by Chloe Neill
“Gabriel,” Ethan said, the word as much warning as name.
“Don’t start with me, Sullivan.” Magic began to rise in the air, peppery and dangerous. “He may not have been mine when he was alive, but he’s mine now.”
He and Ethan might have been friends and colleagues, but they were also leaders with people to protect, and very little tolerance for those who challenged them.
“And you watch your tone, Keene. I recognize your people have endured a tragedy, but we are not your enemy. And you are not immune to the rules of the city in which you live.”
Gabriel growled, and his eyes lit with the promise of anger, of fighting, of action. “A vampire killed one of my people.”
Ethan, who had his own steam to work off, stepped forward. “Not one of my vampires.”
I considered pushing between them, demanding they separate and calm down. But I wasn’t about to incur Ethan’s wrath by playing that card again. Besides, it wasn’t the first time they’d nearly come to blows; maybe their beating the crap out of each other would clear the air.
Fallon apparently decided she wasn’t having any of it. She nudged her way between them, both towering over her by five or six inches.
“Stop being assholes,” she said, her voice quiet but firm. “We’ve made enough of a scene as it is, and have enough tragedy to deal with. You two want to beat the shit out of each other? Fine. But do it out of sight, when the humans can’t see and we don’t have to waste time watching.”
Biting back a smile, I glanced at Jeff, saw his eyes light with appreciation and pride.
Gabriel’s position didn’t change. Shoulders high and stiff, chest forward, hands balled into fists, his tensed body speaking of barely banked rage. He slid his gaze to his sister, nailed her with a look that would have made me nervous if directed at me.
But Fallon Keene just rolled her eyes. “That look hasn’t worked on me since I was seven.” She pointed a finger—the nail painted matte navy—at Gabriel and Ethan in turn. “Get. Your shit. Together.”
Fallon turned on her heel and walked back to the other shifters, whispered something to them. They seemed to relax but kept their wary gazes on their alpha and the alpha he stared down.
“Goddamn murder,” Gabriel said, running a hand through his hair again. “Waste of life, waste of energy.”
“You’ll get no argument there from me,” Ethan said. “And perhaps she’s right. That we shouldn’t waste any more time.”
Gabriel made a sound that was half grunt, half growl. “I find the vampire first, he’s mine.”
Ethan was quiet for a moment, no doubt evaluating his strategy, his best play. He wasn’t one to take advantage of murder, but he rarely made a move without thinking it through.
“All right,” he finally said. “But before you take care of him in whatever method you deem appropriate, we want a chance to question him.”
“Because?”
“Because he’s killed a shifter and attempted to kill Merit. That’s more than enough reason for me.”
Gabriel considered it silently. “Rest of your people going to be so easygoing about his fate? The other Masters?”
Ethan’s expression flattened. He liked Scott Grey, the Master of Grey House, and he tolerated Morgan Greer, the Master of Navarre House. “Should this atrocity prove to have been committed by one of their vampires, I suspect they will want to handle his punishment. That would be an issue for you to take up with them. But there’s no reason to believe he was a Navarre or Grey House vampire, either. I’ve been in Chicago a long time, and there was nothing about him that was familiar to me.”
Gabriel looked at my grandfather. “We will have to mourn him.”
My grandfather nodded. “We can give you space if you want to do it here. We’ll have to request you not touch him, if that’s possible.”
Gabriel didn’t seem to like the answer but didn’t argue with it. “Give us space,” he said, and if operating by an unspoken command, his people clustered around Caleb.
Ethan put a hand at my back, and we walked back toward the street.
“Give them a wall,” my grandfather said. And however weird the uniforms might have thought the request, they obeyed it. They moved to stand shoulder to shoulder facing the crowd, giving the Pack some privacy. We took places beside them, the line stretching all the way across the alley.
Gabriel spoke first, a whisper that put magic into the air, a song that rose and fell like a winter’s tide. I couldn’t distinguish the words. He’d disguised them somehow, muffling vowels and consonants, perhaps so they could be shared only by the Pack. But the point of the song was clear enough. It was a dirge, a song of mourning for their former Pack member.
I let myself drift on the rise and fall of the song. It told of blue skies and rolling green hills, dark and deep waters and mountains that pitched toward a dark blanket of sky scattered with stars. It told of birth and living and death, of the Pack’s connection to wildness, and of the reunion of loved ones. The tone momentarily darkened, unity giving way to struggle, to war.
The hairs at the back of my neck lifted. Ethan moved incrementally closer, pressing his shoulder into mine as if to protect me, just in case.
The tone changed again, fear and loss evolving into understanding, acceptance. And then the song ended, and the magic faded again, faded back into darkness.
I opened my eyes and glanced back, meeting Gabriel’s gaze.
I dipped my head, nodding, acknowledging that which he’d allowed me to share. And when I looked back at him, I realized he wasn’t looking at me, but past me, into some time or space long past, into memory or recollection. And from his expression, not an especially happy one.
• • •
“We’ll take care of him,” my grandfather promised when the shifters had moved back to their bikes. “I’ll accompany him personally to the morgue, speak to the medical examiner personally. You’ll remember they have protocols in place.”
It wasn’t the first time a shifter had died in Chicago. There’d been several killed in a botched attempt by Gabriel’s brother, Adam, to take over the Pack.
Gabriel picked up his helmet. “I know you do what you can, within the parameters you’ve got. I’m in the same position.”
“Then we understand each other,” my grandfather said. A van from the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office pulled up to the alley entrance. “I’m going to go have that talk,” he said, then squeezed my hand. “Get home safely.”
“We will,” I promised, and he made his way to the van.
“We should probably talk tomorrow,” Gabriel said. “We’ll host a wake at the bar, and you’ll want to wait until after. It wouldn’t be the best time for vampires to show up.”
Little Red was the Pack’s official bar in Ukrainian Village. It was a well-worn dive but served some of the best fare I’d ever tasted.
“I appreciate the warning,” Ethan said.
Gabriel pulled on his helmet, clipped it, then slung a leg over his bike. He started it with a rumble, then turned the bike back onto the street. Fallon followed him, then the rest of the shifters. And then silence fell again.
Ethan put a hand on the back of my neck, rubbed. “Not exactly the evening I had planned, Sentinel.”
“You hardly could have predicted this.”
“No, not the particulars. But that trouble would find us, even in Wrigleyville? That, I should have predicted.”
“You can owe me a Cubs game,” I said.
I was lucky to be alive. But I still hadn’t gotten my flashlight.
• • •
It was past midnight by the time we dropped off Mallory and Catcher in Wicker Park. She and Catcher stood on the sidewalk with their fingers linked. But for the evening of supernatural mayhem, they could have been just another couple heading home after a night on the town.
>
Mallory covered a yawn. “I’ll get started on the symbols tomorrow, although Catcher’s pretty swamped at work.” She looked at Ethan. “Maybe you could talk to Paige? See if she’s got time to help?”
Ethan nodded. “I’d had the same thought,” he said, which made three of us. “And we should have alchemical texts in the library to assist with the translation.”
“I’ll talk to Jeff,” Catcher said. “Maybe there’s something he can work up from a programming standpoint—something to speed the translation along.”
“Oh, good idea,” Mallory said. “There were a lot of symbols.”
Catcher glanced at me. “I’m sorry the night didn’t turn out like we’d planned. I know you were looking forward to an evening at the ballpark.”
I nodded. “There will be other nights. Bigger things to worry about right now anyway.”
“Yeah,” Catcher said ruefully. “That’s beginning to feel more and more common.”
He and Mallory walked inside, closed the door, turned off the light above their small porch, a signal that they were locked safely inside.
“Let’s go home, Sentinel.”
I’d been excited to leave the House earlier in the evening, eager to get to Wrigley, enjoy a beer, and watch some baseball. And now, with the evening having taken such an ugly turn, I couldn’t wait to get home again.
CHAPTER FOUR
A DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE
Traffic on the Kennedy hadn’t been any better than Lake Shore Drive. We’d avoided the accident, but not the three-mile backup that kept traffic at a crawl, so it took an hour to get back to Hyde Park.
Cadogan House glowed in the darkness, a beacon of warm light and white stone. The House was three stories of imposing French architecture surrounded by rolling lawns and an enormous wrought-iron fence meant to keep out enemies, paparazzi, and curious passersby.
There was a gate in front, recently upgraded by Ethan and at present guarded by humans. Two at the door, and four more patrolling the House’s perimeter. Both were insurance against whatever mischief Adrien Reed might have planned.
We drove the SUV back into the House’s underground parking lot, entered the code on the door that led into the House’s basement floor.
“Ops Room to update Luc?” I asked. The House’s security operations room, along with the arsenal and training room, was located in the basement.
“You will. After you’ve been treated.”
“Treated?”
“Your arm,” he said.
Those two words were enough to remind me of the wound and send it throbbing again.
“Ah. Right.”
He crooked a finger at me, and I fell into step behind him as we took the stairs to the House’s first floor.
The first floor was as lush as the basement was utilitarian. The scent of peonies and roses filled the air from an arrangement on a gorgeous antique table, which complemented the gorgeous woodwork, expensive rugs, and priceless artwork.
There was a desk in the foyer now, where a Novitiate vampire dealt with the supplicants who now requested an audience with Ethan. As one of the twelve members of the Assembly of American Masters, they looked to him for help, advice, and arbitration of disputes.
Ethan acknowledged them before directing me to his office, which was as luxe as the rest of the House. There was thick carpet, an imposing desk, and a comfortable sitting area with leather club chairs. Bookshelves lined the left side of the room, and an enormous conference table spread across the back in front of a bank of windows. They were open now, and would be shuttered automatically when the sun began to rise.
At the moment, the room was full of vampires. Malik, Ethan’s second-in-command, leaned against Ethan’s desk. He was dressed in the Cadogan uniform—fitted black suit, white button-down shirt that contrasted against his dark skin and pale green eyes.
Luc, the House’s guard captain, had tousled blond hair and the face and body of a well-practiced cowboy. He’d been excused from the House’s black-suit dress code. He wore jeans, boots, and a T-shirt with CADOGAN HOUSE GUARD CORPS printed in a circle across the front, the image of a bacon rasher in the middle. SAVIN’ YOUR BACON SINCE 1883 was printed across it. He’d created the design because, to quote him, “nothing fuels a vampire like a good rasher.”
His girlfriend and fellow guard, Lindsey, stood beside him. She was pretty, blond, fashion-conscious, and a very good friend. Tonight, she’d paired neon yellow stilettos with her House uniform. Matched with the jaunty high ponytail and small neon earrings, she added a little flair to the otherwise unrelieved black.
Juliet, another House guard, stood nearby with a bottle of green juice in hand. She was petite and looked delicate, with cream and roses skin and red hair, but she was a ferocious and determined fighter.
She’d recently decided “juicing” would further enhance her butt-kicking abilities, and she’d tried to foist one of her liquid kale concoctions on me. I declined to drink anything that looked like lawn clippings. Besides, if I wasn’t pumping my body with trans fats, I wasn’t fully utilizing my immortality.
When we stepped into the doorway, the vampires took in my blood-spattered T-shirt and bandage and Ethan’s own ripped and bloodied T-shirt.
“You two can’t even go to a damn sporting event without trouble,” Luc said.
“I grabbed shirts for you,” Lindsey said, offering folded black cotton to me and Ethan. “Fresh from the swag room.”
“You aren’t technically a Guard,” Luc said to me, “but since you just took another shot on behalf of your House and Master, we figured you deserved one.”
“That, and the fact that I train and work with you guys?”
Luc winked at me. “That helps.”
“What’s the House record for gunshots?” I asked.
“Five,” Ethan said. He’d walked behind his desk, was scanning his computer screen. “Peter had that prize. Would that he’d been here for a sixth,” he muttered, undoubtedly angry that he couldn’t deliver that sixth shot.
Peter was a former Cadogan Guard who’d betrayed the House for Celina Desaulniers, the former Master of Navarre House.
Given the night we’d had, I was determined to keep the mood light. “And what’s the prize for beating the record?”
“House arrest,” Ethan said. He glanced up, smiled thinly. “And you wouldn’t enjoy that, Sentinel.”
No argument there.
“Am I late?” A woman with dark skin and dark hair pulled back in a ponytail and wearing pink scrubs stood in the doorway. Delia was the House’s doctor.
“You’re right on time,” Ethan said. “Your patient awaits.”
“Patient?” I asked.
“Treatment, Sentinel. Your wound should be addressed.”
I didn’t like the way that sounded, especially since my arm was already itchy with healing. “I’m fine.”
Delia walked toward me, a tray in her hands. “Hello, Merit. How are you?”
“Hello, Delia. I’m fine.”
“Got shot again, did you?”
“I did. Although I didn’t pass out this time.” The last time, I’d hit my head and been knocked unconscious.
“That’s something at least.” She put the tray on Ethan’s desk, then walked to the sink in the small bar in the bookshelves, washed her hands to the elbow. I appreciated the effort, even if it seemed unlikely a vampire would die of sepsis.
With cool and careful fingers, she lifted my arm, surveyed the bandage before glancing back at Ethan, taking in the ripped shirt. “Homemade bandage?”
“Make-do,” he agreed. “We were chasing a suspect.”
“Again,” Luc said, “only you, too.”
Delia looked at me. “Pulling away the bandage might hurt, so let’s get it over with.” Without waiting for me to object, she released my arm. “Would you mi
nd stripping her?”
Lindsey winked at me. “Of course not.”
I pushed away her hands. “Hey, I don’t need stripping. It’s my arm that’s damaged.”
“The shirt is filthy,” Delia said. “It looks like you scraped off a few layers of a dirty street.”
That wasn’t far from the truth.
“Take it off, or I’ll cut it off.”
“Hard-ass.”
She snorted. “You deal with a few dozen humans in an emergency room in an evening and see how much of a hard-ass you become. Gentlemen, if you would, please turn away so that our impressively modest Sentinel can get momentarily naked.”
“Awwww,” Luc said pitifully, but he and Malik turned their backs. Ethan didn’t bother. He watched us, concern in his expression, as Lindsey helped me pull the shirt over my head, then over each arm in turn. She tossed it onto the floor.
“Bandage?” she asked, and at Delia’s nod, pulled away the fabric Ethan had used to keep the handkerchief in place, tossed it aside with the T-shirt.
“You can burn that when you’re ready,” Delia said with a smile, stepping forward to palpate my arm, inspect the remaining bandage from each angle. “Or keep it as a souvenir of your fourth bullet for the House.”
“Being shot four times isn’t such a big deal,” I muttered.
“Certainly not for people who’ve been shot five times,” she said with a grin. She picked up a pair of blunt-ended scissors from the tray she’d brought in. “You ready for this? I’ll be as careful as I can.”
I blew out a breath, nodded. And as I stood in Ethan’s office in jeans and a bra, I reached out for Lindsey’s hand. She took mine, squeezed it.
“On three,” Delia said. “One . . . two . . .”
As I tensed, waiting for three, she ripped the fabric away.
I nearly hit my knees from the rush of bright, naked pain. “Damn! I thought you were going on three!”
“Two gets you done faster,” she said, and began inspecting my arm. “Good. It’s a through-and-through, so we won’t have to drag fragments out of you.”
