Dark Debt (16 page)

“I’m chasing a murderer!” I yelled back, exaggerating a little, but hitting the truth close enough.

I made it across the street in one miraculous piece, raced across a concrete courtyard in front of a skyscraper that gleamed with blue
and red lights. They cast a colorful glow across the ground, highlighted the runner as he dodged tourists and late-night workers, shoving them into one another to create obstacles for me.

He darted into a long, narrow park bound on both ends by circle drives. The southern circle dropped down to the river; the northern one dropped to lower Illinois Street.

He ran to the southern end of
the park, turned back to me, grabbed his crotch. “Why don’t you come and get this?”

What a class act.

“Because I’ve seen bigger,” I said dryly, stepping onto grass still soft from the winter snowmelt and walking toward him. I spun the dagger in my hand, watched his eyes widen as it caught the light. “But I know how to get dirty if that’s what you want.”

“Oh, I bet you do.”

“Who
do you work for?”

“Fuck you.” His tone was as mean as his gaze. He didn’t know
me or anything about me, but I was his enemy, and he didn’t care if I lived or died.

“Not in a million years. Do you work for the Circle?”

“You think it’ll be that easy?”

I shrugged casually. “I’m pretty sure I just chased you across Streeterville and managed to keep up.”

I flipped the dagger rhythmically
through my fingers as casually as I might have scratched an itch, watching him, waiting for a lean or movement that would signal his next move.

“Not bad for a girl.”

“That’s what the last guy said—right before I kicked his ass.” I beckoned him forward, dipped my chin, smiled thinly. “If you’re so manly, come and get me.”

Sirens began to wail nearby. Someone had called the cops; I could
only hope Ethan had managed to contact my grandfather, ask him to intercept. It wouldn’t do to have vampires arrested tonight, too.

Ginger didn’t want any part of cops. He feinted left, then barreled forward. But I’d been distracted by the sirens, caught the fake too late, shifted my weight too slowly. I jumped for him, extending my body, managed to grab his legs and bring him down. He kicked
out, boot connecting with my cheekbone and sending a bolt of bright pain across my face. He jumped up and took off again.

I blinked back tears, but without pausing to think, relied on muscle memory and flipped my dagger toward him.

It connected, lodging in the back of his thigh. He cursed feverishly and hit the concrete on his knees, then yanked the blade out and tossed it away. Gaze narrowed,
spittle at the corners of his mouth, he rose again, limping as he vaulted down the stairs to the road below.

“Damn it,” I muttered. A jackhammer pounding in my skull, I
jumped to my feet and started for him, pain jolting through my head each time I made contact with the ground, and ran toward the small wall that overlooked the street below.

He was taking the stairs at a gallop, nearly
to the ground.

There was no time to hesitate. I put a hand on the rail and vaulted over it.

The ground disappeared beneath me; for a moment, I was airborne. For whatever chemical or physical reason, gravity was more forgiving for vampires, so the jump from the upper street to the lower felt more like one big step than a twenty-foot leap.

I hit the middle of the street in a crouch,
horns blaring deafeningly as an eastbound CTA bus roared toward me. I rolled out of the way, hair whipping around as the bus barreled past, four inches from my face, forcing the breath right out of me.

“Crap on toast,” I said, sucking in air before kicking up my legs and vaulting to my feet again.

I dodged the next car for the sidewalk, scanned the street both directions.

He was gone.

I cursed but set off at a jog, peering into the windows of a bodega, a fast food restaurant, and the fancy lobby of a fancier skyscraper, hoping he’d ducked inside to wait for me to give up, and I’d catch a glimpse of red hair in a corner behind a pop machine or a potted plant. But there was nothing.

This apparently being the CTA hub of Streeterville, a second bus sped past me, this one
heading north. I glanced up. There, in the back left window, was Ginger, middle finger raised.

The bus turned and disappeared, taking him with it.

*   *   *

I stared, openmouthed, at the empty street for a full minute before pulling out my phone, sending Ethan and Catcher the
information, hoping they’d be able to intercept the vehicle and give us back our lead. Because I was going
to feel pretty crappy if I’d managed to let him, our only connection to the Circle, get away from me.

I cursed again, circled back to grab my dagger off the ground. I opted not to wipe off the blood, thinking the CPD might be able to process it for DNA, and tried to carefully conceal it inside my jacket. Uniforms would be circling soon, if they weren’t already, to track down the source of
the gunfire—uniforms who probably didn’t know me or my grandfather. No point in exacerbating the situation with a visible and bloody blade.

There were still cabs to be had, but I decided to walk back to Navarre and steam off some of my irritation.

“Halfway across downtown Chicago and he hops a motherloving bus,” I muttered to the horror of a human couple who walked past as I turned back
onto Michigan. At least they’d head back to Eau Claire with a good story.

Foot and car traffic lightened as I moved north, the streets quieting as I hit the Gold Coast again. Humans done with the day’s work enjoyed walks in the warm spring night, heading to a late dinner, to the river for a boat ride, or to the lake for a boat tour of the skyline.

What if I had that kind of life now? What
if life became peaceful for Cadogan, and Ethan and I could settle down and become domesticated vampires, with a library full of books, a House of Novitiates, and possibly a child? After all the battles, the terror, the injuries, the grief, would we enjoy that life without drama? Hell, Balthasar was even older than Ethan, and he still wasn’t ready to settle down.

Since there was no end in sight
to the current drama, the questions were purely rhetorical. But someday they might be. Could I
go back to that quiet life—what Ethan had once called my small life—and be happy again?

As I turned toward Navarre House, I saw the city’s three Masters—Ethan, Morgan, and Scott—in front of Navarre House with Jonah, and my grandfather the Ombudsman’s van parked in front.

Yeah,
I thought, and
walked back into angst, political and otherwise. I could probably deal with a quieter life. As long as I got to keep my katana.

A VAN DOWN BY THE RIVER

G
rey House had an amenity for sports of all kinds and varieties, and its heavily male population, including Scott Grey, looked the part. He was tall and broad-shouldered, with short dark hair and a matching soul patch beneath his bottom lip. Jonah, tall and auburn-haired,
with generous lips and knife-edge cheekbones, stood beside him. They both wore jeans and Cubs T-shirts in lieu of the Grey House jerseys Scott had favored over medals.

Jonah glanced at me, nodded a silent greeting. There was a hint of sadness in his blue eyes, disappointment, probably, that we were still on the outs. Or maybe that I hadn’t yet given in to the RG’s demands.

I was sad, too.
He was my partner, and he’d become an important part of my life—and dealing with the drama vampires in Chicago seemed to frequently face. But what could I do? I was certain I could help the RG without sacrificing my relationship with Ethan. Love hadn’t taken my honor. But since I wouldn’t concede
that love could make me blind or stupid, I supposed we were at a standstill.

“You appear to have
injured yourself, Sentinel,” Ethan said, his gaze on the tender spot beneath my eye.

“He kicked me in the face, so I stabbed him. Is it bruised?”

He angled me for better lighting, frowned at my face. “It’s swollen and purpling but doesn’t look broken. You should heal. You’re all right otherwise?”

“I’m fine. How’s Nadia? And Malik and Juliet?”

“Nadia’s resting,” Morgan said.

“And Malik and Juliet are in the House with Irina,” Ethan said. “We thought it best for them to keep untangling the knot, such as it is.”

I nodded.

“The perp ran?” Scott prompted.

I nodded. “Down Michigan, into Streeterville. He pulled a gun and used it,” I said, glancing at my grandfather. “I can give you the details of the route if you want the bullets for forensics. And there’s this,”
I added, sliding the dagger from my sleeve, and extended it with two fingers to my grandfather.

“Blood?” he asked, scanning me for injuries.

“His, if you’ve got an evidence bag.”

He nodded, pulled a plastic baggie from the pocket of his jacket. “Just in case,” he said with a light smile, and opened it so I could slip the knife inside. Then he closed it, sealed it, wrote the information
on the outside with a felt-tip pen he’d pulled from the other pocket.

“Any word on the bus?” I asked.

“Uniforms stopped it,” my grandfather said. “He wasn’t on it.”

I dropped my head back, squeezed my eyes shut. He’d
been my responsibility—a responsibility I’d taken on—and I’d blown it.

Sentinel,
Ethan said silently, in a tone meant to comfort. But it didn’t help. Not this time,
when I’d been so close to such a good lead.
No one is questioning your efforts.

I am
.
I’m questioning the hell out of them.

“I’m sorry,” I said to Morgan, lifting my head again. “I was so close, and then he moved onto one of the lower streets. I followed him down, but I didn’t realize he’d hopped the bus until it was moving.”

Morgan just nodded.

“He wouldn’t have gotten far,” my
grandfather said. “The uniforms are canvassing in case there’s any sight of him.”

“There won’t be,” I said. “He didn’t want anything to do with the sirens. And he wouldn’t confirm he was with the Circle, but I presume that’s what we’re thinking?”

“That’s the logical conclusion,” my grandfather said.

“Why would they hurt Nadia?” Morgan said. “She had nothing to do with this. Nothing
at all. They should have come after me.”

“Because it isn’t money they’re after,” my grandfather said.

Which meant Morgan was going to have to figure out a way to satisfy them, or hope the CPD could bring down an enormous criminal enterprise before they got to anyone else. Neither of those options sounded especially easy.

“When we have all the information,” Ethan said, “we’ll chart
a course.”

Morgan nodded but didn’t look at all convinced.

“I’m going to get this to Jeff,” my grandfather said into the intervening silence, lifting the evidence bag, then glancing at me. “Walk with me?”

I nodded, fell into step beside him as we walked slowly across the grass, at his pace, toward the van.

“Did I ever tell you about the Moody case?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Darryl Lee Moody had a very bad habit of stealing cars. Twenty-three before anyone identified him. Twenty-seven before anyone found him. I was twenty-eight years old, had just gotten my detective’s shield. I wanted to prove myself, did some investigating, found a man who knew a man, and was able to locate his shop. I scoped it out, realized he was the only one in there—and with two cars. If I waited
for backup, he’d have disappeared. I knew that in my gut. So I went in, gun blazing, all by my lonesome. It did not, let’s say, go well.”

“What happened?”

“General Tso’s chicken,” he said, each word heavy as it dropped from his lips. “Moody had just ordered dinner, and the delivery arrived five seconds after I’d walked in. Kid was nineteen years old, walked in to find his customer being
held at gunpoint by a cop.”

“Yikes.”

My grandfather nodded. “Moody grabbed the kid, used him as a shield to get out of the room. He didn’t hurt him, thankfully, but Moody was gone by the time I made it outside, made sure the kid was safe.”

“Did you find him again?”

“I didn’t—not in so many words, anyway. Four months went by without a single sign of him. And then, one night, I pulled
over a car for running a red light. Darryl was behind the wheel.”

“I doubt I’ll get that lucky.”

My grandfather chuckled, turned to me, and smiled. “Maybe, maybe not. The point of the story, Merit, is that not every op is
successful, even if you tried your best. Sometimes there’s General Tso’s chicken.”

“And it is infuriating. Delicious, but infuriating.”

“So it is. You’re a perfectionist,
just like your father.”

I humphed.

“I know you don’t care for the comparison, but it’s the truth, baby girl. You’ve both worked very hard to craft your particular worlds. You, with school, ballet, now Cadogan House. Your father with, well, every other house. You won’t succeed every time. But if you’re lucky, and you work hard enough, you’ll come out on top more often than not.”

We
reached the van, and he stepped carefully down from the curb to the road, knocked on the back door twice. After a moment it swung open, revealing Jeff and Catcher in matching red Ombudsman T-shirts and khaki shorts. Jeff had opened the door with a grin; Catcher sat at one of the very swank van’s computer stations, eyes tracking across the black-and-white image currently on the monitor.

“You
ran a good race,” Catcher said, without looking at me.

“Did I?”

He clicked something, typed, clicked again. “Security cams say you did. You kept up with him, handled some shots and obstacles.”

That actually brightened my evening quite a bit. Compliments from Catcher were few and far between, because he was at least as much a perfectionist as my father and I. Their rarity made them
more meaningful.

“The jump was a nice touch, too,” Jeff said, sitting down on his swiveling stool again. “But you might want to put a little more space between you and the bus next time.”

“The bus?” Ethan asked, stepping behind me.

“I had plenty of room,” I promised him, which was entirely true, if four inches counted as “plenty.”

“I’m mapping the route,” Catcher said to my grandfather,
“so we can backtrack, pull any casings.”

“Excellent,” he said, then handed over the plastic bag to Jeff, who looked it over.

“You’ve also got some pretty good throwing skills,” he said. “We caught that shot at the perp on camera.”

Ethan’s eyebrows lifted again. “Throwing skills.”

“The dagger,” I explained. “It was a lucky shot, and that’s not false modesty. But it was kind of fun.”
I really was going to have to talk to Malik about knife throwing.

Jeff nodded, unlocked a small metal cabinet, and placed the knife inside. “Were you able to get a shot of his face from the cameras?”

“Eh,” Catcher said. “I get motion, but not a lot of detail. You want to give me a summary, I’ll add it to the APB.”

“Six foot two or three, medium build. Muscular but lean. Red hair with
some curl to it. Blue eyes. Pale skin. Human, and in good shape. Possibly not very experienced with supernaturals.”

“Why do you say that?” my grandfather asked.

“He had a gun and a Taser, used the latter on Nadia, the gun on me. He was smart enough not to use the gun first—knew it wouldn’t be entirely effective—but not experienced enough to use a blade or stake, which would have taken
me out altogether.”

My grandfather nodded. “Good observation. There’s a task force on the Circle—they come together when new information arises—and we’ll get the description to them, see if it rings any bells in the organization.”

“Malik also has a list of organizations he’s gleaned from his financial review,” Ethan said. “He’ll get them to you. He’s
confirmed the Circle’s close financial
ties to Navarre, but I think we can agree this has moved well beyond finances.”

“He’s already sent them,” Catcher said, tapping another screen.

Curious, I hopped into the van and leaned behind Catcher to check the list. As Malik had said, the companies were strings of three seemingly random letters. None consisted of names or words, at least not in English.

“Yeah, those aren’t exactly
helpful,” I said. “‘The Circle, LLC’ would have been better.”

Catcher glanced at my grandfather. “What’s the end game here?”

“King being a Circle rival is the most likely motivation for the Circle’s hit on him. I suspect they wouldn’t get a financial return on taking out Nadia, which makes this punishment, pure and simple. A direct hit on Navarre House, showing what they’re able to do
if Navarre doesn’t pay up, or successfully carry out their next assignment.”

“So they’ve got another project lined up,” Catcher said.

“That would be my take. It might be another hit on King, might be something else entirely.”

Ethan nodded. “They have to suspect Navarre can’t simply write a check.”

“Suggesting we’ll have to wrap up the Circle first,” Catcher said, “or someone’s
going to lose people.”

“This is going to get worse before it gets better,” I said.

My grandfather nodded. “That’s quite possible.” Concern tightened his expression when he looked at me. “Catcher filled me in on Balthasar. You’re all right?”

The thought of it—the reminder of Balthasar—made my stomach twist. I didn’t want any more reminders. And I didn’t want him in my head.

“I’m
fine. Frankly, it felt good to get out there just now, mix it up a little.”

My grandfather nodded, looked back at Ethan. “You’ve had no sign of him tonight?”

Ethan pulled out his phone, checked it. “Not as of yet, although he made an appearance outside the House, apparently to remind us he could.”

Everyone leaned forward as Ethan handed his phone around, showed them the grainy black-and-white
of Balthasar.

“Tenacious, or crazy?” my grandfather asked, his tone somber.

“I’d suspect both,” Ethan said, tucking the phone away again after it made the round. “He essentially admitted to Merit that he wants the House, believes it’s his due.”

“Because he made you?” my grandfather asked.

“And I left him.”

My grandfather nodded, considered. “There any room there to draw him
out? To force his hand?”

Ethan gave a smile, but there was nothing happy about it. It was pure predator, pure warrior, and very much vampire. “Your granddaughter has suggested there is. We’ll speak with you—with all of you,” he added, glancing at Catcher and Jeff, “when we’re ready to move.”

They all nodded, knights prepared to come to their lady’s honor, and I felt my cheeks pinken with
pride and a little bit of exhilaration. I was a capable warrior but didn’t mind having a Master, a cop, a shifter, and a sorcerer in my corner.

Ethan looked at Catcher. “How’s the ward coming along?”

“She’s working on it,” Catcher said flatly. “I obviously was called away.”

“We’re juggling resources,” my grandfather said calmly, as if to
avoid any argument between them. “And all doing
the best we can under very unusual circumstances.”

“I understand,” Ethan said, his gaze on Catcher. “And your time is appreciated.” It was as close to an apology between them as I expected they’d get. “For now, we’ll get the Navarre vampires out of harm’s way.”

“You’ve got ideas?” my grandfather asked.

“I do. But I’ll need to talk to Scott, Morgan.”

My grandfather nodded. “Do that.
We’ll deal with the evidence, touch base with the CPD about the forensics.” He smiled. “Nice that we can blame random violence and gunshots on someone other than a vampire for a change.”

“Sad, but true,” Ethan said. “Let’s follow up with the Masters, Sentinel.”

I nodded, and we said our good-byes and turned to walk back to the House.