House Rules (28 page)

“Shall we?” Ethan asked, putting a hand at my back and guiding me toward a booth.

We weren’t seated for more than fifteen seconds before a blond waitress with a ponytail
put water glasses and laminated menus in front of us. “Get you something to drink?”

Ethan’s gaze didn’t waver from the menu he’d already snatched up.

“Water’s fine,” I said, and she smiled and moved along, giving us time to consider
our orders.

We sat quietly in the booth, the few other diners around us enjoying their late-night
meals.

The bell on the door rang, and two uniformed officers walked inside and headed to
the counter, where they took seats and began chatting with the waitress.

“What do you recommend?” Ethan finally asked, oblivious to my mental wranglings.

“Patty melt,” I said, pointing to its spot on the menu. “With fries. It’s their specialty.”

“And it appears I can add any number of toppings. Peanut butter. Eggs. Pickles.” He
looked up at me. “What’s a jalapeño popper?”

“Nothing that’s made it into the awareness of a four-hundred-year-old vampire, evidently.
It’s a cheese-filled jalapeño.”

“Ah. Sounds . . . unhealthy.”

“I wasn’t finished,” I said. “It’s also breaded and deep-fried.”

His eyes widened comically. I needed to get him to a state fair and a booth where
everything was fried and served on a stick. He’d probably have a heart attack just
looking at it.

“Pick the patty melt,” I repeated, looking at my menu and scanning the options. What
was the best thing to eat when you were trying not to think about the murder you couldn’t
solve? Salad? It was the classic food of self-denial. The meatloaf platter was a protein
– and carb-laden behemoth—more an indulgence than a punishment.

In the end, I settled on something simple. Foods that would sit easy in my gut, even
if my conscience wasn’t sitting easy.

“Morning special,” I said when the waitress returned, handing the menu back to her.

“I suppose I’ll have the patty melt special,” Ethan said, giving the waitress a smile
and returning his menu, as well.

“Anything you want, sugar,” she said with a wink, tapping the edges of our menus on
the tabletop to straighten them, then disappearing into the back. I wondered whether
they had a Mallory in the back of Chris’s Broiler—a disgraced witch doing her best
to atone for her sins with dishwashing and onion chopping.

I sprinkled salt on the table, then put my water glass over the salt.

“What’s that for?”

I smiled a little. “It’s supposed to keep the glass from sticking to the table if
you don’t have a coaster. I don’t know the science of it or if it even works. I’ve
just seen it done.”

“Hmm,” he said, then mimicked my movement and sprinkled salt on the table in front
of him. “We’ll test the theory and see if it works.” He glanced up at me. “Are you
okay?”

“I’m good. Tired.”

I could see a hint of sadness in his eyes, too. He’d reached the end of an era, and
certainly the end of Ethan’s particular brand of international strategy.

“You’re mourning, aren’t you?”

He looked up at me. “Mourning?”

“You’re grieving about leaving the GP, not being involved in international machinations.
Your world—the House’s world—is contracting. You aren’t thrilled about that.”

“I am a very strong Strat,” he said. Vampire strengths were divided into categories—psychic,
physical, strategic—and levels—very weak, weak, strong, and very strong. Ethan was
as strategic as they came, quite literally.

“It will be a different kind of politicking from here on out,” he admitted, pausing
while the waitress placed plates in front of each of us.

We checked out our meals. It was clear after a moment that Ethan was coveting my stack
of hash browns, biscuits, and gravy; frankly, his patty melt looked pretty delicious,
too.

“Switch?” I asked.

“I knew I loved you for a reason,” he said, switching our plates’ positions and diving
into the biscuits and gravy with the abandon of a starved man. Not that there was
anything wrong with a patty melt. It was hot and greasy and just the right balance
of salty and cheesy.

I flipped the bread from my sandwich and doused the meat with ketchup—an abomination
to some, but delicious to me. I also poured a separate puddle for my fries. When the
ketchup bottle was in place again and I’d settled my sandwich in hand, I took a bite,
and then another, and another. We ate quietly and companionably, two emotionally exhausted
vampires struggling for energy.

When I’d finished off half my sandwich, I took the paper wrapper from my napkin and
folded it lengthwise into a thin strip, and then around into a ring, tucking the ends
together. I handed it to him. “Now you have a memento of this wonderful date at Chris’s
Broiler.”

“Sentinel, are you giving me a ring?”

“Only the temporary kind.”

After glancing at the check, Ethan pulled his long, thin wallet from his interior
coat pocket, slid out bills, and placed them on the table. Minutes later, we were
in the car, driving home again.

* * *

We’d only just parked my car when Lindsey ran out to meet us on the sidewalk.

“You need to get inside,” she said. “Margot’s hurt.”

A bolt of adrenaline sent me running down the sidewalk, Ethan’s footsteps behind me.

When I stepped into the House, I stopped short. Malik stood in the middle of the foyer,
Margot in his arms. Her eyes were closed, and there was a smear of blood around her
neck.

Holding in a scream, I covered my mouth with a hand.

Malik carried Margot into the sitting room and laid her carefully on the couch, brushing
the hair back from her eyes. Her chef’s jacket was red with blood from a gash on her
neck.

“Is Delia here?” Ethan asked.

“Delia?” I asked.

“She’s a doctor,” Malik said. “And a friend of Aaliyah’s.” Aaliyah was Malik’s wife.
“She usually works a split shift. I’m not sure if she’s in the House.”

“Someone get her,” Ethan snapped.

“I’ll do it,” said one of the vampires behind us, rushing out of the room.

“What happened?” I asked, falling to my knees beside the couch. Someone handed me
a scarf, and I pressed it to Margot’s neck to stanch the bleeding.

My heart pounded, my fear and anguish matched only by the fury I felt on Margot’s
behalf. Someone hurt Margot. My friend. My culinary ally.

But not just hurt—someone had tried to
kill
Margot. And given the wound at her neck—an unsuccessful decapitation?—our serial
killer was the number one suspect.

“I was talking to her a minute ago in my office,” Malik said. “She was asking me about
kale. She said there were winter vegetables outside in the garden and she was going
to pick some things. I don’t know what happened after that. Next thing I know, she’s
stumbling into my doorway.”

Ethan’s eyes went silver. “Someone attacked here? In my home?”

Now our attacker wasn’t just a Navarre vampire, but a Cadogan vampire, too?

“I’m here,” said Delia, stepping into the room with the vampire who’d fetched her.
Delia was tall, with dark skin and straight dark hair that reached her shoulders.
She wore pale blue scrubs and flip-flops.

“I was about to hop into the shower. What happened?”

“She was attacked outside the House,” Ethan said. “Her throat was cut.”

I moved out of the way so she could get closer to the sofa. “Someone applied pressure,”
she said. “Good.”

Carefully, she peeked beneath the scarf I’d put on the wound. She grimaced a bit.
“It’s a very clean cut—sharp weapon. Those often don’t heal as well as more jagged
cuts. It’s deep enough that it will take a bit yet to stitch together, but if I can
get some blood into her, we can keep her stable until she heals completely.” She glanced
back and found Helen in a corner of the room. “Can you get me the House emergency
medical kit, some water, clean towels, and a knife? I want to get her cleaned up so
it heals well. Less risk of a scar that way.”

Helen nodded and disappeared.

“A knife?” Ethan asked.

“We’ll need a blood donor,” Delia said. “Not everyone prefers to break skin with teeth.”

“She came to me,” Malik said. “When she was injured, she came to me. I’ll give her
blood. And I don’t need the knife.”

Without waiting for approval, Malik bit into his own wrist, and the smell of sweet
and powerful blood and magic filled the air. I closed my eyes, enjoying the scent
before Delia cleared her throat and gestured toward us.

“This isn’t exactly a sterile environment, and you’re not making it any cleaner. Disperse,
please. I’ll keep you updated.”

Her authoritative tone didn’t leave any room for argument, so we climbed to our feet
and walked into the hallway just as Malik placed his open wrist to Margot’s lips.

“A knife wound at the neck,” Luc said. “Similar MO, if we assume he ran out of time.”

“We so assume,” Ethan said. “Check the security video. I want to know exactly what
happened out there. We work from the presumption this was another act of violence
by our killer. And until he’s caught, no one leaves this House. Not without the express
permission of a senior staff member. I don’t care if they’re going to work, to dinner,
to the bar, or to do a good deed.”

Luc grimaced. “Liege—” he began, but Ethan stopped him.

“No excuses. I don’t want to hear how it can’t happen. I want to hear how it will
happen. Figure out a way. Make it clear to them that they don’t have a choice. That
asshole has targeted my vampire, which means he’s under my authority now.”

“On it,” Luc said, trotting toward the basement stairs.

Ethan looked at me, helplessness in his eyes. He didn’t have to speak for me to know
what he was feeling: fear that he’d somehow allowed Margot to be hurt.

“What could we have done differently?”

“I don’t know,” I told him. “But we’ll find out.”

The front door opened and shut behind us, and we glanced around.

My father stood in the foyer in a crisp tuxedo, a large set of rolled papers in his
hands. The security guards had let him through the gate, probably given our family
ties. I sincerely hoped he had evidence in hands.

“Merit, Ethan,” my father said.

“Joshua,” Ethan said. “What brings you by?”

“Meredith and I are on our way home. We were downtown, and we picked these up while
we were there.”

“It’s nice to see you,” Ethan said, “but if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to
this.”

Ethan disappeared. Given the drama in the front parlor, I opted to guide my father
toward the front door. “Why don’t we just chat outside?”

Brows knitted, my father glanced back as we stepped outside. “Is everything all right?”

“Unfortunately not. One of our vampires was attacked. We think the murderer might
have done it. What have you got there?”

My father unfurled the roll, revealing several large sheets of white paper. There
was a building plan, several contract documents, and a map of land plots, dozens of
square and rectangular puzzle pieces fitted together to form some part of Cook County.

My first thought was that he’d discovered something about the property in Little Italy,
but I didn’t recognize anything on the map. The boundaries were strangely drawn, and
there were no buildings to be seen.

“What am I looking at?”

He tapped a spot on the map. “That is the address you asked about. These parcels are
owned by a limited liability company. That company is, in turn, owned by another limited
liability company, and so on up the chain. Ultimately, you get to a single owner:
Carlos Anthony Martinez.”

“Who is that?”

“I have no idea. I thought you might.”

Unfortunately, I didn’t. My heart sank. I’d been holding out hope the property was
owned by Vampire H. Killer or some equivalent name that would ring obvious bells and
send me in his direction.

My father looked at me for a moment, then nodded almost imperceptibly. “The land is
valuable. If you have discovered untoward activities there . . .”

“You can jump in, buy the property for a song from the current owner, and turn it
into something else.”

He nodded. “It’s a good location. An area that’s troubled, but it’s up-and-coming.
It could be a positive arrangement if we can make it work.”

And that was how my father operated, and probably the secret of his success. There
was always a deal to be done, money to be made. And if the opportunity arose, you
didn’t let little things like murder—or your strained relationship with your daughter—impede
your financial progress.

“Thank you for the information. If this leads to anything, I’ll let you know.”

My father looked appreciative, which seemed a fair trade for the information. Problem
was, I was left standing on the front porch with a map and a reference to a man named
Carlos. What was I supposed to do with that?

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

SEALED WITH A KISS

I
rolled up the map and walked back toward Ethan’s office; no point in delaying bad
news any longer than necessary. The door was open, but Ethan was gone. Michael Donovan
stood in front of the bar.

“Is Ethan around?” I asked.

He looked up. “He just popped into Helen’s office; they’re making arrangements for
Margot. Would you like a drink?”

I blew out a breath. “Sure. Whatever you’re having.”

He smiled thoughtfully. “I knew I liked you.” He opened one of Ethan’s decanters and
poured Scotch into two glasses, then handed one to me.

I wasn’t much of a Scotch fan, but tonight I wasn’t going to argue. I sipped it, letting
the fire burn down my throat, savoring the warmth. There was too much violence in
the air for even an old Scotch to touch, but that didn’t make the sensation any less
pleasurable.

“How goes the securing?”

“Slowly. We’re working on cameras right now, making sure we can fill the necessary
gaps while still giving the vampires their privacy.”

I smiled. “I can see how that would be tricky. We do like our privacy.”

Michael sat down in one of the chairs in the sitting area and waved me over. He crossed
one leg over the other. “What have you got there?”

“Property maps,” I said. “From my father. I’d hoped they’d help us identify the vampire
killer, but I’m not sure they’ll actually lead anywhere.”

Ethan walked in just as Michael’s phone rang. Frowning, Michael excused himself from
the room and began chatting with the caller.

“Have you heard anything about Margot?” I asked Ethan.

“I just checked in. She hasn’t yet regained consciousness—which isn’t unusual for
a wound of this magnitude—but she’s healing very well. Delia expects she’ll make a
full recovery.”

“Good,” I said, feeling a wash of relief. Margot was an awesome person and a good
friend, not to mention a great chef. She was also a potential witness, and that would
be handy in preventing any more attacks.

“What do you have there?” he asked.

I glanced down, just realizing that I still held the rolled-up map in my hand. “Info
about the property in Little Italy.”

Michael stepped back into the room. “Ethan, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a personal
matter I need to address. I should be back shortly.”

Ethan nodded. “Of course.”

Michael waved at me, then disappeared into the hallway.

Ethan’s desk phone rang, so I took my maps over to the conference table, hoping he
might have a clue about our secret property owner. As I waited for him to finish his
call, I sat down, my gaze falling on a stack of papers marked with the same kind of
crimson wax seal Ethan had used during his second Master ceremony.

I’d always liked wax seals. They were so old-fashioned, so evocative, so secretive.
I ran my fingers across the wax, expecting to find the Cadogan House seal there. But
instead, the seal was smooth except for three small indentations.

Curious, I rotated the paper—which looked like an elevation of Cadogan House—toward
me. The seal consisted of three letters inside a circle.

The letters?
C.A.M.

My heart began to thud, and I unrolled my father’s map of the warehouse property and
placed it on the table.

There, at the bottom of the page, was the property’s owner. Carlos Anthony Martinez.
C.A.M.

That was quite a coincidence.

Ethan finished his call and moved toward me, putting a hand on my shoulder. He must
have sensed the magic. “What’s wrong?”

“The seal,” I said, looking up at Ethan. “Whose seal is this?”

Ethan moved closer and looked down at the papers. “Those are plots Michael prepared
with potential camera placements. It’s an antique seal he uses. He says he likes the
mystery.”

“What do the initials mean?”

Frowning, Ethan picked up the seal and stared at it. “I’ve no idea what they mean.
It’s a handy thing, though. The seal’s in his signet ring. Why do you ask?”

I turned the map so he could see it. “The property in Little Italy where Oliver and
Eve were murdered is owned by a guy named Carlos Anthony Martinez. Michael’s using
a seal with the initials ‘C.A.M.’”

Ethan blanched. “Carlos Anthony Martinez? You’re sure?”

“Yes, why?”

“Carlos was Celina’s Second, the one who served before Morgan.”

Of course. I’d heard of Carlos, but not frequently, and I hadn’t heard his last name.

“Michael said he knew Celina. Do you know how?”

Ethan shook his head. “No. He wasn’t a member of Navarre House.”

“Yeah, that’s what he told me, too. What do you know about Carlos’s tenure as Second?”

Ethan put a hand on the chair beside him, the other on his hip, as he frowned in remembrance.
“He was ousted as part of a scandal. Although I’m not sure what it was. Celina didn’t
say; she was tight-lipped in those days, didn’t enjoy her notoriety the way she did
in later years.”

He dialed a number on the conference phone.

“Library,” answered a male voice through the speaker.

“Carlos Anthony Martinez,” Ethan said. “What do you know?”

“Navarre House Second before Morgan. Stripped of his title, reportedly staked, but
I’ve never seen anything official on that.”

“Why was he kicked out?” I asked.

“There’s no official record,” the librarian said. “But I was a friend of the Navarre
House archivist a few years back, and she hinted he might have been siring vampires
on the side.”

“Siring vampires?” I said. “As in, he was making vampires without Celina’s consent
or knowledge?”

“The very same. Anything else?”

“No, thank you,” Ethan said. He hung up the phone, then looked at me.

“We need to talk to Morgan,” I said. “Although I hate to ask him questions at a time
like this.”

“Unfortunately, the feeling is mutual. But this concerns his House, so we can’t avoid
the discussion. But I will try to ease into it. I won’t go in ‘with guns a-blazing,’
as Luc might say.”

Ethan walked back to his desk and began perusing his computer for files. After a moment,
he opened a portrait of Michael Donovan. It was a professional-looking photograph
in front of a white backdrop, probably a marketing shot.

Having found what he wanted, Ethan dialed the phone on his desk. Morgan quickly answered.

“Yes?”

“I’m going to send you a photograph. Can you tell me if you recognize the vampire?”

“Why?” Morgan managed to imbue those three little letters with a lot of exhaustion.

“It’s background,” Ethan said. “It will assist us in the investigation of the murders.”
Without waiting for permission, Ethan e-mailed the photograph. There was a pause on
the other end of the line.

“I got it,” Morgan said. “His name is Stephen Caniglia. I haven’t met him personally,
but I’ve seen his face.”

“He was a Navarre vampire?” Ethan asked.

“Not exactly. He wasn’t Commended into the House. How much do you know about Carlos?”

Ethan met my gaze. “Fill me in,” he said.

“Carlos was Celina’s first Second. She made him a vampire; he was one of the earliest
she’d made. I didn’t know him very long—Carlos hadn’t been in the House very long—when
the scandal broke.”

“The siring scandal?” Ethan asked.

“Yeah. Carlos had been recruiting vampires who weren’t entirely convinced about becoming
vampires. He pushed and changed them anyway without their consent. I replaced Carlos
not long after that.”

“And what happened to Carlos?”

“I don’t know anything officially, but I heard she had him taken out. Frankly, it
wouldn’t surprise me. She didn’t take kindly to his exercising her authority behind
her back.”

Ethan frowned. “And how does that relate to the vampire whose picture we just sent
you?”

“He was one of the unfortunate few whom Carlos turned without consent. Celina offered
him membership in the House, but he declined.”

A burst of magic spilled across the room as Ethan’s anger rose and expanded. I’d seen
him angry before, but nothing compared to the fury before me.

“Did Carlos, perchance, have a signet ring with his initials carved into it?” Ethan
asked.

Morgan’s eyes widened. “Yeah, he did, actually. A big gold thing. He wore it on his
pinkie like he was a mobster.”

“Thank you,” Ethan said, and without ceremony hung up the phone. For a moment he stood
there, simply breathing, taking in what we now knew.

So Michael Donovan had been sired by Carlos, made a vampire against his will. Michael
was now using Carlos’s signet ring, and someone—Michael?—had dumped two bodies at
a property Carlos, or maybe now, his estate, had owned. But why?

“Why would Michael Donovan care about the warehouse?”

Ethan shook his head. “I don’t know. It must have been meaningful to him somehow.
Otherwise, there are easier ways to hide a body.”

“And how did he get into Navarre House? Jeff said the biometric security was linked
to vampires Celina sired, not current members of Navarre House.”

“Michael Donovan was sired by Carlos, and Carlos was sired by Celina. The chemistry
would be the same for both, as they’d both carry her particular mutation.”

If that was true, Michael Donovan could be our killer.

Ethan cursed. “That son of a bitch. I let him into my House, Merit. I asked him for
advice and shared our security protocols with him. How could I have been so stupid?
How could I have been so naive?”

“Oh, God,” I said, looking up at him. “I told him I had the map, and then you walked
in, and that’s when he left. Does he know? Does he know that we know?”

“Christ,” Ethan said, vaulting from his seat and running to the front door, then out
to the gate where humans now stood watch. I followed behind.

“The brown-haired vampire,” Ethan said, then indicated a height. “Is he here?”

The humans exchanged a glance. “He left,” said the one on the right. “About five minutes
ago.” She put a hand on her revolver. “Is there trouble?”

“We aren’t sure. What was he driving?”

“Tonight, a black SUV.”

Just like the vehicle that had lured Oliver and Eve into the alley and stopped me
and Ethan on the street a few nights ago.

Ethan swore out another string of curses, this time including words I’d never heard
before; in fairness, some of them may have been in Swedish.

“Assemble the team, if you would, Sentinel. I think it’s time we explore a plan to
handle Michael Donovan.”

* * *

Luc, Malik, and the guards were easy to assemble. We gave them an overview of our
theory, then called Catcher, Jeff, my grandfather, and Jonah, as Scott’s proxy, and
patched them in by phone. I considered calling Morgan, but thought it best to wait
until we’d finalized a hypothesis.

When the Cadogan vampires took seats around the Ops Room table, Ethan got the ball
rolling.

“We believe the man I hired as a security consultant, Michael Donovan, is the killer
of Oliver, Eve, Katya, and Zoey. He also injured a member of my House.”

He paused to allow a moment for shocked noises and expressions.

“Morgan Greer has confirmed that Michael Donovan was made a vampire by Carlos Anthony
Martinez, Second to Celina before Morgan was appointed. Unfortunately, Carlos made
Michael a vampire without his consent and, in fact, over Michael’s strong objection.
We believe Carlos is deceased.

“We believe Michael killed Oliver and Eve and placed their bodies in a building owned
by Carlos’s estate. We have learned he stamps his documents with a signet ring that
bears the initials ‘C.A.M.,’ and that once belonged to Carlos. Because Celina made
Carlos, and Carlos made Michael, we believe that would have given him entry into Navarre
House despite their biometric protocols.”

“Jeff,” I asked, “do you think that would work?”

“Without a doubt,” he said grimly. “Vampirism is genetic, so Celina’s genetic marker
would be the trigger. If she sired them, or she made a vampire who sired them, they’d
be there.”

Ethan nodded at me. He’d been right about that.

“We also know Michael drives a black SUV of the same approximate size and color of
the vehicle that lured Oliver and Eve into the alley and followed me and Merit.”

“Our working theory,” Luc said, “is that Michael Donovan was made a vampire mostly
without his consent. He takes that personally, maybe has a secret vendetta against
vampires who took away his humanity and so on and so forth. He’d have to be a self-hating
son of a bitch, but we’ve heard weaker reasons for murder.”

“All this because he’s still angry at Carlos,” Jeff marveled.

I understood Jeff’s surprise, but also a touch of Michael’s anger. Ethan had made
me a vampire without my consent. He’d done it to save my life, but my initial nights
as a supernatural had included frustrating realizations of all I’d be giving up.

“The fact that he makes use of the ring and the initials suggests he’s harboring some
anger,” my grandfather said. “He is, in a sense, reliving his experience each time
he kills, but he gets to be the attacker.”

I nodded. “He kills Oliver and Eve, placing them in a secret room in a property owned
by Carlos. We aren’t yet sure why he picked that particular property or that particular
room, but it stands to reason there was some connection between him and Carlos.”

“Maybe that’s the place Carlos turned him,” Catcher said. “It’s unlikely to be a place
he’d soon forget.”

“That’s a good thought,” Ethan said. “We’ll check with Morgan.”

I nodded. “After Oliver and Eve, he gets brave. He walks right into Navarre House,
takes them out while everyone else is asleep.”

“The connection there is easy,” Luc said. “Revenge against the House that created
the monster who attacked him.”

“And earlier tonight, he attacks Margot outside the House.”

“Unfortunately,” Luc said, “the video doesn’t help us on that one. Coincidentally,
after the GP ceremony, Michael recommended we upgrade the cameras to get a better
view, so we’re in between hardware. There’s no video in the back of the House.” Not
that Luc sounded bitter. At all.