The trigger fingers of gangsters, she’d come to realize, were very touchy.
Whatever the reason, Macey was content with letting the undead simply file their way out of the club without doing any damage to anyone—except the man she’d already staked. She brushed off the ash that clung to her beaded clothing, and realized it would probably adhere to the nooks and crannies forever. Unless she wanted to smell like dusted undead, she wouldn’t be able to wear this jacket again.
She paused to determine whether the chill at the back of her neck had abated, and noticed Chas—who’d been making his way toward her—had veered to the right and was circling the audience again.
And since the back of her neck remained uncomfortably cold, Macey knew there was still work to be done. Brushing a clump of ash from the edge of the table, she turned and made her way toward the doors that led to the lobby. Chas could handle everything in here for now and she would make certain no one was lurking elsewhere.
She blinked rapidly at the bright lights that accosted her as she left the close, smoky, coolly lit hall. The eerie prickling led her to the right, toward the side doors that opened into the backstage area of the center, and she picked up her pace. The chill became stronger and more insistent.
Just as she came around the corner that led to the backstage doors, someone grabbed her arm. Macey spun, stake raised, and found herself face to face with Flora.
Her friend’s eyes widened and she stepped back, hands up and palms out once more. “Don’t!”
Macey halted, breathing heavily, the stake quivering in her hand.
“Please,” Flora said. “Please, don’t. Just…let me talk to you first. And then…” She bit her lip and stopped, waiting.
Macey lowered the stake, eyeing her friend cautiously.
Flora was still tall and loose-limbed, with carroty-red hair and freckles everywhere from her pug nose to her shoulders to her legs. She’d always been fair-skinned, but now she appeared even more washed out except for the freckles—which stood out even more on her dead-white skin—and her lips had faded to a pale melon color.
“What do you want to say?” Macey kept her voice cold. She had to keep reminding herself this wasn’t Flora anymore. This wasn’t her friend.
She prepared herself for anything—for the woman to lunge at her, fangs flashing, for her to sneer and challenge and threaten as she’d done before, or even for Flora to accuse her—to accuse Macey of leading her to this position, of causing her to be turned undead. But she was shocked when her friend’s light blue eyes filled with tears and she folded her arms into her chest, hands gripping her own shoulders as if to hug herself.
“Help me,” she whispered. “Please. Macey, can you help me?” She looked at her, eyes watery and blue—not a hint of a red glow or malice anywhere.
Still, Macey kept herself rigid, both mentally and physically. “What do you mean?”
Flora sniffled and huddled even more into herself, still fixing those blue eyes on Macey. “I…I’m frightened. I…” She was breathing heavily, nearly panting with obvious distress. “I don’t…I…” She trailed off, closed her eyes, then seemed to gather herself back together. She shook her head, sending her loose curls swinging. “Never mind about me,” she said, her voice steadier. “I’ve done what I’ve done, and…anyway, Macey. You’re in danger.” Her voice was earnest, and she reached out, as if to touch Macey in comfort.
Macey stepped back, still wary. Flora’s expression closed off a little at the rejection, but she gave a short nod of acknowledgment. “Right. I understand.”
“What do you mean I’m in danger?” It was all she could do not to shrug—after all, when wasn’t she in danger?
“Nicholas Iscariot—you know him, right?”
“We’ve met.”
Flora seemed hurt by her friend’s continued reticence, but she plowed on. “He’s obsessed with you. He’s coming after you. You’re all he talks about. And there’s something about some rings?”
“I thought you were hanging out with Alvisi’s crowd,” Macey said coolly. “The way I understand it, Count Alvisi’s people don’t get along well with Iscariot’s.”
“Vampire society politics,” Flora said with a wry smile. “But now that Alvisi is gone—and everyone knows you did it, Macey—that group is beginning to fall apart. Some are joining Iscariot, and others are trying to keep away from him.”
“If Iscariot hated Alvisi so much, he should be thanking me for dusting him.”
“Well, you know how men are. They can be real fickle.” Flora’s eyes lit with a moment of humor, sending a stab of familiarity and grief directly to Macey’s heart. It took every bit of control she had to keep from responding to her friend’s joke.
She decided to put everything on the proverbial table. “I nearly killed you, and now you’re coming to me for help. Don’t you find that a little fickle?”
There was a flash of something in those blue eyes—not a glow, not red, but something deep and dark and perhaps even sad. “You had your eyes closed when you struck at me. Did you know that, Macey? That’s why you missed. You didn’t really want to kill me.”
“I could kill you now.”
Flora nodded calmly. “You could. And you know what would happen to me, don’t you? Where I’d go? What I’d be? And that’s why you didn’t do it before. Why you couldn’t.”
The stake was heavy in her hand. Very heavy; too heavy. Accusing by its very weight. Macey adjusted it, raising the pike so Flora could see she had no qualms about using it. “I’m bound to do it. It’s my vocation. My legacy.”
The blue eyes—still with no trace of red or malevolence—remained steady. “I know.” Her voice dropped to barely a whisper. “Macey, I’m frightened. I know I shouldn’t ask. I have no right…but please…can you help me?”
“Help you how?”
Tears filled her eyes again. “I don’t want to die, I don’t want to be damned…I don’t want to be this way. I—I made a mistake. Please…you must know how to fix this. How to fix me. Please, Macey, help me.” This time when Flora reached for her, Macey didn’t move away. Her friend’s hands closed warm and familiar around her arms as she pleaded, her teary blue eyes filled with sorrow and fear.
Suddenly realizing how vulnerable she was, Macey yanked her wrists away and stepped back. A quick look around confirmed they were alone. The moment of pause told her the temperature at the back of her neck hadn’t changed.
This wasn’t a setup. This wasn’t a trick.
Flora had waited for her. Alone.
But that didn’t mean Macey could help her. She looked back at her friend—her oldest, dearest, closest friend—and told her the truth. “I know of no way to change…this.”
Flora gasped and stepped back. “Truly?” Those huge blue eyes became even larger, even more frightened and shocked. “There is no way?”
“I know of no way,” Macey said, her voice thick and steady. “But that doesn’t mean there isn’t one.”
Her friend looked at her, a flicker of hope in her face. “You’ll try to find out?”
“I will. If that’s what you truly want.”
“Of course that’s what I want. If I had known…” Flora trailed off. “But why would you believe me, after the things I said and did to you? I understand that, Macey. I do. But if you could help me…” She smiled, her normal, beautiful smile that never failed to bring light to her eyes and roses to her cheeks and warmth to Macey’s heart.
It did this time as well, despite everything that had passed between them.
“If you come back to The Silver Chalice with me, I’m certain Sebastian will take you in. And keep you safe.”
Flora appeared startled. “You’d do that? For me? You’d let me stay with you?”
“Not with me. I’m not…I’m living elsewhere. But you’ll be safe with Sebastian Vioget.”
And if anyone would understand about being an undead and wishing he were not, it was Sebastian.
But that very thought sobered Macey. If Sebastian knew how to undo his undeadness, wouldn’t he have done so a century ago? Then she remembered something Chas had told her about Sebastian. He has a chance for redemption. And he needs you to help him.
Maybe there was a way.
“Let’s go.” She gave a jerk of her head for Flora to follow her. Somehow she had to get out of The Music Castle and Flora to The Silver Chalice without Al Capone or his goons interfering.
She paused when they got near the lobby, an interesting and yet discomfiting thought occurring to her. Nevertheless, she plowed on. “If anyone tries to stop us leaving, can you…er…change his mind?”
Flora looked surprised, but then the flicker of a smile twitched her bow-shaped lips. “I can do that.” She laughed, bumping companionably against Macey as they peered around the corner of the hallway, looking into the lobby.
It was like old times, sneaking around spying on Lillie Bentley and her beau Royal Yates.