Chicagoland Vampires: Wild Things Part 27

"That's what it looks like," Paige agreed.

"What about Chicago?" I asked.

"They hit it once every season, and it's always after Loring Park."

"Good," Luc said. "Good find. Where do they go?"

"We've identified four possible spots so far. Two of them don't exist anymore. They were parking lots, but they've been built over. They also camped near Prospect Park and the grounds of St. Athenogenus-it's a Catholic school in West Town. Arthur's looking for any additional stops in Chicago. But since they aren't online, he has to go through the actual papers and microfiche."

I held up a hand. "I'm sorry-Arthur?"

There was silence for a moment as we all leaned eagerly toward the phone, awaiting confirmation that the librarian actually had a name.

"Oh, c.r.a.p," Paige said, and I could imagine her wince through the phone. "I was not supposed to say that. He prefers to go by his t.i.tle, for the respect, you know. He's 'the librarian.' But I've gotten so used to calling him Arthur."

"We'll stick with 'librarian,'" Luc said, smiling at the rest of us. We'd all heard the name; there'd be no unringing that particular bell.

I added Prospect Park and St. Athenogenus to the whiteboard. "We need to get folks out there right now to check those locations," I said.

"Don't need people," Jeff said. "Got satellites." The familiar clack of keys echoed through the receiver. He must have been back with his computers, although it occurred to me I wasn't exactly sure where that was. The Frankensteinian computer he'd used at my grandfather's house had been torched in the fire.

"Where are you working?" I asked.

"Home," Jeff said. "My own equipment. Which makes for a change. Differently tactile than the Brecks' stuff."

It occurred to me that I had no idea where Jeff actually lived. "And where is home?"

He cleared his throat. "I have a condo in the Loop."

"Oh?" I asked. "Where?"

"Um, it's in the Fortified Steel building."

He said it so quietly the words were garbled, and it took my brain a moment to unscramble them. Fortified Steel was one of Chicago's most historic buildings, built when the city was a commodities powerhouse. It sat beside the Chicago River, a tall, square column of symmetrical windows with a famous copper dome on top. It was one of the many prestigious addresses in the Loop.

I'd had no idea Jeff had those kinds of resources. And since he'd barely mumbled the address, he apparently didn't want to discuss it.

"All right," he said, changing the subject. "I'm pulling satellite images for those locations, popping them up to you."

The screen behind us turned on with a glow and hum, and two photographs filled it. One was a parking lot, the other a park field still covered in snow. Neither held a hint of a carnival.

"c.r.a.p," Luc said. "That's a strikeout."

"Could be they haven't set up yet," Brody said. "They only left Loring Park a few hours ago."

"Good thought from the new guy," Luc agreed, scanning the photos. "But the equipment has to go somewhere, even if they aren't open to the public yet. Jeff, can you zoom out? Maybe there are semis parked in a lot nearby."

Jeff zoomed out both images, giving me an odd sense of vertigo. And it didn't help substantively, either. Neither image showed anything more than we'd seen before.

"They could be at a different location, or they broke pattern," Luc said. "Maybe they realized they'd been tagged, decided to go somewhere else. Or maybe they're lying low for a few days until the heat's off."

"Or maybe they're lying low for a few days because they're planning the next kidnapping," I said.

"We'll keep looking," Paige said. "And let you know if we find anything."

"That brings us to the next point," Luc said. "Catcher, have you had a chance to talk to sups?"

Silence.

"Catcher?"

"Sorry. Sorry. I'm here. I was being bugged by a sorceress."

"I wasn't bugging anyone," Mallory, the aforementioned sorceress, said in the background. "I just want you to keep your d.a.m.n feet off the coffee table. And I don't care that I don't sleep here right now. That's not an excuse."

"Ah, supernatural love," Luc said, giving Lindsey a baleful look, which made her roll her eyes. But she still smiled a little.

"Sups," Catcher said. "Talked to Grey House, asked Jonah to get a message to Navarre, considering. Called the nymphs, River trolls. They haven't been invited by anyone to a carnival. They didn't even know one would be going on, especially in February. They're also on the lookout for unusual magic. They know to call us if anything happens."

"What about Regan?" I asked. "Jeff, any luck there?"

"I haven't found anything else," Jeff said. "Not even a couple of levels down. She's completely off the radar, or at least under her current name."

"I might have something," Catcher said. "Baumgartner recognized the photograph. He didn't have a name, but he thought she looked like a woman who'd come to the Order four or five years ago looking for members.h.i.+p. Said she had magic, wanted to join up. He did some initial testing, determined she wasn't a sorceress, and rejected her."

Luc whistled. "And that, my friends, is what we call a motive. She gets rejected by the Order, decides to start targeting sups."

"Not all of the people rejected by the Order become serial kidnappers," Catcher dryly said.

"You weren't rejected," Luc said. "You got kicked out for bad behavior."

"So she's definitely not a sorceress." I'd half hoped the sulfuric smell of her had been a coincidence, or malfunctioning HVAC at the grocery story. I guess that was not to be. "That means we have to consider the possibility she's connected to the Messengers." And given her skills, the presumptive ringleader of these particular shenanigans.

"That's impossible," Mallory said.

"Only in the traditional sense," Luc said. "Maybe she's not one of them per se. But she could be a student, a pretender-a kid with magic who wants us to believe that magic is ancient and prestigious. h.e.l.l, as little as we know, she could be Seth Tate's kid, for Christ's sake."

Catcher snorted. "In this day and age, any kid of Seth Tate's would have announced it to the world already."

"And he'd have told us," I said. "Maybe not pre-Maleficium, but after it, certainly. If he'd known he had a kid-or a fourth cousin-who could cause trouble for us, he'd have told us."

Or so I hoped.

Still, I added the possibilities to the whiteboard. "We have to find her," I said. "Or both of them-Regan and the carnival-before she targets someone else." And we needed to do that while finding a way to get Ethan out of lockdown before Mayor Kowalcyzk decided to make an example of him.

Luc checked his watch. "We'll need to do that," he agreed. "But we're nearing sunrise, so it's not going to happen tonight. Let's pack it in for now, touch base at sunset. Paige, let us know if the librarian finds anything else."

"Roger that," she said, and there was a click as she dropped from the call.

We said good-bye to the others, and they dropped off the call as well. Luc's personal phone rang almost immediately.

"Luc," he said, lifting it to his ear.

He nodded, listened, spoke quietly with the caller, and after a moment, hung up the phone and looked at us. "That was Will, the guard captain at Navarre. The terrorism squad is packing up at Navarre House."

That meant Ethan was officially in interview, or in custody, depending on how the mayor's office was spinning it.

"That's good news," Lindsey earnestly said, catching my gaze. "It means she's sticking to her word. That's exactly what we want."

I nodded, but the clenched ball of worry in my stomach didn't unknot much.

"Why don't you take some personal time tomorrow at sunset?" Luc said. "You haven't had a chance to see your grandfather yet. Take an hour-go say h.e.l.lo."

It was a good idea. I hadn't had a chance to visit the hospital since he'd been admitted. We'd gotten home too late tonight, but if I went after sunset tomorrow, I could probably catch him during visiting hours. Still, we were in the middle of an investigation.

"Is that a good idea right now? Considering?"

"You need a break," he said. "And you need to visit your grandfather. Run the carnival bit past him. See if he has any ideas."

I nodded.

"How about a movie tonight?" Lindsey asked. "We don't have time for a full run before sunup, but we could fit in half a show, maybe some snacks?"

I thought about the offer. While I wasn't thrilled about the idea of going back to the apartments alone and spending the entire evening obsessing about Ethan, I also wasn't up for another night of entertainment. A bottle of Blood4You, roaring fire, and good book seemed like a much better option.

"Thanks, but I think I'll pa.s.s. I've been surrounded by sups for a few days now. I need a little quiet time."

Luc chuckled, fingered the new pendant around his neck. "Sentinel, you live in a literal house of vampires. You're going to be surrounded by sups regardless."

For better or worse.

I added what we'd discovered to the whiteboard, said my good nights, and headed upstairs to the first floor. I heard sounds coming from the front parlor and walked toward it.

A dozen Cadogan vampires stood around the television mounted above the fireplace. The TV was tuned to a news station and the coverage of Ethan's arrival at the Daley Center.

Ethan climbed out of a town car and then walked, Andrew at his side and four officers surrounding him, into what looked like an underground entrance. Reporters who'd staked out the door yelled questions and accusations, wondering why Ethan had killed Harold Monmonth, where he'd been for the last three days, and why he'd finally come back to Chicago. He kept his eyes clear and stared straight ahead, ignoring the questions. But the line between his eyes tightened with each new volley, and it was clear he had plenty of things to say to them.

After a moment, Andrew directed him to stop and faced the camera. With his broad shoulders and intense expression, Andrew looked more like a soldier or bodyguard than a lawyer. But either way, and whatever the reason, he commanded their attention. They quieted immediately.

"Ethan Sullivan is innocent of the various accusations-political, criminal, and otherwise-that have been leveled against him. He is being targeted because he is a vampire, and the mayor's office, respectfully, is targeting him because she's looking for a scapegoat. The citizens of Chicago know better, and I'll be glad when we can put this entire matter to rest."

The tension in my chest eased just a little. Thinking I'd seen as much as I needed to, I turned to walk away, but the sudden gasps behind me had my heart pounding, and I turned back to look.

"Altercation at Daley Center," read the screen now, and the footage showed Ethan being escorted into a small room, a table and chairs visible through the door. But there was a bright bruise blooming across his left cheekbone.

Sometime between his arrival at the building and his reaching the interview room, he'd been a.s.saulted. Punishment, maybe, for his refusal to come in earlier, to acquiesce to Kowalcyzk's request that he sacrifice himself for her political agenda. And if they were knocking him around before he even got into the room, what more did they have planned?

Fear bubbled and spilled over, and I strode from the room before the tears tracked down my face. I made it as far as the stairway, stopping to knuckle away the tears, hoping no one had seen my quick exit or the reason for it. The last thing they needed was to see their Sentinel bawling in fear. There was a place for tears; it wasn't here, when the House needed its officers to be strong.

An arm wrapped around my shoulder. I looked up, surprised, into Malik's eyes.

"Are you all right?"

He was so quiet, so reserved, I wouldn't have expected him to offer physical solace, which made the fact that he had offered it even more meaningful. I had, over the last year, gathered up an a.s.semblage of weird and wonderful friends.h.i.+ps. They all had their ups and down, and some of the downs were pretty miserable. But sometimes, times like this, I could just be grateful.

"I'm fine," I said with a half smile, still swiping at tears. "Long night."

"No argument there," he said, but his eyes continued to track my face, as if he wasn't quite sure I was telling him the entire truth.

"How are you?" I asked. "This can't be easy, this back-and-forth Masterdom."

He chuckled, his green eyes crinkled with amus.e.m.e.nt. "Musical chairs aren't my preferred method of serving this House."

"At least you get to keep your rooms," I said. "And don't have to move in and out of the Master's suite."

"That is some consolation," he agreed. "Although you have better closets."

I hadn't actually seen Malik's closet, but as Ethan's was the size of a room in itself and outfitted with lush wood and thick carpet, he was probably right.

"Ethan would be lost without his suits."

"He would," Malik agreed, and patted my arm. "He would be lost without many things, including you. Go upstairs. Get a good day's sleep. This will be over tomorrow, and you and Ethan can enjoy a reunion."

I thanked him, walked upstairs, and hoped he was right. But I feared in my heart of hearts that we were all underestimating the depth of Kowalcyzk's ignorance.

I kept to the plan I'd laid out for Lindsey, snagging a bottle of blood from the tray Margot had left in the apartments and both of the cellophane-wrapped Mallocakes, my favorite processed snack. Chocolate and blood didn't sound appealing, but it might have been the pinnacle of vampire comfort foods.

I changed into pajamas, nabbing one of Ethan's b.u.t.ton-up s.h.i.+rts, the trace of his cologne lingering even after a wash, and b.u.t.toning it on. I turned on the fire in the onyx fireplace with the flick of a switch, and sat down on the rug in front of it, the bottle in hand.

My phone beeped, and I s.n.a.t.c.hed it up greedily, hoping for good news about Ethan. It was Lakshmi, with another favor to ask.

KEEP HIM SAFE, she messaged.

I wanted to call her back, rail at her for standing by while Ethan bore the blame for acts by her colleagues. But vitriol would do no better now than tears. I put the phone aside, but the sting of her words stayed with me.

Wasn't I trying to keep him safe?

I stared at the fire until the sun rose, watching the forks and tendrils rise and s.h.i.+ft and move, letting it blank my mind and send me to sleep.

Chapter Sixteen.