Biting Cold: A Chicagoland Vampires Novel (CHICAGOLAND VAMPIRES SERIES)

summoning magic to get him here. We have a sword bearer to fight him.” He drew a circle in the middle of the page. “Now, we just need a way to make him vulnerable.” He looked at Paige. “Thoughts?”
    Paige grimaced. “Not yet. I mean, technically, we’ve got some ideas. We think nullification would work on him. If it can work on sorcerers, there’s no reason it can’t work on messengers. They’re both creatures of magic. But there is a bit of a logistical problem.”
    “Which is?” Ethan asked.
    “Nullification is what’s called a wicking spell. The person working the magic has to actually touch the other one to wick their power away. It doesn’t take long, and there are things we can do to expedite the spell, but there’s no way Dominic is going to let me, Catcher, or Mallory touch him. He knows what we are, and he won’t let us get near him.”
    “That’s a problem,” Luc said.
    “Actually, maybe not,” I said. “There may be a way to manage it.”
    “What’s that?” Paige asked.
    I blew out a breath, steeled my courage, and looked at Ethan. “You can get closer to Dominic than anyone else. He won’t think you’re a threat—not like they are. He’s let you close enough to punch him before. But we already know Ethan and Mallory have a connection to each other. I was thinking we could use that.”
    “No,” Catcher and Ethan simultaneously said.
    “There is no way in hell I will let someone control me,” Ethan said. “Besides, I’m supposed to be fighting him. I can’t concentrate on anything when she’s in there, much less fighting him.”
    “We’re not talking about control,” I quietly said. “Mallory can’t do that anyway, because the spell wasn’t completed. But maybe she could work the wicking spell through you.”
    “No,” Catcher repeated. “She’s not putting herself at that kind of risk. He’s an angel , for Christ’s sake. Do you know how much magic he has? And how much she’d have to funnel through both of them? That could kill her.”
    Magic peaked in the room as tensions rose—from Ethan and the rest.
    “I’ll do it,” Mallory quietly said.
    We stared at the phone.
    “This is my fault,” she said. “There’s no argument about that, and no way around it. If this is the way it has to be, then so be it.”
    “Mallory—” Catcher interrupted, and I imagined her shaking her head.
    “I have to do this,” she said. “If Ethan will allow it.”
    The room was quiet as he silently fumed. And after a moment, I watched the anger fade into something else—savvy.
    “How would it work?” he asked.
    I leaned toward the phone. “Mallory, as I understand it, the point of a familiar is to give you an extra bit of capacity for controlling the universe, right?”
    “That’s the basic idea,” she said. “The familiar’s like a battery. Kind of. But he’s not a familiar.”
    “Not enough that you could actually make him do something,” I agreed. “But you have a connection, certainly. And if your emotions are connected, maybe the magic could be, too? And maybe, if you can use Ethan to funnel power, couldn’t he also be used to take it away from Dominic? You don’t need to control him for that—he just needs to act as a conduit. A magical conduit between you and Dominic.”
    Silence.
    Ethan ran his hands through his hair, then looked back at me. “He wouldn’t expect me.”
    “Not to use magic. To punch him in the face, though? Yes. He would probably expect that. But that’s the key—it fits with who he thinks you are. He’d suspect you were getting close enough to hit him. Not to wick his magic away.”
    “So I’m to become a utility. A functionality of magic?”
    “A tool,” I said. “And a handsome one.”
    “And only a temporary one,” Mallory assured.
    “Mallory, you want me to trust you,” Ethan told her. “To allow you to use me as that tool. As a puppet on a string. You ask much of me. Much that no vampire gives willingly.”
    “You give it willingly to a vampire,” she said. “Each time a new one is made. You communicate with them, don’t you? Call and control them, in a fashion?”
    Ethan looked sharply away.
    “He can’t communicate with anyone anymore,” I confessed, not that the vampires in the room would have been surprised. “The spell seems to have knocked that out of him.”
    “I’m sorry,” she quietly said. “I know that’s not good enough, but I’m sorry.”
    There was silence for a