Max Stops the Presses: A Gardella Vampire Chronicles Short Story (4 page)

Except for the fact that
Max was gone.

And didn’t that just
figure? After his hovering for weeks, now that she wanted him
nearby, he wasn’t.

Mid-morning sun streamed
through the window of her bedchamber. It was approaching noon. He
should have been back by now…shouldn’t he?

She wasn’t precisely
worried. After all, it was
Max
. And of course, he was meeting up
with Sebastian. But where the blazes was he? Kritanu told her he’d
received the message from Myza, but still nothing.

Someone knocked on the
bedchamber door and she shifted upright, her heart leaping…but Max
wouldn’t knock. Max never knocked. Never in all the time she’d
known him had that man knocked on a bloody door.

It was Verbena. “Ain’t no
word from his lord, my lady. But Mr. Kritanu sent that bird off
with a message to Mr. Vioget.”

Just then another
contraction swept Victoria, and when her face tightened with pain,
the maid came over to hold her hand. Verbena had been delivered of
her own child only a month ago.

“Oh, lady, you are very
close,” said Tiana when the contraction had passed. “The babe will
come very soon. Much sooner than I thought.” She smiled warmly.
“And I think…well, we shall see.” The corners of her eyes
crinkled—the only thing betraying her age—as her smile widened and
she exchanged glances with Verbena.

“Soon?” Victoria panted.
She might have said something more, but felt herself gearing up for
another undulating pain. She automatically reached for one of the
two
vis bullae
that
hung from her ears. During the late stages of her pregnancy she’d
had to remove them from her navel, and now they merely looked like
earrings. Touching her Aunt Eustacia’s
vis
was comforting—almost as
comforting as having Max present.

Where the blazes
was
he?

+ +
+

Of all the bloody damned
luck.

Max strained to see in the
dark, easily turning a flicker of panic into irritation. What a
bloody mess. Literally.

His hand was crusty with
blood from where he’d been holding the bullet wound—which insisted
on continuing to bleed—his eyes were gritty from smoke and ash, and
his head hurt. But most of all, he was damned furious.

It had started off easily
enough: it was child’s play to gain entrance to the empty print
shop from the back alley. Just as simple to find the storage room,
and then to identify the crates containing
The Venators
.

Damned boring name for a
book. Nevertheless, Max slipped one in his coat pocket. Surely it
would prove to be entertaining reading.

All three hundred volumes
were accounted for—assuming Starcasset had told him the truth about
the number of books printed. They were still packaged up, ready to
ship to a number of stores (addresses in London, as well as Paris,
Roma, and Prague—he was going to
murder
George Starcasset after all),
which would make them easy to destroy in one fell swoop.

Realizing this, he couldn’t
help but wonder how long Vioget had known about this project. The
timing was suspicious.

Max did a quick but
thorough search through the shop and upstairs to make sure no one
was inside, then he went about setting the crates on fire. The
walls of the shop were brick, and so a blaze wouldn’t spread,
although the floor was covered with wooden planks. And he stifled
any guilt he might have had—after all, a man had to protect his
family. Aside from that, he’d make sure Duntwhistle and Ferngloss
were reimbursed for any damage. Anonymously, of course.

Hovering in the shadows,
Max watched as the contents of each crate became engulfed in
flames. The smoke was getting thick and he knew it was time to
leave—there were warning shouts in the distance—when he saw a
streak of movement beyond the fire.

What the hell?

It was a damned cat—and it
would be trapped by the inferno.

Damn and blast.

Max vaulted up and over,
toward the feline. As he landed on the other side of the fire, the
weakened floor beneath him gave way…and the next thing he knew, he
was falling, and then tumbling down a long, deep
incline.

At last he ended in a heap
on a damp stone floor, and pieces of fiery wood crashed down on top
of him, raining onto his head. One of them caught him just right,
and everything went black.

When he opened his eyes,
Max had no idea how long he’d been unconscious. The air was choked
with ash and smoke, and a few pieces of wood still glowed, giving
off the only illumination in the darkness. The oozing bullet wound
was hot with pain, and his head ached.

As he prowled about the
small space, he realized he was in some sort of deep, stonewalled
area about the size of a well with no way out but up. Way
up.

Bloody damned
hell
.

Even his
qinggong
wouldn’t help
him. The space was very narrow, making it difficult for him to
glide from side to side. But more importantly, his head was too out
of sorts from the blow and loss of blood to allow him to
concentrate on lifting his feet from the ground.

He was well and truly
trapped.

He was quite possibly
bleeding to death.

And his wife was giving
birth.

Max cursed, and for the
first time a trickle of real panic seized him. He forced it away,
but the agitation sat there, picking at the back of his mind as he
felt the walls surrounding him, trying not to imagine what Victoria
was going through. Whether she was in pain. Whether the baby was
safe. Whether she was worried about him, instead of concentrating
on taking care of herself.

Dammit.

His head swam as he prowled
the small, dark space, every so often pausing to listen for the
sounds of humanity. But he remembered sliding down some sort of
chute, then dumping straight down. He realized he could be anywhere
beneath the city, near any of the underground canals or sewer
tunnels.

That was, he supposed, the
only good thing about his current predicament: he hadn’t landed in
a mucky sewer.

But at least if he’d done
that, Max might have been able to find a way out.

With a growl of rage, he
threw himself up and at the stone wall, leaping as high as he
could. His fingers sought a hold between the stones as his feet
scrabbled against the uneven masonry…but there was nothing to curl
into, and he tumbled back to the ground, landing heavily on his
side. The effort cost him, for a sudden rush of warmth there told
him the damned wound was bleeding heavily again.

He had to get out of here.
He had to get back to Victoria. Now the trepidation was overtaking
his cool head, assisted by frustration, pain, and blood loss, and
he tried jumping up again. This time, he hit his head when he fell,
and Max lay there for a minute, breathing heavily through lungs
that rasped with smoky grit. His world spun, and he felt cold and
clammy, and terribly weak. Frighteningly weak, and out of
sorts.

Was this how it was going
to end for him? Max Pesaro, master vampire executioner? In the
bottom of a goddamned
well
while his wife was having their baby…most
likely,
surely
,
attended by Sebastian Vioget?

Oh, hell,
no
.

No
.

But the darkness was
closing in on him and he could no longer keep his eyes
open.

+ +
+

“Push!”

Victoria pushed for what
seemed like the hundredth time, and then at last, she felt the baby
slide free. A loud squall filled the air and she blinked hard,
tears of joy and exhaustion trickling down her cheeks.

“You have a daughter, my
dear,” said Tiana, her voice filled with pride. “A healthy one, by
the look—and sound—of her.”

“A
daughter
?” Victoria gave an exhausted,
delighted huff. Max was right again. She smiled and collapsed back
onto her pillow, then lifted her head up abruptly. “Max! Is he
here?”

Tiana placed a wrapped
bundle—Victoria’s
daughter!
—in her arms and said, “You
may hold her for a moment, but we aren’t finished quite
yet.”

Victoria nodded and looked
down at the scrunched-up, red face. “She has a lot of hair.” Thick
and black, like her papa’s and mama’s. She was
beautiful
. “Where’s Max?” she asked
again, then gasped as another pain shuddered through
her.

“I’ll take her,” said
Verbena, and Victoria was barely aware of relinquishing the infant
as the contraction absorbed her whole concentration.

“What do you mean, we
aren’t finished?” Victoria managed to gasp once the wave of pain
ended.

Tiana’s soft, mysterious
smile returned. “There is another babe.”

At that, Victoria burst
into tears.

+ +
+

Water streamed over
him,
and with effort, Max dragged his eyes
open.

It was pouring in, like a
waterfall. He was already sitting in several inches.

Max pulled to his feet,
wincing from the pain in his side. The rush was coming in fast; it
would be up to his shoulders in no time. Then he’d either rise with
it and find a way out…or not.

A flicker of panic tried to
worm its way into his consciousness, but he shoved it back
ruthlessly.

He’d survived Lilith. By
God, he’d get out of here to see his child.

His
daughter.

Nothing was going to stop
him from that.

Max drew in a deep breath
and closed his eyes. The water churned and swirled about him—up to
his knees already!—but he ignored it. He emptied his mind the way
he’d been taught in the art of
qinggong.

He imagined himself
weightless. He
knew
he was weightless. Such was the key. The
knowing
. That was the earliest lesson:
walking around the rim of a basket,
knowing
he was in the air.

He was floating.
Swimming…on air, not the water that rose incessantly around him.
His feet lifted and he bumped into the wall, then lost his thought
and slipped back down into the rising water.

Now his coat was floating
around him, the book surely soaked, his pistol useless. He reached
beneath his shirt and touched the
vis
bulla
pierced through his areola. His eyes
closed, his body drawing in the power, and he suddenly remembered
the time he’d forced Victoria to touch him there, to absorb
strength from his holy amulet.

She’d been horrified when
he grabbed her wrist and pulled it to his bare chest. She was
furious with him—she’d loathed him, and rightly so, for she’d just
witnessed the horrific act he’d vested upon Eustacia. Nevertheless,
the brush of her fingers, the pressure of her palm against his
torso had stolen his breath. It wasn’t merely the draining of power
and strength from the
vis bulla
to her. It was her touch.

Because he’d known even
then.

Even back then.

Max closed his eyes and
fought to clear his mind.

She’d chosen him, and by
all that was holy, he’d return to her.

+ +
+

“Once more,
Victoria!
You must stay with me once
more!”

Victoria was exhausted, but
the calm, encouraging voice kept her focused. She drew in a breath
and pushed.

“And here it is!” cried
Tiana as a lusty bawl filled the chamber. “What a lovely, precious
darling.”

A sudden loud sound from
below caused Verbena to give a startled shriek, but Victoria was
too exhausted to care. She sagged back onto the bed as the two
infants were tucked under her arms, so tired she didn’t even hear
what Tiana said.

Pounding noises, loud
voices…Victoria smiled.

Max was home.

+ +
+

“Surely you don’t intend to
go up there like that.”

Max found his way upstairs
blocked by Vioget. It was with great effort that he managed to keep
from decking the bastard. “Out of my damned way.”

“Max.” Kritanu stood at the
bottom of the stairs, also standing in his path. He wore a
determined expression that brooked no disobedience, and Max
wondered fleetingly if he’d learned it from Eustacia. “Victoria is
fine. All is well. But Sebastian is correct—you cannot go up there
looking like that. You’re wet and filthy and you’re bleeding.
Everywhere.” Kritanu’s voice rose a trifle as he looked at the
waterlogged blood that had already begun to puddle on the
floor.