Biting Cold (23 page)

“Do you know what’s up?” Jonah asked.

“Not that I’m free to say. Suffice it to say, the GP is up to something.”

“They usually are,” Jonah said with a grin. “We try to stay under the radar. It’s a strategy Cadogan might want to consider.”

“
Har-har
. You know, we can’t all afford to keep our heads in the sand. Especially not when crazies keep targeting us.”

“You do have an awful track record. And I don’t want to dwell on this or make things awkward, but since your boyfriends have a tendency to wind up deceased, it’s probably better nothing happened between us.”

I gave him an arch look. “That only happened once.” My tone was dry, but I was secretly glad he’d brought it up and put it out there. Better to make a joke out of it than to have something weird and awkward between us.

“I guess that’s true,” Jonah said. “I mean, Morgan got promoted.”

“You are just hilarious. Are we the only ones here?”

“On the sides of good and righteousness? No. There are two more Red Guards in the crowd. They’ll stay quiet unless something pops.”

“Like an angel of justice taking them down with his giant sword of righteousness?”

“That sounds like the tagline for a bad porn flick.”

“It does, doesn’t it? And yet, it’s true. Or so we suspect. We haven’t exactly had a chance to ask Tate if he’s a dispenser of wrath.”

He smiled down at me. “You know, every time I hang out with you, things get weirder.”

I nodded. It was hard to argue with that. “It’s a personal flaw. I’m making a resolution for next year to become much more average. Ordinary, even.”

“I’m not sure that’s possible. Any known weaknesses for our angelic friend?”

“None that I’m aware of. And it could be friends, plural. Only one showed up to Paulie’s party, but who knows what they’re thinking right now. We can’t even differentiate between them.”

Jonah linked his fingers together and stretched out his arms, limbering up for the fight. “I do like to play for the underdog.”

He might have been bluffing; he might have meant it. Either way, it was good to have a partner who kept his sense of humor in the face of pretty bad odds.

“So how are we playing this?” he asked.

I offered up the plan Ethan had suggested. “Let’s each take a column. When the cops come out, keep an eye out for the Tates, or one of them. I can’t imagine he’ll wait around and risk missing his chance. And the cops know he was involved in Paulie’s murder, so he’ll either have to be in disguise—”

“Or he’ll have to come in with a bang and not give them time to wrestle him down,” Jonah said.

“Exactly. A quick strike either way. I’m sure he could take out a cop or two pretty easily, but there are a lot of people here, and a lot of cops. Unless he wants to be riddled with bullet holes, he’ll have to get in, get it done, and get out. So if we can throw him off,
slow down his schedule, anything, we might have a chance to keep him from killing anyone.”

“Even if we stop him—or them—tonight, he might take another run at it.”

“He might,” I agreed. “The cops’ attorneys have already been warned Tate was coming, but they didn’t believe it. Maybe if he shows himself tonight, they’ll take the threat seriously. Maybe they can be put into protective custody or something.”

“Any chance this ends well?”

“I can’t imagine that it will,” I said. “But we fight the good fight anyway.”

“Spoken just like an RG member. I’m so proud.” He gave me a supportive clap on the back. “I’ll take the west column. You take the east.”

“Sounds good. Good luck.”

“You, too.”

Jonah disappeared into the crowd, and within seconds the building’s doors opened. The protestors began screaming and chanting en masse, their signs bobbing up and down with the new burst of energy.

The attorneys came out first—four men in expensive suits and probably equally high-maintenance egos. They were followed by the officers—four men of various ages and races, still in uniforms, despite how much they’d tarnished them.

They walked down the steps and grouped together at the podium. The first attorney adjusted the microphone.

“Ladies and gentlemen. Members of the press. We are thrilled tonight that justice has been done in Chicago.”

There was no sign of Tate, but he couldn’t be far behind a statement like that.

Someone tapped my shoulder. “Hey, you can’t have that here.”

At the same time, I caught sight of a tall, dark-haired man moving through the crowd. My heart quickened.

“Hey, did you hear what I said? Hand over the sword or we’re taking a little trip into the lockup.”

I glanced behind me. A uniformed CPD cop—a barrel-chested man with a thick mustache—tapped my sword with his stick. A second cop moved in closer, probably thinking I was the threat they were supposed to be watching for.

“Sir, the guy who killed Paulie—the drug lord?—he might be in the crowd.”

“Yeah, I’m sure.” He stuck the stick back into his utility belt but put a hand on the butt of his service weapon. “Give me the sword, ma’am, or we’re going to have some trouble. And there are a lot of uniforms here tonight. You don’t want to start something you can’t finish.”

I glanced back at the crowd. Just as the attorney finished his remarks and the cops stepped up to the podium, the dark-haired man had wedged his way through the crowd to the front of the rope line. Now that he was clear of the crowd, I could see his face.

It was Tate. One of them, anyway.

I looked back and appealed to the cops. “It’s definitely him—Seth Tate. Do you see him? He’s standing at the front of the crowd. Dark hair?”

The second cop, a little savvier than his friend, frowned and looked over, but the first cop wasn’t buying it.

“All right, I’m taking that weapon, and you’re coming with me.” He put a hand on the sheath of my sword and pulled hard to dislodge it from my belt.

“I’m really sorry about this,” I said, chopping his hand away with a swipe of my arm and whipping out my sword.

Tate picked that moment to act—ripping the rope away and stepping into the gap between the crowd and the cops. He
screamed out—that same primordial noise we’d heard in the silo. He wore a trench coat. He whipped it off to reveal a naked torso, and summoned the giant broadsword back into his hands.

And that wasn’t all he was carrying.

Tate arched his back and held out his sword. As the horrified crowd looked on, great black wings sprouted from his shoulder blades. The purple-black membranes of his wings were marked by veins and tendons, stretched taut by long, thin bones that ended in needle-sharp claws. His wingspan must have been twenty feet. Twenty terrifying feet. They flapped once, then twice, filling the air with the scents of sulfur and smoke.

A shock of base fear ran through me. It was easy to think of Tate as a storybook creature, but this was no storybook. He was something old and fundamental to the earth, created not to protect men, but to
judge
them. He would see into your heart of hearts, and if he found you lacking, you had only yourself to blame for your suffering.

My worry wood was so
not
going to help with this.

The crowd screamed. I was distracted by the sights and sounds before me, and the second cop managed to pull the sword from my hand.

I could have fought him for it, but I really didn’t want to assault a cop if I didn’t have to. I opted for pleading instead and held out my hand. “Please, someone has to stop him. I can try, but only with my sword.”

Tate probably had no idea I was in the crowd and most certainly didn’t care if I was being handled by the cops. Tate was busy fighting a battle of his own. He pushed away a uniformed cop from the crowd who tried to stop him and swiped his sword at one of the released cops. The cop stumbled backward to get away, but the sword caught him on the chin, and he screamed out.

While everyone else ran away from the monster and his
weapon, Jonah jumped right into the fray, unsheathing his own sword. Before Tate noticed he was there, Jonah struck out and gashed the thin webbing of one of Tate’s wings.

Tate screamed out and turned, his giant wing pivoting through the air and throwing Jonah backward.

“Jonah!” I yelled out, then looked back at the second cop, pleading in my eyes. “Please, for God’s sake, give me back my sword.”

He looked nervously between me and the drama that was playing out a few dozen feet in front of him. “What the hell is that?”

Cops trained for a lot of things, but likely nothing had prepared this poor guy for what he was seeing.

I picked an easy answer; this wasn’t the time for complicated honesty. “He’s a monster. He’s something that doesn’t belong here, but he’s going to do a lot of damage until he’s gone. I’m a vampire, and I think I can stop him, but I need my sword.”

Still nothing. The guy was stuck in a paralyzing panic, so I broke out the big gun.

“I’m Caroline Merit,” I said. “Chuck Merit’s granddaughter.”

His eyes cleared, understanding blossoming in his expression. Not for me, most likely, but for my grandfather, who’d walked a beat in Chicago for years before he’d become Seth Tate’s Ombudsman.

The officer Tate had nicked on the chin screamed as Tate cut him down with the sword. Other cops in the crowd fired, but their bullets had no effect on him.

So he had magical weapons, giant wings, and a sword, and he was immune to bullets. This was getting better and better.

“I need to go now!” I told the cop.

It took him a second, but he finally nodded and handed back my sword. “Go! Go!”

I nodded and took it, savoring the bite of leather cording
against my palm. I yelled out over the barrage of bullets, “Please try to stop them from firing at me, if you can. It won’t kill me, but it will hurt like a son of a bitch.”

The cop nodded back, and I watched his eyes flatten as his instincts took over. He’d be fine.

“Hold your fire!” he yelled out, arms flapping the air to get the others’ attention. “Hold your fire!”

The shots trailed off and finally stopped. The attorneys had abandoned their clients, leaving three of the released cops frozen in fear on the stairs. The fourth lay arms and legs akimbo on the step below them.

I said a silent prayer, gripped my sword, and moved forward.

“Tate!” I called out when I reached the bottom step.

He stopped and froze, and I suddenly knew how every movie heroine who’d tried to save someone by diverting the monster’s attention felt. The obvious problem with that approach? It put the monster’s attention squarely on you.

Slowly, Tate turned toward me. His face so handsome but so deadly. His eyes burned like blue fire, fed by zealotry and a power that eclipsed anything else I’d seen before.

It seemed the rest of the city fell quiet to hear him speak. “This isn’t your fight, Ballerina.”

He recognized me—but did that mean he was Tate Part One or Tate Part Two?

I took another step. “You’ve attacked my city, Tate. That makes it my fight. Walk away and leave them be.”

“You think you can take me?”

In the corner of my eye, I saw Jonah nearing Tate again, back on his feet with his sword in hand.

“Whether I can or not is irrelevant. I will try because you don’t have the right to attack these men.”

“Justice is not being served,” he said.

“That’s an issue for humans. It’s not your concern.”

“And yet here you are,” he said, reaching out to grab one of the other three released cops by the neck. The cop screamed and kicked, but Tate was unmoved. He held him in the crook of his arm like the cop was nothing more than a game animal, caught for sport.

Or in this case, to prove a point.

“This city is corrupt!” Tate yelled out, thrusting the sword into the air with his free hand, the fervor of a zealot in his voice. “It must be cleansed, and mine is the sword that will see it purified.”

It was time to bring him down a peg. I took another step forward. “You know, Tate, if I had a quarter for every time a politician promised to clean up this city, I’d be a millionaire by now.”

I heard an appreciative chuckle in the crowd, as Jonah stepped slowly toward Tate from behind as I moved closer in front.

“Justice will be done,” Tate said, then threw the cop to the ground and raised his sword to strike.

Neither Jonah nor I wasted any time. Jonah struck Tate from the back, and I launched toward him, katana in the air, from the front. I aimed for his sword and managed to knock him off target. Our swords clanged together with body-shaking force, and I hit the ground in a roll before popping up again.

“Run!” I told the cop, and he squirmed away.

Tate roared out his displeasure, turning to swipe at Jonah, which sent his wings flying in my direction. I jumped back, but the tip of a claw grazed my stomach, sending a sharp spike of pain across my belly.

I cursed but hopped to my feet again. Jonah and Tate began sparring, Jonah’s thin, sleek katana an odd foil against Tate’s massive sword—like a samurai fighting a medieval knight.

They battled in a circle, Jonah moving spritely up and down the stairs as Tate moved after him.

The cop who’d given me my sword back was moving toward the released cop, who still lay motionless on the ground.

It was my turn to tap in. “Tate!”

He stopped and glanced back at me, eyes narrowed like a predator. Or a crazed angel.

I crooked a finger at him, then loosened my knees and positioned my sword. “Come and get me.”

Tate took a step forward, but it wasn’t to get to me. Instead, he launched toward the cop who’d given me my sword back and lofted his sword in the air.

There was no way I was going to reach him in time. I said the only thing that occurred to me…and did the very thing Ethan had forbidden me to do.

“Tate!”

He looked at me, ferocity in his eyes.

“Let him go,” I said. “Take me instead.”

I’d hoped to throw Tate off his mark or at least gain a little time. But he didn’t pause to think.

“Very well,” he said. Before I could move away, Tate lunged forward and grabbed my wrist.

My skin flamed beneath his touch, and everything went black.