Biting Cold - By Chloe Neill Page 0,33
I jumped forward and hugged him. He laughed and patted my back. “That’s enough. Sullivan here will get jealous.”
I stepped back, then gave Jeff a little wave. He blushed.
“Sullivan assures me he won’t get jealous,” I said.
But Gabriel’s smile faded when he looked at Ethan. As if not quite sure what he was seeing, Gabe gave him a good, long once-over.
By the look in Gabriel’s eyes and the tingle of magic around him, this was something heavy, weighty. Gabe hadn’t seen Ethan since he’d returned, and it seemed clear that Gabe was evaluating who Ethan was—whether he was still vampire, whether he was still good, whether he was still Ethan. Whether the magic had tainted him, changed him into something else, or damaged him irreparably.
“The sorceress did a number,” Gabriel finally said.
Ethan held out a hand for Gabriel, but Gabriel ignored it and wrapped Ethan in a bear hug that nearly lifted him off the ground.
“And that’s but one of the weird things I’ve seen tonight,” I muttered.
“It’s good to see both of you,” Ethan said. “What brings you to Nebraska?”
“They’re the escorts for the Maleficium,” Paige said. “They dropped it off before Mallory escaped.”
I pointed a finger at Jeff. “That explains why you weren’t at work yesterday. You were on your way out here with the book.”
He shrugged his narrow shoulders with impressive machismo. “A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.”
“After much begging, we’re here to retrieve it again,” Gabriel said. But he cast a dark glance back at the burning farmhouse. “But something tells me we might be changing our plans.”
“The Maleficium has been destroyed,” I said, and Gabriel’s eyes went wide with horror. “And it seems the evil it contained was destroyed along with it. Or most of it.”
“Most of it?” Jeff asked.
“Seth Tate touched the book just as Mallory finished the spell,” Ethan said. “He split into two.”
Gabriel blinked. “I don’t understand.”
“One Tate became two Tates,” I confirmed.
“The book burned to a crisp, and they propelled themselves through the missile shaft.” Ethan looked back at the farmhouse. “We came outside to discover the house on fire.”
“What is he?” Gabriel asked, and I think he meant it rhetorically. Even if he didn’t, it wasn’t as if we could answer.
“That’s the million-dollar question,” I said. “Whatever they are, one or both of them set Paige’s house on fire. It’s not hard to imagine they’ve headed back to Chicago to make more trouble. We need to get home.”
“Actually, there’s trouble at home, too,” Jeff said.
“Oh?” I asked.
“Four cops beat the holy hell out of a couple of vamps and two humans they were hanging out with.”
“Were they from a House?”
“Rogues,” he said. “The cops say the vamps attacked them. The vamps say they were hanging out near a bodega with the humans and the cops jumped them for no reason, shouting obscenities about vamps and humans mixing together. Pretty clear things have gone a little downhill in the CPD since your grandfather left.”
“Racism is alive and well in the twenty-first century,” I ruefully said.
“When the mayor tells the city vampires are the enemy,” Ethan said, “such violence isn’t surprising.”
“And having to register with the city isn’t going to help us,” I said. That was one more thing I needed to add to my to-do list. “There won’t be any way to blend in when we have to carry papers that show our identity.”
“Sad but true,” Jeff agreed.
“What are you going to do with her?”
We all looked at Mallory.
“She’s going back to Chicago with us,” Ethan said. “After that, it’s up to the Order.”
“They didn’t do so well with her the last time. Not even twenty-four hours before allowing her to escape.”
“No,” Ethan agreed, “they did not.”
Gabriel looked at Jeff. “Could you excuse us for a moment?”
When Ethan waved a hand collegially, Gabriel led Jeff a few feet away. Heads together, they began to whisper.
“What’s that about?” I quietly asked.
“I’m not entirely sure,” Ethan said, but there was no denying the curiosity in his voice.
After a moment, they walked back toward us. “We’ll take her,” Gabe said.
Stunned silence filled the air.
“You’ll take her where?” Ethan asked.
“We’ll take custody of her. The Order didn’t manage her before. You know I’m not one to get involved in politics, but I’d also really prefer that the city not burn down around us, since we’ve decided to stay in it.”
Ethan looked completely befuddled. “I’m sorry, but I’m having trouble wrapping my mind around this. Where would you take her?”
“We have a place”