• • •
We were bloody, dirty, and torn by the time we walked back toward Cadogan House. And unlike the last time, a Guard vehicle was parked outside the House, and soldiers with very large guns stood beside the humans we’d hired to guard the gate.
“I could guess they’re providing security in case the dragon comes here. But that seems . . . unrealistic,” Mallory finished.
“Yeah,” I agreed.
We walked inside, found Ethan in his office in a clean shirt, tidy jeans. He, Catcher, and Malik were checking their phones, probably wondering where we were.
They looked up when we entered, expressions shifting from gratitude to bafflement.
“How do you look so clean?” I asked Ethan.
“We found a gypsy cab and got a ride home.” He stared at Mallory and me, took in another day of torn and dirty clothes. “Why do you not look clean?” he asked, putting away his phone and walking toward us. “What the hell happened to you two?”
“We were chased by a goddamn dragon through the streets of goddamn Chicago,” Mallory said, pushing past the men toward the beverage area. I had a sense she was headed for booze.
Ethan arched an eyebrow. “Long night, Sentinel?”
I handed Ethan my sword, my scabbard, and followed Mallory to the bar. “Bite me.”
Mallory snorted as she poured liquor into glasses.
“What’s with the guard at the door?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Mallory said. “They keeping the dragon out, or the vampires in?”
“The latter,” Catcher said. “Part of the mayor’s efforts to work with the Guard and keep the ‘situation’ from escalating. There are soldiers posted at Grey and Navarre, too.”
There were tunnels beneath the House that would get us past the guards if necessary.
“So a useless gesture to mollify the haters,” I said. “What would happen if we tried to go back out there?”
“We would be rebuffed and told to stay indoors,” Luc said. “Grey House tried. When they were threatened back at gunpoint, he called us and let us know the state of affairs.”
I lifted my eyebrows. “And Grey was okay with that?”
Ethan smiled. “Grey is planning his next move.”
“And Jeff?” I asked, realizing that he wasn’t in Ethan’s office, and neither were the manuscript and foldouts.
Catcher smiled. “He’s in the Library. He’s scanned in the folio pages, and he’s making a program that will compute all possible arrangements and make predictions about which ones are most likely.”
“He’s a smart one,” I said as Mallory came back, offered me a glass. I finished it in a single gulp.
“And what do we do now?” Mallory asked.
“Now,” Ethan said with a heavy sigh, “we watch. And we wait.”
• • •
Mallory and Catcher joined Jeff. The rest of us gathered in the ballroom with the rest of Cadogan’s Novitiates to watch the dragon’s progress through the city.
The Guard kept firing, trying to drive it closer to the Lake, maybe hoping it would fly north for the remains of the summer and become Canada’s problem. But it hadn’t worked. The dragon wouldn’t be led; it flew where it wanted to go.
So the Guard took to the sky, sent F-16s against the dragon.
That had been another mistake.
Bravery and tactics were no match for a sentient monster that could fly, land, run, hide, and lift off again. Humans had been outmaneuvered, and Chicago had borne the brunt of their failure.
Novitiates around me wept softly as images of the city filled the screen.
Concrete, steel, and glass replaced the snow that had covered downtown Chicago, toppled from buildings. Towers of smoke rose from a dozen fires through downtown. The Navy Pier Ferris wheel had fallen—or been thrown—into the soaring glass of the Shakespeare Theater. An exterior section of the Hancock tower had been gouged away, a tangle of steel and wires hanging from the scar that remained. The top of the Wrigley building had been sheared away, and the lions in front of the Art Institute had been tumbled into the street like broken toys.
The battle had wreaked destruction through the city.
And still the dragon flew.
The dragon had been injured, so blood smeared its body and the trail it left throughout Chicago. But that hadn’t stopped it. Its wings remained intact, which was enough to keep it airborne. The dragon had roosted on Towerline roof. Since it hadn’t gone any deeper into the city, Mallory speculated the creature was tied to the building—and its magical origin point.
The dragon—the Egregore—had gotten the worst of Chicago, its anger and fear and hopelessness. But it had also gotten some of its perseverance.
Ethan offered to provide transportation for any vampires who wished to leave Chicago. None of them did. Leaving would have felt like giving up. Not that staying was any easier.
Watching our home be destroyed by a monster we didn’t know how to kill, a monster that seemed impervious to human weapons, was miserable. Ethan tried to give us hope, bolster our courage, but watching one image of destruction after another filling the screens drained away hope, left grief and numbness behind.
I wasn’t sure Chicago would survive this.
I wasn’t sure any of us would.
“Do you think they’ll figure out this isn’t working before or after Navy Pier’s in the water?” Catcher asked.
The coverage split-screened to a news studio.
“Sorcha Reed has been neutralized, and the National Guard is working to lead the creature out of the city,” the mayor said, “and is very optimistic about their progress to date. In the meantime, the vampires remain in their Houses and are not involved in current containment efforts.”