Chicagoland Vampires - Some Girls Bite Part 12

Luc and Amber preceded him outside. There were two vehicles at the curb-a black Mercedes roadster that I guessed was Ethan's, and a heavy black SUV. Luc and Amber headed for the latter. Traveling security, I a.s.sumed.

When he reached the first step, Ethan turned and glanced back at me, his face carefully blank.

"I would have asked you if I could have, Merit. I'd have asked for your consent, and had you make the decision then and there.

But I didn't. Couldn't have, without your dying. There certainly wasn't time for you to debate the merits of affiliation. Would that I had. Would that I had, so the choice would have been made."

After a pause, he continued, his voice suddenly tired. "The clock is ticking. You have four days until the Commendation, until your formal initiation into the House. The time is coming when you'll have to take a stand, Merit. One way or the other, you'll decide whether you want to accept the life you've been given and make the most of it, or run away and live on the fringes of our society, withstand the humiliation of being rejected by the House, by everyone else like you. By everyone who understands what you are.

Who you are. How you thirst." His gaze intensified. "Your desire. And that decision, such as it is, is yours." With that, he trotted down the stairs.

I followed him outside, and flanked by the two guards at my door, I stood on the stoop and called his name. He glanced back.

"About the . . . hunger. Will it always be like that?" He gave me a rueful smile. "Rather like being a Cadogan vampire, Merit, it will be what you make it."

I had to give him credit-he was right about one thing. The time had come for me to make a decision. To make a choice, either to accept the life he'd given me, such as it was, or eschew Ethan, the House, the community of vampires. I could choose to live as a member of the American Houses, or make a life for myself on the outskirts. But an eternity of watching friends, the world, change around me while I stayed the same, was going to be lonely enough. Watching while Mallory aged, while my grandfather aged, while I looked eternally twenty-seven. What kind of life would it be, to also reject the House, to pretend at being human, and outlive my family, no companions but musty books and medical-grade plastic bags?

Still, I wasn't ready to take that next step. Not yet. There were loose ends to be wrapped up. Well, one major loose end. And that was what put me in the car at four o'clock in the morning, leaving the sanctum of Wicker Park for the neighborhood of vampires.

This time, I wasn't headed for the House. I was headed for the university. And I was a woman on a mission, so when I arrived, I ignored the permit warnings, parking in the first empty on-street spot I could find. I got out of the car, locked it behind me, and walked to the main quad, empty satchel over my shoulder.

I stood at the edge of the quad and stared at the expanse of gra.s.s, sidewalks and trees, my hand at my neck. I'd always loved this spot, had usually paused before heading into the Walker Building, which housed the English department, so that I could get a taste of gra.s.s and sky. I walked to the spot where I'd been attacked, crouched in the spot where my blood had been shed, and touched a hand to the gra.s.s. There was nothing here, no blood, no trampled gra.s.s, no indication at all that the few square yards of lawn had been witness to birth, to death. To me. To Ethan.

The tears I thought I'd finished shedding began to fall. I dropped to my knees, knotted fingers in the carpet of gra.s.s, wishing that things had gone differently. That I hadn't made the regrettable decision to leave the house, to walk the quad. I sobbed there on my knees, the frustration, the regret, nearly overwhelming.

There was laughter across the lawn. I knuckled away tears, lifted my head. Two students, a couple, walked hand in hand down the sidewalk, before disappearing between buildings. Then the night was quiet again, most of the windows dark, no breeze to stir the trees that dotted the quad.

I closed my eyes. Inhaled. Exhaled. Opened my eyes again. But for the cloak of grief, it was a beautiful night. One of an eternity of nights I'd have the opportunity to see. But in order to see those nights, I'd have to figure out a way to deal with loss, to mourn lives that would end, even as mine continued. A way to deal with my obligations to Cadogan.

A way to deal with Ethan.

I'd have to figure out how to support Mallory, how to keep my relationship with my grandfather in spite of our positions. I'd have to figure out how to tell the good guys from the bad guys in the strange, new world I'd been dropped into.

More important, I'd have to figure out whether I was one of the good guys. Whether Ethan was one of the bad guys.

I realized the means to that end. It had to be a choice. I'd been made a vampire without my consent-attacked and violated, of course, without my consent. The only way I'd be able to move on, to build a new life, to take ownership of my new life, would be to make that conscious decision for myself, for better or worse. To live, or not to live, as an acknowledged vampire.

I could make that choice. Here and now, I could take ownership, take back my life again.

"Vampire it is," I whispered. It wasn't much, but it was enough to get me off my knees in the middle of the night, in the middle of the quad.

And this time, I rose on my own terms.

My direction decided, I resituated the empty satchel diagonally across my chest and headed for Walker. The building was dark, locked. I pulled out my key, unlocked the door, and made my way up the stairs.

Each graduate student had a mailbox. I used mine like a sc.r.a.p-book, kept in it the detritus of my time at Chicago. A ticket stub from a midnight screening of Rocky Horror I'd watched with fellow TAs and lecturers. A ticket stub from a basketball game we played against NYU, where I did my undergraduate work.

I opened my satchel and loaded papers, memorabilia, mementos into the bag. Tangible memories. Evidence of my humanity.

But also in my box was something new-a pink envelope, sealed but unsigned. I unhitched my bag, placed it on the floor at my feet, and slipped my thumb under the seal.

Inside was a scalloped pink card, glittery letters congratulating a girl for her sixth birthday. I grinned, opened it, and found inside, beside an equally glittery unicorn, the signatures of a good chunk of the grad students in the department, most with smartalecky well wishes for my new, fanged life.

I didn't realize until I saw the card that I'd needed it. I needed the connection between my old life and my new one. I needed them to know why I'd disappeared, why I'd stopped showing up to cla.s.s. It was closure of a kind. It didn't excuse the fact that I hadn't called my friends in the department, hadn't called my mentor or my committee chair. G.o.d only knew when I'd have the strength to do that.

But it was something.

For today, it was enough.

So I grabbed my bag, left the key in my mailbox, and walked away.

I returned to the brownstone to find, as promised, a gla.s.s of now-cold blood on the kitchen counter. The house was quiet, Mallory still asleep. I was alone, and glad that she wasn't there to witness what I was about to do.

I stared down at the thin orange-red liquid in its gla.s.s, and felt the hunger rise again-signaled by the humming of my blood. My pulse quickened, and I didn't need a mirror to know that my eyes had silvered. Still, it was blood. My mind rejected it, even while my body craved it.

Craving won.

I wrapped a hand around the gla.s.s, fingers shaking, and raised it, knowing this was truly the end of my life as a human, and the beginning of my life as a vampire. There'd be no more justifications, no more rationalizations.

I lifted the gla.s.s to my lips.

I drank.

It took mere seconds for me to empty the gla.s.s, and it still wasn't enough. I drained two more bags that I pulled straight from the refrigerator-bags I hadn't bothered to heat or prepare. I drank the liquid-more than I'd ever put into my body at one time-in minutes, finally stopping when I felt my own blood slow again. Three bags of blood, and I'd ingested them like I'd been starved for food and water, denied sustenance for weeks.

When the hunger was sated, I caught sight of the discarded bags on the floor. I was appalled at the act, at the substance, at the fact that I'd actually drunk-willingly drunk-blood. But I clamped a hand over my mouth, willing myself not to bring it up again, knowing that if I did, I'd just have to drink more. I slid to the floor, my back against the side of the island, and clutched my knees to my chest, forcing myself to breathe. Forcing my brain to catch up with my body-to accept what it needed.

To accept what I was.

Vampire.

Cadogan Initiate.

That was where Mallory found me-sitting on the kitchen floor, empty medical bags at my feet-minutes before the sun began to rise. She was prepped for work-black suit, heels, chunky jewelry, sa.s.sy handbag, blue hair a frame around her face.

Her smile faded. She crouched in front of me. "Merit? Are you okay?"

"I just drank three bags of blood."

Dropping her purse at my feet, Mallory picked up an empty plastic bag with the tips of two fingers. "So I see that. How do you feel?"

I giggled. "Fine, I think."

"Did you just giggle?"

I giggled again. "Nope."

Her eyes widened. "Are you drunk?"

"On blood? No." I swatted the idea with a hand. "It's mother's milk to me."

Mallory picked up the other bag, then walked them both to the trash can and tossed them in. "Uh-huh."

"And how are you? Feeling witchy?"

She went to the refrigerator and pulled out a soda, then popped the tab. "I'm adjusting. I guess I can say the same for you?"

I frowned, considering, then began counting off the events on my fingers. "Well, I found out my grandfather's been lying for four years about his job. I met a sorcerer, met a shape-shifter of indeterminate origin, got propositioned by said shifter, found out I was almost the victim of a serial killer, almost got hit by these magical electric blast things, made out with Ethan, rejected Ethan, was threatened by Ethan." I shrugged. "Pretty average day."

Her mouth fell open, and she gaped at me until closing it with a click of teeth. "I don't know where to start on all that. How about, your grandfather's been lying?"

I pulled myself up from the floor, hands on the countertop to steady myself. It took a moment for my head to stop spinning-the aftereffects, I presumed, of drinking so much blood at one time. "Drink, please?"

Mallory went back to the fridge and grabbed another soda, held it up for my approval, and when I nodded, popped the top.

After she handed it over, I took a long pull, discovering to my delight that diet grape soda was a refreshing chaser to three pints of human blood. I thanked her for the drink, then filled her in on the Ombud and his slate of employees. I didn't tell her about Catcher's recommendation that Mallory get training. I decided the safer course of action was just to put the two of them in a room together-all that beauty and stubbornness-and watch the fur fly.

"I have to train tonight," I told her. "I'm meeting Catcher at a gym on the Near North Side. You want to come along?"

She shrugged. "I could do that."

"Do we need to talk about something? I mean, are we okay?"

Mallory smiled ruefully. "We're fine. It's not your fault I'm . . . whatever I am."

"I bet Catcher has some answers for you."

"That'd be nice." I finished my drink and tossed the can. "I need to be at the gym by eight thirty. But first I have to sleep. Dawn's coming, you know." I yawned, pointed out, "You haven't asked me about kissing Ethan."

She rolled her eyes. "Why would I need to? It's obvious you have the hots for him."

"No, I don't."

She gave me an obviously skeptical glare, in response to which I shrugged, lacking the energy to argue the point . . . and it would have required a heavy bit of lying and thickly laid self-denial anyway.

"Fine," she said. "I'll indulge you since you recently became the walking dead. Was he good?"

"Unfortunately."

"Technique? Skill? Hands?"

"High pa.s.ses in all categories. Of course, after four hundred years, the boy's gonna have some skills."

"Quite a resume," she agreed. "And it wouldn't matter if he was inexperienced and inept. Just being in the same room, you two melt the drapes. All that heat, it's not surprising you came to blows again," she added. "Didn't land one, did you?"

I went silent.

"Merit?"

"He asked me to be his mistress."

She just stared at me, openmouthed.

"Yeah."

We stood quietly for a moment, until she moved to the refrigerator and grabbed a pint of ice cream from the freezer. She found a spoon, popped the ice-cream top, and handed the duo to me. "No one has ever deserved this more."

I wasn't sure that was true, but I took them both anyway and helped myself to a dose of Chunky Monkey.

Mallory leaned against the countertop, tapped a manicured finger against it. "You know, it's kind of flattering in an a.s.s-backward way. Even if he's conflicted about it, he clearly finds you attractive."

I nodded around a spoonful of ice cream. "Yeah, but he doesn't like me. He admitted it. He's just . . . kind of . . . accidentally attracted."

"Were you tempted?"

I shrugged.

"That doesn't answer my question, Merit."

What could I have said? That even in the midst of it, some tiny bit of me, some little secret room in my heart (or more accurately, my loins), wanted to say yes? To finish out that kiss with caresses and something more, anything more, than a lonely day beneath cool, empty sheets?

"Not really."

She c.o.c.ked her head at me, seemed to evaluate that. "I can't tell if you're lying or not."

"Neither can I," I admitted around another spoonful of ice cream.

She sighed and rose, patting my back before grabbing her purse and heading toward the front door. "You give that some thought while you're hibernating. I'll see you tonight. I'll go with you to train."

"Thanks, Mallory. Have a good day."

"I will. You sleep good."

Maybe unsurprisingly, I didn't.

CHAPTER SIX.

IF AT FIRST YOU DON'T SUCCEED,.

FALL DOWN, DOWN AGAIN.