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But if he doesn’t …
The words hung there, unspoken. But they both heard them, and they left Victoria cold.
If he doesn’t.
“I’ll go in first,” said Sebastian, his hand wrapping around Victoria’s arm to stop her. “Katerina will be suitably distracted, and then you can take her by surprise. ”
They stood in the narrow passageway known as Goldsmith’s Lane. Prague Castle reared up beyond its stone wall, which made one side of the street. Tightly packed houses had been built flush against the stone enclosure, and another row lined the other side. This created a crooked little lane barely wide enough for two horses to pass through, side by side. The houses themselves were tiny, but decorated with colorful shutters thrown open.
The sun shone boldly down, more than halfway across the sky, but still high enough to burn hot and cast short shadows. People passed by on their way to and from the castle, the goldsmithies, and on other errands. Victoria and Sebastian had stopped in front of Number 75’s pie-sized stoop, but their destination did not lie through that red door.
Instead, a small staircase led down to a door directly beneath Number 75. The top of the flight was framed at the street level by an iron gate to protect unwary passersby from tumbling down the hole-a necessity in such a narrow thoroughfare. The subterranean steps reminded Victoria a bit of the entrance to the Silver Chalice.
“And if Katerina isn’t there?” Victoria asked, although she was quite certain Anton?n had been telling the truth about the vampiress’s location, for Victoria had promised him a reward when they returned if he had. He’d licked his lips hungrily and nodded enthusiastically, knowing that he had no chance of leaving the inn during the flush of sunlight.
Little did he know she had other plans for him.
“Unfortunately, I can fairly assure you that Katerina is here. We’ve met in this location before. ”
Sebastian slipped past her and started down the steps, the iron gate clanging in his wake. Victoria was left to wonder in just what manner he’d “met” Katerina. At least she was certain they hadn’t been lovers.
Her stomach pitched when she considered the possibility of a mortal and a demonic undead being intimate. Black spots danced briefly before her eyes, and a definite nausea churned in her belly. That thought crept too close to those moments with Beauregard, in his chamber, when he drained nearly all of her blood… when she was helpless and under his thrall, wrapped in pleasure and sensuality… images that remained soft and vague in her mind, memories that she couldn’t allow herself to contemplate.
She didn’t know. She didn’t want to know.
And then there was Max. And Lilith. And her control over him, her obsession with him. The flat expression in his eyes could hide much horror.
Victoria swallowed hard, shoved the thoughts away and concentrated on the chill at the back of her neck. Stupid to allow her mind to open to such repugnant ideas. They only served to weaken and distract her.
And she wouldn’t wait any longer.
None of the pedestrians on the street around her seemed to notice when she lifted the latch on the iron gate and slipped through, then down the steps. It stank of urine and damp, and she found she needed to take care to avoid stepping on unpleasant substances as she descended. It certainly no longer reminded her of Sebastian’s clean and well-run Chalice.
The stairs went down below the earth, down, down, down so far that no sunlight filtered down the spiral stairs. When at last the steps ended, she saw a single horse symbol carved on the wall in front of her, next to a door. The Lone Horse.
The black door had an old-fashioned string latch. The string hung outside, and she pulled on it to lift the small wooden bar inside. The door opened with only a gentle shove, grating across a packed-dirt floor.
To her surprise, Victoria found herself in an establishment more than reminiscent of the Silver Chalice. Wooden tables and chairs lined the space, all fashioned of scarred, smooth, hand-worn maple. Lamps burned from the walls, and a fire in one corner brought a bit of warmth to the underground chill. The place smelled like sweat, damp soil, ale, and… blood.
There was no mistake; Victoria definitely knew bloodscent. Several patrons sat with various cups of libation in front of them, and she didn’t need to look closely to know what the beverage of choice was. A piano stood in the corner, being badly played by a woman with wheat-colored hair. A small counter laden with bottles edged up into the corner of the room, with a man tending to them. The low ceiling was lined with heavy beams between which Victoria could see roots growing.
And the back of her neck felt as though a pack of ice sat there.
Vampires everywhere.
Most of them looked up, showing burning red or pink eyes, lifting a lip to display the point of a fang. None of them, fortunately, glowed red-violet. Victoria wasn’t in the mood to fight an Imperial vampire, the type that was the oldest and most powerful of the undead. She wanted to make this a simple exercise: Get the ring, slay Katerina if necessary, and get back to Anton?n.
One of the vampires made the mistake of standing up and lunging for Victoria as she looked in the other direction. A quick shunt of her stake arm, and the foolish creature poofed into dust.
“That wasn’t a very polite way to greet a newcomer,” Victoria said to the room at large.
The lustful faces that had risen to look at her-fresh, young blood that she was-immediately dropped to look down at the cups on the tables in front of them, as if hoping that by ignoring her, she would ignore them.
For now she would. But only because she had other matters to attend to.
And as she swept the room with her gaze, she saw what appeared to be those other matters in a far corner. Victoria cast a sharp look at a vampire in her path. He moved and she scooted past him to the dark corner where Sebastian seemed to be attempting to extricate himself from a bit of difficulty.
“But, Katerina, ch?re ,” he was saying as Victoria approached. “Can we not let bygones be bygones? It was more than eight years ago. ”
“Eight years?” repeated a tall, stout woman; presumably Katerina. She’d backed Sebastian up against the wall with a meaty hand, stabbing a finger in the middle of his chest. Though Sebastian had a stake in his hand, she didn’t pay it any attention. “Eight years ain’ barely a breath ago for someone living forever, Sebastian Vioget. ”
“But surely you didn’t truly miss those casks-”
“Casks of the best French brandy? Casks I paid overmuch for?” shrieked Katerina, drilling her finger into his chest. Her nail must be sharp, for Victoria saw red blossom beneath Sebastian’s snowy shirt. Yet his charming smile didn’t falter. “You’re knowing as well as I that calf’s blood is all well and good for the likes of some customers, but the ones who pay well are expecting something even better. Are you knowing what business I lost when I couldn’t serve them?”
Sebastian gave a little laugh. “But I see that business is flourishing now. And aside of that-”
“I do hope I’m not interrupting,” Victoria said in unapologetic tones as she pushed over to stand next to them.
Katerina turned, but did not remove her hand from Sebastian, who gave Victoria a rueful smile. “Who are you?”
“I am Illa Gardella, and I’m here because you have something I require. ”
“If it’s him,” she said, with a jerk of her head at Sebastian, “you have to wait a moment until I’m finished. ”
“Now don’t be silly, Katerina,” said Sebastian, moving quickly and smoothly to get out from under her grip. “You know I prefer not to hurt a woman, but I will if I must. I intended to apologize, but if you won’t accept it, then it’s none of my concern. ” He smoothed his rumpled coat and brushed off dirt that had crumbled onto him from the ceiling above. “As far as I’m concerned, you owed me those casks. ”
Katerina, who had been blessed with a full head of bla
ck hair and pancakelike breasts during her mortal days, glared at him, her hands on her hips. She stood more than a head taller than Sebastian, and the top of her skull brushed the ceiling… hence the dusting of dirt that followed her every movement.
“I swore if I ever laid eyes on you again, I’d be squeezing every last koruna from you to pay for that brandy. ” She tightened her ham-sized fists as though to put her words to action. “It was a years’ worth of income for me to buy them. And you taking them off with you to London was a dirty trick. ”
Victoria decided it was time to intervene. The vampiress was massive in size and height, and with her pink eyes and poison-tipped fangs, she wouldn’t be an easy target. But Victoria had handled worse threats.
“You can settle your accounts with Sebastian later,” she said, giving him a sidewise glance, “but for now you can give me what I came for. ”
“And what might that be?” The woman turned and focused her attention down, heavily, onto Victoria. Her pink eyes tried to capture Victoria’s gaze, but in vain.
“The Ring of Jubai that you have in your possession. ”
Katerina began to laugh, a loud, uproarious sound that boomed in the small room and shook even her flat breasts. “And what makes you think I’d be considering giving it to you?”
“Because you don’t wish to join your husband in a pile of dust. ” Victoria showed her stake and looked up boldly at the woman.
Sebastian winced behind her, and rolled his eyes. Victoria ignored him; perhaps his tactics might have been to charm the ring from Katerina. But Victoria intended no such thing.
Katerina lifted her hand, shoving it at Victoria, knuckles facing out. “Then it will have to be over my pile of dust, for the ring’s not going anywhere without me. ”
And indeed, she spoke the truth. Only a slender line of copper gleamed on the vampiress’s ring finger. Flesh covered the rest of it, puffing over and around it like rising bread dough. The only way to get it off would be to kill Katerina, for, as Victoria knew, the only material that survived a vampire’s dissolution into ash was copper. Everything else would disintegrate along with the undead, which was precisely the reason Lilith had crafted her special rings of that metal.