Drink Deep (Chicagoland Vampires 5)

"Let's start a new custom," I suggested, stepping back outside. "Dude pays."

"We'l 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 stil make him buy.

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

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

Keley flipped off the image, and turned back to me. I was stil 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 Mal ory 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?" Keley 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."

"Wel ," 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 sarcastical y 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 skil s, after al ."

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

Careful y, 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," Keley 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 al 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 Keley, 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? Smal ? A box? An urn?"

"It is none of those things," he said. "The Maleficium is a book. A spel 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 al 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 al 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.