Authors: Chloe Neill
Drink Deep (22 page)
“Meaning?” Jonah asked.
Claudia smiled grimly. “Meaning we would destroy meadow and field ourselves before allowing for its piecemeal destruction.”
“You can’t destroy the city because you don
’t like the direction it’s taking.”
’t like the direction it’s taking.”
“If we destroy the city, it is only because that destruction is inevitable and we seek a merciful inferno over a moldering decay. Leave now,” she said, rising from the table and walking back to her bed and sitting upon it. “I have tired of you.”
The guards moved toward us, malice in their eyes. I had offended their queen, and it was time to pay up. But Claudia spoke again before we could move.
“Vampires.”
We looked back.
“The city is unbalanced,” she said. “Water and sky reveal that imbalance. If you are to save it, you must do this. Find the illness, and return the balance.” Her eyes turned cold and dark again. “For if you do not, then we must. And I submit you wil {ubm"3">Thel not like our cure.”
I had no doubt she was right.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
DEAR JOHN
W
e made it out the door and down the steps, my head pounding, but the body ache nearly gone. Some nights it did pay to be a quickly healing vampire, fairy angst notwithstanding.
e made it out the door and down the steps, my head pounding, but the body ache nearly gone. Some nights it did pay to be a quickly healing vampire, fairy angst notwithstanding.
The bloodred sky was now dotted with angry storm clouds, and lightning still flashed in great, glowing arcs. Not thrilled about being its target, we decided to debrief in my car.
We walked through chill air and damp grass and back to my Volvo. We moved silently, the air between us charged by what he’d done, and my mixed feelings about it. It was definitely good to be alive, but I had a bad track record with self-sacrifice. Ethan had stepped in front of a stake meant for me because he’d had feelings for me; had Jonah done the same?
I decided to focus on my dangerous actions instead of his heroic ones.
“I am so sorry,” I told him when we climbed inside. “Frank’s rationing blood. But even beyond that, the hunger was overpowering. I’ve never felt anything that strong.” Even my First Hunger, during which I’d launched myself at Ethan, hadn’t been that bad. The guard had come a lot closer to being fang-marked.
“The receiver cut back on your blood supplies? Is he trying to incite riots?”
“Or make us go crazy and attack the first supernaturals in sight.”
“Mission accomplished,” Jonah said.
“If vampires have always reacted that way to fairy blood, it explains why fairies don’t like us any more than humans.”
“It does,” he agreed. “And it explains why they keep their distance and why we have to pay them so much to guard the House. That kind of power is dangerous. Unfortunately, it doesn’t really help us with the bigger issue.”
“Figuring out what the hell’s going on?”
“That’s the one. Claudia mentioned a couple of times that she didn’t think this was about the sky or water per se, but that they were symptoms of a larger problem.”
I nodded. “And I think she had something there. She accused the guards of not telling her about elemental magic. What if she meant it literally?”
“What do you mean?”
“So far, we’ve seen water and sky affected. Water and
air
,” I repeated, and watched understanding dawn in his expression.
air
,” I repeated, and watched understanding dawn in his expression.
“Water. Air. Earth. Fire,” he said. “The four elements.”
“Exactly. We’ve seen two so far. If she was right about these things being symptoms—”
“Then someone is working magic with elemental effects,” Jonah finished.
I wasn’t entirely sure what that meant or who might be doing it, but my gut told me we were on the right track. And after the week we’d had, I’d take any victory I could get.
“She also blamed ancient magic,” Jonah said. “Old magic. Any theories on who that might be?”
“Actually, yeah. What do you know about Tate?”
“Seth Tate?” He shrugged. “I know it’s believed he has magic—that you’ve felt it before—but that no one knows what magic it is. Why?”
“Because when I visited him, I had a sense of something old. A different kind of magic. Closer to what I felt from Claudia than what I’ve seen of vampires.”
“Okay, but this is the third time we’ve approached a supernatural group thinking they might have initiated the problem. We’ve been wrong all three times.”
“I know. Our batting average sucks. But like she said, we’ve been looking at the symptoms, not the cause. Besides, we have to try something. If we can’t tie this to a supernatural working magic, then what else would there be?”
“Radiation? A new kind of weapon? Global warming? Or if no sups are doing this on purpose, is it accidental magic of some kind?”
I thought about Lorelei’s prediction that too many shifters in town were doing just that—accidentally throwing off the world’s balance. On the other hand, she’d blamed shifters when the water had been the only problem. This time we had water
and
air.
and
air.
“If Claudia’s right,” he said, “and this is about some deeper imbalance in the city, maybe the key isn’t the
who
. It’s the
what
. What kind of magic would be powerful enough to screw up both water and air? Sorcerers?”
who
. It’s the
what
. What kind of magic would be powerful enough to screw up both water and air? Sorcerers?”
“I can vouch for Catcher and Mallory. He’s exhausted from working on this problem, and she’s wrapped up in her exams. Besides, even asking them about it would make them both go ballistic.” And I did not need any more ballistic right now.
“I was actually thinking about the only Order-sanctioned sorcerer in town.”
“You’re talking about Simon?” I asked. “To tell you the truth, when I asked him about the water, he seemed to be in denial about the whole thing. A little shady, yeah, but largely in denial. This could be a cover for some kind of secret magic he’s working, but I didn’t have the sense of it. And if you’re the only sanctioned sorcerer in town, you’re already the big man on campus. Why risk that? What’s the benefit? The prize?”
“Be that as it may, we don’t have much else to go on. It might pay at least to sit him down and talk to him about it. See what information he, or the Order, can provide.”
“Good point. I’ll see if Catcher can set it up.”
A bolt of lightning crashed nearby, shaking the car. We both looked out the windows and up at the sky, clouds whirling across it.
“If this is a symptom,” I said, “a side effect, maybe we can find its heart?”
He looked over at me. “What do you mean?”
“The effect on the river stopped at the city limits, right? So it’s unlikely the sky is red
everywhere
. And if there are boundaries, maybe there’s also a center. An origin point.”
everywhere
. And if there are boundaries, maybe there’s also a center. An origin point.”
“Like a giant sucking tornado in the middle of the Loop?”
“Hopefully not that, but that’s the idea, yeah. If we can’t find the people responsible for this, maybe we can find their location. We can drive through different neighborhoods to see if there’s a focus, and we’ll cover more territory if we split up. If we find something, we can rally at that place?”
“That sounds like a decent plan,” Jonah said, but he made no move to get out of thegetally car. Was he waiting on me to say something about what had happened in the tower? To offer thanks . . . or maybe vitriol?
I silently swore, and reminded myself that the point was what he’d done—not why he’d done it. “And thanks, by the way, for defending me.”
“You’re welcome,” he said. “It’s part and parcel of being someone’s partner.”
“We aren’t partners yet,” I reminded him, thinking of the Red Guard.
“Aren’t we?” He gazed back at me, and it was clear he wasn’t thinking of the RG, but had something much more fundamental in mind. His eyes changed, and then his hand was behind my head and he was leaning toward me, pulling me toward him, and before I could stop him his lips were on mine, his mouth insistent.
Jonah kissed me with the intimacy of a lover and the confidence of a challenger to the throne, daring me to think outside the box I’d walled around me.
And for a moment, I let him.
It felt so good to be wanted, to be needed, to be desired by someone again. It hadn’t been that long since Ethan had been gone, but Ethan and I hadn’t been together long, if at all.
And the kiss was just . . . toe curling. Jonah wasn’t a novice, and he used every part of his body to his advantage, his fingers at my jaw, his tongue teasing mine, his body moving closer and closer, a suggestion of things he could offer: warmth; the solace of touch; another kind of intimacy.
But a shock of guilt turned my stomach. I wasn’t ready.
I pulled back and turned away, covering my mouth with a hand. It had been only a kiss, not initiated by me, and certainly no violation of any promise I’d made. But my lips were swollen, and my skin was flushed, and there was a ball of heat in the pit of my stomach. However unexpected it may have been, and however long Ethan may have been gone, my reaction felt like a betrayal to his memory.
“You’re not ready,” he quietly said.
“I’m not. I’m sorry—but I’m not.”
His next words surprised me nearly as much as the kiss had. “No, I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have pushed. It’s just—I didn’t expect this. I didn’t expect to find a connection.”
I looked back at him again, my heart racing at the desire in his eyes and the sudden sense of panic that tightened my chest. “I am flattered, really, but—”
He held up a hand and smiled gently. “You don’t have to apologize. I took a chance, and the timing isn’t right. No harm, no foul.” He cleared his throat, then nodded confidently. “Let’s just forget the temporary humiliation and get back to work.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure,” he said with a nod, and pulled out his phone, a shiny gold wafer, to check in with Scott Grey. I did the same and sent a message to Kelley, advising her that we hadn’t discovered anything helpful, and that Claudia apparently hadn’t even known about the sky.
Her response chilled me: “PROTESTORS DOUBLED B/C OF SKY. ALL VAMPS ON GUARD. EXTRA FAIRIES AT GATE. NATIONAL GUARD CALLED. HUMANS BELIEVE APOCALYPSE IMMINENT,” was the immediate follow-up.
I muttered a curse.
“What?” Jonah quietly asked, but I held up a hand while I typed out a response to Kelley.nseont si
“RETURN HOME?” I asked her, “OR KEEP LOOKING?”
“CRISIS BEING MANAGED,” she responded. “KEEP LOOKING.”
I could definitely keep looking. It was the “finding” that was proving difficult. The message sent, I tucked the phone away again and updated Jonah.
“Humans think the end is nigh,” I told him. “The protestors at Cadogan House have doubled again.”
Alarm flashed in his eyes. “Do we need to get back?”
“Kelley says she’s on it and wants us to keep looking. Do you think you could have Scott make a call, maybe send some guards over?”
He answered without hesitation, sending an immediate message on his phone.
“Done,” he said after a moment, pushing the phone away again. “Scott is advised. Grey House is quiet, and he’ll contact Kelley and offer up some friends.”
Cadogan House didn’t have any alliances with other Houses in Chicago; maybe we could make an ally of Grey House, even if the circumstances weren’t ideal.
“I’ll go back to the Loop. I’ll search there for something that looks like a focus, and I’ll stick close to the water in case there’s some link we don’t know about between the water and sky. Why don’t you drive around this part of town? Hit the rest of the Gold Coast and Jackson Park. Call me if you find anything.”
He nodded. “Sure,” he said, then climbed out of my car and into his. I felt awkward leaving him after the kiss, but what else could I do?
There was only so much a girl could accomplish in a night.
Once I was on my way to the Loop, I turned the heat to maximum. Even though I’d felt a little claustrophobic in the tower, there was something weirdly soothing about cranking the heat on a cold night. There had been cold nights during grad school—nights when Mallory had been late at work or on a date with some law firm or financial services cutie—when I’d taken a study break by climbing into my car and driving across the city. I knew which roads had less traffic and relatively few lights, and I’d use the drive to zone out, to forget myself, to forget everything except the road in front of me.
Occasionally, I’d bring along an audiobook, the twelfth or thirteenth installment in some long-running mystery or action series I couldn’t seem to stop buying, even as the books became formulaic copies of the ones that came before. I’d crank up the sound just as I had the heat, and I’d drive across Chicago—sometimes into Indiana, sometimes into Wisconsin, sometimes into the Illinois countryside—to have a little time away.
This, of course, wasn’t one of those times. I didn’t have time for a joyride, and the trip wasn’t relaxing. The city was still filled with groups of people huddled on sidewalks or porches, staring tentatively up at the sky, taking pictures with cell phones and cameras.
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