Hard Bitten (39 page)

“Frankly, Merit, I’m surprised you don’t appreciate the tremendous boon that V offers to vampires.”

“It makes you feel like a vampire,” Celina intoned.

“She has a point,” Tate said, drawing my gaze back to him. “V lowers inhibitions. You may think me callous, but I believed V would help weed out the less agreeable portion of the vampire population. Those willing to use V

deserve to be incarcerated.”

“So now you’re entrapping vampires.”

“It’s not entrapment. It’s good urban planning.

It’s self-selection for population control. I understand you aren’t susceptible to glamour.

Doesn’t that make you different? Better? You don’t have the same weaknesses. You’re stronger, with better control.”

I swung the katana in Celina’s direction.

“Make your point, Tate.”

“Do you know what kind of team we could make? You are the poster girl for good vampires.

You save humans, even when the GP would seek to bring you down, to punish you for your deeds.

They love you for it. You help keep the city in balance. And that’s what we need, if there’s any hope for vampires and humans to survive together.”

“There is no way in hell that I’d work with you. You think you’re going to walk away from this? After setting up vampires and contributing to the deaths—to the endangerment—of humans?”

His stare went cold. “Don’t be naïve.”

“No,” I said. “Don’t justify your evildoing with some bogus, trite ‘this is just the way the world works’ lip service. This is not the way the world works, and my grandfather is proof of it.

You’re egotistical and completely crazy.”

Celina’s finger drumming increased in pace, but whatever magical control Tate had on her was effective. She wouldn’t act without his permission. “Can I kill her now, please?”

Tate held up a silencing hand. “Wait your turn, darling. And what about your father?” he asked me. “He isn’t crazy, is he?”

I shook my head, confused by the non sequitur. “This isn’t about my father.”

His eyes wide with surprise, Tate let out a belly-raucous, mirthless laugh. “Not about your father? Merit, everything in your life since you became fanged has been about your father.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

He gave me a look best saved for a naïve child. “Why do you think that you, of all people in Chicago, were made a vampire?”

“Not because of my father. Celina tried to kill me. Ethan saved my life.” But even as I spoke the words aloud, my stomach knotted with fear.

Confused, I dropped the sword back to my side.

“Yes, you’ve told me that before. Repeating the lies doesn’t make them truth, Merit. Awfully coincidental, wasn’t it, that Ethan happened to be on campus when you were?”

“It was a coincidence.”

Tate clucked his tongue. “You’re smarter than that. I mean, truly—what are the odds? Don’t you think it would have been beneficial for your father to have a vampire in his pocket—his daughter—when the riots ended? When humans became used to the concept of the fanged living among them?”

Tate smiled tightly. And then the words slipped from his mouth like poison.

“What if I told you, Merit, that Ethan and your father had a certain, shall we say, business arrangement?”

Blood roared in my ears, my knuckles whitening around the handle of the katana. “Shut up.”

“Oh, come now, darling. If the cat’s out of the bag, don’t you want the details? Don’t you want to know how much your father paid him? How much Ethan, your father’s partner in crime, took from your father to make you immortal?”

My vision dimmed to blackness, memories overwhelming me: the fact that Ethan and Malik were on the U of C quad at the precise moment I’d been attacked. The fact that Ethan had known my father before we met him together.

The fact that Ethan had given me drugs to ease the biological transition to vampire.

I thought he’d drugged me because he felt guilty I hadn’t been able to consent to the Change.

Had he actually felt guilty because he’d changed me at my father’s bidding?

No. That couldn’t be right.

Like I’d imagined him into being, Ethan suddenly burst into the room, fury in his eyes.

He’d come to back me up.

Tate was still in the room, but he all but disappeared from view. My gaze fell on Ethan, the fear powerful, blinding, deafening as blood roared through my veins.

Ethan moved to me, and scanned my eyes, but I still couldn’t find words to speak the question.

“Are you all right?” he asked. “Your eyes are silvered.” He looked back to Tate, probably suspected my hunger had been tripped. “What did you do to her?”

I gripped the handle of my sword tighter, the cording biting into the skin of my palm, and forced myself to say the words.

“Tate said you met with my father. That he paid you to make me a vampire.”

I wanted him to tell me that it was a lie, just more falsehoods thrown out by a politician grasping at straws.

But the words he said broke my heart into a million pieces.

“Merit, I can explain.”

Tears began to slide down my cheeks as I screamed out my pain. “I trusted you.”

He stuttered out, “That’s not how it went—”

But before he could finish his excuse, his eyes flashed to the side.

Celina was moving again, a sharpened stake in hand. “I need to move,” she plaintively said. “I need to finish this
now
.”

“Down, Celina,” Tate warned. “The fight isn’t yet yours.”

But she wouldn’t be dissuaded. “She has ruined enough for me,” Celina said. “She won’t ruin this.” Before I could counter the argument, she’d cocked back her arm and the stake was in the air—and headed right for me.

Without a pause, and with the speed of a centuries-old vampire, Ethan threw himself forward, his torso in front of mine, blocking the stake from hitting my body.

He took the hit full on, the stake bursting through his chest.

And through his heart.

For a moment, time stopped, and Ethan looked back at me, his green eyes tight with pain. And then he was gone, the stake clattering to the ground in front of me. Ethan replaced by—transformed to—nothing more than a pile of ash on the floor.

I didn’t have time to stop or think.

Celina, now fully feeling the effects of the V, was moving again, a second stake in hand. I grabbed the stake she’d thrown, and praying for aim, I propelled it.

My aim was true.

It struck her heart, and before a long second had passed, she was gone, as well. Just as Ethan had fallen, there was nothing left of her but a pile of ash on the carpet. My instinct for preservation replaced by shock, I glanced down.

Two tidy cones of ash lay on the carpet.

All that was left of them.

She was dead.

He was dead.

The realization hit me. Even as others rushed into the room, I covered my mouth to hold back the scream and fell to my knees, strength gone.

Because he was gone.

Malik, Catcher, my grandfather, and two uniformed officers burst into the room. Luc must have called them. I looked back at Tate, still behind his desk, a peppery bite of magic in the air but no other sign that he was even vaguely worried by what had gone down in his home.

No way was I letting this go unpunished. “Tate was distributing V,” I said, still on the floor. “He drugged Celina, let her out of jail. She’s gone.” I looked down at the ash again. “She killed Ethan—he jumped in front of me. And then I killed her.”

The room went silent.

“Merit’s grieving,” Tate said. “She’s confused the facts.” He pointed at Paulie, who was now rushing toward a window on the other side of the room. “As I believe you already know, that man was responsible for distributing V. He just confessed as much.”

Paulie sputtered as the officers pulled him away from the window. “You son of a bitch. You think you can get away with this? You think you can use me like this?” He pulled away from the uniforms, who just managed to wrestle him to the floor before he jumped on Tate.

“This is
his
fault,” Paulie said, chest-down on the floor, lifting his head just enough to glare at Tate. “All of this was his doing. He arranged the entire thing—found some abandoned city property for the warehouse, found someone to mix the chemicals, and set up the distribution network.”

Tate sighed haggardly. “Don’t embarrass yourself, Mr. Cermak.” He looked over at my grandfather, sympathy in his expression. “He must have been sampling his own wares.”

“You think I’m dumb?” Cermak asked, eyes wild. “I have tapes, you asshole. I recorded every conversation we’ve ever had because I knew—I just
knew
—that if worse came to worst, you’d throw me to the wolves.”

Tate blanched, and everyone in the room froze, not quite sure what to do.

“You have tapes, Mr. Cermak?” my

grandfather said.

“Dozens,” he said smugly. “All in a safe-deposit box. The key’s around my neck.”

One of the uniforms fished inside Cermak’s shirt, then pulled out a small flat key on a chain.

“Found it,” he said, holding it up.

And there was the evidence we needed.

All eyes turned to Tate. He adjusted his collar.

“I’m sure we can clear this up.”

My grandfather nodded at Catcher, and they both stepped toward Tate. “Why don’t we discuss this downtown?”

Four more officers appeared at the office door.

Tate took them in and nodded at my grandfather.

“Why don’t we?” he said politely, eyes forward as he strode from the room, a sorcerer, an ombudsman, and four CPD officers behind him.

The first two uniforms led Paulie away.

Silence descended.

Probably only minutes had passed since I’d thrown the stake. But the minutes felt like hours, which felt like days. Time became a blur that moved around me, while I—finally—had become still.

I stayed on my knees on the lush carpet, hands loose in my lap, completely helpless before the remains of two vampires. I was vaguely aware of the grief and hatred that rolled in alternating waves beneath my skin, but none could penetrate the thick shell of shock that kept me upright.

“Merit.” This voice was stronger. Harsher. The words—the base, flat, hopeless sound of Malik’s words—drew up my eyes. His were glassy, overlaid with an obvious sheen of grief, of hopelessness.

“He’s gone,” I said, inconsolable. “He’s gone.”

Malik held me as the ashes of my enemy and my lover were collected in black urns, as they were sealed and carefully escorted from Tate’s office.

He held me until the room was empty again.

“Merit. We need to go. There’s nothing more you can do here.”

It took me a moment to realize why he was there. Why Malik was on the floor beside me, waiting to escort me home.

He’d been Second to Ethan.

But he was Second no longer.

Because Ethan was gone.

Grief and rage overpowered shock. I’d have hit the floor if Malik hadn’t put his arms around me, holding me upright.

“Ethan.”

I struggled, tears beginning to stream down my face, and pushed against them to get away.

“Let me go! Let me go! Let me go!” I whimpered, cried, made sounds better suited to the predator than the girl, and thrashed against him, skin burning where his hands clamped my arms. “Let me go!”

“Merit, stop. Be still,” he said, this new Master, but all I could hear was Ethan’s voice.

T
hat night we mourned publicly: eight enormous Japanese
taiko
drums lined the sidewalk outside the House, their players beating a percussive dirge as Ethan’s ashes were moved into the House.

I watched the progression from the foyer. Out of respect, and to guard Ethan’s progression into the afterlife, Scott and Morgan took the lead, Malik behind them, a new Master engaged in his first official act—transporting the remains of his predecessor into a secured vault in the Cadogan basement.

When the urns were placed inside and the vault was closed and locked again, the rhythm of the drums changed from fast and angry, to slow and mournful, covering the range of emotions I slipped through as the night wore on.

The grief was heavy and exhausting, but it was equally matched by anger and fear. As much as I grieved Ethan’s loss, I was afraid that he’d communed with my father, sold me into a life of vampirism to ease some financial concern.

I wanted to rail at him. Scream at him. Cry and yell and bang my fists against his chest and demand that he exonerate himself, take it back, prove his innocence to me.

I couldn’t, because he was gone.

Life—and mourning—went on without him.

The House was draped in long sheets of black silk like a Christo sculpture. It stood in Hyde Park like a monument to grief, to Ethan, to loss.

We also mourned privately, in a House-only ceremony by the shores of Lake Michigan.

There were circles of stones along the trail beside the lake. We gathered at one of them, all wearing the black of mourning. Lindsey and I stood beside each other, holding hands as we stared out at the glassy water. Luc stood at her other side, his fingers and hers intertwined, grief breaking down the walls Lindsey had built between them.

A man I didn’t know spoke of the joys of immortality and the long life Ethan had been fortunate enough to live. Regardless of its length, life never quite seemed long enough. Especially when the end was selected—perpetrated—by someone else.

Malik, wearing a mantle of grief, carried bloodred amaranth to the lakeshore. He dropped the flowers into the water, then looked back at us. “Milton tells us in
Paradise Lost
that amaranth bloomed by the tree of life. But when man made his mortal mistake, it was removed to heaven, where it continued to grow for eternity.

Ethan ruled his House wisely, and with love. We can only hope that Ethan lives now where amaranth blossoms eternally.”

The words spoken, he returned to his wife, who clutched his hand in hers.

Lindsey sobbed, releasing my hand and moving into Luc’s embrace. His eyes closed in relief, and he wrapped his arms around her.