My grandfather, the man who cared for me for much of my childhood, announced to the family four years ago, following the death of my grandmother, that he was taking partial retirement. He told my sneering father that he was off the streets and would instead man a desk in the CPD’s Detective Division, helping the active detectives with unsolved homicides.
But as we drove south in his gigantic Oldsmobile—think red velveteen upholstery—he confessed that he hadn’t exactly told us the truth about his role with the CPD. He was still working for the city of Chicago, but in a wholly different capacity.
As it turned out, when vampires came out of the closet those eight months ago, my grandfather wasn’t the least bit surprised.
“Chicago has had vamps for over a century,” he said, hands at ten and two as he drove through the city’s dark streets. “Navarre’s been here since before the fire. Of course, the administration hasn’t been in the know that long, only a few decades. But still, the Daleys knew about you. Tate knows about you. There aren’t many in the upper echelon who don’t.” Eyes on the road, he leaned slightly sideways. “By the way, Mrs. O’Leary’s cow had nothing to do with it.”
“All that time and no one thought to tell the city that vampires were living among them? All that time, and no leaks? In Chicago? That’s kind of impressive, actually.”
My grandfather chuckled. “If you think that’s impressive, you’ll love this. Vamps aren’t even the tip of the supernatural iceberg. Shape-shifters. Demons. Nymphs. Fairies. Trolls. The Windy City has pretty much every entry in the sup phone book. And that’s where I come in.”
I glanced over at him, brows raised. “What do you mean, that’s where you come in?”
My grandfather started to speak, but stopped himself. “Let me start at the beginning?”
I nodded.
“All these supernatural contingents—they have disputes, too. Sniping between the Houses, fairy defections, boundary disputes among the River nymphs.”
“Like, the Chicago River?”
My grandfather turned the car onto a quiet residential street. “How do you think they get the river green for St. Pat’s?”
“I’d assumed dye.”
He huffed out a sardonic sound. “If it were only that easy. Long story short, the nymphs control the branches and channels. You have River work to do, you call them first.” He held up a hand. “So you see, this isn’t just domestic disputes and petty theft. These are serious issues—issues the majority of the boys in blue don’t have the training, the experience, to deal with. Well, Mayor Tate wanted a way to funnel these issues down to a central location, a single office. Folks who could handle the disputes, take care of things before they could affect the rest of the city. So four years ago, he created the Ombudsman’s office.”
I nodded, remembering Ethan’s reference. “Ethan mentioned that, said something about having Mallory talk to the Ombud. They think she has magic. That she’s a witch or something.”
Grandpa made a sound of interest. “You don’t say. Catcher will be interested to hear that.”
“Catcher?” I asked. “Is he the Ombudsman?”
My grandfather chuckled. “No, baby girl. I am.”
I froze, turned my head to stare at him. “What?”
“The Mayor likes to call me a ‘liaison’ between the regulars and the sups. Personally, I think ‘liaison’ is a bullshit bureaucrat word. But the Mayor asked me to serve, and I said yes. I’ll admit it—I never came across any vamps or shifters when I walked the beat, and I was curious as all get out to meet these folks. I love this city, Merit, and don’t mind making sure everybody gets a fair shake.”
I shook my head. “I don’t doubt that, but I don’t know what to say about the rest of it. You were retired, Grandpa. You told us—you told me—that you were retired.”
“I tried retirement,” he said. “I even tried a stint in the evidence locker, a desk job. But I was a cop for thirty years. I couldn’t do it. Wasn’t ready to give it up. Cops have lots of skills, Merit. We mediate. We problem solve. Investigate.” He shrugged. “I just do it for some slightly more complicated folks now. I started at a desk in City Hall, and now I have my own staff.”
He explained that he’d hired four people. The first was Marjorie, his secretary, a fifty-year-old woman who’d become battle-hardened by twenty-five years of staffing phones in one of the city’s more crime-ridden police bureaus. The second was Jeff Christopher, a twenty-one-year-old computer prodigy and, as it happened, a shape-shifter of as-of-yet-unidentified shape. The third was Catcher Bell. Catcher was twenty-nine and, my grandfather said, gruff. Warned my grandfather: “He’s pretty, but he’s wily. Give him a wide berth.”
“That’s only three,” I pointed out when my grandfather paused.
Silence, then, “There’s a vampire. Housed, but his colleagues don’t know he works for me. He avoids the office unless absolutely necessary. They do the groundwork,” my grandfather continued, “so all I have to do is step in and play good guy.” I doubted he was as uninvolved as all that, but—especially in contrast with my father—the humility was refreshing. “You won’t believe this,” he said on a gravelly chuckle, “but I’m not as spry as I used to be.”
“No!” I exclaimed, feigning shock, and he laughed in response. “I can’t believe you’ve been keeping this from us. I can’t believe you’ve been playing with magic for four years and didn’t tell me.
Me!
The girl who wrote about King Arthur for a living.”
He patted my hand. “It wasn’t you that I was trying to keep the information from.”
I nodded in understanding. My father’s discovery of my grandfather’s secret would have led to one of two results: arranging to have my grandfather fired, or trying to manipulate my grandfather to get closer to the Mayor. Ever scheming was my father.
“Still,” I said, watching through the window as the city passed by, “you could’ve told me.”
“If it makes you feel any better, I’m now
your
Ombudsman. And I’m taking you to our secret headquarters.”
I looked over at him, watched him try unsuccessfully to hide a smile. “Secret, huh?”
He nodded, very officially.
“Well, then,” I said. “That makes all the difference.”
The office of the Ombudsman was a low, unassuming brick building that stood at the end of a quiet block in a middle-class neighborhood on the city’s South Side. The houses were modest but well tended, the yards surrounded with chain link fence. My grandfather parked the Olds along the curb, and I followed him up a narrow sidewalk. He tapped buttons on an alarm keypad on the wall next to the door, then unlocked the front door with a key. The interior of the building was equally unassuming, and looked like it hadn’t gotten a style upgrade since the late 1960s. There was a lot of orange. A
lot
of orange.
“They work late,” I noted, the interior well lit, even given the hours.
“Creatures of the night serving creatures of the night.”
“You should put that on your business cards,” I suggested.
We walked past a reception area and down a central hallway, then into a room on the right. The room housed four metal desks that were placed at intervals, two back-to-back set out from each facing wall. The front and back walls were covered by rows of gunmetal gray filing cabinets. Posters lined the white walls, most of gorgeous, scantily clad women with flowing hair. The prints looked like they were part of a series: Each featured a different woman wearing a tiny scrap of strategically placed fabric, but the “dresses” were cut in different colors, as were the pennants they held in their hands. One woman was blond, her dress blue, and she held a pennant that read “Goose Island.” A second had long, raven-dark hair and was dressed in red. Her pennant read “North Branch.” These, I surmised, were some of the Chicago River nymphs.
“Jeff. Catcher.”
At my grandfather’s voice, the men who sat at two of the desks looked up from their work. Jeff looked every bit the twenty-one-year-old computer prodigy. He was fresh-faced and cute, a tall, lanky guy with a mop of floppy brown hair. He wore trousers and a white dress shirt, unbuttoned at the top, the sleeves rolled halfway up his lean arms, long fingers poised over an expansive set of keyboards.
Catcher had a solidly ex-military look about him—a muscular body beneath a snug olive T-shirt that read “Public Enemy Number One” and jeans. His head was shaved, his eyes pale green, his lips full and sensuous. Had it not been for the annoyed look on his face, I’d have said he was incredibly sexy. As it was, he just looked disgruntled. Wide berth, indeed.
Jeff grinned happily at my grandfather. “Hey, Chuck. Who’s this?”
My grandfather put a hand at my back and led me farther into the room. “This is my granddaughter, Merit.”
Jeff’s blue eyes twinkled. “Merit Merit?”
“Just Merit,” I said, and stuck out a hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Jeff.”
Rather than reaching out to take my outstretched hand, he stared at it, then looked up at me. “You want to shake? With me?”
Confused, I glanced back at my grandfather, but before he could answer, Catcher, his gaze on a thick ancient-looking book in front of him, offered, “It’s because you’re a vamp. Vamps and shifters aren’t exactly friendly.”
That was news to me. But then, up until twenty minutes ago, so were the existence of shifters and the rest of Chicago’s supernatural citizens. “Why not?”
Catcher used two fingers to turn a thick yellowed page. “Aren’t you the one who’s supposed to know that?”
“I’ve been a vamp for three days. I’m not really up on the political nuances. I haven’t even had blood yet.”
Jeff’s eyes widened. “You haven’t had blood yet? Aren’t you supposed to have some kind of crazy thirst after rising? Shouldn’t you be, you know, seeking out willing victims for your wicked bloodlust?” His gaze made a quick detour to the stretch of T-shirt across my chest; then he grinned up at me through a lock of brown hair. “I’m O neg and completely healthy, if that matters.”
I tried not to grin, but his enthusiasm over my notably un-buxom chest was endearing. “It doesn’t, but thanks for the offer. I’ll keep you in mind when the wicked bloodlust hits.” I looked around for a chair, found an avocado green monstrosity behind one of the two empty metal desks, and sank into it. “Tell me more about this vamp-shifter animosity.”
Jeff shrugged negligently and went back to tinkering with a vaguely octopus-shaped stuffed animal on his desk. A buzz sounded, and my grandfather pulled a cell phone from a hip holster, took a look at the caller ID screen, then glanced up at me. “I need to take this. Catcher and Jeff will get you started.” He looked at Catcher. “She’s trustworthy, and she’s mine. She can know everything that’s not marked Level One.”
At my smile and nod, he turned and disappeared through the door.
I had no idea what Level One was, but I was pretty sure that was the stuff I’d really want to know. Or it was the stuff that would scare the crap out of me, so it was probably better not to press the point today.
“Now you can get the real scoop,” Jeff said with a grin.
Catcher snorted and closed his book, then slid back in his chair and linked his hands behind his head. “You met any vamps yet? Beyond Sullivan, I mean?”
I stared at him. “How did you—”
“Your name was in the paper. You’re Cadogan’s vamp, which mean’s you’re Sullivan’s vamp.”
My skin prickled. “I am not Sullivan’s—”
But Catcher waved a hand. “Babe, not the point. The point is, and I’m guessing from that bristly tone you’ve met Sullivan and you understand at least the basics of vamp politics, that your people, and I use that term loosely, are a little particular.”
I gave him a sly smile. “I’ve gotten that sense, yeah.”
“Well, shifters aren’t. Shifters are happy. They’re people; then they’re animals; then they’re people again. What’s not to be happy about? They live with their friends. They drink. They ride their Harleys. They party in Alaska. They have hot shifter sex.”
At that revelation, Jeff winged up his eyebrows at me, an invitation in his eyes. I bit down on a grin and shook my head sternly in response. Apparently unruffled, he shrugged and turned back to his computer. Happily.
“Vampires, on the other hand,” Catcher continued, “play chess with the world. Should we let people know about us, or shouldn’t we? Are we friends with this House or that one? Do we bite people, or don’t we bite people? Eek!” He bit down on a crooked finger dramatically.
“Wait,” I said, holding up a hand, remembering something Ethan had said about Cadogan vamps. “Stop there. What’s the story with the biting?”
Catcher scratched absently at his head. “Well, Merit, a long, long time ago—”
“On a continent far, far away,” Jeff threw in.
Catcher chuckled, the sound low and sensual. “Way back when, Europe got pissy about its vamps. Figured out that aspen stakes and sunlight were the best treatment for an overabundance of vamps and took out most of the fanged population of Europe. Long story short, vamps eventually formed the precursor to the Greenwich Presidium, which made the survivors take an oath never to bite another unwilling human.” He smirked. “Instead, in true, manipulative vamp form, they found people who could be blackmailed, bribed, glamoured, whatever into giving it up for free.”
“Why buy the cow?” I asked.
He nodded with approval. “Precisely. When the technology was developed to preserve blood, to bag it, most vamps turned away from humans. Immortality makes for long memories, and some Houses thought they’d be safer if they cut contact with humans almost completely, relied on bagged blood, or shared blood with each other.” At my raised eyebrows, he added, “It happens. The vamp biology needs new blood, a new influx, so it’s not a reliable source of nutrition. But it happens—sometimes ritually, sometimes to pass along strength.”
Jeff’s throat clearing filled the brief pause in Catcher’s explanation. “And there’s the other thing,” he prompted, a flush coloring his cheekbones.