that I hadn't been diligently armed was just the kind of talk that Catcher would pass along to Ethan. It's not that they were buddies, exactly, but chatting about me seemed like the kind of thing they'd do.
It was nearly eleven o'clock, but the few windows in the office were ablaze with light.
The Ombud's office, or so my grandfather figured, served creatures of the night. That meant third-shift hours for my grandfather, his admin Marjorie, Catcher, and Jeff Christopher, my grandfather's second right-hand man, an undefined shapeshifter and computer whiz kid. Who also had a giant crush on yours truly.
I knocked on the locked front door and waited for someone to let me in. Jeff turned a corner and headed down the hallway toward me, a grin breaking across his face. He was all lean appendages and floppy brown hair, and tonight he wore his usual uniform - pressed khakis and a long-sleeved button-up shirt, the sleeves rolled halfway up his forearms.
When he reached the door, he typed an alarm code into a keypad beside it, then turned a lock and opened it.
"Couldn't stand being away from me?"
"I was hurting a little," I said, then stepped inside as he held the door open. "It's been, what, almost a week?"
"Six days, twenty-three hours, and about twelve minutes." He recoded and locked the door, then grinned over at me. "Not that I'm counting."
"Oh, of course not," I agreed as he escorted me down the hallway to the office he shared with Catcher. "You're much too suave for that kind of thing."
"Much," he agreed, then entered the room and moved behind one of the four metal, atomic-era desks that sat in two rows in the tiny room. The top of Jeff's desk was taken up by a Frankenstein-esque collection of keyboards and monitors, upon which sat a stuffed toy I'd learned was a model of H. P. Love-craft's Cthulhu.
"How was tap class?" asked a sardonic voice on the other side of the room. I glanced over, found Catcher at the desk opposite Jeff's, hands crossed over his skull-cut head, an open laptop on the desk before him. One brow was arched over his green eyes, his curvy lips slightly tipped up in amusement. I had to admit it - Catcher was irritating, gruff, a demanding trainer... and ridiculously pretty. Mal definitely had her hands full.
"Hip-hop," I corrected, "not tap. And it was just fancy. Your girl nearly coldcocked the instructor, but it was pretty uneventful other than that." I edged a hip onto one of the two empty metal desks. I wasn't entirely sure why there were four desks in all. Catcher and Jeff were the only two in this office; my grandfather and Marjorie had desks in other rooms. My grandfather had reached out to a vampire source since Catcher and Jeff represented Chicago's sorcery and shapeshifting communities, but the secret vamp avoided the office in order to avoid House drama, so no desk for him. Or her. Or it, I suppose. I was still trying to work that one out.
Catcher glanced over at me. "She nearly cold cocked the instructor?"
"Well, she wanted to, not that I blame her. Aerobics Barbie is hard to stomach for more than five minutes at a time. But thanks to my excellent mediation and negotiation skills, no punches were actually thrown." The pad of footsteps echoed through the hall, and I looked over at the door to find my grandfather in his usual plaid flannel shirt and sensible pants, his feet in thick-soled shoes.
"And speaking of excellent mediation and negotiation skills," I said, hopping off the desk. My grandfather extended his arms and beckoned me into a hug. I walked into his embrace and squeezed, careful not to inadvertently break ribs with my increased vampire strength. "Hi, Grandpa."
"Baby girl," he said, then pressed a kiss to the top of my forehead. "How's my favorite supernatural citizen doing this fine spring evening?"
"That hurts, Chuck," Catcher said, crossing his arms over his chest. "I thought I was your favorite sup." His voice could hardly have been dryer.
"Seriously," Jeff said, his gaze shifting between computer monitors. "Here we are, slaving night and day - "
"Technically," Catcher interrupted, "just night."
"Night." Jeff smoothly adjusted. "Trying to keep everyone in the Windy City happy, trying to keep the nymphs in line." He bobbed his head up toward the posters of scantily clad women that lined the walls of the office. They were river nymphs - tiny, busty, doe-eyed, and long-haired women who