Roaring Midnight (The Gardella Vampire Chronicles | Macey #1)

by Colleen Gleason

  For all he cared, Chas Woodmore or Macey Gardella could pike him in the heart tomorrow and have the rings, if that was what was needed to fulfill his “long promise” and set both him and Giulia free.

  In fact, he prayed for it. Daily. On his knees.

  He’d long ago lost his sense of humor over being a vampire with a tainted soul, praying for divine intervention. He was done.

  Release me. Please release me.

  ~*~

  The whole idea of hunting vampires was so incomprehensible Macey could hardly wrap her mind around it. But the delicate dangle of her vis bulla against the sensitive skin of her belly was a constant reminder of how her life was to change.

  And then there was the training.

  “Temple isn’t a Venator?” she asked Wayren, who seemed to be the only person willing to answer her questions without prevarication—and without some ulterior motive.

  “No indeed. Temple is your Comitator. She’ll train you in the hand-to-hand combat styles of kalaripayattu, qinggong, and tae kwon do, as well as how to handle a variety of blades. Each Venator is assigned one such person to act also as bodyguard and companion—especially for their early days when things are still new.”

  “Bodyguard?”

  “A Venator can’t always be awake and aware,” Sebastian told her with a wry smile. “And though Chas and I will be here, it never hurts to have someone to help. Don’t expect her to come with you on the hunt. Temple’s an excellent fighter, but she’s not equipped as you are. Interestingly enough, most born Venators would have received some training before facing their first undead and receiving the vis. You took matters into your own hands. I do hope that isn’t going to be a portent of the future, ma cherie.”

  Chas made a derisive sound, then lapsed into silence. Macey ignored him.

  The same day she received her vis bulla, she began her training with Temple. They worked in a basement room beneath Cookie’s Smart Millinery (apparently, Cookie really was Temple’s aunt). The underground chamber was large, taking up what would be the same space as the back room of the millinery shop. But it was empty of furnishings other than a wall lined with cabinets. The walls were strung with electric lights, the floor covered with an unusual tile made from cork, and a stack of large cushions leaned against a corner. In the cabinets Macey saw an array of stakes, pikes, and knives—everything from scythe-like curved blades to finger-sized stilettos to daggers and swords of European and Asian influence. She wasn’t surprised to note there were no guns to be seen, for a bullet would have no effect on a vampire.

  But a sword, she learned, could be used to behead an undead, and was just as effective as stabbing one through the heart. Both actions resulted in the same explosion of undead dust.

  Temple, her long, lean body covered by a pair of loose cotton trousers and a matching undyed tunic, looked fierce, elegant, and intimidating. Macey, dressed in similar clothing, barely reached to her trainer’s chin, and the other woman had smooth muscles in her arms.

  How am I ever going to do this? She’s going to flatten me.

  But when Temple lunged gracefully toward her, Macey reacted without thinking. She ducked, grabbed the other woman as she slipped beneath her arm, and on her upward thrust, fairly threw her across the chamber.

  “Oh my God!” Macey gawked as Temple pulled to her feet. “Did I do that?”

  Despite being dumped in a heap, the other woman was smiling broadly. “You certainly did.” She dusted herself off and walked back, her almond eyes gleaming with challenge and anticipation. “This is going to be more fun than I thought.”

  ~*~

  Macey knew without being told she couldn’t share any information about this new part of her life with the people Chas termed “civilians”—Flora, Jimmy, Mrs. Gutchinson, her boss, or her other friends. Even Grady, if she could count him as a friend. After all, she’d only known him for a few days.

  Macey was also aware she had much to learn about the undead and how to combat them. But when Sebastian suggested she didn’t need to report to her job at the Harper Library on Monday morning, she immediately disabused him of that notion.

  “Of course I have to go to work,” she said, adjusting her left stocking so the line up the back of her calf was straight. She was going to be late if she didn’t leave in five minutes. “How else am I going to pay for my rent, or my food and clothes?”

  “Rent? Cherie, you know you could live here, free of rent, and have everything you need.” His voice dropped low and suggestive at the last bit, and Macey felt a flush of heat swarm over her throat and cheeks.

  “Absolutely not.” But her heart pounded, and her gaze slid automatically to Sebastian’s torso. It was covered properly by a fine tailored shirt. But she knew somewhere beneath it was a tiny silver cross…and she had a difficult time keeping herself from imagining how it would look against his golden, muscled skin. A flush moved up along her throat.

  “But was my hospitality that poor last night?” He smiled and his gaze warmed. “Surely you found the bed comfortable, and you need not fear any unwelcome visitors while here.”

  She had stayed in a guest room attached to The Silver Chalice last night and was wearing clean clothing Temple had somehow located for her, but Macey wasn’t about to make that a habit. For though Sebastian had been nothing but gentlemanly, she wasn’t certain she trusted him…or herself. Not yet, anyway.

  “I’m going to my job. Dr. Morgan is expecting me. After work, I’ll meet Temple for more training. Then I’ll return to my own flat, where I’ll stay tonight.” Her calling as a Venator might be important, but she had no intention of letting it take over her life. She’d worked long and hard to move from rinky-dink Skittlesville to the excitement of Chicago, to find her dream job and get her own place. She wasn’t giving that up now.

  Besides. A gal could only spend so much time fighting and learning how to use the curve-bladed kadhara. “Now I know how to protect myself from any undead entering my apartment.”

  “Yes.” Sebastian’s eyes narrowed. “And besides—since you killed the Guardian vampire who broke into your room, you have no need to fear him coming back. Presumably he gained permission to enter your house from that silly landlady of yours, who invited him in.”

  “Yes. He must have come to warn her and the other residents about the so-called gas main leak on Friday. That’s how he was able to enter, and that’s why no one was there when he attacked me.” She settled her saucy new hat—courtesy of Cookie—in place and picked up her pocketbook. “When I get home tonight, I’ll put some more precautions in place and try to find a way to tell Mrs. G not to let anyone in the house she doesn’t know.” Although that was going to be a challenge. “I’ll tell her there’s been a rash of robberies or something, and that the thieves have been scoping out the houses first.”

  And before Sebastian could attempt to dissuade her further, Macey left and went to work. Then she went to Cookie’s to train, eventually made her way home, and collapsed in bed. She didn’t remember anything until her alarm clock rang the next morning.

  After this routine, by Friday morning she was slightly less exhausted but definitely sore from all her unfamiliar activity. And she had blisters on the inside of her thumb from handling knives and swords, not to mention stakes.

  And so her life went for the next three weeks: working during the day and training with Temple in the evenings and on the weekends. Most of the time, she ended up sleeping in a small room above Cookie’s instead of taking the time to go back to her flat. She didn’t see any of her friends—although Chelle and Dottie called and left messages through Mrs. Gutchinson.

  When she got to work one Friday morning after a particularly exhausting week, Macey found two boxes of books sitting on her desk. They’d been donated by one of the university’s benefactors, and though the volumes had been classified, they still needed to be catalogued. She spent the first few hours of her morning typing up a card with the Dewey code for each volume, plus ten copies of ea
ch. Truth be told, it might have taken her less time if she hadn’t gotten sidetracked by a chapter on Greco-Roman bricklaying (fascinating!), a diagram of the interior of Tutankhamon’s tomb compared to that of Rameses II, a description of how absinthe was traditionally fermented, and the bound collection of love letters between Dolley and James Madison.

  When she finally finished typing the cards, Macey inserted the appropriate bookplates announcing the donation and then imprinted the raised library seal on each title page. Then she took the books, as many as she could carry and by classification, into the depths of the stacks. As the director’s assistant, she could have sent them down for one of the pages to put on the shelf, but Macey loved books, and loved roaming the stacks. She never knew what she’d find among the rows and rows of shelves.

  The scent of old and new books mingled—dusty, musty, and with the sharp tinge of glue and fresh paper. On the main floors near the reading rooms, the shelves were comfortably spaced and loomed high over her head. She needed a step stool to reach the top three rows. But in the basement stacks, the ceiling was very low and the metal shelves were close. Some enterprising person had painted floor and stacks numbers and arrows on the floor and walls so as to ensure none of the students would get lost in the labyrinth and be wandering therein for hours—or days. (That was, according to Dr. Morgan, an old joke among the library staff—where to look for the medical students if they didn’t show up for their final exams.)

  Macey went to the basement level with her last group of books, making her way through the Philosophy and Religion section. With no natural light down there and random lamps studding the ceiling, the space was dim and shadowy in areas. The pages were at lunch, and it was empty and quiet among the rows of books.

  But as she bent to slide a book into its new home, she heard the soft scuff of someone’s shoe. The sound was so faint she almost thought she imagined it. But the air gave a subtle shift and the hair on her arms lifted, prickling uncomfortably. She shoved the book in place on a lower shelf and rose, looking around. It was a library, and students and faculty visited constantly. Even with the pages gone to eat, someone else among the stacks wasn’t a surprise. But Macey’s heart was pounding hard, and she found herself vibrating with awareness as she listened and waited. Someone was there, and he or she was trying to be abnormally quiet.

  Then she heard it again…the faintest sound, the breath of a shoe against the concrete floor, the shift in the air accompanied by a subtle new scent—crisp and a little smoky. Absent was the sound of books being taken off the shelves or papers crinkling—the normal noise of a student or professor in search of a research volume.

  All at once, a book fell from the shelf next to her. It landed flat on the floor at her feet, the sound as loud and sharp as a whipcrack. Macey stifled a startled gasp and looked where the book had been.

  A dark eye peered at her through the empty slot on the shelf, and she felt a rush of relief when she recognized it. Though her knees were still a little wobbly, her breathing steadied as she snatched up the fallen book and shoved it back into place.

  “Steady nerves you have there,” said Chas as he sauntered into view from around the corner. “Definitely the making of a good Venator.”

  “You take great delight in sneaking around and popping up on people, don’t you?” She collected the rest of the books she needed to shelve and held them against her like a shield.

  “One must find amusement where one can.” He skimmed his dark hand over a row of book spines and casually plucked out a selection.

  “What do you want?” Macey saw no reason Chas should distract her from work, so she started walking toward the TA-TE row, leaving him to follow if he chose.

  “Temple says you’re doing extremely well with your training.” He was right behind her as she turned down the main aisle, her heels thudding purposefully on concrete until she found the section she needed.

  “That’s not what she told me.” Macey shoved her pile of books into Chas’s chest then turned to make room on the shelf for a new addition. In fact, Temple had been ominously silent about her progress, or lack thereof. So much so that Macey was planning on skipping her session tonight.

  It was Friday, after all. She hadn’t done anything but work, train, and sleep for three weeks, and Chelle had left a message that she and Dottie were planning on going to the grand re-opening gala at The Palmer Hotel. It was open to the public, if you could get a ticket—or, in Dottie’s case, if you were dating the hotel’s assistant manager. She’d wrangled four tickets through him, and Macey and Flora were invited too.

  The message reminded Macey she hadn’t heard from Flora since that morning she showed up at her flat, when Grady was there. More than three weeks ago. Macey had a feeling her friend wasn’t very happy with her.

  And then there was Grady.

  Yes, the handsome Irishman had certainly popped into her mind more often than he should have. Especially whenever she noticed the broken broomstick that still sat on her bureau. He’d actually stopped by the library last week, wanting to take her for a cup of coffee. But she’d been in the middle of a project and had to decline. Besides, he was probably mostly interested in grilling her about the vampire situation.

  Chas watched her as she shifted the books and aligned them on the shelf. “Temple says she can tell you are quite gifted, even at this early stage. So, we’re going out tonight, you and I. Bring a stake. And wear something that shows off your legs.” When she spun to glare at him, he merely smiled and handed her a book—surprisingly, the one for which she’d just made space on the shelf. “See you tonight, Macey. Be ready to spill some dust.”

  He set the remainder of the books on an empty spot next to the TAs and slipped away. By the time she realized he hadn’t told her where to go or what time to meet—and, more importantly, that she didn’t want to go anywhere with him anyway—Chas was gone.

  “Wear something that shows off my legs my eye,” she muttered, already considering what she could wear that didn’t. Because pretty much everything she owned did.

  Then she smiled. What was she worried about? She wasn’t going anywhere with Chas. She had other plans.

  ~*~

  “That is an adorable chapeau.” Chelle reached to finger the velvet roses adorning Macey’s headband-like scarf. “I love the detail. Where did you get it?”

  “It’s a new place I found called Cookie’s.” Macey gave her companions directions to the shop, figuring Temple’s aunt could always use the business, then looked up and down the street again. “Have you heard from Flora? Is she coming?”

  Macey, Chelle, and Dottie were standing outside the front of the Palmer, which rose twenty-five stories above them in an elegant brick structure. Although the entire hotel had been renovated and expanded over the last three years, it had remained open during the entire time. But now that the work was finished, there was to be a gala to celebrate the largest hotel in the world being completely redone.

  Flora, if she was coming—for no one knew for certain—was late, and they’d been waiting for nearly thirty minutes. Automobiles and taxis bogged down the street, pulling up to the curb and stopping traffic. The bellmen were non-stop, assisting jewel-and-fur-clad women and fashionable men from their vehicles and beckoning them into the hotel. The sounds of loud, excited conversation and jazzy music spilled into the evening air every time one of the doors opened.

  The sun had just sunk below the city skyline, and the last bit of pink-orange in the sky was fading. Streetlights were already on and the bright lights from Joony’s Vaudeville and the uptown B&K motion picture theater blinked enthusiastically from opposite ends of the block. On nights like this, Chicago was colorful, well lit, and boisterous—a far cry from one-cross-street Skittlesville. Macey loved the vivacity and the activity. She felt as if she belonged here.

  “I want that lady’s boa,” Chelle murmured into her ear as a woman climbed out of a dark red Cadillac. “The pink feather one? With the sparkles?”
/>   “Darling. And it would look so snappy with your coffee-colored frock.”

  “Right. The one with the seed pearls. Yes.” Chelle smoothed her perfectly straight brown hair, tucking the short strands back so they flipped forward in a perfect curl around her ear. “And look at her shoes.”

  Chelle was a little taller than Macey, and rounder in the hips and bosom, but she knew how to dress fashionably to suit her body type. She worked at Field’s Department Store and got great discounts on the best clothing, which she, in turn, passed on to her friends. She was the one who’d introduced the Simington Side-Lacer to them as an alternative to binding the breasts, as the most trendy flapper dresses required, and for that, Macey was eternally grateful.

  “It’s chilly out here.” Macey pulled the smoky gray velvet wrap closer around her shoulders and throat. She was wearing a calf-length slip of sheer pink material over a short opaque under-dress with slim shoulder straps, and the ensemble—though very fashionable—was little protection against the cooling April air. Her shoes were a soft dove color, and she’d clipped a black bow with jet beads onto each one, and wore gathered gray gloves. The outfit had cost an entire paycheck, but she’d been saving it for a special occasion. And this was definitely one.

  “Here comes Al,” someone said behind them, and Macey looked up.

  “Oh my God…that’s Al Capone!” hissed Dottie needlessly as she grabbed at her two friends’ arms.

  Sure enough, the infamous gangster had just stepped out of a sleek black automobile. Rumor had it the vehicle was armored, which wasn’t a surprise since his colleague and former boss, Jimmy Colosimo, had been gunned down only a few months ago.

  Capone was dressed in a white suit with a black shirt. A red tie and red and black spotted handkerchief added color. His hair was slicked back, and he didn’t wear a hat, so his jowly face and heavy brows were fully evident. He was a solid man, stocky and yet surprisingly graceful. A cadre of men in dark suits surrounded him and kept the rapidly gathering bystanders at a distance as their boss laughed jovially with one of his companions. He paused on the sidewalk to jest with three other men who’d alighted from the same vehicle. Macey vaguely recognized them from pictures in the paper, but she didn’t know their names.