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

Novitiates in the foyer. I was the highest-ranking person in the room, and I was going to have to make the call.
    God willing I’d make the right one.
    “Ballroom,” I decided.
    Lindsey nodded, then looked around the room. “Show’s over, everyone. Get back to business.”
    But they didn’t move, either too curious or too worried to simply turn around and walk away.
    “Okay, let me try this another way,” Lindsey said, her voice firmer now. “Get back to work before Darius feels the magic, comes out here, sees this one lounging around our foyer, and strokes out.”
    It still took a moment—they seemed loath to leave Seth here with us or me here with him—but they finally got moving and filed back down the hall and up the stairs.
    Lindsey, Juliet, Seth, and I were left in the foyer.
    Lindsey pointed at Seth. “You, follow me. Cause any trouble and you’ll be wearing steel in very uncomfortable places.”
    “Duly noted,” Seth said.
    She looked at me and Juliet. “You heard him. Any funny business and you have his consent to skewer him like a kebab.”
    I wanted to laugh, but this didn’t seem like the time. “I’ll take the rear,” I told her, then looked at Juliet. “Can you find Ethan?”
    Juliet nodded gravely and disappeared, and Lindsey started for the stairs. His hands crossed before him obsequiously, piously, Seth followed her, the rough fabric of the cassock thrush ing as he walked. It didn’t sound especially comfortable. I imagined stiff, starched fabric rubbing raw skin, and the thought gave me cold sweats.
    Had he found religion? Did he feel guilty for what he’d done, or for what Dominic had done? Was the garment, as itchy as it sounded, some kind of personal punishment?
    We rounded the stairs at the second floor. Lindsey opened the double doors to the Cadogan ballroom, watching suspiciously as we filed in. When we were well inside, she shut the door behind us.
    The room was large, with oak floors, golden walls gilded with framed mirrors. Chandeliers hung from the high ceiling above us. They’d once held hundreds of candles, but those had been replaced with lightbulbs after an attack by a group of rebel shifters. The bulbs didn’t offer as much ambience, but one less fire hazard in a building reviled by people who’d once carried torches to flush out monsters seemed like a good precaution.
    Seth walked into the room. He stopped beneath the chandelier, then turned a half circle as he looked up at it. “This is a beautiful space,” he said.
    “Your approval is appreciated,” Lindsey said. “Start talking.”
    Seth looked at me, and I nodded. He began to talk, less a discussion than a monologue. A sermon.
    “Millennia ago, the world was a different place. The divisions between humans and others were . . . less rigid. Humans were aware of supernaturals. We, the messengers, bridged the gap between them. Messengers like me arbitrated for peace. Messengers like Dominic administered judgment. At first, humans called us angels and deemed us virtuous.”
    “And then what happened?” I asked.
    “The angels of judgment, the others , grew to love violence,” Seth said. “They satisfied their lust for it, their compulsion for it, by meting it out for any perceived slight. Humans, so often the victims of that compulsion, didn’t appreciate it. They called them the Dark Ones, and they deemed them fallen. Demonic. Devilish. The source of evil.”
    “And so humans began to distinguish between good and evil.”
    Seth looked at me thoughtfully. “You remembered what we talked about when I was incarcerated.”
    I nodded.
    “Humans wanted the violence to stop, but the fallen angels were arrogant and refused to believe their actions were wrong. And so a war was waged between humans and messengers. Incensed by the humans’ conceit, the justice givers delivered redemption on their own terms, destroying human cities and salting the earth so nothing could grow again.”
    “Carthage,” I quietly murmured.
    “You said messengers, plural,” Lindsey said. “There are others of you?”
    “There are many, although our roles are diminished. Our magic is old, and our ways are old. We aren’t part of this world, not in the way we once were.”
    “And the Maleficium ?” I asked.
    “When humans grew sick of the destruction, they called their magicians, who separated evil from good and placed it into a vessel that would contain it. The Maleficium , the book, was created to hold the evil