He was most aware of lust. Lust hung in the air like September pollen. Sometimes it was a kind of broadband hormonal yearning that splashed everyone in the room. Other times it had a specific target. Rudy Severino, for instance, was gazing longingly at Jonah’s best friend, Natalie Diaz, looking for a reaction to the sizzling texts he was sending. She’d read them, smirk, and text back. They were at that stage in their relationship where their desire for each other made everyone else feel like an extra. Even in the middle of a classroom. Jonah was glad that Natalie was going out with someone, but he couldn’t help wondering how it would all turn out.
Nat and Rudy were in a band together, and failed romance was a major cause of band breakups. Jonah wouldn’t want to be on Natalie’s bad side. She was tough. She used to run with the Outlaws in Lorain—before her extended family sent her to the Anchorage.
Nat worked in the clinic and dispensary that served students at the Anchorage. A healer savant, she could spot disorders through the skin. Often, she was the only one who could determine whether a therapy was working or not. Jonah had always thought of healers as gentle, tender souls, his model being Jeanette. Not Natalie. She was a warrior who played to win.
Calculus finally ended and Jonah stuffed his tablet into his backpack. His debriefing with Gabriel was next on the agenda. He could have slept in and gone straight to the meeting with Gabriel, for all the math he’d absorbed.
Natalie and Rudy were waiting for Jonah outside the classroom. Well, actually, they were totally entangled, as if being apart for an hour of class was more than they could bear.
“Get a room,” Jonah suggested.
They jumped apart, Natalie apologizing profusely. As always, she was hyperaware of Jonah’s celibate status. The two of them kept a measured foot apart all the way over to Gabriel’s office. Which was almost as annoying as the embrace.
“Who else is in town—do you know?” Rudy asked. “Charlie and Thérèse came back for the debriefing. I don’t know who else. I just got back last night.” His eyes felt like they had sand in them.
“Rudy and I have some new songs we’d like to run by Syou,” Natalie said. “Could we go back to your place after the meeting?”
“I’m going to go see Kenzie,” Jonah said. “I need to talk to him about Jeanette.”
Natalie squeezed his shoulder as they turned down the alley next to the Keep.
The Keep Nightclub was housed in a rehabbed warehouse perched on a bluff overlooking the river. Gabriel Mandrake’s offices were above the club, on the uppermost floor, where walls of windows offered a stunning view. In one direction lay downtown, a forest of glittering buildings; in the other, the river and the lake beyond. Several stories below lay the gritty industrial landscape of the Cleveland Flats.
They entered the main building through the alley door, touching their palms to the sensor by the entrance. Gabriel was a geek for gadgets and high tech. He’d been a materials man from way back, a kind of Renaissance minister of rock and roll. Part musician, part tech guru, part artist, part cutthroat promoter, part healer/pharmacist/drug dealer. A self-created sorcerer turned savant.
Gabriel had found a kindred spirit in Rudy Severino, who’d helped design and build the security system. Jonah was never sure how much of Rudy’s talent was extreme nerdistry and how much was magic, but when Rudy built systems, they worked like a charm.
The three of them climbed the narrow staircase to the second floor, then waited while the iris biometrics scanner did its thing. The locking mechanism shifted, and they were in.
The outer office was where Gabriel met music-industry big shots, prospective clients, venue owners, talent, and the like. The walls were lined with photographs—Gabriel at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremonies; Gabriel with an array of up-and-coming musicians; with the governor, the mayor. Gabriel introducing eight-year-old Jonah to the president.
At least Gabriel had put away the big-eyed Jonah posters when Jonah threatened to go on strike. Even though they’d been fund-raising gold.
It was the first of many small battles between Jonah and Gabriel. Jonah’s failed rescue of Jeanette had begun as an unauthorized investigation of the healer’s disappearance. His brother, Kenzie, had helped him track her down via the Web, which might mean the Kinlock brothers were in trouble again.
It would be worth it if it forced Gabriel’s hand. He can’t ignore this, Jonah thought. He can’t.
Patrick looked up from the reception desk. He served the dual role of personal assistant and bodyguard. “Jonah!” he said. “Glad you’re back! You three can go on in. The others are already here.” He buzzed them in.
Gabriel’s private office enshrined the sorcerer’s wideranging interests. A large showcase to the left of the door displayed an array of antique bottles—some extremely elaborate, in glass, metal, and enamel, with jeweled stoppers. Others were time-blackened, their tops layered in yellowing wax.
One wall showcased images of tattoos, in color and black-and-white. They represented just a fraction of Gabriel’s designs, many of which were inked into his skin. Skin art was the sorcerer’s tool Gabriel worked with most often, art that protected and healed. Many of the students at the Keep were Scovered with Gabriel’s work. It was the therapy that kept them alive and functioning a little while longer. Another gallery displayed line drawings of botanicals, reflecting his intense interest in drugs and medicinals.
The other slayers were sprawled around the conference area. It was glass on three sides, overlooking the Flats and the lake beyond. Leather couches and ottomans surrounded a low granite table with a platter of sandwiches and snacks.
Alison Shaw was there, of course. Charlie Dugard and Thérèse Fortenay from Europe, and Mike Joplin from South America. Like Jonah, they were still nominally in high school. Even Mose Butterfield was there. He’d been too ill to deploy for the past year, but the others pretended he’d be going back out again. Gabriel must have told them about Jeanette, because they all wore glum, dispirited expressions.
This was as large a quorum as they ever had. Most of Gabriel’s shadeslayers were in the field at any given time, hunting shades—their former classmates, families, neighbors, and friends—the undead victims of Thorn Hill. Making the world safer for everyone but themselves.
Unfolding to his feet, Gabriel crossed to where Jonah stood, just inside the door. Embracing him, he said, “Glad you’re safe. I just wish you’d brought better news.” Gabriel looked into Jonah’s face for another long moment before he let him go.
Well, Jonah thought, at least we’re not going to argue about my going after Jeanette.
Gabriel’s eyes were riveting, his pupils unusually large, all but obscuring their irises, so that his eyes seemed to swallow you. Whether it was his natural physiology or a consequence of the drugs he took, the sight of them could be unnerving.
Gabriel was a man of many demons, with a dump load of pain to forget.
Gabriel returned to his seat, and Jonah threaded his way around furniture, murmuring greetings to the others.
“Jonah!” Mose said, with an eager smile. “Glad you made it back safe.”
“It’s great to see you here,” Jonah said, squeezing Mose’s shoulder. Odd. The more Mose’s body declined, the more brightly his spirit shone through.
“Charlie was just filling us in on what happened in London,” Gabriel said as Jonah slumped into his usual chair. “Go on, Charlie.”
“Feel free to chime in, Jonah,” Charlie said. “Like I said, we’d been monitoring the towpath for weeks. Three of us followed two shades onto a canal boat. It was a private event, with several mainliners on board.”
“Then all hell broke loose,” Thérèse said. “The boat was attacked by an army of shades. We think they were targeting the mainliners.”
“What makes you think that?” Gabriel said.
“That’s what we’ve been hearing,” Charlie said. “Mainliners are being killed, all over Europe. As you can imagine, the guilds are in an uproar.”
“Any change in the old modus operandi?” Mose asked. When met with a blank look from Charlie, he added, in a loud stage whisper, “How are they riffed?”
“All different ways,” Charlie said. “Tossed off buildings, hacked to pieces, throats cut—nothing too high-tech. Some don’t have a mark on them. They’re just dead.”
“It’s the perfect crime, Watson,” Mose said. “So many Ssuspects. Everyone hates wizards.”
“It’s not just wizards,” Thérèse said. “And, anyway, the Anaweir authorities don’t know that.” Anaweir meaning the nongifted. The civilians.
“Let’s get back to Regent Canal,” Gabriel said.
“Summer went down fighting,” Charlie said. “We might’ve, too, but Jonah showed up and waded in. The shades split soon after that. To sum up, six civilians dead, including two mainliners.”
“Mainliners aren’t civilians,” Alison murmured.
“Dozens of shades freed, two shivved,” Charlie said, “counting Jonah’s. And one slayer down.”
Freed. That was Gabriel’s term for removing a shade’s borrowed body so you could get at it and kill it. That’s putting a positive spin on it, Jonah thought.
Alison looked up at the ceiling. “Only two shivved?” She slid a smirk at Charlie.
“I’ll match my long-term stats against yours anytime,” Charlie said, unruffled. “Then again, why would I want to do that?”
Jonah spoke up for the first time. “The shades were organized, working together. When they come in swarms like that, it’s really hard to do anything but chop them down.”
“Is that it, then, Charlie?” Gabriel said, as if eager to move on.
“Yeah,” Charlie said, “Except we’re running low on shivs.” He slid one of the enchanted daggers across the table to Gabriel. “We like this design the best.”