GIRLS' NIGHT OUT

When we arrived back at the House, Ethan gave me the final hours of darkness off, then headed to the Ops Room to update Luc. I immediately headed to my room and into the shower to scrub off the residue of magic, then pulled on a T-shirt and yoga pants and made my way to the second-floor kitchen. The convocation had been draining - physically and emotionally. I finished off two pints of blood from the fridge's stash before I felt balanced again.

When I was satiated - and after I'd texted Mallory to let her know Ethan and I had come through the convocation unscathed - I decided to check in on Linds. It would have been just as easy to lock myself in my room with a book, but I was House social chair. No harm in making good on that promise. I could hear her room before I could see it, as noise spilled out into the hallway from Lindsey's open door. I peeked inside and found Margot, Lindsey, and Michelle preparing for what looked like a late evening on the town.

"Hey!" Lindsey said, waving from her spot in front of the mirror. "We were just about to come get you.

Since you managed to kick some ass at the convocation" - the room broke into applause - "we've decided we're sweeping you off to Temple Bar!"

"We want you to know we support you," Margot said with a nod and a grin, raising a glass of red wine.

"Especially since you've been very . . . um . . ."

"Ill-used?" Michelle offered.

Margot smiled slyly. "Thanks, 'Chelle. Ill-used."

"It's Cadogan-only night at Temple," Lindsey said, "which means no humans and no Navarre vamps in attendance. So we're gonna spend our final hours before dawn having a couple of drinks, unwinding, and generally having fun, no Masters allowed. And this isn't an optional trip," she added, when I opened my mouth to beg off.

"It's been a long day."

"Which is exactly why you need this," Lindsey said.

"Is there any chance I'm getting out of it?"

"Not even slightly."

"Then I guess I'm in."

Lindsey winked but then frowned as she took in my loungewear. "First things first, the wardrobe." She turned back to the other vampires and twirled a finger in the air. "Saddle up, then meet us in the lobby in twenty. The cabs should be there by then."

When she'd cleared them all out, we walked back down to my room.

"So," she said when she was finally perched in front of my open closet door, "this is the first time you've gone out with us since Commendation. It's also the first time you've gone out since you were, you know. . ."

"Dumped? Thrown back? Replaced?"

"Is there a polite way to say it?"

"Not really. What's your point?"

"My point is, the best revenge is a life well lived or whatever. That means you need to look completely, insanely fabulous, and you need to have a fantastic time." She pulled a pale blue sleeveless shirt with a drapey neckline from a hanger, then grabbed a pair of straight-legged black pants. The outfit assembled, she turned back to me. "The place will be full of Cadogan vamps, and you know word travels. That means it's time to teach him a lesson."

I grimaced. I didn't want to play the "teaching Ethan a lesson" game, especially since I was working on swearing him off, but I knew when I'd been beat. I held out a hand, then opened and closed my fingers.

"Gimme," I said, then took the bundle and headed for the bathroom. Ten minutes later, I emerged ponytailed and lipsticked, my beeper clipped at my waist. Lindsey had demanded I wear my hair up.

Combined with the drapey neckline, she'd explained, it was the vampire way of announcing that you were single . . . and that your carotid was available. I wasn't much interested in looking for love, but I figured arguing the point would just take too long.

We headed downstairs where the rest of our entourage waited in equally trendy, neck-baring attire. Like a woman on a mission, Lindsey gave a hand signal, and we all dutifully filed outside. A line of black and white cabs was parked outside the House, ready to ferry us to Temple Bar. The official Cadogan House watering hole was situated in my favorite neighborhood, Wrigleyville, just blocks from Wrigley Field.

Paparazzi snapped pictures as we crammed into the cabs, and their comrades in arms were waiting outside the bar when we arrived fifteen gloriously traffic-free minutes later. (There were obvious advantages to doing most of your driving while most of the population was asleep.) We were ushered into the bar, a PRIVATE PARTY sign on the door warning humans and others that they wouldn't make the grade tonight. Membership, I supposed, did have its privileges.

Even as late in the night as it was, the bar was still hopping, the two bartenders - Sean and Colin - passing out drinks while classic rock played on the stereo system. Lindsey led us through the crowd of vamps to a table marked RESERVED.

Unlike Cadogan House, Temple Bar lacked fine antiques and carefully chosen paintings. But it did have new and vintage Cubs gear of every shape and size - vintage jackets, pennants, bobble-head dolls. As you might imagine, I felt right at home.

We'd only just pulled out chairs and taken our seats when Sean popped up on the other side of the table. Like Colin, Sean was tall and lean, and he had short, ruddy hair framing an oval face and bright blue eyes. Sean was handsome in a kind of earnest, old-fashioned way, as if he might have stepped out of the photograph of a World War II battalion.

On the other hand, he was a vampire, and immortal. He very well might have been a member of a World War II battalion. Sean crossed his arms and looked us over with amusement. "And what brings Cadogan's finest to our little neck of the woods tonight?" Everyone pointed at me. My cheeks heated.

"Ahhh," he said, then glanced over at me. "So our Sentinel has finally escaped the confines?"

"She has," Lindsey said, wrapping an arm around my shoulders. "She's done her duty with the shifters, and now she's working on a little oblivion. What would you recommend?"

"Hmm," he said, looking me over. "Girly or manly?"

I blinked at him. "I'm sorry?"

He moved around to my side of the table, then crouched down on one knee, one hand on the back of my chair.

"Women who drink socially tend to fall into two categories," he said with the confidence of a sociologist or purveyor of spirits, the jobs probably having a lot in common. "Women who drink girly: women who stick to colorful things in martini glasses, white wine, frozen drinks; and women who drink manly: women who aren't afraid to sip at a good Irish whiskey, or a bit of stiff Scotch. Which type of woman are you, Sentinel o' mine?"

I smiled back at him from beneath my bangs. "Why don't you decide?" He winked. "I do like a girl with moxie."

Well, he was definitely going to like me.

Sean apparently deemed me worthy of a manly drink. He brought back a chubby glass half filled with ice and golden liquid. "You can handle this," he advised in a whisper, then moved on to put drinks in front of everyone else.

Cautiously, I lifted the glass and took a sniff. I'd never been much of a drinker, and this smelled only slightly more palatable than diesel fuel. But I liked the idea of being the girl who ordered a Scotch on the rocks - assuming that was what this was. There was something kick-ass about it, like being the girl who drove a Wrangler, the girl who wore her boyfriend's jeans, the girl who played flag football with the guys on a cool fall day . . . and won. I lifted the glass and took a cautious sip . . . then spent the next few seconds coughing.

Margot, laughing beside me, patted me on the back. "How's that drink, Sentinel?" I shook my head, a fist at my mouth as I tried to catch my breath. "Rocket fuel," I wheezed out.

"Did you let him choose your drink?"

I nodded.

"Yep, that's your mistake. Never let Sean or Colin choose the drink, Merit. They have a sadistic side.

But they do the same thing to everyone, if that makes you feel better. She lifted her glass. "Welcome to the club."

"Speaking of the club," I asked her, motioning to the partygoers around us, "where did all these people come from? There must be a hundred vampires in here."

"Remember, there are still three hundred and something vamps affiliated with Cadogan, even if they don't live in the House. For some strange reason, those couple hundred have no desire to play vampire sorority girls and hang out with the rest of us."

Given the week I'd had so far, I didn't think there was much mystery as to why.

We spent the next hour chatting, me holding the drink in my hands as if it were providing necessary warmth, and taking a sip only when my throat had cooled down sufficiently from each previous drink.

The vampires around me regaled me with stories of life in Cadogan House - from the time the fire alarm sounded during the 2007 Commendation, to the 1979 boycott of Blood4You, to the breaching of the gate by a fusty Hyde Park resident who was convinced the House was the site of secret occult rituals.

Suddenly, Margot put down her drink, pushed back her chair, then stood up on it. When she was standing, she motioned to the bar. Sean grinned back, and rang a brass bell that hung from a short post behind the bar.

The entire room erupted into raucous applause.

"What's going on?" I murmured to Lindsey, but she lifted a hand.

"Just keep listening. You'll get it."

"Cadogan vampires," Sean yelled, as every vampire in the bar quieted again. "It is now time to partake of a proud Temple Bar tradition. Not that the tradition is proud, but Temple Bar certainly is."

"Long live Temple Bar!" shouted the vampires in unison.

Sean offered a kingly bow, then gestured toward Margot.

There was hooting in the crowd, then the squeak of wood on wood as chairs were turned to face her.

She raised her hands.

"Ladies and vampires," she shouted, "it's time for a round of drinks honoring the various and sundry personality tics of the Master with the mostest - Ethan Sullivan!" I couldn't stop the grin that spread across my face.

"Tonight, we welcome into the sacred covenant . . . our Sentinel!" She lifted her glass to me, as every other vampire in the room did the same. Cheeks flushed, I raised my still mostly full glass to the rest of them, bobbing my head in acknowledgment.

Margot looked at me, glass still raised, and winked. "And may Lacey Sheridan, God bless her soul, choke on it."

The room burst into applause. My cheeks ached from the smile on my face. Lindsey leaned over and pressed a kiss to my cheek.

"I so told you that you needed this."

"I very definitely needed this," I agreed.

"Everyone have fun," Margot said. "Everyone drink within reason. And afterward, everyone make use of Chicago's greatest attraction - public transportation!" With the help of the vampire beside her, Margot stepped down and took her seat again. Everyone at our table set down their glasses and moved their chairs in a bit closer together.

"All right," I said, shyness gone. "So what exactly are we doing here?"

"Well, Sentinel," Margot said, "may I call you Sentinel?" I grinned, and nodded.

She nodded back. "I don't think we're giving anything away by saying that our dear Master and liege, Ethan Sullivan, is a little bit - "

"Particular," Lindsey finished. "He's very, very particular."

"Yeah," I said dryly, "I had a sense."

"He's also a creature of routine," Margot explained. "Of personality tics and habits. Quirks, you might say, that can grate on the nerves."

"Like the tag in the back of a really scratchy sweater," Lindsey suggested.

Margot winked at her. "Every so often, we gather together. We take a little time - a little cathartic time - to vent about those quirks that drive us crazy." Elbows on the table, I leaned forward. "So, which of the quirks are we talking about?"

"First item on the list - the raising of the eyebrow." To demonstrate, she arched a carefully sculpted black brow of her own, then peered around at each of us.

"Drink!" Lindsey yelled, and we all took a sip.

"I hate it when he does that," Michelle said, gesturing with her drink. "And he does it constantly."

"It's like the world's most irritating nervous twitch," I agreed.

"Nervous my ass," Margo said. "He thinks it's intimidating. It's the gesture of the Master vampire speaking to a lowly Novitiate." Her voice had deepened into an obnoxiously crisp imitation of the perfectly condescending Master vampire tone. Maybe she had a little Master in her, as well.

"So what's number two?" I asked.

"I got this one," Lindsey said. "Number two - when Ethan refers to you not by your name, but by your title." She dipped her chin and looked at me through hooded eyes. "Sentinel," she growled out.

I snorted. "I always thought you looked familiar."

"Drink!" Margot yelled, and we raised our glasses again.

The next hour and a half continued in pretty much the same fashion - Ethan, maybe not surprisingly, had a lot of tics and quirks. That meant a lot of drinks. And if anyone came up with a quirk not catalogued before, we had to take a double round.

Since I'd made virtually no headway with my "manly" drink, Sean took pity on me and brought over a plastic cup of ice water. That I wasn't drinking alcohol didn't make fun at the expense of the most pretentious of vampires any less enjoyable.

We drank for every mention of Amit Patel, for every speech Ethan gave about duty, for each mention of alliances, for each time he answered a knock at his office door by saying, simply, "Come." We drank for each time he jiggled his watch, each time he straightened his cuff links, each time he shuffled papers when you reported to him in his office.

Ethan had quirks enough that half the table had switched to soda or water by the time we were through.

Ethan had quirks enough that I had to excuse myself from the table. And that was why I was on the way back to the table from the back of the bar when I saw them - photos that had been tacked to the wall, decades of pictures of vampires together, all taken at Temple Bar.

"Cool," I murmured, my gaze scanning the gathering of pictures. There were Afros and disco wear, 1980s hairstyles and shoulder pads . . . and a picture that was half tucked into a corner of the display.

With my fingertips, I turned the photograph on its thumb-tack pivot to get a better view. The white Polaroid border framed a beautiful boy with cut cheekbones and a fall of blond hair across his face. At his side was a blond girl, her arm tucked in his, a martini glass in her hands. He looked at her . . . with adoration in his eyes.

My stomach knotted.

It was Ethan and Lacey, a picture taken some years ago, given the outfits in the photograph, but a picture of them just the same - a boy and girl, happy together, love in their eyes.

I slid the picture back into its place, partially hiding it from view. But there was no unringing the bell.

He'd definitely had feelings for her. And after he'd slept with me, he'd called her back.

I leaned against the wall and closed my eyes. I couldn't begrudge him love. I couldn't. Not if that was what they had together. But goddamn, did I rue being in the middle of it, being the trigger for his reminiscence of that emotion.

Sometimes, knowledge did no one any good. I stood in the hallway for a few seconds, until I was ready to face the vampires again. When I finally returned to the table, I paused at my chair and touched Lindsey's shoulder.

She looked up, her smile fading as her gaze tracked my face. "Are you okay?" I nodded. "I'm fine." I hitched a thumb toward the front door. "I'm going to take a little breather."

"You sure you're okay?"

I gave her my best smile. "I'm fine, really. I just want to get some air." That was the truth. My shifter-magic-induced headache wasn't helped by the spilt magic of a hundred vampires.

She looked at me for a moment, apparently debating whether I was telling the truth. "You need company?"

"I'm fine. I'll be back in a few minutes."

"Okay. But if you meet any cute humans out there who need any blood work, you let me know."

"You'll be the first vampire I call."

I wove through the bar to the front door, then accepted a hand stamp from a cute, smiling, curly-haired vamp at the door. Once prepped for reentry, I walked down the sidewalk, my gaze on the restaurants, bars, and eclectic shops that filled this part of Wrigleyville. I figured I might as well scope out interesting places to visit the next time I made the trip.

I'd just passed a dusty used bookstore - now at the top of my to-visit list - when I heard footsteps scratch on the sidewalk behind me. I instinctively put a hand at my waist, at the place my sword would usually be belted, before realizing I'd left it at the House.

"You wouldn't need it even if you did have it," said a low voice behind me.