Blood Games (Chicagoland Vampires 10)

“I’m sitting, I’m sitting,” Jeff said, tucking back onto his pillow with the box in his lap. He looked up at me, beamed. “Seriously, awesome.”

“I think you made the right choice,” Jonah quietly whispered.

“Yeah,” I said, tearing off a bit of khobz. “I feel pretty good about my choice.”

Catcher’s phone beeped and he pulled it out, checked it, smiled. “Your grandfather,” he said with a smile, putting it away again. “He wanted to make sure you got here all right.”

I pointed to my stuffed mouth.

“Yeah, I told him you were fine. He said you went by the scene.”

I nodded, chewed, swallowed. “We did. He said you didn’t think the pentagrams pointed to a ‘legitimate’ sorcerer? His words, not mine,” I added at Mallory’s lifted brows.

“A pentagram isn’t a magical object per se,” Catcher said, stirring a hunk of bread in sauce. “It’s a symbol, typically used for a minor charm or incantation.

“So legitimate sorcerers could use them?” Jonah asked with a smile.

“They could. But they typically don’t. They’re useful as, let’s say, training wheels. Magical shorthand. A spell crib sheet—”

“I think they get the idea, hon,” Mallory gently prompted.

“It’s like the swords,” Catcher said. “They’re vampirish, but not vampirish enough. These are magical, but not quite magical enough.”

“So the killer understands the broad strokes,” Jonah said, “but not the nuance.”

“I’d agree with that,” Catcher said.

“What about vampires?” Jonah asked. “I told them I didn’t know of any historic use by vampires.”

Catcher shook his head. “Me, either.”

“What about the three pentagrams together?” I asked, trying unsuccessfully to pick up more food. After years of using a fork, eating with fingers was a weirdly difficult process. “Does that maybe reference any particular charm or spell?”

Mallory held up a hand. “Wait. The first murder involved swords, and the second involved pentagrams?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Why?”

Malloy looked at Catcher. “And you seriously don’t know what’s going on here?”

Catcher and I looked at each other, then Mallory. “No?” he said.

Her eyes went absolutely flat, and very unimpressed with us. “Are you freaking kidding me?”

“Maybe?” I asked, glancing around for help, but Jonah and Jeff just shrugged.

She made a dramatic sound of frustration, wiped her hands, and maneuvered her way to her feet again. Then she scurried off, leaving all of us peeking around the walls of the tent, trying to find our sorceress.

She dug through a purple leather tote spread open on the floor, then pulled out a smaller, dark blue bag. She practically skipped back to the table.

“Give me some room,” she said, settling herself on her pillow as we moved plates out of the way, clearing a spot on the red, purple, and gold scarves that colored the tabletop.

“This isn’t random,” she said. “And it’s not about vampires. It’s probably not even about sorcerers.”

She opened the bag and pulled out a large stack of rectangular cards with die-cut notches on the corners.

“The first murder didn’t involve two swords,” she said. “It involved the Two of Swords.” She flipped through the deck, pulled out a card, and placed it on the table with a snap.

A dark-haired man in a blue tunic and pants stood in a grassy field, seven bloodred poppies punctuating the grass. His arms were outstretched, just like Brett Jacobs’s in the church courtyard. Two broadswords floated in front of him, crossing just above his abdomen.

“The Two of Swords,” she said, then pulled out and flipped over another card. This one showed a woman in a burgundy off-the-shoulder dress with trumpet sleeves standing in the middle of a brilliantly white and snowy tundra. Three golden pentagrams floated in the air above her. The only green in the image was from the flowering vine that wound through her hair and across her shoulders.

“And the Three of Pentacles,” Mallory said.

“Holy shit,” Catcher said. “The killer’s using the suits of the tarot.”

“Not just the suits,” I said, putting the cards beside each other. “The cards.” I pointed to the Two of Swords. “The Jacobs murder—his body was in the same position, on the grass in the courtyard, and the swords were basically in the same position, at least two-dimensionally.” Three-dimensionally, they’d skewered him.

“And the Three of Pentacles?” Mallory asked.

I had to think back, focus shifting between the card and my mental image of Ingram’s murder scene.

“Samantha Ingram wore a red dress,” I said, then pointed to the flowering vine. “She was strangled, and the pentagrams are obvious.”

“There was no snow,” Catcher pointed out, and I nodded.

“True. But there was sand. It’s spring; maybe that’s the best he could do. The semblance isn’t perfect—chalk it up to artistic license—but the major elements are the same.”

“Jesus,” Catcher muttered. “How did I not see that?”

“Because you’re not me,” Mallory jauntily said, and proceeded to place the cards in a vertical line of four. “Let’s correct the terminology—pentacles, not pentagrams. Also called coins. And they aren’t suits. They’re the major arcana, minor arcana. The numbered cards are the latter. Swords. Pentacles. Cups. Wands.”

“We aren’t looking for someone obsessed with vampires,” Catcher said. “We’re looking for someone obsessed with tarot. Or at least someone who’s interested enough to choose them as his particular vehicle of death.” He looked at Mallory. “That’s damned impressive.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Mitzy Burrows is the CPD’s current suspect,” I said. “Does this fit with her background?”

“I don’t know that much about her,” Catcher admitted. “She’s human, so the CPD’s handling that part of the investigation. She worked at the Magic Shoppe, so she’d obviously be familiar with tarot cards. Right?” he asked Mallory.

“MS has the best selection of tarot cards in the metro area, at least until you get to Racine. There’s a little store near one of the kringle shops. Really nice cards, including replicas of some of the old French and Italian sets—”