Blood Games

“I suppose . . . that’s true enough. Where’s your boon companion? Your Sentinel?”



“She’s here,” Ethan said. I walked forward, taking the hand that Ethan offered me.



His eyes, Ethan silently said. Look at his eyes.



Darius had been in the tall man’s shadow, but as I moved forward, the man shifted, as did the light across Darius’s face. His electric blue irises were narrow, dwarfed by wide and ink-black pupils. Whether by drugs or magic, something was affecting our former king. And deeply.



“Merit, it’s good to see you again.”



“It’s good to see you, as well.” A lie, and not. Whatever his issues with Ethan, this man was no threat to him right now. Not in this condition. Not with those eyes, that manner.



Darius nodded, but that was the end of his interest in me. His attention had flitted elsewhere. “If you’ll excuse me, I have some business to attend to.”



“Of course,” Ethan said. “It was good to see you again.”



Having been dismissed, we went back to the bar.



“He’s not well,” I murmured, taking a sip of my gin and tonic, relishing the cold, astringent punch. I needed it to wash away the weird encounter.



“He’s not,” Ethan said, rubbing his forehead. “I had no clue what I’d see tonight, but I don’t think I expected that. That isn’t Darius.”



“How so?” Luc asked.



“He barely registered Ethan,” I said. “And not in the arrogant, you’re-beneath-me way. In the I’m-currently-drugged-out-of-my-gourd way.”



“His eyes were dilated. His movements slow and stiff.”



“Magic?” Lindsey asked.



“I don’t know,” Ethan said.



“If it’s glamour,” I asked, “wouldn’t we have felt it?”



“That is another question to which I don’t have an answer.” Having drained his finger of Scotch, he turned to mine, took a sip, grimaced.



“It wasn’t your drink,” I reminded him, taking it back.



“Darius has more company,” Luc said, and we casually glanced back. A silver-haired man approached Darius, a large leather envelope in hand, the type used to carry documents. He and Darius shook, and the muscle escorted the pair back to the elevators.



“I suppose that’s the business,” Lindsey said.



“We could tail him,” Luc said, but Ethan shook his head.



“I don’t like this, and I don’t want us here, without preparation and backup, any longer than necessary.”



Luc pulled bills from a long, narrow wallet, and placed them on the table. “That’s fine by me. Let’s get the hell back to the House.”



Ethan glanced at me. We need to know what was in that envelope, he silently said.



Shall I contact the previously discussed tool in your arsenal? I asked.



He nodded, and I pulled out my phone, sent the necessary message: NEED YOUR EXPERTISE. PERHAPS A VISIT TO THE LIGHTHOUSE?



* * *



The Chicago Harbor Light, tall and white, stood sentinel at the edge of the breakwater that provided a harbor for boats on Lake Michigan. You could get in on foot—if you had the gumption to walk the quarter-mile stretch of rocks and riprap that tethered the lighthouse to the shore near Navy Pier.



The last time I’d tried it, the rocks had been slick and icy. Tonight, as Jonah and I stood in the darkness of the parking lot and stared them down, they were no longer icy. But they were still slick and dark.



“Might as well get this over with,” I said, and stepped onto the first boulder.



Going was still slow as we hopped from stone to stone, pausing after each bit of progress to regain our balance.



“I’m surprised there’s not a faster way out here,” I said, arms outstretched at my sides as I worked to stay upright.



“There is. We could take the boat.”



I stopped, stared back at him. “There’s a boat?”



“Of course there’s a boat.”



“Then why are we doing this?”



He grinned back at me. “For the challenge.” Jonah bobbled, momentarily losing his balance. Fortunately for him, he took a step, found purchase, managed not to fall into the drink. Which was good, because I wasn’t going to help him.



“For the challenge,” I mimicked, but I kept walking until we’d crossed the rocks and reached the concrete platform that held the lighthouse and the two small buildings that straddled it.



Jonah tapped a code on the keypad by the door, and we walked inside.



The lighthouse had been built in 1893 for the World’s Columbian Exhibition but had been moved and renovated several times since then. The décor was sparse and hadn’t been updated since at least the 1970s. But the décor wasn’t the point—the three-hundred-and-sixty-degree windows and views of the city and lake were.



“You can all relax,” Jonah said, hands lifted, to the handful of vampires who looked up as we entered. “I’m here. You’re safe.”



“You’re here—and full of shit,” said the vampire at the table across the room, whose muttonchop sideburns were immediately recognizable. Horace, an RG guard and Civil War veteran, wore a simple linen shirt and dark trousers. He turned, and his dark eyes widened. “And you’ve brought a guest.”



“You’re hilarious,” Jonah said. “Merit, you remember Horace.”



I nodded. “Hi.”



There was suspicion in Horace’s expression, maybe because he hadn’t seen me here enough for his own comfort. Not enough to vet me, anyway.



“Is Matthew here?” Jonah asked.



“Basement.” He cocked his head. “You need data?”



“This is your gig,” Jonah said, prompting me.



“It’s about Darius.”



Horace nodded. “He’s in Chicago. And you met with him today.”



“It’s about Darius. He’s in Chicago. And we met with him today at the Portman Grand. He had a security team, and he met a man who appeared to be carrying some papers.”



“You interact with him?” Horace asked.



“Ethan and I both. And he seemed completely off. Polite, but barely communicative. Dilated pupils.”



“Glamour?” Horace asked.



Glamour was an odd side effect of the magic that spilled from us. We couldn’t create magic—not like Mallory or Catcher—but we could manipulate the magic that escaped from us. It was, maybe not coincidentally, a manipulative magic. The ability to nudge, subtly or otherwise, people to do what we wanted. I had some immunity to it, but I also couldn’t make the magic myself.



“It was a thought. But we didn’t feel any magic. Nothing beyond the usual, anyway. Victor Cabot said Darius also acted strangely when he was in New York, although that interaction was brief. Darius apparently didn’t mention the GP, the challenge, or anything else to Victor while he was there.”



Horace sat back in his chair, linked his hands together on his chest, and rocked. The chair squeaked beneath him. “He and Victor were close.”



“That’s what I hear,” I said with a nod. “You’d think you’d talk to your allies if you were about to rush Chicago and kick aside a would-be challenger for the throne.”



“So you think he’s not here to challenge Ethan?”



“I have no idea what he’s going to do. That’s precisely the problem. I’ve met Darius before. He runs hot. I’d have expected him to be pissed off by the challenge, insulted by it. Not to play nice with Ethan. Darius has many irritating qualities, but being coy isn’t one of them.



“I don’t like the GP under the best of circumstances,” I added. “But I especially don’t like it when the head of the GP is acting oddly, and my House—and my Master—are on the line.”



Horace leaned back again; the chair squeaked. “You know being in a relationship with Ethan puts you in an awkward position regarding the Guards.”



I kept my gaze steady. “It’s only awkward if he’s elected and becomes an asshole. The first one’s possible. The second isn’t.”



“Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”



“And Napoleon might have been better behaved if Josephine had been a member of the RG.”



Jonah smiled at me. “You had that one in the chamber, ready to fire.”



I shrugged. “Frankly, I’d ask the same question if I was you. It’s a fair question. But my answer’s the truth. I’ve been around money and power for most of my life. It doesn’t control me.”



“Touché,” Horace said.



I nodded in acknowledgment. “I don’t know how long Darius’ll be here, or what he’s planning to do. But he’s in my territory, and I’d appreciate any information you can provide.”



Horace rose, the chair rocking rhythmically in his absence, its squeak ringing across the room. “Then let’s get to it,” he agreed, and gestured to the metal spiral staircase that stood in the center of the room.



The staircase was narrow, barely wide enough to accommodate the guys’ wide shoulders. I’d known it went up but hadn’t noticed it also spiraled down into the floor—and presumably beneath the lakebed.



We spiraled down for several seconds and what felt like several stories, emerging into a concrete room that stretched at least the length of a football field. The floor was glossy, the walls scored in what looked like a really large, concrete version of soundproofing. And down the middle of the room was a series of black, glossy cabinets. The room was chilly, and it hummed with energy.



“Holy shit,” I murmured, staring at the space.



“Welcome to the sparkplug’s data center,” Horace said.



“Sparkplug?”



“The lighthouse,” Jonah said. “It’s a nickname for this particular style.”



“This is . . . impressive,” I said, except that I wasn’t sure what I was looking at. “What, exactly, am I looking at?”



“Two centuries of data,” Horace said. “Correspondence, GP rulings, intelligence, financials. They’re stored on drives with double tape backups.”



“That’s a lot of information.”



“It is,” Horace said. “And that’s why we have Matthew.”



He gestured to the lone desk in the room, a long glass table on which sat a single computer terminal. The chair was occupied by a vampire who looked like he’d been changed in his early twenties. He had golden brown skin, a wide mouth, and glasses with thick black frames. He wore a gray hoodie with the green Jakob’s Quest logo across the front.



Dear God, I thought. The RG had a Jeff.



“Matthew Post, this is my partner, Merit,” Jonah said. “Matthew’s a rogue, so he gets both of his names, the lucky bastard.”



“Hi,” Matthew said, fingers flying over the keys.



“Hi,” I said. “Jakob’s Quest fan?”



“Bravely into battle,” Matthew said, eyes on the screen.



I grinned. I knew this one. “And victory for all.”



He paused, looked back at me, appraised, nodded. “Cool.”



And with four simple words, I’d passed Matthew Post’s Test of Acceptability. I counted that as an achievement.



“We run a pretty lean shop. Matthew’s our analyst and IT expert. He responds to requests for information—like yours—and analyzes data for anomalies if they arise. We rely primarily on human intelligence,” Horace said. “But Matthew and the data center are crucial to our operation. Matthew, Darius is apparently in Chicago, after a trip to NYC. What’s the GP’s latest traffic?”



Matthew’s long fingers worked the buttons like a pianist, each movement smooth, dancerly, and precise.



“Nothing unusual,” he said, scanning the data he’d pulled up on the screen. “Rules and regulations have been issued. Payments have been made. House tithes have been collected. Operations appear normal.”



“Go a level deeper,” Horace suggested.



“Running anomaly check,” Matthew said. This one was all business, and not nearly as keen on the witty small talk as Jeff. IT folks came in all flavors.



“Hey, anomalies,” Matthew announced after a moment.



We all moved closer. “What anomalies?” Horace asked.



“Not on the surface,” Matthew said. “The trust accounts are normal. Any deviation is standard. And so are the operating accounts.”



I decided this wasn’t the time to ask about the ethics of our sneaking into the GP’s bank accounts.



“But?” Horace prompted.



“The American Houses’ operating subaccounts are off. The GP keeps an account in each city with Houses. A portion of the Houses’ tithes go into the subaccounts, which the GP distributes back to the Houses for renovations, special projects, what have you. There are withdrawals in some of them.”



My blood began to hum. That was a definite bump. “How large? And which ones?”



“Boston, New York . . . and Chicago. Six point eight mil and change in total.”



“Darius has been in at least two of those cities recently.”



Jonah looked at me. “Did Victor say where he’d been before he got to New York?”



“He didn’t. I don’t know if he knew.” But I could find that out easily enough. I pulled out my phone, showed it to Horace and Matthew. Candor seemed the best bet considering their doubts about me. “I’m going to check with Ethan. Any objections?”



“Do it,” Horace said, and I sent a quick message, kept my phone in hand to await Ethan’s response.