“I know. I’m sorry for it, too. He is a good man.”

Wayren nodded. Then she looked at him again with those sharp, pale blue eyes. “Will you leave Victoria’s vis bulla?”

Max’s hand tightened, but he didn’t allow it to rise to his chest and touch the amulet beneath his shirt. “She doesn’t need two.” He knew it was an equivocation, but it didn’t matter.

“She already wears two vis bullae.” Wayren was looking at him, her head tilted to one side like a wren.

“Then she doesn’t bloody well need three,” he snapped. He wanted to leave this blasted place before Victoria came back from wherever she was. Before he had to talk to anyone else. “Good-bye, Wayren. I will be in touch. Essere con Dio.”

He closed the door behind him and hurried away before he saw anyone else, or before Wayren tried to stop him with another of her blasted cryptic comments or knowing looks. The hidden entrance near the library was closer and less noticeable. He wouldn’t have to walk through the fountain room and chance running into anyone.

Moments later he ascended the dark, narrow stairs that opened into a small cellar in an abandoned building blocks away from Santo Quirinus. As he stepped out of the rickety structure, he realized he might very well be doing so for the last time.

He ducked out of the small opening at the rear of the building and then moved silently through what passed as a courtyard, but was really no more than a gap five paces wide and filled with rubble and dirt. The sun had begun to rise, sending a soft glow over the ramshackle buildings, and Max drew in a deep breath of chill air, this first full day of his bloody, detestable freedom.

He was free, yet still trapped by his memories and knowledge. He should have had Wayren use the golden disk to capture them again and take them away. At least then he would have some peace.

But he kept going, walking away from the Consilium and the world that had been his life for more than a decade.

Fast footfalls from behind drew his attention, and he reached automatically for his stake before realizing he had no way of telling whether whoever approached was friend or foe.

“Pesaro!”

“What the hell do you want, Vioget?” Max released the stake and kept walking, head high, shoulders straight. He was acutely aware of his lack of power, the weakness that seemed to pervade every step he now took.

“Victoria. It’s Victoria.”

Max stopped, but he didn’t turn around. There was something in the bastard’s voice….

“Beauregard has her.”

Now he turned back, and what he saw made his spine turn to ice. The blasted fop’s face wasn’t so pretty any longer, and he limped, but it was the expression in his eyes that made Max cold.

“Has he…” The word dried in his mouth, but Vioget knew what he meant.

“Not yet. But he will if we don’t stop him.”

Max looked at him, every bit of antipathy he felt for the other man rising to the surface. He knew precisely where to place the blame for this travesty.

But instead he turned to start back toward the Consilium. If Vioget had lowered himself to ask Max for assistance, Victoria’s situation must be bad, very bad indeed. They would need others. “Have you seen Wayren?”

“Yes. She sent me after you; the Venators are waiting.”

So Sebastian knew.

Max closed his mind off from that path and gave a short nod. And he said words he never thought he’d say to Sebastian Vioget: “I’ll follow you.”

Sebastian gritted his teeth. “Yes, I am aware that Beauregard will be expecting us.” Although he was a man who avoided violence, he thought he might just forget about it for a moment and plow a fist into…something.But that would mean he’d have to stop, and it would waste time he already didn’t have. They had no time. No time. Thank God they were nearly to the house where he and Beauregard lived, albeit in separate quarters, the five men half running as he explained the situation.

It was early morning, perhaps an hour since he’d stumbled out of the underground lair, and the sun was high enough in the sky that the undead would be safely below—sleeping or otherwise. The slowest-moving carriage ever had dropped them off near their destination, but not close enough to be seen by those who stood watch over their master’s domain from dark buildings or underground nooks. Sebastian knew how to get there without being seen by them, but it necessitated traveling on foot.

Too slow. They were moving too slow.

“Then we cannot all go in together.” Pesaro’s voice had an edge to it—it always did, but this was different. There was some odd air about him.

Sebastian’s fingers itched. “I was just about to say, before you interrupted me, that very thing.” He turned his attention from the cold-blooded bastard and glanced at the other three Venators who had come with him to rescue Victoria. For a moment he couldn’t keep away the terror of what might happen to her.

What might be happening.

Or have already happened.

How long had he been gone now?

Too long.

Long enough.

Sebastian marshaled his concentration, focusing on their path as they hurried along through courtyards and between closely built buildings. Losing his focus would do no good for her, regardless of what had happened.

Pray God it hadn’t.

How long? How long would Beauregard play with her, kiss her, touch her, before making her drink?

Sebastian’s stomach rolled greasily. Once that happened, there was no hope.

Gritting his teeth again, pushing away the paralyzing worry, he barreled along, keeping his mind on a straight path. What they had to do.

How they could save her.

He couldn’t remember the names of two of the others who’d been chosen to go with him—it had happened so quickly—but one was Michalas. Sly, wiry, and sharp-eyed Michalas he’d met once briefly, many years ago.

“There are two known entrances to Beauregard’s main quarters,” Sebastian said, speaking quickly and quietly as they ducked behind the wall of the courtyard behind his house—the very one into which Victoria had dropped during her escape from his fourth-story window last autumn.

The memory threatened his control, but he recaptured it. “And a third secret entrance that only I know of—besides Beauregard.”

“He’ll expect you to use it.”

“So we must split into two groups. One group will go to make a disturbance and draw away the undead that guard and serve him.”

“How many undead?”

“Ten or more. A dozen—perhaps you can handle that task, Pesaro. You can easily take on a dozen undead, or so I hear.”

For a moment Sebastian thought Pesaro was going to strike him, but he just gave that proud, sharp nod of his.

Michalas spoke for the first time. “We now have a fine way of making a disturbance, do we not, Max? All thanks to Miro. Yes, we’ll draw attention away from you so you can enter the secret way.”

There was a deliberate sneer in Pesaro’s voice. “And what will you do once there? Ask Beauregard to hand Victoria over to you? I’m certain he’ll do that without a thought.”

In this Sebastian was completely forthcoming. “He won’t expect me to fight him, but I will. I’ll kill him if I have to.”

Pesaro looked at him sharply and gave another single nod. “I believe you will.”

Sebastian gave them terse, sharp directions, and they split up appropriately: Michalas and a blond Venator accompanied Pesaro, and the other one called Brim was to follow Sebastian.

As they began to walk away, Pesaro turned back to Sebastian and grabbed his shoulder in a hold that dug in too deeply to be friendly. “Bring her back.” His dark eyes, flat and cold, told him everything that remained unsaid between them—now and in their past. At least in this their wills were united.

And then he spun away, hurrying off with harsh footsteps to follow Michalas and the blond Venator.

And Sebastian, fear banding his chest, started into the deep, narrow tunnel beneath the house where he did not want to go.

Because he was terrified of what he might find within.

They were nearly to the secret entrance when Sebastian heard it: a dull, rolling boom in the distance, above and from the other side of Beauregard’s private chambers. He realized it was the sound of the promised distraction.

There was no worry that the three of them, including the legendary Pesaro, would hold back a dozen undead. For all that he hated the fact that he’d had to ask for his help, Sebastian knew there was no one better for this task.

Another boom sounded a bit closer, echoing in the distance, and Sebastian knew it was now up to him to do his part.

At the secret door he turned for one last look at Brim. The man towered over him, and he was ebony-skinned, with unfashionable close-cropped hair; he wore his vis bulla through a slender, well-tended eyebrow. Like his name, he brimmed with energy. He gave a brief nod of understanding, and Sebastian turned to the door.

He hesitated then, again afraid of what he might find, then steeled himself and barged in, feeling the entrance of Brim behind him, hearing the flap of the tapestry as it closed. A vampire waited just inside, grabbing for him, but Brim had his stake out, and Sebastian heard the quiet poof as he charged toward the red velvet bed and the two figures on it. The sounds of struggle behind him told Sebastian that Brim had found others waiting for them, and was holding them back—but Sebastian had no goal except to get to Victoria.

He couldn’t tell. He couldn’t see—his legs didn’t seem to be moving him closer fast enough…. It was as though he were slogging through a river, trying to rush through pounding water. But the stench of blood was deep and metallic in the air.

Suddenly Beauregard was in front of him, his eyes pink and his fangs long and sharp. “You are too late. Pardon me if I don’t offer my condolences, but that’s because I know that someday you will thank me.”

“No,” Sebastian said, his attention flickering to the prone figure on the bed. Her long hair obscured her face, and a blanket covered her body. “I don’t believe you.” He couldn’t. Wouldn’t.