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“Agreed,” Petra said. “I don’t recognize the language, though. I’ll run it through SpellCheck.”
It took us all a minute to get that one. “Like, a place to check a spell. That’s seriously a thing?” Theo asked.
“Where do you think they got the word?” she asked with typical Petra exhaustion.
“Learn something new every day,” Theo said.
“I’ve learned entirely too much today,” I muttered. “Send it to Paige and the Librarian, too.”
Petra gave me a thumbs-up.
I moved closer, reached out to touch the blunt tooth of a gear taller than me, then looked at my fingertips. There was no grime. Just a thin coating of clear oil.
“It’s old,” I said. “Like 1872 old. So why does it look like this?” I showed them my fingers. “Not even a mote of dust. It was oiled and ready in case she got too close.”
“Someone’s been maintaining it,” Connor said. “Someone with ties to the wards.”
“A century plus of ties,” I said. “A vampire? Wouldn’t we know that, though?”
“Memory spell,” Connor reminded me. “Maybe they don’t know anything about the rest of the plan or the machine’s purpose. They just know they have to maintain it.”
“Possible,” I said. “We need to find out who owns the property. Maybe that will lead us to the custodian, which will lead us to...”
“To?” Connor prompted.
“I have no idea. Information we need to stop this asshole from destroying Chicago?”
“I’ll take that,” Petra said, gaze on the machine. “I love a property record deep dive.”
“I know none of you have been sitting around,” Roger said. “But the mayor’s going to increase the pressure on us to find and stop the demon.”
“If she’s got any ideas,” Theo said, drinking from his own bottle of water, “we’re happy to hear them.”
“She’ll probably get them from the feds,” Roger said. “And we won’t like it when the suits come in.”
“Freaking G-men,” Petra said. “That’s all we need.”
We walked back outside and watched the cleanup begin.
“I’m beginning to think they weren’t good at ward building,” Roger said.
“It was probably that one guy,” Petra said.
“What one guy?” I asked, thinking she’d made some big headway in her research.
“You know, that asshole in every group project whose ideas are ridiculous, but he throws such a damn fit that everyone basically has to go along with it.”
“There’s one in every government committee,” Roger said.
“Maybe he’s the reason why there’s no manual,” Theo muttered. “Total asshole move.”
Petra nodded. “I bet he was all like, ‘Who cares about collateral damage?’ ”
“There was a lot of it,” Roger said, then looked at me and Theo. “You’re both injured. Go home. If you want to work from there, fine. But go home.”
“I’m fine to keep working,” Petra said, still taking photos of the machine.
Roger nodded. “Then we’ll meet at dusk tomorrow.”
