Dark Debt

by Chloe Neill

  “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 on
to 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.

  Chapter Eleven

  SACRED AND PROFANE

  We 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 r
efrigerator 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.