“Since we’re here, what can you tell me about the Red Guard?”
Both Ethan’s and Luc’s heads jerked up so quickly, and with such alarm in their expressions, you’d have thought I’d suggested vampiricide.
Ethan sat down on the sofa, then rolled his shoulders as if the tension there had suddenly become unbearable. “Where did you learn about the Red Guard?”
I pulled a corner from a square of cheddar and popped it into my mouth, aiming for nonchalance. “There were some references in a couple of vampire history books I found in the library.”
When Ethan arched an eyebrow at Luc, he stuttered out an answer.
“Oh, well, you’re on a need-to-know basis, Sentinel,” Luc said, then raised his eyebrows at Ethan, as if getting the okay to continue. “And right now you don’t need to know.”
I took the axiom, assuming Luc was quoting some movie I hadn’t heard of, and glanced over at Ethan. He was staring back at me, his expression flat. I guessed he wasn’t eager to discuss the RG. I knew he’d be conflicted about the organization and its purpose, but I’d expected vitriol, not silence. Maybe I’d actually managed to render him speechless. Given his vast love of speechifying, that was quite an accomplishment.
“Okay,” I said, standing up. “In that case, if we’re done for the day, I’m heading out.” I glanced at Ethan. “I’ll meet you first thing in the Sparring Room.”
Ethan nodded. “Dismissed.”
“I’ll walk you to the stairs,” Luc said, hopping off the couch. He glanced back at Ethan. “I need to see a girl . . . about a girl.”
“And speaking of things I don’t need to know,” Ethan said lightly, then waved him off with a hand. “Go see her.”
Luc staked a toothpick of sausage and cheese before accompanying me to the door. When we were out in the hallway, the doors closed behind us, Luc began to spill.
“RG is the vampire version of a law enforcement internal affairs department,” he said. “But with a regulator bent. They were created to guard the original French council members, but they stuck around. Now they’re more of a watchdog organization. That makes them controversial.”
We headed for the stairs, then trotted down to the second floor. “And that’s why Ethan doesn’t like to talk about them?”
“Sentinel, does Ethan Sullivan strike you as the type who appreciates challenges to his authority?”
“Not really his bag,” I agreed. That was exactly why I’d held off giving Noah an answer. It wasn’t that I thought keeping an eye on the Masters was a bad idea—case in point Celina—but I could appreciate Ethan’s sensitivity.
We stopped in front of the door to my favorite room in Cadogan House—the library.
Luc eyed the door, then me. “You looking for more inappropriate information?”
“If I didn’t keep you two on your toes, Luc, what fun would you have?”
He shook his head in amusement, but then turned around and headed right toward the stairs . . . and toward Lindsey’s room. “Gotta see a girl about a girl?” I called after him.
He answered with a gesture. That’s what I got, I supposed, for baiting a vampire.
Grief was a miserable emotion. A friend once told me the hurt that came with the end of a relationship was painful because it was the death of a dream—the future you’d imagined with a lover, a loved one, a child, or a friend. That loss was its own painful, nearly tangible thing. You had to reimagine your future, perhaps in a different place, with different people, doing different things than you might have first imagined.
In my case, it was imagining a future without my best friend—without Mallory.
We’d said hurtful things, things that put an obstacle between us. We’d talked since then, but that breach was still there, a barrier that seemed impassable, at least for now.
It was perhaps the most frustrating kind of breakup—when the person you loved lived down the street, in the same building, or across town but they were still inaccessible to you.
I couldn’t bring myself to call her. It didn’t seem right—like a call would have violated a silence we’d agreed upon.
That’s what put me in my car two hours before sunrise—two hours before the sun would send me deep into unconsciousness (and worse, if I wasn’t careful) —heading north from Hyde Park to Wicker Park, Mallory’s neighborhood.
I swore to myself that I wouldn’t drive past the brownstone we had shared; that seemed a little too stalkerish even for me. Besides—seeing the lights on, the glare from the television, the shadow of people in front of the picture window—would only make me that much more miserable. Her life wasn’t just supposed to go on. I know it sounded petty, but this was supposed to be hard for her, too. She should have been grieving, as well.
Instead, I stayed on Lake Shore Drive. I drove past her exit, the Lake on my right, then turned off the radio and rolled down the window. I drove until I’d run out of street. And then I pulled over.
I parked and got out of the car, then leaned back against it and stared out at the water. With much-needed space between me and Wicker Park and Cadogan House, I let down the defenses I’d erected, and let the sounds and smells of three million people, not to mention vampires and shifters and fairies and nymphs, take me over.
And in that noise and ocean of sensation, I lost myself for a little while, finding the blankness, the anonymity I needed.
I stayed there, my gaze on the water, until I was ready to go home again.
The House was still lit when I returned, the vampires inside not yet settled in against the rising of the sun. The mercenary fairies who guarded the gate stood quiet and still outside it. One of them nodded when I walked past. After I made it through the gate and onto the House’s blocks-wide grounds, I stopped and glanced up at the sky. It was still an inky indigo black. It was a little while yet until dawn.
My soul was quieter than it had been when I left, but I wasn’t quite ready to go back inside. Instead, I stepped onto the lawn and headed across it, then around the House. Cadogan’s backyard was like a playground for night-bound vampires—barbecue, pool, and fountain inside a neatly trimmed garden. It was empty now, the vampires—even if not asleep—already indoors.
I walked to the kidney-shaped pool, then knelt beside it and trickled my fingers across the surface of the water.
I didn’t look up when I heard soft footsteps.
“It’s a nice evening,” he said.
“Yes, it is.” I flicked the water from my fingers, then stood up again. Ethan stood on the other side of the water in his suit pants and shirt, hands in his pants pockets, hair tucked behind his ears, gold Cadogan medal peeking from the triangle of skin at the hollow of his neck.
“You left?”
I nodded. “For a little while. Just to clear my head.”
He cocked his head at me. “Shifters?”
I assumed he was asking if they were the reason I needed space. “Sorcerers,” I corrected.
“Ah,” he said, then lowered his gaze to the water. “Mallory?”
“Yeah. Mallory.” He knew we’d fought. I didn’t think he knew that he’d been what we’d fought over—part of it, anyway.
Ethan crossed his arms over his chest. “The transition can be a challenge for friends. For loved ones.”
“Yes, it most definitely can,” I agreed, then opted to change the subject. “What are you doing out here? Shifters?”
“Yeah,” he mimicked, a hint of a smile on his face. “Shifters.”
“Maybe the shifters have it right,” I said. “I mean, heading off into the woods, keeping to themselves.”
“Your theory being that if you don’t have contact with anyone, you can’t be hurt by them?”