Vicious Grace

“I’m really sorry I left you hanging,” Harlan said, holding out a manila envelope. I accepted it with a smile.



“No trouble,” I said. “We weren’t out there long.”



The envelope held a ring with two keys, a magnetic key card, a sheet of paper with what looked like a four-digit PIN, and a restaurant guide. I pulled out the restaurant guide.



“That’s mine,” Harlan said. “I mean, it’s from me. I knew you were new to the Windy City, and I thought it might help. While you got your bearings.”



“Do they really call it the Windy City, or is that just for tourists?” Ex asked, and Harlan’s smile got a little more nervous.



“One thing,” I said, breaking in before the guy could dig himself in any deeper. “I know we’ve got it listed in the database, but could you just remind me what floor and room we’re heading to?”



“Nineteenth floor,” Harlan said. “You’ve got 1904. Just turn right when you get out of the elevators and it’ll be halfway down on the right. Beautiful view of the lake.”



“Have you been in it?” Chogyi Jake asked. “Not the lake, I mean. The apartment?”



Harlan looked nonplussed.



“We have very strict instructions about 1904,” Harlan said. “We don’t go in or out unless the owner or the owner’s listed agent is present. That’s a very solid rule.”



“So you’ve never been in,” I said.



“No, miss,” he said. “Never.”



I looked at Aubrey, who raised his eyebrow a millimeter. For someone accustomed to dealing with the rich and powerful, Harlan was a rotten liar. The man seemed to sense that he was on thin ice. When he spoke again, his voice was louder and more cheerful.



“My card’s in there too. It has the office number and my private line. If there’s anything I can help with, just let me know. Any time.”



He beat a hasty retreat, and the four of us hauled our suitcases across the wide lobby to the bank of wood-paneled elevators. It took me a minute to figure out that the car wouldn’t move until I waved the magnetic key card over a flat black sensor panel, but then we rose up smoothly, almost silently.



“Well,” Ex said. “That was interesting. I guess getting into the place isn’t too hard.”



Compared to the Los Angeles property, 1904 was simple. Two locks, corresponding to the two keys. A simple magical warning system and a network of aversion wards that made the place feel unwelcoming and dangerous until Chogyi Jake placated them with a handful of salt and a drop of my blood. And the place itself . . .



Imagine a good, solid cottage on the cliffs above a cold sea. Three bedrooms, a living space, a kitchen. Wooden floors, white walls, thick wool rugs of gray and fading red. Rough-hewn wood furniture filled five rooms, and old woodblock prints in cheap frames were the only art. The dining room table was big enough for eight, but with only three chairs. The kitchen had wide, pale linoleum counters and a freestanding gas stove in green-and-cream enamel that looked like it belonged in the 1930s. When I pulled back the thick cotton curtains, the rainstorm, silent behind the triple-paned glass, and the overwhelming view of the black lake framed by skyscrapers to the south was like something out of a Magritte painting. Too implausible to be real. We all walked through the place for a few minutes, just to get our bearings. Everything was covered with dust. Eric clearly hadn’t popped for a cleaning service.



Aubrey was the first one to put his finger on what was so dislocating.



“There’s nothing here,” he said.



Every one of Uncle Eric’s properties had shown the effects of his occult life. Strange books and unsettling objects were arranged in boxes, crates, and shelves all around the world. This place was so simple, so clean, so empty that it felt wrong. I saw it in their faces that it set us all on edge.



“Do you think . . .” Ex began. “Did Harlan rob the place?”



“We wouldn’t know if something was missing,” Chogyi Jake said. “There’s no inventory to compare it with. And it does seem . . . spare, doesn’t it? I thought it would be bigger too. Did anyone else expect it to be bigger?”



We stood silently, each of us looking at the others.



“Okay,” I said at last. “Is there anything we can do about that?”



After about a heartbeat, all three of them shook their heads and made negative grunts.



“Then let’s table it and move on. How about we see if there’s any food here, then unpack and clean up a little, and I’ll call Kim.”



AN HOUR later, Kim was sitting on the cowskin couch. She had a new haircut that softened her features and left her looking a little less like Nicole Kidman. Still, the last year hadn’t been kind to her. She’d put on five or ten pounds, and they didn’t actually suit her. Her skin was paler than I remembered, and her eyes had a sunken look. Her expression was the same, and I had to remind myself that her closed, brittle manner had put me off the first time I’d met her too.



Ex had moved one of the kitchen chairs into the living space, Aubrey sat in a chair that matched the couch, Chogyi Jake sat on the floor with a cup of green tea in his hands, and I stood in the door frame to the dining room as if I wasn’t sure I was supposed to be there.



I hated it that my gut went tight, seeing her with Aubrey. It had been easier that first time in Denver. Aubrey had been in a coma, for one thing. By the time he’d come back, she’d left. From the way they talked now, you wouldn’t know it was the first time they’d seen each other in years.



“But what’s this Oonishi guy trying to prove?” Aubrey said. “I mean, does he have a hypothesis?”



“It’s an exploratory protocol,” Kim said. “The idea is to provide a baseline for further work. And yes, it’s hey-look-at-me science and exactly the sort of study that pisses you off. But what can I tell you? He gets grants.”



Aubrey shook his head, but his expression was easy. Yes, he thought the sleep guy was doing lousy science. Yes, it pissed him off. But the fact that Kim knew all that even before she started talking pulled the sting. All this was part of a conversation they’d had countless times before I knew either one of them, complete with the private shorthand that comes from knowing someone well for a long time. They didn’t mean to exclude me. It just worked out that way.



“So the weird dreams,” I said. “Are they the only thing we’re seeing? Or is there something else we can go on, maybe get a toehold on the problem?”



Kim turned to me.



“It’s the only hard data,” she said. “But I’ve been asking around a little bit since I called you, and . . . well, there are stories. Anecdotal evidence.”



“What kind?” Ex asked.



Kim settled back into the couch, her brow breaking into half a dozen tiny lines. She waved vaguely with one hand, holding her fingers as if she had a cigarette between them. I wondered if she’d ever been a smoker.



“Little things,” she said. “One of the recovery room techs was talking about people coming out of anesthetic saying words and phrases in languages they don’t speak. And apparently there’s been a huge upswing in walk-aways in the last year.”



“Walk-aways?” Chogyi Jake said.



“Patients on the care floors go missing,” Kim said. “Walk out on their own, AMA.”



“Against medical advice,” Aubrey said, anticipating my next question.



“Any signs of riders?” Ex asked.



Kim’s sigh was sharp.



“I can’t find anything,” she said carefully. “I used some of the things Eric taught me. The Mark of Kadashman-Enlil and de Lancre’s candle meditation.”



“De Lancre?” Chogyi Jake said, a little taken aback.



“What’s de Lancre?” I asked.



“Seventeenth-century demonologist,” Ex said. “Witchfinder. Burned a lot of women and Jews. He’s not generally very well regarded.”



“Be that as it may,” Kim said, “I can’t find anyone who seems like a good suspect. I won’t say there aren’t any riders in the hospital, but if there are I haven’t found them. And I can’t explain what I have seen.”



“Meaning Oonishi’s data,” Aubrey said.



“Yes,” said Chogyi Jake. “Could we actually see that recording?”



While Kim fished around in her purse, I went back to my bedroom to get my laptop. I had the master suite with my own bathroom and a king-sized bed and a window that would probably look better in the morning. Aubrey’s bags were in there too, open and empty. I stopped for a few seconds to open the dresser and see his socks there beside my own. The little bits of cloth tangled together calmed me, and I went back into the living room feeling a little more grounded. Kim handed me a thumb drive, and I popped it in one of the laptop’s USB ports. It took a minute to get the right application up, but then a huge window opened. We all crowded close to watch. The resolution sucked, but if I squinted, it was like seeing some old silent horror film. Count Orlok rising from his grave. The dream images went white, then flickered with strange things. An eye. A mouth. An oddly shaped hand. I felt a deep stillness in me, like they were things I recognized except for the bit where I didn’t know what they were.



“Well,” Aubrey said from just behind me, “the box looks like maybe an interment binding?”



“Symbolic burial,” Chogyi Jake said with what sounded like agreement. “But if it’s leaking like this, not a totally successful one. It could also be some kind of historical echo.”



“What about that hand?” Ex said. “Did that seem familiar to anyone?”



“Couldn’t tell much about it,” Aubrey said. “It was pretty blurred.”



“Could it have been a Masonic reference?” Kim asked.



“Maybe Daughters of the Nile,” Ex said, but his voice carried a weight of skepticism.



The conversation dove into references and occult theory deeper than my personal bookshelf went. I detached myself from the group and headed for the kitchen. When they’d hashed it out, I’d get the FAQ version. That was how it usually went, and the scheme worked for me well.