by Stephen Cole
‘Uh-oh,’ Sunday announced, stiffening. ‘Trouble’s coming.’
Kate turned to find Mike sprinting through the parking lot towards them. ‘What does he want?’
Mike staggered to a stop in front of them, red-faced with exertion. ‘I know where they’ve taken Fayn and Chung,’ he blurted.
‘We can rest easy again, chaps,’ said Blood wryly.
‘Some place in Oak Brook,’ panted Mike.
Kate frowned. ‘Brook Mansion?’
Mike nodded, still catching his breath. ‘They’re forcing Chung to tell the purebloods he’s on Takapa’s side. Help win them over. Or else they kill Fayn.’
‘How do you know all this?’ Kate demanded.
‘The Chapter has contacts all over, remember? I asked around, got a lead. Some jerk-off in Uptown, a guy who never showed at the yard this morning … turns out he’s real tight with a ’wolf in Takapa’s crew.’
‘So he told Takapa you were coming?’ asked Tom.
Mike shook his head. ‘Don’t think so. I laid into him pretty hard. He was scared to death, but he didn’t ’fess up.’
‘What a sweet little “enforcer” you are,’ said Blood mildly.
‘So, what,’ said Sunday, ‘you’re expecting us to go charging off to rescue your pals?’
For a moment, Mike looked abashed. Then his face hardened over. ‘All I want from you people is a fast, free ride out there. I can do the rest by myself.’
‘You’re going to get inside and rescue Chung and Fayn single-handed?’ Kate shook her head. ‘Take it from one who’s been there – I don’t think so.’
‘Wait,’ Tom said. ‘Araminta said the purebloods were arriving there at noon, ready for …’ He struggled to remember the exact words. ‘For a preliminary briefing.’
‘Takapa spouting some PR bullshit, I expect,’ said Blood. ‘So?’
‘Well, if everyone’s busy at this meeting, we might stand a better chance of finding Chung.’
Sunday scowled. ‘And why would we want to do that?’
‘Chung’s name is a big deal to the purebloods, right?’ Tom argued. ‘If we can keep Chung from swearing support for Takapa’s plans, Takapa would be shown up … it might even weaken his standing.’
‘You’re grasping at straws, hon,’ said Stacy sadly.
Tom threw up his hands. ‘What else can we do? Sit and watch while you stare at a few scraps of skin through a microscope? This whole thing kicks off at midnight!’
‘I agree,’ Kate said. She’d decided, whatever was going to happen, she would face it with Tom there. ‘Anyone else?’
Jicaque shook his head. ‘It is with Stubbe that I must do battle, not his acolytes. I must prepare for that confrontation. Will someone take me to this gallery that houses him?’
‘I will,’ sighed Blood. ‘Suppose it makes sense – if we’re going to get in there again, we need to know how security’s improved since the old guard’s been replaced.’
Sunday looked a little shyly at Stacy. ‘Need a lab assistant? I helped out my dad sometimes.’
Stacy slipped an arm round her. ‘I thought no one was going to offer. Let’s get going.’
‘I’ll drop you and Sunday off at this lab, then go on to the Bane Gallery with Jicaque,’ said Blood.
Stacy scribbled down the address of the lab and gave it to Tom. ‘In case you need me.’
‘Oh, and Tom, Kate …’ Blood looked kind of embarrassed. ‘Take care, all right?’
‘And take my car,’ Sunday told Kate, handing her the keys.
‘Let’s get going,’ Mike urged them.
‘One thing,’ said Jicaque gravely. ‘Remember, the ’wolves have taken what they need from you now, Tom. If they capture you again, they will kill you.’
Tom nodded slowly. ‘And on that bright and cheery note …’ he said. Amid the chorus of farewells he got into the passenger seat beside Kate while Mike clambered into the back.
‘What the hell have we let ourselves in for?’ sighed Tom.
Kate started the engine, took a deep breath and stepped on the gas.
g
The journey was slowed by heavy traffic, as the whole of Chicago seemed set on getting home for the afternoon. Tom tried to keep himself calm, to save his energy for the inevitable nightmare that lay ahead. The ’wolf in him was hungry for release; he had that familiar feeling of twitching on the inside, an unsettling tickle that only claws could scratch.
No way, Tom vowed. I’m stronger than you. I will not give in to you.
Kate drove them through the swanky suburban neighbourhood and down a driveway she said led to Brook Mansion.
‘Here goes nothing,’ muttered Mike.
The old Chrysler growled along the driveway. As the main gates came into sight, Tom saw the two men who leaned against them stiffen to attention.
Kate wound down the window and offered them the slightly battered invitation Blood had given her. A ferret-faced man in a trenchcoat, his thinning hair slicked back, took the invitation dubiously. He studied it, then turned to his friend and shrugged. The friend pulled a radio from his black jacket and spoke into it. Seconds later, the gate opened with an angry buzz.
‘Go through to the main building,’ said Mr Slick. ‘You’ll be met there for a full ID check against the register.’ He leaned in through the window, peering uncertainly at Tom. Then a spark of recognition sparked in his grey eyes. ‘Hey, wait a minute. You’re—’
Mike rose up from his crouching position beneath a blanket in the back and jabbed a needle into the man’s hand. Tom almost sympathised as the guy’s eyes glazed over and he slumped to the ground; Mike had hit Tom with the same thing when the Dark Chapter had collared him outside Takapa’s.
‘That’s the thing with this city,’ muttered Mike, with a fleeting smile. ‘Never know when you might find trouble.’
The man in the black jacket was coming over to see what was wrong. Tom flung open the car door, which swung into the guard’s midriff and sent him sprawling. As he struggled to get up, Tom punched him hard in the jaw, swearing as he jarred his fist in the process. The man stayed down.
‘Take his radio,’ Kate said. ‘Mike, help him get those bodies out of sight!’
Mike nodded and scrambled out of the car.
With the bodies hidden in the undergrowth, Tom and Mike got back in the car.
‘Better call ahead, put them on the wrong track,’ said Kate, flashing Tom a nervous smile as she drove smoothly through the gates. ‘Unless you like the sound of that full ID check.’
Tom studied the radio briefly, then hit the talk button. ‘This is main gate,’ he said, roughening his voice. ‘Intruders sighted around the back of the building. Moving fast. Repeat, around the back. Get going.’ He shrugged at Kate. ‘They may fall for it.’
‘They’d better,’ said Mike. ‘I’ve only got one more needle left.’
‘Whatever.’ Kate stepped on the gas a little. ‘For better or worse, we’re in.’
Behind them, the gate buzzed slowly shut.
g
g
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
There was no one to meet them when they pulled up outside the hotel. Tom cautiously got out of the car. Scuffed footprints in the fine gravel on the drive suggested someone had taken off in a hurry – there were no guards.
‘Come on,’ Kate said, running over to the entrance. ‘Inside!’
The reception area was empty. Mike looked around suspiciously, then turned to Kate and Tom. ‘That trick with the radio won’t have bought us much time. What do we do?’
‘There’s some kind of conference room on the next floor,’ said Kate, hesitantly climbing the stairs. ‘If everyone’s at this briefing Tom mentioned, we might have a better chance to look around—’
‘And get Chung and Fayn out of here,’ concluded Mike.
Once they’d scaled the stairs, Tom followed Kate and Mike down the long corridor. The sound of a woman’s voice carried from a nearby room. Carefully, he peered th
rough the narrow viewing panel in the door to the conference room. ‘We’re in luck,’ he said grimly.
Araminta Black was standing at a lectern, speaking to an audience of about fifty people.
‘Too bad I didn’t slug her harder,’ Tom muttered.
‘Or that Sunday’s dad didn’t eat her alive,’ added Kate.
Behind Araminta sat Marcie Folan, her face sallow and grave, and Liebermann with the two other creepy old men. But there was no sign of Chung and, more disturbingly, no sign of Takapa. Maybe he was with Stubbe right now. Maybe the two of them were working out their lines for that night’s performance …
‘… The acid in the schwarztorf, the darker peaty layers, had prevented the body from decaying,’ Araminta was explaining, ‘along with the lack of oxygen beneath the bog’s surface. The corpse looked only recently buried, and the farmers who made the discovery in 1994 had no idea of the true value of their find. The scientific community expressed a polite interest, but the body was far more recent than those Iron Age individuals dredged up from the depths in Northern Europe, and so of limited interest. For years, the man’s body languished in laboratory vaults, wheeled out now and then so that dutiful specialists could defile his aged flesh with their futile experiments …’
‘What are we hanging around for?’ hissed Mike. ‘Who needs a lecture? Let’s get going.’
Kate shushed him furiously. ‘I’m trying to see how far in to the story she’s got – how long we may have.’
‘… Finally, the body of this man was taken back to Gottenheim and displayed in a provincial museum for schoolchildren to coo at,’ said Araminta, her skinny features twisted in disgust. ‘But by then, I had formulated my own ideas as to who this man might truly be. I researched patiently, diligently … and as curator of the Bane Gallery, I was eventually granted a private view.’ She paused impressively. ‘My suspicions were confirmed. I was right. I had found him. And I knew then, I must secure the body for myself.’ She glanced back nervously at Marcie. ‘So that, naturally, we all might benefit …’
‘All right,’ Kate said, ‘she’s on a real ego trip. This could run and run. Come on.’
Tom risked one last glimpse through the window in the door. There was everyone sitting nice and comfy in their regimented lines, attentive to Araminta as she spoke.
Only Liebermann’s head was cocked to one side, his ruined, sightless eyes trained on the door. Seeming to look straight at Tom, the tiniest hint of a smile on his ancient, lined face.
Mike must’ve noticed it too. ‘It’s all right,’ he said as they crept away. ‘The guy’s blind.’
‘I know,’ Tom said as they walked away from the conference room, but he felt no better.
All three of them jumped as the radio in Tom’s pocket suddenly squawked into life. He grabbed hold of it, fumbled for the talk button.
‘Main gate?’ came a man’s voice, sparking with static. ‘Entrance here. No sign of intruders.’
‘If that had gone off outside the door …’ muttered Kate, her cheeks reddening.
Tom held up the radio to his lips. ‘Uh … well they didn’t come back this way.’
‘Do you have a description?’ barked the radio.
‘Yes,’ blurted Tom, suddenly seized by inspiration. ‘One of them was an Asian male, about twenty.’
‘The Dark Chapter leader?’ came the crackling response. ‘But he was tied up nice and tight in the penthouse.’
Tom raised his fist in a victory salute, and Mike almost cried out with delight. Kate grabbed Tom’s arm, excited, as he went on. ‘Other intruder was older male, brown hair and a squint.’
There was a pause, then again the radio squawked. ‘The other Chapter guy? Ain’t he on our side?’
The grin froze on Mike’s face. Kate’s hand flew to her mouth, and Tom felt a chill crawl along the back of his neck.
Another burst of static. ‘Main gate? You receiving?’
‘Uh … just keep looking, they can’t have got far,’ Tom said weakly. ‘Out.’ He let the radio slip from his hands to the soft carpet.
‘So now we know how Takapa found out our plans,’ said Mike, his face darkening.
‘Never mind him now,’ snapped Kate. ‘That guy said Chung was in the penthouse. That’s on the next floor.’ She led the way to the next flight of stairs. ‘Let’s move – before school finishes for the day.’
g
Kate’s heart was racing as she reached the second floor and the sinister oak door in the long white wall. The memory of the penthouse kept pinching the back of her mind, making her want to run outside screaming.
‘It’s through there,’ she told Tom.
‘This is where our three blind mice like to hang out?’
‘And trust me,’ she said, ‘you’ve never seen a hole in the wall like this one.’
Mike strode past them and threw open the door.
A familiar prickling wave of heat swept over Kate. The place was much as she’d left it before – a deranged jungle of textures and shapes – except that the lights were back on. Regardless, from the look on Tom’s face, Kate could tell that he was just as freaked out as she’d been.
‘Jeez,’ croaked Mike.
Kate suddenly noticed Chung, lying on his back in the ball pool.
Mike made his way there at once, dodging past the chairs and statues that littered the mosaic floor. He waded into the plastic pond and lifted Chung out.
‘He’s breathing!’ he called, setting him down in a hard-backed chair beside a small fountain. ‘He’s going to be OK.’
Kate looked at Chung and hoped Mike was right. His face and neck were bruised and swollen. ‘Whatever they wanted him to do, looks like he put up a fight.’
Tom shushed her. ‘I heard something,’ he whispered, pointing to the middle one of the three doors set into the far wall of the room.
He crept towards it, Kate just behind him. Mike left Chung slumped in the chair and followed them.
Tom threw open the door – and Fayn jumped back in surprise. He’d obviously been pressing his sweaty face up against the wood, listening. Mixed with the tang of fear, Tom picked up a faint but familiar lupine scent from Fayn – that of the ’wolf he’d fought at the zoo.
Fayn retreated into the small, simple bedroom, decorated in the same style as those downstairs but as hot as hell. He stared at each of them in turn, his squint more pronounced than ever. ‘Thank God, you found me!’ he said, grabbing his discarded leather jacket from the floor and bundling it up in both hands. ‘I thought I’d never get out.’
‘The door wasn’t locked, Russ,’ said Mike coldly. ‘So what’re you doing in here? You like the wallpaper or something?’
Fayn looked deeply rattled. ‘Takapa … he had his people bring us here – me and Chung. They did something to him, man! He’s unconscious – I couldn’t just leave him, could I?’
Mike clenched his fists. ‘And that’s why they left the door unlocked?’
‘I guess.’ Fayn looked uneasily at Tom and Kate, bunching up the jacket in both hands like a security blanket. ‘I mean, no one can get out of this building anyway …’
‘Don’t feed me that crap,’ thundered Mike, grabbing hold of Fayn by his shoulders and slamming him up against the wall. ‘I’ll tell you why they never locked that door. Because they’ve hurt Chung so bad he’s in no state to go anywhere, plus they’ve got you here to watch over him – and you don’t want to get out of here!’
‘You’re crazy, Mike!’ shouted Fayn.
‘We know you sold us out. You got Zac killed.’
‘No!’ Fayn struggled against Mike’s grip. ‘It wasn’t like that—’
‘Oh? Then how the hell was it?’
Kate shifted uneasily, glancing back towards the main door. ‘Mike, we don’t have time for this.’
Mike didn’t seem to hear her. ‘You’re Chapter, Russ!’ he bawled, tearing the wolf’s head brooch from Fayn’s jacket. ‘The Chapter comes first, remember? Doesn’t this mean anything
to you, pureblood Fayn?’
Fayn stared at the brooch, his face gradually changing from protesting innocence to angry sneer. ‘Sure it means something. It means Chung’s family. His goddamned ancestors setting up the whole show, lording it over the rest of us.’ He let his jacket fall heavily to the floor. ‘Chung doesn’t care about us, Mike! This is just about him and his ego, living up to the past! He doesn’t give a damn that my family have got a name, that we’ve been watching over Chicago too since—’
Mike gripped him by the throat, choked off the words. ‘What, so you sold us out because you got a chip on your shoulder?’
‘They told Chung they’d kill me if he didn’t speak up for Takapa,’ gasped Fayn. ‘Chung didn’t know it was just talk, but it made no difference. He wouldn’t do it. Oh, and do you want to know what’s funny? He said I’d understand! Thought I’d die a happy pureblood knowing he was keeping our goddamned honour.’
‘That’s the difference between just having a name, and making it mean something,’ hissed Mike. ‘Chung isn’t a whining hypocrite like you.’
Fayn shook his head. ‘All Chung cares about is the past. But Takapa … he cares about the future. Big changes are coming, Mike. If you don’t get behind Takapa, man, you’re going to get left behind. A dinosaur. Just a name that doesn’t mean a thing. Like Chung’s going to be, once Takapa’s through with him.’
Tom marched up to Mike. ‘That’s enough. Kate’s right, we don’t have time for this.’
Kate nodded. ‘We’ve got to get Chung out of here, fast.’
Mike stared hatefully at Fayn. Then he brought up his knee hard into the man’s groin and smashed down his fist on the back of his neck. Fayn crumpled to the foor.
‘I should kill him for this,’ Mike said thickly.
‘That’s not going to bring anyone back,’ Tom said, ‘and it could get us caught.’
‘So let’s grab your friend and go,’ Kate agreed.
‘You wouldn’t be thinking of leaving us so soon, surely?’ came a low, brittle voice from outside the room.
Kate turned, bile rising in her throat. Liebermann’s stooped and sinister figure was framed in the doorway.
