It was a good view—in color and surprisingly clear for a webcam, especially at night. The ferocity and enormity of the cloud came through loud and clear. For better or worse, it didn’t look like anything had changed. The cloud continued to spin, like a tornado waiting for a moment to strike.
“No change,” Luc said. “Except that the temp continues to drop. It’s fifteen degrees out there right now. The river is solid ice.”
“How wide-ranging is the effect?” Ethan asked.
“Split-screen it, Jules.”
“On that,” she said, catching her lip with her teeth as she typed. An isothermal map appeared on-screen, with bands of color showing each temperature change. Outside Chicago, the temperatures were warm, the bands in shades of green. The closer you got to downtown, the bluer each band, and the colder the temperature.
So the temperature effect was limited to Chicago, and it was centered downtown. This wasn’t the first time we’d seen this kind of geographic focus from Sorcha.
I looked down at Juliet. “Can you superimpose Sorcha’s alchemical web on top of this?”
She frowned, looked down at the tablet again. “I think so? Let me play with this a second . . . I have to find the right image.”
She tapped keys, looked up at the screen. A photo of Captain America hovered above the city.
“And that is clearly the wrong file,” she said. “Someone has been saving graphics files in the work folder again.” Cough. Cough.
We all looked at Luc.
“Why would you blame me for that?”
We kept looking at Luc.
“Just doing my research,” he said. “Captain America versus a vampire. Who wins?”
That actually was an interesting question, but this wasn’t the time or place for it.
“Just a sec,” Juliet said. It took more than a few seconds. It took images of Batman, Black Widow, and the Falcon before the bright green grid lowered itself to the map she’d pulled up.
Sorcha had worked her magic over the city in a very specific pattern of alchemical hot spots intended to form a kind of web around the city. Tonight’s freezing temps coincided with that web almost exactly, with the coldest point centered over the Towerline building.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Luc said.
“Either Sorcha really likes returning to the scene of the crime,” I said, “or she’s making use of what she did before.”
“Maybe she’s taking advantage of something left behind,” Ethan said. “Capitalizing on the magic she spilled into the alchemical web during her last trip?”
“Maybe,” I said. “Catcher thinks that’s what’s causing the delusions, after all.”
“It would take a lot of energy to freeze the river,” Ethan murmured as he peered at the charts.
I wrapped my hands around the mug Margot had filled for me, let my fingers draw warmth from the slick ceramic . . . and realized what was happening.
“Oh,” I said.
Ethan turned to me. “Oh?”
I took his hand, pressed it against the mug. “Warm?”
“Yes?”
“Because your fingers are absorbing the heat?”
“Yes—oh.” He cocked his head at the map. “Oh.”
“Oh,” Luc said, gaze darting from mug to map. “Very good, Sentinel.”
“The cloud formation is some kind of heat sink,” I said. “It’s pulling heat from the atmosphere. That’s why it’s colder the closer you get to Towerline and the formation.”
“She’s pulling the heat out of Chicago,” Luc said. “She’s going to freeze the city?”
“Possibly,” Ethan said quietly. “Although, as Catcher pointed out, that’s not much of a threat in Chicago. We’ve dealt with blizzards before.”
“Maybe she hopes to ring in another ice age,” Juliet suggested.
“Maybe,” Ethan said, but still didn’t sound entirely convinced. “In case that’s the plan, ready the House. Check our supplies, the emergency tunnels, the generators.”
“On that,” Luc said, pointing a finger at Juliet. She nodded, turned back to her computer, began making preparations. As she did that, I sent a message to Jeff and Catcher about the weather.
“The delusions and the weather have Towerline in common,” I said, and explained to Luc what we’d learned from Jeff about two of the humans’ connections to the building.
“But there’s no obvious connection between the delusions and the weather,” Luc said.
“Not that we can tell so far,” Ethan said, and lifted his gaze to the map again. “But Towerline is clearly the key. Perhaps Mr. Stiles can give us some insight about the delusions, and that will give us insight into the rest of it.” He pushed back his chair, a signal that it was time to leave. “We’ll see what he has to say.”
“Before you go,” Luc said, rising to meet us, “Linds and I got something for you. She’s on patrol but wanted me to give it to you.”
“You didn’t need to—,” Ethan began, but Luc shook his head.
“We wanted to.” He rose and walked to his desk, opened a drawer, and pulled out a tub of cashews.
“Oooh,” I said, but Luc shook his head.
“Not for you, Sentinel. This one’s for both of you.” He pulled out a small box wrapped in gleaming foil paper, a silver bow on top.
“Our congratulations,” Luc said, and offered the box over his arm like he was presenting a gift to his king. Which I guess wasn’t far from the truth.
I put a hand at Ethan’s back as he pulled off the paper, revealing a pretty blue box the color of a robin’s egg. He opened it, pulled back delicate white tissue paper. His smile blossoming, he showed it to me. Nestled inside the box was a small silver rectangle with SULLIVAN / MERIT etched in elegant capital letters.