White Night

Chapter Eleven

I sat on the love seat while Anna Ash made coffee. Mouse, ever hopeful to cadge a snack, followed Anna into the kitchen, and sat there giving her his most pathetic, starving-doggy body language and wagging his tail.

We sat down together with coffee, like civilized people, a few minutes later.

"Ms. Ash," I said, taking my cup.

"Anna, please."

I nodded to her. "Anna. First, I wish to apologize for frightening you. It wasn't my intention."

She sipped her coffee, frowning at me, and then nodded. "I suppose I can understand your motivations."

"Thank you," I said. "I'm sorry I blew up your ward. I'll be glad to replace it for you."

"We put a lot of hours in on that thing." Anna sighed. "I mean, I know it wasn't… expert work."

"We?" I asked.

"The Ordo," she said. "We worked together to protect every one's home."

"'Community' project. Sort of a barn raising," I said.

She nodded. "That's the idea." She bit her lip. "But there were more of us, when we did that."

For just a second, the capable exterior wavered, and Anna looked very tired and very frightened. I felt a little pang inside at the sight. Real fright isn't like the movies. Real fear is an ugly, quiet, relentless thing. It's a kind of pain, and I hated seeing it on Anna's face.

I found Elaine watching me, her eyes thoughtful. She sat on the sofa, leaning forward so that her elbows rested on her spread knees. She held her cup in one hand at a slight, negligent angle. On anyone else, it would have looked masculine. On Elaine, it only looked relaxed, strong, and confident.

"He truly meant you no harm, Anna," she said, turning to our host. "He's got this psychosis about charging to the rescue. I always thought it gave him a certain hapless charm."

"I think we should focus on the future, for the time being," I said. "I think we need to pool our information and try to work together on this."

Anna and Elaine exchanged a long look. Anna glanced at me again and asked Elaine, "Are you sure?"

Elaine gave a single, firm nod. "He isn't the one trying to hurt you. I'm sure now."

"Sure now?" I said. "Is that why you veiled yourself when I was here earlier?"

Elaine's fine eyebrows lifted. "You didn't sense it when you were here. How did you know?"

I shrugged. "Maybe a little bird told me. Do you really think I'm capable of something like that?"

"No," Elaine said. "But I had to be sure."

"You know me better than that," I said, unable to keep a little heat out of my voice.

"I trust you," Elaine said, without a trace of apology in her tone, "but it might not have been you, Harry. It could have been an impostor. Or you could have been acting under some form of coercion. People's lives were at stake. I had to know."

I wanted to snarl back at her that if she so much as thought I might be the killer, she didn't know me at all. If that's how it was going to be, I might as well get up and walk right out of the apartment before—

And then I sighed.

Ah, sweet bird of irony.

"You were obviously expecting the killer to show up," I said to Anna. "The sleeping spell. The ambush. What made you think he might be coming?"

"Me," Elaine said.

"And what made you think that?"

She gave me a dazzling, innocent smile and imitated my tone and inflection. "Maybe a little bird told me."

I snorted.

Anna's eyes suddenly widened. "You two were together." She turned to Elaine. "That's how you know him."

"It was a long time ago," I said.

Elaine winked at me. "But you never really forget your first."

"You never forget your first train wreck, either."

"Train wrecks are exciting. Fun, even," Elaine said. She kept smiling, though her eyes turned a little sad. "Right up until the very last part."

I felt half a smile tug up one side of my mouth. "True," I said. "But I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't try to dodge questions by throwing up a smoke screen of nostalgia."

Elaine took a long sip of coffee and shrugged a shoulder. "I'll show you mine if you'll show me yours."

I folded my arms, frowning. "Sixty seconds ago, you said that you trusted me."

She arched an eyebrow "Trust is a two-way street, Harry."

I leaned back, took another sip of coffee, and said, "Maybe you're right. I put it together after the fact, when I was making notes of our conversation. I couldn't remember noticing anything about the woman on the love seat, which doesn't happen to me. So I figured it must have been a veil, and came over here because it was possible that whoever was under it was a threat to the Ordo."

Elaine pursed her lips, frowning for a moment. "I see."

"Your turn."

She nodded. "I've been working out of L.A., taking a lot of cases referred my way—like this one. And Chicago isn't the first city where this has happened."

I blinked at her. "What?"

"San Diego, San Jose, Austin, and Seattle. Over the past year, members of a number of small organizations like the Ordo Lebes have been systematically stalked and murdered. Most of them have appeared to be suicides. Counting Chicago, the killer's taken thirty-six victims."

"Thirty-six…" I ran my thumb over the handle of the coffee Cup, frowning. "I haven't heard a word about this. Nothing. A year?"

Elaine nodded. "Harry, I've got to know. Is it possible that the Wardens are involved?"

"No," I said, my tone firm. "No way."

"Because they're such easygoing, tolerant people?" she asked.

"No. Because I know Ramirez, the regional commander for most of those cities. He wouldn't be a part of something like that." I shook my head. "Besides, we've got a manpower shortage. The Wardens are stretched pretty thin. And there's no reason for them to go around killing people."

"You're sure about Ramirez," Elaine said. "Can you say the same about every Warden?"

"Why?"

"Because," Elaine said, "in every single one of those cities, a man in a grey cloak was seen with at least two of the victims."

Uh-oh.

I put the coffee cup down on an end table and folded my arms, thinking.

It wasn't general knowledge, but someone on the Council was leaking information to the vamps on a regular and devastating basis. The traitor still had not been caught. Even worse, I had seen evidence that there was another organization at work behind the scenes, manipulating events on a scale large enough to indicate a powerful, well-funded, and frighteningly capable group—and that at least some of them were wizards. I had dubbed them the Black Council, because it was obvious, and I'd been keeping my ear to the ground for indications of their presence.

And look. I found one.

"Which explains why I hadn't heard anything about it," I said. "If everyone thinks the Wardens are responsible, there's not a prayer they'd draw attention to themselves by reporting what was happening and asking for help. Or call in a gumshoe who happens to be a Warden, himself."

Elaine nodded. "Right. I started getting called in about a month after I got my own license and opened my business."

I grunted. "How'd they know to call you?"

She smiled. "I'm in the book under 'Wizards.'"

I snorted. "I knew you were copying my test answers all those years."

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it." She pulled a strand of hair back behind one ear, an old and familiar gesture that brought with it a pang of remembered desire and a dozen little memories. "Most of the business has come in on referral, though, because I do good work. In any case, one fact about the killer's victims was almost always the same: people who lived alone or were isolated."

"And I," Anna said quietly, "am the last living member of the Ordo who lives alone or were isolated."

"These other cities," I said. "Did the killer leave anything behind? Messages? Taunts?"

"Like what?" Elaine asked.

"Bible verses," I said. "Left in traces, something only one of us would recognize."

She shook her head. "No. Nothing like that. Or if there was, I never found it."

I exhaled slowly. "So far, two of the deaths here have had messages left behind. Your friend Janine and a woman named Jessica Blanche."

Elaine frowned. "I gathered, from what you said earlier. It doesn't make any sense."

"Yes, it does," I said. "We just don't know why." I frowned. "Could any of the other deaths be attributed to the White Court?"

Elaine frowned and rose. She took her coffee cup to the kitchen and came back, a pensive frown on her brow. "I… can't be certain they haven't, I suppose. I certainly haven't seen anything to suggest it. Why?"

"Excuse me," Anna said, her voice quiet and unsure. "White Court?"

"The White Court of vampires," I clarified.

"There's more than one kind?" she asked.

"Yeah," I said. "The Red Court are the ones the White Council is fighting now. They're these bat-monster things that can look human. Drink blood. The White Court are more like people. They're psychic parasites. They seduce their victims and feed on human life energy."

Elaine nodded. "But why did you ask me about them, Harry?"

I took a deep breath. "I found something to suggest that Jessica Blanche may have died as the result of being fed upon by some kind of sexual predator."

Elaine stared at me for a moment and then said, "The pattern's been broken. Something's changed."

I nodded. "There's something else involved in the equation."

"Or someone."

"Or someone," I said.

She frowned. "There's one place to start looking."

"Jessica Blanche," I said.

Without warning, Mouse came to his feet, facing the door to the apartment, and let out a bubbling basso growl.

I rose, acutely conscious of the fact that my power was still interdicted by the apartment's threshold, and that I didn't have enough magic to spell my way out of a paper bag.

The lights went out. Mouse continued to growl.

"Oh, God," Anna said. "What's happening?"

I clenched my teeth and closed my eyes, waiting for them to adjust to the sudden darkness, when a very slight, acrid scent tickled my nose.

"You smell that?" I asked.

Elaine's voice was steady, calm. "Smell what?"

"Smoke," I said. "We've got to get out of here. I think the building's on fire."