Drink Deep - Chloe Neill [35]
“Rationing, I assume.”
“You’d be right. He’s reduced our Blood4You delivery by forty percent.”
“I think he’s hoping someone loses it,” I quietly predicted. “That someone goes after a human, or goes crazy from hunger in front of a camera.”
“So he can prove to the GP how flawed the House is. Convince them to turn it over to him for good.”
I nodded. Margot and I shared a worried look, before she suddenly brightened.
“I might have a little something that will cheer you up, actually,” she said, kneeling down to dig around the bottom shelf of the cart. When she stood up again, she had a gleaming box in her hands.
“Mallocakes!” I whispered, my eyes probably lighting up like roman candles. It wouldn’t have surprised me if my fangs had descended out of sheer excitement. Mallocakes were my favorite snack-cake delight, chocolate bars of spongey goodness stuffed with marshmallow crème.
“Contraband,” she corrected, then pulled the paper strip off the box and pulled out a Mallocake. With much reverence, she handed it to me. “I’m only brave enough to sneak these in one box at a time,” she quietly said, hiding the box again in the jumble on the bottom shelf. “But we all need a little something to get through the day. And if this is what it takes, so be it. You find me when you need a fix.”
And so it began, I thought, the first wave of a revolution against oppression, fought with corn syrup and chocolate.
“I appreciate it,” I said. “And your secret is safe with me.”
Margot rolled her cart back down the hallway. I headed back to my room and downed the blood immediately. I stared at the Mallocake in my hand for a moment, but ultimately stuffed it into a drawer. There would undoubtedly be a moment when I needed it even more than now.
Chicago—especially with vampires—just seemed to work that way.
CHAPTER SIX
NO MAN (OR WOMAN) IS AN ISLAND
The message from my grandfather came sometime during the day when I was fast asleep and, thankfully, nightmare free. I snapped up the phone as soon as the sun fell again and read the message: STREETERVILLE HELIPORT. 21:00 CST.
As expected, my grandfather had managed to find a helicopter, and also had developed a taste for using military time.
Being late fall, the sun set earlier and stayed down longer. That gave us a little more time to be awake and about, and it meant I had time to get dressed and take care of secondary business in the few hours before my trip to the island. First item on the list—talking to the people who could make it happen.
I dialed the Ombud’s office. Jeff answered the phone on the first ring.
“Merit!”
“Hey, Jeff. I don’t suppose the lake magically fixed itself?”
“Not so much, as it looks exactly the same and is still pulling in magic like a Hoover.”
“Awesome.” If we weren’t careful, and fast, there wouldn’t be any magic left in Chicago.
“How are the nymphs doing?”
“Not great, but could be worse. We moved them around until we found a place with a relative equilibrium—couldn’t move them too far from the lake, or they got weaker because of the distance. Move them too close to the lake, and they get weaker from the vacuum. We eventually hooked them into a couple of condos your father is managing; your grandfather made the arrangements.”
That was awfully nice of my father, but undoubtedly a ploy of some kind—either to gain the favor of a supernatural group that was new to him . . . or to gain favor with me. I still hadn’t forgiven him for bribing Ethan to make me a vampire; Ethan hadn’t taken the bribe, but that didn’t lessen the sting of the betrayal.
“Did you find anything in your research?”
Jeff yawned. “We did not. Stayed up most of the day looking, too. Our best theory is this is some new kind of spell.”
“We know Catcher’s not involved, and Mallory’s freaked out about her exams. Simon’s the only other sorcerer in town. You think he could have something to do with it?”
“Simon? I don’t know. He doesn’t seem the type. Catcher looked into his background when he started tutoring