The Wicked City. Megan Morgan

him.”

      “Yes, him.” Cindy sat up straight with a bright smile.

      “Who’s Sam Haain?” June asked.

      Micha lowered his hand. “He’s the leader of the Paranormal Alliance. If you want to know why his members are so…adamant, it’s because their dogma and paranoia trickles down from the top. I don’t know if Sam Haain is his real name. Maybe his mother had a terrible sense of humor. But he certainly enjoys being the ominous specter of the disenfranchised and mistreated.”

      June didn’t know why, but the way Micha talked heated her panties up. Normally, if someone were in her tattoo shop spouting crap like that, she would tattoo “loser” across his forehead and shove him out the door. Maybe having a hot body to distract from the piousness made all the difference.

      She reminded herself today was Micha’s wife’s funeral and she needed to be respectful.

      “Sam is a very effectual man,” Cindy said, overloud. “Are you calling us zealots?”

      “The last thing I want to do right now is talk to Sam Haain.” Micha deftly sidestepped the question. “There’s got to be another way.”

      “You name it.” Cindy shrugged.

      “Sam is our best bet right now, Micha,” Robbie said. “We had to do a lot of groveling to get him to agree to this meeting.”

      “Now, I don’t buy that at all.” Micha snorted. “Sam Haain is always looking for an opportunity to be affronted.”

      “I think he handles the bullshit in this city quite gracefully,” Cindy said. “He’s had to deal with people hating and fearing us ever since the Institute opened, and he, unlike you, never bought into their ‘benevolence.’ I admire his poise and rationale.”

      “Two constructs I’ve never associated with Sam Haain,” Micha said, “but if you say so.”

      “Sam has all kinds of connections,” Robbie explained. “With city officials, the media, independent researchers… Not all paranormal scientists work for or believe in the Institute.”

      June actually knew this, but she figured Robbie could dig around in her brain like a gopher and pillage her childhood memories. The Institute was a big scary entity, but the world had always been full of scientists studying the paranormal who didn’t need the government to tell them to go ahead. Chicago just decided to make everything official.

      “Great.” June lifted her hands. “So this guy is going to, what? Bust into the Institute with guns blazing? Help me get Jason out of there?”

      “I hope not,” Micha muttered.

      “You have to speak to him,” Robbie said. “This afternoon, Navy Pier. He won’t meet anywhere else.”

      “I want to go, too.” Micha sat forward. “Much as Sam Haain rankles me, I want to hear what he has to say.”

      “You can’t go out in public.” Cindy gasped, wide-eyed. “I know you don’t remember, but they killed your wife, Micha. That makes you next on their list. I didn’t even think you should have gone out last night, and that was sneaking around, not out in public.”

      “They expect me to be hiding. They won’t look for me in a public place. Besides, today is my wife’s funeral, right? So they’ll probably be watching for me there.”

      “He’s got a point,” June said.

      Cindy slammed her cup down on the table. “All right then.” She got to her feet. “We’ll just have a parade right down Michigan Avenue.”

      “Awesome.” June got up. “I’ll twirl a baton.”

      * * * *

      Chicago was a living metropolis, a brilliantly modern and majestically primeval creature breathing and teeming and issuing forth a steady cacophony of human noise. Under the stark winter light, the buildings loomed as monoliths, an overwhelming collection of glittering glass, gleaming steel, and earthy stone. At street level, the world was narrow and claustrophobic, life chugging along under the shadows of the great towers like thick blood pulsing through deep, dark veins.

      It was beautiful and horrible at the same time. Like most great monsters.

      “Where’s Sears Tower?” June craned her neck, trying to see out the moon roof of Cindy’s car. She had seen the skyline from the freeway, the tallest building in the country rising like an obsidian deity amongst a gray court.

      “You can’t see it from Michigan Avenue.” Micha sat next to her in the backseat. “And it’s Willis Tower now.”

      “What?”

      “Willis Group Holdings moved into it. It’s called Willis Tower now.”

      “Are you serious? It’s an American icon.”

      “They renamed Comiskey Park ‘U.S. Cellular Field.’” Micha shrugged. “Corporations buy things; they change the names. If you think you’re shocked and outraged, you should hear the people who live here.”

      “Killing traditions,” June said. “Your city is pretty good at that.”

      “What’s that supposed to mean?”

      “I don’t know. Maybe you should ask all the pissed off paranormal people.”

      Robbie, sitting in the front passenger seat, turned his head and shot a close-lipped smile at her. June mouthed turn around. He did.

      “Not that I’ll get to go up it,” June said, “but are you outside on top of the Willis Tower?”

      “No.” Cindy snorted. “It’s glassed in.”

      “So no spitting over the edge,” June said.

      “It would never reach the ground from that high up.” Cindy rolled her eyes in the mirror.

      “And it would be so windy up there you wouldn’t be able to stand,” Robbie added.

      “Quit bringing me down. What’s next? You’re gonna tell me there’s no God?”

      They crept along slowly, the streets choked with cars and the sidewalks alive with pedestrians even in the intense, blustery cold. They passed over a wide stone bridge, and June sat up. The water beneath the bridge was murky green and choked with a mosaic of ice chunks.

      “Is water supposed to be that color?” she asked.

      Micha sat up as well. “They dye it even greener for St. Patrick’s Day.”

      “Sounds totally safe.”

      “It is safe. The original stuff they used was flourescein, but it was harmful to the organisms in the river, so they changed it.”

      “I bet it’s still flourescein.” She relaxed against the seat. “When three-eyed fish start washing up on the banks, you’ll know.”

      “Mmm, three-eyed fish.” Micha tilted his head and gave her a crooked smile. “Extra eyeballs means extra delicious.”

      June was titillated—yes, titillated—to be called out on her sarcasm.

      “Just imagine,” Robbie spoke up. “Once, none of this was here. It was just a peaceful river flowing through the wilderness. No people, no buildings, no cars, no pollution. You couldn’t look at it and imagine that someday civilization would rise up on its decimated banks and all this terrible progress would stand where once there were trees and hills.”

      Everyone stared at him, even Cindy.

      “I wish we’d brought the Jack Daniels with us.” June envisioned smashing the bottle over Robbie’s head.

      Robbie looked over his shoulder at her.

      “What’s Sacramento like?” Micha asked.

      June shrugged.