Midnight Marked (Chicagoland Vampires, #12)(90)

About damn time, I thought.

“What’s that?”

“A safe-deposit box key we found when we searched Franklin’s house.”

Gabriel’s jaw clenched. “You didn’t mention that when you came to the bar. When you came to the bar,” Gabriel said again, “and berated me for withholding information.”

“So now you’ve proven you’re both *s,” I said.

They both, very slowly, turned their heads to look at me again.

“Assholes whom I respect immensely,” I said, holding up my hands. “But still *s. And that’s not an insult to either one of you. Sometimes you’re *s because you have to be. Because that’s what’s required, and better you be the * than risk the people you’re supposed to protect.”

They both watched me for a minute, as if unsure whether to yell at me or not. Finally, Gabriel relented. “What bank?”

“We don’t know,” Ethan said, then paused before identifying the man who was investigating that. “Jeff’s looking into it.”

“Sneaky,” Gabriel said. “I knew he continued to work with you, and didn’t object to that. I didn’t know it was about this.”

My grandfather walked toward us. “They’d like to begin escorting the shifters out to the supernatural facility.”

The city had renovated a former ceramics factory into a prison for supernaturals, given their special needs (like darkness) and abilities (like glamour). Had Ethan and I been formally charged, we’d probably have ended up there.

“Do what you need to do,” Gabriel said. “They’ve got punishment coming to them, and this might knock sense into their damn heads.”

“We’ll give you the origin story later,” Ethan said to my grandfather. “I know you’ll want the details.”

“I would. The disagreement, let’s call it, is done for now?” he asked, looking between Apex and Master.

“It is,” they agreed.

“Good. We don’t need infighting right now. Not when we’re all on the cusp.”

“Truer words,” Gabe said, then pulled out his phone. “I’ll call a contractor. I’ve got friends with connections. I’ll be sure that they have someone here at sunrise to begin the repairs.”

“I’d appreciate that,” Ethan said. “As to Reed, he’s planning something big, and the alchemy is part of it. Farr, or what happened to him, could be, too. You want in—the investigation, the fight—you’re in.”

Gabriel nodded. “You keep me informed, and I’ll keep you informed.”

And that, I thought, was as much an apology as he was going to give.

? ? ?

“What a mess,” I said when Gabriel walked back to Fallon and Eli, began to talk about strategy.

“It’s the inherent danger of shifters,” Ethan said, “and one of the reasons they prefer to live away from humans. They’re as much wild creature as human. They’re strong, potentially violent, often unpredictable.”

“And sometimes amazingly loyal,” I said as Jeff helped a limping Juliet into the House.

“Indeed, Sentinel. Indeed.”

Mallory walked down the sidewalk, mouth agape and a large duffel bag in hand, weighted down in the middle by something relatively small and obviously heavy.

“What the hell?” she asked when she reached us, her gaze still tripping around the destruction.

“Confused shifters,” I said, so we could skip the longer play-by-play. “A shifter was manipulated by magic, and his friends blamed us.”

“I haven’t heard from Catcher yet, so I didn’t know. Damn, you guys.”

“Yeah,” I said. “It’s a disaster. And there’s something else. The shifter went postal because someone played puppet master with a shifter near the Wrigleyville symbols.”

Mallory opened her mouth, closed it again. “Say what, now?”

“You know what we know. Apparently made the controlled shifter beat the crap out of a fellow Pack member while the sorcerer played composer.” I waved a hand back and forth like conducting an orchestra.

“Holy shit,” Mallory said. “That’s . . . not good.”

“We’re agreed on that,” Ethan said.

“How did they make it work? Magically, I mean.”

“The shifter said the sorcerer drew a symbol in the air,” I said. “He couldn’t ID the symbol, but it was glowing shapes of some kind.”

She looked at the ground, processed. “So it was alchemy. And Paige had it right—the alchemy is about affecting other people.” She scratched her forehead thoughtfully. “But I just don’t see that reflected in the parts we’ve translated. I’m going to have to think about this. In the meantime, would you like some good news?”

“God, yes,” Ethan said.

“The machine’s ready. The alchemical detector—that’s what I’m calling it. We just need to make sure Jeff’s done with his part, and we’re ready to deploy. We just need some height.”

Ethan glanced back, lifted his gaze to the House. “I believe I know a place.”

? ? ?

We waited until the situation at the House was stable. Until the human guards had been cared for and shifters had covered the broken windows with plywood, installed a make-do door and make-do gate, and stood guard outside both. They’d stay until the House was secure again. Architecturally, anyway.