Drink Deep (Chicagoland Vampires 5)

"You know what?" the mayor asked, leaning over the podium. "I don't care. You did not elect me to this office so I could spend my time in office kowtowing to special interest groups. And rest assured, my fel ow Chicagoans, that these vampires are a special interest group. They want to be treated differently. They want the rules that apply to us to not apply to them."

"Was that even English?" I quietly wondered. Her linguistic skil s notwithstanding, she kept going.

"There's more to this city than a handful of fanged rabble-rousers - good, old-fashioned, hardworking folks who know that everything isn't about vampires. This is one of those things. The lake is ours. The river is ours. They are about tourism, about fishing. I won't al ow this city to be co-opted.

And I wil tel you one thing - the registration law is the best thing that wil ever happen to this city."

"Blah blah blah," Lindsey muttered. "Blame the vampires instead of actual y working to fix the problem."

Keley paused the video. "Mayor Kowalczyk has a different constituency," she said. "And a very different outlook on things."

Lindsey humphed. "A na?ve outlook."

"Be that as it may," I said, "it's the outlook she's providing the city. And they'l believe her, which is why we need to get in front of this." But as I stared daggers at the image of our new political foe, I saw something even more disturbing.

"Keley, increase the image."

There was confusion in her expression, but she did it.

And there behind Diane Kowalczyk, in al his black-fatigued glory, stood McKetrick.

"That's McKetrick," I said, pointing him out.

"Are you sure?" Keley asked, tilting her head at the picture.

"Positive. It's hard to forget a man who's stuffed a gun in your face. Wel , who's ordered his goon to stuff a gun in your face, anyway."

"Shit," Keley uncharacteristical y said. "So our paramilitary foe has made friends with a politician."

"That might explain where some of her worst ideas come from," I suggested, my stomach curdling at the thought, McKetrick and his hatred would have political legitimacy in Chicago.

"Add that to his info sheet," Keley told Lindsey.

"Kowalczyk's a political al y, and he's got enough sway to stand on a podium beside her."

"This night keeps getting better," I said, then glanced at Keley. "And speaking of horrible ideas, I'm going to see Tate, and we're going to have a little chat about the GP and what went down in Creeley Creek."

"There's a possibility that's part of his plan - that he's lying to the GP to get you out there."

That echoed Jeff's concern, and I'd decided they were both right. "I'm counting on it," I said. "But I figure the faster I make an appearance, the faster we figure out what he's up to."

"Not that he'd give up his plan wil ingly," Lindsey said.

"There is that," I al owed. "After that, and assuming he doesn't use his power to turn me into a mindless zombie, I'm going to see the siren."

Keley nodded. "Godspeed, Sentinel."

I wasn't sure if God, however he or she might exist, had any eyes on the drama in Chicago. But just in case, I said a little prayer. Couldn't hurt.

I found a voice mail awaiting me when I headed up the stairs and to my car.

It was Jeff, with instructions. I'd been directed to meet Catcher and my grandfather at a CPD facility near the lake, in an industrial part of town ful of rusty towers and crumbling brick factories. It wasn't exactly a cozy setting for a chat with Tate, but it undoubtedly posed less of a public threat than if he'd been incarcerated downtown. I'd warned the CPD officers who'd picked him up to be careful as they'd taken him in for questioning. I hadn't heard any stories about cops or guards being tricked into doing his bidding; maybe that was why.

Tate was definitely not human; he'd al but confessed as much. Although he'd partial y drugged Celina Desaulniers into submission, he'd also used some power of his own to accomplish that task. But what powers? And how much of it did he wield?

Frankly, we had no idea. That wasn't exactly comforting, but what could we do?

As I stepped into the cool fal night, I was assaulted by the sounds of protestors. There were tons of them outside, shouldering signs promising my eternal damnation and shouting out epithets. What was it about humans that made such behaviors acceptable?

But I wasn't human anymore, so vampire etiquette won out. Even as they screamed at me, I managed not to offer them an obscene gesture on the way to the car. The self-satisfaction didn't quite lessen the sting.

I drove southeast, the address Jeff had given me leading me to a gravel road that dead-ended in a ten-foot-high chain-link fence.

Warily, I got out of the car and walked toward the fence.

A warning blast suddenly fil ed the air, and a portion of the fence began to slide open.

Pushing down fear, and wishing Ethan had been at my side, I walked inside.

The fence surrounded a series of brick buildings - six in varying sizes laid out in no apparent pattern. I guessed they comprised an old manufacturing plant. Whatever their purpose, they'd clearly stood empty for some time.

I'd previously visited the Loop office of the Chicago Police Department. The perps who were booked there might have been down on their luck, but the facility was pretty nice. It was new, clean, and efficient in the way a police department had to be.

This place, on the other hand, had an air of hopelessness about it. It reminded me of a photo I'd seen of an abandoned building in Russia, a structure designed and built for a different kind of regime, left to rot alone when the philosophy was abandoned.

I couldn't imagine Tate - used to al things luxurious and gourmet - was thril ed about being here.

I turned at the scritch of rocks on my left. Catcher and my grandfather rol ed up in a golf cart. Catcher, as fit his aggressive personality, was driving, although he looked like he hadn't gotten any sleep since last night. My grandfather was holding on, white-knuckled, to the bar above his head. I guess he wasn't impressed by Catcher's driving.

"This is where you're holding Tate?" I asked, climbing on to the backward-facing backseat. Catcher pul ed away almost immediately, turning in a circle tight enough that I nearly fel off. Lesson learned, I grabbed the bar, as wel .

"Until we know more about what or who he is," my grandfather said above the sound of whirring toy-car motor and gravel, "we take al precautions."

I surveyed the landscape as we passed, from bits of trash and debris to piles of fal en bricks and rusting carcasses of metal that might once have been factory equipment. "You couldn't find a place more out of the way than this?"