“Could someone undo the memory spell?” I glanced at Petra. “Would that be possible?”
“I don’t know. They worked pretty hard to keep things quiet here, and Patience is a ghost. I’m not sure how you’d even go about unspelling a ghost.”
“And that still doesn’t get us the sigil,” I murmured. “Damn it.”
Theo’s expression went grim. “Didn’t Lucy Dalton say something about ‘darkness coming’ when we were in the grain elevator?” She was the coven leader and murderess who had gotten Ariel and others involved in cultlike magic.
“Yeah,” I said grimly. “She said she was killing people to prevent an apocalypse.”
Theo’s eyes darkened, probably remembering the sight of Ariel unconscious in a circle of salt on the stained concrete floor. “She said we’d drown in its power.”
Sups were prone to hyperbole, but I had to wonder if she’d been telling the exact truth. “Maybe she knew something we didn’t.”
Connor was sending a message to his dad about what we’d learned. And the reply had what looked like bafflement on his face.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
He blinked, looked up at me, and seemed to shake it off. “I need to go to Pack HQ.”
“Is everything okay?”
“I’m not sure. Something about some pissed off Pack members trying to start a fight.”
“Do you need backup?” I asked.
Connor put his screen away, looked at me. “Actually, a vampire might come in handy. Might shift things up a bit.”
“I see what you did there,” Petra said, although she was looking at her screen.
I glanced at Theo. “Any objection if I deal with this other Sup nonsense?”
“You’re an Ombud. Go Ombudding.” He glanced at Connor. “Do you need me, too?”
“I think the vampire will be dramatic enough.”
Theo looked a little forlorn. “Is this because I’m in a cast?” he asked, and as if that had reminded him of the problem, he began scratching again.
“Of course not,” Connor said, and gently knocked a knuckle against the cast, the hardthunkof sound proving its solidity. “That thing would be very handy in a fight.”
***
En route to Ukrainian Village, the neighborhood where the NAC Pack had made their Chicago den, I sent Lulu a message. She didn’t want supernatural drama, but she needed to know there was a demon in town and the danger it posed. And she needed to warn her parents.
I found a message from Jonathan Black, who was half sorcerer and half elf. He’d briefly dated Ariel during her coven involvement and had tried (or so he’d said) to get her away from it. He’d also “accidentally” attacked me, could use his magic to hide who he was, and had anonymous “clients” for whom he provided unknown services. Brokering information seemed to be one of them. Which I suppose made him my informant.
need to talkwas the entirety of the message. I didn’t have time for him now, so I put the screen away.
The NAC Pack’s ancestral home was in Memphis, Tennessee, home of ribs and blues and a very big river. Here, they’d constructed a sleek building of steel, glass, and brick. What had started as a seedy bar that sold five-star barbeque had become an entrepreneurial dream—a full commercial kitchen for their catering company, a clubhouse for the Keene family, and a garage for motorcycle wrenching. And also a seedy bar. Because shifters would be shifting.
There were no obvious signs of warfare when we pulled up tothe curb, no sounds of battle when we climbed out and into the welcoming arms of Delicious Meat Smells. We walked in through one of the open garage doors, where shifters worked on cars and bikes and weight racks had been installed so Pack members could work out when the weather was warm enough. Which, for them, was most of the time.
There were only a couple of shifters in there now, which was unusual. Connor nodded at them, and they watched warily as I followed him through the maze of vehicles and rolling stools and car parts (a transmission, maybe?) and into the building proper.
We heard noise coming from the sticky-floored bar, but not the usual thump of grinding rock. This sounded more like an argument.
A good, old-fashioned shifter fight? Yes, please. Vast improvement over ghostly hands.
“Ready?” Connor asked.