Free Archer's Lady: Bloodhounds, Book 3 by Moira Rogers Page B

those who would hold such a thing against her.”
    As if that was something that should concern Archer. “Let’s worry about her reputation when the town has made it through the new moon, all right? Survival, Cecil. Everything else is beside the point.”
    The old man snorted. “Little late, then, but you’re not wrong.” He studied Archer in silence for a few moments, almost as if weighing him on some internal scale. “Diana told me you and Grace asked her a mess of questions about Doc.”
    Archer tromped down the ladder and studied him. The man’s eyes were sharp in his weathered face—and he’d already proven he was paying attention. “Wouldn’t have had to, maybe, if you’d been straight with me.”
    Cecil swore under his breath. “And if I’m ready to talk now?”
    “Depends. How much can you tell me about Beale?”
    “Enough.” Cecil jerked his head toward the door. “Come in out of the sun while Jake tears up the town. Some things are best told where young ones can’t overhear.”
    Archer followed him. Grace’s voice faintly tickled his ears from somewhere else on the floor, but the open expanse of the main hall was deserted. “What do you know?”
    Cecil picked a table in the corner and seated himself with a grunt of relief. “That he used to work for the Bloodhound Guild, and that he thought everyone in this town could be in danger if the Guild ever found out.”
    It was a question his tour of Doc’s cellar had already answered. “Was he always a doctor, or did he do something else for the Guild?”
    “He was a doctor…and an inventor.” Cecil’s face looked tired. “I should have told you this before, maybe even told the Guild when I sent for help. But Beale made me swear an oath. Said that if the Guild found out who he was and what he’d been doing, they’d level this town and everyone in it if that was what it took to keep the secret.”
    Archer’s blood chilled, and it was a struggle to draw breath. “Christ, Cecil. What was going on?”
    “He said he was working for redemption. That he’d done something—created a formula. Something the Guild used to do evil things. He left before they could make him implement it, but I guess they went ahead without him.” Cecil closed his eyes. “When he told me, he was as drunk as any man I’d ever seen. I guess he’d left behind a woman, meaning to send for her, only when he got around to it, her family told him she’d died in an accident.”
    Beale. Which one had he been, what new hell had he contributed to the process of making hounds? It had something to do with the ledgers from his laboratory, no doubt. The truth was right there, along with the reason why the vampires were so desperate to get their hands on it.
    But something else Cecil had said tugged at Archer. “Did he tell you her name?”
    “The lady he left behind? Zilpha.” Cecil smiled a little. “My favorite cousin’s name, so I never forgot it.”
    Archer’s chair hit the floor, and he had to look back at Cecil as he rushed to the stairs. “Get Grace. Tell her I need her upstairs, now .”
    Cecil rose, his face pale. “Set my mind at ease, Archer. Did I do the right thing?”
    He stopped at the base of the stairs, his hand tight around the banister. “Cecil, you might have just saved everyone left in this godforsaken town.”
    The old man blew out a relieved sigh. “I’ll send Miss Linwood up to you.”
    Archer didn’t wait to thank him, and he was halfway through the second line of the first document he’d grabbed when Grace’s footsteps sounded in the hall. She pushed through the door without knocking. “Is everything all right?”
    He waved at her and shook his head as he read from the journal. “ The girl survived. Her name is April. ” He met her gaze, his heart pounding. “That’s how the first entry starts. I found the key, Grace. The magic word. Cecil knew it.”
    She crossed to his side and touched the book with trembling fingers. “That was