Catcher pulled over the pad, glanced at the notes my grandfather had written, and frowned. “I don’t like this. It’s too tidy. I never liked the medal plant, and I like this jersey thing even less. But for a Rogue to leave a note—isn’t that a little suspect? They’d have to know the notes connect the Rogues, not the Houses, to the murder. Why go to all the trouble to set up the Houses in the attacks, then stab yourself in the foot with a note that pins the thing on you?”
“Depends on the Rogues,” my grandfather suggested. “If the murders are supposed to be a slap at the system, the notes say, ‘Hey, look what I pulled off right under your nose, affiliation or not.’ Maybe they didn’t think the vamps would share the notes with cops.”
Catcher brushed a hand over his closely shaven head. “Whatever the fuck is going on out there, Sullivan needs to get on this. The Houses need to call the city’s Rogues together, figure out who might be behind this, offer sanctions or rewards for information. They love that bargaining shit—I don’t understand why they’re not doing it now.”
“Because talking to the Rogues would be an admission that the Rogues have power,” Jeff offered. “The House vamps would have to acknowledge vamps who’ve bucked the system, and ask for their help. No way is Ethan or Celina going to do that. Grey maybe, but not the other two. Their memories are too long.”
Grandpa picked up the notepad again and rose, then walked to the door. “You’re right—they need to talk, if for no other reason than the timing of this thing. There was a week between Porter’s death and Merit’s attack, nine days between Merit and this girl’s death. It’s not a huge sample, but. . . .”
“We don’t have much time,” I quietly concluded. “Which means we could see another in the next ten days?”
My grandfather blew out a slow breath, then linked his hands above his head. “Maybe so, kid. I don’t envy the CPD on this one.” He looked over at me, gave me a sad smile. “I’m sorry to run you off, but we need to start making phone calls. Cadogan and Navarre need to be notified, and I need to talk to my source.”
“Thanks for dinner,” Jeff said.
“Sure.” I peeked in the bucket, looked over a handful of pieces, decided I still had no appetite for fowl. “Enjoy the rest,” I said. “I’ll leave it here.”
“Oh, before you go,” Jeff said, burrowing beneath this desk, “I got you something.” He dug around underneath there for a minute making clanging and banging noises, before crawling out with an Army green canvas bag in his hands. He held it out to me, and I took it, and peeked inside.
“Are you trying to tell me something, Jeff?” I asked, peering into the sack of sharpened wooden stakes.
“Just that I’d prefer you alive.”
I hitched the bag over my shoulder, gave him a jaunty wink. “Then thanks.”
He smiled endearingly. Jeff was a kid, but a good kid.
Catcher rose. “I’ll walk you out.”
I gave Grandpa a hug, and passed a final wave and smile to Jeff, then let Catcher guide me back to the front door. He uncoded it and held it open so I could walk through. “Stay close to the guards this week. Could be this maniac’s going to try to finish you off, take a swipe at hit number three.”
I shivered and hitched the bag of stakes a little tighter at my shoulder. “Thanks for the comfort.”
“I’m not here to comfort you, babe. I’m here to keep you alive.”
“And screw my roommate.”
He smiled grandly, a dimple peeking from the left side of his upturned lips. “And that, assuming I can get her to see it my way.”
I left him with a smile, glad that, whatever the supernatural drama, I’d found friends to help me through it. A new family, for all the genetic differences.
I got into the car and drove home with the windows down, trying to hold on to that smile, that comfort, trying to let the spring breeze and a soft tune carry away my uncertainty.
Have you ever had a moment where you knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that you were in the right place? That you were on the right journey? Maybe the sense that you’d crossed a boundary, jumped a hurdle, and somehow, after facing some unconquerable mountain, found yourself suddenly on the other side of it? When the night was warm, and the wind was cool, and a song carried through the quiet streets around you. When you felt the entire world around you, and you were part of it—of the hum of it—and everything was good.
Contentment, I suppose, is the simple explanation for it. But it seems more than that, thicker than that, some unity of purpose, some sense of being truly, honestly, for that moment, at home.
Those moments never seem to last long enough. The song ends, the breeze stills, the worries and fears creep in again and you’re left trying to move forward, but glancing back at the mountain behind you, wondering how you managed to cross it, afraid you really didn’t—that the bulk and shadow over your shoulder might evaporate and re-form before you, and you’d be faced with the burden of crossing it again.
The song ends, and you stare at the quiet, dark house in front of you, and you grasp the doorknob, and walk back into your life.
CHAPTER 10
KEEPING WATCH IN THE NIGHT
“Time to get up, sleepyhead!”
I heard the voice, but grumbled into my pillow and pulled the comforter over my head. “Go away.” “Aw, come on, Mer. Today’s your big day! It’s Vampire Rush!”
I tunneled into the blankets. “I don’t want to be a vampire today.”
I heard a huff, and the covers were ripped from my body and thrown to the floor.
“Damn it, Mallory!” I sat up and pushed a nest of dark hair from my face. “I’m twenty-seven years old and perfectly capable of getting up on my own. Will you get out of my room? Go bother Catcher.”
“Catcher has bigger issues on his mind right now, Mer.” She paused in the middle of flipping through the shirts that hung in my closet. “Did you hear about this other girl? The one who was killed.”
I nodded as I rubbed sleep from my eyes. “They mentioned her last night.”
“Helluva time to become a vampire.”
“Tell me about it. I said the same thing the other day.”
Mallory began to pull clothes off hangers and drop them into a pile on the floor. I gave her a dramatic glare she didn’t bother to notice. “What are you doing?”
“I’m finding you something to wear. You’ve got Rush today.” For all that Mallory proclaimed herself immune to the benefits of being as gorgeous and fit as she was, there were moments that she reveled in girly stuff. Her sorority sisters would have been proud.
I swung my legs over the side of the bed. “It’s not Rush. It’s hazing. Vampire hazing. I don’t need to dress up so Ethan can humiliate me.”
“True. He’s humiliated you just fine when you were in jeans and a T-shirt.” She glanced back, gave me a look over her shoulder snarky enough to reduce a pledge to tears. “But you’re going to be there with, what did you say, eleven other new vamps? You need to show them what you’re made of. Today’s your day to start over. To reinvent yourself.”
I shuddered as Mallory pulled out a pair of high black heels and a fitted white button-up blouse. They joined the trousers she’d tossed on the bed.
“That’s not the kind of stuff I usually wear.”
She snickered. “That’s why you’re wearing it tonight.” She made a shooing motion with her hands. “Bathroom. Clean thyself.”
Once I’d showered and dried off, Mallory took over. Nothing escaped her notice. I was perfum’d, pluck’d and powder’d within an inch of my life, my long hair brushed and sprayed until it gleamed, the long fringe of my dark bangs over my forehead. I was tucked into the trim flat-front trousers and the very snug white button-up shirt, which had cuffs at the ends of the three-quarter sleeves. The shirt was tucked in, and she twined a black belt around my waist, before unbuttoning the top couple of buttons on the shirt.
“You can see my boobs if you do that,” I warned her.
“Such as they are,” she snarked back. “And that’s the point. You’re playing the part of hot single vampire tonight.”
I watched my reflection change in the mirror—from casually attractive graduate student to something a little more fierce. She chained three snug strands of thick silver beads around my right wrist, added a couple of layers of makeup—giving me, as she explained, “a dramatic, smoky eye and just-kissed lips,” then slid me into the heels.
“All right,” she said, wiggling her finger in a circular motion. “Turn around.”