by Chloe Neill
“You did an amazing job,” Malik said.
“It’s been quite a night so far,” Ethan said, shaking his head at the offer of hot chocolate. “The mayor was concerned, but seems to be directing the pressure at the Ombudsman’s office, rather than us.”
“He can handle it,” Malik said as I took the cup of hot chocolate and sipped deeply. Brody had offered to stop for coffee, but I’d mostly wanted to get home as quickly as possible.
“He can,” Ethan agreed. “And we’ll help as we can. Seeing the river freeze—that was something altogether different.”
“Not a soul lost,” Luc said, patting his arm in congratulations. “So that’s something else to celebrate.”
“It is,” Ethan agreed. “But Sorcha’s involvement is not. The snow and temperature seem to be her first steps. You’ve seen Towerline?”
“Most stations are showing live footage,” Luc said. “It’s hard to avoid. What is it?”
“The source of the weather,” I said, and shivered involuntarily.
“Beyond that, we don’t know,” Ethan said. “She needs to change clothes. Give us a few minutes; then we’ll meet in the Ops Room. We’ll discuss the details then.”
Luc saluted. “Sire.” He glanced at me, grinned. “Mrs. Sire.”
“Nope,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m going to nope that one right there.”
We made it to the staircase but stopped when we saw the obstacle that awaited us. Helen stood there, hands clasped in front of her. Waiting.
Steady, now, Sentinel. She isn’t so bad as delusional humans.
Easy for him to say. Helen adored Ethan. Although when she looked up, she gave us both hard stares.
“Your suitcases have been taken back upstairs, and the wedding guests have left.”
Ethan nodded. “Thank you, Helen.” He took a step forward to continue up the stairs, but she held up a hand.
“Your wedding ensembles were severely damaged.” She looked at Ethan. “A Turnbull & Asser suit.” She looked at me. “A Chanel dress. Both garments would have been important parts of the House archives.”
“We were attacked.”
“I was entirely prepared to remind you of the importance of maintaining the image of this House, of looking the part. But you did right by those poor, deluded humans. So I will have the garments repaired—to the extent they can be repaired—and placed into the archive.”
“Your efficiency is appreciated, as is your concern for the House’s legacy.”
“Yes, well,” Helen said. And with an efficient nod, she stepped out of the way.
I think we got off easy, I silently said.
“Sire. Merit.”
Jinx, Ethan said, and we looked back.
“It really was a beautiful wedding. Congratulations to you both.”
With that, she disappeared down the hallway.
Compliments from Helen? We’d definitely gotten off easy.
• • •
The shower at the Portman Grand had been good. But a shower on my home turf—with Ethan scrubbing shampoo through my hair? Even better.
He let me stand under the water until I was warmed through again. The shower seemed to rinse away the night’s tension, or at least the bits that weren’t firmly dug into bone and muscle. That tension wouldn’t be alleviated until Sorcha was under wraps. And hopefully, the CPD wouldn’t let her escape their grasp this time.
I debated jeans or leathers, wondering how much more trouble we’d experience before the sun rose again. I decided on jeans. They weren’t as good in a battle, but they were more comfortable out of one. I was putting my eggs in the “no more battles tonight” basket, although I knew the odds weren’t great.
Jeans, boots, long-sleeved shirt, leather jacket, Cadogan pendant. It was my Cadogan uniform, adjusted for the sudden temperature issues.
“Come here,” Ethan said, and wrapped his arms around me. “I need a moment here, with you, in the quiet.”
Ethan was strong and usually demanding, and he always walked that particular walk. I guess I forgot that even a Master needed a break every once in a while.
“It has been an eventful first night of marriage,” he said.
“Freak magical weather, a river rescue operation, a meet with the mayor, and some questionable food choices.” I looked up at him. “We didn’t say ‘for better or for worse,’ but it was implied.”
He kissed my forehead. “One of these days we’ll have ‘better’ in abundance. There will be quiet evenings with books and good whiskey, trips to exotic locales, and abundant Mallocakes.”
He didn’t say there’d be evenings with a child, the joy and exhaustion of that experience. It had been an emotional roller coaster—accepting the fact that being a vampire meant no child, letting hope lift again with Gabriel’s prophecy, having that dream dampened by a heavy dose of fear. Between Gabriel’s pronouncements, there’d been tentative joy, the possibility that I could walk that line between vampire and human—have Ethan, immortality, strength, and a child. Now that line seemed improbably thin.
I’d never been good with uncertainty. So I pushed it down, focused on what was real, what was certain. Ethan beside me, the House behind me.
“That sounds pretty good,” I said, forcing a smile.
Sometimes what was had to be enough.
• • •
The Ops Room was the House’s security hub, with stations to monitor security cams along one wall, a conference table, an enormous wall screen for reviewing data and mapping locations, and computer stations for research.
Informally, the room featured a tub of beef jerky that needed replacing at least every couple of weeks. I hadn’t yet heard a salty beef joke, but I had to assume one of the guards had one in the chamber and primed. It was really overdue.
The Ops Room was in the basement, along with access to the House parking lot, the House’s impressive arsenal, and one of my favorite spots, the House training room.
We found Luc in his usual position—at the end of the conference table, ankles crossed on the tabletop. He was flicking a finger across the screen of a tablet, probably geared toward the security app he’d designed for the House. He glanced up when we entered, more hot chocolate in hand, this time with a dash of Bailey’s.
“Sire and First Lady,” he said, sitting up and kicking down his feet. “The Cadogan House Guard Corps has voted that you’re no longer allowed to leave the House. It just seems safer that way.”
“For all involved,” Ethan agreed, and sat down at the table. “Any developments?”
“Jules?” Luc asked, glancing at Juliet, who sat at the other end of the table, a pile of books and papers in front of her. She typed something onto the built-in tablet, and an image of the cloud snapped onto the screen. “She’s patched us into the building across the street, which gives us a pretty good view of the site.”
It was a good view—in color and surprisingly clear for a webcam, especially at night. The ferocity and enormity of the cloud came through loud and clear. For better or worse, it didn’t look like anything had changed. The cloud continued to spin, like a tornado waiting for a moment to strike.
“No change,” Luc said. “Except that the temp continues to drop. It’s fifteen degrees out there right now. The river is solid ice.”
“How wide-ranging is the effect?” Ethan asked.
“Split-screen it, Jules.”
“On that,” she said, catching her lip with her teeth as she typed. An isothermal map appeared on-screen, with bands of color showing each temperature change. Outside Chicago, the temperatures were warm, the bands in shades of green. The closer you got to downtown, the bluer each band, and the colder the temperature.
So the temperature effect was limited to Chicago, and it was centered downtown. This wasn’t the first time we’d seen this kind of geographic f
ocus from Sorcha.
I looked down at Juliet. “Can you superimpose Sorcha’s alchemical web on top of this?”
She frowned, looked down at the tablet again. “I think so? Let me play with this a second . . . I have to find the right image.”
She tapped keys, looked up at the screen. A photo of Captain America hovered above the city.
“And that is clearly the wrong file,” she said. “Someone has been saving graphics files in the work folder again.” Cough. Cough.
We all looked at Luc.
“Why would you blame me for that?”
We kept looking at Luc.
“Just doing my research,” he said. “Captain America versus a vampire. Who wins?”
That actually was an interesting question, but this wasn’t the time or place for it.
“Just a sec,” Juliet said. It took more than a few seconds. It took images of Batman, Black Widow, and the Falcon before the bright green grid lowered itself to the map she’d pulled up.
Sorcha had worked her magic over the city in a very specific pattern of alchemical hot spots intended to form a kind of web around the city. Tonight’s freezing temps coincided with that web almost exactly, with the coldest point centered over the Towerline building.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Luc said.
“Either Sorcha really likes returning to the scene of the crime,” I said, “or she’s making use of what she did before.”
“Maybe she’s taking advantage of something left behind,” Ethan said. “Capitalizing on the magic she spilled into the alchemical web during her last trip?”
“Maybe,” I said. “Catcher thinks that’s what’s causing the delusions, after all.”
“It would take a lot of energy to freeze the river,” Ethan murmured as he peered at the charts.
I wrapped my hands around the mug Margot had filled for me, let my fingers draw warmth from the slick ceramic . . . and realized what was happening.
“Oh,” I said.
Ethan turned to me. “Oh?”
I took his hand, pressed it against the mug. “Warm?”
“Yes?”
“Because your fingers are absorbing the heat?”
“Yes—oh.” He cocked his head at the map. “Oh.”
“Oh,” Luc said, gaze darting from mug to map. “Very good, Sentinel.”
“The cloud formation is some kind of heat sink,” I said. “It’s pulling heat from the atmosphere. That’s why it’s colder the closer you get to Towerline and the formation.”
“She’s pulling the heat out of Chicago,” Luc said. “She’s going to freeze the city?”
“Possibly,” Ethan said quietly. “Although, as Catcher pointed out, that’s not much of a threat in Chicago. We’ve dealt with blizzards before.”
“Maybe she hopes to ring in another ice age,” Juliet suggested.
“Maybe,” Ethan said, but still didn’t sound entirely convinced. “In case that’s the plan, ready the House. Check our supplies, the emergency tunnels, the generators.”
“On that,” Luc said, pointing a finger at Juliet. She nodded, turned back to her computer, began making preparations. As she did that, I sent a message to Jeff and Catcher about the weather.
“The delusions and the weather have Towerline in common,” I said, and explained to Luc what we’d learned from Jeff about two of the humans’ connections to the building.
“But there’s no obvious connection between the delusions and the weather,” Luc said.
“Not that we can tell so far,” Ethan said, and lifted his gaze to the map again. “But Towerline is clearly the key. Perhaps Mr. Stiles can give us some insight about the delusions, and that will give us insight into the rest of it.” He pushed back his chair, a signal that it was time to leave. “We’ll see what he has to say.”
“Before you go,” Luc said, rising to meet us, “Linds and I got something for you. She’s on patrol but wanted me to give it to you.”
“You didn’t need to—,” Ethan began, but Luc shook his head.
“We wanted to.” He rose and walked to his desk, opened a drawer, and pulled out a tub of cashews.
“Oooh,” I said, but Luc shook his head.
“Not for you, Sentinel. This one’s for both of you.” He pulled out a small box wrapped in gleaming foil paper, a silver bow on top.
“Our congratulations,” Luc said, and offered the box over his arm like he was presenting a gift to his king. Which I guess wasn’t far from the truth.
I put a hand at Ethan’s back as he pulled off the paper, revealing a pretty blue box the color of a robin’s egg. He opened it, pulled back delicate white tissue paper. His smile blossoming, he showed it to me. Nestled inside the box was a small silver rectangle with SULLIVAN / MERIT etched in elegant capital letters.
I ran a finger along the smooth, glinting edge.
“It’s for the door of your apartments,” Luc said. “We thought it would be a nice touch—reminding everyone that it’s a shared space now.”
There might have been chaos outside the House. Magic we didn’t understand, and enemies we couldn’t yet identify. But here, inside our halls, there was family.
“That is a wonderful thought,” I said. “Thank you and Lindsey so much.”
“You’re welcome, Sentinel. I’ll ask Helen to have it installed for you so you can be on your way.”
“Thank you,” Ethan said, and offered his hand. “It is appreciated.”
They clasped hands, the moment full of friendship and feels. And being alphas in every sense of the word, they shook it off quickly enough.
“Get out of here, you crazy kids. And be careful around the criminals.”
That was a good life lesson.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
NIMBY
Chicago kept its supernatural prisoners away from the human population. The factory comprised a dozen buildings, in the same red brick, of course, in a circle around the largest one, where the prisoners were kept.
Brody parked the SUV at the end of the gravel road near the newly installed double fence. If it hadn’t been for that fence, and the towers being erected along the perimeter, you wouldn’t have known this was a prison. But those towers would probably house guards soon enough. Guards with guns and aspen stakes.
The snow was still coming down, had thrown a pretty white blanket across the factory grounds, which made everything look a little bit cleaner, a little less prisony. It also dampened sound, so we could hardly hear the city’s noise from here.
My grandfather pulled his big, boxy sedan next to ours, climbed out of the car. He’d donned knitted gloves and a matching hat against the cold, probably something Robert’s wife, Elizabeth, had made for him. She was a knitter. Not that she deigned to talk to me these days, but that was a matter for another day . . .
“That was a good thought,” my grandfather said, stepping toward me at the prison gate. “Seeing if the change in temperature coincided with Sorcha’s web.”
“Any idea why they match?” I asked.
My grandfather shook his head. “Plenty of hypotheses, but nothing concrete. We may not have anything until she makes her next move.” He cast a glance at the sky, which was obscured by the falling snow. “And there’s no telling what that might be.” He glanced back at me. “You’ll be all right?”
He was thinking of Logan, the vampire who’d made me. I wasn’t, or hadn’t been. That was part of the deal I’d made with myself—I’d let him live, but put him out of my mind. He wouldn’t control my life.
My eyes went cold. “If he’s smart, he’ll stay far away from me.”
“He’s in a different sector of the ward,” my grandfather said. “And the humans are in a different building altogether.”
“Then we’ll be fine,” I said, and Ethan put a hand at my back.
That’s my girl.
A guard in a golf cart pulled up inside the gate, climbed out to open it.
“Mr. Merit,” he said, then nodded at us.
“I believe this is your ride,” my grandfather said.
I looked back at him. “You aren’t going with us?”
“I think you’ll have better luck if you talk to him alone. He wants to apologize to you”—he looked at Ethan—“and he came to you for help. He might be more open without me there.” He smiled. “But ask good questions.”
I nodded. “We’ll do our best.”
• • •
I wasn’t sure what this building had been used for—kilns, maybe? Storage? It was large and open, with brick walls and a concrete floor dotted by cubes, the pods in which the supernaturals were held. Winston was in a back corner of the room.
The guard escorted us silently to the pod, pointed to the yellow stripe around the box. “Stay on this side of the box,” he said, then looked at his watch. “You have fifteen minutes.”
He started a timer with a beep, then moved to a station along the wall with a computer and security camera.
Winston Stiles sat on the edge of a metal bed fitted into the wall, a short mattress on top of it. His elbows were on his knees, his hands linked together, his eyes closed. His brow was heavy, his mouth moving in silent speech, as if he was saying a prayer.
He seemed smaller in the pale blue jumpsuit. He looked cleaner, his hair brushed and face shaved. He also looked more alert, and a little less delusional. But his skin was still pale, his eyes hollow, his cheeks sunken.
“Mr. Stiles,” Ethan said.
He blinked, turned his head toward us. And his eyes widened, horror blooming there. “It’s you.” He jumped up, ran to the bars so quickly I stepped in front of Ethan, pushing him back. From the sound, that didn’t make Ethan happy, and it unnerved Mr. Stiles.
He wrapped his fingers around the bars that lined the front of his cube, looked at me with pleading eyes. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry about what happened.” He looked at Ethan. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to do—I was overcome. I wanted help, and I couldn’t figure out how to make it stop, and I just . . . I just lost it.” His face fell, guilt heavy around his eyes as he looked back at me. “I’m sorry.”
