Mallory Carmichael was my oldest friend, and Catcher Bell was her live-in beau. He had a thing for snarky T-shirts, and tonight’s gem was black, with KEEP CALM AND FIREBALL in clean white text across the front. He was well built and shaved-headed, with piercing green eyes and a generous mouth. Her Cupid’s bow mouth was drawn into a smile, her hand clasped in the long fingers of her boyfriend’s.

“This is not a bad way to spend an evening,” said the girl on the blanket beside ours, her striking blue hair drawn in a complicated braid that lay across her shoulder. I was his Novitiate and the Cadogan’s Sentinel, and I was utterly relieved that winter had finally weakened its grip on the city.

He had a tall and rangy body of hard planes and sculpted muscle, and golden blond hair that just reached his shoulders and surrounded honed cheekbones, a straight nose, deep-set green eyes, and imperious eyebrows. At two o’clock in the morning, the park was definitely quiet.Įthan Sullivan, Master of Cadogan House and now one of twelve members of the newly established Assembly of American Masters, sat beside me on a piecework quilt, one knee bent, one leg extended, his hand at the small of my back, rubbing small circles as we watched the lights of Chicago blink across the skyline in front of us. A burst of spring air had warmed the city, and we’d taken advantage, finding a quiet spot for a picnic to celebrate the end of a long, cold winter. Tonight, we sat on a blanket on the grass at Milton Lee Olive Park, an expanse of green and fountains near Navy Pier honoring a soldier who’d given his life to save others, and won a Medal of Honor for his sacrifice.

We exchanged quilted jackets, electric blankets, heavy boots, and balaclavas for tanks, sandals, and nights in the warm spring air. They didn’t make sunscreen strong enough for vampires.īut when spring rolled around and construction cones popped onto asphalt like neon flowers, even vampires shook off winter. Not that I’d had much occasion to sunbathe or swim recently. And for a few spare weeks, the water of Lake Michigan was even warm enough for a dip.

During tourist season, you served them, you screamed at them, or, if you worked at Billy Goat’s, both. During baseball season, it was Cubs versus Sox. Nested within those seasons were the other activities that defined life for many in Chicago. Snow and traffic defined our lives as Chicagoans. If it wasn’t snowing, orange cones narrowed the Dan Ryan, or lower Wacker was closed. There were two seasons in Chicago: winter and construction.

Dark debt chloe neill