled into its simple bun at the back of her head, not the ornate dressing she'd worn to the Consilium. The cloak fell away, revealing a black gown, and Victoria saw that her aunt's hands seemed to be bound behind her.
"Nedas. At last we meet," said Aunt Eustacia in a calm voice that carried to every corner of the room.
"At last. Unfortunately, the moment will be altogether too brief." His smile was completely humorless.
"Any moment in your presence is too long for my taste. I pray daily for your demise, and that of your race."
"How unfortunate for you that my desires will be answered long before yours will."
Victoria watched, waiting, her breathing finally coming in short, shallow puffs. What should she do? Could she interfere in whatever was about to occur?
She looked at Max. His face was blank and more unreadable than ever. He stood square, tall and foreboding, facing Aunt Eustacia and Nedas.
Max had a plan. Of course he did, and Aunt Eustacia was part of it. If Victoria did anything to interfere, she might ruin it. Still… She eased back from the opening through which she looked and slid the bow from her shoulder, holding it in her lap. Her fingers were cramped and would hardly move; her palms hurt where her nails had dug in.
"Now, Maximilian Pesaro, you have been charged to prove your ultimate loyalty to the Tutela by bringing us one of your own. You will seal your fate and become one with the Tutela by completing this one last task." Nedas produced a long, gleaming blade.
Even from where she sat, Victoria could see how heavy and sharp it must be. Her heart was pounding faster now, and something nasty bubbled up in the back of her throat.
Max took the sword, gave it a practice swing that whistled through the air, and nodded to Nedas as he tested the blade over his thumb. Victoria saw the thin red stripe of blood appear after the quick slice in his flesh.
As the next events unfolded, Victoria watched, frozen, waiting. Readying herself to assist Max and her aunt when they needed it.
Nedas stepped away, his dark eyes hooded and focused on Max and Aunt Eustacia. "Execute the woman."
Max turned to his mentor. She stood tall, barely reaching his shoulders as she faced him, arms locked behind her back, calm. Victoria could see the steady rise and fall of her chest. Tension hung in the air.
Max gripped the sword, adjusted it in his palm, holding it with two hands as though he were about to go into a berserker battle. His face was still unmoving, emotionless as a stone wall, his mouth a straight line. His dark hair was pulled back into a short queue, leaving that stark face free of any shadow.Victoria saw him swallow, saw his throat move. She watched as he drew in his breath; she saw his shoulders and chest rise. He swung back with both arms, elbows bending sharply, forearm blocking his face for the merest of seconds, and then, with all the power gathered up there, struck out with the blade.
It glistened silver in the light, sweeping through the air in a great arc as Victoria watched, her breath caught in the back of her throat, waiting for Aunt Eustacia to pull her arms free and swing into action in tandem with Max.
A great twist of pain darkened Max's face; he gave a low, guttural moan, and his eyes closed as the blade sliced where it was intended, where it had aimed. There was no sound from Aunt Eustacia as her body crumpled to the ground, her head thumping next to it. Severed. Separate. Blood spraying the floor and Max's legs.
Victoria stared for a moment, not believing her eyes, her breath choking, waiting for something to happen that would prove her vision false.
And when nothing did, and she realized her aunt was really dead in a great, sudden pool of blood, the arrow dropped from her nerveless fingers and landed right on the stage below.
Chapter 23
The Ordeal
Victoria was numb to her very core; the back of her neck was cold, but the rest of her body was devoid of feeling. She couldn't see anything but red rage darkening the edge of her vision and Max.Max holding the sword, wet with her aunt's blood.
Max looking up at her, his own blood-spattered, shocked, betrayed expression blanking as soon as he recognized her.
It could not have been more than a second, perhaps two, that this burst of emotions rushed over her; not more than a breath before the vampires and the Tutela were gawking up at her in anger and amazement and starting after her, slipping in the puddle of Aunt Eustacia's blood. Some of them were climbing the wall, leveraging one another up toward her vantage place, using the rough brick and wood molding for toeholds. She heard racing footsteps coming up from behind, and the shouts, and knew it was only moments before they would reach her.
She fit the second wooden stake to her bow and realized dimly that Sebastian was no longer next to her; but that was of no importance at that moment. She would kill Nedas, whom she'd come for, and then she'd kill Max.
There would be no question of judgment, no hesitation in taking up lethal force against a mortal. It would be done.
Cold determination blossomed over her, pushing away the shock as she lifted the bow, the knowledge that her aunt lay dead there on the stage demanding to be put aside for a moment while she focused on her duty.
The impact of her aunt's death would soon set in. First she had to avenge it.
The arrow fit into the string of the bow, Victoria drew it back to fire into the midst of chaos on the stage, where Nedas still stood, looking up in her direction with a challenging smirk on his face.
Focusing on his heart, she released the wooden bolt. The string of the bow pinged into place, spewing the arrow into a graceful arc as Victoria felt hands seizing her from behind. A face appeared in front, snatching at her, trying to pull her down from the small platform on which she crouched, and once the vampires behind her realized this, they pushed.
She tumbled through the hole toward the stage below, dropping the bow and her arrows; a multitude of hands—so many, so very many—grabbing at her in a morbid reminder of the Tutela meeting where she'd nearly been mauled.
Perhaps tonight they would finish it. Pain arced through her; somehow she landed below, slamming into the stage. She kicked and fought with all of her might, smelled blood and felt her vision darken into smoke… then ebb into total darkness. The only thing that stayed with her was the fact that she lay in her aunt's blood, and that she hated Max.
Max's betrayal.
She opened her eyes when she felt the hands pull away, the chaos slip into silence. She was looking up into the face of Nedas.
Up close he was more terrifying, more intensely repugnant than he'd seemed from a distance. She smelled something raw and dusty about him that brought to mind burning bones and butchered meat, and her stomach wanted to heave.
But she would not let it. Her aunt had been brave; so brave and strong as she walked to what she had to have known was her death. Victoria's body was shaking with exhaustion and shock, and she had a multitude of hurts that pounded along with her slamming heartbeat.
Drawing in a shaky breath, Victoria pulled her energy about her, refused to think of what had happened, and what her life would be like without her mentor, without Ilia Gardella, and called on her strength and her wit.
And most of all, she drew upon her rage and loathing of the man she'd once fought beside and trusted with her life, and channeled it into potency.
"The other female Venator, I must presume," Nedas said, toeing her with his leather boot. His fangs were out now, and obviously her wooden bolt had missed its mark and let him live. "This one is much prettier and livelier than the last."
Victoria looked away from the compelling eyes that had begun to glow with bright red rings around the same blue irises of his mother—which indicated the power she'd invested in him. She found Max.
For the brief moment when their eyes met, she saw his stone exterior slip; saw something agonized waver there; but then it was gone and he straightened his posture, giving her that cool, mocking look she'd become used to. "She is no real threat," he said. "Why do you think I chose the other?"
"Damn you to Hell," Victoria said to Max, as if they were the only two people in the room—softly, as a lover might murmur a soul-deep secret.