As Shadows Fade

become wholly distracted by the bombardment of her friends.

Taking the rare opportunity of her mother’s inattention to slip out, Victoria eased through the door, her mother’s shrill refusals ringing in her ears.

Their volume and pitch made her particularly relieved to be out of direct range.

Once out the front door and in her carriage, Victoria had a decision to make.

A great part of her wanted to simply return to her comfortable bed and sleep a bit longer. Although her vis bullae provided her with fast healing and other protection, she still had injuries that made her weak and sore.

But going back to the town house meant that she could come face-to-face with Max, and after their conversation this morning about Lilith, she wasn’t certain she wanted to see him. As expected, when she announced her intention-a rather logical one, she thought-to hunt down the vampire queen herself, Max had not accepted it.

There was no need to relive the scene that followed, the lethal tone to his raised voice as he told her how foolish she was.

He would not listen, no matter how calmly she spoke, reminding him that it was her responsibility to rid the world of vampires, and that destroying their leader would be a great victory that would likely lead to a serious annihilation of the undead.

Perhaps in retrospect, she should not have told him anything at all until the deed was done.

Victoria sighed. Perhaps by telling him her plans, she had merely achieved the result of driving him from London all the more quickly.

As she shifted on the seat, rearranging her skirts, her hand brushed against something hard and metal. Curious, she picked it up-a small coin that she recognized immediately. Her mind flashed back to the evening before, when George Starcasset had sat in this very seat and fumbled with something jingling in his pockets.

Very interesting. Perhaps…

She realized the carriage had stopped at the end of the drive, waiting for her direction. Opening the window, she made her decision and called up, “The Claythorne residence, in St. James.”

Several minutes later, upon arriving at George Starcasset’s family home, Victoria sent Oliver, acting as footman, up to the door with a card for George. Fortunately, her carriage-having been inherited from Aunt Eustacia along with her London town house-was unmarked, and thus unidentifiable to any random passerby-or neighbor.

Moments later, the footman returned with the news that George was at his club, Gellinghall’s. This information being what Victoria expected, as well as the most expedient way to find out which club George frequented, she ordered her groom to drive the carriage over to Gellinghall’s.

Upon arrival at the gentlemen’s club, she again sent Oliver to call for George. Not more than ten minutes later, she was rewarded (if one could call it that) by George’s arrival at the door of her carriage.

“I trust you were discreet in your leave-taking,” Victoria asked, although it wasn’t of great concern to her whether George’s companions knew it was the Marchioness of Rockley who called him away. The only reason she cared to protect her reputation any longer was because she wished to avoid as many lectures from her mother as possible.

She smiled to herself as George settled into the seat across from her. It wasn’t lost on her that she had no desire to avoid superhumanly strong demons and vampires in the dead of night, but went out of her way to escape seeing her mother in a sunlit parlor.

“Do hope this is important, as I was winning, first time in two weeks,” George said by way of reply as he settled in the seat across from her. “Come to collect your favor already?”

Victoria shook her head. “No, I came for information. What does the Tutela know about the increase in demon activity here, and in Paris?”

“Haven’t talked to anyone in the Tutela-”

“Save it, George. You were fumbling with the coins in your pocket on the way to your house last night, and dropped one of the Tutela markers in this very carriage. I sincerely doubt you’d be carrying one if you hadn’t been in recent contact with them.” The Tutela used coinlike metal disks as tokens of identification for entrance to their secret meetings, as Victoria had cause to know. She’d nearly been mauled at a Tutela meeting in Venice, after having gained entrance by presenting her own token.

She forestalled any further excuses by handing him the coin.

George, well caught out, pursed his lips. The expression made him look more like a spoiled boy than ever, with his cheeks pudging out and his round chin smooth and shiny. “To be truthful, Victoria,” he said, glancing sidewise at her to see if she objected to his use of her name, “the undead have been well aware of something perking beneath the surface in the last months.”

Along with his reticence, George had also abandoned his affected speech pattern common to many of the ton’s dandies. These facts had Victoria sitting straighter against the back squabs of the bench and watching him sharply.

“What do you mean?”

“They’re frightened, if you want the bloody truth. Lying low, hiding. ’S why Lilith was so quick to leave London, and took the rest of them with her.”

Victoria contemplated him thoughtfully. She’d assumed that Lilith had taken her minions with her and retreated somewhere to lick her wounds after having been bested by the Venators. Was it possible that there was more to it than that?

“What else do you know? I want all of it, George.”

He shifted against the cushions and loosened the neck cloth that had been tied in an intricate knot that even Sebastian might have envied. “I don’t know much, to be sure. Just that there’s something might happen, and the vampires ain’t too pleased with it.”

Demons and vampires, both creatures of Hell and minions of Lucifer, were lethal enemies. The demons, who were angels who had fallen from divine grace aeons ago, claimed Hell for their own because of their longstanding alliance with Lucifer, the most powerful of the demons.

But Lucifer had wooed Judas of Iscariot to his side after Judas’s betrayal of Jesus Christ, contending that he’d never be forgiven for his actions. He induced Judas to hang himself, and promised that he’d make him the father of a powerful new race. Thus Judas was the first of the vampires-immortal creatures who were half demon and half human, immortal, and destined to take from man in order to subsist.

Thus, the struggle between the demons and vampires for Lucifer’s favor over the millennia had been vicious and violent.

“What else? You’ve given me nothing worthwhile, and I’ve interrupted your card game,” Victoria said. “What’s going to happen? What are the vampires doing about it? And when?”

George shrugged. “Don’t know.”

Victoria bared her teeth in a false smile and leaned forward, grabbing his wrist with her fingers. “That’s all you have? After I did you the favor of eliminating your houseguest?” She tightened her grip slowly, and felt his bones shift beneath it.

“Stop,” he gasped before she’d hardly squeezed at all. “I don’t know, but I know someone who might.”

“Take me to them.”

George flickered a look at her, then sagged back in his seat, a decidedly sulky look on his face. He rapped on the roof and leaned toward the window to shout directions up to the driver.

When he was finished, he sat back in the corner, looking speculatively at Victoria. He opened his mouth to speak, his expression shifting from sulk to interest, and she raised her hand, palm out.

“Don’t bestir yourself, George. I’ll toss you from the carriage if you even think to make an inappropriate remark… or suggestion.”

The sulk returned, and she had to bite her lips to keep them from quirking. He looked as though he’d just had his favorite toy taken away.

His directions took them to an area fairly familiar to Victoria from her first days as a Venator. The dirty, poor, and dangerous neighborhoods of St. Giles were where, for a time, Sebastian had owned and operated the Silver Chalice-an establishment that had catered to both mortals and undead. She hadn’t been to St. Giles since shortly after Phillip died, when she went to look at the ruins of the Chalice, which had been destroyed when the vampires