Hard Bitten

MORE HUMAN THAN HUMAN

The Chicago Water Tower sat like a wedding-cake topper in the middle of Magnificent Mile. It had survived the Great Fire, and now it served as a symbol of the city - and a background for tourist photographs.

Jonah leaned against the stone railing beside the steps into the building in trim jeans and a silvery button-up, his gaze on the phone in his hands. His hair was loose around a face that might have been carved by Michelangelo himself - if Michelangelo had sculpted a man who had looked like an Irish god. Perfect cheekbones, thin nose, square jaw, and long almond-shaped blue eyes framed by locks of his auburn hair.

Yes, Jonah was plenty handsome, even with the dour expression that marred his face when he looked up. He tucked the phone into a pocket and moved closer. I watched him look me over, taking in the leather and debating whether I'd be a help or a hindrance on this particular escapade.

"You're early," he said.

I reminded myself to pick my battles. "I prefer early to late. I thought we might want to talk strategy before we go in."

He gestured down Michigan toward the river.

"Let's walk and talk."

And so we started down Michigan Avenue, two tall and welldressed vampires, probably looking like we were on a date instead of planning to infiltrate a vampire blood orgy. And we looked normal enough, apparently, that no one made us out as vamps. Ah, the benefits of nightfall.

"How many vamps?" I asked him.

"I don't know. Raves are pretty intimate affairs, so if this is one, not many."

"If you found the phone with the invite at Benson's, are you thinking it belonged to a Grey House vamp?"

Jonah glowered. "I'm hoping, for the sake of the Grey House vamps, that it didn't. But as you said, the bar has an open-door policy, and we generally keep its House affiliation a secret. So it could have belonged to anyone."

I nodded. "Have you always been in Grey House?"

"I have not. I was born Rogue. Grew up in a rough part of Kansas City. Not the easiest place to come of age. I almost didn't make it out. And then along came Max."

"He's the one who made you a vampire?"

"He was. He helped me escape a bad scene.

Well, to the extent inheriting vampire politics and drama is an escape."

"I can relate."

"I figured. No offense, but Sullivan's as political as they come."

I laughed aloud. "Truer words have never been spoken. He's a good Master. Cares deeply about his House." But to the exclusion of all else, I silently added.

"And you two - ?"

I cut off the question. Most of the Cadogan vamps knew Ethan and I had shared a night together, so it didn't come as much of a surprise that Jonah, member of an espionage group, did, too. But while I appreciated that he was giving me the opportunity to clarify, it irked me that he assumed I'd be a liability, emotionally or otherwise. Starting off with a clean slate would have been nice.

"We are not an item," I assured him.

"Just checking. I like to get a line on any possible complications that might spill my way."

"None from this end," I assured him. Much to Ethan's disappointment.

We separated as a flock of teenagers bounded down Michigan. It was two in the morning, and the stores were long since closed, but it was also a summer night and school hadn't yet started. I

suppose wandering Michigan Avenue was a relatively safe activity if you were a teenager with too much time on your hands.

"Anyway, Max was a vampire with Masterworthy power, but no House. The GP considered him unstable and wouldn't give him an official title. They were right about the instability. My guess? Max was bipolar as a human, and becoming a vamp didn't help."

"Can't be a good idea to have him running around Kansas City without oversight."

"And that was exactly the problem. The GP didn't think he was sane enough for a House, but that just meant an ego-driven psychopath was running around making one vamp after another.

The creation of Murphy House was a way for the GP to rein in the Rogues and one-up Max. They gave Rich the House and grandfathered us in under some ancient Canon provision."

"How'd you end up in Chicago?"

"I transferred to Grey when Scott got his Masterdom. Each new House gets to steal a few Novitiates from the others to help fill it out.

They're able to initiate new vamps, as well, obviously, but the trade gives them a start."

"Are you worried someone at the party might recognize you? I mean, you've been around for a while, and if anyone there is from Grey House . . ."

"If anyone there is from Grey House, they'll think I'm there to find them, enforce House rules, and drag them back to rationality - right before I kick their asses. Grey House is not Navarre House. We may enjoy sports, but we respect authority. We're a team - a unit. There's a clear chain of authority, and we follow it."

"And Scott's the coach?"

"And the general," he agreed.

While that might be theoretically true, I thought, Jonah was still a member of an organization whose mission was to secretly police the Masters. That didn't exactly fit the Scottis-my-general analogy.

"Anyway, no worries on my end," Jonah concluded.

We passed a line of tourists burdened with restaurant leftovers and shopping bags. They looked exhausted, as if it was well past time for them to return to their hotel.

"I've never been to an actual rave before," I said after we passed them. I looked over at him.

"Have you?"

"Near one, didn't go in."

"I'm nervous," I confessed.

"I have no objection to nerves before an op," Jonah said. "They keep you sharp. On your toes.

As long as you won't freeze up - and from what I've heard about the attack on Cadogan, you aren't going to freeze up."

"I've been good so far."

"So far counts." He came to a stop at the light and pointed to the left. "We'll cross here, then a couple of blocks up."

When the light changed, we walked across the street and headed east, a couple of blocks off Michigan.

"This is it," Jonah said.

It was . . . definitely something. The building looked like a gleaming black spear thrust into the banks of the Chicago River - at least up to the top three or four floors. They were still under construction, their skeletal structures wrapped in hazy plastic.

A plywood sign announced the building was the future home of a finance company.

With vampires like these, I thought, who needs enemies?

"Today," Jonah said, "we're playing invited guests. Act like you belong." He pushed through the building's revolving door. As I followed, Jonah smiled at the man behind the security desk and sauntered over, looking exactly like he belonged in a penthouse vampire party.

"We're here for the, er, mixer," Jonah casually said.

"Security code?" the uniform asked.

Jonah smiled. "Temptress."

For a second, I thought he'd gotten it wrong.

The uniform looked at Jonah, then me, before apparently deciding we were in the building for legitimate reasons, and gesturing toward the elevator. "Top floor. Stay away from the edges.

It's a nasty fall."

Jonah walked toward the elevator, then pushed the button. When the car arrived, we slipped inside.

"Are you ready for this?" he asked when the door closed.

"I'm not entirely sure."

"You can do it. Just remember, if this is a rave, our goal isn't to close them down tonight. We step in, and we figure out what Mr. Jackson might have seen. We identify perps, feuds, whatever we can. One step forward is good enough for our purposes."

"That sounds reasonable enough."

"The RG is a very reasonable organization."

"Not that it matters tonight," I pointed out.

"The RG always matters. Our welfare always matters."

The intensity in his voice made me ask, "Is this a test? An RG vetting process?"

The elevator zipped us to the top floor, and a female voice announced "Penthouse suite" as the doors shushed open.

"Only coincidentally," Jonah finally answered, putting a hand at my waist. "Let's go."

I nodded, and we stepped out of the elevator.

To call it a penthouse was vastly overstating it.

One day, it might get there. But today, it was a construction site.

The space itself was humongous, a giant, mostly empty rectangle with a center core of steel beams that I assumed marked the places where inner walls would eventually stand. The room itself was darkish, lit by a handful of hanging work lights and the lambent glow of the night-lit city through the plastic that wrapped the exterior walls. The floor was concrete and marked by construction debris, and boxes of materials sat in piles throughout the room.

Altogether, the effect was creepy, like the place in a horror movie where two lovers sneak off to make out - just before the killer bursts through the walls, knife in hand.

I didn't see any humans, but a couple dozen vampires stood in clusters throughout the space, their attire ranging from couture to casual, from Jimmy Choo to thrift-store flannel. With this many vamps in play, it seemed unlikely they were all Rogues without a House connection.

"Do you see anyone you recognize?" I asked Jonah, scanning the crowd for some sign of House affiliation - gold medals on chains for Navarre and Cadogan vamps, jerseys for Grey House vamps. But I didn't recognize any Cadogan vamps, and I saw nothing that gave me any sense of where they otherwise might have come from.

"No one," he absently said.

This magical mystery mix of vampires swayed as the whining guitar of Rob Zombie's "More Human Than Human" buzzed through the air, which was thick with magic. A haze of it, potent stuff, that immediately raised goose bumps on my arms.

"Magic," I murmured.

His fingers tightened at my waist. "A lot of magic. A lot of glamour. Will you succumb?"

I could feel the tendrils of glamour moving around me, checking me out, trying to seep inside. I'd sensed testing magic once before - the first time I met Celina, when she worked me over with magic to get a sense of my power.

But even with Celina, I hadn't sensed this much of it in a single place. I centered myself and forced myself to breathe through it, to relax and let the magic flow as it would. Generally resistance only made glamour harder to resist, like it welcomed the challenge to sway you to its side.

But I didn't think this glamour was trying to convince me of anything. I didn't sense any vampires trying to make me believe they were smarter, prettier, or stronger than they were, or to convince me to give up my inhibitions. Maybe this was just the collective swell of magic leaked from a roomful of vampires. Add that to the resounding bass and zingy guitar, and you had a recipe for a migraine.

I rolled my shoulders and imagined the magic rolling over me like a warm Gulf Coast wave. As it flowed and discovered I didn't offer a game to be won, the wave rolled past. The air still prickled with magic, but I could move through it, instead of vice versa.

"I'll be fine," I quietly told Jonah, my arms and legs tingling.

"You do have resistance," he said, gazing at me with appreciation in his eyes.

"I can't glamour," I confessed. "Resistance is the gift I got. But this feeling, this room, is still wrong. Still off."

"I know."

I made myself throw out the connection I'd already made. "Celina can work this kind of magic. Maybe not the quantity, but it does feel like her. The way it looks into you."

"Good thought. Let's hope we aren't running against her, as well." He released the grip on my waist, but entwined his fingers into mine. "Until we figure it out, stay close."

"I'm right beside you," I assured him.

He nodded, then guided me through the crowd.

A vampire or two glanced over as we walked, but most ignored us. They talked among themselves - their words inaudible, but their gestures making clear the emotion in their eyes.

They were ready and waiting for something to begin. It was anticipatory magic.

As we passed one cluster, the vamp closest to us snapped his head to the side to gaze at us. His fangs had descended and his irises were silver, his pupils shrunken to tiny pinpoints, even in the moody lighting.

His upper lip curled, but another vamp in his knot pulled him back and into whatever argument they'd been having.

"I have to admit, this isn't exactly what I expected."

I looked around the space and noticed the plastic had been peeled back at one end of the room, and the opening led to a balcony. "Let's try out there," I suggested. "If humans are here, they're going to want to take in the view."

Jonah nodded his agreement and we maneuvered our way outside. The balcony was empty of furniture - but full of humans.

"Still not exactly what I expected," he muttered.

They were sprinkled here and there, mostly women, probably under twenty-five or so. Like the vampires, the girls wore everything from party dresses and heels to goth ensembles with short skirts and big boots. One girl, a blonde who was a bit taller and curvier than the rest, wore a tiara with white streamers and a pink satin sash across her chest. When the crowd cleared, I could see BRIDE written across it in glittery letters. The girl beside her held her hand, both of them grinning in anticipation.

As nonchalantly as we could, we walked to the edge of the balcony, where a railing had been installed. The lake was spread on one side of us, the city on the other. Jonah slid an arm around my waist, and we continued the guise of two lovers enjoying a prebloodletting chat.

"A would-be bride looking for a final premarital adventure?" I said quietly.

"Quite possibly. They may be fully aware of what they're getting into. Check the wristbands."

I gave the girls another look. Around each of their wrists was a red silicone wristband. "What about them?"

"The bands mark them as vampire sympathizers. The ones who still think we're dark and delicious."

Like high-cocoa chocolate, I thought. "Even as the rest of the city begins to turn against us?"

"Apparently. I support the support, although a plastic bracelet doesn't exactly scream 'long-term political allies.' " He shrugged. "But here they are, and as much as Scott and Morgan may deplore it, drinking from humans isn't a sin."

"Brave words for a non-Cadogan vampire."

Jonah humphed. "I stand by my statement. In any event, we wait until we see something amiss - and then we move in."

I smiled up at him, then tugged playfully on a lock of his auburn hair, playing the part in which I'd been cast. "Works for me."

He grinned, and the look was effective enough that it made even my hardened heart trip a bit.

"And I thought you'd be stubborn and difficult to work with."

This time, I gave him a pinch on the arm I hope looked playful - and not spiteful. "In case you've forgotten, Ethan Sullivan trained me. And in case you didn't know, Catcher Bell schooled me in sword craft. I was raised on 'difficult to work with.' "

He chuckled. "Then you're forgiven."

"So magnanimous."

He put his hand on his heart like a man confessing love. "That's the nature of RG service."

I gave him a quick pat on the cheek. "Darling, I'll just have to take your word for it."

We wandered around the balcony for a while, fingers intertwined, occasionally sharing strategically furtive whispers. If this was a real rave, there was a lot less drum-and-bass and many fewer glow-in-the-dark necklaces than I'd have expected. But pills and powders were still passed around, and there was enough glamour in the air that my skin crawled with it, my neck beginning to ache from my constantly shaking off the peculiar tickle.

We kept an eye on the humans, and from our perch hundreds of feet above the city, we watched the play take shape. Vampires moved in and around the sprinkling of humans, plying them with alcohol and glamour. The vamps were clearly in touch with their predatory instincts - and they acted on them. Once glasses of champagne were passed out, the humans were separated and divided, then escorted, one by one, back into the penthouse. They were probably unaware they'd been singled out like calves from a herd.

On the other hand, we hadn't seen anything that looked remotely like crazed violence. This party was definitely bigger than prior raves, but it wasn't exactly the free-for-all Mr. Jackson had described.

When a tall, dark-haired vamp took one of the goth girls by the hand and led her back through the plastic, Jonah nudged me. "Let's head inside.

I'll take her, make sure things stay aboveboard.

You keep an eye on the rest of them."

"Will do," I said, ignoring the flutter in my stomach when he kissed my hand and walked back into the room.

I followed him, and I'll admit it: my boy troubles aside, I could appreciate a fine walk on Grey House vampire.

Unfortunately, I'd been doing just that when I found myself surrounded.