“And do they become aware of paranormal violence?”

  “They claim to. They write big checks for people who have been beaten up and kicked around.”

  “Will they be supporting us, specifically, this year? After what we’ve been through?”

  His eyes glinted in the light. “I’m sure we’ll be the hot topic of this year’s banquet, yes. You’ll have to wear a nice dress.”

  She rolled the poster up. “One dress a year, that’s all I can manage.”

  Sam pulled a book out of the tote and blew dust off the cover. He held it out to her. “One of my books,” he said. “That I wrote.”

  She took it. “Paranormal Politics,” she read the title. “Social Issues in a Magical World.” She eyed him. “Is this about how to become Chicago’s first shapeshifter mayor?”

  He chuckled. “Something like that. It’s about being a paranormal politician in a normal politician’s world, and how to make those two things work together so everyone benefits.”

  She opened the book and flipped through it. So many pages, so many words. “Does it take a long time to write a book like this?”

  “As much as I like to express my opinion?” He stood. “A lot of it is modified entries from journals I kept. I never intended to make it into a book until some literary agent told me I should. I think I should convince them to do a re-issue, given my current ambitions. The city needs to read it, if they haven’t already.”

  “Does that mean you’ll autograph this for me?’

  “Can I autograph your boob instead?”

  “Please, I’ll never wash it again.”

  Natalie and Cindy took inventory, starting with the shelves in the main room. Sam showed her things they’d taken from the Institute. Most of it was not as impressive as the ultraviolet light they’d tried to use on Occam—in fact, most of it was just folders of research. Sam explained his people would photocopy test results and smuggle them out. He also had pictures—odd and clinical—of the insides of vampire’s mouths with their fitted fangs, pictures of substances on fire after being ignited by pyrokinetics, and pictures of people’s eyes, intense and vivid like June’s.

  He had a pair of noise-cancelling headphones, like the ones the researchers used around her and Jason—they were more advanced than regular noise-cancelling headphones and injected white noise into the wearer’s ears to block sound further. June wanted to fling them away.

  “I’m guessing Occam still has the ultraviolet weapon,” Sam said. “Due to some news I heard this morning.”

  June stood in front of a shelf. A small wooden rack sat on the shelf, holding three dusty, grimy tubes of dark red liquid.

  “What news?” Cindy asked from across the room.

  “Apparently,” Sam’s voice echoed in the rafters, “some of the dead vampires had burns on them. A few had their eyes burned out.”

  June shuddered.

  “I’m sure that’s Occam’s way of sending me a message.” Sam carefully lifted a small box off a shelf next to her. “He wants me to know he hasn’t forgotten.”

  “I don’t think you could actually kill a vampire with it,” June said. “Burning a vampire’s eyes out isn’t going to kill him, right? You can live without eyes. They’re not a vital organ.”

  Sam stepped over to her. “No, but he’s having fun, or one of them is. A little added torture.”

  “Are these what I think they are?” June pointed at the tubes. “Oracles of the Dead? Or the base, at least? Vampire blood?”

  Sam rubbed his thumb over one of the tubes, wiping dust from it. “The Oracle of the Dead isn’t just vampire blood and the blood of a powerful paranormal human. The vampire blood has to be old and just as powerful. Only certain vampires can make them. The one involved with Kevin’s grandmother was older than even Occam.”

  June grimaced. “So this is vampire blood.”

  “God, no.” He withdrew his hand. “Old vampires didn’t go anywhere near the Institute. This is Muse’s blood.”

  June flinched.

  “She gave it freely,” Sam said. “It’s not to make Oracles, though it can be used for that, I’m sure. She was well aware of her mortality. She left it behind for research purposes—by proper researchers, not the Institute. Maybe someday, someone will find a cure.”

  June’s trepidation melted away. “And you keep it here?”

  “Where else should I keep it? This is the safest place for it.”

  “Maybe I should give some of mine too.”

  He lowered his voice. “I’m hoping there won’t be a need.”

  June looked back at the tubes. “She was brave. Inspiring, even. I wish I had known her better.”

  “Inspiring, yes, like a muse.” Sam smiled faintly. “That’s where she got her name. I gave it to her, sort of. Going on about how much of an inspiration she was to me and to our kind. She thought ‘Muse’ was fitting, and it was a good way to shed her old identity and become who she really was.”

  “She told me her choice of name was complicated and a long story.”

  “I’m sure to her it was. Changing your identity is a big deal, and a long, sometimes difficult process. Just saying ‘I picked a new name’ doesn’t really encapsulate the struggle in a way that feels respectful of it.”

  June had changed since the beginning of the year as well, the struggles she’d been through, the things she’d faced. She’d become a new person, less afraid of her past, more concerned about her future. Maybe she needed to change her name too.

  “Yeah,” June said. “I totally get that.”

  Sam turned away, holding up the small box. “Come outside. I want to put this in the car and get some air.”

  She followed him out into the heat and sunlight, squinting against the brightness.

  “What’s in that?” she asked as he placed the box in the backseat, through the open window.

  “Something important.” He slid an arm around her shoulders.

  They strolled beneath the awning, toward the back of the car. The wind tugged at her clothes and hair, gusting away some of the heat.

  “It’s awful lonely out here.” She squinted across the yard. The train cars loomed amongst the weeds, hulking and ominous. “I get creeped out in wide open spaces.”

  “A lot of people do.” They stopped at the edge of the awning’s shade. His arm rested heavy across her shoulders. “There’s a story someone told me. It explains why we feel that way. I’ll tell you about it later.”

  “Why not tell me now?”

  “Because.” He took his arm off her shoulders and gripped her hip. “I’m interested in something else right now.” He backed her up, toward the wall of the building.

  “Oh, is that what this is?” she taunted as she was pressed against the rough warm brick. “Getting some air, huh?”

  He tucked a hand into her crotch. “The girls are busy taking inventory.”

  “You’re a tease, the way you were messing with me in the car.”

  “I’m not teasing now.” He popped the button on her jeans.

  She glanced in the direction of the door. Several barrels and stacks of sheet metal were piled next to the two of them, so even if Cindy or Natalie came outside they wouldn’t immediately be caught.

  “Since I dragged you out here to be bored half the day”—Sam eased her zipper down—“I might as well make it worth your while.”

  “It is pretty boring. I thought you were gonna have, like, death rays and stuff.”

  He pushed his hand down the front of her jeans, into her panties. “You overestimate me. That’s comforting.”

  She was already wet from earlier. He stroked and rubbed. She jerked her hips. In reciprocation, she reached for the front of his pants.

  He gently pushed her hand away. “We’ll take care of that later. Just enjoy.”

  She wasn’t going to argue.

  He pushed two fingers into her. She gripped his arm, the thick muscles of his forearm flexing beneath his sweaty skin. She was sweating, too, the wetness slicking her lower back.

  She bit her lip as he worked his fingers inside her, not fast, but deliciously deep. He rubbed his thumb over her ring in slow circles.

  “See?” he whispered, close to her ear. “Not a tease.”

  She moved her hips faster, riding his fingers. Her jeans and panties slid low on her hips, giving him access, the wind drying the sweat across her lower back. She braced her feet wide apart and pushed her shoulders back against the bricks.

  “Fuck,” she gasped, her body tensing. The buildup of pleasure made her right side ache, but she fought to ignore it. “Oh, God…”

  Sam breathed heavy and close to her ear. Heat radiated off his body, warmer than the day. Sweat trickled down his neck. She wanted to lick it away.

  “Almost?” His fingers were relentless, pounding into her now.

  “Yes.” She clutched the sleeve of his T-shirt, near his shoulder. “Don’t stop, Sam.”

  He didn’t stop. She reached the point of no return, her insides tightening. The tension broke in a glorious rush, and she let out a half-stifled moan, shuddering against the wall, squeezing around his fingers.

  He slowed his thrusts but continued rubbing. “There we go.” He caressed his other hand over her bare hip. “I love to feel that.”

  She shivered, eyelids fluttering. Little tremors shuddered through her and slowly tapered off. The stitch in her side was worse, and she tried to draw in slow, even breaths to stop it.

  She quit fighting the urge and licked up the side of his neck. Salt coated her tongue.

  He chuckled. “You okay?” His fingers were still inside her.

  “I’m great. Not so boring after all.”

  He pulled his fingers out. She kind of wished he would pick her up and fuck her against the wall now.

  “Sure you don’t want me to return the favor?” She gripped the firm bulge in the front of his jeans. “My mouth is magic, remember?”

  “How could I forget?” He kissed her. “No. We’ll have fun later. I’m afraid I actually do have work to do.”

  She looked down at herself. “I’m a sloppy mess. This is going to be an awkward day.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  She tugged her jeans and panties up. “I don’t believe you are.”

  He sucked his wet fingers into his mouth and winked.

  June took a hair tie off her wrist and started pulling her hair back. “So what’s this about why people feel creeped out in wide open spaces?”

  “Oh, it’s something I heard when I was a teenager. There was this old guy. I’d always see him at the bus stop near my high school. I liked talking to people. My mom said I was the most outspoken kid she’d ever met.”

  June shook her head. “You? Really?”

  Sam walked over to the car and reached in the front seat through the window. He pulled out two bottles of water. “He was…something.” He walked back to her and held one out.

  “Something?” She took it. “Thanks.”

  “Something paranormal, I think. But I don’t know what.” He untwisted the cap on his bottle. “He seemed to know things about people. He could read you. Not like a telepath, though. It seemed to go deeper than that.”

  She uncapped her own and took a drink. The water was warm, but refreshing.

  “He’d talk about all the places he’d traveled. And we’d talk about me, what I was doing in school, what my life was like at home. He was just…nice to listen to. You know those kind of people?”

  She nodded. “There was a guy who taught Jason and me about our powers when we were younger. He was like that too. Real soothing to listen to, no matter what he was talking about.”

  “I felt like I knew him forever, but it was only that one year, my sophomore year, and only in the spring, toward the end of the school year.”

  “The wise old man at the bus stop.” She grinned. “How cliché.”

  He shook his open bottle at her, splashing water down the front of her shirt. She yelped and laughed.

  “He told me that people, even normal people, have this power, this energy. When a lot of people get together and focus their energy, it creates things.” He waved a hand. “I know it sounds hippie and existential. Maybe he was just a chatty, lonely old man who liked to tell stories, and I was an impressionable teenager doing a lot of soul searching at the time.”

  “Somehow even as a teenager I can’t picture you buying into folklore. You’re too practical.”

  “I wasn’t always. Or maybe the way he said it, just…seemed practical.”

  “So, we create things?”

  “He said we not only create things, we give them life. Our energy puts energy out into the world. He said cities, especially big cities, like this one”—he waved vaguely in the direction they’d come—“we build them, we pour our energy into them, and they become living things. They become entities.”

  June blinked. She recalled standing on the balcony of Sam’s hotel room in the middle of freezing winter. Micha stood beside her, and he’d said the city was a living thing, he’d said “we as entities create other entities.”

  “We all thrive on that energy,” Sam said. “But we also thrive on the energy of nature, because it’s where we came from. When you get out to the border between those two things, like here, where human energy is fading and the energy of nature hasn’t taken over yet, that’s where you feel strange. You’ve lost touch with everything. It’s nowhere. A margin between worlds.”

  Sam took a drink and lowered his bottle. “He could have just been an eccentric old man. Summer break came, and I didn’t see him when school started again. Maybe he died. I didn’t think much about him after that. I only think about him at times like this.”

  “I’ve heard those words before,” June said. “We as entities create other entities.”

  Sam squinted at her.

  “Micha said that to me. He said the city was a living thing.”

  Sam shrugged. “I don’t know how Micha would know that, but hey, the old man did say it was all humans, not just paranormal ones. It’s kind of comforting, when you think about it.”

  They strolled back around the building, toward the door. June gazed across the empty yard at the dirt being kicked up by the wind, the rattling train cars, the swaying weeds. “Is it?”

  “Yes. It’s nice to know there’s a place you can go to escape humanity, get away from everyone else’s crappy energy.”

  “Yeah, I guess it is….”

  Chapter 14

  Back at the house, June’s wariness grew as night fell. She kept glancing out the windows into the gathering gloom, expecting to see Occam staring back at her.

  The vampire death toll continued rising, and paranormal as well as regular humanitarian groups got involved. Businesses catering to vampires closed out of fear. Cops were on high alert. Politicians pontificated loudly.

  “They stole our thunder.” Sam stood in the kitchen, his laptop on the counter. “I can’t help but feel like the timing is meant to be personal.”

  June leaned next to the sink. “I feel sorry for them. Yeah, there’s a lot of dick vampires, but I’m betting those aren’t the ones they’re killing.”

  “I don’t even know the true vampire population in the city. So many of the old ones live on the fringes. So yes, I’m guessing it’s the non-dick vampires being killed. Although, I’ve never met a vampire I liked. You have to have a certain dickishness about you to even want to become one.”

  June shook her head. “Really, I doubt this was done to spite us. Occam doesn’t work that way. If anything, it would be to take attention off me so he can spirit me away without anyone noticing.”

  Sam looked at her. “Come here, I want to show you something.”

  She walked over to him.

  He picked up something next to the laptop—the little box from the storehouse. He took the lid off. “I had to get the software working first. I was afraid it might not.”

  He pulled a thin green bag out of the box, as thin as a slip of paper, one of those static-free bags for electronic equipment. Inside was a small transparent rectangle, like a piece of cellophane with tiny circuits etched into it.

  “This,” Sam said, “is something the Institute was working on and had the audacity to claim it was benign and helpful.”

  June peered at the bag. “What is it?”

  “A tracking device.” Sam held it up to the light. “It attaches to skin or clothing. You don’t even know it’s there. They developed it to keep track of research subjects.”

  June blinked. “Like tagging them?”

  “Supposedly, it would only be used with permission from the subject and only in cases of long-term research, where the subject wasn’t going to spend all his time at the Institute. It was supposed to give researchers information about the person’s habits. Behavioral stuff.”

  “I’m sure. I bet it was never to be used without the person’s permission.” She had the sudden urge to check her body over.

  “There was a lot of controversy over it. My group protested it and the project was shelved. However”—he tapped the bag—“who knows how many they actually sneaked out there. This was one of the more advanced ones created just before they shut the project down.”

  “Too bad you couldn’t steal all of them.”

  “I downloaded the software from the Institute servers back when we first stole it. I have some very talented hackers in my group. We’d raid their databases all the time, before they caught on and locked us out. It seems the software is still working. Imagine that.”

  She grunted.

  “So now I have this tiny inconspicuous device and the means to track it.”

  She tilted her head.

  “I could put that to good use, don’t you think?”

  She squinted. “You think Anthony could put it on Robbie?”

  “Anthony won’t get that close to Robbie, trust me. Robbie isn’t going to crawl out of hiding, even for his brother. Especially for his brother, if Anthony’s stories are true.”