Biting Cold

chapter FIFTEEN

PERFORMANCE EVALUATION

I found my leathers in my closet when I emerged from the shower, including the jacket Catcher had picked up during my rescue. The leather was clean and shiny, in perfect condition after a hard night’s work.

I got dressed and checked my phone and found a message waiting from Jonah. Not surprisingly, he was checking in, making sure I’d gotten the rest and blood I needed to recuperate. I messaged him back to let him know that I was still alive, even if I could have used a few more hours’ sleep.

I also thanked Morgan with a message. I didn’t get a reply.

My grandfather was a little more loquacious. “Baby girl! You’re okay? Catcher and Jeff said they got you home safe.”

The relief in his voice brought tears to my eyes. “They did great. Jeff was a hero—and he carried me out just like one.”

He chuckled. “I’d tell him you said that, but you calling him your hero may cause more trouble than it’s worth. I’ll call your father and let him know you’re okay, although I’m sure he’d like to hear it from you.”

I doubted he cared much either way, but I wasn’t going to argue with my grandfather about it. “Thank you, Grandpa. And speaking of trouble, I understand Mayor Kowalcyzk’s city got a lot more diverse than she’d imagined.”

“Let’s just say her knowledge is now a little closer to reality. In all seriousness, that woman was in some pretty heavy denial. I may not have many pleasant things to say about Seth Tate right now, but the man appointed me to office and usually gave a fair shake to sups.”

“Seth Tate is still the unanswered question,” I said. “It’s Dominic—the fallen angel with the bat wings—who’s causing all the trouble.”

He whistled. “I wouldn’t have imagined this world was possible if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes.”

“I understand the feeling.”

“At any rate, I believe everyone realized their secrets had very limited life spans. Better to come out on your own terms than be forced out by registration laws and black helicopters.”

“That makes sense to me. It was a brave thing to do—especially now, when the hatred’s a lot louder than the love. I’m proud of them for taking that step.”

“I don’t know that everyone’s thrilled about it,” he said, “and there were certainly some dissenters, but it was time to do the right thing. Vampires have hoisted up the weight for long enough; it was time for others to do their fair share. I think they realized that.”

We’d certainly tried to do our fair share, but it was our failures that stood out in my mind, not our victories. Chicago had nearly burned because I hadn’t seen that Mallory was behind the chaos. Ethan had taken a stake because he’d come looking for me, and I’d nearly died for a punishment I’d basically volunteered to take.

Maybe Ethan was right. Maybe I would have been better off in the library.

But there was no time for self-pity. Not with Dominic and Seth still out there. Not when others had work to do, as well. This was the time for graciousness and gratitude.

“Thanks, Grandpa,” I said. “I try to do my best.”

“I know you do. We all know it. Stay safe, baby girl.”

“I will. You, too.”

We said our good-byes and I put the phone back into my pocket, glad that I had family to count on and turn to, even if it wasn’t the family I’d expected.

My phone calls made, I left my room and made my way to the basement. I kept my fingers crossed that everyone would be dressed and in an upright position when I opened the door. But I still braced myself for horror, especially when I heard loud thumping coming from behind the double doors—music, something of the techno or electronica sort, with a solid bass line and a strange, high-pitched melody.

Since musical thumping could easily be accompanied by physical thumping, I opened the door carefully and peeked inside.

Success! There were no chaps in sight.

Kelley and Juliet sat at the conference table. The computers and CCTV monitors were all staffed. Although their faces looked familiar—they were Cadogan vamps I’d seen around the House—I’d never seen them in the Ops Room.

Curiosity piqued, I walked inside, pointed at the newcomers, and looked at Kelley. “What’s going on?” I yelled over the music.

I hadn’t exactly been shy about the question, and all of them turned to look at me.

I waved a little.

“Helpers,” Juliet said. “New probationary guards.”

“You actually hired someone? How long was I out?” I looked over the guards, who all wore the Cadogan uniform (black suits) and small earpieces tucked around their earlobes. They typed quickly and scanned their screens intently, and generally looked pretty competent.

“They’re temps,” Kelley said, her head bobbing with the music. “We gave up on interviews.”

That was understandable, especially if the few interviews I’d seen were any indication of the whole. The applicants weren’t big on social skills. Or physical skills. Or really any skills that would have made them decent candidates for House guards.

“Glad to hear it. That you have temps, I mean, not that the interviews were awful. And the music?”

“Vamps and shifters are no longer the only sups in town!” Juliet said, raising her hands in the air.

Luc and Lindsey appeared in the doorway, and Lindsey squealed when she saw me. She pulled me into a hug that nearly rebroke my rib. After a moment she released me but still pressed a big kiss to my forehead.

“We were so freaking worried about you!”

“I’m glad to be back.”

Luc pulled the door shut, then directed one of the newbies to turn down the music. “The big man’s in the House,” he said, “so let’s keep the celebration quiet and simple. As far as we are concerned, this office is more efficient and under budget than any other in the House. We keep our little corner of things quiet, and we keep the GP out of it.” Luc sat down at the conference table and kicked his feet atop it. “Although we are celebrating because of a very important tenet. One of my key rules for House success, actually.”

Lindsey and I rolled our eyes. Luc had a lot of “key rules,” as well as “tenets,” “scenarios,” and “protocols.” And he liked to share them regularly.

He pointed at me. “A vampire’s best ally, Sentinel, is the guy that makes your enemy more nervous than you do.”

I assumed he was referring to the other sups’ announcement that they existed, and he was probably right.

“And I’ll tell you what else I know,” he said, punching his fingertip into the top of the conference table. “We have our Master back, our Sentinel is alive, and I have four new probies to harass. Life hardly gets better than that.”

Lindsey cleared her throat. Loudly.

Luc’s ears turned crimson red. “Well, it gets a little better.”

Lindsey sent him an arch look. “A little?”

“Hugely better,” he said. “Fundamentally better. Tremendously better.”

“Thank you.”

“Sure thing, Sugar Lips. But that’s not even the best part. Now that we have staff to cover House security, our Sentinel can focus on her job instead of slumming around here.”

I sat down at the table and pouted a little. “I like hanging out down here. I don’t have a staff.”

Lindsey cleared her throat again.

“Or a Lindsey.”

“You’re welcome here anytime you like. But you don’t have to worry about taking patrol shifts when you should be out there mixing it up with the bad guys. Deal?”

“Deal,” I said.

“And speaking of deals, let’s figure out why the hell we’ve got a man-sized bat picking off our city’s fine, uniformed police officers.” His expression changed—from silly-in-love vampire to master tactician. He reached over to the console in the middle of the table and pressed some buttons. The sound of a ringing phone filled the air.

“Yo?” Jeff answered.

“Jeffrey, it’s Luc. I’m here with Kelley, Lindsey, Juliet, a very healthy Merit, and the rest of our now fully staffed office. You may refer to them as ‘Probies.’ ”

“Hello, everyone and Probies,” Jeff said. “Especially a very healthy Merit.”

“Hello, my knight in shining armor,” I said, taking a seat. “Or at least my knight with a very shiny reflective blanket.”

“It was nothing. Just doing my duty. What’s up?”

Luc leaned over the speakerphone gadget. “We’re just about to get an update from Merit. If you’ve got time, we’d love for you to join us.”

“God, yes,” Jeff said, a little quieter. “I’ve been fielding calls from nervous sups all day.”

“I thought they agreed to reveal themselves?” I asked with a frown.

“Only the big four,” Jeff said. “The rest are now extra-nervous and they apparently want to vent about their concerns. Loudly. And there’s nothing I can do for them right now.”

“I feel their pain,” Luc said. “Now, Sentinel, tell us about the angel in our midst. What is he, and how can we take him out?”

“His name is Dominic. He’s a messenger—a fallen angel—from way back in the day, and he split off from Tate when Mallory tried to conjure something and Tate touched the Maleficium. Dominic has black wings, as I’m sure you’ve seen. And he looks exactly like Seth. There’s no physical differences, as far as I could tell.”

“And he’s a sadist,” Kelley said, taking notes on an electronic tablet.

I smiled grimly. “I told him the same thing.”

“I don’t suppose he gave you his master plan while you two were chatting it up à la sunlight?” Luc asked.

“Not expressly, but his motivation’s pretty easy to figure out. Back in the day, he thought punishment wasn’t severe enough. He’s big on justice and retribution, Hammurabic Code–style. He wanted to take out the four cops because they’d done wrong, and he wanted to take me out because I interrupted his work. That’s the same reason he burned Paige’s house down after he and Seth escaped the silo. As far as he’s concerned, he’s conducting business as usual.”

“Fallen angel. Sword of justice,” Jeff said.

“Exactly,” I said. “From that perspective, Paulie’s murder makes sense. Dominic seems to be completely blind to his own flaws—the murder and whatnot. Paulie did wrong for this city—he sold drugs. That’s enough to trigger Dominic’s justice reflex, even though Paulie was actually working for him at the time.”

“That explains Dominic,” Luc said. “But what about Seth? Any sign of him? Any word at all?”

“Nothing at all, as far as we know,” Jeff said. “And there’s no sign of him or talk online or among the other sups.”

“So he’s lying low,” Luc said. “And even if one of them popped up, it’s not like we could tell them apart. But at least we know what they are.”

“At least,” I agreed. “But that doesn’t solve our larger problem.”

“Which is?” Luc asked.

“We don’t know how to stop them.”

That’s when we got to work.

There’s at least one common thread linking detective stories and cop shows—the board that shows a victim’s picture, the potential suspects, and the witnesses. We opted for something similar, except instead of victims and suspects, we had a demonic angel and a something or other we weren’t quite sure about.

Well, we had pictures of Seth Tate and a movie still from Hellboy Jeff had e-mailed us, red skin and all.

I glanced over at Luc, who stood beside me, studying the whiteboard.

“Sometimes, we need a little humor,” Luc said.

“I guess I can’t argue with that.” I drew a simple image of a book on the board between Seth and Dominic.

“Seth touched the Maleficium. He split into Seth and Dominic. But why were they linked together in the first place? And if Dominic is a fallen angel, what’s Seth?”

“And most important,” Luc said, “how can we use that against them?”

We stared silently at the board for five minutes. Unfortunately, we still didn’t have an answer for either question.

“Angel, man, or monkey,” Lindsey said, “it makes no difference to me. I will kill him all the same.” She put an arm around me. “He hurts you, he goes down.”

I put an arm around her waist. “I appreciate the support.”

There was a knock at the door. Malik peeked his head in.

“Liege?” Luc asked.

“Darius would like to speak with Merit.”

I was half stunned, half confused, and one hundred percent nervous. “He wants to talk to me?”

“You are, and I quote, ‘a lynchpin in my review of the House.’ ”

Lindsey winced on my behalf.

I stood up and walked for the door, wondering if I should have just stayed with Dominic.

I followed Malik to the first floor of the House, then the second, and the third. Since there weren’t any public rooms up there, I was admittedly confused. “Where are we going?”

“The roof,” Malik said, following the hallway toward Ethan’s apartments.

“I’m sorry, the roof?”

“The roof,” he dryly confirmed, as if he was equally confused by the location. “Just follow me.”

Without a reason to argue, I followed him to the end of the hallway. He opened the last door on the right, then flipped on the light in an empty, vampire-sized bedroom. But unlike the others, a folding pair of simple stairs offered access into the ceiling.

“Attic?” I wondered aloud.

“Yep,” Malik said, then hopped up the stairs.

I grabbed the railing and followed Malik into the ceiling and then the space above. This was clearly an older part of the house. The beams were still exposed, showing antique square-headed nails and insulation that looked like horsehair. Kowalcyzk would have loved to send some building code inspectors in here.

“Watch your head,” Malik said, and I followed as he half walked, hunched over a bit to accommodate the low ceiling, across the room.

The air was chilly. An open window let moonlight and a stiff fall breeze spill into the room. The breeze carried the scent of clove cigarettes.

Darius was the only man I knew who smoked cloves.

Malik stopped a few feet from the open window and motioned me toward it. At my nervous expression, he smiled, then leaned in.

“Remember who you are, and who you were appointed to be,” he whispered. “We all believe in you.”

I smiled appreciatively, then climbed out the dormer window and outside onto the thin widow’s walk that capped the edge of the roof.

It was cold, and I zipped up my jacket as soon as I stepped outside and stuffed my hands into my pockets. I found my bit of worry wood still lodged there, and I rubbed its surface for luck. As if that would help me.

Darius leaned against the thin wrought-iron banister that outlined the widow’s walk. He wore a button-up shirt and trousers that couldn’t have been much protection against the chill, but he didn’t look cold. He looked well at home up here in the dark.

A dark cigarette between his fingers, Darius cast me a glance. “Sentinel,” he said, blowing out a stream of smoke.

“Sire.”

He looked out over the city, the moon milky beneath a haze of clouds.

“It’s quiet out here,” I said, not sure of the etiquette. Was I supposed to start talking? Or wait for him to do it?

“It is,” he said. “Although I suspect the city bustles considerably more in the daytime.”

I looked toward downtown Chicago, where skyscrapers blinked at us. Lights in condos and offices twinkled, and bright red beacons on the roofs rotated to warn passing planes. The view wasn’t unlike the postcard I’d stuck in the car for my trip to Nebraska, and I realized I hadn’t thought to check if that little bit of paper had survived the crash.

“The Loop definitely bustles,” I finally agreed. “A lot more than Hyde Park.”

“London has its quiet parts, as well.”

I nodded, and for a moment we stared out at the quiet city. But it was time to get this show on the road. I had a monster to hunt.

“You asked to see me?”

“I’d like your opinion.”

“My opinion?”

“On the state of affairs of your House, Sentinel. You’ve been here some months. You must have a sense of the House and its goings-on.”

I “sensed” a lot of things, but that didn’t mean I wanted to raise them with Darius West. “I think the House is operating as well as it can in troubled times.”

“Troubled times?”

Did he really need me to recite the list? They were the same grievances we’d been leveling against the GP for months now.

“Our existence was announced to the public without our consent. Celina made attempts on our lives. Mallory threw dark magic across the city. A supernatural mayor, or two of them, are out there somewhere. All problems that we have to solve.”

“And why you, Merit? Why must you solve them?”

I didn’t really have an answer for that, except the obvious: If not us, then who? The GP seemed to be stuck in a mode of refusing to make decisions. Who refused to act, even when the choices were clear and present before them? Were they afraid they’d be judged? Afraid they might be wrong? We had allies, unofficial or otherwise—a select few Houses, shifters, nymphs, a few fairies, a rebellious sorcerer or three. Together, we seemed to be the only ones willing to actually do anything.

It was easy to judge Ethan—or me, Malik, or Luc—when you could stand on the sidelines or quarterback from the couch. It was harder to be in the trenches, to do the best you could…and it hurt more when others didn’t believe you were acting for good.

Darius took a puff on the cigarette, then blew the smoke from his mouth in a slow, steady stream. “I have been alive a long time,” he said. “Not as long as Ethan, but a long time. I have seen much in my life, but I must disagree that these times are troubled. I have seen world wars, Sentinel. I have seen vampires staked in public with no investigation, no remorse.”

I nodded. “With all due respect, that you’ve seen more troubled times doesn’t mean ours aren’t troubled. It doesn’t take a world war to make a situation precarious. Or dangerous. Before Celina outed us, I had no idea vampires existed. Nor, I would bet, did most people. Perhaps the Houses had troubles then that I’m not aware of. But if they did, they weren’t the kind of issues that face us now.”

“That’s very poetic.” He tapped the cigarette’s ashes against the wrought iron, and a thousand tiny sparks fell through the sky. “But ultimately, irrelevant.”

He took a final puff of his cigarette, then smudged the butt against the dark rock of the wall behind us and put the remainder in his pocket.

“You are young,” he said. “And I don’t doubt your intentions are noble. But those intentions are directed toward this House, its vampires, and its Master. My intentions are necessarily much larger in scale.”

“We are not trying to make your job more difficult, but we can’t just ignore these problems.”

“That, Merit, precisely is the problem. You take arms against the sea of troubles, to quote the bard, but you don’t end them. You make them worse.” He held up a hand before I could argue. “The evidence is incontrovertible. Things in Chicago have deteriorated over the last few months, and not just because there are enemies in your midst. Consider Grey House. They keep their heads down and they focus on survival, and we have no arguments with their Novitiates or their leadership.”

Yeah, but that was only because he didn’t know the truth. He didn’t know the captain of the Grey House guards was a member of the Red Guard and that he was out there mixing it up with the rest of us.

Maybe that’s precisely why Jonah had joined the Red Guard—to keep his efforts hidden from the GP and out of Darius’s sight. It wasn’t a bad idea. Nevertheless, “Celina didn’t target anyone from Grey House, nor did Tate. Or McKetrick. The shifters didn’t ask Grey House to act as security for their convocation. What would you have us do? Stick our heads in the sand?”

“I am suggesting,” he said firmly, “that there is a skill inherent in handling a crisis and not making it worse. And I am suggesting the current leaders of this House do not have that particular skill.”

I was too pissed at the insult to Ethan and Malik to respond. This man sat in a cushy chair in England and complained about what went on here, in Chicago, on the ground. He didn’t have to make the types of decisions we did; he didn’t have to investigate and solve the kinds of problems we did. What right did he have to complain about how we reacted?

“Compose yourself, Sentinel. I can feel your irritation from here. You need to learn to better guard your emotions. Stealth is difficult when you’re broadcasting your position.”

I didn’t respond to the constructive criticism.

“There’s no point denying relations between humans and vampires in Chicago are on a rather unfortunate course. Perhaps that course could have been avoided; perhaps not.” He looked over at me. “It is crucial that the Master of this House be capable of handling that course, whatever it may be.”

“Meaning?”

“Is Ethan Sullivan capable of leading this house?”

My heart began to pound. He wasn’t here to evaluate me. This meeting wasn’t about my role in the House, or the manner in which I’d been made a vampire.

Darius hadn’t come to Chicago to take a long, last look at Cadogan House before enforcing the shofet’s decision.

He’d come to Chicago to take a long, last look at Ethan.

Unfortunately, I was long ago tired of politics and strategies and games. “What are you afraid of?” I asked.

Darius looked startled. “Excuse me?”

“Are you afraid of what he’ll do if you disown the House…or if you don’t?”

He looked at me for a moment, and I felt a bolt of panic that I’d thoroughly overstepped my bounds.

But then he called my bluff. He leaned forward, his face only inches away from mine, and his voice dropped. “You tell me, Sentinel. You tell me about the man Ethan has become. He was raised from the dead by a witch who wanted to control him, to make him a thing to be used in the effectuation of her magic. That woman would destroy the world if allowed to do so. Can you tell me, with one hundred percent certainty, that Ethan bears no scars from his experience with her? That he is one hundred percent free of her influence?”

I’d never been a good liar. I’d always believed in a truth—the unassailable facts that either were or were not.

But what could I tell Darius? That Ethan and Mallory still had a connection? That she had the ability to drive him to his knees and assault him with pain?

That the Master of one of the country’s twelve Houses—the fourth-oldest House in the United States—was at a witch’s mercy?

My heart pounded in my chest, but I forced myself to meet his eyes, to fight through the fear, and to say the words that needed to be said, even if they weren’t the absolute truth.

“Ethan Sullivan is the man he always was. A better man, perhaps, because of what he’s been through.”

“A very strategic answer. I don’t approve of relations between Master and Novitiate. I didn’t approve when Lacey and Ethan were involved, and I don’t approve now. I find such relationships to be essentially incestuous. Regardless, you are his confidante. You have his ear, Merit. Steer him straight, Sentinel. Steer him straight…or his future will be considerably darker than it is tonight. I’m going to speak with the dueling Masters now. I’ll not mention we had this discussion.”

With that, he moved past me and climbed inside again.

I closed my eyes and blew out a breath, then stood there for a moment on the roof, the world dark and quiet, the breeze cold. A light rain began to fall. With my heart heavier than it had been when I’d arrived, I climbed back inside and closed the window behind me.

It was gonna be a long night.

I’d just opened my door when Margot came rushing down the hallway, a worried expression on her face. She still wore chef’s whites stained with vegetal green, and a vibrant scarf covered her hair. Whatever brought her up to the third floor, she’d left in a hurry.

“What’s wrong?”

“Ethan and Malik just went in to talk to Darius, but someone is here. You need to come downstairs.”

“Who is it?”

“I’m…not entirely sure.”

Without waiting for me to agree, she turned and headed toward the stairs. I followed her, and I was just panicked enough that the trip seemed to take twice as long as usual. Wasn’t that always the way? Maybe it was anticipation that stretched out the seconds, much in the same way that a trip to some exotic destination seemed to take twice as long as the return voyage.

We took the stairs at a trot and found a protective net of vampires between the stairs and the front door. They split to make room for me, and I stepped between them, my eyes widening at the dark-haired figure at the door.

“See?” Margot whispered.

I nodded, my brain reeling as I tried to figure out what to do.

“Hello, Ballerina,” he said, and I whipped my sword from its sheath.