Biting Cold

THE CABBAGE CURE

Ethan may not have been officialy Master of the House, but that hadn't stopped him from reclaiming his old office on the first floor. It was big, with a handsome desk, a seating area, and a giant conference table. He sat behind the desk, dressed in a button-up white shirt, his hair puled back at the nape of his neck. He stared down at a spread of papers, a single lock of golden hair faling across his brow.

He was so handsome. So strong - the epitome of the alpha male. Smart. Strategic and stubborn, often to his detriment. And although I'd spent plenty of time trying, it was pointless to deny the attraction between us. Which was equaly strong and stubborn.

I watched him work for a minute - the long fingers and steady gaze, the quirk of an eyebrow when he read a passage he apparently didn't like.

This was hardly the time to have lascivious thoughts about my boss, but if not now, when? The world was not perfect, and the timing probably would never be.

I walked in, made sure we were alone, and shut the door. He looked up at the sound and watched me stride toward him, then rose from his seat with alarm in his expression.

"What is it?"

I didn't waste time with explanations or pretensions. I wrapped my arms around him and pressed my face into the slick warm cotton of his shirt.

He stroked my hair. "You're al right?"

I nodded. "I'm just realy glad to be home."

He puled back and looked down at me, and the comfort turned into a kiss, inviting and ful of promise. He splayed his hands against my back, his fingers hot to the touch, and used teeth and tongue to remind me that I'd come home into his arms again.

He slid his hands down my arms...and I instinctively flinched as his fingers made contact with the bruise he'd made.

Ethan puled back and stared down at me, a new anxiety in his eyes.

Without another word, he returned to his seat, leaving me standing there awkwardly, my stomach doing somersaults.

"What just happened?"

He wouldn't meet my eyes. He looked down at the papers on his desk and kept his eyes there, shuffling through them like they held the world's precious secrets.

"Ethan."

"Merit, I have work to do."

"Don't you think we should talk about this?"

He didn't answer, but his gaze shifted to my arm, the one he'd grabbed. The one he'd bruised. "I hurt you."

"I'm fine. It's nothing."

"Did I leave a mark?"

I let my silence answer, and he swore under his breath. After a moment of twisting nerves, he looked up at me again.

"You didn't hurt me," I insisted.

"I bruised you. You flinched."

"You're a vampire and you're strong. It happens."

"Not to me it doesn't." He wet his lips and looked away.

"Paige is settled?"

I had no idea what to say, so I answered the question. "She's in the guest suite."

He nodded. Just a single nod before focusing on his papers again.

"Ethan," I began, but I wasn't sure how to finish.

He looked up. "Merit, Darius is on his way. I realy need to prepare."

He seemed earnest, and I didn't have any reason to doubt that he wanted to be ready for his meeting with Darius...but that didn't ease the low ache in my stomach.

I'd just made it back to the main staircase when Catcher texted me: GABRIEL IS READY.

Stunned, I checked my watch. We'd been home for only a few hours. I guess shifters weren't keen on speed limits, and it wouldn't have surprised me to learn he'd used a little of his own magic to speed up the trip, particularly given his cargo.

Catcher provided an address, so I assumed I was supposed to meet him there. Wel, we were supposed to meet him there.

Paige actualy seemed like she had a level head on her shoulders, and she surpassed Simon in common sense by a large margin.

That made her the better of the two potential Order representatives who undoubtedly wanted to check in on Malory.

The choice was clear.

I grabbed my sword and dropped by the guest suite to let Paige know we were ready to go. She was in trendy clothes this time: skinny jeans, a long cardigan, and furry boots.

"Helen did good," I said. "With the clothes, I mean."

She looked down at her ensemble. "I was pleasantly surprised. Vamps seem to wear a lot of black. I was afraid she'd put me in head-to-toe waiter wear." She seemed to remember I was wearing black, too, and winced a little. "No offense."

"None taken. Black is the House uniform." I gestured toward the stairs. Paige fel into step beside me and we headed back down to the second floor.

"Color is the new black."

"Not according to Ethan Sulivan."

"So where are we going exactly?"

I glanced down at the address Catcher had given me...and smiled a little. If we were going where I thought, Gabriel had been right about my knowing Malory's caretaker.

"Someplace familiar" was al I said.

We drove into a neighborhood in the western part of the city known as Ukrainian Vilage. It was a working-class neighborhood with churches and food and people from the old country, and it was home to the unofficial Chicago headquarters of the North American Central Pack, a bar caled Little Red.

That's precisely where we were headed.

The bar was on the corner of a strip of run-down buildings.

Shifters tended to favor substance over style...and hearty Eastern European food over delicate snacks. We hadn't even parked the car when I could begin to smel the tangy, meaty goodness.

I puled into a spot at the end of a line of diagonaly parked motorcycles. Shifters also preferred bikes to cars and prided themselves on the leather and chrome of their usualy custom rides.

"They're holding her in a bar?" Paige asked.

"I'm not entirely sure. But it's the Pack's bar, so we'l see."

We got out of the car and skirted the bikes for the sidewalk.

Out of respect, I left my sword in the car. Cadogan House vamps had a delicate aliance with the NAC, and I had no interest in screwing that up, especialy since they were doing us a favor by keeping Malory safer and more secure than the Order had been able to.

Catcher puled up on the other side of my car in his hipster sedan. He popped out of the driver's seat, looking completely exhausted, his eyes red, his cheeks gaunt. He was another casualty of her obsession with the Maleficium. He'd probably spent more than a few sleepless nights lately worrying about Malory and wondering what he might have done to prevent the trauma.

We stopped on the sidewalk. "Jeff gave me the basics," Catcher said, "but I want to hear it from you, because it makes no sense to me."

"If he told you the Maleficium was destroyed, and in the process Tate split into two, he was teling the truth. It was as simple and insane as it sounds."

Paige stepped beside us.

"Catcher, this is Paige, who I believe you've heard of. The Tates burned down her house and her entire research library."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

Paige didn't seem impressed with the apology.

Eager to change the subject, I nodded toward the bar. "Did Gabriel say anything about what she's doing here?"

He shook his head. "Not a thing, which doesn't thril me. I'm not happy about what she's done, but I also don't want her mistreated. I'm here to make sure she's okay."

"If you don't like it," Paige suddenly burst out, "you'l have nothing to say about it. You neither observed her nor stopped her, which is exactly what the Order predicted would happen.

You want to know why you were prohibited from coming back to Chicago? For exactly this reason. The prophecy was made - that if you came back to Chicago, things would go bad. You ignored the Order's requests, and now you've fulfiled that prophecy. And look where that's gotten us."

Awkward silence descended.

We'd been told Catcher had been kicked out of the Order because he'd wanted an HQ in Chicago, but the Order was being too stubborn to let him do it. I guessed we hadn't gotten the entire truth. But it also seemed unlikely we were going to get the truth outside a bar in Ukrainian Vilage, so I pressed on.

"Let's just get this show on the road," I said, and started walking toward the door.

Guitar-heavy music accompanied the smels of food that spiled onto the sidewalk and announced to the world that the bar's patrons were serious about their food, their drink, and their rock.

We walked inside, a bel on the door announcing our existence, but no one paid us any mind. The bar was lined with tables in front of a giant picture window. Members of the NAC nursed drinks and chatted quietly, completely ignoring our trespass into their territory.

They must have known we were coming, because shifters were rarely so nonchalant about intruders in their homes,aliances or not.

"You. Come. Sit."

We looked over at the long wooden bar that lined the other side of the room. A heavy woman stood behind it, her formerly bleached blond hair now a vibrant shade of crimson. This was Berna, Little Red's resident den mother and barmaid.

I walked over to the bar. "Hi, Berna."

She immediately scowled at me. "Stil too thin. You eat?" she asked, her voice thick with an Eastern European accent.

"I eat constantly," I promised.

She shook her head and muttered something under her breath.

Then she pounded a fist on the bar and stared at al of us. "You wil eat now."

I sat down. Paige was smart enough to do the same.

"Where's Malory?" Catcher asked.

"She is not ready yet. You sit; you eat."

"She's my girlfriend," Catcher said, as if that information would be enough to change Berna's mind.

He was incorrect.

The entire bar went silent, and a fog of prickly magic crossed the room. Catcher may have been a friend of Jeff's and a friend of mine, but he wasn't one of them. He wasn't a shifter, and he wasn't a known aly. He was the boyfriend of the woman who'd unleashed evil on the city and brought them another round of trouble they hadn't asked for.

But Berna didn't need the glares of the shifters at tables around the room to enforce her wil. She put a hand on the bar and leaned over it, her bosoms nearly touching the counter as she stared Catcher down.

"You sit. You eat," she said.

Catcher slid onto the stool beside mine while Berna, a victorious smile on her face, disappeared behind the red leather door that led to the back of the bar.

"Good choice," I said.

Catcher rubbed his hands over his face. "I don't want food," he said. "I want this to be over."

"I get that," I whispered back. "But I think part of this exercise is giving up control. Malory did what she wanted without regard for others; look where that got us. The Pack is intervening, giving her a chance they don't owe her and she arguably doesn't deserve. You're letting them do the heavy lifting; let them make the rules, too."

Catcher made a sarcastic sound, but he didn't walk out. I caled that my own victory.

Berna and a shifter helper I didn't recognize brought out plates of food that she set down in front of each of us. Cabbage rols, by the look of them, which were a particular specialty.

While we unroled paper-wrapped silverware, she poured an unmarked glass bottle of wine into three short cups, then passed those out as wel.

"I hope no one's a vegetarian," I said, wasting no time digging into the heady, spicy meat and cabbage. There were few things that took the edge off stress like a good, hearty meal, and I thanked the gods - Ukrainian or otherwise - that I could eat what I wanted with impunity. Sometimes, it didn't suck to be a vampire.

We ate quietly and with purpose while Berna watched behind the bar. She alternated between checking the amount of food on our plates and the status of the soap opera on the smal, fuzzy, black-and-white television behind the bar. I didn't know the show or the characters, but a doctor and a nurse were having an affair over the comatose body of, I think, the doctor's stricken wife.

When we'd cleaned our plates - Berna alowed no other option - she cleared them away, then made a low whistle.

After a moment, Gabriel walked through the red leather door.

He beckoned us to folow him into the bar's shabby back room, where three other shifters in leather jackets sat around an old vinyl-topped table, cards in their hands and glasses of liquor within easy reach.

I gave them respectful nods and was pleased when they nodded back. Catcher, wisely, kept his mouth shut.

We folowed Gabriel through another door into a part of the bar I hadn't seen - the kitchen, which smeled strongly of disinfectant, meat, and wel-cooked cabbage.

A few more footsteps put us in the doorway of the back room, where a petite woman in jeans, a T-shirt, and a hairnet stood in front of an industrial sink, scouring food from dishes with a giant sprayer.

Each time something surprised me, I was pretty sure it was the last surprising thing I'd see for a while. And it never, ever was.

The girl with the sprayer? One Malory Delancey Carmichael.

"Malory," Gabriel said.

She turned off the sprayer and looked over at him, crimson rising in her cheeks when she realized whom he'd brought into what was apparently her new abode.

She hung the sprayer over a hook on the wal and dried her hands on her pants. Her thin T-shirt was nearly soaked through, and her hands were raw and chapped. That was probably less from the water than from the magic she'd just done.

"Hi," she said meekly.

Cool air flowed in from a screen door at the other end of the room. In front of it stood a beefy shifter in an NAC jacket, a large automatic weapon in his hands. I guessed they weren't taking any chances on another escape.

"You're okay?" Catcher asked.

She nodded, gnawing on her bottom lip. "Al things considered." She wouldn't make eye contact with me, so we stood there in silence for a moment.

"Why don't we let them catch up?" Gabriel asked. "Malory has more work to do before the night's over, and she can finish while she talks to Catcher."

Given the height of the stack of dishes she hadn't yet cleared, she had a good bit of work to go. I wondered if Berna had seconds.

"Good idea," I said, turning around, then motioning Paige to folow me. We walked back into the back room, the table now empty of booze and card players.

"Have a seat," Gabriel said.

I did as I was told. "That guy has a big gun," I noted.

"She caused big trouble."

I couldn't argue with that. "Is this her punishment? Doing dishes?"

"It's not my job to punish her," Gabriel said. "And, frankly, there aren't enough dishes in my lifetime or yours. But that's not the point. The task is irrelevant. The doing is what matters. You know what my number one problem is with the Order?"

A dozen snarky answers popped to mind - They beat you in softball? No official T-shirts? Cheap booze at Order/Pack mixers? - but I managed to keep them to myself. Paige, wisely, did, too.

"They have monumental power, and for the most part, they use it to serve themselves."

"That's not entirely true - " Paige interrupted, but Gabriel wasn't asking for a discussion and stifled her with a glance.

"I know you imagine yourselves to be problem solvers. But you created the very problems you seek to solve; that doesn't make you philanthropists. It just makes you narcissistic."

"The Packs wanted to decamp to Alaska to avoid involvement in al supernatural problems," I pointed out. "How is that any better?"

"Because we aren't out there pretending to be holier-than-thou sorcerers with answers to al the world's problems."

Paige looked down at the tabletop. That wasn't an admission the Order had problems, but it was better than the denial everyone else seemed to be wrapped up in.

"Do you have a long-term plan?" I wondered.

"Survival is her long-term plan," he said. "Surviving in our environment - no coddling, no magic, no respect that isn't earned."

That made sense to me. On its face, it was more suited for an unruly teenager than for a sorceress with a black-magic problem, but whatever worked.

Twenty minutes later, Catcher came back through the door. He and Gabriel shared quiet words, and after that, a handshake that I thought boded wel for the state of supernatural relations.

"She's al yours," Catcher said. "She just went upstairs for a break."

Gabriel nodded. "She gets fifteen minutes after every two-hour shift when she's on manual labor. It's a very fair system."

Was it weird that the shifters had a system for situations like this? Nevertheless, I looked at Gabriel. "I'd like to talk to Malory if that's okay?"

"Your cal, Kitten."

"In that case," I said to Catcher, "I think Paige wil need a ride somewhere."

She rose and nodded, too. "I need to talk to Baumgartner.

It's probably not a bad idea if you do, too."

Catcher nodded, then glanced warily back at the door behind which Malory had been at work.

"Go home," I told him. "She's safe here, and you look like you could use some rest."

"If I weren't exhausted, I'd tear you down from the insult."

"You are exhausted, so I'l pretend you made a sarcastic retort." I put a hand on his arm. "Seriously. Go take a nap."

He nodded, then led Paige out of the room.

"You sure you're ready for her?" Gabriel asked.

I blew out a breath. "I think the better question is whether she's ready for me."

After Gabe offered directions, I found Malory in a smal bedroom at the top of a narrow staircase at the back of the kitchen.

There wasn't much to the room. A twin-sized bed. A smal table. The wals were hung with old-fashioned walpaper bearing cartoonish strawberries.

Malory sat on the edge of the bed, staring down at the chapped hands in her lap.

She looked up at me and blew a wisp of lank blond hair from her face. "What are you doing up here?"

"I wanted to check on you."

Silence descended. I'd imagined my reunion with Malory would be awkward, and I'd been right. "Awkward" was a gentle word for the thousand unspoken words that hung between us. But she was the one who had explaining to do, so I walked inside and shut the door. I sat down on the hardwood floor cross-legged and, in the awkward silence, took a look at my nails. They didn't look great, but I had fought a mutant gnome, a sorceress, and a Tate.

"How are you feeling?" I finaly asked.

She laughed mirthlessly and wiped the tears from her cheeks.

"The same. Bad. Stupid. I felt wrong, Merit. Deep in my bones, I felt wrong. I stil do."

"I know."

She looked back at me. "I wasn't trying to hurt anyone."

"That you weren't trying to do it doesn't mean you aren't responsible for it."

She nodded.

"You could be dead right now, Malory. We al could be. As it is, Paige's house burned down and the Maleficium is toast.

Tate is twice the man he used to be, and we have no idea where he is or how to stop him."

"I know," she said. "I know."

"How did you and Tate hook up?"

"I knew the book was in the silo, but I didn't know how to get in there."

So much for my Internet research theory.

"I watched the farm, thinking you'd show up and get into the silo. That's where he found me. He said we could help each other."

"You'd be the distraction, and he'd get Paige to show him the book?"

She nodded. "I'm sorry. I know that's not enough, but I'm sorry."

"Do you understand how much danger you've put the city in?

How much danger you put vampires in? When shit goes bad, Malory, they blame us. They blame vampires. The city, the GP, the mayor. We have to register with the city just to live here, like we're convicts on parole."

"What do you want me to say?"

That was a good question. What could she possibly say to erase the last few days?

"I don't know," I said honestly. "We have a lot of history together, you and I. And as glad as I am that you brought Ethan back, it wil be a long time before you wil make this up to the people you've hurt."

"The pain beat me," she quietly said. "The pain won. I know it's hard to understand..."

"It's hard to understand because you didn't talk to anyone about it. I found out you were involved when I discovered you betrayed me and my House. If you didn't think Simon got it, you should have talked to Catcher. Or my grandfather. Or someone.

You should have done anything but what you did."

She was quiet for a moment. "Do you hate me?"

It didn't say much for either of us that I had to think about my answer. Honestly, I wasn't sure how I felt. Malory and I had a history of friendship - more of a history than anybody else currently a part of my life. But she'd pushed forward regardless of whom else she hurt and regardless of the consequences.

She'd nearly destroyed Chicago and she'd managed to unleash two Tates on the Midwest.

It was certainly hard for me to like her very much. And it would be a realy long time before I could respect her again.

But...

"No, I don't hate you. You brought him back to me."

"Not for the right reasons."

"No. But you stil did it." It would have been al the better if Ethan hadn't been tied to her at al, but I wasn't about to clue her in to that. He may not be her familiar, but I didn't want her testing exactly how deep their connection ran. She wasn't ready for that yet. I wasn't ready for that yet.

"I hated him at first," she said. "And I think you did, too. He was overbearing, and he didn't sympathize with your situation.

And then you let yourself be vulnerable, and then he invited another girl to your House. And then he took a stake for you, and he proved himself."

I nodded.

"Maybe he's not quite Darth Sulivan anymore," she said.

We were both silent. "I don't know if I can do this," she said after a couple of minutes.

"Do what?"

"Come back to this. Face up to what I did. I can take responsibility for it. I'm not stupid; I know it was my fault. But I'm...mortified, I guess. The shifters - I see how they look at me. There's disgust in their eyes, Merit. Catcher is so angry, so humiliated, and I know the Order's going to punish me. And I deserve the worst they can come up with."

She burst into long, sobbing tears, but I wasn't ready to go to her. I wasn't ready to comfort her - not when she'd hurt so many. Not while they were stil grieving, while they stil needed comforting.

"How do I go back into the world knowing what I've done?"

She looked up at me, her eyes red and swolen, her face wet. "I hurt people, and you guys are in trouble. And Catcher...I don't know if I'l ever get him back."

"Did he say that?"

"He said he needed time." She covered her mouth with a hand but only barely managed to stifle her sobs.

"Then suck it up and give him time. God knows, he's earned it. We al have."

"I'm going to lose him. Oh, God, Merit, I'm going to lose him."

"Maybe you wil," I agreed. "You betrayed his trust. You chose dark magic over your friends, your city, your boyfriend.

I'm sure he isn't taking that wel. I'm not taking it wel."

"So much for sugarcoating it."

"I'm not here to sugarcoat it. There's no happy ending here, Malory. No pot of gold. This isn't a TV show you can just turn off and the world goes back to normal. People were hurt. And since Tate's stil out there, there's probably more pain on the way."

"I can't face that."

"Yes, you can. And you wil."

She looked up at me.

"We al have days when we feel smal. Realy smal.

Completely inadequate, but saddled with al this responsibility. I have to keep my House safe, my city from destroying it. I have to do right by Ethan and the rest of my vampires. I have to fight battles against people who shouldn't be my enemies - especialy when there are already plenty of enemies to go around. There are days when I would love to pul the cover over my head and say to hel with it.

"But I don't do that. And most people don't do that. Most people get up and do their jobs and work their asses off for no reward at al - but just so they can get up the next day and do the whole thing over again. The world isn't perfect, and some days it wears you down. You can either accept that, and face it, and be a help to others instead of a hindrance. Or you can decide the rules are too tough and they shouldn't apply to you, and you can ignore them and make things harder for everybody else. Sometimes life is about being sad and doing things anyway.

Sometimes it's about being hurt and doing things anyway. The point isn't perfection. The point is doing it anyway."

Malory nodded a little.

"You make a go of it," I said. "The hard way - one day at a time, and with patience. And you'l hope he has patience for you, as wel."

She nodded again. The fire gone from both of us, we sat there for a little while - fifteen minutes, maybe - until there was a knock at the door.

We looked up. A shifter I didn't know pointed at Malory.

"You're needed downstairs," he said. He didn't wait for an answer, just disappeared again. I guessed he wasn't expecting disobedience.

She stood up. "I should go."

I nodded. "I should get back to the House. Good luck."

She tucked her hands into her pockets, hiding the physical evidence of her crimes. "Thanks. I guess I'l see you around."

I nodded and watched her walk downstairs to get to work. I hoped this time around something better would come of it.