by Chloe Neill
“Perhaps you should engage with your community about the cost of that peace to our world. About the death and destruction your peace has wrought. Because it’s hardly peace if it stands on the backs of those you’ve trampled to get it.”
Camael’s eyes went dark.
“There will be a reckoning,” Malachi said. “The Court and Consularis who have been in this world know the truth just as you now do, and there is no room for denial. But more importantly, the seeds of knowledge have already been planted in Elysium. I saw to that when I was there.”
Camael’s jaw worked. “We will not be extorted.”
“There is no need for extortion,” Malachi said. “There is simply no more room to hide who and what you really are.”
Camael looked at him for a moment, fuming and frustrated. “We will take the Court,” he bit out. “We will take the Abethyl. And in one week’s time, we will return to close the Veil, and take any Consularis who wish to return to their homeland. And then we will have no more of Earth.”
He turned on his heel and walked back to his army, Uriel and Eae following behind him.
Right on cue, it began to rain.
* * *
• • •
We went to the Cabildo while the Precepts discussed with the Commandant preparations to move the Court back to the Beyond.
Without the Seelies’ boost, entropy found Hurricane Frieda. The spiraling storm began to dissipate to a hard rain that waiting soldiers didn’t seem to mind.
I watched Malachi, and finally understood why he’d stolen the Abethyl. He might have been able to convince the Precepts to give it to him. But that wasn’t the point. That wasn’t the goal.
“You wanted them to follow us here.”
He looked back at me, all emotion hidden. “What?”
“The Precepts. You stole the Abethyl, made them chase us, because you wanted them to come here. You wanted them to see firsthand what their arrogance had caused. You wanted them to consider the Veil. You wanted them to fix it.”
He looked at me for a long moment. “They are not entirely heartless,” he finally said. “The Consularis genuinely believe life is better lived in the way they have arranged it. That rules and order and similarity are the antitheses of chaos and violence and pain.”
I had a hard time faulting them for trying that approach, given how many times humans had tried to forcibly assimilate those who weren’t like us—and failed miserably. Caused only more pain and death and violence.
“But they are also self-centered, and care little for worlds beyond theirs. I thought, perhaps, if I showed them what effects their behavior had, they might change. And, frankly, the possibility of humans with powerful magic who might challenge theirs adds incentive to closing the Veil.”
“Why not ask them about closing the Veil when we were in Elysium?”
His mouth moved into the lightest smile. “I did. They refused. I thought it best to give them another chance to see the truth—and answer for their crimes.”
Malachi walked to Rachel. Liam joined me, put an arm around my waist. “What was that all about?”
“Our very conniving—and very kind—friend.” And I told him what Malachi had done. “Do you think he’ll stay?”
“I don’t know. I suspect he doesn’t feel like he can go back now.” Malachi looked down at Rachel with obvious love, desire, need. “Or that he has much to go back to.”
I smiled. “I wonder if they’ll be bored by peace.”
Liam was silent for a moment. “We might all be bored by peace. But I imagine new struggles and drama will filter in soon enough. That’s the nature of humans.”
“And Paras,” I said, resting my head against his arm. “We all like drama.”
Burke came over. “You guys have to see this.”
“What is it?”
He gestured us forward, and we followed him to the street. And grinned.
It was goats.
Dozens of them—white and black and calico—walking down Royal Street even in the diminishing rain of the floundering storm, bells on their collars chiming musically as the group moved downtown, bleating and lapping up the standing rainwater.
Two quick dogs, black-and-white and low to the ground, ran along the sidewalks beside the herd, keeping them in line.
It was surreal. And it was wonderful.
When they’d nibbled up the shrubs and grass that poked through the water, they disappeared down the street, leaving behind the tinkle of bells.
We stood there for a moment in the afterglow.
“That was good luck, right?” Gavin asked.
“One hundred percent,” Burke said.
Gavin looked at me and Liam. “I thought the engagement was pretty good, but this tops it.”
Liam lifted his brows. “A random flock of goats tops our engagement?”
“I mean, they’re goats. And I’m pretty sure it’s a herd, not a flock.”
“Hardly the point,” Liam said, putting an arm around my waist. “Apparently a proposal during a hurricane doesn’t beat out random and smelly goats. I’ll try better next time, cher.”
I had no doubt he would.
EPILOGUE
One week later
The crowd was boisterous, but the mood was bittersweet. The floodwaters had receded from the Quarter, and there was a party going on in Jackson Square. A good-bye to the Consularis Paranormals who’d lived in Devil’s Isle for nearly eight years and had decided to go home.
Containment had supplied cheap red punch and chocolate chip cookies the size of silver dollars, and nearly as dry. We’d made streamers of old holiday decorations, and the Paras had brought their suitcases to the square, where they’d be loaded onto the buses that would take them to Belle Chasse and the army that awaited them.
Some had waited eight years for an opportunity to go home, never quite assimilating into the community in Devil’s Isle, and not interested in assimilating into the human world outside it. Others—some members of the same families—had grown into their new lives, in the internment camp that had become their home, with the neighbors who’d become their friends. I’d never had to live in a prison. But after seeing the sameness of Elysium, I understood why they’d want something different.
Liam talked with Lizzie and Malachi, who’d decided to stay. Moses talked with Solomon, who’d decided to go home now that he was no longer the local big shot. And around the park there were hugs and tears and trepidation, as they all prepared for their lives to change.
I sat on a metal bench in the shade, sipping punch from a paper cup and thinking about the connections that had been made over the last eight years. And how much they’d be changing.
Moses came toward me.
“Hey,” I said. “How’s Solomon doing?”
“Here or at home, he’s a scammer. And I think he’s ready for a new set of tricks.”
“I bet.”
He cleared his throat. “I wanted to talk to you about something.”
His tone was grim, had me frowning at him. “About what?”
“I’m leaving, too.”
It’s not that I thought he was joking. I just didn’t think anything. Couldn’t wrap my mind around what the words meant. “What?”
“I’m leaving. I’m going home.”
“You’re . . . what?” I asked again.
He jumped up to sit beside me. “I wasn’t ready to tell you yet, Red. You’re . . . not as much of an asshole as the others.”
It began to hit me then, and warm dread settled into my chest. “You want to go back? After everything?”
“It’s my home. Don’t get me wrong. I like this place. I like the electronics and the canned goods and those birds with the really big mouths—”
“Pelicans.”
He pointed at me. “Yeah, those. But
this isn’t my home. It’s not my place. Living in Devil’s Isle—it wasn’t great in a lot of ways. But in other ways it wasn’t too bad. I was there with my people. We had our own community, even if it was infested by Peskies, the little shits. But most humans don’t even see me here.” He looked at me. “Not because I’m small, mind. Because they don’t want to notice me, because I’m weird. Because I don’t look like they think I should look.” He pointed to his short horns.
“I notice you. Liam and Gavin notice you. Tadji and Gunnar notice you.”
“I know you do. You’re all pains in my butt, but I’ve learned to deal with you. But I want to be seen.” He looked up at me, and there was pain in his eyes. “I don’t want to feel . . . invisible.”
I reached out and squeezed his hand, and for a moment we just looked at each other. Then he pulled his hand away and rubbed it on his pants.
“Human hands are all damp and sweaty,” he said, and surreptitiously wiped away a tear.
I had to look away to keep myself from watering up. “Humans are generally damp and sweaty. It’s one of our grosser qualities.”
“You said it.” He cleared his throat. “And there’s no reason to get all emotional. ’Cause I made you something.” He reached into the bottom pocket of his rolled-up cargo pants, pulled out a small plastic box, handed it to me.
It was a child’s radio in red and white plastic, with a small antenna on one end. The white hadn’t actually been white in many years, and there was several years of grime in the plastic grooves. On-off switch, tuner, volume wheel. And for some reason, a cartoon image of a yellow duck pulling a wagon.
“I don’t know why a pelican needs a wagon,” he said.
“Duck,” I corrected, and I was pretty sure he knew exactly what the bird was. “Does it work?”
“Of course it freaking works. You think I’m a novice? An amateur? I know what I’m doing. But it’s not a radio.”
I looked at him, then at the box. “You lost me.”
“It’s kind of a way to say hello.” He wiggled his hand, and when I passed it back, he flicked the on-off switch with a thumbnail. A soft thump pulsed from the speaker, staticky around the edges, but audible. A quick-step throb. Beat-beat. Beat-beat. Beat-beat.
“What is that?”
“It’s me,” he said, and I looked at him. “My heartbeat,” he said. “I know that’s kind of a big deal for humans. You like the connection.”
Tears welled when I looked at him. “It will work even when the Veil’s closed?”
“Long as I’m alive, it will work. And I’ll probably be alive forever, so . . .” He lifted a shoulder, cleared his throat. “I’m going to miss you, Red.”
“I’m going to miss you, too, Mos.” I leaned over and hugged him, and his arms on mine were fierce and strong.
“Why do you smell like pickles?” I asked when I pulled back.
“The juice is good for the skin.”
“I doubt that’s true.”
His eyes narrowed. “You’re just trying to make me angry so you don’t get all human and teary eyed.”
“You caught me,” I said, and let him go. And we sat on the bench together in silence and watched the world go by.
* * *
• • •
Thirty minutes later, when the buses were waiting and the Paras began to climb aboard, Liam found me still on the bench, still gutted.
“You okay?”
I shrugged a shoulder. “He’s a jerk. And he likes the grossest foods. But he’s part of the family.”
“He is. But I’m glad he can go home.”
“Yeah.”
Moses took the first step, looked back across the crowd, searching for us. And, when he found us, gave us a smile.
And then flipped us off.
He’d be okay.
We all would.
Keep reading for an excerpt from the first Heirs of Chicagoland Novel,
WILD HUNGER
Available now from Berkley
Vampires were made, not born.
All except one.
All except me.
I was the daughter of vampires, born because magic and fate twisted together. I’d spent nineteen years in Chicago. Tonight, I stood nearly four hundred feet above Paris, several thousand miles away from the Windy City and the Houses in which most of its vampires lived.
Around me, visitors on the second level of the Eiffel Tower sipped champagne and snapped shots of the city. I closed my eyes against the warm, balmy breeze that carried the faint scent of flowers.
“Elisa, you cannot tell Paris good-bye with your eyes closed.”
“I’m not saying good-bye,” I said. “Because I’m coming back.”
I opened my eyes, smiled at the vampire who appeared at my side with two plastic cones of champagne. Seraphine had golden skin and dark hair, and her hazel eyes shone with amusement.
“To Paris,” I said, and tapped my cone against hers.
It had been four years since I’d last stepped foot in Chicago. Tomorrow, I’d go home again and visit the city and spend time with family and friends.
For twenty years, there’d been peace in Chicago among humans and sups, largely because of efforts by my parents—Ethan Sullivan and Merit, the Master and Sentinel, respectively, of Cadogan House. They’d worked to find a lasting peace, and had been so successful that Chicago had become a model for other communities around the world.
That’s why Seri and I were going back. The city’s four vampire Houses were hosting peace talks for vampires from Western Europe, where Houses had been warring since the governing council—the Greenwich Presidium—dissolved before I was born. And vampires’ relations with the other supernaturals in Europe weren’t any better. Chicago would serve as neutral territory where the Houses’ issues could be discussed and a new system of government could be hammered out.
“You look . . . What is the word? Wistful?” Seri smiled. “And you haven’t even left yet.”
“I’m building up my immunity,” I said, and sipped the champagne.
“You love Chicago.”
“It’s a great city. But I was . . . a different person in Chicago. I like who I am here.”
Paris wasn’t always peaceful. But it had given me the time and distance to develop the control I’d needed over the monster that lived inside me. Because I wasn’t just a vampire . . .
Seri bumped her shoulder against mine supportively. “You will be the same person there as you are here. Miles change only location. They do not change a person’s heart. A person’s character.”
I hoped that was true. But Seri didn’t know the whole of it. She didn’t know about the half-formed power that lurked beneath my skin, reveled in its anger. She didn’t know about the magic that had grown stronger as I’d grown older, until it beat like a second heartbeat inside me.
Sunlight and aspen could kill me—but the monster could bury me in its rage.
I’d spent the past four years attending École Dumas, Europe’s only university for supernaturals. I was one of a handful of vampires in residence. Most humans weren’t changed into vampires until they were older; the change would give them immortality, but they’d be stuck at the age at which they’d been changed. No one wanted to be thirteen for eternity.
I hadn’t been changed at all, but born a vampire—the one and only vampire created that way. Immortal, or so we assumed, but still for the moment aging.
The university was affiliated with Paris’s Maison Dumas, one of Europe’s most prestigious vampire Houses, where I’d lived for the past four years. I’d had a little culture shock at first, but I’d come to love the House and appreciate its logical approach to problem solving. If Cadogan was Gryffindor, all bravery and guts, Dumas was Ravenclaw, all intellect and cleverness. I liked being clever, and I liked clever people, so we were a good fi
t.
I’d had four years of training to develop the three components of vampire strength: physical, psychic, and strategic. I graduated a few months ago with a sociology degree—emphasis in sup-human relations—and now I was repaying my training the same way French vampires did, with a year of mandatory armed service for the House. It was a chance to see what I was made of, and to spend another year in the city I’d come to love.
I was three months into my service. Escorting delegates from Maison Dumas to Chicago for the peace talks was part of my work.
“How many suitcases are you bringing?”
I glanced at Seri with amusement. “Why? How many are you bringing?”
“Four.” Seri did not travel lightly.
“We’ll only be in Chicago for four days.”
“I have diplomatic responsibilities, Elisa.”
I sipped my champagne. “That’s what French vampires say when they pack too much. I have a capsule wardrobe.”
“And that is what American vampires say when they do not pack enough. You also have diplomatic responsibilities.”
“I have responsibilities to the House. That’s different.”
“Ah,” she said, smiling at me over the rim of her drink. “But which one?”
“Maison Dumas,” I said, in an accent that was pretty close to perfect. “I’m not going to Chicago on behalf of Cadogan House. It’s just a bonus.”
“I look forward to meeting your parents. And I’m sure they’ll be glad to see you.”
“I’ll be glad to see them, too. It’s just—I’ve changed a lot in the last few years. Since the last time I went home.”
They’d visited Paris twice since I’d been gone, and we’d had fun walking through the city, seeing the sights. But I still felt like I’d been holding myself back from them. Maybe I always had.
“It’s not about you or Cadogan or Chicago,” I’d told my father, when we’d stood outside the private terminal at O’Hare, in front of the jet that would take me across the world. I’d been struggling to make him understand. “It’s about figuring out who I am.”
