Roaring Dawn: Macey Book 3 (The Gardella Vampire Hunters 10)(36)

“That’s excellent news,” he replied, aware of how stiff his lips felt when he formed the words, how inside him there was a strange, curdling feeling. How he suddenly wondered why he was holding Savina so closely when only last night she’d been so cozy on the sofa with his friend.

But he couldn’t let go. For until this moment, he hadn’t admitted how terrified he’d been that Iscariot would have targeted her in order to get to him. “And my daughter,” he said coolly, “she’s going to be fine as well. In case you were wondering.”

Savina pulled away and looked up at him, brushing a lock of hair from her eyes. “I know, thank God—I heard about it. But what about you? I think you should go to the hospital—”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Now he did step back. “I’m barely touched. I have work to do—other work. There are far too many people who saw too much today.”

“Right. Of course.” She was looking at him curiously. “I didn’t realize you had the golden disk. Or a golden disk.”

“I have something similar.” Though he was crumbling with uncertainty inside, he couldn’t keep from looking at her, devouring the sight of her. As if it might be the last time he did.

Unlike most everyone else in the area, Savina was not disheveled. In fact, she looked as if she’d just stepped out of a Paris café—except for the streak of blood he’d deposited on her cream-colored blouse. Unless it was from Grady, whom she’d probably embraced with just as much enthusiasm as she’d done Max.

That thought didn’t sit well with him at all.

“You’re not going to the hospital with Macey?” she asked, frowning.

He drew himself up. “I’ve got work to do—things to take care of.”

She shook her head, her attention falling away, her beautiful lips tightening with disgust. “There’s always work to do, Max. But maybe it’s time you took a moment to be a father, instead of a Venator. For once in thirteen years.”

Max stilled, glancing over to where the ambulance had been a moment ago. He thought about what people had seen, how they’d be telling stories and tales—and what that would do, heightening the fear and paranoia in a city that was already permeated with violent gangsters. Of the dreams the schoolgirls would surely have, the nightmares and terrors.

It was his duty: not only to protect the mortals from the violence of undead, but also from the knowledge and fear of them.

“It won’t take long. Macey will understand.”

Savina sighed. She looked utterly dejected. So sad, so disappointed. His already worn-out heart thudded like a death knell. “Right, then, Max. You do what you think is best.”

He wanted to say something else, but the words simply wouldn’t come. They looked at each other for a moment, then Savina reached up to touch his grimy, unshaven face. It felt like a farewell, especially when she said, “I hope you’ll find peace, now that Iscariot is gone.”

She gave him a small smile, then turned to go, back to—wherever.

“Wait. Savina.” He reached for her, and to his great relief, she paused, turning to look at him with big eyes, filled with some emotion he couldn’t quite define. Max released her and fumbled for something to say…something that would keep her there for a little longer. “How did you know Iscariot was dead?”

“One of the policemen told me—Grady’s uncle. He saw it happen. He…knows. He knew before. The uncle, I mean.”

Max tensed a little. “Right.”

She swept her gaze over him, her eyes lingering. “You could use a shower. Whether you go to the hospital or try and visit those schoolgirls and whoever else you feel you need to, you can’t go looking like you just left a bar fight.”

“Right. I— All my things are at Grady’s.”

“And…?” She tilted her head, looking at him like an inquisitive bird…but with challenge in her eyes.

But what was she challenging him about? He was so bloody weary and confused—and he should be exhilarated, now that Iscariot was gone and Felicia’s death was avenged. Now that the root of malevolence was gone, and the last of Judas Iscariot’s children had been destroyed. Now perhaps he could rest…a little.

Savina folded her arms across her middle. “Max…honestly. You don’t really think there was something going on with me and Grady when you came in last night, do you?” Her eyes were steely, dark as olives, glinting like onyx. Her lips were flat as a signature line.

Max didn’t respond immediately, because a welling of hope caused his voice not to work. She was tapping her foot—figuratively, not literally—glaring up at him.

“Grady is young enough to be my son!”

“If you’d had him when you were eight,” he said, finding his voice at last.

She paused, as if to calculate. Then, “Right, whatever. But—God, Max, how dense are you?”

His cheeks warmed and he glanced over at a trio of police officers who were looking at them curiously. Christ. Now he had an audience. “I…um…well, hell, Savina. It had been a—well, a difficult day. And it was cold and miserable and rainy, and all I wanted was—well, then I saw you two, all cozy—”

“Grady had just finished telling me how obvious it was you loved me.” Were her eyes glittering now? Could it be tears?

“I do. Savina, I do.” He snatched up her hand and clasped it very tightly, pulling her close to him again. “You know I love you. I’ve told you.”

“So why are you being an arse?”

“Good God, I don’t know. I’m not trying to be an arse.”

That made her laugh. Her eyes crinkled prettily at the corners, and her smile was joyous, and Max’s knees just about gave away at the beauty of it…and the hope that maybe at least one of the women in his life might forgive him for being an arse.

“Come back to Grady’s with me and get cleaned up. And then…you can decide what to do.”

He knew what he wanted to do—hell, what any red-blooded man would want to do, having emerged victorious from battle after having annihilated his archenemy along with half a dozen others, and with a gorgeous woman laughing up at him with delight and love.

But he had a feeling that was going to have to wait.



+ + +

Going back in time, Chas discovered, was less taxing on the body than going forward. But it sure was hell on the mind and heart.

Though it had been more than ten years in his physical lifespan since he’d been in Paris, it was more than a century earlier as far as the calendar was concerned.

There were no automobiles; he had to remember to watch so he didn’t step in horseshit. No electric lights. Definitely no aeroplanes. The female fashions were…well, they were surprisingly similar to the twenties styles in the sense that the skirts were straight, light, and loose, and unencumbered by hoops, crinolines, or much in the way of corsets. Though, of course, in Napoleon’s Paris the hems brushed the tops of the shoes instead of the tops of the knees, and few women would be caught dead with bobbed hair.

Not that it mattered. Chas was here, for one thing, and then he was getting the hell out—out of Paris, and out of this century.

Wayren had brought him back to Marais, where Cezar Moldavi had shrouded himself in a large mansion. The vampire lived beneath it in a warren of rooms and tunnels—a collection of apartments not unlike those attached to The Silver Chalice in Chicago. It was a necessity for a vampire to be shielded from the sunlight.

“What day is it?” he asked Wayren as the fiacre cab (surprising that the blond chatelaine would even use public transportation) pulled up in front of Moldavi’s house. The building appeared closed up and empty, but that wasn’t unusual for an undead’s residence. They never used the main floors. “What I want to know is…”

“What will you find inside? This is moments—and I do mean moments after they’ve left… Do you see that carriage there?” Wayren nodded at a retreating black prison carriage with shaded windows. There was not only a driver with a man sitting next to him, but also a sturdy footman riding on the back. “That carriage is the one taking Cezar Moldavi off to his new accommodations, a secure location in the Pyrenees arranged by Narcise. The interior of the house, and its apartments, has been emptied of people.”

The tightness in his chest released, and Chas nodded. He wouldn’t see Narcise—or Giordan Cale.

Memories would accost him, but nothing in the flesh.

“Are you coming with me?” he asked.

“Not unless you require my assistance.”

“No.” He’d rather face those memories alone. “I won’t be long.”

No, he shouldn’t be long. For though the time he’d spent under Cezar Moldavi’s “care” and “hospitality” had been filled with pain and anguish, it was nevertheless indelibly imprinted on his mind—down to the most minute of details. Once he obtained entrance to the house, he knew precisely where to go to find the stairs to the subterranean level, and then to breach Cezar’s private apartments.

Also known as his torture chamber.

The moment Chas stepped through the entrance to the chamber, he was assaulted by a wave of memories. Not only of the agony that had been foisted upon him by Moldavi, but also of the first time he’d met Narcise—a practiced warrior, with her sword at his throat—and of the times following. The times they’d spent here in Paris, hiding from her brother until Chas was well enough to arrange for their escape.