Midnight Marked (Chicagoland Vampires 12)

Unlike Longwood, with its chain-link fence and fallen headstones, Mount Rider was as much park as cemetery, its rolling hills landscaped and artfully dotted with trees, shrubs, and reflecting pools. The monuments were tall enough to be war memorials, with plenty of weeping angels and marble obelisks.

Annabelle was still in her car when we arrived, and there was no sign of Ombuddy yet. It took a good fifteen seconds—and an offered hand from Ethan—for her to unwedge herself from behind the steering wheel of her Subaru. “Three more weeks,” she said, locking the door behind her. “Just three more weeks.”

“Your first child?” Ethan asked.

“Second,” she said, adjusting the long, drapey wrap she’d worn over a tank and long jersey-knit skirt. “Marley’s a very precocious four right now. My husband, Cliff, stays at home with her. She is very eager to be a big sister, and he is very excited about having another little one in the house.” She smiled. “I am excited about being able to stand up without assistance. But enough about me.” She glanced around. “No Ombudsman?”

“Right here,” said a voice behind us. Catcher jogged up, stuffing his car keys into the pocket of the dark-wash jeans he’d paired with a gray T-shirt. NO MAGIC? NO PROBLEM was written across the front. The Ombuddies were showing love for everyone.

“I parked on the other side of the block,” he said, running a hand over his shorn head. “Didn’t want too many cars parked in one spot, just in case. Catcher Bell,” he said, extending a hand to Annabelle.

“Annabelle Shaw. You’re the sorcerer.”

“And you’re the necromancer.”

“All night long.”

We chuckled. Supernatural inside joke.

“Heard you were dealing with the Order tonight,” I said.

Catcher’s lip curled. “They have the bureaucracy of a DMV office with one hundred percent less effectiveness.”

“Any news about the sorcerer?” Ethan asked.

“Not from the Order. They maintain they have no knowledge of a sorcerer with expertise in alchemy, nor of alchemy being used in the city. And they’re holding the line on Reed—that no union sorcerers work for him.”

“Adrien Reed?” Annabelle asked. “Is he involved in this? With the alchemy?”

“We believe so,” Ethan said. “But we’re still trying to figure out the mechanics.”

“And who the sorcerer is.”

“Exactly,” Ethan said with a nod.

“Sometimes I wish I was more involved in the city’s supernatural communities,” she said. “And sometimes I hear about nonsense like this and I’m glad I live under the radar.”

“Stay sequestered,” I recommended. “Unless there’s a potluck.”

And that reminded me: I needed to plan a potluck.

“Fair enough. Shall we?” she asked, and when we nodded, she walked to the cemetery’s gate, used an enormous key on an equally enormous round key ring to unlock it.

We followed her inside and down another crushed-stone path.

“They never sleep as well when their memorials are disturbed,” she said.

“Then by God,” I said, trying to step as lightly as possible in her footsteps, “let’s not do that.”

We followed her over a low hill. Heavily pregnant or not, she moved like a sprite, walking under a copse where dew glimmered in the moonlight like fallen coins, and then stopping outside a small brick building.

“It used to be a maintenance facility,” she said, stepping back onto the paved walkway that led to the front door. The glass in the windows and door had been painted white, not unlike the treatment at La Douleur. An open padlock hung from the door’s handle. Annabelle pulled it off, pushed open the door, and flipped on the light switch just inside it.

“Welcome to Symboltown,” she said, the room illuminated by a bare bulb that swung from the ceiling.

Its circle of light shifted back and forth across the square room, illuminating the symbols that had been drawn in black across the whitewashed walls.

“That’s affirmative for alchemy,” Catcher said, spinning in a slow circle to take it in.