Chapter 13
Hours later, Sam followed Paladino into a dingy speakeasy along the Chicago River.
His mind ran in circles, but his main thought was that it was all some kind of mistake.
Luke hadn’t been using magic to go around killing people—that was impossible.
Luke was his friend; he’d never do something like this.
He’d been shocked when Alistair reached out through the bond, telling him what had happened and asking him to call Sullivan and have someone pick up Luke. At the time, he’d been sure it was a case of mistaken identity—Alistair had only met Luke once, for a few seconds.
But when Sullivan ordered him to come here an hour later, that certainty had been badly shaken.
Doc hadn’t been pleased to be sent home, but he’d gone without protest, no doubt keen to separate himself from whatever was going down.
Paladino spoke briefly on the phone with someone, then ushered Sam to a car that some third party had dropped off on the curb outside.
He’d been tense the whole drive over, which set Sam’s nerves on edge as well.
The speakeasy had a real bar and a jazz band—not always the case, according to Alistair—but clearly wasn’t one of Sullivan’s more upscale properties.
The low lighting went a little way to concealing the stains on the floor and the cracked plaster on the walls, but the drinkers didn’t seem to have come for the ambience anyway.
They were a hard-bitten lot, caps pulled low over weathered faces as they played cards or clustered around the three pool tables.
No one paid them any mind as they crossed the floor, slipped behind the bar, and went through a door. Steps led down to the basement, which was mostly empty except for a few unmarked crates that probably contained alcohol.
Luke sat in the middle, tied to a chair, a yellowed light bulb above his head providing the only illumination.
Bellinowski stood beside him, his hands encased in driving gloves.
Lenny Turner was there as well, along with one or two others Sam recognized as soldiers in the gang.
Alistair leaned against one wall, and despite everything, Sam’s heart rose to see him.
Sullivan dominated the scene, looking utterly out of place in evening wear and a fur-trimmed coat. His mouth was turned down into a frown that seemed mild enough, until you saw the raw fury in his eyes.
The tension in the air was so thick Sam could barely breathe. For a moment, he felt a terrible desire to curl into himself, hunch his shoulders and wait for the shouting to be over. Just like with his family back in Gatesville.
But this wasn’t Gatesville, and there were a lot worse things than shouting.
“Mr. Cunningham,” Sullivan said, the formal address suggesting this was Business with a capital B. “Your man here has double-crossed us all. I thought you’d want to help question him.”
Your man. Sam started to protest, say he was just a supervisor and barely that. But it wasn’t true, was it? No matter how much he’d deceived himself.
He moved in the highest circles in the gang. Called Leonard Turner Lenny for God’s sake. Sat at Sullivan’s own table at the cabaret, then at Sullivan’s mansion.
The gravity of what he was accepting hadn’t truly occurred to him when he took the job running the hexworks. It did now.
“Sam,” Luke pleaded, his voice shaking, “Sammy, it’s all a misunderstanding. You’ve got to tell them. You know me.”
He didn’t look good—bandages wrapped both thighs, soaked through with blood, and he had the beginnings of a black eye. The ropes were secure enough to hold him, but not so tight as to cover the fact he was shaking head to toe.
Sam’s eyes were drawn to the bandages. “What happened?”
“I was just taking a walk, I swear, and then your familiar—he got confused, that’s what happened! Mistook me for a killer, clawed me up—and I don’t blame him,” Luke added hastily. “Mistakes happen, and we’re all friends here, right? Forgive and forget.”
It didn’t sound like the sort of mistake Alistair would make, but Sam badly wanted it to be true. “Alistair?” he asked.
Alistair dug out a cigarette and lighter. “You remember the other night at dinner with Mr. Sullivan, when Wanda told him we had a meeting with Ross Brown?”
“The seal bootlegger?” Bellinowski asked.
“We already talked about it,” Sullivan cut in flatly. Making sure the violence thrumming in the air around Bellinowski wasn’t aimed at the wrong target, maybe.
Alistair’s lighter clicked, its small flame flickering slightly.
“I met Brown, along with Doris and the others, except for Wanda. Our talk was done, and we were leaving. Then someone I couldn’t see shot him and almost shot me.
” He lit the cigarette, drawing smoke into his lungs, then back out in a stream like dragon’s breath.
“I might not have been able to see him, but cheetahs have a damn good sense of smell.”
Sam’s legs felt weak. “He…he tried to shoot you?”
Alistair could have been killed tonight. Died on the street, while Sam was off at the hexworks with Doc.
“He missed.” Alistair shrugged. “Though not by much, I’ll give him that. Anyway, I couldn’t see anyone, but I followed my nose and brought down someone using a look-away hex. When he dropped it, I recognized him as one of your hexmen, so I had you call Mr. Sullivan right away.”
Your men. And a look-away hex, a powerful one…
Sullivan shot Alistair a curious look. “Why didn’t you assume Mr. Gallo was there under my orders?”
Alistair snorted. “Why the hell would you use this sap when you have plenty of people more suited for the job? I goddamn guarantee you Mr. Bellinowski there wouldn’t have been dumb enough to forget cats can track prey by smell.”
Though the sense of coiled danger in his body didn’t waver, Bellinowski cracked a smile at that.
Sullivan laughed, though it wasn’t a kindly sound. “Your familiar is a sharp one, Mr. Cunningham. I see why you chose him.” His face relapsed into its stern expression. “Proceed.”
Proceed? What the hell was he expected to do?
Get answers. “The look-away hex. Was it…was it the one we figured out?”
Luke shook his head. “I didn’t—I’m telling you, the cat got it wrong!”
“Stop it!” Something snapped inside Sam, like a violin string tightened too far. “Alistair saw—didn’t see—”
“Didn’t see, then did,” Alistair put in, not very helpfully.
“—you using the look-away hex. That’s what you used, wasn’t it? The one we decoded from the medieval lab?”
Luke’s eyes darted back and forth, a trapped animal in a cage, desperate for a way out. “I, sure, maybe I borrowed one of the copies, but I was just testing it out, I swear!”
“And someone else using the same hex just happened to shoot a man right where you happened to be lurking around?” Sam asked incredulously.
“Maybe it was a sniper!” Luke protested. “It was a sniper, and the cat got confused, and—”
“I know damn well what a sniper shot sounds like,” Alistair said coldly. “Plus I wouldn’t have smelled the gunpowder. This was a pistol at close range. Just like the one we took off you.”
“I’ve got it here, boss,” one of the men said, holding up the weapon in question.
“That’s the other reason I knew it wasn’t a professional.” Alistair took another drag from his cigarette. “He broke and ran instead of trying to plug me again.”
Alistair had almost died—someone else had died—because of a hex Sam had helped to make. Used by a man he’d trusted.
His chest tightened and his throat ached. He wanted to hide, away from the sharp eyes of the hard men and women surrounding him. Or turn back the clock, before any of this happened.
“Are you working for Fabiano, Luke?” he asked, trying not to sound as miserable as he felt.
Luke blanched. “N-no! Of course not. I just, you know, thought I’d do Mr. Sullivan a favor. Take out the competition…”
It was a blatant lie, but Luke was desperate. “How kind of you,” Sullivan said dryly. “But it does raise a question—why did Fabiano tell you to kill bootleggers here? Is she doing the same in her territory?”
Sweat ran down the sides of Luke’s face, even though the basement wasn’t heated. “I don’t know anything, I swear.”
Bellinowski smacked him in the back of the head with enough force to knock him forward. “Answer, or I’ll use a closed fist next time.”
It was everything Sam could do not to flinch at the casual violence. But he managed to keep his face expressionless.
“She made Brown an offer, okay?” Luke said, sounding more frantic by the moment. “She wants the independent operators to throw in with her, make Sullivan deal with them and her at the same time. If they didn’t agree, she figured it would be better to take them out than have them side with him.”
“That’s why you tried to kill me,” Alistair guessed. “Because we refused Fabiano’s offer.”
“It wasn’t personal,” Luke insisted, as though that would make anything better.
“But why did you join her?” Sam asked, baffled. “You work for Mr. Sullivan!”
Luke’s eyes darted around frantically. “She-she came to me, Mr. Sullivan, you’ve got to understand. She’d heard I’d been screwed out of being the head of your hexworks, wanted to offer me a better deal.”
Sam felt as though the floor had dropped out from under him. He’d known Luke hadn’t been happy about being passed over, but he’d thought they were still friends. That Luke would get over it, if Sam could just…
What? Keep telling him he was doing a good job, just like Vic probably had? Sam had never been ambitious, but for someone who was, that wouldn’t be enough.
“So she has the look-away hex now,” he said hollowly. “And anything else we’ve made. I trusted you. I…”
He trailed off. How could he have been so wrong? How could he have misjudged so badly?
“Glenda?” he asked. “Please, tell me she isn’t in on it too.” He didn’t think he could handle both of them betraying him.
“That broad? She doesn’t have the imagination. Haven’t you noticed, or are you just incompetent?”
Alistair growled, but Sam held up his hand.
He’d been called a lot worse things, by people a lot closer to him than Luke.
“I’ll talk to her,” he said, the words aimed at Sullivan.
“I’ll make sure.” To Luke, he said, “The look-away hex is complicated, takes a lot of specialized inks. How did you get the supplies to…”
He trailed off. The report that had vanished between the overseer’s desk and his own.
“You stole the hexes already made,” he said. “Then the report off my desk, so I wouldn’t notice any discrepancies between what was copied in the scriptorium and what went out the door.”
Luke swallowed hard but didn’t reply. He didn’t need to; the answer was on his face.
Cautious hope swept through Sam. “Fabiano wasn’t supplying him with the inks and other components. So that probably means he’s the only one smuggling anything out of the hexworks, otherwise it would show up in the reports. I’ll go back over them with a fine-toothed comb, but I think we’re okay?”
Well, not okay, not even remotely so. But at least everyone in the hexworks wasn’t selling secrets to Fabiano.
“You know,” Sullivan said contemplatively, “if there’s one thing I hate, it’s ingratitude.
I treated you with respect, Mr. Gallo. Paid you what you were worth.
Gave you due consideration when it came time to replace Mr. Nagorski.
But instead of trusting my judgment, you threw it all back in my face. ”
Luke’s skin turned the color of cottage cheese.
“I’m sorry, okay? I shouldn’t have done it, it was stupid.
I’ll tell you everything Fabiano knows—no!
I’ll be a-a sort of double agent! I’ll pretend to still be working for her, but really I’m working for you.
” He tried to smile, but it looked more like a terrified grimace. “I’ll make up for it, I promise.”
Sullivan’s face hardened. “You had your chance, Mr. Gallo.”
Raw terror showed on Luke’s face. “Sam—Sam, you’ve got to help me. I never meant to—I was wrong! You’re a great boss, I see that now.”
Sam wanted to…he wasn’t entirely sure. Put Luke on a train to Canada, maybe, so he’d be gone and all his treachery with him. Not have to worry or think about him ever again.
Not have him die.
He started to open his mouth, but Alistair caught his eye and gave a little shake of his head.
Sullivan turned to the stairs. “Enough. Come with me, Mr. Cunningham. Mr. Bellinowski, you know what to do.”
“No!” Luke shouted. “Don’t, please, I—”
“Shut up.” Bellinowski punched him in the face, the sound like a steak hitting a concrete wall.
Nausea twisted in Sam’s belly. He wanted to protest, to do something…
Alistair caught him by the elbow and herded him toward the stairs. In a daze, he let himself be guided up and out of the bleak basement.