Dark Debt

Ethan was out of the car before we could stop him. As I followed him, scabbarded katana in hand, a red bus with VAMPIRE TOURS OF CHICAGO in white letters across the side rolled slowly down the street, tourists gawking out of windows, the driver’s narration ringing through the darkness.

“. . . Cadogan House, the city’s second-oldest House, behind Navarre. And, ladies and gentlemen, grab your cameras, because that’s Ethan Sullivan and Merit right there on the street!”

I waved politely for the camera flashes and shouts from tourists—no point in making things worse—but muttered a curse as soon as my back was turned. “Keep the bus moving,” I told Brody when he met me on the sidewalk. “Let’s not drag the tourists into whatever this is.”

Brody nodded, jogged toward the bus, and directed it down the street.

The reporters ignored the onlookers—they were too busy with Ethan. Like sharks in the water, they’d scented blood, begun to circle.

“Ethan! Ethan! Who is Balthasar? What’s he to you?”

“Is he in Chicago to cause trouble? Is Cadogan House in danger? Or Hyde Park?”

“Tell us about the reunion he has planned!”

Ethan, eyes silver with emotion, focused his dangerous gaze on the reporter closest to him. There was nothing kind in his expression, and very little that was human. “What did you say?”

I had to give the reporter credit. The smell of his fear soured the air, but he kept his knees locked and his eyes on Ethan, and didn’t step back even beneath Ethan’s withering glare. And what’s worse, he must have seen something in Ethan’s eyes, some hint of dismay that triggered his own instincts. His lips turned up in a hungry smile.

“Who is Balthasar?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Why are you avoiding the question?”

Ethan took another step forward, magic rising in an invisible cloud behind him. Dread settled low in my belly, both at the fiasco someone had arranged, and Ethan’s potentially explosive reaction to it.

I positioned myself behind Ethan.

I caught sight of movement to my left, found Brody, Luc, and Lindsey (Luc’s girlfriend, one of the House’s guards, and my best House buddy) moving cautiously toward us.

“I am not avoiding the question,” Ethan said quietly, every word bathed in rage. “I’m wondering why so many members of the media have come to my home and are disrupting the neighborhood with inquiries about a vampire who’s been dead for centuries.”

“Dead?” the reporter asked, his gaze searching Ethan’s as if for weak spots. “That’s not the information we’ve received.”

Ethan’s lip curled, and I took a careful step forward, just in case I needed to haul him back.

“Balthasar is dead. Any information you received to the contrary is mistaken.”

All heads turned when a sleek black limousine raced up the street and pulled to a stop outside the House. While the reporters redirected their cameras, a liveried driver climbed out and opened the back door.

As I unsheathed my katana, a vampire stepped out.

Ethan had kept a miniature portrait in a drawer in his office, an oval painting barely two inches across, its frame delicately gilded. The man in the frame had straight dark hair, pale skin, almost preternaturally symmetrical features. Straight, long nose, dark eyes, lips pulled into a near smirk.

Then, the man in the portrait had worn a white cravat and a vest and coat in regal crimson, and his hair had been straight and dark, pulled into a queue at the back of his neck.

Now his hair was different—shorter around the sides and back, longer in front, so dark locks fell dramatically across his face. He’d exchanged the period clothing for black pants and a long coat, and there were scars across his neck, a web of crisscrossing lines that rose just above the coat’s mandarin collar and told of something harsh and ugly . . . but something he’d clearly survived.

He was attractive, undeniably so, with the look and bearing of a dark prince, a man used to having the attention of men and women, and reveling in it. And he was undeniably the same vampire as the one in Ethan’s portrait.

The entire crowd around us—reporters, cameramen, guards, vampires—went eerily silent as he stepped onto the sidewalk in front of Ethan. A mourning dove cooed from a nearby rooftop—once, twice, three times, as if calling a warning. A cold sweat inched down my spine, despite the chill in the new spring air.

The vampire let his gaze drift from Luc, to me, before settling on Ethan. There was much in his expression—anger, regret, fear. All of that tempered with hope.

For a long moment, they stared at each other, evaluating, watching, preparing.

I took cautious steps forward, one after another, until I stood beside Ethan with my katana extended, ready to strike.

The vampire’s eyes suddenly changed. They narrowed, darkness peeking through them like a demon at the door. The color turned, blue, darkening and shifting to swimming quicksilver.

And then his magic—warm, heady, and spicy; whiskey spiked with cloves—burst through the air like lightning. He bared his fangs, longer than any I’d seen, thin and dangerous as needles, and that trickle of sweat became a cold slick that matched the wave that rolled through my abdomen.

Ethan’s eyes widened with amazement, with horror.

My first instinct was to move, to protect. But magic had thickened the air like molasses; merely lifting a hand through it brought beads of sweat to my brow. I glanced around, found the other vampires around us similarly still.