Dark Debt (4 page)

“To best me? To lay claim to whatever throne he believes he’s entitled to?”

“So revenge and power,” Luc said. “Those are perennial vampire favorites.”

“Of his as well,” Ethan said, rubbing his temples with his free hand.

“We could call Nicole,” Malik said wryly, and Ethan barked a laugh.

“To thank her for sending him our way?”

“You think
she knew?” I asked.

“I think he’s canny enough to have visited her first, confirmed he had an ally, before coming here.”

“She could have arranged to have the note left in our apartment while she was here for the Testing,” I guessed.

Ethan nodded, and then his eyes narrowed. He glanced between me, Luc, and Malik. “If she knew he was alive, and if she knew it during the Testing . . .”

“Is he the reason she abolished the GP and created the AAM?” Malik finished, crossing his arms over his chest.

Luc sat on the arm of the chair across from us. “And how much of her maneuvering was just to give Balthasar a second chance?”

Ethan sighed. “We all knew she had ulterior motives—that she didn’t propose the AAM because she’s magnanimous.”

“Did she say anything about it last
week?” Malik asked.

“No,” Ethan said. The country’s Masters had met in Atlanta, Nicole’s home, for the AAM’s first meeting and to discuss the organization’s building blocks: its location, its procedures, its decision-making apparatus, its finances, the possibility of holding a formal ceremony to celebrate the organization’s creation. I’d missed that particular trip—Luc had accompanied Ethan
as his body man. From the riveting discussions of parliamentary procedure I’d had with Ethan afterward, I hadn’t missed much.

“The meeting was just as you’d expect a meeting of twelve egotistical and strategy-motivated vampires to be. If she’s trying to maneuver us into some position to support Balthasar, she didn’t show her hand.”

“Next planning meeting is next week,” Luc said. “Maybe
this is step one.”

“I don’t know if I buy that theory,” I said, looking between them. “To go through Testing, the election, the disbanding of the GP, setting up the AAM—all the work you’ve done in the last few weeks to get the organization up and running—there are easier ways to get power to Balthasar.” I shrugged. “Hell, she could have just supported him as a candidate for Darius’s position.”

“That’s a point,” Luc agreed.

“Maybe you
should
call her,” Malik said. “Acknowledge he is here. Find out what you can. Get it out in the open.”

“That’s what she said,” I murmured, but loud enough for Luc to hear and grin approvingly.

“Nice, Sentinel.”

Ethan rolled his eyes. “You two have clearly been spending too much time together.”

“Two-a-days,” we said simultaneously.

“You train more, you bond more,” Luc said. “It’s part of my trademarked regimen: ‘Luc90X.’”

“That’s not a thing,” Malik said, “and it’s not trademarked. It’s probably a trademark violation.”

“Details.”

“Children,” Ethan said, standing and glancing at his watch. “Dawn is coming soon, and I think we’ve had plenty of excitement for one night.”

“Yes,” Luc said, rising at the obvious
signal. “Let that be a lesson to you about attempting to leave the House and have a private life.”

“We’ll keep our relationship purely professional in the future,” I promised, which earned scoffs from all three of them.

“Tell that to the man who defended your honor with French and a blade earlier this evening,” Malik said. He had a valid point.

Reminded of the blade, Ethan walked across
the room, plucked it from the wall with a fist, slipped it into a nearby drawer. “Let’s reconvene at dusk to discuss what we’ve learned about Balthasar, what we may need to prepare for.”

“On it, hoss,” Luc said, then glanced at me. “Assuming your ‘purely professional’ schedule allows, you’ve got small blade practice tomorrow.”

Of course I did. Because God forbid I missed a night of Luc90X.

“She’ll see you then,” Ethan assured them. And the second they were gone, his arm was around my waist, and he’d snugged me against the hard line of his body.

Before I could react, his mouth was on mine, firm and possessive, passionate and insistent. He pushed me beyond thinking, into that sweet oblivion where there was only sensation, only the feel and smell and taste of him.

When he
pulled back, nipping my lip in a final tease, both of us were breathing heavily.

“Always remember,” he said. “Real lust beats old magic any day.”

There was applause from the doorway. I turned around, found Catcher and Mallory offering a slow clap at the sight of us.

BOSOM BUDDIES

“W
hat was I saying about lust beating magic?” Ethan asked quietly, and I patted his chest.

“Down, boy,” I said, and waved them in.

“We heard you’ve had an evening,” Catcher said. “Malik called Chuck, gave him a heads-up. We were closer to the House, so we stopped by to
check in on things. Balthasar, eh?”

“So it seems.”

“Magic?”

“As you’d expect,” Ethan said, and slid his gaze to me. “And glamour that managed to penetrate Merit’s defenses.”

Or destroy them, I feared. And I didn’t like the thought of Balthasar penetrating anything of mine, psychic or otherwise.

Catcher looked at me, head tilted and brow furrowed, as if I were a puzzle to decipher.
“He changed her immunity?”

“Or slipped past it, yes,” Ethan said.

I waved a hand. “Still in the room.” But they were too involved in their analysis to care. Mallory walked over, rolled her eyes at their single-mindedness. She handed me a picnic basket.

“Thought we’d return this,” she said. “Margot knocked it out of the park, as always.”

I nodded, put the basket on Ethan’s desk.
“She tends to do that.” I thought of the announcement they’d wanted to make. “Are you guys okay? Did you want to talk about something?”

She looked back at Catcher, opened her mouth as if to answer, but quickly closed it again. “We’re good. We’ll talk about it later. Really,” she added. “It’s no big deal. But this is.” Concern crossed her face. “You okay about this Balthasar thing?”

“Yeah,”
I said quietly. “It was, I don’t know, scary in a different kind of way. Not Catcher-throwing-fireballs scary, or even Ethan-facing-a-fiery-death scary.”

“It was dark-spike-right-into-your-soul scary?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Yeah. That’s pretty much it exactly.” Since she’d been assaulted by a serial killer, of course she’d have understood.

I lowered my voice. Ethan was upset enough that
I didn’t want to burden him with my lingering fear. “It was . . . personal.”

She reached out, squeezed my hand. “I’ve been there. Feels good when you really don’t want it to?”

I couldn’t stop the flush that warmed my neck, but nodded. “I don’t know how he’s cooking up that glamour, but he’s very, very good at it.”

“Where’s he been?” Catcher asked Ethan, who took a seat on the couch,
gestured for them to join us. Mallory squeezed my hand again before releasing it, moving to sit in the chair beside Catcher’s. I took my now-familiar seat on the couch next to Ethan.

“According to him, he was kidnapped by a cult, tortured, incapacitated by extract of aspen.”

“You have doubts?”

“About his identity? I hardly could after tonight’s display. For
the period in between? Well,
he’s never been terribly well acquainted with the truth.”

That was very diplomatic,
I said silently to Ethan, and felt his answering warmth.

I am trying to remember, as a wise vampire once told me, that I am more than he tried to make me.

I’d been that vampire and appreciated the shout-out.

“So, what’s the next step?” Mallory asked.

“I told him to leave the city,” Ethan said.
“I suspect he won’t.”

“And why’s he here?” Catcher asked.

Ethan sighed, draped an arm along the back of the couch. “Hard to say at this early point, but add power, revenge, and possessiveness to the list. He said he wouldn’t leave, but I’m not yet sure if that’s because he wants to irritate me, finagle his way into our House and finances, or both.”

“That’s comforting,” Mallory said,
and Ethan nodded.

“He’ll be well monitored, but to some extent we’ll have to wait for him to make a move.”

“You could,” Catcher said. “Or you could provoke him into making one.”

When Ethan’s expression didn’t change, I guessed he’d already considered that particular strategy.

I glanced at Ethan. “You’ve come up with a plan.”

“I’m considering disavowal.”

“Damn,” Catcher
said, shifting in his seat. “I haven’t heard that word in a while.”

I’d never heard it, but I had seen it in print in the
Canon
, the collection of vampire lore and laws. Every House Initiate got a desk reference, and the entire set of books—dozens of volumes—were stored in the House’s second-floor library, one of its most spectacular rooms.

“What’s disavowal?” Mallory asked.

“It’s
when a vampire publicly repudiates the one who made him,” I said, earning Ethan’s approving nod. “Being given immortality, whatever the circumstances, is considered a gift. It creates a bond—magically, biologically, politically—between the vampires. Disavowal severs the bond. It’s considered an extreme action, an action of last resort, and ethically questionable.”

“So, technically,” Mallory
said, “you could have disavowed Darth Sullivan?”

The question—and the nickname we used for him—was out before she’d realized what she’d said. She mouthed a curse, squeezed her eyes closed. “Crap.”

Ethan sat up straight, slowly turned his gaze to me. “Darth Sullivan?”

I inwardly cringed, opted for defense. “You’re so handsome.”

“Merit.”

“And really tall.” I cocked my head at
him. “Has anyone ever told you that you resemble David Beckham?”

“Merit.”

There was no avoiding it now. “We made up the name before we got to know you. In fairness, we only did it because we really, really didn’t like you.” I grinned. “But we really like you now.”

“A lot,” Mallory confirmed. But Ethan wasn’t ready to let go of the bone.

Darth Sullivan?

You didn’t like me, either,
I reminded him.
I bet you had a crabby nickname for me, too
. When he didn’t immediately answer, I looked at him sharply.
Ethan Sullivan. You had a nickname for me.

In fairness,
he said, mimicking me,
we really, really didn’t like you.

Are you going to tell me what it is?

No. Because I’ve no wish to sleep on the floor.
His grin was wicked, but I was immortal. I’d get it out of him sooner
or later.

“Do you ever get the feeling we’re only getting fifty percent of the conversation in here?” Mallory asked.

“As long as they’re keeping the sex talk to themselves, it’s fine by me.”

This isn’t over,
I told him, then turned back to Mallory. “It’s not sex talk. And technically, yes, I could have disavowed Ethan. But I hadn’t known about it then, and he’d have been really pissed,
considering he saved my life.”

“Hey, at least she concedes that now,” Catcher said. “She was pretty pissed about it at first.”

“Well aware,” Ethan said. “So, to get back to the point, I could disavow Balthasar. In my so doing, he wouldn’t be able to rely on his relationship with me for any material or political purposes.”

“And risking the possibility of setting him off,” Catcher said.

Ethan nodded. “That would be the concern. But it’s an idea on the list.”

Mallory yawned, and Catcher glanced at his watch. “It’s getting late—or early. We should get home before they lock the place down. Don’t want to be stuck with a bunch of bloodsuckers when the sun comes up.”

Ethan regarded them thoughtfully. “Actually, that’s another interesting idea.”

“Getting stuck with bloodsuckers?”

“In a manner of speaking.” He looked down, seemed to choose his words before lifting his gaze again. “Balthasar presents an unusual problem for us—a magical problem. And the two of you are obviously experts. How would you feel about staying at the House in the interim? You’d be an extra precaution, of a type.”

The offer was met with stunned silence. The last time Mallory
had spent an evening
at Cadogan House, she had been so far in the depths of a black magic obsession that she’d stolen Ethan’s ashes in order to make him her familiar. It hadn’t worked that way, but it had brought him back to life, a result for which I’d be eternally grateful.

That had been months ago, and before she’d come through the other side of her addiction. But still, that he’d trust her enough to let her
stay in the House was a very big step for both of them.

“I don’t know,” Catcher said, glancing at Mallory.

“You can discuss it,” Ethan said.

“And I’ll offer this—a basket of bedtime snacks, every night.” I smiled at them. “That’s a key for me.”

“I know Chuck would appreciate it, given the circumstances,” Catcher said. “And we actually would be closer to his office.”

“That is
true,” Mallory said. “But—well, the other vampires may not like it.”

“I am their Master,” Ethan said simply. “Not the other way around. But I think you don’t give them enough credit. You’ve helped this House considerably.” He smiled. “And they’re vampires. By their nature, they believe in second chances. For what it’s worth, I’d consider it a personal favor.”

He looked at me, and I suddenly
understood. Ethan wasn’t afraid Balthasar would attack the House . . . but that Balthasar would attack me, and Ethan wouldn’t be able to get to me quickly enough.

Ethan held up his hands. “This is a big request, and it’s completely up to you, and I understand if you’d like some time to think about it. And, of course, we’d prepare appropriate remuneration for your services.” He smiled at Mallory.
“Perhaps a donation to Sorcerers Without Borders?”

SWOB was a group Mallory had created to help fledgling
sorcerers navigate their new magicks. It was a mission close to her heart, since she’d come out of the magical gate swinging some very bad mojo.

Mallory and Catcher looked at each other. She shrugged, and he nodded. “Fine by us,” he said. “I could stand to be pampered at Hotel Cadogan
a bit. Assuming Merit’s right about the bedtime snack basket.”

“If she’s ever right about anything, it’s food.”

I gave him the arm punch that he deserved.

Ethan must have made his request psychically. Barely three seconds later, Helen, the House’s den mother, appeared in the doorway in her typical ensemble—a tidy tweed skirt and jacket in her usual pale pink, her short bob of silver
hair styled with Photoshop-worthy perfection. (It had only gotten more perfect since Ethan’s transition to the AAM, as Helen was now his official social secretary.)

“Sire?” she crisply said.

“Prepare the guest suite, if you would. Mallory and Catcher will be staying with us for a few days.”

Helen kept her gaze on Ethan, but she pressed her lips together in obvious disagreement with
his choice. “They will.”

“They will,” Ethan said, in a tone that clarified the issue wasn’t up for debate. Realizing that, she nodded, moved into the hallway again to make preparations.

“I don’t want to cause trouble,” Mallory said.

“Actually, I don’t mind causing it,” Catcher said. “Vampires have caused plenty of their own. What are the chances of getting an off-street parking space?”

Ethan just looked at him. Off-street parking in Chicago was a very serious matter. “That would require some maneuvering.”

They looked at each other in heavy silence.

“How much?” Catcher asked.

Ethan smiled slyly. “A ward on the House to keep Balthasar out, constructed and managed by you.”

“You’re a sneaky bastard, Sullivan,” Catcher said, and nodded.

Not a bad deal for good
parking.

*   *   *

While Helen prepared their rooms and Luc prepared their security access, Mallory and Catcher returned to their Wicker Park town house to grab clothing and essentials for Vampire Sleepover Camp. They’d return after the sun was up, but the human guards at the gate could get them inside. They’d set the wards, and we’d all enjoy a good night’s sleep.

Vampires were unconscious
during the daylight; theoretically, Balthasar would be, too. But he was conniving, and I wouldn’t put a daylight attack past him. Catcher and Mallory being here—setting a ward, and being able to emerge in daylight if the need arose—made me feel a lot better.

I was often relieved at the end of a night to return to our apartments on the third floor, the Master’s suite that Ethan and I shared.
But nights like this made the respite even more important. We could be ourselves, for ourselves.

Just like the rest of Cadogan House, our rooms were as lushly appointed. Thick rugs, demure colors, French fabrics, gorgeous antiques. Tonight, it smelled of lilacs, and Margot, the House chef, had placed a horn and silver tray on a side table with cups of hot chocolate, fruit, and the tiniest
sandwiches I’d ever seen.

As I’d mentioned to Catcher, Cadogan-style immortality had its benefits. And because silliness in the face of danger was one of them, I ate a small square of brown bread and what looked like smoked salmon while pretending I was a giant. Wearing Cubs pajamas.

“How many academic degrees do you have?” Ethan asked, walking out of the bathroom with a towel around his
waist, scrubbing a second through his hair.

“Two and a half,” I said. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy comically tiny foods.” I held up a wee croissant. “Odds are good she assembled this tray for the comic appeal.”