I’ll make more, he signed, and went back to the kitchen.

“So, yeah, Vampire Authority station,” Chloe said. “A lot has changed while you were passed out.”

“Like what?” I said through a mouthful of eggs. “Has Therion established some kind of fascist vampire state?”

“Actually, you’re not far off,” Chloe said. “The day you came home, all of the vampires suddenly stopped rampaging all over the place.”

“Half of them disappeared off the streets altogether, and the other half started marching in the streets in military order,” Jude said. “Then they went building to building collecting human stragglers and rounding them up for containment.”

“Containment?” I said, scraping my fork against my plate and realizing I’d already inhaled everything on it.

“Camps,” Jude said. “They’ve got hundreds of people penned up just west of the Loop in the parking lots around the United Center.”

“On the second day the flyers appeared,” Chloe said. She grabbed a piece of paper from the end table and handed it to me.

It would have been comical if we weren’t in such deadly circumstance. The vamps had adopted the CTA’s “If you see something, say something” motto. It was emblazoned in large letters at the top of the page. Underneath the motto it read, “The time has come to restore civil order to this city. If you believe that you have seen a crime being committed, we urge you to report to your nearest Vampire Authority station. The personnel at these stations are there for you. The stations are conveniently located approximately every half mile throughout the city.”

At the bottom in bold letters it read, “TOGETHER WE CAN RESTORE ORDER TO CHICAGO.”

“I notice that they have neglected to mention they were the ones to disrupt the peace in the first place,” I said, tossing the flyer to the side in disgust. “Do you know if people are buying this bullshit?”

“I think some of them are,” Jude said. “People are scared. They don’t understand what’s going on. If they think that turning looters in will save their families, then they will do it.”

“Stupid,” I said. “They need to get off the grid, not draw attention to themselves.”

“Then today there was this message,” Chloe said, gesturing to the TV. “The major networks have been broadcasting it every hour or so. Along with plenty of speculation about who you are and why the vampires are so interested in you.”

“They can speculate. I hope they enjoy themselves,” I said, thinking. “They laid the groundwork for that message pretty neatly. Everyone in Chicago is going to be looking for me to turn me in, especially if they think the vamps will leave once they have me.”

I had a lot of problems to solve, but one that was more pressing than the others. “I need to get in touch with J.B. Are the phones working?”

“No,” Beezle said. “The electricity only came back on yesterday. The vamps must have turned the power back on just to make sure Therion’s message was broadcast.”

“I need to know if the vampires have him or not,” I said.

“Why? You’re only going to do something foolish to save those Agents from Therion anyway,” Beezle said. “What difference does it make if J.B.’s there or not?”

“Because I need to know if he’s safe,” I said.

“I don’t think anybody is safe anymore. The rules have changed,” Beezle said.

“This is not really the time for a philosophical discussion,” I said.

“I’ll go,” Jude said. “I can check his home and the Agency and find out if he’s been taken or not.”

“No,” I said. “We don’t need anyone else roaming the city out of communication.”

“Yeah,” Beezle said, looking pointedly at me. “When members of the group get separated, bad things happen.”

I knew what he was referring to, and was careful not to look at Nathaniel. I wasn’t going to rise to Beezle’s baiting.

“I can move through the streets as a wolf much more quickly and quietly than the rest of you,” Jude argued. “If I find J.B., I’ll bring him back here. If I don’t, then I’ll see if I can discover what happened to him.”

“I don’t like it,” I said. “If something happened to you, we’d have no way of knowing. If you want to go get J.B., then I’m going with you.”

“No, you’re not,” said everyone in the room.

“I’d like to see any of you stop me,” I said.

“Shall we put it to the test?” Nathaniel asked. “Perhaps one of us would be unable to restrain you, but I think all of us could. You’ve been through an ordeal. You’re not to go haring off on another mission.”

“I don’t know if you’ve looked at yourself in the mirror today, but you look like death warmed over,” Chloe said.

“And you would only be an encumbrance,” Jude said brutally. “You can’t run as fast as I can. You can’t fly.”

“I can blast a truckload of vampires from here to eternity,” I snapped.

“Nobody is going to let you out that door,” Beezle said. “Besides, you need to stay home and figure out how to defeat the vampires so I can get takeout again.”

“If the city is restored, I doubt that most people will consider delivery of hot wings to be a priority,” I said.