Dark Debt

by Chloe Neill

  “Hey,” she said, “do you have your apotrope?”

  It took me a moment to catch up with the question. “My who what?”

  “Your apotrope. Your good luck charm. The raven bracelet I gave you,” she finally said, with obvious exasperation.

  “Oh, sure.” She’d given it to me to help ward off bad juju when Ethan and I provided security at a shifter Pack convocation. “Why?”

  She gestured from her head to toes with a finger. “Because I am mother-loving exhausted—the ward is killing me. It’s all day, all night. Catcher gave me a boost”—she winged up her eyebrows suggestively—“which helped, but I’m still pretty pooped. The long and short of it is, we can’t keep him physically and psychically out of the House at the same time. That’s more power than we’ve got. But if I use the bracelet, as a focus, I can at least keep him out of your head.”

  “Okay,” I said, realizing she was offering me precisely what I’d needed—a distraction. Or some distracting magic to watch, anyway. And besides, she and I still had chits to chat about. “It’s in the apartments. Wanna come upstairs?”

  “Is it okay if I make magic there?” She held up a hand. “And ignore that I just set you up for a comment about Ethan’s sexual prowess.”

  “You tell me about Catcher’s sexual prowess all the time,” I said as we began to climb the stairs.

  “That’s different.”

  “Because?”

  She grinned. “Because I like talking about it.”

  We reached the apartments and walked inside.

  “Damn,” she said. “I really didn’t get a good look at this place earlier.”

  “You hadn’t been in here before?”

  “I had not.” She walked to the bathroom, peeked in, sat on the edge of the mattress, bobbed to check the weight, poked into the closet. “Holy balls. Darth Sullivan has a lot of suits.”

  “Yeah,” I said, moving into the bedroom. “He does.”

  “You got pretty nice digs here, Mer. Much better than that closet he called a dorm room.”

  “Sleep with the Master, get the best digs.”

  “I guess. Good for you. For both of you.” She yawned, covering her mouth with the back of her hand. “Sorry. I’m nearly gone. Bracelet?”

  I walked to the cabinet in the closet, pulled out the bracelet. It was antique gold link, with a small raven-shaped charm.

  Mallory moved to the desk, pulled the Louis XVI chair into the middle of the room. She put the bracelet on the padded seat, arranged it just so.

  “You think he’ll care if the fabric gets singed?”

  I just looked at her.

  “You’re right. It’s Darth Sullivan. Better bring me a towel.”

  Because she was tired and doing me a favor—protecting me from a crazy person—I did, handing over a fluffy bath towel Ethan probably also wouldn’t want singed. But scorch marks could be hidden with careful folding.

  Mallory arranged the towel, put the bracelet on top of it. “Come stand behind me,” she said, and I did, well back and out of the way. I’d already seen one of her fireballs today. I didn’t need a repeat performance—or my own singeing.

  She stood between me and the chair, eyes closed, wringing her hands as if to warm up. And then it began—the warm, slow spin of Mallory’s winding magic.

  This was magic, clean and astringent, but not the kind Balthasar or Morgan had used. Glamour was viscous and syrupy compared to the energy Mallory pulled into the room. Catcher had once explained that sorcerers didn’t make magic, but pulled it from the universe using the force of their own will, moved and manipulated it. In that case, she was pulling the best of it tonight.

  I peeked around her shoulder, watched as the bracelet began to glow with a faint amber light and shiver on the seat cushion. It jumped once, then twice, before lifting into the air and beginning to rotate, its speed increasing until it spun like a Frisbee.

  Mallory smiled, flicked a finger to the side as if to direct it, but its spin suddenly wobbled.

  “Ah, crap,” she said, turning and yanking me to the floor as the bracelet whirled through the air like a blade and launched across the room. It buzzed over our heads and hit the opposite wall with a resounding crack.

  Mallory looked up, climbed to her feet, grimaced. “You think he’ll notice that?”

  I glanced up at the ruler-sized burn mark on the wall.

  “He might,” I said, the bracelet clanking to the floor as I climbed to my feet. A painting hung a couple of feet away from the mark, mounted by wires from a hook over the crown molding. I scooted it over to cover the hole, then moved back to stand beside Mallory and survey my handiwork. The picture was in an awkward place, but it was a landscape I didn’t especially like; no British pastoral scene was complete without a linen-shirt-clad man emerging from a pond.

  “You know, we’re both adults. We could just tell him what happened.”

  She chuckled. “Yeah, but toying with Darth Sullivan is so much fun.”

  I could hardly disagree with that. “What do you do with the bracelet now?”

  “Maybe I’ll just finish this the old-fashioned way,” she said, and touched a finger to the bracelet. It lifted slightly, gave one delicious shiver, and then fell back to the floor looking entirely ordinary.

  “Done,” she said, but wobbled a little on her feet.

  “You all right?”

  “Just tired.” She pushed hair behind her ears, moved her head side to side, neck popping with the movement. “Nothing a monthlong vacation in Bimini couldn’t fix.”

  “I got you,” I said, reaching out a hand to help steady her. “I think your magic’s getting cleaner. Is that a thing?”

  She brightened. “Really? That’s definitely a thing. Kind of like”—she paused as she thought of a metaphor—“a diamond with better clarity. Or a beer with less filler.”

  “Cool. Is that a practice thing?”

  “It’s a no-longer-delving-in-the-dark-arts thing. And yeah, practice. When you first learn how to do this, to harness the magic, you pull in a lot of crud. Emotions, magical castoff, atmospheric energy. The relative magical dirt.”

  “The stuff in the joined psychic space?” I asked, thinking of Lindsey.

  “Yeah. Like that. And as you get better, you know what you’re looking for, can see it a little clearer, can pull in the good stuff.” She walked to the bracelet, blew on it before gingerly picking it up.

  “Hot,” she said with a smile, switching it from hand to hand. “Metal does that sometimes. Something about magic and atoms and quantum mechanical jargon I don’t understand.” The bracelet’s apparently having cooled enough, she extended it to me. “Put it on right before you go to bed; take it off when you get up. It might make you tired.”

  “Because?”

  “Because to keep Balthasar out of your head, it has to stay ‘on.’ And since I’ll be holding the House ward in place, it will be using you to operate. I’m the maker; you’re the battery.”

  I held it out with two fingers. “I’m not sure I’m comfortable with that.”

  “Sure you are. I’ll be doing the same thing, except while you’re protecting your own ass, I’ll be protecting the collective asses of all your fanged brethren.”

  When she put it like that, my objection seemed pretty weak. “All righty, then,” I said, and put the bracelet on the nightstand so I wouldn’t forget it.

  “You know what?” I said, glancing up at her after checking the clock. “We’ve got a little time until dawn. Why don’t we just hang out in here?”

  She cocked her head at me. “What did you have in mind?”

  “Mallocakes and low-budget sci-fi movies.”

  “How low budget?”

  “Orca Attack: The Rekindling.”

  Her eyes lit like the sun at dawn. “You had me at ‘orca.
’”

  That was what they all said.

  * * *

  She paused to update Catcher while I gave Ethan a rundown on the ward and asked him to give us a little time to rest. And, since we had unfinished business, some time for me and Mallory to discuss some things . . .

  When I’d changed into comfy pants and a Cubs T-shirt, I switched on the television and found the correct channel. Mallory kicked off her shoes, and we fell across the bed and on a box of Mallocakes I’d been keeping in a drawer for just such emergencies like hyenas at a kill. If hyenas had been magically stressed supernaturals with an addiction to chocolate.

  “How’s the chocolate drawer?” I asked, tearing the cellophane on a Mallocake, taking a heady bite of chocolate sponge cake and cream, and closing my eyes to savor it.

  “It misses you,” she said, pausing midbite to watch an orca devour the torso of a swimmer in one bite. “But I keep it company.” The chocolate drawer was, as the name suggested, a drawer in Mallory’s kitchen that, when we’d lived together, had held my chocolate stash. I should have asked her to send me a care package. Not that Margot or Ethan spared any expense where treats were concerned.

  Mallory adjusted pillows behind her, snapped into a Mallocake wrapper.

  “You ready to tell me about the wedding?”

  She chewed, eyes on the screen. “There’s nothing to tell.”

  “Mallory Delancey Carmichael. I know you better than anyone else in this world, except possibly Catcher, and that’s only because he knows you carnally.”

  “I don’t like the sound of that word. Carnally.”

  “I didn’t like saying it. Spill.”

  She rolled her shoulders, groaned. “It’s not a big deal. We just think it would be better to go ahead and do something simple.”

  I put down the Mallocake and stared at her. “Please tell me his proposal was more romantic than that—than he wants to just ‘go ahead.’”

  “We’re just not at that white-lace-and-big-veils kind of stage right now.”

  “Then what stage are you at?”

  “I don’t know.” She made a sound of frustration, then stuffed an empty wrapper in the box, grabbed another. “I don’t know. But not everything has to be a big dramatic production.”

  “Said the girl with the blue hair who dresses up for Halloween, has a room dedicated to sorcery and spells, and is currently watching the second movie in the Orca Attack trilogy.”

  “I still can’t believe you let me skip the first one. What if I missed a crucial plot point?”

  “Big sea mammal eats people with extreme prejudice. Humans kill it. Respawn. Repeat. Now you’re caught up. The point is, much like the Orca tales, you like dramatic productions.”

  “I liked them,” she clarified. “When I was younger and love was about romance and flowers.” She looked at me. “Love, as you well know, is about a lot more than that. It’s about effort and patience and commitment. I love Catcher. And I want to marry him. And I want you to be happy for us.”

  I scooted to sit sideways, facing her. “Look, I guess I just figured, when the time came, you’d announce your wedding with a town crier and full-on party. If that’s not what you’re into right now, so be it. I get that the wedding isn’t the important part. The marriage is. And if you’re happy about this, then I’ll be happy. But that’s the part I can’t really tell. Are you happy? Is this what you want?”

  She looked away, moistened her lips. “I just . . . I know he loves me, and I know he wants to be with me. But I’m having a hard time telling if he wants to get married because he wants me, or because he wants back in the Order.”

  That was a tough one, and I wasn’t entirely sure how to answer it. “That puts you in a tough position.”

  “Yeah,” she said. She hadn’t opened the Mallocake, but played with the ribbed edges of the plastic wrapper. “I understand that I made the world we live in now. I understand that I didn’t exactly help his relationship with the Order. And he accepts that, just like I accept him. I’m very content. I mean, circumstances being what they are.”

  That was the phrase I didn’t like. The blame she was putting on herself for a problem she didn’t really create.

  “Circumstances being that you’re a brilliant sorceress and a good person who pulled herself back from a total shit storm. I’m not excusing what you did—but you took responsibility for it, and you’ve tried to make amends. That’s all you can do. As for Catcher and the Order, that’s history. That’s between him and the Order, which, as far as I can see, is completely worthless anyway.”

  She laughed through welling tears. “Yeah, I kind of feel the same. But as much as we’d like to, we can’t ignore them any more than you could ignore the GP. I just—I don’t know. I don’t need him to prove that he loves me. But I sure wish he’d focus on us a little more.”

  She brushed away tears. “I’m just being silly.”

  I reached out, wrapped my arms around her. “You aren’t being silly at all. You’ve got needs, and you’re entitled to them. And you need to talk to him.”

  She nodded, laughed a little. “Who’d have thought you’d be giving me relationship advice?”

  “Who’d have thought you’d be marrying the world’s grumpiest sorcerer? I love you, Mallory. If this is what you want, then this is what I want for you. You just tell me when and where, and we’ll be there.”

  Because that’s what friends would do.

  * * *

  Once upon a time, I’d have said it was impossible to eat too many Mallocakes. That my vampire metabolism made up for my enormous appetite, and I could feast to my little heart’s content and never pay the price for it.

  That was, shall we say, a mistakenly optimistic approach.

  Four Mallocakes later, I begrudgingly admitted defeat. Which was why Ethan returned to the apartments to find Mallory and me lying on the bed, television on, pooched stomachs taking a much-needed breather.

  “Oh, this is quite a sight,” Ethan said with obvious amusement, then spied the empty box of Mallocakes. “A vampire and sorceress done in by chocolate snack cakes.”

  “Mallocake ’splosion,” Mallory said weakly. “Pew, pew, pew.”

  “I think there’s one left.” I moved just enough to skim fingers against the box, tip it up. “Yep. One. You can have it.”

  “Wait,” Mallory said, and put a hand on my arm while she deliberated, as if there was a chance she might be able to squeeze in one more. “No.” She waved me off. “I can’t. Go ahead.”

  “This scenario isn’t really selling the Mallocake concept to me,” Ethan said.

  “We’re having girl time.”

  “Not the girl time I prefer to imagine, but so be it.”

  “Perv,” Mallory said with a grin, rolling off the bed and trundling toward the door. “I’m going to roll myself downstairs.”

  “Take care,” Ethan said. “And thank you for the ward.”

  She burped indelicately.

  “And that’s our powerful sorceress,” Ethan said, locking the door behind her.

  “That is,” I agreed, and stuffed wrappers into the Mallocake box, then slid off the bed to throw it away and shake any remaining crumbs out of the duvet. “What’s new in Cadogan House?”

  “We’re trying to assure Diane Kowalcyzk that vampires don’t intend to destroy Chicago. Oh, and a ghost from my past is on the loose, and we’ve moved a few dozen vampires into temporary housing. But, as you might say, no bigs.”

  I readjusted the blankets again. “I’m not sure I’ve ever said that.”

  “I’m sure you have.”

  I glanced up at him. “I have nearly a Ph.D. in literature.”

  “And you just ate what I’m guessing is a significant number of processed snack cakes. Having a degree doesn’t guarantee good choices. But you can probably analyze Chaucer lik
e a champ.”

  “Damn straight. How were the supplicants?”

  “Remarkably straightforward,” he said, taking off his jacket and hanging it on the back of the desk chair we’d resituated at the desk. “How is Mallory?”

  “Good. I’m not sold on this elopement situation, but she seems to have accepted it, so I’m not sure there’s anything for me to do.”

  He nodded, hands on his hips. “She’s an adult, as is he.”

  “I know. But it’s marriage, and I’d like him to pull that stick out of his ass. Maybe you could talk to him.”

  “No.”

  “Ethan—”

  “No,” he said again, this time more firmly, and walked into the closet. “His relationship is between him and Mallory,” he called out. “Let her vent, if that’s your friendship. But they have to make those decisions for themselves.”

  “Stubborn ass,” I murmured.

  He emerged in emerald green silk pajama bottoms and an arched eyebrow. “I heard that. And I suspect Catcher’s the stubborn ass here, not me.”

  I couldn’t argue with that. “Is Morgan here?”

  “He’s coming tomorrow night. Wanted to stay at the House tonight, make sure the remaining vampires at Navarre were safe. Grey’s already got guards on the House, and we’ve contracted for a few humans as well. That should keep the Circle at bay during the day, at least.”

  “What about the Investiture?”

  “We’ve discussed it, but only generally. Scott’s and Morgan’s minds are on something else.”

  I nodded, but Ethan’s furrowed brow didn’t relax.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” he said. “Everything. I worry for you.”

  I pointed to my trusty bracelet. “I’m covered.”

  One corner of his mouth lifted, and he walked to the bed. “I’m worried about more than just tonight. He’s already tried to get to you twice.”

  “He won’t get to me.”

  “I know he won’t, Sentinel, because I won’t let him.”