Midnight Marked: A Chicagoland Vampires Novel (19 page)

“Thank you for that,” Ethan said, and my grandfather nodded.

“The inaccuracies can be corrected,” he said. “But that’s the kind of manipulation we’re dealing with.”

“As for the magic,” Luc said, “spread the word. Alert your vampires to the possibility of more symbol sites, and ask them to report anything they find.”

“The odds of that seem pretty slim,” Jonah said. “I mean, not that there are more sites, but that we’ll randomly stumble across them.” He glanced at me. “That’s pretty much how you found the Wrigleyville symbols, right?”

“Almost exactly,” I said.

“Maybe we can build something.”

We all looked at Mallory, who was staring blankly at the open windows.

“What kind of something?” Catcher asked.

She blinked, looked at him. “I’m just talking this through, but a machine that would find the other sites? A magical radar, something that could send back a signal from concentrations of alchemy.”

Catcher frowned, seemed to consider. “You’re thinking about a receiver? Something to pick up the alchemical signals?” He paused. “Yeah. That might be possible. The sites would work like reflectors, if you could tune in to the alchemy’s signal.” He grabbed a notepad and pen from the center of the table, began scribbling.

“Is such a thing possible?” Ethan asked.

Mallory snorted. “Anything and everything is possible.”

“Truer words,” I murmured.

“Visibility could be a problem,” Mallory said. “Actually being able to see where the symbols are, I mean. If they’re spread out, we’ll have line-of-sight problems.”

“Maybe I could help with that,” Jeff said.

“What are you thinking?” Catcher asked.

Jeff rubbed his temple absently. “Maybe I can align a program to the magic? So even if we can’t see the locations’ IRL, we can watch them on a screen? A three-dimensional map?”

IRL?
Ethan asked silently.

In real life,
I said.
As opposed to the lighthearted fantasy we’re pretending to live in.

“Yeah,” Mallory said, nodding as she looked at Jeff and Catcher. “Yeah. That might actually work.”

Ethan looked at Mallory. “There’s no risk that this would harm you?”

His question was softly spoken. And it wasn’t about doubt or lack of confidence in her, the fear that she’d use dark magic again, backslide into the hole she’d only so recently crawled out of. There was only concern for a woman who’d been his enemy, and who’d gained back enough trust to become his friend.

“No,” she said, her voice calm and clear. And then she held out her hands.

Black magic, when she’d been using it, had chapped and cracked them. But they looked healthy and healed, each nail painted a different pastel shade, so they formed a long rainbow when she lined them up. Which made for a gorgeous effect.

“I wasn’t asking—” Ethan began, but Mallory shook her head.

“I know,” she said, meeting his gaze, chin up. “I was showing you. I owe you that much.”

Ethan’s expression stayed serious, and he nodded at her, something important, something weighty, passing between them. I had to bite my lip to keep quick, bright tears from welling. That he and I weren’t in sync right now didn’t minimize the importance of the gesture, especially given the similarity between Reed’s alchemy and Mallory’s dark magic.

Catcher put an arm around his wife, pressed a kiss to her head.

“Well, then,” Luc said. “That gives us a plan for the alchemy.”

“And Reed?” Scott asked, rocking back in his chair. “What’s the plan there?”

Ethan’s gaze went flat. “His destruction and expulsion from the city of Chicago.”

“So humble goals, then,” Scott said.

“He won’t stop,” Ethan said. “This isn’t a vendetta against me or my House. Reed doesn’t care about anything other than his empire. We’ve seen that with Cadogan, we’ve seen it with Navarre, and now we’ve seen it with the unfortunate shifter who crossed his path.”

“Then we won’t let him,” Morgan said, raising a bottle of water like a sword of allegiance. “It’s about damn time we took back this city.”

•   •   •

When details had been discussed and work assigned, supernaturals rose and dispersed. Some lingered and chatted; others left immediately.

Scott and Jonah were the first to go, which meant I didn’t have to make awkward small talk while avoiding the real issue between us. Morgan followed, and then the guards went back to the Ops Room, and Paige returned to the library.

I checked with Jeff again about the safe-deposit box key. Still no dice after checking nearly three-quarters of the city’s banks. Yes, it had been a long shot. We didn’t even know if the key fit a box in Chicago. But we had to keep trying, had to do the work, even if it didn’t seem to lead anywhere.

Margot brought in a care package for Mallory—a bag of junk food apparently intended to make up for the “kale and quinoa” at the Bell house. While Catcher and Ethan chatted, Mallory shuffled through the bag of chips, popcorn, and cookies Margot had prepared like a woman preparing to wage her own Hunger Games.

“You have an entire chocolate drawer,” I reminded her, thinking of the long bay of chocolate I’d collected when we were roommates.

“
Had
an entire chocolate drawer,” she said.

My blood ran cold. “What do you mean, ‘had’?”

“Quinoa,” Mallory said by way of explanation. “He took the rest of it to the Ombudsman’s office for the communal candy dish. It’s all chia seeds and whole grains in there now.”

“That bastard,” I gritted out. In truth, I had only myself to blame for losing all that lovely chocolate. I should have taken it all with me when I moved into the House.

She cast a sly glance toward her husband. “I need to go sneak this into the car. Wanna go on a secret mission?”

“Candy-related missions are my favorite type,” I said as she handed the loaded bag to me. I caught Ethan’s glance on the way out the door.
I’ll be right back.

He nodded, slid his gaze back to Catcher.

With Mallory in the lead, car keys in hand and walking in a fast shuffle, we walked out of the House and through the gate. Catcher’s sedan was parked right in front of the House.

I glanced at her, my brow cocked. “How’d he get this prime spot?”

“Said we were on an urgent mission. Which the guards bought, because it was the absolute truth.”

“Did I mention I love your nail polish?” I asked.

“You did not, but thank you. Times like this, you gotta have a bright spot. You gotta have something to lighten the mood.” She shrugged. “Catcher’s homemade waffles and enormous dick usually do the trick. But a little paint and color never hurt.”

I had no idea how to respond to that. Or what I could say that wouldn’t encourage her to go into details. I decided on simple agreement. “Paint and color never hurt.”

She popped open the car’s trunk, moved aside a blanket, a spell book, and an enormous ceramic vessel the color of bone.

“Is that the crucible?” I asked, putting the bag in the trunk and smirking while she covered it with blankets.

“It is.” She tucked in the bag like it was precious cargo. “I think I’m going to distill something. Try to make a salt, which doesn’t really mean what you think it means.” She sighed happily. “Oh, alchemy. You’re so wonderfully wacky.”

She might have appreciated the alchemy, but she wasn’t nearly as careful with the ceramic crucible as she was with the bag of snacks.

“Mallory, you know I love you, but I wonder if going to this much trouble to keep some candy from Catcher is a bad plan.”

“What he doesn’t know won’t kill him. I just need a new hiding place. I’m thinking a cabinet in the basement, but then the spiders might get in there.” She wrinkled her nose. “I don’t want to make light of this Reed situation, but honest to God, we have apocalypse-level spiders. Spiders big enough to operate motor vehicles. If the world ends, it will be because they’ve stolen tanks and challenged the president.”

“Nope.” I held up a hand. “Nope. Nope. I do not want to hear about revolutionary spiders.”

“You truly don’t,” she said. Having secured her goodies, she slammed the trunk closed.

I turned to head back to the House . . . and that was when I saw him.

A lean man about forty yards down the sidewalk, looking up at the fence and stone behind it. Pale skin, thick hair. He wore jeans, dark shoes, a dark jacket, and a black skullcap.

It wasn’t the first time I’d seen someone staring up at Cadogan. Gawkers and tourists visited all the time, as did paparazzi, hoping for a million-dollar shot. There were even tourist buses that carted humans down the street for a look.

The man shifted, situating his face in the light of the corner streetlamp and revealing the thick beard that made him all too recognizable.

He wasn’t just an onlooker.

He was a vampire—the vampire who’d killed Caleb Franklin. The one who’d gotten away from me in Wrigleyville and was now standing in front of Cadogan House.

My heart began to race, my blood to pound with need, with
fight
. “Get in the House, Mallory.”

“What?” Her smile faded, and she looked around, sensing my sudden caution.

“Get in the House, right now. Tell Ethan to close the gate and lock it down.”

“Merit, I’m not—”

I looked at her, and whatever she’d seen in my eyes must have convinced her.

We might have started this journey together, unsure of our steps, unfamiliar with the kinds of darkness we’d come to see. But we knew it now—how to react, how to protect. Her gaze steeled, and she slid her glance slowly, casually, to the vampire who I didn’t think had yet realized we were watching.

“He works for Reed,” I said. “I’m going to approach him. He’s going to run, and I’m going after him. I’m not going to stop until I get him.”

Ethan would be pissed that I was doing exactly what I lectured him not to do—taking Reed’s bait—but it couldn’t be helped. I couldn’t just let the vampire go. Not when we’d made a promise to Gabriel. And not when Caleb Franklin deserved better.

Fear crossed her eyes, but she put it away. “I’ll tell Ethan,” she said. “Go.”

I turned toward him.

He turned, I think, because he’d noticed my movement. And it took only an instant for him to recognize me, to see. We looked at each other, just long enough for me to confirm that he was the vampire I’d wanted . . . and for him to confirm that it was time to go.

He smiled at me, and took off in a sprint, heading north.

I’d be damned if I lost him again.

•   •   •

With the House’s gate clanking closed behind me, I followed him down Fifty-third toward the lake. He barreled past bars and twenty-four-hour restaurants where patrons still lingered, me in his wake.

All the while, I checked my pace, kept my gaze trained on his back, and wished to God I’d had my katana. But it was in the House, parked in our apartments, because I hadn’t thought I’d need it in a meeting of friends.

I’d been half right.

He ran toward the Metra Station, then inside the lobby. A train had just arrived; people streamed through the station, trying to get outside. I lost him in the crowd, scanned heads and shoulders frantically to catch sight of him.

I just saw his skullcap as he jumped the turnstile, then headed up the long, jagged staircase that led to the platform. I hustled through the crowd and over the turnstile as people yelled behind me, promising to send Metra the fare. Humanity pressed back against me like a tsunami.

He slipped into the train heading north. I did the same, managing to get inside just before the doors closed, and found him standing alone inside the empty car.

There, in the cold light of the train, I got my first real look at the vampire who had killed Caleb Franklin.

He’d lost his skullcap in the bustle, and stood with his legs apart, braced like a captain on a ship. His hair was thick, straight, and brown, and it was pulled into a knot atop his head. His face was handsome. But there was a coldness in his expression, a deadness in his brown eyes.

And there was something familiar.

Memories flooded back, slicked over sudden and battling bursts of fear and fury.

Freshly cut grass, still wet with dew. His fingers, rough against tender skin. The sharp shock of pain as his fangs tore into skin, spilled blood. And the speed with which he’d abandoned me, his quarry, when Ethan and Malik found me, saved me, and made me immortal.

This was the vampire who’d killed Caleb Franklin . . . and the vampire who’d attacked me on the Quad one year ago.

MAKER’S MARK

M
any times I’d wondered if this moment would ever come—if I’d ever look into the eyes of the man who’d tried to kill me, the vampire who’d changed my life forever.

We’d believed he’d been a Rogue, a vampire not affiliated with Cadogan, Grey, or Navarre. He didn’t look vampirically familiar, for what that was worth.

Enough time had passed that I figured he was dead or gone, had left Chicago in order to avoid a run-in with me or Ethan. I hadn’t expected that run-in would come on a northbound train a year after the attack.

But a year was a long time, and I wasn’t the girl he’d found that first night. I was vampire. I was Cadogan Novitiate. I was Sentinel, and I knew how to push down fear. I braced my legs just as he’d done to keep myself upright against the swaying of the train, and I faced him, this man who’d tried to take my life, who seemed to value life so little.

“Hello, Merit,” he said.

Stick to the facts,
I told myself. We’d have only a few minutes before we reached the next stop. He might disappear, or humans might jump on, which wouldn’t help matters. “Who are you?”

“You know who I am.”

I swallowed hard against the bile that threatened to rise. “No, I know what you did to me and to Caleb Franklin. I’m pretty sure I know the why and for whom. But I don’t know who you are.”

In answer, he pulled a matte black dagger from a sheath beneath his T-shirt. His smile was slick and confident, and it made my skin crawl, sent a line of cold sweat down my back.

For the first time since I’d seen his face, I stopped thinking about
that
night, and started thinking about
this
one—the fact that I’d chased him onto an empty train. That he’d managed to lead me away from my House, my partners, my allies.

Reed couldn’t have planned it better himself. Unless he
had
planned it himself.

What, exactly, was I going to do? What was my play? I’d survived the vampire’s attacks. Was I going to kill him then and there for what he’d done to me? Did I even have the right?

I swallowed hard, made myself focus. “Once upon a time,” I said, preparing to relive my darkest fairy tale, “you did Celina Desaulniers’s bidding. You attacked me because she paid you. Who’s paying you this time?”

He made a clucking sound. “Let’s say this one is a freebie.”

Something about the cockiness of his tone, the jocularity, spurred my anger.

And God, anger was so much better than fear.

“For Adrien Reed?”

His eyes tightened, just for a moment. Long enough to know I was on the right track—if the most dangerous one.

I might have been conflicted about the fight, but he wasn’t. Blade at the ready, he moved toward me, began with a swipe of the knife that would have sliced my abdomen if I hadn’t jumped back quickly enough.

While he reset, I remembered the dagger I’d stashed—as always—in my boot, and pivoted to keep him in front of me. He slashed out again, nimble and fast.

As the city blurred past the windows, I took the offensive, feinting to the right before dropping, slicing the dagger along his leg. I made contact, scraped metal against skin. Blood seeped through denim and plopped in heavy droplets onto the metal floor, scenting the air with the tang of fresh blood. If not the type I had any interest in.

The vampire roared, eyes silvering and fangs descending, and swiped at me again, and I rolled forward, switching our positions. I jumped onto the seats, turned back. His eyes were wild, angry.

I smiled at him, but there was nothing happy in the look. It was the smile of a predator preparing for battle, and it gratified me more than a little to see his eyes narrow, reassess.

The first time he’d attacked me as a human, after dark, and when my guard was down. The second time he’d had a gun and a Trans Am.

“Yeah, it’s not nearly as much fun when the prey fights back, is it?” I tilted my head at him. “Does Reed still pay you if you lose?”

He growled, ran forward. And this time, in the full blush of blood fury, he was faster.

How much of him was in me? How much of his skill, his mind, had I absorbed when he ripped into my body?

I jumped again, catapulting over him when he struck out. But he grabbed the hem of my T-shirt, pulled me down on top of him. We hit the floor with a thud, and he snaked an arm around my waist, drawing me against his body. My dagger skittered away.

“Not so funny now, is it, Caroline?” His voice was as close as a lover’s.

His glamour began to seep and sink into the air around us, heavy and cold as fog. His glamour wasn’t like Ethan’s. It didn’t support, build up, elaborate on love. It would tear down, seep in, and infect.

I froze as panic slicked cold sweat over my skin, made my blood pound in my ears. I went back to that dark night, the wet grass, the same arm around me, teeth ripping, pain as hot and sharp as lightning.

He wanted me afraid. He wanted me cowering so he could finish his assignment and clear the black mark of his earlier failure.

“Celina paid me well and good,” he said. “But Reed might pay me double. Depends on what I do, and how crazy it’ll make that boyfriend of yours.”

A small part of me—the shadow that carried the memories of the attack—wanted to let go, to ignore what was happening, to recede into a dark and safe part of my psyche. Into a cupboard of denial. That part of me was moved by fear and magic, which were powerful enemies. It was the same part his glamour called.

But that part of me hadn’t held a sword, found a family, stood for her House. The rest of me was stronger, more experienced, and less afraid. I’d lost battles, and I’d won battles, and I knew the point wasn’t the victory, but pulling yourself together and crawling your way back. That was life.

I might not have been immune to glamour any longer, but I certainly wasn’t going to give in to it like this. Not to him. I pushed down the part of me that wanted to hide, locked it away where even the liquid spill of his magic couldn’t reach it.

“Two things, asshole. First, anything Adrien Reed could do to you would pale—utterly pale—in comparison to the personal hell Ethan Sullivan will rain down on you if you so much as break one of my fingernails. And second, I don’t need him or anyone else to fight my battles.”

I slammed back an elbow that nailed his jaw with a satisfying crunch. The glamour fell away as he bellowed and raised hands to the blood streaming from his face. I took advantage, trying to slide away on the floor of the train, now slippery with sweat and blood, but he grabbed my ankle. I swore, kicked back as he crawled forward with bloodied teeth, and hoped he’d chewed off a piece of his own tongue.

He pulled me backward, sharp fingernails digging against my leathers. I turned onto my back, and he grinned victoriously, crawled over me.

“FYI, that was a ploy,” I said with a smile, then buried my knee in his crotch—or tried to. He deflected with his knee, backhanded me hard enough to put stars behind my eyes. Quick karma for too much ego, I thought, hearing Catcher’s training in my head.

“I don’t miss,” the Rogue said, but that wasn’t going to be relevant. The train lurched, began to slow as it neared the next station.

“Considering I’m alive, you’re about a year wrong.”

When he grabbed the edge of a seat to keep from falling over as the train slowed, I took my chance, stuck pointed fingers in the crux of his elbow. He yelped, released his arm, floundered backward in the jarring train.

I climbed to my feet, head still ringing from his slap, and kicked him in the ribs, then slipped across the car to grab my dagger.

The train came to a stop, and the doors opened. We both looked up as a small girl in a polka-dotted shirt jumped inside, her black hair wound prettily into knots on each side of her head.

“Hurry up, Mama!” she yelled, glancing back through the doors at her mother, whose eyes had grown wide at the sight in the train—the bloody vampire on one side of the car, me on the other, the dagger in my hand, staring at him like an executioner ready to mete out punishment he’d long been owed.

The world stilled.

The Rogue waited for me, the child waited for her mother, and her mother stared at us with terror that locked her in place.

The child’s eyes shifted to me, dropped to the dagger, then the bloody vampire.

I could have moved. I could have run forward, pierced his black heart. But in front of a child? Should I be the one to give her nightmares?

Unfortunately, that brief hesitation was just what he needed.

He jumped forward, his gaze on the child. Her mother realized what was happening, reached out to grab her daughter, but the vampire moved quicker. He snatched up the child, yanked her to his chest with an arm around her waist, held his knife to her throat. Her mother screamed, but before she could move, the train doors closed and the car lurched forward.

“Put her down,” I demanded, the little girl screaming in the vampire’s arms, her mother screaming on the platform, the passengers who’d come through the other door staring at both of us in confusion and horror.

“Make me,” he said with a grin. “I’m going to walk out of here with her, and no one is going to stop me.”

The train rumbled as it rushed toward the next station. I could feel the humans, fearing for the child, moving closer behind me. I held out a hand to stop them but kept my eyes on the Rogue.

“So you’re a coward. All that trouble to get me alone, to take me out and finish your work, and you’re going to walk away with a human shield? How do you think your boss is going to react to that? You think he’ll be impressed?”

“Fuck you,” he said, but he was smart enough to look alarmed. He’d know as well as I did, if not more, how violent Reed was, how manipulative, and how protective of his public reputation. Cyrius Lore was proof enough of that.

The girl was squirming in his arms, kicking against him, tears streaming down her face. My chest ached to reach out, touch and comfort. But her safety was entirely up to the Rogue, and I had to keep my focus on him—convince him to let her go, and move along.

Even if that meant I lost my chance at him.

“Actually,” I said, “this probably helps us. I’m sure someone has called the cops, and I’d bet some of those humans behind me have phones, are recording or photographing this little interaction.” Precisely because they were recording it, I didn’t dare say Reed’s name aloud. No one would believe he was involved without hard evidence, which I didn’t have. And I wasn’t going to set myself up for another arrest.

“Long story short,” I continued, “your boss will see that you’ve failed, and we’ll have that much more evidence to build the case against him, to put him away for a very long time. All that, of course, will happen after he takes care of you.”

The vampire stared at me, a bead of sweat trickling down his nose. Rational thought could do that to a psychopath.

The train began to slow again, and he jerked his gaze to the doors, looking for a way out.

“Hand her to me, and you walk away,” I said.

“I’m not an idiot,” he said. “I hand her to you, and you kill me.”

“Not in front of witnesses.”

We pulled into the station, jerked to a stop. The door opened, and he hesitated, and then tossed the child at me like an unwanted rag doll.

I jumped, hit my knees, arms outstretched . . . and caught her. She wailed with terror, kicked out with pointy little knees and elbows, caught the cheek that sung with pain from his slap.

But she was safe.

People rushed into the train to travel, off the train to get away from the vampire. I climbed to my feet, the child still in my arms, and squeezed through them to the platform.

The vampire was gone.

•   •   •

I waited with half a dozen human witnesses at the platform for the CPD’s inevitable arrival.

In the meantime, we learned Hailey Elizabeth Stanton was three and a half years old. She’d stopped crying, at least in part because the humans made funny faces to make her smile, and bribed her with bottles of water and pieces of candy when that failed. She wouldn’t let me go, so she stayed at my hip, tiny fingers digging into my neck. While we waited she told me about her favorite “Poesy Pony Princess,” which I presumed was a toy and not actually a royal horse. In these halcyon supernatural days, it was hard to be sure. Anyway, Hailey’s pony was named Princess Margaret Hollywood Peony Stanton, and I was informed several times she did
not
go by “Maggie.”

So of course I kept calling her that, and Hailey kept giggling.

Finally, CPD officers escorted the girl’s frantic mother onto the train platform. I stood up, passed the child back to her.

“Mommy!” she said while her mother hugged her and checked her for injuries.

“Did you get him?” I asked one of the uniforms. The humans had relayed to the 911 dispatcher that the vampire had gotten away after using the child as a shield.

“No,” he said. “Do you know who he is?”

“Kind of,” I said, and gave them the story.

•   •   •

Correction: I gave them
part
of the story. I told them about Caleb Franklin, identified this vampire as the one who’d killed him.