“The thing was about fifty feet tall,” he said, stretching a hand way above his head. “It looked like the devil, with horns and everything. Like a monster out of a nightmare.”
Kane jumped up on the sofa beside me and growled at the screen.
“It was Myrddin,” I said. “I shot him, and his injuries made him change into his demon form.” The demon had been closer to twenty feet tall than fifty, but otherwise the witness gave a pretty good description.
But the problem was his use of the word “monster,” and not just because Kane found it politically incorrect. A press conference held by Police Commissioner Hampson came on.
Hampson stood at a podium, tugging at his necktie and reading from a prepared statement. “For the next forty-eight hours, an emergency containment order will be in effect on all paranormals throughout Massachusetts.”
Kane and I gaped at each other. A containment order meant that all residents of Deadtown had to be present and accounted for within its borders by sundown on the day of issue. And they had to stay in Deadtown until the order expired.
“In addition,” Hampson went on, “a curfew will be enforced on Designated Area 1 during that time. All residents of that designated area must be off the streets between ten p.m. and four a.m. during the period of the containment order. The Joint Human-Paranormal Task Force will conduct random compliance checks.”
Hampson’s curfew covered the times the murders had been committed, but slapping a curfew on Deadtown in the middle of the night was like shutting down the norms’ business district between eight and five on a weekday. Hampson had put all of Deadtown under house arrest, sending out the Goon Squad to knock on people’s doors and make sure they stayed home.
The containment order would make it harder, but not impossible, to get myself into position at Boylston Street tomorrow night. It would mean sneaking out again. Myrddin wanted my life force to complete his ritual, but he’d make do with that of some random victim if I wasn’t around. And I wouldn’t let that happen.
Kane paced the length of the living room, growling, and I realized that Hampson’s containment order was a bigger problem for him. He couldn’t be accounted for, not without revealing that he was stuck in wolf form. The very idea that a werewolf could change when the moon wasn’t full would send the norms into a panic. I could already hear the speeches calling for a mass werewolf internment, permanently restricting the entire species to the secure retreats.
“Kane,” I said. He paused in his pacing and looked at me. “The night you and Mab rescued me—did you go through the checkpoints when you left Deadtown?”
He nodded.
“And then we sneaked back in. That means there’s no record of your reentry. So as far as the authorities know, you’re still outside Deadtown.” That didn’t matter for the containment order—not if he was thought to be in Massachusetts. All paranormals would have to report to one of the state’s designated areas: Deadtown, a werewolf retreat, or one of the smaller paranormal-only sections in cities like Worcester and Springfield. If another murder happened, any “monster” who wasn’t accounted for would be a suspect.
But maybe we could convince them he was out of state.
I dialed the number for 24-Hour Copy.
“Vicky,” Carlos said, when he came on the line, “don’t tell me you need another ID already. I’m going to have to start offering you a volume discount.”
“Nope, I’ve still got the last card you made for me. But I thought maybe you could help me with another little problem.”
He chuckled. “Your ‘little problems’ are usually big news for my bank account. What’s up?”
“You’ve heard about the containment order?” He had. “I need to come up with evidence that someone left the state a couple of days ago.”
“And stays out of state for at least the next forty-eight hours. Gotcha. Where?”
“D.C.” Kane had rented an apartment there when he’d been working full-time on his Supreme Court case. The lease hadn’t yet expired. I explained as much as I could without telling Carlos that Kane was currently a wolf.
But Carlos was never one to ask for inconvenient details. “Here’s what I can do,” he said. “I’ll call a norm I know who might be willing to take a quick trip to D.C. on Kane’s ID. All expenses paid, of course.” Of course. “Guy I have in mind has the right height and build. Just needs to dye his hair. I can . . . Let me see, what time is it? Less than two hours to sunset. Damn, girl, you’re not giving me much time. Okay, if my guy can make the trip, he’ll drive down as himself—you know, as a human—some time tonight.” The states didn’t keep records of the humans who crossed their borders, only paranormals. “I’ll get busy with the state databases to add a few records showing that Kane drove down . . . you said a couple of days ago. When, exactly?”“Make it Monday morning.”
“Monday morning. Let me write that down.” He paused, and I pictured him searching for a pencil and paper on his cluttered desk. “Okay. Get me the key to Kane’s apartment so I can pass it on. I won’t get the fake ID done in time, but I’ll email the file to an associate of mine in Washington, along with the number of a credit card in Kane’s name. The credit card will already have some charges on it—groceries, meals, that sort of thing. When the new ‘Mr. Kane’ gets into town, he can pick up the cards at my associate’s establishment. He buys some more dinners on the credit card, flashes his ID a few places, and—ta da!—plenty of evidence he was outside of Massachusetts during the containment order.”
The whole scheme hinged on the availability of Carlos’s norm friend, so he said he’d call back to confirm. I explained the plan to Kane, and by the time I finished, Carlos had called back to say everything was a go. I managed not to faint when he told me how much it would cost, not including expenses.
Kane would be accounted for, that was the important thing. Besides, he was paying.
Next I called Daniel. “What’s Hampson thinking with this containment order?”
“What do you expect, Vicky?” He sounded both exhausted and exasperated. “ There’s no secret lair in the abandoned subway tunnel—we checked.” No surprise that Daniel hadn’t found anything, either. “Hampson was furious about time we wasted on that dead end. I told him about Morfran possession and how it pointed to a human killer. Roxana showed him the rune and how it fit the pattern of murder sites. He blew it all off. Called it ‘mumbo jumbo’ and fired Roxana as a consultant.”
“So he locks down Deadtown?” It was the stupidest response possible.
“What else would he do? He won’t listen to me. He’s convinced the murderer is from there. The motorist who said he saw a ‘monster,’ the mutilation of the bodies, even the fact that a variant of the damn plague virus has appeared in the wild—in his mind, it all adds up to a paranormal killer.”
“Is the lab still under quarantine?”
“Yes, until the end of the week. But no symptoms yet. Feels like the only piece of good news I’ve had all year.”
What a mess I’d made for Daniel—the virus sample, a German shepherd in his crime site, information that did nothing but infuriate his boss. But the information was important, and I needed Daniel to act on it. Lives depended on it.
“Daniel, you know that rune pattern is valid. Tomorrow night, the Reaper will be looking for a victim somewhere near the Boylston Street T station. No matter what Hampson thinks.”
“I know. I’ll do what I can, but Hampson has directed nearly all our resources to patrolling the perimeter of Deadtown. He’s even convinced Governor Sugden to call in the National Guard.”
“Are you serious?”
“Dead serious. Hampson argued that the zombies are likely to riot. Apparently, after that protest march got out of hand, the governor agreed with him.”
Wow. Sugden, whose own daughter was a zombie, was usually a friend to the paranormals. Now he’d ordered the tightest lockdown since the plague. And all because some zombies pushed past the first checkpoint to have a beer in the Zone? Nothing had gotten out of hand; they hadn’t even tried to march into the human part of Boston.
Hampson had to be feeling a lot of pressure from his Humans First buddies to use these murders to advance the cause. But his focus on Deadtown was ridiculously shortsighted. “So while the cops and the National Guard tighten the noose around Deadtown,” I said, “the Reaper will get on with his work behind their backs.”
“Like I said, I’ll do what I can.” Tension strained his voice. “And Vicky, I’m not kidding. I know what you’re like—stay away from this. Don’t try to sneak out of Deadtown. Don’t try to catch this guy yourself. Let the police handle it.” He hung up, making sure he got the final word.
Let the police handle it. Those same police who’d be playing ring-around-the-rosie around Deadtown? Somehow, I didn’t think so.
I WAS OUT FOR HALF AN HOUR GETTING THE KEYS FOR Kane’s D.C. place and delivering them to Carlos. When I got home, I heard Mab moving around in the bedroom and went to see how she was doing. I knocked on the door and pushed it open. The creature who sat on the edge of the bed barely resembled my aunt. She looked like a wizened gnome, or one of those preserved bodies that archeologists dug up from peat bogs. Her gray hair had thinned; I could see her scalp through it. Her feet dangled over the side of my bed, not touching the floor.
“I’m afraid I need some help getting to the lavatory.”
I lifted her to her feet. Mab was normally a couple of inches taller than my five foot six, but she’d shrunken so much she barely came up to my shoulder. Although she leaned heavily against me as we crossed the hall to the bathroom, I barely felt her weight.
When I returned her to bed, she patted the mattress. “Sit, child.”