Chicagoland by Gail Martin (important books to read TXT) 📕

the occult authors I talked to were more like professors than something out of Macbeth. But they were very willing to expound.” Her smirk suggested that Sarah had gotten all the answers she’d been looking for.

“And?” West asked, voice muffled a bit with cheesecake.

“They said Capone sought them out, invited them to dinner at his private club, and plied them with questions all evening about the rules of magic and how ghosts and spirits functioned. He wanted to know how to summon ghosts and control them and how to make binding marks and banishing spells.”

“So he pieced his magic together bit by bit, do-it-yourself, instead of having an actual mentor,” I said. “That’s about the most dangerous way he could do it.”

West shrugged. “Capone had a different tolerance for danger, or he wouldn’t have ended up running a major Mob operation.” He glanced at me. “How about you?”

“I banished the imp that infested Holmes’s murder house—with some help from Krukis.”

West choked a little, and Sarah didn’t try to hide a chuckle at his reaction. “You what?” West asked, eyes wide.

I told them the whole story, leaving out nothing, even Krukis’s dramatic appearance. I don’t usually talk much about the whole servant-of-a-god thing because I like at least pretending to fit in with normal people some of the time. I know Sarah and West don’t hold it against me, but it always makes me feel…different. Which I am. But sometimes it’s nice not to be reminded.

“If that darkness affected Eddie, do you think it touched Capone too?” Sarah asked when I finished.

“Why wouldn’t it? Especially when Capone wanted to tour the house because he actually admired Holmes’s ability to get away with his crimes for so long,” West pointed out.

I nodded. “Capone certainly wasn’t pure of heart when he got Eddie to take him through the place. So whatever touched him just made him worse.”

“A demon, huh?” West mused. “Not exactly part of the standard playbook.”

“Thought you boys in the Supernatural Secret Service didn’t follow the normal rules,” Sarah teased.

“We don’t,” West retorted. “But this whole case is going off the rails. Rogue vampires. Werewolves or wendigos carrying out Mob hits. Vengeful ghosts as hitmen. And now demons? I’m never going to be able to show my face at headquarters after I turn in this report. No one is going to believe me.”

“Yeah, but you’ll have the best stories in the bureau,” Sarah joked. “Think of the bragging rights.”

“If they don’t fit me for one of those jackets where the sleeves wrap all the way around and tie in the back,” West said, rolling his eyes. “This is a lot to take in—even for me.”

“I think we need to go see Capone’s old floor at the Landmark Hotel tomorrow,” Sarah said. “I want to see how that secret room fits with the rest of it, and find out if Capone had other hidden places. If he liked that murder house as much as you say, he could have had the Landmark retrofit his place to suit him. Who was going to tell him no?”

Now that we knew a little more about what was going on, I agreed. “Sounds like a plan. We just need to get access.”

Sarah smiled. “Leave that to me.”

4

We stacked the dishes on the sideboard and cleared off the parlor table so we could each work on research from the books we’d brought with us and a few that West purchased at the occult shop. As soon as the sun went down, I excused myself and called Sorren, my contact in Charleston. A servant answered the phone, asked my name, and said he would inquire whether Sorren was available. I waited in silence, trying not to be impatient.

“Joe. Good to hear from you. How can I help?”

I’d only met Sorren once. He looked like a well-off young man in his twenties, but I knew he was a vampire who was more than five hundred years old. Although he could pass for American, I’d heard he had been a jewel thief in Antwerp before he was turned. For the last several centuries, Sorren had headed up an alliance of mortals and immortals who kept the world safe from supernatural threats.

I laid out my concerns and described the symbols and spells we’d found, and Sorren listened without interrupting. That gave me confidence that we hadn’t truly imagined the whole thing.

“What you’re describing is entirely possible—and very dangerous. If he really has bound a vampire to his will and kept him imprisoned—especially with those sigils—then it’s very possible his prisoner has gone mad. I’m glad you’re handling this, Joe. With your protections, you’re probably one of the few who can.”

That validated my concerns but didn’t make me feel any better. “How do I stop him?”

“Beheading is the only sure way,” Sorren replied. “I’d suggest burning the body as quickly as possible. You wouldn’t want to run into one who had a resurrection spell in place.”

No, I definitely wouldn’t.

“Thank you,” I told him. “Any advice on the werewolves?”

“Just make sure you know what you’re dealing with. Werewolf, shifter, wendigo, rougarou. Under certain conditions, they can be similar enough to confuse a hunter, but the differences matter,” Sorren replied.

“Davis felt sure it wasn’t a shifter, although that might have been his pride talking.”

“Shifters see themselves as more human than the others, and to an extent, they’re right,” Sorren told me. “They’re not compelled to shift, either by the moon or a curse. They could go without shifting for a long time if they needed to, although it’s not good for them. It’s easier for them to pass among humans without raising suspicion, and they aren’t as prone to violence. Not to say a shifter isn’t just as capable of murder. But when they do kill, it’s their own choice.”

“What’s your hunch?” I knew Sorren had been playing this game longer than I had.

“You know I’m not psychic,” Sorren said with a chuckle. “But I think your shifter was telling the truth. If