Biting Bad: A Chicagoland Vampires Novel (27 page)

I spied a pile of mail on a table behind the couch and walked over to inspect it. I flipped through the stack but found only bills, magazines, and solicitations from charities. Nothing that hinted about a problem.

A postcard fell from the stack that I tried to rearrange on the table in its previous position. I bent down to pick it up, when a glint of something on the carpet caught my eye.

I put the postcard back on the table and walked closer.

There, in the middle of her living room rug, was a silver and glass syringe, with an old-fashioned plunger of two circles of metal pressed together.

I was smart enough not to touch evidence with my bare hands. I walked back to the kitchen and searched through drawers until I found a box of zip-top plastic bags. I took one, apologizing for my thievery, and walked back to the living room.

The bag opened with a snap, and I turned it inside out, using it like a glove to pick up the syringe—and give it a closer inspection. Unfortunately, the plunger had been fully depressed, the chamber empty. Not even a drop of liquid remained inside. I wasn’t sure it could tell us anything about Brooklyn’s problem, but it was still the best clue we had at the moment.

I flipped the bag around so it enclosed the syringe, then sealed it shut. I locked up the apartment again and hightailed it to my car again as if monsters were on my heels.

When I made it to the car again, I pulled out my phone.

Jonah answered quickly.

“It’s Merit. I found something. A syringe.”

“A syringe? Of what?”

“I don’t know. It’s empty. It was lying on the living room floor. And it’s the old-fashioned kind—glass, not plastic. Maybe that’s the medicine she mentioned?”

“It could be, but I don’t know. What was she doing with a syringe? She’s a vampire.”

“Could it be something, let’s say, recreational?” A few months ago, a vampire drug called “V” had made its way around the city, but we’d shut down the supply.

“God, I don’t know. She doesn’t really seem the type. She’s into clean eating and fitness. What was she doing with a syringe?” He asked me, but it was clear from his absent tone he was musing over the question himself.

“I don’t know. Maybe we can ask Detective Jacobs to take a look at it. Catcher said my grandfather’s doing him some favors, so maybe we can get a little quid pro quo.”

“Yeah, maybe. Do you think someone broke in? And used the syringe on her?”

“I don’t know. The apartment didn’t look disturbed, and it didn’t look like there was a break-in. Maybe she let them in?”

“Did you find anything else?”

“Not a thing. Everything else in the apartment looked completely normal. There wasn’t much food. She hadn’t had blood, as far as I could tell. There were untouched bottles in the fridge, and no empties in the trash. Wilted flowers in the living room, and the bed was unmade. I’m not sure if she’s been gone, or stayed in bed.”

“Thank you for checking.”

“You’re welcome. Have you heard from the doctor?”

“Only that she’s checked in and he’s running tests. He doesn’t expect to know anything for a little while.”

“Let me know what you find out. Are you okay otherwise?”

“Yeah, we’re all tucked into Grey House 2.0. Security’s set.”

“Glad to hear it. Give me a call if you need me. And I’ll let you know if we find anything with the syringe.”

“Thanks, Merit.”

The line went dead, but I still had calls to make. I needed to check in at the House and make arrangements to get the syringe to someone who could take a look at it.

“Ops Room,” said Lindsey.

“It’s Merit.”

“Speakerphone?”

“Yes, please.”

“And you’re live,” Lindsey said. “Luc and I are in the room with the temps. Say hello, temps.”

“Hello, temps,” they ridiculously muttered in tandem.

“The Grey House vamps are tucked in,” I said. “Everything okay on your end?”

“Fine,” Luc said. “The transition was smooth. Jonah’s very good at his job.”

“Yes, he is,” I said. “But we’ve got a new wrinkle. A vampire wandered up to the new Grey House digs. She was nearly unconscious, and completely emaciated. Turns out, she’s a friend of Jonah’s. They were supposed to meet earlier this week, but she didn’t show up. The Grey House doc rushed her to the ER.”

“Does he know what was wrong?”

“Not a thing. She kept mentioning ‘medicine.’” I cleared my throat, preparing for my confession. “So, I might have used her keys to get into her apartment. And I might have wandered around a little bit and found a syringe, the old-fashioned glass kind.”

“I am surprised and pleased, Sentinel. You’re getting some balls on you after all. No offense.”

“None taken.”

“I presume you grabbed the syringe?”

“I did, and in a plastic bag to keep my contaminates off, since I’m a forensic expert after hours of crime scene shows in Lindsey’s room.” We tended toward pizza and television for girls’ nights.

“I’m going to see if my grandfather can get it to the CPD and figure out what might have been in it.”

“Good girl. Random, though, isn’t it?”

“It is. And that’s what’s bothering me. Even if she’d injected herself, or been injected by someone else, what was the point? She’s a vampire. She’d have healed from any illness. As far as I could tell, she was in her apartment for days, then crawled out to find Jonah.”

“Weird,” Luc said. “That’s an odd set of circumstances, not that we’re low on those right now. Anyway, I’ll tell Ethan.”

“Please do. I’m going to call my grandfather and take the syringe over there.”

“Got it,” Luc said. “Stay in touch. Things are calm here for now, all things considered. But that could change at any minute.”

I took that as a hint to get to work. Two calls down, I prepared to dial up the third. Catcher answered immediately.

“Catcher.”

“Hey, it’s Merit. Are you guys around? I’ve actually got something I’d like you to take a look at.”

“What’s that?”

“A syringe. We think it has something to do with a sick vampire that’s also a friend of Jonah’s.”

“How does a vampire get sick?” he asked.

“Presumably from whatever was in the syringe. I checked out her apartment. It was on the floor. I grabbed it, was hoping you could get it to Detective Jacobs.”

“You’ve escalated to breaking and entering?” Catcher mused. “I’ll not mention that to your grandfather.”

“Please don’t.”

“I’m out,” Catcher said. “Jeff and I both left early. It is Valentine’s Day, you know.”

“I’m aware,” I said dryly.

“Your grandfather was talking to Jacobs about their little forensic mystery, but he’s home now. He’ll be happy to see you. I’ll check in when I’m done here.”

“Roger that,” I said, and ended the call, then sent Ethan a message:
TAKING EVIDENCE TO GRANDFATHER. LUC HAS DETAILS. HOME AFTERWARD.

I tapped the screen for a moment, thinking about the surprise I’d planned and debating whether to tell him. But if I couldn’t actually give him a decent Valentine’s Day, the least I could do was tell him I’d tried.

I HOPED TO GRAB TT FOR DELAYED VALENTINE’S DINNER, BUT VAMPIRES INTERVENED.

TT?
Ethan asked, and I sighed with pity.

TUSCAN TERRACE, YOU TROGLODYTE. SORRY AGAIN FOR POSTPONEMENT.

LIFE GOES ON,
Ethan philosophically answered.
EVEN FOR TROGLODYTES. AND UNLIKE TROGLODYTES, I’M NOT GOING ANYWHERE.

God, I loved that man.

—

Now that I had toured northern Chicago, it was time to head south. My grandfather lived in a working-class house in a working-class neighborhood, precisely the type of place my father avoided. Unlike my father, Grandfather didn’t believe he had to prove himself by having the biggest or fanciest of anything.

The streets in this neighborhood weren’t plowed as well as other places, and the street signs were in need of repair. But the people were good, and that was what kept my grandfather here.

The driveway held only my grandfather’s giant boat of an Oldsmobile; Catcher, Jeff, and Marjorie, the admin, were gone. The living room light was on.

I pulled up to the curb and grabbed my katana and the plastic bag from the passenger seat. Maybe it was time to find a messenger bag to compliment my leathers, something I could transport my goods in. As I locked the door, I wondered if they made specialized messenger bags for vampires with straps for Blood4You bottles, hidden pockets for emergency weapons, and a flap for the registration cards we were required to carry.

I am a nerd,
I thought to myself, slamming the car door.

I carefully navigated the ice at the edge of the street, then hopped onto a dry spot of sidewalk.

I was excited to see my grandfather, glad I had evidence in hand, and optimistic we might find something useful.

But in that excitement, I was oblivious.

The push came from behind, a strike that sent me reeling forward into the snow. I dropped the plastic bag and used my free hand to unsheathe my katana, but the push, like so much else, had been a distraction.

Time slowed to a crawl. I jumped to my feet, snow glinting off the steel in my hand, and ran toward the front door.

But they’d been ready, the plan under way. Three more ran from the back of the house to the front, the bottles already lit in their hands.

“Grandpa!” I screamed as they tossed the Molotov cocktails through the windows, still running through the snow.

The front of the house exploded, flames rushing through the windows and sending a spray of glass and fire and heat into the yard. The barrage hit me, full force, and threw me backward into the snow.

But I felt no pain, no fear.

There was no thinking, no rationalizing, no weighing of cost.

There was only
do
.

I dropped my sword, ran toward the flames, and leaped into the fire.

HELL HATH NO FURY

T
he front of the house was gone. There remained only a curtain of rising flames and burning debris. I landed in the middle of a conflagration, the fire crackling and climbing the walls to the ceiling as if it were a breathing thing. Like the fire was made of a thousand hands, all grasping upward, all climbing from some hell down below.

I’d seen a fire before, but I’d forgotten how loud it was. Loud and hazy and chemical. The smoke was blinding and seared my throat with each breath, but that was irrelevant now. I was a vampire; he was not. I’d heal. I couldn’t guarantee he would.

But that I was a vampire didn’t mean the burns hurt less; they’d just heal faster. I covered my face with a crooked arm, but sparks flew like horizontal rain, peppering me with stinging ash.

I ignored it.

“Grandpa!” I yelled over the roaring of the fire. I stumbled through the living room, which was empty, and into the kitchen, hands outstretched, feeling my way through the house with clumsy fingers. Thinking he might have been in his bedroom, I searched for the wall that led to the hallway. “Grandpa! Where are you?”

I pretended I was a child, sleeping over for a visit with my grandparents, moving through the house in the dark for a drink of water. I’d done it a thousand times, knew my way around the house even in utter darkness. I closed my eyes and willed my mind to remember to search for the clues that would get me where I needed to go.

I remembered, as a child, fumbling for the light switch on the left-hand wall. I reached out, groping blindly until I found smooth plastic, and then empty space. That was the hallway.

As the fire grew behind me, and the smoke thickened, I advanced. “Grandpa!”

I stumbled over an obstacle and fell down, then reached back to figure out what it had been. My fingers found a sharp corner—it was a bureau, a piece of furniture that had once stood in the hallway, holding my grandmother’s tablecloths and napkins. Sentimentality hitting me, I grabbed the only fragment of fabric I could feel—probably a doily—and stuffed it into my jacket.

One grandparent down, one to go.

“Grandpa? Where are you?”

“Merit!”

I froze. The sound was faint, but distinctly his. “Grandpa? I can hear you! Keep talking!”

“Merit . . . Go . . .
out . . . house
!”

I caught only intermittent words—“Out . . . house!”—but the meaning was clear enough. Those words also sounded like they were coming from far away. But I was feet from the bedroom. . . .

He wasn’t in the bedroom, I realized. He was in the basement.

The basement door was through the kitchen, so I’d have to backtrack and grope my way back to that side of the house—and then figure out a way to get him up again.

I dropped to the ground, where the air was still breathable and fresher, and crawled across the remains of the floor, ignoring the burning ash and glass beneath my hands. Adrenaline was pushing me now, sending me, regardless of the obstacle, toward the man who’d been like a father to me.

I crawled slowly forward, burned boards creaking beneath me as they struggled to hold up the remaining weight. I froze, not even taking a breath, before moving forward again.

My movement hadn’t been light enough.

Without warning, the boards beneath me snapped, sending me free-falling to the basement.

I landed with a bounce atop a jumble of boards, debris, and the shag carpeting I was suddenly glad my grandfather had kept. The fall knocked the air from my lungs, and for a moment I sucked in air as my body remembered how to breathe again.

Unfortunately, the craving for oxygen gave way to pain as my senses returned. I’d fallen on my side, which was now racked by a piercing pain. Slowly, ignoring the stabbing sensation, I got to my feet to move again.

“Grandpa?”

“Here, Merit.” He coughed, weakly enough that my heart nearly stopped.

“I’m coming, Grandpa. Hold on. I will be right there.”

I searched frantically through smoke and ash, trying to fulfill my promise, but it was nearly pitch-black in the basement, and I couldn’t find him.

The heat climbed as the fire roared above us. I pushed the most obvious question—assuming I survived this trip, how in God’s name was I going to get him safely out again?—from my mind, and focused on the task at hand, on breaking it into its smallest components.

Step one: Find my grandfather.

A burst of fire suddenly rushed above my head. Terrifying . . . but revealing. A few feet in front of me I saw a glint of light—the firelight dancing on the face of my grandfather’s watch. I dropped to my knees in ashy carpet, pushing aside half-burned books and pieces of what I assumed was Jeff’s computer.

I grabbed his hands.

“Hi, Grandpa,” I said, tears rushing my eyes.

He was on his back, surrounded by rubble. He squeezed my hands, which was a good sign, but across his abdomen was a gigantic wooden beam. It must have supported the basement ceiling and main floor.

Panic quickly set in, and I had to consciously remind myself to breathe slowly. A hyperventilating vampire would do no one any good.

One step at a time,
I reminded myself. Step two: Put on a good face, and get him untangled from the burning remains of his house.

“What in God’s name have you gotten yourself into this time?” I said with a mock laugh, brushing his hair from his face.

He coughed again, each sputter sending an uncomfortable torque through my gut.

“I need a babysitter,” he said.

“Apparently so. You appear to have most of the ceiling on your legs. I’m going to try to move it now.”

Like an athlete preparing for a dead lift, I squatted, knees bent, and tucked my hands under the beam. “All right, Grandpa. On three. One . . . two . . . three!”

I put every ounce of strength—biological and supernatural—into my arms and thighs, and I lifted with all my might.

The beam didn’t budge.

Fear—and lack of oxygen—tightened my chest. It was getting harder to focus, and bright spots were beginning to appear in the corners of my vision.

This plan might go horribly, horribly wrong.

And for the first time, it occurred to me to actually ask for help.

Ethan?
I asked, trying the telepathic connection between us.
Can you hear me?

But I got no response.

“So, Grandpa, you’ve managed to get this thing pretty wedged. I’m going to try again.” I tried again. And again. And again, until my fingertips were bloody and my arms and legs were shaking.

I reverted to screaming.

“Someone! Anyone! Get in here! I need help!”

The ceiling above us—what was left of it, anyway—shuddered and creaked ominously.

I covered my grandfather with my body, slapping at the embers that scattered my hair and jacket. A moment later, the ceiling stilled again, and I started a new set of dead lifts.

But I wasn’t strong enough.

“Merit,” my grandfather said,
“get out
.
”

His words and tone were forceful, but of course I ignored him. I was a vampire. He wasn’t. I’d do what I could for as long as I could . . . and then I’d try again.

“You are crazy if you think I’m leaving you. I need help down here!” I yelled out.

I didn’t want to leave him—wasn’t going to leave him. Especially not when I could use my body to shield him if the roof fell. Hopefully, the house hadn’t been constructed of aspen. Because, much like burning to death in a rather ill-thought-out plan to rescue my grandfather, that would be bad.

Okay, so terror and oxygen deprivation were making me even more sarcastic than usual.

“Merit!” Jeff’s voice rang through the smoke. “Merit?”

Tears of relief sprang to my eyes. We weren’t out of the predicament, but Jeff’s voice—and his shifter-heightened strength—was a filament of hope. That was all I needed to hold on to.

“Down here! Grandpa’s stuck, Jeff. I can’t move him!”

Jeff dropped through the hole, hitting the ground a few feet away. He made the trip look stupidly easy, but I decided that would have been impossible without my having fallen through the floor in the first place.

“I was only gone a couple of hours, Chuck,” Jeff said as he checked out my grandfather’s position. “I want you to know I’ll be seeking overtime for this.”

“Only fair,” my grandfather said, chuckling lightly. “Only fair.”

Jeff pointed me into position. “There,” he said. “On three. I’m not going to lift—I’m going to lever. When I do, pull your grandfather away.” He looked at me, and I saw behind the boyish jokes and flirtations, the eyes of a man.

I nodded at him and took my designated spot a few feet away.

“Chuck,” Jeff said, “we’re going to lift this thing off you. I can’t guarantee it won’t hurt, but you know how this goes.”

“I know how this goes,” my grandfather agreed, wincing as he prepared himself.

I squatted again, this time reaching under my grandfather’s armpits, ready to move him when the weight was lifted.

Jeff rolled his shoulders, moved to the end of the beam, and braced himself against it, one knee forward, the other leg extended back. He blew out three quick breaths in succession.

“One . . . two . . . three!” he said. He pushed the top of the beam upward, levering it just enough to lift the weight from my grandfather’s abdomen. I dragged him away, his feet clearing the beam’s path just as Jeff let it drop again.

My grandfather blinked. “That did hurt,” he said.

And then his eyes closed, sending my heart racing again. “Jeff, we have to get him out of here,” I said, but the last of my sentence was muted by a crash above us that sent a bevy of sparks over us . . . and covered the gap we’d used to get into the basement with flaming drywall.

“On it,” Jeff said. He scooped my grandfather up and headed toward the back of the basement.

“Where are you going?”

“Back bedroom. Emergency window.”

I hadn’t even remembered there was a bedroom back there, much less a window.

“Right behind you,” I said, listening for his footsteps in front of me, as I certainly couldn’t see anything. I covered my mouth with a hand, smoke from the fire upstairs beginning to funnel down through the cracks in the ceiling.

Jeff moved swiftly through the serpentine basement hallway, around corners and into a small back room where, I now remembered, my grandmother had kept our Christmas presents before they were wrapped. My sister and I had dug through the closet on occasion, trying to figure out which one of us got the Lite Brite and the doll that wet itself.

But those presents were long gone. Instead, we fixed our sights on the small window that was about to become our escape route.

“Open it,” Jeff directed, and I pulled a stool over to the window and unlatched the window frames, which opened into a window well.

“Get out,” Jeff said. “I’ll help boost your grandfather up.”

I nodded, pushed myself up to the sill, and climbed outside, gulping in the first fresh air I’d had in minutes, then kicking away snow and debris to help our egress.

“Ready,” Jeff said, maneuvering my grandfather’s shoulders through the windows. I grabbed his torso again and pulled until I could cradle him in the window well.

“Let me help,” said a voice above me.

I looked up to see a Chicago Fire Department member in a fire suit and hat on his knees at the edge of the window well.

As Jeff climbed safely from the fire and paramedics strapped my grandfather to a gurney, I said a silent thank-you to the universe.

—

The house was surrounded by vehicles—fire trucks, police interceptors, two ambulances. Their blue, red, and white lights shined across the yard, which was full of debris thrown out by the explosion.

I found my sword and cleaned away the smoke and ash, giving the EMTs room to work while they stabilized my grandfather, but I moved closer when they loaded the gurney into the back of the ambulance.

Tears welled in my eyes at the sight, and my throat constricted so tightly, I wasn’t sure if I could breathe.

One of the EMTs stayed by his side; the other climbed out of the ambulance and shut the door.

“You’re his granddaughter?”

I nodded.

“He’s unconscious but stable,” said the EMT, whose name badge read
ERICK
. “We’ll take him to Southwestern Memorial,” he said. “You wanna follow us in your car?”

“We’ll get there,” Jeff said, stepping beside me. He had a bandage on his head and another around his arm.

“You’re hurt?” I asked, feeling suddenly numb and disconnected to the world. The adrenaline was wearing off, and fear and shock and pain were beginning to seep in.

“I’m fine. The guys said you were okay, too?”

I nodded. “Vampire healing. My lungs are sore, and I’ve got some minor burns, but they’ll heal.” I glanced down at my leathers, which were probably toast. They were pockmarked with holes from flying cinders and sparks.

“I ruined my clothes,” I said, laughing. I sounded hysterical, even to me. Was I coming unglued?

Jeff put a hand on my arm. “Merit, I’m going to get the car, okay? I’ll call Ethan and have him meet us at the hospital. He’s probably on his way.”