Midnight Marked
Darling?
Ethan’s question, polite and casually curious, had me biting back a smile. He might as well have asked when I’d be home for dinner.
In front of me, Leona swayed side to side, shifting her body weight as she prepared to move. She looked tired, and I’d managed to get in a couple of deeper cuts. They’d heal, but use precious resources in the meantime.
Nearly done, I said, and glanced left, as if accidentally signaling my next move.
She took the bait, dodging left. I spun into a low kick and this time nailed my target. I kicked her legs out from under her. She hit the floor hard enough to make the building shake, her head bouncing once against concrete, her eyes rolling back.
I snatched up her katana, pointed both swords at her. Her chest rose and fell slowly. She was out cold.
My enemy vanquished, I glanced back at Ethan, found him standing over Cyrius. This time, Ethan had both the gun and the dagger. Cyrius sat on the floor, legs splayed in front of him, holding his arm at an awkward angle. Ethan looked healthy enough.
I walked to Cyrius’s desk, pulled open a drawer, found exactly what I’d expected to find: a pair of silver handcuffs.
It seemed likely I’d find some in a place dedicated to kink. But I decided not to think too carefully about how they’d been used before.
I walked back to Leona, pulled her hands in front of her, and cuffed her. She was too heavy to flip over; besides, I planned to be long gone before she woke.
“He answer your questions?” I asked, when I’d blown the bangs out of my eyes and walked back to Ethan.
“He did not.”
I grinned predatorily at Cyrius. “Can I have him?”
“No!” Cyrius said, which made Ethan grin.
“Not yet, Sentinel. Let’s see, first, if he’ll identify our murderer. Cyrius?”
When the man didn’t answer, I knelt in front of him, rested my elbows on my knees. “He asked you a question. Answer him, or he’ll give you to me. And you don’t want that.”
“That good-cop, bad-cop shit don’t work on me,” Cyrius said. But beads of sweat had popped across his forehead, and the words seemed to stick in his throat.
Ethan kept his expression mild. “You don’t get it, Cyrius. We’re both bad cops.” He held up the weapons he’d confiscated from Cyrius, gestured toward my swords. “Tell me about Reed.”
“He’ll kill me.”
“No, he might kill you,” Ethan said with a terrifying smile. “We definitely will.”
We wouldn’t, of course. Not a man unarmed, who’d been no real threat to us even when he’d been pretending otherwise. But he didn’t need to know that.
Cyrius wet his lips.
“You only get one chance to answer,” I warned him, patting his knee collegially before I rose again. “So choose that answer carefully.”
“He’s right,” Cyrius muttered, wiping his face with the forearm of his uninjured hand. “You’re monsters. No better than anyone else. He’ll fix it. He’ll fix all this. Bring some goddamn order to the world. Make things right again.”
Ethan’s brows lifted. “Is that the story Reed’s been telling you? That if he was dictator, if he ruled Chicago, life would be better for you?”
“He’ll clean up the streets.”
“He’ll continue to pollute the streets,” Ethan said. “He’s a crime lord, for God’s sake. He doesn’t belong in charge any more than Capone did.”
But Cyrius just shook his head. Whatever nonsense Reed had been spouting about his new world order, Lore seemed to earnestly believe it.
I stepped forward again and lifted the point of Leona’s katana to his neck.
“Who killed Caleb Franklin?” I asked him.
“I don’t know!” Spit accompanied the frantic words. “I don’t know.”
I pressed incrementally forward, until a droplet of crimson rolled down the blade.
“I don’t know!” Cyrius yelled. “I don’t know who he is. I’ve never met him or Franklin. I just know the vamp belongs to Reed.”
“And the sorcerer?” Ethan asked.
“I don’t know!”
“I’m tired of hearing that answer,” I said, adding a little crazy to my voice for impact and digging the point a millimeter deeper.
Cyrius lifted his eyes to Ethan. “Stop her. For Christ’s sake, stop her.”
Ethan looked unmoved by the pleading. “Why should I? You said we’d leave here in body bags.”
Cyrius didn’t have a good answer to that. “I swear to God I don’t know who the sorcerer is. Just that Reed’s got one. We aren’t allowed to know. We aren’t allowed to get close.”
Now, that was interesting. “Why?” I asked, pulling back on the blade, just a little. Cyrius’s gaze flicked to me again.
“He’s off-limits.” He swallowed, now all cooperation. “The sorcerer’s got something big planned with Reed. Something really big.”
Reed, the alchemy, the sorcerer. All of them part of something bigger. And confirmation, again, of something I didn’t really want to discover.
“Is the plan to do with the alchemy?” Ethan asked.
Cyrius’s expression seemed genuinely blank. “The fuck is alchemy?”
Ethan shook off the question. “What big thing does he have planned?”
“I don’t know. I just know we aren’t supposed to bother him with mundane shit. Not right now. Not while he’s focused.”
Ethan considered the answer for a moment, then crouched down in front of Cyrius. “I’m going to do you a favor, Cyrius Lore. Before I call the CPD, I’m going to give you time to get out of here.” He took Cyrius’s chin in his hand. “Tell him what happened here tonight. And tell him we’re coming for him.”
“He’ll kill me.”
“You lie down with dogs,” Ethan said, rising again, “you risk a bite.” He looked back at me. “Let’s get the hell out of here, Sentinel.”
When we stepped into the hallway again, La Douleur was in chaos. They’d either heard the fight or word had traveled. Doors were open, sups in costume—black latex, sexy nurse, eighteenth-century French aristocracy (which was so very vampire)—hustling toward the front door and the cover of darkness. I felt momentarily bad about interrupting consensual activities, but that guilt was erased when a woman with bruised eyes, tears streaming down her face, pushed through the crowd to the door.