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

said, “how can we use that against them?”
    We stared silently at the board for five minutes. Unfortunately, we still didn’t have an answer for either question.
    “Angel, man, or monkey,” Lindsey said, “it makes no difference to me. I will kill him all the same.” She put an arm around me. “He hurts you, he goes down.”
    I put an arm around her waist. “I appreciate the support.”
    There was a knock at the door. Malik peeked his head in.
    “Liege?” Luc asked.
    “Darius would like to speak with Merit.”
    I was half stunned, half confused, and one hundred percent nervous. “He wants to talk to me?”
    “You are, and I quote, ‘a lynchpin in my review of the House.’”
    Lindsey winced on my behalf.
    I stood up and walked for the door, wondering if I should have just stayed with Dominic.
    I followed Malik to the first floor of the House, then the second, and the third. Since there weren’t any public rooms up there, I was admittedly confused. “Where are we going?”
    “The roof,” Malik said, following the hallway toward Ethan’s apartments.
    “I’m sorry, the roof?”
    “The roof,” he dryly confirmed, as if he was equally confused by the location. “Just follow me.”
    Without a reason to argue, I followed him to the end of the hallway. He opened the last door on the right, then flipped on the light in an empty, vampire-sized bedroom. But unlike the others, a folding pair of simple stairs offered access into the ceiling.
    “Attic?” I wondered aloud.
    “Yep,” Malik said, then hopped up the stairs.
    I grabbed the railing and followed Malik into the ceiling and then the space above. This was clearly an older part of the house. The beams were still exposed, showing antique square-headed nails and insulation that looked like horsehair. Kowalcyzk would have loved to send some building code inspectors in here.
    “Watch your head,” Malik said, and I followed as he half walked, hunched over a bit to accommodate the low ceiling, across the room.
    The air was chilly. An open window let moonlight and a stiff fall breeze spill into the room. The breeze carried the scent of clove cigarettes.
    Darius was the only man I knew who smoked cloves.
    Malik stopped a few feet from the open window and motioned me toward it. At my nervous expression, he smiled, then leaned in.
    “Remember who you are, and who you were appointed to be,” he whispered. “We all believe in you.”
    I smiled appreciatively, then climbed out the dormer window and outside onto the thin widow’s walk that capped the edge of the roof.
    It was cold, and I zipped up my jacket as soon as I stepped outside and stuffed my hands into my pockets. I found my bit of worry wood still lodged there, and I rubbed its surface for luck. As if that would help me.
    Darius leaned against the thin wrought-iron banister that outlined the widow’s walk. He wore a button-up shirt and trousers that couldn’t have been much protection against the chill, but he didn’t look cold. He looked well at home up here in the dark.
    A dark cigarette between his fingers, Darius cast me a glance. “Sentinel,” he said, blowing out a stream of smoke.
    “Sire.”
    He looked out over the city, the moon milky beneath a haze of clouds.
    “It’s quiet out here,” I said, not sure of the etiquette. Was I supposed to start talking? Or wait for him to do it?
    “It is,” he said. “Although I suspect the city bustles considerably more in the daytime.”
    I looked toward downtown Chicago, where skyscrapers blinked at us. Lights in condos and offices twinkled, and bright red beacons on the roofs rotated to warn passing planes. The view wasn’t unlike the postcard I’d stuck in the car for my trip to Nebraska, and I realized I hadn’t thought to check if that little bit of paper had survived the crash.
    “The Loop definitely bustles,” I finally agreed. “A lot more than Hyde Park.”
    “London has its quiet parts, as well.”
    I nodded, and for a moment we stared out at the quiet city. But it was time to get this show on the road. I had a monster to hunt.
    “You asked to see me?”
    “I’d like your opinion.”
    “My opinion?”
    “On the state of affairs of your House, Sentinel. You’ve been here some months. You must have a sense of the House and its goings-on.”
    I “sensed” a lot of things, but that didn’t mean I wanted to raise them with Darius West. “I think the House is operating as well as it can in troubled