LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE

I dreamed in darkness. I stood atop Chicago's John Hancock

Center, the wind swirling around me. A yel ow moon hung low in the sky, huge as it balanced just above the horizon, as if too heavy to make its way higher.

Ethan stoo fousizas d beside me in his black Armani, his golden hair tied at the nape of his neck, his green eyes glowing. "Look," he said. "It's disappearing."

I fol owed the line of his outstretched hand and looked into the sky. The moon was higher now - smal and white in the midsky - and a fingernail crescent of it had turned dark.

"A lunar eclipse," I said, watching the earth's shadow crawl across the face of the moon. "What does it mean?"

"Darkness," Ethan said. "Chaos. Destruction." He looked back at me and squeezed my hand until it ached. "The world is changing. I don't know how. I don't know why. I'm stil . . . stretched thin. You have to find the cause."

I blew him off, offering him a smile. "It's nothing. Just an eclipse. They happen al the time." But when I looked again, the moon was no longer disappearing behind a round disk of shadow. The circle had morphed, the edges blurring into shapes that more closely resembled tentacles than the smooth curve of the earth. They undulated across the moon like a ravenous monster intent on devouring it.

My chest clenched with panic, and I squeezed Ethan's hand as tightly as he'd squeezed mine. "Is this the end of the world?" I asked him, unable to look away from the dancing shadows.

That he didn't answer didn't comfort me at al .

Together, fingers tangled, we watched the moon disappear behind the monster's shadow. And as it happened, a cold wind began to blow, the temperature dropping precipitously.

"You have to stop this," he said into the silence.

"I don't know how."

"Then you must find someone who does."

I looked over at him, there beside me, hair whipping in the wind. And as the wind rose, each gust stronger than the last, I watched him disappear behind the monster's shadow, until there was nothing left of him.

Until I stood alone in the chil ing wind beneath an empty sky.

There was no sound except the howling of the wind in my ears, and his screaming of my name.

"Merit! "

My eyes flashed open. I was stil in bed, warm beneath the blankets in my chil y room.

I pul ed a pil ow over my face and screamed into it, frustration pul ing my nerves so taut I felt ready to snap.

These dreams were kil ing me.

I'd always been a fan of ripping off the bandage - dealing with the pain al at once rather than suffering death by a thousand stings. These dreams were torture by a thousand memories: Seeing his green eyes, his face, al the while knowing the Ethan in my dreams was a weak facsimile of the man I'd known.

Maybe I needed more sleep. More vegetables. More exercise. Maybe I needed more Mal ory and less vampire, more Wicker Park and less Hyde Park.

Whatever the reason, I needed a change. I threw off the blankets and hopped out of bed, then pul ed on a long-sleeved T-shirt and yoga pants. My hair went up, and I headed downstairs for a workout session as long and brutal as I could make it. For a workout, I hoped, that would push the grief right out of me.

Vampires had a long history of martial arts work in a style that mixed swordcraft, defensive postures, and offensive attacks. We practiced those efforts in th keffhistory oe House's sparring room, a giant space in the basement that was prepped for combat. The wal s were lined with wooden paneling and antique weapons, and tatami mats were spread across the floor.

I kicked off the flip-flops I'd donned for the trip downstairs and stepped onto the mat. The room was big and silent, and it felt strange to stand in the middle of it alone. I'd lost a workout partner in Ethan, and I hadn't trained with Catcher since Ethan had taken over the job earlier in the year. I worked out with the House guards on occasion, but we were so short-staffed opportunities for long workouts and training sessions didn't arise very often.

Silence, I quickly decided, wasn't going to work tonight.

There was a sound system in one corner of the room, and I flipped through the channels until I found an angry alternative song (courtesy of Rage Against the Machine) and turned up the volume. And then I returned to the middle of the mat, shook out my shoulders, closed my eyes, and got to work.

Katas were the building blocks of our martial arts work, short combinations of punches, strikes, kicks, and the like.

Put them together, and you had a pretty fierce-looking demonstration of our skil s. With the music pounding behind me, I used strikes, spins, and flips to push out the grief.

Workouts were tricky. Some days it was easier than others. Some days you felt light as air; some days you felt heavy as lead. Tonight was somewhere in between. It felt good to move, but I could feel the gnawing thirst itching beneath my skin.

I pushed through it. An out-of-shape Sentinel wasn't going to do anyone any good. Given the trouble I often managed to get into, I needed to make sure my muscles were honed and my skil s were fine-tuned.

After twenty minutes or so, the door opened, and Luc stepped inside. I pushed sweaty bangs from my face.

"I heard the music down the hal ," he said. "Getting in some exercise?"

When I nodded, Luc walked to the edge of the mat and looked down at the tatami. "There are nights when he seems more absent than others."

The grief in his voice brought immediate tears to my eyes. I looked away to keep them from fal ing, but didn't disagree with the heart-clenching sentiment.

"There are nights when the world is completely askew because he's gone," I agreed.

Luc crossed his arms over his chest and glanced around the room at the objects displayed on the wal s. He nodded toward a shield that bore images of acorns.

"That was Ethan's when he was in Sweden."

More than four hundred years ago, Ethan had been a Swedish soldier, changed into a vampire during a vicious battle.

"Family crest?"

Luc nodded. "I believe so. He'd been a hel uva soldier, at least until the reaper got him. Two lives instead of nine, I suppose." He laughed mirthlessly, then looked down at the floor, as if ashamed he'd made a joke. "Wel , I'l leave you to it."

"We al miss him," I assured him.

He looked at me again. "I know, Sentinel." He turned and walked out again, and I stood in the middle of the tatami mats, closed my eyes, and let the music wash over me. So much for escaping the grief.

One workout, one hot shower, and one much-too-smal drink box of Type A later, I decided ano kI d> When I was dressed, I drove to a funky little gourmet store in a commercial district of Hyde Park and loaded up a handled, brown paper bag with treats. A nice candle. A cup with an "M" inscribed on it. Some mixed nuts and dried fruit. A bottle of water and some chocolate bars.

Granted, the chocolate itself was unnecessary; I'd left an entire kitchen drawer of chocolate goodies at her brownstone when I'd moved out. It seemed unlikely that she'd cleaned it out already. But these had bacon in them.

Bacon, people.

Al the goodies for a study break box in hand, I put my purchases on the counter.

When the cashier began to ring me up, I decided to pol the public. "So, you're pretty close to Cadogan House. Do you get vampires in here often?"

The register beeped as he ran the chocolate bars across the scanner. "Occasional y, yeah."

"Are they as bad as everybody says?"

"The vamps? Nah. They ain't bad. Pretty nice. Some of the girls ain't bad to look at, you know what I mean?" He smiled grandly.

"Thank you," I said, handing over cash and picking up my bag. "I'l tel the rest of my friends at Cadogan House you said that."

I gave him a wink, and left him in the store with cheeks blushing crimson.

I made it to Mal ory's house just in time to see her tutor, Simon, walking out the front door. He moved down the sidewalk with a perky kick in his step, which matched pretty wel his boy-next-door good looks. His dark blond hair was closely cropped, his eyes bright blue. He wasn't overly tal , but he looked like the friendly, gregarious type who might have been senior class president.

"Hi," he said, squinting a little. "Merit, right? You're a friend of Mal ory's?"

"Yep." I lifted up the care package. "Just bringing her a little something. Is she in the middle of a test?"

"Oh, no. Not tonight. Just studying. I came over to help her with a tricky spot."

"I see." Mal ory had thought Simon had a weird vibe, and Catcher clearly wasn't a fan. I didn't get a bad sense, but it did seem odd to me that his focus was Mal ory's exams, not the water. After al , he was the Order's official representative in Chicago.

"How is the Order feeling about the issues with the lake and the river? Did they have any thoughts?"

He blinked, like the question didn't make sense to him.

"The lake and the water? They're fixed now, aren't they?"

"They are, but it's stil weird, don't you think?"

He looked nervously down at his watch. "I'm sorry to be rude, but I need to go. I've got an appointment. Good seeing you again." He hustled down the sidewalk toward a German sports car parked on the street.

I watched until the car disappeared down the block, wondering at his reaction, at his lack of concern because the problem had been "fixed." He was a sorcerer, and by al accounts this was a magical problem. Did he have no curiosity about why it had happened?

Maybe kze=unthe was just happy it was fixed, and was focused enough on getting Mal through testing.

Or maybe he knew exactly what was going on, and was keeping it close to his vest.

Either way, I found the reaction suspicious, so I filed it away, popped onto the porch and knocked on the door.

Catcher opened it with brown slippers on his feet, glasses on his nose, and a TV Guide in his hand. Maybe he was taking his sudden retirement seriously.

"Big night?"

"I've spent the last forty-eight tripping through books trying to find an explanation for the water. I've searched every online forum I could think of for references to spel s or creatures or prophecies that might explain what's going on.

And to show for it, I have nothing. I haven't slept. I've hardly eaten. Mal ory is in a tizzy, and Simon is cal ing my house every five goddamned minutes. I need a break or I am going to lose my shit."

There was no mistaking the defensiveness in his voice or the dark circles under his eyes.

I tried to lighten the mood, and pointed at the house shoes - the last things I'd have expected to see Catcher Bel wearing. "And the shoes?" I asked with a grin.

"My house, my rules. These shoes happen to be comfortable," he said. "If you two roamed around the house naked and carrying bows and arrows before I moved in, it's none of my business."

The snark notwithstanding, he moved aside to let me in.

"How's life in the post-Ombudsman era?" I asked as he closed the door behind me.

He smiled thinly. "Like I said, exhausting, but surprisingly wel organized. You know that room in the back of Chuck's house he uses for storage?"

I did. That had been my grandmother's treasure room.

She loved garage sales, and she inevitably found something she thought one of us needed. A wooden pul toy for Charlotte's daughter, Olivia. An antique desk blotter for Robert. A book of poetry for me. She kept them in boxes or paper bags in tidy stacks and passed them out during visits like Santa Claus. When my grandmother died, my grandfather left the room and its treasure trove intact. At least, he had before . . .

"Wel ," Catcher continued, "it's been reorganized. It's now home of the Chuck Merit School of Supernatural Diplomacy."

"Tel me you aren't real y cal ing it that."

"It's only a temporary name," he assured. "The point is, we're stil on the map for folks who need help."

"And the folks who need your help probably don't care if you're working out of a fancy office or a back bedroom."

"Precisely." Catcher assumed his position on the couch

- ankles crossed on the coffee table, TV Guide in one hand, remote in the other, his gaze on the television over the top of his glasses. A lemon-lime soda and a bowl of gummy orange slices sat on the coffee table in front of him.

This was a man ready for a break, uninterrupted by trips to the kitchen for nosh.

I assumed that was my cue. "I assume Mal ory's home?"

"She's in the basement."

That was a surprise. It was an Amityvil e spider trap down there. I couldn't imagine she'd be down there on purpose, much less studying.

"Seriously?"

"It's chemistry night. She needed quiet and room to make messes. I wasn't wil ing to give up the kitchen."

"Basement it is," I said, and walked to the back of the house. The door to the grungy cel ar was in the kitchen, which also housed the ice-cold diet sodas Mal ory usual y kept on hand. I grabbed two from the fridge and opened the basement door.

The smel of vinegar that poured up the stairs made my eyes water instantly.

"Mal?" I cal ed out. The basement stairs were dark, but some light crept around the corner from the main part of the basement. "Is everything okay down there?"

I heard the clunking of what sounded like pots and pans

- and then she began to belt out the lyrics of a hip-hop song with much gusto.

I considered that the al clear and began to pick my way down the basement stairs.

I'd never been a fan of basements. Before my parents moved into their modern, concrete box of a house in Oak Park, we lived in a Gothic house in Elgin, Il inois. The house had been a century old, and looked - and felt - like the setting for a horror movie. It was beautiful but haunting.

Luxurious, as was their way, but lonely.

The house had a basement in which my mother had stored the pottery kiln she'd purchased when ceramics had become her temporary obsession. She kept the kiln immaculately clean, but it was the only clean item in the basement; the rest had been dark, cold, damp, and spidery.

"Not unlike this one," I muttered, final y reaching the concrete floor and peeking around the corner.

A single, white-hot bulb hung down into the room. There was no sign of the source of the vinegary smel , but the scent was definitely stronger down here. Mal ory sat at a giant worktable made from sawhorses and sheets of plywood. Books and bowls of unidentifiable bits were stacked feet high upon it, as were a variety of potted plants.

Some looked like regular houseplants; others had viciously pointy leaves with crimson-red tips or thick, luscious leaves that looked like they were ful to bursting with water.

Mal ory's ice-blue hair - now showing a little blond at the roots - was pul ed into a ponytail, and black headphones covered her ears. There were dark circles under her eyes, and her cheeks looked a little more gaunt than usual. The exams must have been taking their tol .

She spit out lyrics with nimble speed while she perused a hefty book that sat open on the tabletop before her. She was oblivious while I picked through the maze of cardboard boxes, unused furniture, and waiting bags of ice melt that covered the basement floor . . . and she jumped when I put a can of soda on the table.

"Jesus H. Roosevelt, Merit!" she exclaimed, ripping off the headphones. "What are you doing here? I nearly zapped you into next month."

"Sorry. You were busy communing with Kanye. What's with the smel ?"

Mal ory pointed to a series of homemade wooden shelves tucked into a nook across from the table. It was probably eight feet tal , and each of the shelves was lined with rows of home-canned fruits and vegetables. I could identify pickles, apples, and tomato sauce. The rest of the jars were a mystery. But the vinegar smel wasn't - there was an empty slot on the pickle row.

"Missing a jar?"

"I blasted one of Aunt Rose's pickle jars," Mal ory said, looking ksaire a down at her book again. She'd inherited the town house, and its contents, when her aunt died a few years ago. Since the jars had been sitting in the same spot unused, Mal apparently wasn't a fan of her aunt's canned goods.

"I didn't even know this stuff was down here."

"I didn't bring any jars upstairs," she flatly said. "They didn't taste very good. They were garlic-spiced apples."

I wrinkled my lip. "Foul."

"Hel a foul. After that, I didn't open another jar. Until last night. And that wasn't on purpose."

"Funny the pickles didn't make it smel like dil ."

"No dil ," Mal ory said. "Just vinegar. I think Aunt Rose's sense of taste was a little off. Too bad she hadn't at least thrown some garlic into it. And it wouldn't have even bothered you, since you aren't that kind of vampire."

She was right that garlic wasn't the vamp repel ent of myth; on the other hand, the thought of a basement sprayed down with garlic and vinegar didn't exactly make me eager for a visit, either.

"That is true." I plopped the care package onto a clean strip of table. "And speaking of snacks, this is for you."

Without a word, she closed her book, then looked inside the bag and pul ed out the bag of nuts and fruit, which she pul ed open with her teeth. After pouring some into her hand

- which was seriously chapped, like it had been one of the last times I'd seen her - she extended it to me, and I rooted around until I found a couple of whole cashews.

"Thanks," I said, enjoying the satisfying snap when I broke them in half with my teeth. "How are exams?"

"Complicated. Lots of math. It's not like the exams Catcher took," she said, with a little feistiness. "He's been out of the Order for years more. He's not exactly up to speed on sorceress testing procedures."

I guessed she and Catcher had exchanged some words about the tests. "I see," I said neutral y.

A low cry suddenly lit through the air. I heard shuffling across the floor, and nearly jumped onto the table, imagining it was a spider the size of a footbal .

But a smal , black cat with a pink rhinestone col ar padded into view from beneath the table. It sat down on its haunches on the floor beside Mal ory and looked up at me, its eyes chartreuse.

"Your familiar?" I wondered, and Mal ory nodded. At Simon's suggestion, she'd adopted a black kitten to help her perform her sorcery duties.

"That would be Wayne Newton, yes."

"You named your familiar 'Wayne Newton'?"

"They have the same haircut," she dryly said. I moved my hand. Sure enough, the smal cat had a bouffant of dark hair between its ears.

"Huh. It does seem a lot calmer than the last time you mentioned it," I said. I reached down to scratch Wayne Newton between his ears. He nuzzled against my hand, but swayed a little as he did it, as if he was drunk.

I glanced back at Mal ory. "What's wrong with him?"

She glanced down, then frowned at the kitten. "Her, not him. And it's the fermented pickle juice. I didn't quite get there in time, and she was lapping it up."

"Her,width="1em">"Poor kid."

"I know. And it's another strike against Aunt Rose. I don't even think she liked pickles, anyway."

Apparently equal y bored of me and Mal, the cat wandered off. But there was an odd, dizzying sway to its gait.

"Are you feeling better about the kinds of things you're doing?" Mal ory had previously expressed concern about Simon introducing her to black magic. Although a spel prevented her from spil ing al the details, she'd clearly had some ethical qualms about it. I'd encouraged her to talk to Catcher. I knew they'd talked, but maybe the conversation

- or its fol ow-ups - hadn't gone wel .

She tapped a finger against the red leather cover of the book she'd been reading, which was inscribed with gold text. Frankly, it looked exactly like the kind of book a sorceress would read.

"The world is what it is," she said. "Just because something makes me uncomfortable doesn't mean it's bad, you know? Sometimes it just takes a little exposure to real y understand it. I was just a little paranoid before."

I waited for more elaboration, but that's al she said. To be honest, that answer didn't thril me. Coming to terms with something unpleasant was one thing. But deciding it wasn't so unpleasant after al was entirely different.

"Just a little paranoid?" Her hands - chapped and raw -

were a side effect of the magic she'd been practicing. That didn't seem like paranoia to me; it seemed like cause and effect.

"It's fine," she said, putting a hand down on the table hard enough to make it shake. I jumped a little at the sound, but if she was trying to shut me up, she succeeded. "I needed the cat to help me funnel the magic. And what I stil need are three more of them to help me get al this done. There's too much to do, too much to learn, for one person."

This wasn't Mal ory - not the attitude. I laid responsibility for that at Simon's feet; she'd seen him more often lately than anyone else. But here it was just her and me, and I wasn't about to lead our friendship to the precipice over some temporary stress.

"Okay," I al owed. "You know if you need to talk you can cal me anytime. Day or night."

"You'l answer your phone in daylight?" she snarked.

Not if you don't lose the attitude, I thought, but kept that thought to myself. She's been there for me, I mental y repeated, and kept repeating it until my anger calmed.

"Whatever you need," I told her.

She humphed and flipped a page in the book. "I should get back to work. Thanks for the food."

I frowned, unsuccessful y fighting the feeling that I'd been summarily dismissed. "You're welcome. Take care of yourself, okay?"

"I'm fine. Even if I get sick, I could just wil myself back to health."

When it was clear I'd lost her attention, I left her with her books and plants and care package and a secret prayer that she'd weather this particular storm.

I didn't like the sense she was hiding things, but I understood the single-minded focus. I'd had dozens of exams in col ege and grad school, and preparing took that kind of focus. I'd had to remember characters, plots, and details, as wel as trends, metaphors, and similaritie kd slike s. You had to dive into the books completely to have enough familiarity to spend hours answering essay questions. I assumed, given her attitude today, that magic exams required a similar immersion.

On the way back up, I made a quick pit stop in the brownstone's kitchen, pul ing open the long, flat drawer that housed my chocolate col ection. I was a little saddened to discover the bulk of it - if not al of it - was stil in there. I wanted to know Mal ory stil snuck chocolate after a return from the bar or a gym session, or had used the high-cocoa bars to make her famous truffle cupcakes. Instead, the drawer was frozen in time, a bit of me she and Catcher hadn't yet managed to assimilate into their lives.

Wel , if they weren't going to eat it, I would. I rummaged through to find a few special treats - famous brownies special-ordered from a New York bakery, a favorite mini dark chocolate bar, and a novelty bar fil ed with one of my favorite cereals - and stuffed them into the pockets of my jacket. Given Frank's House ban on al things delicious, I was going to need them.

My pockets ful , I closed the drawer again and walked back to the front door. Catcher was stil on the couch, frowning at what looked to be another Lifetime movie.

"What's the appeal?" I wondered aloud, watching a montage of a woman getting a makeover with girlfriends, probably after some ridiculously bad breakup.

"Normalcy," he said. "The stories are melodramatic, sure, but the problems are profane. They're about love and il ness and money and nasty neighbors and creepy ex-boyfriends."

"They aren't about magic and irritating vampires and awful politicians?"

"Precisely."

I nodded in understanding. "I pul ed some stuff from the chocolate drawer. But I don't think you'l miss it. Hey, have you noticed anything weird about Mal ory? She seems, I don't know, real y focused. And not real y in a good way."

"She's fine," was al he said. I waited for more, but got nothing but thick tension and a little peppery magic. He may have verbal y disagreed with me, but there was nothing in his body language that said he was okay with her behavior.

"You sure about that? Have you talked to Mal ory about Simon? About what he's having her do? I get the sense she's doing things she's not comfortable with."

"This isn't exactly your area of expertise."

There was a sharpness in his voice I hadn't expected to hear. Catcher may have been gruff, but he was also usual y patient about supernatural issues.

"True," I al owed. "But I do know Mal ory. And I know when she's avoiding something."

"You think I don't know her?"

"Of course you know her. I just know her in a different way than you do."

Ever so slowly, he slid me a skewering glance. "What goes on in this house between us isn't exactly your business, is it?"

I blinked from the sting, but decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. After al , he'd just lost his job and his girlfriend was a giant stressbal .

"Okay," I said, hand on the doorknob. "Fine. You guys have a good night."

"Merit."

I looked back.

"Before you go . . ." He began, then wet his lips and looked away. It wasn't often that I'd seen him uncomfortable about voicing an opinion, and that made me nervous. "I've heard you've been spending time with Jonah lately. I have to admit: I'm not thril ed about it."

How did word travel so fast? This was like being in high school al over again. "We're working together," I said.

"He's my backup."

"Is that al ?"

I gave back the same doubtful expression he'd offered me. "Is that al ?"

"I know it wasn't always obvious, but Ethan and I were close."

"I could say the same thing."

"And are you respecting his memory?"

The question was as brutal as a slap, and as surprising as it was harsh. "Not that it's any of your business, but yes, I am. And regardless, I have a right to live my life even if he's not here."

My heart pounded with adrenaline and irritation and . . .

hurt. This was Catcher, my best friend's boyfriend. He was basical y a brother-in-law, and he was accusing me of disrespecting Ethan's memory?

"That was a real y shitty thing to say," I added, as the irritation grew.

Silence.

"He was a pain in the ass," Catcher said. "But I'd gotten used to him, you know?"

The hurt softened a bit. "I know."

It was another minute before he spoke again. "Have I ever told you how Sul ivan and I met?"

I shook my head.

"The Order was convinced there shouldn't be sorcerers in Chicago. But I knew - we al knew - that supernatural issues were going to come to a head here before anywhere else. I'd always thought the Order just didn't want to get their hands dirty. Now I think they were afraid. At any rate, I'd had a prophecy, and I'd told them about it. I told them we needed sorcerers here. That it was imperative that we have sorcerers here."

"They didn't believe you?"

"Or were in denial. And when I came to Chicago anyway, they saw that as a breach of the chain of command and they kicked me out. They left me without a sponsor, and they accused me of being arrogant, of trying to usurp the authority of the union. As an act of courtesy, I cal ed the Houses and let them know I was coming. I didn't want my arrival to ruffle any feathers. Scott wouldn't talk to me; he didn't want to get involved in Order issues. Celina offered me a meeting, but that was largely an exercise in self-absorption."

"Not entirely surprising."

He made a sound of agreement. "I cal ed Ethan, gave him a heads-up. He invited me over. We talked about Chicago, the Order, the Houses. We talked for hours. And at the end of that conversation, he offered to let me stay in Cadogan House until I got situated in Chicago."

Catcher was silent for a moment, maybe letting that sink in. Except that it didn't real y surprise me. Ethan was strategic, and he was also loyal. He'd have rewarded Catcher for fol owing the etiquette, and he'd have had the grace to offer him the House afterward.

"That was years ago," he final y said. "Years before you became a vampire, years before you met Mal ory. Years before you moved back ku m agto Chicago. Years before the city turned against its own."

"Years before we lost Ethan. But we did lose him."

"I know," Catcher said. "I know he's gone, and I know your relationship was rocky right up to the end. But deep down, he was good people."

"I know he was."

Catcher nodded, and silence reigned for a moment.

But before I could speak, my cel phone rang. I pul ed it from my pocket and checked the screen. It was Jonah.

"Hel o?"

"Have you looked outside recently?"

"Not in a couple of hours. Why?"

"Go and look."

"Is this a joke?" I asked him. "I'm kind of in the middle of something."

"It's aspen serious. Go look outside. Check the sky and the moon."

"I'l cal you back," I told him. I tucked the phone away and glanced back at Catcher. "Excuse me for a moment," I said, opening the door and peering outside.

I froze. "Oh, my God," I muttered, and heard Catcher rustling behind me.

The sky was ruby red. Not sunrise or sunset pink, but red.

A dark, rich red of cherry cola or wel -worn mahogany. A glowing bloodred moon hung low in the sky, and bril iant white forks of lightning crossed it with alarming frequency.

Mal ory had made a prophecy about a red moon once, something about the fal of "White City kings." Once upon a time, parts of Chicago had been cal ed the "White City."

Was this the moon she meant? If so, who were the "kings"

that were supposed to fal ?

My stomach churned in warning. I'd dreamed about a moon, but that had to be coincidence. Because if it wasn't, and the rest of the dream hadn't been coincidence either . . .

I shook my head. That was grief-driven wishful thinking and a ridiculous waste of time that was only going to make me feel worse - or stupid - in the long run.

"Jesus Christ," Catcher muttered, stepping beside me at the door. "What in God's name happened?"

"I'l tel you what happened," I said, pul ing out my phone to cal Jonah back. "Our second crisis for the week."

Dead lake. Red sky.

At least there was only one crisis at a time.