“We should probably talk tomorrow,” Gabriel said. “We’ll host a wake at the bar, and you’ll want to wait until after. It wouldn’t be the best time for vampires to show up.”

Little Red was the Pack’s official bar in Ukrainian Village. It was a well-worn dive but served some of the best fare I’d ever tasted.

“I appreciate the warning,” Ethan said.

Gabriel pulled on his helmet, clipped it, then slung a leg over his bike. He started it with a rumble, then turned the bike back onto the street. Fallon followed him, then the rest of the shifters. And then silence fell again.

Ethan put a hand on the back of my neck, rubbed. “Not exactly the evening I had planned, Sentinel.”

“You hardly could have predicted this.”

“No, not the particulars. But that trouble would find us, even in Wrigleyville? That, I should have predicted.”

“You can owe me a Cubs game,” I said.

I was lucky to be alive. But I still hadn’t gotten my flashlight.

•   •   •

It was past midnight by the time we dropped off Mallory and Catcher in Wicker Park. She and Catcher stood on the sidewalk with their fingers linked. But for the evening of supernatural mayhem, they could have been just another couple heading home after a night on the town.

Mallory covered a yawn. “I’ll get started on the symbols tomorrow, although Catcher’s pretty swamped at work.” She looked at Ethan. “Maybe you could talk to Paige? See if she’s got time to help?”

Ethan nodded. “I’d had the same thought,” he said, which made three of us. “And we should have alchemical texts in the library to assist with the translation.”

“I’ll talk to Jeff,” Catcher said. “Maybe there’s something he can work up from a programming standpoint—something to speed the translation along.”

“Oh, good idea,” Mallory said. “There were a lot of symbols.”

Catcher glanced at me. “I’m sorry the night didn’t turn out like we’d planned. I know you were looking forward to an evening at the ballpark.”

I nodded. “There will be other nights. Bigger things to worry about right now anyway.”

“Yeah,” Catcher said ruefully. “That’s beginning to feel more and more common.”

He and Mallory walked inside, closed the door, turned off the light above their small porch, a signal that they were locked safely inside.

“Let’s go home, Sentinel.”

I’d been excited to leave the House earlier in the evening, eager to get to Wrigley, enjoy a beer, and watch some baseball. And now, with the evening having taken such an ugly turn, I couldn’t wait to get home again.

CHAPTER FOUR

A DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE

Traffic on the Kennedy hadn’t been any better than Lake Shore Drive. We’d avoided the accident, but not the three-mile backup that kept traffic at a crawl, so it took an hour to get back to Hyde Park.

Cadogan House glowed in the darkness, a beacon of warm light and white stone. The House was three stories of imposing French architecture surrounded by rolling lawns and an enormous wrought-iron fence meant to keep out enemies, paparazzi, and curious passersby.

There was a gate in front, recently upgraded by Ethan and at present guarded by humans. Two at the door, and four more patrolling the House’s perimeter. Both were insurance against whatever mischief Adrien Reed might have planned.

We drove the SUV back into the House’s underground parking lot, entered the code on the door that led into the House’s basement floor.

“Ops Room to update Luc?” I asked. The House’s security operations room, along with the arsenal and training room, was located in the basement.

“You will. After you’ve been treated.”

“Treated?”

“Your arm,” he said.

Those two words were enough to remind me of the wound and send it throbbing again.

“Ah. Right.”

He crooked a finger at me, and I fell into step behind him as we took the stairs to the House’s first floor.

The first floor was as lush as the basement was utilitarian. The scent of peonies and roses filled the air from an arrangement on a gorgeous antique table, which complemented the gorgeous woodwork, expensive rugs, and priceless artwork.

There was a desk in the foyer now, where a Novitiate vampire dealt with the supplicants who now requested an audience with Ethan. As one of the twelve members of the Assembly of American Masters, they looked to him for help, advice, and arbitration of disputes.

Ethan acknowledged them before directing me to his office, which was as luxe as the rest of the House. There was thick carpet, an imposing desk, and a comfortable sitting area with leather club chairs. Bookshelves lined the left side of the room, and an enormous conference table spread across the back in front of a bank of windows. They were open now, and would be shuttered automatically when the sun began to rise.

At the moment, the room was full of vampires. Malik, Ethan’s second-in-command, leaned against Ethan’s desk. He was dressed in the Cadogan uniform—fitted black suit, white button-down shirt that contrasted against his dark skin and pale green eyes.

Luc, the House’s guard captain, had tousled blond hair and the face and body of a well-practiced cowboy. He’d been excused from the House’s black-suit dress code. He wore jeans, boots, and a T-shirt with CADOGAN HOUSE GUARD CORPS printed in a circle across the front, the image of a bacon rasher in the middle. SAVIN’ YOUR BACON SINCE 1883 was printed across it. He’d created the design because, to quote him, “nothing fuels a vampire like a good rasher.”