“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.
We stepped into darkness with the rest of them, threw into the stream the weapons we’d confiscated. And, like the rest of the supernaturals hurrying out of the club, we disappeared into the night.
CHAPTER NINE
SHAKE IT OFF
Gabriel had left us a message advising that most of the shifters had dispersed, and inviting us to stop by Little Red.
We’d get there, but first we had more immediate concerns—namely, my ravenous hunger. It felt like there were gears in my abdomen grinding angrily against one another. I was dizzy, light-headed, and aching with need.
That I ached with other needs, too, would have to wait for a more opportune moment.
Super Thai was a hole in the wall in West Town, not far from Little Red. A tiny woman escorted us to a plastic-lined booth, where I ordered pad Thai. Whatever the fight had done to me, I needed peanuts and noodles, and I needed them now.
I only barely managed to wait until the waitress put the plate in front of me. I mixed peanuts and cilantro into noodles, doused my food with chili sauce, and dug in.