Roaring Dawn: Macey Book 3 (The Gardella Vampire Hunters 10) (9 page)

“I’m going. Now. I really am,” Flora said, trying to edge away even as the stake continued to pin her lightly against the wall. “Do you think I’d stick around with this happening?” She gestured to the blossom of crimson in the center of her frock. “Talk about causing a commotion.”

Macey was still undecided when she heard a voice—no, two voices—behind her that she recognized. Her cheeks warmed when she recognized Grady and Sabrina, and it sounded as if they were accompanied by others in a group as well.

She glanced at Flora to see the vampire still looking more stricken than an undead had the right to be, considering the circumstances. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing. It’s just…well… Nothing.” Flora tried to edge away. Macey would have none of it, and she gripped her friend’s arm, still holding the stake in place.

“What is it?”

“You said you’d let me go if—All right, fine. You might as well know. Your man, that reporter Grady, with the very fine blood and delicious head of hair? Well, I suddenly have a strong aversion to him. So I would very much like to leave, and you can be certain I won’t be back as long as he’s here.” She was actually trembling and very nearly cowering at the same time.

Macey stared at her, trying to determine whether the vampire was lying. But surely she wasn’t. “I’ll let you go—but listen to this: he’s not my man. Not anymore. We aren’t together, and he doesn’t even remember me anymore. His memory has been altered. He doesn’t know me, and
he means nothing to me.
Do you understand that?”

“Right, right—whatever you say. Big mistake on your part, Mace. He’s very fine. Now let me
leave
.”

Macey gaped at Flora in astonishment then stepped back to allow the woman to slip away even as she tried to make sense of what the vampiress had said.

Then, for the first time in weeks, she smiled, and felt weak with relief. Whatever Wayren had done, it was working.

Grady didn’t remember Macey, and the undead couldn’t abide him.

He was safe.

SIX

~ Of Self-Censorship and Propriety ~

Macey realized her opportunity
almost too late. Just moments after Flora disappeared, slipping away to make her escape from the photography exhibit, it occurred to her that if she followed the vampire there was a good chance Flora would lead her to Iscariot.

She had a heartbeat of hesitation—how would she let Temple know?—then went on, navigating around the warren of exhibit walls in the direction Flora had gone. Temple, of all people, would understand. She knew how the Venators worked. And besides, she was obviously preoccupied with the delightful Dr. Sevin.

Macey measured the sensations at the back of her neck, for the chill from Flora’s undead presence lingered. Moments later, she was outside and—to her dismay—discovered that the sun had long set, and Chicago was being covered by a soft rain and a blanket of mist.

The sidewalks were nearly empty of pedestrians, but the boulevard was busy with automobiles crisscrossing in a steady stream.

The doorman was kind enough to tell Macey which way the tall, slender redhead had gone—though he gave her a pitying look when he saw that she had neither an umbrella nor any other protection besides her whisper-thin evening jacket.

“Going to be a bad’un,” he said, looking out into the night with a knowing air—though at the moment, the rain seemed fairly benign. He gestured with the whistle he wore on a chain around his neck. “Are you certain you don’t want me to call you a taxi, miss? Surely your friend has already gotten her own ride.”

Macey declined with some reluctance—she would rather get into a warm taxicab than ruin her shoes and freeze to death in the wet, cooling night air, but…duty called. This was the best chance she’d ever had to learn where to find Iscariot.

So she hurried down the block in the direction indicated by the doorman, for the first time feeling mild regret that she was no longer allied with Al Capone—for he would have had a car waiting for her use, or at least a bodyguard with an umbrella.

To her grim satisfaction, the eerie chill over the back of her neck, which had begun to ebb, grew stronger as she made her way toward the next cross street. That success, however, was balanced by automobiles rumbling by, splashing up a goodly amount of water, and the fact that her shoes were made for indoor wear, not puddles and raindrops. The feathers in her headband were already slumping limply over an ear, and her arms were covered with goosebumps beneath her evening jacket.

But she went on, hurrying down the gray-black street lit with erratic pools of light from restaurants, headlights, and street lamps. Few other pedestrians were out, and those who were carried umbrellas or at least wore fedoras tilted against the rain.

Flora was too far ahead for Macey to see her; she had only the sensation at the back of her neck for direction and the information the doorman had given her.

Then, all at once, the telltale chill became very sharp and strong. Her shoulders and arms prickled, and it wasn’t because of the rain.

Macey paused and slowly turned, her heart thudding harder. She looked across the street, beyond the river of automobiles, through a small group of young people walking past, and saw him.

Nicholas Iscariot.

She caught her breath and straightened, automatically sliding her hand down to close over the stake beneath her skirt.

The vampire lord stood there, separated from her only by four lanes of vehicles and a thick, foggy curtain of rain. He wore a long black trench coat buttoned up over his clothing and a top hat that glistened from the rain. She could see the jagged shadow on one side of his sharply cut face, part of the burn she’d inflicted on him.

His eyes glowed bright red, rimmed with ice blue—the only hues in a drab night. The strength of his heartbeat and its desire to control pulsed steadily across the distance.

Macey Gardella. Macey…

She felt his voice, rather than heard it. The syllables hissed softly in the depths of her ear, as if originating from inside her mind, rather than from across the boulevard and carried on the air.

We meet again.

Her heart thudded wildly, yet the solid grip of the stake beneath her fingers helped to steady her. Macey measured the distance, calculating the angle and timing, and the speed she’d need to plant the stake in his heart…and knew he was too far away to strike.

As if reading her mind, he inclined his head, just enough for her to see the arrogant acknowledgment there. Of course he wouldn’t take such a chance.

I’ll have the rings. They belong to me.

In response, she used her other hand to touch the silver cross hanging beneath her dress, the very one that had burned into the flesh of Iscariot’s face. The one that marked him.

She
had marked him.

Steadied by that thought, empowered by it, she dragged the pendant out from beneath her dress and allowed it to fall against the front of her bodice, thunking there solidly.

She faced him still, allowing him to see that she had no fear of him—that she dare not show it, at least—and that she had come armed.

The rain poured down, and his red eyes glowed, and the silver cross over her chest gleamed in the filtered light.

Neither of them moved.

Autos zipped by. Water streamed. A laughing couple dashed through the rain, splashing past Macey.

All the while, Iscariot’s pulse thudded between them, reverberating like radio waves, tugging, coaxing,
pulling
at her.

She fought it, fought the allure of control. But even as she did so, the blood in her veins stirred, and her own pulse leaped and surged, fighting to match his. She gripped her stake, touched the
vis bulla
though her beaded dress, and kept control of her own heartbeat.

Come and get me, Iscariot
.

She didn’t open her mouth, but he heard the words—for his head jolted back just enough that she knew she’d surprised him. His eyes blazed like small fires circled with dazzling blue.

I’ll destroy everything you love, Macey Gardella
.
I’ll have the rings.

She curved her lips wryly. Little did he know, she had nothing left to love. Now that Grady was safe, now that he had moved on and was protected, now that Sebastian was gone, and the rings were hidden away…

Suddenly, Iscariot blinked—and the two pinpoints of red and blue were extinguished, and the world was back to drab, wet gray again. The sidewalk where he stood was empty.

He was gone.

Macey suddenly felt the cold, not from the outside, but from deep within. Her knees were trembling, and her breath was making rapid white puffs in the gray mist.

And then she felt the warmth seeping into her—no,
from
her…for she was bleeding again from the old scars.

Iscariot had made his point.

+ + +

Max Denton had never been to Chicago.

He’d generally confined his revenge on the undead to annihilating vampires throughout Western Europe, though he had strayed further when the need was warranted—for example, to Romania and Turkey, once to India, and also once to Russia—St. Petersburg. In fact, in St. Petersburg, Max had saved the day by staking the infamous Rasputin after a plan to assassinate the creature had been spectacularly botched.

But Sebastian was gone at last, the poor sot, and Max Denton’s presence was needed in gangster-infested Chicago. So he had come—despite his desperate desire to never cross the Atlantic.

It wasn’t that he feared traveling over the ocean—whether it be by air or ship—and he sure as hell didn’t fear Nicholas Iscariot. In fact, he couldn’t wait to meet the devil face to face, for it was on the vampire lord’s orders that Max’s wife Felicia had been attacked and mutilated almost beyond recognition thirteen years ago.

And he’d already delivered to Alphonsus Capone the one and only warning he’d give him about staying out of the business of the Venators—though he was rather hoping the man would ignore it, just so he’d have something fun to do. Max smiled coldly to himself, then the humor faded as he looked around the dark, smelly, dingy pub in which he waited. The place was no better than an armpit, and it was owned by the damned bootlegger himself.

No, it wasn’t the gangster or the vampire lord or the travel, or even the fact that it was illegal to order a good whiskey once he crossed into the United States that unsettled him.

It was only a woman.

A merely mortal woman—well, really,
two
women, dammit, now that he actually thought about it—who were even more likely to kill him than Iscariot was. Though Max didn’t give Iscariot a very high probability of succeeding anyway.

But the women…well, that was another matter entirely.

He looked up as a cloaked figure—unaccountably dry though it was pouring rain outside—made its way through the dimly lit pub, heading unerringly in his direction.

Another woman, but this one, at least, didn’t have it in for him.

“Max.” Wayren’s lilting voice somehow filtered over all the shouts, guffaws, clangs, and other noise that filled the joint. And with her simple greeting came a wave of peace he desperately needed.

She didn’t seem to mind the dinginess of the place, the rough voices and even rougher appearance of the patrons, the thick cloud of smoke that filtered over everything (at least tobacco was still legal in this backward nation), and the stickiness of the table at which he sat.

“Apologies, Wayren. This was the cleanest table I could find,” he said, fishing out a handkerchief to wipe off a chair for her. He was probably the only man in the whole buggering place who even owned a handkerchief, let alone used it. He didn’t bother to comment on the fact that she wasn’t dripping wet like everyone else who’d come into this joint.

She smiled at him from beneath her hood, pale blue eyes calm and filled with acceptance. “Not at all, Max. It reminds me of the place I used to meet Andreas—The Snorting Hare—back in…well,
back.
And as that’s neither here nor there—”

“Andreas? I’m afraid I’m not as up on my Venator history as I should be. Who is he?”

Wayren smiled beatifically, but she didn’t take the bait.

Of course she didn’t. Max knew better.

“And how is Macey?”

He winced at the sudden and direct hit, as if a crossbow bolt had slammed into his shoulder, and tried to think of a response that didn’t make him sound like a wanker.

As it turned out, he didn’t need to reply. The expression in her eyes told him she already knew the answer.

“How long are you going to hide from her…and from Savina?”

Max smothered a curse, for he’d always sensed it would be blasphemous to swear in Wayren’s presence. Though that didn’t mean he was always able to hold it back. “How do you know about Savina?”

She gave him a look that had him sighing: one blond eyebrow, lifted just slightly as a small smile curved her lips.

As if she’d answer anyway.

The blasted thing about Wayren was: she knew many things—as she was wont to say—but she didn’t know everything. And it was hard to guess what she did and didn’t know.

But it always seemed she knew just enough to remind him that he dared not anticipate her, either way.

“Savina’s here in Chicago.”

“Right,” he replied. “A photography display. She’s exhibiting under her professional name, Sabrina Ellison. But of course you know that.”

Savina sent word she’d put him on the guest list for the event tonight, and he’d almost gone…but things weren’t quite… Well, things weren’t exactly
right
between them. And he didn’t know how the hell to fix it.

Give him a damned crossbow and a stake, and he could slay an entire
tribe
of undead. Arm him with a sword, and he could decapitate a trio of Imperial vampires and not break a sweat. Lock him in handcuffs, and he could break free before his jailer walked out of the room. Slip him a pistol, and he could shoot the ashy tip off a cigarette from across the street without damaging the smoker.

But, by God, how to make Savina look at him with love and trust again…he had no earthly clue.