Flashbulbs popped, the afterimages blinding to my noctur nally adjusted eyes. Calling up some of my newfound fake-it-till-you-make-it attitude, I tapped the fingers of my left hand against the handle of my sword, and reveled in the way their eyes tightened at the corners.
Like prey.
I nibbled the edge of my lip provocatively.
“Good evening, gentlemen.”
The questions came so fast I could hardly differentiate them. “Merit, show us the sword!”
“Merit, Merit, over here!”
“Merit, how are things in Cadogan House tonight?”
“It’s a beautiful spring night in Chicago,” I said, smiling can nily, “and we’re proud to be in the Windy City.”
They asked questions. I kept to the talking points Luc had provided us last night; thank God I’d taken the time to look them over. Not that there was much to them—mostly blurbs about our love of Chicago and our desire to assimilate, to be part of the neighborhoods around us. Fortunately, those were the subjects of their questions. At least at first.
“Were you surprised to learn that the perpetrator of the park killings was a vampire?” a voice barked out. “Were you satisfied by the extradition of Celina Desaulniers?”
My smile flattened, and my heart thudded in my chest. That sounded like the kind of question Ethan and Luc feared. The kind Jamie was supposed to ask.
“No response?” the reporter asked, stepping to the front of the pack.
This time my heart nearly stopped altogether. It was a Breckenridge, but not the one I’d have expected to see. I guess everybody, vampires and humans alike, came back to Chicago eventually. “Nicholas?”
He looked the same, but older. More grave, somehow. Caesar-cut brown hair, blue eyes. The boy was gorgeous in a stoic kind of way. That lean, stoic form was currently wrapped in jeans, Dr. Martens, and a fitted gray T-shirt. He also wore a blank expression—no indication in his eyes that he knew me or that he was willing to acknowledge our shared history.
I’d often wondered what it would be like to see Nick again, if
there’d be camaraderie or something more detached. The latter, apparently, given his businesslike posture, his opening volleys.
So much for the warm reunion.
Apparently undeterred, Nick kept going. “Was the extradition of Celina Desaulniers sufficient punishment given the heinous crimes she helped commit in Chicago? For the deaths of Jennifer Porter and Patricia Long?”
Since we were apparently playing dumb about our relationship, I gave back the same all-business, vaguely condescending stare. “Celina Desaulniers committed a terrible crime against Ms. Long and Ms. Porter,” I said. I had been graciously allowed to keep my own attack secret. The fact that a Merit had become a vampire was common knowledge; the manner of my making was not, at least among humans.
“As a result of her role in their murders, she was punished. She gave up her life in the United States and her freedom for having taken part in those crimes.”
My stomach curled at the omission, at the fact that I hadn’t mentioned that Celina had been released and was, in fact, no longer serving out her sentence of imprisonment. But that little admission would invite a shitstorm of panic that I’d prefer to leave to Ethan and the other Masters.
I put on my most professional face. “If you have questions about the Houses’ reactions to that punishment,” I added, “I can direct you to our public relations staff.”
Take that, Breckenridge.
He did, arching back an arrogant brow. “Is this what the citizens of Chicago have to expect from vampires living among us? Murder? Mayhem?”
“Vampires have been in Chicago for many years, Nick.” Calling him by name was enough to invite curious stares among the other photographers. Some lowered their cameras, glanced between
us, probably wondering at the dialogue. “And we’ve lived peacefully together for a very long time.”
“So you say,” Nick said. “But how do we know that all of the city’s unsolved murders weren’t perpetrated by vamps?”
“Judging all vampires based on the actions of a single bad apple? That’s classy, Nick.”
“You’re all fanged.”
“So that justifies the prejudice?”
He shrugged again. “If the shoe fits.”
There was no mistaking the animosity in his voice. But what confused me was its source. Nick and I had broken off our high school relationship when we departed for our respective colleges—Yale’s journalism program for Nicholas, NYU’s English program for me. Our breakup hadn’t been very dramatic, both of us having reached the conclusion that we made better friends than partners. Occasional telephone calls and e-mails kept us in contact, and we’d gone our separate directions with no bad blood between us. Or so I’d thought.
That wasn’t the only strange thing. If vampires were taking hits from the Breckenridge corner, why was it Nick, not Jamie, throwing the punches? Something very odd was going on.
“Merit, Merit!”
I dragged my gaze away from Nicholas, from the bitterness in his eyes.
“Merit, any truth to the rumor that you’re seeing Morgan Greer?”
Okay, now we were back on track. Justice be damned if there was sex to discuss.
“As Cadogan House Sentinel, I see Mr. Greer quite a bit. He’s one of Chicago’s Masters, as you all know.”
They chuckled at the diversion, but pushed forward.
“How about a little romance, Merit? Are you two a hot item? That’s what our sources say.”
I smiled brightly at the reporter, a thin man with thick blond hair and a week’s worth of stubble. “You tell me who your sources are,” I said, “and I’ll answer that question.”
“Sorry, Merit. Can’t reveal a source. But they’re reliable. My word on it.”
The gaggle of reporters chuckled at the exchange.
I grinned back. “Hate to burst your bubble, but I’m not paid to take your word on things.”
The pocket of my suit coat vibrated—my cell phone. I wasn’t thrilled to leave a mysteriously angry Breckenridge at my corner, especially among curious humans with notebooks and cameras, but neither did I want to talk to whoever might be calling me in front of those curious humans. Besides, I needed to move along to other parts of the grounds. There were blocks of Cadogan House fence yet to walk. The ringing phone offered me a handy excuse to step aside.
“Good night, gentlemen,” I offered, and left them behind, still calling my name.
Slipping the buzzing cell phone from my pocket, I made a note to update Luc and Ethan on this latest Breckenridge development—right after I figured out what the hell was going on. Either we had an ignorant source who didn’t know the difference between Brecks, or we had a bad source who didn’t much care and was trying to lead us astray. I wasn’t sure which was the worse possibility.
As I moved down the block, camera strobes still flashing behind me, I lifted the phone to my ear. The shouting began almost immediately.
I pressed a hand to my other ear. “Mallory? What’s wrong?”
I managed to catch only a few words of her first volley—“Order,” “Catcher,” “magic,” “Detroit,” and what I guessed was the impetus for the phone call, the phrase “three months.”
“Hon, I need you to slow down. I can’t understand what you’re saying.”
The diatribe slowed, but she switched to a bevy of four-letter words that blistered even my jaded vampire ears.
“—and if that asshole thinks I’m going to spend three months in Detroit at some kind of internship, he is seriously mistaken. Seriously! I swear to God, Merit, I’m going postal on the next person who so much as mutters the word ‘magic.’ ”
That Catcher was the “asshole” was easy enough to guess, but the rest of it was a morass. “I’m playing catch-up here, Mal—Catcher wants to send you to Michigan for three months?”
I heard rhythmic breathing, like she was practicing La maze during a long contraction. “He talked to someone from the Order. Apparently, union or not, the Order doesn’t have a local in Chicago, notwithstanding the fact that we’re the third-freaking-biggest city in the country. Anyhoo, not your problem, that’s some kind of historical crap, and it’s part of the reason he got kicked out, so they want to send me to Detroit so I can train with some official sorcerer-type to avoid the temptation of publicly using the magic I don’t know how to use in the first place. It’s ridiculous, Merit! Ridiculous!”
I kept walking, trying to pay some attention to my surroundings as she continued the rant. Handling stuff like this would be so much easier if I didn’t have to worry about whether trolls or orcs were going to jump out from behind every lamppost. Ooh—that made me pause. Were there orcs in Chicago?
“I have to leave in two days!” she said. “And this is the real punch in the junk—no return trips to Chicago, no trips out of Detroit at all—until the internship is done.”
“I’m not sure girls technically have ‘junk,’ ” I observed, “but I take your point. Catcher has a history with the Order. Can’t he arrange something?”
Mallory snorted. “I wish. Long story short, Catcher lost his seniority—and everything else—when he opted to stay in Chicago. That’s apparently why they kicked him out—because he
wanted to stay here, and they didn’t buy that the Order needed a sorcerer, much less a local, in Chicago. He’s a little low on pull at the moment. You know, it’s a bitch there’s no part-time sorcerer school,” Mallory said. “Magic vo-tech or something. Anything like that, hon?”
I smiled at the pause in the conversation, the intermittent mumbling that indicated he’d been standing there while she referred to him as an asshole. Given the workouts he’d been putting me through lately, I was happy to know he was taking some heat of his own. I mean, I understood the need to prepare me for the worst, especially since Celina had been released, but there’s only so many times that a girl needs to squeak past the whistling blade of an antique samurai sword.
“Nope,” she finally said.
“Huh,” I said, half of my brain wondering about those details—the man was ornery and evasive whenever the Order came up—while the other half surveyed what looked like a gap in the hedge that lined the wrought-iron fence. I walked closer and picked at a couple of leaves that were barely visible in the beam of the overhead streetlight. Fortunately, upon my expert inspection, it looked like a browning spot in the greenery, not the work of a saboteur or would-be burglar. I made a note to tell . . . well, I had no idea whom to tell, but I bet we had some kind of gardener.
“Are you paying attention to me? I’m pretty much having a huge crisis here, Mer.”
“Sorry, Mal. I’m on duty, making my rounds outside.” I kept walking, surveying the dark, empty street. Not too much going on once you got past the dozen paparazzi. “The Order’s like a union, right? So can’t you file a grievance or something about this Detroit trip?”
“Hmm. Good question. Catch, can we grieve this?”
I heard mumbled conversation.
“Can’t grieve this,” Mallory finally reported back. “But I’m supposed to leave in two days! You need to get that cute butt back over here and comfort me. I mean, Detroit, Merit. Who spends three months in Detroit?”
“The million or so citizens of Detroit would be a prelim guess. And I can’t come by right now. I’m working. Can I get a rain check until after shift?”
“I guess. And FYI, Darth Sullivan is putting a crimp in our friendship. I know you’re living over there now, but you should still be at my beck and call.”
I snorted. “Darth Sullivan would disagree, but I’ll do what I can.”
“I’m heading for the Chunky Monkey,” Mal said. “Ben and Jerry will hold me until you get here.” She hung up before I could say goodbye, probably already two spoonfuls into a carton of ice cream. She’d be fine, I decided. At least until I could make it over there.
The rest of my shift passed by, thankfully, with no drama. While I was learning what I could, training when scheduled, and performing what felt like perfunctory guard duties, I had no illusions about my ability to handle the nasties that might come creeping out of the dark. Sure, I’d managed to stake Celina in the shoulder when she made her final stand against Ethan—but I’d been aiming for her heart. If something, or some
things
, gathered the strength and bravado to attack Cadogan House, me and my sword were hardly going to scare them off. I considered myself more of a first-warning unit. I might not be able to fend off any bad guys, but I could at least alert the rest of the crew—the vastly more experienced crew—to the problem.
And speaking of problems, although I knew I needed to report the latest Breckenridge developments—the fact that Nick was back in Chicago and that he’d camped out with the paparazzi
at our gate—I’d spent enough time with Ethan and Luc discussing supernatural drama over the last couple of days. Besides, I had some questions for Nick, questions I couldn’t ask in front of a bevy of reporters. Questions about Nick’s newfound hostility. Ethan and I would be at the Breckenridge estate tomorrow night. If Nick was there, I’d have time to do a little investigating of my own.
It sounded like a good plan, a solid course of action for a newbie Sentinel. Either that or a pretty detailed way to continue avoiding Ethan.
“Win-win,” I murmured with a smile.
To add a little more space between Darth Sullivan and me—and to repay Mallory for taking care of me during my own awkward supernatural transition—I got into my Volvo and drove back to Wicker Park to provide a little postshift BFF solace.
The brownstone was well lit as I drove up, even in the early hours of the morning. I didn’t bother ringing the doorbell, but walked right in and headed for the kitchen. Which smelled delicious.
“Chicken and rice,” Mallory announced from her spot in front of the stove, where she was spooning rice and sauce onto a plate. She heaped a piece of roasted chicken on top of the combo, then smiled at me. “I knew you’d want food.”
“You’re a goddess among women, Mallory Carmichael.” I took the plate to a stool at the kitchen island and tucked into the food. The wicked fast vampire metabolism was great for the waistline but awful for the appetite. It was a rare hour that didn’t involve my dreaming about grilled, roasted, or fried beast. Sure, I needed blood to survive—I was a vampire, after all—but like Mal had once said, blood was like another vitamin. It was fulfilling in a very important way. Comforting—like chicken soup for vampires. That it came from plastic bags and was delivered to our door by a company uncreatively named Blood4You didn’t
diminish the comfort, although it wasn’t much in the way of chic.