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

seriously in need of a beer and a Lifetime movie.”
    “Drinks on me if we survive this,” I said, then winked at Ethan, blew out a breath, and let my eyes silver again.
    Catcher, Jeff, and Paige backed away from the circle. I took point in front of it, body bladed, sword at the ready. Ethan and Mallory stood at my right.
    “I’m starting now,” she said, then extended a hand toward him.
    Ethan clutched his head, then screamed out and went down to his knees.
    “Ethan!”
    “Hold your position, Merit!” Seth called out. “Do not move!”
    “What did you do?” I screamed at her.
    Eyes wide, she shook her head. “Nothing. I’m just trying to get it to work. I can stop.”
    Weakly, Ethan put his weight on one foot, then the other, and struggled to his feet. “Do not stop. This ends tonight. Now . Finish it .”
    Mallory looked, in a panic, between me and Ethan. “But I—”
    “Finish it!” he demanded.
    She didn’t stop to think about it. With the kind of determination I’d seen on her face before only when she was trying to hurt me and mine, she closed her eyes and chanted something to herself. Her body began to shake, and the ground began to rumble beneath us.
    “Jesus,” Jeff said, arms out to keep his balance.
    Sweat popped across Ethan’s forehead, even in the chill. His teeth were gritted together against the pain, but he wouldn’t let her stop. “We are nearly there; I can feel it. Keep going, Mallory.”
    Her lips curled wickedly. “As if you could stop me.”
    “Oh, crap,” Paige muttered, no doubt seeing the same thing in her eyes that I did.
    The enjoyment of this bit of dark magic.
    “Mallory, hold it together!” I called out, nearly yelling over the suddenly rising wind. A light rain began to fall, clouds suddenly swirling overhead.
    The four elements reacting to this disturbance in the balance between good and evil.
    “Almost there,” Ethan said.
    “The sigil is nearly drawn,” Seth called out.
    I regripped my fingers around the sword.
    Mallory wet her lips, her nails cutting into her palm, trails of blood beginning to trickle down her forearm.
    “One bit left,” Seth warned. “Finishing it . . . now!”

C HAPTER T WENTY-THREE

    SOLDIERS WISELY LED
    T he sigil burst into blue flames, pushing all of us backward except Ethan and Mallory, who maintained their positions at the edge of it.
    Jeff and Paige hit the ground a few feet away. Falls like that were going to take time to recover from.
    “Mallory!” Catcher called out. “Stay strong!”
    If she heard him, she didn’t react. Mallory still looked oblivious to everything but the connection between her and Ethan . . . and the pain it was putting her through. She hit her knees, too, tears streaming down her face as she held open the connection.
    With the sigil alight, Seth looked at me. I nodded, and it began.
    “Dominic!” he called out. “I will and summon you to appear!”
    The sigil brightened, the flame rising, but no angel appeared in the middle of it.
    “Seth?”
    “Low-grade materials,” he said. “We had to make do. We’re trying.”
    I blinked rain from my eyes, my breath steaming in the chill. “Try harder! Mallory can’t keep this up much longer!” She was already, I figured, seconds away from writhing on the ground and taking Ethan back to dark magic town with her.
    Seth pulled off his shirt, flexed, and unhinged his wings. They released into the night, sending that sugar cookie smell through the park. My stomach picked the wrong time to grumble.
    “Dominic! I will and summon you to appear! Bear witness to my command!”
    The sigil flashed and flickered again, and then completely extinguished.
    “Is it the rain?” Jeff called out from the other side of the sigil. “Do we have to start over?”
    For a moment, there was silence. As if fearful of what we’d wrought, the earth trembled beneath us.
    And then, suddenly, the earth inside the smoking circle burst open, and Dominic shot through the air, wings extended.
    He roared with impressive gusto, then locked eyes with Seth and flapped his wings back to earth again, stalking toward him with obviously malicious intent.
    “You dare call me? You, who cower behind the words and deeds of humans?”
    With what little strength he had, Ethan reached out to grab him, but Dominic stepped beyond the bounds of the sigil and out of Ethan’s grasp.
    Seth caught the miss and rotated around, luring Dominic back toward the sigil and Ethan.
    “Unlike you, I