by Chloe Neill
“It’s okay, Mr. Stiles,” I said, offering him what comfort I could from behind the yellow line. “We know it isn’t your fault.”
“You do?”
“You didn’t cause the trouble, Mr. Stiles,” Ethan said. “You were a victim of it. And we’re trying to identify the perpetrator.”
“Please, call me Winston. The perpetrator . . .” His voice trailed off as he considered the word and its implications. “You think someone did this to me? You think I’m not just crazy?”
“You aren’t crazy, Winston,” I said. “We think you were affected by magic. But we don’t know why, and we aren’t sure how.”
“There was another incident last night,” Ethan explained. “Downtown. More people like you heard things that upset them, made them fight each other. Something is doing this to people. But we aren’t sure what. That’s why we’re here.”
He nodded, pulled a hand across his jaw. “All right. All right.”
“Winston, can you tell us about the voice you heard?” I asked. “What was it saying?”
He scratched his temple. “The only words I remember were ‘hello’ and ‘I am here.’ He said those words a lot.”
“He?” I asked. “It was male?”
He paused. “Well, yeah. I guess I didn’t think about that, but yes. I think it was a male voice. It was deep in that way. I had the sense he wanted someone to hear him. Desperately wanted it. Like he was hurting and confused and needed to be acknowledged.”
“He was hurt?” I asked. “He needed help?”
“Maybe, but I don’t really know. It wasn’t that specific, if you understand me. It was just begging, really.”
Ethan nodded. “Could you tell where the voice was coming from?”
“No, other than inside my head, I mean. I know that sounds crazy, but I could hear him—really hear him, like someone turned up the volume on the television. It wasn’t like a hallucination, or like I was pretending. It was real, except I was the only one who could hear it.”
“Was it only a sound?” Ethan asked. “Did you happen to see anything? Hear anything else?”
“Well, no. It was just the words. Just the same words, over and over and over again. And loud. So very loud.” He rubbed his earlobe, winced.
Ah, but it wasn’t just the noise, was it? “What about smell, Winston? Did you smell anything?”
He looked confused. “Smell anything?”
“When you heard the voice, or maybe just before you started hearing it, did you smell anything unusual?”
He looked down, gaze slightly unfocused as he considered the question. “Now that you mention it, yeah. Many years ago, I worked at a plant in Skokie—we made certain beauty products—nail polish and the like. There was usually a whiff of solvent in the air.
“When I first started hearing the voice, I guess, I smelled something like that. Not the same, but an industrial kind of smell, if that makes sense.”
“It does make sense,” I said, and Winston’s smile was appreciative.
“Do you smell anything now?” Ethan asked. “Hear anything?”
“Oh no. Not since they put me out. I do get memories, though. The words were so loud that I remember hearing them.”
“But the memories are different?” I asked. “I mean, you can tell the difference?”
He nodded. “With the memories, I don’t really hear it. Not the same way. I’m not sure why it makes a difference, but it does. Still loud, though. Like a flashback.”
I looked around the room, the simple desk welded to the wall that held a cup, an apple, and a small notebook. A set of paints in tiny plastic cups along a single spine sat beside it, along with an old and chipped paintbrush. The handle was wide, as if the brush had been made for children.
“You’ve been painting?” I asked.
Winston blinked for a moment, looked back when I gestured to the table. “Oh, my notes, you mean? I asked if I could have a notebook, a pen. They offered me a book, but I’m not much of a reader. But I do like to draw.”
“Could we take a look at them, Winston?”
He scratched his cheek absently, looked back. “Oh, I don’t know. There’s nothing particularly good in there. It’s just a kind of sketchbook, you see. Just something I do to pass the time. Nights get long. I practice making things look, well, real, I guess. And sometimes I just scribble out whatever comes to mind. Helps clear away the clutter.”
Bingo.
“You said you wanted those images, those sounds, out of your head. Did you draw them?”
Understanding dawned in his eyes. “Oh, I see! Of course. Then if it will help, absolutely.” He walked back to the table, the hem of his too-long pants shuffling against the concrete floor. Shush-shush-shush.
He brought the book back, held it out through the bars.
Most of the pages had been used. Some of the sheets were bare but for a small, precise pencil sketch. Winston’s view from his cell, the pots of paint, his hands in different poses.
“You have a lovely hand,” Ethan said, looking as I turned the pages.
Winston shrugged. “I find it relaxes me.”
Others were painted abstract shapes filling the page from edge to edge, making them thick and hard to turn, the paint chalky beneath my fingers. Most were in shades of gray with streaks or lines of sharp white or black, and a few featured words in the same strong colors. VOICE on one, HEAR IT on another. There were several pages with white and gray blocks that looked like teeth, others with ears and spirals of tiny words.
“What are these?” I asked.
He shrugged. “The mouths, I think, that are saying all those words. The images just kind of come to me, and I draw them.”
“Winston, could I borrow this? Only for a little while,” I assured him when he looked crestfallen. “I’ll give it back, and I’m sure we can arrange for you to have another notebook while we’re borrowing this one.”
“Why do you want it?” he asked.
I tried to choose my words carefully. “I’d like to look through your pictures again when I have more time. Think about them, I guess. Just in case they give us some clue about what’s happening.”
“Okay,” he said. “But I would appreciate getting a replacement.”
“I’ll take care of it personally,” Ethan said.
I tucked the notebook carefully inside my jacket, to keep it dry in the snow.
“Winston, do you remember the night of the attack at Towerline?” Ethan asked. “When Sorcha used her magic?”
He nodded gravely. “I do. Matter of fact, I wasn’t far from there when it went down. I was laid off earlier this year, been working temp and contracts since then, taking what work I could find. I was working about a block from there—helping unload boxes of materials at the Wellworth Hotel for a convention of some sort—when it happened.” He shook his head. “Quite a night that was. Never seen anything like it.”
Bingo, I thought. Another connection to the magic that had gone down at Towerline. “That might be one of the reasons you’re hearing the voice,” I said. “We’re looking into it.”
His eyes widened. “You think I caught something because of that magic?”
“Not a virus,” Ethan said. “But there may have been some effects. We’ll let you know if we figure out that’s what happened.”
He nodded, ran a hand over his head as he seemed to consider. “That’s why I came to Cadogan House in the first place. Not Towerline,” he added at our surprised expressions. “Employment. It’s been hard—not having permanent work—and not easy to find work as a vampire. I was hoping to speak to you about a job.” He shook his head. “It seems selfish now, to have caused all this trouble.”
“It isn’t selfish at all,” Ethan said. “That’s why we offer the assistance—to help vampires in unusual situations.”
W
inston sighed. “I don’t suppose this will help me in the job market.”
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Ethan said. “You won’t be here forever. And when we figure out what’s causing the delusions, and we put a stop to it, you’ll still need that help.”
Very deliberately, his gaze on Winston’s, Ethan stepped over the yellow line, extended his hand through the bars of Winston’s cell.
Winston took a step closer. The movement was tentative, but the handshake wasn’t.
“Thank you for listening,” he said. “Sometimes you just need someone to listen. Think that you aren’t crazy.”
No argument there. The question was—which someone had needed Winston to listen?
• • •
Before we walked back to the guard, I stopped Ethan with a hand on his arm.
“There’s someone else we could talk to. Someone who might have an idea what’s happening.”
Ethan considered for a moment. “You’re thinking about Tate.”
Former mayor Seth Tate was the “good” of the magical twin beings created millennia ago, compressed together by magic, and split again due to Mallory’s dark magic. He’d confessed to a crime he hadn’t committed in order to atone for those he had, and to stay close to Regan, his magically enhanced niece, in order to help in her rehabilitation in prison.
We’d known each other for a very long time, and I think we’d come out as friends. Or some supernatural version of friends.
“Other than talking to Claudia, he’s our best—and oldest—source for information about magic.”
Claudia was the queen of the fairies. She’d been separated from her homeland in Britain, and had been living in a tower in Chicago for hundreds of years. She led the fairies who’d guarded Cadogan House before they betrayed us. She—and the rest of them—were dangerous.
Ethan considered for a moment. “Okay. And it might be good to show him the ring. Remind him that you’re taken.”
“Seth isn’t interested in me,” I said. “Not like that.” I’d known him since I was a child; my father had supported his campaigns since he’d been a young alderman.
“Just so,” Ethan said, taking my hand. “I’ve no qualms about a reminder.”
I looked back at him, this man with broad shoulders and golden hair, a brilliant mind and rapier wit, and green eyes that were focused on me. No one had ever looked at me the way he did—as if he could see who I was and what I might be simultaneously. And I knew he didn’t want to give the reminder because he feared I’d stray or others might have an interest, but because of who and what I was to him.
Because just as he was mine, I was his.
• • •
We waited ten minutes while inquiries were made, while our request to talk to Tate was considered by the appropriate parties.
“This way,” the guard said. He led the way back to the front row of cubes, where Seth’s box was positioned.
Seth Tate might have been an angel, but he had the look of the fallen variety. Hair as dark as midnight around bright blue eyes, generous lips, and a square jaw. He wore a floor-length black cassock, even if there was little that was angelic about his past.
Where Winston’s cube had been fronted by bars, Seth’s was fronted by a long sheet of glass. There’d be no contact between us.
“Merit,” Seth said, rising from his seat at a small table, his robe swirling around his feet as he moved. “Ethan. It’s good to see you. Congratulations on your wedding. Although I’m sorry it took a turn for the worse.” He gestured to the newspaper spread on the table. “I was reading about the attack.”
“That’s why we’re here,” I said. “Something’s happening, Seth.”
Seth moved a step closer. “What kind of something?”
“You don’t feel anything?” Ethan asked.
“In here?” Seth crossed his arms, looked up at the ceiling of his box. “No. But then again, I spend every day in this very warded building. And there have been many of those days.” He looked down again. “I’ve been blocked from magic for many months. Long enough that my ability to sense it has faded, too.”
“The humans who attacked us last night are having delusions,” I said. “As was the vampire who attacked me two nights ago.”
“The Tribune suggested it was an illness.” Tate’s eyes widened. “Are you sick?”
“I’m fine,” I said. “We don’t think it’s a sickness, or anything else contagious, or at least not in the traditional way. We think it’s caused by some kind of unfamiliar magic that carries a chemical smell. Does that mean anything to you?”
Seth lifted his brows. “Technically, everything in the world is a chemical.”
“Industrial, then,” Ethan said.
Seth frowned, linked his hands in front of him. “Not offhand. Each kind of magic, each methodology, has its own characteristics. An industrial smell,” he said, looking down again as he considered. “What else does it do?”
“The affected hear a voice screaming at them, over and over again,” I said.
“What does it scream?”
“Simple phrases,” I said. “‘Hello. Help. I’m here.’”
His brows lifted. “They’re hearing something, or someone, that needs help? Something that’s attempting to contact them?”
“Are those questions or theories?” Ethan asked.
“Yes,” Seth said. He turned, walked to one end of the cell, then turned back. “If you believed it was Sorcha, you wouldn’t be here, asking.”
“Correct,” Ethan said. “The city’s warded, and the wards weren’t breached until the snow.”
Seth nodded. “Do the affected have anything in common?”
“At least two of them, and possibly more than that, were near Towerline when Sorcha made her magic the first time. The delusions didn’t cause the wards to sound, although the snow did.”
“Some sort of latent effect?”
“That’s what we’re thinking,” I said. “What is this, Seth? Who is it?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps your first step should be to find out who, or what, needs the help they’re asking for.”
“I don’t suppose you know how I could go about doing that?” I asked with a half smile.
“I don’t,” he said. “And listening isn’t always the easiest thing to do.”
Without waiting for an answer, he walked back to the table and took a seat, then ran a hand through his hair. Maybe he needed help . . . or at least someone to listen.
“Ethan, could you give us a minute?”
Ethan didn’t look thrilled by the idea. But even if he didn’t entirely trust Tate, he trusted me.
I’ll be at the door. Be careful.
I will.
I watched him walk back to where the guard waited, then looked back at Seth. “Are you okay?” I quietly asked.
It took a moment for him to answer. “A conscience is a heavy thing to bear.” He smiled, brushed away a spot of lint from his right knee. “I’m neither saint nor priest, and I know the scales can never really be balanced. But I do believe everyone is redeemable.”
“And how is Regan?” I asked.
“She’s still so angry. It’s like a fire in her core, even here, where the magic is dampened. I’m not sure if she can lose that anger completely.”
“She may not,” I said. I knew something of anger and resentment, as I’d been angry at Ethan for a very long time, however unjustified that turned out to be. “But can she learn to manage it? To channel it?”
“I don’t know.” He drummed his fingers on the tabletop, a signal of frustration. “She doesn’t like to talk to me about it. I would be more to her—a father to her—if I could. But she does not want that.”
Seth had been a playboy in his pre-Dominic days. Power was alluring to many, especially in a city
like Chicago, which had been built on handshakes, backroom deals, and graft. I’d never known him to be a family man, but I guess given the opportunity, he’d discovered he wanted it. And then had been denied.
Seth rose and walked to me, hands gathered in front of him. “I appreciate your asking and listening. But you don’t need to bear the weight of my fears, too. You can’t save everyone.” A sad smile lifted one corner of his mouth. “Much as you might try.”
I thought of Gabriel again, of the future that now seemed precarious, of the child he couldn’t guarantee, and I lifted my gaze to Seth. “I’ll try anyway. I’ll keep trying, because that’s what I have to do.”
The same smile again, edged with sadness. “Go find your magic maker, Merit. And be careful out there.”
“I will. Good luck, Seth.”
I hoped there was enough to go around.
• • •
My grandfather was waiting in his car when we came back, engine running and heater blasting against the cold.
“Report?” he asked, rolling the window down with its old-fashioned hand crank.
“Winston seems quite normal,” Ethan said. “Whatever delusions he was experiencing, he doesn’t hear them now.”
“The doctors suspect the sedation may have ‘reset’ his brain,” my grandfather said. “And besides that, the building is sealed from magic, thanks to the Order. So the magic won’t affect him while he’s here.”
“What if he stepped outside again?” I asked. “Do we think the effect just fades after time?”
“We don’t know,” my grandfather said. “We haven’t tried it yet.”
That wasn’t an answer I liked. Fading magic meant we just needed to keep the victims from hurting themselves or others until the magic wore off of its own accord. If it didn’t wear off, we’d have to keep them separated and safe—and figure out a way to make it stop. That sounded much, much harder.
Our phones—all three of them—began squealing at once. We pulled them out, checked the screens.
“Well,” my grandfather said, looking up at us, “I guess you’ll be going now.”
