CHAPTER TWO

BAD BITE

The man was young, maybe twenty-five or twenty-six. He had rough, tanned skin, brown eyes, and deep lines around his mouth. His body was whipcord lean beneath jeans and a T-shirt, and thatchy brown hair stood in mussed spikes on his head.

Magic still lingered in the air above him like heavy fog waiting to settle. And it carried with it the faint sense of animal.

He was dead . . . and a shifter.

His face was horribly swollen and bloody, his hands ripped at the knuckles. But that wasn’t the worst of it. The left neck and shoulder of his T-shirt was saturated with blood that had drained from the puncture wounds on his neck. More had spilled on the ground around him.

He hadn’t just been killed. He’d been murdered . . . by one of us.

I felt a sick twist of guilt. The North American Central Pack was our ally and many of its members were our friends. But they wouldn’t take kindly to the death of their own by one of ours.

A second man in jeans and a dark, long-sleeved shirt burst out of the alley, ramming into Mallory and throwing her to the ground. In that fraction of a second while he stumbled forward, he turned toward me. There was something familiar in the scent and magic that surrounded him, but nothing I could place. The bill of his cap shaded his face, showed only the thick, dark beard above pale skin. And the scent of the blood he’d stolen still clung to him.

The moment passed. The vampire—the apparent murderer—caught himself with a hand on the sidewalk before bolting to his feet again and taking off.

I didn’t stop to think. I tore after him, heard Ethan fall into step behind me, his footfalls light and fast.

The vampire darted through the alley across the street, disappearing into shadow. He was twenty feet in front of me, but when the alley dead-ended, he dodged into the street and the glow of overhead lights. He darted between buildings with rooftop views of Wrigley, and then onto Sheffield on the stadium’s east side.

Music blaring in the bars around us, Ethan and I kept pace with each other, our gazes on the perpetrator, who still trailed the magic of the murder he’d wrought.

I doubted any Housed vampire would take out a shifter on the street, at least not one from Chicago. He was most likely a Rogue, a vampire who lived outside the House system. Or maybe a vampire from another city on some kind of mission to take out a shifter. Either way, there’d be hell to pay with the Pack.

We dodged through a group of girls in pink Cubs T-shirts, one of them wearing a veil. Probably a bachelorette party, and from the curses they hurled after us, they’d been partying for a while.

The vampire neared the intersection with Waveland. He glanced back to check his lead, nearly ran into a group of guys and girls heading across the street from bar to stadium.

“What the hell?” yelled one of the men, tall and skinny with shoulder-length cornrows, neatly sidestepping to avoid getting mowed down by our runner.

“Sorry!” I offered as we slid through the gap he’d created.

We need to cut him off, Sentinel. He killed and he ran, and I doubt he’ll stop.

No argument there. I mentally pictured the neighborhood, tried to guess where he might go. But since I didn’t know him—or where he’d come from, or where he was going, or what kind of transportation he might get into—I really didn’t have anything to go on. He’d been in Wrigleyville, and he’d done murder in Wrigleyville. And now, with two vampires on his tail, he was probably hoping to get out again.

Right, Ethan said as the vampire turned and dodged back toward the El.

Maybe he’d taken the Red Line to get down here, and was planning to take the same route home again.

Stay on him, I told Ethan, and dodged across the street. If I could make headway, I could cut him off before he dodged into the alley again.

“Cubs hats!”

A man stepped in front of me from out of nowhere, wearing a column of stacked baseball caps on his head, a dozen more hanging from his fingers. “You need a Cubs hat?”

He was enormous. A red-and-blue-clad wall of a man. “Not tonight, pal,” I said, and tried to pivot around him, but instead we did the awkward left-or-right dance as he swung his hats back and forth, tried to get a bite.

I finally managed to slip around him, but the effort had slowed me down. The vampire darted across the street and into the shadows under the tracks again. I hit the shadows only seconds before Ethan . . . and nearly too late to hear the engine race. The driver’s door still open, a beat-up Trans Am barreled toward us. The door slammed, the vampire’s face shadowed in the vehicle, but I could see—and sense—perfectly well the handgun that pointed out the window.

I moved with only instinct, and without thought.

“Move!” I told Ethan, and turned in front of him, pushing him to the ground as the shot rang out, the sound slapping off brick and concrete and steel. Tires squealed as the car jerked forward, turned onto the street, and screamed into the night.

I rolled off Ethan. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” he said testily. “You stepped in front of me.”

“I will always step in front of you. You named me Sentinel.”

“In the larger scheme, not my wisest decision.”

I wasn’t going to argue with that admission of fallibility, even if I disagreed with the sentiment. “You can’t take it back now. I’m finally getting good at it.”

“Jesus, Merit.”

“What? Are you hurt?” I didn’t see blood, so I looked around, then back at Ethan. “Is he back?”

“No,” he said, with silvering eyes that shone in the dark. “You’ve been shot.”

“No, I haven’t.” I glanced down at my arm, saw the crimson rivulets that flowed down my arm and now pooled into my open palm. Adrenaline faded, and I felt the spear of fire that lanced through my biceps.

“Damn it,” I said, my vision dimming at the edges. The world began to spin, but I gritted my teeth. I was a goddamn vampire, and I was absolutely not going to pass out. Not after chasing a murderer and taking a bullet for my Master.

“It looks like I took another bullet for you,” I said.

Ethan grunted, ripped off the bottom hem of his shirt, and pulled a handkerchief from his pocket. He folded and pressed the handkerchief to my arm, then used the hem to secure the handkerchief in place and create a make-do bandage.

“Ow,” I said when he secured it a little more snugly than he should have. Fast healing was one of our better biological advantages, but we still felt pain, and this hurt like a son of a bitch.

“You did that on purpose,” I said as he tucked the ends of the fabric into place.

“You did that on purpose. It’s your fault you got shot.”

“Technically, it’s the vampire’s fault. And I’d still rather be shot than listen to Luc harangue me because I let you get shot.”

Ethan just growled. He was so adorable in ultra-alpha protective Master mode, with his blond hair and green eyes, and a slightly murderous expression on his face.

I frowned. “I think blood loss is making me loopy.”

“Well, this isn’t exactly how I thought the evening would go, either.” The bandage assembled, he sat back on his heels, brushed the hair from my face. “Could you try not to get shot again? I believe this is your third time.”

“Fourth,” I said, wincing as pain waved across my arm. “And I promise to try not to get shot again. Because it really does hurt.”

He leaned forward, pressed a soft kiss to my lips. “Steady on, my brave Sentinel.”

Brave . . . and slightly bullet-ridden.

•   •   •

Ethan grabbed water and aspirin from a corner store, which he administered as well as any experienced nurse.

We waited until my dizziness had passed; then we walked back toward the alley. Mallory and Catcher stood beside a peeling pier that supported the tracks, staring down at the body. Humans had already begun to gather on the sidewalk, trying to get a glimpse of the man on the ground.

Catcher’s eyes narrowed in concern at my bandaged arm. “What the hell happened to you?”

“Vampire, Trans Am, handgun.”

“He shot you?” Mallory said, horror on her face.

“That was the handgun part. And I’m fine. Nurse Sullivan fixed it up.” Nurse Darth Sullivan, I thought, wondering if he’d pulled the fabric tight enough to cut off my circulation completely. But since I didn’t think I was playing my best snark game at this point, I kept the insult to myself.

“Are you all right?” I asked her.

She showed me her skinned elbow. “And sore rump, but otherwise fine. It’s not every day you get elbowed by a murderer.”

“He got away?” Catcher asked.

“That was the Trans Am part,” Ethan said. “I can describe the vehicle, but it didn’t have plates, so there won’t be much to go on. And we didn’t get a good look at his face. White male, probably six feet tall. Slender. Dark hair, thick beard.”

Mallory must have noticed my worried expression. “You sure you’re all right?” she asked.

“I’m fine,” I assured her. Or would be, as soon as my arm began to heal. The pain had already changed, from a sharp-edged sting to a throbbing, dull ache.

We turned our attention to the man on the ground.

Shifters could heal human injuries if they shifted into their respective animal forms. If they were capable of shifting. I guessed the victim hadn’t been able to manage it.

“He wasn’t here very long before you left,” Catcher said. “He was still warm.”

“I felt some kind of magic,” Mallory said, looking down at him. “I don’t know what it was, but there was something here.”

There was no outward sign of magic here—just the shifter and the vampire. Ethan looked at her quizzically. “Have you ever felt anything like that before?”

She shook her head, blew out a breath through pursed lips. “No. Never. And I gotta say, it’s freaking me out a little bit. I’m not sure I want to be the girl who can suddenly sense death.” She put a hand on her chest, her mouth screwed into an “O” of horror. “Oh my God, what if I’m the new Grim Reaper?”

“You aren’t the new Grim Reaper,” I said. “And not to be more grim, but there are a lot of people on the planet, and I’m pretty sure someone is always dying. Can you feel anybody else?”

Mallory blinked. “Well, no, now that you mention it. Which is a relief.”

“So you felt it because of this shifter’s proximity,” Ethan said, “or his magic.” He glanced at Catcher. “Did you feel anything?”

He shook his head. “I didn’t. But she’s more sensitive than I am that way. Which is fine by me. We called Chuck,” he added.

My grandfather, Chuck Merit, was Chicago’s supernatural Ombudsman, a human who acted as a liaison between the Chicago Police Department and the city’s magical populations. Catcher was one of his employees, as was Jeff Christopher, a tech-savvy shifter and mostly white-hat hacker.

“We called Gabriel, too,” Catcher added. “That seemed like the best thing to do, all things considered.”

Ethan nodded. Gabriel Keene was the Apex of the North America Central Pack of shifters. This shifter was in his territory, so he was most likely one of Gabe’s people.

As if sensing the direction of my thoughts, Catcher put a protective arm around Mallory, pulled her closer. But she wouldn’t have anything to fear from Gabe. He’d sheltered her, retrained her, after her addiction to black magic threatened to destroy her.

Sorcerer and shifter had become allies, too. And now a vampire threatened to strain the Pack’s relationship with all of us.

I’d like to have a look around the alley, I told Ethan. Why don’t you stay here with them? I glanced back at the ever-growing crowd. The fewer people milling around in whatever evidence is around here, the better.

That’s a good thought, Ethan said with a nod, and pulled a pocket-sized black flashlight from his pocket, handed it to me. It wasn’t a Cubs flashlight, but it would do.

“I’m going to check things out,” I said to Mallory and Catcher. At their nods, I switched on the flashlight and moved into the darkness of the alley.

I walked slowly forward, flipping the small but powerful beam back and forth across the ground. Most of it was paved, except for a short stretch behind a row of town houses. Their back doors opened onto a small strip of grass, just enough space for a barbecue grill or an area for pets to take care of business.

The usual suspects were stuck to the broken and stained concrete. Discarded paper, gum, empty plastic bottles. Farther down the alley, cars were wedged into slots only an automotive savant could squeeze into. Bikes were locked onto a forest green rack bolted into the ground, and the smell of beer and fried food lingered above the insistent smell of death.

The railroad trestles rested on square concrete pedestals. The beam of light flickered across one, highlighting what, at first glance, I’d thought was a graffiti tag. But there seemed to be more letters than the few that usually made up a sprayed tag.

I stopped and swung the light back again.

The entire pedestal, probably two-and-a-half-feet tall and just as wide, was covered by lines of characters drawn in black. Row after row of them. Most were symbols—circles and triangles and squares with lines and marks through them, half circles, arrows and squares. Some looked like tiny hieroglyphs—a dragon here, a tiny skeleton there, drawn with a surprisingly careful hand.

They buzzed with a faint and tinny magic, which explained the care—or vice versa. I didn’t recognize the flavor of the magic; it was sharper and more metallic than any I’d run across before, and a sharp contrast to the earthier scent of shifters.

Magic symbols twenty feet away from a shifter’s death. That couldn’t have been a coincidence.

I knelt down, shone light across the pedestal. I knew what these were. They were alchemy symbols, marks used by practitioners who’d believed they could transmute lead into gold, or create a philosopher’s stone that would allow them immortality. I’d studied medieval literature in graduate school. I hadn’t studied magical texts per se, but they’d occasionally appear in a manuscript or the gilded marginalia of a carefully copied text.

Still, while I recognized them for what they were, I didn’t have the knowledge to decipher them. That was a job for people with substantive knowledge about magical languages. Catcher or Mallory, or maybe Paige. She was a sorcerer, formally the Order’s archivist and at present the girlfriend of the Cadogan House Librarian.

I scanned the rest of the pedestal, and the beam flashed across something on the ground—drops of blood. Blood had been shed here, and plenty of it. But why? Because of the vampire? Because of the markings?

I’ve got something, I told Ethan, and waited until he and Mallory gathered beside me. Catcher stayed back with the shifter.

I kept the light trained on the pedestal so they could review the markings, then shifted the circle of light to the blood on the ground below.

“Part of the attack took place here,” Ethan said. “And the symbols?”

“They look alchemical to me,” I said.

Mallory’s gaze tracked back and forth across the lines. “Agreed. Symbols of alchemical elements, built into an equation. That’s why they’re in rows.”

“Wait,” Ethan said. “You mean alchemy, as in changing lead into gold?”

“That’s the most well-known transmutation,” Mallory said, hands on her hips as she leaned over beside him, peered at the magic. “But folks try to do all sorts of things with the practice. Healing, communicating with the spiritual realm, balancing the elements, distilling something down to its true essence.”

Ethan frowned, looked down at the pedestal again. “So what’s the purpose of this?”

“I had to study alchemy when I took my exams. Although I didn’t use them.” She added that quickly, as if to remind us she hadn’t made use of all the magical Keys in existence to create her black magic. Although she’d certainly used enough of them. “I also watched a lot of Fullmetal Alchemist. Quality show. Quality.”

“There are television shows about alchemy?” Ethan asked.

“It’s anime.”

Ethan’s expression stayed blank.

“Never mind,” she said, waving it away. “We’ll have a marathon later. But for now”—she pointed to one symbol, a circle with a dot in the middle—“that’s the sun. And that’s Taurus,” she added, pointing to a small circle topped by a semicircle of horns. “Merit’s astrological sign, as it turns out. It’s probably not related to you,” she said, glancing at me. “It’s just part of the equation related to the positions of the stars. That’s one of the things that makes the alchemy work, at least theoretically.” She put her hands on her hips. “If we want to know why this is here, we need to translate all the symbols and figure out what they mean together, in context.”

We walked back to Catcher, and Mallory explained what we’d seen.

“How does alchemy match up against the Keys?” I asked them. The Keys were the building blocks of magic, at least in Catcher’s particular philosophy.

“It’s just a different way to approach the energy, the power.” He shrugged. “You might say a language different from mine, but a language all the same.”

Mallory looked at him, nodded. “With rules, just like any language would follow.”

“So, who put them here?” Ethan asked. “And why are they near the scene of a shifter’s death by a vampire?”

Mallory looked at Catcher. “I don’t know anyone who practices alchemy, not even through SWOB.” Sorcerers Without Borders was an organization Mallory had created to help newbie sorcerers in the Midwest. It was help she hadn’t gotten when she first learned she had magic—but that she definitely could have used.

“It would have to be a sorcerer, right?” I asked. Everyone looked back at the concrete. We’d been looking for a sorcerer, after all. This wasn’t the kind of magic that Adrien Reed had dabbled in, at least as far as we knew, and there was nothing to tie him to this. That meant we had another sorcerer, another potential enemy, and this one involved in the death of a shifter.

“Yeah,” Mallory said. “These would have been made by a sorcerer.”

“Is it dark magic?”

She opened her mouth, closed it again. “I was going to give you a trite answer. A quick no so everybody would feel better.” She looked back at the pedestal, considered. “Yeah. There’s some darkness there. Not entirely surprising, considering the bloodshed, the murder. Even if the magic didn’t cause them, there’s clearly some kind of relationship.

“But it won’t affect me,” she added. “Dark magic affects the maker and the recipient. I didn’t make it, and there’s no reason to believe it’s supposed to affect us. So you don’t have to worry about me.”

“We aren’t worried,” Ethan said, and the confidence in his voice made her relax a little.

“Okay,” she said. “Okay.”

She said the first one for us; I was pretty sure she said the second one for herself.

“So we’ve got a sorcerer, a shifter, and a vampire here together,” Catcher said. “And the shifter ends up dead.”

“VSS,” Mallory said, the acronym for the “game” she’d invented earlier. “And the first round is a dead loss.”