Biting Bad (Chicagoland Vampires 8)

Grey House vampires weren't wilting lilies - they were mostly big, strapping guys - but they knew when to move. Like military recruits, they hopped off the van, duffel bags in hand, and jogged in line into the building, where Jonah sent them to their respective condos.

I saw non - Grey House vampires only twice. A member of the Red Guard - a cute girl in a Midnight High School T-shirt, the RG uniform - stepped out of the car and waved at me when I positioned myself outside the building.

I also saw a dog walker, a man with the largest Great Dane I'd ever seen. The dog pawed through the snow fearlessly and with obvious joy as his owner, muffled from toes to head, was dragged along behind him.

"This is the last one," Jonah said, a couple of hours and one chai later. "Last van approaching you now."

I put my hand on my sword, feeling a sense of inevitability strike. If drama was going to happen, it was going to happen now.

But the handoff came and went without so much as a stutter. The Novitiates disappeared inside, and the van driver handed me a receipt and took off into the night, no doubt seeking a warm bed. Jonah emerged from the lobby, looking tired but relieved.

I handed him the receipt. "I will not be paying this. But you can pay me for my services, if you'd like."

"I owe you a steak."

"That works." I chuckled and stuffed my hands back into my pockets, when a low moan echoed from the street.

I froze, squinting into the darkness.

Jonah must have picked up on it. "Merit?"

"Did you hear that?"

Jonah paused, silent. "I don't hear anything."

I heard it again, then spied a low, dark figure moving up the sidewalk. I didn't stop to explain, but I took off at a run down the sidewalk, my hand flipping open the thumb guard on my katana.

And then I reached her.

She was a vampire. A woman, blond and pale, wearing lounge clothes that had seen better days. And she was thin, brutally so. She didn't look sick; she just looked like she hadn't eaten in days.

"Good God," I muttered, hitting the ground beside her. "Are you all right?"

She moaned, and it was a pitiful sound.

I looked back at Jonah, who had nearly reached us. "Jonah! Help me."

"What the hell - ," he began, then fell to his his knees as well. "Brooklyn? Brooklyn? Are you all right?"

I looked up at Jonah in surprise. "You know her?"

He looked up at me, completely bewildered and plenty afraid. "She's the girl I had a date with. Was supposed to have a date with, anyway. What the hell happened?"

"I don't know. But she looks like she hasn't had blood in a really long time."

I immediately thought back to the room where Michael Donovan, McKetrick's minion, had locked up the vampires he intended to kill. Michael was dead, but McKetrick was alive and well. Had he done this? Had this woman escaped death by his hands?

"We need to get her inside, and we need a doctor. Do you have someone on staff?"

"We do," he said, and then lifted Brooklyn into his arms as if she weighed nothing at all.

I ran down the sidewalk and opened the door, and he hustled her inside and onto a couch in the lobby, as the few remaining Grey House vamps who lingered there looked on.

Jonah looked at the guard. "Can you call Dr. Gianakous? He just went upstairs?"

The guard nodded and picked up the receiver.

Brooklyn looked even worse in the light than she had outside. Her pale skin stretched thin across bone and muscle; her eyes were shadowed and sunken.

"I saw her a week ago," he said, looking up at me. "That's when we met - had coffee. She was absolutely fine. Utterly healthy. Curvy, even."

"She couldn't lose that much weight that quickly."

Jonah shook his head. "Something else happened. Maybe that's why she didn't call me. She couldn't."

The elevator door dinged, and an attractive man with a head of thick dark hair rushed toward us.

"What happened?" he asked, instantly reaching for Brooklyn's wrist and checking her pulse.

"She walked up and collapsed on the sidewalk outside. We don't know why."

Dr. Gianakous leaned down over Brooklyn's head, presumably to listen to her breathing, then sat up again and checked her eyes with a small flashlight.

"What's her name?" he asked.

"Brooklyn," Jonah said.

"Brooklyn," Dr. Gianakous said, snapping his fingers in front of her. "Brooklyn, do you know where you are?"

"Jonah?" she weakly said.

"I'm here," Jonah said, grabbing her hand. "I'm here."

There was a sweetness and affection in his voice I hadn't expected. Not that I didn't wish Jonah well; I just hadn't gotten the sense when he'd initially told me that this date was anything more than casual.

"Brooklyn, do you know what's happened to you?" the doctor asked.

"Medicine," she said.

"You're taking medicine?" he asked, obviously surprised. Brooklyn was a vampire, with presumably the same quick-healing propensities as the rest of us. She shouldn't have needed medicine.

"Taking it," she confirmed with a weak nod.

The doctor looked at Jonah. "Why does she have medicine?"

Jonah shook his head. "I don't know. I mean, I don't know her that well. We were supposed to have a date earlier this week, but she didn't show up."

"Brooklyn, what medicine did you take? Brooklyn?" The doctor snapped his fingers again, but Brooklyn's gaze was unfocused.

An ambulance, lights and sirens on full, screamed to a stop in front of the building, and two EMTs rolled a gurney inside.

"Will they be able to help her?" Jonah asked.

"I'll go with her," Gianakous said. "I'll make sure she gets what she needs."

"Call me if there's an update?"

"Of course," he said, and began reciting her stats to the EMTs as they placed her on the gurney. Within seconds, she was in the ambulance, and it was roaring away.

Jonah looked completely out of sorts, shell-shocked by the quick turn of events.

I put a hand on his back. "Are you okay?"

"I hardly know what to think. I'm just - this just happened so fast."

"You haven't known her very long?"

He shook his head. "We met for coffee. That's all. Then she stood me up for the date."

And yet she showed up here, looking for Jonah, and at a location to which the Grey House vampires had only just decided to move. That seemed oddly coincidental.

"Jonah, if she was looking for you, how did she know to find you here?"