House Rules (Chicagoland Vampires #7)(9)
Author: Chloe Neill

A corner of Ethan’s mouth curled. "Well done, Sentinel," he said, then gestured across the street. "Ladies first."

I waited until a very odiferous garbage truck rumbled past, then jogged across the street, Ethan and Noah behind me.

The doorman, the brass buttons of his burgundy coat gleaming, looked up nervously as we moved toward him, his eyes widening, his heartbeat speeding. If he’d had magic, I’d no doubt have felt the bitter pulse of his fear yards away.

As if protecting his castle from marauders, he stepped in front of the door. "Can I help you?"

"Noah," I said, extending my hand until he placed his phone in my palm. I checked the screen, saw the gentle smiling faces of two blond vampires – one male, one female.

I held it toward the doorman. "Our friends have disappeared, and we’re trying to find them. We think they might have been across the street two nights ago. Do they look familiar to you?"

Without bothering to check the screen, the doorman crossed his arms over his barrel chest and narrowed his gaze at me.

"Not even a little peek?"

He blinked slowly.

"Perhaps this will jog your memory," Ethan said, extending a folded twenty-dollar bill between his fingers.

The doorman took it and slipped it into his coat pocket, then crossed his arms again. I guess Jackson wasn’t his favorite president.

"How about President Grant?" Ethan asked, offering a fifty in the same way.

The doorman cast a suspicious gaze at it. "I prefer Benjamin Franklin’s commonsense advice and down-home humor. But President Grant has his finer qualities." He took the bill and tucked it into his pocket. "What can I do for you this evening?"

I bit back a smile. "These two," I reminded him, wiggling the phone. "Have you seen them?"

This time his gaze slid to the screen. "I saw them," he said with a nod. "They went to the registration office."

"How do you remember them?" I wondered.

"They took photographs of themselves in line, like they were heading into a concert instead of registering with the city." He shrugged. "I don’t know. I guess that seemed unusual to me."

It seemed unusual to me, too, but I didn’t have a strong enough sense of Oliver and Eve to know whether it was unusual for them.

"What happened after that?" I asked.

He shrugged and looked straight ahead again.

"Really," I flatly said.

He cast me a sideways glance. "Inflation, don’t you know."

Irritation building, I put a hand on my sword and stepped forward.

Sentinel, Ethan silently cautioned, but it was time to walk the walk.

"This sword isn’t for show," I said. "It’s honed steel, and it’s very sharp, and I’m very good at using it."

"She is," Noah and Ethan simultaneously agreed.

"We aren’t asking you for much – only information, for which we have handsomely paid." I tapped the top of the sword’s pommel. "I can’t imagine your residents would be thrilled to learn that you irritated people carrying weapons instead of simply telling them what they wanted to know and allowing them to be on their way."

He scowled.

"Commonsense advice," I reminded him with a saccharine smile.

The doorman scowled again, his upper lip curled, but relented. "They went in, came out again."

"And got in their cars and drove away?" I wondered.

"Actually, no," he said. He pointed across the street. "Car pulled up in the alley."

The dry cleaner sat on one side of the registration office, the alley on the other.

"A car?" Noah asked. "What kind of car?"

He shrugged. "Didn’t see it. Just the headlights – they were shining out of the alley. The vampires walked over there like they were checking it out, maybe talking to the driver. Then headlights dim like the car’s backing out of the alley."

"Did you see them leave again?" I asked.

The doorman shrugged. "Don’t know, don’t care. Maybe they were meeting up with friends? This is America. I don’t keep track." Thinking he’d been insulted, he turned his gaze blankly back to the street again. We’d lost his interest.

"Thanks," I told the doorman. "We appreciate it."

He didn’t look much impressed by the thanks, but he nodded anyway. "You’re blocking the door."

Ethan touched my arm. "Let’s check out the alley," he said, and with the doorman scowling at our backs, we crossed the street once again.

* * *

I tried to imagine I was a cop – walking a beat like my grandfather had – except with added vampire sensibilities.

I walked to the edge of the alley, then closed my eyes and breathed in the night air, let the sounds around me unfurl. Unknown droplets fell ahead of us in the alley, which smelled of dampness and garbage, rusty metal and dirt. Luckily I got no obvious sense of violence – no scents of blood or gunpowder.

When I was sure the coast was clear, I stepped into the darkness. It wasn’t the first alley I’d seen; in Chicago, they mostly looked the same: puddles of dirty water on the ground, brick walls, a Dumpster, and an emergency exit or two.

I looked for any clue that would have explained why Oliver and Eve walked into this alley.

After a moment of scanning the ground, a glint caught my eye, and I crouched down. There were chunks of glass on the ground. Not shards, but square pieces. It was safety glass, the kind used in car windows.

"What did you find?" Ethan asked, stepping behind me.

"There’s glass here. Could be from the vehicle the doorman sort of saw."

"Very long odds of that," Ethan remarked. "If the glass was broken, surely the vampires out front would have heard it and investigated."

"Probably," I agreed, standing up again and dusting my hands on my pants.

The shrill ringing of a cell phone filled the alley. Instinctively I checked my phone, but it was dark and silent.

"Is that yours?" Ethan asked, and I shook my head and scanned the alley, realizing the sound was coming from a few feet away, near a red metal Dumpster.

I walked closer, the sound growing louder, and kicked aside a few windblown bits of trash. A vibrantly pink phone lay on the concrete, flashing as someone tried to reach the phone’s owner.

No – not just someone. The screen flashed with a phone number and name; the caller was Rose, Noah’s Rogue friend. I had a sinking suspicion I knew whose phone this was, and my stomach flipped uncomfortably.

"Noah," I called out, and felt him move behind me, his nervous energy tickling the air.