Dark Debt

“If Morgan’s grasp of the situation is correct, she sounds like she was an addict,” I said after a bubbling sip.

Ethan rubbed his temples. “She had no need of any of it. She was lovely. The House is beautiful. She was well connected, and very much a part of the GP’s inner sanctum. I don’t understand it.”

“Respectfully,” Malik said, taking a seat again. “We don’t need to understand it. We just need to examine its depth and help them figure out a way to get them out of it.”

“Best-case scenario?” Ethan asked.

“A manageable sum certain the AAM decides to pay off?” Malik suggested.

“I don’t know,” Catcher said. “I don’t see the Circle being satisfied by any reasonable sum. You’ll gauge the damage, of course,” he said to Malik, “but what incentive do they have to turn off the faucet? I don’t see them walking away from this. Not with a catch this large.”

“Which means you don’t see them backing off unless the entire organization is broken down,” Ethan said.

Catcher nodded. “Morgan’s got an opportunity to do that, which I suspect is why Chuck wanted to walk him out. It would be a coup for the CPD to bring down the Circle.”

“If they’re so big, so powerful, how are they still operating?” I wondered. “I mean, surely there are screwups, snitches, search warrants.”

“I imagine what nearly happened to Sanford King is one of the reasons,” Ethan said, glancing at Catcher for confirmation. “If you take out your enemies, perceived or otherwise, you tend to keep everyone else in line.”

“And they are remarkably careful,” Catcher said, “and remarkably well connected. And God knows I’m no fan of Seth Tate, but Diane Kowalcyzk doesn’t have nearly the grip on the city that he did. As mayor, he wouldn’t have objected to the Circle per se, but he would have demanded a cut.”

“And Kowalcyzk?” Ethan asked.

“Not interesting enough to the Circle to bother with. Word is, they see her as a temp, and not worth the effort.”

Ethan cocked his head. “You have contacts in the organization?”

“No,” Catcher said. “That’s the problem. With a lot of organized crime, there’s an obvious family structure, a clear hierarchy. The hierarchy generally demands respect from the capos, the other players, so you know who they are.

“The Circle’s not like that. They’re not looking for glory; they’re looking for long-term plays. Businesses, people, Houses they can sink their fangs into—sorry for the pun—and ensure an income stream over time. There’s actually very little outright theft, not like the older-style gangs. A lot of this is cybercrime. Phishing schemes, transfer of international funds, hacking, extortion for cybercoin schemes. And the leadership is very decentralized, very big on anonymity, and very careful about giving any one individual too much information. That’s why the CPD doesn’t have them tagged in any significant way.”

“How do you know so much about them?” Malik wondered.

“Accumulated knowledge. I was fascinated by the mob as a kid, even before I came to Chicago, and I’d read a lot about Al Capone, Bugs Moran, Johnny Torrio. I’ve kept up with the news, the stories, the talk, mostly as a hobby. Jeff knows hackers, and the Circle pops up in that community. And, of course, your grandpa hears things. Supernaturals trust him. And being supernaturals, they tend to stay on the sidelines, or get ignored by humans. Word filters down, and you put the pieces together a bit at a time.”

Catcher frowned. “We figured they’d get involved with supernaturals at some point or other—I’d guessed magic, actually. Spell-selling, maybe trafficking in magical creatures, stuff that’s actually within our jurisdiction. But we hadn’t seen anything like that. Unfortunately, this tells us our thinking was accurate.”

“And that they were very strategic,” Ethan said. “If the interest was as high as Morgan suggested, they found—or perhaps ‘cultivated’ is a better word for it—what sounds like a very good source of revenue in Navarre House. But we’ll see what the audit turns up.”

Catcher sighed. “I’ve got no lost love for Morgan as a Master, although I thought he was a good enough guy before that. But I don’t envy him this. This could be enough to break the House, certainly to cause a lot of pain, a lot of trouble, a lot of hardship for many, many years to come.”

Ethan nodded. “Unfortunately, I tend to agree with you.” He looked at Malik. “You’ll make arrangements to review the books at dusk.”

Malik nodded. “I do love math. Numbers are orderly.”

“And real life rarely is,” Ethan said.

Malik opened his mouth to respond, but before he could say anything else, Juliet rushed in, eyes wide, and skipping from Luc to Ethan.

“Sorry to interrupt, Sire. Kelley called. He’s on the move. Kelley followed, has her lapel camera. We’ve got the feed live downstairs.”

There seemed no point in asking who “he” was, or whether we’d make the journey to watch it.

Chapter Ten

HE CAN DO MAGIC

We reconvened in the Ops Room, most of the guards’ eyes already on the wall screen.

There, in the middle, stood Balthasar.

He wore black pants and the same high-collared coat he’d worn last night. He looked what I’d have called vampirically handsome—dark hair against pale skin, eyes gleaming with promise and excitement. His scars peeked from beneath the edge of the collar.