Dark Debt (11 page)

“A small miracle,” Ethan said.

“The Librarian did look into disavowal,” Luc said, “at last, after a lecture about being overloaded. He said, ‘It depends.’”

Ethan rolled his eyes. “If I wanted to hear that, I’d have called the damn lawyers.”

“Actually, I told him the same thing. But he wasn’t trying to sidestep—he had a good point. According to
Canon
, official disavowal takes place
in front of a GP quorum.”

“Ah,” Ethan said, understanding. “And there is no GP.”

“There is not, since Nicole abolished it. Does the AAM count for those purposes? Probably. But who’s to say?”

“Does it really matter?” I asked. “He’s not a member of Cadogan House or the AAM, so it’s not like they’re going to be stripping him of any rights. If this is just an issue of a public denouncement,
whether the AAM backs it doesn’t seem relevant.”

“It wouldn’t be literally,” Malik said. “But the move wouldn’t have as much impact. It’s a public denouncement, yes, but without the broader consequences—shunning by colleagues, the relationship between the vampires being removed from the NAVR registry, et cetera.”

I glanced back at Ethan. “Some of that stuff won’t apply to Balthasar. Do
you think he would care about the rest of it? You left him, disavowed him, once already. It didn’t take.”

“Being a narcissist, he is less interested in the opinions or desires of others. But your point is well taken. Even disavowal may not assuage him. Not if he’s willing to go this far.”

“If Scott and Morgan weren’t already aware of Balthasar’s antics, they’ll need to know. They won’t
have known the depth of his egocentrism, but they’ll begin to suspect it now.”

“A good idea,” Ethan agreed. “I’m not certain what to tell Scott about Morgan. It’s better if he knows the truth, especially if the Circle decides the Houses can be used against each other. But Morgan, for various and sundry reasons, doesn’t trust us.”

Catcher, not being one to mince words, looked cockily at
Ethan. “Does it kinda make you wish you hadn’t set him up with Merit?”

I snorted.

Ethan gave both of us the imperious eyebrow. “I’m sure he was devastated when their relationship didn’t progress, as I would have been, but I was thinking more about Celina.”

“Also a problem,” Catcher acknowledged. “And a trust barrier.”

“A trust
Everest
,” Luc said. “He’s never going to trust us,
not really. But that doesn’t really matter. We’re not in it for the glory, and we don’t need the approval.”

We all looked at him, waiting for him to credit the movie he’d likely stolen that line from, as he was a famous (or perhaps notorious) movie quoter. But his expression was defiant.

“What? I can’t come up with something wise and clever on my own?”

“You can,” Malik said, “but so
rarely do.”

As Luc made a juvenile face, Ethan’s phone rang, and he pulled it out. We all stiffened a bit, awaiting more news. Ethan scanned the screen, put it away again.

“Morgan?” Catcher asked.

“Reporters,” Ethan said. “Undoubtedly calling to discuss Balthasar’s antics. We likely were not the only ones on the street with cameras, and I’m sure a dozen people have already spread it
around the Internet.”

“Sixteen,” Luc said, scanning the screen on his phone. “As of right now.”

“Just so,” Ethan said, tapping fingers against the arm of the couch. “So a conversation with reporters is not likely to make me feel any better about our current situation.”

“No,” Malik agreed, “but that doesn’t mean you should ignore them. We’ll need to get ahead of this. If we don’t, public
opinion will begin the pendulum swing again. And where they go, Kowalcyzk will follow. Talk to Nick if you prefer, but talk to someone.”

Nick was Nicholas Breckenridge, an award-winning reporter in a family of shape-shifters and members of the same pack as Jeff, the NAC. They were very wealthy and friends of my father’s, and lived on an estate outside Chicago.

“What you need,” Luc said,
“is a plan to deal with this asshole.”

“That is accurate,” Ethan said, crossing one leg over the other. “And back to my earlier request: I’m entertaining options for getting rid of him.” He checked his watch. “It’s two hours until dawn. I want ideas at sunset tomorrow. Specific ideas from each of you about how, precisely, we should do that.”

Catcher lifted a hand. “I’m not your employee.”

“Much to my ever-present relief,” Ethan said. “You’re excused from the exercise.”

Luc looked at me. “I’m guessing you’re going to be busy with Navarre House tomorrow, but do remember us, withering away in the basement of Cadogan House.”

I hitched a thumb at Ethan. “I go where he tells me to go.”

“You need the training.”

I’d known that was coming and had a response in the chamber.
“I bested the captain of the Navarre House guards with a dagger, while wearing stilettos and a gown, in front of an audience. I have
all
the training.”

“I’m taking credit for this one,” Catcher said to the room, hand in the air. “Just FYI.”

“I like to think it was a group effort,” Ethan said. “All of us working together to shape our lump of girl into a Sentinel.”

“I like to think I’m
more than the sum of my training.”

“You are,” Luc said. “There’s at least some hot beef or deep dish in there.”

“I am also more than Chicago foodstuffs.”

Ethan grinned at Luc. “Pumas? Diet Coke? Smart-assery?”

Luc snapped his fingers, pointed at Ethan. “Yes. And, like, three percent medieval literature.”

“You’re both hilarious. Really and truly. Comedy geniuses.”

Mallory
appeared in the doorway, stopped short when she saw the group of us. “Oh, sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt. I was just going to say hi.”

“No problem here,” Luc said. “I was just about to head downstairs.” He looked back at me. “Tomorrow, before Navarre House.”

I gave him a jaunty salute, and he disappeared.

“I’d like to go ahead and call Jeff,” Malik said, “get some tips about digging
online into the Circle. If they have a strong cyberpresence, it seems likely they’ve pulled Navarre House into some of that. Might give us a head start on the forensic accounting work.”

“It’s a good idea,” Ethan said, and Malik waved, bowed out of the room, leaving the four of us.

“I hear you’ve had a night,” Mallory said, moving toward us. “But you both look to be in one piece.”

“We’re fine,” I said. “I assume Catcher filled you in?”

“He did, but not on the important thing—how did your father react to watching you fight? Was he utterly impressed?”

I hadn’t actually noticed, but his reaction after the fact had been telling enough. “I wouldn’t say impressed. At least for a moment, he thought we had set it up somehow.” I glanced at Ethan. “He’ll probably have things
to say to both of us, separately, about how disappointed he is, about how the slate isn’t clean.”

“Ah, Joshua,” Mallory said. “Such a charmer.”

“That’s one word for it.”

“I actually wanted to see if you’d eaten, wanted to grab a bite.”

Ethan gestured to the cart. “Margot brought in a tray, and I believe she included bread, meats for sandwiches.”

“That actually sounds great,”
Mallory said. “I didn’t go into the cafeteria; I wasn’t really sure how everyone would handle me being there, and I’m starving.”

“I told her to go anyway,” Catcher said. “She didn’t listen.”

“I rarely do,” Mallory said, moving toward the cart. “Can I help myself?”

“Please,” Ethan said. Mallory walked over and removed a dome from a tray, revealing a spread of cheeses and meats.

Most were standard, with a few odd bits thrown in. One of the meats was pinkish purple and looked as though it had been jabbed through with olives; there was also a blue cheese so heavy on the blue that it leaned toward indigo.

“So I’ll stick to cheddar,” I said, nabbing a small square of yellow-white cheese, relieved to find, when I bit in, that I’d picked the correct one.

“Why don’t we
all grab a plate?” Ethan suggested. “I could use something substantial to eat.”

I bit back a smile as I piled cheese and meat onto some sort of multigrain bread, smiled as Ethan held up a small bag of salt and vinegar potato chips. “I believe Margot left these for you.”

“Offensively delicious,” Mallory and I said simultaneously, remembering one of our long-ago-agreed-upon conclusions.
We grinned at each other, and since our hands were full, we bumped hips in a kind of high five.

And frankly, it felt amazing to share that connection with her, that sense of history and solidarity. We were the living memories of our friendship, and being friends again seemed to make those memories more real, bring them into sharper focus. She smiled at me, nodded just a bit, and I knew she’d
had the same thought.

SACRED AND PROFANE

W
e fixed plates, ended up at the end of the conference table, Ethan and me on one side, Mallory and Catcher on the other. Just like two couples on a double date, if a double date could be said to involve sandwiches around the conference table in the office of a Master vampire.
But when times were troubled, as they so often were, you took your breaks when you could find them.

“How’s SWOB?” I asked Mallory, thinking it would be nice to grab a bit of someone else’s drama for a change.

“Good,” she said, nodding, holding a hand in front of her mouth as she chewed. “We’ve got a Web site, T-shirts, business cards.”

“Everything but sorcerers,” Catcher said, crunching
a chip.

“There aren’t tons of them out there,” Mallory said, elbowing him. “That’s exactly why we need resources like this—so they don’t feel any more alone than they already are. But I have touched base with a girl in Indiana and a guy in Iowa who were pretty freaked out when they accidentally did some magic. So
we’re hooking them up with the Order, making sure they get the support they need,
not just handed off to a tutor with a fare-thee-well.” Her tone darkened at the end, since that was precisely what had happened to her.

“I think that’s awesome,” I said. “Better to be overprepared than under-.” The city had burned, after all, the last time we were underprepared.

“And speaking of underprepared, how’s the mayor?” Ethan asked.

Catcher took a swig of beer. “I’m guessing
she’ll have some comments for Chuck given Balthasar’s latest display. But he’s communicating pretty regularly with her staff, and she’s done a decent job the last few weeks of asking about supernatural situations instead of making accusations. Doesn’t hurt that two human unions are on strike—gives her someone else to blame.”

“She does like to play the blame game,” Ethan said, a slice of tomato
splurting out the side of his sandwich.

“You’re not the sandwich architect I’d have figured you for,” I said.

“I am, apparently, Darth Sullivan,” he said, lifting a corner of bread to stuff the tomato back in. “I understand that building things, Death Stars or otherwise, isn’t my particular strength.”

My heart melted a little. “Did you just make a
Star Wars
reference? And a joke? At
the same time?”

“Oh my God, that is so cute,” Mallory said with a grin. “He makes jokes just like a human.”

*   *   *

Ethan managed not to smite her for the comment, and we ate in companionable silence until the sandwiches were gone and Mallory and I had nearly finished the bag of chips, wincing with each successive bite.

Ethan tried one, but from the pursed expression, wasn’t
a fan. “My response,” he said, “is ‘why?’”

“Because delicious,” Mallory said, reaching chip-greased fingers into the bag to dig for another one.

“Because delicious,” I agreed, and spun the bag around so the open maw faced me.

“Finish them off,” Mallory said, dusting salt and potato chip flakes from her hands and then wiping them on a napkin. “In the immortal words of Popeye, ‘I’ve
had all I can stands, and I can’t stands no more.’”

While I grabbed another chip without argument, Mallory and Catcher looked at each other and shared a look that said we were about to return to the announcement they’d wanted to make.

“So, while we’re all here,” Mallory said, “we wanted to talk to you about something—again.”

“Is everything all right?” Ethan asked.

“It’s fine,”
Mallory said. “We’re getting married.”

Ethan’s knife hit his plate with a jarring
clank
. “Sorry,” he said, putting it aside. “Sorry. You surprised me. Congratulations! That’s fantastic.”

His recovery was fast. Mine was not, primarily because she didn’t sound as though she thought it was fantastic. “You’re getting married,” I repeated.

“We are,” she said, and tucked a lock of hair behind
her ear. “So, Catcher is thinking about seeking reinstatement in the Order.”

While I waited to hear the connection between her marriage and the Order, Ethan’s eyebrows lifted. He met Catcher’s gaze, something weighty passing between them. He and Catcher had a history I wasn’t entirely sure about—it would take many years, I suspected, before I had a complete overview of Ethan’s four
centuries.
Maybe it was Catcher having been kicked out of the Order that had brought them together in the first place.

“I didn’t know you were reconsidering the Order,” Ethan said.

Catcher nodded. “It’s been on my mind. There are battles you fight from the outside, and battles you fight from within. I used to believe the Order was the former. Now I think it’s the latter.” He looked down at his linked
hands. “Too much has happened in Chicago for the Order to still be so complacent. Mallory and I should be a force. Instead we’re basically useless.”

“Not to us,” I said with a smile.

“No, not to you. But only because we work under the radar. I’m not saying we should go public, but we should at least be in the mix. And it would be nice to be official, for once.”

“And how does this tie
into marriage?” Ethan asked, glancing between them.

“The Order can ignore us as individuals.” Mallory looked at Catcher. “We’re powerful individually, but we’re still just that—two separate units. The Order’s got a lot of respect for the institution of marriage, for the idea of two souls becoming one.”

“And if you’re married,” I said with a nod, seeing where this was going, “you become
a unit.”

“Worth more than the sum of our parts,” Catcher agreed. “We figure they’ll think it’s better to deal with us than leave us on our own.”

That didn’t sound completely unreasonable. Maybe a little naive, but not unreasonable, especially considering what little I knew of the Order. But it was so unromantic. I had no objection to rational or logical, but I knew Mallory, and romance
was important to her. Very important.

I glanced her way, caught her looking at me with cautious hope. She wanted me to approve. I could be happy for her, sure. I
didn’t need to agree with the circumstances, but I sure as hell wanted to understand them.

“And when are you thinking about doing it?” Ethan asked.

“As soon as possible,” Mallory said, and Catcher nodded when she glanced at
him. “Just at the courthouse, nothing big. But we’d really like you and Ethan to attend, to be our witnesses.”

“To stand up for us,” Catcher said.

Ethan blinked in surprise. “We’d be honored, of course. But I’m sure we could help with something a little more elaborate, if you’d like. You’d be welcome to use the House or the garden.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Mallory said, tucking hair behind
her ears again. It was a nervous gesture, and reiterated that we were going to need to have a nice, long chat about whatever this was. “We’re hoping to keep it really low-key. Efficient.”

Ethan nodded, reached out, and touched her hands supportively. “We’ll help however we can.” He pushed back his chair and rose. “And I think this calls for something stronger than soda.” He pulled a bottle
of champagne from the refrigerator across the room, deftly picked up four champagne glasses in his other hand. I was grateful he was handling the situation with such aplomb, since I was clearly running behind.

“It’s good to hear good news,” Ethan said, bringing them back to the table, where I helped him disassemble the knot of them. “There hasn’t been much of that tonight.”

He removed
the foil, then unscrewed the cage and pulled out the cork. Champagne frothed over the rim, which he tipped into the glasses. I passed them out, and Ethan raised his glass.

“To new beginnings and happiness. May you both have a lifetime of it.”

“Hear, hear,” I said, and we clinked our glasses together.

Mallory caught my gaze, hopefulness and trepidation in her eyes. I smiled and nodded,
a promise of support.

Her relief was nearly palpable, and tears welled in her eyes.

We were definitely going to have to discuss this. But that was a discussion for another time, preferably with two fewer men in the audience.

*   *   *

Mallory and Catcher were tired, so they begged off Ethan’s offer of a special dessert or more champagne by the backyard fountain—and what might have
been an opportunity to chat with Mallory about the sudden interest in marriage.

We were an hour before dawn, and despite said drama—or probably because of Mallory’s—I was utterly wired. Sleep wasn’t going to come quickly, so I decided to force its hand.

I’d skipped a night of training (for a perfectly legitimate reason), but recognized that I still needed to work out, to hone my skills.
So when Catcher and Mallory returned to their room and Ethan turned back to House business, I climbed into workout gear and headed outside.

I didn’t think about anything as I ran down the path that followed the interior perimeter of the Cadogan grounds. My mind was primarily focused on putting one foot in front of the other, keeping my form correct, keeping my speed consistent.

I pushed
myself until my breath was quick and rhythmic, my body sheened with sweat, and my legs felt like iron. And by the time I’d slowed in front of the House, my limbs were warm and loose and my brain was relatively calm. Exhaustion tended to do that, and the faint lightening at the edge of the horizon probably wasn’t helping.

The foyers were empty when I walked through, the House’s
vampires tucked
in and prepared for daylight. Probably a good thing, since I was hot, sweaty, and still panting.

The stairs, however, did not feel so good. My body felt leaden, and I nearly sighed with relief when I finally reached the third-floor landing.

The apartments were empty, so I ditched sweaty clothes and headed directly for the shower, washing off the sweat, the fear, the anxiety.

I emerged
wrapped in a towel, a second wrapped turban-style around my wet hair, and found Ethan standing in front of a small table, flipping a stack of what looked like mail. “The House is locked down.”

I nodded, gestured. “Is that mail? Do vampires get mail?”

He looked back at me, grinned. “Why wouldn’t they?”

“I don’t get mail.”

“You aren’t Master of the House.”

I padded toward him,
glanced at the envelopes he’d already discarded. Credit card applications, catalogues, charity updates, bills.

“Would you like a Cadogan House platinum card?”

“Can I have one?”

“No. You have a full library, all the clothes you could ever need, provided you don’t destroy them, and a cafeteria at your disposal. For what purpose, precisely, would you need a platinum card?”

I dodged
the question. “Spoilsport,” I said, but spied the magazine peeking from the bottom of the stack. Its glossy cover featured three men and women in sharp suits, arms crossed in businesslike efficiency.
TONIGHT’S HOUSE
was written in a tidy font across the top of it.

“My God,” I said, picking it up and holding it against my toweled chest. “Is this a magazine for Masters?”

“It’s for House
staff,” Ethan said with a chuckle, unfolding a letter. “Why?”

Why? Because it featured headlines such as “The Best Bang for your Blood Buck,” “Weeding Out Problematic Initiates,” and “Décor 101: Sprucing Up Your House.”

“I’m going to need to flip through this for both edutainment and infotational purposes.”

“He who reads
Today’s House
also pays today’s House’s bills.”

“Don’t push
your luck.”

“I already did,” he said, refolding the letter and putting it back in the pile. “I called Nicole.”

It took me a moment to adjust to the segue; he’d clearly been eager to get that off his chest. “And how is her royal highness?”

“Acting very royal, which doesn’t really do credit to her democratic leanings.”

I put the magazine back on the pile. “Did she know about Balthasar?”

“He visited Atlanta,” Ethan said. “I don’t have the sense he was there very long, but long enough at least to meet her, to reconnect, to convince her of his identity.”

“When?”

Ethan’s eyes fairly glowed at the question. “You don’t miss the details, Sentinel. Two months ago. Before the Testing. Before she came to Chicago.”

“And she never mentioned it. You think they’re working together
on something? That that’s why he’s here?”

He put his hands on his hips, frowned. “Our conversation was brief, but I didn’t have that sense. She sounded, I suppose, starstruck. In my experience, Balthasar enjoys more of a challenge than that.”

“So the next few weeks should be really quiet around here.”

Ethan chuckled, kissed my forehead. “As before, after. Let’s worry about that tomorrow,
Sentinel, and get this night behind us.”

I had no objection to that.

*   *   *

I pulled on pajamas, dried my hair, and brushed my fangs like a good little vampire. I checked my phone, found Jonah had left a voice mail I didn’t especially want to listen to.

And being a good little vampire, I sat down on the bed, lifted the phone to my ear.

“Merit,” the message said, “it’s Jonah.
We need to talk. You can’t just ignore me. We’re partners. Call me, and we’ll talk about the monitoring. I’m sorry if you took it personally, but it’s not personal. It isn’t. It’s just caution. We all want to believe the best in those who lead us. But every empire has fallen, Merit. Every empire will fall.”