Dark Debt
“You know, we’re both adults. We could just tell him what happened.”
She chuckled. “Yeah, but toying with Darth Sullivan is so much fun.”
I could hardly disagree with that. “What do you do with the bracelet now?”
“Maybe I’ll just finish this the old-fashioned way,” she said, and touched a finger to the bracelet. It lifted slightly, gave one delicious shiver, and then fell back to the floor looking entirely ordinary.
“Done,” she said, but wobbled a little on her feet.
“You all right?”
“Just tired.” She pushed hair behind her ears, moved her head side to side, neck popping with the movement. “Nothing a monthlong vacation in Bimini couldn’t fix.”
“I got you,” I said, reaching out a hand to help steady her. “I think your magic’s getting cleaner. Is that a thing?”
She brightened. “Really? That’s definitely a thing. Kind of like”—she paused as she thought of a metaphor—“a diamond with better clarity. Or a beer with less filler.”
“Cool. Is that a practice thing?”
“It’s a no-longer-delving-in-the-dark-arts thing. And yeah, practice. When you first learn how to do this, to harness the magic, you pull in a lot of crud. Emotions, magical castoff, atmospheric energy. The relative magical dirt.”
“The stuff in the joined psychic space?” I asked, thinking of Lindsey.
“Yeah. Like that. And as you get better, you know what you’re looking for, can see it a little clearer, can pull in the good stuff.” She walked to the bracelet, blew on it before gingerly picking it up.
“Hot,” she said with a smile, switching it from hand to hand. “Metal does that sometimes. Something about magic and atoms and quantum mechanical jargon I don’t understand.” The bracelet’s apparently having cooled enough, she extended it to me. “Put it on right before you go to bed; take it off when you get up. It might make you tired.”
“Because?”
“Because to keep Balthasar out of your head, it has to stay ‘on.’ And since I’ll be holding the House ward in place, it will be using you to operate. I’m the maker; you’re the battery.”
I held it out with two fingers. “I’m not sure I’m comfortable with that.”
“Sure you are. I’ll be doing the same thing, except while you’re protecting your own ass, I’ll be protecting the collective asses of all your fanged brethren.”
When she put it like that, my objection seemed pretty weak. “All righty, then,” I said, and put the bracelet on the nightstand so I wouldn’t forget it.
“You know what?” I said, glancing up at her after checking the clock. “We’ve got a little time until dawn. Why don’t we just hang out in here?”
She cocked her head at me. “What did you have in mind?”
“Mallocakes and low-budget sci-fi movies.”
“How low budget?”
“Orca Attack: The Rekindling.”
Her eyes lit like the sun at dawn. “You had me at ‘orca.’”
That was what they all said.
* * *
She paused to update Catcher while I gave Ethan a rundown on the ward and asked him to give us a little time to rest. And, since we had unfinished business, some time for me and Mallory to discuss some things . . .
When I’d changed into comfy pants and a Cubs T-shirt, I switched on the television and found the correct channel. Mallory kicked off her shoes, and we fell across the bed and on a box of Mallocakes I’d been keeping in a drawer for just such emergencies like hyenas at a kill. If hyenas had been magically stressed supernaturals with an addiction to chocolate.
“How’s the chocolate drawer?” I asked, tearing the cellophane on a Mallocake, taking a heady bite of chocolate sponge cake and cream, and closing my eyes to savor it.
“It misses you,” she said, pausing midbite to watch an orca devour the torso of a swimmer in one bite. “But I keep it company.” The chocolate drawer was, as the name suggested, a drawer in Mallory’s kitchen that, when we’d lived together, had held my chocolate stash. I should have asked her to send me a care package. Not that Margot or Ethan spared any expense where treats were concerned.
Mallory adjusted pillows behind her, snapped into a Mallocake wrapper.
“You ready to tell me about the wedding?”
She chewed, eyes on the screen. “There’s nothing to tell.”
“Mallory Delancey Carmichael. I know you better than anyone else in this world, except possibly Catcher, and that’s only because he knows you carnally.”
“I don’t like the sound of that word. Carnally.”
“I didn’t like saying it. Spill.”
She rolled her shoulders, groaned. “It’s not a big deal. We just think it would be better to go ahead and do something simple.”
I put down the Mallocake and stared at her. “Please tell me his proposal was more romantic than that—than he wants to just ‘go ahead.’”
“We’re just not at that white-lace-and-big-veils kind of stage right now.”
“Then what stage are you at?”
“I don’t know.” She made a sound of frustration, then stuffed an empty wrapper in the box, grabbed another. “I don’t know. But not everything has to be a big dramatic production.”