Midnight Marked (Chicagoland Vampires 12)

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.

“No,” he said. “Do you know who he is?”

“Kind of,” I said, and gave them the story.

• • •

Correction: I gave them part of the story. I told them about Caleb Franklin, identified this vampire as the one who’d killed him.

I skipped the speculation about Reed and the fact that the Rogue was the vampire who’d first attacked me. Only a few knew the reason I’d become a vampire. Since most became vampires by choice—because they wanted immortality, to join a particular House, to escape a particular illness—the truth of my making was too personal to share, and theoretically could have put Ethan at risk. He’d technically changed me without my consent, even if he’d done it to save my life.

A CPD detective talked me through the details for twenty minutes, then stuck me in the back of a police cruiser for twenty more. When the door finally opened, it was my grandfather who met me, Jeff behind him.

Concern was etched in the lines of my grandfather’s aging face, but his blue eyes were as bright as ever. “You’re all right?”

I nodded. “I’m fine,” I said, and took the hand he offered to help me out of the car.

His gaze focused on the blood on my hands, dots of it on my shirt.

“It’s not mine. It was the Rogue’s. You heard what happened?”

Jeff nodded. “We were at Cadogan. Ethan locked down the House, and Luc and Malik made him stay put, just in case. Then we waited for news. Photos and videos starting hitting the Web. You did a great job with him, Merit. With the kid.”

Ethan would have been relieved to see the footage, and still livid that I’d left in the first place. That I’d done exactly what I’d told him not to do: I’d let my emotions take control, and I’d put myself in a situation that could have gone very, very badly.

“I couldn’t agree more,” my grandfather said, but his gaze was still wary, and I could feel my panic bubbling up. The fact that I’d held back from the rest of the officers.

“Merit?” he asked.

“He was the vampire who attacked me.”

The words spilled out, faster than I’d meant them to.

I’d seen protectiveness in Ethan’s eyes. The anger that showed in my grandfather’s was pretty similar.

“From the Quad?”