Hard Bitten (5 page)

“There was a protest outside the House,” I obediently told Tate. “It was unnerving. A lot of prejudice was thrown around.”

Tate offered an apologetic look.

“Unfortunately, we can’t deny the protesters their permits for First Amendment reasons, but we can always step in if matters escalate.”

“We had things well in hand,” I assured him.

“Gabriel Keene’s announcement that shape-shifters exist hasn’t done much for your popularity.”

“No, it hasn’t,” Ethan admitted. “But he came to the fight at the House when our backs were against the wall. Going public—getting his side of the story out there—was the best of a bad set of options for protecting his people.”

“I don’t necessarily disagree,” Tate said. “He doesn’t make the announcement, and we end up having to arrest every shifter there for assault and disturbing the peace. We couldn’t just let them off without some justification. The announcement gave us that reason, helped the public understand why they’d joined the fight and why we weren’t arresting them on sight.”

“I’m sure they appreciate your

understanding.”

Tate offered a sardonic look. “I doubt that kind of thing interests them. Shifters don’t strike me as the most political types.”

“They aren’t,” Ethan agreed. “But Gabriel is savvy enough to understand when a favor’s been done, and when a favor needs to be returned. He wasn’t happy about making the announcement, and he has even less interest in his people getting pulled into the public’s fear of vampires. He’s working on that now, keeping his people out of the public’s notice.”

“That’s actually the reason I’ve asked you to meet with me,” Tate said. “I realize it’s an unusual request, and I appreciate your coming on such short notice.”

He sat down in the throne behind his desk, the onlookers in the portrait now pointing down at him. Tate gestured toward two smaller chairs that sat in front of his desk. “Please, have a seat.”

Ethan took a chair. I took point behind him, Sentinel at the ready.

Mayor Tate’s eyes widened at the gesture, but his expression turned back to business fast enough. He flipped open a folder and uncapped an expensive-looking fountain pen.

Ethan crossed one leg over the other. The signal: he was moving into political-chat position.

“What can we do for you?” he asked, his voice oh-so-casual.

“You said the mood at the House was anticipatory. That’s the concern I have about the city more broadly. The attack on Cadogan has reactivated the city’s fear of the supernatural, of the
other
. We had four days of riots the first time around, Ethan. I’m sure you’ll understand the tricky position that puts me in—keeping the citizenry calm while trying to be understanding toward your challenges, including Adam Keene’s attack.”

“Of course,” Ethan graciously said.

“But humans are nervous. Increasingly so.

And that nervousness is leading to an uptick in crime. In the last two weeks, we’ve seen marked increases in assaults, in batteries, in arson, in the use of firearms. I’ve worked hard to get those numbers down since my first election, and I think the city’s better for it. I’d hate to see us slide backward.”

“I think we’d all agree with that,” Ethan said aloud, but that was just the precursor to the silent conversation between us as Ethan activated our telepathic link.
What’s he building toward?

Your guess is as good as mine,
I answered.

Tate frowned and glanced down at the folder on his desk. He scanned whatever information he found there, then lifted a document from it and extended it toward Ethan. “Humans, it seems, are not the only increasingly violent folk in our city.”

Ethan took the document, staring silently down at it until his shoulders tensed into a flat line.

Ethan? What is it?
I asked. Without bothering to answer, Ethan handed the paper over his shoulder. I took it from him. It looked like part of a police transcript.

Q:
Tell me what you saw, Mr.

Jackson.

A: There were dozens of them.

Vampires, you know? Fangs and

that ability to get inside your

mind. And they was blood-crazy.

All of them. Everywhere you

looked—vampire, vampire,

vampire. Bam! Vampire. And they

were all over us. No escape.

Q:
Who couldn’t escape?

A: Humans. Not when the

vampires wanted you. Not when

they wanted to take you down and

pull that blood right out of you.

All of ’em were on you and the

music was so loud and it was

pounding like a hammer against

your heart. They were crazed with it. Crazy with it.

Q:
With what?

A: With the blood. With the lust

for it. The hunger. You could see it in their crazy eyes. They were silver, just like the eyes of the devil. You get only one look at

those eyes before the devil

himself pulls you down into the

abyss.

Q:
And then what happened, Mr.

Jackson?

A: [
Shaking his head.
] The hunger, the lust, it got them.

Drove them. They killed three

girls. Three of them. They drank

until there was no life left.

The page stopped there. My fingers shaking around the paper, I skipped the chain of command and glanced up at Tate. “Where did you get this?”

Tate met my gaze. “Cook County Jail. This was from an interview with a man who’d been arrested for possession of a controlled substance.

The detective wasn’t sure if he was drunk or disturbed . . . or if he’d actually seen something that required our attention. Fortunately, she took the transcript to her supervisor, who brought it to my chief of staff. We’ve yet to find the victims of whom Mr. Jackson spoke—no missing persons match his descriptions—although we are actively investigating the accusation.”

“Where did this occur?” Ethan quietly asked.

Tate’s gaze dropped down to Ethan and narrowed. “He said West Town, and he hasn’t been more specific than offering up the neighborhood. Since we haven’t identified a crime scene or the victims, it’s possible he exaggerated the violence. On the other hand, as you can see from the transcript, he’s quite convinced the vampires of our fair city were involved in a bloodlust-driven attack on humans.

An attack that left three innocents dead.”

After a moment of silence, Tate sat back, crossed his hands behind his head, and rocked back in the chair. “I’m not thrilled this is going on in my city. I’m not happy about the attack on your House and whatever animosity lies between you and the Packs, and I’m not happy that my citizens are scared enough of vampires that they’ve lined up outside your home to protest your existence.”

Tate sat forward again, fury in his expression.

“But you know what really pisses me off? The fact that you don’t look surprised about Mr.

Jackson’s report. The fact that I’ve learned you’re well aware of the existence of drinking parties you call ‘raves.’ ”

My stomach clenched with nerves. Tate was normally poised, politic, careful with words, and invariably optimistic about the city. This voice was the kind you’d expect to hear in a smoky back room or a dark restaurant booth. The kind of tone you’d have heard in Al Capone’s Chicago.

This was the Seth Tate that destroyed his enemies. And we were now his targets.

“We’ve heard rumors,” Ethan finally said, a master of understatement.

“Rumors of blood orgies?”

“Of raves,” Ethan admitted. “Small gatherings where vampires drink communally from humans.”

Raves were usually organized by Rogue vampires—the ones that weren’t tied to a House and tended not to follow traditional House rules.

For most Houses, those rules meant not snacking on humans, consenting or not. Cadogan allowed drinking, but still required consent, and I didn’t know of any House that would condone outright murder.

We’d come close to having raves pop into the public eye a few months ago, but with a little investigation on our part, we’d managed to keep them in the closet. I guess that blissful ignorance was behind us.

“We’ve been keeping our ears to the ground,”

Ethan continued, “to identify the organizers of the raves, their methods, the manners in which they attract humans.”

That was Malik’s job—Ethan’s secondin-command, the runnerup for the crown. After a blackmailing incident, he’d been put in charge of investigating the raves.

“And what have you found?” Tate asked.

Ethan cleared his throat. Ah, the sound of stalling.

“We’re aware of three raves in the last two months,” he said. “Three raves involving, at most, half a dozen vampires. These were small, intimate affairs. While bloodletting does occur, we have not heard of the, shall we say, frenetic violence of which Mr. Jackson speaks, nor would we condone such things. There has certainly never been an allegation that any participant was

. . . drained. And if we had heard of it, we’d have contacted the Ombudsman, or put a stop to it ourselves.”

The mayor linked his fingers together on the desktop. “Ethan, I believe that part and parcel of keeping this city safe is integrating vampires into the human population. Division will solve nothing—it will only lead to more division. On the other hand, according to Mr. Jackson, vampires are engaging in violent, largescale, and hardly consensual acts. That is unacceptable to me.”

“As it is to me and mine,” Ethan said.

“I’ve heard talk about a recall election,” Tate said. “I will not go down in flames because of supernatural hysteria. This city does not need a referendum on vampires or shape-shifters.

“But most important,” he continued, gaze burrowing into Ethan, “you do not want a bevy of aldermen showing up at your front door, demanding that you close down your House. You do not want the city council legislating you out of existence.”

I felt a burst of magic from Ethan. His angst—and anger—were rising, and I was glad Tate was human and couldn’t sense the uncomfortable prickle of it.

“And you do not want me as an enemy,” Tate concluded. “You do not want me requesting a grand jury to consider the crimes of you and yours.” He flipped through the folder on his desk, then slid out a single sheet and held it up. “You do not want me executing this warrant for your arrest on the basis that you’ve aided and abetted the murder of humans in this city.”

Ethan’s voice was diamond-cold, but the magical tingle was seismic in magnitude. “I have done no such thing.”

“Oh?” Tate placed the paper on his desk again.

“I have it on good authority that you changed a human into a vampire without her consent.” He lifted his gaze to me, and I felt the blood rush to my cheeks. “I also have it on good authority that while you and your vampire council promised to keep Celina Desaulniers contained in Europe, she’s been in Chicago. Are those actions such a far stretch from murder?”

“Who suggested Celina was in Chicago?”

Ethan asked. The question was carefully put. We knew full well that Celina—the former head of Navarre House and my would-have-been killer—had been released by the Greenwich Presidium, the organizing body for European and North American vampires. We also knew that once the GP let her go, she’d made her way to Chicago. But we hadn’t thought she was still here. The last few months had been too drama free for that. Or so they’d seemed.

Tate arched his eyebrows. “I notice you don’t deny it. As for the information, I have my sources, just as I’m sure you do.”

“Sources or not, I don’t take kindly to blackmail.”

With shocking speed, Tate switched back from Capone to front-page orator, smiling magnanimously at us. “ ‘Blackmail’ is such a harsh word, Ethan.”

“Then what, precisely, do you want?”

“I want for you, for us, to do the right thing for the city of Chicago. I want for you and yours to have the chance to take control within your own community.” Tate linked his hands on the desk and looked us over. “I want this problem solved.

I want an end to these gatherings, these raves, and a personal guarantee that you have this problem under control. If it’s not done, the warrant for your arrest will be executed. I assume we understand each other?”

There was silence until Ethan finally bit out,

“Yes, Mr. Mayor.”

Like a practiced politico, Tate instantly softened his expression. “Excellent. If you have anything to report, or if you need access to any of the city’s resources, you need only contact me.”

“Of course.”

With a final nod, Tate turned back to his papers, just as Ethan might have done if I’d been called into his office for a friendly chat.

But this time, it was Ethan who’d been called out, and it was Ethan who rose and walked back to the door. I followed, ever the dutiful Sentinel.

Ethan kept the fear or concern or vitriol or whatever emotion was driving him to himself even as we reached the Mercedes.

And I meant “driving” literally. He expressed that pent-up frustration with eighty thousand dollars of German engineering and a 300-horsepower engine. He managed not to clip the gate as he pulled out of the drive, but he treated the stop signs between Creeley Creek and Lake Shore Drive like meek suggestions. Ethan floored the Mercedes, zooming in and around traffic like the silver-eyed devil was on our tail.

Problem was, we were the silver-eyed devils.

We were both immortal, and Ethan probably had a century of driving experience under his belt, but that didn’t make the turns any less harrowing. He raced through a light and onto Lake Shore Drive, turned south, and gunned it. . .

. And he kept driving until the city skyline glowed behind us.

I was almost afraid to ask where he was taking us—did I really want to know where predatory vampires blew off political steam?—but he saved me the trouble when we reached Washington Park. He pulled off Lake Shore Drive, and a few squealing turns later we were coasting onto Promontory Point, a small peninsula that jutted into the lake. Ethan drove around the towertopped building and stopped the car in front of the rock ledge that separated grass from lake.