Vicious Grace

THREE

There had been a time not that long ago when MapQuest printouts had been part of my routine. The GPS was better. Rain was still coming down hard, and traffic on the highway was thicker and faster than I liked. The cheerful little map glowed in the dashboard, encouraging us on, making the city around us seem like a known quantity. The skyscrapers of Chicago glittered and glowed through the storm, towers of gold and darkness. We got off at Division Street, heading east. The low brick buildings seemed to crowd the street, leaning in toward us, and gray-white rain flowed angrily in the gutters. We followed the GPS directions, and the buildings we passed grew taller, the bars more like places college kids went when they wanted to be edgy. Then banks and restaurants. A Starbucks. My head had been filled with the stories I knew about Chicago—Al Capone and Millennium Field, Buddy Guy and deep-dish pizza. I’d never been here before, and looking out at the same corporate coffee joint I’d been to in every city I’d seen, I felt like I’d driven through someplace—some real, genuine Chicago—and wound up at a convention center. I half wanted to turn back.

And then, the city ended. Between rain, darkness, and the four intervening lanes of I-41, I couldn’t see Lake Michigan itself, but the darkness was sudden and extreme. Aubrey turned us north at the GPS’s gentle, vaguely British suggestion, and the world on our right was towering electric light, glass, and concrete and on our left, blackness. I’d never lived on the water, and the contrast made me jumpy. Or maybe I was already jumpy, and it was just something to latch on to.

The building we wanted looked like a hotel. Pale stone rose over twenty stories above us, lights glowing in over half the windows. Black-barked trees rose up the sides, their canopy covering the street and making the bulk of the building behind them seem even larger. The GPS announced that we had arrived. From the backseat, Ex whistled low.

“We’re sure this is the right place?” I asked.

“I think so,” Aubrey said, squinting past a parked FedEx truck as he drove. “Anyone see an address?”

“This thing’s half the block,” Ex said. “Let’s park and find a security guard to ask.”

“Right,” Aubrey said. “Anyone see where we park?”

We circled the block twice, pulling in at a locked loading dock and then back out again before a figure darted out from the sidewalk. A brown-haired man in a suit and tie waved tentatively, and Aubrey paused, rolling down the window. The blast of air smelled of rain and cold.

“Jayné Heller?” the man asked, pronouncing it Jane.

I raised my hand.

“I’m Harlan. Harlan Jeffers. I work for the building management,” he said with a smile, as the rain dripped down his cheek. “Your lawyer wanted me to meet you. Sorry if I’m late.”

“Where do we park?” Aubrey asked. Harlan pointed him to a bush-camouflaged ramp and handed us a radio passkey before stepping back and promising to meet us inside. We turned the car down the ramp and around a sharp corner. A wide steel gate slid open before us, and we went in.

The lobby of the building belonged in an architectural magazine. Gentle archways of butter-colored marble rose and fell all along a wide central court, and a fountain of black basalt in the center had water sheeting down the stone as if spouting up in the air would be too nouveau riche. Classical music played through hidden speakers like Muzak’s grown-up, sophisticated sister. The smell of rain wasn’t completely gone, but it was lessened. I more than half expected the security guard to stop us and ask for our papers. My traveling T-shirt and jeans seemed about as appropriate as an evening gown in a mosh pit. But Harlan appeared again, his hair slicked by the rain and his smile almost painfully eager to please. I wondered how much he knew about us, or if my lawyer had just put the fear of God into him by implication. She had that knack.

“I’m really sorry I left you hanging,” Harlan said, holding out a manila envelope. I accepted it with a smile.

“No trouble,” I said. “We weren’t out there long.”

The envelope held a ring with two keys, a magnetic key card, a sheet of paper with what looked like a four-digit PIN, and a restaurant guide. I pulled out the restaurant guide.

“That’s mine,” Harlan said. “I mean, it’s from me. I knew you were new to the Windy City, and I thought it might help. While you got your bearings.”

“Do they really call it the Windy City, or is that just for tourists?” Ex asked, and Harlan’s smile got a little more nervous.

“One thing,” I said, breaking in before the guy could dig himself in any deeper. “I know we’ve got it listed in the database, but could you just remind me what floor and room we’re heading to?”

“Nineteenth floor,” Harlan said. “You’ve got 1904. Just turn right when you get out of the elevators and it’ll be halfway down on the right. Beautiful view of the lake.”

“Have you been in it?” Chogyi Jake asked. “Not the lake, I mean. The apartment?”

Harlan looked nonplussed.

“We have very strict instructions about 1904,” Harlan said. “We don’t go in or out unless the owner or the owner’s listed agent is present. That’s a very solid rule.”

“So you’ve never been in,” I said.

“No, miss,” he said. “Never.”

I looked at Aubrey, who raised his eyebrow a millimeter. For someone accustomed to dealing with the rich and powerful, Harlan was a rotten liar. The man seemed to sense that he was on thin ice. When he spoke again, his voice was louder and more cheerful.

“My card’s in there too. It has the office number and my private line. If there’s anything I can help with, just let me know. Any time.”

He beat a hasty retreat, and the four of us hauled our suitcases across the wide lobby to the bank of wood-paneled elevators. It took me a minute to figure out that the car wouldn’t move until I waved the magnetic key card over a flat black sensor panel, but then we rose up smoothly, almost silently.

“Well,” Ex said. “That was interesting. I guess getting into the place isn’t too hard.”

Compared to the Los Angeles property, 1904 was simple. Two locks, corresponding to the two keys. A simple magical warning system and a network of aversion wards that made the place feel unwelcoming and dangerous until Chogyi Jake placated them with a handful of salt and a drop of my blood. And the place itself . . .

Imagine a good, solid cottage on the cliffs above a cold sea. Three bedrooms, a living space, a kitchen. Wooden floors, white walls, thick wool rugs of gray and fading red. Rough-hewn wood furniture filled five rooms, and old woodblock prints in cheap frames were the only art. The dining room table was big enough for eight, but with only three chairs. The kitchen had wide, pale linoleum counters and a freestanding gas stove in green-and-cream enamel that looked like it belonged in the 1930s. When I pulled back the thick cotton curtains, the rainstorm, silent behind the triple-paned glass, and the overwhelming view of the black lake framed by skyscrapers to the south was like something out of a Magritte painting. Too implausible to be real. We all walked through the place for a few minutes, just to get our bearings. Everything was covered with dust. Eric clearly hadn’t popped for a cleaning service.

Aubrey was the first one to put his finger on what was so dislocating.

“There’s nothing here,” he said.

Every one of Uncle Eric’s properties had shown the effects of his occult life. Strange books and unsettling objects were arranged in boxes, crates, and shelves all around the world. This place was so simple, so clean, so empty that it felt wrong. I saw it in their faces that it set us all on edge.

“Do you think . . .” Ex began. “Did Harlan rob the place?”

“We wouldn’t know if something was missing,” Chogyi Jake said. “There’s no inventory to compare it with. And it does seem . . . spare, doesn’t it? I thought it would be bigger too. Did anyone else expect it to be bigger?”

We stood silently, each of us looking at the others.

“Okay,” I said at last. “Is there anything we can do about that?”

After about a heartbeat, all three of them shook their heads and made negative grunts.

“Then let’s table it and move on. How about we see if there’s any food here, then unpack and clean up a little, and I’ll call Kim.”

AN HOUR later, Kim was sitting on the cowskin couch. She had a new haircut that softened her features and left her looking a little less like Nicole Kidman. Still, the last year hadn’t been kind to her. She’d put on five or ten pounds, and they didn’t actually suit her. Her skin was paler than I remembered, and her eyes had a sunken look. Her expression was the same, and I had to remind myself that her closed, brittle manner had put me off the first time I’d met her too.

Ex had moved one of the kitchen chairs into the living space, Aubrey sat in a chair that matched the couch, Chogyi Jake sat on the floor with a cup of green tea in his hands, and I stood in the door frame to the dining room as if I wasn’t sure I was supposed to be there.

I hated it that my gut went tight, seeing her with Aubrey. It had been easier that first time in Denver. Aubrey had been in a coma, for one thing. By the time he’d come back, she’d left. From the way they talked now, you wouldn’t know it was the first time they’d seen each other in years.

“But what’s this Oonishi guy trying to prove?” Aubrey said. “I mean, does he have a hypothesis?”

“It’s an exploratory protocol,” Kim said. “The idea is to provide a baseline for further work. And yes, it’s hey-look-at-me science and exactly the sort of study that pisses you off. But what can I tell you? He gets grants.”

Aubrey shook his head, but his expression was easy. Yes, he thought the sleep guy was doing lousy science. Yes, it pissed him off. But the fact that Kim knew all that even before she started talking pulled the sting. All this was part of a conversation they’d had countless times before I knew either one of them, complete with the private shorthand that comes from knowing someone well for a long time. They didn’t mean to exclude me. It just worked out that way.

“So the weird dreams,” I said. “Are they the only thing we’re seeing? Or is there something else we can go on, maybe get a toehold on the problem?”

Kim turned to me.

“It’s the only hard data,” she said. “But I’ve been asking around a little bit since I called you, and . . . well, there are stories. Anecdotal evidence.”

“What kind?” Ex asked.

Kim settled back into the couch, her brow breaking into half a dozen tiny lines. She waved vaguely with one hand, holding her fingers as if she had a cigarette between them. I wondered if she’d ever been a smoker.

“Little things,” she said. “One of the recovery room techs was talking about people coming out of anesthetic saying words and phrases in languages they don’t speak. And apparently there’s been a huge upswing in walk-aways in the last year.”

“Walk-aways?” Chogyi Jake said.

“Patients on the care floors go missing,” Kim said. “Walk out on their own, AMA.”

“Against medical advice,” Aubrey said, anticipating my next question.

“Any signs of riders?” Ex asked.

Kim’s sigh was sharp.

“I can’t find anything,” she said carefully. “I used some of the things Eric taught me. The Mark of Kadashman-Enlil and de Lancre’s candle meditation.”

“De Lancre?” Chogyi Jake said, a little taken aback.

“What’s de Lancre?” I asked.

“Seventeenth-century demonologist,” Ex said. “Witchfinder. Burned a lot of women and Jews. He’s not generally very well regarded.”

“Be that as it may,” Kim said, “I can’t find anyone who seems like a good suspect. I won’t say there aren’t any riders in the hospital, but if there are I haven’t found them. And I can’t explain what I have seen.”

“Meaning Oonishi’s data,” Aubrey said.

“Yes,” said Chogyi Jake. “Could we actually see that recording?”

While Kim fished around in her purse, I went back to my bedroom to get my laptop. I had the master suite with my own bathroom and a king-sized bed and a window that would probably look better in the morning. Aubrey’s bags were in there too, open and empty. I stopped for a few seconds to open the dresser and see his socks there beside my own. The little bits of cloth tangled together calmed me, and I went back into the living room feeling a little more grounded. Kim handed me a thumb drive, and I popped it in one of the laptop’s USB ports. It took a minute to get the right application up, but then a huge window opened. We all crowded close to watch. The resolution sucked, but if I squinted, it was like seeing some old silent horror film. Count Orlok rising from his grave. The dream images went white, then flickered with strange things. An eye. A mouth. An oddly shaped hand. I felt a deep stillness in me, like they were things I recognized except for the bit where I didn’t know what they were.

“Well,” Aubrey said from just behind me, “the box looks like maybe an interment binding?”

“Symbolic burial,” Chogyi Jake said with what sounded like agreement. “But if it’s leaking like this, not a totally successful one. It could also be some kind of historical echo.”

“What about that hand?” Ex said. “Did that seem familiar to anyone?”

“Couldn’t tell much about it,” Aubrey said. “It was pretty blurred.”

“Could it have been a Masonic reference?” Kim asked.

“Maybe Daughters of the Nile,” Ex said, but his voice carried a weight of skepticism.

The conversation dove into references and occult theory deeper than my personal bookshelf went. I detached myself from the group and headed for the kitchen. When they’d hashed it out, I’d get the FAQ version. That was how it usually went, and the scheme worked for me well.

There wasn’t much. Eric hadn’t stocked the place with anything that wouldn’t last more or less indefinitely. Some canned beans. A few boxes of antiquated tea. The only thing in the cupboard was a box of Twinkies. None of it looked appealing. My cell phone said it was already after midnight. I’d woken up in Montana, and now, looking out over Lake Michigan as lightning arced over the water, I let myself feel a little tired. A hard gust of wind bowed the dark glass of the window, and in its dim reflection, the door opened behind me. Kim stepped in.

“Hey,” I said, turning to her.

“Is there any tea water left?” she asked.

“Can be,” I said, scooping the kettle off the stovetop. As I filled it, the tame water from the tap like a parody of the falling rain outside, Kim stood behind me, her arms crossed.

“How have you been?” she asked.

“Busy as hell. You?”

Kim pushed a lock of hair back from her eyes and I lit the fire under the tea kettle.

“The same,” she said. “Half the time I’m writing grants. I got on a good study with some guys I know over at UIC’s public health department tracking Toxoplasma gondii strains. The data’s not all in, but I think we’re going to have some pretty good papers coming out of it. I’m linking the extent of behavior modification in the host with the virulence of the strain. The correlations are pretty nice.”

“Sounds good,” I said.

“It’s kicking my ass,” Kim said. “And the politics get old fast. Everyone’s jockeying for money and attention. And there’s a more or less constant war between patient care and research at the hospital. I get tired.”

“Yeah,” I said.

“And . . . and it’s good to see you again. All of you,” she said. “There’s really no one in Chicago I can talk to. I slipped a few times when I first came here. Said things about riders. I’m still paying for it. Getting to let my guard down is . . . it’s nice.”

It struck me harder than I’d expected. Standing there, her arms across her chest, her lips just slightly pinched, her shoulders tight and unmoving—this was Kim at rest. Unguarded. Relaxed. I wanted to ask if she was seeing anyone, but that was answer enough. I wondered how I would have met someone new, knowing all that I’d learned about the secrets of the world. Would I have brought them into the fight too or kept it secret or given up the attempt and accepted my own isolation? I could see it going any of those ways.

“How about you?” she asked. “What have you been doing?”

I ran down the past few months. Kim listened. The flow of words relaxed me, slowly. By the time I caught up to the present, I felt almost like we were just two old friends, catching up. And maybe gossiping a little.

“Does Ex have a little thing for you?” Kim asked.

“Um,” I said, glancing at the door. Then, quietly, “A little one. I think it’s little anyway. We don’t make a big issue out of it. Is it obvious?”

“A little,” Kim said. “Aubrey looks really good, though. It’s nice to see him happy.”

It was the olive branch I’d been unconsciously asking for. My chest felt warm and softer, and laughter I didn’t expect bubbled up out of me.

“Christ, I’m glad you think so,” I said. “I can never tell with him. It’s like if I was driving him crazy, I think he’d act just the same. How would I know, you know?”

Her smile was pure sympathy, and she reached out to press her fingertips briefly against my arm.

“Makes you crazy, doesn’t it?” she said. “About two years ago, I made the mistake of sleeping with a psychiatrist a few times. Whenever we had a disagreement, he’d start his active listening routine. Half the time I didn’t know whether we were fighting.”

The kettle made a soft plopping noise and steam began to wisp up from the spout. I turned off the fire.

“It’s good seeing you too,” I said.

“Good,” she said, and grinned. When she did that, the extra weight looked a lot better on her.

We went back into the living room together. Ex, Chogyi Jake, and Aubrey were all busily talking over one another, each of them apparently keeping track of what the others had said and responding even as new points were being made. Their excitement spilled over into me as I sat down.

“Hey. Hey!” I shouted. Anything more gentle would have been whispering in a windstorm. “Have we figured anything out yet?”

The three men looked at one another.

“There’s not enough here. We need more information,” Ex said, as if he was delivering a challenge. “I’d like to examine the site.”

Maybe my relief at having a little ice-breaking moment with Kim blinded me. Maybe I was tired and careless. Or maybe I was too comfortable being who I had always been, rushing in again where angels feared. I didn’t think. Didn’t ask or even consider what the risks might be. I didn’t feel a moment of apprehension or fear.

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s go.”