I sat up just in time to see Jonah running toward me. I rubbed the back of my head, sore from where I'd fal en to the ground, but relieved that I'd been out only long enough for him to get here.
That meant I might stil have a chance.
He crouched in front of me, panic in his eyes. "What happened?"
"She confessed. She stole the Maleficium and Ethan's ashes to try and bring him back as a familiar. She thinks I want that - but mostly she's obsessed with black magic.
She's addicted to it, and she thinks completing the spel wil help bring good and evil back into balance."
He helped me to my feet.
"She worked magic onork in me, knocked me out." I looked over at him. "She's made up her mind to go through with it. We have to find her, and we have to stop her. If she completes the magic . . ."
I didn't finish the prediction; saying it aloud wasn't going to make the choice any easier.
"Do you have any idea where she's gone?"
I racked my brain, but couldn't come up with anything.
The only places I knew she'd visited recently were her house in Wicker Park and the hardware store. She trained somewhere in Schaumburg and at Catcher's gym in the River North neighborhood, but neither seemed like likely spots for her to perform big magic.
But if I couldn't find Mal ory, maybe I could find the book . . .
I pul ed out my cel phone and dialed the librarian.
"The Maleficium is gone," I told him, without introduction.
"Mal ory Carmichael stole it from the vault when she was staying at the House with me. I don't suppose you've got a way to track it?"
Mal ory would not have been pleased at the slew of words that erupted through the phone - or the unflattering comments about the ethical propensities of sorceresses.
But once he'd gotten that out of his system, he got down to business.
"One does not guard the Maleficium without a contingency plan," he said, and I heard rustling on the other side of the phone.
I breathed a sigh of relief. "Do you have a tracking spel or something?"
"You could say that. I slipped a GPS chip into the spine. I didn't mention that to the Order, of course, as they would have crucified me for damaging the book, but that is neither here nor there. This is exactly why I did it. Let me pul up the location."
While he worked the tech, I glanced up at the sky.
Midnight blue was beginning to tint a sickly shade of red. I didn't doubt the water had darkened, and mountains were moving somewhere in the city.
She'd already started.
"Found it," he said. "It's nearby, and not moving."
"This is a big city. 'Nearby' isn't going to help me."
"Hold on, I'm narrowing." He paused. "The Midway!" he final y exclaimed. "It's in the Midway."
I thanked him, hung up, and pointed down the road.
"She's at the Midway. I'm going there now. Find Luc and Malik and Catcher - tel them what's going on."
"I don't want you to face her alone."
I looked back at him and smiled rueful y. "Sixty-seventh rule of the Red Guard - trust your partner."
"That's actual y rule number two."
"Even better," I said, faking a smile.
Jonah's jaw clenched, but he relented. "Then find her.
Stop her. By whatever means necessary."
That's exactly what I was afraid of.
I jogged four blocks down the street, and then stopped in the middle of it, mouth agape.
The entire Midway Plaisance was on fire. Not with the orange and gold flames of a basic, secular fire, but with flames of translucent blue that reached toward the sky with pointy, clawlike curls. However they loowee orange oked, their effect was the same as regular fire: The trees on the edge of the Midway had begun to crackle and spark from the heat.
The sky above had gone ful y scarlet, an angry pulsing red, bloody like an open wound, and unlike anything I had seen before. Lightning flashed across it, raising goose bumps along my arms.
Beneath me, I felt a dul tremor. Mountains were undoubtedly springing up somewhere. As Mal ory worked her magic every element was spinning wildly out of balance.
Fire trucks screamed down the street, sirens blaring.
They parked on the edge of the Midway and immediately began shooting water cannons at the blaze; little good they did. The flames roared like a tornado, updrafts of heat that pushed across the park, hotter and harsher as the fire grew.
I found Mal ory in front of the Masaryk statue, a pile of books and materials at her feet. The largest item - the Maleficium - was open and glowing, the text swirling on the page. Her blond hair whipped around her face in the hot wind thrown off by the fire.
She seemed oblivious to the danger she was creating, so I had little doubt she'd destroy the city if she could. I just wasn't entirely sure what to do about it. I had no sword and no dagger. Maybe I could get close enough to knock her out or at least disrupt the magic, although I doubted she'd let me get that close. But until the cavalry arrived, I had to try.
There was no way I was going to walk between her and the fire, so I ran around the statue and approached her from behind. When I was close enough to see the chipping, matte blue paint on her fingernails, I cal ed out her name.
She glanced back with little evident concern, mumbling words as she spel ed her magic. "Little busy here, Merit."
"Mal ory, you have to stop this!" I yel ed over the roar of the flames. The earth beneath my feet was shaking now, and I stumbled forward. "Can't you see what you're doing to the city?"
A tree popped, cracked, and fel forward, and the inferno rushed toward it, engulfing it in flames. It wouldn't be long before the tree line was breached completely and the fire spil ed onto the streets.
"You'l kil us al !"
"Not when the spel is done," she cal ed back. "You'l see.
The world wil feel so much better when good and evil are joined again. The world wil be whole."
Her hands were shaking as she dipped them into jars of powders and sprinkled the contents above the open pages of the Maleficium . I scanned the detritus of her magic, but saw no sign of the urn that had held Ethan's ashes.
They were gone, maybe used to trigger some previous part of the spel . And when we stopped the spel - if we could stop the spel - I wouldn't even have his ashes as a memory.
"Please, Mal ory, stop."
She kept right on working, but another voice stopped me cold.
"I knew vampires were at the heart of this!"
I glanced back. McKetrick was moving toward us, a big gun in his hands, pointed at me. "Why don't you step away from that girl, Merit?"