Hard Bitten (Chicagoland Vampires 4)

"A little interior decorating to start the night?"

"Trying to make my office feel like my office again."

"Procrastination can be very satisfying." He laughed ruefully. "As you pointed out, it may be a very human emotion, but there's undoubtedly something satisfying about pretending the world is fine and your problems will keep until you're ready to deal with them."

"It's a lovely coping mechanism," I agreed.

"I'm glad you've made it to our side. Where's Darius tonight?"

"Scott won the lottery this evening; Darius is at Grey House." He turned and glanced at me.

"Tell me you learned something last night. Tell me this mess will have some good end."

"How much should I tell you? I mean, I don't want to put you into an awkward position with Darius."

Ethan made a sarcastic sound. "You clearly haven't seen last night's local news."

I hadn't, and by the tone of his voice, I probably wouldn't want to. "That bad?"

"It's so bad, Darius hasn't called me yet."

I grimaced. The only thing worse than being yelled at by a boss was having screwed up so royally, he'd moved right into silent treatment.

I decided not to sugarcoat it. There were details I didn't need to give - information about the vamps who'd actually bought and used the drugs, for one - but I wasn't going to give him a false sense of the problem.

"It all comes down to V," I began. "It's a drug for vampires, not humans. It's somehow making them more aggressive. The House bars, at least for Grey and Cadogan, have been used as distribution points. I'm not sure about Navarre."

I gave him a moment to process that information; by the look of him, he needed it. He put an elbow on the shelf, then rubbed his temples with a hand.

"I have put up with a lot in this House," he said. "Unfortunately, vampires aren't any more immune to stupidity than humans." He dropped his hand and looked away, the corners of his eyes wrinkled with disappointment. "I would have hoped that they respected the House - and me - more than this."

"I'm sorry, Ethan."

He shook his head, and shook it off. "Tell me about the bar."

"Colin hadn't seen anything out of the ordinary. I asked Jeff to pull the security footage so we can figure out how it's getting in. It's definitely getting in, although I had everyone hand over their stash so they couldn't bring it back into the House."

"And so it wouldn't be found on them if the cops patted them down."

"Exactly," I agreed. "But my grandfather had already found it in the bar, so he'd already put two and two together. I gave him the rest of the drugs, and that's when they brought in Detective Jacobs."

"Your theory?"

"Still working it out. In terms of the overall picture, we've now had two instances of extraviolent vamps and drugs in the same place at the same time. As for the why of it . . ." I shrugged.

"Who's pushing the drugs? Someone who wants us in trouble? Someone who wants vamps bringing down the Houses on their own?

Someone who wants to take us down one pill at a time?"

"That doesn't sound like Celina," he pointed out.

"Not unless she's decided all vamps have to suffer for her crimes," I agreed. "Morgan didn't think that was likely, but I wouldn't put it past her."

"Until you have more evidence, I'm not conceding that point. What about McKetrick?

He's focused on forcing us out of Chicago.

Perhaps he's pushing V to rile up vampires and pressure Tate into deporting us?"

"McKetrick was outside the bar last night," I said. "I saw him, then pointed him out to Catcher. He was going to tail McKetrick and get what info he could." I made a mental note to follow up with him later. "That said, McKetrick may hate us, but making vamps extra-aggressive risks a lot of collateral damage. I don't see it being part of his master plan."

"Whoever is behind it, we need to find them and stop the distribution before things get any worse."

"Coincidence - those are the first two things on my to-do list."

"I have item three for you. Dinner at Grey House this evening with Darius and the Masters.

Darius also invited Gabriel and Tonya. One o'clock. We'll leave from here. And it's formal, of course."

Since Darius seemed like a rules stickler, the formal bit didn't surprise me. But I was curious about his invitation to Gabriel and Tonya, Gabriel's wife. Vampires and shifters had a historically nasty relationship - a lot of distrust and angst by vampires, a lot of eye rolling and denial by shifters.

"Why invite Gabriel and Tonya?" I asked.

"If I was being generous, I'd say Darius was interested in improving inter-sup relations. But he's more likely attempting to micromanage our relationship with the Packs. It would be bad for the Chicago Houses to completely alienate the Packs. But in Darius's mind, it would be altogether worse to become too cozy with them.

There've never been official allegiances with a Pack before. If we pulled it off, it would indicate a definite shift in power in our direction."

At his mention of the potential Pack allegiance, I looked away. Ethan's fear that our relationship - or our future breakup - would endanger our burgeoning friendship with the North American Central was the reason he'd given for the breakup he now regretted.

"Come on," Ethan suddenly said, walking toward the door.

I glanced up again, moved from my reverie.

"Where are we going?"

"Ops Room. I was supposed to have you downstairs fifteen minutes ago."

I followed him obediently to the basement stairs and toward the Ops Room. The door was open; Luc, Juliet, Kelley, Malik, and Lindsey were already assembled around the conference table. Luc, in a faded denim shirt and jeans, was an interesting contrast to the rest of the guards, who were all dressed in black.

Ethan closed the door. I took an empty seat at the table, and he took the chair beside me.

I glanced between Luc and Lindsey, who sat on opposite ends of the table, trying to read the tea leaves regarding her message earlier. But she wore her usual expression of mildly amused boredom; Luc was scanning the paper on the Ops Room table, a steaming mug in his hand. If they were at odds, I couldn't tell, and there wasn't any obviously negative magic in the air.

"Finally, they join us," Luc said, sipping his drink. Normally, that kind of comment would have been a tease coming from him. This time, it sounded like a rebuke, and Luc didn't normally err toward grouchiness. Maybe he and Lindsey had gotten into something.