by Chloe Neill
“I am fierce,” I said. “Do I look ready to take on a crazed and possibly magic-addicted sorceress?”
He cocked his head, gave me a serious appraisal. “Absolutely. Although you may want to work on a ferocious scowl.”
I gave him a look. “How’s this one?”
“Keep working on it,” he said, then rose, walked around his desk, tipped up my chin with a finger, gazed at me carefully. You’re okay?
I’m fine, I promised him. I’ll be better when she’s wrapped up. Who was on the phone?
He leaned back against the desk, crossed his arms, smiled. “It was Morgan, my nosy Sentinel. He’s offered whatever help we need.”
“Good,” I said with a nod. “What did you tell him?”
“He’ll put a dozen vampires in Grant Park, just in case. Another dozen vampires here, just in case.” Ethan smiled. “And he’s going to be with them, sword in hand.”
“Good boy,” I said. “He may make a decent Master after all.”
“Fingers crossed,” Ethan said. “Were you able to find a boat?”
He hadn’t known that I’d meant to ask Jonah—and didn’t know where the Red Guard’s HQ was—but there was still a gleam in his eye.
I shook my head. “Couldn’t connect. Unless I get a quick response, we’re going to be boatless.”
“We have other evac plans,” Ethan said. “Even if we have to swim, we’ll make our way off that island.”
“If the harbor’s frozen, we could probably just walk across the lake. But I take your point.”
Mallory’s triumphant yell cut through the room like a knife through frosted cake.
“Oh yes!” she said, jumping up to high-five her husband.
We moved to them. “You figured it out?” I asked. “Already?”
We moved to the table, where Mallory had spread out the pages into groupings of two rows of four or six sheets each.
“It took very nimble finagling and rearranging,” she said. “When the foldouts were separated from the main text, they were also separated from each other, so we had to reorganize them.” She pointed down at the six pages directly in front of us. “This is the foldout from the Egregore page.”
Ethan and I frowned down at the pages. Unlike the main body of the manuscript, these pages consisted mostly of line drawings, the paper and ink having long since faded to sepia, even on the center’s excellent color copies. But if the drawings were supposed to represent something, I didn’t get it. They looked like random squiggles, without the recognizable globe and human form we’d seen on the main page.
“I get nothing beyond Portnoy’s horrid penmanship,” Ethan said, hands on his hips as he surveyed the pages.
“He’s not going to win any handwriting awards,” Catcher agreed.
“Portnoy clearly didn’t want anyone futzing around with his grimoire,” Mallory said. “The illustrations work on the same principle that the words did; they need the same kind of translation. But you’ve got to get them into the right position.”
“My turn,” Catcher said, then shook his hands, preparing himself. He reached out, turned the page in the top right corner ninety degrees clockwise. Then he turned the page in the bottom left corner ninety degrees counterclockwise, made a symbol in the air above the set of images.
Just like with the text, the line drawings began to reorganize themselves—not just the discrete lines changing size and position, but the entire drawing rearranging, reassembling itself into a different whole as magic vibrated softly in the air.
And what was pictured there left us in silence.
The spark from the Egregore’s page was there, and beside it what looked like a complex arrangement of alchemical symbols. And after that, presumably created from the working of alchemy on the Egregore magical spirit, was a large animal-like form that loomed over a sleepy village. The Egregore’s spark was barely a dot in the middle of its broad and jagged forehead.
“She’s going to give the Egregore a physical form,” Mallory quietly said.
“We said she wanted a weapon,” Catcher said. “Someone to fight her battles for her. We were right.”
“How could she do this?” Ethan’s voice was tight with concern.
“That’s the really clever bit,” Mallory said. She moved to the next set of images, moved these into different positions, and made another symbol. This time, the lines rearranged themselves into a mass of clouds over the same village.
“She did it with the weather?” I asked, confused.
“Not weather,” Mallory said. “That’s coincidental.” She looked back at us. “We thought the clouds over Towerline were a heat sink—that she was pulling all the heat out of the city, and that’s why the weather turned, the lakes froze, whatnot. But what is heat, really?”
Understanding widened Ethan’s eyes. “It’s energy.”
Mallory touched her nose. “And the vampire gets it. It wasn’t a heat sink, or not as its main purpose. It’s an energy sink, because that’s what heat is—the effect of solar radiation and whatever. She wanted all that energy”—Mallory pointed back at the animal—“because she’s got big magic to do.”
“This is good work, Mallory,” Ethan said. “This is damn good work. She wants the Egregore to be physical, and she’s pulling energy to make that magic. What form will she pick?”
“That,” Catcher said, “we can’t tell you. The spell doesn’t specify a form. She could pick whatever she wants.”
“Narwhal?” I asked.
“Or swamp monster, wooly mammoth, polar bear, griffin,” Mallory said. “She just needs something that can hold the Egregore’s magic, and its sentience.”
“So we’re going to meet her at Northerly Island,” Ethan said, pacing to the bookshelves, then turning back, “and she’s going to bring a monster to fight us.”
“Or she’ll manifest it then,” Mallory said. “She may want to work the magic in front of us—show off a little. And if she does that, I’ve got a little something that may help.”
She reached over, picked up something small and round.
“A Color Bomb makeup compact?” I said, reading the gold script on the top.
“It’s a governor. Like on a car. I mixed it up while Merit was on campus.”
“A governor?” Ethan asked. “As in the elected official?”
“As in speed governor,” Mallory said. “Like on a car, except this is for magic. I didn’t have much time, but it’s supposed to limit how much power she can use at one time. It might keep her from gathering up enough power to manifest the Egregore.”
Even Catcher looked impressed. “How did you come up with that?”
She smiled. “You don’t want to hear the full tangential train, but I thought of it on the way to the bachelorette party. Well, kind of. I was thinking about being chauffeured, and I wondered if Ethan put some kind of governor on his car so that Brody could only drive a reasonable speed, like, for safety. And then I thought, no, that might hamper things if he needed to get away in a hurry, and that’s no good. And then I started thinking about other kinds of governors, or things that operate like governors—like how ovens can only go up to certain temperatures, and planned obsolescence, and why pencils are exactly the length that they are, instead of some other length, because they’d last longer.”
“Your mind is a weird little labyrinth,” I said.
She grinned. “Sometimes the randomness comes in handy. Not always, but sometimes.”
“Good thinking,” Ethan said. “Very good thinking. That gives us another line of defense.” He looked at Catcher. “You need to tell Chuck, and he needs to alert the CPD.”
“On it,” Catcher said, pulling out his phone.
Ethan looked at the clock, something we’d been doing a lot of lately, then glanced at me. “A moment, Sentinel?” he asked, then drew me back to the ot
her side of the room. When we got there, he looked down at me, silence between us, full of words unsaid. But this wasn’t the time to say them, to talk about futures that seemed so suddenly uncertain. Not with half a dozen people in the room.
“You will take no chances with your life.”
“I will take no irrational chances with my life.”
An eyebrow lifted.
“That’s as good as you’re going to get considering what we’re about to do. And I say the same thing to you.” I pointed a finger at him. “There will be no sacrificing of self for others.”
“Isn’t that exactly what you’re doing?”
“No. Because Mallory and I are both going to walk away. And hopefully, Sorcha will not. Not this time.”
“Sire. Sentinel.”
We looked back. Malik stood in the doorway, a sly smile on his face. “I think you’d better get out here.”
We didn’t bother to ask questions, but followed him to the front door, Mallory and Catcher behind us.
A dozen vampires stood on the lawn, every single one of them in Midnight High School T-shirts, a dozen members of the Red Guard. They wore the shirts to identify themselves on an op.
As far as I knew, the RG members themselves were the only ones who knew what the T-shirts symbolized. Although that might change if the House saw them all here together. And particularly the vampire who stood in front of them, auburn hair blowing in the wind.
“Holy shit,” I murmured, as Jonah walked toward us, then nodded at Ethan, at me.
“Jonah,” Ethan said.
“Ethan.”
“What are you doing here?” My voice was a whisper. “This isn’t exactly secret agent–type activity.”
Jonah’s smile was sly. “We’re doing our jobs,” he said as calmly as if we were discussing the weather. Maybe not this particular weather, but weather generally . . .
“We’re here to help.”
“To help?” I was having trouble processing this entire situation. “You got my messages?”
“We did. Sorry for not returning the call.” He smiled. “I figured it would be faster if we just showed up.”
“We are the Red Guard,” Jonah said, loud enough for every vampire in the House to hear him. “We exist to guard the Houses and their vampires, to keep them safe, healthy.” He glanced down at me. “And it’s time we come out of hiding and actually live up to our reputation.”
I was staggered. I’d given them a pretty solid lecture on making their organization mean something, instead of paying a lot of lip service to high ideals and secret meetings. But I hadn’t actually expected them to follow it.
“You’ve rendered her speechless,” Ethan said.
“A nearly impossible task,” Jonah said. He stepped forward, offered Ethan a hand. “We’re at your service.”
“We’re glad to have it,” Ethan said, then looked at the rest of them. “Your organization is brave and honorable, and you’re doing a brave and honorable thing here.”
A few of the vampires looked appreciative at the sentiment, like they hadn’t been sure this would be a good idea, or that Ethan wouldn’t send them running from the yard. Others looked skeptical. Understandable, given that the entire point of the RG was to be suspicious of Masters, to keep them from oppressing their Novitiates.
Jonah nodded, smiled at me. “I understand you were looking for a boat.”
Luc stepped forward to shake Jonah’s hand. “Let’s discuss the details.”
I was still staring as Luc led him into the yard, began talking with animation. The other Guards—including those who hadn’t been especially fond of me the last time we’d met—gave me acknowledging nods. None looked as angry as they had been when I’d lectured them. None looked especially friendly, either.
It didn’t matter. Right now, we didn’t need friends. We needed allies. And those were very different things.
• • •
I’d met only six sorcerers in my time: Mallory, Catcher, Paige, Sorcha, Baumgartner, and Simon, another bad egg. They’d generally been young and attractive, up-and-comer types.
The men and women standing in the lobby of the Adler Planetarium looked to be an entirely different breed. Average, middle-aged midwesterners. Men and women with dark skin and light, who wore puffy jackets against the cold, khakis, and very practical shoes. I felt overdressed in my leathers and steel.
“Bureaucrats,” Mallory whispered as we moved toward them.
That explained that.
The SWAT team had moved an e-screen into the marble lobby, which was lit with golden light from the chandeliers above us. They were gilded and old-fashioned, not unlike the lights in the first floor of City Hall. Vestiges of a different era in Chicago.
“Ah,” said a pale man of average height with silvery hair and a paunch above his belt. He wore khakis and snow boots, and a puffy jacket that looked warm, but not conducive to fighting. “You’re here.”
This was Al Baumgartner, the head of the Order.
He walked toward us, the others in the room taking the opportunity to look us over. Their glances, from what I saw, weren’t flattering. I saw at least one pair of rolling eyes, wondered if they saw us as too “obviously” supernatural, in the same way they all appeared to be very “plainly” human.
Baumgartner stopped, looked at Catcher. There’d been bad blood between them, and while those wounds were healing, they still looked at each other with wariness.
“Bell.”
“Baumgartner.”
“If everyone would gather round?” Wilcox asked, gesturing us toward the screen. “We’ll get this under way, and get this closed down.”
Does he really think it will be that simple? Ethan silently asked. Or does he say it because he has to?
My grandfather told him what Sorcha’s planning, I said. So probably a little from Column A, little from Column B.
The screen showed Northerly Island, the planetarium at the north end to the lagoon at the south. An “X” marked a spot near the south end atop one of the flattened hillocks the Army Corp of Engineers had sculpted out of dirt and rock. “This is the location she’s agreed to meet us.”
Baumgartner pulled at his bottom lip. “You think she’ll follow through with that?”
“If she wants action, she’ll come where we are,” Wilcox said. “And that’s where we’ll be.” He looked at me, at Mallory. “Where you’ll be.”
“And you will be where?” Ethan asked.
He pointed to a position along the concrete trail that circled the lagoon, a spot in the water. “Here, and we’ll have snipers atop the planetarium, just in case.” He looked at Baumgartner. “Your people will be here, and shielded?” He pointed to spots at the base of the hill.
Baumgartner nodded. “She won’t know we’re there.”
“Be careful,” my grandfather said. “She’s more powerful than she seems.”
One of the other sorcerers stepped forward, and her tone was catty, which pretty much matched the expression on her face. “We know who and what she is. We set the wards. Just because you aren’t trained to deal with her doesn’t mean we can’t handle it.”
“It’s not an issue of training, Simpson,” Mallory said, and there was no anger in her voice. Just fatigue. “You’ve heard what she’s planning to do?”
“What you think she’s planning to do,” Simpson said, rolling her eyes. “The Danzig Manuscript isn’t a grimoire. It’s nonsense, and you’re reading too much into it.”
“Sorcha isn’t even trained,” Baumgartner said, as if that were a defense against magic. “Even if the manuscript was legitimate, there’s no way she could accomplish magic on that scale. The delusions, the weather, the ultimatum—it’s all for show. She’s acting out.”
I looked at each of them, the sorcerers who refused to believe the world wasn’t ex
actly as they imagined it, ordered in exactly the way they believed. Fury rose, that they refused to see the truth and face the coming danger. And pity accompanied that anger, that they lived in worlds so simple, so defined by their own prejudices.
“Even if I’m wrong,” Mallory said carefully, her eyes narrowed to dangerous slits, “would you rather prepare for the worst and be pleasantly surprised, or walk in with your arrogance, and be blown out of the water?”
The sorceress rolled her eyes. “Always drama with you, Bell.”
“Simpson,” Baumgartner said. “Focus.”
Simpson bit her tongue, but rolled her eyes again.
“I’ve got a governor,” Mallory said. “A small spell that will ratchet down her magic, keep her from being able to give the Egregore physical form. I just need to get close enough to use it.”
“Take the chance when you can get it,” Wilcox said. “Let’s bring her down.” He pointed to a spot at the music pavilion near the park. “The vehicle to take her in will be here. It’s been warded and sealed, and it’s ready.”
“And you’ll actually contain her this time?” Baumgartner asked haughtily, as if he’d been the one to put out all the effort at Towerline. In fact, he’d put out none. My opinion of him before walking into the room hadn’t been high. That didn’t help matters.
“The wagon team assures me they will. You’ll help us get her in?”
“We have containment expertise,” Simpson said.
I doubted that was true, too, and that she’d ever “contained” anything larger than a random bird or field mouse. But I wouldn’t be petty aloud.
“Then let’s take our positions,” Wilcox said, and we walked to the door, outside again into freezing temps.
“Well,” I said. “That went about as well as I expected.”
“Fucking bureaucracy,” Catcher said. “But yeah, not entirely unexpected.”
“What is it with supernaturals and bureaucrats?” Mallory asked.
“Something in the DNA, I suspect.”
“I’ve done what I can,” Mallory said, then looked up at Catcher. “Right?”
“You did. You can lead a bureaucrat to a better idea,” he said with a wink. “But you can’t make him use it.”