Biting Cold (16 page)

“It’s not my job to punish her,” Gabriel said. “And, frankly, there aren’t enough dishes in my lifetime or yours. But that’s not the point. The task is irrelevant. The
doing
is what matters. You know what my number one problem is with the Order?”

A dozen snarky answers popped to mind—
They beat you in softball? No official T-shirts? Cheap booze at Order/Pack mixers?
—but I managed to keep them to myself. Paige, wisely, did, too.

“They have monumental power, and for the most part, they use it to serve themselves.”

“That’s not entirely true—” Paige interrupted, but Gabriel wasn’t asking for a discussion and stifled her with a glance.

“I know you imagine yourselves to be problem solvers. But you created the very problems you seek to solve; that doesn’t make you philanthropists. It just makes you narcissistic.”

“The Packs wanted to decamp to Alaska to avoid involvement in all supernatural problems,” I pointed out. “How is that any better?”

“Because we aren’t out there pretending to be holier-than-thou sorcerers with answers to all the world’s problems.”

Paige looked down at the tabletop. That wasn’t an admission
the Order had problems, but it was better than the denial everyone else seemed to be wrapped up in.

“Do you have a long-term plan?” I wondered.

“Survival is her long-term plan,” he said. “Surviving in
our environment
—no coddling, no magic, no respect that isn’t earned.”

That made sense to me. On its face, it was more suited for an unruly teenager than for a sorceress with a black-magic problem, but whatever worked.

Twenty minutes later, Catcher came back through the door. He and Gabriel shared quiet words, and after that, a handshake that I thought boded well for the state of supernatural relations.

“She’s all yours,” Catcher said. “She just went upstairs for a break.”

Gabriel nodded. “She gets fifteen minutes after every two-hour shift when she’s on manual labor. It’s a very fair system.”

Was it weird that the shifters had a system for situations like this? Nevertheless, I looked at Gabriel. “I’d like to talk to Mallory if that’s okay?”

“Your call, Kitten.”

“In that case,” I said to Catcher, “I think Paige will need a ride somewhere.”

She rose and nodded, too. “I need to talk to Baumgartner. It’s probably not a bad idea if you do, too.”

Catcher nodded, then glanced warily back at the door behind which Mallory had been at work.

“Go home,” I told him. “She’s safe here, and you look like you could use some rest.”

“If I weren’t exhausted, I’d tear you down from the insult.”

“You are exhausted, so I’ll pretend you made a sarcastic retort.” I put a hand on his arm. “Seriously. Go take a nap.”

He nodded, then led Paige out of the room.

“You sure you’re ready for her?” Gabriel asked.

I blew out a breath. “I think the better question is whether she’s ready for me.”

After Gabe offered directions, I found Mallory in a small bedroom at the top of a narrow staircase at the back of the kitchen.

There wasn’t much to the room. A twin-sized bed. A small table. The walls were hung with old-fashioned wallpaper bearing cartoonish strawberries.

Mallory sat on the edge of the bed, staring down at the chapped hands in her lap.

She looked up at me and blew a wisp of lank blond hair from her face. “What are you doing up here?”

“I wanted to check on you.”

Silence descended. I’d imagined my reunion with Mallory would be awkward, and I’d been right. “Awkward” was a gentle word for the thousand unspoken words that hung between us. But she was the one who had explaining to do, so I walked inside and shut the door. I sat down on the hardwood floor cross-legged and, in the awkward silence, took a look at my nails. They didn’t look great, but I had fought a mutant gnome, a sorceress, and a Tate.

“How are you feeling?” I finally asked.

She laughed mirthlessly and wiped the tears from her cheeks. “The same. Bad. Stupid. I felt wrong, Merit. Deep in my bones, I felt wrong. I still do.”

“I know.”

She looked back at me. “I wasn’t trying to hurt anyone.”

“That you weren’t trying to do it doesn’t mean you aren’t responsible for it.”

She nodded.

“You could be dead right now, Mallory. We all could be. As it is, Paige’s house burned down and the
Maleficium
is toast. Tate is twice the man he used to be, and we have no idea where he is or how to stop him.”

“I know,” she said. “I know.”

“How did you and Tate hook up?”

“I knew the book was in the silo, but I didn’t know how to get in there.”

So much for my Internet research theory.

“I watched the farm, thinking you’d show up and get into the silo. That’s where he found me. He said we could help each other.”

“You’d be the distraction, and he’d get Paige to show him the book?”

She nodded. “I’m sorry. I know that’s not enough, but I’m sorry.”

“Do you understand how much danger you’ve put the city in? How much danger you put vampires in? When shit goes bad, Mallory, they blame us. They blame
vampires
. The city, the GP, the mayor. We have to register with the city just to live here, like we’re convicts on parole.”

“What do you want me to say?”

That was a good question. What could she possibly say to erase the last few days?

“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “We have a lot of history together, you and I. And as glad as I am that you brought Ethan back, it will be a long time before you will make this up to the people you’ve hurt.”

“The pain beat me,” she quietly said. “The pain won. I know it’s hard to understand…”

“It’s hard to understand because you didn’t talk to anyone about it. I found out you were involved when I discovered you betrayed me and my House. If you didn’t think Simon got it, you
should have talked to Catcher. Or my grandfather. Or someone. You should have done anything but what you did.”

She was quiet for a moment. “Do you hate me?”

It didn’t say much for either of us that I had to think about my answer. Honestly, I wasn’t sure how I felt. Mallory and I had a history of friendship—more of a history than anybody else currently a part of my life. But she’d pushed forward regardless of whom else she hurt and regardless of the consequences. She’d nearly destroyed Chicago and she’d managed to unleash two Tates on the Midwest.

It was certainly hard for me to like her very much. And it would be a really long time before I could respect her again. But…

“No, I don’t hate you. You brought him back to me.”

“Not for the right reasons.”

“No. But you still did it.” It would have been all the better if Ethan hadn’t been tied to her at all, but I wasn’t about to clue her in to that. He may not be her familiar, but I didn’t want her testing exactly how deep their connection ran. She wasn’t ready for that yet. I wasn’t ready for that yet.

“I hated him at first,” she said. “And I think you did, too. He was overbearing, and he didn’t sympathize with your situation. And then you let yourself be vulnerable, and then he invited another girl to your House. And then he took a stake for you, and he proved himself.”

I nodded.

“Maybe he’s not quite Darth Sullivan anymore,” she said.

We were both silent. “I don’t know if I can do this,” she said after a couple of minutes.

“Do what?”

“Come back to this. Face up to what I did. I can take responsibility
for it. I’m not stupid; I know it was my fault. But I’m…mortified, I guess. The shifters—I see how they look at me. There’s disgust in their eyes, Merit. Catcher is so angry, so humiliated, and I know the Order’s going to punish me. And I deserve the worst they can come up with.”

She burst into long, sobbing tears, but I wasn’t ready to go to her. I wasn’t ready to comfort her—not when she’d hurt so many. Not while they were still grieving, while they still needed comforting.

“How do I go back into the world knowing what I’ve done?” She looked up at me, her eyes red and swollen, her face wet. “I hurt people, and you guys are in trouble. And Catcher…I don’t know if I’ll ever get him back.”

“Did he say that?”

“He said he needed time.” She covered her mouth with a hand but only barely managed to stifle her sobs.

“Then suck it up and give him time. God knows, he’s earned it. We all have.”

“I’m going to lose him. Oh, God, Merit, I’m going to lose him.”

“Maybe you will,” I agreed. “You betrayed his trust. You chose dark magic over your friends, your city, your boyfriend. I’m sure he isn’t taking that well. I’m not taking it well.”

“So much for sugarcoating it.”

“I’m not here to sugarcoat it. There’s no happy ending here, Mallory. No pot of gold. This isn’t a TV show you can just turn off and the world goes back to normal. People were hurt. And since Tate’s still out there, there’s probably more pain on the way.”

“I can’t face that.”

“Yes, you can. And you will.”

She looked up at me.

“We all have days when we feel small. Really small. Completely inadequate, but saddled with all this responsibility. I have to keep my House safe, my city from destroying it. I have to do right by Ethan and the rest of my vampires. I have to fight battles against people who shouldn’t be my enemies—especially when there are already plenty of enemies to go around. There are days when I would love to pull the cover over my head and say to hell with it.

“But I don’t do that. And most people don’t do that. Most people get up and do their jobs and work their asses off for no reward at all—but just so they can get up the next day and do the whole thing over again. The world isn’t perfect, and some days it wears you down. You can either accept that, and face it, and be a help to others instead of a hindrance. Or you can decide the rules are too tough and they shouldn’t apply to you, and you can ignore them and make things harder for everybody else. Sometimes life is about being sad and doing things anyway. Sometimes it’s about being hurt and doing things anyway. The point isn’t perfection. The point is doing it anyway.”

Mallory nodded a little.

“You make a go of it,” I said. “The hard way—one day at a time, and with patience. And you’ll hope he has patience for you, as well.”

She nodded again. The fire gone from both of us, we sat there for a little while—fifteen minutes, maybe—until there was a knock at the door.

We looked up. A shifter I didn’t know pointed at Mallory. “You’re needed downstairs,” he said. He didn’t wait for an answer, just disappeared again. I guessed he wasn’t expecting disobedience.

She stood up. “I should go.”

I nodded. “I should get back to the House. Good luck.”

She tucked her hands into her pockets, hiding the physical evidence of her crimes. “Thanks. I guess I’ll see you around.”

I nodded and watched her walk downstairs to get to work. I hoped this time around something better would come of it.

I
drove back to Cadogan House and parked three blocks up the street. The road was packed with cars. A nearby home was well lit, with shadowed figures moving animatedly behind sheer window shades. Must have been a party. Vampires in their midst or not, life continued as usual for most folks.

I climbed out of the car and nodded at the two black-clad guards, both mercenary fairies the House paid to keep watch at the gate. Other than their queen, the rest of the fairies were tall, with narrow faces and similar features, long, dark, straight hair, and black uniforms. Most guards were men, although a female guard had watched the post on occasion.

My relationship with the fairies had been tense since my last encounter with Claudia, but since she’d promised our slate was clean, I thought it was worth checking in with them.

“Any sign of Seth Tate?” I asked. “Or someone who looks just like him?”

Both fairies shook their heads. “We’re on alert,” they said. “She is aware of his existence.”

“She,” I assumed, was Claudia. She’d once hinted that Tate was “old” magic. Maybe she knew more about him. That might be worth a visit. Or maybe a phone call, since her guards probably wouldn’t let me anywhere near her again.

“Does she know what he is?” I asked.

The fairies looked at each other. “He is old,” said the one on the right. “Older than the sky masters. That is all we need to know.”

“Thanks,” I told them. “Feel free to call me if you see him around.”

They scoffed, probably at the implication they’d need my help, which was okay by me. Better that they consider me incompetent than dangerous.

I walked into the House and headed for Ethan’s office. Our last visit had been weird, and I was hoping the intervening time he’d had to prepare for Darius’s visit had calmed him down a bit.

His office door was open, so I peeked inside. He was at his desk, and I knocked lightly on the door to get his attention. He glanced up at the sound.

“I visited Mallory.”

Ethan waved me in, and I took a seat at the desk in front of him like a good little Novitiate.