TWO'S COMPANY - THREE'S A MADHOUSE.

One day passed, then two, then four. It was surprisingly easy to fall into the routines of being a vampire. Sleeping during the day. Supplementing my diet with blood. Learning the ropes of Cadogan security (including the protocols) and doing my best to prepare for the responsibility of defending the House. At this early point, that generally involved pretending to be as competent as my actually skilled colleagues.

The protocols weren't difficult to understand, but there were many to learn. They were divided, much like the katas, into categories - offensive action plans, defensive action plans. The bulk of them fell into the latter category - how we were supposed to react if groups attacked the House or any particular Cadogan vampire, how we'd structure counterattacks. The maneuvers varied by the size of the band of marauders and whether they used swords or magic against us. Whoever the enemy, our first priority was to secure Ethan, then the rest of the in-house vamps and the building itself, coordinating with other allies when possible. Once Chicago was secure, we were to check in with the Cadogan vamps who didn't live in Cadogan House.

Under the House, beneath a small parking structure I was clearly too low in the chain to have a spot in, were access points to underground tunnels that ran parallel to the city's extensive sewer system. From the tunnels, we could scramble to our assigned safe houses. Cheerily, we were only given the address of one house so the locations of the slate of them couldn't be tortured out of us. I was working on managing my panic about the fact that I was now part of an organization that had a need for secret evacuation tunnels and safe houses, an organization that had to plan around the possibility of group torture.

I also learned, after nearly a week of watching Luc and Lindsey interact, that he was seriously hung up on her. The vitriol and sarcasm he dished out on a daily basis - and there was a lot of it - was clearly a plea for her attention. A dismally unsuccessful plea. Luc may have had it bad, but Lindsey wasn't buying.

Ever curious, and that was going to burn my ass one of these days, I decided to ask her about it. We were in line, trays in hand in the first-floor cafeteria, picking from a selection of almost irritatingly healthy menu choices, when I asked her, "Do you want to tell me about you and everyone's favorite cowboy?"

Lindsey pulled three cartons of milk onto her tray, taking so long to answer me that I wondered if she'd heard the question in the first place. Eventually, she shrugged. "He's okay."

That was all I got until we were seated around a wooden table in ladder-back chairs, dark with age. "Okay, but not okay enough?"

Lindsey folded open a milk carton and took a long drink, then shrugged with more neutrality than I knew she actually felt. "Luc's great. But he's my boss. I don't think that's a good idea."

"You were goading me a few days ago about having a fling with Ethan." I lifted my sandwich and took a bite that was heavy on sprouts and light on flavor. Wrong kind of crunch, I concluded.

"Luc's great. He's just not for me."

"You get along well."

I pushed, and she broke. "And wouldn't that be lovely," she said, dropping her fork with obvious irritation, "until we broke up and then had to work together? No, thanks." Without looking up at me, she started picking absently through a pile of Cheetos.

"Okay," I said, in my most soothing voice (and wondering where she'd found the Cheetos), "so you like him." Her cheeks flushed pink. "But - what? - you're afraid to lose him, so you won't date him in the first place?"

She didn't answer, so I took her silence as implicit confirmation and let her off the hook. "Fine. We won't talk about it anymore."

Lindsey and I didn't talk about it anymore, but that didn't stop Luc from sliding in comments here and there, or her from baiting him with suggestions of rebellion. And while I really liked Lindsey, and I was glad we were on the same team, I sympathized with Luc. The girl had a sharp-edged wit, and it couldn't have been easy for him to be constantly on the receiving end of it. Sarcasm between friends is all well and good, but she risked tipping the balance toward meanness.

On the other hand, that biting sarcasm came in handy, since Amber and Gabrielle had teamed up to flaunt Amber's relationship with Ethan in my face. This time, we'd finished up our meal and were on our way back through the first floor to the stairs when they stopped in front of us.

"Hon," Gabrielle asked Amber, inspecting her nails while blocking the stairway. "You wanna grab a drink tonight?"

Amber, dressed in a black velour tracksuit with BITE ME written across the front in red letters, glanced up at me. "Can't. I have plans with Ethan tonight, and you know, darling" - she lifted an auburn brow - "how demanding he can be."

I wanted to gag, right after raking my nails through that tacky velour, but was flustered enough by the message - and the fact that I'd seen Ethan take her up on the offer, slutty as it was - not to think of a quick retort.

Luckily, Captain Sassy Pants was nearby. With her usual aplomb, she plucked a Cheeto from a to-go bag and flicked it at Amber. "Scurry off, little woman."

Amber made a sound of disgust, but took Gabrielle by the hand, and they retreated down the hallway.

"And I've made the world safe for one more day," Lindsey said as we headed down the stairs.

"You're a real pal."

"I'm taking Connor out for a drink after shift. If I'm such a good pal, I think you need to join us."

I shook my head. "Training tonight. Can't." That was but the first of the good reasons not to take her up on that offer.

Lindsey stopped on the stairs and grinned over at me. "Nice. I'd pick a little quality Catcher Bell time over me, too. Has he let you hold his sword yet?"

"I think Mallory's got his sword well under control."

We reached the Ops Room door. Lindsey stopped, nodded with approval. "Good for her."

"For her, less so for me."

"Why's that?"

"Because he's constantly at the house, and it's beginning to feel a little small for the three of us."

"Ah. You know the obvious solution to that - move in here." She pulled open the door, and we walked inside the Ops Room and moved to the conference table while guards already at their stations tapped keys, watched screens, and talked into their headsets.

"Same answers as last time," I whispered as we took seats at the table. "No, no, and no. I can't live in the same house as Ethan. We'd kill each other."

Lindsey crossed her legs and swiveled her chair to face me. "Not if you just avoid him. And look how well you've managed to avoid him for the last week."

I gave her a look, but nodded when she lifted dubious brows. She was right - I'd avoided him, he'd avoided me, we'd avoided each other. And despite the vague sense of unease I had whenever I stepped across the threshold and into Cadogan, the fact that we had managed to avoid each other made living here at least possible.

"So," she said, "your continuing to avoid him shouldn't be a problem. And just think," Lindsey whispered, "it's practically the O.C. in here. You're missing out on a lot of excitement by heading back to Wicker Park every morning."

"Yeah, that's really the selling point you need to focus on. 'Cause these last few weeks have been dullsville otherwise."

To be fair, it was kind of a selling point. I did enjoy other folks' drama. I just didn't need any more of my own.

Catcher, Mallory, and Jeff were at the gym when I arrived. I wasn't sure why Jeff was there, but since he and Mal were the closest thing I had to cheerleaders, I didn't so much mind the extra bodies.

Or wouldn't have minded, had I arrived seconds later, and missed Catcher pawing my roommate next to the water fountain.

I cleared my throat loudly as I strode past, which did nothing to prompt a disentangling of their bodies.

"Cats in heat," I said to Jeff, who sat sprawled in a chair in the gym, his arms folded across his chest, his eyes closed.

"Are they still at it? It's been twenty minutes."

I caught the tiny bit of wistfulness in his voice.

"They're at it," I confirmed, realizing it was the second time in a week I'd walked in on a union of pink parts I had no desire to see.

Jeff opened blue eyes, grinned at me. "If you're feeling left out . . ."

I almost threw out an instinctive no, but I decided to throw him a bone. "Oh, Jeff. It'd be too good - you and me. Too powerful, too much emotion, too much heat. We'd come together and boom" - I clapped my hands together - "like a moth to a flame, there'd be nothing left."

His eyes glazed over. "Combustion?"

"Totally."

He was quiet for a moment, his index finger tracing a pattern on the knee of his jeans. Then he nodded. "Too powerful. It'd destroy us both."

I nodded solemnly. "Probably so." But I leaned over, pressed my lips to his forehead. "We'll always have Chicago."

"Chicago," he dreamily repeated. "Yeah. Definitely." He cleared his throat, seemed to regain a little composure. "When I tell this story later, you kissed me on the mouth. With tongue. And you were handsy."

I chuckled. "Fair enough."

Catcher and Mallory walked in, Catcher in the lead, Mallory behind, one hand in his, the fingers of her free hand against her lips, her cheeks flushed.

"Sword," Catcher said, before dropping her hand and continuing through the gym to the door on the other side of the room.

"Was that an instruction or an agenda, do you think?" I asked Mallory, who stopped in front of me.

She blinked, her gaze on Catcher's jeans-clad ass as he passed. "Hmm?"

I cocked an eyebrow at her. "I'm in love with Ethan Sullivan and we're going to have teethy vampire babies and buy a house in Naperville and live happily ever after."

She looked over at me, her gaze as vacant as Jeff's had been. "It's just - he does this thing with his tongue." She trailed off, lifted an index finger, crooked it back and forth. "It's kind of a flicking?"

Before I knew what I was saying, but finally at the end of my Mallory-and-Catcher rope, I spilled out a plan in a quick tumble of sound. "I love you, but I'm moving into Cadogan House."

That got her attention. Her expression cleared, her brow furrowing. "What?"

Instantly deciding it was probably for the best, I nodded. "You two need your space, and I need to be there to do my job effectively." Left unspoken: I did not need to hear or see anything else regarding Catcher's sexual prowess.

"Oh." Mallory looked down at the floor. "Oh." When she looked back up again, there was sadness in her eyes. "Jesus, Merit. Everything's changing."

I squeezed her into a hug. "We're not changing. We're just living in different places."

"We'll be living in different ZIP codes."

"And, as I've said before, you have Sexy Bell to keep you company. You'll be fine." I'd probably be fine, too, assuming I could convince myself and the other Cadogan vamps that I could live under the same roof as Ethan without impaling him on the business end of an aspen stake. That was going to require some Mallory-worthy creative thinking.

Mal squeezed me back. "You're right. You're right. I'm being ridiculous. You need to get in there, do that vampire thang, mix it up." Then she quirked up an eyebrow. "Did you say you were in love with Ethan?"

"Just to get your attention."

Probably.

Shit.

"Gotta say, Mer, I'm not loving that idea."

I nodded ruefully and began the walk toward the locker room. "Just be glad you're not me."

Minutes later, I emerged barefoot and ponytailed, ready for another night of training to protect, among others, a man I apparently had conflicting feelings about. Mallory and Jeff sat in chairs on the other side of the room. Catcher hadn't yet emerged from the back, so I moved toward the body bag that hung in one corner of the gym, curled my hands into fists, and began to wail.

In the couple of sessions I'd had with Catcher since Commendation, we'd trained with pads, practicing jabs and front kicks, guards and uppercuts. The practice was designed to increase my stamina, to give me a vocabulary of vampire fighting basics, and to ensure that I could pass the tests required of Cadogan guards. But I'd usually been too worried about learning the moves, the forms, to find therapy, solace, in the movements.

With Catcher in the back, there was no such distraction.

I aimed a bare-handed jab at the logo in the middle of the bag, thwack, loving the flat thud of contact and the flight of the bag in the other direction. Loving the fact that I'd made it move. Enjoying the fact that I'd imagined green eyes peering out through the logo, and had nailed the spot just between those eyes.

Thwack. Thwack. A satisfying double punch, the bag standing in for the man I'd become honor-bound to serve, whom I was becoming a little too interested in.

I stepped back, pivoted on a heel, and swiveled my hip for a side kick. It probably seemed, to the casual observer, that I was warming up, taking a few well-aimed kicks at an inanimate object.

But in my mind, thwack, I was kicking, thwack, a certain Master vampire, thwack, in the face.

Finally smiling, I stood straight again, planting hands on my hips as I watched the bag swing on its chain. "Therapeutic," I concluded.

The door at the back of the gym opened, and Catcher walked through, the katana, sheathed in gleaming black lacquer, in his right hand. In his left was a wooden bar in the shape of a katana - a long slice of gently curving, gleaming wood - but without the hilt or any other physical distinction between the handle and blade. This, I'd learned, was a bokken, a practice weapon, a tool for learning swordsmanship sans the risk of an amateur slicing through things not intended for slicing.

Catcher moved to the center of the mats, laid the bokken down, and with a slow, careful movement, the blade angled just so, unsheathed his katana. The naked steel caught the light, glinted and made a metallic whistle as he pulled it through the air. Then he motioned at me, and I joined him in the center of the mats. He turned the katana, and one hand near the hilt, offered it to me.

I took it, tested the weight in my hand. It felt lighter than I'd imagined it would given the complicated combination of materials - wood, steel, bumpy ray skin, corded silk. I gripped the sword in my right hand beneath the hilt and wrapped the fingers of my left hand below it, four finger spaces between my hands. It wasn't that I'd studied up. I just mimicked the hand positions he'd demonstrated with the sword he usually didn't let me hold, the sword he treated with careful reverence.

I'd asked him earlier in the week about that reverence, why he stilled when the blade was revealed, why his gaze went a little unfocused when he unsheathed it. His answer - "It's a good blade" - was less than satisfying, and, I guessed, barely the tip of that iceberg.

Sword in hand, I held it before me, waited for Catcher's direction.

He had plenty.

For all his lack of loquaciousness in discussing why he liked the sword, he had plenty to offer in how I should relate to it - the position of my hands on the handle (which wasn't quite right, despite my careful mimicry), the position of the blade relative to the rest of my body, the stance of my feet, and the carriage of body weight as I prepared to strike.

Catcher explained that this, my first time with the sword, was only to accustom me to the feel of it, the weight of it. I'd learn the actual moves with the bokken because, although Catcher was pleased with what I'd learned so far, he had no confidence in my ability to manage the katana. At least not to his nitpicky expectations.

When he said that, I paused in the middle of a stance he'd been teaching me, looked over at him. "Then why do I have this katana in my hands?"

His expression went immediately serious. "Because you're a vampire, and a Cadogan vamp at that. Until you know the moves, until you're ready to wield the sword as an expert" - the tone in his voice made it obvious that he'd settle for nothing less - "you're going to need to bluff." He raised a hand, pointed at the blade of the katana. "She is, among other things, your bluff."

Then he slid a glance to Mallory, and gave her a wicked look. "If you aren't ready to truly handle the sword, at least learn how to hold it."

There was a sardonic grunt from her side of the gym.

Catcher laughed with obvious satisfaction. "It only hurts the first time."

"Where have I heard that before?" Mallory drily responded, one crossed leg swinging as she flipped through a magazine. "And if I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times - magic does not belong in the bedroom." But while her eyes were on the magazine in her lap, she was grinning when she said it.

Cadogan House, here I come, I thought, and adjusted my grip on the katana. I centered my weight, rolled my shoulders, and attacked.

Two hours later, the sun just preparing to peek over the horizon, I was back home in a tank top and flannel pajama bottoms. I was on my bed, cell phone in hand, replaying the message I found when I left the gym. It was from Morgan, a voice mail he'd left while I was training.

Beep. "Hey. It's Morgan. From Navarre, in case you know a lot of us. Morgans, I mean. I'm rambling. I hope the Commendation went well. Heard you were named Sentinel. Congratulations." Then he gave me a little speech on the history of the House Sentinel, and the fact that Ethan had resurrected the position.

He talked so long the cell phone cut him off.

Then he called back.

Beep. "Sorry. Got a little long-winded there. Probably not my finest moment. That was not really the suave demonstration of the mad skills I had planned." There was a pause. "I'd like to see you again." Throat clearing. "I mean, if for no other reason than to explain to you, a little more thoroughly this time, the obvious benefits of rooting for the Packers - the glory, the history - "

"The obvious humility," I muttered, listening to the message, unable to stop the grin that curled the corners of my lips.

"So, yeah. We need to talk about that. Football. 'That,' meaning football. Jesus. Just give me a call." Throat clearing. "Please."

I stared at the open shell of the phone for a long time, thinking about the phone call even as the sun pulled at the horizon, peeked above it. I finally clamped the phone closed, and when I curled into a ball, my head heavy on the pillow, I slept with the phone in my hand.

When the sun set and I opened my eyes again, I deposited the cell phone on the bedside table, and decided - it being both my day off and my twenty-eighth birthday -  that I had time for a run. I stretched, donned workout gear, pulled up my hair, and headed downstairs.

I got in a run, a loop around Wicker Park, the commercial parts of the neighborhood buzzing with dinner seekers and folks seeking the solace of an after-work drink. The house was still quiet when I returned, so I was spared the sights and sounds of a Carmichael-Bell liaison. Thirsty enough to guzzle Buckingham Fountain, I headed for the kitchen and the refrigerator.

That was when I saw my father.

He sat at the kitchen island, dressed in his usual suit and expensive Italian loafers, glasses cocked at his nose as he scanned the paper.

Suddenly, it didn't seem coincidental that Mallory and Catcher were nowhere to be found.

"You've been named Sentinel."

I had to force my feet to move. Aware that his eyes were on me, I walked to the refrigerator, grabbed a carton of juice, and cracked it open. I almost reached for a glass from the cupboard, thinking it would be more polite to pour a cup than chug from the carton, but opted to chug anyway. Our house, our rules.

After a long, silent drink, I walked to the opposite side of the island, put down the carton, and looked at him. "So I have."

He made a show of loudly folding the paper, then placed it on the counter. "You've got pull now."

Word, even if fundamentally incorrect, had traveled. I wondered if my father, like my grandfather, had his own secret vampire source. "Not really," I told him. "I'm just a guard."

"But for the House. Not for Sullivan."

Damn. Maybe he did have a source. He knew a lot, but the more interesting question was why he'd bothered to find out. Potential business deals? Bring out the daughter's vampire connections to impress friends and business partners?

Whatever the source or the reason, he was right about the distinction. "For the House," I confirmed, and squeezed the top of the carton closed. "But I'm a couple of weeks old, with hardly any training, and I'm probably last on Ethan's list of trusted vamps. I have no pull." I thought of the phrase Ethan had used and added, "No political capital at all."

My father, his blue eyes so like mine, gazed at me quietly before standing. "Robert will be taking over the business soon. He'll need your support, your help with the vampires. You're a Merit, and you're now a member of this Cadogan House. You have Sullivan's ear."

That was news to me.

"You've got the in. I expect you to use it." He tapped fingers against the folded paper, as if to drive home the point. "You owe it to your family."

I managed not to remind him exactly how supportive that "family" had been when I'd discovered I was a vampire. I'd been threatened with disinheritance. "I'm not sure what service you think I could provide to you or Robert," I told him, "but I'm not for rent. I'll do my job as Sentinel, my duty, because I swore an oath. I'm not happy to be a vampire. It's not the life I'd have picked. But it's mine now, and I'll honor that. I'm not going to jeopardize my future, my position" - or my Master and his House - "by taking on whatever little project you've got in mind."

My father huffed. "You think Ethan would hesitate to use you if the opportunity arose?"

I wasn't sure what I thought about that, but Ethan was off-limits as a paternal conversation topic. So I stared down Joshua Merit, gave him back the same blue-eyed glare he leveled at me. "Was that all you needed?"

"You're a Merit."

But no longer just a Merit, I thought, which pushed a little grin onto my face. I repeated, my tone flat, "Was that all you needed?"

A muscle ticked in his jaw, but he backed down. Without another word to his younger daughter, birthday wishes or otherwise, he turned on his heel and walked out.

When the front door closed, I kept my place. I stood for a minute in the empty kitchen, hands clenching the edge of the island, filled with the urge to run after my father, demand that he see me for who I was, love me for who I was.

I swallowed down tears, dropped my hands away.

And as the bloodlust rose again, whether fueled by anger or grief, I went back to the refrigerator, found a bag of O positive, cradled it in my arms, and sank to the floor.

There was no intoxication this time. There was satiation, a sense of deep, earthy satisfaction, and the oblivion that accompanied the detachment I had to adopt in order to take human blood into my body. But there was no drunkenness, no stumbling. It was as if my body had accepted the thing my mind was only just becoming accustomed to -  the thing that I'd admitted to my father, to Ethan, to myself.

I was a Cadogan vampire.

No - I was a vampire. Regardless of House, of position, and despite the fact that I didn't rave through graveyards at night, I didn't fly (or, at least, I assumed I didn't fly - I hadn't fully tested that, I guess), and I didn't cower at the sight of the crucifix pendant that hung on the mirror in the upstairs bathroom. Despite the fact that I ate garlic, that I still had a reflection, and that I could stumble groggily through the day, even if I wasn't at my best.

So I wasn't the vampire Hollywood had imagined. I was different enough. Stronger. Faster. More nimble. A sunlight allergy. The ability to heal. A taste for hemoglobin. I'd acquired a handful of new friends, a new job, a boss I studiously avoided, and a paler cast to my skin. I could handle a sword, knew a smattering of martial arts, had nearly been murdered and had discovered an entirely new side to the Windy City. I could sense magic, could feel the power that flowed through the metro, a metaphysical companion to the Chicago River. I could hear Ethan's voice in my head, had seen a bad boy sorcerer shoot magic in my direction, and had lost my best friend and roommate (and room) to that same bad boy sorcerer.

For all those changes, all that upheaval, what else was there, but to do? To act? To be Cadogan Sentinel, to take up arms and bear them for the House I'd been charged with protecting.

I pushed up off the floor, tossed the empty plastic bag in the trash, wiped at my mouth with the back of a hand, and gazed out the kitchen window and into the dark night.

Today was my twenty-eighth birthday.

I didn't look a day over twenty-seven.

Intent on making the most of the rest of my night off, I'd showered, changed, and was in my bedroom - door shut, sitting cross-legged in jeans on the comforter, a copy of Algernon Swinburne's Tristam of Lyonesse open before me. It was outside the context of my dissertation, Swinburne's version of Tristan and Isolde having been penned in 1852, but the despite the tragic end, the story always drew me back. I'd read and reread the prelude, Swinburne's ode to history's soul-crossed lovers, his ode to love itself: . . . And always through new act and passion new

Shines the divine same body and beauty through,

The body spiritual of fire and light

That is to worldly noon as noon to night;

Love, that is flesh upon the spirit of man

And spirit within the flesh whence breath began;

Love, that keeps all the choir of lives in chime;

Love, that is blood within the veins of time;

Fire. Light. Blood. The veins of time. Those words had never meant as much to me as they did now. Context definitely mattered.

I was staring at the text, contemplating the metaphor, when a knock sounded at my bedroom door. It opened, and Lindsey peeked inside.

"So this is where the mysterious Cadogan Sentinel spends her free time?" She was in jeans and a black T-shirt, heavy, black leather bands at each wrist, her blond hair in a ponytail. She tucked her hands behind her back, turned around to survey the room. "I understand it's someone's birthday."

I closed the book. "Aren't you working today?"

Lindsey shrugged. "I switched with Juliet. Girl loves her guns, sleeps with that sword. She was happy to take duty."

I nodded. In the few days that I'd known Juliet, that summed up my impression. She had the look of an innocent, but she was always ready for a fight. "What brings you by?"

"You, birthday girl. Your party awaits."

I arched a brow. "My party?"

She crooked a finger at me, walked back into the hallway. Curious, I put the book aside, unfolded my legs, turned off the bedside lamp, and followed her. She trotted back down the stairs and into the living room - and into an assemblage of friends. Mallory, Catcher behind her, one hand at her waist. Jeff, quirky grin on his face and a silver-wrapped box in his hands.

Mallory stepped forward, arms outstretched. "Happy birthday, our little vampette!" I hugged her and gave Jeff a wink over her shoulder.

"We're taking you out," she said. "Well, no, actually, we're taking you in - to your grandfather's house. He's got a little something prepared."

"Okay," I said, at a loss to argue, and a little gushy-hearted that my friends had come to sweep me away to birthday festivities. It was a hell of an improvement over the mock- paternal visit earlier in the evening.

I found shoes and we gathered up purses, turned off lights, and locked the front door under the gaze of the guards who stood outside. Mallory and Catcher bundled off to the SUV that sat at the curb, a vehicle I guessed was Lindsey's when she headed toward the driver's seat. Jeff hung back, shyly offering the silver box.

I took it, looked at it, glanced up at him. "What's this?"

He grinned. "A thank-you."

I smiled, and pulled off the silver gift wrap, then slid open the pale blue box beneath it. Inside was a tiny silver sculpture. It was human in form - a body genuflecting, arms outstretched. A little confused, I looked up at him, brows lifted.

"It's bowing to you. I may have" - he pulled at the collar of his dress shirt - "spread around the fact that the Sentinel of Cadogan House had a tiny crush on me."

I folded my arms and looked at him. "How tiny?"

He started for the car. I followed.

"Jeffrey. How tiny?"

He held up a hand as he walked, the fingers pinched together.

"Jeff!"

He opened the back door, but turned before he slid in, a grin lighting his eyes. "There may have been begging, and I may have turned you down because you were a little too. . . ."

I rolled my eyes, slid into the backseat beside him. "Let me guess - too clingy?"

"Something like that."

I faced forward, felt his worried gaze at my side and the sudden peppering of magic that filled the back of the car. No, not just magic - alarm. But he was a friend, so I ignored the prick of vampiric interest - predatory interest - in the sweetly astringent aroma of his fear. "Fine," I said. "But I'm not giving you underwear."

I heard a chuckle from the front seat, then felt Jeff's lips on my cheek. "You seriously kick ass."

Mallory flipped down her visor, met my gaze in the inset mirror, and winked at me.

There were cars all around my grandfather's house - at the curb, parked on the front lawn. All luxury roadsters - Lexus, Mercedes, BMW, Infiniti, Audi - all in basic colors -  red, green, blue, black, white. But it was the license plates that gave them away: NORTH 1, GOOSE, SBRNCH. All divisions of the Chicago River.

"Nymphs," I concluded, when we were out of the car and Catcher had joined me on the sidewalk. I remembered the designations from the posters in my grandfather's office.

"This wasn't scheduled," he said. "They must have needed some Ombud input. A mediation, probably." He looked over at Jeff, stuck out a pointed finger. "No touching. If they're fighting, there'll be tears enough."

Jeff raised both hands, grinned. "I don't make the ladies cry, CB."

"Don't call me that," Catcher ground out, before looking at me. "This was not part of the birthday party."

I looked at the house, brightly lit, figures moving to and fro inside, and nodded. "So I gathered. Anything I need to be aware of?" And before he asked the obvious question, I gave the obvious answer. "And, yes, I've read the Canon." The book wasn't a bad fill-in for the supernatural reference guide I'd been wishing for - it had introductory sections on all the major supernatural groups, water nymphs included. They were small, slim, moody, and prone to tears. They were territorial and wielded considerable power over the river's flow and currents, and were rumored - and God only knew how to evaluate rumor in something like this - to be the granddaughters of the Naiads of Greek myth.

The boundaries of the nymphs' respective areas were constantly waxing and waning, as the nymphs traded up and down for tiny bits of water and shore. And although human history books didn't mention it, there were rumors that they'd played a key role in reversing the Chicago River's flow in 1900.

"Just stay out of arm's reach," Catcher advised, and went for the door.

My grandfather's house was full of women. All of them petite and curvy, not a single one taller than five foot four. All drop-dead gorgeous. All with flowy hair, big, liquid eyes, tiny, tiny dresses. And they were screaming, screeching at one another with voices half an octave past comfortable. They were also crying, watery tears streaming down their faces.

We walked in, the five of us, and were greeted by a brief din in the silence.

"My granddaughter," my grandfather, seated in his easy chair, one elbow on the arm, hand in his chin, announced. "It's her birthday."

The nymphs blinked big eyes at me - blue and brown and translucent green - then turned back to one another, and the screaming commenced again. I caught a few snippets - something about bascule bridges and treaties and water flow. They were clearly unimpressed that I'd arrived.

My grandfather rolled his eyes in amusement. I grinned back and gave him a finger wave - and nearly lost a chunk of hair to the snap of pink-tipped fingers before Lindsey pulled me back from the fray.

I looked over at Catcher, who offered me the Look of Disappointed Sensei. "Arm's reach," he said, inclining his head toward the nymphs, who'd moved on to clawing and hair-pulling. It was a catfight of You Tube-worthy proportions. Hems were tugged, hair yanked, bare skin clawed and raked by prettily manicured nails. And through it all, screaming and tears.

"For goodness' sake," said a voice behind me, and Jeff pushed through us to the edge of warring women. "Ladies!" he said, and when they ignored him, gave a little chuckle, before yelling again, "Ladies!"

To a one, the nymphs stopped in place, even while their hands were wrapped around the necks and hair of the ones nearby. Heads swiveled slowly toward us, took in the group of us, stopped when they reached Jeff. The nymphs - all nine of them - dropped their hands, began adjusting hair and bodices, and when they were set, turned batty- eyelashed smiles at Jeff.

Mallory and I stared, openmouthed, at the skinny computer programmer who'd just wooed nine busty, lusty water goddesses into submission.

Jeff rocked back on his heels, grinned at them. "That's better. Now what's all the fuss?" His voice was soothing, crooning, with an edge of playful that made the women visibly shiver.

I couldn't help but grin . . . and wonder if I hadn't been giving Jeff enough credit.

The tallest of the petite group, a blue-eyed blonde whose perfect figure was tucked into a blue cocktail dress - and who I remembered from the posters at my grandfather's office was the Goose Island nymph - looked across the group of women, smiled tentatively at Jeff, then let loose a stream of invectives about her sisters that would have made a salty sailor blush.

"Uh, earmuffs?" Mallory whispered next to me.

"Seriously," I murmured back.

The gist of Goose Island's argument, without all the cursing, was that the (slutty) raven- haired nymph on her left, North Branch, had slept with the (whorish) boyfriend of the platinum blond nymph on her right, West Fork. The reason for the betrayal, Goose suggested, was some sort of complicated political nudging of their respective boundaries.

Jeff clucked his tongue and regarded the North Branch brunette. "Cassie, darling, you're better than this."

Cassie shrugged sheepishly, looked at the ground.

"Melaina," he said to the West Fork blonde, "you need to leave him."

Melaina sniffled, her head bobbing as she toyed with a lock of hair. "He said I was pretty."

Jeff gave her a sad smile and opened his arms. Melaina practically jumped forward and into Jeff's embrace, squealing when he hugged her. As Jeff patted her back, crooned soothing whispers into her ear, Mallory, agog, slid me a dubious glance.

I could only shrug. Who knew little Jeff had this in him? Maybe it was a shifter-nymph thing? I made a mental note to check the Canon.

"There, there," Jeff said, and released Melaina to her sisters. "Now." He folded long- fingered hands together and looked over the group. "Are we done bothering Mr. Merit for the evening? I'm sure he's noted your concerns, and he'll pass them along to the Mayor." He looked at my grandfather for approval, and Grandpa nodded in response.

"Okay, girls?" A little more sniffling, a few brushes of hands across teary cheeks, but they all nodded. The making up was as loud as the dispute had been, all high-pitched apologies and plans for mani-pedis and spa days. Hugs were exchanged, ripped hemlines were cooed over, makeup adjusted. (Miraculously, not a mascara smudge to be seen. Indelible mascara was a river nymph necessity, I supposed.)

When the nymphs had calmed themselves, they gathered around Jeff, peppered him with kisses and sweet words, and filed out the door. Mallory and I watched through the screen door as they flipped open cell phones and climbed into their tiny roadsters, then zoomed off into the Chicago night.

We turned simultaneously back to Jeff, who was typing with his thumbs on a cell phone with a slide-out keyboard. "Warcraft tourney tonight. Who's in?"

"How long do shifters live?" I asked Catcher.

He looked at me, one eyebrow arched in puzzlement. "A hundred and twenty, a hundred and thirty years. Why?"

So he was young, even if, at twenty-one, a legal adult in human years. "Because he's going to be frighteningly good when he grows up."

Jeff looked up, pointed at his phone. "Seriously, who's in?" he asked me, his eyes wide and hopeful. "You can be my elf? I have headsets."

"When he grows up," Catcher confirmed, and slipped the cell phone from Jeff's hands, and into his own pocket. "Let's eat, Einstein."

After exchanging belated hello hugs with my grandfather, I was led into the dining room. A meal fit for a king - or a cop, two vampires, a shifter, and two sorcerers - was laid out on the table. In the infield of a ring of green place mats lay bowls of green beans, corn, mashed potatoes, squash casserole, macaroni and cheese. There were baskets of rolls and on a side buffet sat the desserts - a layered white cake mounded with coconut shavings, a pan of frosting-covered brownies, and a plate of pink and white cupcakes.

But the showpiece, which sat on its own platter in the middle of the oval table, was the biggest ketchup-topped meat loaf I'd ever seen.

I made a happy sound. I loved to eat, sure, and I'd eat nearly anything put in front of me, the pint of blood I'd downed earlier evidence enough of that, but my grandfather's meat loaf - made from my grandmother's recipe - was by far my favorite meal.

"Anyone touches the meat loaf before I get my share, you become chew toys," I said, pointing a cautionary finger at the grinning faces around the room.

My grandfather put an arm across my shoulders. "Happy birthday, baby girl. I thought you'd appreciate the gift of food as much as anything else."

I nodded, couldn't help but laugh. "Thanks, Grandpa," I said, giving him a hug before pulling out a chair.

They moved around the table, my friends, Mallory beside me, Catcher at one end, Grandpa at the other, Lindsey and Jeff - who wore an unfortunately eager grin - on the opposite side. There was a quick moment of silence led, interestingly, by Catcher, who closed his eyes, dropped his head, and said a quick, reverential blessing over the food.

And when we all looked up again, we shared a smile and began to pass the bowls.

It was a homecoming, the family homecoming I'd always wanted. Jeff said something ridiculous; Catcher snarked back. Lindsey asked Mallory about her work; my grandfather asked me about mine. The conversation took place while we heaped meat loaf and vegetables on our plates, sprinkled salt and pepper, sipped at the iced tea that already sat in our glasses. Napkins were put into laps, forks lifted, and the meal began.

When we'd eaten our fill, leaving bowls empty but for crumbs and serving spoons, when the men had unbuttoned the tops of their pants and leaned back in their chairs, happy and sated as cats, Lindsey pushed back her chair, stood, and raised her glass.

"To Merit," she said. "May the next year of her life be full of joy and peace and AB positive and hunky boy vamps."

"Or shifters," Jeff said, raising his own glass.

Catcher rolled his eyes, but raised his glass as well. They saluted me, my family, and brought tears to my eyes. As I sniffled in my seat - and wolfed down my third helping of meat loaf - Mallory brought in a gigantic box wrapped in pink-and-purple unicorn- covered paper and topped by a big pink bow.

She squeezed my shoulders before putting it on the floor beside my chair. "Happy birthday, Mer."

I smiled at her, pushed back enough to pull the box into my lap, and pulled off the bow. The wrapping paper was next, and I complimented her juvenile taste as I dropped crumpled balls of it onto the floor. I popped open the box, pulled out the layer of tissue paper, and peered inside.

"Oh, Mal." It was black, and it was leather. Buttery soft leather. I pushed my chair all the way back, dropped the box on the seat, and pulled out the jacket. It was trim black leather with a mandarin collar. Like a motorcycle jacket, but without the branding. It wasn't unlike the jacket Morgan had worn at Navarre, and as chic as black leather came. I peeked into the box, saw that it contained matching black leather pants. Also sleek, and hot enough to make Jeff's eyes glaze over when I pulled them out.

"There's one more thing in there," Mallory said. "But you may not want to take it out right now." Her eyes glinted, so I grinned back, a little confused, and peered inside.

It could arguably have been called a "bodice," but it was closer in form to the black spandex band I had worn during training. It was leather, a rectangle of it, presumably designed to fit across my breasts, with a slat of corsetlike ties in the back. The band was maybe ten inches wide, and would reveal more skin than it covered.

"Vampire goth," Mallory said, drawing up my gaze again. I chuckled, nodded, and closed the box around the pants and "top."

"When you said you were going to buy me a black suit, I thought you meant the one you already bought." I grinned at her. "This goes above and beyond, Mal."

"Oh, I know." She stood up and came around the table, taking the jacket to help me shrug into it. "And don't think you don't owe me."

Mallory held out the leather, and I slid one arm in, then the second, and zipped up the snug, partially ribbed bodice. The arms and shoulders were segmented to give me some freedom of movement, a handy thing when I'd need, at some point in the future, to swing a sword around.

Jeff gave an appreciative whistle, and I struck a couple of ass-kicking poses, hands clenched in front of me in guard positions.

This was a new style for me. Not goth, exactly. More like Urban Vamp Soldier. Whatever it was, I liked it. I'd be able to bluff a lot better in leather than in a pretentious black suit.

While Mallory and Lindsey patted the buttery softness of the leather, Catcher rose, and, with the lifting of an imperious eyebrow, motioned me out of the dining room. I made my excuses and followed him.

In the middle of my grandfather's small fenced-in backyard lay a square of white fabric - a linen tablecloth I remembered from dinners hosted by my grandmother. One hand at the small of my back, Catcher steered me toward it. I took a place facing him on the opposite side of the square, and when he went to his knees across from me, I did the same.

He had a katana in his hand, but this one was different. Instead of his usual black- scabbarded model, this one was sheathed in brilliant red lacquer. Handle in his right hand, scabbard in his left, Catcher slipped the sword from its home. The scabbard was laid to the side, and the sword was placed on the linen square. He bowed to it and then, his hand inches above the blade, passed the flat of his palm over the length of the sword. I'd have sworn he said words, but nothing in a language I'd heard before. It had the staccato rhythm of Latin, but it wasn't Latin. Whatever the language, it had magic in it. Enough magic to ruffle my hair, to create a breeze in the still April night.

When he was done, when goose bumps peppered my arms, he looked up at me.

"She will be yours, Merit. This sword has belonged to Cadogan since the House existed. I've been asked to prepare it for you. And prepare you for it."

Admittedly, I'd been avoiding Ethan, so it was fine by me that he wasn't here, that Catcher was commanding the arsenal. But I still didn't get why it was him, and not Ethan, who'd been charged with giving me the sword. "Why not a vampire?"

"Because a vampire can't complete the temper." Catcher lifted the sword, flipped it around so the handle was on my right, and laid it down again. Then he nodded down at my arm. "Hold out your hand. Right. Palm up."

I did as he directed, watched him pull a small squarish knife from his pocket, the handle wrapped in black cord. He took my right hand in his left, then pressed the sharp tip of the knife to the center of my palm. There was an immediate sting, as a drop of blood, then two, appeared. He gripped my hand hard against my instinctive flinch, put aside the knife, and rotated my palm so it was positioned directly above the sword.

The crimson fell. One drop, then two, three. They splashed against the flat of the steel, rolled across the sharpened edge of the blade, and dropped onto the linen beneath it.

And then it happened - the steel rippled. It looked like waving heat across hot asphalt, the steel flexing like a ribbon in the wind. It lasted only seconds, and the steel was still again.

More words were whispered in that same rhythmic chant; then Catcher released my hand. I watched the pinprick in my palm close. Props for vampire healing.

"What was that?" I asked him.

"You've given a sacrifice," he said. "Your blood to the steel, so that she can keep you from shedding it in battle. Care for her, respect her, and she'll take care of you." Then he removed a small vial and cloth from a pocket of his cargo pants, showed me how to paper and oil the blade. When the sword was clean again and lay gleaming in the light of the backyard flood lamps, he rose.

"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 pi?ata. 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.