Roaring Shadows: Macey Book 2 (The Gardella Vampire Hunters 8)(36)

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.