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Forty minutes later, because traffic was miserable, we pulled up in the Ombuds’ van in front of a tidy white house with a bare but tidy yard.
We climbed out.
“Anything?” Theo asked.
“No magic,” I said quietly, but belted on my katana just in case. I glanced at Petra. “You?”
“No. But someone’s barbecuing down the street.” She closed her eyes, pointed to a house. “There.”
“Excellent detective work,” Theo said with an eye roll. “We can all smell that.”
“Let’s play this hard and official,” Petra said, adjusting her white gloves as we tromped down the sidewalk.
I glanced at Theo. “You do it. You’re the cop.”
He snorted but took the steps to the front door, pounded it with his non-casted fist. “Mr.Horner. Ombuds’ office. We need to talk.”
Okay, he did actually sound pretty official. But there was no answer, even to the second or third round of poundings. The fourth had the door swinging wildly open, and me putting a precautionary hand on my sword.
“For Horguh’s sake, what? We finally reached Korkath the Demogorgon, and we’re trying to strategize, so this better be good.”
The man in the doorway was tall and thin, with pale skin and dark shaggy hair that stood up where he’d pushed fingers through it. He had a couple of days’ worth of stubble on his chin and shadows under his eyes, and he wore a sleek headset and a T-shirt with an enormousjqacross the front.
I glanced behind him, wondering if there was a Demogorgon somewhere in the house. And wondering what a Demogorgon was. That was snake heads, right?
Petra snorted. “It’s a game, noob,” she said, and bumped me with her shoulder. “Horguh is a god inJakob’s Quest.Korkath is a ninth-level boss.”
That explained thejqon the shirt. Actually, I think Connor—who was much more into geek culture than I was—playedJQoccasionally, including a game with Theo once or twice.
“Mr.Horner?” Theo asked.
“Yes?”
Theo held up his badge. “We’re with the Ombudsman. You’re going to need to take a break fromJakob’s Questfor a moment. We need to talk to you.”
His face lit with purpose as he looked us over. “Theo and Petra and Elisa, right? I wondered if you’d ever come looking,” he said, and bid us inside.
The house was sparse, but tidy for a bachelor/gamer. The front parlor was hisJakob’s Questheadquarters, complete with a wide screen, a chair that looked skeletal in its construction, and a table of gaming accessories and empty drink bottles.
“This is gonna take a few,” he murmured into the headset, and sent a flurry of messages scrolling across the comp screen. Most of them very unhappy he was skipping out on the quest.
“Okay,” he said when that was done and he’d pulled off the headset. “What do you want to know?”
“Tell us about your property in the South Loop,” Petra said.
His face lit up. “You’ve been there? That’s amazing. Did you find the machine?” The smile dropped away. “Did something happen to it? Did someone break in?”
We weren’t going to have a problem getting this one to talk.
Theo held up a hand to stop the barrage. “Hold up. You’re confirming you own the property?” He listed off the address.
“Well, sure. That property’s been in the family since the 1870s. We’re the Machinists.” He said that with obvious pride.
“What do you mean?” Theo asked.
“Well, we keep the machine in order, right? That’s, like, my family legacy. I go in weekly, make sure everything is clean and oiled, make adjustments if necessary. Sometimes I have to replace a spring—Victorian-era metal can be finicky—and that means machining a new one. It’s my job.”
“Your family is involved, too?” Petra asked.
