Archer's Lady: Bloodhounds, Book 3 (7 page)

“I know.”

The house looked terribly lonely, sitting by itself in the middle of the prairie with not so much as a haystack around it. One shutter sagged, and the window it was meant to cover had been broken. “This is it?” Archer asked, pulling his mount up short.

Grace eased her mare to a stop next to him. “He owned thirty acres in every direction, and wouldn’t hear about selling so much as a square inch of it. Doc was partial to his privacy.”

But for what reason? “It has a cellar, I presume? Otherwise, it’ll be a short search.”

“A small one, I believe, where the boiler is kept. It’s quite a modern house, for all its…” She trailed off and gestured to the peeling paint and crooked porch. “Doc believed in function over frivolity.”

“Smart man.” Archer rode into the yard and slid off his mount. “Will your horse stand?”

“As long as she’s not spooked.” Grace swung down from her saddle with ease and rubbed her gloved hand over the mare’s mane with a fond smile. “Would you believe I won her in a card game?”

She was adorable. “Did you cheat?”

“Start to finish.” She petted the horse’s nose a final time and stripped off her gloves. “Not very well, though. I was
trying
to win money. I misjudged my mark, but I’ve never regretted getting Phoebe instead.”

“I’ve never been much of a gambler. Not before you, anyway.”

Her eyebrows lifted as she retrieved the sturdy brass key that fit the giant lock fixed to the comparatively flimsy front door. “Am I a gamble?”

“Yes and no.” Pride kept him cryptic on the subject. She was a gamble, all right, one that could cost him what little peace of mind he had left.

She studied him as if waiting for an answer and shrugged when he failed to provide one. “You could probably kick in the door,” she said as she stepped onto the porch. “But Diana wasn’t sure if the door was still trapped. The key should disengage it.”

“Let me.” He took the key, fitted it into the lock and turned it. It clicked, and a shudder of magic zipped through the air. “Did you feel that?”

Her confused expression answered before her words. “Feel what?”

“Magic.” He studied the planks and spotted tiny carvings near the ends of the boards. He reached up to trace the familiar symbols. “Definitely the kind the Guild uses. A barrier, I’m guessing, linked to the locks.”

Grace’s eyes widened. “Does that mean the vampires couldn’t have broken in, even if they tried?”

He eyed the smashed window. The same symbols had been etched into the frame and sashes. “That’d be my assumption. Maybe we can find something inside.”

“There’s only one way to be sure.”

The hinges creaked when he pushed the door open, and Grace followed close behind him. “I’ve only been here a few times,” she admitted, surveying the organized but dusty surfaces. She touched Archer’s arm and pointed to another doorway on the far side of the room. “I think that goes to the cellar.”

The inner dimensions of the house seemed to fit the outside, and the furniture was bare, with no boxes or cupboards to be seen. The only thing out of the ordinary was the Guild carvings on every board, every panel. The house would have been impregnable, protected by the current of magic that only the key in his hand could dispel.

Archer moved to the cellar door and studied the lock. “Same key?” he asked absently, turning the item in question over his knuckles.

“I believe so. It’s the only one Diana had.” Grace moved to an open room on the right. “This was his study.”

“It’s worth a look. You take it while I check out the cellar. Journals, ledgers, anything of the sort.”

“All right.” She reached out, her hand hovering just short of touching him. “Be careful.”

“With what?” He grinned. “An old man’s homemade booby traps?”

She dropped her hand with a sigh and rolled her eyes. “Men. You’re all the same. Even the bloodhounds.”

“
Especially
the bloodhounds,” he called over his shoulder as he fit the key in the cellar lock. It turned easily, and he pushed open the door.

It looked like any other lab at first, cluttered and utterly foreign. The only thing that distinguished it from Nate’s back in Iron Creek was the thick layer of dust that covered the beakers and notes. Then Archer stepped close enough to study the vials littered across the table’s surface, and a chill shook him.

Blood. Most of it long since clotted and separated, even dried, but some of it still liquid and shot through with what looked like flecks of silver. Each vial was numbered in neat, even script, along with a name.

Diana.

Archer found his voice. “Grace!”

Her booted heels clattered on the floor overhead, raining more dust down on him. She appeared on the stairs, her dress hitched halfway to her knees. “Are you…?” She looked from him to the table, and her face paled as she took the last few steps slowly. “Is that blood?”

“Experiments.” Archer grabbed one dusty journal, but the pages were filled with ciphers. A second volume yielded the same thing. “Has Diana talked about what Doc might have been trying to do with her blood?”

“No.” When she reached the table, she lifted one vial with shaking fingers, smoothing dust from where it had gathered over Diana’s name. “I can’t imagine him experimenting on her, not unless she was in danger or sick. He loved her.”

“Unless she was in danger?” he echoed, crossing to a shelf laden with papers and ledgers. “She’s a bloodhound. She’s in danger every second of every day, just for being what she is.”

Grace replaced the vial. “Do you think he could have been trying to change that? To make her human again?”

“I don’t know if it’s possible. I mean, obviously if Doc knew, he’d have done it instead of fucking around with blood samples. But you know what I mean.”

“That there’s no going back,” she said quietly, brushing dust from a stack of fading parchment. “This must be what the vampires are looking for. This lab, or something in it. The journals, maybe?”

He flicked one of the vials and watched the metallic flakes dance through the deep red liquid. “What the hell was he
making
?”

She leaned close to the table, squinting at the cramped scribbles that covered the top parchment at an angle. “Chemical formulas—most of them crossed through. There are pages and pages of these.”

More dust drifted down from the ceiling, and Archer caught the softest whisper of footsteps. He dragged Grace close and pressed one hand over her mouth. “You hear that?”

She shook her head and glanced upward. Her gaze followed the dust unsettled by each quiet step, and she widened her eyes, clearly understanding.

He moved his hand but motioned for her to be silent as he edged her toward the wall and placed his own body squarely in front of hers. The steps continued, louder now, rough and almost shuffling.

Her heart pounded so hard he could hear it, but her fear didn’t stop her from bending to pull a derringer from beneath her skirts. She pressed a hand to his back as the footsteps paused at the top of the stairs.

The door she’d left open creaked. A boot hit the first step. Archer grabbed Grace’s wrist and shook his head at the gun. “Quiet. Let me.” The steps continued, growing closer until the last few echoed through the cellar like gunshots.

The ghoul shuffled into the dim space, jerking like a clumsily wielded marionette. Archer took a step, but his boot caught a scrap of metal shoved into the corner. The clatter alerted the creature, who spun with an open-mouthed hiss and lunged for him, both clawed hands aiming for his eyes.

As fast as the ghoul was, it was no match for Archer. He snapped its neck and held it aloft for a moment. Sometimes he felt like he could see their masters in their eyes if he stared hard enough, but all he ever saw was death. “There could be more,” he observed as he let the creature slump to the floor.

Grace watched him, calm but pale. “Should I wait here while you look?”

“No.” In all likelihood, the ghoul was a scout. The only noise drifting down to tickle at Archer’s ears now was the shuffle and whinny of horses. “Grab every book you can. Let’s hope the wards that kept the bloodsuckers out engage again when we lock the door.”

“I thought I saw a bag…” She pulled her skirts out of the way as she edged around the ghoul’s body, her gaze fixed stubbornly ahead. The derringer clattered on the table as she set it down, but she bent in silence and retrieved a dusty canvas sack from one of the shelves lining the wall.

Archer watched her hurry about. “Grace, hold it together. I don’t think there are more ghouls out there right now, but that could change, and quickly.” He grasped her elbow. “
Grace.
”

She stiffened under his touch, one hand tightening around the book she’d picked up. “I’ll be fine once I catch my breath. It simply…happened very quickly.”

She was lying—that part didn’t shock him. But the fact that it hurt did.

Archer had terrified her, and she’d been cruel enough to let him see it.

It wasn’t as if she didn’t have the skill to lie in the face of danger. Grace had saved her own life with quick words and convincing smiles more times than she wanted to remember. For the entire two years she’d spent with the Howland gang, her capacity to hide fear had been her salvation.

Today, when it had mattered most, the lies hadn’t come.

Guilt knotted her gut until not even Cook’s finest offerings could tempt her to eat. She listened as attentively as she could to the story of how the woman had bartered mightily for the pig, and mouthed the appropriate approval and gratitude. She even agreed to linger as the woman prepared a tray for her to take to Archer, though the thought of facing him turned guilt to dread.

She tried to compose apologies while she waited. The honest ones were breathlessly awkward.
I’m sorry I acted surprised. I’d forgotten the man I bedded was such an efficient killer.
As if
efficient
was adequate description of the grace and speed with which he’d dispatched the ghoul.

So fast. Did the world slow down for him? Did he realize how he looked to others? A blur of leather and sun-roughened skin, dealing death in the time it took her to suck in one startled breath. If she’d dropped her gun when he stepped away, he might have killed the ghoul and been back at her side to catch it before it hit the floor.

Her fear had hurt him, and that shook her the most, for it underscored the ridiculousness of the emotion. Even in the moment, she hadn’t feared him. His actions, perhaps, and her foolishness in forgetting what he was, but not Archer himself.

No matter what violence he might be capable of, the man who’d taken her to bed with lust and tenderness wouldn’t hurt her. That gave her courage to knock on his door, Cook’s tray balanced on her hip. “Archer? I have supper for you.”

The reply that came was absent. “Come in.”

She eased open the door and froze on the threshold, held captive by the sight of her terrifying bloodhound hunched over the small desk with the ink-smeared cheeks of an absentminded scholar. The hands that had crushed the life out of the ghoul had performed the same task on a dozen scraps of paper, which lay crumpled at his elbows and near the foot of his chair. As she watched, his pen scratched over a fresh sheet, then returned to stroke through the notes as a furrow formed between his eyebrows.

His writing slowed, stopped, and he looked up at her, puzzled. “What is it, honey?”

Grace wondered if she was blushing. She felt foolish enough having been caught staring like a love-struck fool. She nudged the door shut behind her and crossed to the desk. “You have a little ink,” she murmured, setting the tray down. She reached out and ghosted her thumb over the top of his cheek. “Right here.”

“Oh. Damn things always leak.” Even more ink stained his fingers, and he studied them with a grumble. “I’ve been trying to decipher Doc’s notes.”

She walked to the vanity with its sink and hot and cold taps. Twisting the left knob brought hot water quickly enough, no doubt because the kitchen’s ovens had been hard at work. She returned to him with a damp towel and only barely resisted the urge to wipe his cheek herself. “Have you had any luck?”

“No.” He flipped one ledger shut and traced the odd symbol on its cover. “I should have paid more attention when Theron was lecturing me on Babbage and Vigenère’s blasted
tabula recta
.”

Words that would have held no meaning at all, if she hadn’t befriended the gang’s bespectacled little accountant in her quest to find a way to hide her money. “It’s a shift cipher?”

“I hope so, because otherwise I’ll never figure it out.” He thumped the book. “If it is one, though, it has a key. I tried
Diana
already, but nothing doing.”

“We’ll figure it out.” She gathered the notes and stacked them on top of the book to make room for the tray—and to give her some place to look other than his face while she mustered her apology. “Archer, I’m sorry. About earlier.”

He didn’t move. “For what?”

If she spent time making sure each piece of paper lined up precisely with the edge of the book, she wouldn’t have to meet his eyes. “For being afraid.”

At first, he said nothing. Then he sighed. “I’m not human anymore, Grace. You’d be a fool not to be frightened of the things I can do. I don’t care about that.”