"Get out," Jeff said. "I'll help boost your grandfather up."
I nodded, pushed myself up to the sill, and climbed outside, gulping in the first fresh air I'd had in minutes, then kicking away snow and debris to help our egress.
"Ready," Jeff said, maneuvering my grandfather's shoulders through the windows. I grabbed his torso again and pulled until I could cradle him in the window well.
"Let me help," said a voice above me.
I looked up to see a Chicago Fire Department member in a fire suit and hat on his knees at the edge of the window well.
As Jeff climbed safely from the fire and paramedics strapped my grandfather to a gurney, I said a silent thank-you to the universe.
-
The house was surrounded by vehicles - fire trucks, police interceptors, two ambulances. Their blue, red, and white lights shined across the yard, which was full of debris thrown out by the explosion.
I found my sword and cleaned away the smoke and ash, giving the EMTs room to work while they stabilized my grandfather, but I moved closer when they loaded the gurney into the back of the ambulance.
Tears welled in my eyes at the sight, and my throat constricted so tightly, I wasn't sure if I could breathe.
One of the EMTs stayed by his side; the other climbed out of the ambulance and shut the door.
"You're his granddaughter?"
I nodded.
"He's unconscious but stable," said the EMT, whose name badge read ERICK. "We'll take him to Southwestern Memorial," he said. "You wanna follow us in your car?"
"We'll get there," Jeff said, stepping beside me. He had a bandage on his head and another around his arm.
"You're hurt?" I asked, feeling suddenly numb and disconnected to the world. The adrenaline was wearing off, and fear and shock and pain were beginning to seep in.
"I'm fine. The guys said you were okay, too?"
I nodded. "Vampire healing. My lungs are sore, and I've got some minor burns, but they'll heal." I glanced down at my leathers, which were probably toast. They were pockmarked with holes from flying cinders and sparks.
"I ruined my clothes," I said, laughing. I sounded hysterical, even to me. Was I coming unglued?
Jeff put a hand on my arm. "Merit, I'm going to get the car, okay? I'll call Ethan and have him meet us at the hospital. He's probably on his way."
I nodded, and Jeff jogged away toward his car, which sat, untouched, at the end of the driveway.
I glanced around, refusing to look at the house, not ready to face the destruction or the loss of a place where I'd spent so much time as a child. A place where I'd grown up.
And what did I spy with my little eye? In front of the other ambulance sat a kid - no more than twenty - wearing a T-shirt that read CLEAN CHICAGO.
Rage coursed through me.
I picked up my sword, the handle damp with snow, and strode toward him.
"Who sent you here?"
He looked up at me and sniffed in disgust. "Nobody."
"Who sent you here?" I pressed, placing the tip of the sword against the beating pulse of his carotid artery. It throbbed just beneath the skin, a tiny echoing heartbeat that hinted at the satiation of my hunger, and the satisfaction of my sudden lust for violence.
It was a different kind of bloodlust.
I wet my lips and looked down at him, lusting for violence in a way I'd never experienced before. I'd needed blood, sure. I was a vampire. But I hadn't needed blood like this. I wanted to devour him, control him, sublimate him.
I wanted to end him.
I had sudden, new empathy for Mallory's black-magic addiction, for the mind-filling supernatural wanting that she must have experienced. Humans weren't any strangers to addiction, but this seemed almost more powerful, as if the addiction weren't simply foisted upon you by a drug, but by a living, breathing thing.
"Merit," Jeff said, "put the sword down."
"No, Jeff. This is the last time they hurt us. This has to be the last time. We have sat around for too long and let them get away with this. I say, f**k them, f**k this little shit. What's the worst thing that can happen?"
"Retribution," he said, more calmly than I would have. "Violence, martial law, litigation. I know you love your grandfather, Merit. I don't doubt it, and never would. But we have to consider what will help . . . and what will hurt."
I was a woman, a Sentinel, a vampire. A monster. But mostly . . . I was me. Irrespective of what else I might have been, I was me. I was my grandfather's granddaughter. I was a Cadogan Novitiate, from a noble House. And I couldn't dishonor either my grandfather or my House with murder in cold blood.
Biting was one thing. Biting bad was another.
I looked away, furious that Jeff wasn't going to let me have my way, my violence. I was a vampire, for f**k's sake. I wanted action. I wanted to sweat through my blinding fury, to let it find its home somewhere else, outside of me, where it couldn't gnaw at me anymore.
I walked away and threw my sword across the yard, then fell into the snow.
There, on my knees, in the middle of my grandfather's front yard, I looked at what had become of the home he'd shared with my grandmother. The house was virtually destroyed. The fire had spread from front to back, which was the only reason we'd managed to escape without worse injuries. The walls in the back were still standing, but the front had caved in, leaving a gaping chasm of charred wood and furnishings.
And the structure wasn't the only thing lost. The photographs and mementos had been burned. My grandfather's belongings had been destroyed. Even Jeff's computer was probably a pile of smoldering plastic toast right now.
The loss and fear and grief hit me, and I began to sob. I cried until my knees were numb and my eyes burned. I cried after a fireman covered me in a silver blanket for warmth, and until I doubted there was a tear left to shed.
I opened my eyes again and looked out over the yard. The work would have to start: rebuilding, finding a place for my grandfather to live, finding a place for the Ombuddies to work.
Work.
I realized, in my haste to get inside, what I was missing. The syringe. I'd dropped the plastic bag in the snow. We had to have it - it was the only piece of real physical evidence we had.
Frantically, I crawled forward, pushing through the chunks of ice and snow with my hands, sifting through rubble as I looked for the plastic bag - not an easy venture in the dark.
"Merit?"
Startled by the sound of my name, I glanced around.
Ethan stood behind me.
"I lost the syringe, Ethan. I can't find it."
His gaze softened. "Don't worry about that now, Merit. We'll find it."