Authors: Chloe Neill

Drink Deep (34 page)

BOOK: Drink Deep

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“How bad is it out there?” Simon asked.

“Pretty bad,” I said. “The cleanup is going to take a while.”

“There were no fatalities, right?”

“None,” Jonah confirmed. “Minor injuries and major property damage. What are you doing here?”

“Gathering supplies,” he said, then gestured at Mallory. “Exams are pass-fail, and the Order won’t allow exams to be suspended. If we stop, she fails. But we were thinking we could use the last exam to help clean up. Move mountains, as it were.”

Curious, I peeked into Mallory’s basket. It held candles, salt, and a couple of thick construction pencils. Nothing dangerous, at least from what I could tell, and all stuff that looked pretty witchy. The kind of things you might have used to work a spell you found on the Internet.

“We think they’re following an elemental pattern,” Jonah said. “Water, air, now earth. Do you know what might be causing it?”

“I’ve been researching,” Simon said. “And I know Catcher has, too. I haven’t found anything discussing these kinds of problems.”

“What about the Order?”

Simon and Mallory shared a glance, and then Simon looked around worriedly as if he expected someone to burst through the door after him.

“The Order’s taken a hard line,” Simon said, leaning forward conspiratorially, and there was no mistaking the fear in his eyes. “They think there’s old magic involved—magic that existed before the Order was even organized. That’s not their territory, and they don’t want anything to do with it.”

Awesome. Denial was totally going to help me right now. But I pressed forward, the Order be damned. “What anedo wibout the
Maleficium
?”

“Don’t say that aloud,” Simon whispered. “That’s dangerous stuff. The Order would go ballistic if they even heard the word mentioned.”

“Fine,” I said. “Call it what you want. Is it possible someone could be using it now to work some kind of magic? That it could be in Chicago?”

“It’s under lock and key,” he assured me. “It’s not even possible.”

Jonah frowned at him. “Then how would you explain what’s happening?”

“It’s not a sorcerer,” Simon slowly said, “so it has to be Tate.”

I didn’t disagree that we were running out of options. I just wasn’t convinced Simon wasn’t involved. If I’d learned anything over the last few months, it was that things were rarely as simple as they seemed. Simon was too quick with answers, too positive of his facts. The supernatural world was rarely that black or white.

But if he was telling the truth, and he didn’t already recognize that principle, there was no hope for him now. So I offered him a vague smile, then checked on Mallory. She finally made eye contact, her gaze challenging, as if she were daring me to accuse her of something. Maybe she wasn’t hiding anything. Maybe she was still angry about the phone call we’d had the other day, about my interrupting her studies to accuse sorcerers of being involved in Chicago happenings.

Her eyes shifted to something behind me, and I glanced around.

Catcher walked through the aisle, his stride determined and no love lost in his expression. He glared at me and Simon, and I wasn’t sure if he was pissed or just feeling particularly protective.

“What are you doing here?” Mallory asked, obviously puzzled.

“I thought I’d give you a ride home,” Catcher said. “You are done for the night, right?” he looked pointedly at Simon, and made it obvious that’s where his suspicions lay.

“We’re all done,” Simon said. “Mal, I’ll see you tomorrow night.”

“Sure thing,” she said with what looked like a half-forced smile. But that didn’t deter the near growl of aggression from Catcher’s direction. He took her shopping basket in one hand and put his other hand at her back, where he guided her away from Simon and toward the front of the store.

“I think the stress is getting to both of them,” Simon said.

“I think that’s probably true,” I agreed.

“Well, I need to get some things in place for Mallory’s work tomorrow. Get in touch if there’s anything we can do to help.”

“Sure thing,” Jonah said, and we watched him walk back down the aisle.

“Is he that naïve?” I asked.

“I’m not sure. And did Catcher just play the jealous boyfriend?”

“He’s fighting some emotional demons right now.”

We stood there quietly for a moment.

“If it’s Tate,” Jonah said, “we’re going to have to nail him on our own.”

My stomach grumbled. “Can I get a red hot before we save the world?”

“Definitely,” he said. “You can buy.” He walked toward the door.

I followed. “Why do I have to buy?”

He pushed open the store’s front door, holding it so I could pass through. “Because you’re my new partner. It’s customary.”

“Let’s start a new custom,” I suggested, stepping back outside. “Dude pays.”

“We’ll talk in the car.”

Somehow, with Armageddon on our minds, we skipped the red hots and the talk. But when the time came, I decided I’d still make him buy.

Jonah drove me back to the House; my car was still in Wrigleyville, but that was going to have to wait a bit. It was probably still chaos over there, and I didn’t have time to wrangle with police and traffic.

I found Kelley, Juliet, and Lindsey at the Ops Room conference table, all eyes on the giant screen. Another newscast showed the destruction in Wrigleyville above a caption that blamed it entirely on us. Not exactly surprising, but still hurtful. We’d been the first ones on the scene; we’d been the ones saving humans. Regardless of all that, the registration law had passed, and we were enemies in our own country.

Kelley flipped off the image, and turned back to me. I was still muddy and dirty, and probably didn’t look like much. “What did you learn from Simon?”

“The Order thinks this is a Tate issue. Based on our last conversation, Tate thinks this is a
Maleficium
issue. Simon is convinced the
Maleficium
is safe and sound, and Mallory can’t stop her exams because the Order doesn’t make exceptions.” I sat down at the table beside Lindsey. “In other words, I got bubkes.”

“No,” Lindsey said, putting a hand on my arm. “You just think you have bubkes. The information’s out there. You’re just not seeing the forest for the trees.”

“So let’s look at the forest,” I said. Catcher had once used a dry erase board to look for a pattern in raves—vampire blood orgies—that were popping up across the city. We had the computer equivalent, so I grabbed a stylus and switched the screen’s input to a tablet computer that sat on the conference table.

“Okay,” I said, beginning to sketch out what we knew in a timeline that was projected onto the screen. “So far we’ve seen three of the four elements. Water. Air. Earth.”

“That means fire is probably next,” Lindsey said, so I added “fire” and circled it.

“Tate says these things are happening because the balance between good and evil has shifted—they aren’t in balance anymore, and that’s upsetting the rules of the natural world.”

“Because someone is using the
Maleficium
?” Kelley asked.

“That was Tate’s theory.” I scribbled more. “Good and evil were divided. Evil went into the
Maleficium
. Good stayed outside the
Maleficium
.”

“Could Tate be using the
Maleficium
?” Juliet asked.

“I’m not even sure how he could, given his surroundings. He’s under a pretty tight lock and key. And his room was empty. Catcher showed me a picture.”

“Well,” Lindsey said, “is there any other way we could tie him to the magic? Do we have any other evidence? Is anything else strange going on?”

“I’ve been having awful dreams,” I sarcastically said.

But then I thought about it . . .

“Merit?” Lindsey quietly asked after a moment.

My heart began to beat wildly, and I looked over at her. “I’ve been having dreams about Ethan. They started a few weeks ago. But I’ve had a bunch just this week.”

“There’s nothing wrong with having dreams about Ethan,” Juliet said. “You know, considering what happened.”

I shook my head. “They aren’t those kinds of dreams. They’re big dreams.” Realization struck. “And there’s always something elemental in them. There’s been a storm, and an eclipse, and then he disappeared into ashes.”

“Water, sky, earth,” Juliet said, paling a bit. “You’re dreaming about the things that are happening in the city.”

I thought back to dreams, and quickly scribbled them onto the timeline. When that was done, we stared up at the screen.

“You dreamed about them before they happened,” Lindsey quietly said. “But what does that mean? That you’re a little bit psychic? I mean, that’s possible, I guess. I’ve got mad skills, after all.”

I frowned. That was an explanation, but it didn’t sing to me.

Carefully, Juliet raised her voice and asked the question. “Could the magic—whoever’s doing it and whatever they’re trying to accomplish—could it be affecting you separately? Through the dreams, I mean?”

Silence.

“I don’t mean to be cruel,” Lindsey said, “but Ethan’s gone. The stake, the ashes. You saw him take the stake, and you saw them place the ashes into the House vault.”

She was right, so I nodded. “I know.”

“Wait,” Kelley said. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. So we think the
Maleficium
is tied to the elements. What is that, exactly?”

“Tate said it was a vessel that holds evil,” I said. “That’s all I know.”

She frowned. “And we’re talking, what—like an urn? A vase? Do you remember seeing it anywhere? Maybe in Creeley Creek when you were there?”

I racked my brain, flipping through mental images of the stuff in Tate’s former office, but couldn’t come up with anything.

But I knew someone who could. I leaned over to the conference phone in the middle of the table and dialed up the librarian.

He answered with his title. “Librarian.”

“It’s Merit. I have a question for you. What do you know about the
Maleficium
?”

His silence was shockingly stark, and then his voice was surprisingly stern. “How did you learn about the
Maleficium
?”

I glanced up at Kelley, and when she shrugged, continued. “Mayor Tate. I know it’s a vessel that holds evil, blah blah blah. Do you have any more information about it? Is it big? Small? A box? An urn?”

“It is none of those things,” he said. “The
Maleficium
is a book. A spell book, for which we are the current guardians.”

My hands shook on the table from the sudden burst of adrenaline. “What do you mean
we
?”

“We, as in Cadogan House. It was given to Ethan for safekeepi fodden bursng.”

“But the sorcerers all think the Order has it. Catcher mentioned something about Nebraska. How could they not know it was in Cadogan House?”

He made a sound of disdain. “If you had a book that held all the evil in the world and explained its use, would you let sorcerers know where it was kept? Would you let the Order—the very people who’d
try
to use it—be its keepers? They help pick the guardians, but they’re the last ones who should have possession.”

Point made. So, to summarize, the Order didn’t have the
Maleficium
. It was safe and sound in Cadogan House.

At least, it was supposed to be.

But if magic that crossed the boundary between good and evil was being worked across the city to reunite good and evil, maybe it wasn’t so safe . . .

“As its guardians,” I quietly began, “where do we store the
Maleficium
?”

“I shouldn’t tell you this, you know. But given what’s going on out there . . .” He trailed off, and for a moment I thought he wouldn’t confess it. But then he said the words that changed everything.

“The
Maleficium
is in the House vault.”

With that news in hand, Kelley called Malik and Luc down to the Ops Room. Frank, unfortunately, decided to tag along. When we were all assembled, Lindsey closed the Ops Room door again.

“Kelley?” Malik asked. “What’s going on?”

She looked at me. “This one’s all Merit,” she said, and gave me the floor. At her nod, I laid it out.

“We know Cadogan House is the current guardian of the
Maleficium
, the book that holds evil.”

The room went silent.

Frank blustered a bit about magic and secrets, but I kept my eyes trained on Malik—and I saw the second he decided to tell us the truth.

“We are the guardians,” Malik agreed, holding up a hand to silence Frank. “It is always passed from one guardian to another in secrecy. McDonald House had it last. We have it now.”

“And it’s stored in the vault?” I asked.

After a moment, Malik nodded.

“I think we need to check the vault.”

“Because?” Malik asked.

“I understand the events we’ve seen reflect an imbalance between good and evil,” I explained. “Good and evil used to be united. The world as we know it exists now only because good and evil were separated from each other. The world keeps its rules only as long as they remain in balance, opposites of equal force.”

“And when they’re imbalanced,” Luc said, “the natural world goes haywire. Earth. Air. Water.”

“Exactly,” I said with a nod. “The
Maleficium
tells of the division between good and evil, and identifies the magical doings that, to be accomplished, require crossing the boundary between good and evil. The mixing of good and black magic.”

“So you think that if the natural world is unraveling, someone must be using the
Maleficium
,” Luc said. “That’s an interesting theory, Merit, but there hasn’t been anyone in the House since Tate issued the dictate banning humans—just Mr. Cabot and the Cabi>,” LucCadogan vampires. And none of us would be capable of using it for more than a really effective paperweight.”

For a moment, I thought he was right, but my stomach suddenly curled with fear, all breath leaving me. Luc, I realized, was wrong—
absolutely
wrong.

“Merit?” he asked. “Are you all right?”

I looked around the room, my head spinning with horrible possibilities. “There was someone else in the House.”

All eyes turned to me.

“Merit?” Malik asked.

I could barely make myself say it. “The week after Ethan’s death, Mallory was here. She was granted permission to stay in my room with me.”

Silence again.

“Merit,” Luc said. “Mallory wouldn’t take something from the House.”

Wouldn’t she?

I thought about our conversations over the last week, about the things I’d seen and the things we’d discussed. About her chapped, shaking hands. Her inability to make eye contact. Her irritability, and her acceptance of dark magic.

Had I been that stupid? That naïve?

I opened my mouth to speak, but paused, considering the implications of what I was about to say. If I was right, my relationship with Mallory would never be the same.

But if I was right, my relationship with Mallory hadn’t been the same in two months.

“I think the magic has changed her. I think whatever she’s doing for these exams—or whatever she’s been doing in her apprenticeship—have changed her.” I offered up my evidence, and then got to the most damning part.

“When I visited her earlier in the week, she was perusing a book.”

“A sorceress with a book?” Frank dryly asked. “How surprising.”

This time, Malik didn’t bother hiding his eye roll. “What did the book look like?”

“It was big.” I closed my eyes, imagining myself in Mallory’s basement beside her table. “Red leather,” I said, “with a gold symbol on the cover.”

As if I’d just confirmed his worst fear, Malik rubbed his temples with a hand, and then he pulled a square key on a metal chain from beneath his button-up shirt.

“I hope to God that you are wrong,” he said. “But we do not survive on hope. We survive on facing our problems square on. Let’s check the vault.”

“This is unprecedented,” Frank said, “and highly inappropriate. The ashes of a Master vampire are contained there. You will
not
open the House vault.”

Malik skewered him with a look. “You are a representative of the GP and a guest in this House
. But you are not a Master, and you are certainly not Master of
this
House. You may review the protocols and data as you will, and you may test these vampires as the GP sees fit. But you will not, under any circumstances, issue dictates to me. You are not my Master, Mr. Cabot, and I recommend you not forget it.”

With that, Malik turned on his heel and headed for the door.

One by one the rest of us followed.

The trip down the basement hallway to the vault had all the levity of a funeral procesfun">One sion. There was a possibility the sanctity of the House had been violated, and by a woman I’d believed was my best friend—and who’d been my virtual sister for years.

Malik slid the key into the vault, then turned it forty-five degrees. The lock disengaged with an audible
click
. He lifted a hand to the door, but paused for a moment before gripping the handle, steadying himself. After a moment, his fingers were on the latch and the door was open.

Malik stood before it, blocking the view inside, and then stepped to the side, his gaze on me.

My heart beating wildly, I looked inside.

Hope and fear simultaneously blossomed.

The
Maleficium
wasn’t the only thing missing.

The vault was empty.

BOOK: Drink Deep

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