Drink Deep - Chloe Neill [62]
CHAPTER NINE
THE FAIRY TALE
Except there wasn’t only one crisis at a time. I reached Jonah on my way to the House—the river and lake were back to black and still sucking magic from the city like it was going out of style. Which meant not only had that problem not been solved—the entire situation was escalating. I felt a real jolt of fear. I had no idea where this was headed.
When he met me at Cadogan, we joined the dozens of other vampires who stood on the lawn behind the House, staring up at the sky. And we weren’t the only ones. I hardly passed a single house between Wicker Park and Hyde Park where folks weren’t standing outside, fingers pointing upward or hands over their mouths in shock.
White lightning flashed across the sky, and claps of thunder drowned out the sounds of the city. There wasn’t a thunderhead in sight, and I could all but hear Chicagoans’ silent accusations: These things didn’t happen before vampires.
What they weren’t considering, of course, was that vampires and other sups had been in Chicago at least as long as humans, and this didn’t have anything to do with us. Unfortunately, I didn’t know how to prove that to them.
I’d texted Malik to give him a heads-up that I was bringing a Grey House vamp onto Cadogan soil, and he offered Jonah a handshake when we joined him and Luc in the backyard.
“I don’t suppose there are Moon nymphs out there who could be responsible for this?” I asked. “Or maybe Wind witches? Atmospheric gremlins?”
“Not that I’m aware of,” Malik said.
“Me, either,” Jonah said. “But we clearly can’t deny there’s something larger at work here.”
“The question now is what to do about it,” Luc said. “Especially within our current operating limitations.”
He’d only just spoken the words when a bolt of lightning shot across the sky. We instantaneously hit the ground, just in time to watch the blaze of plasma strike the weathervane on the roof of the House accompanied by the loudest bang I’d ever heard.
The block went dark. The lights in the House flickered and went off, and then came back on in a sickly shade of orange—security lights I’d only seen during previous emergency drills. We had a couple of emergency generators in the basement to keep the emergency lights, security systems, and blood refrigeration on during power outages.
The following silence was filled with the shouts of humans down the block and the sound of sirens already heading down the road.
Beside me, Malik sighed. “We do not need this. Neither the drama nor the danger.”
When another bolt of lightning lit the backyard, Malik cast a wary glance across the lawn. The crowd of vampires was splitting as someone walked through them. After a moment, Frank pressed through the final knot to step in front of us. He surveyed the sky suspiciously, then looked at Malik with obvious disdain. His thoughts were easy to read: Goddamn Chicago vampires. Incapable of managing their affairs.
“What is this?” he imperiously asked when he reached us. I didn’t bother introducing him to Jonah. He didn’t seem the type to be interested in others, and there was no point in dragging Jonah into our problems.
“This is not the work of vampires,” Malik assured him. “We have no information beyond that.”
“This isn’t going to help the reputation of the Houses overmuch,” Frank said.
“No, it is not,” Malik agreed. “Which is why we will investigate the cause in order to limit the effect.”
You could all but see the wheels turning in Frank’s mind. But at least the wheels were turning. This was usually the point at which the GP henchman blamed us for whatever was happening, regardless of our role, and made us swear we wouldn’t leave the House to fix it.
There was no way to win.
But Frank actually seemed to be considering the problem and our options. Maybe he was capable of independent thought, instead of just blaming Cadogan for the ills of the world.
“There is a group you could contact,” Frank said.
We all looked at him expectantly.
“The sky masters.”
Malik immediately shook his head. “No.”
“Who are the sky masters?” I