House Rules (29 page)

I saw the flash of regret in Ethan’s eyes. Michael had been his hire, and he’d been
badly bitten.

“Why Cadogan?” Jonah asked. “What’s the connection there to Carlos?”

“We aren’t sure,” Ethan said. “It could be part of his escalation. He killed Rogue
vampires, then Navarre vampires, then attempted to kill a Cadogan vampire.”

“And Grey House would be next?” Jonah wondered.

“Perhaps,” Ethan said.

“I obviously can’t let that stand,” Jonah said. “What’s our approach?”

“He might suspect we’re onto him,” I said. “My father dropped off a map of the warehouse
plat, and I mentioned it to Michael. Michael left the House quickly after that.”

“In that case,” my grandfather said, “he might make himself known, especially given
the theatrical way he’s arranged the bodies. He’ll want us to know who he is and what
he’s doing.”

Ethan’s phone rang. He checked the screen and seemed surprised.

“Who is it?”

“Diego Castillo. He’s a member of the GP,” he said, for the nonvampires on the call.
“A representative of Mexico.”

Something uncomfortable thrummed in my chest. Why was a member of the GP calling Ethan?

Ethan answered the phone. “Ethan Sullivan.”

I could have used my vampiric senses to listen in, but since I was already in RG hot
water, I thought it best to trust Ethan would tell us what we needed to know.

But when he sat straight up, my heart sped exponentially.

Ethan?
I silently asked, but he didn’t answer.

“Diego, I’m here with my team. I’m going to put you on speakerphone.” Ethan put the
phone on the table and pressed a button. “Go ahead,” he said.

“Darius and Lakshmi have been taken.” Diego’s accent was melodically accented, but
his voice was firm.

A shock wave of alarmed magic crossed the room.

“Taken?” Luc asked. “What do you mean, taken?”

“We were at the Dandridge waiting for our ride to the airport. Darius stepped outside
to smoke a cigarette, and Lakshmi joined him.”

Darius liked to smoke cloves, and I had a sudden vivid memory of their peppery smell.

“I saw through the window,” Diego continued, “a vehicle pulled to the curb. The driver
got out, began to chat with Lakshmi and Darius. I thought perhaps he was a vampire,
although not one I knew.”

“Brown hair?” Ethan asked. “Slender build?”

“
Sí
. You know this man?”

“I may,” Ethan said. “What happened next?”

“Our limo pulls up and we walk outside, but the car is gone, and so are Darius and
Lakshmi.”

“What kind of car?” Ethan asked.

“I do not know. It was large. Black with dark windows.”

Ethan’s eyes narrowed, and it didn’t take much to guess the direction—or violence—of
his thoughts.

“Wait,” Luc said, leaning toward the phone. “So someone forced Darius and Lakshmi
into the car? How?”

Probably the same way Michael Donovan had done it before, I thought.

“He’s got a weapon that shoots bullets made of aspen,” I said. “A direct shot and
they’d both be dead.”

“There were no human witnesses?” Jonah asked.

“The bellmen were inside,” Diego said, guilt in his voice. “They were helping us gather
our luggage.”

“How long ago did this occur?” Ethan asked.

“Seven or eight minutes?”

“We will find them,” Ethan promised. “Stay at the hotel, inside, around humans, and
do not leave until you hear from me.”

He didn’t wait for an argument, but hung up the phone, then glanced at us. He looked
suddenly tired.

“He’ll kill both of them,” I quietly said. “If we don’t get there and stop him, he’ll
kill both of them.”

“There seems little doubt of that,” Ethan said. “I have no love for the GP. We are
enemies, but that hardly matters now. We cannot blithely turn them over to a murderer.”
He glanced up at Luc. “And more important, if we do not find them, there is little
doubt the GP will blame their deaths on us.”

Luc nodded.

“We have to find them,” Jonah agreed. His interest was differently motivated from
Ethan’s. Lakshmi was a friend, an insider who’d helped save the House . . . and to
whom I already owed a favor.

“Why Darius and Lakshmi?” Jeff asked. “What does he get out of it?”

“What did he get out of any of them?” my grandfather asked. “He’s looking for emotional
closure, or absolution, or something he likely won’t find with violence. But that
doesn’t mean he’ll stop looking.”

I nodded.

“At this point, the reason hardly matters.” Ethan stood up. “The rescue mission begins
now. Where will Michael go?”

“The warehouse was his chosen location,” Luc said. “But now that we know about his
connection—and he knows that we know—he won’t go there.”

“True,” I agreed. “But he might look for another place that’s meaningful to him. I’ll
be right back.”

I ran upstairs to Ethan’s office and grabbed the papers my father had brought over.
When I was downstairs again, I spread them out across the conference room table.

Fortunately, my father was very thorough.

“Someone fill us in,” Catcher said.

“The materials Joshua provided,” Ethan said, scanning the materials. “He’s given us
information about all the properties held by Carlos Anthony Martinez.”

I picked up the contract and skimmed it. “There are three. The warehouse, then the
Comstock building, which is a few blocks north of Streeterville.”

“That’s not far from Navarre House,” Jonah added.

“Yep. And the third”—I ran a finger down the paper, which had minuscule type—“is some
kind of strip mall in Roseland.”

“Opposite directions,” Ethan said. “Would he go north or south of the Dandridge?”

“Roseland is a longer drive,” my grandfather said, “and for him to delay the thing
he’s looking forward to doing—the killing . . . I’m not sure he’d opt to make the
trip that long.”

“Agreed,” Ethan said, decision made; he flipped through the documents, but didn’t
find what he was looking for. “There’s no blueprint for the Comstock building.”

“Jeff,” I said, looking at the phone, “can you get us details on the Comstock?”

“Pulling it up now,” Jeff said. “It’s a twenty-story building. The floors are divided
between commercial units on the bottom and residential on the top.”

“How will we find them in a twenty-story building?” I asked.

“Thermal scanners,” Jeff said. “We can use satellites to scan at a temp range for
vamps, which will give us an idea where he is. Easy-peasy.”

Ethan looked skeptically at the phone. “That doesn’t sound especially ‘easy-peasy.’
Are you just saying that to make us feel better, or do you actually believe it?”

“I didn’t say it could be legally done,” Jeff said. “I just said it would be easy.”

Somehow, that actually made me feel better.

“The problem is,” Jonah said, “the scanners will also flag any other vamp in the building.”

“Yeah, but what are the odds there’s a cabal of vampires in the Comstock building?”
Jeff said. “If we find a group of three vampires together, it’s probably them.”

“So we scan the building,” I said. “We go in, take out Michael, take Darius and Lakshmi
home.”

“I want to see the inside of the building,” Ethan said. “Can we do that?”

“I’ve logged into the property manager’s site,” Jeff said. “Pulling up schematics . . .
now. I’m sending them to you.”

Luc pressed some keys, and an elevation of a building appeared on-screen.

“Should we ask how you got into the client section of the Web site?” I wondered.

“Better if you don’t. Suffice it to say ‘123kitty’ does not a strong password make.”

“Duly noted.”

“Merit and I will go,” Ethan said, standing.

“You need more bodies than that, especially if there are two wounded vamps,” Jonah
said. “I’ll get permission from Scott to go, too.”

Ethan was quiet for a moment, debating the offer. “I’m in charge,” he finally said.
“What I say goes. No heroics.”

“I hadn’t planned on it.”

“Excellent.”

“Glad to hear it.”

Jeff whistled, and they shut up. “Vampires, please. It’s going to take time to get
the scanners in place. I can do it, but I’ve got to finagle a satellite, and that’s
going to take a phone call and some security clearance.”

“You can find it while we drive,” Ethan said.

“Working on it. Hit the road and I’ll update you as soon as I can.”

“Luc, technology?”

“On it.” Luc jogged to a nearby cabinet, then brought out some of his prized possessions—incredibly
small earpiece-and-microphone combos that would allow us to talk to one another inside
the building.

“One for each of you,” Luc said, handing them to me and Ethan. “There’s an extra there
for Jonah. We’ll coordinate the comm here, and keep Jeff and Catcher patched in.”

Ethan nodded, slipping the earpiece into his ear, and I did the same.

“We find him, we get Darius and Lakshmi out, and we take out Michael,” Ethan said.
“Any objections to that plan?”

My instinct, in times of stress, was to be sarcastic, but I managed not to ask if
we’d get mission T-shirts after we were finished, or maybe a group photo op as at
so many other Chicago attractions.

“No objections,” Jonah gravely said.

Swords at the ready, earpieces in place, we headed upstairs and walked outside. Great
white flakes of snow were falling across the city, and they’d already collected into
a white blanket that covered the lawn.

“Snow is coming,” I said.

“Indeed,” Ethan agreed, as we walked through the gate. Ethan was driving the two of
us, and Jonah would meet us there.

As Ethan and I buckled up, Luc’s voice rang through our ears. “Audio working?”

“It’s working,” Ethan said. “We’re leaving now. We’ll get this done.”

I certainly hoped he was right.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

GIVING CHASE

T
en minutes later, we were zooming down Lakeshore as fast as the Volvo could go. Luc
had patched Jeff and Jonah—who didn’t yet have his earbud—into our connection system
so we could make final arrangements on the way.

“Guys, I’ve got good news and bad news. And since we don’t have time for debate, you’re
getting the bad news first: The Comstock building’s scheduled for demolition tomorrow
morning. The Web site I’d found was an old one; the building changed hands, and the
new property manager decided to go in a different direction with the property.”

My heart throbbed in my chest as fear overwhelmed me. Murderous vampires were one
thing. Exploding buildings? Something altogether different.

“The building will be guarded,” Jonah said, “but there’s a good chance some of the
explosives and wiring have already been placed.”

“If there are guards,” I said, “Michael’s probably already taken them out. He won’t
think twice about taking out humans.”

“Agreed,” Ethan said. “You said you had good news, Jeff?”

“Two parts: Catcher and I are on our way. I had to let him drive, you know, since
I’m working my keyboard magic, but we thought you could use some help. And also, helpfully,
the building’s now a husk. Drywall, interiors, everything’s been cleaned out in preparation
for the demo.”

“Which makes the thermals operate a lot more effectively,” Jonah said.

“Precisely. The satellites are queued in—you can thank Big Brother and some lovely
white-hat hackers for that—and I’ve got thermal. But there aren’t any vampires in
the building yet.”

“Shit,” Ethan muttered. “Does that mean he isn’t there yet, or he’s on his way?”

“I don’t know. I’m still working on it. I’m logging into the security feeds I can
find between the Dandridge and the Comstock.”

“Shit,” Ethan muttered again, cracking a fist on the dashboard.

“Hey,” I said. “She’s the only transportation we’ve got at the moment.”

Ethan looked around, eyeing an exit, doubt in his eyes. “We could go south back to
Roseland. He could be there.”

“He wouldn’t be there yet,” I said. “You thought Comstock first, and I agree. It’s
closer to the Dandridge, and it’s the murder he wants. He can do it faster if he goes
to the Comstock.”

He didn’t look convinced, so I pushed on, just as he had for me. “Remember what you
told me? Trust your instincts.”

Ethan’s gaze intensified, and he pushed the Volvo’s engine even more . . . zooming
past the exit that would have given him a chance to get to the other building.

And thank God for that.

“I’ve got it!” Jeff suddenly exclaimed.

Ethan blew out a breath in relief.

“I’m matching security footage and imaging,” he said. “We’ve got a black SUV across
the street from the building, three vampires inside . . . and they’re moving.”

“You got it,” I said, squeezing Ethan’s hand. “Now get us there.”

* * *

Ten minutes and multiple moving violations later, we pulled up across the street from
the Comstock building, or what remained of it. It was only a concrete skeleton, its
plastic walls flapping in the breeze. The block had already been fenced off, the neighborhood
prepared for the destruction to come.

On the upside, parking was abundant.

We met Jonah outside the building; Catcher and Jeff hadn’t yet arrived. I gave Jonah
his earbud, and we belted on our swords as snow fell around us. We saw no guards to
speak of, but the smell of blood was in the air. It seemed likely the guards had been
sacrifices to Michael’s evil intent.

“Jeff?” Ethan said, touching his earpiece. “What can you see?”

“Two vampires on the roof. One on the sixteenth floor.”

“He wouldn’t separate them,” I said. “That can’t be right.”

“Oh, crap,” Jeff said. “The color of the one on sixteen is changing.”

“Changing?” Jonah asked.

“Cooling,” Jeff said. “Dying.”

My stomach fell, tears blossoming at my lashes. We were so close.

“We go in now,” Jonah said. “Ethan, take the vampire on sixteen. Merit and I will
take the roof.”

“No way,” Ethan said, but I shot him a glance.

“I’m not letting you within five feet of an aspen gun,” I said. “No arguments. Find
whoever that is. They aren’t dead yet.
Save
them.”

“We climb the fence,” Jonah said. “Then we go inside. Swords drawn and at the ready.”

We nodded, and then we did our things.

The fence was chain link and made for an easy climb. We hopped down on the other side
and found the building creepily quiet. Snow already covered the concrete outside,
which made the steel exoskeleton look as if it had risen straight from ashes. Not
exactly a comforting metaphor.

“The roof?” I asked, casting a glance upward. “Can we even get up there?”

“They keep ladders and stairwells open for the demolition crew,” Jonah said. “Getting
up there won’t be a problem.”

We crossed the dirty and dusty hull of a lobby and went into the stairwell. We began
the climb, and said good-bye to Ethan on the sixteenth floor.

You’ll be careful
, Ethan silently said.

I promise
, I assured him, and he disappeared into the hallway.

“Focus,” Jonah said, and I pushed Ethan’s safety from my mind and we made the slow
climb to the top of the building.

We emerged into a kind of waiting area, with a door marked
ROOF
in front of us. I swallowed down a dose of fear.

“You ready?”

“On three,” I said.

One . . . two . . . three
, he mouthed, then pushed open the door.

A freezing wind met us on the other side. It whipped around us at this height, biting
through my jacket and quickly numbing the hands around my sword.

The roof was still covered in gritty tar paper, and it looked like every rooftop I’d
seen on cop shows—a flat surface marked with vertical pipes, antennas, and skylights.
Around the roof was an edge of concrete that kept folks from tumbling over the sides.

I sincerely hoped we weren’t going to need that.

Ethan’s voice burst into my earpiece. “I’ve got Lakshmi,” he said. “Bleeding, but
I’m stanching the wound. I’m going to get her out. Luc, get Delia ready for an incoming.”

“On it,” Luc said.

“Michael and the other vampire are on the north side of the building,” Jeff said.

We took cautious steps forward. The snow was still falling, but it had melted to slush
on the roof’s dark fabric.

“Behind me,” Jonah said.

The roof was dotted with small outcroppings—utility sheds and HVAC units that hadn’t
yet been removed. We hustled across the surface from obstacle to obstacle, trying
to get as close to Michael as possible without blowing our cover . . . or risking
his taking out a vampire before we could reach him.

“Twenty feet,” Jeff said, and we stopped behind a bank of air conditioners.

I dropped my guard and reached out for the magic in the air—and there was plenty of
it: a cloud around us, and a swell emanating from the other side of the utilities.
That was Michael’s location, and I signaled it to Jonah.

“I’ll step in front and distract him,” Jonah whispered. “Go around; cover his other
side. I’ll wait ten seconds before I move.”

I nodded. “Be careful.”

I crept along the air-conditioning unit until I’d passed Michael’s position, crouched
behind a gigantic vent pipe, and glanced around the corner.

Michael Donovan stood beside a bit of plumbing that pushed through the roof’s surface,
his long black coat swirling in the wind.

Darius kneeled on the ground in front of him, cowed by the katana that Michael held
in his right hand and the gun in his left. The latter was the same weapon I’d seen
McKetrick raise against me, and likely the same one that Michael had used to threaten
Oliver and Eve.

With bullets of aspen, it was decidedly deadly.

“You had to run,” Michael said to Darius. “I tried to arrange you just so, and you
had to run. And now she’s down there alone.”

Michael lifted the sword.

Jonah stepped into Michael’s line of sight. “Michael, you’re surrounded. Drop the
weapon and step away from Darius.”

Shocked, Michael jerked, glancing around the roof. I crawled around the vent and began
to creep along the edge of the roof toward him.

But he wasn’t going to simply give up. “I can’t allow you to interrupt,” he said.
“I’m obviously in the middle of something here.”

“You’re going to have to hit ‘pause,’” Jonah said. “I’ve got guards on the roof and
around the building.”

“Great,” Michael said. “Then you won’t mind when I do this.”

Jonah jumped, but not before Michael slashed out, the tip of his sword catching Darius
across the throat. Blood spilled, filling the air with the scent of heady vampire
magic.

As my eyes silvered, Jonah leaped for Darius.

It was a perfect distraction. I extended my katana, and before Michael could react
I sliced forward, hitting the underside of his left hand. The wound wasn’t deep, but
it was enough to startle him. He instinctively dropped the gun, and I used the tip
of the sword to change its trajectory, batting it away like a crappy pitch. Instead
of falling at Michael’s feet—within easy reach—it flew fifteen feet away, then skittered
beneath one of the utility units.

Michael’s smile drooped, and he took a step backward, katana still in hand.

Darius whimpered as Jonah worked to stop the bleeding at his throat. I moved closer
to Michael, forcing him backward and away from the pair.

Now that we had equal weapons, it was up to me to bring him down. But first and foremost,
he was going to answer some questions.

I kept my katana at heart height. “You’ve murdered four vampires. You killed Oliver
and Eve.”

Michael looked confused. “Who?”

“The vampires you slaughtered at Carlos’s warehouse.”

“I didn’t even know their names until you told me. They were the first vampires who
stumbled along.”

He’d just admitted to murder—serial murder—as if it were nothing more than admitting
he’d run out of milk or forgotten to vote on Election Day.

Michael slid a glance to Darius behind him. Michael’s expression was cold, as if he
were irritated that Jonah was interrupting his plans—and Darius’s death.

“Why kill them at the warehouse?”

“It seemed as good a place as any.”

His nonchalance had to be feigned. No one went to all that trouble—killed multiple
vampires with linked locations and meticulous placement—and didn’t care. That is,
he might not have cared for Oliver, Eve, Katya, or Zoey, but he cared about the killing.

Time to poke the bear
, I thought.

“So Carlos made you a vampire?”

Michael glanced back at me. Concern flashed in his eyes, but disappeared. But that
flash was enough for me.

I pulled up every memory of the night I’d been made a vampire, digging into the feelings
of fear, horror, and brutality, and used them against him.

“You didn’t want it, did you? You didn’t want to be a vampire. You didn’t want to
be a part of that lifestyle. But Carlos found you. Selected you. And then he subdued
you. Restrained you, maybe? And bit you.”

Michael’s gaze snapped back to me, his eyes swirling silver. “You don’t know what
the fuck you’re talking about.”

This wasn’t Michael the security auditor. This was Michael’s darkness, the anger he’d
been holding inside . . . and had finally decided to unleash.

But I didn’t need him angry. I needed him to break.

I provoked him further. “Are you sure you didn’t want it? That you didn’t secretly
want the immortality? The strength? Are you sure Carlos didn’t give you exactly what
you wanted?”

Michael bared his fangs with a hiss, and slashed forward. I jumped away from the tip
of his katana, then sliced out with mine, catching the edge of his duster and ripping
the fabric.

“You don’t fucking know what it was like. The blood. The darkness. He was sick. He
had a sickness.”

Darkness
, I thought. That was an important word, wasn’t it?

“The room at the warehouse. No windows, no light. Utter darkness. That’s where he
made you a vampire?”

Michael turned in a circle and kicked out. He was fast, but his moves were sloppier
tonight than they had been when he’d fought Ethan. He was angry and afraid, and he
wasn’t focused.

I dodged the kick easily.

“He forced me into the room,” he said.

“I’m sure of it. And you took your revenge, didn’t you? You killed Oliver and Eve
in that same room.”

“I eliminated vampires.”

“And the vampires at Navarre?”

“She made him,” Michael said. “She made him, and she ignored what he did.”

She, I assumed, was Celina. He couldn’t take her out, because I’d already done that.

“Why Cadogan House? Why Darius and Lakshmi? What do they have to do with Carlos?”

“They don’t,” he said. “They were just bonuses. Their price was much, much higher.”

I froze, sword in front of me, hands shaking with tension and fear and cold. “What
price?”

“The price McKetrick paid me to kill vampires.”

“Holy fucking shit,” said Luc’s voice in my ear. He must have heard that confession.
“Sentinel, you were right.”

Right or not, I kept my gaze on Michael Donovan. “McKetrick paid you? Why?”

The surprise in my eyes must have helped Michael regain some control. He stood a little
straighter, adjusted his grip on his katana.

“He wanted to create havoc,” Michael said. “He hates vampires. And, frankly, I don’t
disagree with him.”

“What about the aspen gun?”

“Test shot. McKetrick suggested I use it. I found it sloppy.”

“You prefer steel.”

His gaze narrowed. “Guns make good threats, but vampires should die by their own weapons.”

That he was also a vampire didn’t seem to matter. But maybe he wasn’t really a vampire,
not emotionally. My own transition had been difficult; his couldn’t have been a walk
in the park. Ethan had saved me from death, but Carlos had stolen life from Michael
Donovan.