Drink Deep - Chloe Neill [56]
Luc crossed his arms over his chest and glanced around the room at the objects displayed on the walls. He nodded toward a shield that bore images of acorns.
“That was Ethan’s when he was in Sweden.”
More than four hundred years ago, Ethan had been a Swedish soldier, changed into a vampire during a vicious battle.
“Family crest?”
Luc nodded. “I believe so. He’d been a helluva soldier, at least until the reaper got him. Two lives instead of nine, I suppose.” He laughed mirthlessly, then looked down at the floor, as if ashamed he’d made a joke. “Well, I’ll leave you to it.”
“We all miss him,” I assured him.
He looked at me again. “I know, Sentinel.” He turned and walked out again, and I stood in the middle of the tatami mats, closed my eyes, and let the music wash over me. So much for escaping the grief.
One workout, one hot shower, and one much-too-small drink box of Type A later, I decided another way to get out of my rut was to focus on something other than myself. In this case, Mallory—who was now in the middle of her apprenticeship exams—seemed like a pretty good option.
When I was dressed, I drove to a funky little gourmet store in a commercial district of Hyde Park and loaded up a handled, brown paper bag with treats. A nice candle. A cup with an “M” inscribed on it. Some mixed nuts and dried fruit. A bottle of water and some chocolate bars.
Granted, the chocolate itself was unnecessary; I’d left an entire kitchen drawer of chocolate goodies at her brownstone when I’d moved out. It seemed unlikely that she’d cleaned it out already. But these had bacon in them. Bacon, people.
All the goodies for a study break box in hand, I put my purchases on the counter.
When the cashier began to ring me up, I decided to poll the public. “So, you’re pretty close to Cadogan House. Do you get vampires in here often?”
The register beeped as he ran the chocolate bars across the scanner. “Occasionally, yeah.”
“Are they as bad as everybody says?”
“The vamps? Nah. They ain’t bad. Pretty nice. Some of the girls ain’t bad to look at, you know what I mean?” He smiled grandly.
“Thank you,” I said, handing over cash and picking up my bag. “I’ll tell the rest of my friends at Cadogan House you said that.”
I gave him a wink, and left him in the store with cheeks blushing crimson.
I made it to Mallory’s house just in time to see her tutor, Simon, walking out the front door. He moved down the sidewalk with a perky kick in his step, which matched pretty well his boy-next-door good looks. His dark blond hair was closely cropped, his eyes bright blue. He wasn’t overly tall, but he looked like the friendly, gregarious type who might have been senior class president.
“Hi,” he said, squinting a little. “Merit, right? You’re a friend of Mallory’s?”
“Yep.” I lifted up the care package. “Just bringing her a little something. Is she in the middle of a test?”
“Oh, no. Not tonight. Just studying. I came over to help her with a tricky spot.”
“I see.” Mallory had thought Simon had a weird vibe, and Catcher clearly wasn’t a fan. I didn’t get a bad sense, but it did seem odd to me that his focus was Mallory’s exams, not the water. After all, he was the Order’s official representative in Chicago.
“How is the Order feeling about the issues with the lake and the river? Did they have any thoughts?”
He blinked, like the question didn’t make sense to him. “The lake and the water? They’re fixed now, aren’t they?”
“They are, but it’s still weird, don’t you think?”
He looked nervously down at his watch. “I’m sorry to be rude, but I need to go. I’ve got an appointment. Good seeing you again.” He hustled down the sidewalk toward a German sports car parked on the street.
I watched until the car disappeared down the block, wondering at his reaction, at his lack of concern because the problem had been “fixed.” He was a sorcerer, and by all accounts this was a magical problem. Did he have no curiosity about why it had happened?
Maybe he was just happy it was fixed, and was focused enough on getting Mal through testing.
Or