The Rest Falls Away Read Online Free PDF Page A

here to assist in filling in the details from your vantage point.”
    â€œIndeed. Please, signora, you tell the tale. I will comment as necessary.”
    â€œVery well.”
    Victoria leaned forward expectantly, and for just a moment Eustacia hesitated. Looking at the beautiful, innocent face of her great-niece, she felt a wondrous sense of pride. She had staked a vampire on her first try. She had taken amazingly well to her training and had accepted all of the darkness and evil that lurked on this earth with a worldly attitude—one even Eustacia hadn’t initially had.
    It would be a difficult life. She would give up many of the things other girls her age took for granted. She would be in danger more often than a young woman should be.
    Yet, at the same time, Victoria would have a life of unparalleled excitement and adventure. She would face down the most evil creatures ever imagined, and know that she had the strength and cunning to best them. She would lose control of some part of her life, yet gain more freedom than a young woman even in this age could ever fathom.
    And it was foretold: Only one descended directly from the first Gardella could destroy Lilith.
    Max, as formidable and magnificent as he was, was one of the few Venators who did not carry Gardella blood; and that was a fact that made him perhaps even more effective, more determined a Venator.
    â€œLilith the Dark is the daughter of Judas Iscariot,” Eustacia began. She had told this tale only a dozen times in her lifetime. The first time had been to the pope.
    Perhaps this would be the last.
    â€œJudas Iscariot? The betrayer of Jesus Christ?”
    Eustacia nodded. “Indeed. The man who betrayed Jesus for thirty pieces of silver. He is known as the Betrayer; yet the Lord forgave him, as he did all mankind. But Judas Iscariot did not accept the forgiveness, and he hanged himself, as you know. He was thus damned to eternal hell. The devil sold him back his corporeal being, and gave him the power to walk the earth in the body of an immortal, a type of demon, in a form we call undead. An undead is damned for eternity once he drinks the blood of a mortal. He cannot be saved.
    â€œIn this damned state, caught between life and death, Judas lived in this world for centuries. While he was damned and walking this earth, he turned his son and daughter into vampires. The son, Nicholas Iscariot, has been imprisoned in the mountains of Romania for centuries. Therefore it is the daughter—Lilith—of whom we are concerned. She feeds on human blood and human weakness. And with her brother incapacitated, Lilith is the queen of vampires, and she seeks revenge upon us. She lives on the blood of mortals.”
    â€œBecause we—the world of Christendom—consider her father a betrayer?” asked Victoria.
    â€œIndeed. There is no name in Christendom spoken with more malice than that of Judas Iscariot. Once a proud name, now it is spit upon, said with hatred and venom. Judas is gone, but Lilith roams the earth, and she builds her army of vampires. She intends to rule the world; her strength is always our weakness. It is our task, our legacy, to keep Lilith and her minions at bay.”
    â€œShe and your great-aunt have been enemies for decades. Lilith knows that the only thing stopping her from taking over the world is Eustacia and her powers.”
    Max’s face had deeper lines than usual as he took up the story. “When your aunt first came here from Venice, Lilith couldn’t find her. She tore apart Venice, and then Rome and Florence. She sent her Guardians and Imperials to Paris and Madrid and Cairo, and here to London. It was nearly two decades before she located your aunt. The Venators kept Eustacia well hidden, and well protected.”
    â€œYou were the best of the lot, Max, young as you were.” Young and determined, he’d been. Angry because he’d lost his beloved father and sister to a vampire; and