by Chloe Neill
Everyone else was lying low. We’d gotten a pigeon message that Burke was all right. Tadji, Phaedra, and Zana were back at Gavin’s CBD condo with Darby as guard.
We debriefed with Gunnar so he could talk to the Commandant and try to make the best of the situation. And then we let Gavin vent.
Yeah, he and Nix hadn’t technically been together anymore. But she’d hinted even to me that she hadn’t given up on him. And her betrayal was pretty harsh.
“I should have known,” Gavin said, knocking back another shot of good Irish whiskey from the bottle Liam had pulled from his personal stash. “Her name was ‘Nixon,’ for God’s sake.”
I opened my mouth to ask the obvious follow-up, but Liam shook his head. “It’s what she named herself when she first came through the Veil.”
“She said she saw a Nixon bumper sticker on a car ditched in Bogue Chitto,” Gavin said. “She thought it sounded pretty.”
Grief darkened his eyes. “I knew she wanted to return, that she never really felt comfortable here. But I didn’t think she was capable of betraying us in order to get back through. She knew how bad it had been to come through in the first place.”
I sighed. “Speaking of how bad it had been, I need to tell you something.”
The room went silent, all eyes on me.
“What is it, Claire?” Gunnar asked.
“When we were on the battlefield, the Veil moved over me.” I paused. “And when it did, I could see through it.”
I figured there’d be some oohs and aahs after that, but there was nothing. I looked at Gunnar, since the next part was especially for him.
“There were a lot of Paranormals. Several battalions in a field, in columns. It was an army waiting to fight, more than I’ve ever seen together at once. And there was a woman on a very big horse in front of them. She had long dark hair. Very pale. She carried a spear. She looked like she was in charge.”
“Wait,” Liam said, holding up a hand. “You saw through the Veil?”
I nodded.
“That’s . . . amazing,” Gavin said.
I didn’t want to be amazing. I wanted to be inconspicuous. “Maybe every Sensitive can do it,” I said. “I mean, how many times have Sensitives been standing right inside the Veil?”
Liam lifted a shoulder. “I honestly have no idea.”
“The army,” Gunnar said. “The woman on the horse. Does it mean the Court’s won? That they’ve conquered the Beyond?”
It took Liam a moment to answer. “I don’t know. We’ll have to tell Malachi.”
I nodded. “The soldiers were prepared to fight. They had weapons, armor. She called to them. I couldn’t hear what she’d said, but she called to them, like she was getting them ready to charge.”
“The army is assembled,” Gavin said.
“They’re going to try to open the Veil again,” Gunnar said, standing. It was time for him to see the Commandant.
“Yes,” Liam said, and we all knew that worse things were on their way.
• • •
Gunnar left to make his report. Liam went back to Devil’s Isle to get a shower and a clean change of clothes. That left me and Gavin in the store.
It wasn’t fair of me to push my drama onto him, but I had the sense he’d like the chance to talk about something else. “Can I ask you a question?”
He looked up at me. “Go for it.”
“Why did you punch your brother when you first walked into my store?”
“He kissed my fiancée.”
After a moment of stunned silence, I asked, “Did he know she was your fiancée?”
“He did, yeah. Technically, she kissed him. He just happened to be there. Her pitiable bad judgment, since I’m obviously the handsome one.”
“Obviously. Is she why you left the Zone?”
Gavin’s expression shuttered. “She was one on a long list of reasons. Nix being one of the other ones.”
“Yeah.”
Gavin cocked his head at me. “And what’s going on with the two of you?”
“We’re friends. Kind of.” It was becoming my stock response.
“No, but you’re a crappy liar. He brought you into the District, into his apartment, and to meet our grandmother. He’s become part of this saving-the-world quest at least in part to impress you. And I’ve seen the way he looks at you. I’d say his interest is more than ‘acquaintances.’”
“He’s decided he can’t have me.”
He rolled his eyes. “What ridiculous theory supports that?”
I looked at him. “I’m a Sensitive. He’s a bounty hunter. He could wield too much power over me, and it wouldn’t be fair.”
Gavin snorted. “He’s got plenty of alpha male in him. Plenty of protectiveness.” He leaned forward over the table. “Can you take care of yourself?”
“Of course.”
“Are you going to become a wraith?”
My voice was flat. “No.”
“Then this is his problem.” He sat back, grinned as he slung an arm over the back of his chair. “You know what your best move is here? You let it stay his problem. You just keep being your sexy redheaded self.”
I smiled. “Thank you.”
He held up a hand. “Don’t get too excited. I’m taking myself off the market right now.”
“Because of the utter betrayal.”
“Because of the utter goddamn betrayal.”
“I think that’s a good decision.”
He finished off his drink. “Damn right it is.” He looked up at me, grinned. “Watching my big brother get his comeuppance is going to be a lot of fun, Connolly. I look forward to it.”
I thought I did, too.
And it made a really nice change from worrying about the end of the world.
• • •
It was nearly ten when Gunnar walked in, back in his fatigues. Liam, Gavin, and I sat up straight, waiting for the verdict.
“No one’s going to Devil’s Isle.”
I breathed a little easier. But my palms were still sweating.
He sat down, pulled out a chair. “The Commandant does not know about anyone’s magic. As unfortunate as Nix’s involvement was, she gives us a very good scapegoat. He thinks Rutledge was obsessed with her, decided to help her open the Veil so that she could go home again.”
“That’s the truth,” Liam said. “If not all of it.”
Gunnar nodded. “And since Rutledge is dead, he can’t exactly contradict the story. We’ll have to keep an eye on the remaining ComTac operatives. They don’t have any incentive to rat you out—even if they knew who you were. That’s not clear, since their mission was to open the Veil.”
“What about the raid on Claire’s store?” Liam asked.
“Broussard maintains he got an anonymous tip. Not hard to imagine that was Nix.”
It could have been Nix, sure. It probably had been. It also could have been Rutledge, or someone else entirely who wasn’t a fan of me. That was something I’d have to ferret out later.
I leaned forward. “What about Phaedra and Tom? Their roles would have been obvious, since the Veil was locked.”
“They’ve gone back into hiding, just in case,” Gunnar said. “They’ve worked out a way to communicate with Tadji. Places they can meet, leave messages for each other.”
Not an ideal solution, but it was the best way to keep all of them safe.
“The Commandant wants to try to match security images of the recent wraith attacks against the list of folks suspected of being Sensitives, especially anyone Rutledge might have focused on. I’m going to try to get medical care for anyone who needs it. We don’t know if there’s a treatment for wraiths. But the Commandant has gotten a new appreciation for Sensitives, so we’ve got a better opportunity to look now.” He looked at me. “I’d still recommend you stick with ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ at the moment.”
“I won’t be telling,” I assured him. “What about you?”
He smiled. “I’m back
on duty and out of the magic game. My job, as far as I see it, is to keep Containment on the straight and narrow.”
“Says the Commandant?” I asked with a smile.
Gunnar grinned, sat back, crossed his ankles on the table. “Exactly. And that, lady and gentlemen, is a full day’s work.”
• • •
There wasn’t much we could do with that right now. For tonight, at least, the Veil was closed. Tomorrow would bring what it would. We’d talk to the rest of the group, figure out a plan.
But that was for tomorrow. Tonight, I had other plans. So when the door opened and Tadji walked inside, I scooted them all out.
“All right,” I said. “She’s here. Everybody out.”
I’d known she was coming, had already warned them they’d have to give us some space when she arrived. Some time to talk. She’d asked for the meeting, and I was ninety percent sure I knew what was going to happen.
Tadji had been through hell, and she had walls higher than Devil’s Isle. She was going to talk about magic, about how she couldn’t deal with it—or by extension, me.
“Hey, Tadji,” Gunnar said as he and Liam rose from the table. “We’re just leaving. Gonna go home, maybe crack open a beer.”
I loved Gunnar, but he wasn’t an actor. And he didn’t sound even slightly convincing.
“Okay,” Tadji said. “Thanks for the heads-up?”
They walked out, leaving us alone.
“Hey,” I said, standing to give her a hug. “How’s your mom?”
“She’s okay, all things considered.”
“You wanna sit down?”
“Yeah,” she said, and pulled out a chair.
We sat in silence for a moment. I missed the ticking of my cuckoo clock. It would have given me something to focus on.
Might as well cut to the chase, I thought, and make it easier on both of us. “Are you breaking up with me?”
She half laughed, half sobbed, as tears began to flow. “I don’t know. I had this entire speech prepared—you know me and words—about how I need to take a break. About how I don’t know if I can do this. If I can live with all this magic.”
I nodded, made myself stay quiet, let her get it out.
She wiped away tears. “Growing up was hard, Claire. Being surrounded by the magic, the expectations. It was too hard, and it took so long for me to get away from it. I hoped New Orleans had gotten free of it. But it’s not. Is still here, and it’s messy.” She looked up at me. “It suffocates me.”
Wasn’t it strange that I’d had exactly the opposite experience? A father who’d had magic but had hidden it from me.
I wanted to tell her not to worry, that it wasn’t a big deal, that it would all be fine. But I didn’t know if that was true, and it wasn’t fair to minimize what she was feeling.
She sighed. “Burke told me who he was. What he was.”
Good. God knew, I supported honesty in relationships.
“I just—this isn’t the life I imagined. All this damn drama. All this damn magic.” She looked at me. “Angels, Claire. Angels in my backyard. In my bayou. The thing is, though? I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
I brushed sudden, sharp tears away. “I don’t know what I’d do without you, either. I need someone smart and logical to deal with all this nonsense.”
“It is a lot of nonsense, isn’t it?”
“It is. It really, really is. And I’m not just saying that because I need you to keep me apprised of your dating situation.”
“And speaking of, let’s talk about Liam.”
I didn’t think that was entirely necessary. But I owed her one.
• • •
When the store was empty again and the night was quiet, I realized sleep wasn’t going to come anytime soon, not with my mind spinning with Big Questions. So I walked back downstairs.
I flipped on the lights, smiled at the familiar buzz of electricity. Such a human thing. And today, I found that very comforting. I sat down at the counter and pulled over the owl, which still waited with unseeing eyes to move again.
I picked up a silver tool and got back to work.
Stay quiet. Work hard.
Because sometimes, when the world was shifting and changing around you, that’s the best thing you could do.
Love Liam and Claire? Then meet Ethan and Merit!
Read on for a look at the first book in Chloe Neill’s New York Times bestselling Chicagoland Vampires series,
SOME GIRLS BITE
Available now wherever books and e-books are sold
Early April
Chicago, Illinois
At first, I wondered if it was karmic punishment. I’d sneered at the fancy vampires, and as some kind of cosmic retribution, I’d been made one. Vampire. Predator. Initiate into one of the oldest of the twelve vampire Houses in the United States.
And I wasn’t just one of them.
I was one of the best.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me begin by telling you how I became a vampire, a story that starts weeks before my twenty-eighth birthday, the night I completed the transition. The night I awoke in the back of a limousine, three days after I’d been attacked walking across the University of Chicago campus.
I didn’t remember all the details of the attack. But I remembered enough to be thrilled to be alive. To be shocked to be alive.
In the back of the limousine, I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to unpack the memory of the attack. I’d heard footsteps, the sound muffled by dewy grass, before he grabbed me. I’d screamed and kicked, tried to fight my way out, but he pushed me down. He was preternaturally strong—supernaturally strong—and he bit my neck with a predatory ferocity that left little doubt about who he was. What he was.
Vampire.
But while he tore into skin and muscle, he didn’t drink; he didn’t have time. Without warning, he’d stopped and jumped away, running between buildings at the edge of the main quad.
My attacker temporarily vanquished, I’d raised a hand to the crux of my neck and shoulder, felt the sticky warmth. My vision was dimming, but I could see the wine-colored stain across my fingers clearly enough.
Then there was movement around me. Two men.
The men my attacker had been afraid of.
The first of them had sounded anxious. “He was fast. You’ll need to hurry, Liege.”
The second had been unerringly confident. “I’ll get it done.”
He pulled me up to my knees, and knelt behind me, a supportive arm around my waist. He wore cologne—soapy and clean.
I tried to move, to give some struggle, but I was fading.
“Be still.”
“She’s lovely.”
“Yes,” he agreed. He suckled the wound at my neck. I twitched again, and he stroked my hair. “Be still.”
• • •
I recalled very little of the next three days, of the genetic restructuring that transformed me into a vampire. Even now, I only carry a handful of memories. Deep-seated, dull pain—shocks of it that bowed my body. Numbing cold. Darkness. A pair of intensely green eyes.
In the limo, I felt for the scars that should have marred my neck and shoulders. The vampire that attacked me hadn’t taken a clean bite—he’d torn at the skin at my neck like a starved animal. But the skin was smooth. No scars. No bumps. No bandages. I pulled my hand away and stared at the clean pale skin—and the short nails, perfectly painted cherry red.
The blood was gone—and I’d been manicured.
Staving off a wash of dizziness, I sat up. I was wearing different clothes. I’d been in jeans and a T-shirt. Now I wore a black cocktail dress, a sheath that fell to just below my knees, and three-inch-high black heels.
That made me a twenty-seven-year-old attack victim, clean and absurdly scar-free, wearing a cocktail dress that wasn’t mine. I knew, then and there, that they’d made me one of them.
The Chicagoland Vampires.
It had started eight months ago with a l
etter, a kind of vampire manifesto first published in the Sun-Times and Trib, then picked up by papers across the country. It was a coming-out, an announcement to the world of their existence. Some humans believed it a hoax, at least until the press conference that followed, in which three of them displayed their fangs. Human panic led to four days of riots in the Windy City and a run on water and canned goods sparked by public fear of a vampire apocalypse. The feds finally stepped in, ordering Congressional investigations, the hearings obsessively filmed and televised in order to pluck out every detail of the vampires’ existence. And even though they’d been the ones to step forward, the vamps were tight-lipped about those details—the fang bearing, blood drinking, and night walking the only facts the public could be sure about.
Eight months later, some humans were still afraid. Others were obsessed. With the lifestyle, with the lure of immortality, with the vampires themselves. In particular, with Celina Desaulniers, the glamorous Windy City she-vamp who’d apparently orchestrated the coming-out, and who’d made her debut during the first day of the Congressional hearings.
Celina was tall and slim and sable-haired, and that day she wore a black suit snug enough to give the illusion that it had been poured onto her body. Looks aside, she was obviously smart and savvy, and she knew how to twist humans around her fingers. To wit: The senior senator from Idaho had asked her what she planned to do now that vampires had come out of the closet.
She’d famously replied in dulcet tones, “I’ll be making the most of the dark.”
The twenty-year Congressional veteran had smiled with such dopey-eyed lust that a picture of him made the front page of the New York Times.
No such reaction from me. I’d rolled my eyes and flipped off the television.
I’d made fun of them, of her, of their pretensions.
And in return, they’d made me like them.
Wasn’t karma a bitch?
Now they were sending me back home, but returning me differently. Notwithstanding the changes my body had endured, they’d glammed me up, cleaned me of blood, stripped me of clothing, and repackaged me in their image.
They killed me. They healed me. They changed me.
The tiny seed, that kernel of distrust of the ones who’d made me, rooted.
