"Come on, baby, let's get you back in bed." Winkler rose, but his cell phone rang. He pulled the phone out of his pocket. "It's Bill," he said and answered the call. I listened in.
"Mr. Winkler, we have a hit on Alif," Bill said. "Your software, actually. He was spotted in Chicago."
"What's happening in Chicago?" Winkler asked.
"The Vice President is attending a conference tomorrow evening," Bill said. "I'm in Chicago now. Is there any way we can get Lissa here for that?"
My eyes were widening in shock at Bill's words. "We'll have to wait until sundown," Winkler said, ignoring my frantic nodding. He was going to ask Gavin, Tony and René first. I never got to say, one way or the other, whether I wanted to go or not. Frustrated, I bumped my forehead against the granite island. Winkler, still talking with Bill, came over and pulled my head up, settling it against his side and holding it there. He stroked my jaw and neck with one hand while he held the phone in the other. I listened to his heartbeat with one ear while I tuned in to the phone conversation with the other.
Bill was promising to send a jet for us tonight if we would come. He really didn't care who else showed up, as long as I came. Someday, I don't know when that might be; I wanted to decide for myself. I had no idea if that was ever going to be possible.
When Winkler hung up after a while, I glared at him as he looked down at my face. "Baby, we have to ask the others." He was defending his actions.
"You're just like the rest of them," I muttered and misted away.
I didn't want to get back in bed with Gavin; call it preemptive anger on my part. I imagined that a call to Wlodek would be made and a conference would be held among the testosterone-producing members of our group and then they'd decide whether Lissa would be sent in to take care of things. The schmucks. I sat down angrily on the sofa in the living area, right in front of the window there. Granted the curtains were drawn, but there was still sunlight spilling around the edges. I curled up on the sofa and went to sleep there.
* * *
"What is she doing?" Winkler found Roff, and together they'd gone to the upper floor of the guesthouse to check on Lissa. They found her sleeping on the sofa, several wedges of sunlight hitting her body.
"I will take the Raona to bed," Roff was already gathering her up.
"I'll get the door for you," Winkler offered. Roff followed Winkler down the hall, and Winkler held the bedroom door open so Roff could carry the sleeping vampire in and place her on the bed beside Gavin.
"Too bad he doesn't wake when she gets up," Winkler said as he watched Roff arrange Lissa's limbs so she'd be comfortable when she woke.
"He would be angry if he did wake," Roff muttered.
* * *
"Cara, we are going to Chicago." Gavin was sitting on the side of the bed, waiting for me to wake. The conference was already over and I hadn't been consulted. Typical. Someone had also dragged me back to Gavin's bed, ruining my attempt at righteous anger. Dammit.
"Did they convene the full Council to take a vote?" I muttered sarcastically.
"Lissa, is this any way to wake? Full of anger and sarcasm?"
"Gavin, if you want sweetness and light, I suggest you find another woman," I flung covers away and sat up in bed, refusing to look at him. "I was awake when Winkler got the call from Bill. I was trying to say yes when he asked if I could go, but of course the males get to make those decisions, don't they?" I misted off the bed before Gavin could put his hands on me.
"Lissa, you are not yet two years old as a vampire," Gavin reminded my retreating back—I was heading toward the bathroom as fast as I could after materializing in the floor.
"And yet Tony gets consulted on everything and he's not even two months old. Tell me how that works, Gavin?" I slammed the bathroom door. "Fuck!" I shouted. They probably heard me in the main house as I cursed.
* * *
"Lissy's upset," Tony glanced at René. René had been going over the laws concerning the companion vote. René sighed. "The law has changed recently," he went on with the lesson. "Before, the vampire was notified using correspondence. Now, if the vampire refuses to give up his human companion, he is brought before the Council and questioned. A decision is made after that. This change is a result of a recent event when an innocent vampire and his companion, along with his companion's infant daughter, were killed by a rogue assassin who had a taste for drinking from children. That, as you now know, is an automatic death sentence if it is discovered."
"He was the one Lissa was tracking while she worked for me. Isn't that right?"
"Yes," René admitted. "But you will not divulge that information to anyone." René laid compulsion. Tony nodded.
* * *
Gavin already had a bag packed for both of us when I stalked out of the bathroom. He wasn't speaking to me, either, which was fine. I wasn't speaking to anybody, including Roff. He looked hurt, but I wasn't about to thank him for putting me back in bed with Gavin. Sometimes, you had to make your point and you didn't need somebody going behind your back and undoing what you did in order to get that point across.
I climbed into the van, said nothing on the way to the airport and loaded onto the military jet that Bill sent for us. If the taxpayers knew they were paying to haul vampires and werewolves to Chicago at a moment's notice, I'm sure somebody was going to get upset over it. I hoped they'd be compensated, however, if I could take Rahim Alif down. Not that they'd ever know it was a vampire that took him down.
Bill was there when we landed, and had two vans ready to take us to a hotel downtown. The VP's speech was scheduled at the conference the following night. Roff reminded me that it was Thursday, September second, and was fingering his throat discreetly. Damn. I forgot all about that. "We'll get to that," I promised quietly.
The hotel overlooked Michigan Avenue and was huge. "The conference is held here and the speech tomorrow evening will be given in the largest ballroom. It's doubling as a fundraiser," Bill grumbled as we walked inside the hotel's foyer, which was richly decorated, with plenty of polished marble on the floors. Well, politicians will be politicians; even I knew that, and no opportunity to gather funding would ever be ignored.
"I'll go through the place tonight and see if I can find anything," I offered after we'd ridden an elevator to our floor. Gavin glared at me and Tony cleared his throat before stuffing his toes into it. "We'll go with you," he announced. Joy. I was going as mist. Now I was going to have passengers going with me as mist.