Because I wouldn’t hurt anyone else, ever again.
“Are you all right?”
I glanced at Seri, unclenching my fingers from the armrest and giving her what smile I could manage. “Fine. A little groggy.”
Her brows lifted, and the expression said she didn’t believe me. Seri was a Strong Psych, and had a sense about people, about emotions, about truth and fiction. And she’d almost certainly felt the magic.
“Jet lag,” I said, which was mostly true. Vampirism and time-zone changes didn’t mix well for me even in the best of times. I’d spent most of my first week in Paris napping.
She didn’t look entirely satisfied, but she nodded. “I’m glad we have only the reception tonight.” She smiled at the attendant, wiped her hands with the hot towel he offered. “I’m not ready to listen to hours of arguing.”
“Me, either.” And I didn’t need to be a Strong Psych to know that no one on the plane was feeling especially optimistic. “But they’ll have wine or champagne or both. And we’ll only have to go back upstairs when the party’s over.”
The opening reception would be held at the Portman Grand, one of Chicago’s poshest hotels—and our home for the next few days. I’d said no to Marion when she offered to let me stay at Cadogan House. There was nothing to be gained from baiting the monster.
“You could still change your mind about the hotel,” Seri said. “Stay at Cadogan so you can see your parents more often.”
I made myself smile at her. “I’ll be working. Diplomatic responsibilities, remember?”
And a little more peace.
* * *
• • •
We landed safely, and half the passengers applauded the pilot, which I always found weird. The flight crew had done exactly what they’d been hired to do—get us safely across the ocean. Would we have heckled the pilot if the plane had gone down?
I unbuckled my seat belt and stood, then picked up my bag and katana. The scabbard was the marbled green of malachite, the handle corded with silk of the same color. The blade was pristine, the edge so thin and sharp that even Muramasa himself, one of the masters of Japanese sword making, would have approved. It had been a gift from my mother for my eighteenth birthday, the first sharpened sword I’d been allowed to wield. And I had learned to wield it—to unsheathe it, to defend with it, to attack with it.
I was well trained, and I’d been in skirmishes before. But I’d never killed with it. I hadn’t seen violent death at all until the Eiffel Tower incident. Before then, I hadn’t seen empty and staring eyes—the visible proof of how quickly and ruthlessly life could be stolen. And I had a very bad feeling those memories wouldn’t fade as quickly.
The vampire seated in front of us rose and stretched, startling me from the memory.
He glanced around the plane, smiled in our direction. He was tall and lean, with taut, pale skin. His hair was silvery gray, his eyes pale blue and deep-set, topped by darker brows.
“Ladies,” he said in accented English. “Did you enjoy your flight? It is better than flying across the Atlantic on the wings of the bat, no?” His smile was halfway between smarmy and silly.
His name was Victor, and he was of the high-ranking vampires from Maison Chevalier, another House in Paris. Unlike Marion, who liked to think and consider, Victor was a politician all the way through. Strategic, as all vampires were, and skilled at getting his way. But he was honest about it, and seemed to always be smiling, so it was hard not to like him.
“Our arms would be so tired,” I said with as much smile as I could muster.
He grinned, pointed at me. “Exactement!” He pulled from a suit jacket a small box and flipped up the lid. A half dozen tiny and violently crimson macarons sat inside. “Would you care for a bite before we disembark?”
Seri shook her head. “No, merci.”
Blood-flavored macarons were all the rage among French vampires. I could deal with the flavor; I was a vampire, after all. But I didn’t like macarons even in the best of times. They were too indecisive. Were they candies? Cookies? I had no idea, and I didn’t like snacks that couldn’t commit.
“No, thank you,” I said with a smile.
“You may proceed,” the flight attendant said, allowing us to move toward the door. “Have a wonderful evening.”
Victor gave a little salute. “Ladies, au revoir. I will see you at the party.”
“Au revoir,” Seri said, and lifted a hand to him. “You really shouldn’t encourage him,” she murmured when Victor disappeared ahead of us.
“He’s charming in his way,” I said, following her into the aisle.
“You should not have laughed at the bat joke. He will believe he is a great comedian, and we will never be done with his attempts at humor. I don’t know if I can stand an immortality of it.”
“We will persist,” I said gravely. But his offer had me thinking—and worrying. “I didn’t bring any souvenirs for my parents. Maybe I should have bought macarons at the airport.”
“It is a rule,” Seri said, “that one should not buy gifts at an airport.”
“Okay, but which is more important? Buying gifts for your family at an airport, or showing up without gifts at all?”
She pursed her lips as she considered. “You should have bought macarons at the airport. But Chicago will be glad to have you home, macarons or not. You are the prodigal daughter returning!”
“I guess we’ll see about that,” I murmured, descended the steps, and breathed in the humid air of a Midwestern August.
* * *
• • •
I didn’t recognize the cluster of humans who waited on the tarmac at the bottom of the stairs, but they introduced themselves as members of the mayor’s staff. With apologetic and politic smiles, they explained delegates were arriving from all over the world, so the mayor simply couldn’t greet every sup personally.
Given she was human, I didn’t expect her to be literally in more than one place at a time.
A line of vehicles waited to take passengers and luggage to their respective hotels. Most were boxy and gleaming Autos that didn’t need drivers, and would have been preprogrammed to send us to our destination.
In front of them stood my parents.
My father, Ethan Sullivan, was tall and pale, with golden blond hair down to his shoulders that matched my own. As on most nights, he wore a black suit and a cool expression. That was the result of four hundred years of playing vamp politics and having to learn early on to ignore the details to focus on the primary goal: the survival of his House and the vamps who lived there.
My mother, Caroline Merit—just Merit to most—stood beside him in slim-fitting black pants and a simple pale blue top, her hair dark and straight, her face framed by bangs. Her eyes were pale blue, her nose straight, her mouth wide, and she was pretty in an elegant way.
My dad called her Duchess, which fit until you heard her curse like a sailor or do battle against nachos. There was nothing aristocratic about that or her fighting skills. Give a trained dancer a katana, and she’ll show you something spectacular. She now stood Sentinel for the House, a guardian for the organization and its Master.
My mother was over fifty, and my father more than four hundred. Neither had aged since I’d been born; they looked barely older than me. Humans usually found that weird, but to me it just was. They were my parents, and they looked the way they looked. Wasn’t it weirder to have parents who looked a little different with each month and year that passed?
I’d eventually stop aging, too, or so we assumed. As the only vampire child ever born, we were writing the book about the growth of vampire children. For now, at least, I figured I looked exactly my twenty-three years.
Bag and katana in hand, I made my way down the stairs. And the second I stepped foot onto asphalt—onto Chicago—the monster reached for the ground, for the city and its magic. And the power of its desire nearly buckled my knees.
My parents didn’t know about the monster. They knew only that I’d once lost control and a human had paid the price. I had a momentary flash of panic that I’d be overwhelmed by it, that they’d see that the monster was still inside me, caged but alive. Had probably been there since I’d been born, since I’d been magically fused to my mother. Because evil had been magically fused to me, or at least that’s what I thought had happened.
Knowing would break their hearts, and I couldn’t bear both the monster and weight of their grief. So I reached for every ounce of strength I had, forced myself to take one more step, then another. Four years of intense training, and cold sweat still trickled down my spine as I walked toward my parents. But they didn’t seem to see it.
“It’s so good to see you,” my mother said, wrapping her arms around me the moment I put down my bag and placed the scabbard on top. She smelled the same, her perfume clean and crisp and floral. The scent made me think of our apartments in Cadogan House, where the pale and pretty fragrance had permeated the air.