Some Girls Bite (Chicagoland Vampires #1)(10)
Author: Chloe Neill

He nodded in my direction, dumped his own books on the love seat, and followed Mallory. "Merit."

"Hi, Mark." I gave him a little finger wave and rose from the couch, but I paused before following him to check his literature. On the couch, their glossy, mountain-pictured labels read: The Greatest Adventure Book Ever, Climbing for Dummies, and Your Big, Fat Swiss Adventure. The Matterhorn, apparently, was next on Mark’s list. Poor, sweet, dumb Mark.

"She’s gone fang, Mark," Mallory called out. "So be careful."

Halfway to the kitchen, Mark stopped midstride and turned to face me, grinning like an idiot. "Kick. Fucking. Ass."

I rolled my eyes and snatched the remaining bag of Chinese. "Kick your own ass. Did you get crab rangoon?"

He frowned. "What do vampires need with crab rangoon?"

We moved into the kitchen. I put the bag on the kitchen counter and picked through it until I found the paper box of fried crab-and-cream-cheese-stuffed dough and a container of sweet-and-sour sauce. I popped them both open, dipped a wrap in the sauce, and bit in. They were still hot – and I groaned happily at the taste: sweet, salty, crispy, creamy. Everything a newly changed vampire could want.

"Orgasms, apparently," Mallory snarked, and pulled out her own containers of food. She pulled one open, then broke open a set of chopsticks, stared into the container, pulled out a chunk of broccoli, and munched.

"So, how long have you been the walking dead?" Mark asked.

Mallory choked. I thumped her, ever so helpfully, on the back.

"I’m on day two," I told him, and pulled out another bit of fried wanton heaven. "So far, it’s been uneventful."

Famous last words, those.

We’d been eating about ten minutes when we heard glass shatter in the front of the house. Our heads snapped up at the sound. We stood simultaneously, but I motioned Mark and Mallory back down. Mallory’s eyes widened, and I guessed what she’d seen: My blood hummed with adrenaline, and I knew my eyes had gone silver.

"Stay here," I told them, and walked across the kitchen. I flipped off the overhead light and moved into the unlit hallway. There were no other sounds in the house, and I didn’t hear anything outside – cars revving, people screaming, sirens flaring. Carefully hugging the walls, I crept into the living room. The living room window – a picture window made up of a single sheet of glass – had been shattered from the outside in. A brick lay on the floor, wrapped in white paper, a breeze fluttering one corner of it. First things first, I thought, ignoring the missile to pick my way across the glass to the front door and check the peephole. The yard was empty and quiet. It was dark out, so theoretically our attackers could have been hiding in the shrubbery, but I knew no one was there. I could kind of . . . tell. There were no sounds, no smells, no indications that anyone had been near the house beyond the light, acrid scent of car exhaust. They’d driven by, done the deed, and moved on.

I went back to the brick, reached down to pick it up, and pulled away the band of paper. In scraggly black script, it read:

Think UR 2 good 4 us, Cadogan bitch?

Next time U die.

The threat was clear enough, and I guessed that I now qualified as the "Cadogan bitch." But "too good for us" stumped me. It sounded like a choice – like I’d chosen Cadogan out of the catalog of vampire Houses. It was profoundly untrue, and a good clue – the vandal didn’t know me, at least not well enough to understand how inaccurate the statement really was. How little choice I’d had.

Mark’s voice rang out. "Merit?"

I looked up, found them huddled in the doorway, and felt my chest tighten protectively. It took me a moment – a surprising one – to realize that the tingle in my limbs wasn’t fear, but adrenaline. I beckoned them forward with a folded hand. "It’s okay. You can come in. Just watch the glass."

Mallory stepped carefully into the room, tiptoed through the fragments. "Jesus. The window – what happened?"

"Holy crap," Mark agreed, surveying the damage.

Mallory looked up at me, eyes bright with fear. "What happened?"

I handed her the note. She read it, then met my gaze. "You’re the bitch?"

I shrugged. "I assume so, but I don’t understand the threat."

Mark walked to the door, opened it slowly, and looked outside. "Nothing else out here," he called out, "just some glass." He drew back in, his gaze moving between us. "You’ve got some plywood or something I could hang over the window?"

I looked to Mallory, who shrugged. "There might be something in the garage."

He nodded. "I’ll go check. I’ll be right back."

When the front door shut behind him, Mallory looked down at the note in her hands. "Do you think we should call the cops?"

"No," I told her, remembering my father’s admonition. But an idea dawned. I took the note back from her and stuffed it into my pocket. "I think we should go to the House."

Ten minutes later, Mark was balancing on the edge of the stoop, securing an old sheet of particleboard over the window, and Mallory and I were pulling the car out of the garage, Hyde Park address in hand. Mark wasn’t thrilled that Mallory was planning to visit a den of vampires in the middle of the night, but I think that stemmed mostly from the fact that he hadn’t been invited to tag along. His blusters about her safety didn’t read sincere given the awestruck expression on his face.

To mollify him, we promised to keep our cell phones in hand. Apparently thinking extra precautions were warranted, Mark ran down the driveway as we pulled out, and when Mallory rolled down the passenger-side window, he stuffed a good-luck charm into her hands.

"What’s this?" she asked him.

"Garlic." He slid a glance to me, then winged his eyebrows at Mallory. "Vampires," he whispered through a tightly clenched jaw, as if the movement of his lips was the Rosetta stone that was gonna key me into his secret code.

"I can still hear, Mark," I reminded him.

He blushed and shrugged apologetically. Mallory shook the plastic take-out container of organic prepeeled garlic and held it beneath my nose. I sniffed, waited for a reaction, and when nothing happened, shrugged.

"I’m not sure Whole Foods is what Buffy had in mind, hon, but thanks for the thought." She blew a kiss to Mark, and we watched him return to his station at the window. As I pulled the Volvo out of the driveway, Mallory threw the plastic bin into the backseat. "I’m not sure how long this thing with Mark is going to last."

"Huh," I remarked, trying to remain supportively neutral. "Not going well?"