Midnight Marked: A Chicagoland Vampires Novel (3 page)

They buzzed with a faint and tinny magic, which explained the care—or vice versa. I didn’t recognize the flavor of the magic; it was sharper and more metallic than any I’d run across before, and a sharp contrast to the earthier scent of shifters.

Magic symbols twenty feet away from a shifter’s death. That couldn’t have been a coincidence.

I knelt down, shone light across the pedestal. I knew what these were. They were alchemy symbols, marks used by practitioners who’d believed they could transmute lead into gold, or create a philosopher’s stone that would allow them immortality. I’d studied medieval literature in graduate school. I hadn’t studied magical texts per se, but they’d occasionally appear in a manuscript or the gilded marginalia of a carefully copied text.

Still, while I recognized them for what they were, I didn’t have the knowledge to decipher them. That was a job for people with substantive knowledge about magical languages. Catcher or Mallory, or maybe Paige. She was a sorcerer, formally the Order’s archivist and at present the girlfriend of the Cadogan House Librarian.

I scanned the rest of the pedestal, and the beam flashed across something on the ground—drops of blood. Blood had been shed here, and plenty of it. But why? Because of the vampire? Because of the markings?

I’ve got something,
I told Ethan, and waited until he and Mallory gathered beside me. Catcher stayed back with the shifter.

I kept the light trained on the pedestal so they could review the markings, then shifted the circle of light to the blood on the ground below.

“Part of the attack took place here,” Ethan said. “And the symbols?”

“They look alchemical to me,” I said.

Mallory’s gaze tracked back and forth across the lines. “Agreed. Symbols of alchemical elements, built into an equation. That’s why they’re in rows.”

“Wait,” Ethan said. “You mean alchemy, as in changing lead into gold?”

“That’s the most well-known transmutation,” Mallory said, hands on her hips as she leaned over beside him, peered at the magic. “But folks try to do all sorts of things with the practice. Healing, communicating with the spiritual realm, balancing the elements, distilling something down to its true essence.”

Ethan frowned, looked down at the pedestal again. “So what’s the purpose of this?”

“I had to study alchemy when I took my exams. Although I didn’t use them.” She added that quickly, as if to remind us she hadn’t made use of all the magical Keys in existence to create her black magic. Although she’d certainly used enough of them. “I also watched a lot of
Fullmetal Alchemist
. Quality show. Quality.”

“There are television shows about alchemy?” Ethan asked.

“It’s anime.”

Ethan’s expression stayed blank.

“Never mind,” she said, waving it away. “We’ll have a marathon later. But for now”—she pointed to one symbol, a circle with a dot in the middle—“that’s the sun. And that’s Taurus,” she added, pointing to a small circle topped by a semicircle of horns. “Merit’s astrological sign, as it turns out. It’s probably not related to you,” she said, glancing at me. “It’s just part of the equation related to the positions of the stars. That’s one of the things that makes the alchemy work, at least theoretically.” She put her hands on her hips. “If we want to know why this is here, we need to translate all the symbols and figure out what they mean together, in context.”

We walked back to Catcher, and Mallory explained what we’d seen.

“How does alchemy match up against the Keys?” I asked them. The Keys were the building blocks of magic, at least in Catcher’s particular philosophy.

“It’s just a different way to approach the energy, the power.” He shrugged. “You might say a language different from mine, but a language all the same.”

Mallory looked at him, nodded. “With rules, just like any language would follow.”

“So, who put them here?” Ethan asked. “And why are they near the scene of a shifter’s death by a vampire?”

Mallory looked at Catcher. “I don’t know anyone who practices alchemy, not even through SWOB.” Sorcerers Without Borders was an organization Mallory had created to help newbie sorcerers in the Midwest. It was help she hadn’t gotten when she first learned she had magic—but that she definitely could have used.

“It would have to be a sorcerer, right?” I asked. Everyone looked back at the concrete. We’d been looking for a sorcerer, after all. This wasn’t the kind of magic that Adrien Reed had dabbled in, at least as far as we knew, and there was nothing to tie him to this. That meant we had another sorcerer, another potential enemy, and this one involved in the death of a shifter.

“Yeah,” Mallory said. “These would have been made by a sorcerer.”

“Is it dark magic?”

She opened her mouth, closed it again. “I was going to give you a trite answer. A quick no so everybody would feel better.” She looked back at the pedestal, considered. “Yeah. There’s some darkness there. Not entirely surprising, considering the bloodshed, the murder. Even if the magic didn’t cause them, there’s clearly some kind of relationship.

“But it won’t affect me,” she added. “Dark magic affects the maker and the recipient. I didn’t make it, and there’s no reason to believe it’s supposed to affect us. So you don’t have to worry about me.”

“We aren’t worried,” Ethan said, and the confidence in his voice made her relax a little.

“Okay,” she said. “Okay.”

She said the first one for us; I was pretty sure she said the second one for herself.

“So we’ve got a sorcerer, a shifter, and a vampire here together,” Catcher said. “And the shifter ends up dead.”

“VSS,” Mallory said, the acronym for the “game” she’d invented earlier. “And the first round is a dead loss.”

RED FLAG

M
y grandfather appeared a few minutes later, pulling over to the curb in his official white van. He wore a short-sleeve plaid shirt, slacks, and thickly soled shoes. He still used the cane he’d needed since he was trapped in a house fire caused by anti-vampire malcontents, but moved spryly with it.

Jeff Christopher, brown-haired and lanky, climbed out of the car’s passenger side, waited while my grandfather gave instructions to the officers who’d pulled up behind him in two CPD cruisers. When my grandfather finished his instructions and moved toward us, the cops turned to the crowd, creating a barricade to control the gathering people.

“Merit, Ethan,” my grandfather said, then nodded to Mallory and Catcher. His expression was serious and slightly sympathetic, not an uncommon expression for a man who, more often than not, was dealing with supernatural fallout.

“Sorry it took so long,” my grandfather said. “There’s an accident on Lake Shore Drive. Traffic was moving at a crawl.”

Not an unusual circumstance for Chicago.

“We’re sorry you had to drive out all this way,” I said. My grandfather’s office was on the city’s South Side, relocated from the basement of his house after the firebombing.

My grandfather looked around. “You reached Gabriel?”

“Should be here anytime,” Catcher said with a nod.

And so they were. The rhythmic thunder of bikes roared as the shifters moved into the alley. Seven traveled together tonight, and they slipped around my grandfather’s car in a line of chrome and black leather.

Their arrival made me nervous—not because I feared shifters, but because I regretted what had gone on here and knew some blamed all vampires equally, including us. It hadn’t been that long ago that we were in Colorado, watching animosity between shifter and vampire bubble up.

Ethan reached out, put a hand at the small of my back, a reminder that he was there. He couldn’t change the circumstances—death, murder, bitter magic—but he’d remind me that I wouldn’t face them alone.

Gabriel rode in front, an imposing figure on a long bike with wide handles, every inch of the chrome gleaming to a mirrored perfection. He stopped his bike ten feet away, pulled off his helmet, and ran a hand through his shoulder-length mane of tousled golden-brown hair. His eyes were the same tawny gold, his shoulders broad beneath a snug black V-neck T-shirt that he’d paired with jeans and intimidating black leather boots. He hung the helmet on a gleaming handlebar, swung a strong thigh over the back of the bike, and walked toward us, followed by his only sister, Fallon.

She was Jeff’s girlfriend, a slight woman of surprising strength, with warm eyes and long, wavy hair in the same multihued shades as her brother. She rode the bike directly behind his, wore a skirt with boots and tights, a gray tank under a short-sleeved leather top with lots of pleats and zippers.

The other shifters were male, with broad shoulders, plenty of leather, and generally dour looks.

Gabriel nodded at my grandfather, at Jeff, then looked at Ethan.

“Sullivan,” he said, then glanced at me. “Kitten. He’s one of ours?”

“We don’t know if he’s one of the Pack’s,” Ethan said. “But he’s definitely a shifter, so we wanted to give you the opportunity to find out.”

We escorted him to the body, and Gabriel crouched by the fallen shifter, his leather boots creaking with the movement. Elbows on his knees, hands linked together, he looked slowly and carefully over the body, his gaze finally settling on the wounds at his throat.

The silence was thick and to my mind, threatening.

“His name was Caleb Franklin,” Gabe said. “He was a Pack member—a soldier. A shifter who helped keep order in the territory. He’d go on runs with Damien, actually.”

Damien Garza was a tall, dark, and handsome shifter with a quiet personality, a dry wit, and an exceptional hand with an omelet.

Gabriel stood up. “But Caleb’s not a Pack member anymore. He defected.”

Ethan’s eyebrows lifted. “He left the Pack by choice?”

“He did.”

“Why?” Ethan asked.

“He wanted more freedom.”

Since the Pack was all about freedom—the open road, communing with nature, good food, and good drink—I guessed we weren’t getting the full story. The look on Ethan’s face said he didn’t entirely buy it, either. But this wasn’t the setting for an interrogation of the Pack Apex.

“The vampire?” Gabriel asked.

“We gave chase, but he got away.”

Gabriel nodded, noticed the bandage on my arm. “And got you in the process.”

“Handgun through the window of a beat-up Trans Am. I don’t suppose that vehicle rings any bells?”

He shook his head, glanced at Fallon. She shook her head, too.

“He did this in a relatively public space,” my grandfather said, “but he was eager to get away.”

“We found something else,” I said, gesturing down the alley.

We walked toward the pedestal—a human, two vampires, three shifters, and two sorcerers, all of us impotent in the face of death.

Fallon, Gabriel, and my grandfather studied the pedestal.

“Alchemical,” my grandfather said.

“And the Merits are two for two,” Catcher said. “That’s as far as we’ve gotten. We can pick out individual symbols, but we don’t know what they mean in context.” He glanced at Gabriel. “This mean anything to you?”

Gabe shook his head. “I can feel the magic but don’t recognize it.”

“It’s weird, isn’t it?” All eyes turned to me. “I mean, it has a weird edge. A sharp edge.”

“Metallic,” Mallory said, nodding. “That’s the nature of alchemy.”

“And there’s one more thing,” Catcher said. “Mallory felt something. Some kind of magic.”

All eyes shifted to her now.

“That’s how I found him,” she told Gabriel. “I felt—I don’t know how else to describe it—like a magical pulse. And then we looked for him, found him.”

Gabriel cocked his head at her. “You haven’t sensed anything like that before?”

“No,” she said. “And God knows I’ve been around enough bad magic in my time.”

I reached out and squeezed her hand, found it a little clammy. She gripped mine hard and didn’t let go.

•   •   •

Jeff and Catcher took photographs of the symbols. My and Mallory’s hands were still linked when we walked back toward the body. Three more of the shifters had dismounted, and they stood around him protectively.

“We’ll want to take him home tonight,” Gabriel said.

“You know that won’t be possible.” My grandfather’s tone was polite but firm. “We’ll release him to his family, but not until the postmortem is complete.”

“We’re his family,” Gabriel said gruffly. “Or the closest thing to it. The Pack doesn’t give two shits what Cook County has to say about cause of death. Especially since that cause should be brutally obvious to anyone with a brain.”

“Gabriel,” Ethan said, the word as much warning as name.

“Don’t start with me, Sullivan.” Magic began to rise in the air, peppery and dangerous. “He may not have been mine when he was alive, but he’s mine now.”

He and Ethan might have been friends and colleagues, but they were also leaders with people to protect, and very little tolerance for those who challenged them.

“And you watch your tone, Keene. I recognize your people have endured a tragedy, but we are not your enemy. And you are not immune to the rules of the city in which you live.”

Gabriel growled, and his eyes lit with the promise of anger, of fighting, of action. “A vampire killed one of my people.”

Ethan, who had his own steam to work off, stepped forward. “Not one of my vampires.”

I considered pushing between them, demanding they separate and calm down. But I wasn’t about to incur Ethan’s wrath by playing that card again. Besides, it wasn’t the first time they’d nearly come to blows; maybe their beating the crap out of each other would clear the air.

Fallon apparently decided she wasn’t having any of it. She nudged her way between them, both towering over her by five or six inches.

“Stop being assholes,” she said, her voice quiet but firm. “We’ve made enough of a scene as it is, and have enough tragedy to deal with. You two want to beat the shit out of each other? Fine. But do it out of sight, when the humans can’t see and we don’t have to waste time watching.”

Biting back a smile, I glanced at Jeff, saw his eyes light with appreciation and pride.

Gabriel’s position didn’t change. Shoulders high and stiff, chest forward, hands balled into fists, his tensed body speaking of barely banked rage. He slid his gaze to his sister, nailed her with a look that would have made me nervous if directed at me.

But Fallon Keene just rolled her eyes. “That look hasn’t worked on me since I was seven.” She pointed a finger—the nail painted matte navy—at Gabriel and Ethan in turn. “Get. Your shit. Together.”

Fallon turned on her heel and walked back to the other shifters, whispered something to them. They seemed to relax but kept their wary gazes on their alpha and the alpha he stared down.

“Goddamn murder,” Gabriel said, running a hand through his hair again. “Waste of life, waste of energy.”

“You’ll get no argument there from me,” Ethan said. “And perhaps she’s right. That we shouldn’t waste any more time.”

Gabriel made a sound that was half grunt, half growl. “I find the vampire first, he’s mine.”

Ethan was quiet for a moment, no doubt evaluating his strategy, his best play. He wasn’t one to take advantage of murder, but he rarely made a move without thinking it through.

“All right,” he finally said. “But before you take care of him in whatever method you deem appropriate, we want a chance to question him.”

“Because?”

“Because he’s killed a shifter and attempted to kill Merit. That’s more than enough reason for me.”

Gabriel considered it silently. “Rest of your people going to be so easygoing about his fate? The other Masters?”

Ethan’s expression flattened. He liked Scott Grey, the Master of Grey House, and he tolerated Morgan Greer, the Master of Navarre House. “Should this atrocity prove to have been committed by one of their vampires, I suspect they will want to handle his punishment. That would be an issue for you to take up with them. But there’s no reason to believe he was a Navarre or Grey House vampire, either. I’ve been in Chicago a long time, and there was nothing about him that was familiar to me.”

Gabriel looked at my grandfather. “We will have to mourn him.”

My grandfather nodded. “We can give you space if you want to do it here. We’ll have to request you not touch him, if that’s possible.”

Gabriel didn’t seem to like the answer but didn’t argue with it. “Give us space,” he said, and if operating by an unspoken command, his people clustered around Caleb.

Ethan put a hand at my back, and we walked back toward the street.

“Give them a wall,” my grandfather said. And however weird the uniforms might have thought the request, they obeyed it. They moved to stand shoulder to shoulder facing the crowd, giving the Pack some privacy. We took places beside them, the line stretching all the way across the alley.

Gabriel spoke first, a whisper that put magic into the air, a song that rose and fell like a winter’s tide. I couldn’t distinguish the words. He’d disguised them somehow, muffling vowels and consonants, perhaps so they could be shared only by the Pack. But the point of the song was clear enough. It was a dirge, a song of mourning for their former Pack member.

I let myself drift on the rise and fall of the song. It told of blue skies and rolling green hills, dark and deep waters and mountains that pitched toward a dark blanket of sky scattered with stars. It told of birth and living and death, of the Pack’s connection to wildness, and of the reunion of loved ones. The tone momentarily darkened, unity giving way to struggle, to war.

The hairs at the back of my neck lifted. Ethan moved incrementally closer, pressing his shoulder into mine as if to protect me, just in case.

The tone changed again, fear and loss evolving into understanding, acceptance. And then the song ended, and the magic faded again, faded back into darkness.

I opened my eyes and glanced back, meeting Gabriel’s gaze.

I dipped my head, nodding, acknowledging that which he’d allowed me to share. And when I looked back at him, I realized he wasn’t looking at me, but past me, into some time or space long past, into memory or recollection. And from his expression, not an especially happy one.

•   •   •

“We’ll take care of him,” my grandfather promised when the shifters had moved back to their bikes. “I’ll accompany him personally to the morgue, speak to the medical examiner personally. You’ll remember they have protocols in place.”

It wasn’t the first time a shifter had died in Chicago. There’d been several killed in a botched attempt by Gabriel’s brother, Adam, to take over the Pack.

Gabriel picked up his helmet. “I know you do what you can, within the parameters you’ve got. I’m in the same position.”

“Then we understand each other,” my grandfather said. A van from the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office pulled up to the alley entrance. “I’m going to go have that talk,” he said, then squeezed my hand. “Get home safely.”