“Katana. Broadsword. Saber.”

“We were supposed to be discussing Catcher,” I reminded her. “And since I’ve seen his, ahem, broadsword plenty of times, I can verify he’s got one. I think every relationship has its ups and downs, its arcs. Sometimes rampant nakedness while a girl is trying to prep her damn ramen noodles.”

Mallory snorted into her drink. “They aren’t good for you anyway. Too much sodium.”

“I’m immortal,” I pointed out.

“You are that,” she said. “I hope you’re right. Do you think you and Darth Sullivan will be able to keep the spark alive six or seven hundred years from now?”

Immortality wasn’t something I thought about often, mostly because I couldn’t really imagine it. Ethan had been alive for nearly four hundred years. He’d seen war, violence, famine, and empires come and go. Assuming I stayed away from the business end of an aspen stake, I could see all that and more. But the expanse of time wasn’t something I could easily wrap my mind around.

“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I can’t imagine not wanting him, but immortality is a long time.”

“And if he proposes?”

He’d hinted about it enough, preparing me for its inevitability, that “if” was really a conservative estimate. “When he proposes,” I said, “and if I say yes, then the decision is made. The deal is done, and there’s no going back.”

I smiled at that. Immortality intimidated me; commitment did not.

“Good,” Mallory said, then clinked her glass against mine in a toast. “Let’s drink to commitment. To the grouchy-ass men we love, who really should worship at our feet.” She grinned wickedly. “And do, when the incentive’s right.”

“I feel like we’re getting dangerously close to naked Catcher territory again.”

“We’re only territory adjacent,” she said with a wink. She put her glass down, looked at me for a few seconds. She smiled softly, as if she knew all the world’s secrets.

“What?” I asked.

“Nothing. Just thinking about how much we’ve changed. Vampires, sorcerers, two sexy-as-hell and utterly egotistical men. An awkward adjustment for you, and a detour into darkness for me. And yet here we are, having a drink and preparing to go see the Cubbies.” She clinked her glass against mine. “I’d say we turned out pretty good.”

I couldn’t argue with that.

•   •   •

Ethan came out strong from the break and nearly ran the table. It was an inadvertent cue bump by a Novitiate who’d had a little too much to drink that spoiled the plan. The Novitiate was apologetic, but what was done was done. Her slip gave Catcher control of the table, and control it he did. He called each shot, nailed each shot, and when he was done, left Ethan staring at the wreckage.

Or so Catcher told the story. Given that his ego nearly matched Ethan’s in size and strength, I guessed the truth was somewhere in between.

When we’d wrapped up and were prepared to (finally!) head to the stadium, Colin refused Ethan’s money and tried to shoo us out of the bar; Ethan, ever strategic, managed to slip bills to Sean on the sly. He preferred to pay his debts.

We emerged into the glorious spring night, the crowd bristling with energy and the sheer joy of being outside after a hard Midwestern winter. And, of course, the possibility of destroying the Cardinals on our home turf.

Ethan held my hand as we followed Catcher and Mallory through the crowd to the gate. Our seats were on the third-base side, which had been my favorite spot for an afternoon of baseball.

Ethan glanced back at me, green eyes glowing. I didn’t think he was much of a baseball fan. Maybe it was vicarious excitement, because I was probably elated enough for both of us. Or maybe he was pumped about the free flashlights. Because I certainly was.

Are you ready for this, Sentinel? Ethan asked silently, using the telepathic link between us, forged when he’d made me a vampire that night a year ago.

I smiled back at him. I am bursting with excitement.

He took my hand, and we walked down the street just like two humans, a couple on their way to a night at the ballpark.

Mallory stopped short and turned back toward us, her expression tight, her gaze focused on something behind us. People grunted and cursed as the stream of people was forced to divert around her, and then us, when we reached her.

“Did you feel that?” she asked.

“Feel what?” Catcher said, looking around to find the threat she’d seemed to identify.

“Something magic. Something bad.” Without another word, she began walking away from the stadium. We fell into step behind her, dodging through the stream of fans headed into the stadium as we moved toward Temple Bar.

But she passed the bar, kept going until she turned in to the wide alley that ran beneath the trestle that held up the tracks for the Red Line.

“Mallory!” Catcher called out, and we darted after her into the alley.

The smell of death—overripe and cruel and undeniable—spilled out from the darkness. Something had met a very ugly end here.

Or someone, I realized, glancing at the body on the ground.

CHAPTER TWO

BAD BITE

The man was young, maybe twenty-five or twenty-six. He had rough, tanned skin, brown eyes, and deep lines around his mouth. His body was whipcord lean beneath jeans and a T-shirt, and thatchy brown hair stood in mussed spikes on his head.