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

gentlemen. Members of the press. We are thrilled tonight that justice has been done in Chicago.”
    There was no sign of Tate, but he couldn’t be far behind a statement like that.
    Someone tapped my shoulder. “Hey, you can’t have that here.”
    At the same time, I caught sight of a tall, dark-haired man moving through the crowd. My heart quickened.
    “Hey, did you hear what I said? Hand over the sword or we’re taking a little trip into the lockup.”
    I glanced behind me. A uniformed CPD cop—a barrel-chested man with a thick mustache—tapped my sword with his stick. A second cop moved in closer, probably thinking I was the threat they were supposed to be watching for.
    “Sir, the guy who killed Paulie—the drug lord?—he might be in the crowd.”
    “Yeah, I’m sure.” He stuck the stick back into his utility belt but put a hand on the butt of his service weapon. “Give me the sword, ma’am, or we’re going to have some trouble. And there are a lot of uniforms here tonight. You don’t want to start something you can’t finish.”
    I glanced back at the crowd. Just as the attorney finished his remarks and the cops stepped up to the podium, the dark-haired man had wedged his way through the crowd to the front of the rope line. Now that he was clear of the crowd, I could see his face.
    It was Tate. One of them, anyway.
    I looked back and appealed to the cops. “It’s definitely him—Seth Tate. Do you see him? He’s standing at the front of the crowd. Dark hair?”
    The second cop, a little savvier than his friend, frowned and looked over, but the first cop wasn’t buying it.
    “All right, I’m taking that weapon, and you’re coming with me.” He put a hand on the sheath of my sword and pulled hard to dislodge it from my belt.
    “I’m really sorry about this,” I said, chopping his hand away with a swipe of my arm and whipping out my sword.
    Tate picked that moment to act—ripping the rope away and stepping into the gap between the crowd and the cops. He screamed out—that same primordial noise we’d heard in the silo. He wore a trench coat. He whipped it off to reveal a naked torso, and summoned the giant broadsword back into his hands.
    And that wasn’t all he was carrying.
    Tate arched his back and held out his sword. As the horrified crowd looked on, great black wings sprouted from his shoulder blades. The purple-black membranes of his wings were marked by veins and tendons, stretched taut by long, thin bones that ended in needle-sharp claws. His wingspan must have been twenty feet. Twenty terrifying feet. They flapped once, then twice, filling the air with the scents of sulfur and smoke.
    A shock of base fear ran through me. It was easy to think of Tate as a storybook creature, but this was no storybook. He was something old and fundamental to the earth, created not to protect men, but to judge them. He would see into your heart of hearts, and if he found you lacking, you had only yourself to blame for your suffering.
    My worry wood was so not going to help with this.
    The crowd screamed. I was distracted by the sights and sounds before me, and the second cop managed to pull the sword from my hand.
    I could have fought him for it, but I really didn’t want to assault a cop if I didn’t have to. I opted for pleading instead and held out my hand. “Please, someone has to stop him. I can try, but only with my sword.”
    Tate probably had no idea I was in the crowd and most certainly didn’t care if I was being handled by the cops. Tate was busy fighting a battle of his own. He pushed away a uniformed cop from the crowd who tried to stop him and swiped his sword at one of the released cops. The cop stumbled backward to get away, but the sword caught him on the chin, and he screamed out.
    While everyone else ran away from the monster and his weapon, Jonah jumped right into the fray, unsheathing his own sword. Before Tate noticed he was there, Jonah struck out and gashed the thin webbing of one of Tate’s wings.
    Tate screamed out and turned, his giant wing pivoting through the air and throwing Jonah backward.
    “Jonah!” I yelled out, then looked back at the second cop, pleading in my eyes. “Please, for God’s sake, give me back my sword.”
    He looked nervously between me and the drama that was playing out a few dozen feet in front of him. “What the hell is that?”
    Cops trained for a lot of things, but likely nothing had prepared this poor guy for what he was