Chicagoland Vampires - Friday Night Bites Part 11

Psychic manipulation, all but undetectable. Thank G.o.d the CIA hadn't gotten wind of that yet.

"And because the power is a psychic one, the only trace that she has used her power in this fashion is the magic that leaks when she performs it. Vampires who can glamour can convince the subjects of their glamour that they have an altogether different desire. It's easier, of course, on weaker minds, on those who could have been convinced with but a little pushing. It's harder on those with firmer minds. On those more used to finding their own paths."

Ethan looked at me and lifted his brows, as if willing me to understand.

"You think I repelled her glamour because I'm stubborn?"

"I think it is, perhaps, part of the reason."

The general absurdity of the conversation aside-debating the metaphysics of vampire glamour-I got a kick out of his admission, and couldn't stop my grin. "So, you're saying my stubbornness is a blessing."

With a snort, he started the Mercedes and pulled it smoothly back onto the road. I guess I'd humoredhim out of his mood.

"You know, vampires are exhausting," I told him, parroting one of Catcher's favorite complaints.

"This time, Merit, I won't disagree with you."

CHAPTER EIGHT.

PAPA DON'T PREACH.

The Breckenridge estate, nestled in the Illinois countryside, was a ma.s.sive would-be French chateau, modeled on Vanderbilt's Biltmore after one of the Breckenridge forefathers, swollen with profit, took a serendipitous trip to Ashe ville, North Carolina. Although the Breck estate didn't nearly rival the size of George Vanderbilt's home, the pale stone mansion was a ma.s.sive asymmetrical homage, complete with pointy spires, chimneys, and high windows dotting the steeply pitched roof.

Ethan pulled the Mercedes down the lengthy drive that ran through the park-sized front lawn to the front door, where a white-gloved valet signaled him to stop.

When an attendant opened my door, I carefully stepped out, the blade and holster an unfamiliar weight on my thigh. As the Mercedes-my getaway vehicle-zipped away, I craned my neck to look upward at the house. It had been six or seven years since I'd been here. My stomach knotted, a combination of nerves from the thought of reentering a life I'd escaped at the first opportunity and the possibility of a confrontation with my father.

Gravel scratched as Ethan stepped beside me. We headed for the front door, Mrs. Breckenridge visible in the foyer through the open door in front of us, but before we stepped inside, Ethan stopped and put a hand at my elbow.

"We need an invitation," he quietly reminded me.

I'd forgotten. Unlike the bit about crucifixes and photographs, this vampire myth was actually true-we weren't to enter a home without an invitation. But this myth wasn't about magic or evil. It was, as so many other vampire issues were, about rules and regulations. About the vampire paradigm.

We waited a minute or so, long enough for Mrs. Breck to finish shaking hands and chatting up the couple that had arrived just before us. When they walked away, she looked up. I saw a blink of recognition as she realized that we were waiting outside. Her face lit up, and I hoped it was because she was pleased to see me darkening her doorway again.

She walked toward us as elegant and slender as Princess Grace, everything feminine despite having raised a brood of rowdy boys. Julia Breckenridge was a beautiful woman, tall and graceful in a simple champagne sheath, blond hair in a tidy knot at the back of her neck.

Ethan bowed slightly. "Madam. Ethan Sullivan, Master, Cadogan House. My companion and guard, Merit, Sentinel, Cadogan House. Upon your invitation"-he flicked the invitation I'd given to Luc from his pocket and held it between two long fingers before her, his proof of our legitimacy-"we seek admission to your home."

She held out her hand, and carefully, gracefully, Ethan lifted it, eyes on hers as he pressed his lips to her hand. Mrs. Breck, who'd probably dined with heads of state and movie stars, blushed, then smiled as Ethan released her hand.

"Upon this night," she said, "you and your companion may enter our home with our blessing."

Her answer was interesting, her invitation formal and specific to one night in the Breckenridge house, as if intended to limit our access.

"I had my people research the appropriate protocol," Mrs. Breck said, moving aside to allow us entry.

When we were just inside the foyer, she reached up and cupped my face in her hands, the scent of warm jasmine rising from her wrists. "Merit, darling, you look beautiful. I'm so glad you could join us tonight."

"Thank you. It's nice to see you again, Mrs. Breckenridge."

She placed a kiss on my right cheek, then turned to Ethan, a glimmer of feminine appreciation in her eyes.

I could sympathize. He looked, as was his irritating way, good enough to bite."You must be Mr. Sullivan."

He smiled slowly, wolfishly. "Ethan, please, Mrs. Breckenridge."

"Ethan, then. And you'll call me Julia." She gazed at Ethan for a few seconds, a kind of vague expression of pleasure on her face, until a shortish, bald man with round spectacles approached us and popped her on the elbow with his clipboard.

"Guests, Julia. Guests."

Mrs. Breck-I hadn't called her Julia when I was running through her hallways as a child, and I wasn't going to start now-shook her head as if to clear it, then nodded at the man at her elbow.

"I'm sorry, but I'll have to excuse myself. It was lovely to meet you, Ethan, and it's lovely to see you again, Merit. Please enjoy the party." She indicated the way to the ballroom and then moved back to the door to greet a new cl.u.s.ter of guests.

I made a guess that the vacant expression on her face had been Ethan's doing. "Ah," I whispered as we walked away, "but can he charm the humans without resorting to glamour?"

"Jealous?"

"Not on your life."

We were just outside the ballroom when he stopped and looked at me. "It's a tradition."

I stopped, too, frowning as I tried to puzzle out the context. "Glamouring the host is a tradition? That explains why vampires were in hiding for so long."

"The blade. Your blade. The dagger I gave you. Malik researched theCanon . It's tradition for the Master to present a blade to the Sentinel of his House."

"Oh," I said, fingers pressing the spot on my dress that lay just above the blade. "Well. Thank you."

He nodded crisply, then adjusted his tie, all verve and smooth confidence. "A bit of advice?"

I blew out a breath and smoothed my skirt. "What?"

"Remember who, and what, you are."

That made me chuckle. He really had no idea the gauntlet he was about to walk.

"What?" he asked, sliding me a sideways glance.

"Fangs or not, we're still outsiders." I bobbed my head toward the ballroom doors. "They're sharks, waiting to circle. It's likeGossip Girl in there. That I come from money, and that we're vampires, doesn't guarantee us entree."

But as if on cue, two tuxedoed doormen pushed open the doors for us. Literally, they gave us access.

Symbolically, they gave us access. But the judging hadn't yet begun.

I took a breath and adopted my best grin of Merit-worthy ent.i.tlement, then glanced up at my companion.

He of the golden hair and green eyes surveyed the glittering party before us. "Then, Merit, Sentinel of my House, let's show them who we are."

His hand at my back, a frisson of heat slipping down my spine, we stepped inside.

The ballroom was awash in the light of crystal chandeliers. Beneath them in the glow stood all the people I remembered. The society matrons. The two-doctor families. The bitter wives. The charming, cheating husbands. The children who were fawned over solely because they'd been sp.a.w.ned by the wealthy.

Technically, I suppose that last group included me.

We found a spot on the edge of the room and made camp. That's where I began Ethan's education. I pointed out some of Chicago's old-money families-the O'Briens, the Porters, and the Johnsons, who'd made their money in commodities trading, pianos and beef, respectively. The room was also sprinkled with new money-celebs, music magnates who made their home in the Windy City, Board of Trade members, and sports team presidents.

Some guests Ethan knew, some he asked questions about-their connections, their neighborhoods, the manner in which they'd made their fortunes. For the families he knew, I asked about their take on the supernatural: Did they have ties to our communities? Sons and daughters in the Houses? He was, unsurprisingly, well-informed, given his penchant for connections and strategies. Really, the entire conversation could have walked itself out of a Jane Austen novel, both of us rating and evaluating the matriarchs and patriarchs of Chicago's social elite.Noticeably absent from the party was the remainder of the Breckenridge clan-Nicholas and his brothers and Michael Breckenridge, Sr., who was known in friendly circles as Papa Breck. I'm not saying I was thrilled at the idea of jumping into another Nick encounter, but if I wanted to learn more about this Nick/Jamie business, I would at least need to be in the same room with him again. The no-show thing was going to put the kibosh on my investigation.

I also saw neither hide nor hair of my father. Not that I looked too hard.

I did see a cl.u.s.ter of people my age, a knot of twentysomethings in c.o.c.ktail dresses and sharp suits, a couple of the guys with scarves draped around their collars. These, I supposed, were the people I would have been friends with had I chosen my siblings' paths.

"What do you think I'd have been like?" I asked him.

Ethan plucked two delicate flutes of champagne from the tray of a pa.s.sing waiter and handed one to me.

"At what?"

I sipped the champagne, which was cold and crisp and tasted like apples, then gestured to the crowd around us. "At this. If I'd skipped school in New York or Stanford, stayed in Illinois, met a boy, joined the auxiliary with my mother."

"You wouldn't be a Cadogan vampire," he said darkly.

"And you'd be missing out on my sparkling personality." I made eye contact with another tuxedoed waiter, this one bearing food, and beckoned him closer with a crooked finger. I knew from the handful of galas I'd peeked into as a kid that the fare at charity events tended a little toward the weird side-foams of this and canapes of that. But what they lacked in homespun comfort they more than made up for in quant.i.ty.

The waiter reached us, watery blue eyes in the midst of a bored expression, and extended his tray and a handful of "B"- engraved c.o.c.ktail napkins.

I reviewed the arrangement of hors d'oeuvres, which rested artistically on a bed of rock salt. One involved tiny pale cubes of something soaking in an endive cup. Another formed a cone of various pink layers. But for the endive, I had no clue what they were.

I looked up at the waiter, brows raised, seeking help.

"A napoleon of prawn and prawn mousse," he said, nodding down at the pink columns, "and tuna ceviche in endive."

Both weird seafood combinations, I thought, but, ever brave when it came to matters ofgastronomie , I picked up one of each.

"You and food," Ethan muttered, with what I thought was amus.e.m.e.nt.

I bit into the endive. I was a little weirded out by the ceviche treatment, but I was accommodating a vampire-sized hunger that wasn't nearly as picky as I was. I raised my gaze from the appetizer as I noshed, pausing midbite at the realization that the cl.u.s.ter of twentysomethings across the room was staring at me. They talked among themselves and, some decision apparently made, one of them began walking toward us.

I finished my bite, then scarfed the shrimp napoleon, which was good but a little exotic for my junk-food-ruined palate. "Sharks, two o'clock."

Brows raised, Ethan cast a glance at the away team, then smiled at me, with teeth. "Humans, two o'clock," he corrected. "Time to do a little acting, Sentinel."

I sipped at my champagne, erasing the taste of whipped sh.e.l.lfish. "Is that a challenge, Sullivan?"

"If that's what it takes, Sentinel, then yes."

The brunette leader of the ensemble, her pet.i.te figure tucked into a sequined silver dress, approached, her entourage watching from across the room.

"Hi," she said, politely. "You're Merit, right?"

I nodded at her.

"I don't know if you remember me, but we were in the same cotillion cla.s.s. I'm Jennifer Mortimer."

I picked back through my memories and tried to place her face. She looked vaguely familiar, but I'd spent most of my cotillion being humiliated by the fact that I'd been trussed up and stuffed into a billowing white gown in order to be paraded before Chicago's wealthy like a cow on parade. I hadn't paid muchattention to the people around me.

But I faked it. "It's nice to see you again, Jennifer."

"Nick Breck was your escort, wasn't he? I mean, at our cotillion?"

Well, I had paid attention to him, so I nodded, then used my champagne gla.s.s to gesture at Ethan, whose expression had flattened at Jennifer's announcement. I guess I hadn't mentioned that part of our history.

"Ethan Sullivan," I offered.

"A pleasure," Ethan said.

"Can I . . ." She half smiled, looked away uncomfortably, then twisted a ring on her right hand. "Could I .

. . ask you a question?"

"Sure."

"I noticed earlier . . . with the appetizers . . ."

"We eat food," Ethan smoothly answered. He'd realized what she'd wanted to know before I did, which was funny, because that was one of the first questions I'd asked as a new vampire.

Jennifer blushed, but nodded. "Okay, sure. It's just, the blood thing, obviously, but we weren't sure about the rest, and, G.o.d, was that really rude of me?" She pressed a hand to her chest, grimaced. "Am I completely gauche?"

"It's no problem," I said. "Better to ask a question than a.s.sume the worst."

Her face brightened. "Okay, okay, great. Listen, one more thing."

I'm not sure what I expected-another question, sure, but not her next move. She slipped a thin business card from her bodice, and with manicured fingers that somehow worked under the weight of a gigantic marquis-cut diamond engagement ring, handed it to me.

This time when she spoke, her voice was all smooth confidence. "I know this is a little forward, but I did want to give you my card. I think you could benefit from representation."

"I'm sorry?" I glanced down at the card, which bore her name beneath the heading CHICAGO ARTS MANAGEMENT.

She was anagent .