Some Girls Bite (3 page)

“I was
unconsenting
,” I corrected and slammed the heavy oak door shut with enough force that it rattled the hinges. After the
scritch
of rocks on asphalt signaled the limo’s retreat, I leaned back against the door and looked at Mallory.

She glared back. “They said you were on campus by yourself in the middle of the night!” She punched my arm, disgust obvious on her face. “What the hell were you thinking?”

That, I thought, was the release of the panic she’d suffered until she learned that I was coming home. It tightened my throat, knowing that she’d waited for me, worried for me.

“I had work to do.”

“In the middle of the night?!”

“I said I had work to do!” I threw up my hands, irritation rising. “God, Mallory, this isn’t my fault.” My knees began to shake. I moved the few steps back to the couch and sat down. Repressed fear, horror, and violation overwhelmed me. I covered my face with my hands as the tears began to fall. “It wasn’t my fault, Mallory. Everything—my life, school—is gone, and it wasn’t my fault.”

I felt the cushion dip beside me and an arm around my shoulders.

“Oh, God, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m freaked out. I was so scared, Mer, Jesus. I know it’s not your fault.” She held me while I sobbed, rubbed my back while I cried hard enough to hiccup, while I mourned the loss of my life, of my humanity.

 

We sat there together for a long time, my best friend and I. She offered Kleenex as I replayed the few things I could remember—the attack, the second set of vampires, the cold and pain, the hazy limo ride.

When I’d sobbed my body empty of tears, Mallory stroked the hair from my face. “It’ll be okay. I promise. I’ll call the university in the morning. And if you can’t go back . . . we’ll figure something out. In the meantime, you should call your grandfather. He’ll want to know you’re okay.”

I shook my head, not yet ready to have that conversation. My grandfather’s love had always been unconditional, but then again, I’d always been human. I wasn’t ready to test the correlation. “I’ll start with Mom and Dad,” I promised. “Then I’ll let word trickle down.”

“Tacky,” Mallory accused, but let it go. “The House, I guess it was, did call me, but I don’t know who else they contacted. The call was pretty short. ‘Merit was attacked on campus two nights ago. In order to save her life, we’ve made her a vampire. She’ll return home tonight. She may be dizzy from the change, so please be home to assist her during the first crucial hours. Thank you.’ It sounded like a recording, to be real honest.”

“So this Ethan Sullivan’s a cheapo,” I concluded. “We’ll add that to the list of reasons we don’t like him.”

“Him turning you into a soul-sucking creature of the night being number one on that list?”

I nodded ruefully. “That’s definitely number one.” I shifted and glanced over at her. “They made me like them.
He
made me like them, this Sullivan.”

Mallory made a sound of frustration. “I know. I am so effing jealous.” Mal was a student of the paranormal; as long as I’d known her, she’d had a keen interest in all things fanged and freaky. She put her palm to her chest. “I’m the occultist in the family, and yet it’s
you
, the English lit geek, they turn? Even Buffy would feel that sting. Although,” she said, her gaze appraising, “you will make damn good research material.”

I snorted. “But research material for what? Who the hell am I now?”

“You’re Merit,” she said with conviction that warmed my heart. “But kind of Merit 2.0. And I have to say, the phone call notwithstanding, this Sullivan’s not a cheapo about everything. Those shoes are Jimmy Choo, and that dress is runway-worthy.” She clucked her tongue. “He’s dressed you up like his own personal model. And frankly, Mer, you look good.”

Good, I thought, was relative. I looked down at the cocktail dress, smoothed my hands over the slick, black fabric. “I liked who I was, Mal. My life wasn’t perfect, but I was happy.”

“I know, hon. But maybe you’ll like this, too.”

I doubted it. Seriously.

 

 

 

M
y parents were new-money Chicago.

My grandfather, Chuck Merit, had served the city for thirty-four years as a cop—walking a beat in Chicago’s South Side until he joined the CPD’s Bureau of Investigative Services. He was a legend in the Chicago Police Department.

But while he brought home a solid middle-class living, things were occasionally tight for the family. My grandmother came from money, but she’d turned down an inheritance from her overbearing, old-Chicago-money-having father. Although it was her decision, my father blamed my grandfather for the fact that he wasn’t raised in the lifestyle to which he thought he should have been accustomed. Burned by the imagined betrayal and irritated by a childhood of living carefully on a cop’s salary, my father made it his personal goal to accumulate as much money as possible, to the exclusion of everything else.

He was very, very good at it.

Merit Properties, my father’s real estate development company, managed high-rises and apartment complexes throughout the city. He was also a member of the powerful Chicago Growth Council, which was made up of representatives of the city’s business community and which advised the city’s newly reelected mayor, Seth Tate, on planning and development issues. My father took great pride in, and often remarked upon, his relationship with Tate. Frankly, I just thought that reflected poorly on the mayor.

Of course, because I’d grown up a Chicago Merit, I’d been able to reap the benefits that came with the name—big house, summer camp, ballet lessons, nice clothes. But while the financial benefits were great, my parents, especially my father, were not the most compassionate people. Joshua Merit wanted to create a legacy, all else be damned. He wanted the perfect wife, the perfect children, and the perfect position among Chicago’s social and financial elite. Little wonder that I worshipped my grandparents, who understood the meaning of unconditional love.

I couldn’t imagine my father was going to be happy about my new vampiric identity. But I was a big girl, so after I washed my face of tears, I got into my car—an old boxy Volvo I’d scrimped to pay for—and drove to their home in Oak Park.

When I arrived, I parked the Volvo in the drive that arced in front of the house. The building was a massive postmodern concrete box, completely out of place next to the more subtle Prairie Style buildings around it. Money clearly did not buy taste.

I walked to the front door. It was opened before I could knock. I glanced up. Dour gray eyes looked down at me from nearly seven feet of skinny white guy. “Ms. Merit.”

“Hello, Peabody.”

“Pennebaker.”

“That’s what I said.” Of course I knew his name. Pennebaker, the butler, was my father’s first big purchase. Pennebaker had a “spare the rod” mentality about child rearing and always took my father’s side—snooping, tattling, and generally sparing no details about what he imagined was my rebellious childhood. Realistically, I was probably lower than average in the rebellion department, but I had perfect siblings—my older sister, Charlotte, now married to a heart surgeon and pumping out children, and my older brother, Robert, who was being groomed to take over the family business. As a single twenty-seven-year-old graduate student, even though studying at one of the best universities in the country, I was a second-class Merit. And now I was coming home with a big ol’ nasty.

I walked inside, feeling the
woosh
of air on my back as Pennebaker shut the door firmly behind me and then stepped in front of me.

“Your parents are in the front parlor,” he intoned. “You are expected. They’ve been unduly concerned about your welfare. You worry your father with these”—he looked down disdainfully—“
things
you get involved in.”

I took offense to that, but opted not to correct his misunderstanding of the degree to which I’d consented to being changed. He wouldn’t have believed me anyway.

I walked past him, following the hallway to the front parlor and pushing open the room’s top-hinged door. My mother, Meredith Merit, rose from one of the room’s severe boxy sofas. Even at eleven p.m., she wore heels and a linen dress, a strand of pearls around her neck. Her blond hair was perfectly coiffed, her eyes pale green.

Mom rushed to me, hands extended. “You’re okay?” She cupped my cheeks with long-nailed fingers and looked me over. “You’re okay?”

I smiled politely. “I’m fine.” Relative to their understanding, that was true.

My father, tall and lean like me, with the same chestnut hair and blue eyes, was on the opposite sofa, still in a suit despite the hour. He looked at me over half-cocked reading glasses, a move he might as well have borrowed from Helen, but it was no less effective on a human than a vampire. He snapped closed the paper he’d been reading and placed it on the couch beside him.

“Vampires?” He managed to make the single word both a question and an accusation.

“I was attacked on campus.”

My mother gasped, clutched a hand to her heart, and looked back at my father. “Joshua! On campus! They’re attacking people!”

My father kept his gaze on me, but I could see the surprise in his eyes. “Attacked?”

“I was attacked by one vampire, but a different vampire turned me.” I recalled the few words I’d heard, the fear in the voice of Ethan Sullivan’s companion. “I think the first one ran away, was scared away, and the second ones were afraid I was going to die.” Not quite the truth—the companion feared it might happen; Sullivan seemed supremely confident it would. And that he could alter my fate when it did.

“Two sets of vampires? At U. of C.?”

I shrugged, having wondered the same thing.

My father crossed his legs. “And speaking of, why, in God’s name, were you wandering around campus by yourself in the middle of the night?”

A spark fired in my stomach. Anger, maybe mixed with a hint of self-pity, not uncommon emotions when it came to dealing with my father. I usually played meek, fearful that raising my voice would push my parents to voice their own long-lived desires for a different younger daughter. But to everything, there is a season, right?

“I was working.”

His responsive huff said plenty.

“I was working,” I repeated, twenty-seven years of pent-up assertiveness in my tone. “I was heading to pick up some papers, and I was attacked. It wasn’t a choice, and it wasn’t my fault. He tore out my throat.”

My father scanned the clear skin at my throat and looked doubtful—God forbid a Merit, a
Chicago
Merit, couldn’t stand up for herself—but he forged ahead. “And this Cadogan House. They’re old, but not as old as Navarre House.”

Since I hadn’t yet mentioned Cadogan House, I assumed whoever had called my parents mentioned the affiliation. And my father had apparently done some research.

“I don’t know much about the Houses,” I admitted, thinking that was more Mallory’s arena.

My father’s expression made it clear that he wasn’t satisfied by my answer. “I only got back tonight,” I said, defending myself. “They dropped me off at the house two hours ago. I wasn’t sure if you’d heard from anyone or thought I was hurt or something, so I came by.”

“We got a call.” His tone was dry. “From the House. Your roommate—”

“Mallory,” I interrupted. “Her name is Mallory.”

“—told us when you didn’t come home. The House called and informed us that you’d been attacked. They said you were recuperating. I contacted your grandfather and your brother and sister, so there was no need to contact the police department.” He paused. “I don’t want them involved in this, Merit.”

The fact that my father was unwilling to investigate the attack on his daughter notwithstanding, my scars were gone anyway. I touched my neck. “I think it’s a little late for the police.”

My father, evidently unimpressed by my forensic analysis, rose from the couch and approached me. “I’ve worked hard to bring this family up from nothing. I will not see it torn down again.” His cheeks were flushed crimson. My mother, who’d moved to stand at his side, touched his arm and quietly said his name.

I bristled at the “again,” but resisted the urge to argue with my father’s assessment of our family history, reminding him, “Becoming a vampire wasn’t my choice.”

“You’ve always had your head in the clouds. Always dreaming about romantic gibberish.” I assumed that was a knock against my dissertation. “And now this.” He walked away, strode to a floor-to-ceiling window, and stared out of it. “Just—stay on your side of town. And stay out of trouble.”

I thought he was done, that the admonishment was the end of it, but then he turned, and gazed at me through narrowed eyes. “And if you do anything to tarnish our name, I’ll disinherit you fast enough to make your head spin.”

My father, ladies and gentlemen.

 

By the time I made it back to Wicker Park, I was red-eyed and splotchy again, having cried my way east. I didn’t know why my father’s behavior surprised me; it was completely in keeping with his principal goal in life: improving his social standing. My near-death experience and the fact that I’d become a bloodsucker weren’t as important in his tidy little world as the threat I posed to their status.

It was late when I pulled the car into the narrow garage beside the house—nearly one a.m. The brownstone was dark, the neighborhood quiet, and I guessed Mallory was asleep in her upstairs bedroom. Unlike me, she still had a job at her Michigan Avenue ad firm, and she was usually in the Loop by seven a.m. But when I unlocked the front door, I found her on the couch, staring blankly at the television.

“You need to see this,” she said, without looking up. I kicked off the heels, walked around the sofa to the television, and stared. The headline at the bottom of the screen read, ominously,
Chicagoland vamps deny role in murder
.