Chicagoland Vampires - Friday Night Bites Part 12

I nearly dropped my gla.s.s.

Jennifer cast a cautious glance at Ethan, then back at me. "You've got a great look, a good family, and an interesting story. We could work that."

"I-uh-"

"I'm not sure about your experience or interests-modeling, acting, that kind of thing-but we could definitely find a niche for you."

"She'll call you," Ethan said, and Jennifer, all smiles and thank-yous, walked away. "I'm not surprised by anything anymore," he said.

"Seconded." I flipped up the card between two fingers, showed it to him. "What the h.e.l.l just happened?"

"I believe, Sentinel, that you're being wooed." He laughed softly, and I enjoyed the sound of that laughter a little more than I should have. "That didn't take nearly as long as I thought it would."

"I'm amused that you thought it was inevitable."

"Yes, well." Another waiter approached, and this time Ethan picked a curl of endive from the tray.

"Things have become decidedly less predictable since you came on staff. I believe I'm beginning to appreciate that."

"You appreciate having a chance to bolster your social connections."

"That helps," he admitted, biting into his endive. He chewed, then, his face contorted in displeasure, sipped his champagne. Glad I wasn't the only one.

Without warning, my main social connection suddenly appeared at my side and touched my elbow.

"We'll use Michael's office," my father said by way of greeting, then walked away, apparently confident that we'd follow. Ethan and I exchanged a glance, then did.

My father strutted through the halls of the Breck estate as if he'd traveled them a million times before, as if he were strolling through his own Oak Park mansion and not someone else's.

Papa Breck's office was located in a back corner of the first floor. It was full of furniture, books, globes,and framed maps, the detritus of wealth collected by the Breck family. It smelled comfortingly familiar, of cigars and ancient paper and cologne. It was Papa Breck's respite from the world, a secret sanctuary that Nicholas and I had only occasionally dared to violate. We'd spent a handful of rainy days in the office, hiding amidst the antiquities, pretending to be castaways on a nineteenth-century ship of the line, sprinting down the hall when we heard his father approaching.

The door closed behind us. I blinked my way out of the memory.

My father turned to us, hands in his pockets. He bobbed his head at me, then looked at Ethan. "Mr.

Sullivan."

"Call me Ethan, please, Mr. Merit," Ethan said. They shook, the guy who made me, and the vampire who made me something else. That seemed fundamentally wrong.

Or maybe discomfortingly right.

"I read about your acquisition of the Indemnity National Building," Ethan said. "Congratulations. That's quite an achievement."

My father offered a manly head bob of acknowledgment, then slid a glance my way. "You've gained a Merit property of your own."

I nearly stepped forward to wipe that smug smile off my father's face, at least until I remembered my pretty party dress.

"Yes, well," Ethan said, a hint of dryness in his voice. "Vampirism does have its benefits."

My father made a sound of agreement, then looked at me over the top of his gla.s.ses. "Your mother informs me that you want to, to use your words, rebuild some relationships. Meet the right people." He used the same tone he'd adopted when, as a child, I'd finally made my way to his office to apologize for some presumed transgression.

"I've reconsidered your request to a.s.sist Robert."

He seemed to freeze for a moment, as if utterly shocked by the offer. Given our interaction the last time he'd asked me-I'd all but thrown him out of Mallory's house-maybe he was.

"What, exactly, did you have in mind in that regard?" he finally asked.

Let the acting begin, I thought, and prepared to lay out the script that Ethan and I had prepared-details that might be useful as Robert attempted to build connections among the city's supernatural population. A few words about that population (which was, but for the vampires, unknown to the populace), House finances, and our connections to the city administration-leaving out, of course, the fact that my grandfather was playing Ombud to the city. It would be enough, or so Ethan hoped, to make my father believe we were offering bites of a much larger apple.

But before I could speak, Ethan handed over the entire Red Delicious.

"Celina has been released by the Presidium."

I turned my head to stare at him. That was sonot the plan.

I didn't think I could activate the mental connection between us-the telepathic link he'd initiated when I'd been Commended into the House-but the sarcasm was boiling me from the inside, so I had to try.

That's your "tidbit"??

If he heard me, he ignored it.

And Ethan's gift was only the first surprise.

"When?" my father asked, his tone as bland as if we'd been discussing the weather. Apparently, the loosing of a would-be serial killer-a woman who'd arranged to have his daughter killed-wasn't any more interesting than the day's high temperature.

"Within the week," Ethan answered.

My father made a motion with his hand, and Ethan followed him to a group of chairs, where they sat down. I followed, but stayed standing behind Ethan.

"Why was she released?" my father asked.

Ethan covered the ground we'd already discussed. But unlike the surprise I'd shown, my father reacted with nods and sounds of understanding. There was a familiarity with sups and the workings of the Houses and the GP that surprised me. It wasn't so much that he had the information that was surprising-the Internet was chock-full of vamp facts. But he also seemed to understand the rules, the players, theconnections.

The Ombud's office had a secret vampire employee, a source of information about the Houses. Maybe my father had one, too.

After Ethan finished his explanation, my father glanced at me.

"You've certainly piqued my curiosity," he said. "But why the change in att.i.tude?"

Okay, so I'd been wrong to a.s.sume that if we offered information that might help Robert, my father wouldn't ask questions.

Go ahead, Ethan mentally prompted, and I delivered my lines.

"I'd like to become more involved in the family's social activities. Given my new position in the House, and the family's position, my becoming more involved could be, let's say, mutually beneficial."

My father leaned back, placed an elbow on the back of his chair, and tapped a bent knuckle against his chin. He could hardly have looked more skeptical. "Why now?"

"I'm in a different position now," I told him. "I have different responsibilities. Different abilities." I cast a glance toward Ethan. "Different connections. I'm old enough to understand that the Merit name makes certain things easier. For one, it makes alliances easier to forge." I touched the Cadogan medal at my neck. "And now there's an alliance that I can help build."

He watched me, evaluated in silence, then gave a single nod. "I'll a.s.sume for our purposes that you aren't lying to me. But that doesn't answer my question." He slid his gaze to Ethan. "Why now? Why tonight?"

Ethan smoothed the knee of his trousers with a swipe of his hand. The move was so casual, almost careless, that I knew it was forced. "The Breckenridges may be . . . dabbling in our world."

"Dabbling," my father repeated. "In what way?"

A moment of hesitation, and then Ethan decided-unilaterally, I might add-to trust my father. "We were informed that Jamie Breckenridge planned to publish a very damaging story."

"Damaging to vampires?"

Ethan bobbed his head. He was playing the story off, giving my father unemotional seeds of information, with no hint of the fear and concern that he'd shown me earlier.

"And if I a.s.sumed the content of the story is too . . . delicate to be shared here?"

"Then you would be correct," Ethan said. "I take it you aren't aware of anything in that regard?"

"I am not," my father said. "However, I'm a.s.suming it's no coincidence that you've made the Breckenridge home your first social stop?"

"It was a coincidence, actually," Ethan responded. "But a fortuitous one."

My father arched dubious eyebrows. "Be that as it may, I take it you noticed that Julia is the only Breckenridge at home this evening?"

"I thought that odd," Ethan said.

"As did we all," my father agreed. "And we didn't understand the reason for it." Slowly, he lifted his gaze to me. "But now perhaps we do. Perhaps they are absent because of certain . . .visitors in their home."

His very gaze was an accusation, and an unearned one. Neither the story nor the Breckenridges' absence had anything to do with me. Well, nothing I'd done on purpose anyway. But he was willing, nevertheless, to a.s.sign blame.

Charming, Ethan telepathically commented.

I told you, I said back.

Ethan stood up. "I appreciate your time, Joshua. I trust the information we've shared will be held in confidence?"

"If you prefer," said my father, without bothering to rise. "I trust you'll be circ.u.mspect in your inquiries?

While I understand that you have a concern, whatever it might be, these people-these families-are my friends. It wouldn't do for gossip to travel, for undue aspersions to be cast upon them."

Ethan had turned away from my father, and I saw the look of irritation cross his face, probably at the suggestion that his aspersions were "undue." Nevertheless, always the smooth player, he slipped his hands into his pockets, and when he turned back again, his expression was mild and politic once again.

"Of course."

"I'm glad we understand each other," my father said, then checked his watch. That was our dismissal, soI moved toward the door, Ethan behind me.

"Remember," my father said, and we turned back. "Whatever this is, if it falls apart, it falls on you. Both of you."

It was a final blow. We walked into the hallway, and let him have the last word.

On the way back to the ballroom, Ethan and I paused in a window-lined corridor that linked the public and private portions of the house.

He stared out the windows, hands at his hips. "Your father . . ."

"Is a piece of work," I finished. "I know."

"He could help us . . . or crush us."

I glanced beside me, noticed that line of worry between his eyes, and offered the nearly four-hundred-year-old vampire a piece of advice. "And never forget, Ethan, that the choice is his to make."

He looked over at me, brow raised.

I turned away and looked out at the dark, sloping lawn. "Never forget that whatever boon he offers, whatever suggestion he makes, is calculated. He has the money and power to help or hurt a lot of people, but his reasons are usually his own, they're usually selfish, and they aren't easy to ferret out. He plays his pieces three or four moves ahead, without obvious outcomes. But never doubt they're there."

Ethan sighed, long and haggard. A dove cooed in the distance.

"Ms. Merit."

We both turned to find a woman at the portico door. She wore a simple black dress and white ap.r.o.n, thick-soled shoes on her feet. Her hair was in a neat bun. A housekeeper, maybe.

"Yes?" I asked.

She held out a piece of paper. "Mr. Nicholas asked me to give this to you."

I arched a brow, but walked to where she stood and took the paper. When I offered my thanks, she disappeared back through the doorway.

"Mr. Nicholas?" Ethan asked when we were alone again.

I ignored the question, and unfolded the note, which read: Meet me at the castle. Now.

-NB.

"What is it?" Ethan asked.

I glanced out the window, then back at him as I refolded the note and slipped it into my purse.

"An opportunity to make some connections of my own. I'll be back," I added, and before he could respond or express whatever doubts were pinching that line between his eyes again, I walked to the end of the hallway to the patio door.

The patio was brick in a carefully laid demilune form, which ended in an arc of stairs leading down to the lawn. I leaned against the brick banister and untied the straps of my shoes, then placed them and my purse on a step. The night was glori ously warm, white paper lanterns hanging from the flowering trees that dotted the back lawn. Relieved of the stilettos, I crept down to the lawn, the bricks cool beneath my feet, then stepped into the gra.s.s. I stood there for a quiet moment, eyes closed, reveling in the soft, cool carpet of green.

The Breckenridge estate was huge-hundreds of acres of land that had been carefully groomed and manicured to seem just this side of wild-the Brecks' primeval respite from the workaday world. The lawn led down to a wood that covered the back acres of the property, a carefully clipped trail winding through them.

I'd spent a lot of time on that trail as a child, chasing Nicholas through thick trees on summer days and through frosted, ice-tipped boughs on cold November mornings. I left the dresses and pinafores to Charlotte-I wanted running and fallen branches and fresh air, the outdoor fantasy world of a child with an expansive imagination and a constrictive home life.

But this time, when I reached the narrow, dirt path, I had to push limbs from my face. I was taller than I had been the last time I'd traversed it; then I'd been short enough to skip beneath the boughs. Nowbranches crackled as I moved, until I made it to the clearing.

To the labyrinth.

The fence was low, only three or four feet tall, a delicate and rust-covered ring that ran for yards in both directions around the hedge maze Papa Breck had commissioned in the woods behind the house. The gate was ajar. He was here already, then.

The maze itself was simple, rings of concentric circles with dead ends and pa.s.sageways along its length, a pattern I'd memorized many years ago. The web of boxwood had been our castle, defended by Nicholas and me against bands of marauders-usually his brothers. We'd used stick swords and cardboard shields, both of us fighting until his siblings grew bored and retreated back to the comfort of the main house. This had been our secret garden, our tiny kingdom of leaves.