by Neill, Chloe
“So she changed her plans?” Ethan asked.
“Or she met with foul play on the way to the airport,” Jeff said. “But I haven’t seen anything in the news along those lines. The receipts in the storage box were dated up to three days before Lupercalia,” Jeff said, showing a spreadsheet that itemized each and every one of them. He’d been busy. “And since we didn’t find anything else in the locker, I’m thinking it’s a red herring. She buys the storage locker because, literally, she’s running out of space in her house.”
“It was that bad?” Mallory wondered.
“It was that bad,” Jeff and I simultaneously agreed.
“It’s also possible she was never going to get onto that plane, and someone went to a lot of trouble to fake us out,” Ethan said.
“That’s a lot of trouble to go to for a Pack outcast,” Catcher said, crossing his arms with a frown.
“Or it’s exactly the right kind of trouble,” Mallory said. “If you’re gonna take out a shifter, why not make it a troublemaker no one’s likely to miss?”
“Or both,” I said. “She’s a troublemaker. She planned to defect back to Alaska. But she didn’t make it to the airport because someone intercepted her.”
“But if you’re going to intercept her, why do it with harpies and a full-on attack? Why not just grab her at home?” Mallory asked.
I shrugged. “For fun and profit?”
“She’s still a shifter,” Jeff said quietly. “She may be a pain in the ass, but she’s still a shifter. She’d put up a fight if she knew they were coming. And if they don’t have power of their own—if they’re using magic and other species to do the fighting for them—maybe they thought the fight was necessary.”
“The elves managed to grab you and Damien,” Catcher pointed out.
“An army of elves,” Jeff said. “With threats and promises to kill Merit if we didn’t cooperate.”
Ethan nodded. “So the harpies were a cover, or a way to completely throw the Pack off balance and sneak Aline away. We talked to her right before the ceremony began, so she didn’t leave long before the attack.” He glanced at Jeff. “I don’t suppose there are cameras in the woods?”
“There are not,” Jeff said. “Just around the house. I’ve run facial recognition, but there’s no footage of her returning from the woods to the house.”
Catcher nodded. “So she didn’t sneak back in when the fight was under way, grab a bag, leave.”
“Let’s play this out from the beginning,” I said, walking closer to the screen and glancing at the timeline. “She was living in her house, running errands, saving stuff. She comes to the Brecks’ house. We meet her in the woods; the ceremony begins. The harpies attack.” I glanced back at the group. “Does anybody remember seeing her during the attack or afterward?”
There was only telling silence.
“Truthfully,” Jeff said, rubbing the back of his neck, “I wasn’t looking for her. But no, I didn’t see her.”
Ethan stepped behind me, pressed his lips to my neck. “I love it when you play detective.”
“I’m working,” I said, but I said it with a smile.
“What’s next?” Jeff asked.
“Niera,” I said. “An elf and a mother. She was taken during or after the glamoury magic was used on the elves. And that attack happened during the day after the harpy attack.”
“If we’re assuming these are kidnappings, what could Aline and Niera possibly have in common? What’s the motivation for taking them both?”
“They’re both sups,” Mallory pointed out. “There are plenty of people out there who hate us. Maybe the motivation’s political.”
But Catcher shook his head. “Political means proving a point. There’s no evidence of murder here, nobody claiming responsibility. By all accounts, the attacks were by two completely different groups.”
“Which we’ve decided is technically impossible, since vampires were the second group. If one group was doing this—or one person—who could it be?” I glanced at Catcher, Mallory. “This is old-fashioned magic, right? The kind you do, or make. So that’s sorcerer territory.”
“Yeah,” Catcher said, shifting uncomfortably. “But it couldn’t be anyone we actually know. Baumgartner, Mallory, Simon, Paige, me. That’s the entire crew within the tristate area. And you’d have to be closer than that.”
“Then we’re missing someone, or ignoring them. Are there any other sups who could do this, who may or may not be extinct, or who we think are just mythological creatures?”
No one answered, so I took that as a no. Frustration building, I looked back at Catcher and Mallory. “Okay. So you guys can funnel the power of the universe, right?”
They shared a glance that was intimate enough to make me uncomfortable.
“I’ll take that as a yes. Are there sups who can, I don’t know, work spells or magic that might seem like the good sorcerer stuff?”
“They’d be sorcerers,” Catcher flatly said.
I took that as a no.
Ethan’s phone beeped, and my heart jumped nervously. He glanced at the screen, nodded, looked at Jeff. “It’s the librarian. Can we conference him in?”
Jeff took Ethan’s phone, and when Jeff tapped a few keys, the librarian appeared on-screen, his dark, wavy hair sticking up in disheveled locks, as it usually did. He wore a polo shirt and a new pair of black-rimmed glasses that, however unnecessary, added to his debonair-scholar appeal.
Beside him sat Paige, a woman who was almost ridiculously attractive. Vibrant, short red hair with a Marilyn-esque wave, pale skin, green eyes. She wore a heather gray Cadogan House sweatshirt that somehow, on her, looked elegant.
We’d found Paige keeping a lock on the Order’s archives in Nebraska until Dominic Tate burned the place down. And then we brought her home, with the last few books she’d managed to pull from the flames.
“Librarian. Paige,” Ethan said in greeting.
Paige offered a small wave.
“Liege,” the librarian said.
“Have you identified any connection between Aline and Niera?” Ethan asked.
“Directly? No,” he said. “No information on Niera beyond what you’ve provided, for obvious reasons. Basic biographical information for Aline, but nothing terribly interesting there. No, the key here isn’t Niera and Aline; it’s their disappearances. Long story short, they aren’t the only ones who are gone.”
If the librarian hadn’t yet gotten everyone’s attention, he got it now. Even the low hum of the computers seemed to drop another decibel.
“They didn’t have anything in common except for the fact that they’re supernaturals and they’ve disappeared. So we dug through newspapers and missing persons bulletins in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, and . . .” He fumbled through a stack of papers on the table in front of him.
“Minnesota,” Paige politely finished, sliding him a smile. “You always forget Minnesota.”
“I always forget Minnesota,” he agreed. “We looked over those records for the last three years and cross-referenced the records with the North American Vampire Registry, friends in the community, anyone else we could think of to identify whether any of those missing persons were supernaturals.”
“We talked to Merit’s grandfather,” Paige said. “He seemed very eager to offer his thoughts.”
I smiled. “He’s probably ready to jump out of his skin and appreciated the distraction.”
“That he was,” she agreed. “He’s looking forward to seeing you. I told him I’d pass along his love.”
“Consider it passed.”
The librarian cleared his throat. He wasn’t much for chitchat. “We took those missing supernaturals and looked for an associated supernatural event.”
“An attack,” I said, and he nodded.
“No harpies,�
�� he said, “but there are instances of magical attacks with some of those kidnappings. One involved a sudden bout of bloodlust—set off a bar brawl. Another was an indoor pixie attack. Nothing at the scale of the harpies or elf glamour, though.”
“And how many did you find?” Ethan asked.
“That we can confirm, six.”
Ethan blinked at the screen. “Six missing sups with attacks? How has no one noticed this before? Realized this was going on?”
The librarian frowned. “Why would they? Supernaturals didn’t used to talk to each other. Most of this happened before we were out of the closet. Some group attacks you, you lose a member, you probably aren’t going to publicize it.”
Ethan nodded. “What groups did you find?”
“That’s the unusual thing,” the librarian said, crossing his arms on the table and leaning forward. “It’s a veritable Noah’s ark: troll of the non-River variety, sylph, doppelgänger, giantess, a suspected but unconfirmed leprechaun, and an incubus.”
There was a buzz of recognition in my bones. “What about shifters and elves?”
“Neither,” he said. The librarian read the names of the missing in chronological order, and Jeff added them to the growing “Victims” list on our electronic whiteboard, which already included Niera and Aline.
I scanned the list and looked back at Ethan, dread growing cold and heavy in my stomach. “How many of these species live together?”
“Together?” the librarian asked, lifting his gaze to me. “In families?”
“Families, clans, houses, whatever. How many?”
“Incubi tend to live alone. Ditto doppelgängers, trolls. The rest live in small bands—usually family-based structures. But that would be maybe five or six together at most. Nothing even approaching the size of a Pack or elf clan.”
“Or the ferocity,” Paige said, scanning a paper in front of her. “Most of the creatures on the missing list are relatively peaceful, keep to themselves. Incubi and leprechauns can be troublemakers.”
“It is Noah’s ark,” I said, walking to the board and pointing at the top of the list of victims we’d assembled chronologically. The first on the list? An incubus.
“You start with the solitary species,” I said. “One supernatural at a time. Sups who live alone, who assimilate. They’re easier to trap, to catch. And their human friends just think they’ve moved along, or they’ve been the victim of some traditional human violence.”
“And then you ramp up,” Jeff said, moving beside me to get a full view of the screen. “You target the sups who only band together in small groups. The ones less likely to put up a fight, or the ones you can easily overcome in size.”
“And once you’ve built up your confidence, you move to the trooping animals,” I said. “Elves and shifters are harder to grab, their magic stronger, their groups significantly larger. So you employ big magic—full-on attacks to keep the groups distracted while you happily sneak away with one of their own. Perhaps you kill a few in the process, but who cares?”
“Okay,” Catcher said, “but they could have snatched Aline at home or alone. Why make it complicated?”
“I don’t know,” I said with a frown.
“Let’s say Merit’s right,” Mallory said, crossing her arms. “What’s the real motive? So you have a bunch of different supernaturals. A checklist of some kind, and you’re marking them off one by one. Why? What’s the reason for something like that?”
“Hatred of supernaturals,” Ethan suggested. “Taking them out one by one.”
“But we haven’t found any bodies,” I said. “If this was political, like something McKetrick would have done, there’d be some sign.”
“Maybe research?” Paige suggested. “Could be a group looking for tissue samples, scans, X-rays.”
“That kind of thing would probably be governmental,” Catcher said, “but this doesn’t really smell governmental. The feds prefer black helicopters to harpies. They might be interested in researching magic, but they aren’t the types to use it.”
“Could be ego,” I suggested. “Someone working their way through the supernatural catalogue to prove that they can. To prove they’re equipped and knowledgeable enough to best all kinds?”
“Like an MMA fighter working his way up the ranks?” Catcher wondered. “That’s weird, but we’ve seen weirder.”
“What kind of person has that much ego?” Mallory asked. “Would feel a need to work over, to serially kidnap, supernaturals?”
“And if he or she isn’t killing them,” I wondered, “if these are actual kidnappings—then where are they?”
“That’s the next question,” Ethan said, and lifted his gaze to the librarian. “Suggestions?”
• • •
As it happened, he did have suggestions. The librarian pulled dossiers from the missing sups with whatever background information he’d been able to find, and microfiche copies of local newspapers from the days of the disappearances. He sent the electronic files to Jeff, who directed them to video screens that were inset in the large conference table.
We updated Luc with what we’d found, then read and scanned the materials for two solid hours, perusing coupons for white sales and new car deals, stories about sports championships of every make and model, and the local dramas that played out across the pages. And we still came up empty.
Jeff’s whiteboard was littered with potential links between the disappearances, connections we hoped would lead us to the actual responsible parties. Two of the sups had disappeared on holidays—Fourth of July and Labor Day—but only two. The rest were scattered across the calendar like confetti. Most were taken in summer and fall, but we decided that was probably because the sups were more active, more visible, when the weather wasn’t miserable. Who wanted to traipse through four feet of Minnesota snow to kidnap a giantess?
At the end of our two hours, we paused and stretched, and Jeff ordered drinks from the Brecks’ staff, who seemed more than happy to deliver them to a shifter of his repute. But the man who brought them still managed to give the rest of us dour looks on the way out.
We sipped coffee and nibbled the edges of the shortbread cookies, walking around the table to scan the others’ screens, just in case a fresh pair of eyes would help tag something useful.
Turns out, it was a good strategy.
Mallory, who was across the room’s conference table from me, nibbled on a shortbread biscuit and scanned the screen in front of her. She smiled, looked up. “You know what I haven’t done in forever?”
“Sat still for ten minutes without distraction?”
She gave Catcher a childish face, then tapped at the screen. “The carnival. I haven’t been to the carnival in forever.”
Connections tripped and triggered in my brain, and I looked up at her. “What did you say?”
She smiled. “The carnival. I haven’t been in years. I love a good corn dog. The deep-fried kind, not the fake ones you can bake at home. If it hasn’t been swimming in oil, it’s not a real corn dog. Who’s with me on that?” She lifted her hand and glanced around the room, looking for support.
But my mind was forming a connection. I held up a hand. “Wait—what made you say that about the carnival?”
“Oh.” She pointed to the screen. “There’s an article about this carnival that was in”—she scrolled to the top of the page—“Clear Lake, Minnesota.”
“Jeff,” I said, and without needing additional direction, he was up and moving the data on Mallory’s screen to the overhead.
The wonders of the Sidusky & Sons Carnival were spread in glorious color across two facing pages of the Clear Lake Anthem, advertising miraculous sights, thrilling rides, and midway games to test the strongest and cleverest of men.
“Sorry—why does the carnival matter?” Ethan asked with a frown.
Jeff and I looked at
each other, nodded.
“There’s a carnival right now in Loring Park,” I said.
Jeff gestured to the box. “Aline went to it. We found tickets from the midway in her box.”
“The carnival was here when Aline disappeared. The carnival was in Clear Lake when the giantess disappeared.”
Catcher looked at Jeff. “Can you scan the rest of the newspapers for carnival ads or stories?”
“On it,” Jeff said, and he was sweeping his hands across the screen, arranging files so the newspapers formed a neat grid across the screen. He entered a query into the search box. Almost instantly, matches began popping up across the screen, highlighting articles about the carnival that had visited so many midwestern towns.
The carnivals changed with every pass. Sidusky & Sons. The Bollero Bros. William’s Amazing Traveling Wondershow. But the stories were essentially the same, as were the photographs of the Tunnel of Horrors.
“That’s the same carnival as the one in Loring Park,” I said, excitement building. “I recognize the ride.”
“So what are we looking at?” Catcher asked. “A carnie with a hatred of sups?”
“Or a carnie who loves them a little too much?” I wondered.
Ethan slid me a glance. “Sentinel?”
“Maybe we’re looking at a collector of supernaturals,” I said. “Incubus, doppelgänger, troll, sylph, giantess, leprechaun, shifter, elf. And if they really are being kidnapped, being held, maybe they’re doing it for a reason. Maybe they’re being displayed somehow.”
“A supernatural freak show?” Ethan asked. “Perhaps. Did you see an attraction like that?”
“No,” I admitted. “And it was a pretty small carnival.”
“That makes it easy to unload,” Catcher said. “Easy to pack up and leave again.”
“Which they clearly are doing, considering how much they move around.” Ethan frowned, worried his bottom lip while he mulled the information on-screen. “Unfortunately, we aren’t entirely sure who we’re looking for. Is the entire carnival at fault? An errant employee? If they’re holding the sups, then where? Jeff, can you see what you can find about the carnival, the owners?”