"I suppose you will have some sort of nasty remarks to make regarding my weakness," she said as the coach lurched into movement. "Regarding my failure as a Venator. Bitten by a vampire. A great laugh for you."

Max stared at her from his seat across the coach. A small lantern hung in the corner, casting a soft glow over the interior, enough that she could see his mouth set into a thin line.

He hesitated for only a moment; then he reached toward his throat and whipped the cravat from its perfect anchor, stripping it away and tossing it aside. Victoria watched, dumbfounded, as he snapped open the buttons on his collar and yanked it wide, exposing his neck. He turned to one side, displaying the four small marks of a vampire bite: two from the top fangs, two from the bottom.

With a steady look, he turned in the other direction and showed her the other side of his neck, right at the juncture of his shoulder. The one that had not quite healed.

"The reason I carry a vial of salted holy water."

He settled back in his seat and turned to stare out the window.

Victoria closed her mouth and said not another word.

Victoria could not forget how easily she'd succumbed to the vampire's allure. When his lips had touched her neck, she'd softened, swayed, under his influence. His teeth, needle sharp, had played there… scraping gently over her skin, taunting, stroking, glancing over her pulse point as she lay in his arms, malleable and soft as a puddle of wax.

And then, just as he sank his fangs into her skin… as the painful pleasure flooded over her, into her… she gathered every last bit of reality that swam in her mind, and closed her fingers over the stake. He moaned in ecstasy, and she struck.

Poof.

He was gone, and suddenly Maximilian was there. And now he'd brought her to Aunt Eustacia's house.

"The Guardians had found her by the time I arrived," Max explained as he hustled Victoria into the salon. Her neck was still throbbing, thanks to another generous application of Max's salted holy water during the ride in his carriage, driven by Briyani.

"Guardians?" Victoria asked as he directed her toward a chair. She sank into it and sat placidly while Eustacia and Kritanu bustled about the room. They were preparing something that smelled nasty and she expected would soon be plastered over her bite. Or, worse, that she would have to drink.

"Guardian vampires," Kritanu told her in his gentle accent. "Fierce and loyal to Lilith, they are her elite guard. She turned each of them herself; they are her personal servants. Many of them have been undead for centuries or more. A common, less powerful vampire has eyes the color of blood. You can tell a Guardian by the color of his eyes—they are not so red as that, but lighter, ruby pink."

Victoria nodded. "Is that the only thing that makes them different from other vampires?"

"Guardians carry a poison in their fangs, unlike other vampires and Imperials. If it is not stopped, it will cause death—even in a Venator. That is why Max was so determined to bring you back without delay."

"Imperials? What are they?" asked Victoria. "You did not tell me there were different types of vampires."

"Guardians and Imperials are not common, and since there is so much you must learn, I felt it necessary to focus your time on learning to fight them, and teach you other aspects of the undead as time goes on," Aunt Eustacia confessed. "I see that I have done a disservice in trying not to overwhelm you, Victoria. You might have been better prepared to recognize them tonight."

"Imperials are the oldest vampires," Kritanu explained kindly. "Many of them are centuries, even millennia old. They carry swords, and they can fly or move about with such speed that they appear to fly. Their eyes are dark red-purple, and although they do not have the poison that the Guardians do, they are the most fearsome of the vampires. And the rarest."

"And that is why I did not feel you needed to know that so soon." Eustacia looked over at Max. "I did not expect them to be so bold. Usually the Guardians stay close by Lilith; and Max has not fought an Imperial for two years."

"It was obvious they were looking for Victoria; they sought her out at the ball."

"Did you execute them?" Eustacia asked as she bent toward Victoria's neck, bringing a lamp so close it heated her skin. "You did well, Max," she added, brushing her fingers over the sore area. "Your quick thinking will make this much less painful."

"Victoria staked the one who was biting her. I happened to stop the other." Max appeared to be perusing the page of an open book quite studiously. The page whisked as he turned it.

Eustacia looked at Max, then at Victoria. "You staked the Guardian who bit you? Sorprendente! Kritanu, the ointment."

"Yes… they were both attacking me, but he pushed the woman away. Then when he…" She glanced at Max, who looked as disinterested as if she were describing a new gown. Nevertheless, she dropped her voice. She didn't want the depths of her weakness to be so… evident. "When he bent to bite me… I let him. He… hypnotized me, I think. I felt him pulling me—Yeow!" she squealed. And she didn't even think about how mortifying the sound was. It hurt.

The ointment wasn't merely cold and putrid-smelling… it stung as if it were drilling into her skin. It burned ten times worse than Max's salt water, and Victoria couldn't hold back the tears of pain.

"I know it's uncomfortable, my dear, but this will keep the scarring to a minimum and destroy most, if not all, of the Guardian poison. With any luck, it will look like no more than some faint blemishes. And along with the fact that you executed the vampire who did it… well, there should be no harmful effects."

Victoria resisted the urge to look at Max, who had turned three more pages. He'd rebuttoned his collar and retied his cravat. But she remembered the scars on his neck. They were much more noticeable than a faint blemish. The man was fortunate that high starched collars were in style.

Eustacia turned away to clean her hands and Kritanu gently wrapped a cloth around Victoria's neck, covering the paste that still felt as if it were ravaging her skin. "Breathe deeply and slowly, in and out," he told her quietly. "In and out. It will help to ease the discomfort."

Victoria did as he suggested, and it did, indeed, lessen the pain.

"You'll want to sleep here tonight," Eustacia told her. "I've sent word to the Dunsteads for your mother, so she won't be alarmed. I'll tell her I sent a coach for you myself, for if I know Melly, if she ever found out you'd ridden alone with Max, she would be quite beside herself."

She took Victoria's hands. "You staked a Guardian vampire while he was biting you. If I had any reservation at all about your calling as a Venator, Victoria Gardella Grantworth, it would be gone now. As it is, I suspected from the beginning that you were special. Now I know you are. If anyone can stop Lilith, it will be you."

Chapter Five

In Which Miss Grantworth Finds an Unexpected Ally

"My lady! You've been bit by a vampire!" Verbena's eyes goggled in the mirror over Victoria's shoulder. With her round face and abominably frizzy red-blond hair, the maid looked like a babe just awakened from her sleep.Before Victoria could think how to respond, let alone grasp that her maid had recognized the bite, Verbena bent to look closer. "It looks like it'll heal just fine," she said, nodding sagely. "Put salted holy water on it, did ye?"

"Verbena… how…" Victoria collected herself. "You aren't shocked at all."

"No, my lady, and why would I be? With all the fuss about crosses, and stakes lying around, and that cross ye've got in your belly, what kind of maid would I be if I missed them clues? I've been waitin' for ye to ask me to find a way to hide garlic in your gloves!"

"That wouldn't smell very pleasant at all," Victoria replied slowly. She wanted to shake her head to clear it. But she didn't think that would help.

"And why you're not carrying your own salted holy water, I've been wondering meself. And how did ye manage to get bit anyway? I thought Ven'tors didn't get bit?"

"How did you know I was a Venator?" Tired of looking at her maid through the mirror, Victoria turned on her stool and faced her.

Verbena stabbed a finger toward her abdomen. "You carry the sign, of course, my lady."

"How do you know about all of this? Vampires and Venators?"

Verbena shrugged. "Who doesn't know about 'em? Vampires, I mean. Most peoples do, just they choose not to believe they exist. Unless they get bit; then they believe—but by then it's too late, in most cases. Everyone knows you got to stab them in the heart with a wooden stake, and everyone knows about the cross and holy water. I know most peoples think vampires are ugly, fright'nin' people who claw up your chest, but that ain't so. I've seen a bit before in me lifetime, I have. Me cousin twice removed, Barth, he knows lots about vampires, and he's been telling me stories since I was a little one. And he sees 'em a lot, too, over to the places in St. Giles. He carries a big crucifix, he does. Holds it out in front of him when he walks on the street. Looks pretty funny to me eyes, but it's better walkin' safe than lookin' smart."

It seemed once Verbena was given leave to talk, she took it. Greedily.

"Well, Verbena, I must say it is quite fortunate that you are so… er… well accustomed to the idea, as it will make things much easier for me. Because, of course, Lady Melly mustn't know anything about this at all."

The maid bobbed. "Yes, my lady. Your mother would up and faint dead away, then ship you off to the country for good. And then where would we be? There ain't no vampires in the country that I know. An' I've already been thinking about other ways to dress your hair so we can put a stake in there, if need be, so's you can pull it out real easy if you need it.

"An' there's prob'ly a way to put in two, 'cause I'm sure it could happen when ye might lose the one, and then what would ye do? Fortunate ye are to have such thick, heavy hair, so we have lots to work with. And until that bite is healed… well, my lady, that's going to be a challenge with these low styles that show off your neck and bosom, but I have some ideas, and we'll manage it. You just let me worry about that."