Roaring Shadows: Macey Book 2 (The Gardella Vampire Hunters 8) (24 page)

And anyone else Macey had an attachment to.

“Are you all right?” Grady stood. He towered over her, his shadow falling across the white sheets of the bed.

Distance yawned between them as he faced her—a gulf, Lake Michigan, the Rockies; some nameless, vast expanse—and yet she felt him: his warmth, his presence, his energy.

He didn’t reach for her, but she felt him as if he had. They looked at each other, gazes meeting: anguish to guilt, weariness to regret. Something bumped deep inside her, nudging that hard little stone still lodged in her heart.

“I’m so sorry,” Macey whispered. He nodded and she saw him swallow hard. “What are the doctors saying?”

The damage had been done. Her lesson learned. Perhaps Linwood would recover…but with those sorts of wounds, the brutal laying open of throat and torso—that assault had been much more than a feeding. It was an attack. A message.

Just as had been laid upon Mrs. Gutchinson. And Chelle. Macey’s jaw tightened and her fingers curled, reminding her of their power—of the strength that flowed through them. Now she had more reason to confront Iscariot, to face him again and finish this.

“They don’t know. They’ve done everything they can for him,” Grady replied. “Now we wait. And pray he wakes up.”

Macey nodded. Then…
pray.
Her eyes widened. The rosary! Grady might know where it was, for he’d been the one to pack up some of Macey’s things after they found Mrs. Gutchinson in her apartment. Maybe he’d seen it then. She didn’t remember much about that horrible hour…

“Grady,” she said softly, “do you happen to remember that rosary I had? The one with the pink bead and the extra tiny cross?”

He nodded, seemingly unsurprised at her random question. “I have it. I—packed it up with your things. That day. It’s all still at my place.” How he managed not to sound filled with recrimination, she didn’t know—considering she’d slept with him, then fled his house after Chas punched him in the jaw to keep him there…and she never went back. Never saw him again after that for months except to tell him goodbye.

Oh,
damn
, this was hard.

She struggled to keep her emotions out of the way and focused on the matter at hand. “I need to get it—the rosary. Please,” she added belatedly. “It’s important—in all this.”

He looked away, back down at Linwood, and she said quickly, “Just tell me where it is. I don’t…you don’t need to leave him.” That would be much better anyway. Much, much better.

Before he could reply, the door opened and they turned as a nurse and doctor stepped in.

“You’re still here, are you?” said the doctor as he moved to examine his patient.

“You really ought to get some rest, Mr. Grady. You’ve been here all night.” The nurse, who couldn’t be more than twenty, patted his arm. When she looked over and noticed Macey, the warm smile froze into something stiffer.

Grady exchanged a few murmured words with the physician as Macey stepped back to give them privacy. Then he took her arm and led her from the small room.

“I need to go home and get out of these clothes anyway. The doc said Linwood’s stable. Not improving, but not declining either.” His expression was tight, his eyes so worried.

The last thing—well, nearly the last thing—Macey wanted to do was go back to his place with Grady…but she didn’t see any way out of the situation. She needed the rosary—according to the old woman, anyway.

Maybe it could wait.

She didn’t have to get it today, right this minute.

“Good God, what the hell are you afraid of, Macey?” Grady’s low, furious voice cut into her thoughts. She realized he still gripped her arm.

“I just don’t want to impose,” she said lamely.

He muttered something clearly unfit for polite company. “Are you coming or not?” His eyes flashed stormy blue and his jaw moved.

“Yes.” She didn’t see how she had any choice in the matter.

Grady’s ethnicity was firmly displayed by the location of his residence, for it was on a street filled with signs identifying businesses owned by O’Briens and Garricks, as well as not one but two Catholic churches within a five-block radius. He lived in a single-family brick home with a small upstairs—with which Macey was intimately familiar—and a neat but cluttered first floor.

She suspected, but didn’t know for certain, the small brick bungalow had been his aunt and uncle’s home. If that was the case, where Detective Linwood now lived since his wife had been killed in gangster crossfire, Macey didn’t know. And she didn’t ask.

She hoped and prayed that Linwood would be returning to wherever it was, regardless.

“I’ll be back down in a minute.” Grady gestured for her to sit on the worn brown tweed sofa. She ignored him, instead wandering the room to look at the bookshelves that lined one wall as he climbed the stairs to presumably change his clothes. As before when she visited, the bibliophile in her appreciated not only the vast number of tomes on the shelves, but the variety of topics they covered—everything from fiction (including vampire stories) to books on chemistry, anatomy, physics, engineering, history, and a multitude of other subjects.

Next to the sofa was a square table, scratched and bumped at the corners. Beneath were stacks of newspapers, and on top of it was a jumble of padlocks, wires, chains, keys, and lock picks. Well, that answered at least one question…

Which put her in mind of another, and she walked over to the fireplace mantel to examine the collection of photographs crowded there. Almost immediately, she found the picture she remembered—of Grady standing next to the amazing Harry Houdini. No, she hadn’t imagined it, and when she realized Grady was dressed in a British soldier uniform, it began to answer even more questions.

She was looking at the photo that could only be Linwood and his wife when the stairs creaked and groaned with Grady’s descent. Macey turned as he came into view. He looked much better, now clothed in more casual trousers and a light blue shirt buttoned all the way except for the top one. His hair was damp, making his curls tighten up and appear more the color of coal than cocoa. He hadn’t shaved, however, and the dark stubble made him look much more disreputable than normal.

He gave her a quick smile, then passed over her small valise. “You look as if you could stand for a little freshening up yourself. Those shoes can’t be comfortable.”

Oh no. No, no, no. She wasn’t going to fall for that. She had to get out of here, away from him and this place as quickly as she could. “I’m fine. Is the rosary in here?” She unfastened the bag, but before she could begin to dig through, he replied.

“No. I have it here.” He didn’t press her about changing clothes; perhaps he was merely being polite and as desirous of getting rid of her as she was of leaving. For all she knew, Miss McCormick could be expected.

The thought soured her belly, but she ignored it. This was the last time she ever need—or dared—see Grady, and if he wanted to gawk at Miss McCormick’s legs and squire her to the moving pictures, then that was better for everyone involved.

He’d gone over to the open window that overlooked the house next door—so close the sounds of young children playing filtered from across the way—and picked up something that had been lying along the windowsill. It was the rosary.

“I figured it wouldn’t hurt to have it there.” He didn’t look sheepish at all about taking practical steps to protect himself; instead, he appeared determined and pragmatic about the fact that the undead actually did exist, and they could potentially attack him.

Little did he know how probable it would be.

Macey walked over to take the rosary, then reached to trace a finger over one of the three crosses that had been engraved in the wooden windowsill. He’d filled them—and ones at every other entrance of his home—with silver that had been blessed in a church and then melted down so he could pour it into the grooves. He’d done that after reading a portion of
The Venators
—which was written by someone who only knew some of the secrets of their legacy. But the part about silver crosses was accurate, along with the information that an undead couldn’t cross a threshold without being invited in.

Still, vampires were tricky and smart, and had more than once managed to get into a house. Including Mrs. Gutchinson’s.

“Thank you,” she said, and realized in her evening frock she didn’t have a pocket into which she could slip the rosary. So she pulled it on like a necklace and tucked the long end beneath the glittering red gown.

Grady looked as if he were about to say something, but she forestalled him, turning back toward the sofa. “Someone’s been practicing.” She gestured to the jumble of locks and picks. “And thank God for that.”

“I learned a lot from Houdini. He’s been a great mentor to me.”

“I saw the photograph. You were in the British army? But how did you meet him?”

“Not many people are aware that Houdini trained over a thousand American and British troops during the War. He kept it hush-hush for obvious reasons. He showed us some of his escape artist techniques, including ways to pick locks and what to do if we were ever in a struck, sinking submarine—which, thank the Blessed Virgin, never happened to me. He thought if we ever got caught by the Germans, this knowledge would give us a good chance to escape. Some of us even had shoes outfitted with hollow heels that held lock picks and other tools.” He gave a wry smile. “I didn’t have mine on last night—they didn’t go with the tux—hence my borrowing your hairpin.”

“You saved a lot of lives last night. Including mine. Thank you. What you did was clever and very brave.”

A reserved expression erased his smile. “Not so very different from what you do.”

“No. It’s a lot different from what I do.”

“Is it?” He fixed her with intense blue eyes. “I want revenge on those bastards, Macey. On those vampires who did that to my uncle—and all the other innocent people who’ve been killed. Including Jennie Fallon—remember her? You know I’ve been following this for months.”

Now she nodded. “I promise. I’ll take care of it.”

“Ah, no,” he said, his voice hard. “I’m not going to sit back and wait and be watching for you to ‘take care of it.’”

A stab of fear caught her by surprise. “No, Grady, that’s not how it’s going to be. You can’t. You don’t have the skills, the knowledge, the—”

He moved toward her, eyes flashing. “I can wield a stake and a cross just as easily as anyone. And as you saw last night, I am not at all helpless. In fact, I’m pretty damned able to take care of myself. I’ve been doing it since my miserable mother left me on the street in Dublin when I was ten. I am not going to sit back and let you put yourself at risk—”

“Let me? It’s my
job
. It’s my
legacy.
I’ve been
chosen
to do this. I have abilities and skills you can’t even begin to dream of. I am
trained
and
equipped
to hunt and kill vampires, and you aren’t. Grady, you
aren’t
.” Her voice caught, dammit, and she furiously swallowed back the terror.

“I have skills of my own. And I’m a bloody damned quick study.”

“You have no idea what the undead are capable of.” Desperation and fear tightened her voice. Her hands were curled into fists.

“I’ve seen firsthand what they’re capable of, Macey.”

She’d never seen him this way before: this determined, this angry, this cold and hard and closed off. And not a hint of the Irish in his voice. “You have no idea what
I’m
capable of,” she said furiously.

“I’m not afraid of you, or the undead. After how I lived on the streets, and what I saw in the War—”

The last bit of her control snapped and Macey reacted. She hardly realized what she was doing, but the next thing she knew, she’d lifted, flung, and slammed Grady up against the wall, holding him there several inches above the floor, half a foot above her face.

He looked down at her, eyes stunned, as her hands—curled into his shirt just below his shoulders—pinned him in place. She wasn’t even breathing hard; she’d barely used any effort—and she met his gaze to prove it to him. Holding him there, with the strength of several men.

“
Holy Christ
,” he murmured.

And then he kissed her.

Macey was so shocked when he grabbed her shoulders and tipped his head down to hers, she lost her grip on him. Grady’s feet slid to the floor, and, still pulling her to him, he covered her mouth with hard, demanding lips.

She lost her mind at that moment—everything fell away but the taste of him, the familiar scent of his skin, the feel of his body, pulling her against his. He gathered her close with strong arms—not the superhuman arms of a Venator, not with extraordinary strength—but with a power of his own that went beyond mere physicality.

She found his damp hair, felt the warmth of his skin as she slid her hands around the back of his neck to pull him close, to taste him. Their tongues tangled, slipped and slid, thrusting and sweeping as pleasure and heat roared up through her, and down past her belly. Her knees buckled a little, her eyes closed, and when he slid his mouth away to press soft kisses on her cheek, he whispered something in Irish against her skin.

Macey shivered with pleasure as his miraculous mouth moved along the side of her neck to the sensitive part of her throat, while a hand cupped the back of her head, gently stroking the soft skin there. But it was when she felt him shift the chain of the rosary out of the way, pulling it from beneath her dress, that she remembered.

She froze.

“No.
No
.” She pulled away—an easy task, due not only to her strength, but from catching him off guard.

Her mind was reeling, her thoughts exploding, her body hot and damp and trembling—and terrified. “I can’t—we can’t—look, Grady, you have to understand, I live in a world you can’t be part of.” The words tumbled from her lips faster than she could think them or even make sense of them. “You might be a good pickpocket, and a brilliant lock-picker, but that’s not the same as hunting and fighting and staking the undead.”

Stubbornness sketched across his face. He was breathing hard too, and his eyes—which had been heavy-lidded with desire—now narrowed with frustration and anger. “You can’t keep me away, Macey. From you—or from the damned vampires. This,” he said, gesturing to her, to them, to the hot, passionate kiss they’d just shared, the heat throbbing between them, “is proof you can’t deny.”