Midnight Marked (Chicagoland Vampires, #12)(21)

“I’ll advise Luc of the call, the trip. Meet you in the basement.”

And we went our separate ways.





CHAPTER SIX




FOUR ON THE FLOOR


Despite our plan, I met him on the first floor near the staircase, just leaving his office, a glossy box in hand. “What’s that?”

“A gift for Gabriel, should we end up at Little Red.” He opened the tabs on the box, showed me the neck of a bottle of what looked like good Scotch.

“Excellent. This is random, but don’t you think Paige is just gorgeous?”

We took the stairs to the basement. “I don’t think there’s a way I can answer that question without incurring your wrath.”

I smiled at him. “As long as you don’t touch her, I’ve got no problem with your agreement. I don’t think her attractiveness is debatable. And if you do touch her, I’ll slice your fingers off and feed them to a River troll.”

“River trolls are fruitarians.”

“Not the point.”

He chuckled, keyed in his code, opened the door to the garage. “No, I suppose not. Regardless, I only have eyes for you, Sentinel. Well, you . . . and her.”

I looked in the direction of his gaze, half expecting to find a beautiful woman in the garage.

But there was no woman. Instead there was a gleaming white, two-door convertible with sporty wheels, deep vents in the doors, and another vent across the back.

Hands on my hips, I glanced at him. “And what is this?”

“This, Sentinel, is an Audi.”

“Yeah, I can see that.” I could appreciate good steel, fine leather, and impressive horsepower, but I recognized the model for one singular and important reason. “You bought Iron Man’s car.”

“He’s not even immortal.” The clear disdain in Ethan’s voice made me snort.

“He’s a fictional superhero. You aren’t in competition.”

“He’s a very mortal superhero outside that suit,” he said, looking over his car with an appraiser’s eye.

“You’ve apparently put some thought into that.”

“A man carefully considers his ride, Sentinel. And his rivals. This car will get us where we need to go, and it will do so very, very quickly.”

There was hardly a point in arguing with that. It certainly looked like a fast car, so I let the comment pass and walked around the vehicle, gave it a once-over. The car absolutely gleamed, its interior deep crimson leather, its soft roof made of fabric in the same shade.

I looked at him over the car from the passenger side. “You do have good taste.”

“Of course I do,” he said. “Shall we go for a ride?”

“I mean, I’m not going to say no.” I grinned at him. “Have you named her yet?”

The faintest flush of crimson rode his cheeks. I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen him blush before. “Sophia,” he said.

“A lovely name for a lovely woman,” I said, without much jealousy, and sank down into buttery crimson leather. “Let’s see what she can do.”

? ? ?

It would have been simpler to wonder what she couldn’t do.

Her engine rumbled like hollow thunder, and she practically flew down the streets of Hyde Park. I wouldn’t call myself a car person, but it was impossible not to appreciate the ride.

We drove northwest from Hyde Park to Hellriver, crossing the Des Plaines River and moving west.

Ethan had turned on a talk radio station, but switched it off again after a ten-minute dissertation on the Problems With Vampires. They included, to quote the speaker: (1) their penchant for violence; (2) their disdain for human authority; (3) their refusal to acknowledge humanity’s innate superiority; and (4) their lack of temperance.

I wasn’t entirely sure what the last one was about. Prohibition hadn’t worked in Chicago in the twenties, and it certainly wasn’t the law now.

Gabriel had been right about the shifter’s location. Caleb Franklin’s former home was only a few houses down from the broken chain-link fence intended to block access to Hellriver. Not that there seemed to be much improvement on this side of the barrier. The homes were dilapidated, the businesses boarded up.

“Here we are,” Ethan said, pointing to a single-story house. It was yellow, the small porch white. The paint on both was peeling, and the concrete sidewalk outside jumbled and split. The yard wasn’t fancy, but it was tidy.

We climbed out of the car, belted on our swords, and took the steps to the front porch. The neighborhood was quiet. I hadn’t seen a single human, or supernatural, but a dog barked in the distance, warning its owner of something ominous in the dark.

The building was completely dark, utterly quiet. I closed my eyes, let my guards drop just long enough to check for signs of life inside. But there was nothing, supernatural or otherwise.

“There’s no one in there,” I said after a moment, opening my eyes again. “No sound, no magic.”

“My conclusion as well,” Ethan whispered, then turned the knob.

The unlocked door opened easily into a small living room that smelled of must and animal.

We walked inside, and I pulled the door nearly closed behind us. “Nearly” so that passersby wouldn’t decide to investigate, but we could still make a quick exit.