"San Diego, San Jose, Austin, and Seattle. Over the past year, members of a number of small organizations like the Ordo Lebes have been systematically stalked and murdered. Most of them have appeared to be suicides. Counting Chicago, the killer"s taken thirty-six victims."
"Thirty-six..." I ran my thumb over the handle of the coffee Cup, frowning. "I haven"t heard a word about this. Nothing. A year?" year?"
Elaine nodded. "Harry, I"ve got to know. Is it possible that the Wardens are involved?"
"No," I said, my tone firm. "No way."
"Because they"re such easygoing, tolerant people?" she asked.
"No. Because I know Ramirez, the regional commander for most of those cities. He wouldn"t be a part of something like that." I shook my head. "Besides, we"ve got a manpower shortage. The Wardens are stretched pretty thin. And there"s no reason reason for them to go around killing people." for them to go around killing people."
"You"re sure about Ramirez," Elaine said. "Can you say the same about every every Warden?" Warden?"
"Why?"
"Because," Elaine said, "in every single one of those cities, a man in a grey cloak was seen with at least two of the victims."
Uh-oh.
I put the coffee cup down on an end table and folded my arms, thinking.
It wasn"t general knowledge, but someone on the Council was leaking information to the vamps on a regular and devastating basis. The traitor still had not been caught. Even worse, I had seen evidence that there was another organization at work behind the scenes, manipulating events on a scale large enough to indicate a powerful, well-funded, and frighteningly capable group-and that at least some of them were wizards. I had dubbed them the Black Council, because it was obvious, and I"d been keeping my ear to the ground for indications of their presence.
And look. I found one.
"Which explains why I hadn"t heard anything about it," I said. "If everyone thinks the Wardens are responsible, there"s not a prayer they"d draw attention to themselves by reporting what was happening and asking for help. Or call in a gumshoe who happens to be a Warden, himself."
Elaine nodded. "Right. I started getting called in about a month after I got my own license and opened my business."
I grunted. "How"d they know to call you?"
She smiled. "I"m in the book under "Wizards.""
I snorted. "I knew you were copying my test answers all those years."
"If it ain"t broke, don"t fix it." She pulled a strand of hair back behind one ear, an old and familiar gesture that brought with it a pang of remembered desire and a dozen little memories. "Most of the business has come in on referral, though, because I do good work. In any case, one fact about the killer"s victims was almost always the same: people who lived alone or were isolated."
"And I," Anna said quietly, "am the last living member of the Ordo who lives alone or were isolated."
"These other cities," I said. "Did the killer leave anything behind? Messages? Taunts?"
"Like what?" Elaine asked.
"Bible verses," I said. "Left in traces, something only one of us would recognize."
She shook her head. "No. Nothing like that. Or if there was, I never found it."
I exhaled slowly. "So far, two of the deaths here have had messages left behind. Your friend Janine and a woman named Jessica Blanche."
Elaine frowned. "I gathered, from what you said earlier. It doesn"t make any sense."
"Yes, it does," I said. "We just don"t know why." I frowned. "Could any of the other deaths be attributed to the White Court?"
Elaine frowned and rose. She took her coffee cup to the kitchen and came back, a pensive frown on her brow. "I... can"t be certain they haven"t, I suppose. I certainly haven"t seen anything to suggest it. Why?"
"Excuse me," Anna said, her voice quiet and unsure. "White Court?"
"The White Court of vampires," I clarified.
"There"s more than one kind?" she asked.
"Yeah," I said. "The Red Court are the ones the White Council is fighting now. They"re these bat-monster things that can look human. Drink blood. The White Court are more like people. They"re psychic parasites. They seduce their victims and feed on human life energy."
Elaine nodded. "But why did you ask me about them, Harry?"
I took a deep breath. "I found something to suggest that Jessica Blanche may have died as the result of being fed upon by some kind of s.e.xual predator."
Elaine stared at me for a moment and then said, "The pattern"s been broken. Something"s changed."
I nodded. "There"s something else involved in the equation."
"Or someone."
"Or someone," I said.
She frowned. "There"s one place to start looking."
"Jessica Blanche," I said.
Without warning, Mouse came to his feet, facing the door to the apartment, and let out a bubbling ba.s.so growl.
I rose, acutely conscious of the fact that my power was still interdicted by the apartment"s threshold, and that I didn"t have enough magic to spell my way out of a paper bag.
The lights went out. Mouse continued to growl.
"Oh, G.o.d," Anna said. "What"s happening?"
I clenched my teeth and closed my eyes, waiting for them to adjust to the sudden darkness, when a very slight, acrid scent tickled my nose.
"You smell that?" I asked.
Elaine"s voice was steady, calm. "Smell what?"
"Smoke," I said. "We"ve got to get out of here. I think the building"s on fire."
CHAPTER Twelve
"Light," I said.
Almost before I was finished saying the word, Elaine murmured quietly, and the pentacle amulet she wore, nearly a twin to mine, began to glow with a green-white light. She held it overhead by its silver chain.
By its light, I crossed to the door and felt it, like those cartoons when I was little said you were supposed to do. It felt like a door. "No fire in the hall," I said.
"Fire stairs," Elaine said.
"They"re not far," Anna said.
Mouse continued staring at the door, growling in a low and steady rumble. The smoke smell had thickened.
"Something"s waiting for us in the hall."
"What?" Anna said.
Elaine looked from Mouse to me and bit her lip. "Window?"
My heart was skipping along too fast. I don"t like fire. I don"t like getting burned. It hurts and it"s ugly. "Might be able to handle the fall," I said, forcing myself to breathe slowly, evenly. "But there"s a building full of people here, and none of the alarms or sprinklers have gone off. Someone must have hexed them. We"ve got to warn the residents."
Mouse"s head whipped around and he stared intently at me for a second. Then he trotted in a little circle, shook his head, made a couple of chuffing sounds, and started doing something I hadn"t heard him do since he was a puppy small enough to fit in my duster pocket.
He barked.
Loud. Steady. WOOF, WOOF, WOOF, WOOF, WOOF, WOOF, with the mechanical regularity of a metronome. with the mechanical regularity of a metronome.
Now, saying he was barking might give you the general shape of things, but it doesn"t convey the scale. Everyone in Chicago knows what a storm-warning siren sounds like. They"re spread liberally through the Midwestern states that comprise Tornado Alley. They make your usual warning siren sound. But I had an apartment about thirty yards from one of them once upon a time, and take it from me, that sound is a whole different thing when you"re next next to it. It isn"t an ululating wail. When you"re that close to the source, it"s a tangible flood, a solid, living, sonic cascade that rattles your brain against your skull. to it. It isn"t an ululating wail. When you"re that close to the source, it"s a tangible flood, a solid, living, sonic cascade that rattles your brain against your skull.
Mouse"s bark was like that-but on several levels. Every time he barked, I swear to you, several of my muscles tightened and twitched as if hit with a miniature jolt of adrenaline. I couldn"t have slept through half as much racket, even without the odd little jabs of energy that hit me like separate charges of electricity with each bark. It was deafening in the little apartment, nearly as loud as gunfire. He let out twelve painfully loud barks, and then stopped. My ears rang in the sudden silence that followed.
Within seconds I began to hear thumping sounds on the floor above me, bare feet swinging out of beds and landing hard on the floor, almost in unison, like something you"d expect in a training barracks. Someone shouted in the apartment neighboring Anna"s. Other dogs started barking. Children started crying. Doors started slamming open.
Mouse sat down again, his head tilting this way and that, ears twitching at each new noise.
"h.e.l.l"s bells, Harry," Elaine breathed, her eyes wide. "Is that...? Where did you get a real real Temple Dog?" Temple Dog?"
"Uh. A place kind of like this, now that you mention it." I gave Mouse"s ears a quick ruffling and said, "Good dog."
Mouse wagged his tail at me and grinned at the praise.
I opened the door with the hand that wasn"t holding a gun, and took a quick look around in the hall. Flashlights were bobbing and sweeping from several places, each one producing a visible beam in the thickening pall of smoke. People were screaming, "Fire, fire, get everybody out!"
The hallway was in chaos. I couldn"t see if anyone out there looked like a lurking menace, but odds were good that if I couldn"t see them, they wouldn"t see me, either, in all the milling confusion of hundreds of people fleeing the building.
"Anna, where are the fire stairs?"
"Um. Where everyone"s running," running," Anna said. "To the right." Anna said. "To the right."
"Right," I said. "Okay, here"s the plan. We follow all the other flammable people out of the building before we burn to death."
"Whoever did this is going to be waiting for us outside," Elaine warned.
"Not a very private place for a murder anymore," I said. "But we"ll be careful. Me and Mouse first. Anna, you right behind us. Elaine, cover our backside."
"Shields?" she asked me.
"Yeah. Can you do your half?"
She arched an eyebrow at me.
"Right," I said. "What was I thinking?" I took Mouse"s lead in one hand, glanced at my staff, and then said, "We"re working on the honor system, here." Mouse calmly opened his mouth and held on to his own lead. I picked up my staff in my right hand, kept the gun in the other, and slipped it into my duster"s pocket to conceal the weapon. "Anna, keep your hand on my shoulder." I felt her grab on to the mantle of my duster. "Good. Mouse."
Mouse and I hit the hallway with Anna right on my heels. We fled. I"m not too manly to admit it. We scampered. Retreated. Vamoosed. Amscrayed. Burning buildings are freaking terrifying, and I should know.
This was the first time I"d been in one quite this occupied, though, and I expected more panic than I sensed around us. Maybe it was the way Mouse had woken everyone. I saw no one stumbling along the way they would if they had been suddenly roused from deep sleep. Everyone was bright eyed and bushy tailed, metaphorically speaking, and while they were clearly afraid, the fear was aiding the evacuation, not hindering it.
The smoke got thicker as we went down one flight of stairs, then another. It started getting hard to breathe, and I was choking on it as we descended. I began to panic. It"s the smoke that kills most people, long before the fire ever gets to them. But there seemed little to do but press on.
Then we were through the smoke. The fire had begun three floors below Anna"s apartment, and the fire door to that floor was simply missing from its hinges. Black smoke rolled thickly out of the hall beyond it. We had made it down through the smoke, but there were four floors above ours, and the smoke was being drawn up the stairs like they were an enormous chimney. The people still above us would be blinded by it, unable to breathe, and G.o.d only knew what would happen to them.
"Elaine!" I choked out.
"Got it!" she called back, coughing-and then she was beside the doorway, black smoke trying to envelop her. She extended her right hand in a gesture that somehow managed to be imperious, and the smoke abruptly vanished.
Well, not exactly. There was a faint shimmer of light over the open doorway, and on the other side of it the smoke roiled and billowed as if pressing up against gla.s.s. The acoustics of the stairway altered, the chewing roar of fire suddenly muted, the sound of footsteps and panting people becoming louder.
Elaine examined the field over the doorway for a moment, nodded once, and turned to catch up with us, her manner brisk and businesslike.
"You need to stay to let anyone through?" I asked her. Mouse leaned against my legs, clearly afraid and eager to leave the building.
She held up a hand to silence me. After a moment she said, "No. Permeable to the living. Concentrating. We have a minute, maybe two."
Permeable? Holy moly. I could never have managed that on the fly. But then, Elaine always was more skilled than me when it came to the complex stuff. "Right," I said. I took her hand, plopped it down on Anna"s shoulder, and said, "Move, come on."
After that, it was nothing but stairs, bobbing flashlights, echoing voices, and footsteps. I run. Not because it"s good for me, even though it is, but because I want to be able to run whenever something"s chasing me. It did me a limited amount of good, given that I was spending half of my time coughing on the still-present smoke, but I at least had enough presence of mind to keep an eye on Anna and the distracted Elaine, as well as making sure that I didn"t trip over Mouse or get trampled from behind.
When we got to the second floor, I prepped my shield and called over my shoulder, "Elaine!"
She let out a gasping breath, her head bowing forward. She wavered and clutched at the stair"s handrail. Anna moved at once to support her and keep her moving. There was a crashing, roaring sound above us, and cries of fright came down the stairs.
"Move, move," I told them. "Elaine, be ready to shield."
She nodded once and twisted a simple silver ring on her left forefinger around, revealing a kite-shaped shield device not unlike one of my own charms.