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Chapter Two
A FISTFUL OF VAMPIRES
Leaving Cadogan House used to be a bit of a trick, mostly involving avoiding the irritation of the paparazzi on the corner who were waiting to snap our pictures. Now it was actually dangerous.
We were both in black suits (official Cadogan wear) and in Ethan's black Mercedes convertible, a slick roadster he parked in the basement beneath the House. We drove up the ramp that led to the ground level, then waited while one of the fairies stationed at the gate pushed it open. A second stood in front of the ramp, his wary gaze on the protesters who were beginning to move in our direction.
We pulled onto the street. The fairy at the gate closed it again, then joined his partner at the side of the car. We moved at a crawl as humans began to gather around us, candles in hand. They moved without sound, their expressions blank, like zombie believers. Their silence was completely unnerving. That was worse, I think, than if they'd been shouting anti-vampire epithets or obscenities.
"Apparently they've seen us," Ethan muttered, left hand on the steering wheel, right on the gearshift.
"Yes, they have. Do you want me to get out?"
"As much as I appreciate the offer, let's let the fairies handle it."
As if on cue, the fairies took point, one at each door. "We pay them, right? For the security?"
"We do," Ethan said. "Although, as they detest humans even more than they detest us, it's probably a task they'd have taken on for free."
So fairies hated vampires, but hated humans more. Some humans hated vampires and, if they had known what the fairies were, probably would have hated them, too.
And vampires? Well, vampires were like politicians. We wanted to be friends with everyone. We wanted to be liked. We wanted political capital we could trade later for political benefits. But we were still vampires, and however political and social we might have been, we were still different.
Well, most of us, anyway. Ethan often remarked that I was more human than most, probably because I'd been a vampire for only a few months. But looking out at the protesters, I felt a little more vampire than usual.
The protesters stared into the windows, holding their candles toward the car as if nearness to the flame was enough to make us disappear. Luckily, fire was no more hazardous to us than it was to humans.
Ethan kept both hands on the wheel now as he carefully maneuvered the Mercedes through the crowd. We crawled forward one foot at a time, the humans swarming in a cloud so thick we couldn't see the road ahead. The fairies walked alongside, one hand on the roof of the petite roadster like members of the Secret Service in a presidential motorcade. We moved slowly, but we moved.
And as we moved, we passed two teenagers who stood on my side of the car, arms linked together - a boy and girl. They were so young, and they were dressed in shorts and tank tops like they'd spent the day at the beach. But their expressions told a different story. There was hatred in their eyes, hatred too intense for sixteen-year-olds. The girl had smeared mascara beneath her eyes as if she'd been crying. The boy watched the girl, his hatred for me maybe prompted by his infatuation with her.
With jarring suddenness, they began to chant together, "No more vampires! No more vampires! No more vampires!" Over and over again they cried out the mantra, zealotry in their voices, like angels ready to smite.
"They're so young to be so angry," I quietly said.
"Anger isn't merely for the old," Ethan pointed out. "Even the young can face misery, tragedy, and twist sadness into hatred."
The rest of the crowd seemed to find the teenagers inspiring. One person at a time, they echoed the chant until the entire crowd had joined in, a chorus of hatred.
"Get out of our neighborhood!" shouted a human close to the car, a thin woman of fifty or sixty with long gray hair, who wore a white T-shirt and khaki pants. "Go back to where you came from!"
I faced forward again. "I'm from Chicago," I murmured. "Born and bred."
"I believe they had a more supernatural dominion in mind," Ethan said. "Hell, perhaps, or some parallel dimension inhabited solely by vampires and werewolves and, in any event, far from humans."
"Or they want us in Gary instead of Chicago."
"Or that," he allowed.
I forced myself to face forward, blocking out the sight of their faces at the window, wishing I could will myself invisible, or somehow merge into the leather upholstery and avoid the discomfort of listening to humans scream about how much they hated me. It hurt, more than I would have thought possible, to be surrounded by people who didn't know me but who would have been more than happy to hear I was gone and no longer polluting their neighborhood.
"It gets easier," Ethan said.
"I don't want it to get easier. I want to be accepted for who I am."
"Unfortunately, not everyone appreciates your finer qualities. But there are those of us who do."
We passed a family - father, mother, and two young sons - holding a hand-painted sign that read HYDE PARK HATES VAMPS.
"Now, that," Ethan grumbled, "I have little patience for. Until the children are old enough to reach their own conclusions about vampires, they should be immune from the discussion. They certainly should not have to bear the weight of their parents' prejudices."
I nodded and crossed my arms over my chest, tucking into myself.
After a hundred feet, the protesters thinned out, the urge to berate us apparently diminishing as we moved farther from the House. My spirit deflated, we headed northeast toward Creeley Creek, which sat in Chicago's historic Prairie Avenue neighborhood.
I glanced over at Ethan. "Have we thought about a campaign or something to address the hatred? Public service announcements or get-toknow-you forums? Anything to help them realize we aren't the enemy?"
He smirked. "Our social chair at work again?"
As punishment for challenging Ethan to a fight - although I'd been suffering from a bit of a split vampire personality at the time - Ethan had named me House social chair. He thought it a fitting punishment for a girl who spent more time in her room than getting to know her fellow vampires. I'll admit I was a bookworm - I'd been an English-lit grad student before I was changed - but I'd been making inroads. Of course, the shifter attack had put a damper on my plans for a barbecue social mixer.
"I'm just a Novitiate vampire trying to make it through the night with a little less hatred.
Seriously - it might be something to consider."
"Julia's on it."
"Julia?"
