Chapter 17 Hell and High Water #2
“That anti you stole it from, he wasn’t a demon, was he?”
“No.”
“So then how will his key card help us?”
“I’m just following my instincts.” I don’t respond, and Muya motions toward a building. “This is the one.”
“Not worried about cameras?” I ask. “Can they also ‘become ignorant’?”
“In a manner of speaking. I’ve been working on it,” he says. His response doesn’t give me a ton of confidence, so I tug my hood over my head and bundle my scarf up so my face is barely visible. Muya frowns at me, sensing my unease. “Is something the matter? I thought we came to an understanding.”
“Just remembering that you tried to kill someone today.”
“I was trying to steal this key for you, and I had to cover my tracks. I thought it would make you happy, since he’s one of your enemies.”
“Don’t try to put this on me. I don’t want them to die! I just want them to change their minds or leave us alone.”
Muya snorts. “You’d probably have more luck with murder, but fine. Let’s go.”
I follow him through the office door and into a hallway lit dimly with nighttime fluorescents. Muya walks past several offices, including a dentist and a pet toy company, until he arrives at an unmarked door. The card opens the lock, Muya flicks on the lights, and—
It’s a letdown. I was expecting, I don’t know, a conspiracy-theory corkboard, or a demonic altar of some kind. But it’s just a small, open office filled with cubicles and desktop monitors, a cookie-cutter start-up space. Muya surveys it with a look of disappointment.
“This is it?” he says, as if to himself.
“Are you sure we have the right place?” I ask.
He gestures to the key, then offers me his hand, which I take as an invitation to combine our magic to search deeper. Muya issues a general instruction: Lift the veil of ignorance. Nothing happens.
“Damn,” he mutters. “Since we don’t know what we’re looking for, it’s hard to channel the magic to find it.”
My whole life is at risk; the water level is above my eyes.
I can’t give up now. We’ll just have to resort to old-fashioned sleuthing.
There are dinosaurs at every company who keep printouts.
We’re already here, and I’m desperate. I approach the first under-desk mini file cabinet.
It has its own lock, and the part of me that’s read too many crime novels pulls on a pair of gloves.
For once I’m thankful for Chicago winters, since they’ve prepared me for this moment.
I shake the cabinet a little bit and it sounds empty.
I move on to the next. Muya follows my lead and tries the next one after that.
My mind races as I remember we’re trespassing, with no guarantee of success.
But then I shake the next cabinet and it’s so full I can’t even move it.
I pull out my wallet, where I always keep an extra bobby pin.
My hands are shaking so badly, I worry I’m going to leave an obvious scratch.
I take a deep breath, focusing on the sensation of my knees against the floor to ground me.
After a few seconds, the drawer springs open.
I reach in and pull out what looks like a financial report listing various office expenses.
Boring. The next document is more of the same.
Halfway down the stack, I find a memo. At first, I assume it’s again unhelpful but then see that it is addressed to the Rogers Park Pregnancy Center.
It sounds familiar. In the letter, written in January, one of the center’s donors, “Mr. Fleming,” expresses interest in shutting down our clinic, calling it a “node point,” a place that doesn’t provide a particularly high volume of abortions, but whose functioning is necessary for other clinics to stay open.
He describes the potential domino effect if our clinic fails.
I flip the page, and my heart stops. There, clearly printed, is my name.
All of our names are in this document. Diane, Dr. Levy, Geeta, the nurses, other administrative staff.
Next to each person’s name are a few notes, mostly publicly available information, but beside mine, I read “potentially swayable.” There’s nothing different about my profile that might make them think that.
Perhaps it’s my age? I’m the youngest by a mile.
I keep reading, but unfortunately, the letter doesn’t offer many more details. I pass it on to Muya and keep searching the space. By the time I’ve finished checking two more cabinets and come up empty-handed, he’s done reading it.
“See?” he says. “They could be working with him.”
“The clinic faced several threats before you demons got involved. And I don’t see any proof on this single sheet of paper—one that we had to commit a crime to find—that the people behind this sham ‘pregnancy center’ are under Asmodeus’s influence.
” Even as I say it, though, I remember why the center’s name sounds familiar.
The man at the Art Institute gala mentioned it.
Outside, I hear the sound of a police siren. My eyes snap to Muya, but he doesn’t look afraid or worried. I creep toward the back door of the office.
“We have to go,” I whisper. The sound is getting closer.
“You’re going to abandon this now?” Muya’s voice hardens. “Just when we might actually discover something? What, too scared to uphold your end of the deal?”
A door opens nearby and I don’t wait a moment longer before sneaking out the back and running until I’ve reached the bus station. Muya can take care of himself.
Despite the fatigue seeping into me, there’s only one option left after a night of false starts and half-truths: I have to dance.