Biting Cold (Chicagoland Vampires #6)(29)
Author: Chloe Neill

"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."