Wild Things (Chicagoland Vampires #9)(78)
Author: Chloe Neill

Luc nodded, put a hand on Harley’s. “That’s very helpful. We appreciate it.”

“Sure,” she said, but her eyes clouded again. “I guess I should think about going home or something.”

“You can stay here for a day or two if you’d like to get settled,” Luc said. “We’ve already gotten permission from the boss. Or we can get you back to Wisconsin now.”

Harley considered, looked up at us. “I think I want to go home. How many chances do you get to start over, right?”

That, I thought, depended entirely on whether you were a vampire.

Jonah, Luc, and I stepped into the hallway, where Luc closed the door behind us, looked at me.

“Go to Humboldt Park. Check it out, just in case. Could be Harley’s right, and there’s absolutely nothing there relating to the collection. But I don’t get the sense Regan trusted her quarry with the details, so you might find something Harley doesn’t even know about.”

“Or we might find Regan,” I said. “She was a barker at the first carnival. Pimping the Tunnel of Horrors.”

He glanced at Jonah. “You got time for a ride along?”

“If Scott clears it, sure.”

“The magic that Mallory used to find Tate,” Luc said. “We have Regan’s cape. Can’t we go that route again?”

I shook my head. “It’s not that specific. It got us to a city, but not an address. We still had to find him on our own.” And in a city as big as Chicago, that was going to take time, even with satellite images and a description.

“What about the protest?” I asked Luc.

Luc nodded. “Catcher’s keeping an eye on it. He still has your grandfather’s contacts at the CPD, and they’ve reached out to him for advice on the sup angle. Fortunately, the CPD still has domain outside the halls of the Daley Center.”

“And Ethan?” Jonah asked.

“Andrew’s calling with updates. He’s got a libel and slander complaint against the city ready for filing based on the public enemy list. He’s just waiting for Scott’s lawyers to look it over. No word from Morgan, of course, but that’s not unusual. He prefers to ignore problems while we deal with them.

“Still no word on a release time, but Andrew says they let him visit Ethan a couple of hours ago. He’s looking worse for wear—the terrorism hounds are apparently using this unique opportunity to test the boundaries of the Eighth Amendment.”

Since that one, I remembered from a lone history class in college, involved cruel and unusual punishment, it didn’t make me feel any better.

I braced myself. “How bad is it?”

“Bruising, broken cheekbone. The goons believe they’re saving the world. In many cases, they might be correct. But not in this one.” Luc patted my arm. “I’ll let you know if anything happens. Go check out the park. We take this one step at a time.”

Humboldt Park was a large, slightly L-shaped expanse of grass, trees, walking paths, and baseball fields between the Humboldt Park and Ukrainian Village neighborhoods. The grass was still covered with snow, except in the bottom corner of the park, where Jack Frost’s Winter Wonderland had set up shop. Regan had changed the name again, but the rest of the carnival looked and smelled the same.

Jonah parked along the street. “Katana?” he asked as we climbed out of the car and over the hillock of snow that still marked the curb.

“I think not tonight. Too suspicious. I have a dagger. You?”

“Same. Plus a couple of extra toys.”

It was generally considered déclassé for vampires to carry concealed weapons. The katana, roughly three feet of honed steel, was difficult to hide, which made its use more honorable among the vamps who actually cared about such things. I understood the sensibility, but in twenty-first-century Chicago, one needed to be a little more practical.

“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 pushing 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- ship 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 pass, 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.