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“I’m sorry to bring you out again after the evening you’ve had already,” he said, releasing me and offering Ethan a hand. “Ethan.”
“Chuck,” Ethan said. “No apologies necessary.” He motioned toward the cane. “It appears you’re getting around.”
“Not as well as I used to,” he said, “but better than I was, certainly.”
“And you remember Jonah, Grandpa. Guard captain at Grey House.”
“Of course,” my grandfather said, and they shook on it. “Nice to see you again.”
I took a look at his face, saw lines of grief etched around his eyes. He stood Ombudsman now instead of homicide detective, but there was no mistaking the cop in his eyes.
“We’re so sorry to hear of Detective Jacobs’s loss,” I said. “Did you know his son very well?”
“Not very,” my grandfather admitted. “Brett was twenty-five, already out on his own, but I’d met him a time or two at Arthur’s house for dinner. Good kid, by all accounts. No reason to believe he’d done anything that would make him anyone’s target.”
“I suppose they’ll wait until after an autopsy for funeral arrangements?”
“I expect so. Could be several days before they’re ready to release his body. He’s taking some time off in the meantime, keeping his family close.”
“Please offer our condolences,” Ethan said.
“I will,” my grandfather said. “Let’s do our part for Brett and take a look.”
Chapter Four
REQUIEM
We dipped under the tape and moved through the passageway and into the courtyard, a large grassy rectangle bordered by buildings and hedges. A fountain stood in the middle. The area bustled with cops and investigators—and no one I’d recently seen aiming a handgun at my person. A forensic unit surveyed the grass, sweeping flashlights back and forth across the ground.
Between the fountain and one of the buildings was a tall, square enclosure of yellow plastic. A bit of privacy for Brett, I presumed. A stand of temporary lights had been placed inside, the bulbs visible above the plastic, which crackled stiffly in the breeze. The smell of blood—and much, much worse—stained the air.
Steady? Ethan asked.
Vampires were innately attracted to the scent of blood, but there was nothing attractive about this scent, mixed as it was with the unmistakable odor of death.
Fine, I promised. And hoping to keep my dinner down.
We followed my grandfather toward the barrier. He stopped a few feet away, gestured to a brunette in a classic black suit. She was handsomely pretty, with strong features and a wide mouth, her hair waving over her shoulders. Midthirties, I’d have guessed, with hard eyes unmistakably belonging to a cop.
“Detective Bernadette Stowe,” my grandfather said. “Ethan Sullivan, Merit, Jonah.”
She nodded, held up gloved hands. “I’d shake, but I’m already prepped. You’re our vampire experts?”
“No one better,” my grandfather said. I wasn’t sure about that, but we certainly had the practical expertise.
We reached the barrier and Stowe pushed it aside, allowing us to enter. I went in last, taking a final glance around the courtyard, making sure I didn’t recognize the driver among the men and women who surveyed the scene.
Catcher already stood inside the plastic, looking down at Brett Jacobs, who lay on the new spring grass. He nodded at us, moved aside to let us enter.
Brett’s hair was short and dark, and his eyes were deeply brown and stared up, empty. He wore jeans and a navy T-shirt, but his feet were bare, and there was a blue mark on the back of one hand, a small, square cross. Beneath it, his dark skin had a gray cast: the pallor of death.
His body was posed as if he’d been crucified: arms outstretched, his palms flat on the grass, legs straight. His careful positioning was strange, but that’s not why they’d called us.
Blood made a dark stain on his shirt and stained the ground beneath him. Two gently curved and gleaming katanas had been plunged into his abdomen like horrible skewers, crossing each other below his breastbone like an “X.”
That was why they’d called us. Because they were katanas, and we were vampires, the only supernaturals that used them.
I’d seen death before, but that didn’t make the sight of it any easier to stomach. I glanced away, closing my eyes for a moment until the world stopped spinning.
“Brett was twenty-five,” Stowe quietly said. “Graduated from Columbia College three years ago, has a bachelor’s in music. Plays violin for a string quartet that does weddings, events, and works at a restaurant in the Loop. Shares an apartment with a friend in Wrigleyville. No girlfriend. No sheet. By all accounts, lived a clean life.”
“This should not be the reward for someone who lived clean,” my grandfather said.
“No,” Stowe quietly said. “It is not. And I’m sorry for it. And for Arthur.”
“When did he die?” I quietly asked.
Stowe checked a delicate silver watch. “We’re waiting for the coroner yet, but our preliminary estimate is about four hours ago. Custodian found him.”
“Witnesses?” Ethan asked.
“None that have come forward,” she said. “The fountain shields the body from the passageway and the street, and you’d have to walk over here to see it. Not many tourists doing that at night in early March.”
Ethan turned his gaze to Stowe. “You’ve asked us here because of the swords.”
She nodded. “Vampires use swords, fight with them. It’s well-known Detective Jacobs has worked with you before.”
“We’re not suggesting you were involved in this,” my grandfather said, stepping forward and drawing Ethan’s ice-cold gaze to him. “But we don’t have much else to go on.”
Since Catcher’s magical expertise was in weaponry, he must have been stumped.
Ethan looked at him. “Your impression?”
Catcher crouched, gestured to the swords. “They’re replicas. Good replicas, but replicas all the same. The arc of the blade looks correct. The tsuba’s circular, engraved. Leather cord braided around the handle. All that’s right . . . but the steel’s wrong.”
I tilted my head to glance at it, noted how shiny the metal was. “It’s not folded,” I said, and Catcher nodded, obviously pleased.
Catcher looked up at Stowe and my grandfather. “Vampires fight with traditional katanas—high-carbon steel weapons, usually tamahagane, steel that’s folded repeatedly. The folding creates a pattern in the steel that looks like wood grain. This isn’t carbon steel.” He pointed at the blade, to a mark stamped into the metal.
