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

exhausted. And he’d traded in the Armani suit for a long black cassock, the dresslike garment worn by priests. He was a Tate, to be sure. But I didn’t know whether he was Dominic or Seth, or what Seth was in any event, so I wasn’t going to take chances.
    “Can we talk?” he asked, gaze on me.
    Lindsey and Juliet stepped beside me, swords bared.
    “You have three seconds to turn around and leave this House or meet the business end of my steel,” Lindsey said.
    “Wait,” I said, putting out a hand, my gaze tracing the lines of guilt carved into Tate’s face. Guilt wasn’t exactly Dominic’s type of emotion.
    “Identify yourself,” I said.
    “I’m Seth Tate,” he said. “The former mayor. An angel, in your parlance.”
    The foyer went silent.
    I was stunned and confused . . . and then a little more stunned. If Dominic was essentially a demon, how could Seth be an angel? They’d split apart from the same person—from Seth when he touched the Maleficium .
    How were things getting even more confusing?
    “You’re a messenger?” I asked.
    He visibly relaxed, perhaps relieved that someone had figured out the truth. “Yes, Merit. A messenger. That’s why the fairies let me in.”
    It hadn’t even occurred to me that he’d gotten past the fairies.
    “We don’t know that,” Lindsey said. “This could be a ruse.”
    It could have been, but as we stood there, I came to realize an important difference between Seth and Dominic.
    “I can tell them apart,” I said. Everyone looked at me. “They smell different,” I sheepishly added.
    Seth smiled a little, but the vampires’ reactions weren’t encouraging.
    “They smell different?” Lindsey asked. “You want us to trust him because he smells different?”
    “Seth smells like lemon and sugar. He always has. When Dominic unfurled his wings, he smelled like sulfur. Sulfur and smoke.” I looked at Seth. “Right?”
    “It’s the wings. They darkened, much like his aura. His soul.”
    “He could be making this up,” Lindsey said, her sword still tipped at Seth’s neck, but I shook my head and pulled my little secret weapon from my pocket—the worry wood.
    I held it up for all to see. “This is worry wood. It works against old magic. The powerful stuff. Add it to my natural resistance to glamour, and there’s not much chance he could put something over on me.”
    The crowd’s murmurs were a little more supportive but still not convinced. I had one more weapon in the arsenal. I looked at Lindsey. “You’re the empath. What’s he feeling right now?”
    She shook her head. “He’s a blank canvas to me. I have no idea.”
    That might have been true psychically, but not physically. There was no doubting the grief and guilt etched into his face. He was still handsome, but he looked like he’d aged a few years in the last few days.
    “I swear on all the deep dish, red hots, and rib-eyes in Chicago that this isn’t Dominic. And believe me, I would know better than anyone.”
    No need to get into the gory deets of what he’d put me through, but having been around both of them, I now had a pretty good sense I could pick them out.
    Lindsey slowly lowered her sword again. “Okay, Sentinel. You feel okay about this, I’m going to trust you. But one false move, and he gets it.”
    And now Lindsey was stealing lines from movies. Maybe she and Luc dating wasn’t such a great idea.
    I looked back at Seth and gave it to him frankly. “By ‘it,’ she means thirty-two inches of honed steel. And she’s no slouch with a weapon. I’d believe her.”
    Seth nodded. “I’m here to talk. Not make trouble. There’s been far enough of that.”
    I was fine with talking, but—given the curious and worried looks around us—it seemed we should do it somewhere else. I glanced at Lindsey. “We need a room. Any thoughts? I assume the bigwigs are in Ethan’s office.”
    She frowned. “Training room? Ballroom?”
    I didn’t like the training room idea. There were too few exits in the basement in the event I was wrong about Seth. I didn’t think that was likely, but they didn’t pay me fancy Sentinel wages to take those kinds of chances.
    The ballroom was on the second floor. Closer to our living quarters than I would have liked, but it was a big, mostly empty room, and it was right beside the stairs.
    I glanced around, looking for Luc or Malik or Ethan or anyone actually in charge of the House. But it was just us. Me and Lindsey and the other