House Rules

GIVING CHASE

Ten minutes later, we were zooming down Lakeshore as fast as the Volvo could go. Luc had patched Jeff and Jonah - who didn't yet have his earbud - into our connection system so we could make final arrangements on the way.

"Guys, I've got good news and bad news. And since we don't have time for debate, you're getting the bad news first: The Comstock building's scheduled for demolition tomorrow morning. The Web site I'd found was an old one; the building changed hands, and the new property manager decided to go in a different direction with the property."

My heart throbbed in my chest as fear overwhelmed me. Murderous vampires were one thing. Exploding buildings? Something altogether different.

"The building will be guarded," Jonah said, "but there's a good chance some of the explosives and wiring have already been placed."

"If there are guards," I said, "Michael's probably already taken them out. He won't think twice about taking out humans."

"Agreed," Ethan said. "You said you had good news, Jeff?"

"Two parts: Catcher and I are on our way. I had to let him drive, you know, since I'm working my keyboard magic, but we thought you could use some help. And also, helpfully, the building's now a husk. Drywall, interiors, everything's been cleaned out in preparation for the demo."

"Which makes the thermals operate a lot more effectively," Jonah said.

"Precisely. The satellites are queued in - you can thank Big Brother and some lovely white-hat hackers for that - and I've got thermal. But there aren't any vampires in the building yet."

"Shit," Ethan muttered. "Does that mean he isn't there yet, or he's on his way?"

"I don't know. I'm still working on it. I'm logging into the security feeds I can find between the Dandridge and the Comstock."

"Shit," Ethan muttered again, cracking a fist on the dashboard.

"Hey," I said. "She's the only transportation we've got at the moment."

Ethan looked around, eyeing an exit, doubt in his eyes. "We could go south back to Roseland. He could be there."

"He wouldn't be there yet," I said. "You thought Comstock first, and I agree. It's closer to the Dandridge, and it's the murder he wants. He can do it faster if he goes to the Comstock."

He didn't look convinced, so I pushed on, just as he had for me. "Remember what you told me? Trust your instincts."

Ethan's gaze intensified, and he pushed the Volvo's engine even more . . . zooming past the exit that would have given him a chance to get to the other building.

And thank God for that.

"I've got it!" Jeff suddenly exclaimed.

Ethan blew out a breath in relief.

"I'm matching security footage and imaging," he said. "We've got a black SUV across the street from the building, three vampires inside . . . and they're moving."

"You got it," I said, squeezing Ethan's hand. "Now get us there."

* * *

Ten minutes and multiple moving violations later, we pulled up across the street from the Comstock building, or what remained of it. It was only a concrete skeleton, its plastic walls flapping in the breeze. The block had already been fenced off, the neighborhood prepared for the destruction to come.

On the upside, parking was abundant.

We met Jonah outside the building; Catcher and Jeff hadn't yet arrived. I gave Jonah his earbud, and we belted on our swords as snow fell around us. We saw no guards to speak of, but the smell of blood was in the air. It seemed likely the guards had been sacrifices to Michael's evil intent.

"Jeff?" Ethan said, touching his earpiece. "What can you see?"

"Two vampires on the roof. One on the sixteenth floor."

"He wouldn't separate them," I said. "That can't be right."

"Oh, crap," Jeff said. "The color of the one on sixteen is changing."

"Changing?" Jonah asked.

"Cooling," Jeff said. "Dying."

My stomach fell, tears blossoming at my lashes. We were so close.

"We go in now," Jonah said. "Ethan, take the vampire on sixteen. Merit and I will take the roof."

"No way," Ethan said, but I shot him a glance.

"I'm not letting you within five feet of an aspen gun," I said. "No arguments. Find whoever that is. They aren't dead yet. Save them."

"We climb the fence," Jonah said. "Then we go inside. Swords drawn and at the ready."

We nodded, and then we did our things.

The fence was chain link and made for an easy climb. We hopped down on the other side and found the building creepily quiet. Snow already covered the concrete outside, which made the steel exoskeleton look as if it had risen straight from ashes. Not exactly a comforting metaphor.

"The roof?" I asked, casting a glance upward. "Can we even get up there?"

"They keep ladders and stairwells open for the demolition crew," Jonah said. "Getting up there won't be a problem."

We crossed the dirty and dusty hull of a lobby and went into the stairwell. We began the climb, and said good-bye to Ethan on the sixteenth floor.

You'll be careful, Ethan silently said.

I promise, I assured him, and he disappeared into the hallway.

"Focus," Jonah said, and I pushed Ethan's safety from my mind and we made the slow climb to the top of the building.

We emerged into a kind of waiting area, with a door marked ROOF in front of us. I swallowed down a dose of fear.

"You ready?"

"On three," I said.

One . . . two . . . three, he mouthed, then pushed open the door.

A freezing wind met us on the other side. It whipped around us at this height, biting through my jacket and quickly numbing the hands around my sword.

The roof was still covered in gritty tar paper, and it looked like every rooftop I'd seen on cop shows - a flat surface marked with vertical pipes, antennas, and skylights. Around the roof was an edge of concrete that kept folks from tumbling over the sides.

I sincerely hoped we weren't going to need that.

Ethan's voice burst into my earpiece. "I've got Lakshmi," he said. "Bleeding, but I'm stanching the wound. I'm going to get her out. Luc, get Delia ready for an incoming."

"On it," Luc said.

"Michael and the other vampire are on the north side of the building," Jeff said.

We took cautious steps forward. The snow was still falling, but it had melted to slush on the roof's dark fabric.

"Behind me," Jonah said.

The roof was dotted with small outcroppings - utility sheds and HVAC units that hadn't yet been removed. We hustled across the surface from obstacle to obstacle, trying to get as close to Michael as possible without blowing our cover . . . or risking his taking out a vampire before we could reach him.

"Twenty feet," Jeff said, and we stopped behind a bank of air conditioners.

I dropped my guard and reached out for the magic in the air - and there was plenty of it: a cloud around us, and a swell emanating from the other side of the utilities. That was Michael's location, and I signaled it to Jonah.

"I'll step in front and distract him," Jonah whispered. "Go around; cover his other side. I'll wait ten seconds before I move."

I nodded. "Be careful."

I crept along the air-conditioning unit until I'd passed Michael's position, crouched behind a gigantic vent pipe, and glanced around the corner.

Michael Donovan stood beside a bit of plumbing that pushed through the roof's surface, his long black coat swirling in the wind.

Darius kneeled on the ground in front of him, cowed by the katana that Michael held in his right hand and the gun in his left. The latter was the same weapon I'd seen McKetrick raise against me, and likely the same one that Michael had used to threaten Oliver and Eve.

With bullets of aspen, it was decidedly deadly.

"You had to run," Michael said to Darius. "I tried to arrange you just so, and you had to run. And now she's down there alone."

Michael lifted the sword.

Jonah stepped into Michael's line of sight. "Michael, you're surrounded. Drop the weapon and step away from Darius."

Shocked, Michael jerked, glancing around the roof. I crawled around the vent and began to creep along the edge of the roof toward him.

But he wasn't going to simply give up. "I can't allow you to interrupt," he said. "I'm obviously in the middle of something here."

"You're going to have to hit 'pause,'" Jonah said. "I've got guards on the roof and around the building."

"Great," Michael said. "Then you won't mind when I do this."

Jonah jumped, but not before Michael slashed out, the tip of his sword catching Darius across the throat. Blood spilled, filling the air with the scent of heady vampire magic.

As my eyes silvered, Jonah leaped for Darius.

It was a perfect distraction. I extended my katana, and before Michael could react I sliced forward, hitting the underside of his left hand. The wound wasn't deep, but it was enough to startle him. He instinctively dropped the gun, and I used the tip of the sword to change its trajectory, batting it away like a crappy pitch. Instead of falling at Michael's feet - within easy reach - it flew fifteen feet away, then skittered beneath one of the utility units.

Michael's smile drooped, and he took a step backward, katana still in hand.

Darius whimpered as Jonah worked to stop the bleeding at his throat. I moved closer to Michael, forcing him backward and away from the pair.

Now that we had equal weapons, it was up to me to bring him down. But first and foremost, he was going to answer some questions.

I kept my katana at heart height. "You've murdered four vampires. You killed Oliver and Eve."

Michael looked confused. "Who?"

"The vampires you slaughtered at Carlos's warehouse."

"I didn't even know their names until you told me. They were the first vampires who stumbled along."

He'd just admitted to murder - serial murder - as if it were nothing more than admitting he'd run out of milk or forgotten to vote on Election Day.

Michael slid a glance to Darius behind him. Michael's expression was cold, as if he were irritated that Jonah was interrupting his plans - and Darius's death.

"Why kill them at the warehouse?"

"It seemed as good a place as any."

His nonchalance had to be feigned. No one went to all that trouble - killed multiple vampires with linked locations and meticulous placement - and didn't care. That is, he might not have cared for Oliver, Eve, Katya, or Zoey, but he cared about the killing.

Time to poke the bear, I thought.

"So Carlos made you a vampire?"

Michael glanced back at me. Concern flashed in his eyes, but disappeared. But that flash was enough for me.

I pulled up every memory of the night I'd been made a vampire, digging into the feelings of fear, horror, and brutality, and used them against him.

"You didn't want it, did you? You didn't want to be a vampire. You didn't want to be a part of that lifestyle. But Carlos found you. Selected you. And then he subdued you. Restrained you, maybe? And bit you."

Michael's gaze snapped back to me, his eyes swirling silver. "You don't know what the fuck you're talking about."

This wasn't Michael the security auditor. This was Michael's darkness, the anger he'd been holding inside . . . and had finally decided to unleash.

But I didn't need him angry. I needed him to break.

I provoked him further. "Are you sure you didn't want it? That you didn't secretly want the immortality? The strength? Are you sure Carlos didn't give you exactly what you wanted?"

Michael bared his fangs with a hiss, and slashed forward. I jumped away from the tip of his katana, then sliced out with mine, catching the edge of his duster and ripping the fabric.

"You don't fucking know what it was like. The blood. The darkness. He was sick. He had a sickness."

Darkness, I thought. That was an important word, wasn't it?

"The room at the warehouse. No windows, no light. Utter darkness. That's where he made you a vampire?"

Michael turned in a circle and kicked out. He was fast, but his moves were sloppier tonight than they had been when he'd fought Ethan. He was angry and afraid, and he wasn't focused.

I dodged the kick easily.

"He forced me into the room," he said.

"I'm sure of it. And you took your revenge, didn't you? You killed Oliver and Eve in that same room."

"I eliminated vampires."

"And the vampires at Navarre?"

"She made him," Michael said. "She made him, and she ignored what he did."

She, I assumed, was Celina. He couldn't take her out, because I'd already done that.

"Why Cadogan House? Why Darius and Lakshmi? What do they have to do with Carlos?"

"They don't," he said. "They were just bonuses. Their price was much, much higher."

I froze, sword in front of me, hands shaking with tension and fear and cold. "What price?"

"The price McKetrick paid me to kill vampires."

"Holy fucking shit," said Luc's voice in my ear. He must have heard that confession. "Sentinel, you were right."

Right or not, I kept my gaze on Michael Donovan. "McKetrick paid you? Why?"

The surprise in my eyes must have helped Michael regain some control. He stood a little straighter, adjusted his grip on his katana.

"He wanted to create havoc," Michael said. "He hates vampires. And, frankly, I don't disagree with him."

"What about the aspen gun?"

"Test shot. McKetrick suggested I use it. I found it sloppy."

"You prefer steel."

His gaze narrowed. "Guns make good threats, but vampires should die by their own weapons."

That he was also a vampire didn't seem to matter. But maybe he wasn't really a vampire, not emotionally. My own transition had been difficult; his couldn't have been a walk in the park. Ethan had saved me from death, but Carlos had stolen life from Michael Donovan.

"Oliver and Eve were holding hands. So were Katya and Zoey. Why?"

Michael's lip quivered with anger. "I wasn't the only one. He took many of us to the warehouse. We knew he was coming for us. The monster in the dark."

Humans, I thought he meant.

"They didn't want to change. Didn't want immortality. Didn't want the blasphemy of being a vampire. So that night, while they waited for him to come, they killed themselves. Took something, some poison. I don't know." He waved away the thought. "I was already a vampire, and I wasn't strong enough to fight back when he used glamour against me."

Michael looked up at me. "I found them lying together, hand in hand. He made me get rid of them." He shook his head, as if reminding himself of his own motivations. "And now I get rid of the Carloses of the world."

"And your security consulting?"

"You gave me plenty of information about your defenses that I will happily share with McKetrick." He smiled just a bit. "And what better prize to my employer than the king of the world?"

Darius, I realized.

"And now what?" I asked.

Michael pulled something from his pocket. There in his palm was a small black remote control with a very large red button.

I'd seen plenty of action movies. Nothing good happened when a red button was pressed.

"Detonator," he said. "The building was already wired, and the guard had the button. This was Carlos's building. He kept an office here, you know. An office Celina didn't know about." He shrugged. "I didn't want them to destroy it, not without me. And now I can do it myself. I can take down what he built. I can ruin him, the way he ruined me."

Michael moved toward the ledge, hands out apologetically. "I'm so sorry, Merit. It was nice working with you."

He punched the button, and sirens immediately began to wail, followed by the cry of a female voice on a loudspeaker that echoed through the silence.

"Five minutes until detonation."

The demolition contractors must have installed a warning system for the building's destruction.

"Goddamn it, Michael," I said, raising my sword again. "You'll kill more innocent people."

"No," he said, his eyes flat and emotionless. "The neighborhood's already been cleared out. All that remains are vampires and their legacies. You have a choice now, Merit. You can follow me down and try to apprehend me, or you can help your friends with their burdens. Frankly, if I'm analyzing this from a strictly strategic standpoint, I find your chance of success either way to be pretty damn unlikely."

"Fuck you, Michael."

He clucked his tongue, tossed away the remote, and resheathed his sword. Then he ran to the edge of the roof. He stepped onto the edging, outstretched his arms, and dived.

I gripped the rail and peered over. The distance gave me momentary vertigo - I really hated heights - but it passed quickly enough for me to see him strike the ground with force enough to buckle the sidewalk in a six-foot radius. The ground shook with it, but he straightened up as if he'd barely felt the shock.

"Catcher? Jeff?" I called into the receiver. "Are you here? Michael Donovan just jumped down to the street. He's working for McKetrick and he's been hoarding information about the House's security. We cannot let him get that back to McKetrick. Can you get someone to him?

"Hello? Jeff?" I said again after a couple of seconds, but there was no answer.

Michael Donovan looked up, pausing to straighten his jacket and spare a glance - and a disturbing smile - for me.

I could jump, but I'd never jumped that far before. Not even close. Unlike Michael, I wasn't sure I could survive the fall. Vampires were certainly strong, but we weren't guaranteed to stick the landing.

On the other hand, didn't I have to do it? I couldn't just let him walk away.

My hands shaking violently, my stomach a mess, I gripped the edge of the concrete and began to hoist myself up. What was the point of being here, of promising to face my fears and help my vampires, if I wasn't willing to put my money where my mouth was . . . or my feet in the air?

But before I could move, a blur of white blew through the darkness toward Michael. Long, pale, and furry.

I had to blink to be sure I wasn't hallucinating: a massive tiger, ten feet long from nose to tail, white with dark stripes, pounding the pavement in the middle of Chicago.

"What the hell?" I murmured, staring down as the scene unfolded.

Michael ran, but his speed was no match for the tiger's. Front feet, back feet, front feet, back feet, and then it pounced.

It knocked Michael to the ground with a single blow, but Michael was a vampire, and he wasn't going down without a fight. He kicked the tiger backward, and it rolled before standing again.

The tiger unbalanced, Michael rose to his feet. Before he could grab his sword, the tiger attacked again, rearing up and hitting Michael Donovan across the nose. I was too high up to scent blood, but there seemed little doubt the tiger would have drawn it.

Michael didn't delay. He pulled the sword from its scabbard and struck out at the tiger, slicing the animal across the back of its shoulders. The tiger roared but didn't cease its attack.

They parried back and forth - the tiger slapping out with a paw, Michael slicing back when he could, but his opponent was enormous, and Michael was tiring. He raised his sword again, and the tiger knocked it out of his hand. Panicked, without a weapon, Michael stumbled, and the tiger took its turn. It pounced - all four feet in the air - and made for him.

Michael took the tiger's full weight, falling backward onto a pile of lumber - sharp planks and sticks that had probably been pulled from the building. There must have been aspen in the mix of wood; Michael screamed, and then he was gone, only a cone of ash in his place.

The tiger stepped back, panting. Ears flat against its head, its teeth bared, it roared into the night, the sound deep and loud enough to shake the foundations of the building and rattle my bones.

Goose bumps lifted on my arms.

And then, in only a moment, the tiger shape-shifted. I'd seen it happen before, but that didn't make the visual any less amazing. A flash lit the night as magic swirled around him, changing the massive predator . . . into Jeff Christopher.

He shook out his arms and legs, then popped his head back and forth as if stretching his neck. He looked up and met my gaze, and in the eyes of this young man - often silly, sometimes costumed, always flirty - I saw a world of understanding and experience and maturity.

Not that I'd had any doubts, but Jeff Christopher was a marvel.

"Three minutes until detonation."

Not that there was time to be impressed.

"Merit? Are you there?" A voice sounded over the constant beeping of the alarm. "Get the hell out of here."

I pressed a finger to the earpiece, trying to improve the reception. "Ethan? Is that you?"

"It's me. I'm on sixteen. Get your ass out of the building."

I'd be damned if I was leaving without my crew. I ran back across the roof and found Jonah walking toward the door, Darius in his arms. Darius looked limp and pale, but he was still breathing.

"Little help?" Jonah asked.

"Working on it." I ran to the door and propped it open just as Jonah hustled through.

Awkwardly, he trotted down the stairs, arms bulging under Darius's weight. Vampires were strong, but he'd given Darius blood, and weakened himself in the process.

"Two minutes and thirty seconds until detonation," said the warning voice.

"This is going to be close," I muttered, gripping the interior railing as we moved as quickly as possible down the stairs to the sixteenth floor. When we reached it, I burst through the door and came face-to-face with the pointy end of Ethan's sword.

"It's me," I said, tipping it out of the way. "Where is she?"

Lakshmi lay prone in one corner, unconscious, her arms chained to a length of plumbing that rose through the floor.

He looked at me. "I'll get her. You get the hell out of here."

Jonah appeared in the stairwell behind me, face pale, Darius in his arms. His eyes widened in surprise as he caught sight of Lakshmi in the corner.

"Michael chained her because they were trying to get away," I said. "That's how Darius made it to the roof."

"And you hired that asshole?" Jonah asked Ethan, placing Darius on the floor and jogging toward Lakshmi.

"I didn't know he was an asshole at the time," Ethan murmured. Together they pulled at opposite ends of her chain, sweating with the sudden exertion of trying to break it apart.

"Katana," I said. "I'll aim for a link in the chain; you both pull her away."

"Your katana isn't strong enough," Jonah said.

"It's been tempered by my blood," I said. "It's strong enough."

I had no idea whether my bluff was right, but what choice did I have? We had to try something.

"Two minutes until detonation," said the announcer.

I didn't give them time to argue, but raised my katana in the air. Realizing I was serious, they each grabbed one of Lakshmi's arms and braced themselves.

"One, two, three!" I yelled, and, silently apologizing to the blade, I brought the katana down with all the force I could muster.

Sparks and metal flew, and I heard a pop that I bet was Lakshmi's left shoulder, but the chain broke, and she tumbled into Ethan.

"One minute and forty-five seconds until detonation."

"I really hate that lady," Jonah said, helping Ethan lift Lakshmi into the air. "Let's get out of here," he said, and cast a glance from Ethan to the edge of the sixteenth floor, which disappeared into darkness.

"Let's do it," Ethan said.

We ran to the edge and looked down. We were sixteen stories up, and it was a long way to the ground.

"One minute and thirty seconds until detonation."

"We'll jump it," Jonah said.

I shook my head, panic suddenly setting in. "It's too far. I've never jumped that far before."

"It's not too far," Ethan said. "Jonah taught you to jump, and I saw you do it in Nebraska. You can do this, too, Merit. Trust me."

He looked over at me, and our eyes met. Promises and hopes and dreams swirled there, adrift in an ocean of fear. But we had to keep trying.

"One minute and fifteen seconds until detonation."

"I love you," he said.

Tears swam in my eyes, blurring my vision. I wiped them away with the edge of my sleeve. "I love you, too."

"Anytime now, kids!" Jonah yelled out.

"Jump!" Ethan said, and I didn't bother to hesitate. I hit the ledge at a full run and bounded over it toward the ground. Jonah did the same, with Darius in his arms, then Ethan, with Lakshmi in his.

We jumped.

* * *

For a split second, the entire city swam before us, the edges bent by the curvature of the earth. And then, as if gravity bowed to us instead of the other way around, the world slowed, and that single, gigantic leap became one small step.

But one small step with a hell of a lot of acceleration.

We hit the ground, buckling the asphalt before us. My knees ached with the force of the fall, but we were all still standing.

The percussions began to sound behind us. "Time's up," Ethan yelled out. "Run!"

Pain and fear disappeared. We were driven only by survival, by the need to escape the heat of the blasts that had already begun behind us.

We ran with speed that would have blurred our movements to any onlookers, then vaulted the fence just as the heat of the explosions began to grow. We made it a few more feet before the shock wave pushed us forward. Jonah and Ethan put me, Darius, and Lakshmi on the ground, then covered us with their bodies as the explosions shook the earth.

I'd felt earthly and magical earthquakes, but the building's detonation was a force of an altogether different magnitude. My chest rumbled from the vibrations, and my eardrums ached from the noise. They went on for an eternity; even when the detonations stopped, the building crumbled into a pile behind us with earth-shattering force.

A minute later the percussion was over, and the air was filled by a thick cloud of dust and the sounds of sprinkling dirt, steel, glass, and gravel.

"Everybody okay?" Jonah asked above me.

"I'm good," I said. "Ethan?"

He grunted, which I took as a good sign.

"How's Lakshmi?" I asked.

Another grunt. "She just elbowed me in the ribs, so I think she's good."

I didn't bother asking if Darius was okay.