Grady felt a roar of emotion build inside, and he returned the edition to McCormick ever so calmly. “Better luck next time,” he said slowly, as if the words were being pushed out through a thick stew.
His companions didn’t seem to notice his reaction, though Linwood did give him a close look. But then Trudell reminded Grady he needed to give his formal statement, as well as work with an artist at the station to describe the gang members so drawings could be made.
Grady had no arguments about keeping his mind otherwise occupied. That was what he’d been doing for the last five months: trying to forget about Macey Denton.
Now he had even more reason to do so.
If he could.
Macey had been to the Cook County Morgue only once before. The memory was not one she cared to revisit, for on that occasion she’d had to identify the body of one of her closest friends.
Chelle had been captured and fed upon—brutally and liberally—by Nicholas Iscariot, and Macey had visited the morgue to confirm it was her friend whose body had been discovered dumped in an alley. It had been the morning after Macey herself had been attacked by Iscariot, and she was exhausted, hurting, and heartsick.
Thus it was no surprise she wasn’t anticipating the act of stepping into the cold concrete room nestled in the basement of a building adjacent to the police station. For obvious reasons, she’d waited until well past midnight to leave Capone’s Lexington Hotel suite to venture into this morbid chamber.
Big Al had been less than pleased with her disappearance from The Music Castle during the Louis Armstrong performance, a fact which he subtly reminded her by adding several new photographs—framed, of course—to the gallery of what she’d begun to think of as hostages to her good behavior. So when he’d blandly suggested tonight was the night to finish off the undead Danny Fanalucci, who’d been trapped in a state between undeath and death thanks to the silver bullet lodged in his chest, Macey had thought of Clara and Mandy and Grady and had no choice but to agree.
The subterranean corridor was lit by exactly two lights: one at the bottom of the stairwell, and another halfway to the entrance of her destination. The hallway could use a sweep, but there weren’t any cobwebs, nor did she encounter any sign of mice or rats or other creatures. As she drew closer to the morgue, Macey felt the eerie chill settle over the back of her neck. Fanalucci was definitely still present.
County Morgue was painted on the frosted glass window of the door. She used the key Capone had given her, and the unlocked knob felt cold and uninviting when she closed her fingers around it.
The space was dark and still, and the back of her neck prickled with the awareness of an undead. The room smelled of death—though, being from mortals, it was a different scent than the repulsive one that clung to the undead or their ash—accompanied by the pungent aromas of chemicals and industrial alcohol (which was still legal, of course). There was a sharp, biting scent she couldn’t identify, and also a damp, earthy essence.
Ashes to ashes…dust to dust.
Perhaps some of the corpses here were already beginning to decompose, ready to rejoin the earth.
Dead bodies were brought to the morgue to be officially identified, then kept until they were retrieved by family or taken to the funeral home. In some cases, a corpse might be examined in order to determine cause of death.
The place was dead silent. Macey smiled grimly at her private joke—surely it wasn’t the first time someone had said or thought it—and pushed the light switch. There were no windows in the eerie room, so no one would come to investigate the midnight illumination.
The walls and floor were unpainted concrete. Columns of forbidding metal doors lined one wall, stacked three on top of each other and four across. Those would be the body drawers, on which each corpse could be rolled out on a morbid tray. There were also four so-called slabs, or tables, lined up in the room—each one a steel tabletop mounted on a massive lever in the floor that raised, lowered, or tilted the body as necessary. Only one was currently empty.
Aware of the insistent chill on her neck, Macey glanced at the three sheet-covered bodies that adorned slabs. Might as well start there. She slid the stake from its mooring beneath her dress and approached the first corpse, whose toes were uncovered on the foot sporting a tag. Guernsey, T.
The second toe tag read Fenilworth, B., and the third bare foot was clearly that of a woman.
She turned to the wall of drawers and noted they were labeled on the exterior, which should make it easy to find…ah, yes. Fanalucci, D. Middle drawer, third column.
When she pulled it out, the drawer gave a low, protesting groan, adding to the atmosphere. Macey eased the sheet down to his shoulders and looked at Danny Fanalucci’s body with curiosity. He certainly appeared dead. His skin was a pale grayish-blue and his eyes were closed. He wasn’t breathing, and there was no sign of a pulse in his throat. She lowered the sheet to his belly, unmoved by the thick, dark hair that grew over shoulders, arms, chest, and abdomen.
The gunshot wound was in the right side of his chest, probably puncturing a lung but not lodging in his heart—as her stake would soon do. The hole was dark and deep, and she wondered how far into his organs and tissue the bullet had penetrated (she wasn’t about to turn him over to see if there was an exit) and whether, if it were somehow dislodged, Danny Fanalucci would spring to life—fangs and glowing red eyes and all.
She had to give Big Al credit. This was a brilliant way to get rid of vampires without drawing attention to the fact that they were being slain—and without drawing the attention of the general populace to the fact that the undead walked among them.
Something stirred the air, and Macey looked up from her examination of the wound. The hair on the backs of her arms prickled with warning.
Nothing seemed amiss, and yet…
She straightened, tightening her grip on the stake. Rotating in a slow circle, she looked around the room, listening, feeling…waiting.
Something was wrong. Something…
The lights shuddered, then dimmed, but remained lit in a dull golden glow. An awful chill rushed over her neck and shoulders, surging through her body as if she’d been thrown into the deepest, coldest part of Lake Michigan. Macey could hear her own breath—strong, measured—and felt her heartbeat pounding steadily…
She became aware of another presence. Someone—or something—approaching.
Another strong heart pounding, somehow melding with the rhythm of her own…and another breath, fighting to merge with hers…
She remained very still, standing in the burnished glow of a room as the ugly chill settled over her, permeating her skin through to her bones and muscles…
The lights went out, plunging the room into full darkness. Macey made no sound, though terror shuttled through her. For at last, she’d recognized the sensation.
She’d felt it once before, on the most terrifying night of her life.
When the door opened, a sliver of light spilled into the morgue, surrounding the tall, angular figure standing on the threshold and obstructing the details of his face. All she could see was his black hair, ruthlessly parted and combed close to his scalp. It gleamed richly, as if it were wet paint.
“Macey Gardella. What a pleasant and unexpected surprise,” said Nicholas Iscariot in his too-smooth voice. He stepped into the room, and his long, slender hand moved in the vicinity of the light switch. The bulbs popped on with audible reluctance, barely illumining from dull orange to a mellow golden glow. She had the impression he hadn’t actually touched the switch.
“Isn’t the very nature of a surprise, that it’s unexpected?” Macey managed to find her voice. And by God, her words were rock steady. “And in my case, it’s most certainly not a pleasant one.” Her fingers around the stake had become numb with tension, yet through her shock and terror, Macey focused on a beacon of clarity and determination.
Her heart still beat in its own rhythm despite his powerful pulse fighting to control it. No. She wouldn’t allow it. Never again.
Iscariot closed the door with a dull thud. “A pedantic Venator. How amusing. Although one shouldn’t be surprised, for of course, the first time we met was when you worked at the library. You were utterly naive and innocent then, weren’t you?”
Macey took care not to look him in the eye, or even near his face. She kept her attention focused over the corner of Iscariot’s left shoulder. Two of the sheet-covered slabs were all that separated her from the most powerful vampire in the world—the son of the man who’d been the first of Lucifer’s immortal, half-demon creations: Judas Iscariot.
She knew with a sudden, stark clarity that only one of them would leave this room alive. A rush of fear shuttled through her, and she went cold with terror. Ruthlessly, she beat back the weakness and replaced it with determination. She would win.
He should be just as terrified of her, just as wary and on edge as she. For Macey was the daughter of Max Denton. She carried the blood of the great Victoria Gardella and the incomparable Max Pesaro.
It was her destiny to put an end to Nicholas Iscariot. That was the meaning of Rosamunde’s prophecy. She was certain of it.
And the prophecies…it was imperative they were fulfilled.
Though Iscariot had taken her off guard, this time she wasn’t outnumbered. And she wasn’t confined in the small space of an automobile, held down by countless hands…