I’d traveled in jeans and layers for the inevitable chill on the plane. The reception was semiformal, but still work. And it would require something more dramatic.
I’d learned early how clothes helped make the vampire, and that had only been reinforced in Paris. I’d brought a black cocktail dress—a simple column with a hem that ended just above the knees and long, fluid sleeves—and I paired it with black stilettos. Not practical for fighting, assuming that would happen at a supernatural reception, but they were kicked off easily enough.
I left my hair down, gave myself a quick makeup check, and added blush to cheeks made extra pale by travel, and mascara to green eyes that needed a pick-me-up.
After the party, I’d come back to the room, rehydrate, and try to squeeze in a few yoga poses. I’d started doing yoga as a teenager, because the stretches made painful vampiric growth spurts a little easier to bear, and I’d kept up the practice. I liked being flexible. But, most important, I liked being in control. Yoga gave me the focus I needed to stay that way. When I focused, I wasn’t Elisa-and-Monster. I simply was.
I decided to leave my katana in the room. But I slipped a small knife into my clutch, just in case.
A vampire couldn’t be too prepared.
* * *
• • •
Vampires were the only supernaturals officially participating in the talks, but the reception was open to all of Chicago’s sups. Both sets—European vampires and Chicago supernaturals—were given the chance to make their own entrance into the party, a chance to show off their particular cultures. It was our version of the Olympic opening ceremony.
A wide wooden staircase led from the hotel’s opulent lobby to the second floor, where the Red Ballroom awaited its guests.
There were metal detectors and scanners at the entrance, and a coat check for jackets, wraps, bags, and supernatural weapons that weren’t allowed into the ballroom. I’d gotten an exception for my knife since I was there, at least in part, to keep an eye on the Dumas vampires.
A large man with broad shoulders, a short neck, and a pug-nosed face—one of Chicago’s River trolls—offered a length of pipe to the young woman who manned the coat check, gum popping and apparently unfazed as she attached a tag to the pipe and handed the troll his receipt.
“Have a good night next please,” she said, the words running together in a well-practiced song.
I walked into the ballroom, which was an impressive space. The walls were painted with sweeping murals of Chicago’s history, the floor covered in crimson carpet patterned with gold filigree. Strings of tiny lights reached down from the ceiling like stars within reach.
There were bars and buffet tables along one wall that smelled enticingly of meat, a string quartet on the dais at the opposite end that played a low concerto, and a long aisle between cocktail tables where the supernatural parade would make its way through the room.
“Hey, Elisa,” said a voice I didn’t immediately recognize.
I glanced beside me, saw only shoulders. I had to look up to see the face of the Assistant Ombudsman I’d met earlier today.
“Hey,” I said with a little wave. “It’s Theo, right?”
“That’s me.”
He still wore the dark suit and bright gingham bow tie. “I like the tie.”
“Thanks. I like the dress,” he said, and gestured to his own arm. “And the sleeves.”
“Thanks,” I said with a smile. “Did you get all the delegates checked in?”
“Every last one of them,” Theo said. “They’re scattered around the city, of course, in the unlikely event anyone should attack. That was a challenge, and not just because of the egos.”
“Complainers?” I asked with a smile.
“You have no idea. I won’t name names—Spain,” he muttered behind a fake cough, “but one delegate was angry about the size of his three-room suite, because he’d been promised a four-room suite.”
“Obviously intentional to humiliate him.”
He smiled knowingly. “Exactly. Another was mad because the mini-bar booze wasn’t top-shelf, and she wasn’t going to drink swill.”
I walked through my mental list of the European Houses, the delegates. “Germany?” I guessed.
“Nailed it,” he said.
My parents walked in, my father in a crisp tuxedo, my mother in a sleeveless black sheath that fell to mid-calf, her hair around her shoulders. They were holding hands, my father whispering something that had my mother grinning. Her response had him rolling his eyes.
“They seem well matched,” Theo said.
“I think they are.” I looked at him. “Are you here with someone?”
“Me? No, I’m single.” He smiled, but his brow was furrowed. “I’m not really looking. Career is first for me. What about you? The media loves to speculate about Cadogan’s princess.”
“That’s just clickbait,” I said. “I’m single, too, and not really looking, either. Ditto the career thing.”
“Sounds like we have a lot in common.”
I had a feeling he meant exactly that. No more and no less.
I hadn’t known Theo for longer than an hour, but there was something about him I liked. Something honest and unpretentious. After living with vampires for twenty-three years, that was a characteristic I could appreciate.
“Yeah,” I said. “It sounds like we do.”
“Good evening,” my father said when they reached us, then bent to kiss my cheek. “You look lovely.”
“Thank you. You look very dashing, as always.” I gestured to Theo. “Theo, have you met my parents?”
“Hello, Theo,” my mother said, holding out a hand. “We met at the barbecue.”
“Sure, sure,” Theo said, and shook hands with her, then my father.
“Barbecue?” I asked.
“Your great-grandfather’s annual event,” my mother said.
The downside of living in Paris was missing family events. “Did he make the red coleslaw?”
“He did,” my mother said with a grin, and I sighed balefully.
Theo slanted me a look. “That was a pretty serious sigh for coleslaw. I mean, no one actually eats the coleslaw, do they? It’s just for show, right?”
“You obviously didn’t try the coleslaw,” my mother said, clucking her tongue.
Obviously baffled, Theo looked at my father. “But . . . it’s coleslaw. What am I missing?”
My father slid his hands into his pockets. “I decline the invitation to debate coleslaw again. And I strongly suggest you walk away, as well. Debating food with the Merit family is a war you cannot win.”
Theo still looked baffled, but he was smiling. Which I figured was just about the correct reaction.
“The coleslaw was fantastic as always,” my mother said, ending the argument. “And the Pack supplied the meat this year. It was great. You should check out the new office while you’re in town. It’s impressive. And Lulu’s painting a mural at Little Red.”
“She told me,” I said.
Lulu Bell was my best friend, and the daughter of my mother’s best friend, Mallory Carmichael Bell. Unlike Mallory, Lulu didn’t do magic. But she did art in a big way. She’d taken classes at the Art Institute, led her high school art club, and had gotten a degree from a fancy design school on the East Coast. Now she worked as a freelance painter and illustrator; the bigger the image, the better. Little Red was the Pack’s bar, situated in a corner of the city’s Ukrainian Village neighborhood.
“I let her know I got here safe, and I’m going to try to get over there tomorrow,” I said. “Is Uncle Malik coming tonight?” I looked around again. I’d seen two of Chicago’s Masters—Morgan Greer and Scott Grey—in the crowd. But the fourth was a no-show so far.
Malik had been my father’s second-in-command until he’d gotten his own House three years ago. Malik and his wife, Aaliyah, had been the only other married couple in Cadogan House while I’d lived there. My father’s siblings were long gone, and we hadn’t visited my mother’s side of the family very often, so Malik and Aaliyah had been my family.
“Not tonight,” my father said. “He took point on preparations at the theater for the session tomorrow.”
“He’s with Yuen and Petra,” Theo said, then glanced at me. “Roger Yuen’s the second-in-command at the OMB—that’s what we call the office—and Petra’s our tech lead.”
“And you got parade duty?” my mother asked with a smile.