Drink Deep (Chicagoland Vampires 5)

Vampires had a long history of martial arts work in a style that mixed swordcraft, defensive postures, and offensive attacks. We practiced those efforts in th keffhistory oe House's sparring room, a giant space in the basement that was prepped for combat. The wal s were lined with wooden paneling and antique weapons, and tatami mats were spread across the floor.

I kicked off the flip-flops I'd donned for the trip downstairs and stepped onto the mat. The room was big and silent, and it felt strange to stand in the middle of it alone. I'd lost a workout partner in Ethan, and I hadn't trained with Catcher since Ethan had taken over the job earlier in the year. I worked out with the House guards on occasion, but we were so short-staffed opportunities for long workouts and training sessions didn't arise very often.

Silence, I quickly decided, wasn't going to work tonight.

There was a sound system in one corner of the room, and I flipped through the channels until I found an angry alternative song (courtesy of Rage Against the Machine) and turned up the volume. And then I returned to the middle of the mat, shook out my shoulders, closed my eyes, and got to work.

Katas were the building blocks of our martial arts work, short combinations of punches, strikes, kicks, and the like.

Put them together, and you had a pretty fierce-looking demonstration of our skil s. With the music pounding behind me, I used strikes, spins, and flips to push out the grief.

Workouts were tricky. Some days it was easier than others. Some days you felt light as air; some days you felt heavy as lead. Tonight was somewhere in between. It felt good to move, but I could feel the gnawing thirst itching beneath my skin.

I pushed through it. An out-of-shape Sentinel wasn't going to do anyone any good. Given the trouble I often managed to get into, I needed to make sure my muscles were honed and my skil s were fine-tuned.

After twenty minutes or so, the door opened, and Luc stepped inside. I pushed sweaty bangs from my face.

"I heard the music down the hal ," he said. "Getting in some exercise?"

When I nodded, Luc walked to the edge of the mat and looked down at the tatami. "There are nights when he seems more absent than others."

The grief in his voice brought immediate tears to my eyes. I looked away to keep them from fal ing, but didn't disagree with the heart-clenching sentiment.

"There are nights when the world is completely askew because he's gone," I agreed.

Luc crossed his arms over his chest and glanced around the room at the objects displayed on the wal s. He nodded toward a shield that bore images of acorns.

"That was Ethan's when he was in Sweden."

More than four hundred years ago, Ethan had been a Swedish soldier, changed into a vampire during a vicious battle.

"Family crest?"

Luc nodded. "I believe so. He'd been a hel uva soldier, at least until the reaper got him. Two lives instead of nine, I suppose." He laughed mirthlessly, then looked down at the floor, as if ashamed he'd made a joke. "Wel , I'l leave you to it."

"We al miss him," I assured him.

He looked at me again. "I know, Sentinel." He turned and walked out again, and I stood in the middle of the tatami mats, closed my eyes, and let the music wash over me. So much for escaping the grief.

One workout, one hot shower, and one much-too-smal drink box of Type A later, I decided ano kI d> When I was dressed, I drove to a funky little gourmet store in a commercial district of Hyde Park and loaded up a handled, brown paper bag with treats. A nice candle. A cup with an "M" inscribed on it. Some mixed nuts and dried fruit. A bottle of water and some chocolate bars.

Granted, the chocolate itself was unnecessary; I'd left an entire kitchen drawer of chocolate goodies at her brownstone when I'd moved out. It seemed unlikely that she'd cleaned it out already. But these had bacon in them.

Bacon, people.

Al the goodies for a study break box in hand, I put my purchases on the counter.

When the cashier began to ring me up, I decided to pol the public. "So, you're pretty close to Cadogan House. Do you get vampires in here often?"

The register beeped as he ran the chocolate bars across the scanner. "Occasional y, yeah."

"Are they as bad as everybody says?"

"The vamps? Nah. They ain't bad. Pretty nice. Some of the girls ain't bad to look at, you know what I mean?" He smiled grandly.

"Thank you," I said, handing over cash and picking up my bag. "I'l tel the rest of my friends at Cadogan House you said that."

I gave him a wink, and left him in the store with cheeks blushing crimson.

I made it to Mal ory's house just in time to see her tutor, Simon, walking out the front door. He moved down the sidewalk with a perky kick in his step, which matched pretty wel his boy-next-door good looks. His dark blond hair was closely cropped, his eyes bright blue. He wasn't overly tal , but he looked like the friendly, gregarious type who might have been senior class president.

"Hi," he said, squinting a little. "Merit, right? You're a friend of Mal ory's?"

"Yep." I lifted up the care package. "Just bringing her a little something. Is she in the middle of a test?"

"Oh, no. Not tonight. Just studying. I came over to help her with a tricky spot."

"I see." Mal ory had thought Simon had a weird vibe, and Catcher clearly wasn't a fan. I didn't get a bad sense, but it did seem odd to me that his focus was Mal ory's exams, not the water. After al , he was the Order's official representative in Chicago.

"How is the Order feeling about the issues with the lake and the river? Did they have any thoughts?"

He blinked, like the question didn't make sense to him.

"The lake and the water? They're fixed now, aren't they?"

"They are, but it's stil weird, don't you think?"

He looked nervously down at his watch. "I'm sorry to be rude, but I need to go. I've got an appointment. Good seeing you again." He hustled down the sidewalk toward a German sports car parked on the street.

I watched until the car disappeared down the block, wondering at his reaction, at his lack of concern because the problem had been "fixed." He was a sorcerer, and by al accounts this was a magical problem. Did he have no curiosity about why it had happened?

Maybe kze=unthe was just happy it was fixed, and was focused enough on getting Mal through testing.

Or maybe he knew exactly what was going on, and was keeping it close to his vest.

Either way, I found the reaction suspicious, so I filed it away, popped onto the porch and knocked on the door.

Catcher opened it with brown slippers on his feet, glasses on his nose, and a TV Guide in his hand. Maybe he was taking his sudden retirement seriously.