Drink Deep - Chloe Neill [66]
“Precisely. I’d say it’s part of a long-term plan to wrest control of Cabot House for himself. Victor Garcia is the current Master. He’s a good man, a solid leader. He was Cornelius Cabot’s right-hand man, which irked Franklin to no end. Franklin was just a cousin from some far-off branch of the family tree, but he thought he had a right to the House. That it was his birthright.”
“And Cornelius disagreed?”
“I’ve heard the old man thought Franklin was too caught up in human affairs to effectively manage the House. Too concerned with prestige and fast cars and human girls, which didn’t exactly fly for an old school, under the radar, east coast House.”
“Let me guess,” I said. “The GP figures he’s ambitious and is willing to play ball, even against another House, so they appointed him receiver for Cadogan House. He figures he comes down here, screws over the Chicago Houses and wins the support of the GP, and that positions him perfectly for a spot at the top.”
“That’s how it plays for me.”
I blew out a breath. So much drama, so little of it actually originating in Cadogan House. Whatever the original goal of the GP and the House system might have been, they were now tools for the narcissistic and the manipulative. Maybe Jonah was right about the Red Guard.
“Won’t they take it as a threat if we come in bearing weapons?”
“Only if we’re lucky,” he said. “Let’s go.”
Lightning flashing around us, we ran toward the tower. The exterior was narrow and crumbling. An open doorway led to a spiral of old stone steps that weren’t in much better shape than the exterior. I took the first step, pausing on the tread to make sure the staircase didn’t crumble beneath us.
“All the way up?”
“Yep. I assume they prefer to live above the human plane.”
He began to pick his way up and around the spiral. I gripped the handrail and started the slow climb behind him. After a few thigh-burning minutes of climbing, we reached the landing at the top of the stairs.
A door led into the tower room. It was huge, made up of long, horizontal strips of wood. Two giant, circular, filigreed hinges connected it to the wall.
“Lovely door,” I said.
“They’re known for their love of beauty,” he said, then glanced at me. “Are you ready for this?”
“I’m working from the assumption it’s going to go horribly wrong. If we get out of here with limbs intact and no aspen slivers in uncomfortable places, we’re calling it a win.”
“Well put.” After a heartening breath, he pulled his hand into a fist and rapped on the door.
After a moment, it opened with a grating, metallic sound. A man in black—a fairy of the same dress and build as the ones who guarded the House, stood in the doorway. He asked a question in a quick, guttural language I didn’t understand, but thought might be Gaelic.
“We ask if the queen would deign to see us,” Jonah said.
With a jaundiced eye, the fairy looked us over. “Bloodletters,” he said, the word obviously a slur.
“We are what we are,” Jonah advised. “We make no attempts to hide it. We are here as emissaries of vampires.”
The fairy’s lip curled at the mention of vampires. “Wait,” he said, then closed the door in our faces.
“As if we could do anything else,” Jonah muttered.
“Not up to pushing your way into a fairy enclave tonight?”
“It’s not high on my agenda,” he said. “Not that you couldn’t take them, of course.”
“Of course,” I allowed. Before we could continue the back-and-forth, the door opened again, and the fairy stared out with raven-dark eyes.
Before a second had passed, his katana was at my throat, and a second guard—this one female—was positioned behind Jonah, her katana pointing into his back.
“You are invited into her abode,” the fairy said. “And it would be rude to decline the offer.”
CHAPTER TEN
THE MAD HATTER’S TEA PARTY
We lifted our hands into the air.
“We can hardly say no to such a sweet invitation,” Jonah dryly said.
The fairy dropped his sword just enough to allow us to pass, while the one behind us poked us in the back like cattle until