Dark Debt (Chicagoland Vampires 11)

If he’d asked, and I’d said yes, I’d be second-in-command of the oldest vampire House in the country, a House established the same year the U.S. Constitution had been ratified. (Joshua Merit could choke on that.) I could admit it—the possibility of helping lead a House was attractive.

And if we were playing out this alternative history, I’d have become a kind of enemy to Ethan just as he’d been wooing me with seductive promises (and, admittedly, the occasional backslide into haughty arrogance). I imagined furtive glances at meetings between Cadogan and Navarre staff, a stolen kiss in the Navarre garden, a brush of fingers beneath the conference table, a pilfered night in the stacks of the Cadogan library.

“You’re awfully quiet over there.”

I looked up at him, grinned. “Just thinking about history. Morgan, you need a Navarre vampire. You need one of your own, someone you respect, someone of the same blood. Someone who can challenge you when necessary, but present a united front when you face the enemy.”

“If it were that simple, I’d have done it by now.”

“You’ll find someone,” I assured him. “You’ll find someone, and they’ll help you build the House.”

Morgan nodded, took the final sip of his coffee, three-pointed the empty cup into a nearby trash can.

“Come on,” he said, standing up. “I’ll buy you a donut.”

Now, that was an offer I could accept.

*   *   *

I walked back into the House, only mildly embarrassed that I’d chased two donuts with a bottle of blood and seriously considered stopping by Portillo’s for a cake shake. I managed to overcome the temptation, not in part because of the memories of our Mallocake Massacre. I still bore the mental scars.

I walked into the House, found Helen straightening the foyer table in preparation for the next night’s supplicants.

She looked up, stood up. “Oh, that’s convenient.”

I closed the door, too high on sugar to be bothered with what I expected would be an insult. “Is it?”

She nodded, picked up a brown paper package, extended it. “A CPD officer left these for you.”

I took the package, felt nothing ticking, no sense of metal or weaponry. “Who?”

“It’s not my business,” she said haughtily, as if managing my incoming mail—limited though it was—was too much of a burden. “It was left with the guards. They’re hardly going to interrogate an officer.”

Must have been from Detective Jacobs or my grandfather, although it was an odd way to get something to me.

“Okay, then,” I said, and started for the stairs. “Good night.”

A glance down the hallway said Ethan was still in his office—the door was open, the light on. So I took my package to his office, found him sitting in one of the club chairs with a bottle of longneck blood in one hand and a book in the other.

I paused in the doorway, smiled at him. “Now, that’s a sexy picture.”

He glanced up, smiled. “Hello, Sentinel. How was your meeting?”

“Morgan’s going to give Navarre House another try. And I got a donut.”

“Only one?”

He knew me too well.

“What’s in the package?”

I glanced down at it. “I’m not sure. Helen said a CPD officer left it for me.”

Ethan took the final drink of blood, put the bottle and book on the coffee table. “From your grandfather?”

“I don’t know. It’s a little weird,” I admitted, and sat down in the chair beside him, put the package on the table in front of us. It was tied with twine horizontally and vertically, as a Christmas gift might have been wrapped with ribbon. I untied it, slipped the tape around the paper with a fingernail, and drew open the edges.

Ethan’s magic spiked beside me.