Some Girls Bite (Chicagoland Vampires 1)

Mallory chuckled, the traitor, but then got exactly what was coming to her. Although Malik and Luc nodded in greeting, Luc then frowned down at her from his towering six feet and change.

"You have magic."

Mallory blinked. "What's that now?"

Ethan ran a finger delicately over her hair as she flinched beneath it. "Ah," he said, nodding. "I'd wondered."

"Wondered what?" she asked.

"Who brought in the magic," Malik said so casually you'd have thought he was discussing the weather.

Mallory put hands on her hips. "What the hell are you people, and I use that term loosely, talking about?"

Luc inclined his head toward Mallory, but looked at Ethan. "Is it possible she doesn't know?"

"Doesn't know what?" I asked, irritation rising. "What the hell is going on?"

As if I hadn't spoken, Malik shrugged at Luc. "If she's not union yet, it's possible the Order hasn't yet picked up on her post-adolescence. This is Chicago, after all."

"True," Ethan said. "We should call the Ombud, tell him there's a new witch in town."

"New witch?" Mallory asked, paling. "Time out. Who's a witch, hoss?"

Ethan glanced at her, brow arched, and his tone couldn't have been more bland. "You, of course."

While Mallory came to terms with that little revelation, Ethan and his staff filled me in on the current state of vampire relations in Chicago. While most vampires in the world - all the registered vampires - were affiliated with Houses, a minority were categorized as Rogues, vampires who had no ties to a House and no loyalty to a particular Master. There were a number of ways this could happen - being bitten by a vampire who wasn't a Master and thus wasn't strong enough to command the newly changed; by defecting from a House; or by being bitten by an unaffiliated vampire who required no oaths of loyalty or fealty.

Because of the implicit danger they posed to the House structure, they were treated as outcasts. And because they were rarely strong enough individually to take on House vampires, they were usually ignored by the Houses unless they'd chosen, somewhat ironically, to band together into anarchistic units.

Chicago's vamps believed Jennifer Porter's death was the work of a Rogue, maybe one unsatisfied with living in the shadow of Chicago's Houses. This possibility posed two problems.

First, humans didn't know Rogue vampires existed. They knew about the Houses, and seemed to take some comfort in the fact that vampires were organized into political bodies, were supervised by their Masters, and lived by a code - the Canon. That was a kind of existence that humans could relate to. And that was why vamps were tight- lipped about Rogues, about the fact that vampires with no House ties, no supervision, and no laws were living in their midst.

Second, as the vamps in the press conference had pointed out, a Cadogan medal, identical to the one Ethan (and, I belatedly realized with a glance around the room, the rest of the Cadogan vamps) wore snug around his neck, had been found at the site of Porter's death. Ethan was confident no one from his House was involved, and he'd agreed to cooperate fully in the Chicago Police Department's investigation. The CPD had interviewed him, and he'd agreed to interview each and every vampire in residence at Cadogan House to assure himself and the CPD detectives that his House, and his vampires, were innocent. He suspected, as did the representatives of Navarre House with whom he'd spoken (including Celina Desaulniers, its Master), that a Rogue was to blame for Porter's death. But that didn't explain why she'd been killed, especially since the Greenwich Presidium, the organization that regulated vampires in North America and Western Europe, would mete out its own punishment to the offender. Before the death of Jennifer Porter, the possibility of death-by-aspen-stake had been strong enough to protect humans. Now - who knew?

Whoever the perpetrator, the threesome believed my attack was the second attempt by the killer, and the note evidence of his bitterness at having failed to kill me.

"My name was in the paper today," I reminded them, "so the person who threw the brick wasn't necessarily the one who bit me."

"But it was only your last name," Malik said. "It's doubtful he'd have been able to figure out who you were simply because of that."

Ethan shook his head. "She's a Merit. For better or worse, as often as the family appears in the papers, he'd have been able to figure out which Merit was involved. Robert and Charlotte are older and have children. They're not the typical candidates for change."

Disturbing, I thought, that he knew so much about my family. "But if he meant to kill me," I asked, "why the note? The language suggested a choice, like I picked Ethan over the vampire who attacked, picked Cadogan over whatever group he was affiliated with. If he was going to kill me, why would it matter?"

Luc frowned. "So maybe this isn't related to the Porter girl's death?"

"Maybe it is, and maybe it isn't," Ethan unhelpfully pronounced. "Without more information, we can't discount either possibility. What we do know is that we were the second vampires at the scene of the attack. The language of the threat suggests that whatever plans had been made for Merit - death or otherwise - they'd been unable to follow through. They blame that on her and, to a more general extent, us. Given the tone of the note, maybe the House system more generally."

"So we're definitely thinking Rogues, then," Malik summed up, "or a House with some unspoken animosity toward us. Grey?"

Luc snorted. "Opening day was last week. Scott's attention is on completely different things right now, namely the Cubs' chance at a pennant. It's unlikely he'd be involved in this even if they cared about House politics, which they don't. What about Navarre?"

Ethan and Malik shared an undecipherable glance. "Doubtful," Ethan said. "As old and prestigious as Navarre is - "

"Or so they think," Malik interjected.

With an amused expression, Ethan finished, "Navarre would have little to gain from warring with us. Celina's strong, the GP loves her, and she's positioned herself as poster child for Chicago vampires. There's simply no reason for her to worry about Cadogan."

"Which means we've got investigating to do," Luc concluded.

Ethan nodded at me. "Luc will station sentries at your house. We'll continue looking into the threat, and perhaps as we gain information about the Porter death, we'll learn more about this. If you see anything suspicious, or if you're attacked again, call me immediately. He pulled a card from his trouser pocket and handed it to me. It read, in tidy block letters: