Колин Глисон: As Shadows Fade

“Maximilian tried that one time, long ago,” Lilith told her with disdain. “If I didn’t want him so much, I would have killed him then. I have no such compunction regarding you.”

Victoria didn’t respond. She stood, gathering her wits and her strength, cataloguing the arsenal of weapons available to her. A quick look around the room confirmed that there was nothing to help her: nothing of wood, no sword. Even Sebastian appeared unable-or unwilling-to move. He merely knelt on the floor next to Lilith’s chaise, the same sort of empty expression on his face that Max had had while in the vampiress’s presence.

All she had were the stakes on her person, the holy water. Her wits.

And, possibly, the secret Adolphus had told her.

She had only a moment to assess all of this, for Lilith had been angered, and she no longer played the gracious sovereign. No sooner had Victoria steadied herself than the vampire queen flew at her.

Fangs sharp and extended into her bottom lip, and her long coppery hair swirled with the horrible scent of roses. Lilith knocked her to the ground, then reached down and grabbed Victoria by the front of the shirt and slammed her to the wall.

The impact set her head to bobbing and pushed the air from her lungs, but Victoria held the stake and made a swipe at Lilith. It scraped along the vampiress’s face, leaving a long gouge and blood dripping from it.

Victoria gasped, twisting from Lilith’s superhuman grip. Fumbling in the pocket of her trousers, Victoria found one of the bottles of holy water, and, ducking and rolling away from the vampire, she tried to pry the top off.

Lilith slammed into her, knocking the bottle out of her hand, and swooping toward Victoria with a delighted shriek, fangs ready and wide. Her eyes blazed now, and Victoria felt herself snagged in them, slowed, and the thrall begin to wrap around her.

No.

She shook her head, forced the hold to sever, and twisted along the ground toward the lost bottle, stake still close in her hand. Lilith followed, but Victoria was faster. She bucked back and flipped the vampire over her with a quick kick, lunging for, but missing, the bottle, thankful that the stopper hadn’t come loose.

With a shriek and a swirl of hair, Lilith rose as Victoria came to her feet, holy water in hand. As the vampire lunged toward her, nails curving wickedly in the air, Victoria ducked, and as she twisted around the queen, grabbed a handful of that awful snakelike hair.

Though it glowed like copper fire, it felt like wire, thick and hard, not springy at all. Victoria wrapped it around her wrist quickly and gave a good hard jerk, pulling the vampire off her feet to the sound of a great shriek.

Victoria dashed herself against the vampire queen, her arm still coiled in the hair, and they crashed into a wall, then tumbled to the floor. The bottle of water was just… there. She shoved the stake down the front of her trousers and reached for the vial… crying out with relief when her fingers closed around it, just as Lilith arced out with a long, powerful leg.

Bringing the bottle of holy water to her face, Victoria used her teeth to pull the stopper out as she kicked and yanked at Lilith, who scratched and clawed viciously back at her. But the crazy, twisting creature beneath her couldn’t get free from the trap of her hair, and the two scrambled across the floor, rolling, bucking, twisting.

At last the stopper came free and water splashed out, but Victoria managed to redirect the small flume onto the vampire writhing beneath her.

“Help me!” Lilith cried, then screamed as the water spilled on her face. Her bucking motions grew stronger, the horrible sweet scent of roses climbing up and around Victoria, but she kept her head clear.

Now. Victoria reached for the stake at her waist, closed her fingers around it, pulled it free.

She swiped her arm up and around, toward the writhing, snakelike vampire body linked to her by a length of long hair. She stabbed the stake down, aiming for the bony chest of the undead.

Slam.

Lilith twisted hard just as the stake pierced into skin with the familiar little pop, and Victoria felt strong hands pulling at her. She looked up into Sebastian’s face.

And his glowing red eyes.

“No!” Victoria half screamed, half gasped. “No.”

Not Sebastian.

But it was. Those red eyes gleamed at her, heavy and alluring, capturing her so unexpectedly, so very quickly. And in the midst of the shock, she realized that Lilith’s hair was still wrapped around her arm. Somehow, when she stabbed up and around from under her, the stake had not gone deep enough, or hadn’t hit the heart.

The vampire queen lived.

All of this occurred in the barest of seconds, and then suddenly, the weight of Lilith was off her, and Victoria was jerked to her feet.

Still stunned, feeling as though someone had slammed a boulder into her belly, she staggered, trying to catch her breath, to understand how it could have happened… How? Sebastian?

Too late.

I’m too late. Just like for Phillip.

Hands grasped and grabbed, shoving her, and she caught herself before falling, kicking out swiftly before she tumbled onto something soft. Like cushions, pillows. Soft and smelling horribly of roses and blood and death.

All of a sudden, the memory… the terrible, red-hot memory of Beauregard, assaulted her. Hands, nails, teeth… lips… on her, something soft beneath her, red eyes glowing with pleasure. No, no… those were Sebastian’s eyes.

And Lilith. Red eyes… not pink ones. Beauregard had pink ones.

Victoria tried to blink, felt the strong rough hands pressing on her and something linking around her wrist. Metal, cold and heavy, and she thought suddenly, clearly, of Max, and how he’d worn manacles when Lilith had had him in her presence. She kicked out blindly, catching something soft, but she couldn’t see, for the red eyes had her again.

They had her… trapped, lulled, loose, and murky.

Hands on her clothes, pulling them away from her neck, tearing the cotton away from her chest. Her cross was gone, torn off during the fight with the Guardian. She felt the heat of the room on her damp skin, felt the brush of wiry copper hair over her throat and cheek, then the smell of roses stronger.

She couldn’t move. Her legs were held by a heavy weight. Hands grasped her head, pinning it still to the cushions beneath. One hand held by a heavy cuff, attached above her head; the other hand left to flail free, to catch at Sebastian’s soft curling hair and vainly at the stone wall… A bit of a tease, she thought sluggishly, leaving one hand free to try to fight.

Vaguely, she realized this was important… She tucked her hand under herself in an effort to keep it free, to hide the fact that it was loose, make them think it was trapped beneath her.

But then the rose smell, and the intense heat of the room clogged her nose, slowed everything along with those hot red eyes, burning, lusting, in a face that had been dear… was so dear.

“Sebastian,” she cried. “No.”

“Oh come now,” whispered a voice near her ear. Not Sebastian, but Lilith. Crooning lovingly into her flesh. “You will enjoy it, Victoria Gardella. I understand you know Sebastian quite well. And he is very hungry. He has refused to feed since he drank from me, the poor darling.”

Victoria twisted powerfully, freeing one leg from the weight on it, using the hand beneath her for leverage, and slammed her foot into something living that she couldn’t see. It might have been Sebastian, for he was right behind Lilith. His red eyes showed the jolt from the impact of her foot.