House Rules (30 page)

“Oliver and Eve were holding hands. So were Katya and Zoey. Why?”

Michael’s lip quivered with anger. “I wasn’t the only one. He took many of us to the
warehouse. We knew he was coming for us. The monster in the dark.”

Humans
, I thought he meant.

“They didn’t want to change. Didn’t want immortality. Didn’t want the blasphemy of
being a vampire. So that night, while they waited for him to come, they killed themselves.
Took something, some poison. I don’t know.” He waved away the thought. “I was already
a vampire, and I wasn’t strong enough to fight back when he used glamour against me.”

Michael looked up at me. “I found them lying together, hand in hand. He made me get
rid of them.” He shook his head, as if reminding himself of his own motivations. “And
now I get rid of the Carloses of the world.”

“And your security consulting?”

“You gave me plenty of information about your defenses that I will happily share with
McKetrick.” He smiled just a bit. “And what better prize to my employer than the king
of the world?”

Darius
, I realized.

“And now what?” I asked.

Michael pulled something from his pocket. There in his palm was a small black remote
control with a very large red button.

I’d seen plenty of action movies. Nothing good happened when a red button was pressed.

“Detonator,” he said. “The building was already wired, and the guard had the button.
This was Carlos’s building. He kept an office here, you know. An office Celina didn’t
know about.” He shrugged. “I didn’t want them to destroy it, not without me. And now
I can do it myself. I can take down what he built. I can ruin him, the way he ruined
me.”

Michael moved toward the ledge, hands out apologetically. “I’m so sorry, Merit. It
was nice working with you.”

He punched the button, and sirens immediately began to wail, followed by the cry of
a female voice on a loudspeaker that echoed through the silence.

“Five minutes until detonation.”

The demolition contractors must have installed a warning system for the building’s
destruction.

“Goddamn it, Michael,” I said, raising my sword again. “You’ll kill more innocent
people.”

“No,” he said, his eyes flat and emotionless. “The neighborhood’s already been cleared
out. All that remains are vampires and their legacies. You have a choice now, Merit.
You can follow me down and try to apprehend me, or you can help your friends with
their burdens. Frankly, if I’m analyzing this from a strictly strategic standpoint,
I find your chance of success either way to be pretty damn unlikely.”

“Fuck you, Michael.”

He clucked his tongue, tossed away the remote, and resheathed his sword. Then he ran
to the edge of the roof. He stepped onto the edging, outstretched his arms, and dived.

I gripped the rail and peered over. The distance gave me momentary vertigo—I really
hated heights—but it passed quickly enough for me to see him strike the ground with
force enough to buckle the sidewalk in a six-foot radius. The ground shook with it,
but he straightened up as if he’d barely felt the shock.

“Catcher? Jeff?” I called into the receiver. “Are you here? Michael Donovan just jumped
down to the street. He’s working for McKetrick and he’s been hoarding information
about the House’s security. We cannot let him get that back to McKetrick. Can you
get someone to him?

“Hello? Jeff?” I said again after a couple of seconds, but there was no answer.

Michael Donovan looked up, pausing to straighten his jacket and spare a glance—and
a disturbing smile—for me.

I could jump, but I’d never jumped that far before. Not even close. Unlike Michael,
I wasn’t sure I could survive the fall. Vampires were certainly strong, but we weren’t
guaranteed to stick the landing.

On the other hand, didn’t I have to do it? I couldn’t just let him walk away.

My hands shaking violently, my stomach a mess, I gripped the edge of the concrete
and began to hoist myself up. What was the point of being here, of promising to face
my fears and help my vampires, if I wasn’t willing to put my money where my mouth
was . . . or my feet in the air?

But before I could move, a blur of white blew through the darkness toward Michael.
Long, pale, and furry.

I had to blink to be sure I wasn’t hallucinating: a massive tiger, ten feet long from
nose to tail, white with dark stripes, pounding the pavement in the middle of Chicago.

“What the hell?” I murmured, staring down as the scene unfolded.

Michael ran, but his speed was no match for the tiger’s. Front feet, back feet, front
feet, back feet, and then it pounced.

It knocked Michael to the ground with a single blow, but Michael was a vampire, and
he wasn’t going down without a fight. He kicked the tiger backward, and it rolled
before standing again.

The tiger unbalanced, Michael rose to his feet. Before he could grab his sword, the
tiger attacked again, rearing up and hitting Michael Donovan across the nose. I was
too high up to scent blood, but there seemed little doubt the tiger would have drawn
it.

Michael didn’t delay. He pulled the sword from its scabbard and struck out at the
tiger, slicing the animal across the back of its shoulders. The tiger roared but didn’t
cease its attack.

They parried back and forth—the tiger slapping out with a paw, Michael slicing back
when he could, but his opponent was enormous, and Michael was tiring. He raised his
sword again, and the tiger knocked it out of his hand. Panicked, without a weapon,
Michael stumbled, and the tiger took its turn. It pounced—all four feet in the air—and
made for him.

Michael took the tiger’s full weight, falling backward onto a pile of lumber—sharp
planks and sticks that had probably been pulled from the building. There must have
been aspen in the mix of wood; Michael screamed, and then he was gone, only a cone
of ash in his place.

The tiger stepped back, panting. Ears flat against its head, its teeth bared, it roared
into the night, the sound deep and loud enough to shake the foundations of the building
and rattle my bones.

Goose bumps lifted on my arms.

And then, in only a moment, the tiger shape-shifted. I’d seen it happen before, but
that didn’t make the visual any less amazing. A flash lit the night as magic swirled
around him, changing the massive predator . . . into Jeff Christopher.

He shook out his arms and legs, then popped his head back and forth as if stretching
his neck. He looked up and met my gaze, and in the eyes of this young man—often silly,
sometimes costumed, always flirty—I saw a world of understanding and experience and
maturity.

Not that I’d had any doubts, but Jeff Christopher was a marvel.

“Three minutes until detonation.”

Not that there was time to be impressed.

“Merit? Are you there?” A voice sounded over the constant beeping of the alarm. “Get
the hell out of here.”

I pressed a finger to the earpiece, trying to improve the reception. “Ethan? Is that
you?”

“It’s me. I’m on sixteen. Get your ass out of the building.”

I’d be damned if I was leaving without my crew. I ran back across the roof and found
Jonah walking toward the door, Darius in his arms. Darius looked limp and pale, but
he was still breathing.

“Little help?” Jonah asked.

“Working on it.” I ran to the door and propped it open just as Jonah hustled through.

Awkwardly, he trotted down the stairs, arms bulging under Darius’s weight. Vampires
were strong, but he’d given Darius blood, and weakened himself in the process.

“Two minutes and thirty seconds until detonation,” said the warning voice.

“This is going to be close,” I muttered, gripping the interior railing as we moved
as quickly as possible down the stairs to the sixteenth floor. When we reached it,
I burst through the door and came face-to-face with the pointy end of Ethan’s sword.

“It’s me,” I said, tipping it out of the way. “Where is she?”

Lakshmi lay prone in one corner, unconscious, her arms chained to a length of plumbing
that rose through the floor.

He looked at me. “I’ll get her. You get the hell out of here.”

Jonah appeared in the stairwell behind me, face pale, Darius in his arms. His eyes
widened in surprise as he caught sight of Lakshmi in the corner.

“Michael chained her because they were trying to get away,” I said. “That’s how Darius
made it to the roof.”

“And you hired that asshole?” Jonah asked Ethan, placing Darius on the floor and jogging
toward Lakshmi.

“I didn’t know he was an asshole at the time,” Ethan murmured. Together they pulled
at opposite ends of her chain, sweating with the sudden exertion of trying to break
it apart.

“Katana,” I said. “I’ll aim for a link in the chain; you both pull her away.”

“Your katana isn’t strong enough,” Jonah said.

“It’s been tempered by my blood,” I said. “It’s strong enough.”

I had no idea whether my bluff was right, but what choice did I have? We had to try
something.

“Two minutes until detonation,” said the announcer.

I didn’t give them time to argue, but raised my katana in the air. Realizing I was
serious, they each grabbed one of Lakshmi’s arms and braced themselves.

“One, two,
three
!” I yelled, and, silently apologizing to the blade, I brought the katana down with
all the force I could muster.

Sparks and metal flew, and I heard a pop that I bet was Lakshmi’s left shoulder, but
the chain broke, and she tumbled into Ethan.

“One minute and forty-five seconds until detonation.”

“I really hate that lady,” Jonah said, helping Ethan lift Lakshmi into the air. “Let’s
get out of here,” he said, and cast a glance from Ethan to the edge of the sixteenth
floor, which disappeared into darkness.

“Let’s do it,” Ethan said.

We ran to the edge and looked down. We were sixteen stories up, and it was a long
way to the ground.

“One minute and thirty seconds until detonation.”

“We’ll jump it,” Jonah said.

I shook my head, panic suddenly setting in. “It’s too far. I’ve never jumped that
far before.”

“It’s not too far,” Ethan said. “Jonah taught you to jump, and I saw you do it in
Nebraska. You can do this, too, Merit. Trust me.”

He looked over at me, and our eyes met. Promises and hopes and dreams swirled there,
adrift in an ocean of fear. But we had to keep trying.

“One minute and fifteen seconds until detonation.”

“I love you,” he said.

Tears swam in my eyes, blurring my vision. I wiped them away with the edge of my sleeve.
“I love you, too.”

“Anytime now, kids!” Jonah yelled out.

“Jump!” Ethan said, and I didn’t bother to hesitate. I hit the ledge at a full run
and bounded over it toward the ground. Jonah did the same, with Darius in his arms,
then Ethan, with Lakshmi in his.

We jumped.

* * *

For a split second, the entire city swam before us, the edges bent by the curvature
of the earth. And then, as if gravity bowed to us instead of the other way around,
the world slowed, and that single, gigantic leap became one small step.

But one small step with a hell of a lot of acceleration.

We hit the ground, buckling the asphalt before us. My knees ached with the force of
the fall, but we were all still standing.

The percussions began to sound behind us. “Time’s up,” Ethan yelled out. “Run!”

Pain and fear disappeared. We were driven only by survival, by the need to escape
the heat of the blasts that had already begun behind us.

We ran with speed that would have blurred our movements to any onlookers, then vaulted
the fence just as the heat of the explosions began to grow. We made it a few more
feet before the shock wave pushed us forward. Jonah and Ethan put me, Darius, and
Lakshmi on the ground, then covered us with their bodies as the explosions shook the
earth.

I’d felt earthly and magical earthquakes, but the building’s detonation was a force
of an altogether different magnitude. My chest rumbled from the vibrations, and my
eardrums ached from the noise. They went on for an eternity; even when the detonations
stopped, the building crumbled into a pile behind us with earth-shattering force.

A minute later the percussion was over, and the air was filled by a thick cloud of
dust and the sounds of sprinkling dirt, steel, glass, and gravel.

“Everybody okay?” Jonah asked above me.

“I’m good,” I said. “Ethan?”

He grunted, which I took as a good sign.

“How’s Lakshmi?” I asked.

Another grunt. “She just elbowed me in the ribs, so I think she’s good.”

I didn’t bother asking if Darius was okay.

CHAPTER TWENTY

LET THEM FLY

W
hen we returned, dusty and victorious, to the House, Ethan thanked me with steak and
chocolate. The healthy members of the Greenwich Presidium thanked us with effusive
praise and their promise they’d note the House’s courageous actions toward the GP.

I guess only near-death experiences were sufficient to prove to the GP that we weren’t
common criminals.

Regardless, a bit of postcrisis praise wasn’t enough to make me feel better about
the GP. Although we’d made a pretty large bang, rescuing Darius and Lakshmi wasn’t
the first good deed we’d done as a House, and the GP had ignored the others.

Besides, Darius was still recuperating from his injuries; it remained to be seen whether
his opinion of us had truly changed.

But those were worries for another night. Tonight, when we were clean once again,
we raided the kitchen before returning to the bedroom—and the bed.

“You’re all right?” I asked him.

“I am angry at myself for what I missed. That I didn’t see who Michael Donovan was.
But there’s little to be done about that now.”

“Would you feel better if I slugged you in the arm?”

He gave me an arched eyebrow. Classic Sullivan. “How would that make me feel better?”

I shrugged. “It would make me feel better, which would make you feel better.”

My only warning was the narrowing of his eyes . . . and then he pounced. I squealed
as he pushed me back onto the mattress, but not because I was in pain.

“You know,” I said, “we’re still going to have to deal with McKetrick.”

“And his mayoral dispensation? Yes, I know. It’s unfortunate our primary witness to
McKetrick’s wrongdoings made a very bad decision in the vicinity of an angry shifter.”

Not that Michael would have come out any better in the hands of the Rogue or Navarre
House vampires who would have liked to get a piece of him.

I frowned up at Ethan. “Will there be a time when things are normal? When vampires
are loved or hated just like everyone else? When we live simpler lives?”

Ethan settled himself on an elbow, and pushed a lock of hair from my eyes with his
free hand. “I’m not sure you were cut out for a simple life, Merit. You don’t seem
a suburban type of girl.”

I understood his point, but the comment made me suddenly melancholic. “I would have
liked children someday,” I confessed. But it wasn’t in the cards for me; no vampire
had ever successfully borne children.

His expression fell. “I didn’t know. You hadn’t mentioned—”

I tried to smile a little. “I know it can’t happen. And it’s nothing I’m actively
thinking about. But I do wonder what it would be like to be a parent. To experience
the world again alongside a little person who’s only just beginning to understand
it. To learn with them all the things that make life worthwhile.”

Ethan’s eyes, green and fathomless, seemed to grow larger.

I thought, just for a moment, of a prophecy Gabriel had once made. Of the pair of
green eyes he’d seen in my future—eyes that looked “everything and nothing” like Ethan’s.
Children were impossible, but that begged the question: Whom had he seen?

Ethan caressed my cheek. “You are a remarkable woman, Caroline Evelyn Merit.”

“I try. But it’s exhausting.”

“I am your Master and your servant. Just tell me how to please you.”

“Just hold me,” I said, moving closer to him.

He stilled. “That’s not entirely what I had in mind.”

“Long night, tired Sentinel.”

Ethan wrapped his arms around me and nestled his chin atop my head. “In that case,”
he said, “try to stop me.”

Those were the last words I heard before dawn closed my eyes.

* * *

The next evening, Ethan asked us to assemble on the lawn at the fire pit. He’d refreshed
the stack of wood the GP had used for its ceremony, and the flame there now glowed
with a wonderful warmth.

Ethan turned toward us, his face lit by the fire. “We have made a decision no vampires
before us have made. We have chosen liberty and self-respect. Darius and the GP have
undertaken the rituals they believe in. It is, in my estimation, important that we
have our own rituals, as well. Rituals that remind us who we are, and why we make
difficult decisions instead of letting others justify their ignorance and decide for
us.

“Helen,” Ethan called out, and she stepped forward, a square of white gossamer paper
in her hands. She extended it to Ethan.

“Centuries ago,” Ethan said, “we were visited by a samurai, Miura, who taught us the
way of the sword. The way of honor. He also told us of the tradition of the sky balloon.”

Helen and Ethan gently pulled the opposite sides of the paper, and it opened into
a squarish shape like a paper party lantern.

While Ethan held the lantern by a small loop on the top, Helen dipped a long matchstick
into the fire and pulled it back, its end now alight.

“The lantern is symbolic,” Ethan said.

Helen carefully touched the flame to a wick in the center of the lantern. The flame
filled the air inside the lantern and gently expanded the walls. It glowed with a
pale white luminescence, and bobbed in the breeze, clearly eager to be free, even
as Ethan held it firm.

“We place our worries and our concerns inside this lantern,” Ethan said. “We give
it the weight of our fears . . . and we set it adrift.”

He released his grip, and the lantern floated into the air, rising slowly above the
House like a star taking flight from earth.

It was such a simple thing, such a simple act, but filled with hope and promise and
beauty. I brushed away a tear, and heard sniffles in the crowd behind me. I hadn’t
been the only one moved, which had undoubtedly been Ethan’s intent.

We watched the lantern drift higher and higher into the sky, the star rising as the
winter breeze drew it farther from Ethan’s still-outstretched fingers. And then it
disappeared, the wick extinguished by a sudden burst of chilling wind.

“Our fears fly,” Ethan said into the quiet that had fallen. “We face them and then
we set them aloft until they are extinguished.”

He looked back at us again. “Tonight, my Novitiates, we embark on a new journey. We
decide the manner of vampires—the manner of House—we are to be. And we make that decision
for ourselves, without the political interference of the GP. We do this with honest
intention and without fear, for we have already set our fears adrift, and the world
owns them now. Good night, my brothers and sisters, and may the falling of the sun
again bring us peace and prosperity.”

It wasn’t a prayer, not exactly.

It was a promise.