Wild Things: A Chicagolands Vampire Novel (Chicagoland Vampires) (29 page)

Cassie looked up, discovered us standing there, and rushed over in her platform heels, her coat swirling behind her.

“You’re Chuck’s granddaughter!” she said as she batted her lashes. But when she looked at Jonah, her smile turned pouty. “Where’s Jeff?”

I winced sympathetically for Jonah and for any other man in Chicago who was not Jeff Christopher. Geek or not, he had a way with the nymphs.

“He’s not here tonight. I’m sorry.”

Tears bloomed in her large eyes, and her lower lip quivered.

I did not have time for a nymph on a crying jag. “Jeff mentioned you,” I said. “Just last night. Said he thought you were terribly pretty.”

She clasped her hands together with obvious glee. “Did he?”

“He did,” I assured her, then glanced cautiously at the roaring crowd. I wasn’t sure that was exactly River nymph territory. “Are you here for the protest?”

“I am,” she said brightly. “There’s a party tonight. I got a gorgeous invitation!”

I wouldn’t have called it a party, but before I could protest, she launched forward and slipped into the crowd.

I glanced at Jonah. “A ‘gorgeous invitation’? To a protest?”

That sounded suspicious. And manipulative.

“Regan?” I wondered.

“I think we should keep an eye on her,” Jonah said.

I nodded. “Stay close. If we get separated, meet at the fountain.”

“Roger,” he said, and I moved into the crowd.

Cassie was small, but the crowd parted to let her move forward, as if they were the river she controlled. I kept my gaze on her spot in the crowd as she moved deeper.

“You got her?” Jonah yelled out behind me, the crowd growing thicker and tighter as we advanced, the decibels higher.

“I see her!” I yelled back, holding out my hand behind me so he might grab it and keep us connected in the crowd.

Our fingers brushed just as shoving erupted to my right side, elbows pointing into my back and hips. I pulled back my arm, keeping my gaze on the divot Cassie had made in the crowd, and pressed my feet into the asphalt, trying to gain purchase. But the shoving grew stronger.

My irritation began to rise.

I pushed in the direction I thought she’d gone, panicking when I couldn’t see the shine of her satin jacket or feel the bubble of magic around her.

“Crap,” I murmured, wincing as a foot stomped on mine. The crowd tightened, contracted like a heartbeat. I breathed out slowly through pursed lips as bodies snugged against me, magic and smells and sounds crowding me on all sides.

After a moment, the press of bodies moved in the other direction, freeing me up enough to stand on tiptoes, scan the crowd for Cassie.

I found her, ten or twelve feet away, her arm on a man’s shoulder as she smiled and strained to see over the crowd.

I had only an instant of relief.

She turned around to look, her expression pained, as if she’d been surprised. And her eyes, wide and innocent, went blank. I’d seen those eyes before. The same dead expression, the absence of will. The harpies had worn it well.

Things were about to get very, very bad.

“Cassie!” I called out over the crowd. “Cassie! Are you all right?”

She didn’t turn, but her eyes rolled back, and her head began to loll. And there, only feet away from her, was a girl in a red cape.

I swore, began pushing through the crowd. Regan had found a perfect spot to disappear another supernatural, and she was doing it right before my eyes.

“Cassie!” I screamed out, wedging my body in an effort to push through the crowd, but the people around me were wedged in tight and looked around in irritation as I used elbows and knees to shove through them.

“Get out of the way!” I pled, looking over the top of the crowd for her hair or the barker’s, trying to trace where they’d gone. “Stop! Stop those girls!”

The man beside me threw out an arm, catching me in the stomach. I sucked in breath and swore out a curse that widened his eyes and had him moving back.

“Back off,” I told him, and the sight of my silvered eyes had him raising his hands and giving me what little room he could.

I scanned the crowd but saw nothing. No dark hair, no nymph and captor sliding quickly through the crowd to make their getaway.

“Damn it!” I yelled, loud enough that the people around me gave me nasty looks. I ignored them, just as they ignored my panic and pleas for assistance.

I needed higher ground, so I ran to the Picasso and scrambled up the incline that marked its base, then jumped onto the next ridge of metal, which put me just above the crowd. I surveyed the bodies, looking for Regan.

After a moment I found her, the cape’s hood still lifted, slithering through the crowd, dragging the nymph behind her. They were headed toward Dearborn. If they got clear of the crowd or jumped in a cab, I’d lose them. I didn’t have time to find Jonah. I only had time to haul ass.

I jumped down, hit the ground in a crouch, and took off.

This ended tonight.

She got to the edge of the protestors before I did and slowed her jog to a walk, Cassie walking awkwardly behind her, her wrist in Regan’s hand. To anyone paying attention, it would have looked like Cassie’d had a little too much fun at the protest. But not many were paying attention. The crowd was growing, their calls for Ethan’s release louder with each round.

I reached the perimeter just as she reached the street and took off to the north, toward the River. Appropriate location for a nymph, but not when the nymph was being dragged while under the influence of drugs or magic.

I spied a woman in a red T-shirt as I ran to the sidewalk and yelled, “Find Jonah!” as I passed her, hoping she was an RG member and actually knew who Jonah was.

Regan and Cassie were nearly a block ahead. They dodged the entrance to the Daley Center’s underground parking lot and crossed the street, Cassie jogging along awkwardly behind.

“Regan!” I yelled out, dodging a speeding cab and the curses of the driver, who lowered his window to make sure I’d heard them. “Stop right now!”

She ignored the demand and darted across Dearborn, barely missing the front end of a CTA bus. She hopped the curb but lost her balance in the frozen mountain of ice on the other side and hit the ground, Cassie behind her.

Regan glanced behind, then took off, leaving Cassie in the snow.

I’d gained half a block but stopped at Cassie’s side, taking in her dilated pupils and vague expression.

“I’ll take care of her, Merit!” Jonah said, running across the street and signaling me onward. “Go get the girl!”

I took his word for it and took off. Regan kept running north, dodging people and disappearing into the shadows of an El track that covered Lake Street. I quickened my pace as she began to climb one of the vertical supports that kept the train tracks in the air.

She climbed clumsily, was five feet in the air when I reached her, jumped up, and grabbed her ankle. She kicked it off, catching me in the shoulder. I ignored the shot of pain and grabbed again.

Arms pinwheeling in the air, she fell, pushing me down behind her and landing on top of me with enough verve to leave me momentarily breathless.

She turned, began pummeling me with her fists. A train rushed by overhead, the roar blocking the dull thud of her fist against my breastbone, the crack of her knuckles against concrete when I dodged a second blow.

I reared back, pulled up my legs, and made contact with her abdomen. With a
whoop
of air, she fell backward, hit the ground, and skidded a few feet behind her.

I climbed to my feet, hobbled toward her, and reached down to pull back the cape’s hood.

The girl who blinked back at me was definitely not Regan.

REDEMPTION SONG

T
he girl also wasn’t entirely in our plane of existence.

She sat on a chair we’d placed in the middle of the Cadogan training room, completely unmoving. She was approximately Regan’s height and build but had short, dark curls in place of Regan’s shock of platinum hair. Her eyes were deeply brown, and at the moment, open and blank.

She hadn’t spoken at all, hadn’t even acknowledged where we were or how we’d gotten there. I’d driven Moneypenny home; she’d been in the back of Jonah’s car.

Cassie had snapped out of her trance and was upstairs in the foyer, where Lindsey had volunteered to entertain her with fashion magazines while they awaited Jeff’s calming presence.

The training room door opened, and Paige walked inside, her vibrantly red hair set off by jeans and a long-sleeved, pale blue shirt with a V-neck. Even in jeans, she had a smoldering sensuality, like a magical, rusty-haired version of Marilyn Monroe.

Eyes mild, she surveyed the room, nodding at me and Luc before her gaze fell onto the girl. She stared at her for a moment, tilting her head at the girl with obvious fascination.

“She hasn’t spoken?”

“Not a word,” I said. “Not the entire time.”

“You said she tried to grab a nymph?”

“Did grab her,” I said. “But we grabbed her back before she could make it to wherever she was going.”

Paige dropped to one knee, looking into the girl’s eyes, then leaned forward and sniffed delicately at the cape. Sniffing out magic wasn’t unusual among sups; it had, actually, been the way Malik had first figured out Mallory’s sorcery.

Her nose wrinkled and she jerked back, looked at me. “Sulfur, as we suspected.”

“Her?” I wondered.

“No, not this girl,” Paige said. She took to her feet again, fisted her hands on her hips. “It’s in the fabric. The girl’s been ensorcelled, but I use that term loosely. This isn’t Order magic. It’s”—she frowned, pursed her lips—“something else.”

“Can you bring her out of whatever this is so we can ask her some questions?” Luc asked.

“I can certainly try.” She glanced at us, wiggled her fingers. “Move back, please. Behind me.”

We did as she directed without objection. I knew what magic sorcerers could make—and the balls of light and fire that usually accompanied it—and I didn’t want to be downwind of it.

Paige stood, shimmied her hair from her shoulders, and looked down at the girl. “On three, you’ll awaken. Refreshed, perhaps a bit confused, and ready to talk.” She lifted curled fingers in front of the girl’s face. “One, two, and three.” Paige snapped her fingers.

Like she’d flicked a switch, the girl looked up, around, and blinked back confusion.

“That was it?” I asked, not disappointed exactly, but certainly surprised by the lack of flash and magic.

“Recall,” Paige patiently said, “that you don’t see everything. Every sorcerer has their own style. In situations like this, I try to keep the physical manifestations as mild as possible. She’ll remember what she saw; it’ll be better for her if it wasn’t traumatic.”

The girl focused glazed eyes on Paige, then us. There was fear in her eyes; if she’d had a run-in with Regan, I didn’t find that surprising. On the other hand, she could be an accomplice. Just as guilty, but a very good actor.

“Are you all right?” Paige asked.

She swallowed thickly, nodded, her eyes still darting around the room, hesitating as she took in the antique weapons that hung on the walls. “I didn’t do anything. It wasn’t me. It was her.”

“Let’s hold on,” Paige said, voice smooth and calm like a supernatural therapist. “One step at a time. What’s your name?”

“I’m Harley. Harley Cutler. Harley Elizabeth Cutler.” With each repetition of her name, her focus became sharper. “Where am I?”

“You’re in Chicago, with vampires. Allies,” Paige said, lest she not think better of us. “You’re at Cadogan House.”

“Regan,” she said, glancing nervously around. “Where’s Regan?”

Luc stepped forward, crouched in front of her. “We were hoping you could tell us that. Do you remember what happened tonight?”

“Remember?” She looked down at her body, her clothes, seemed to realize she was wearing the cape. She began clawing at it, peeling it off.

“It’s Regan’s,” she said, voice suddenly frantic. “This is Regan’s.” She managed to get it off, threw it to the floor.

“Where is she?” I asked.

Harley looked up at me, and the fear in her eyes transmuted to anger. “I don’t know.” Recognition dawned in her eyes. “You chased me—at the plaza. You saw me grab the girl, and you chased me down the street.”

I nodded. “That was me. You were going to take her back to Regan?”

“Not because I wanted to!” Her eyes went frantic, scanning each of us as if she had to prove to us she was innocent. I’d seen her eyes; I believed her.

“She set it up,” Harley insisted. “Made me wear the cape. Said you’d seen her in it.”

“Why did she want to make you look like her?”

She shrugged. “She didn’t want to get caught. She didn’t think you’d consider the plaza a target. But just in case . . .”

Regan had been right. We hadn’t considered it a target until we’d seen that damn Little Red Riding Hood getup. But it fit her MO—create a chaotic, magical situation and use it as a distraction to lure out a sup.

“The protesters weren’t real,” Harley said. “Not all of them, anyway.”

“They certainly looked real,” Jonah said, glancing at me. “The magic felt real.”

He was right, but he hadn’t seen the harpies. Didn’t know the extent of Regan’s ability to mold magic.

“The magic was real,” I said, getting a nod from Harley. “But the bodies were magic. Solidified magic, but still magic.” I turned back to Luc and Jonah. “There were at least three hundred sups at the Daley Center, all makes and models. Getting sups to do anything together is like herding cats, and suddenly hundreds of them show up at the Daley Center?” I shook my head. “There’s no way that’s real.”

“They were like the harpies,” Harley confirmed. “She knew she only needed to seed the plaza—get enough fake bodies in there to make it seem like a real protest, and folks would join in.”

And they had,
I thought. Vampires. Nymphs. Even human teenagers.

“You were one of her victims?”

She nodded. “I’m a sylph. And a waitress—I was a waitress—in Madison. Most sylphs stick to their trees, but I was curious. Wanted something more, you know? I went to college, which nobody did, got a crappy job. Tried to save up some money. My parents haven’t talked to me in a really long time. Because I was trying to pass.”

Pass as human, she meant. Pretending to be human instead of a supernatural. If she’d been separated from her family, it would have been that much easier for Regan to take her without commotion.

“She’s been kidnapping supernatural creatures? Keeping them together?” I asked.

Harley nodded. “She calls it the collection. I was part of it.”

“She has an elf and a shifter now?”

Harley nodded. “Yeah. They’re new.”

Relief flooded me—not that Regan had taken Niera and Aline, but that we’d confirmed their kidnapper. One step closer to solving our elven problem.

“We were with the Pack when the harpies attacked,” I explained. “And the elves kidnapped us, thinking we’d hurt them. We learned about Regan after that.”

“Harley, where’s the carnival?” Luc asked.

“Humboldt Park. But that’s not where she keeps the collection—always somewhere else. It would be too easy for the regular humans to find otherwise. And she doesn’t want the regular humans to find it. That’s what she calls them—the regular humans. She only caters to the fancy ones. Good names, old money.”

Guess that ruled out using my father to help find her. His money was substantial but new. Likely too gauche for Regan.

“That’s what she says. She has a network—people that come to see the collection year after year.”

“And where will we find it?”

“I don’t know. I never know. It’s two train cars—big ones. The carnival travels by train, and then semis pick up the cars and transport them to the locations. We stay in the cars. And even when we’re allowed out, we don’t get to go far. We never know precisely where we are unless we happen to see a sign.”

“All the supernaturals are in two cars?” I asked.

Harley nodded. “They’re not much more than cages. She keeps them sedated with magic.”

“How many supernaturals does she have?” Jonah asked.

“Right now? I think eighteen,” she said, eliciting a low whistle from Luc. “The nymph would have been nineteen.” Harley smiled nervously. “She was really excited about getting closer to twenty. She thinks it’s a milestone.”

For a woman who collected supernaturals, twenty would have been a nice, big number. Unfortunately, it was nearly twenty kidnappings in the span of three years, of supernaturals whose friends, lovers, and parents still had no answers.

“We can help you get back to your tree, your family,” Luc said. “If that’s what you’d like to do. But we’d appreciate any help you can give us to find the rest of them, so we can reunite them with their families, as well.”

Harley nodded, her eyes filling with tears, which she knuckled away. “I’ll help however I can. I would like to see my mom and dad. I don’t know if they missed me, but . . .”

She trailed off, and I put a hand on her arm. “I’m sure they missed you and will be thrilled to know that you’re safe.”

“Why don’t we move to the Ops Room?” Luc asked, apparently no longer believing Harley a threat. “We can get comfortable, maybe get you something to eat?”

Harley nodded shyly.

“Good,” Luc said with a nod. “And we’ll see what else we can figure out about where Regan might be. I’m going to just check in with Malik. Merit, you want to get her settled?”

Harley stood, glancing around the room. “What is this place? Like, some kind of vampire fraternity house?”

“If you only knew,” I said.

•   •   •

According to Harley Cutler, the cars used to transport and hold the supernaturals were long and silver, like old-fashioned trains or Airstream trailers. The edges were round, the surfaces shiny and reflective. Unfortunately, they did not have
KIDNAPPER
or
ILLEGAL SUP COLLECTION
screened atop them in screaming red paint that would have made them visible from the ground.

Still, as Harley ate a sandwich from a tray Margot had pulled together, we passed the information along to Jeff, who’d popped down after calming Cassie and helping her get situated at her home along the River.

“I can check yesterday’s satellite images of the city,” Jeff said, “but a silver train car’s not exactly going to stand out. It could take time—if we’re able to find it at all.”

“Do what you can,” Luc said, then glanced at Harley, who stuffed Cheetos into her mouth like she hadn’t eaten in a month.

She covered her mouth as she chewed. “She fed us,” she said. “But organic stuff. Gave us lunch boxes like we were kids. I miss Cheetos.”

I imagined I’d have felt the same.

“Assuming we do find her,” Luc said. “And speaking of which—and I apologize for interrupting your meal, Harley—but can you tell us anything else about Regan that might help us find her? Where she’s from? Her last name?”

“I don’t know,” Harley said. “I didn’t know her name. She just went by Regan. And I didn’t know her history. One of the other sups told me Regan’s mother was dead, and she didn’t know her dad. But she had this sense, you know, that she knew she was special. That she had a lot to share.” Harley shook her head nervously. “Sorry, that probably doesn’t make much sense.”

“It makes perfect sense,” he said. “And it’s very helpful. Please—keep going.”

“Um, well.” Harley pushed a tight curl behind her ear. “She had some insecurities, I think. Issues about the fact that her dad left. I mean, she didn’t talk about that stuff with me.”

“She made all the magic?”

Harley nodded, crossing her arms, more comfortable now. “Did it all herself. Not with us—she has a separate place where she stays, sleeps. Most of the carnies just stayed in cheap hotels, but that wasn’t for her.” She nodded again, leaning forward. “She thought of us as family. And I think the collection was a family for her. A way to say, ‘Look at this amazing thing I built, this family I made from scratch. Look at me, world.’”

Luc nodded, put a hand on Harley’s. “That’s very helpful. We appreciate it.”

“Sure,” she said, but her eyes clouded again. “I guess I should think about going home or something.”

“You can stay here for a day or two if you’d like to get settled,” Luc said. “We’ve already gotten permission from the boss. Or we can get you back to Wisconsin now.”

Harley considered, looked up at us. “I think I want to go home. How many chances do you get to start over, right?”

That, I thought, depended entirely on whether you were a vampire.

•   •   •

Jonah, Luc, and I stepped into the hallway, where Luc closed the door behind us, looked at me.

“Go to Humboldt Park. Check it out, just in case. Could be Harley’s right, and there’s absolutely nothing there relating to the collection. But I don’t get the sense Regan trusted her quarry with the details, so you might find something Harley doesn’t even know about.”