Biting Cold (31 page)

The moral of the story? Don’t fuck with the magical order.

“There’s one thing you can do to help,” I said.

She looked up at me, and I trusted her with my secret.

“You may not have completed the familiar spell, but you and Ethan are linked together somehow.”

Mallory blanched. “What?”

“I think when you feel strong emotions, he does, too. You’re connected to each other because of the spell you attempted.”

She looked horrified, which actually made me feel better. “Oh my God, Merit, I didn’t know.”

“I didn’t want to tell you,” I confessed. “Not until I was sure you were in control of yourself.” I wasn’t entirely sure she was in control of herself now, but she was aware of her weaknesses and of what she’d done, which was more maturity than I’d seen from her in a while.

I’d expected more tears from my confession, but she steeled her expression and looked up at me.

“I will fix this,” she said.

“Then do it,” I said. “Make this your first act of contrition. Give him back to me.”

The small black alarm clock on her bedside table buzzed, and she tapped it with a hand. “I should get back to work.”

I nodded. “What do you have to do?”

“Dishes again. The bar serves some food, and shifters eat. A lot.”

She’d gone from high-profile ad executive to high-powered witch…and now she was cleaning up for drunken shifters in the back of a run-down bar.

“Does it bother you? That you’re doing dishes?”

“It’s not the best job. Hot. Swampy. Kind of gross—all those little bits of wet bread and crust.” She made a gagging sound. “But it’s something to do that’s not magical. And there’s a kind of security, I guess, with all of them around me. Like I can’t backslide while they’re watching. And that they really believe I could do something worthwhile someday.”

“How long is someday?”

She shrugged. “How long does it take to make up for what I’ve done?” She stood up. “I need to get downstairs.”

I didn’t want to go back to the House. I didn’t want to face
Dominic on the way or Darius or Ethan when I arrived. I got her point about security. Here, I was behind a wall of dozens of shifters and lots of firearms. It might not have been safe from Dominic, not really, but it felt safer. It felt removed from the world, and I could use that right now.

“I could help you?”

She looked at me, tentative hope in her face, and nodded.

So I stayed with her. We walked downstairs again and I hung my leather jacket on the back of the door. She dumped food while I rinsed, and in the rising heat and steam, under the watchful eye of a very big shifter with a very large gun, we did our work in silence.

It wasn’t an act of forgiveness, but it was a step forward. And right now, I needed one of those.

I
left Ukrainian Village with the radio on and the windows up. I baked in the sauna of a full-blast heater but only marginally enjoyed the warmth on the way back to the House.

I nearly popped a fist on the dashboard when the radio was interrupted with a staticky beep, but it wasn’t a problem with my radio.

It was a warning.

“Folks, we’re sorry for the interruption,” said the announcer, “but we’re going live to the home of Dan O’Brian, who you may remember was one of the South Side Four—the four Chicago Police Department officers recently released in connection with the alleged attack on vampires and humans.”

Sirens wailed in the background. Knowing this message wasn’t going to be good, I pulled the car over onto the side of the road, turned down the heat, and turned up the radio.

“Officer O’Brian, along with Officer Owen Moore and Officer Thomas Hill, were found dead outside O’Brian’s home just moments ago, and parents, this will be graphic if you have any young ones listening, it appears all three died of severe wounds to their
throats. Officer Coy Daniels had been killed in the attack at the officers’ release. We have learned the remaining officers refused protection details offered by the city—”

I switched off the radio, closed my eyes, and put my head back on the headrest.

All that work to save the rest of them, and it had been for naught. Dominic had found them and killed them anyway. What was the moral of
that
story supposed to be? That evil would always win? That fighting the battle was pointless?

This night needed a happy ending, and soon.

There were few places in Chicago where I was all but guaranteed an unhappy ending. One of them was the home of the city’s skymasters, the tower in Potter Park where Claudia, the queen of the fairies, lived.

As I’d told Ethan and Paige, my last visit to the fairies hadn’t exactly been promising. But Claudia said we left with a clean slate, so I was hoping against hope that she’d remember that promise today and not kill me on sight.

I was desperate for information, and if she and Dominic had a connection, I was going to ferret it out.

The park was empty and quiet, and I parked along the street and walked through dying grass to the tower. It was made of stone and barely managing to stand, but Claudia had made it her home. I carefully took the spiral stone staircase to the door at the top, stopping at the ornate tower door.

Steeling myself, I knocked twice.

It opened, and a mercenary fairy stared out. “Yes?”

The last time I’d done this, Jonah had spoken in Gaelic to request admission to see Claudia. I didn’t have any such skills, so English would have to do.

“I would like to speak with Claudia, if she’d allow it.”

The door thumped closed, pushing a puff of dust and wood rot into my face. I brushed off my cheeks just as it opened again.

“Briefly,” the fairy said with a snarl, stepping back to allow me in.

The room in which Claudia lived was round and magically enhanced, filling a space significantly larger than the tower’s appearance outside would have let on. It was simply furnished and smelled of a garden’s worth of flowers.

Claudia, her long, strawberry blond hair in a loose braid down her back, sat at a round table on one side of the room. She wore a dress of pale pink and a leafy crown, and she glanced over her shoulder as I walked inside.

“Bloodletter,” she said, as much a hiss as a greeting.

“Madam,” I said.

She rose from her table and walked toward me, her blue eyes tilted in curiosity. “You visit our abode again. Why?”

“I understand you know Dominic, the messenger, and I wondered if you’d tell me about him.”

She laughed, the sound simultaneously whimsical and ancient. “Who are you to inquire about such things? You are a child, and a bloodletter at that.”

“He is hurting people,” I said. “I’m trying to find a way to stop him.”

That was precisely the wrong thing to say. Her smile faded, and the Queen of the Fae strode toward me with grim determination on her face. Before I could move out of the way, she slapped me.

“Who are you, that you believe you have the right to control the destiny of a messenger?”

My cheek burning, I forced myself to look back at her—and not to push her away. She was too testy, and she’d lured me toward violence before.

“I am Sentinel of my House and a protector of this city,” I said. “He threatens those within it. That gives me the right to question and, if necessary, to act.”

“You know nothing,” she spat out, turning on her heel and pacing a few feet away. She turned back again, shoulders back and breasts arched forward, as if proving her femininity to me.

“Dominic is under my protection, and so he will stay. If you seek to harm him, you seek to harm me and mine. No such thing will be allowed.” She gave me a disdainful look. “You are no protector. You are a poppet with a pointy stick and the arrogance to match. Leave this place. If you deserve justice, he will find you, and you will find no more voice for your threats.”

The sword’s point suddenly at my lower back punctuated her dismissal. I was escorted back to the door and into the stairwell, and the door was slammed shut behind me again.

Not exactly the most productive meeting I’d ever attended, but one thing was for sure—Claudia knew Dominic. Had they been lovers? That seemed likely. Partners? Also possible. Details were thin on the ground, but I had a sinking feeling this wasn’t the last time I’d spend quality time with the fairy queen.

My mood not even slightly improved, I parked the car and nodded at the fairies before heading into Cadogan House. I found Lindsey on her way upstairs from the basement.

“Hey, you. You all right?” She frowned. “You look weird.”

“I’m okay. Tough night.”

She nodded. “Have you heard about the cops?”

I nodded. “On the radio.”

“Rough thing to hear.”

“I wasn’t thrilled,” I agreed. “It makes me feel pretty useless.”

“What could you have done? If they weren’t smart enough to
get protection, there’s nothing that could keep Dominic from them.”

I shrugged. I understood the argument; it just didn’t make me feel any better. I still felt like I’d let the city down, and that was a tough burden to bear.

“Did you learn anything helpful at Mallory’s?”

“Not really. Catcher and Jeff are going to look into Tate’s history.” I told her what I’d learned from Claudia, which wasn’t much. “What are you up to?”

“It’s end of shift. The girls are waiting upstairs with a pizza. Are you hungry? You look like you could use a bite.”

When
didn’t
I look like that? In all seriousness, I wasn’t sure I was ready to talk to Ethan, and I certainly wasn’t up for another argument tonight. Not with sorcerers and cops and fallen angels on my mind. On the other hand, Lindsey and I had a pretty good history of late-night pizza-and-movie relaxation.

“Yeah,” I said. “That sounds good.”

“Okay,” she said, slipping her arm through mine. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m not,” I said. “But I will be.”

A crowd was already gathered in her small room. Margot was there, along with a few male vampires I vaguely recognized but hadn’t really spoken to. Notwithstanding the fact that we were vampires, the air smelled of cheese, tomato sauce, and lots of garlic. Three of my favorite food groups, baked into one deep-dish pizza amalgamation so thick and saucy you had to eat it with a spoon.

I was greeted by cheers (always better than jeers) and tiptoed my way across vampires toward an empty spot on the floor.

“We were just deciding what to watch,” Margot said as she
served up a slice of deep dish onto a paper plate and handed it over. “As social chair, I think you should get to pick which one.”

Ethan had named me House social chair as a half joke and half punishment. He thought I needed to become better acquainted with my fellow vampires. It was undoubtedly a good call, although I hadn’t done much at all in the position. I’d thought about hosting a mixer for Navarre, Grey, and Cadogan vampires, but magical drama always seemed to get in the way.

“What are our options?” I asked.

Lindsey flipped through some movies. “Animated with a good moral. Three ladies being saucy about their jobs and boys. And, my personal favorite, poor kid proves she’s the best dancer at Dance-Off High and wins the lead role in a Broadway musical.” She slid me a glance. “The guys won’t appreciate this, but there is singing. Much singing, and you can make the lyrics scroll across the bottom of the screen.”

She knew me as well as anyone. I loved to dance, and in high school I’d had plenty of ambition—but sadly, no talent—to become a musical theater songstress. Thank God I’d had good grades to fall back on.

“I can’t possibly say no to sing-along lyrics,” I said, diving into the pizza. It was ridiculously good.

I caught a pretty bad habit in graduate school of obsessing about my work to the point of ignoring anything and everything else. I rarely visited friends. I rarely did
anything
that wasn’t related to getting the job done. I became a hermit, not because I didn’t like people, but because I wasn’t very good at balancing work and play. “All work” was a lot easier to manage.

Times like this made me remember that I could do both. I could be busy, productive even, while having a social life. While interacting with people. While being out in the world instead of
sequestering myself away from it. Times like this I felt like a normal person, not just a solver of problems for a House of vampires.

Friendship, I thought, quickly downing my wedge of pizza, wasn’t a burden. It was a gift. It allowed us to remember what all the fighting was about in the first place. Why we struggled to protect the House—and what we were protecting.

So I sat back with Lindsey and the others, and I sang horribly to lyrics that were wincingly bad, and I remembered why we went to all the trouble of fighting in the first place.

When the movie was over, I helped the crew clean up and was happy to take the last piece of pizza for myself back to my room.

But when I made a move to leave, Lindsey stopped me.

“Oh, no,” she said. “We have words for you.” She looked around the room. “All boys out of the room, please.”