Biting Cold (Chicagoland Vampires #6)(48)
Author: Chloe Neill

More pigeons. Gravel. Damp and dying grass.

And beneath al of those smels, a sharp, dry scent. Something powdery. Something dusty.

Something familiar.

I searched my mind for the memory, but my brain was sluggish.

Merit? Are you still there? Ethan is asking about you.

Morgan meant it encouragingly, but I could tel it was hard for him to mention Ethan’s name, to reference our relationship.

He was hurting himself to help me, I thought, and that realization was enough to focus my mind and send the memory back into sharp focus: I was standing in a room, and Seth Tate was seated at a table before me. The smels of lemon and sugar filed the air. But beneath that scent, there was something more…the same scent of chalk that I smeled now.

I knew where I was.

The ceramics factory, I said.

It was an abandoned compound where Seth Tate had been held before he’d sought out the Maleficium. I’d visited him there – here – twice. Both times at night, but both times for a good long while as Tate taught me about the Maleficium and magic.

There are pigeons above me.

They know where you are, Merit. They’re coming for you.

Hang on.

Please don’t leave me. I skittered an inch deeper into the corner. If they didn’t find me in time, I didn’t want to be alone.

Not here. Not in this place with Tate.

I won’t, he said. I’m right here.

I don’t know how many minutes or hours passed, but I was standing in the corner, my back pressed to the wal, mere inches of space between me and the moving sunlight, when a sound as loud as a gunshot split the air, and I clapped my hands over my ears. Voices burst out. Yeling, the roar of an engine, the sound of rocks and gravel.

Unaware of the danger it posed, immune to my tears, the sunlight crept closer. I was running out of time. "Please be help.

Please be help."

Morgan’s voice popped into my head again, as exhausted as mine must have sounded. Merit, they’re coming to get you.

Hold on, okay?

I dropped my head back to the wal behind me, tensing every muscle to keep myself upright and poised in the tiny bit of shade.

You can do this, I told myself over and over again. You can do this. You can do this.

Paige burst into the room. "I found her!" she caled out.

I sobbed in relief.

Jeff rushed in behind her, a shiny silver blanket in his hands.

Immune to the sunlight, he ran to me. "I’m getting you out of here, okay?"

I managed a nod before he threw the cloth over my head and whipped me into his arms like I weighed nothing. I wrapped an arm weakly around his neck. "Tate?"

"Temporarily incapacitated," Paige said, hustling Jeff out the door. "So we don’t have much time."

Jeff carried me outside, where I heard the sound of an engine revving and a door opening. I was gently placed on something soft, and then we were moving again.

Jeff puled away the blanket. My heart skipped at the sudden darkness. I reached out, and he squeezed my hand.

"I can’t see anything."

"It’s temporary," said another voice. Catcher, in front of us.

"It’s because you were exposed to sunlight for so long; it’s too dim in here for your receptors. It wil pass."

I nodded but couldn’t stop the tears that slid down my face. A minute more, and I’d have been a pile of ash.

I sobbed, and Jeff puled me into his chest.

"Shhh," he said, as I breathed in the spicy scent of his cologne and gripped a fistful of his shirt. "You’re okay. Rest for a few minutes, and we’l get you home. Oh, and I think Catcher found your jacket."

"Thank you," I said, crying in relief until my eyes closed again.

I didn’t wake up again until midnight the next evening.

I sat up in my bed, the room lit by a golden light that filtered in from the open halway door. My eyes took a moment to adjust, but I could finaly see again.

"Water?" I touched my throat. I was parched, my voice harsh and gravely.

Ethan walked into the room, relief on his face. He wore a suit, but the top of his shirt was unbuttoned and his tie was loose around his neck. He strode to the bed and handed me a cup of water from the nightstand.

I drank it greedily.

"How are you feeling?" Ethan asked.

He looked down at the bed but didn’t touch me. Even after the night we’d faced, he was keeping his distance.

"I feel miserable," I said, and I didn’t just mean the Tate situation. "Like I haven’t slept in twenty-four hours." I handed the empty glass back to him. "More, please."

He refiled it. "Blood would also be a good idea. Keep drinking that, and I’l get you some."

I didn’t argue and kept drinking. I drank so much so quickly I nearly didn’t keep it al down. Nausea overwhelming me, my stomach suddenly swolen, I sat back and closed my eyes.

"Is Jonah al right?" I asked.

"He’s fine. He’s the one who caled us. He waited here until just before the sun rose, then returned to Grey House. Catcher and Jeff looked for you for some hours. Apparently, you led them on quite a chase."

"How’s that?"

"You don’t remember?"

I shook my head. "He touched me at the lockup and knocked me out somehow. I didn’t remember anything until I woke up in that room." I looked up at Ethan. "I know what he is. His name is Dominic. He’s a falen angel, just like the librarian said. He has great black wings, Ethan. Bat’s wings."

"If he’s Dominic, what’s Seth?"

I shook my head. "I don’t know. Dominic was the only one there. At least, I think he was. How did Paige stop him?"

"Magical flash bang," he said. That explained the loud noise.

"It disorients someone sensitive to magic, but the effect is only temporary."

"I should thank her, too."

"She’s out tonight. She said she needed to talk to Baumgartner. She said she had some things on her mind."

I smiled. "Good for her. She seems like the type to take her magic seriously – unlike everyone else in the Order."

I flipped back the covers. I was dressed in a slinky nightgown.

I gave him a look. "Seriously?"

"That was Lindsey’s doing," he said. "She said it was the first thing she found, and time was of the essence. We weren’t sure how badly you’d been burned, and we wanted you out of your clothes." We both checked out my arms. They were stil pink from the burns, but they were clearly healing.

"They may be tender for a bit," he said, "but you’l heal." He paused. "I was afraid it was going to be too late." True anguish crossed his features.

"They cut it close."