As a former grad student in English literature, I could appreciate the perverse poetry of it.
Jonah, captain of the guards in Grey House, was my link to the Red Guard, a secret organization dedicated to providing oversight to the American vampire Houses and the Greenwich Presidium, the European council that ruled them from across the pond.
I'd been offered membership in the RG, and Jonah was the partner I'd been promised if I'd accepted. I hadn't, but he'd been nice enough to help me deal with problems GP
politics made too sticky for Ethan.
Jonah had been more than happy to act as Ethan's replacement—professionaly and otherwise.
The messages we'd exchanged over the last few weeks—and the hope in his eyes tonight—said he was interested in something more than just supernatural problem-solving.
There was no denying Jonah was handsome. Or charming. Or bril iant in a weirdly quirky way. Honestly, he could have starred in his own romantic comedy. But I wasn't ready to even think about dating again. I didn't think I would be any time soon. My heart was otherwise engaged, and since Ethan's death, mostly broken.
Jonah must have seen the hesitation in my eyes. He smiled kindly, then pul ed back his hand and pointed toward the edge.
"Remember what I told you about jumping? This is the same as taking a step."
He'd definitely said that. Two or three times now. I just wasn't buying. "It's a real y, real y long step."
"It is," Jonah agreed. "But it's only the first step that sucks. Being in the air is one of the greatest things you'l ever experience."
"Better than being safely on the ground?"
"Much. More like flying—except we don't do ‘up' nearly as wel as we do ‘down.' This is your chance to be a superhero."
"They do cal me the ‘em"l me thPonytailed Avenger,'" I grumbled, flipping my long dark ponytail. The Chicago Sun-Times had deemed me a "Ponytailed Avenger" when I'd helped a shifter in a bar attack. Since I usual y wore my hair in a ponytail to keep it away from the errant katana strike (my bangs not included), the name kind of stuck.
"Has anyone ever told you you're particularly sarcastic when you're scared?"
"You're not the first," I admitted. "I'm sorry. I'm just—this is freaking me out. There is nothing in my body or mind that thinks jumping off a building is a good idea."
"You'l be fine. The fact that it scares you is reason number one to do it."
Or reason number one to turn tail and run back to Hyde Park.
"Trust me," he said. "Besides, this is a skil you need to master," Jonah said. "Malik and Kel ey need you."
Kel ey was a former House guard now in charge of the House's entire guard corps. Unfortunately, since we were now down to three ful -time guards (including Kel ey) and a Sentinel, that wasn't exactly a coup for her.
Malik was Ethan's former second in command, Master of the House since Ethan's demise. He'd taken the Rights of Investiture, and the House had been given to his keeping.
Ethan's death had sparked a nasty case of vampire musical chairs.
As a Master, Malik Washington had gotten back his last name; Masters of the country's twelve vampire Houses were the only vamps al owed to use them. Unfortunately, Malik had also gotten the House's political drama, which had thickened since Ethan's death. Malik worked tirelessly, but had to spend most of his time dealing with the newest bane of our existence.
Said bane was Franklin Theodore Cabot, the appointed receiver of Cadogan House. When Darius West, head of the GP, had decided he didn't like the way the House was run, "Frank" had been sent to Chicago to inspect and evaluate the House. The GP said they were concerned Ethan hadn't effectively managed the House—but that was a total lie, and they'd wasted no time sending the receiver to check our rooms, our books, and our files. I wasn't exactly sure what data Frank was looking for—and why so much interest in a House an entire ocean away?
Whatever the reason, Frank wasn't a good houseguest.
He was obnoxious, autocratic and a stickler for rules I hadn't even known existed to the exclusion of everything else. Of course, I was becoming pretty wel acquainted with them; Frank had papered one wal of the House's first floor with the new House rules and the punishments that went along with breaking them. The system was necessary, he'd said, because House discipline had been lackadaisical.
Maybe not surprisingly, I had taken an immediate dislike to Frank, and not just because he was a blue-blooded Ivy League business school graduate with a penchant for phrases like "synergy" and "out of the box thinking." He'd salted his introductory comments to the House with those words, offering up the not-so-subtle threat that the House would be taken over by the GP on a permanent basis—or disbanded—if he wasn't satisfied with what he found.
I'd been fortunate enough to come from a family of means, and there were other vampires in the House who had old money backgrounds. But it was Frank's attitude of entitlement that real y irked me. The man wore deck shoes, for God's sake. And he was most definitely not on a boat. In reality, despite the role he'd been givethed beenn by the GP, he was actual y a Novitiate vampire (if a wealthy one) from a House on the east coast. A House, granted, that had been founded by a Cabot ancestor, but which had long since been given over to another Master.
Worse, Frank spoke to us like he was a member of the House, as if his money and connections were a passport to status within Cadogan. Frank playing at House membership was even more ridiculous since his entire purpose was to itemize the ways we weren't fol owing the party line. He was an outsider sent to label us as nonconforming and pound us, square pegs, back into round holes.
Out of concern for the House and respect for the chain of command, Malik had given him the run of the House. He figured Frank was a battle he couldn't win, so he was saving up his political capital for another round.