by Neill, Chloe
“That didn’t really happen,” I said. But Catcher’s flat look said different.
“Could and did. And cost me a week’s worth of time.”
“And a slew of gift cards for the stores on State Street,” Mallory said with a smile. “I know what nymphs like,” she added, in a singsong voice.
“The point is,” Catcher said, sliding her a glance, “this isn’t a run-of-the-mill issue, a minor grudge between sups.”
“It’s a full-out attack in the first instance,” Ethan said. “And something else in the second. The glamour the elves mentioned—does it ring any bells?” He glanced at Mallory, Catcher, Gabriel.
Gabe leaned against the island. “Not for me. All due respect, it sounded like typical vampire mojo. Elves acting like zombies? Doing what someone telepathically directed them to do? Fighting? Fucking? Passing out?”
“Glamour doesn’t work that way,” Ethan flatly said. “It doesn’t work over distance.”
“And you’re sure no vampire was nearby the elves when the attack occurred?”
At Gabe’s question, Ethan opened his mouth, closed it again. “I am not,” he finally admitted. “But glamour doesn’t make zombies of anyone. It is suggestive, not unlike what Mallory tried a moment ago to calm us down.”
Mal blushed prettily. “Just trying to help.”
Catcher put an arm around her shoulder, squeezed.
But they’d given me an idea. “Maybe that’s part of it—both times, the attacker mimicked some other kind of magic. In the first attack, the magic mimicked harpies. In the second, the magic mimicked vampire glamour. The attacker wasn’t actually a harpy or a vampire—he was someone with magic enough to pretend to be both.”
“That’s powerful magic,” Catcher said. “And magic with range.”
“Range,” Gabriel said, standing straight again. “How close would someone have to be to work magic that powerful?”
Catcher’s brows lifted. “I’d actually meant the other kind of range—the ability to imitate different kinds of sups—but that’s a good point.”
I drummed my fingers on the countertop. “So someone is using a lot of magic—variable magic—relatively nearby to attack two groups of sups.”
“Groups,” Ethan said, tapping a finger against my hand. “Both were in groups—the shifters were gathered together for Lupercalia. The elves were together in their village.”
Mallory reached out to a crock on the island that held spoons and spatulas and plucked out a rubberized whisk. “So they attacked when they could do the most damage?” she asked, as she toyed absently with the bent wires of the utensil.
“Maybe,” I said. “But why? If this was a political thing, a grudge thing, wouldn’t we know it? Wouldn’t there have been a statement? Overt blame? They aren’t even really framing someone, because they’ve used different magic both times. There’s no obvious motive.”
“Perhaps it comes back to the victims,” Ethan said. “To the shifters who passed.”
I glanced at Gabe. “The shifters you lost. Is there anything controversial in their histories? Anything that suggests they were targeted?”
Gabe leaned over the counter again, propping his elbows on it and linking his hands together again. “Not that I’m aware of. They weren’t related, weren’t friends. One was from Memphis—young guy who I think had some leadership ambitions. Messy childhood. Woman from New Orleans. Lawyer who went to Tulane. Excellent cook, and a very spicy woman.”
Ethan and Catcher grunted in some kind of vague male agreement. Mallory and I shared a dubious look.
“Third was a man from Chicago. Assimilated. Lived with a human family, although the wife knew what he was.” Gabe shook his head ruefully. “That phone call sucked. And you know about Rowan.”
I reached out, touched his arm. “I’m sorry,” I said, using the two words that were always woefully inadequate to ease anyone’s grief, but still seemed the only appropriate thing to say.
Gabe nodded, patted my hand. “Appreciate it, Kitten.”
“Then perhaps the key isn’t the deceased,” Ethan said, “but the missing.”
We’d seen vampire disappearances before, and they hadn’t been coincidental. They’d been the work of an assassin hungry for revenge, and he’d be difficult to catch and stop. But in that case, the key was the killings—the vampires were killed as warnings to the rest of us to leave Chicago. The bodies had been left for us to find.
“So we’re back to Aline and the elf,” Mallory said. “What was her name again?”
“Niera,” Catcher said.
“Aline is definitely gone,” I said, realizing I hadn’t had a chance to report what we’d found at her house. The kidnapping and threats had interrupted our investigation.
“She’s a hoarder—there was stuff everywhere in her house, but nothing really helpful until we found her computer. Jeff found a receipt for a plane ticket to Anchorage. She also has a storage locker, but the only thing in there was a box of ephemera. We haven’t had a chance to look through it yet.”
“Did the flight to Alaska look legit?” Catcher wondered. “Or planted?”
“It looked legit to me, but if you’ve got the ability to create winged monsters from thin air and turn elves into zombies, who knows?”
“Could they have something in common?” Mallory wondered. “Aline and Niera?” Apparently bored of the whisk, she stuck it back in the canister again to mingle with its colleagues.
“How could they, if Aline didn’t know the elves existed?” But then I looked at Gabriel. Aline did seem like the conspiracy type, and God knew she hated the Keene family. “Did she?”
“Not that I’m aware of.”
There had to be some connection. This many attacks—large-scale attacks—in two days couldn’t be a coincidence. I looked at Ethan. “Have you talked to Luc?”
“Not yet,” he said. “Seeing you safe was first on my list.”
I nodded. “When you call him, you might see if Paige and the librarian are back from their rendezvous. The librarian has stores of microfiche and, you know, Internet access. If there’s a connection between Aline and Niera, they’d be the ones to find it.”
“A good idea.” Ethan pulled out his phone.
“I’m full of them,” I said, glancing at a clock on one of the Brecks’ sleek appliances. “We only have a few hours until dawn. I’ll check the box when it gets here, talk to Jeff or Damien about whatever I find. Maybe they can provide some context.” I glanced at Catcher and Mallory. “Can you follow up again with Baumgart- ner, see if this new glamoury magic rings any bells? And check again on Simon if you still haven’t reached him?”
“We’ll do both,” Catcher said, “but neither is likely to lead to much.”
“Better to check and come up empty than miss a lead,” I said.
Ethan looked at me with obvious amusement. “You’re becoming quite the investigator.”
I searched my memory for a good quip about cops, maybe something from a film noir about private detectives that would have made him laugh, but came up empty.
“Book ’em, Danno?” Catcher offered.
“Close enough.”
Jeff, Damien, and Nick walked into the kitchen together. Jeff and Damien looked significantly better than they had when I’d seen them before. They’d changed clothes and their superficial wounds were gone, probably because they’d shifted and let their magic do its work.
Nick walked to the refrigerator and took out a bottle of water.
Jeff carried Aline’s box, which he set on the counter, then smiled at me. “You all right?”
“Fine. You?”
“Feel like I lost another life or two, but I’m okay.” He nudged Damien collegially, but Damien just offered back a mild blink.
“Nothing?” Jeff said and, when Damien continued to stare, turned to me w
ith a crooked smile. “Alrighty.”
“Boo’s okay?” I asked.
“Boo?” Ethan asked.
“Damien’s babysitting a kitten we found at Aline’s,” I explained.
Damien nodded. “Was sleeping in the car. Now sleeping in a box in the living room. Any developments here?”
“Ethan’s calling Paige and the librarian to check for any connections between Aline and Niera.”
“That seems unlikely,” Damien said.
“Agreed. But it’s also unlikely that harpies attack shifters, and hours later someone pulls mojo on the elves.”
“You’re thinking they come from the same source?”
“We don’t have any evidence either way, yet. But I’m thinking two major magical attacks in a five-mile radius in the span of twenty-four hours cannot be a coincidence.”
“Put that way,” Damien said, “I can hardly argue with the conclusion.”
I rose, picked up the box. “We had a to-do list,” I said, reminding Damien and Jeff. “This part was my assignment.”
Jeff nodded. “I’ll see what I can do with her hard drive.”
We looked expectantly at Damien. “I suppose I’m going to make some phone calls.”
I glanced back at Nick, who stood quietly beside the refrigerator, bottle in hand. “Can I borrow a room to look through this?”
Ethan looked worried. “Don’t you want to rest?”
I shook my head. “Too much adrenaline. And irritation. I need to work. I’ll be fine,” I added, when the line between his eyes didn’t disappear.
“Use the drawing room,” Nick said, as if it would be obvious to everyone which room that would be. It was to me, as it turned out, because I’d been there a thousand times.
• • •
If Papa Breck’s office was one of my favorite rooms in the Breck house, the drawing room was one of my least favorite. The office was a place of adventures and hidden secrets. The drawing room was a place of manners and sitting quietly. It was where Julia, Papa Breck’s wife and the Breck family matriarch, would spend a quiet afternoon with a book and a cup of tea, or where she’d make me and the boys endure a time-out if we’d been too noisy in the hallways. “Your father did not make his money by letting out the bought air,” she’d tell us, and demand we spend an interminable half hour sitting on hard, uncomfortable furniture until she was satisfied that we’d calmed down.
I was hardly “just a girl he knew in high school.”
I carried the box into the drawing room. It was prettily arranged—lighter and more delicate than Papa Breck’s study—with butter yellow walls and tailored furniture. A round pedestal table sat on one side of the room, with several hard wooden chairs (learned from experience) and a leather case that held two decks of cards. Both decks were missing their one-eyed kings, because we’d decided the cards held secret codes and deserved saving.
I put the box on the table, walked to the shelves that lined the other end of the room, tracing my fingers over the linen-covered hardbacks that were placed in groups amid bud vases and family pictures.
I found the copy of Ian Fleming’s Casino Royale—because a book about James Bond with a casino in the title obviously had to relate to our one-eyed kings, and slid it from its home.
Tucked inside, back to back, were two aging kings of spades.
So many memories in this house. Each time I came back, I built new ones, even if they weren’t always pleasant. I tucked the cards back into the book, slid the book back onto the shelf, and moved back to the table. I shoved the leather box of cards aside and made space on the table while I opened the box.
Just as the house had demonstrated, Aline wasn’t one to throw things away. Anything. Receipts. Greeting cards. Lists. The paper wrappers that held silverware inside restaurant napkins. I assumed every scrap of paper and receipt in the box had meaning for her, some emotional weight that kept her from throwing them away, that bound them to her as the years went on.
I looked through the piles, separated them into groups, and when that didn’t reveal any universal truths, put them into chronological order.
By the time Jeff knocked on the door, I had several tidy piles of paper and absolutely no clues whatsoever. Maybe he’d had more luck.
“Hey,” I said. “What did you find?”
“Nada.” He pulled out a chair and took a seat. “She plays a lot of solitaire, which just seems extra-sad.”
“Travel plans?”
“The ticket looked completely legitimate. But there was nothing in her Web history that indicated she booked it on that computer.” He shrugged. “Could be someone else booked it; could be she used a faster computer.”
“So that doesn’t really help us narrow anything down.”
“It does not,” Jeff agreed.
I frowned down at the box. “Honestly, I don’t know anything at all so far. I’ve looked through everything in this box, stacked and reordered it, looking for a pattern.” I gestured at the receipts I’d organized. “These piles are geographical. I was hoping something would hit. But I’m not seeing anything.” I glanced at him. “Do you want to take a look? Maybe there’s shifter significance I don’t see.”
“I doubt that,” he said, but settled in to peruse.
Chapter Ten
PAPER MOON
We worked quietly, deliberately, searching through the only potential bit of evidence we had. And it wasn’t much.
“I think keeping all this stuff would weigh me down,” I said, pulling out a grocery receipt for utterly innocuous items: milk, eggs, cookies, paper towels.
“Yeah,” he said, flipping through a stack of greeting cards. “But you have Ethan, a family, friends. You have connections.” He flipped open a card, grimaced at whatever he found there, and closed it again. He put the card in the pile and looked at me. “I don’t think she does. I mean”—he spread his hands over the stack—“all this stuff would be relatively meaningless to us. Cards from people who don’t sound like they know her at all, bills, receipts. Photographs of other people’s kids. It’s almost like she was trying to build a life from paper, from the stacks of stuff that she kept in the house.”
That was both poetic and sad, and it made more sense than I preferred to admit. If Jeff was right, Aline led a sad and lonely life that had been capped by a potentially sad and lonely end. We just weren’t sure yet.
“So where does that get us?”
He pushed his hair behind his ears. “I’m not sure.”
I stood up, getting a fresh perspective on the piles we’d made on the dark wood table. “Okay. So she’s missing. The question right now is whether she’s missing on purpose, or because she’s a victim of the mattacker.”
“The ‘mattacker’?” Jeff asked, blinking.
“The magical attacker. I shortened it a little.”
Jeff chuckled. “Shorten it all you want. But nobody else in the house is going to refer to the perp as a ‘mattacker.’”
“You’re probably right. But they aren’t in the room right now. So—we know a flight was purchased for Aline—whether or not by her.” I looked back at Jeff. “I don’t suppose you know anyone with an airline connection?”
“No,” he said, frowning. “Why?” But before I could answer, his brows lifted in understanding. “Because if she got on the plane, she probably wasn’t kidnapped. I don’t know anybody offhand, and I’d prefer not to hack into transpo databases. That kind of stuff gets you flagged.”
“I think that’s a legit reason,” I assured him. “So she gets a storage locker, buys a flight, comes to Lupercalia. Leaves right before or right after the attack.”
“There’s just nothing here that touches on any of that,” Jeff said. “At least, not that I can see. But that’s part of the problem—it could all be relevant, and we wouldn’t even know it because we don’t really know what�
��s going on here.” He picked up a faded and water-stained receipt. “She got gas.” He picked up a strip of three yellow tickets. “She went to the carnival.” He picked up a small wax paper bag with a logo on one side. “She bought cookies at Fran’s Delights of Loring Park. That has got to be the most pretentious name for a cookie joint I’ve ever heard, but I’m getting off track.”
I was proud he realized that. He didn’t always.
“None of this stuff means anything without context, and shifter context isn’t helping much. None of it, as far as I can see, is shifter related. She lived like a human. Bought things like a human.”
“Could that be the reason she’s gone? She pretended to be a little too human?”
Jeff shrugged. “I don’t think we can rule it out. It might be time to call your team.”
I smiled at him. “I think we can arrange that.” I pulled out my phone and started up the program Luc had created for the House’s guards. It had timers, alarms, alerts, and, according to him, a “slick” little videoconferencing setup.
I set up the phone on the table and turned on the app, selecting the option to connect with the Ops Room.
An animated clip of Luc filled the screen. His animated cowboy hat bobbed back and forth as he screeched “Show me the Ops Room!” over and over again.
“Is that supposed to be a play on ‘Show me the money’?” Jeff wondered.
“God only knows,” I said, smiling with relief when the real Luc replaced the faux one.
He smiled brightly at Jeff and me. “Sentinel, I’m glad to see you’re taking advantage of the technological resources we’ve provided for you. And that you’re alive. Ethan said things got hairy. And for you, too, Jeff.”
“Being a hostage is always a bummer,” Jeff said. “But we came out all right.”
“Have you heard anything about Scott?”
“Scott?” Jeff asked with alarm.
“Kowalcyzk’s interviewing him today,” Luc explained. “Jonah said the lawyers are negotiating with the mayor’s office, the police commissioner, the feds. No other news yet.”
