Now, that was interesting. “Why?” I asked, pulling back on the blade, just a little. Cyrius’s gaze flicked to me again.
“He’s off-limits.” He swallowed, now all cooperation. “The sorcerer’s got something big planned with Reed. Something really big.”
Reed, the alchemy, the sorcerer. All of them part of something bigger. And confirmation, again, of something I didn’t really want to discover.
“Is the plan to do with the alchemy?” Ethan asked.
Cyrius’s expression seemed genuinely blank. “The fuck is alchemy?”
Ethan shook off the question. “What big thing does he have planned?”
“I don’t know. I just know we aren’t supposed to bother him with mundane shit. Not right now. Not while he’s focused.”
Ethan considered the answer for a moment, then crouched down in front of Cyrius. “I’m going to do you a favor, Cyrius Lore. Before I call the CPD, I’m going to give you time to get out of here.” He took Cyrius’s chin in his hand. “Tell him what happened here tonight. And tell him we’re coming for him.”
“He’ll kill me.”
“You lie down with dogs,” Ethan said, rising again, “you risk a bite.” He looked back at me. “Let’s get the hell out of here, Sentinel.”
When we stepped into the hallway again, La Douleur was in chaos. They’d either heard the fight or word had traveled. Doors were open, sups in costume—black latex, sexy nurse, eighteenth-century French aristocracy (which was so very vampire)—hustling toward the front door and the cover of darkness. I felt momentarily bad about interrupting consensual activities, but that guilt was erased when a woman with bruised eyes, tears streaming down her face, pushed through the crowd to the door.
We stepped into darkness with the rest of them, threw into the stream the weapons we’d confiscated. And, like the rest of the supernaturals hurrying out of the club, we disappeared into the night.
CHAPTER NINE
SHAKE IT OFF
Gabriel had left us a message advising that most of the shifters had dispersed, and inviting us to stop by Little Red.
We’d get there, but first we had more immediate concerns—namely, my ravenous hunger. It felt like there were gears in my abdomen grinding angrily against one another. I was dizzy, light-headed, and aching with need.
That I ached with other needs, too, would have to wait for a more opportune moment.
Super Thai was a hole in the wall in West Town, not far from Little Red. A tiny woman escorted us to a plastic-lined booth, where I ordered pad Thai. Whatever the fight had done to me, I needed peanuts and noodles, and I needed them now.
I only barely managed to wait until the waitress put the plate in front of me. I mixed peanuts and cilantro into noodles, doused my food with chili sauce, and dug in.
“I’m sorry,” I said when I’d inhaled two enormous forkfuls. “I can’t stop myself. I feel like I haven’t eaten in a month.”
“It might have been my glamour,” Ethan said. He’d declined food, and now watched me like a scientist. “Perhaps because your susceptibility came online late, and you’re still adjusting to it.”
“That and the fact that I just battled a two-hundred-pound warrior queen with a personal vendetta. But as for the glamour, yeah, that seems to be the way of things.”
It was another reason a vampire in the making shouldn’t get drugs to ease the process. Ethan had administered them out of guilt that I hadn’t been able to consent to my transition because I was bloodied and unconscious at the time.
“Again,” Ethan said, and I saw the quick flash of regret in his eyes. Pointless, since he’d saved my life.
“You did what you thought best to save me pain,” I said, and saw his expression soften. I paused long enough to drink from the small glass of ice water that had accompanied my food. The hotter the food, the smaller the glass. Why was that?
“How do you want to deal with La Douleur?”
“We’ll talk to Luc, add the club to the information we’re compiling about the Circle, about Reed.”
“We need to tell my grandfather. Make an anonymous report tomorrow, if you want. Give Cyrius time to report back to Reed first. But he’s still part of the Circle, and the CPD should know it.”
Ethan smiled, lifted his phone. “I submitted an anonymous tip to the CPD via the Web site while you were inspecting the menu. I also sent your grandfather a message, said we wanted to get clear before the CPD came rolling along, just in case.”
Relief flowed through me. I didn’t want my grandfather walking into a doubly hazardous neighborhood, but neither did I want to hold back information. “Good.”
“I mean, I had plenty of time,” Ethan snarked. “Between the spring rolls, the curry, and the pad Thai, you gave that menu a thorough inspection.”
I made a juvenile face. Ethan’s expression sobered. “You saw the woman leaving?”
“The one with the black eyes?”