Dark Debt (Chicagoland Vampires 11)

“How do you know?”

His jaw worked for a moment, his expression still unusually cautious. “I told them.”

I blinked. “You told them?”

“What he’d done and where to find him.” One hand on his hips, he ran the other through his hair. “I couldn’t save her, couldn’t kill my maker to avenge her. But I could let them know the truth and give them an opportunity to avenge her death, and prevent any others.”

Ethan walked a few steps away, giving himself space, looked back at me. “It is not something I’m proud of. It was cowardly to ask a human to do work I should have done. But there had been so much death . . .” He looked away.

So Balthasar had killed Persephone, and Ethan had told her family about it. They’d hunted him down and planned to kill him, and one of them decided he’d be more useful scientifically. But still, through all that, Balthasar didn’t remember her name? Had he not thought about the timing? About the fact that he’d been attacked just after Ethan left? Surely he could have put that together. And if he had, why hadn’t he mentioned it?

“What’s on your mind, Sentinel?”

“Puzzle pieces that don’t fit well,” I said. “He didn’t know about Persephone.”

“What do you mean?”

“He didn’t mention her when he was here. And when he attacked me, he didn’t recognize her name.”

“He could have forgotten, repressed it,” Ethan said, but he didn’t look convinced by that. “He called me. Knows all the history.”

“True. But his appearance, right now, was oddly coincidental. And he’s here, at least in some part, because the Circle is paying for it. Just at the moment when the Circle is making a concerted bid for control of the city’s vamps.”

“You’re suggesting he’s an imposter.” Ethan’s tone went hot. “I’d know if he wasn’t who he says he is. It wouldn’t be possible for someone to pretend that well.”

But we lived in a world of fairies, gnomes, harpies, shifters; that’s what bothered me. Since when was anything impossible, magically or otherwise?

Before he could say anything else, my phone rang. I pulled back, found Catcher’s number, answered it. “Merit.”

“We’ve got something new on Jude Maguire, starting with the fact that Jude Maguire isn’t his real name. Jeff did an image-surf—”

“Hey, Mer,” said Jeff’s voice in the background.

“Hey, Jeff. Image-surf?” I prompted.

“And we found a photograph, think we found Maguire’s previous identity. His name was Thomas O’Malley.”

“Does that matter?”

“Yeah,” Catcher said. “I think it does. Judge for yourself.”

“Send it to Ethan’s mail,” I said, and walked to Ethan’s desk, sat down behind his computer.

“Oh, do help yourself,” Ethan murmured, watching.

I pulled up the program, waited for the photograph to come through, and when the alert rang, clicked it.

I nearly dropped the phone. “Crap on toast,” I said, borrowing Mallory’s curse, and gestured Ethan to come look.

It was a photograph from a college yearbook, two guys standing side by side, an arm over each other’s shoulder, bottles of beer in their free hands. Their hair was fashionably long, just brushing their popped shirt collars. They looked casually wealthy, confident, and very content with their lot.

They, according to the caption below the photograph, were Thomas O’Malley and Adrien Reed.

“I’m going to put you on speaker,” I said to Catcher, and put down the phone so Ethan could hear.

“They went to college together,” Catcher said. “O’Malley got popped for larceny, changed his name, if not legally. Jeff says there’s no record of it.”

“When you’re friends with Adrien Reed, who needs a judge?” Ethan muttered.