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

before. Perhaps now she will.”
    Mallory didn’t answer him; she just sat on the floor, staring back at him with wide and horrified eyes, as if suddenly and fully aware of her own fallibility.
    All that work, all that research, all those spells—pointless. Fruitless . She’d gambled everything—her friends, her skills, her lover—and she’d lost it all for the sake of something she thought was a sure bet. But the cards had been stacked against her, and the house always won.
    I put a hand on Ethan’s shoulder, and he rose and put a hand on my cheek. I think he meant not to apologize, but to comfort me for the things that would come, for whatever would happen with Mallory.
    “We need to know what just happened,” Paige quietly said, and I could practically hear the magical gears clicking along in her head. “We need to know what he is—what they are. We need to understand it.”
    It was natural she’d want to know. She was the Order’s archivist, and I had to assume she’d be writing all this down. But writing the history could wait.
    “Right now,” I said, “we need to know what they are and what they’re going to do next. There’s no telling the kind of damage they can do together.” One Tate had been bad enough. “Let’s get out of here.”
    I helped Mallory to her feet. She didn’t speak and wouldn’t make eye contact with me. But she allowed me to help her toward the door.
    Ethan did the same for Paige, and our motley crew hobbled back down the hallway and onto the elevator platform. Up we went, back into the world.
    We stepped outside to the sharp, acrid scent of smoke.
    At the edge of the field, the farmhouse was ablaze, red-orange flames licking the sky.
    Had Tate—the two of them—done this? Was it a final act of vengeance? Seth had sworn to me and Ethan that he wouldn’t let us stop him. Maybe the two of them had decided they needed to punish us for our interference.
    Paige muffled a sob with a hand, horror in her eyes as she stared at her home. And then she started running. For an injured sorceress, she moved pretty well.
    I handed Mallory over to Ethan. “I’ll get her.”
    “Be careful.” He nodded, and I took off across the field. It was colder now, and the ground seemed to have hardened since we’d gone into the silo. It was like running on an upside-down egg carton—small, uneven hills and valleys that made it impossible to plan your steps.
    It nearly didn’t surprise me when I stumbled and the ground came up to meet me. I stopped myself with my hands but scraped them up pretty good. Hoping no one had seen me fall in the darkness, I climbed back to my feet, wincing as a bolt of pain radiated through my right ankle.
    But there was no time to wait for healing. Paige was moving ever closer to the house, and in her mental state, I didn’t trust her to stay safe.
    I muttered out a curse just to make myself feel better and ran-limped forward as well as I could. I vaulted the fence and was immediately assaulted by the heat from the blaze. Acrid smoke poured from the house, and fire poured from the windows. Paige, her arm crooked around her face, was edging toward the front door.
    “Paige!” I called out, but she didn’t stop. She didn’t even glance back. Of course, she may not have heard me. The fire roared like a jet engine, wood cracking and splitting as bits of the farmhouse’s interior fell.
    I wasn’t a big fan of fire. I’d burned myself on an errant bottle rocket as a child, and the thought of moving closer to a raging inferno wasn’t exactly comfortable. But I was immortal; she was not. There was only one thing to do.
    I pulled the neck of my shirt over my mouth into a make-do mask and moved forward.
    The smoke and ash thickened the nearer I moved to the house, and it became nearly impossible to breathe. The air was scalding hot, searing my lungs with every intake of breath. But I kept walking.
    “Paige!” I shouted, as something large fell somewhere nearby. “Don’t get any closer.”
    She coughed loudly. “I need my books!” But she stopped within a few feet of the front door and lifted her arms. Even through the energy of the fire, I could feel the buzz of magic. She must have shaken off Tate’s magic and could work her own again.
    “At least she didn’t go inside,” I murmured, and watched as one book, then another, then another, flew from the doorway of the house to safety outside.
    She must not have had the power to save the house, but at