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

again, Seth Tate stood in the middle of the room, sweating and rumpled.
    And beside him stood another Seth Tate.
    It took seconds for my mind to actually start working again—and even then I hadn’t managed to wrap my mind around what I’d seen.
    Seth Tate, former mayor of Chicago, had become two Seth Tates.
    The Tates looked at their hands and then each other, and then both pushed out their chests. They screamed out—a sound wholly inhuman and ear-burstingly loud.
    I hit the concrete on my knees, covering my ears against the sound. The entire structure vibrated, and I’d have sworn the concrete and steel warped from the energy they put out.
    For a moment, there was silence.
    And then they both shot upward, straight up the shaft of the missile silo. I ran beneath the opening and watched them ascend—twenty feet, forty feet, sixty feet, eighty feet—and then the metal doors of the missile bay burst open, sending a shower of dirt and roots and cornstalks into the silo. The Tates disappeared through the opening and into the night, supernatural missiles of unknown proportions.
    The dirt cleared, and lights shone down through the hole in the sky. And all was quiet again on the midwestern front.

C HAPTER S EVEN

    THE GAMBLER
    “W hat the hell just happened?” Ethan asked, but given the silence that followed his answer, no one had any idea.
    We stared up through the silo, as if the answer to our questions was somehow written in the Cold War–era walls.
    “He split into two,” Ethan said, glancing back at Paige. “How is that possible?”
    She grimaced and hobbled over to the table, where he leaned against it. “I have no idea.”
    We looked back at the Maleficium , which still sat on the floor beside Mallory. It had been reduced to little more than a book-shaped chunk of charcoal. A few hints of yellowed pages were visible, but mostly the book was a cinder that seemed like it might blow away if someone breathed too heavily on it.
    But if the Maleficium —the vessel—was destroyed, what had happened to all that it contained? “Paige, what about the dark magic? The evil?”
    She shook her head. “I’m not really—”
    “It’s gone.”
    Mallory’s voice was quiet, and there was a melancholic thread of surprise in it.
    We all looked at her. She was on the ground, still on her knees, staring at her hands. They were still chapped and raw, and they shook like she was an addict in withdrawal. She wrapped her arms around herself and stared into the distance, maybe ruing the fact that things hadn’t turned out the way she’d intended.
    “Gone?” Ethan asked.
    Slowly, she turned her gaze on him. “It was in the book, and the book is gone. So it’s gone, too.”
    “How do you know?” I asked, but I realized I didn’t need her answer.
    It was clear in her face.
    Mallory didn’t look any better than she had before all this had started. She looked just as strung out. Just as tired.
    She’d tried one more fix of black magic, and it hadn’t worked. And now there was no more magic to try.
    She had officially reached rock bottom.
    “She knows the magic is gone because she doesn’t feel any different,” I said. “Because she worked another spell, and she triggered the Maleficium , but it didn’t cure her. And now the book is gone, so it’s too late. There won’t be any more Maleficium -inspired black magic, right?”
    Mallory looked up, and she must have caught the anger in my eyes. She looked away, tears spilling over her lashes. I wasn’t sure that emotion was remorse, but maybe—sooner rather than later—she’d own up to the consequences she’d been so quick to ignore earlier.
    “Then, what happened with Tate?” Ethan asked.
    I thought back to what we’d seen and what had happened seconds before he’d split in half. “He touched the book. If Mallory worked the spell but no other evil escaped, could it have, I don’t know, funneled into Tate?” I looked at Mallory. “Is that possible?”
    “I don’t know,” she pathetically whispered.
    Ethan wasn’t moved. “You don’t know? You don’t know ? You just decided to unleash all the evil in the world from an ancient book, but you didn’t know about the possible outcomes? Stupid, foolish girl.”
    “Ethan,” I quietly said.
    “No, Merit, she needs to hear this.” He crouched before her, that new fire in his eyes and a thoroughly chilling expression on his face. “She didn’t care to consider the consequences of her actions