Biting Cold (20 page)

Lindsey straightened up again. “In that case, Sentinel, get back to work. We’ve got double trouble on the loose.”

And double trouble in the House, even if no one knew it yet.

A few minutes—and no substantive work—later, the door opened and Margot walked in with an assistant and a rolling cart of fragrant food.

“What’s this?” Luc asked, walking toward Margot.

“Your very thoughtful Sentinel ordered in dinner,” Margot said. “She asked for a home-cooked meal, but I cheated a little bit.”

Luc put a hand on my shoulder. “I knew you were worth keeping around.”

I rolled my eyes. “What did you bring?” I asked, but the answer became clear quickly enough, and I smiled for the first time in a while.

“You made a trip to Maxwell Street,” I said.

“It’s cold out. I thought ‘hearty’ would do you good.”

There were a number of foods in Chicago that were totally recognizable to tourists, like Chicago-style hot dogs and deep-dish pizza. But those of us who lived here knew some of the other secret delights: rainbow cones; Garrett’s popcorn; and Maxwell Street Polishes. The latter were Polish dogs with grilled onions and mustard. They were hot, spicy, and crazy delicious. And there weren’t just Polishes. She’d also provided cheese fries, ramekins of custard, and glasses of blood.

Cholesterol was no match for vampire immortality.

“This looks wonderful, Margot,” Luc said as Juliet and Lindsey grabbed plates and Polishes. Pity Kelley was out on patrol.

“You’re quite welcome.” Margot finished up, then wheeled out the squeaky cart and closed the door behind her.

“You’ve outdone yourself, Merit.”

“I didn’t know she’d actually make a run for Polishes. She went above and beyond for that.” I grabbed a Polish and took a bite, closing my eyes in sheer pleasure. I loved Chicago.

We ate quietly, four vampires with quick metabolisms and worry in our hearts, at least until Luc’s pager buzzed. He unclipped it and checked the screen. “You might as well head upstairs. Paige is here.”

I finished my dog and wiped my face with a napkin. “I’ll get her settled in the library.” The next words were out of my mouth before I thought better of it. “Could you tell Ethan about the conjuration spell?”

Luc and Lindsey exchanged a glance. “Why don’t you tell him?” Lindsey asked.

Because he’s being an ass,
I silently thought, but played my cards diplomatically.

“I want to get Paige into the library, so I won’t have time to drop by his office, and my phone doesn’t work very well in the library. Because of the stairs. And such.”

It was a crappy excuse, and I could tell neither one of them bought it, but they let it go.

“We’ll tell him,” Luc said. “You get to work.”

I smiled with false cheer, then hightailed it to the door. Lindsey was going to have a field day with this one.

I found Paige in the first-floor foyer. She had shopping bags in hand, and she was wearing jeans and a long-sleeved White Sox T-shirt. She’d found some clothes of her own; pity she’d picked the wrong team. We did live on the South Side of the city, which made the White Sox a logical choice, but that didn’t diminish my love for the Cubs.

“Welcome back,” I said.

“Thanks. It’s been a long night.”

I guided her toward the stairs, and we headed to the second floor. “Where did you go?”

“Catcher gave me a lift to meet with Baumgartner. I talked to him. I talked to Simon.”

“What did Baumgartner have to say?”

“Not a lot.” She sounded saddened by the answer.

We rounded the second-floor landing. Paige paused and tapped her fingers against the banister. “I had this idea—that I was part of something good. Something important.”

“And you don’t think so now?”

She looked away. “I don’t know. I asked him about Mallory, about Simon, about Catcher. About what they all missed.”

“What did he say?”

“He shrugged. Just kind of”—she imitated a beefy, shoulder shrug—“shrugged, and said we do the best we can.”

“That’s pretty lame. I mean, the Order failed this city—and Mallory—in a pretty spectacular way.”

“Yeah,” Paige said. “And I asked him about Tate. He said it was interesting, and that was that. He went back to polishing his bowling ball.”

“He was not polishing his bowling ball.”

“Hand to God. The Order is a union, and I guess not in the workers-rights-and-fair-labor-standards way. More like the let’s-sit-around-and-blame-Jimmy-Hoffa way. I’ve only talked to Baumgartner on the phone, and I guess I never got how truly lame they are. And there’s so much talk about the majesty of our magic, how powerful we are, how special. And how do we use that power? We talk a lot and completely ignore what’s going on around us.”

“Too much talky, too little walky?”

“Exactly!”

“That is a bummer.”

“How’s Mallory doing?” I felt weird asking the question, like I was checking in with my best friend’s new best friend.

“You’d know better than me. I didn’t know her before, so it’s hard to compare what she’s like now. The shifters still have her doing manual labor, and I don’t think they’re going to change that plan anytime soon.”

“A little more of that walking we were referring to,” I thought aloud. “They’re very particular about the things they get involved in, but when they’re in, they’re in all the way.”

Paige nodded. “That was my impression.”

“Catcher told you about the spell she tried to work?”

“Conjuration?” Paige nodded. “Yeah. That’s another advanced spell, impressive for her to work.”

“I still don’t buy that a conjuration spell made one Tate split into two Tates. That doesn’t make any sense to me. That should be the result of a duplication spell or something.”

She nodded. “Duplication’s not the way the conjuration spell is supposed to work; it’s not the predicted outcome. Hey, about Catcher, and what I said earlier. I’m not trying to bash him. He’s a legend in Order circles. Famous—or infamous, as the case may be. I know he’s got the goods, or the Order wouldn’t care so much. But when I called him out yesterday, I really felt like I had to lay down the law, you know?”

“You definitely put him in his place.”

She grimaced. “I wasn’t trying to humiliate him, but somebody has to step up.”

I couldn’t argue with that. “What’s the story about the prophecy?”

“He made a prediction—you know we can do that, right?”

I nodded.

“The prediction was about really bad things going down in Chicago. He warned the Order, but the Order was afraid that because he’d made the prediction, he’d be involved in those really bad things. They banned him from coming to Chicago.”

“He came anyway.”

“He came anyway,” Paige agreed, “and they kicked him out of the Order because of it. I asked him about it.”

“What did he say?”

“He said the world would continue to turn and the prophecy would fulfill itself, and he wanted to be here when it did. He said he worked to stop all the natural disasters when they were going on and tried to help you figure out what was going on. The irony was that the trouble was boiling in front of his eyes, but he was so focused on the city, he completely ignored it.”

“And so here we are,” I said.

“Here we are,” she agreed.

“Actually, I meant that literally.” I pointed Paige to the double doors in front of us, then opened them with a
whoosh
of air.

It was an impressive reveal, if I do say so myself. The Cadogan House library was pretty spectacular. Two floors of books linked by a red wrought-iron staircase. The library held volumes on all sorts of vampire and supernatural topics, from history and food to a complete set of the
Canon of the North American Vampire Houses
, the codified law for American vampires.

Paige’s reaction was pretty similar to what mine had been a few months ago. She walked inside, mouth agape, and stared up at the shelves and stacks and balcony of books. I figured it was an important room for an archivist.

“Welcome to the Cadogan House library.”

“Shut the front door,” she said. She walked toward the closest
row and began to scan the books’ spines. “
Morphology of Vampirus Americanus
.
Pixies and Their Parts
.
The Horn of the Unicorn, and Other Important Features
.”

She trailed her fingertips across more of the spines, then looked back at me, eyes wide in amazement. “Your anatomy section is crazy impressive.”

Not that I’d looked, but I didn’t have the supernatural literature chops to disagree with her. “Yeah. It’s pretty good.”

She rubbed her hands together like a plotting evil stepmother. “So I need to research the secondary and tertiary effects of conjuration spells. Where might I find—”

“Quiet down, could you?”

We turned around. The House librarian, whom I knew only by his title, stood at the end of the row. He was a little shorter than average, and his arms were crossed over a black short-sleeved polo shirt. His shortish brown hair stood up in little whorls, like he’d been running his hands through it.

“Sorry,” I said with an apologetic smile. “She got a little excited. Your library is pretty phenomenal.”

“She?” he asked, turning his gaze on Paige. He cast a long, lingering look at her boots-clad legs before meeting her gaze. “You’re tall, aren’t you?”

“I am…yes…tall. So, yeah. Tall.”

The room went silent as they stared at each other. There must have been something in the water today.

“This is Paige,” I said. “She’s the Order’s archivist. She’s stationed at the silo in Nebraska where the you-know-what is sometimes kept. She’s staying with us for a bit. Do you have any literature about conjuration?”

He ignored me, probably because he was still staring at Paige. I
knew she’d like the books; it hadn’t occurred to me that the librarian would like her.

I cleared my throat to get his attention. “Conjuration,” I said, more loudly, when he finally looked my way. “Got any books on that?”

His expression was flat. “Of course we do. Follow me.”

He disappeared into a row. We didn’t dare disobey.

An hour later, the books had piled up. There were four stacks, each two feet tall, on our library table, and there was a pile of open volumes around us.

The evidence of our failure to find anything useful.

I closed one more and rubbed my eyes, which were beginning to blur from scanning tiny print. The library doors opened, and Ethan stepped inside. My stomach lit with nerves, and I darkly wondered if that was going to happen every time I saw him for the rest of our immortal lives. I did not look forward to that possibility.

But it was what it was, and until I figured out a way to end his connection to Mallory or change his mind, I still had work to do, and I wasn’t going to let an irritating man get in the way of that.

He strode to our table and surveyed the mess with his hands on his hips.

“No luck?”

“Not even a little. We’ve found plenty of descriptions of conjuration. But not a single mention of anything remotely like what we saw. Nothing about one creature splitting into two identical creatures. I like books, but I don’t like it when they fail me. And tonight, they have failed me.”

Ethan glanced around. “Where’s Paige?”

“With the librarian. They seem to be getting along well.”

He looked impressed. “Our librarian and the Order’s archivist. I suppose that’s fitting.”

Clearly, Ethan was trying to act like everything was okay between us. And in a sense, it had to be—we had to work together, regardless of our personal drama. But if that’s what we were doing—pretending all was well—then two could play at that game.

“They do have books in common. But then, I love books, and I’m not exactly hitting on him. We’ll see how it goes. How are the transition plans coming along?”

“Slowly. Our ties to the GP are complex and contractual. Tentacular.”

I looked up at him. “Tentacular. Nice word.”

“I aim to impress.” He glanced at his watch.

“Busy night?” I hated that I had to ask him, that I had no idea what his schedule held.

“On occasion it feels as though I exist to move from one meeting to the next.”

“You could let Malik handle those meetings.”

He gave me a flat look, the look of a Master vampire who couldn’t believe the Novitiate before him had said something so ridiculously naive.

“I am not officially the Master of this House,” he admitted, “but nor will I relinquish my responsibilities.”

“I wouldn’t dare suggest otherwise. What’s the next meeting about?”

“The vampire registration laws. One of Mayor Kowalcyzk’s aides has requested a meeting. There’s talk of stationing a booth in the foyer.”

“Intrusive, but convenient.”

“My thoughts exactly.”

Paige stepped out of a row, a couple more books in her hands and a frown on her face.

“No luck so far?” Ethan asked.

“Nothing at all.” She pulled out a chair and took a seat. “But you can’t fault the resources.”

“I shelve a nice library,” Ethan agreed. “Well, I’ll be off. Good luck, and let me know if you find anything.”

“Of course,” I promised. I wasn’t going to miss a chance to tweak him a little more. On the other hand, I was the one who took in the view as he crossed back to the library door.

I’m pretty sure I sighed.

“Have you been together long?” Paige asked when I turned around again.

“We’re not together now.”

She looked decidedly skeptical.

“It’s a long story.” I leaned forward. “Listen, about this connection between him and Mallory—do you know anything that would stop it?”

Paige frowned. “To tell you the truth, I’m not sure why he still has the connection, especially since the book was destroyed. But there could be methods or work-arounds I’m not familiar with.”

I nodded. “Okay.”

“Maybe he could learn to control it? He does seem to have a lot of willpower.”

“That is an understatement,” I agreed. “Tall, blond, and stubborn.”

Paige laughed. “Tall, blond, and stubborn is usually right in my wheelhouse. I’m actually kind of surprised I’m interested in the librarian.” Her cheeks went a little pink. “Put two guys side by side—a fair one and a dark one—and I am usually tuned in to the tall, blond, and handsome type.”