Hard Bitten (Chicagoland Vampires 4)

It's a nasty fall."

Jonah walked toward the elevator, then pushed the button. When the car arrived, we slipped inside.

"Are you ready for this?" he asked when the door closed.

"I'm not entirely sure."

"You can do it. Just remember, if this is a rave, our goal isn't to close them down tonight. We step in, and we figure out what Mr. Jackson might have seen. We identify perps, feuds, whatever we can. One step forward is good enough for our purposes."

"That sounds reasonable enough."

"The RG is a very reasonable organization."

"Not that it matters tonight," I pointed out.

"The RG always matters. Our welfare always matters."

The intensity in his voice made me ask, "Is this a test? An RG vetting process?"

The elevator zipped us to the top floor, and a female voice announced "Penthouse suite" as the doors shushed open.

"Only coincidentally," Jonah finally answered, putting a hand at my waist. "Let's go."

I nodded, and we stepped out of the elevator.

To call it a penthouse was vastly overstating it.

One day, it might get there. But today, it was a construction site.

The space itself was humongous, a giant, mostly empty rectangle with a center core of steel beams that I assumed marked the places where inner walls would eventually stand. The room itself was darkish, lit by a handful of hanging work lights and the lambent glow of the night-lit city through the plastic that wrapped the exterior walls. The floor was concrete and marked by construction debris, and boxes of materials sat in piles throughout the room.

Altogether, the effect was creepy, like the place in a horror movie where two lovers sneak off to make out - just before the killer bursts through the walls, knife in hand.

I didn't see any humans, but a couple dozen vampires stood in clusters throughout the space, their attire ranging from couture to casual, from Jimmy Choo to thrift-store flannel. With this many vamps in play, it seemed unlikely they were all Rogues without a House connection.

"Do you see anyone you recognize?" I asked Jonah, scanning the crowd for some sign of House affiliation - gold medals on chains for Navarre and Cadogan vamps, jerseys for Grey House vamps. But I didn't recognize any Cadogan vamps, and I saw nothing that gave me any sense of where they otherwise might have come from.

"No one," he absently said.

This magical mystery mix of vampires swayed as the whining guitar of Rob Zombie's "More Human Than Human" buzzed through the air, which was thick with magic. A haze of it, potent stuff, that immediately raised goose bumps on my arms.

"Magic," I murmured.

His fingers tightened at my waist. "A lot of magic. A lot of glamour. Will you succumb?"

I could feel the tendrils of glamour moving around me, checking me out, trying to seep inside. I'd sensed testing magic once before - the first time I met Celina, when she worked me over with magic to get a sense of my power.

But even with Celina, I hadn't sensed this much of it in a single place. I centered myself and forced myself to breathe through it, to relax and let the magic flow as it would. Generally resistance only made glamour harder to resist, like it welcomed the challenge to sway you to its side.

But I didn't think this glamour was trying to convince me of anything. I didn't sense any vampires trying to make me believe they were smarter, prettier, or stronger than they were, or to convince me to give up my inhibitions. Maybe this was just the collective swell of magic leaked from a roomful of vampires. Add that to the resounding bass and zingy guitar, and you had a recipe for a migraine.

I rolled my shoulders and imagined the magic rolling over me like a warm Gulf Coast wave. As it flowed and discovered I didn't offer a game to be won, the wave rolled past. The air still prickled with magic, but I could move through it, instead of vice versa.

"I'll be fine," I quietly told Jonah, my arms and legs tingling.

"You do have resistance," he said, gazing at me with appreciation in his eyes.

"I can't glamour," I confessed. "Resistance is the gift I got. But this feeling, this room, is still wrong. Still off."

"I know."

I made myself throw out the connection I'd already made. "Celina can work this kind of magic. Maybe not the quantity, but it does feel like her. The way it looks into you."

"Good thought. Let's hope we aren't running against her, as well." He released the grip on my waist, but entwined his fingers into mine. "Until we figure it out, stay close."

"I'm right beside you," I assured him.

He nodded, then guided me through the crowd.

A vampire or two glanced over as we walked, but most ignored us. They talked among themselves - their words inaudible, but their gestures making clear the emotion in their eyes.

They were ready and waiting for something to begin. It was anticipatory magic.

As we passed one cluster, the vamp closest to us snapped his head to the side to gaze at us. His fangs had descended and his irises were silver, his pupils shrunken to tiny pinpoints, even in the moody lighting.

His upper lip curled, but another vamp in his knot pulled him back and into whatever argument they'd been having.

"I have to admit, this isn't exactly what I expected."

I looked around the space and noticed the plastic had been peeled back at one end of the room, and the opening led to a balcony. "Let's try out there," I suggested. "If humans are here, they're going to want to take in the view."

Jonah nodded his agreement and we maneuvered our way outside. The balcony was empty of furniture - but full of humans.

"Still not exactly what I expected," he muttered.

They were sprinkled here and there, mostly women, probably under twenty-five or so. Like the vampires, the girls wore everything from party dresses and heels to goth ensembles with short skirts and big boots. One girl, a blonde who was a bit taller and curvier than the rest, wore a tiara with white streamers and a pink satin sash across her chest. When the crowd cleared, I could see BRIDE written across it in glittery letters. The girl beside her held her hand, both of them grinning in anticipation.

As nonchalantly as we could, we walked to the edge of the balcony, where a railing had been installed. The lake was spread on one side of us, the city on the other. Jonah slid an arm around my waist, and we continued the guise of two lovers enjoying a prebloodletting chat.

"A would-be bride looking for a final premarital adventure?" I said quietly.

"Quite possibly. They may be fully aware of what they're getting into. Check the wristbands."