When Twilight Burns (20 page)

“The woman is exceedingly strong,” now spoke Goodwin himself. “She will have to be transported in chains, and in secrecy. She has some fairly able friends.”

Victoria's mouth went dry. Chains? Good God. But surely they would have to bring her to public trial. And by that time, Max, and Sebastian, and Lady Melly—

But did any of them know where she was?

Barth and Oliver would know. They'd still be watching Goodwin. Or they would be able to figure it out.

She lifted her head. Its throbbing was so harsh it had to be audible. “Who brings the charges against me?” she said. Her voice…it was not one she recognized. It was…dark, heavy, rough. A shiver rattled down her arms and she pulled on her bonds as rage shuddered through her. “Someone must charge me.”

She knew at least that much about crime and punishment in London. A victim or family member must press charges for a trial to occur. There were no representatives, or prosecutors, for the general public.

“Ah, she is with us again.” Goodwin's face came into her view, blurred and clouded with the red haze. His breath smelled of stale ale.

“Who charges me?”

“It is I who bring the charges,” Goodwin replied.

“You?” Victoria blinked rapidly, trying to alleviate the distortion. Her thoughts were scrambled. “Why?”

His face came in front of hers, his long sharp nose shining, eyes dark with loathing. “My brother. You killed my brother.”

“Your brother? Who is your brother?” Victoria demanded. “I've killed
no one
.”

A
loud crack sounded, a hammer slamming onto a wooden surface. “Take the prisoner to Newgate. I'll arrange for the trial to be held tomorrow.” The magistrate's voice was filled with malice. “The assizes judge is in my debt and will be happy to hurry things along in this case.”

Tomorrow?

Victoria raised her head to protest, but something hard slapped against her cheek. Her head whipped up and back so hard the chair tottered.

“I have no sympathy for murderesses, especially those who mutilate their victims first.” Goodwin's ale breath was hot on her face as he bent in front of her. His eyes glowed with triumph. “Cutting them up and tearing them to pieces. What did you do with your husband, Lady Rockley?”

Her cheek throbbed, and the room wavered, but she fixed her gaze on him. “I've done nothing wrong.”

Goodwin rose upright, crowing. “The proclamation of innocence—but of course. You've used your powers and strength to do whatever you choose…and you'll pay recompense and hang by your lovely neck, dear lady.”

She would have responded again, but the black hood came down over her face, obstructing her vision. As she breathed, the cloth became more smothering, as if her need for air drew it closer and closer about her face, plastering it to her nose and eyes. Victoria struggled to dislodge the hood, but something tightened about her neck, holding it in place.

She heard the clink of chains. Her arms were loosened from the back of the chair, and she fell forward, dizzy and still bound by her ankles. Crashing onto the ground, she realized the ties at her wrists were no longer as tight. Someone moved next to her; she felt the bump of a leg or knee against the side of her hip, and heard more clinking.

Dragging in a hot, muffled breath, Victoria lurched onto her face and shoulders and, using her legs, raised the sturdy chair, snapped her heels toward the back of her head. The powerful swing whipped the seat onto the man kneeling next to her, and she heard—and felt—it smash into pieces. Chunks of wood splintered, raining down on them. Goodwin groaned as he slumped to the ground, heavy against her.

Still fighting for air, Victoria pulled at the ropes around her wrists and frantically began to jimmy her hands free. Someone shouted, and she heard quick, hard movements in the room. One wrist popped free and she tore at the hood and its tie.

Something smashed into her shoulder blades, and she fell face-first down against something warm and soft— Goodwin, she realized. The other movement must be coming from the magistrate. A heavy weight lunged onto her, and he was shouting for assistance in her ear. One of her arms was captured, yanked up behind her back—but the other one was safely under her, tearing at the tie at her throat until at last it came loose.

With a guttural cry, she yanked the hood off and gulped in fresh, clean air.

And then she was ready to fight.

Able to breathe, and see, she was galvanized by fury. She moved like furious lightning, rolling to the side, striking fast and hard. The magistrate tumbled back under her assault, and Victoria bent to tear the ropes from her ankles. Thus released, the last vestiges of the chair clattered to the floor as she heard the sounds of thundering footsteps.

Scrambling to her feet, she saw Goodwin dragging himself up under the wreckage of the chair, and the man who had to be the magistrate trying to pull to his feet. Next time she would hit them harder.

Victoria dashed toward the dark window, smashing the glass with the chains with which they'd meant to bind her. The ground wasn't far below, and as she leaped through, a jagged edge of glass sliced the underside of her thigh and she heard the door slam open in her wake.

Landing on the ground in a neat crouch, she sprang to her feet. The fresh night air was like ambrosia, despite the stench of garbage and other waste. The building from which she'd escaped was on a narrow street, and if she'd jumped at the wrong angle she could have slammed into one the nearby walls.

Looking at the night sky, Victoria realized how late it was. She must have been unconscious for hours, and it had taken that long for Goodwin to arrange for the meeting with his crooked magistrate.

She hesitated, warring between the driving desire to go back and destroy Goodwin and his magistrate, and the need to get away. If she left, they would come after her again. She knew it.

A door opened, spilling light into the darkness, and she saw the tall figure of Goodwin outlined. He held a pistol. Two of his henchmen loomed behind him, and they burst out into the night.

Hesitation gone, she turned and dashed away. She couldn't fight against a bullet. Shouts told her they were following, and she ran pell-mell down the dark street, turning onto another, and then another. She realized belatedly this was not a pleasant area of town, or one that would boast a magistrate's office. Her suspicion that the magistrate was just as corrupt as Goodwin, and that they had had to meet in secret, solidified.

Pushing past prostitutes and drunkards, dodging carts and dogs, Victoria slowed her pace when she turned onto a dark street that was curiously empty.

The thick crescent moon shone high and seemed to beam down the center of the narrow street. Her vision still blurred faint red, and rage bubbled through her.

And then Victoria realized that the back of her neck was abnormally cold.

Which could explain why the street was empty.

Pounding footsteps slapped to a halt behind her, and she turned to see Goodwin, and one of his men, half a block away. He raised his arm, and she saw the gleam of metal in the moonlight, pointing at her.

“Stop there, madame.”

The chill on the nape of her neck was colder, and she sensed the arrival of an undead. Or two.

“Who was your brother?” she called back to Goodwin, taking a step away from him. The farther she was from that bullet…The prickles at the back of her neck were growing worse. Where was it? Or they?

“Frederick Goodwin, Baron Truscott.”

Her gazed darted around as she looked for something to use as a stake, but she saw nothing of use. Then she felt, rather than saw, something shift—just out of her vision.

“You don't remember him? But of course…why should you? He was only one of many that you've destroyed.” He took another step toward her, and she backed up slightly. They were separated by perhaps five carriage lengths, but she stood in the center of the street, well lit and unprotected. A bullet in the heart or head would kill her, just as it would any other mortal.

“I remember him.” She did indeed remember Lord Truscott—a Society man she'd danced with more than a year ago, and then only days later had been forced to stake. In that time he'd turned to a vampire and coaxed Miss Emily Colton from a party and into the dark gardens.

Victoria had been receiving Phillip's proposal when she realized what was happening, and had needed to duck away.

She was not likely to forget Lord Truscott.

“You killed him. After all I'd done to protect him.”

The chill sharpened, and Victoria spun just as a shadow turned into the figure of a man in front of her. As she ducked the undead's attack, ramming into his gut, a gun fired. For the second time that day, a bullet whizzed much too close to her head.

She flipped the vampire over her shoulder and whirled around, still looking for something to use as a stake. The undead crashed to the ground, and she looked up to see Goodwin facing a cluster of vampires. Three of them. That made four total.

Red eyes glowing, the undead in front of her scrambled to his feet and launched himself at Victoria. As she kicked out, catching the vampire in the chin, she saw Goodwin pitch his firearm wildly at the one closest to him.

When the creature near her attacked again, she pummeled him back, allowing all of her red rage to burst free with kicks, punches, elbows, and head butts. The last time she smashed him to the ground, he had enough and scrambled to his feet, running away.

Victoria turned and saw Goodwin pinned to a brick wall by the hand of a vampire. His legs thrashed wildly and anything he might have screamed was reduced to faint gurgles. Two others were closing in on his large companion, who brandished a heavy club.

It wouldn't be long before he was relieved of the club.

The rest of the street was quiet and empty.

Victoria looked at them through red vision, heart pounding, hatred surging through her. Then turned her back on the scene and walked into the darkness.

+ Fourteen +

Victoria Faces the Music

“I never thought to see
you in such a state, Vioget. If there's one woman who can take care of herself, it's Victoria,” Pesaro drawled.

Sebastian turned away from the supercilious prick, who lounged long and dark in an armchair, a book open in his lap. Not only was his neckcloth a disgrace, but he looked supremely unconcerned about the fact that Victoria seemed to have disappeared. The hackney driver, Barth, claimed he'd let her off a block away from the house in the early afternoon…but no one had seen or heard from her since.

But what did he expect from Max Pesaro? The man was utterly useless except for slinging insults and veiled comments now that he'd lost his Venator powers.

He was an unfeeling bastard, but he'd made his opinions clear to Sebastian last night, when Victoria left them alone in the carriage.

I'll be gone soon. You'll need to stay with Victoria. I know you loved Giulia, and though you may not believe it, so did I.

The sentiment had been implicit: take care of Victoria without overtly taking care of her. It smacked of Pilate, but Sebastian's annoyance grew from the fact that Pesaro felt it necessary to make it an order. Yet, the fact that Pesaro had felt the conversation a necessity at all made it clear that Sebastian's warning to Victoria had been accurate:
He doesn't want anyone.

“You'd be better off learning that now,” Pesaro continued, holding a glass of brandy that was as full as it had been when poured. “She doesn't need to be taken care of. Nor does she desire it.”
But take care of her regardless.

Sebastian took a drink of his own liquor instead of replying the way he wanted to. He was better equipped to know Victoria's desires than Pesaro was, by God. Once he swallowed the burning liquid and leashed his instinctive response, he replied, “That may be the case—which remains to be seen—but since I've been in such close proximity to her, I've noticed that all is not well. She's acting differently.”

Pesaro glanced sharply toward the door, and Sebastian stilled for a moment. Had that been a sound in the front entrance? By silent communion, they waited for another beat, but they heard nothing else.

Sebastian sipped again, rolling the brandy over his tongue. Unease tickled when he looked at the clock and saw that it was midnight.

“Differently?” Pesaro sounded bored, but Sebastian noticed he was resting the glass on the table next to him.

He could barely stand the sight of Pesaro sometimes, for the shape and color of the man's dark eyes reminded him of Giuilia's, along with the sharp peaks that formed the dip in his upper lip. On her, the Pesaro eyes had been huge and overwhelming in her pale, delicate face, and her lower lip a lush complement to the well-formed upper one…

Giulia had been a sickly girl, thin and delicate, with a cough that never seemed to ease. Sebastian had fallen completely, foolishly in love with her the first time he laid eyes on her at fifteen. Plagued by illness, she might not have lived to her twenties, but her life had been shortened even further by her brother's naive decision to bring her to the Tutela. Pesaro had thought vampirism's immortality would be the cure for her illness, but he'd been horribly tricked.

Sebastian steeled his thoughts, returning from the past to the present concern. God help him—he couldn't bear to lose Victoria as he had Giulia. But he wouldn't.

She was so much stronger.

“She reacts to the smell of blood,” he told Pesaro, returning to the conversation. He hated having to share his concerns with him, but there was no one else. And, like it or not, Pesaro had been a fierce, capable, knowledgeable Venator who had given even Beauregard concern.

Sebastian's statement snared the other man's attention. The glass clunked softly as Pesaro released it completely onto the table. Though he didn't move otherwise, Sebastian noticed that his eyes sharpened in a way Giulia's never had. “What do you mean?”