Wild Things

Chapter Nineteen REDEMPTION SONG

The 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.”

“Or we might find Regan,” I said. “She was a barker at the first carnival. Pimping the Tunnel of Horrors.”

He glanced at Jonah. “You got time for a ride along?”

“If Scott clears it, sure.”

“The magic that Mallory used to find Tate,” Luc said. “We have Regan’s cape. Can’t we go that route again?”

I shook my head. “It’s not that specific. It got us to a city, but not an address. We still had to find him on our own.” And in a city as big as Chicago, that was going to take time, even with satellite images and a description.

“What about the protest?” I asked Luc.

Luc nodded. “Catcher’s keeping an eye on it. He still has your grandfather’s contacts at the CPD, and they’ve reached out to him for advice on the sup angle. Fortunately, the CPD still has domain outside the halls of the Daley Center.”

“And Ethan?” Jonah asked.

“Andrew’s calling with updates. He’s got a libel and slander complaint against the city ready for filing based on the public enemy list. He’s just waiting for Scott’s lawyers to look it over. No word from Morgan, of course, but that’s not unusual. He prefers to ignore problems while we deal with them.

“Still no word on a release time, but Andrew says they let him visit Ethan a couple of hours ago. He’s looking worse for wear—the terrorism hounds are apparently using this unique opportunity to test the boundaries of the Eighth Amendment.”

Since that one, I remembered from a lone history class in college, involved cruel and unusual punishment, it didn’t make me feel any better.

I braced myself. “How bad is it?”

“Bruising, broken cheekbone. The goons believe they’re saving the world. In many cases, they might be correct. But not in this one.” Luc patted my arm. “I’ll let you know if anything happens. Go check out the park. We take this one step at a time.”

• • •

Humboldt Park was a large, slightly L-shaped expanse of grass, trees, walking paths, and baseball fields between the Humboldt Park and Ukrainian Village neighborhoods. The grass was still covered with snow, except in the bottom corner of the park, where Jack Frost’s Winter Wonderland had set up shop. Regan had changed the name again, but the rest of the carnival looked and smelled the same.

Jonah parked along the street. “Katana?” he asked as we climbed out of the car and over the hillock of snow that still marked the curb.

“I think not tonight. Too suspicious. I have a dagger. You?”

“Same. Plus a couple of extra toys.”

It was generally considered déclassé for vampires to carry concealed weapons. The katana, roughly three feet of honed steel, was difficult to hide, which made its use more honorable among the vamps who actually cared about such things. I understood the sensibility, but in twenty-first-century Chicago, one needed to be a little more practical.

“And what toys are those?” I wondered, stuffing my hands into my jacket pockets to protect against the chill, as we walked toward the carnival entrance.

“Shuriken,” he said. “Ninja stars, in American parlance.”

I nodded. “Sure. I look forward to seeing those in action.” It was late, and there weren’t many humans around. But the occasional couple wandered past us, so this probably wasn’t the best time for shuriken.

We walked inside, started at the midway. We could buy tickets for the ring toss, duck shoot, baseball throw, or water gun game, or funnel cakes with any number of toppings.

My stomach began to growl. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten.

“Need dinner?” Jonah asked.

“Not from here.” And not now, when there was a chance we’d end up pushing and shoving an unidentified sup around. “But I wouldn’t object to a drive-through on the way home.”

“Duly noted. Hey,” he said, brightening as he saw the pirate- ship ride, the boat swinging back and forth while a few brave humans raised their arms victoriously. “I’ve always wanted to ride one of those.”

“Need a ticket?” I slyly asked.

Jonah humphed, and while he watched the ride’s pendulum motion, I checked out the man working the controls. Thin, dark skin, bored expression. Human, with a giant wad of gum in his mouth. Not obviously a part of any magical scheme, which meant we needed to move on.

Regan, not surprisingly, was nowhere in sight. She’d probably have known by now that Harley wasn’t coming back, and she’d lost her nymph. The rest of the ride and game operators were human, and there was no other scent or feel of magic in the air.

We made a full circle around the block and were about to start a second pass, when I caught a pop of red through the trees.

“Jonah,” I said, stepping off the path and onto the snow beyond it. He stepped beside me, peered into the darkness.

“What is that?”

“I’m not sure.” I pulled the dagger from my boot and, when I caught the glint of silver in his hand, moved forward.

It sat beneath the bare and stretching branches of an ancient tree, a wooden wagon atop large wooden wheels. The wheels, spokes radiating from a center hub, were probably three feet across. The wagon itself was a long, rectangular base with a tall, rounded top, nearly circular, painted vibrantly red. The back end had two small windows, covered by curtains, with a short, narrow door between. A yellow scalloped ladder ran down to the ground. There wasn’t a single sign of life.

I’d seen pictures of tinkers and travelers, of families who lived in wagons outside the strictures of normal society. This was nearly too picture-perfect to seem real.

“A vardo,” Jonah quietly said.

I glanced over at him. “What?”

“A traveling wagon. Often used by the Romani in Europe. Not often seen in Chicago.”

I closed my eyes, dropping the defenses that kept my sensitive vampire senses from overwhelming me, and listened for any sign of life. I heard nothing, felt nothing, magical or otherwise.

I opened my eyes again, glanced at him. His eyes were focused on the wagon, gaze intense. I wouldn’t have to worry about Jonah.

“I don’t think anyone’s in there.”

“Me, either,” he said. “Let’s go.”

I climbed the short wooden staircase, which squeaked beneath my feet, and peeked inside. It was dark and silent, with no sign of life. I tried the doorknob, found it unlocked, and glanced back at Jonah, ensuring he was ready.

When he nodded, I pushed it open.

Light spilled into the small space from the open door behind us. It was a single room, cozy and luxurious, with a small velvet settee and blankets and rugs on nearly every surface. Candles were scattered here and there, and a wooden trunk with brass strapping sat in front of the settee like a coffee table.

There was a hanging bar of clothes in one corner, and I recognized the ensemble I’d seen in Loring Park. The tiny hat she’d worn hung atop a small antique bureau topped by an oval mirror. Pots and bottles of makeup littered the surface.

And under it all were the scents of smoke and sulfur.

“She lives here,” I said, and Jonah nodded his agreement. “Harley said she stayed in her own place. Although it’s odd that she doesn’t stay with the collection.”

“Maybe she goes back and forth,” Jonah suggested. “Stays here when the carnival’s open, goes there when it’s closed. This gives her an office, a home base.

“Papers,” he said, moving toward a small folding table with X-shaped legs on the other side of the room. Two neat stacks of paper sat atop it.

While he checked out the table, I moved farther inside, running delicate fingers over the knickknacks and trinkets. A small Limoges box in the shape of a Scottish terrier. Foreign coins. And atop the trunk, inside a beautiful gilt frame, a photograph of a woman. She had hauntingly pale eyes and curls in perfect, thick spirals that framed her pretty face. MOTHER was printed in gold script across the bottom corner of the frame.

“Regan’s mom?” Jonah asked, stepping behind me.

“I don’t know. But it’s something.”

I pulled out my phone, took a picture of the photo, sent it to Jeff with a request: PHOTO MAY BE REGAN’S MOM. SCAN AND MATCH?

ON IT, he immediately messaged back.

I figured I might as well take the opportunity to check on her whereabouts. We were already out and about, after all. ANY REGAN UPDATE?

CHICAGO IS BIG.

I took that as a mild rebuke and put my phone away again, then propped the picture on the trunk again. “What about the papers? Anything there?”

“Nothing. It’s just maintenance logs for the rides. She might have another agenda, but it looks like she takes care of the day-to-day stuff.”

“That’s something. I just hope she takes care of her sups.”

• • •

Neither the wagon nor the carnival offered us anything more. While Jeff continued his search for Regan, her collection, and the woman in the photograph, we drove back to Cadogan House. Jonah, thankfully, made good on his promise of food, driving through a local burger joint and springing for a cheese-and-bacon-laden burger greasy enough to require a handful of napkins, and utterly delicious.

We returned to Cadogan to find Harley gone, Luc, Lindsey, and the temps in the Ops Room.

“Anything?” Luc asked, looking up.

“Just the photograph,” I said, skipping the explanation since Jeff sat at the table beside him. I sat down, too, and Jonah took the seat beside me.

“She has a wagon,” he said, “a vardo, but she wasn’t there.”

“No other sign of magic or Regan. That’s a dead end for now.” I glanced at Jeff, who was busily scanning images on his tablet. “Anything new on your end?”

“Nothing in the city, or with the picture,” he said. “I’ve found an image-comparison algorithm, and I’ve applied it to satellite images of Chicago, but every reflective set of windows on a skyscraper looks like the top of a silver truck trailer. Ditto the photograph. But I’m pushing it along. Moving as quickly as possible.”

He sounded as tired as Luc looked. It had been a long week, with political and supernatural drama, and it looked like we were all beginning to feel the fatigue.

My phone rang, and I pulled it out. The number was unfamiliar, although the caller had a Chicago area code.

“Hello?” I asked.

“Hello, Ballerina.”

I sat up so quickly the chair knocked the edge of the table. “Seth. It’s good to hear from you.”

All eyes in the room turned to me. Luc gestured toward the speakerphone, but I shook my head. I wasn’t entirely sure what this would involve, and it seemed better to handle it quietly.

“I’ve been thinking about our conversation.”

I was immortal, and a predator, and Sentinel of my House. And I still crossed my fingers under the table.

“I want to talk to you about Diane Kowalcyzk.”

My heart began to thud against my chest. “I’m listening.”

“I recruited her, Merit. She was a young alderman, fit right into my team. She worked hard, put in a lot of long hours. I’m not saying she’s taken the right path since then, but she was loyal.”

“I don’t understand. Why are you defending her?”

“Because I feel guilty for not coming clean earlier. It’s occurring to me, a little late, that doing good deeds isn’t going to be enough for me to wipe the slate clean. I still have a lot of baggage to unload.”

I understood his need to confess, but I’d latched on to the first thing he’d said. I leaned forward, gestured for pen and paper. “Come clean about what?”

He was silent for a moment. “Diane Kowalcyzk’s real name is Tammy Morelli.”

I blinked. “The mayor of Chicago has an alias?”

“She does. And if you employ your tech-savvy friend, I believe you’ll find plenty of information to provide leverage for you and the other sups to use.”

I wrote down the name, slid it to Luc, who immediately handed it off to Jeff. But that didn’t ease the greasy feeling in my stomach.

“Blackmail’s a little off-color for an angel, isn’t it?”

He didn’t bother with denial. “It is. And it’s easy for me to stand on a pedestal and talk about doing the right thing. But sometimes doing the right thing means getting your hands dirty.”

“Truer words,” I muttered, thinking of all the times I’d fudged the truth to keep my people safe and happy, including recently. “Thank you, Seth.”

“You’re welcome, Ballerina. Oh, and about the girl—I’ve racked my brain, but I can’t think of anything helpful. I’m sorry.”

It took me a moment to switch mental gears. “Actually, I have something specific for you there. Hold on—I’m going to send you a photograph.” I forwarded the picture we’d found in the vardo. “Do you recognize the woman?”

There was a long silence, long enough that my blood began to hum in anticipation.

“Jesus,” he finally said, his voice hoarse with emotion.

That hum turned to a full-on roar.

“Her name was Annalissa Purdey. He met her years ago.”

I scribbled that name, too, and passed it to Jeff. “He?” I asked Seth.

“Dominic.”

I blinked, confused. “I don’t understand. What do you mean he met her?”

“We shared a body,” he said. “I didn’t know it at the time, of course. But looking back now, I realize there were times when he . . . when he was in control, with all his ego and self-righteousness. He was stronger at some moments than others.”

“And he was stronger with Annalissa Purdey?”

“They had a romance. It must have lasted five months, or perhaps six? I only vaguely remember. She was a young lawyer. A litigator. Smart. Bright. Very driven, and her ethics were, let’s say, flexible.” He chuckled mirthlessly. “She was right up his alley.

“He was driven by the attraction—strengthened by it—and he used that to push past me. It’s been—what—nearly two decades?”

“I’d put Regan at twenty-three or twenty-four, so, yeah, about two decades. You’d have been so young.”

Seth chuckled. “When one is immortal, age is negotiable. But what does Annalissa Purdey have to do with the girl you’re seeking?”

I thought of the inscription on the photograph. “We think Annalissa Purdey is her mother.”

He went stone silent, as did everyone else in the room. I could feel the weight of their stares, the tension as they waited for someone to voice the obvious implication.

“Regan is . . . Annalissa’s daughter?” Seth asked. “But that means she’s . . . Jesus,” he said again, and I heard the shuffling of fabric. He was sitting down, I imagined, and deservedly so. I probably should have advised him to do that in the first place.

“Your daughter?” I asked. “Or Dominic’s?”

“I don’t—” He cleared his throat. “I don’t know. Yes? I mean, we shared the body, but he was the one who had the affair. Is she his daughter? Is she my niece? I don’t know. Does it even matter?”

“It matters if it helps us find her. And we need to find her, Seth.”

“I’m sorry—I don’t know how to help you do that.” Frustration was clear in his voice. “Can you find her mother? Trace her that way?”

“We’re looking,” I said. “We’ll let you know if we find anything.”

“I have—he had—a daughter.” This time, he sounded awed. “If you find her . . . ,” he said.

“We’ll let you know,” I promised him. “Thank you for calling, Seth. It means a lot to us. To me.”

“You may have given me a family,” he said. “That means a lot, too.”

We ended the call, and I rubbed my hands over my face. “I swear to God, the sups in this city could have their own reality show.”

“Sex happens,” Luc said. “With demons, too.”

“I guess.” I glanced at Jeff, who was squinting at his tablet, tongue peeking from the right side of his mouth.

“Annalissa Purdey is deceased,” he said, sending a photograph of an obituary to the screen. The story used the photograph, MOTHER still engraved at the bottom. They must have borrowed Regan’s picture.

Luc grabbed his phone. “I’ll ask the librarian to look into her background. Maybe something will help us locate Regan.”

I nodded, glanced at Jeff. “Tammy Morelli?”

“Tammy Morelli,” he said, swiping the screen, “is a con artist.” Another photograph replaced Annalissa’s, and the woman could hardly have been more different.

Tammy Morelli had a hard-bitten look. Her hair was permed, a curly halo around a face I didn’t immediately recognize. Her nose was a little bit thicker, her chin a little bit smaller. But her eyes were the same.

“That’s Diane Kowalcyzk,” I said. “Who was she?”

“A grifter,” Jeff said, tapping the tablet again and pulling up a series of newspaper articles. “Scam” figured prominently in most of the titles.

“It appears she had a fondness for art and insurance fraud,” Jeff said.

Luc whistled, stretched back in his chair, and kicked his feet on the table. “Now, that, my friends, is something I can work with.”

• • •

We had a wish list, and now we had information to bargain with. It was time to use it.

With Ethan out of pocket and Malik in charge of the House, Luc was designated as the official House negotiator. He coordinated with Andrew and left for the Daley Center with the hope of reaching a deal with the mayor.

However unethical that deal would be.

We didn’t bother going back to the Ops Room. Jeff brought his screen upstairs, and vampires filled the rest of the parlors on the first floor to wait for news. Malik sat beside me on a couch, reading through a contract, one leg crossed over the other.

Lindsey paced the hallway, afraid Luc would get wrapped up in the city’s political nonsense and he’d suffer Ethan’s fate.

One hour and thirteen minutes later, I received a message from Luc.

WE’RE ON OUR WAY HOME.

I closed my eyes and breathed.

• • •

Everyone was excited. But most were smart enough to stay indoors and out of the cold, which sat heavy across the city.

I sat on the front stoop, my hands tucked between my knees to keep them a hairsbreadth from frostbite.

A car door slammed, and my head popped up like an animal sensing her mate. Slowly, I rose from the step.

He strode through the gate as if in slow motion, golden hair streaked with blood, a fading purple bruise across his cheekbone. His jacket was off and fisted in his hand, and his eyes burned like fiery emeralds.

Sentinel, he silently said. You are a sight for sore eyes.

I ran like the hounds of hell were behind me, jumping into his arms and wrapping my arms and legs around him. Thank God, I said. Thank God. I said it to the universe, to him, for him.

He embraced me with bone-crushing strength, buried his head in my neck.

I fisted my hands in his hair, tears flowing over. Tears of relief, of love, of grief. Tears of gratitude that I’d been granted yet another chance with him.

He’d told me once he wasn’t certain how many of his lives he’d already given up, or how many he had yet to give. I didn’t know, either, and didn’t much care, as long as he still had one for me.

When clapping emerged from the front door, I dropped my legs and slid down his body, averting my eyes with embarrassment.

Ethan smiled, tucked a lock of hair behind my ear. “I believe they were applauding you, Sentinel.”

“You’re a liar,” I said, dropping my hot cheek to his shirt. “But I’m okay with that.”

Vampires came forward, embracing him, shaking his hand, and grinning with delight.

“It’s good to be home,” he told them. “And I don’t believe I’ll request those particular accommodations again.”

There were good-natured chuckles from the vampires.

“If you’ll excuse me, I need to sit. It’s been a long night.”

While Malik and Luc helped him inside, and the rest of the vampires followed, I pulled out my phone.

Ethan was home and safe, even though he’d stepped into danger to protect others from violence he believed was his responsibility to bear. He’d trusted his instincts and the skill of the people he’d gathered around him. It was time to set him free, to let him fly and hope that he returned again.

I texted Lakshmi. HE’S FREE AND HOME. HE SHOULD CONTROL OUR DESTINIES.

To the casual observer, the message would have read like I was asking her to do me a favor. But really, it was a receipt. An acknowledgment that Lakshmi had been correct, that Ethan was the right man for the job.

The rest of it was up to fate.

• • •

He made his rounds through the House, greeting his vampires, checking with Malik. By the time he found his way upstairs, I was in pajamas, in front of the fire, and his bruises were nearly healed. He closed the apartment door, placed his suit jacket across the back of a desk chair.

“And here we are again, Sentinel.” He walked forward, nearly stumbling with exhaustion, and grabbed the chair to steady himself.

I jumped to my feet. “Let me help.”

“I don’t need help,” he quietly said, but he accepted the arm I put around his waist and let me guide him to the bed. He winced as he sat down, as if every part of his body was beaten and sore.

And from the look of it as I unfastened buttons and pulled the shirt from his shoulders, it was.

“They did a number on you,” I quietly said, unsure whether I should be screaming or crying at the outrage.

“I’ll heal,” Ethan said, gaze on me as I dropped his shirt to the floor, flipped off his shoes, and helped him unbuckle his pants. Under any other circumstances, his gaze would have been demure and seductive. But tonight, he looked exhausted.

I turned off the fire, flipped off the lights, and climbed into the cool sheets beside him. The pain be damned, he pulled me against his body.

“Thank you for rescuing me, Ballerina,” Ethan drowsily said. “And if he ever so much as lays a hand on you, I will break it.”

I smiled against his chest, fell asleep to the sound of the slow and steady beating of his heart.