Hexbound (The Dark Elite 2)

She jimmied the ancient crystal knob. “There’s no light in here, but you can use flashlights when the door’s shut.”

We stepped inside, shut the door, and pulled out our flashlights. The room was big and mostly empty, and the ceiling arched above it. The floors were made up of old wooden boards, and along one side was a fireplace that took up almost the entire wall. It was made of rough, pale stones that were still stained with soot. A simple wooden chair, the kind with rails across the back, sat beside the fireplace.

I shivered. There was something creepy about this place—the empty chair in the otherwise deserted room. I could imagine Temperance living here alone, waiting for someone to conjure her up. I shivered, then wrapped my arms around my shoulders.

“What is this?” Daniel whispered.

Scout walked to a corner of the room and began feeling around on the floor. “Not sure. I think it was the original kitchen for the nuns before they built the new wing. Mostly no one comes in here anymore.”

“Except bad girls,” I pointed out.

“Except that,” Scout agreed. She lifted up a ring, then pulled open an old door that was set into the floor. “Root cellar,” she explained when we walked over. She pointed down into it. “There’s a door to the yard, and from there you can just walk out the front gate. No alarms or anything.”

Daniel headed into the cellar, disappearing into darkness. I followed him down, and Scout followed behind me.

The root cellar looked exactly how you’d expect a root cellar to look. It was dark and damp, and it smelled like wet soil and plants. The ladder into it was wooden and rickety, as was the door that led to the side lawn. Had the folks who’d changed the convent into a school with fancy classrooms failed to find the rickety door—or had Foley left a secret exit for any Adepts that needed it?

Yet another question, but I was already full up for the night.

The evening was cool, so I tucked my hands into my hoodie pockets and followed Daniel and Scout to the street.

“Thanks for the help,” he said. “I might find some Varsity kids and ask them to take a walk through the tunnels. I think you’ve already had enough close calls for the week.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” Scout said. We said our final good-byes, and Daniel took off at a jog toward the street, then turned and headed out of view.

“This has been quite a week,” she said as we headed back up the ladder and into the building. “First teethy monsters, then vampires, and now Reapers.”

I stopped. “What did you say?”

Scout glanced back, then blinked. “What?”

“Just then. What did you say?”

“Oh, uh, teethy monsters, vampires, Reapers?”

“Teethy monsters,” I repeated. “You said it the other day—the rat things had fangs. And vampires have fangs, too, right?”

“Yeah, but so what?”

I frowned. “I’m not exactly sure.”I was on the edge of something.... I just didn’t know what.

She pointed toward the door. “Come on. You can sleep on it and let it percolate in your dreams, or something.”

“Actually, I have a better idea.”

“And that is?”

“I think we need to go visit the vampires.”

16

“You want to what?”

“I want to go see Nicu,” I said. “Monsters with fangs, monsters with pointy little teeth. I mean, I know it’s kind of a long shot, but my gut tells me something’s going on there. Besides, Sebastian said we needed to talk to Nicu.” I shrugged. “Maybe this is why.”

Her look wasn’t exactly friendly. “So now you’re following Sebastian’s advice?”

“I’m following the only lead we’ve got.”

She was quiet for a moment. “The vampires weren’t exactly friendly the last time we saw them.”

“And they may not be friendly this time, either. But what other choice do we have? I say we visit the coven and skip the turf war bit altogether.”

“Oh, you just want to traipse into a coven of blood-sucking fiends and beg them for help?”

I shook my head. “Not beg, but definitely ask. Do you remember what Marlena said about Nicu’s coven being weak? What if that wasn’t just talk? Sebastian said something about the ‘missing.’ What if the Reapers aren’t just targeting Adepts?”

Her expression softened. “You think they’re taking vampires, too?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “But if we find the vampires, and if we offer to help them . . .”

“They might not make breakfast out of us.”

I nodded. “Exactly.”

She whistled. “That’s risky. And even if it doesn’t get us eaten, we don’t know where the coven actually is.”

“No,” I said. “We don’t. But we know who probably does.”

Fifteen minutes later, we were in the back of a dark green cab with GYPSY printed on the door in white cursive letters. We were heading for Buckman’s, one of those old-fashioned multilevel department stores a few blocks from St. Sophia’s. I wasn’t entirely sure why we were meeting at a department store, but when the girl with the map tells you to jump, you ask how high.

The cab ride was short, probably not even a mile. But I stared out the windows the entire time, taking in a view of Chicago I hadn’t seen before—I hadn’t yet been aboveground in the dark. We drove past soaring sky-scrapers, including two that looked like a pair of concrete corncobs, cars stuck into parking spaces right against the edge like tiny steel kernels. We crossed an iron bridge over what I assumed was the Chicago River, and then we passed the marquee of the Chicago Theater—

“Oh, my God,” I said, turning to stare as we passed it by. “Did you see that?”

“What?” Scout asked.

“In the theater sign—in the marquee. There’s a circle inside a Y behind the word ‘Chicago.’ ”

“Folks say that Y is supposed to stand for the branches of the river,” said the cabdriver, glancing up at his rearview mirror to look at me. “You see ’em all over the city, including over by the theater. Kind of a weird deal, I guess, that they’re on buildings and such, but there you are. Probably somethin’ to do with politics. It’s Chicago, after all.”

Scout and I exchanged a glance. I wondered if she wanted to speak up—to tell the driver that the symbol wasn’t just on the buildings for decoration, that it represented the places where Adepts had fought for the soul of Chicago. But if she wanted to, she didn’t say anything.