Хлоя Нейл: Hard Bitten

My heart clenched in sympathy, but I resisted the urge to reach out to him. We were colleagues, I reminded myself. Nothing more.

“I know it’s frustrating,” I said, “and I know Tate was out of line with the warrant. But what can we do but try to solve the problem?”

Frowning, Ethan turned back to the lake, then walked toward it. The edge of the peninsula was terraced into stone rings that formed giant steps into the water. He shed his suit jacket, placing it gingerly on the stone ledge before sitting down beside it.

Was it wrong that I was a wee bit disappointed he didn’t just shed the shirt altogether?

When I joined him, he picked up a pebble and pitched it. Even with the chop, it flew like a bullet across the water.

“This doesn’t sound like a rave,” I said. “What Mr. Jackson described, I mean, at least not like how you’ve described them before. This didn’t sound like it was about seduction or glamour.

This isn’t some underground hobby.” As I waited for him to answer, I pushed the bangs from my face. The wind was picking up.

Ethan wound up and threw another pebble, the rock zinging as it skipped ahead. “Continue,” he said, and I incrementally relaxed. We were back to politics and strategy. That was a good sign.

“I’ve experienced First Hunger, and First Hunger Part Deux. There was a sensual component to both, sure, but at base they were about the blood—the thirst. Not about conquering humans or killing them.”

“We are vampires,” he dryly pointed out.

“Yes, because we drink blood, not because we’re psychopaths. I’m not saying there aren’t psychopathic vampires, or vampires who wouldn’t kill for blood if they were starving for it, but it doesn’t sound like that’s what happened here. It sounds like violence, pure and simple.”

Ethan was quiet for a moment. “The hunger for blood is antithetical to violence. If anything, it’s about seduction, about drawing the human closer. That is the quintessential purpose of vampire glamour.”

Glamour was old-school vampire mojo—the ability of vampires to entrance others, either by manipulating their targets or by adjusting their own appearances to make themselves more attractive to their victims. I couldn’t glamour worth a damn, but I seemed to have some immunity toward it.

“This is the second time raves have gotten us in trouble,” I pointed out. “We’ve avoided them until now, and it’s time we shut them down. But we can’t go in assuming this is some run-of-the-mill party that got out of hand. This just sounds . . . different. And if you want a silver lining, at least Tate’s giving you a chance to resolve the problem.”

“Giving me a chance? That’s putting it mildly.

He’s doing precisely what Nick Breckenridge attempted to do—blackmailing us into taking action.”

“Or he’s giving us an opportunity we didn’t have before.”

“How do you figure that?”

“He’s forcing our hands,” I said. “Which means that instead of tiptoeing around the GP and worrying what this House or that might think of us, we’re forced to get out there and do something about it. We get to spend some of that political capital you’re always harping about.”

Ethan arched an eyebrow imperiously.

“Talking about. Talking about in well-reasoned and measured tones.”

This time, he rolled his eyes.

“Look,” I continued. “The last time we worked on the raves, you made me focus on the media risk. Tonight, we’ve proven that worrying someone might find out about the problem doesn’t actually solve the problem. We need to get in front of the issue. We need to close them down.”

“You want to tell vampires they can no longer engage in human blood orgies?”

“Well, I wasn’t going to use those words, exactly. And I did plan to take my sword.”

He smiled a little. “You are quite a thing to behold when you’ve got steel in your hands.”

“Yes,” I agreed. I touched a hand to my stomach. “And now that we’re looking on the bright side, let’s find some grub. I am starving.”

“Are you ever not starving?”

“Har-har.” I nudged his arm. “Come on. Let’s get an Italian beef.”

He glanced over at me. “I assume that has some meaning important within Chicago culinary circles?”

I just stood there, both saddened that he hadn’t experienced the joy of a good Italian beef sandwich—and irritated that he’d lived in Chicago for so long and had so completely sequestered himself from the stuff that made it Chicago.

“As important as red hots and deep dish. Let’s go, Liege. It’s your turn to get schooled.”

He growled, but relented.

We drove to University Village, parked along the street, and took our places in line with the third-shifters on lunch breaks and the UIC students needing late-night snacks. Eventually we placed our orders and moved to a counter, where I taught Ethan to stand the way God intended Chicagoans to stand—feet apart, elbows on the table, sandwiches in hand.

Ethan hadn’t spoken since his own eight-inch Italian beef sandwich had been delivered, still dripping from its dip in gravy. When his first bite left a trail of juice on the floor in front of his feet—and not on his expensive Italian shoes—he smiled grandly at me.

“Well done, Sentinel.”

I nodded through my bite of bread, beef, and peppers, happy that Ethan was in a better mood.

Say what you might about my obsession with all things meat and carbohydrate, but never underestimate the ability of a stack of thin-sliced beef on a bun to make a man happy—vampire or human.

And speaking of happiness, I wondered what else Ethan had been missing out on. “Have you ever been to a Cubs game?”

Ethan dabbed his mouth with a paper napkin, and I got a glimpse of his knuckles—already healed from the blows. “No, I have not. As you know, I’m not much of a baseball fan.”

He wasn’t much of a fan, but he’d still tracked down a signed Cubs baseball to replace one I’d lost. That was the kind of move that threw me off balance, but I managed to keep things lighthearted.

“Just stake me now,” I said. “Seriously —you’ve been in Chicago how long and you’ve never been to Wrigley? That’s a shame. You need to get out there. I mean, for a night game, obviously.”

“Obviously.”

A couple of large men with mustaches and Bears T-shirts moved toward the high bar where we stood, sandwiches in hand. They took a spot beside Ethan, spread their feet, unwrapped their own Italian beefs, and dug in.

It wasn’t until bite number two that they glanced over and noticed two vampires were standing beside them.

The one closest to Ethan ran a napkin across his dripping mustache, his gaze shifting from me to Ethan. “You two look familiar. I know you?”

Since my photo had been smeared across the front page of the paper a couple of months ago, and Ethan had made the local news more than once since the attack on Cadogan, we probably did look familiar.

“I’m a vampire from Cadogan House,” Ethan said.

Our area of the restaurant, not full but still dotted with late-night munchers, went silent.

This time, the man looked suspiciously at the sandwich. “You like that?”

“It’s great,” Ethan said, then gestured toward me. “This is Merit. She’s from Chicago. She decided I had to try one.”

The man and his companion leaned forward to look at me. “That so?”

“It is.”

He was quiet for a moment. “You had deep dish yet? Or a red hot?”

My heart warmed. We might have been vampires, but at least these guys recognized that we were first and foremost Chicagoans. We knew Wrigley Field and Navy Pier, Daley and rush hour traffic, Soldier Field in December and Oak Street Beach in July. We knew freak snowstorms and freakier heat waves.