"Depending on what it said, they may have perceived it as having value to someone else."

Kyle stared at him. "That's hard to believe."

"You don't believe your people are capable of such things?"

Kyle looked away. "It doesn't make any sense."

The spirit shrugged. "The people your wife and daughter are with may have taken it down themselves."

"What do you mean?"

"They wouldn't want anyone to know where they were going," Seeks-the-Moon said, "but they also would not want to alarm your wife by refusing to let her post a note to you."

"So after Beth and Natalie left, someone or something pulled the note down."

The spirit nodded.

Kyle turned and looked at where the fragment of paper hung. "I think I prefer your other suggestion," he said.

After quickly checking some of the other apartments in the building, and finding nothing, Kyle and Seeks-the-Moon went back to the car. It was exactly as they'd left it, but Kyle stood there looking across the street at the barricaded house. "I want to see if they know anything," he said.

"They don't seem very sociable," Seeks-the-Moon said.

"Maybe." Kyle unslung the submachine gun from under the long coat and passed it to the spirit. "They're probably just scared."

"Fear does not promote rational thought."

"I know," Kyle said, "but I have to ask."

Seeks-the-Moon walked with Kyle to the edge of the curb, then Kyle continued alone toward the house, his arms held out, palms open.

"Hoi!" he called out as he reached the far curb. There was no response, so he continued forward a few more steps. "Is anyone home?"

Kyle saw a piece of wood pull away from one of the windows, and then he dimly made out a face-he thought it was a woman's-and the muzzle of a shotgun. Both were looking at him.

"What do you want?" the woman shouted. She sounded young, barely more than a teenager.

"I'm looking for my sister-in-law, Ellen Shaw. She lived across the street in that apartment." He pointed back at the building. "I think my wife and daughter are with her, and I'm trying to find them."

The shadowed face pulled away, but the shotgun remained. The woman returned in a few moments. "They're gone," she said. "There were about a dozen of them, but they're gone."

"How long ago?"

"Day before yesterday."

"Do you know where they went?" he asked.

"They said they were going to some relief camp."

"Relief camp? Do you know where?"

"No, they didn't say."

Kyle cursed under his breath. "Did you see which way they went?"

"Down that way. But I didn't really watch."

"Was there a little girl with them?"

He could see the woman nod. “Two of them. One was carrying a cat."

Kyle nodded. "Thanks," he said, and started to turn away, but the woman called out to him.

"Has he come yet?" she yelled.

Kyle turned back. "I'm sorry?" he replied.

"Has he come yet?"

"Who?"

"Jesus."

Kyle paused and looked deep into the shadows through the window. The shotgun was there, and so was the faint outline of a woman's head, but he could see nothing else. He allowed his perceptions to slip into astral space for just a moment, and he could see her aura, flickering madly about her, a torrent of emotions.

"No," Kyle said evenly. "I don't think he has."

"Don't despair," she said. "He'll come soon. Then you'll find your wife and child."

Kyle nodded again, stepping back. "Thank you. I'll keep an eye out for him."

The wood slid back into place as Kyle turned back toward Seeks-the-Moon, shaking his head. Seeks-the-Moon merely shrugged. "We all seek something," he said, and together they walked slowly back to the car.

Returning north, Kyle drove the rapidly disintegrating Jack-rabbit along Cicero Avenue. About halfway, just north of Division, they passed through the site of what must have been a gang battle. At least a dozen lay dead in the street, such that Kyle couldn't help but roll slowly over one with the car. A pack of dogs, themselves fighting over the bodies, scattered as he passed. Neither he nor Seeks-the-Moon said a word.

When they finally made it back to the Knight Errant safehouse, Vathoss introduced them to three "new" team members-Knight Errant security guards caught inside when the Containment Zone was established. Kyle questioned them, but neither had been at the Truman Tower or knew where any of its occupants might have gone.

Anne Ravenheart was gone too. According to Vathoss, she and some of the other troopers were out investigating a surveillance post near a gathering point that had reported some activity. Kyle tried to get more information, but the sergeant wasn't talking. No one was, and Kyle sensed a growing unease among the troopers. Time was passing and nothing was happening.

As twilight came, one of the troopers that had gone out with Captain Ravenheart returned with the message that she wanted Kyle to join her at the surveillance post-the people at the garnering point seemed to be preparing to move to another location.

The trooper, a rookie named Canelli, was driving an "appropriated" Honda Viking heavy motorcycle, which could carry one additional person. Seeks-the-Moon reluctantly suggested he follow the cycle in astral space, despite his continuing concern about attracting the attention of the bugs.

Kyle had a better idea. Seeks-the-Moon would climb on behind Canelli, while Kyle, held aloft by a levitation spell, held on for dear life. The three of them set off like that, Kyle hoping he understood the properties of the spell as good as he thought he did.

The cycle made its way west, and then south, heading so far in that direction that Kyle thought they were going to the Cicero area where his sister-in-law's apartment was located. But Canelli turned the bike east before they got that far, coming to a stop near Chicago and Kedzie. After hiding the bike behind an overturned garbage dumpster and under the watchful eye of a nearby half-hidden Knight Errant trooper, Canelli led them through the back entrance of what looked like an old warehouse or storage building. Kyle dropped his levitation spell, not wanting to attract astral attention.

Inside, they found Ravenheart, Lim, and two other troopers clustered around a small closed-circuit video monitor. The image showed another building similar to this one, with a crisscross of train tracks and uncoupled railroad cars in the background. From what he'd seen on approach Kyle suspected the area was almost directly across the street. He could see movement on the screen, some figures clustered around one of the doors, given away by the telltale glow of cigarettes. Beyond them, Kyle could just barely make out the front end of what seemed to be a Chicago Transit Authority bus.

"What's going on?" he asked, squatting down next to Ravenheart.

"About an hour ago two men arrived in a car and I popped up and risked a peek at them astrally," she said. "Let's just say they were looking a little fuzzy around the edges."

Kyle nodded. He knew that the use of electronic surveillance was common when watching potentially magically active targets since a human observer could be detected by his aura, which was how he'd spotted the woman in the house across from Ellen's. It was safer to pop up, astrally active, for a quick, hopefully detailed look, than risk detection

They went inside, and soon after there was a lot of activity," she continued. "It looked to me like they were starting to pack up. About a half-hour later two buses arrived. The first one loaded up pretty quick and headed out. We weren't in position to follow it, so we let it go. When this one leaves, we're going to tail it."