Blood Games

Chapter Seven DATE NIGHT!

Fear sitting over me like an ominous storm, I didn’t take the time to make nice with the guards, but ran through the gate, into the House, and to Ethan’s office.

The door was open. Luc, Malik, and Ethan were in the sitting area, tense magic in the air between them. Ethan had removed his tie and his jacket, and the first button of his shirt was undone. His hair was down but tucked behind his ears, and worry had tightened his forehead.

“Sentinel,” Ethan said. “Come in and close the door.”

It was times like this that could drive a vampire to drink, I thought, which explained why all three of them had glasses in hand.

“Scotch?” Luc asked, holding up his glass. Scotch floated over cubes of ice and a curlicue of lemon zest.

“No, thanks,” I said, taking a seat beside Ethan on the tailored leather couch.

“Your trip?” he asked.

“Successful. Swords came from a place called the Magic Shoppe. Jonah’s going to tell my grandfather.”

Ethan cocked his head. “How can you tell?”

“The tsubas. Colored enameling, which is rare, and they’re stamped ‘MS’ on the edge. The store orders them that way.” I didn’t bother with a segue. “Why is Darius coming to Chicago?”

“We aren’t entirely sure,” Ethan said, and began to lay it out. “Victor Cabot called a short while ago.” Victor was the Master of New York City’s Cabot House, one of the nation’s oldest, situated in a grand dame of a building on the Upper East Side.

“Darius was in New York but didn’t advise Victor. He was at dinner, happened to look out the window and see Darius across the street.”

“Well,” Malik said, crossing his arms. “I bet that’s not something Victor sees every night.”

“No, it isn’t,” Ethan agreed. “And he and Victor are friends, I’d say, which makes it even more curious. Victor followed him a bit, feigned a random meeting.”

“On turf he’d probably already scoped out,” Luc said, then glanced at me. “Victor has a history in, let’s say, international espionage.”

Vampirism took all kinds. I nodded, looked back at Ethan. “And what did Darius say?”

“Apparently very little. Their interaction was very brief, but Victor said he was acting oddly. Seemed, he said, dazed.”

“Dazed?” Luc said. “What does that mean?”

Ethan lifted his hands. “I’ve no idea.”

“Were any other GP members with him?” Malik asked.

In addition to Darius, there were five remaining members of the GP: Dierks, Danica, Edmund, Lakshmi, and Diego. Ethan counted Lakshmi and Diego as allies. Edmund had helped Harold Monmonth attack the House, so he was clearly an enemy. I didn’t know Danica and Dierks to be enemies per se, other than because they were members of the GP. Which was probably enough.

“None, Victor said.” Ethan crossed one leg over the other. “Nor was Charlie with him.” Charlie was Darius’s majordomo, and usually his travel companion. “But he had muscle. Three solid men.”

Luc leaned forward, a glimmer of interest in his eyes. “Because of the challenge? Or because of the response?”

“Victor didn’t know. He didn’t tell Victor either way.”

“If he’s here to take you on, to respond to the challenge, why would he make a pit stop in New York?”

“That, Sentinel, is part of the question. Darius only told Victor he had business in the city. That same business, reportedly, is what’s bringing him to Chicago.”

“When is he scheduled to arrive?” I asked.

“He’s already here.”

I blinked. “He’s here? And Victor just got around to telling you?”

“Like I said, they’re friends. I think he didn’t necessarily want to spill any pertinent details to Cadogan House, Darius’s self-professed enemy. But he also knows we get things done. Victor used his own channels to investigate, whatever those might be, and wasn’t satisfied by what he found. The only specific information was his plan to visit Chicago, and he only learned that because a member of the hotel staff overheard the muscle mentioning it.”

“Espionage,” Luc said, pointing at me, an I-told-you-so gesture.

“So Darius is in New York for reasons unknown,” I summarized. “He didn’t tell Victor Cabot, the resident Master and his buddy, that he was coming to town, barely spoke when Victor saw him on the street, didn’t mention the challenge at all, and then hightailed it to Chicago.”

Ethan nodded. “That appears to be the warp and weft of it.”

“It’s not necessarily surprising Darius didn’t detail how he intends to respond to Ethan’s challenge,” Malik put in. “Loose lips sink ships, and all that. But it is odd he didn’t mention the challenge at all. The GP is in a time of chaos—Darius’s reign is in a time of chaos. He’s facing a coup d’état, and in the home of an ally. You’d think he’d have at least broached the issue, griped about the challenge, leaned on Victor’s shoulder.”

“It is odd,” Ethan agreed.

I blew out a breath. “So what do we do? Batten down the hatches? Get the House ready for a fight?”

Ethan rose, paced to the window across the room, used a fingertip to push aside the silk curtain. I wondered what he thought as he looked outside, if he weighed the future as he surveyed his domain.

“If I’m to be head of this organization—and I aim to be head of this organization—I cannot lurk in shadows waiting for others to make their moves. We strategize, we act, we move forward.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning, Sentinel, that if Darius will not respond to our challenge, we’ll take our challenge to him.”

We didn’t know how long Darius would be in town, so we took a chance, climbed into Lindsey’s SUV, and headed downtown. Luc drove, because he’d decided he was the only one who could “handle” the car in the event of “exigent circumstances.”

That explained the aviator glasses, considering it was full dark.

In reality, I think Luc was hoping for a car chase that would have him spinning and drifting the vehicle like he was a stuntman in an action movie.

Fortunately for my nerves and my stomach, that did not happen.

According to Victor, Darius intended to say at the Portman Grand, a hotel on Michigan Avenue across from Millennium Park that practically reeked of old money. It had been built in Chicago’s gilded age, a time when cattle and steel barons ruled the city. Lots of marble, gold accents, and dark fabrics.

We circled the block twice looking for a spot, lucked out the third time around, and grabbed a spot in front of a Chinese restaurant wedged between a Starbucks and a jewelry store.

“I presume no swords?” I said, thinking of the chichi hotel and the fact we’d be utterly conspicuous wearing them. We’d also present ourselves as an immediate threat to Darius.

“No swords,” Luc agreed, then popped open Lindsey’s glove box. Half a dozen holstered blades had been stuffed inside, a mini-armory in the comfort of an SUV. Vampires didn’t generally care for small blades, but these were exigent circumstances. Since I hadn’t noticed those the night before, he must have just loaded them.

“Do you have enough knives there, hon?” Lindsey asked, picking through the stack for a specimen she liked.

“Better safe than sorry.” He reached over, pulled out a pink camouflage holster. “You like?”

“I do not.” She patted one of the knee-high black boots she’d pulled over jeans. “Not my style, but I’m already prepped.”

He nodded, glanced into the backseat at me and Ethan.

“I’m good,” I said. Ethan had given me a sleek dagger that was, like Lindsey’s, tucked into my boot.

But Ethan held out a hand. “Do you have anything slightly less pink?”

Luc pulled out a holster covered in rhinestones.

“I really feel like you’ve missed your target audience,” Ethan said with amusement. “Or you’ve a feminine side we really haven’t explored.”

“I prefer you not explore my feminine side,” Luc said, stuffing the rejected knives back into the box and pulling out a third. This one was much more Cadogan style: a glossy, curvy handle with nubby grips on the finger notches, and a sleek, double-sided blade honed to a gleaming and lethal point.

“Now, that will work,” Ethan said, appreciation shining in his eyes. “And not a bit of glitter in sight.”

“Not on that one,” Luc said, closing the glove box again. “But I have others.”

We climbed out of the car, checked phones and weapons. “You might want to go with him next time he stops for weapons,” I whispered to Lindsey. “I understand Jonah uses FaireMakers.”

“As opposed to Victoria’s Scabbards?” Lindsey said, tugging the tops of her boots.

“My point exactly.”

“All right, kids,” Luc said. “We ready to undertake what will solely be an informational mission in which we go inside the hotel and gather information? Informationally.”

“Wait,” Lindsey said. “Wait. You’re saying we shouldn’t run in, arms waving, and yell that we’re here to kidnap Darius?”

Yes. Vampires also used sarcasm to combat pre-op nerves.

“I think we play it more subtly,” Luc said. “This is a public place, and a fancy one. Darius may have no love of humans, but he loathes bad press. He won’t cause trouble in the hotel, so we aren’t going to cause trouble in the hotel. We’re going to keep an eye out for Darius, feign coincidence that we’re in the same hotel, and make nice. Victor thinks something’s odd about his manner. We’ll give that theory a ride.”

Lindsey raised her hand. “Shouldn’t that be hypothesis?”

“I will give you the rhinestone knife.”

The threat apparently was enough; she mimicked zipping her lips.

Luc developed the cover story, another feigned meeting with Darius: We were two couples out on the town, enjoying a night in Chicago, celebrating the approaching end of winter.

We walked inside the hotel, shoes clicking on the shiny stone floors. Giant vases of flowers sat inside the entrance on marble and gold tables, scenting the room with the fragrance of lilies and hyacinths. Men and women in impeccably tailored clothing sat in the lobby’s conversation areas, or spilled out with the jazz from the bar across the room.

“Fancy,” Luc said.

“Any sign of him?” Ethan asked, lifting my hand to his lips.

“Not that I can see.” There were several humans and a possible River nymph, but not a vampire in sight.

Luc gestured toward the bar with his and Lindsey’s linked hands. “Couples in love hit the bar, have a drink, and survey these lovely surroundings for the man who may or may not want to end us.”

“Oh, I suspect he wants to end us,” Ethan said, as we followed Luc and Lindsey. “But he may not want to do it here.”

Lindsey ordered the drinks: gin and tonics for us, Scotch on the rocks for Luc and Ethan. And when she came back with a small bowl of steaming edamame dotted with flakes of sea salt, I decided not to complain that she’d assumed I’d be hungry.

We took seats beside men and women who looked like they’d spent the day cornering their respective financial markets. With our drinks and snacks, and a fabulous view of the Portman and its patrons, we awaited our former king.

It took seventeen minutes.

Darius emerged from the first elevator, tall and lean, with a narrow waist and broad shoulders. From a distance, he looked completely normal. His head was shaved, his features strong, his eyes bright blue. He wore a button-down shirt that matched his eyes, tucked into slim black slacks.

Two vampires walked closely behind him, the muscle Victor had referred to.

The one on Darius’s left, the bigger of the two men, was an ugly son of a bitch. Bug-eyed, a nose squashed from one too many jabs, hard, square jaw. His was a face only a mother could love, but it was refreshing to have a bad guy whose soul matched his outward appearance. There’d been too many wolves in designer sheep’s clothing lately.

While the main man was noticeably ugly, his associate on the right was remarkably plain. Light skin, brown hair, brown eyes. Medium height, medium build.

But their status as security was obvious—they scanned the room with flat eyes and suspicious expressions, and they vibrated from an abundance of weaponry.

“Guns,” I said, sipping my drink. “Several of them.”

“They look like the type,” Luc said, his gaze on Lindsey, a hand on her shoulder, rubbing lightly as if they were two lovers anticipating a night of passion. “Shoulder harnesses, probably. And the classic tucked-into-the-back-waistband approach.”

“Always turns me on when a man has a magnum in his pants,” she said.

I barely bit back a laugh, so the sound came out as a strangled snort.

Ethan shook his head. “You two are no longer allowed on ops together.”

“This is barely an op,” Lindsey said. “It’s more like an exploratory committee.”

We watched as Darius took a seat in a low, square chair in the sitting area. His guards took up point beside him, each about six feet away.

“And I believe it’s time to explore,” Ethan said, sliding his glass forward and rising. “Merit, you’re with me. Lucas—”

Luc nodded before Ethan could finish the order. “We’re here, just in case. Do us all a favor, Liege, and try to keep yourself alive?”

“It’s the second-highest thing on my list right now,” Ethan grumbled. He straightened his jacket, his features transforming from operative to Master vampire. Haughtiness, arrogance, and utter confidence returned.

He strode toward Darius, and I fell into step behind him, the (ahem) meek Sentinel. The muscle watched us close in, lips curled in distaste. They let us approach to ten feet, then moved forward, hands outstretched like linebackers ready to stop Ethan’s forward progress.

Ethan ignored them, kept his gaze on Darius, who hadn’t yet seemed to realize that Ethan Sullivan, the Master vampire who’d challenged him for the throne, was standing only ten feet away.

That was, to say the least, odd.

“Darius,” Ethan said. “It’s good to see you again.”

Darius looked up at him blandly. “Is it?”

This man clearly looked like Darius, from the dent in his chin to the perfect posture. But the Darius West I’d met would never have looked blandly at an enemy.

Ethan was momentarily taken aback, but he covered it up. “It is,” he said, his tone unfailingly polite. “We’re old friends, and old friends who don’t get to speak as often as we might.”

“I suppose . . . that’s true enough. Where’s your boon companion? Your Sentinel?”

“She’s here,” Ethan said. I walked forward, taking the hand that Ethan offered me.

His eyes, Ethan silently said. Look at his eyes.

Darius had been in the tall man’s shadow, but as I moved forward, the man shifted, as did the light across Darius’s face. His electric blue irises were narrow, dwarfed by wide and ink-black pupils. Whether by drugs or magic, something was affecting our former king. And deeply.

“Merit, it’s good to see you again.”

“It’s good to see you, as well.” A lie, and not. Whatever his issues with Ethan, this man was no threat to him right now. Not in this condition. Not with those eyes, that manner.

Darius nodded, but that was the end of his interest in me. His attention had flitted elsewhere. “If you’ll excuse me, I have some business to attend to.”

“Of course,” Ethan said. “It was good to see you again.”

Having been dismissed, we went back to the bar.

“He’s not well,” I murmured, taking a sip of my gin and tonic, relishing the cold, astringent punch. I needed it to wash away the weird encounter.

“He’s not,” Ethan said, rubbing his forehead. “I had no clue what I’d see tonight, but I don’t think I expected that. That isn’t Darius.”

“How so?” Luc asked.

“He barely registered Ethan,” I said. “And not in the arrogant, you’re-beneath-me way. In the I’m-currently-drugged-out-of-my-gourd way.”

“His eyes were dilated. His movements slow and stiff.”

“Magic?” Lindsey asked.

“I don’t know,” Ethan said.

“If it’s glamour,” I asked, “wouldn’t we have felt it?”

“That is another question to which I don’t have an answer.” Having drained his finger of Scotch, he turned to mine, took a sip, grimaced.

“It wasn’t your drink,” I reminded him, taking it back.

“Darius has more company,” Luc said, and we casually glanced back. A silver-haired man approached Darius, a large leather envelope in hand, the type used to carry documents. He and Darius shook, and the muscle escorted the pair back to the elevators.

“I suppose that’s the business,” Lindsey said.

“We could tail him,” Luc said, but Ethan shook his head.

“I don’t like this, and I don’t want us here, without preparation and backup, any longer than necessary.”

Luc pulled bills from a long, narrow wallet, and placed them on the table. “That’s fine by me. Let’s get the hell back to the House.”

Ethan glanced at me. We need to know what was in that envelope, he silently said.

Shall I contact the previously discussed tool in your arsenal? I asked.

He nodded, and I pulled out my phone, sent the necessary message: NEED YOUR EXPERTISE. PERHAPS A VISIT TO THE LIGHTHOUSE?

The Chicago Harbor Light, tall and white, stood sentinel at the edge of the breakwater that provided a harbor for boats on Lake Michigan. You could get in on foot—if you had the gumption to walk the quarter-mile stretch of rocks and riprap that tethered the lighthouse to the shore near Navy Pier.

The last time I’d tried it, the rocks had been slick and icy. Tonight, as Jonah and I stood in the darkness of the parking lot and stared them down, they were no longer icy. But they were still slick and dark.

“Might as well get this over with,” I said, and stepped onto the first boulder.

Going was still slow as we hopped from stone to stone, pausing after each bit of progress to regain our balance.

“I’m surprised there’s not a faster way out here,” I said, arms outstretched at my sides as I worked to stay upright.

“There is. We could take the boat.”

I stopped, stared back at him. “There’s a boat?”

“Of course there’s a boat.”

“Then why are we doing this?”

He grinned back at me. “For the challenge.” Jonah bobbled, momentarily losing his balance. Fortunately for him, he took a step, found purchase, managed not to fall into the drink. Which was good, because I wasn’t going to help him.

“For the challenge,” I mimicked, but I kept walking until we’d crossed the rocks and reached the concrete platform that held the lighthouse and the two small buildings that straddled it.

Jonah tapped a code on the keypad by the door, and we walked inside.

The lighthouse had been built in 1893 for the World’s Columbian Exhibition but had been moved and renovated several times since then. The décor was sparse and hadn’t been updated since at least the 1970s. But the décor wasn’t the point—the three-hundred-and-sixty-degree windows and views of the city and lake were.

“You can all relax,” Jonah said, hands lifted, to the handful of vampires who looked up as we entered. “I’m here. You’re safe.”

“You’re here—and full of shit,” said the vampire at the table across the room, whose muttonchop sideburns were immediately recognizable. Horace, an RG guard and Civil War veteran, wore a simple linen shirt and dark trousers. He turned, and his dark eyes widened. “And you’ve brought a guest.”

“You’re hilarious,” Jonah said. “Merit, you remember Horace.”

I nodded. “Hi.”

There was suspicion in Horace’s expression, maybe because he hadn’t seen me here enough for his own comfort. Not enough to vet me, anyway.

“Is Matthew here?” Jonah asked.

“Basement.” He cocked his head. “You need data?”

“This is your gig,” Jonah said, prompting me.

“It’s about Darius.”

Horace nodded. “He’s in Chicago. And you met with him today.”

“It’s about Darius. He’s in Chicago. And we met with him today at the Portman Grand. He had a security team, and he met a man who appeared to be carrying some papers.”

“You interact with him?” Horace asked.

“Ethan and I both. And he seemed completely off. Polite, but barely communicative. Dilated pupils.”

“Glamour?” Horace asked.

Glamour was an odd side effect of the magic that spilled from us. We couldn’t create magic—not like Mallory or Catcher—but we could manipulate the magic that escaped from us. It was, maybe not coincidentally, a manipulative magic. The ability to nudge, subtly or otherwise, people to do what we wanted. I had some immunity to it, but I also couldn’t make the magic myself.

“It was a thought. But we didn’t feel any magic. Nothing beyond the usual, anyway. Victor Cabot said Darius also acted strangely when he was in New York, although that interaction was brief. Darius apparently didn’t mention the GP, the challenge, or anything else to Victor while he was there.”

Horace sat back in his chair, linked his hands together on his chest, and rocked. The chair squeaked beneath him. “He and Victor were close.”

“That’s what I hear,” I said with a nod. “You’d think you’d talk to your allies if you were about to rush Chicago and kick aside a would-be challenger for the throne.”

“So you think he’s not here to challenge Ethan?”

“I have no idea what he’s going to do. That’s precisely the problem. I’ve met Darius before. He runs hot. I’d have expected him to be pissed off by the challenge, insulted by it. Not to play nice with Ethan. Darius has many irritating qualities, but being coy isn’t one of them.

“I don’t like the GP under the best of circumstances,” I added. “But I especially don’t like it when the head of the GP is acting oddly, and my House—and my Master—are on the line.”

Horace leaned back again; the chair squeaked. “You know being in a relationship with Ethan puts you in an awkward position regarding the Guards.”

I kept my gaze steady. “It’s only awkward if he’s elected and becomes an asshole. The first one’s possible. The second isn’t.”

“Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

“And Napoleon might have been better behaved if Josephine had been a member of the RG.”

Jonah smiled at me. “You had that one in the chamber, ready to fire.”

I shrugged. “Frankly, I’d ask the same question if I was you. It’s a fair question. But my answer’s the truth. I’ve been around money and power for most of my life. It doesn’t control me.”

“Touché,” Horace said.

I nodded in acknowledgment. “I don’t know how long Darius’ll be here, or what he’s planning to do. But he’s in my territory, and I’d appreciate any information you can provide.”

Horace rose, the chair rocking rhythmically in his absence, its squeak ringing across the room. “Then let’s get to it,” he agreed, and gestured to the metal spiral staircase that stood in the center of the room.

The staircase was narrow, barely wide enough to accommodate the guys’ wide shoulders. I’d known it went up but hadn’t noticed it also spiraled down into the floor—and presumably beneath the lakebed.

We spiraled down for several seconds and what felt like several stories, emerging into a concrete room that stretched at least the length of a football field. The floor was glossy, the walls scored in what looked like a really large, concrete version of soundproofing. And down the middle of the room was a series of black, glossy cabinets. The room was chilly, and it hummed with energy.

“Holy shit,” I murmured, staring at the space.

“Welcome to the sparkplug’s data center,” Horace said.

“Sparkplug?”

“The lighthouse,” Jonah said. “It’s a nickname for this particular style.”

“This is . . . impressive,” I said, except that I wasn’t sure what I was looking at. “What, exactly, am I looking at?”

“Two centuries of data,” Horace said. “Correspondence, GP rulings, intelligence, financials. They’re stored on drives with double tape backups.”

“That’s a lot of information.”

“It is,” Horace said. “And that’s why we have Matthew.”

He gestured to the lone desk in the room, a long glass table on which sat a single computer terminal. The chair was occupied by a vampire who looked like he’d been changed in his early twenties. He had golden brown skin, a wide mouth, and glasses with thick black frames. He wore a gray hoodie with the green Jakob’s Quest logo across the front.

Dear God, I thought. The RG had a Jeff.

“Matthew Post, this is my partner, Merit,” Jonah said. “Matthew’s a rogue, so he gets both of his names, the lucky bastard.”

“Hi,” Matthew said, fingers flying over the keys.

“Hi,” I said. “Jakob’s Quest fan?”

“Bravely into battle,” Matthew said, eyes on the screen.

I grinned. I knew this one. “And victory for all.”

He paused, looked back at me, appraised, nodded. “Cool.”

And with four simple words, I’d passed Matthew Post’s Test of Acceptability. I counted that as an achievement.

“We run a pretty lean shop. Matthew’s our analyst and IT expert. He responds to requests for information—like yours—and analyzes data for anomalies if they arise. We rely primarily on human intelligence,” Horace said. “But Matthew and the data center are crucial to our operation. Matthew, Darius is apparently in Chicago, after a trip to NYC. What’s the GP’s latest traffic?”

Matthew’s long fingers worked the buttons like a pianist, each movement smooth, dancerly, and precise.

“Nothing unusual,” he said, scanning the data he’d pulled up on the screen. “Rules and regulations have been issued. Payments have been made. House tithes have been collected. Operations appear normal.”

“Go a level deeper,” Horace suggested.

“Running anomaly check,” Matthew said. This one was all business, and not nearly as keen on the witty small talk as Jeff. IT folks came in all flavors.

“Hey, anomalies,” Matthew announced after a moment.

We all moved closer. “What anomalies?” Horace asked.

“Not on the surface,” Matthew said. “The trust accounts are normal. Any deviation is standard. And so are the operating accounts.”

I decided this wasn’t the time to ask about the ethics of our sneaking into the GP’s bank accounts.

“But?” Horace prompted.

“The American Houses’ operating subaccounts are off. The GP keeps an account in each city with Houses. A portion of the Houses’ tithes go into the subaccounts, which the GP distributes back to the Houses for renovations, special projects, what have you. There are withdrawals in some of them.”

My blood began to hum. That was a definite bump. “How large? And which ones?”

“Boston, New York . . . and Chicago. Six point eight mil and change in total.”

“Darius has been in at least two of those cities recently.”

Jonah looked at me. “Did Victor say where he’d been before he got to New York?”

“He didn’t. I don’t know if he knew.” But I could find that out easily enough. I pulled out my phone, showed it to Horace and Matthew. Candor seemed the best bet considering their doubts about me. “I’m going to check with Ethan. Any objections?”

“Do it,” Horace said, and I sent a quick message, kept my phone in hand to await Ethan’s response.

“Where’s the money going?” Jonah asked, leaning on the desk beside Horace.

Matthew clicked keys. “Zurich. Two numbered Swiss accounts. Bulk of the money was moved into one account. The other one received”—he paused as he looked it up—“a forty-thousand-dollar transfer.”

Jonah and Horace exchanged a glance. “Ten bucks says the smaller account is a payoff.”

Horace paused, nodded. “I’ll take those odds,” he said, and they shook on it.

“So, to summarize,” I said, “we think Darius is visiting U.S. cities, transferring money out of the GP’s local accounts, and funneling the money back into Swiss bank accounts.” I looked between Jonah and Horace. “For what purpose? Is he going to just take the money and run?”

“Why else would you open a Swiss bank account?” Horace asked.

It was a good point. “Still—why the travel? If he wanted to secret the money out, why not just have it wire transferred?”

“Because it’s not allowed,” Jonah said. “There are strict restrictions on taking money out of the GP subaccounts intended to protect the Houses.”

When we all looked at him, he shrugged. “We had to learn the rules when they firebombed the House. We got money from the Chicago subaccount to get into the new building and start the renovations on the old one.”

“So what are the restrictions?” I asked.

“Wire transfer is fine for any money going from the subaccounts to the Houses, because they consider it their money. But you can’t transfer money to any other recipient electronically; they’ll only issue it by cashier’s check.”

“Which means somebody has to be here to pick up the check,” I said.

“Yep. The accounts are large enough, and Darius is wealthy enough, that he probably doesn’t even have to go to the bank to do it.”

I thought of the man with the leather portfolio. “So the banker comes to him, even after hours.”

“Exactly.”

“And where’s the rest of the GP? How is no one else noticing this?”

“Because the primary accounts look fine on the surface,” Matthew pointed out.

“The local accounts work like escrow—holding the Houses’ tithes until they’re periodically moved into other accounts.”

Jonah stood up again. “Darius could have told them he was coming here to prepare a response to the challenge,” he said. “He’s head of the GP. He’s allowed to visit the cities that hold his Houses.”

True enough, but still odd. And completely out of character. Since when did Darius, who was essentially the king of North American and Western European vampires, sneak around with finances, or anything else? For that matter, since when did he show up in Chicago and make nice with Ethan?

My phone vibrated, and I looked down at it. “Boston,” I said. “Darius was in Boston.”

“Three cities, three transfers,” Matthew said.

“The Swiss accounts,” I said. “What can you tell us about them?”

“Pretty much nothing,” Matthew said. “What little identifying information the bank collects is encrypted beyond even our capabilities—which is the point of having a Swiss account.”

I nodded. And I didn’t doubt Matthew’s or the RG’s capabilities, but I had a family member with lots of money and lots of financial connections.

“Can I get the account numbers? The transaction numbers?”

Matthew glanced back at me. “You got friends in Switzerland?”

“Not exactly. But I may have someone who knows someone in Switzerland.”

“Worth a shot,” Horace said, nodding as I took photographs of the numbers to send to my source later.

“Thank you.”

Horace crossed his arms, looked at me. “What will Ethan do now?”

“When I tell him Darius has stolen nearly seven million dollars from the Houses? What do you think he’ll do?”

Horace smiled, but there was no joy in it. “I imagine Ethan Sullivan will do what Ethan Sullivan does best: He’ll go to war.”

I couldn’t decide whether I found that flattering or not.