House Rules (Chicagoland Vampires #7)(76)
Author: Chloe Neill

Michael’s gaze snapped back to me, his eyes swirling silver. "You don’t know what the f**k 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 f**king 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 f**king 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.