Max Stops the Presses: A Gardella Vampire Chronicles Short Story (3 page)

“Goddammit, Vioget, if it’s
not Iscariot, then who?”

“George
Starcasset.”

“Who—what?
Starcasset
?” Max barked a
laugh of incredulity while continuing to observe his surroundings.
“Christ. What the bloody hell have you been drinking? Even if the
bastard was turned undead—which he’s at least smart enough to
resist—that pansy wouldn’t be a threat to a damned
child.”

“He’s writing a book. Or,
more accurately,
has
written a book.”

Max turned slowly back to
him. “A book.”

His companion nodded, his
expression shifting from mocking to sober. “About the vampires.
About the Venators. About—”

“About my
wife
.” Max erupted from
his chair so quickly the approaching barmaid shrieked and lost the
grip on her tray. He ignored the ensuing mess and loomed over
Sebastian. “Where is he? And more importantly,
where is the damned book?
”

The man looked up at him,
shrugging with all of his characteristic insouciance. “That I
cannot tell you. But I have no doubt you’ll find out, and in short
order. You are, after all, Max Pesaro.” The irony in his voice was
heavy as a stone.

For the first time in his
life—or at least in recent memory—Max didn’t immediately know what
to do. His initial urge was to plow a fist into the handsome,
mocking face of his former rival and nemesis. But Max was, if
nothing else, practical and efficient. In this case, efficiency won
out, for Vioget happened to be the most convenient source of
information about George Starcasset and his bloody damned
book
. And if he were an
unconscious, bloody pulp on the floor…

And so Max reluctantly sat
down. “What do you know? I want everything.” He gritted his teeth
at the knowing smirk Sebastian gave him, but leashed his impatience
and settled back to listen.

+ +
+

Max peered through the
window
.

There he was, George
Starcasset—the current bane of his existence—snoring peacefully in
his bed. Alone, of course.

The poor sot wasn’t going
to know what hit him.

Moonlight reflected off the
window glass, but in the distance, the eastern horizon was
beginning to turn pale gray. The impending dawn had been Vioget’s
excuse for demurring when Max invited him to accompany him to hunt
down Starcasset—not for companionship and certainly not for
assistance, but merely because it seemed only fair to extend the
invitation, since the other man had brought the
information.

Generally, Vioget liked a
good fight as much as Max did—at least, as long as his neckcloth
didn’t get rumpled.

But tonight, apparently,
Sebastian was in no mood to fight.

Max, however, was. He
flexed his fingers, hovering in front of the window three stories
off the ground, and his lips settled in flat smile. His
qinggong
skills were just
as sharp as they’d always been, despite the fact that he’d hardly
had to employ them recently. With all the vampires gone from
London, life had become less demanding—and far less
dangerous.

Not that living with
Victoria wasn’t demanding. Or, hell, dangerous. His smile softened.
And within days, he’d be living with Victoria and their child—which
surely would turn his world upside down even more.

With nimble fingers, Max
opened the window and climbed inside, neatly avoiding the cloves of
garlic and the silver cross arranged over the sill. He snorted.
Damned fool.

Silent and smooth, he
looked around the shadowy chamber, noting the locked door, the
wooden stake on the bedside table, and the large silver cross on a
chain around Starcasset’s neck. Then, snagging a walking stick from
a nearby chair, he poked the slumbering man in the gut.

His eyes flew open and he
sat up in a whirl of bedclothes.

“Good evening,” Max greeted
him.

“You! What—what are you—how
did you get in here?” Starcasset gaped, looking around the chamber
and toward the door—which was, of course, still bolted from the
inside.

“How did I get in here?”
Max replied, lifting one of his brows. “Perhaps you aren’t as
well-informed about Venators and vampires as you think.” He pressed
the walking stick into Starcasset’s belly a little harder and the
blonde man squirmed. “Definitely not well-informed enough to
be
writing a bloody damned book
about them.”

“Oh.” Starcasset’s eyes
were wide enough that white circles ringed his irises, yet his hand
inched toward the wall. “I…”

“Don’t even think about
ringing that bell.” Max’s voice was very pleasant. “That would be
nearly as foolish a decision as
writing a
book about my wife.
”

“I—”

“You took precautions to
protect yourself from the undead, but you should have been more
concerned about me.” Max bared his teeth and removed the walking
stick. Starcasset heaved a great sigh of relief and plunged his
hand under the pillow next to him. “However,” Max continued, “I’m a
reasonable man. And if you so much as touch that pistol, I’ll throw
you out the window.”

Starcasset snatched back
his hand and glared up at him. “If you’re so reasonable, what do
you want?”

“There. Much better. I
simply want to know where the book is.”

To his surprise, Starcasset
chuckled. “The book? You’re too late for that. It’s already been
printed and bound. Three hundred copies, to be exact.”

Max went cold. “You
published
the book? There
are
three hundred copies
? By God, I ought to throw you out the window anyway.” He
grabbed Starcasset by the nightshirt and yanked him out of the bed.
The man shrieked as he slammed against the wall so hard the mirror
fell. It shattered into silvery shards around their feet. “Your bad
luck is just about to begin.”

Just then, Max heard the
sounds of shouts and pounding feet from below.

“No, Signore Pesaro, I’m
afraid
your
bad
luck has just begun.” George Starcasset’s smile was a trifle tense,
but it was present nonetheless. “Due to the sensitive nature of the
book’s topic, I’ve been expecting a visit from either the Tutela,
the undead, or one of your ilk. I’m prepared for any
eventuality.”

The door creaked and heaved
beneath the onslaught of whoever was on the other side. Max glanced
at it, then curved his hand around Starcasset’s throat and
squeezed. “Where are the books?”

The man gurgled beneath the
powerful hand, his legs shifting and twitching against the wall
even as the door groaned in protest. “I…”

Max jerked his head toward
the splintering door. “Speak quickly, or I’ll demonstrate on them
what will happen to you if even one copy of that book finds its way
to the public.”

“They’re…uhm…”

The door caved in and Max
turned to see four large men pouring over the threshold. They were
armed with stakes…and pistols.

Bloody hell.

+ +
+

Victoria wasn’t a
fool.

She recognized the exchange
of glances between Max and Sebastian, and felt her husband slip
from the bed when he thought she was sleeping.

And because she wasn’t a
fool, she merely sighed, smiled that her hovering, irritating
husband was going to have something interesting to do tonight at
least, and shifted her pillows and ungainly self around to try and
get some sleep.

But the twinges in her
belly were growing stronger and more regular—much stronger and more
regular than she had indicated earlier to Max.

She dozed fitfully, jolted
from her light sleep with every contraction as they grew more
uncomfortable and then more regular.

And then, just as dawn
began to filter through her window, she felt a sudden gush of
liquid from between her legs.

The baby was
coming.

She rang for Verbena and
Tiana.

+ +
+

Max flung Starcasset
into the cluster of men, and they all crashed into
each other like milk bottles. In the melee, one of the pistols
discharged, sending a small puff of smoke into the chamber, and
someone clipped Max in the hip.

But before his victims had
a chance to recover, he yanked a firearm from one flailing hand and
aimed it at Starcasset. The man—whose knobby knees were revealed by
a too-short nightshirt—froze, hands raised.

“Next time, you might
engage more competent help,” he suggested as his quarry squeaked
out a desperate command for his men to freeze. At the same time,
Max felt something wet and warm where he’d been hit in the hip.
Dammit. That stray bullet had got him. His eyes bored into
Starcasset’s. “Tell me where the books are.”

“Duntwhistle…and Ferngloss
printed them,” Starcasset said reluctantly. “But they’ve been
packaged up for shipping. They might even be gone by
now.”

Once again, Max gave him a
humorless smile. “You had better hope they aren’t.” He lazily
turned his attention to one of the four goons who’d come through
the door. “Stop right there or I’ll blow off your kneecap.” He
extricated his own pistol, the sight of which proved to be
sufficient motivation for the man to freeze.

Still holding both
firearms, Max leaned closer to Starcasset, pushing the barrel of
one gun into his chest. “I suggest you forget everything you know
about me, my wife, and our vocation. No more books. No articles. No
lectures. No interviews. If I ever find out you’ve done something
so foolish again, I’ll kill you. Next time, I won’t ask
questions.”

“Under…stood,” breathed the
other man.

Max eased back toward the
window, still keeping his dual pistols trained on the group of
them. “Good night, Starcasset. It will be in your best interest not
to remain in London. Find your way somewhere very far from England.
The New World. Australia. Somewhere where I won’t run into you by
happenstance.”

With a nod of farewell, he
tossed the extra pistol into the chamber and vaulted out the
window, feeling a shaft of pain in his side.

Just as he glided easily to
the ground, he heard a voice waft through the night, “Gor… Oo th’
devil was
that
?”

+ +
+

Duntwhistle and
Ferngloss
was a small print shop three
blocks off Bond. By the time Max was able to learn this
information, dawn had broken, and a pale yellow light filtered over
the shadowy city. He pressed a hand against the wound in his side.
Damn thing irritated him for a variety of reasons, but he didn’t
have time to tend to it now.

He was scoping out the
dingy storefront, considering his next move, when a pearl-gray
pigeon fluttered in front of him.
Myza.
Max held out his hand and the
delicate bird landed lightly on his palm. On her leg was a tiny
tube.

His fingers were unusually
clumsy as he extricated the message and unrolled it. There were a
mere two words on it, written in Kritanu’s precise printing:
It’s time.

A rush of heat followed by
cold fear swept over him. And then he smiled, albeit crookedly.
Today, or perhaps tomorrow—for he’d been warned these things took
time—Max would be a father.

He looked at the print shop
and set his mouth grimly. Now he had even more reason to destroy
those books. If the secrets of the Venators—not to mention the
identity of Victoria, himself, and the others—were made public, it
would be a disaster.

“Go back,” he said to Myza,
tossing her gently up into the air. When the bird returned to
Grantworth House without the message, Kritanu would know his note
had been received and understand that its recipient had no way to
write back at the moment.

His decision made, he went
around to the back door of the print shop. No one was here so early
in the morning, so this wouldn’t take long.

He’d be home and bandaged
up before Victoria broke a sweat.

+ +
+

“Where…the blazes…is
Max?”
Victoria gasped.

Her face dripped with
sweat, and her belly seemed to have a mind of its own—rippling and
undulating crazily. A strong contraction caught her off guard, and
she stifled a groan as she tried to pant her way through the
rolling discomfort.

“There you are,” said Tiana
when the pain subsided, and her patient relaxed for the moment.
“You are doing very well, Victoria.” Her dark hands were small and
cool, and her voice calming. She wore her sleek hair in a long
blue-black tail, and round glasses perched on her nose. She had
serious black eyes that became almost hypnotic when she fixed them
on Victoria’s, helping her to focus through the
contractions.

Tiana appeared more like a
child of thirteen or fourteen than a midwife and physician of
twenty years. And she certainly didn’t look like a Comitator—one
who protected and helped to train the Venators in their martial
arts. But Victoria trusted Kritanu and, so far, everything seemed
to be going well.