Wild Things: A Chicagolands Vampire Novel (Chicagoland Vampires) (27 page)

I pulled the velvet pouch from my pocket and emptied it onto the table. The gold glinted in the light, and Mallory’s smile slowly faded.

Silently, she looked at the medal for a moment, as if she could sense its magic and it scared her. I immediately regretted that I’d brought it. I reached out a hand to snatch it up again, but she shook her head.

“I just need to get Catcher.”

The baby monitor crackled. “I’m on my way,” he said. Seconds later, he trotted down the basement stairs. He really was paying attention.

“What’s going on?” he asked, looking back and forth at us in search of the trouble he expected had brought him downstairs.

Mallory pointed to the medal. Catcher looked momentarily confused, but the magical signature must have been enough for him, too, to understand the gist. He looked at Mallory, then at me.

“Why is Tate’s magic all over this?”

“When he was imprisoned, I gave him my medal—used it to pay for information. He didn’t give it back until he left. By then, I’d already gotten a new House medal. And when we left the GP and turned our medals in, I kept this one. I just had a feeling about it.” I looked at both of them. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think it would have that much magic left in it.”

“It doesn’t have much,” Catcher said. “Just memories, yes?” he asked, turning to Mallory.

She blew out a breath, clearly trying to compose herself, then nodded. “Memories. Very clear ones. Very”—she rubbed her hands over her arms, where goose bumps had lifted—“tangible memories.”

“And why is it here?” he asked me.

“Merit wants to find him,” Mallory said. “Although we hadn’t gotten to the why of it.”

“He’s our best bet to learn about Regan—to figure out what she is and what to do with her. And I was also hoping he might be able to talk some sense into Mayor Kowalcyzk.”

“You think he’ll play along?” Catcher asked.

I shrugged. “He was contrite when he left. Wanted to redeem himself. I’m hoping he still does and that he’ll consider this a favor to the city of Chicago. And me.”

“Do you really think he’d be able to change her mind?” Catcher asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “But Ethan’s not exactly accessible. And even if we wanted to owe my father, I don’t think Kowalcyzk would roll over for a bribe. Not when she thinks she’s making political hay. I can’t fight him out, or the city will destroy us. As long as she calls him an enemy of the state, the evidence is irrelevant. And God knows she isn’t going to listen to me. I was hoping she’d listen to Tate.”

Catcher looked back at the medal, blinked. “It’s not a
horrible
idea.”

For the first time, I felt a sliver of hope. “I can take ‘not horrible.’ But not if it will hurt either one of you or endanger Mal’s recovery. He’s alive.” I looked at her. “I won’t trade his life for yours. If you can’t safely do this, then you don’t do it. The risk isn’t worth it.”

She looked at me for a long time, then Catcher.

“Your call,” he said. “These decisions have to be yours.”

She nodded, then put her hands flat on the table on either side of the medal and looked down, her eyes scanning back and forth as if she was reading a magical text. And maybe she was.

“Both of them are in there. A bit of Seth, a bit of Dominic.” She looked at me. “He sees you as his, in a way.”

I started. “He—what?”

She looked up. “Seth, not Dominic. He’s been part of your life for a very long time, and that’s meaningful to him.”

“Like, romantically?”

“No, Mary Sue. Not romantically. You’re just . . . there. Like an achievement, maybe because he was searching for something. Fame. Power. Popularity. In reality, of course, he probably wanted to rid himself of the parasitic demon that he didn’t know was attached to his soul. But, you know, details.”

“You got all that from my medal?”

She gestured offhandedly toward it. “It’s a piece of jewelry, not a memoir. But I can get a little. The issue will be the mechanism. We’ll have to link the medal to a map if we want to get anywhere with this.”

She spun on the stool and looked at Catcher, arms crossed. “What do you think? Compass in water? Map on a dart board? Google Maps?”

Catcher’s eyes shined. “Damn, I love it when you talk shop.”

“Especially when destroying the world isn’t the side dish,” Mallory murmured.

“That helps,” Catcher admitted.

•   •   •

They decided on their tools, and Catcher cleaned off the table while Mallory prepared the magic and the spell.

It was both more and less complex than I’d imagined it would be.

Less, because it involved such mundane materials. A map of the U.S. torn from a road atlas, the front cover of which bore a smiling insurance agent with perfectly coiffed brown hair. A large glass baking dish of water, which held a sliver of cork, the House medal stuck to the top with a thin sewing needle. The map was submerged in the water, the make-do magical compass bobbing above it.

Humble materials, but the magic was profound.

When her station was prepared, Mallory stretched and shook out her wrists and arms, rolled her shoulders like a swimmer preparing for a sprint. She was surprisingly calm, her movements reverential. Instead of making her anxious or manic, the preparations seemed to soothe her. Her hands, once chapped from the aftereffects of black magic, looked healthy again, although they were still marked by faint, crisscrossing lines from the damage she’d already done.

She looked up at me, smiled. “It’s different now. I mean, not the magic per se. But the preparations. They remind me why I’m doing what I’m doing, force me to calm myself, to approach it logically.”

I smiled a little. “Kind of like doing dishes?”

She chuckled. “Exactly like doing dishes. The North American Central Pack isn’t perfect, any more than the Keenes are perfect. But they know magic. A healthy kind of magic. A useful kind of magic. I couldn’t have gotten better without him. Not really.”

“This will be kind of like dousing,” Mallory said. “Water witching. Except we aren’t looking
for
water. We’re looking
through
it.”

She pulled her legs up, sitting cross-legged on a stool too small for it, which made her look a little like she was floating like a meditating yogi. She put her hands flat on the table and looked down at the water and the cork that bobbed inside it.

“And away we go,” she quietly said.

The buildup was so slow, so smooth, that I didn’t realize she’d begun spooling magic until the other objects on the table began to vibrate. The room had warmed, just a bit, not uncomfortably, but like I’d just moved a little closer to a roaring fire on a chilly day. I didn’t know I’d be able to tell the difference, but this was obviously good magic. There was no uncomfortable edge, no angry itch. It was calmer. Smoother, rippling the air in smooth waves that rolled across us instead of crashing into us like Mallory’s magic had once done.

By the expression on Catcher’s face, he was feeling it, too. He generally had three moods—bleak, pissed, and sardonic. (He might have been three of Snow White’s rejected dwarves.) But here, in this rehabbed basement with his rehabbed girlfriend, he actually looked . . . content. Proud and thoughtful, a little bit smitten, and generally satisfied with his lot.

Good for him. And her. They could use a little smitten and content.

Mallory drew the magic to a crescendo and pointed her index finger at my House medal. A blue spark sizzled from her finger to the cork. The medal heated, the edges glowing orange at first, then heating to white-hot, the metal warm enough to boil the water around it. The cork shivered and began to spin, whirling like a top in the middle of the water, then zigging across the surface like a bug, back and forth as it tried to find its target.

“Go on,” Mallory whispered encouragingly. As if in answer, like a child itching to please its mother, it dove and disappeared.

As fast as it had begun, the magic dissipated again.

“That’s a good girl,” Mallory said, standing to peer over the water.

“Did it work?” I asked, stepping carefully closer.

“It picked a spot,” Mallory said, wincing as she dipped her fingers into the edges of the dish.

“Hot, hot, hot,” she murmured, almost to herself, carefully lifting the map from the bottom of the dish.

The cork, still quivering, was neatly pinned to the near center of the map. Mallory let the rest of the water drain, then placed the map on the table.

Catcher stepped forward, peered over Mallory’s shoulder. “Portville, Indiana,” he said. “I guess that’s where you’ll find your man.”

THE BANKER

P
ortville, Indiana, was gritty, a hard-bitten industrial town on the southern tip of Lake Michigan, just across the Indiana border. Portville had a reputation as a crumbling, blue-collar city abandoned by industry, its remaining vacuum filled by gangs, poverty, and violence.

Seth Tate, a fallen angel with contrition on his mind, had taken up residence there. If he’d really been serious about making amends for his past bad acts, the location was entirely appropriate. It definitely seemed like a city that needed help. On the other hand, during his less angelic days, when he’d been under Dominic’s influence, he’d been a drug kingpin and a befouler of vampires. A dirty city was just the type of place for him to work some dirty magic.

Either way, I had nothing more than the town’s name, which the Internet told me had nearly one hundred thousand residents. Not an address, a workplace, a church, or a precinct—but a name. This was going to be a challenge.

This was a big task, and I was going to need a partner. Unfortunately, both my official partners were under wraps. Ethan was in custody, and Jonah was captain of a House whose Master had been called an enemy of Chicago. He was going to have his hands full keeping his people safe.

That meant I needed to look elsewhere. So when I was in the car again, I pulled out my phone and called Jeff.

“Hey, Merit.”

“Hey.” I got to the point, and quickly. “Can you get away for a little while?”

“You planning a trip?”

“I am, actually. What do you know about Portville, Indiana?”

“Not a thing. Should I?”

“It’s where Seth Tate’s currently living.”

“Ah,” he said. “Sulfur and smoke?”

“Actually, yeah. If she’s connected to the Messengers, he’s the best person to tell us how. I still have to check with Luc and Malik, but I think they’ll say yes.”

“And Ethan?”

“He won’t mind as much if you go with me.”

“I know when I’ve been beat. Where should I meet you?”

Since I was already on the south side, I gave him the address of the convenience store I’d pulled into to make my calls. “I’ve got to cover my bases. I’ll let you know as soon as it’s a go.”

“I’m leaving now,” he said, apparently convinced I’d get the okay.

I was glad Jeff was on my side. Now I had to make sure the rest of the pieces aligned.

•   •   •

That alignment took phone calls. Plural.

I called Luc, told him Mallory and Catcher had found Tate, and Jeff had agreed to go with me to see him.

Luc hung up, and while I blasted Moneypenny’s heat and sipped the soda I’d grabbed at the convenience store—heavy on the ice and cherry flavoring, ’cause I was in that kind of mood—I waited.

Ten minutes later, I got a call back. My stomach buzzed with nerves.

“It’s Malik,” said the temporary Master of the House.

“Liege,”
I acknowledged, a word I’d gotten used to during Ethan’s demise.

“Visiting him is a risk.”

“It is. And so is waiting for Regan to strike again, risking the elves attacking, and pissing off the Keenes. I was in Dominic’s prison, Malik. I know what he was capable of. But Seth Tate is not Dominic. The man we saw after the split was a good man, an earnest man, and he meant to make amends for the things he’d done. He stayed at the House, for God’s sake.”

“Ethan authorized him to say at the House,” Malik quietly said, his tone making clear that he hadn’t agreed with that decision.

“I don’t know if he’ll live up to that in the long run. But who else can we ask?”

Although I wasn’t entirely sure talking to Tate was a great idea, I was willing to stand behind it—and take the fall if necessary. I tried to pour that confidence and bravado into my voice.

“The idea is not without risk,” I admitted. “But I’m happy to take that risk on. We don’t have a lot of good options right now, and we’re stalled on Regan. I think it’s time to use the alliances we’ve created. He’s within driving distance, and he owes us a pretty big favor. Let me and Jeff drive down there. One conversation with him, and we see how far we get.”

Silence, while I gnawed the edge of my thumb.

“You go down tonight, you come back in one piece,” Malik said. “If he seems even remotely unstable, you abort the plan. If the situation seems dangerous, you abort the plan. If anything happens to you, you’ll have Ethan and me on your ass, and you don’t want that, Sentinel.”

“No, Liege,” I agreed. “I definitely do not.”

I did a happy dance. Not because I was thrilled to see Tate, but because I was thrilled to be doing something. Standing around the House and watching more footage of Ethan in trouble wasn’t going to help me at all.

“We’ll keep looking for Regan and the carnival,” Malik said. “Find us a guardian angel.”

It was my primary goal.

•   •   •

At first, I waited for Jeff outside the car, leaning against it like I was the baddest vampire in the modern age. Or certainly the vampire with the sweetest ride.

But it was February—in Chicago—and I quickly rejected that idea, climbed inside, and turned up the heater.

Jeff arrived a few minutes later, parked his car at the edge of the parking lot, and climbed in. “This is a damn fine automobile,” he said.

“Tell me about it.” I gestured toward the forty-four-ounce Mountain Dew in the cup holder, and the sticks of beef jerky I’d wedged between his cup and mine.

“What’s this?”

“Provisions. And a thank-you gift. That’s what gamers use for fuel, right?”

He looked at me with a mix of pity and adoration and my heart melted a little. “That was really nice, Merit.” He opened a stick of jerky, dug into it. “But don’t tell Fallon. She’s not a fan of processed food.”

“It’s just between us,” I promised, and we headed south.

•   •   •

The city lined up along the edge of Lake Michigan, with industrial ports and brick smokestacks reaching into the sky on the lake side, and dilapidated buildings on the other.

The main street was flat-out depressing, half the shops—still marked by their antique cursive signs—boarded up and closed. When manufacturing moved out, it took time for anything else to move back in. The Midwest and Rust Belt had dozens if not hundreds of towns proving that very point.

I found a cluster of new businesses close to the freeway, and pulled into the lot of a store that carried animal feed and farming supplies. You didn’t have to go very far outside Chicago to reach farmland.

“Need a snack?” Jeff asked with amusement.

“Need recon,” I said, pulling the photograph of Tate from my pocket. “We know he’s in the city. We don’t know much more than that.”

He gestured toward the photograph. “This is your big plan? You’re going to wander from store to store asking if anyone has seen him?”

In fairness, it sounded much more logical in my head. “He was the mayor of Chicago, and he’s looking for redemption. I don’t think he’s going to lay low. I think he’s going to get out there. Mix it up. Mingle.”

“He can’t still look like that,” Jeff said, pointing at the photo. “He’d be recognized. We’re not that far from the city.”

“I didn’t think of that,” I admitted. But we had to start somewhere. “I’ll try this. In the meantime, work some of your computer magic and see what you can find in the ether. I’ll be right back.

“No backup?”

“We don’t want to scare them,” I said. “If I go in alone, I’m asking questions. If both of us go in, we’re ganging up.”

When he finally nodded his agreement, I walked inside, a bell ringing on the door to signal my entry. The store smelled of leather and grains, and I lingered in the doorway for a moment, enjoying the fragrance. It smelled earnest, like hard work and chores.

The store was empty of people at this late hour, and a man, probably in his forties, stood behind the counter in a collared shirt and pants and a bright green vest with a name tag that read
CARL
.

He looked up at me, smiled. “Evening. Help you?”

“Yeah, actually, although I have kind of a strange request.” I walked toward the checkout line and pulled the photograph from my pocket. “I’m looking for this man.”

I held out the picture. He glanced at it for a moment, then back at me.

“Sorry. He doesn’t look familiar.” His eyes narrowed with interest. “Did he do something wrong?”

“No.” I frowned, realizing I hadn’t come up with a cover story, and opted for the truth. “He’s a friend of the family who disappeared. We’re trying to find him.”

As if sympathetic, he looked at the photograph again, shook his head. “Sorry. But good luck.”

I thanked him, tucked the photograph away again, and climbed back into the car. Jeff had pulled out that slick little square of glass, and he was tapping the screen busily.

“Let me guess—you’ve already found his address and favorite Chinese place?”

“No. But I just increased my mage to level forty-seven.”

“Gaming has a lot of math, doesn’t it?”

“You have no idea.” He put the screen away again. “I found nothing, but of course I’m using mobile equipment, which isn’t quite as nice as the box I had at home when you called me and I could have looked it up.”

“You rehearsed that speech for a while, didn’t you?”

Jeff grinned. “I take it you weren’t successful, either?”

“Not even a little. He didn’t recognize the picture.”

The next guy and the girl that followed also couldn’t give me anything. In the end, it was the fourth stop and floppy-haired shifter who got it done.

“Let me take this one,” he said, climbing out of the car with me as we walked inside a twenty-four-hour diner that had seen better days—and cleaner linoleum.

He scoped out the waitstaff, spied a pretty, delicate-looking blonde behind the cash register, and walked up. Her hair was pulled into a dank ponytail, and there were bags of exhaustion beneath her eyes.

“Hey,” he said. “I’m sorry to interrupt your night, but could I maybe ask you for a favor?” His eyes were bright and blue, his smile completely guileless. I’d have done a favor for him. As long as it wouldn’t have gotten me in trouble with Fallon.

“A favor?” she asked, blinking. “From me?”

“Yeah.” Jeff winced, all apologies. He held out the photograph he’d borrowed from me in the car. “We’re trying to find this man. I don’t suppose you’ve seen him?”

Her eyes widened. “Father Paul? Is he in some kind of trouble?”

So Tate hadn’t just shed his identity; he’d changed his name and apparently taken on religion. Although I guess that wasn’t hard to believe. He was an angel, after all.

Jeff smiled almost foolishly. “Oh, not at all. We’ve actually just been trying to find him. We heard him speak—and really liked what he had to say. But we haven’t been able to find his Web site or anything.”

She laughed. “Father Paul’s not one for technology.” She checked her watch. “You can probably find him at the food pantry. He works late nights sometimes, helping stock shelves.”

“And that’s near here?” Jeff asked with a beaming smile.

“Half a mile up the road. And tell him Lynnette said hello.”

Jeff smiled. “We absolutely will. Thanks a lot for the help.”

Lynnette waved a little, and we walked outside again.

“You were tremendous,” I said, stealing a glance at him. “And a damn good actor.”

“You grow up around sups,” Jeff cryptically said, “you learn to finesse the truth.”

•   •   •

According to the gospel of Lynnette, Seth Tate, former mayor of Chicago, was now Father Paul, and he worked at a food pantry in Portville, Indiana. Considering the havoc he’d wreaked in Chicago, I wasn’t sure if it was incredibly ironic or perfectly appropriate that he’d apparently dedicated his life to service.

The food pantry was unmistakable, several large steel buildings up the road, a pretty green, leafed logo painted along one side of the largest. I parked Moneypenny in a visitor’s spot and glanced at Jeff.

“You ready?”

He nodded. “Let’s do this.”

We walked inside and found a pretty woman with curly hair at the front desk, typing on a computer keyboard. She looked up and smiled when we entered. “Hello. Can I help you?”

“Hi,” Jeff said. “Sorry to bother you, but we’re looking for Father Paul. I understand I can find him here?”

The phone rang, and she picked it up with one hand, pointed down the hallway with the other. “He’s in the warehouse. Down the hall, to the left.”

“Thank you,” Jeff said with a smile, punctuating his appreciation with a chipper tap on the counter as we walked down the hallway. It was a clean and happy place, the walls covered in children’s drawings and signs for previous holiday canned-food drives. The hallway led directly into the warehouse, which was impressive.

The space was huge, with a polished concrete floor, and was filled with twenty-foot-tall shelves of food in boxes, some wrapped in cellophane to keep them together. Smiling employees and volunteers walked the aisles with clipboards and moved pallets with forklifts into trucks that waited in three open bays.

A man with a scruffy beard and plaid shirt walked up to us, befuddlement in his expression. “Are you Laurie? The new volunteer? With a friend, maybe? We could use someone in the sorting room.”