Read Online Roaring Shadows: Macey Book 2 (The Gardella Vampire Hunters 8) by Colleen Gleason - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Colleen Gleason
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was already gone before she could tell him where and how to communicate with her in the future. Jerk . Macey shook her head and hurried out of the coatroom.
Though she and Chas were both aware of the mortal danger the presence of vampires portended, the other attendees at The Music Castle had no idea their lives were in jeopardy. When Macey came out of the coatroom and returned to the lobby, everything was as it had been before: gangsters standing about watching for trouble they had no concept how to combat and probably wouldn’t recognize anyway, a few knots of people chatting. As if to punctuate the easy mood, beyond the two sets of double doors that led to the club itself crooned the jumpy, happy beat of a jazzy clarinet.
“Miz Macey,” said one of the bodyguards as he opened the door to the club for her.
As she stepped over the threshold and into the hall swelling with music as well as spectators, Macey felt as if she’d moved into another world. It was a full-sense experience, being surrounded by this bold, new style of music, particularly as it was being performed by one of the most talented musicians in the country. With its low, blue and purple lighting fringing the edges of the room and dangling from random lamps, and the round tables packed close to each other and the stage, Capone’s club immediately felt close and intimate. Add to that the low, gravelly voice of Mr. Armstrong as he sang something about a kiss to build a dream on, and the smooth accompaniment of piano, trombone, and clarinet, and the experience was stunningly sensual.
The pungency of cigarette and cigar smoke wafted through the air, weaving through the scents of lemon or peppermint pomade and floral colognes. Silhouettes of short-haired women, their nape-baring tresses topped by feathered bands or studded with glittering combs, displayed elegant necks and delicate shoulders bared by sleeveless shifts or slipping necklines. Gems glittered like random stars, picking up the cool lights as hands, wrists, and throats moved. The men sitting next to them sported their own diamond-studded rings, as well as shiny, slicked-back hair that seemed be frosted by moonlight when the lights from onstage filtered over the crowd.
Macey felt the beat of the music filling her, mingling with the heartbeat deep inside her chest, and she was reminded of a similar sensation when she’d first encountered the undead. When a vampire would focus his or her glowing red eyes on her, luring her into a thrall, their breaths mingled, and her heartbeat seemed to pound along with that of her adversary. The music took hold of her like that, for Macey had never before had occasion to hear such talent, such perfectly sensual music performed by such a master musician.
But hers was only a short lapse into the sensations of the moment, for that eerie, forbidding chill still burned into the back of her own bare neck.
Macey had hesitated just inside the door, but as Mr. Armstrong finished his song and the audience erupted into enthusiastic applause, cheers, and whistles, she made her way quickly to the table where she’d left Capone.
Not front and center of the stage, but at the right corner, directly adjacent to the musicians. As she approached, Satchmo was still bowing and accepting his adulations, but then he picked up his coronet and began to tap out the countdown for his Hot Five to swing into the next song. She recognized “Gut Bucket Blues.”
“Where da hella you been?” Capone’s fingers were tight around Macey’s wrist as she came up next to him, before she even slid onto the edge of her chair. “You got things under control?”
She didn’t bother to respond to his first question, but she did pull her arm away with a sharp twist. “I will,” she said, using the opportunity to turn back and scan the audience from her front-row vantage point. Now where was that chill coming from…? “I just came back to make certain—”
Her eyes lit on a table in the
Though she and Chas were both aware of the mortal danger the presence of vampires portended, the other attendees at The Music Castle had no idea their lives were in jeopardy. When Macey came out of the coatroom and returned to the lobby, everything was as it had been before: gangsters standing about watching for trouble they had no concept how to combat and probably wouldn’t recognize anyway, a few knots of people chatting. As if to punctuate the easy mood, beyond the two sets of double doors that led to the club itself crooned the jumpy, happy beat of a jazzy clarinet.
“Miz Macey,” said one of the bodyguards as he opened the door to the club for her.
As she stepped over the threshold and into the hall swelling with music as well as spectators, Macey felt as if she’d moved into another world. It was a full-sense experience, being surrounded by this bold, new style of music, particularly as it was being performed by one of the most talented musicians in the country. With its low, blue and purple lighting fringing the edges of the room and dangling from random lamps, and the round tables packed close to each other and the stage, Capone’s club immediately felt close and intimate. Add to that the low, gravelly voice of Mr. Armstrong as he sang something about a kiss to build a dream on, and the smooth accompaniment of piano, trombone, and clarinet, and the experience was stunningly sensual.
The pungency of cigarette and cigar smoke wafted through the air, weaving through the scents of lemon or peppermint pomade and floral colognes. Silhouettes of short-haired women, their nape-baring tresses topped by feathered bands or studded with glittering combs, displayed elegant necks and delicate shoulders bared by sleeveless shifts or slipping necklines. Gems glittered like random stars, picking up the cool lights as hands, wrists, and throats moved. The men sitting next to them sported their own diamond-studded rings, as well as shiny, slicked-back hair that seemed be frosted by moonlight when the lights from onstage filtered over the crowd.
Macey felt the beat of the music filling her, mingling with the heartbeat deep inside her chest, and she was reminded of a similar sensation when she’d first encountered the undead. When a vampire would focus his or her glowing red eyes on her, luring her into a thrall, their breaths mingled, and her heartbeat seemed to pound along with that of her adversary. The music took hold of her like that, for Macey had never before had occasion to hear such talent, such perfectly sensual music performed by such a master musician.
But hers was only a short lapse into the sensations of the moment, for that eerie, forbidding chill still burned into the back of her own bare neck.
Macey had hesitated just inside the door, but as Mr. Armstrong finished his song and the audience erupted into enthusiastic applause, cheers, and whistles, she made her way quickly to the table where she’d left Capone.
Not front and center of the stage, but at the right corner, directly adjacent to the musicians. As she approached, Satchmo was still bowing and accepting his adulations, but then he picked up his coronet and began to tap out the countdown for his Hot Five to swing into the next song. She recognized “Gut Bucket Blues.”
“Where da hella you been?” Capone’s fingers were tight around Macey’s wrist as she came up next to him, before she even slid onto the edge of her chair. “You got things under control?”
She didn’t bother to respond to his first question, but she did pull her arm away with a sharp twist. “I will,” she said, using the opportunity to turn back and scan the audience from her front-row vantage point. Now where was that chill coming from…? “I just came back to make certain—”
Her eyes lit on a table in the
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