THE FAIRY TALE

Except there wasn't only one crisis at a time. I reached Jonah on my way to the House - the river and lake were back to black and stil sucking magic from the city like it was going out of style. Which meant not only had that p ro b le m not been solved - the entire situation was escalating. I felt a real jolt of fear. I had no idea where this was headed.

When he met me at Cadogan, we joined the dozens of other vampires who stood on the lawn behind the House, staring up at the sky. And we weren't the only ones. I hardly passed a single house between Wicker Park and Hyde Park where folks weren't standing outside, fingers pointing upward or hands over their mouths in shock.

White lightning flashed across the sky, and claps of thunder drowned out the sounds of the city. There wasn't a thunderhead in sight, and I could al but hear Chicagoans'

silent accusations: These things didn't happen before vampires.

What they weren't considering, of course, was that vampires and other sups had been in Chicago at least as long as humans, and this didn't have anything to do with us.

Unfortunately, I didn't know how to prove that to them.

I'd texted Malik to give him a heads-up that I was bringing a Grey House vamp onto Cadogan soil, and he offered Jonah a handshake when we joined him and Luc in the backyard.

"I don't suppose there are Moon nymphs out there who could be responsible for this?" I asked. "Or maybe Wind witches? Atmospheric gremlins?"

"Not that I'm aware of," Malik said.

"Me, either," Jonah said. "But we clearly can't deny there's something larger at work here."

"The question now is what to do about it," Luc said.

"Especial y within our current operating limitations."

He'd only just spoken the words when a bolt of lightning shot across the sky. We instantaneously hit the ground, just in time to watch the blaze of plasma strike the weathervane on the roof of the House accompanied by the loudest bang I'd ever heard.

The block went dark. The lights in the House flickered and went off, and then came back on in a sickly shade of orange - security lights I'd only seen during previous emergency dril s. We had a couple of emergency generators in the basement to keep the emergency lights, security systems, and blood refrigeration on during power outages.

The fol owing silence was fil ed with the shouts of humans down the block and the sound of sirens already heading down the road.

Beside me, Malik sighed. "We do not need this. Neither the drama nor the danger."

When another bolt of lightning lit the backyard, Malik cast a wary glance across the lawn. The crowd of vampires was splitting as someone walked through them. After a moment, Frank pressed through the final knot to step in front of us.

He surveyed the sky suspiciously, then looked at Malik with obvious disdain. His thoughts were easy to read: Goddamn Chicago vampires. Incapable of managing their affairs.

"What is this?" he imperiously asked when he reached us. I didn't bother introducing him to Jonah. He didn't seem the type to be interested in others, and there was no point in dragging Jonah into our problems.

"This is not the work of vampires," Malik assured him.

"We have no information beyond that."

"This isn't going to help the reputation of the Houses overmuch," Frank said.

"No, it is not," Malik agreed. "Which is why we wil investigate the cause in order to limit the effect."

You could al but see the wheels turning in Frank's mind.

But at least the wheels were turning. This was usual y the point at which the GP henchman blamed us for whatever was happening, regardless of our role, and made us swear we wouldn't leave the House to fix it.

There was no way to win.

But Frank actual y seemed to be considering the problem and our options. Maybe he was capable of independent thought, instead of just blaming Cadogan f singx it.

"There is a group you could contact," Frank said.

We al looked at him expectantly.

"The sky masters."

Malik immediately shook his head. "No."

"Who are the sky masters?" I whispered.

"The fairies," Jonah whispered back. "The mercenary fairies."

"There's a reason they're referred to as mercenary fairies," Malik pointed out. "Our relationship with them is tense, at best, and it's only that good because they are wel paid for their efforts."

"Be that as it may, this is clearly a matter within their purview. There is no better group to ask. There is no other group to ask. I suggest you select an away party and send it. Now."

Frankly, I thought it was a stupid idea. We'd already talked with two supernatural representatives - nymphs and the siren - and neither had anything to do with the problems the city was facing. Would visiting a group that already hated us accomplish anything other than raising their ire?

Malik, ever the diplomat, managed a respectful nod for Frank before looking at us. "Tread careful y into the world of fairy. They are a different breed of supernaturals, no pun intended. Different expectations, different formalities. But they know things. He's right; it's worth the trip. Find the queen. Pay her a visit and discover who's doing this."

"And make them stop," Franklin said. "Anything less is unacceptable."

The away party arranged and orders issued, Malik looked at Luc. "Get everyone back into the House. It's not safe to be outside."

Jonah and I shared a nod and began to walk back toward the House. Anticipation began to flutter in my stomach, but it was Malik's parting words that triggered the ful -out panic.

"And may God help us al ."

The emergency lights didn't provide much ambience, but they provided enough il umination for me to find my way upstairs and grab my sword and dagger.

Jonah trailed me al the way to my room, which surprised me. I hadn't expected him to fol ow, and I certainly hadn't invited him. But by the time I realized he was traipsing up the stairs behind me, tel ing him to stay put would have been that much more awkward.

He stood in the threshold of my door as I sent Catcher a message. I wasn't exactly thril ed with Catcher right now, but I wanted a non-vamp to know I was heading into fairy territory. His response was nearly immediate: YOUR

FUNERAL.

Charming.

I pul ed out my dagger and slipped it into my boot, then took my sheathed katana from its horizontal wal mount.

That had been a gift from Luc; he'd instal ed one for Lindsey one rainy Saturday, and she'd decided it was fabulous enough that I'd needed one, too. I couldn't disagree - it was a gorgeous way to display the sword.

Even in its scabbard it was a beautiful weapon, sleek and gleaming, the blade inside equal y sleek but deadly and curving just so.

"Your rooms aren't quite as lush as ours are," Jonah said.

"You have more room and fewer vampires," I pointed out, gathering up my belt. He stepped aside as I closed the door behind us.swi room and "True."

He fol owed me back downstairs, but pul ed me to a stop before we went outside. "I don't actual y know where the queen lives - it's a secret the fairies guard with their lives.

In order to get that information, we'l have to offer them something in return."

So much for Chicago's sups being in this together. "What wil they want?"

"Precious metals or stones." He grinned. "They're stil on the gold standard. I don't suppose you have any sitting around?"

"Gold? No. No, I don't. I left al my bul ion in my room."

"Smart-ass," he said, but he was smiling when he said it.

As I considered our options, I absently touched the Cadogan medal around my neck . . . and got an idea.

"Fol ow me," I told him, and walked down the House's main hal way, where the administrative offices were located. Vampires were funneling back into the House now, and we found Helen in her office. Her Barbie-pink office.

The room lit by candles, she sat behind her desk in a pink tracksuit, every hair in her steel gray bob in place. She was making notes on a pad with an old-fashioned dip cal igraphy pen. She glanced up when we entered and dipped her pen back into a smal glass jar of black ink.

"Yes, Sentinel?"

"I don't suppose you have any extra Cadogan medals in hand?"

Alarm flashed through her eyes; that wasn't entirely unexpected. We'd already lost one blank Cadogan medal; it had been stolen and used by a former Cadogan vampire to try to frame the House in a series of murders. It stood to reason she'd be hesitant about throwing them around now.

"We've been directed by the GP and Malik to visit the fairies," I explained. "In order to ascertain how and where to do that, we need to talk to the fairies at the gate."

She nodded in understanding. "And they require payment for information." She stood up and walked to a file cabinet, then unlocked the top drawer. But before she opened it, she looked suspiciously at Jonah.

"He's the captain of the Grey House guards," I informed her. "He's been instrumental in helping us deal with these issues. You know, inter-House cooperation and al that."

She nodded, unlocked the door, and pul ed out two blank Cadogan medals, which she handed to me. "Do everything you can," she said, a tremor in her voice. "It's hard to know how to react or what I should do . . . I don't know what's happening."

"I don't think anyone does," I said, and assured her we'd do our best. But that didn't make me any less nervous at the weight being placed on our shoulders. Not that I'd let that deter me. Cadogan, at least, was short on guards and barely had enough to keep watch outside. Who else could do it?

Medals in hand, we walked back to the front door and stood on the smal stone porch for a moment, watching the fairies at the gate . . . and trying very hard to focus on the task at hand and not the chaos around us.

"I'm guessing you have more information about the fairies than I do," I told Jonah. "Would you like to handle this one?"

He nodded. "I can take it. Although I've never met Claudia before."

"Claudia? s">I don"

He smiled. "The fairy queen. The one they would die to protect."

"Of course they would," I muttered, then handed over the gold and fol owed him down the sidewalk.

Two male fairies stood point at the gate, their gaunt features exaggerated by their long, dark, straight hair, pul ed back tightly at the temples. They were tal and slender and they both wore black, and when they realized we were approaching them, they shared a none too flattering glance.

Jonah cut to the chase. "We need information, and we have treasure to offer."

The interest in their eyes was unmistakable; it might have been fair to cal it "lust." They had the same expressions of yearning you might have seen on an inveterate gambler offered a seat at a lucky table.

"What kind of treasure?" asked one of the fairies.

"Gold," Jonah told them. He rattled the medals together in his pocket, and their heads twitched a bit at the sound.

"What information?" the fairy asked.

"We need to speak with the queen."

Silence.

"And if the queen does not wish to speak with you?"

Jonah slowly lifted his gaze to the bril iantly red sky.

"The sky is on fire," he said. "You are the masters of the sky; it is your realm. If you've done this . . ." Jonah began, but a look of menace from one of the fairies made him pause. The look in their eyes left little doubt they'd be wil ing to go the distance to protect their honor.

But Jonah was undeterred. "If you've done this," Jonah repeated again, "your queen must have a reason. In order to assuage the humans, we need to advise them of it. And if your queen is not involved, then she wil undoubtedly be concerned. We seek knowledge. That is al ."

The fairies exchanged a glance. "Let us see the gold,"

said the chatty one.

Slowly, as if letting the excitement build, Jonah slipped the medals from his pocket. They dangled from their chains and spun slowly, and the fairies' eyes went wild.

"You wil find her in fortune's tower," said the fairy, reaching out his hand. Jonah dangled the medals above it.

"More," Jonah said. "This is a big city."

"It is the only remaining spire of what once stood strong."

He made a play for the medals again, but Jonah pul ed them out of reach.

"There are hundreds of skyscrapers in the Loop," he said. "A standing tower could be anywhere. That's insufficient information for this amount of gold."

The fairies were becoming tenser; I could feel the rise of magical angst in the air.

"There is water," he said. "Earth, and sky."

"Again," Jonah firmly said after waiting for a moment,

"that could be anywhere in the city. That doesn't mean anything to us."

But I touched Jonah's arm. "It's okay. I think I know where that is."

"You're sure?"

I looked at the fairy. "It was the home of the city's human king?"

When the fairy nodded back, I pul ed the medals from Jonah's hand and placed them into his. "Thank you for your business," I told him, then pul ed Jonah away. "Let's go."

Without objection from Jonah, we walked to our cars, climbed inside and were on our way.

We drove separately and parked on the edge of the street.

We got out, suspiciously eying the trails of lightning that were creating a strobe light effect across the park.

There were a number of mansions in Chicago that had once been home to famous families. During the city's golden age, entrepreneurs built homes along Lake Shore Drive in the Gold Coast neighborhood (now home, not coincidental y, to Navarre House), affording the fashionable a view of the lake and access to the rest of the city's wealthy.

Some of the mansions were stil standing; some had been razed. One of the most famous - the Potter Mansion, built by ancestors of the city's former mayor - had been demolished when the mayor moved to Creeley Creek.

Wel , mostly demolished.

The Potter family donated the grounds to the city, which was turned into the aptly named Potter Park. The only remaining bit of the mansion - a four-story brick turret -

punctuated the middle of the park like a spear.

"This is it?" Jonah asked.

I fil ed him in on the history. "The tower was built by a family with a manufacturing fortune, and is al that's left of the house. It reaches into the sky, it's surrounded by green, and it's two hundred yards from the lake."

"Wel done, Nancy Drew."

"I try. The more interesting question is how the parks district doesn't know there's a fairy queen living in their tower?"

"Magic, I'd imagine. Although I'm surprised they'd al ow their queen to live in a house built by human hands."

"I had heard they hate humans."

"And for good reason," Jonah said. "You know of the changeling myth?"

I did. It was a prominent story in medieval literature, and warned that fairies occasional y stole healthy human children, replacing them with sickly fairy children. Thus, as the story went, any humans born with unusual features were actual y fairy children who'd been switched at birth. Humans cal ed the sickly children changelings, and would leave them in the woods in a ploy to win back their human children.

"I do," I said.

Jonah nodded. "Thing is, it's not myth. The stories are real - fairy tales in the truest sense of the word. They just got the protagonists wrong. Fairy children were stolen by humans, not the other way around. Sometimes their children were replaced with sickly human children; sometimes they were taken by parents desperate for a child."

"And because fairies were, at best, myths or, at most, real-life monsters, no one considered such things a kidnapping."

Jonah nodded. "You got it. Unequal treatment of supernaturals is centuries old. In any event, they probably won't be glad we're here. Keep your sword in hand, a finger on the steel at al times. Steel and iron solve the same problem - keeping fairies at bay."

"I thought the point of this exercise was asking them for help."

"The point of this e sintI thoughxercise is finding out if they're to blame. And from Frank's perspective, it was also probably to get us to piss off the fairies so we incite a war."

"How is our starting a war with the fairies going to help him?"

"Chicago is the only American city with three vampire Houses. Even New York and L.A. can't claim that. We are the locus of vampire power in the United States, and Cabot knows it. Cabot House is smal . Elitist, and necessarily smal . If he minimizes Chicago's importance - "

"He increases Cabot House's power proportional y," I finished. I knew I'd given the little weasel too much credit.

"Precisely. I'd say it's part of a long-term plan to wrest control of Cabot House for himself. Victor Garcia is the current Master. He's a good man, a solid leader. He was Cornelius Cabot's right-hand man, which irked Franklin to no end. Franklin was just a cousin from some far-off branch of the family tree, but he thought he had a right to the House. That it was his birthright."

"And Cornelius disagreed?"

"I've heard the old man thought Franklin was too caught up in human affairs to effectively manage the House. Too concerned with prestige and fast cars and human girls, which didn't exactly fly for an old school, under the radar, east coast House."

"Let me guess," I said. "The GP figures he's ambitious and is wil ing to play bal , even against another House, so they appointed him receiver for Cadogan House. He figures he comes down here, screws over the Chicago Houses and wins the support of the GP, and that positions him perfectly for a spot at the top."

"That's how it plays for me."

I blew out a breath. So much drama, so little of it actual y originating in Cadogan House. Whatever the original goal of the GP and the House system might have been, they were now tools for the narcissistic and the manipulative.

Maybe Jonah was right about the Red Guard.

"Won't they take it as a threat if we come in bearing weapons?"

"Only if we're lucky," he said. "Let's go."

Lightning flashing around us, we ran toward the tower.

The exterior was narrow and crumbling. An open doorway led to a spiral of old stone steps that weren't in much better shape than the exterior. I took the first step, pausing on the tread to make sure the staircase didn't crumble beneath us.

"Al the way up?"

"Yep. I assume they prefer to live above the human plane."

He began to pick his way up and around the spiral. I gripped the handrail and started the slow climb behind him.

After a few thigh-burning minutes of climbing, we reached the landing at the top of the stairs.

A door led into the tower room. It was huge, made up of long, horizontal strips of wood. Two giant, circular, filigreed hinges connected it to the wal .

"Lovely door," I said.

"They're known for their love of beauty," he said, then glanced at me. "Are you ready for this?"

"I'm working from the assumption it's going to go horribly wrong. If we get out of here with limbs intact and no aspen slivers in uncomfortable places, we're cal ing it a win."

"Wel put." After a heartening breath, he pul ed his han sul m the ad into a fist and rapped on the door.

After a moment, it opened with a grating, metal ic sound.

A man in black - a fairy of the same dress and build as the ones who guarded the House, stood in the doorway. He asked a question in a quick, guttural language I didn't understand, but thought might be Gaelic.

"We ask if the queen would deign to see us," Jonah said.

With a jaundiced eye, the fairy looked us over.

"Bloodletters," he said, the word obviously a slur.

"We are what we are," Jonah advised. "We make no attempts to hide it. We are here as emissaries of vampires."

The fairy's lip curled at the mention of vampires. "Wait,"

he said, then closed the door in our faces.

"As if we could do anything else," Jonah muttered.

"Not up to pushing your way into a fairy enclave tonight?"

"It's not high on my agenda," he said. "Not that you couldn't take them, of course."

"Of course," I al owed. Before we could continue the back-and-forth, the door opened again, and the fairy stared out with raven-dark eyes.

Before a second had passed, his katana was at my throat, and a second guard - this one female - was positioned behind Jonah, her katana pointing into his back.

"You are invited into her abode," the fairy said. "And it would be rude to decline the offer."