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“Yeah, it is. And while I’m passing along news, Lulu will be helping us with some of the research and planning regarding demons.”
They all looked at one another.
“Will she?” Roger asked, and I told them what she’d told me, or enough of it that they’d understand the situation.
Theo whistled. “That’s a lot of burden for her to bear as a kid.”
“Yeah, it was,” I said. “I’m still mad she didn’t come to me about it.” However hypocritical that was, given my own secret. “But we need help and she’s willing to offer it. So I’m happy giving her a chance. If anybody has issues with that, you can talk to me.”
“I don’t think we have any issues,” Roger said, then looked at Petra. “Tell her about the visitor.”
“Oh god,” I said, taking my chair. “Was it Breonna again?”
“Correct letter, wrong name,” Petra said, picking a bit of apple from the pastry. “Jonathan Black.”
It only occurred to me then that I hadn’t spoken to him since the warehouse fight. We weren’t friends, maybe not even allies, but it seemed strange that he hadn’t been in touch given that our lives had been on the line.
“And what did he have to say?”
“Null.”
I tried to translate. “He said nothing?”
“He said the city had null spots. Places in Chicago where there’s absolute-zero magic—the total absence of a magical signature.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Okay. That’s got to be relatively rare. We’ve got ley lines, vampire Houses, fairies. Magic is, like, sunk into the bones of this place.”
“Rare,” Petra agreed. “There’s a lot of background magic in Chicago. But remember what we learned about the Cornerstones at Hugo’s place?”
“The stones didn’t give off any magic.” I leaned forward. “Is he thinking we could find the Cornerstone locations by looking for null spots?”
“He didn’t come out and say it,” Petra said. “Because how would he know about the Cornerstones?”
I sat back again. Howwouldhe know about the Cornerstones? “Maybe his omniscient clients, whoever they are, told him. And that’s an awfully big gift to drop into our lap.” I narrowed my eyes. “What did he want in return?”
“To keep him posted about Rosantine,” Petra said. “He said he was a little shell-shocked from the last fight and wanted to know when she was under wraps.”
“Which is bullshit,” Theo said.
“Oh, totally,” I agreed.
“But he had a point about the null spots,” Petra said. “So I got some time on a NASA satellite.”
Roger choked on coffee. “Excuse me? Did you just say you bought satellite time from NASA?”
“No, just borrowed. The lead tech on one of its Earth-observing satellites is—”
“Your cousin?” Theo and I guessed simultaneously, then enjoyed a fist bump.
“Actually no,” Petra said primly. “She’s my second cousin.”
“And what did the satellite info show you?” I asked. We could get the family story later.
“Wait,” Theo said. “Back up. There’s a satellite that can see magic?”
Petra’s grin was slow and wide. “There wasn’t before, but there is now. We had a talk about testing some spectrascope technology, and they’re interested to add that capability to their search for extraterrestrial life.” She swept her hair off her shoulders dramatically. “Anyway, Sheela agreed to test and run the specs, and voilà.” She shifted her gaze to Roger and her smile was canny. “Leasing an Ombud-patented process to NASA should give us a nice cushion in the budget.”
“Coyotes,” Theo said. “In terms of additional funds. Just want to put that out there.”
