Hard Bitten

“But humans are nervous. Increasingly so.

And that nervousness is leading to an uptick in crime. In the last two weeks, we’ve seen marked increases in assaults, in batteries, in arson, in the use of firearms. I’ve worked hard to get those numbers down since my first election, and I think the city’s better for it. I’d hate to see us slide backward.”

“I think we’d all agree with that,” Ethan said aloud, but that was just the precursor to the silent conversation between us as Ethan activated our telepathic link. What’s he building toward?

Your guess is as good as mine, I answered.

Tate frowned and glanced down at the folder on his desk. He scanned whatever information he found there, then lifted a document from it and extended it toward Ethan. “Humans, it seems, are not the only increasingly violent folk in our city.”

Ethan took the document, staring silently down at it until his shoulders tensed into a flat line.

Ethan? What is it? I asked. Without bothering to answer, Ethan handed the paper over his shoulder. I took it from him. It looked like part of a police transcript.

Q: Tell me what you saw, Mr.

Jackson.

A: There were dozens of them.

Vampires, you know? Fangs and that ability to get inside your mind. And they was blood-crazy.

All of them. Everywhere you looked—vampire, vampire, vampire. Bam! Vampire. And they were all over us. No escape.

Q: Who couldn’t escape?

A: Humans. Not when the vampires wanted you. Not when they wanted to take you down and pull that blood right out of you.

All of ’em were on you and the music was so loud and it was pounding like a hammer against your heart. They were crazed with it. Crazy with it.

Q: With what?

A: With the blood. With the lust for it. The hunger. You could see it in their crazy eyes. They were silver, just like the eyes of the devil. You get only one look at those eyes before the devil himself pulls you down into the abyss.

Q: And then what happened, Mr.

Jackson?

A: [ Shaking his head. ] The hunger, the lust, it got them.

Drove them. They killed three girls. Three of them. They drank until there was no life left.

The page stopped there. My fingers shaking around the paper, I skipped the chain of command and glanced up at Tate. “Where did you get this?”

Tate met my gaze. “Cook County Jail. This was from an interview with a man who’d been arrested for possession of a controlled substance.

The detective wasn’t sure if he was drunk or disturbed . . . or if he’d actually seen something that required our attention. Fortunately, she took the transcript to her supervisor, who brought it to my chief of staff. We’ve yet to find the victims of whom Mr. Jackson spoke—no missing persons match his descriptions—although we are actively investigating the accusation.”

“Where did this occur?” Ethan quietly asked.

Tate’s gaze dropped down to Ethan and narrowed. “He said West Town, and he hasn’t been more specific than offering up the neighborhood. Since we haven’t identified a crime scene or the victims, it’s possible he exaggerated the violence. On the other hand, as you can see from the transcript, he’s quite convinced the vampires of our fair city were involved in a bloodlust-driven attack on humans.

An attack that left three innocents dead.”

After a moment of silence, Tate sat back, crossed his hands behind his head, and rocked back in the chair. “I’m not thrilled this is going on in my city. I’m not happy about the attack on your House and whatever animosity lies between you and the Packs, and I’m not happy that my citizens are scared enough of vampires that they’ve lined up outside your home to protest your existence.”

Tate sat forward again, fury in his expression.

“But you know what really pisses me off? The fact that you don’t look surprised about Mr.

Jackson’s report. The fact that I’ve learned you’re well aware of the existence of drinking parties you call ‘raves.’ ” My stomach clenched with nerves. Tate was normally poised, politic, careful with words, and invariably optimistic about the city. This voice was the kind you’d expect to hear in a smoky back room or a dark restaurant booth. The kind of tone you’d have heard in Al Capone’s Chicago.

This was the Seth Tate that destroyed his enemies. And we were now his targets.

“We’ve heard rumors,” Ethan finally said, a master of understatement.

“Rumors of blood orgies?”

“Of raves,” Ethan admitted. “Small gatherings where vampires drink communally from humans.”

Raves were usually organized by Rogue vampires—the ones that weren’t tied to a House and tended not to follow traditional House rules.

For most Houses, those rules meant not snacking on humans, consenting or not. Cadogan allowed drinking, but still required consent, and I didn’t know of any House that would condone outright murder.

We’d come close to having raves pop into the public eye a few months ago, but with a little investigation on our part, we’d managed to keep them in the closet. I guess that blissful ignorance was behind us.

“We’ve been keeping our ears to the ground,” Ethan continued, “to identify the organizers of the raves, their methods, the manners in which they attract humans.”

That was Malik’s job—Ethan’s secondin-command, the runnerup for the crown. After a blackmailing incident, he’d been put in charge of investigating the raves.

“And what have you found?” Tate asked.

Ethan cleared his throat. Ah, the sound of stalling.

“We’re aware of three raves in the last two months,” he said. “Three raves involving, at most, half a dozen vampires. These were small, intimate affairs. While bloodletting does occur, we have not heard of the, shall we say, frenetic violence of which Mr. Jackson speaks, nor would we condone such things. There has certainly never been an allegation that any participant was

. . . drained. And if we had heard of it, we’d have contacted the Ombudsman, or put a stop to it ourselves.”

The mayor linked his fingers together on the desktop. “Ethan, I believe that part and parcel of keeping this city safe is integrating vampires into the human population. Division will solve nothing—it will only lead to more division. On the other hand, according to Mr. Jackson, vampires are engaging in violent, largescale, and hardly consensual acts. That is unacceptable to me.”

“As it is to me and mine,” Ethan said.

“I’ve heard talk about a recall election,” Tate said. “I will not go down in flames because of supernatural hysteria. This city does not need a referendum on vampires or shape-shifters.

“But most important,” he continued, gaze burrowing into Ethan, “you do not want a bevy of aldermen showing up at your front door, demanding that you close down your House. You do not want the city council legislating you out of existence.”

I felt a burst of magic from Ethan. His angst—and anger—were rising, and I was glad Tate was human and couldn’t sense the uncomfortable prickle of it.

“And you do not want me as an enemy,” Tate concluded. “You do not want me requesting a grand jury to consider the crimes of you and yours.” He flipped through the folder on his desk, then slid out a single sheet and held it up. “You do not want me executing this warrant for your arrest on the basis that you’ve aided and abetted the murder of humans in this city.”

Ethan’s voice was diamond-cold, but the magical tingle was seismic in magnitude. “I have done no such thing.”