Biting Cold (Chicagoland Vampires #6)(4)
Author: Chloe Neill

"What do you think I want?" he asked. "I want the book."

Ethan crossed his arms. "Why?"

"Because our girl made it sound so interesting." His smile was oily. "Didn’t you?"

"I’m not your girl, and I didn’t tel you about the Maleficium."

"So my memory isn’t perfect. But I can only assume you enjoyed our visits, or you wouldn’t have visited me twice."

Beside me, Ethan growled possessively.

"Quit baiting him," I demanded. "I visited you to get information, which is the only thing I want now. Why do you want the Maleficium?"

"I told you already," Tate nonchalantly said. "I told you when we sat together in my prison of human making, when I advised you the division of evil and good was unnatural, that ‘evil’ was a human construct. Holding it captive in the Maleficium is unnatural. I have an opportunity to right that wrong, to release it. And I don’t plan to let that chance pass me by."

There was an intent gleam in his eyes and a shock of chiling magic in the air. There was little doubt he didn’t plan to let us stand in his way.

"We don’t have it," Ethan told him.

"Given the direction you’re traveling, that’s obvious. But I also assume you’re on your way to retrieve it, perhaps before Ms.Carmichael does something drastic?"

A sickening feeling blossomed in my stomach. "Stay away from her."

"You know that’s not possible. Not when we’re al racing for the same prize. And besides, she might come in handy."

I felt the rising tide of magic lift further as my own fury contributed to the swel. "Stay. Away. From her," I gritted out, "or you wil answer to me."

Tate roled his eyes. "I could finish you in a minute." Then he looked at me askance, which was even more frightening. Like he was studying me. "I bet it hurts, doesn’t it, to feel like your best friend has betrayed you? She isn’t so unlike your father in that respect, is she?"

Tate had told me – only moments before Ethan’s death – that my father had offered Ethan money to make me a vampire. But that hadn’t been the entire truth.

"Ethan didn’t take the money, and you know it."

"But he knew, didn’t he? Ethan knew your father was asking around, and he did nothing."

"You are a son of a bitch," Ethan said. Before I could stop him, he strode forward, struck out with a mean right hook, and punched Seth Tate in the mouth.

"Ethan!" I screamed out, equal parts horrified that he’d just punched someone in the face…and proud he’d done it. Ethan punched him. Maybe it wasn’t a great decision under the circumstances, but that didn’t mean Tate didn’t deserve it and I didn’t enjoy it.

Tate’s head snapped back, but he didn’t otherwise move except to raise his knuckles to the lip Ethan had split. He glanced down at the blood there before slowly lifting his gaze to Ethan.

Magic poured across us as Tate’s anger rose.

"You’l regret that, Sulivan."

Ethan’s lip curled, and his gaze narrowed. "Only that I didn’t have a chance to do it sooner. Consider it a down payment on what you’re owed for arranging the deaths of two Master vampires and putting a third vampire through two months of hel."

Tate shifted his gaze to me. "At least I was able to keep company with you, Balerina, in his absence."

Another burst of magic pulsed from Ethan’s direction, and he bared his teeth maliciously. I put a hand flat against Ethan’s chest to keep him from rushing Tate again.

"Stop it," I gritted out.

They growled at each other like animals.

"If you think you can land another punch," Tate said, "I invite you to try."

"I won’t have to try," Ethan gritted out, taking a step forward.

But before he could lash out again, I wrapped an arm around him and hauled him back.

"Ethan! We have enough trouble right now."

Tate was already in rare form; the last thing we needed was for Ethan to rile him up further – or for Ethan to get riled up any further.

Ethan freed himself from my arms, then straightened his shirt.

The pause didn’t diminish Tate’s indignation. His magic deepened and strengthened. A thick fog began to seep across the freeway toward us, covering the ground like roling smoke. It took me a second to realize this wasn’t just fog. Filaments of bright blue shot through it, each spark punctuating the air with a sharp, irritating tingle.

Ethan’s gaze didn’t waver. "We won’t let you destroy the world."

"No one is going to destroy the world. If anything, it wil be made better – stronger – by a return to the natural order and the rule of natural laws. To that which existed before."

The air warmed, and the wind began to swirl around us. Tate stared at me, his body frozen, the energy stil growing. Smal blue sparks hopped across the fog, like electricity beginning to build toward something big.

This wasn’t weather. It was magic.

Goose bumps peppered my arms, and I glanced back over my shoulder. Behind us, the fog of magic began to rise, one foot at a time, into a shimmering wal of sparks. My hair stood on end.

I looked back at Tate, whose arms were crossed as he glared at me. He stared back at me with unconcealed malice.

"What are you going to do?" I asked.

"What needs to be done. What must be done. You seek to interrupt that which should happen – and should have happened long ago. The emptying of the Maleficium. Sorcerers split magic asunder, Merit, and it’s time to bring the pieces back together. I won’t alow you to stop that. I cannot alow you to stop it."

Whoever Tate had been before – reformer, politician, romancer of women – he’d changed. He meant to stop us, whatever it took.

"Get in the car, Merit."

My gaze was glued to Tate’s, so it took a moment for my brain to register what Ethan was saying. I looked back at him.

"What?"

"Get in the car. Now." Ethan stil had the keys, so he pushed me toward the passenger side as he ran for the driver’s.

We both yanked open the doors and hustled inside, and he started the car and punched the accelerator, zooming around Tate and farther away from the wal of magic behind us.

Whatever Tate’s origin, he must have been pouring his power into the magical cloud; I assumed that was the only reason he wasn’t controling the car again.

I yanked on my seat belt as the speedometer climbed. Sixty miles an hour. Seventy. Eighty. We were gaining speed, but when I turned around to check the back window, the wal – now shimmering with blue filaments – was moving ever closer. It was gaining speed even faster than we did, its acceleration exponentialy faster than ours.