Hard Bitten - Chloe Neill [12]
Ethan took a chair. I took point behind him, Sentinel at the ready.
Mayor Tate’s eyes widened at the gesture, but his expression turned back to business fast enough. He flipped open a folder and uncapped an expensive-looking fountain pen.
Ethan crossed one leg over the other. The signal: he was moving into political-chat position. “What can we do for you?” he asked, his voice oh-so-casual.
“You said the mood at the House was anticipatory. That’s the concern I have about the city more broadly. The attack on Cadogan has reactivated the city’s fear of the supernatural, of the other. We had four days of riots the first time around, Ethan. I’m sure you’ll understand the tricky position that puts me in—keeping the citizenry calm while trying to be understanding toward your challenges, including Adam Keene’s attack.”
“Of course,” Ethan graciously said.
“But humans are nervous. Increasingly so. And that nervousness is leading to an uptick in crime. In the last two weeks, we’ve seen marked increases in assaults, in batteries, in arson, in the use of firearms. I’ve worked hard to get those numbers down since my first election, and I think the city’s better for it. I’d hate to see us slide backward.”
“I think we’d all agree with that,” Ethan said aloud, but that was just the precursor to the silent conversation between us as Ethan activated our telepathic link. What’s he building toward?
Your guess is as good as mine, I answered.
Tate frowned and glanced down at the folder on his desk. He scanned whatever information he found there, then lifted a document from it and extended it toward Ethan. “Humans, it seems, are not the only increasingly violent folk in our city.”
Ethan took the document, staring silently down at it until his shoulders tensed into a flat line.
Ethan? What is it? I asked. Without bothering to answer, Ethan handed the paper over his shoulder. I took it from him. It looked like part of a police transcript.
Q: Tell me what you saw, Mr. Jackson.
A: There were dozens of them. Vampires, you know? Fangs and that ability to get inside your mind. And they was blood-crazy. All of them. Everywhere you looked—vampire, vampire, vampire. Bam! Vampire. And they were all over us. No escape.
Q: Who couldn’t escape?
A: Humans. Not when the vampires wanted you. Not when they wanted to take you down and pull that blood right out of you. All of ’em were on you and the music was so loud and it was pounding like a hammer against your heart. They were crazed with it. Crazy with it.
Q: With what?
A: With the blood. With the lust for it. The hunger. You could see it in their crazy eyes. They were silver, just like the eyes of the devil. You get only one look at those eyes before the devil himself pulls you down into the abyss.
Q: And then what happened, Mr. Jackson?
A: [Shaking his head.] The hunger, the lust, it got them. Drove them. They killed three girls. Three of them. They drank until there was no life left.
The page stopped there. My fingers shaking around the paper, I skipped the chain of command and glanced up at Tate. “Where did you get this?”
Tate met my gaze. “Cook County Jail. This was from an interview with a man who’d been arrested for possession of a controlled substance. The detective wasn’t sure if he was drunk or disturbed . . . or if he’d actually seen something that required our attention. Fortunately, she took the transcript to her supervisor, who brought it to my chief of staff. We’ve yet to find the victims of whom Mr. Jackson spoke—no missing persons match his descriptions—although we are actively investigating the accusation.”
“Where did this occur?” Ethan quietly asked.
Tate’s gaze dropped down to Ethan and narrowed. “He said West Town, and he hasn’t been more specific than offering up the neighborhood. Since we haven’t identified a crime scene or the victims, it’s possible he exaggerated