Blood Games

Chapter Twenty-two THE LIONS, THE WITCH, THE WARDROBE

Someone screamed shrilly in my ear, over and over and over again.

“Phone,” Ethan murmured, elbowing me. “Your phone.”

I snapped awake, sat up, reached out for the phone that threatened to vibrate its way across the nightstand. My grandfather’s name flashed on the screen, which made my heart jump uncomfortably.

“Hello?”

“I’m sorry for the rude awakening,” he said.

“It’s okay. I’m awake. Is everything all right?”

“With us, yes. With Mitzy Burrows, no. We’ve found her body.”

“Damn it,” I muttered, then apologized for cursing, which would have earned me a stern look. “Where?”

“The south garden at the Art Institute.” That was downtown, in the middle of Chicago’s business sector and the area known as the Loop.

“All right. I’ll meet you there. Forty minutes or so, depending on traffic.”

“We’ll see you,” my grandfather said, and the line went dead.

“Could I have one night without calamity?” I asked, putting the phone back on the nightstand and pulling a pillow over my face.

The bed shifted, and Ethan lifted the pillow away. “Not for a Sentinel sworn to uphold justice.”

“I don’t think I swore to that. Although I did swear to protect the House against all creatures living or dead. What’s up with that?”

Ethan rose, pushed his hair back. “Ghosts, poltergeists, your greater and lesser banshees.”

“Those things don’t exist.”

His look was flat. “You know better, Sentinel. Another tarot death?”

“Mitzy Burrows.”

Ethan grimaced. “Wasn’t she your prime suspect?”

“She was. And if the killer’s still using the tarot, she’d be the Four of Wands or Four of Cups. She’s at the Art Institute—with my grandfather.”

“I’ll go with you.”

I glanced up at him. “Don’t you want to stay here, wait to hear about the vote?”

He stretched his arms over his head, bent slightly at the waist as if loosening up for another run. “The message will come to me. If it’s bad news, I’d just as soon hear about it outside the House. I need to go. I need a distraction, and I haven’t been much help in this investigation so far.”

“Okay,” I said. “But I’m driving.”

Ethan drove.

Apparently, a man who’d been through two nights of rigorous psychological and physical testing deserved a night behind the wheel of his Ferrari.

I could hardly argue with that, mostly because it would have made me look bad. So I sucked it up.

Ethan gave Luc our itinerary, and I sent Jonah a message advising him of the murder, promising to stay in touch. He wished Ethan luck and asked me to give him an update if the GP got in touch. I guessed that request was equally motivated by personal curiosity, House curiosity, and RG curiosity. If Ethan won, there seemed little doubt the RG would have more questions, especially about my loyalty.

The Art Institute of Chicago took up a prime spot on Michigan Avenue. We parked a few blocks away, then locked the car and set out for the park on foot.

The building was one of the city’s most famous landmarks, the classical architecture marked by columns and two giant stone lions that guarded the door. When I was younger, I’d stare at the lions, totally transfixed, wishing they’d come to life like twin Aslans.

I’d also spent plenty of time inside the building, staring at paintings and sculpture, obsessing over the museum’s collection of miniature rooms, and imagining myself a tiny denizen.

None of the tales I’d spun featured vampires, sparkling or otherwise. But there might have been pirates.

We walked past the lions, heads nobly pointed toward the sky. Ethan reached up and rubbed a hand along one’s leg, as if for good luck—or to ward off bad juju.

The sculpture garden was on the north side of the building, and half the park was boxed by lumber and clear plastic. That something had happened was obvious. Cops were parked on the street, their lights flashing. My grandfather stood on the sidewalk with Catcher, who nodded as we approached.

“Construction?” I wondered, gesturing toward what looked like temporary cover.

“Closed for a couple of weeks while they replace the concrete. They don’t want people initialing it in the meantime.” He gestured with his cane to a make-do door in the construction wrapping, and we walked inside.

Once again, temporary lights had been set up inside the barrier. The light bouncing off the plastic gave the garden an ethereal glow.

Cops and forensic folks were sprinkled around the park, looking for evidence, measuring, taking photographs. Detective Jacobs, looking drawn, and Detective Stowe talked to a construction worker who held his hard hat with white-knuckled fingers. His face looked equally bloodless. Perhaps he’d discovered the body.

We followed my grandfather to the park’s water feature, a long rectangular pool of water topped by a circular fountain. An enormous pedestal emerged from it, topped by five bronze figures. The lowest figure reached out, her eyes closed, toward the body that lay at her feet.

That body wasn’t sculpture, but very human.

Mitzy Burrows was propped beside the fountain, legs curled beneath her, one arm in her lap, the hand holding a golden cup marked by a blue cross. She wore a white dress; her feet were bare but, like the rest of her body, swollen with decay.

Her other arm lay across the edge of the fountain, and her head rested on it, as if she gazed longingly into the water. Both of her wrists had been cut, and blood stained the concrete around her and the water that pooled in the fountain. The scent of death was lifted by the breeze, and I used every bit of control to block it out.

“This isn’t the Four of Cups.” I looked at my grandfather. “I’ve seen that card, and this isn’t it. So this death doesn’t match the pattern. Two of Swords. Three of Pentacles. Four of Cups.”

“It’s not the Four of Cups,” my grandfather agreed. “But she wasn’t killed today. She was killed a week ago.”

I looked back at the body, the single cup. She may have been our best lead, but she’d never been our killer. “She was killed first, and she started it all. The Ace of Cups?”

Catcher swiped at his phone, scanned, then passed it over. The card he’d pulled up was remarkably identical—a woman in a white toga-style gown beside a circular fountain, cup in hand, fingers trailing in the water.

“How did no one find her?” Ethan asked.

“Dumb luck,” my grandfather said. “The concrete’s been curing, and the workers haven’t been on the site in a few days. No one saw her until tonight.” He gestured toward Detective Jacobs and the others. “The construction manager got word vandals were cutting through the plastic, so he came out to have a look.”

As the forensic team moved closer, we stepped back to give them room.

“So someone killed Mitzy Burrows,” I said, when we’d moved a few feet away. “Then her ex-boyfriend, then Samantha Ingram. And the killer is going in order: Ace of Cups, Two of Swords, Three of Pentacles.”

“Four of Wands would be next,” Catcher said. “Naked woman on a horse in front of a castle.”

“Lady Godiva?” Ethan suggested.

Catcher nodded. “Quite similar.” He looked at my grandfather. “What ties the victims together? Or to the killer?”

“The Magic Shoppe,” I said. “Mitzy used to work there, and she bought the swords there. There’s a good chance the tarot cards were purchased there, too, based on the limited supply. Have you heard anything from the manager?”

Catcher shook his head. “The records were supposed to be released today. We’re just waiting for him to take a look. Might be worth a drop-in later if we still haven’t heard.”

My grandfather nodded. “Follow up with them again, and drop by the store if you can’t reach them.”

“Not to be the bearer of bad news,” Ethan said, “but three deaths within a single week means the killer’s moving quickly.”

“And the media’s caught on to the tarot angle,” my grandfather said. “There was a story in the paper this morning: ‘City under Siege as Tarot Killer Strikes Chicago.’”

“Thank God they didn’t exaggerate,” Catcher said blandly. “If this was the killer’s first body, maybe he was sloppy. We could get lucky in the forensics.”

“That would be my hope. Detective Jacobs will run the investigation on the ground, follow up again with Brett’s, Mitzy’s, and Samantha’s neighbors, try to find the connection between them. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’ll want to visit the store, as well.”

“Anything we can do?” I asked.

“Not at the moment. But we’d appreciate it if you’d stay available. We’ve got folks dabbling in magic, purposefully or not, and we’d appreciate your take. That’s what got us to the Magic Shoppe in the first place.”

I had to give credit where credit was due. “That was Jonah’s doing, actually. And we’ll circle around with him, just in case.”

“Appreciate it.” My grandfather glanced back at Mitzy, grief darkening his eyes. Decades as a cop hadn’t carved the emotion out of him.

“We’ll be in touch,” he said, a hand on Catcher’s back as they moved back.

I sighed, rubbed my eyes. “I, for one, am sick of murder.”

Ethan rubbed my neck. “You and me both, Sentinel. You and me both.”

We walked back to Ethan’s car, climbed inside. Ethan pulled out his phone to check it before we pulled into traffic.

My heart jumped immediately. “News?”

“Yes, but not of the variety we were expecting. The GP located Ronald Weatherby. And the GP is now down another vampire.”

I half turned in the seat. “Down another vampire—as in dead? They found out who did it?”

“It was Dierks; at least, it was Dierks in the end, God rest his soul. Ronald Weatherby actually named Harold Monmonth as the instigator. He made the plan to steal the money from the GP, and when he was gone”—by Ethan’s hand, notably—“Dierks continued the tradition.”

“Weatherby prepped the obelisk?”

Ethan paused, scrolling through the GP’s message. “He did. Said he had no idea what the vampires planned to use it for. ‘Bit of hypnosis,’ he told them.”

I sat back again. “Damn. And what did Dierks say?”

“He offered Darius a full confession, which might be the first honorable thing he’s done. Ironically, he said the GP was falling apart, and he wanted out. He decided continuing Monmonth’s plan was the easiest way to do that.”

“How did they kill Dierks?” I quietly asked.

“Decapitation. A relatively easy out for a vampire who committed treason and larceny, all things considered, but they’d have given him consideration since he’s a GP member.”

“What will happen to Ronald?”

More scrolling. The GP apparently prepared very thorough reports. “Lakshmi is communicating with the European version of the Order to ensure Ronald uses more care in the future.”

“That’s a familiar story,” I said, thinking of Mallory and her former tutor, Simon.

“Perhaps,” Ethan said with a smile. But when he looked down at his phone again, the smile faded. A pulse of despondent magic filled the car.

I put a hand on his arm but stayed quiet. From the look on his face, I didn’t need to ask what news he’d received.

“I didn’t win,” Ethan said. “I lost the vote.” He looked sad, shocked, befuddled, all at once.

I waited for him, gave him time to say the rest of it aloud.

“She won—Nicole. She’ll be the next head of the GP.” He put the phone down, put both hands on the steering wheel, stared into the night.

“I’m so sorry,” I quietly said. “So very sorry. I know how much you wanted it—how much good you would have done.”

He nodded but kept his eyes on the street.

“Will you want to address the House?”

Silence, then: “No, Merit. I just want quiet. Peace and quiet. We’ll broadcast the coronation in the ballroom, and I’ll address the House then. I’ll thank them for their service, for putting up with the intrigue and the testing, for all of it. But for now, let’s just have peace.”

“Then that’s what we’ll do. Can I ply you with food? That’s really my go-to response.”

Before he could answer, my phone rang again. “Damn, but we’re popular,” I murmured, switching it to speaker mode.

“Merit and Ethan.”

“It’s Catcher. Just heard from the manager of the Magic Shoppe.”

“That was fast.”

“Yeah. Apparently he saw the story in the paper, actually got to work. He confirmed Samantha Ingram was a customer. Bought some vampire memorabilia a couple of days ago.”

“Probably excited about being a potential Initiate,” I said.

“Yeah, possible. He also finally checked the box, and the cards were actually purchased by a store employee—Curt Wachman. Jacobs is going to the store as soon as the scene is processed.”

“Curt? Curt bought the tarot cards?”

“You know him?”

“He was at the store when Mallory and I went. We asked him about Mitzy. He didn’t say anything unusual . . .” Something horrible occurred to me, because Mitzy wasn’t the only thing we’d talked to him about.

Ace of Cups. Two of Swords. Three of Pentacles . . . and Four of Wands, something a practitioner of magic might use.

“Catcher,” I said, forcing my voice to not shake. “Where’s Mallory?”

“At home, I assume. Why?”

My heart began to pound. “She talked to Curt about going back to the store. She wants some wolfsbane, and he said they had some on the way.” I calculated the timing. “She was going to pick it up. He tried to warn her off buying it, but she said she knew what she was doing. Didn’t say she was a sorceress outright, but nudged around it. And it’s her favorite shop—he knew her, had sold things to her before.”

I heard only the sound of breathing. “I’m going to call her right now.”

“I’ll call her,” I said. “We’re already in the car and driving.” I gestured to Ethan to start the car, pull out into traffic. He didn’t waste any time. “And we’re on our way to the store.”

“Maybe this is nothing,” he said. “Maybe it’s nothing at all.”

“You’re probably right,” I said, but it didn’t feel right in my gut. And just in case: “Talk to my grandfather. Get the CPD to Curt’s house, too, just in case he’s off today. Maybe this is all a coincidence.”

“Find her, Merit.”

As soon as the call was disconnected, I dialed her number. The phone rang three times, then four, and my chest tightened with fear. Until, on the fifth ring, she answered.

“Hey, Merit—”

“Mallory, thank God.”

“Hey, I’m actually right in the middle of something right now. Can I call you back?”

Shit. “Mallory, are you in the Magic Shoppe?”

“Well, yeah, actually. How did you know?”

Blood roared in my ears, but I forced myself to stay calm, to think. “I need you to turn around and walk out of there, Mallory. Pretend that nothing’s wrong, just turn around and walk out. And don’t ask questions. Don’t ask me why; just turn around and walk out. Right to the door, and then back to the town house. Pretend I called, and I need something. It’s an emergency. Okay?”

I had to give her credit. She didn’t argue or ask questions. I must have sounded like a crazy person, but she didn’t panic.

“Oh, hey, Curt,” I heard her say. “Sorry, but Merit’s got something she needs to talk about right away. Some kind of boy nonsense. Could you hold that wolfsbane for me for a few minutes? I’m going to step outside and try to calm her down.”

“She’s good,” Ethan quietly said, eyes on the road as he took a sharp turn, then squeezed between cars to get a better spot in a different lane.

“You’re doing great, Mal,” I quietly told her. “You’re doing great.”

But her tone changed. “Get your hand off me, Curt. I don’t want to have to hurt you.”

I could actually feel the charge of magic through the phone, as if the cell tower had sent an echo of it along with her words.

“Just walk out, Mallory. Just turn and run.”

I don’t know whether she heard me or not. The phone crackled and sizzled with magic and the sound of breaking glass.

“Get your hands off me, you psychopath!” And then the magic deflated, like it had been sucked back through the phone with a vacuum.

“Oh. Shit,” she woozily said. “It’s Curt . . . isn’t it?”

The call went dead.

I called my grandfather back, hand shaking around the phone, and told him what we’d heard. Ethan drove like the proverbial bat out of hell, my grandfather, Catcher, and the rest of the CPD zooming along behind us.

Ethan squealed to a halt outside the Magic Shoppe, and I had my katana unsheathed before I reached the door. The lights were on, and the door was unlocked. There was a trail of magical destruction behind the counter—a line of broken jars and a lightning strike of broken glass across the mirror.

I gestured Ethan to the right, and I took the left, creeping down the row, checking the cross aisles for signs of life. When we met in the back of the store, he shook his head. I gestured to the door, counted quietly down. “Three . . . two . . . one.”

We went in, katanas in hand, blades pointed and ready for action but ultimately unnecessary. Skylar-Katherine lay on the floor in front of us.

“Shit,” I said, falling to my knees in front of her. I checked her breathing, which was slow but regular. A bruise was rising on her temple. He’d knocked her out.

I patted her cheeks. “Skylar-Katherine. Skylar-Katherine, wake up.

“There’s probably a bathroom,” I said, gesturing Ethan to the back of the store. “Damp towels?”

“On it,” he said, and rose to a quick jog.

After several seconds, her eyes fluttered, opened. She looked around, then focused on me. “What’s going on?”

“Somebody knocked you out?”

“Somebody . . . Curt. It was Curt. I think Curt knocked me out.”

“I think so, too. Can you sit up?”

She nodded, but I put a hand behind her shoulders, helped her move into a sitting position. “My head,” she said, touching her temple gingerly with the heel of her hand.

“I know the feeling,” I said. “Do you know where Curt is?”

“No. There was—someone came to the door. It was your blue-haired friend. He said he had business, and he needed to attend to it. And then he hit me.” Tears rushed to her eyes. “Why would he hit me? We’re friends.”

There wasn’t going to be an easy way to say this, so I didn’t bother sugarcoating it. “You heard about the tarot murders?”

All the color drained from her face. “Sure. Why?”

“We think Curt is the killer.”

It was obvious she wanted to argue; I could see it in her face. The assault had made her enough of a believer. “Is that why he hit me?”

“We think so.” Ethan came back with wet towels, and I pressed them against the bump on her head. She hissed with pain.

“I don’t know him,” she said, leveling him with a suspicious glance. She was clearly coming around.

“He’s Ethan. My boyfriend. Skylar-Katherine,” I said, snapping my fingers until she looked at me again. “Why would Curt hurt Mitzy? Or Brett?”

“Mitzy? Oh, because he loved her. And she didn’t love him back.”

I frowned, very confused. That didn’t match what the CPD had learned. “Wait. I thought Mitzy was dating Brett.”

“She went on a date with Brett. She’d been dating Curt, but they broke up. It was nasty, too. He really had a thing for her. She quit the store a couple of weeks after that.”

“Do you know where Curt was going?”

“I don’t—I don’t know. This is so confusing.”

“Stay with her,” I told Ethan. “And call Catcher, let him know.”

I rose and ran to the back corner of the store, looked at the tarot card case. I’d expected the spot for the Fletcher deck to still be empty, but there was a new deck where the old one had been.

I pulled up the glass lid, but it didn’t budge. There wasn’t time for keys, so I grabbed the closest thing I could find—a candleholder made of antler—and stabbed it into the top of the case. Glass shattered and dropped into the case.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

I glanced back, saw Skylar-Katherine behind me, limping forward with Ethan’s support.

“Catcher will be here in a couple of minutes,” he said. “CPD’s nearly at Curt’s house.”

“I asked what you were doing to our case!”

“I’m finding out where your crazy coworker took my best friend.” I brushed glass aside with the edge of my sleeve and plucked out the box of Fletcher tarot cards.

I ripped away cellophane and paper, destroying the box to get to the cards, flipping through them until I found the card I was looking for.

“Four of Wands,” I said, pulling it out and holding it up so they could see the Lady Godiva-esque feature, her horse, her castle.

I turned the card so they could look at it, too. “He’s been literal so far with the symbolism. If he keeps that here, he needs a castle.”

“The Water Tower?” Ethan suggested. “It looks medieval.”

It was the type of place he’d like—a public space with lots of attention. But he had an eye for detail. The Water Tower was much too small to look like the enormous battlement on the card.

“Too small,” I said. “What about that castle in River North?”

“It’s a club now,” Skylar-Katherine said. “Good scene.”

“But surrounded by concrete,” Ethan said, tapping the card. “And he won’t want that much attention, not at first. He’s too particular, and he’ll want time to arrange things. He can’t do that privately downtown.”

“Oh, I know something!” Skylar-Katherine walked to the back of the store, grabbing shelves for balance as she moved. The shuffling of paper and moving drawers echoed through the store.

“This,” Skylar-Katherine said, emerging from the back room only seconds later, one hand on the doorjamb as she made the turn into the store again, feet practically skidding on the carpet as she moved. A newspaper, folded open, was in her hand.

“This,” she said again, thrusting it at us. “The Bellwether Castle—it used to be a private school, but they rent it out now for weddings or whatever. They’re having a spring open house.”

Ethan took the paper, and we looked at the black-and-white photograph of a building that, yeah, looked very much like a castle. Large, square, and tall, with a turret on each corner. The stones were roughly hewed, and the giant front door consisted of large planks of wood butted together with golden bolts. The building was set back on the lot, with plenty of green space behind it.

Ethan held the picture beside the card, whistled. “That’s pretty damn close.”

“We don’t have time for ‘pretty damn close,’” I said.

“There’s a stable behind the building,” Skylar-Katherine said. “I don’t know if they still have horses, but there’s a stable.”

“That’s pretty damn close,” I said, and took a picture of the newspaper to send to Jeff just as tires squealed outside the front of the building.

“Where the fuck is she?” demanded the voice that rushed inside over the clang of the bells on the door.

Catcher had arrived. His magic—sharp and dangerous—was telling enough. He emerged around the row in a T-shirt that read, fittingly enough, YOU’RE MY PROBLEM.

He and Mallory might have had their problems, and their relationship might have been endangered during her Nebraska period, but there was no doubting the ferocity in his eyes or the cloud of magic behind him. His woman had been threatened, and he’d damn well take care of it.

Jeff and my grandfather rounded the corner behind him. Not just Catcher taking care of it, but Mallory’s entire magical family.

“We think she’s here,” Ethan said, extending the paper to Catcher. He grabbed it, took a look, lifted his gaze again before handing it off to Jeff.

“Why?” my grandfather asked.

“There’s a castle on the Four of Wands.” Ethan handed him the card.

Catcher reviewed, nodded. “Jeff?”

“On it,” he said, handing the paper down the line to my grandfather as he pulled out a thin tablet that looked like little more than a thin sheet of glass. He swiped fingers across it.

“Bellwether Castle,” he read. “Formerly Bellwether Beaux Arts Academy, built 1891.” He looked up. “It’s in Logan Square. Near the park.”

“That’s only a couple of miles from here,” I said.

Catcher turned and started for the door, but my grandfather adjusted to block him.

“Chuck,” Catcher warned, his eyes wild with fear and fury. “He’s probably drugged her, and he’ll kill her if we don’t get there.”

But my grandfather stayed calm. “If we don’t go in there with a plan, we risk her getting hurt in the process. And we don’t want that. We’ll get to her first,” my grandfather said, keeping his gaze on Catcher.

“Curt is careful,” my grandfather continued. “The arrangement, the positioning. Think of the trouble he goes to. We do this right, and she’ll be fine. But we have to do this right.”

Catcher nodded, stepped aside.

“There are a couple of other places,” I said. “Water Tower, the castle. Low chance he’s there, because they don’t quite match, but . . .”

My grandfather pulled out his phone. “I’ll tell Arthur. Have him send squads to both places just in case. They’ll need to go in quietly. No sirens. We don’t want to startle or scare him.”

He looked at me. “You said you talked to Curt?”

I nodded. “Day before yesterday, when we came to ask about the purchase of the tarot deck. I was with Mallory when she ordered the stuff.”

“So he’ll recognize you. I’ll talk to Jacobs, but you might be the best candidate to go in. How do you feel about that?”

I expected Ethan to protest, but he was silent. I glanced at him, saw concern on his face. But by his silence, he offered me trust, faith. He squeezed my hand supportively.

“Fine,” I said. “I’m fine with it. I’ll go in. I can talk to him about what he did, why he did it. Try to build a bond?”

My grandfather nodded. “The card. What weapon would he use?”

I offered it to him, but it wasn’t clear from the simple artwork. Castle. Horse. Wands. Pennants.

“The wands?” Ethan asked. “That’s a possibility.”

“Or the braid,” I suggested. “Strangulation?”

“Each murder has been different,” Catcher grimly said. “He won’t repeat something he’s done before. He’s strangled, stabbed, slit wrists. This would be something else.”

“That will have to wait until we get there.” My grandfather held up his phone, stepped away. “Two minutes,” he said to Catcher, “to work the details. And then we’ll get your girl. Because she’s our girl, too.”