Midnight Marked (Chicagoland Vampires 12)

The child’s eyes shifted to me, dropped to the dagger, then the bloody vampire.

I could have moved. I could have run forward, pierced his black heart. But in front of a child? Should I be the one to give her nightmares?

Unfortunately, that brief hesitation was just what he needed.

He jumped forward, his gaze on the child. Her mother realized what was happening, reached out to grab her daughter, but the vampire moved quicker. He snatched up the child, yanked her to his chest with an arm around her waist, held his knife to her throat. Her mother screamed, but before she could move, the train doors closed and the car lurched forward.

“Put her down,” I demanded, the little girl screaming in the vampire’s arms, her mother screaming on the platform, the passengers who’d come through the other door staring at both of us in confusion and horror.

“Make me,” he said with a grin. “I’m going to walk out of here with her, and no one is going to stop me.”

The train rumbled as it rushed toward the next station. I could feel the humans, fearing for the child, moving closer behind me. I held out a hand to stop them but kept my eyes on the Rogue.

“So you’re a coward. All that trouble to get me alone, to take me out and finish your work, and you’re going to walk away with a human shield? How do you think your boss is going to react to that? You think he’ll be impressed?”

“Fuck you,” he said, but he was smart enough to look alarmed. He’d know as well as I did, if not more, how violent Reed was, how manipulative, and how protective of his public reputation. Cyrius Lore was proof enough of that.

The girl was squirming in his arms, kicking against him, tears streaming down her face. My chest ached to reach out, touch and comfort. But her safety was entirely up to the Rogue, and I had to keep my focus on him—convince him to let her go, and move along.

Even if that meant I lost my chance at him.

“Actually,” I said, “this probably helps us. I’m sure someone has called the cops, and I’d bet some of those humans behind me have phones, are recording or photographing this little interaction.” Precisely because they were recording it, I didn’t dare say Reed’s name aloud. No one would believe he was involved without hard evidence, which I didn’t have. And I wasn’t going to set myself up for another arrest.

“Long story short,” I continued, “your boss will see that you’ve failed, and we’ll have that much more evidence to build the case against him, to put him away for a very long time. All that, of course, will happen after he takes care of you.”

The vampire stared at me, a bead of sweat trickling down his nose. Rational thought could do that to a psychopath.

The train began to slow again, and he jerked his gaze to the doors, looking for a way out.

“Hand her to me, and you walk away,” I said.

“I’m not an idiot,” he said. “I hand her to you, and you kill me.”

“Not in front of witnesses.”

We pulled into the station, jerked to a stop. The door opened, and he hesitated, and then tossed the child at me like an unwanted rag doll.

I jumped, hit my knees, arms outstretched . . . and caught her. She wailed with terror, kicked out with pointy little knees and elbows, caught the cheek that sung with pain from his slap.

But she was safe.

People rushed into the train to travel, off the train to get away from the vampire. I climbed to my feet, the child still in my arms, and squeezed through them to the platform.

The vampire was gone.

• • •

I waited with half a dozen human witnesses at the platform for the CPD’s inevitable arrival.

In the meantime, we learned Hailey Elizabeth Stanton was three and a half years old. She’d stopped crying, at least in part because the humans made funny faces to make her smile, and bribed her with bottles of water and pieces of candy when that failed. She wouldn’t let me go, so she stayed at my hip, tiny fingers digging into my neck. While we waited she told me about her favorite “Poesy Pony Princess,” which I presumed was a toy and not actually a royal horse. In these halcyon supernatural days, it was hard to be sure. Anyway, Hailey’s pony was named Princess Margaret Hollywood Peony Stanton, and I was informed several times she did not go by “Maggie.”

So of course I kept calling her that, and Hailey kept giggling.

Finally, CPD officers escorted the girl’s frantic mother onto the train platform. I stood up, passed the child back to her.

“Mommy!” she said while her mother hugged her and checked her for injuries.

“Did you get him?” I asked one of the uniforms. The humans had relayed to the 911 dispatcher that the vampire had gotten away after using the child as a shield.