I snorted. “Darth Sullivan would disagree, but I’ll do what I can.”
“I’m heading for the Chunky Monkey,” Mal said. “Ben and Jerry will hold me until you get here.” She hung up before I could say goodbye, probably already two spoonfuls into a carton of ice cream. She’d be fine, I decided. At least until I could make it over there.
The rest of my shift passed by, thankfully, with no drama. While I was learning what I could, training when scheduled, and performing what felt like perfunctory guard duties, I had no illusions about my ability to handle the nasties that might come creeping out of the dark. Sure, I’d managed to stake Celina in the shoulder when she made her final stand against Ethan—but I’d been aiming for her heart. If something, or somethings, gathered the strength and bravado to attack Cadogan House, me and my sword were hardly going to scare them off. I considered myself more of a first-warning unit. I might not be able to fend off any bad guys, but I could at least alert the rest of the crew—the vastly more experienced crew—to the problem.
And speaking of problems, although I knew I needed to report the latest Breckenridge developments—the fact that Nick was back in Chicago and that he’d camped out with the paparazzi at our gate—I’d spent enough time with Ethan and Luc discussing supernatural drama over the last couple of days. Besides, I had some questions for Nick, questions I couldn’t ask in front of a bevy of reporters. Questions about Nick’s newfound hostility. Ethan and I would be at the Breckenridge estate tomorrow night. If Nick was there, I’d have time to do a little investigating of my own.
It sounded like a good plan, a solid course of action for a newbie Sentinel. Either that or a pretty detailed way to continue avoiding Ethan.
“Win-win,” I murmured with a smile.
To add a little more space between Darth Sullivan and me—and to repay Mallory for taking care of me during my own awkward supernatural transition—I got into my Volvo and drove back to Wicker Park to provide a little postshift BFF solace.
The brownstone was well lit as I drove up, even in the early hours of the morning. I didn’t bother ringing the doorbell, but walked right in and headed for the kitchen. Which smelled delicious.
“Chicken and rice,” Mallory announced from her spot in front of the stove, where she was spooning rice and sauce onto a plate. She heaped a piece of roasted chicken on top of the combo, then smiled at me. “I knew you’d want food.”
“You’re a goddess among women, Mallory Carmichael.” I took the plate to a stool at the kitchen island and tucked into the food. The wicked fast vampire metabolism was great for the waistline but awful for the appetite. It was a rare hour that didn’t involve my dreaming about grilled, roasted, or fried beast. Sure, I needed blood to survive—I was a vampire, after all—but like Mal had once said, blood was like another vitamin. It was fulfilling in a very important way. Comforting—like chicken soup for vampires. That it came from plastic bags and was delivered to our door by a company uncreatively named Blood4You didn’t diminish the comfort, although it wasn’t much in the way of chic.
The chicken and rice, on the other hand, was a hunger spot-hitter. It was a delicious recipe, and one of the first meals that Mallory had cooked for us when we’d become roommates three years ago. It was also better, or so I guessed, than anything I could get in the Cadogan House cafeteria.
Catcher padded into the kitchen, barefoot and jeaned and pulling on a T-shirt. The hem came down just in time to hide the circular tattoo that I knew marked his abdomen. It was a circle cut into quadrants, a graphical representation of the organization of magic into the four Keys.
“Merit,” he said, heading for the refrigerator. “I see you managed to stay away for, what, all of twenty-four hours?”
I chewed a mouthful of chicken and rice, swallowed. “I’m investigating disorderly sorcerers.”
He humphed and grabbed a carton of milk, then chugged directly from the cardboard spout. Mallory and I watched him, the same grimace on both our faces. Sure, I did the same thing with OJ, but he was a boy, and it was milk. That was just gross.
I glanced over at her, and she met my gaze, rolled her eyes. “At least he’s putting the toilet paper on the roll now. That’s a big step. Love you, Catch.”
Catcher grunted, but he was smirking as he did it. After closing the refrigerator door, he joined us, standing next to Mallory on her side of the kitchen island. “I assume Sullivan filled you in about Celina?”
“That she’s probably on her way back to Chicago to take care of me? Yeah, he mentioned that.”
“Celina’s been released?” Mallory asked, casting a worried glance in Catcher’s direction. “Seriously?”
He bobbed his head. “We’re not issuing a press release or anything, but yes.” Then he turned his gaze on me and scoured me with a look. “One wonders if vampires enjoy drama, since they just keep making more of it.”
“Celina keeps making more of it,” I clarified, pointing at him with my fork. “I was more than happy to keep her locked away in a damp British dungeon.” I took another bite of chicken, my hunger apparently undiminished by the possibility that a narcissistic vampire was crossing the Atlantic to get me. On the other hand, might as well enjoy food while I still could.
“Now that we’ve covered that,” I said, changing the subject, “someone wanna fill me in on the sorcery drama?”
“They’re going to take me away,” Mallory said.
“To Schaumburg,” Catcher said dryly. “I’m taking her to Schaumburg.”
“So not to Detroit, then?” I asked, glancing back and forth between them. It was a pretty big difference, Schaumburg being a suburb northwest of the city. It was thirty miles and an entire Great Lake closer to Chicago—and me—than Detroit.
Mallory crooked a thumb at Catcher. “This one made a phone call. Apparently, he hasn’t lost all of his pull with the Order.”
As if on cue, Catcher’s expression clouded. “Given that it was phone calls, plural, before they’d even let Baumgartner near the phone, saying that I have pull vastly overstates my influence. Let’s just say they’ve softened their position on keeping a resident sorcerer in the Chicago metro.”
“Who’s Baumgartner?” I asked.
“President of the 155.” At my blank stare, Catcher clarified, “My former union, Local 155 of the Union of Amalgamated Sorcerers and Spellcasters.”
I nearly choked on chicken, and when I was done with the coughing fit, asked, “The acronym for the Order of sorcerers is ‘U-ASS’?”
“A, seriously appropriate,” Mallory commented, giving Catcher a sideways grin. “B, explains why they call it ‘the Order.’ ”
I nodded my agreement on both points.
“So, they’re good with the benefits, shitty with the marketing,” Catcher said. “The point is, she won’t be spending three months in Detroit.”
“Not that it isn’t a lovely city,” Mallory put in.
“Lovely city,” I agreed, but just for form, as I’d never been there. “So this training is, what, magical classes and whatnot?”
“Whatnot,” Catcher said. “No classes—just on-the-job training. She’ll begin to utilize and manipulate the Keys, major and minor, so that she can understand her duties and obligations to the rest of the Order and, if they have a few spare minutes”—his voice went dry as toast—“how to harness and redistribute the power that is beginning to funnel its way through her body.”
I looked at her, blinking, trying to imagine exactly how my blue-haired, blue-eyed, ad exec of a best friend—currently in a MISS BEHAVIN’ T-shirt and skinny jeans—was going to manage to do that.
“Huh,” was all I said.
“She’ll live and breathe the power of it, learn to exercise the control.” He paused contemplatively, staring off into space until Mallory touched his hand with the tips of her fingers. He turned and looked at her. “Sorcerers learn by practice, by actually funneling the power. No books, no classrooms, just doing it. She’ll be put into a situation in Schaumburg, and she’ll handle it. The hard way—on her own, no nets.”
I guessed “the way I had to do it” was coming next. The speech had the ring of old-school practitioner complaining about the way things had changed since his time, when he had to walk uphill both ways to get to school, etc., etc. Of course, I bet learning to funnel magic through Mal’s slender frame took considerably more effort than hauling a couple of arithmetic books up a hill.
“Damn,” I said, giving her a sympathetic look. “At least vampires get a desk reference.” On the other hand, that’s about all we got. Although Luc valued training, and I appreciated the effort, he and Ethan had had decades to gain experience before assuming their House positions. To play the part of Sentinel, I got two weeks, a sorcerer with an attitude, and a katana.
“So’s I’m going to Schaumburg,” Mal said, “where I’ll get a little less practical experience than if I’d summered full-time in Detroit, but hopefully enough that I learn not to turn bad guys into piles of glitter because I inadvertently snapped my fingers.”
As if to illustrate her point, she snapped them, a tiny blue spark jumping from her fingertips, the air suddenly stirring with the electricity of magic. Catcher closed his fingers around the spark, and when he opened them again, a glowing blue orb was centered in his palm. He lifted his hand, pursed his lips, and blew the orb away. It shattered into a crystalline glitter that peppered the air with sparkling magic before it dispersed and faded.
Then he turned to Mallory with a lurid look that made me happy, super happy, to be living in Cadogan House. “She’s a nice funnel.”
Oh, dear, sweet God, did I not need to hear about Mallory being a funnel. “So you’re going to Schaumburg,” I repeated, refocusing the conversation and taking another bite before I lost my appetite completely. “And you’ll do your internship there. How long do you have to stay? How long will it take? Give me the deets.”
“It’ll be nightlies,” Catcher said. “She’ll spend most of her evenings in Schaumburg for a while. Since she’s getting an exemption, we’re not sure how long her practice will last. Special case, special rules. She’ll stay, I assume, until she proves her worth.”
Mallory and I shared a snarky glance about that one. “Sad thing is,” she said, “he’s serious.”
Something occurred to me. “Oh, shit, Mal, what are you going to do about your job?”
Mallory’s expression went uncharacteristically wan. She stretched up from the stool and grabbed a white envelope from atop a pile of mail that sat at one end of the island. She held it in front of me so I could read the addressee—McGettrick Combs.