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I smiled back at him. Tonya was Gabriel's wife; she'd been quite pregnant the last time I'd seen her, and they'd already decided on "Connor" as a name. "Nine pounds? That's a big boy."
Jeff smiled knowingly. "That's what she said."
Catcher cleared his throat. "What's the second thing?"
"Raves."
They both looked up at me.
"What about them?" Catcher asked.
"That was actually my first question. At best, we have raves popping into the public eye - for real this time."
"And worst?" Catcher asked.
"We have something with the markings of a rave, but that actually involves psycho-vamps committing atrocities against multiple humans.
Three supposed deaths so far, but there's no physical evidence."
There was silence in the office.
"You're serious?" Catcher asked, voice grave.
"Aspen serious." I gave them the details on Mr. Jackson and his experience, on the mayor's investigation, and on our visit to his home. It worried me that they didn't already have these details; my grandfather, after all, was the city's supernatural Ombudsman. He should have been the first person Tate called.
"Is it because of me?" I asked. "Is Tate keeping information from him because I'm his granddaughter? Because I'm in Cadogan?"
Catcher pushed away his plate of fruit, propped his elbows on the table, and rubbed his temples. "I don't know, and I really don't like that idea. But I do know Chuck won't be pleased at the possibility that we're a figurehead group, an office Tate keeps open to make sups think he gives a shit - "
"While he's keeping important information from us," Jeff finished.
"On the other hand," Catcher thoughtfully said, "it wouldn't be our job to investigate.
That's the role of CPD detectives. But he'd normally give us a heads-up so we could make contact with the Houses or the Rogues." He shook his head. "We always thought Tate was a little cagey. I guess this proves you have to keep one ear to the ground even when you're supposedly in the loop."
"And speaking of keeping an ear to the ground, what's the word on raves? Anything new in the ether?"
He frowned. "I assumed you've talked to Malik or Ethan and you know about the three we tracked?"
"I've heard," I growled out.
With a nod, Catcher rose and went to a whiteboard newly installed on one end of the office, uncapped a green marker, and began writing. Accompanied by the squeak of the pen, he started by drawing what looked like an angled, limp fish.
"What's that?"
"Chicago," he said without turning around.
"Seriously? That's how you represent the city you work for? As a fish?"
"It really does look like a fish," Jeff said excitedly. "Oh, maybe it's an Asian carp. Are you making a metaphor about raves and invasive species?"
"Clever," I said with a smile for Jeff.
He leaned back in his chair, smiling proudly.
"That's what the ladies say."
I rolled my eyes and turned back to Catcher, who was glaring at both of us above his Buddy Holly glasses. I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing aloud.
"As I was saying," he continued, before placing stars on the map in different locations, "we know about three new raves in the last two months."
"Intel from the secret vampire?" I wondered aloud.
"Two of them," Catcher admitted. "The third from Malik. All were second- or thirdhand reports."
Okay, so that pretty much blew my Malikis-the-secret-source theory.
"There's also the rave we visited along the lakeshore," Catcher added, placing another star on the board.
We didn't find out about that one until after the rave was over and the vamps had closed up shop. As a result, we only walked away with a guess about the number of attendees and a clue as to who'd also investigated - the Red Guard and a shifter we later learned had been our blackmailer.
"There are also the raves we knew about before we visited that rave. And the one Tate identified. It was in West Town."
Catcher nodded, grabbed a blue marker, and filled in those stars.
I squinted at Catcher's "drawing," but still couldn't make heads or tails of it. Except that it still looked like a fish. "Could you at least show us where Navy Pier is?" I asked him. "I have no idea what I'm looking at."
Catcher grumbled, but obliged, and drew a tiny rectangle poking out from one side of the fish.
Jeff chuckled. "Is that Navy Pier, or is Chicago just happy to see me?"
I laughed so hard I snorted a little, at least until Catcher pounded a fist on the top of the closest table.
"Hey," I objected, pointing at him, "my Master might be in Cook County lockup by the end of the week, and that won't exactly be good for me. Sarcasm is my way of relieving stress, as you know, since you've seen me and Mallory at it."
Ironically, saying the jail bit aloud again made my stomach crumple with nerves. But Catcher's expression softened. He glanced back at the board, a smile at one corner of his mouth. "I guess it does look kind of ridiculous."
"And since you've acknowledged that, you may continue," I magnanimously offered.
"So the raves," he said without delay, "are sprinkled across the city. No apparent pattern.
No apparent locus of activity."
"That's telling in itself," I said, sitting up.
"That says there's no rave headquarters, not where the parties are held, anyway, and that the vamps are smart enough to move the party around."
"So no humans or Masters - if these are Housed vamps - get suspicious," Jeff added.
"Exactly," Catcher said.
"What about the size?" I asked. "The scale? Mr. Jackson was convinced there were dozens of vamps there, and that the entire thing was American Psycho violent."
"Just like the site we visited, our current intel says raves are a handful of vamps and a few humans. Small, intimate. Focused on the act of giving and accepting blood. To continue the movie analogy, this isn't Fight Club."
"More like Love at First Bite," Jeff said.
Catcher rolled his eyes again. "So this new incident we're talking about is something unprecedented in terms of size and violence, without matching missing persons reports, and no actual evidence of a crime." He shrugged. "That suggests Mr. Jackson wasn't entirely honest.
Problem is, we haven't talked to any vampires who were actually there. That would be the real coup - getting someone in from the beginning.
