Some Girls Bite (36 page)

“I’ll let you two get acquainted,” he said. “Since you won’t be wearing robes, I’ve left a belt inside. The scabbard fits it. From today on, you wear it. All day, every day. When you sleep, you keep it beside you. Understood?”

Having gotten the same speech about my beeper, and understanding the threat of the still-loose killer, I nodded, waited for him to rise and leave, then looked down at the sword that still lay in front of me. It was an oddly intimate moment—my first time alone with her. This was the thing—this complicated arrangement of steel and silk and ray skin and lacquered wood—that was supposed to keep me safe for the next few hundred years, the thing that would enable me to do my duty, to keep Ethan and the other Cadogan vamps alive.

Nervously, I looked around the yard, a little self-conscious about picking it up, and scratched absently at my eyebrow. I rustled my fingers, cleared my throat, and made myself look at it.

“So,” I said, to the sword.

To the
sword
.

I grinned down at her. “I’m Merit, and we’re going to be working together. Hopefully I won’t . . . break you. Hopefully you won’t get me broken. That’s about it, I guess.” I reached out my right hand, clenching and unclenching my fingers above the metal, somehow suddenly phobic about taking up arms for the first time, and then dropped my fingertips to the wrap around the handle, and slid them around the length of it.

My arm tingled.

I gripped the handle, lifted the sword in one hand and stood, angling the blade so that it caught the light, which ran down the steel like falling water.

My heart sped, my pupils dilated—and I felt the vampire inside me rise to the surface of my consciousness.

And, for the first time, she rose not in anger or lust or hunger, but in curiosity. She knew what I held in my hand, and she reveled in it.

And, for the first time, instead of fighting her, instead of pushing her back down, I let her stretch and move, let her look through my eyes—just a peek. Just a glimpse, as I had no illusions that if given the chance, she could overpower me, work through me, take me over.

But when I held the sword horizontally, parallel to the ground, and when I sliced it through the air, swung it in an arc around my body, and slid it back into its sheath, I felt her sigh—and felt the warmth of her languid contentment, like a woman well-satisfied.

I kissed the pommel of the sword—of my sword—then let it slip into my left hand, and went back into the house. Jeff, Catcher, Lindsey, and Grandpa were gathered around the dining room table. Mallory stood at the side table, carving up the coconut cake.

“Oh, sweet!” Jeff said, his gaze shifting from the katana in my hand to Catcher. “You gave her the sword?”

Catcher nodded, then looked at me, quirked up an eyebrow. “Let’s see if it worked. Is he carrying?”

I blinked, then looked between Jeff and my grandfather. “Is who carrying what?”

“Look at Jeff,” Catcher said carefully, “and tell me if he’s carrying a weapon.”

I arched a brow.

“Just do it,” Catcher insisted, frustration in his voice.

I sighed, but looked over at Jeff, brow pinched as I scanned his body, trying to figure out what trick I was supposed to be demonstrating. “What am I trying to—”

“If you can’t see it,” Catcher interrupted, “then close your eyes and feel him out. Empty your mind, and allow yourself to breathe it in.”

I nodded although I had no idea what he was talking about, and while facing Jeff, closed my eyes. I tried to blank my mind of extraneous information and concentrate on what was in front of me—namely, a skinny, shape-shifting computer programmer.

That’s when I noticed it.

I could feel it. Just a hint. The different weight of him, feel of him. He kind of—vibrated differently.

“There’s . . . There’s. . . .” I opened my eyes, stared at Jeff, then turned my head to look at Catcher. “He’s carrying. Steel. A knife or something,” I guessed, given the weight of it.

“Jeff?”

“I don’t even own a weapon,” Jeff protested, but he stood up and reached into his first pocket. As we all watched, riveted, he turned it inside out. Empty.

He tried the second, and when he reached in, he pulled out a small, cord-wrapped knife, its blade covered in a black sheath. Obviously shocked, he held the knife in his palm, and looked at each of us. “This isn’t mine.”

Catcher, who sat next to him, clapped him on the back. “It’s mine, James Bond. I slipped it into your pocket when you were ogling Mallory.”

A flush rose on Jeff’s cheeks as Catcher took back the knife, slipped it into his own pocket. “I wasn’t ogling Mallory,” he said, then glanced apologetically at Mal, who was walking back to the table, paper plate of cake in her hand. “I wasn’t,” he insisted, then looked back at Catcher. “Ogling’s a harsh word.”

Catcher chuckled. “So’s ‘beat down.’ ”

“And on that pleasant note,” Mallory interrupted with a chuckle, placing the slice of cake on the table in front of me, “let’s eat.”

We ate until we were stuffed, until I expected my stomach to burst open like a coconut-filled piñata. The food was incomparable, deliciously homey, the sweetness of cake the perfect dessert. And when our bellies were full and my grandfather began to yawn, I prepared to take the team home. I belted the sword and grabbed the box of leather.

The car loaded with gifts and cupcakes, I slipped back inside to say a final goodbye, and inadvertently walked in on another Catcher-Mallory moment.

They were in a corner of the living room, their hands on each other’s hips. Catcher gazed down at her, eyes full of such respect and adoration that the emotion of it tightened my throat. Mallory looked back, met his gaze, without coquettish eyelash batting or turning away. She met his gaze and shared his look, the expression of partnership.

And I was struck with the worst, most nauseating sense of jealousy I’d ever felt.

What would it be like, I wondered, to have someone look at me that way? To see something in me, inside me, worth that kind of admiration? That kind of attention?

Even when we were younger, Mallory had always been the one around whom men flocked. I was the smart, slightly weirder sidekick. She was the goddess. Men bought her drinks, offered their numbers, offered their bank accounts and time and rides in their BMW convertibles. All the while I sat beside her, smiled politely when they looked my way to size me up, to determine if I was a barrier to the thing they wanted—blond-haired/blue-haired, blue-eyed Mallory.

Now she had Catcher, and she was being adored anew. She’d found a partner, a companion, a protector.

I tried to force my jealousy into curiosity, to wonder at the sensation of being wanted, desired in a profound way. I tried not to begrudge my best friend her moment in the sun, her opportunity to experience true love.

Yeah, that didn’t work so well.

I was jealous of my best friend, my sister in every way that mattered, who deserved nothing less than total adoration. I hated myself a little for being jealous of the happiness she deserved. But when he kissed her forehead, and they looked up and smiled at me, I couldn’t help but hope.

 

 

 

T
he next evening, I woke pepared for battle. But not with a serial killer. Not with warring nymphs or Rogue vampires. Not even with the Master I avoided.

This time, I prepared for Helen. I hadn’t handled our first meeting well, which maybe wasn’t so unusual given the nature of it—the cold, hard reality she’d been burdened with preparing me. But I was losing my house, Mallory’s house, to Catcher and his roaming hands. I needed a place to crash. It was time to ask about moving into Cadogan.

Although I wasn’t thrilled with that choice, the alternatives didn’t seem much better. I couldn’t move in with my parents. I didn’t think they’d allow it, and dealing with my father was soul-sucking enough from a ZIP code away.

Getting my own place wasn’t a viable option, either. My Cadogan stipend was nice, but it wasn’t enough to cover rent in Chicago without a roommate. I wasn’t ready for the burbs, and I certainly didn’t want to bring my supernatural drama to some new roommate’s door. And unless I lived in Hyde Park, having my own place didn’t solve the time problem—the fact that I’d still have travel time between me and a Cadogan crisis.

I could move in with my grandfather, and there was no question that he’d invite me in, but with me came my baggage—including being the near-victim of a serial killer, the recent recipient of a death threat, and the new guard for Cadogan House. Moving into Cadogan posed its own set of problems, its meddlesome Master key among them. But I’d never need to worry about troubling someone who couldn’t handle it. If there was anything pleasant I could say about Ethan Sullivan, it was that he was equipped to deal with supernatural drama.

I hadn’t, of course, informed Ethan that I was considering moving into the House. I imagined three possible responses to the news, none of which I was interested in experiencing.

At best, I figured I’d be offered cool approval that I’d finally reached the decision a proper Sentinel would have reached a week ago. At worst, I bet on vitriol, on his expressing serious concerns that I was going to spy on Cadogan or sabotage the House from the inside.

But most disturbing was the third possibility—that he’d ask me again to be his Consort. I was pretty sure we’d moved past that idea, the fact that we’d happily avoided each other for the last week evidence enough, but this boy was more stubborn than most.

So I planned to work through Helen, who, in her position as Initiate Liaison, also coordinated new vampires’ moves into the House, and let word reach Ethan through channels. But working through Helen meant apologies. Big-time apologies, since the last time I’d seen her, I yelled at and insulted her, and prompted a sorceress to kick her out of our house. To fix things, I opted for a simple, classic strategy—bribery. I was going to buy my way into her good graces with a dozen pink-and-white birthday cupcakes. I’d repackaged them in a shiny pink bakery box, and I was ready to make the drop at her office as soon as I reached Cadogan.

But before I did that . . . I had my own business to attend to, namely in the form of a private vampire fashion show. After I’d showered, but before I’d slipped into the requisite Cadogan black, I slipped my birthday ensemble from its hangers and donned the leathers. The suit, such as it was, fit like a glove, like it had been molded for my body. My hair in its high ponytail, the sword in my hands, I looked pretty fierce. I looked like I was ready for serious vampire combat. That was patently untrue, of course, but it didn’t make posing in front of the mirror any less fun.

I was still in front of the mirror, sword in hand, when my beeper began to vibrate. I jumped at the sound, thinking someone had walked in on the spectacle of my vampire dress-up. When I realized the source of the noise, I grabbed the beeper from the top of my bureau and scanned the screen: CADGN. BREACH. GREEN. 911.

Breach: Uninvited supernaturals on the premises.

Green: Ethan’s code. He was in trouble, needed assistance, etc.

911: Quickly now, Sentinel.

There were footsteps in the hallway. Beeper in hand, I opened the bedroom door and peeked into the hall. Catcher, in jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt, walked toward me. I had to give him credit—he didn’t so much as bat an eyelash at my ensemble.

“You got the page?”

I nodded. But before I could ask how he knew about it, he continued, “The meeting we discussed, with all the vamps? The one Sullivan needed to schedule? It’s happening right now, and not by invitation.”

“Shit,” I said, moving my left hand to the handle of the katana, and ignoring for the moment the fact that he had this information before I did. “I need to change.”

Catcher shook his head. “Today’s the day you bluff,” he said. “I’ll get your car ready.”

I stared at him. “Are you kidding? Ethan will shit if I show up dressed like this in front of other Cadogan vampires, much less other Houses.”

Catcher shook his head. “
You
stand Sentinel, not Ethan. You do your job the way you do it. And if you’re going to bluff your way into keeping Ethan safe, would you rather do it in leather or a suit and prissy heels? You need to show teeth today.”

Because his words echoed my own thoughts, I didn’t argue.

 

He offered me advice via cell phone the entire ride to Cadogan House: Look everyone in the eye. Keep my left hand on the handle of the sword, thumb at the guard, and only pull the right hand over if I needed to be seriously aggressive. Keep my body between Ethan and whatever pointy thing—be it blade or teeth—was threatening him. When Catcher started to repeat himself, I cut him off.

“Catcher, this isn’t me. I’m not prepared for warfare. I was a grad student. But he gave me this job, presumably, after four hundred years of experience, because he thought I could bring something to the table, something he thought could trump my lack of training. I appreciate the advice, and I appreciate the training, but it’s the eleventh hour, and if I haven’t learned it by now, I’m not likely to learn it in the next five minutes.” I swallowed, my chest tight. “I’ll do what I can. It’s been asked of me, and I agreed to stand Sentinel, and I’ll do what I can.”

I decided to confess the thought that had tickled the back of my mind, but hadn’t yet voiced. That the vampire inside me had a mind of her own. That sometimes it felt like we hadn’t merged, not truly, but rather like she lived inside me.

Maybe because it sounded ridiculous, I found it harder to vocalize than I’d imagined. “I think—I think—”

“What, Merit?”

“She feels kind of separate from me.”

Silence, then: “She?”