Chicagoland Vampires: Wild Things Part 35

"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 pus.h.i.+ng 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- s.h.i.+p 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 pa.s.s, 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 doork.n.o.b, found it unlocked, and glanced back at Jonah, ensuring he was ready.

When he nodded, I pushed it open.

Light spilled into the small s.p.a.ce 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 bra.s.s 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 skysc.r.a.per looks like the top of a silver truck trailer. Ditto the photograph. But I'm pus.h.i.+ng 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.

"h.e.l.lo?" I asked.

"h.e.l.lo, 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 antic.i.p.ation.

"Jesus," he finally said, his voice hoa.r.s.e 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 pa.s.sed 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 G.o.d, the sups in this city could have their own reality show."

"s.e.x 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.