Drink Deep (Chicagoland Vampires 5)

The girl was a piece of work.

Anywho, Ethan named me Sentinel of the House. To help protect the House, and to avoid listening to Mal ory's midnight (and noon . . . and six a.m. . . . and six p.m.) romantic escapades with Catcher, I moved into Cadogan.

The House had al the basics - kitchen, workout room, an Operations Room where guards kept an eye on the House, and dormlike rooms for about ninety of the three hundred Cadogan vampires. My room was on the second floor. It wasn't huge and it wasn't lush, but it was a respite from the drama of being a vampire in Chicago. It had a bed, bookcase, closet, and smal bathroom. Plus, it was just down the hal from a kitchen loaded with junk food and bagged blood provided by our awful y named delivery service, Blood4You.

I parked my orange Volvo a few blocks up, then hiked back to the House. It glowed in the darkness of Hyde Park, new security floodlights - instal ed when the House was renovated after an attack by growly shape-shifters -

pouring across the grounds. The neighbors groused about the floodlights until they considered the consequences of not having them - the protection darkness would afford supernatural trespassers.

The House was relatively quiet tonight, a band of protesters snuggled into blankets on the grass between the sidewalk and the wrought iron gate that surrounded the House. Their numbers were down from the masses that had swarmed the grass before Mayor Tate had been stripped of his office, arraigned, and imprisoned in an undisclosed location. The change in leadership had calmed down the city's voters.

Unfortunately, it hadn't calmed down the politicians. Diane Kowalczyk, the woman who'd replaced Tate, had her eye on the oval office, and she was using Chicago's supernaturals to prop up her future campaign. She was a big supporter of the proposed supernatural registration law, which would require al sups to register our powers and carry identification papers. We'd also have to check in every time we entered or left the state.

Most sups hated the idea. It was antithetical to being American, and it sang of discrimination. Sure, some of us were dangerous, but that was true of humans, as wel .

Would human Chicagoans have supported a law that required them to prove their identity to anyone who asked?

I doubted it.

The humans who'd decided we were al untrustworthy dedicated their evenings to letting us know just how much they hated us. Sadly, some of the protestors were beginning to look familiar. In particular, I recognized a young couple - a boy and girl who couldn't have been more than sixteen, and who'd once chanted hateful words at me and Ethan.

Yes, I had fangs. Daylight was lethal, as were aspen stakes and beheadings. Blood was a necessity, but so were chocolate and diet soda. I wasn't undead; I just wasn't human. So I'd decided that if I acted normal and was polite, I could slowly chal enge their preconceptions about vampires.

Chicago's Houses also were getting better about chal enging misinformation. There was even a bul etin board in Wrigleyvil e with a picture of four diverse, smiling vampires beneath the words COME ON OVER! The bil board was supposed to be an invitation to get to know Chicago's Houses. Tonight, it was a reason for forlorn-looking teenagers to wield hand-painted COME ON OVER

- AND DIE! posters.

I smiled politely as I passed them, then held up the two gingham bags of burgers and crinkle-cut fries.

"Dinnertime!" I cheerful y announced.

I was greeted at the gate by two of the mercenary fairies who control ed access to the Cadogan House grounds.

They offered the merest of nods as I passed, then turned their attention back to the street. Fairies were notoriously antivampire, but they were even more antihuman. Cash payments from the House for their security services kept that balance.

I hopped the steps to the portico and headed inside, where I was greeted by a knot of vampires staring at the wal where Frank had been hanging his declarations.

"Welcome to the jungle," said a voice behind me.

I turned to find Juliet, one of the remaining Cadogan guards, watching the vamps with a forlorn look. She was slender and redheaded, and had an elfish look about her.

"What's going on?" I asked.

"More rules," she said, gesturing to the wal . "Three new additions to the wal of shame. Frank has decided vampires are not to congregate together in groups larger than ten other than in official y sanctioned gatherings."

"Al the better to revolt against the GP?" I wondered.

"I guess. Apparently 'freedom of assembly' isn't one of the GP's favorite rights."

"How very colonial," I muttered. "What's the second?"

Her expression went flat. "He's rationing blood."

I was so stunned by the idea it took me a moment to gather my wits. "We're vampires. We need blood to survive."

She looked disdainful y at the paper-dotted wal . "Oh, I know. But Frank, in his infinite wisdom, decided Ethan spoiled us by having bagged blood too readily available.

He's cutting the Blood4You deliveries."

Although we usual y drank bagged blood, Cadogan was one of the few vampire Houses in the United States - and the only one in Chicago - that al owed its vampires to drink blood from humans or other vamps. The other Houses had abolished the practice to better assimilate with humans.

Personal y, I had taken blood from only one man - Ethan -

but I could appreciate that the option was available.

"Better us than Grey House," I mused. "At least we have other sources."

"Not this time," Juliet said. "He's also banned drinking."

That idea was equal y preposterous - but for a different reason. "Ethan made that rule," I protested. "And Malik confirmed it. Frank doesn't have the power - "

But Juliet cut me off with a shrug. "It's part of his evaluation, he says. A test to see how wel we handle our hunger."

"He's setting us up for failure," I quietly said, looking over the crowd of vamps, now chattering nervously. "There's no way we'l make it through a receivership, two months after losing our Master and with protestors at the gates, without someone freaking out from lack of blood." I looked back at her. "He'l use that as an excuse to take over the House, or close it altogether."

"Quite possibly. Has he scheduled your interview yet?"

Not surprisingly, Frank had required each vamp to participate in a private interview. From what I'd heard, the interviews were fairly standard "justify your existence"

deals. I was one of the few vamps he hadn't yet spoken to.

Not that I was bummed, but each day that passed without an interview made me that much more suspicious.