CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

EASEL LIKE SUNDAY MORNING

Dawn came and went, and dusk followed again. I checked on Jonah, was assured by Scott that he was awake, if not yet at a hundred percent. That was, at least, part of the weight off my shoulders.

Kane thought the QE was the symbol he’d seen. That pretty much confirmed our controlling-sups theory, and it was terrifying to have gotten that right. Catcher and Mallory would work on a countermagic. We just had to hope we had time to finalize it.

Jeff had given us a list of the locations Mallory had pegged as Quinta Essentia—QE—hot spots. Gabriel volunteered shifters to visit the spots, take photographs. Malik coordinated joint shifter and guard teams, and they’d been sent across the city to gather the rest of the images, which I was helping Paige translate as they came in. Luc coordinated extra security for the House; since the defenses had been breached, it wasn’t hard to imagine Reed would take advantage and take a shot at us.

Paige and I sat at the library table that was starting to become a second home to me. Of the dozen sites, information about two of them had come in. We’d gathered every easel and whiteboard in the House and the three nearest office supply stores. After bargaining with the Librarian to move some tables around (Paige took that one), we used the easels to create a mock-up of the QE. That way, we could post the boards on the easels in their relative positions and in the correct order.

We stared at them, walked around them, brainstormed near them, trying to figure out the symbols we were missing—the ones that would give us the keys to the whole thing.

My phone rang, Jeff’s image on the screen. I answered it, but not until after I’d gazed around shiftily for the Librarian. I didn’t think he’d want me talking on the phone in the library, but no harm if he hadn’t seen it.

“Merit,” I said. Quietly, just in case.

“I found the bank.”

“The bank?” I asked absently, head tilted as I tried to understand the transition from one set of symbols to the next.

“For the safe-deposit box key.”

I stopped moving. “No shit?”

“No shit. It’s for a box at Chicago Security Bank and Trust. The key is a really old-fashioned shape. They don’t use them much anymore, and I found people complaining about it on a forum online.”

“You are a genius!”

“I try. And it turns out, Gabriel Keene is a co-owner of the account.”

Now, that was interesting. “And was Gabe aware of that fact?”

“I mean, I only—cough, cough—received this private bank information anonymously.” Of course he had. “But there’s no signature card on file, at least as far as I can tell from what the anonymous informant passed along.” He said each word carefully, like the FBI was listening in. Which probably wasn’t impossible.

“There’s one more thing,” Jeff said. “The account was set up only a couple of days before Caleb was killed.”

My blood chilled, and my magic must have, too, because Paige looked back at me.

“He got a safe-deposit box, put Gabe’s name on it, hid the key, and was killed,” I said, working through the timeline. “His death might not have been some spur-of-the-moment thing.”

“Yeah,” Jeff said darkly. “That’s what I was thinking. You should get down there.”

I checked the clock. “It’s late. What time does the bank close?”

“We’re in luck. They run special summer hours two nights a week. This is one of those nights.”

I was already rising. “You’ll talk to Gabe?”

“Already done,” Jeff said. “I’m still programming. He’ll meet you there.”

•   •   •

Ethan and I met Gabriel at the bank, and we snuck in right under the wire. A woman in khakis and a bright polo—CSB&T embroidered in white on the pocket—was putting keys in the lock when we arrived.

“You’re closing?” Gabriel asked.

“Nope!” she said with a smile. “You’ve got ten minutes. I’m just locking the side door here.”

“We’d actually like to open a safe-deposit box,” Gabriel said. “I just found out I was named as an owner, but I’m not certain what’s in it.”

She smiled. “Of course. You have a key and identification?”

“I do.” Gabriel pulled out his wallet—black leather on a silver chain—slid out his ID, handed it and the key to the woman.

“I’ll just check this,” she said, and gestured us to follow her. She walked behind a desk, sat down in a rolling chair, and began to type.

“All right,” she said after a moment, handing the items back to him. She opened a drawer, pulled out a second key on a long silk cord, and rose again. “Just follow me, please.”

Easy enough, Ethan said silently.

The deposit boxes were in a long vault behind a barred door, open since we were still, technically, there during business hours. The woman walked to a row of boxes about halfway down the right-hand wall, slid her key into one of the two slots, gestured for Gabriel to do the same.

When the tumblers moved, she pulled open the small door, then took out the long black box. She slid out a tray built cleverly into the wall, and put the box on top of it.

“You only have five minutes,” she said, glancing at her watch, “but you’re welcome to visit again tomorrow if you need more time.”

“We can do it in five,” Gabriel said, and waited until she’d left before opening the box.

Gabriel pulled out a single folded piece of paper. Without a word, but with an eyebrow arched, he opened it . . . then handed it to me.

On the piece of torn paper, hastily scribbled, was a list of alchemical symbols.

“Damn,” I whispered, staring at the slanted writing when he offered it to me. “It’s a cipher.”

“You’re sure?” Ethan’s voice, for the first time in days, held a note of hope.

“Yeah. I’m sure.” I held it out so they could both see it, pointed to the first column of scribbles. “These are the icons—the hieroglyphs that are specific to the sorcerer—and what they mean.”

Which meant Caleb Franklin had either found the list or translated the hieroglyphs and put them in a safe-deposit box Gabriel could access.

“Why a safe-deposit box?” Ethan asked. “Why not just tell you what was going on?”

“He tried,” Gabriel said, his words heavy with guilt.

We both looked at him.

“He called me the night before he was killed. I didn’t call him back. Meant to, but got occupied with other things.” He paused, shook his head. “No, that’s not honest. I put it off, because I thought he’d offer more excuses and justifications, and I didn’t want to hear them. But that’s not what he was offering. He learned what Reed was going to do, or some of it, and he wanted to stop it. And they killed him for it.”

“He probably tried to intervene at Wrigleyville,” Ethan said. “Prevent them from finishing the alchemy.”

Gabriel nodded. “And instead they finished him.”

“I’m going to take pictures,” I said, pulling out my phone. “I’ll send them to Paige and Mallory, let them get started. And copy Jeff,” I added, “because we aren’t going to need that algorithm now. We can do a straight translation.”

This was a big break, and all because I’d tried to think like a shifter at Caleb’s house. Lesson learned there.

“Good,” Ethan said. “Because we’re running out of time.”

“Caleb,” Gabriel said as we walked out of the vault again. “They took him out, because they thought he’d destroy their plan. Little did they know he’d already sown the seeds, and they blossomed anyway.”

“He has left a legacy,” Ethan said. “Let’s try to make good on it.”

•   •   •

My phone rang just as we hit the sidewalk and the bank locked its doors behind us.

I pulled it out, found Jeff’s number on the screen.

“Did you see it?” He asked the question before I even managed to say hello.

“See what?” I said, holding up a hand to get Ethan and Gabe to stop beside me.

“The watermark on the paper you sent me.”

I stopped on the sidewalk, pulled out the paper I’d wrapped in Ethan’s handkerchief, just in case.

“Bottom left-hand corner,” Jeff said. “I figured you didn’t see it—or feel it—or you would have mentioned it.”

I held up the paper, with its tight, slanted writing, to the streetlight. Sure enough, in the bottom corner, was the leading edge of a circular watermark—a spot where the paper had been lightly embossed. It looked like a company seal, and not just for any company.

I couldn’t read the entire seal, but the portion I could see was clear enough. The letters EED INDUSTR were visible, along with the tip of a building.

“Holy shit,” I murmured.

“Yeah,” Jeff said. “That list is on Reed Industries paper. Reed would probably say Caleb Franklin stole it, but then he’d have to explain how Caleb got access to his offices, which opens up a can of worms. In any event, combined with the alchemy, Chuck thinks it’s enough for a warrant for Reed’s office.”

I threw a victorious fist in the air. “Damn good job, Jeff.”

“It’s teamwork,” he said. “And it’s Caleb Franklin. This is because of him. And now he has a legacy.”

It was the least we could do for him.

•   •   •

Luc was waiting in the basement when we walked into the House again. We were actually running pretty high, so the dour expression on his face wiped the smiles off ours.

“What’s wrong?” Ethan asked, and Luc slid his gaze to me.

“We found him.”

Ethan looked puzzled, but I knew exactly who he’d meant. “The Rogue?”

Luc nodded, handed me a sheet of paper. Pale skin. Short brown hair. Brown eyes. No beard when this was taken. McDONALD HOUSE was printed across the top of the page. LOGAN HILL was printed across the bottom.

“Logan Hill,” I said. “He was in McDonald House.” McDonald was based in Boston, and one of the oldest Houses in the U.S. Second only to Navarre, if I remembered correctly. It looked like the database search had been successful after all.

Luc nodded. “Matched the eyes. I don’t know if he goes by that name now. Almost certainly not. But once upon a time, he did.”

“Why’d he leave McDonald?” Ethan asked.

“Insubordination. I talked to Will.” That would be Will McDonald, Master of the eponymous House. “He said Hill wasn’t a team player. Lots of skill, but lots of ego that ultimately didn’t work well in the House system.”

“Caleb Franklin and his killer,” I said. “Both supernatural misfits, and both fell in with Adrien Reed. It’s like he’s a magnet for sociopaths.”

“Yeah,” Luc said. “We just need to find his sorcerer. I know this isn’t much, but I wanted you to know that he has an identity now. A name. A file with NAVR, which we will be updating.”

I gave the picture one last look and handed it back to Luc. “Thank you. I appreciate it.”

He nodded, and Ethan put an arm around me.

“It seems like all this is going to come to a head pretty soon,” Luc said. “We may not find him by then—this Logan. But sooner or later, we’ll find him.”

I doubted we’d have to wait that long. He’d probably find us first. But for now, we had bigger concerns.

“Put him on the back burner,” I said. “We have bigger news.”

“Oh?” Luc glanced between us.

“We have a cipher for the rest of the alchemy—the symbols we couldn’t translate. And the cipher was on Reed Industries stationery, which my grandfather thinks is enough for a warrant for Reed.”

Luc whistled. “Productive trip.”

“Damn straight,” I said. “I’m going to go upstairs, help Paige to finish the translation.”

“Do that,” Ethan said. “It’s that, or lose Chicago . . . and possibly ourselves.”

•   •   •

Two hours later, Paige and I stood in the library in identical poses: legs spread, arms crossed, chins down. The shifter-vampire teams had delivered the rest of the symbols from the QE’s tangents, and we’d arranged all the posters on their respective easels and marked them up with Caleb’s cipher. When we’d marked everything up, we took more photographs, sent them to Mallory and Catcher for the countermagic, and then walked the entire QE like a labyrinth, trying to ferret out from the magic the details of Reed’s plan.

We weren’t comforted.

“There’s nothing that suggests this is limited to shifters,” Paige said, squinting as she leaned in to look at one of the panels in the inner circle. She touched a finger on one of the symbols Caleb had decoded, which looked like an asterisk with a circle around it. It actually meant “magic” and, when paired with the skeleton icon, seemed to refer to those of us who possessed magic or were magical, whatever the form or degree.

“And I don’t want anyone poking around in my brain,” she added, standing straight again.

“Me, neither,” I said, and purposefully made myself put away the fact that Logan had already tried.

As far as the mechanics went, Mallory had been right on. The equation moved from one panel to the next, back and forth in a way that mirrored the magic of a sorcerer (illustrated by the drawing of a crucible) against that of the vampire (a crescent moon). Like the layers of glass in a camera lens, we thought the mirroring focused and magnified the magic. And when coupled with the waves of nullification would basically substitute the evildoers’ will for the supernaturals’.

It was terrifyingly creative.

The library door opened, and we both glanced back. Ethan walked in. His expression was too neutral for me to gauge his mood, but his magic was all over the place.

“Your grandfather just reported in. Detective Jacobs got a judge and got a warrant for Reed’s downtown offices. They’re preparing to execute it right now. He also called Nick Breckenridge, advised him of the search. He’ll be in place if they collect anything.”

Nick Breckenridge was a family friend, and a very well-respected journalist in Chicago. He had a Pulitzer for his investigative journalism, and would do a thorough job with Reed.

“They’ll collect something,” I said. “I don’t know what, and I don’t know how much, but Reed’s too arrogant not to have something about the Circle close at hand. He thinks he’s invincible. That will have made him sloppy.” I frowned at Ethan. “That’s good news, so why do you look unhappy?”

“If Reed doesn’t already know, he’ll find out. That may accelerate whatever else he has planned.”

“That’s a risk,” I agreed. “That’s why everyone is doing their part.”

He looked at the easels. “And how are you doing?”

“Good on the magic,” Paige put in. “Dire on the results.”

Ethan crossed his arms, expression transitioning to Masterly concentration. “And how does it work?”

Paige gave him the summary. “It’s very clever,” she concluded. “And narcissistic, and a smidge sociopathic. But very clever.”

“That sounds about right. Will it work?”

“Kyle Farr is evidence it already worked,” she said. “But on a smaller scale. We figured the symbol had to have a purpose—some reason to use that much magic, that much energy, for it to just be a laser light show.”

Ethan slid his hands into his pockets and regarded us with Masterly suspicion. “Why do I feel like you’re preparing me for something?”

“Because we are,” Paige said. “We think it’s a boundary. Or, maybe more accurately, a net.”

“A net . . . ,” Ethan began, then trailed off as realization struck him. “For the supernaturals in its border. The magic is supposed to reach all the supernaturals within its territory?”

Paige nodded.

“That’s hundreds of square miles,” he said. “And if the QE works the way the sorcerer’s sample with Kyle Farr did, he’ll control every sup in that area?”

“Yeah,” Paige said with a nod. “If you weren’t scared before, you should be now.”

•   •   •

We left Paige to call Mallory and coordinate on the countermagic while we worked in the Ops Room on the House’s response to the more general threat of Adrien Reed.

That Jeff, Catcher, and Mallory were walking in the front door when we reached the first floor—and that they’d come to the House together without even a warning phone call—didn’t ease my concerns.

“What’s happened?” Ethan asked, apparently of the same mind.

“A lieutenant in Vice, one of the men on the Circle task force, got a wild hair,” Catcher said. “He learned about the document pull, decided this was the time to come down on the Circle and on Reed. His team raided Reed’s home about an hour ago.”

“How did that happen?” Ethan asked.

“There was a leak, probably an informant in the department or the judge’s office that issued the warrant. We aren’t sure; Jacobs is looking into it. Anyway, Reed’s lawyers met them at the door, but by the time they made it inside, the Reeds were gone.”

“He’ll escalate,” Ethan said. “He’d been waiting for the right time to move. This is probably it.”

Catcher nodded, and his expression was bleak. “That’s why we’re here. The Vice guys were going through Reed’s house when a group of River trolls—two men and two women—showed up. There was a shoot-out. Four cops were killed, and all four of the trolls.”

They were the fruitarians we’d discussed a few days ago, large men and women who lived primarily beneath the bascule bridges that crossed the Chicago River.

“Jesus,” Ethan muttered, low and sorrowful.

There was pounding on the stairs, and Luc raced into the front room, magic flurrying around him. He stopped when he reached us, and his expression was as cheerless as Catcher’s.

“The raid?” Luc asked.

Catcher nodded.

“We just heard on the scanner,” Luc said. “They’d kept the radios off during the op.”

“They wanted to keep it quiet in case Reed had informants inside the CPD,” Catcher said. “It didn’t seem to matter much.”

“This was probably a one-off,” Mallory said. “Kyle Farr, but with trolls. We’d know if he’d started the big magic. But he won’t wait much longer.”

“Did Paige catch you? Talk to you about the net?”

“The net?” Luc asked.

“We think the QE is a boundary for the magic,” Ethan said. “Or, if you prefer, a trap for everyone within it.”

Luc’s eyes widened. Understandably.

“We can’t let this happen,” I said. “We can’t let him take us all over.” I could feel the rising panic, and I ignored it, wouldn’t let it rise again. I wouldn’t let his glamour happen again.

“We won’t,” Mallory said, and pulled a plastic bag of what looked like braided friendship bracelets out of the messenger bag she’d canted over one shoulder.

“We haven’t had time to finish the countermagic. We’re working on it—and there are supplies in the car. We can finish it on-site. But I was able to make a few of these. They’re shielded,” she said, handing one to Catcher, to Ethan, then looked at me. “Wear your apotrope. It should keep them out of your head. It’s probably a better shield than these”—she lifted up her right wrist to show the bracelet she wore—“but they’re all I had time to prepare.”

The apotrope was a bracelet with a raven-engraved charm Mallory had bought in what she called Chicago’s “Scandinavian District,” magicked for good luck. I’d used it to keep Faux Balthasar out of my head. Made sense it would work here, too. I’d have to remember to grab it.

“We thank you for the effort,” Ethan said, sliding on a neon pink and green bracelet. He held it up against his immaculate white button-down. “How does it look?”

“Oh so fashionable,” Catcher said, sliding on a navy and red one.

Mallory offered the bag of bracelets to Luc. “I don’t have enough for everyone in the House,” she said. “But at least everybody on the ops team can have one.”

“Appreciated,” Luc said with a nod. “When we figure out what we can do, we’ll hand them out.”

“Paige can ward the rest of the House,” Mallory said. “Although that means she’ll have to stay here.”

“Might be best to limit the number of supernaturals running around out there,” Ethan said. “Does it matter how many supernaturals are here?”

She shook her head. “No. The ward will be on the physical structure. You could fill it to the rafters with vampires, and the ward won’t become any less effective.”

“Then we’ll load it up,” Ethan said, and looked at Luc. “Call Morgan, Scott. Explain, and tell them they can send their vampires here or out of the net.” He looked at Mallory. “Will that be enough? If they’re outside the symbol’s boundaries?”

“Give me a buffer,” she said. “A few hundred yards outside the symbol should do it.”

Ethan nodded. “We’ll call it a mile to be safe.” He looked back at Luc. “Call Gabriel, too, and update him. Same offer for the Pack.”

Luc scowled. “There are already shifters on the door and the gate. The House won’t be happy about more coming here.”

“It’s unlikely Gabriel will accept the offer,” Ethan said. “But we make the offer because it’s the right thing to do. It’s easy to be an asshole.” He smiled, but there wasn’t much happiness in it. “And harder to do the right thing. We do it anyway.”

“Aye, aye, boss. We’ll get some bracelets to the men on the gate.”

Ethan looked at Catcher. “The nymphs? The fairies?”

The city’s mercenary fairies weren’t exactly our allies anymore. All the more reason to ensure that they weren’t suited up as soldiers for Reed.

“We’ve gotten the word out. Told the Order, too. And Annabelle.”

“Good,” Ethan said. “There will be some we can’t reach. But the fewer supernaturals we give him to work with, the better off we’ll be.” He looked at Mallory. “How will he work this?”

Mallory squeezed her eyes closed, kneaded her forehead with her fingertips. “This is a big operation that’s going to need a lot of power. We’re talking about, what, a few thousand supernaturals within the net? The magic has to be powerful enough to affect them all, or it’s not much good. A sorcerer carries power innately. But this is exponentially larger than one person.”

“So, how will he do it?” Ethan asked.

“If it was me,” Mallory said, opening her eyes again, “I’d either have a generator, or I’d tie right into the grid, maybe with a transformer that turns electrical power into magical power. And I’d put it as close to the middle of the QE as I could. That makes the spreading of the magic more efficient.”

“So downtown,” Catcher said.

Mallory nodded. “If it was me. And he’d want high ground, too. Taller than Cadogan House.”

Ethan looked at me. “Any sense of where he’d go? A building that he’d want to use for this?”

There was, of course, one building that he’d wanted most of all—the one he’d wrenched from my father.

I looked at Ethan. “Towerline. We’d thought Reed had wanted it for his portfolio. Maybe that hadn’t been the only reason.”

Ethan looked at Luc. “Assemble everyone. We won’t lose anyone else on my watch. We take Reed down, and we do it tonight.”