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

scent of animal. A bit of the tension left my shoulders. Our odds were evening a bit.
    “No,” I said, shaking my head. “Shifters.”
    Specifically, Gabriel Keene, brawny and tawny haired, with golden eyes that seemed to look right through you. He was the head of the Apex of the North American Central Pack of shifters. And beside him, a pack mate: tall and lanky Jeff Christopher, my grandfather’s employee. Or former employee, anyway.
    They both wore jeans and thick leather jackets, and I guessed their motorcycles were parked nearby.
    “What are you doing here?” I exclaimed.
    “Is that any way to greet an old friend, Kitten?”
    Gabe was right. I jumped forward and hugged him. He laughed and patted my back. “That’s enough. Sullivan here will get jealous.”
    I stepped back, then gave Jeff a little wave. He blushed.
    “Sullivan assures me he won’t get jealous,” I said.
    But Gabriel’s smile faded when he looked at Ethan. As if not quite sure what he was seeing, Gabe gave him a good, long once-over.
    By the look in Gabriel’s eyes and the tingle of magic around him, this was something heavy, weighty. Gabe hadn’t seen Ethan since he’d returned, and it seemed clear that Gabe was evaluating who Ethan was—whether he was still vampire, whether he was still good, whether he was still Ethan. Whether the magic had tainted him, changed him into something else, or damaged him irreparably.
    “The sorceress did a number,” Gabriel finally said.
    Ethan held out a hand for Gabriel, but Gabriel ignored it and wrapped Ethan in a bear hug that nearly lifted him off the ground.
    “And that’s but one of the weird things I’ve seen tonight,” I muttered.
    “It’s good to see both of you,” Ethan said. “What brings you to Nebraska?”
    “They’re the escorts for the Maleficium ,” Paige said. “They dropped it off before Mallory escaped.”
    I pointed a finger at Jeff. “That explains why you weren’t at work yesterday. You were on your way out here with the book.”
    He shrugged his narrow shoulders with impressive machismo. “A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.”
    “After much begging, we’re here to retrieve it again,” Gabriel said. But he cast a dark glance back at the burning farmhouse. “But something tells me we might be changing our plans.”
    “The Maleficium has been destroyed,” I said, and Gabriel’s eyes went wide with horror. “And it seems the evil it contained was destroyed along with it. Or most of it.”
    “Most of it?” Jeff asked.
    “Seth Tate touched the book just as Mallory finished the spell,” Ethan said. “He split into two.”
    Gabriel blinked. “I don’t understand.”
    “One Tate became two Tates,” I confirmed.
    “The book burned to a crisp, and they propelled themselves through the missile shaft.” Ethan looked back at the farmhouse. “We came outside to discover the house on fire.”
    “What is he?” Gabriel asked, and I think he meant it rhetorically. Even if he didn’t, it wasn’t as if we could answer.
    “That’s the million-dollar question,” I said. “Whatever they are, one or both of them set Paige’s house on fire. It’s not hard to imagine they’ve headed back to Chicago to make more trouble. We need to get home.”
    “Actually, there’s trouble at home, too,” Jeff said.
    “Oh?” I asked.
    “Four cops beat the holy hell out of a couple of vamps and two humans they were hanging out with.”
    “Were they from a House?”
    “Rogues,” he said. “The cops say the vamps attacked them. The vamps say they were hanging out near a bodega with the humans and the cops jumped them for no reason, shouting obscenities about vamps and humans mixing together. Pretty clear things have gone a little downhill in the CPD since your grandfather left.”
    “Racism is alive and well in the twenty-first century,” I ruefully said.
    “When the mayor tells the city vampires are the enemy,” Ethan said, “such violence isn’t surprising.”
    “And having to register with the city isn’t going to help us,” I said. That was one more thing I needed to add to my to-do list. “There won’t be any way to blend in when we have to carry papers that show our identity.”
    “Sad but true,” Jeff agreed.
    “What are you going to do with her?”
    We all looked at Mallory.
    “She’s going back to Chicago with us,” Ethan said. “After that, it’s up to the Order.”
    “They didn’t do so well with her the last time. Not