Dark Debt (Chicagoland Vampires #11)(20)
Author: Chloe Neill

Partygoers flowed around us with masks and champagne flutes in hand, the entire effect dizzying, like walking uphill through a waterfall of people.

The second floor opened into a long gallery flanked by marble columns, the walls marked by oil paintings in gilded frames: landscapes, still lifes, portraits. As with the first floor, his taste seemed to vary in everything except size. They were all enormous, which made their subjects seem that much larger.

Our Mr. Reed does not care for subtlety, Ethan said, our footsteps silent on the undoubtedly priceless runner that covered the marble floor as we traversed the gallery.

There were fewer guests in this room, which felt more like it belonged in a medieval castle than a businessman’s home. The few men and women who’d sought refuge from the crush downstairs stood in intimate clusters, faces hidden by demi-masks.

The end of the gallery was marked by a set of wooden doors.They opened and a man strode out, closing them quietly behind him again. He was a big man—tall and wide—with a rounded crown of silver hair surrounding a shining bald dome. He walked toward us with heavy, steady steps, and looked very unhappy about whatever had gone down in the office.

“Sanford,” my father said.

“Joshua,” the man said with a nod, then carried on behind us, leaving the faint smell of cigar smoke behind him.

Sanford? I asked Ethan silently. His face rang a bell, but I couldn’t place him.

Sanford King, Ethan said. He was arrested last year for racketeering, bribery, extortion, and some manner of other financial ills. He was acquitted, as I recall.

The arrest apparently hadn’t hurt his reputation if he was getting private meets with Reed at the man’s own gala.

We reached the doors, the apparent inner sanctum, and my father knocked. A moment later, the door opened, and a tall man in a black suit glanced at my father, then us. Bodyguard. He had the square jaw and broad shoulders for it, and the buzz of steel from the gun I guessed was holstered in a shoulder harness.

“Joshua Merit,” my father said.

The door closed a bit while the guard did his checking, then opened again. The guard looked each of us over as we entered, then closed the door behind us and took his post again, shoulders back, hands clasped in front of him.

The room, an office with several walls of shelves, a large desk, and a sitting area, was spartan compared to the rest of the house. There were a few pieces of décor—a globe, potted palms, a blocky chandelier that might have been designed for a Frank Lloyd Wright house, but they were appropriately scaled and surprisingly tasteful.

A man stood across the room, leaning against the desk with one ankle crossed over the other, a phone in hand. He was trim but broad-shouldered, with dark, wavy hair and a goatee that had just begun to salt-and-pepper. I’d have put him in his early forties.

His charcoal tuxedo was immaculately cut, his square face well lived in but handsome, with a square jaw, a deep slash of mouth, eyes the same gray as his suit. He wasn’t unhandsome, but it was the air of utter confidence, the sense of fundamental knowledge and control, that was interesting. He was absolutely certain of his world.

He hung up the phone, slipped it into his pocket, glanced at my father questioningly.

“Ethan Sullivan of Cadogan House,” my father said. Apparently, the Master got top billing. “You’d wanted to meet him.”

Reed shifted his gaze to Ethan, and I caught a moment of surprise, then irritation. My guess? His foundation of knowledge and control had been shaken because he hadn’t known we were coming.

I glanced at my father, and the question on my face should have been obvious: Why was Adrien Reed surprised we were here? Wasn’t his wanting to meet us the entire point? Or were we my father’s hospitality gifts, to be handed over to the man like a bottle of good wine?

Regardless of his initial surprise, Reed was practiced. He moved forward, offered Ethan a hand. “Welcome to our home.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Ethan said, then put a hand at my back. “My Sentinel and paramour, Merit.”

It was childish that he’d used my father’s word, but still satisfying to see my father’s wince of impropriety.

Reed’s nod was brisk, efficient.

“You have a beautiful home,” I said. “The gallery is very impressive.”

“I find, as I age, that I prefer intense to dull,” Reed said. “More to less. There are only so many hours in the day, and much to be accomplished.” He glanced at Ethan. “Immortality, of course, presents the opposite problem.”

“There are more hours to fill, certainly, but more consequence,” was Ethan’s measured response. “One becomes eternally tied to one’s choices.”

Reed nodded in acknowledgment.

A door on the other side of the room opened, and a breeze from an outdoor terrace wafted in, along with the bright scent of fruity perfume.

“My wife,” Reed said, gesturing to the statuesque woman who’d walked inside. She wore a long, sleeveless dress the color of new grass, a gleaming brass belt around her tiny waist. Her eyes were as luminously green as the fabric, her skin sun-kissed gold. Thick blond hair waved across her bare shoulders, one side pulled back by a barrette that matched the belt. She looked like she’d stepped from a 1970s fashion ad, or maybe the set of Charlie’s Angels. Since she couldn’t have been more than twenty-three or twenty-four, she probably wouldn’t have gotten the reference.

“Sorcha,” Reed said, holding out his hand.

She walked forward, offered him her free hand, the other holding a flute of champagne.

“Ethan and Merit, of Cadogan House. They’re vampires.”

“Oh?” she asked, her tone making it hard to tell whether she was surprised, confused, or disturbed.

“As I’ve finished my business, I suppose we should join the party again.” He released his wife, gestured toward the door, and fell into step beside Ethan.

“I understand you’re part of the AAM—the new national organization.” They entered the gallery, the magnate and the Master, and chatted about the departure from the GP. My father and the bodyguard followed, and then Sorcha and me.

“This is quite a house,” I said to her.

“Yes, it’s very big. So, you’re a vampire?”

“Yes. For almost a year now.”

“Oh. How does that work, exactly?”

“Humans are turned when they’re bitten by other vampires.”

“Oh,” she said again. Once again, I couldn’t tell if she couldn’t understand or didn’t much care.