Victoria Gardella: Vampire Slayer by Colleen Gleason

~ In Which a Masquerade Ball Unmasks an
Undead ~

    London, 1819

    “My lady, your mother is wearin’ a hole in
the floor,” Verbena said as she twisted a final curl into place at
the top of her mistress’s coiffure. “She claims y’ll be late for
the masquerade ball if y’ don’t hurry. And something about the
Marquess o’ Rockley attendin’ and wantin’ to see ye?”
    Miss Victoria Gardella Grantworth looked in
the mirror, eyeing her maid’s creation in the form of a tall—very
tall—coiffure. Her dark hair had been piled to an impossible
height, and then powdered so that her black curls looked more gray
than white. A small bluebird perched at the side of her column of
hair, and a bejeweled comb rested at the top. Pink and yellow
flowers and a variety of jewels further decorated the powdered
curls.
    “I don’t know that Marie Antoinette’s hair
was ever this particular hue,” Victoria said, “but I think it looks
lovely. And perhaps I’d best go down before Mother comes up to drag
me off.”
    She stood, and the skirts of her gown rose
with her as if they had a life of their own. Victoria was used to
wearing the high-waisted, clinging skirts of contemporary styles,
but these wide panniers and heavy brocaded layers of fabric at
least left her legs free to move beneath without getting too caught
up in the skirts. The only other benefit of the yards of material
dripping from her body was that there were plenty of places to slip
a wooden stake into or between ruffles, lace, or gathers. She felt
for the one that rested just to the right side of her torso,
cunningly hidden behind a pouf of lace.
    “I do hope there aren’t any vampires at Lady
Petronilla’s ball tonight,” Victoria said, drawing on her gloves.
“It will be impossible to fight them in this costume.”
    “But m’lady, if there are, you’ll be very
prepared,” Verbena told her, a sparkle in her blue eyes. “I’ve
slipped one o’ your littler stakes here in the back of your hair.”
She poked at the heavy mass near the back of Victoria’s crown.
“Just in case.”
    “If I pull it out, likely it will all come
falling down,” Victoria replied, gingerly feeling for the stake.
“But in a pinch, I suppose it shall do. I only hope I’ll not have
need of it. I have been looking forward to one night where I don’t
have to make some excuse to sneak out and stake a vampire.”
    Verbena handed her mistress a small reticule.
“Holy water, an’ a cross in here, my lady,” she told her. “An’ you
look lovely.”
    Victoria might look like any normal young
woman, just debuting into Society, but beneath her gown—whether it
be a fashionable high-waisted one, or the retrospective costume she
currently wore—she harbored a secret that made her very different
from any other girl.
    She wore the vis bulla , a tiny silver
cross amulet that gave her superhuman strength, speed, and healing
capability. Victoria Gardella Grantworth was a Venator, a vampire
hunter descended from a long line of slayers in the Gardella
family. Her duty, beyond that of her unsuspecting mother’s
expectation that she marry well, was to hunt the undead who lurked
in the shadows of London Society. And everywhere else in the
world.
    Victoria wasn’t the only Venator in the
world. Her great-aunt Eustacia had been a powerful Venator before
she became too old to hunt, and then there was Max Pesaro, another
Venator who spent more time disparaging Victoria’s hunting skills
than anything else. He, too, was a vampire hunter, though not
descended from the Gardella line.
    Victoria was rather glad that she would be
attending the masquerade ball at Lady Petronilla’s tonight, for Max
disdained social functions and would not be there to glower at her
and make snide comments about how many men had signed her dance
card.
    And then of course, there was Phillip.
    Thinking of the Marquess of Rockley put a
great smile on her face, so that when Victoria reached the bottom
of the stairs and