Changes

Chapter 24

"How does a police detective afford a place like this?" Molly asked.

We were sitting in the Blue Beetle on a quiet residential street in Crestwood. It was late afternoon, with a heavy overcast. The houses on the street were large ones. Rudolph's place, whose address I'd gotten from Murphy, was the smallest house on the block - but it was on the block. It backed right up to the Cook County Forest Preserve, too, and between the old forest and the mature trees it gave the whole area a sheltered, pastoral quality.

"He doesn't," I said quietly.

"You mean he's dirty?" Molly asked.

"Maybe," I said. "Or maybe his family has money. Or maybe he managed to mortgage himself to the eyeballs. People get real stupid when it comes to buying homes. Pay an extra quarter of a million dollars for a place because it's in the right neighborhood. Buy houses they damned well know they can't afford to make the payments on." I shook my head. "They should make you take some kind of iota-of-common-sense quiz before you make an offer."

"Maybe it isn't stupid," Molly said. "Everybody wants home to mean something. Maybe the extra money they pay creates that additional meaning for them."

I grimaced. "I'd rather have my extra meaning come from the ancient burial ground under the swimming pool or from knowing that I built it with my own hands or something."

"Not everyone puts as low a value on the material as you do, boss," Molly said. "For them, maybe the extra material value represented by a higher price tag is significant."

I grunted. "It's still stupid."

"From your perspective," Molly said. "It's really all about perspective, isn't it."

"And from the perspective of those in need, that extra quarter of a million bucks your material person spent on the prestige addition for his house looks like an awful lot of lifesaving food and medicine that could have existed if the jerk with the big house in the suburbs hadn't blown it all to artificially inflate his sociogeographic penis."

"Heh," Molly said. "And their house is much nicer than your house."

"And that," I said.

Mouse grumbled quietly in his sleep from the backseat, and I turned to reach back and rub his ears until he settled down again.

Molly sat quietly for almost a minute before she said, "What else do we do?"

"Other than sit tight and watch?" I asked. "This is a stakeout, Molly. It's what you do on a stakeout."

"Stakeouts suck," Molly said, puffing out a breath that blew a few strands of hair out of her eyes. "How come Murphy isn't doing this part? How come we aren't doing magic stuff?"

"Murphy is keeping track of Rudolph at work," I said. "I'm watching his home. If his handler wanted him dead, this would be a logical place to bushwhack him."

"And we're not doing magic because . . . ?"

"What do you suggest we do?"

"Tracking spells for Rudolph and Maggie," she said promptly.

"You got any of Rudolph's blood? Hair? Fingernail clippings?"

"No," she said.

"So, no tracking spell for him," I said.

"But what about Maggie?" she said. "I know you don't have any hair or anything from her, but you pulled a tracking spell for me using my mother's blood, right? Couldn't you use your blood for that?"

I kept my breathing steady, and prevented the flash of frustration I felt from coming out in my voice. "First thing I tried. Right after I got off the phone with Susan when this all started."

Molly frowned. "Why didn't it work?"

"I don't know," I said. "Maybe it's because there's something more than simple blood relation involved. Maybe there has to be a bond, a sense of family between the parent and child, that the tracking spell uses to amplify its effects. Maybe the Red Court is using some kind of magic that conceals or jams tracking spells - God knows, they would have been forced to come up with some kind of countermeasure during the war." I shook my head wearily. "Or maybe it was simple distance. I've never tracked anything more than a couple of hundred linear miles away. I've heard of tracking spells that worked over a couple of thousand miles, but not from anyone who had actually done it. Gimme some credit, grasshopper. Of course I tried that. I wouldn't have spent half a day summoning my contacts if I hadn't."

"Oh," Molly said. She looked troubled. "Yeah. Sorry."

I sighed and tipped my head back and closed my eyes. "No problem. Sorry, kid. I'm just tense."

"Just a little," she said. "Um. Should we be sitting out here in broad daylight? I mean, we're not hiding the car or anything."

"Yeah," I said. "We want to be visible."

"Why?"

"I'm gonna close my eyes," I told her. "Just for a bit. Stay alert, okay?"

She gave me a look, but said, "Okay."

I closed my eyes, but about half a second after I had, Molly nudged me and said, "Wake up, Harry. We have company."

I opened them again and found that the grey late afternoon had settled into the murk of early evening. I looked up into the rearview mirror and spotted a white sports car coming to a halt as it parked on the street behind us. The running lights went off as the driver got out.

"Took him long enough," I muttered.

Molly frowned at me. "What do you mean?"

"Asked him to meet me here. Didn't know where to find him."

Molly peered through the back window, and even Mouse lifted his head to look around. "Oh," Molly said, understanding, as Mouse's tail thumped hesitantly against the back of my seat.

I got out of the car and walked to meet my half brother, the vampire.

Thomas and I were a study in contrasts. I was better than six and a half feet tall and built lean. He was a hair under six feet, and looked like a fitness model. My hair was a muddy brown color, generally cut very short on the sides and in back, a little longer on top. It tended to stick up any which way within a few minutes of being ordered by a comb. Thomas's hair was black, naturally wavy, and fell to touch his shoulders. I wore jeans, a T-shirt, and my big black leather duster. Thomas was wearing custom-fitted pants made from white leather, a white silk shirt, and a coarser silk jacket, also in white, decorated with elaborate brocade. He had the kind of face that belonged on billboards. Mine belonged on wanted posters.

We had the same contour of chin, and our eyes resembled each other's unmistakably in shape, if not in color. Mom gave them to us.

Thomas and I had finally met as adults. He'd been right there next to me in some of the worst places I'd ever walked. He saved my life more than once. I'd returned the favor. But that had been when he decided to fight against his Hunger, the vampiric nature native to the vampires of the White Court. He'd spent years maintaining control of his darker urges, integrating with Chicago's society, and generally trying to act like a human being. We'd had to keep our kinship a secret. The Council would have used him to get at the White Court if they knew. Ditto for the vampires getting at the Council through me.

Then something bad happened to him, and he stopped trying to be human. I might have seen him for a total of two, even three minutes since he'd been knocked off the life- force-nibbling wagon and started taking big hearty bites again.

Thomas swaggered up to me as if we'd been talking just yesterday, looked me up and down, and said, "You need an image consultant, stat, little brother."

I said, "Guess what. You're an uncle."

Thomas let his head fall back as he barked out a little laugh. "What? No, hardly, unless one of Father's by-blows actually survived. Which essentially just doesn't happen among - "

He stopped talking in midsentence and his eyes widened.

"Yeah," I said.

"Oh," he said, still wide-eyed, apparently locked into motionlessness by surprise. It was a little creepy. Human beings still look like human beings when they're standing still. Thomas's pale skin and bright blue eyes went still, like a statue. "Oh."

I nodded. "Say 'oilcan.' "

Thomas blinked. "What?"

"You get to be the Tin Woodsman."

"What?"

"Never mind, not important." I sighed. "Look, without going into too many details: I have an eight-year-old daughter. Susan never told me. Duchess Arianna of the Red Court took her."

"Um," said Thomas. "If I'd known that, maybe I would have been here sooner."

"Couldn't say anything on the phone. The FBI and the cops are involved, having been made into roadblocks to slow me down." I tilted my head down the street. "The cop who lives in that house at the end of the street has been coerced into helping whoever is trying to stop me. I'm here hoping to nab either his handler or his cleaner and grab every bit of information I can."

Thomas looked at me and said, "I'm an uncle."

I ran the palm of my hand over my face.

"Sorry," he said. "I just thought this was going to be another chat, with you all worried that the evil White Court had been abusing me. I need to take a moment."

"Make it a short moment," I said. "We're on the clock."

Thomas nodded several times and seemed to draw himself back into order. "Okay, so you're looking for . . . What's her name?"

"Maggie."

My brother paused for a couple of heartbeats, and bowed his head briefly. "That's a good name."

"Susan thought so."

"So you're looking for Maggie," he said. "And you need my help?"

"I don't know the exact date, but I know she's going to be brought to Chich¨¦n Itz¨¢. Probably tonight, tomorrow night at the latest."

"Why?" Thomas asked. He then added, "And how does this have anything to do with me?"

"They're using her in a bloodline curse," I said. "When they sacrifice her, the curse kills her brothers and sisters, then her parents, then their brothers and sisters and so on."

"Wait. Maggie has brothers and sisters? Since when have you ever gotten that busy?"

"No, dammit!" I half shouted in frustration. "That's just an illustration for how the bloodline curse works."

His eyebrows shot up. "Oh, crap. You're saying that it's going to kill me, too."

"Yes, that is exactly what I'm freaking saying. You tool."

"Um," Thomas said, "I'm against that." His eyes widened again. "Wait. What about the other Raiths? Are they in any danger through me?"

I shook my head. "I don't know."

"Empty night," he muttered. "Okay. You know where she's going to be. You want me to saddle up and help you get Maggie back, like we did with Molly?"

"Not unless there's no other choice. I don't think we would survive a direct assault on the Red King and his retinue on their home turf."

"Well, maybe you and I couldn't, naturally. But with the Council behind y - "

"Way behind me," I interrupted, my voice harsh with anger. "So far behind me you wouldn't know they were there at all."

My brother's deep blue eyes flashed with an angry fire. "Those assholes."

"Seconded, motion carried," I agreed.

"So what do you think we should do?"

"I need information," I said. "Get me whatever you can. Any activity at Chich¨¦n Itz¨¢ or a nearby Red stronghold, sightings of a little girl surrounded by Reds, anything. There's got to be something, somewhere that will show us a chink in their armor. If we find out where they're holding her, we can hit the place. If I can learn something about the defensive magic around the site, maybe I can poke a hole in it so that we can just grab the girl and go. Otherwise . . ."

"Yeah," Thomas said. "Otherwise we have to take them on at Chich¨¦n Itz¨¢. Which would suck."

"It's a couple of miles beyond suck."

Thomas frowned. "What about asking Lara for help? She can command a lot of firepower from the other Houses of the White Court."

"Why would she help me?" I asked.

"Self-preservation. She's big on that."

I grunted. "I'm not sure if the rest of your family is in any danger."

"You aren't sure they aren't, either," Thomas said. "And anyway, if you don't know, Lara won't."

"Don't be too sure," I said. "No. If I go to her with this, she'll assume it's a ploy motivated by desperation."

Thomas folded his arms. "A lame ploy, at that. But you're missing another angle."

"Oh?"

Thomas lowered his arms and then brought them up to frame his own torso the way Vanna White presents the letters on Wheel of Fortune. "Incontestably, I'm in danger. She'll want to protect me."

I looked at him skeptically.

Thomas shrugged. "I play for the team now, Harry. And everyone knows it. If she lets something bad happen to me when I ask for her help, it's going to make a lot of people upset. And not in the helpful, 'I sure don't want to mess with her' kind of way."

"For that to work as leverage, the stakes would have to be known to the rest of the Court," I said. "They'd have to know why you were in danger from a bloodline curse aimed at me. Then they'd all know about our blood relation. Not just Lara."

Thomas frowned over that for a moment. Then he shrugged. "Still. It might be worth the effort to approach her. She's a resourceful woman, my sister." His expression smoothed over into neutrality. "Quite gifted when it comes to removing obstacles. She could probably help you."

Normally I slap down suggestions like that without a second thought. This time . . .

I had the second thought.

Lara probably knew the Red Court as well as anyone. She'd been operating arm in arm with them, to one degree or another, for years. She was the power behind the throne of the White Court, which prided itself on its skills of espionage, manipulation, and other forms of indirect strength. If anyone was likely to know something about the Reds, it was Lara Raith.

The clock just kept on ticking. Maggie was running out of time. She couldn't afford for me to be squeamish.

"I would prefer not to," I said quietly. "I need you to find out whatever you can, man."

"What happens if I can't find it?"

"If that happens . . ." I shook my head. "If I do nothing, my little girl is going to die. And so is my brother. I can't live with that."

Thomas nodded. "I'll see what I can do."

"Don't see it. Do it."

It came out harsh enough that my brother flinched, though it was a subtle motion. "Okay," he said. "Let's - "

His head whipped around toward Rudolph's house.

"What?" I asked.

He held up a hand for silence, turning to focus intently. "Breaking glass," he murmured. "A lot of it."

"Harry!" Molly called.

I turned to see the Beetle's passenger door swing open. Molly emerged, hanging on to Mouse's collar with both hands. The big dog was focused on Rudolph's house as well, and his chest bubbled with the deep, tearing snarl I'd heard only a handful of times, and always when supernatural predators were nearby.

"Someone's there for Rudolph," I said, and launched myself forward. "Let's go!"

Chapter 25

I looked like a cool guy leading the charge for about a second and a half, and then my brother and my dog left me and Molly eating their dust. If I hadn't been a regular runner, Molly would have done the same, albeit more gradually. By the time I had covered half the distance, Thomas and Mouse had already bounded around to the back, one around either side of Rudolph's house.

"Get gone, grasshopper!" I called, and even as we ran forward Molly vanished behind her best veil. It took us another quarter of a minute to cover the distance, and I went around the side of the house Thomas had taken. I pounded around the back corner to see that a large glass sliding door leading from a wooden deck into the house had been shattered. I could hear a big, thumping beat, as if from a subwoofer, pounding away inside the house.

I took the stairs up to the deck in a single jumping stride, and barely avoided a sudden explosion of glass, wood, drywall, and siding that came hurling toward me. I had an instant to realize that the projectile that had just come through the wall was my brother, and then something huge and black and swift came crashing through the same wall, expanding the hole to five times its original size.

The whatever-it-was stood within a step or two, and I was already sprinting. I kept doing it. I slapped one hand down and vaulted the railing on the far side of the deck. I barely jerked my hand from the rail before the thing smashed it to kindling with one huge, blindingly fast talon. That deep beat grew louder and faster as I landed, and I realized with a shock that I could hear the thing's rising heart rate as clearly as if it had been pounding on a drum.

I was kidding myself if I thought I could run from something that fast. I had a step or two on the creature, but it reclaimed them within half a dozen strides and swiped at my head with terrible speed and power.

I whirled desperately, drawing my blasting rod and letting out a burst of flame, but I stumbled and fell during the spin. The fire hammered into the creature, and for all the good it did me I might as well have hit it with a rubber chicken.

I thought I was done for - until Mouse emerged from the house onto the back deck, bathed in a faint nimbus of blue light. He took a single, bounding, thirty-yard leap that ended at the attacking creature's enormous, malformed shoulders. Mouse's claws dug into the thing's hide, and his massive jaws closed on the back of its thick, almost indistinguishable neck.

The creature arched up in pain, but it never made a sound. It tripped over me, too distracted to actually attack, but the impact of so much mass and power sent up flares of agony from my ribs and from one thigh.

Mouse rode the creature down into the dirt, tearing and worrying it, his claws digging furrows in the flesh of its back. His snarls reverberated in the evening air, and each shake and twist of his body seemed to send up little puffs of glowing blue mist from his fur.

Mouse had the thing dead to rights, but nobody seemed to have told the creature that. It twisted lithely, bouncing up from the ground as if made of rubber, seized Mouse's tail, and swung the huge dog in a single, complete arc. Mouse hit the ground like a two-hundred-pound sledgehammer, drawing a high-pitched sound of pain from him.

I didn't think. I lifted my blasting rod again, filling it with my will and with all the soulfire I could shove in, screaming, "Get off my dog!"

White fire slammed out of the rod and drew a line on the creature from hip to skull, digging into flesh and setting it ablaze. Once again, it convulsed in silent agony, and the boom-box beat of its heart ratcheted up even higher. It fell, unable to hold on to Mouse, and writhed upon the ground.

I tried to get up, but my injured leg wouldn't support me, and the sudden surge of weariness that overtook me made my arms collapse, too. I lay there, panting and helpless to move. Mouse staggered slowly to his feet, his head hanging, his tongue dangling loosely from his mouth. Behind me, I heard a groan and twisted awkwardly to see Thomas sit up, one shoulder hanging at a malformed angle. His clothes had been ripped to shreds, there was a piece of metal protruding from his abdomen, just next to his belly button, and half his face was covered in a sheet of blood a little too pale to belong to a human.

"Thomas!" I shouted. Or tried to shout. The acoustics were odd in this tunnel within which I was suddenly sprawled. "Get up, man!"

He gave me a blank, concussed stare.

The creature's movements had slowed. I turned to see it beginning to relax, its body shuddering, the drumbeat of its heart steadying, and I got a better look at it than I had before.

It was huge, easily the size of a full-grown bull, and it carried a stench with it that was similar in potency. Or maybe that was because I had just overcooked it. Its body was odd, seemingly able to move on two legs or four with equal efficiency. Its flesh was a spongy blackness, much like the true skin of a Red vampire, and its head was shaped like something mixing the features of a human being, a jaguar, and maybe a crocodile or wild boar. It was pitch-black everywhere, including its eyes, its tongue, and its mouth.

And, despite the punishment I had just dealt out, it was getting up again.

"Thomas!" I shouted. Or wheezed.

The creature shook its head and its dead-black eyes focused on me. It started toward me, pausing briefly to swat my stunned dog out of its path. Mouse landed in a tumble, seemingly struggling to find his balance but unable to do so.

I lifted my blasting rod again as it came on, but I didn't have enough juice left in me to make the rod do anything but smoke faintly.

And then a stone sailed in from nowhere and struck the creature on the snout.

"Hey!" called Molly's voice. "Hey, Captain Asphalt! Hey, tar baby! Over here!"

The creature and I turned to see Molly standing maybe twenty yards away, in plain sight. She flung another rock, and it bounced off the creature's broad chest. Its heartbeat began to accelerate and grow louder again.

"Let's go, gorgeous!" Molly called. "You and me!" She turned sideways to the thing, rolled her hips, and made an exaggerated motion of swatting herself on the ass. "Come get some!"

The thing tensed and then rushed forward, covering the ground with astonishing speed.

Molly vanished.

The creature smashed into the earth where she'd been standing, with its huge talons balled into furious fists, slamming them eight inches into the earth.

There was a peal of mocking laughter, and another rock bounced off of the thing, this time from the left. Furious, it whirled to rush Molly again - and again, she vanished completely. Once more it struck at empty ground. Once more, Molly got its attention with a rock and a few taunts, only to vanish from sight as it came at her.

Each time, she was a little closer to the creature, unable to match its raw speed. And each time, she led it a little farther away from the three of us. A couple of times, she even shouted, "Toro, toro! Ol¨¦!"

"Thomas!" I called. "Get up!"

My brother blinked his eyes several times, each time a little more quickly. Then he swiped a hand at the bloodied side of his face, shook his head violently to get the blood out of his eyes, and looked down at the section of metal bar sticking out of his stomach. He clenched it with his hand, grimaced, and drew it slowly out, revealing a six-inch triangle that must have been a corner brace in the wall he'd gone through. He dropped it on the ground, groaning in pain, and his eyes rolled briefly back into his head.

I saw his other nature coming over him. His skin grew paler, and almost seemed to take on its own glow. His breathing stabilized immediately, and the cut along his hairline where he'd been bleeding began to close. He opened his eyes, and their color had changed from a deep, contented blue to a hungry, metallic silver.

He got up smoothly and glanced at me. "You bleeding?"

"Nah," I said. "I'm good."

A few feet away, Mouse got to his feet and shook himself, his tags jingling. Molly had gotten as far as the street again, and there was an enormous crashing sound.

"This time, we do it smart," Thomas said. He turned to Mouse instead of me. "I'm going to go in first and get its attention. Go for its strings. I think you'll have to hit two limbs to really cripple it."

Mouse woofed, evidently an affirmative, let out a grumbling growl, and once more very faint, very pale blue light gathered around him.

Thomas nodded, and picked up a section of ruined deck that had scattered around where he landed. He shouldered a corner post, a section of four-by-four about a yard and a half long, and said, "Don't sweat, Harry. We'll be back for you in a minute."

"Go, Team Dresden," I wheezed.

The two of them took off, zero to cheetah speed in about a second. Then they were out of sight. I heard Thomas let out a high-pitched cry that was a pretty darn good Bruce Lee impersonation, and there was a thunder crack of wood striking something hard.

An instant later, Mouse let out his battle roar. There was a flicker of strobing colors of light as Molly pitched a bit of dazzling magic at the creature. It wouldn't hurt the thing, but the kid could make eye-searing light in every color imaginable burst from empty air, accompanied by a variety of sounds if she so chose. She called it her One-woman Rave spell, and during the last Independence Day, she had used it to throw up a fireworks display from her parents' backyard so impressive that evidently it had caused traffic problems on the expressway.

It was hard to lie there twisted halfway around at the waist, to see only the occasional flash of light or to hear the thumps and snarls of combat. I tried my leg again and had no luck. So I just settled down and concentrated on not blacking out or breathing too hard. The creature had definitely cracked at least one of my ribs.

That was when I noticed the two sets of glowing red eyes staring at me from the forest, staring with the unmistakable fixation of a predator, and coming slowly, steadily, silently closer.

I suddenly realized that everyone around who might have helped me was sort of distracted at the moment.

"Oh," I breathed. "Oh, crap."

Chapter 26

The eyes rushed toward me, and something dark and strong struck me across the jaw. I was already close to losing consciousness. The blow was enough to ring my bells thoroughly.

I was aware of being picked up and tossed over someone's shoulder. Then there was a lot of rapid, sickening motion. It went on long enough for me to throw up. I didn't have enough energy to aim at my abductor.

A subjective eternity later, I was thrown to the ground. I lay still, hoping to fool my captor into thinking I was barely conscious and weak as a kitten. Which should be easy, since I was. I've never really had much ambition as a performer.

"We don't like it," said a woman's voice. "Its Power smells foul."

"We must be patient," replied a man's voice. "It could be a great asset."

"It is listening to us," the woman said.

"We know that," replied the man.

I heard soft footsteps, cushioned by pine needles, and the woman spoke again, more slowly and lower. She sounded . . . hungry. "Poor thing. So battered. We should give it a kiss and let it sleep. It would be merciful. And He would be pleased with us."

"No, our love. He would be satisfied with us. There is a difference."

"Have we not come to understand this simple fact?" she shot back, acid in her voice. "Never will He name us to the Circle, no matter how many prizes we bring into the Court. We are interlopers. We are not of the first Maya."

"Many things can change in the span of eternity, our love. We will be patient."

"You mean that He might fall?" She let out a rather disconcerting giggle. "Then why aren't we currying favor with Arianna?"

"We shall not even consider it," he replied, his voice hard. "Should we even think of it too often, He might know. He might act. Do we understand?"

"We do," she said, her tone petulant.

Then someone grabbed my shoulder in iron-strong fingers and flipped me onto my back. The dark shapes of trees spun above me, nothing more than black outlines against the lights of Chicago reflecting from the overcast.

There was barely enough light to let me see the pale, delicate features of a tiny woman no larger than a child. Seriously, she might have been four-foot-six, though her proportions seemed identical to those of any adult. She had very pale skin with a light dusting of freckles, and looked as if she might be nineteen years old. Her hair was light brown and very straight. Her eyes were extremely odd-looking. One was pale, icy blue, the other deep, dark green, and I had an immediate instinct that whatever creature lurking behind those mismatched eyes was not a rational being.

She was wearing a gown with long, flowing sleeves, and some kind of sleeveless robe and corset over that. She was barefoot, though. I knew because I could feel her cold little foot when she planted it on my chest and leaned over to peer down at me.

"We're too late. Look, it's starting to go bad."

"Nonsense," said the male voice. "It's a perfectly appropriate specimen. Mortal wizards are supposed to be worn and tough, our love."

I looked up and saw the other speaker. He was perhaps five-foot-six, with a short brush of red hair, a black beard, and skin that looked darkened and bronzed by the sun. He wore black silk clothing, and looked like he'd just come from a dress rehearsal of Hamlet.

"Aha," I said. "You must be Esteban and Esmerelda. I've heard about you."

"We are famous," hissed the little woman, beaming up at the man.

He gave her a stern look, sighed, and said, "Aye, we are. Here to stop you from allowing Arianna to proceed with her design."

I blinked. "What?"

Esmerelda leaned closer. Her hair brushed my nose and lips. "Are its ears broken? If the ears are defective, can we detach them and send them back?"

"Peace, our love," Esteban said. He hunkered down on his heels and eyed me. "It isn't its fault. It doesn't even realize how Arianna is manipulating it."

"What are you talking about?" I said. "Look, folks, no one wants to stop Arianna more than me."

Esteban waved a vague hand. "Yes, yes. It feels it must rescue its spawn. It will try to take her back, from the very heart of His realm. Placing it at the center of vast moving powers where it might tip balances any number of ways."

"It hardly looks large enough." Esmerelda sniffed. "It's just a ragged, dirty creature."

Esteban shrugged. "We know, by now, that the outside hardly matters. What lies within is what holds importance. Would you agree, ragged wizard?"

I licked my lips. I really didn't feel up to bantering with a couple of insane vampires, but it was probably my best course of action. Anything that lives long enough tends to lose track of passing time rather easily, on the minute-to-minute scale. After a few thousand years have gone by, an hour doesn't really rate. If my brother and company were successful in their fight, they would realize I was gone within a few minutes - and I didn't think the Eebs had carried me far enough away to let them evade Mouse. As far as I can tell, Mouse can follow a scent trail from space.

Talk to them. Stall.

"That depends upon the nature of the subject and observer," I said. "But if you are using the metaphor in its simplest form, then yes. The true nature of any given being supersedes its outer appearance in terms of importance." I tried a smile. "This is quite pleasant treatment, by the way," I said. "I had expected something entirely different."

"We wanted to eat you and kill you. Or kill you, then eat you," Esmerelda said, smiling back. Hers was a lot crazier- looking than mine. I hoped. "And might still."

"Obviously you had something else in mind, though," I said. "Apparently you wish to talk. I'm more than willing to listen."

"Excellent," Esteban said. "We are pleased that you can address the matter rationally."

"To which matter do you refer, specifically?"

"The matter of your involvement with Arianna's plan," Esteban said. "We wish you to discontinue your participation."

"That . . . could be problematic. Since if she does what she intends to do, it's going to kill me, along with the child's mother."

The two vampires traded a long, silent glance, their facial expressions shifting subtly. I got the impression that a lot of communication got done.

Esteban turned back to me. "How did you learn of this, ragged wizard?"

"It's what I do," I said.

"Oooo," said Esmerelda. She slid her body on top of mine, straddling my hips with hers. She was so tiny that I could hardly feel her weight on me. She smelled . . . wrong. Like formaldehyde and mildew. "It is arrogant. We adore arrogance. It's so sweet to watch arrogant little things succumb. Do you like our pretty eyes, ragged wizard? Which color do you like more? Look closely and carefully."

You don't look vampires in the eyes. Everyone knows that one. Even so, I'd had a couple of encounters with the stare of one of the Red Court and never had a problem shutting them out. It wasn't even particularly difficult.

But evidently, those vampires had been noobs.

Ice blue and deep sea green swirled in my vision, and it was only at the very last instant that I realized what was happening, slamming closed the vaults of my mind, leaving only the hard, fortified places to attack, a castle of idea and memory, ready to withstand an assault.

"Stop that, please," I said quietly a moment later. "The conversation isn't getting anywhere like this."

The little vampire pursed her lips, her head tilted as if she were deciding whether to be upset or amused. She went with amused. She giggled and wriggled her hips around a little. "Lovely, lovely, lovely. We are well pleased."

"You do have options," Esteban said. If he was put out by Esmerelda's behavior, it didn't show. Hell, he hadn't even seemed to notice.

"By all means," I said. "Enumerate them."

"I suppose the simplest means to solve our problem would be for you to take your own life," he said. "If you are dead, Arianna has no reason to harm your spawn."

"Aside from the being-dead part, there are some minor problems with that idea."

"By all means," Esteban said, "enumerate them."

"What confirmation would I have that the child was safe and returned to her mother? What security would I have to make me believe that Arianna might not do the same thing a month from now?"

"A contract could be drafted," Esteban said. "Witnessed and signed, arbitrated by one of the neutral parties of the Accords. For security, we suppose we could ask our Lord if He would give his Word upon it that your mate and spawn were free of the cycle of vengeance."

"A possibility worth consideration," I said. "Though the part where I die seems to be something of a flaw."

"Understandably," Esteban said. "We might also offer you an alternative to death."

The roll of Esmerelda's hips became slower, more sensuous. I've been abused by Red Court vampires in the past. I still have nightmares sometimes. But the pretty-seeming girl atop me had that feminine mystique that defies description and definition. Being so close to her was making me nauseous, but my body was reacting to her with uncomfortable intensity.

"Alternative," she said in a breathy little voice. "In this day, that means fashionable. And we do so love showing little mortals how to be fashionable."

"You would make me like you," I said quietly.

Esmerelda nodded, slowly, her mouth drawing up into a lazy, sensual smile, her hips still circling maddeningly against mine. Her fangs were showing.

"It would offer you several advantages," Esteban said. "Even should Arianna complete the vengeance rite, the transformation of your blood would insulate you against it. And, of course, you would not be killed, captured, or tortured to death, as the White Council will be over the next six months or so."

"It certainly bears consideration as well," I said. "Very practical. Are there any other paths you think feasible?"

"One more," Esteban said. "Gift your spawn to our Lord, the Red King."

If I'd had the strength to take a swing at him, I would have. So it was probably a good thing that I didn't. "And what would that accomplish?"

"He would then take possession of the spawn. She would, in fact, be under his protection, until such time as He deemed her unfit, unworthy, or unneeding of such care."

Esmerelda nodded rapidly. "She would be his. He does so dote on his little pets. We think it quite endearing." She opened her mouth in a little O, like a schoolgirl caught in the midst of a whispered conference about forbidden subjects. "Oh, my, would Arianna be upset. She would howl for centuries."

"We could provide chattel in exchange to sweeten the deal, Dresden," Esteban said. "We would be willing to go as high as seven young women. You could select them from our stock or from their natural habitat, and we would see to their preparation and disposition."

I thought about it for a long moment and rubbed lightly at my chin. Then I said, "These are all very rational suggestions. But I feel that I do not understand something. Why does the Red King not simply order Arianna to desist?"

Both of the Eebs drew in breaths of scandalized surprise. "Because of her mate, Dresden," said Esteban.

"Slain by the wizard of the black stick," said Esmerelda. "A blood debt."

"Sacred blood."

"Holy blood."

Esteban shook his head. "Not even our Lord can interfere in the collection of a blood debt. It is Arianna's right."

Esmerelda nodded. "As it was Bianca's to collect from you, in the opening days of the war. Though many wished that she would not have done what she did, it was her right, even as a very, very young member of the Court. As her progenitor, Arianna's mate took up that debt. As Arianna now has done herself." She looked at Esteban and beamed. "We are so happy with the ragged wizard. It is so civil and pleasant. Completely unlike those other wizards. Might we keep it for our own?"

"Business, our love," Esteban chided. "Business first."

Esmerelda thrust out her lower lip - and abruptly turned, all motion ceasing, to focus intently in one direction.

"What is it, our love?" Esteban asked quietly.

"The Ik'k'uox," she said in a distant, puzzled voice. "It is in pain. It flees. It . . ." She opened her eyes very wide, and suddenly they flooded in solid black, just as the creature's had been. "Oh! It cheated!" Her face turned down to mine, and she bared her fangs. "It cheated! It brought a demon of its own! A mountain ice demon from the Land of Dreams!"

"If you don't exercise them, they're impossible," I said, philosophically.

"The constable," Esteban said. "Did it kill the constable?"

Esmerelda returned to staring at nothing for a moment and then said, "No. It was attacked only seconds after entering his home." She shivered and looked up at Esteban. "The ragged wizard's demon comes this way, and swiftly."

Esteban sighed. "We had hoped to work out something civilized. This is your last chance, ragged wizard. What say you to my offer?"

"Go fuck yourself," I said.

Esteban's eyes went black and flat. "Kill him."

Esmerelda's body tightened in what looked like a sexual fervor, and she leaned down, teeth bared, letting out a low sound filled to the brim with erotic and physical need.

During the last few moments, the fingers of my right hand had undone the clasp on my mother's amulet. As the little vampire leaned into me, she met the silver pentacle necklace, the symbol of what I believed. A five-pointed star, representing the four elements and the spirit, bound within a circle of mortal control, will, and compassion. I'm not a Wiccan. I'm not big on churches of any kind, despite the fact that I've spoken, face-to-face, with an archangel of the Almighty.

But there were some things I believed in. Some things I had faith in. And faith isn't about perfect attendance to services, or how much money you put on the little plate. It isn't about going skyclad to the Holy Rites, or meditating each day upon the divine.

Faith is about what you do. It's about aspiring to be better and nobler and kinder than you are. It's about making sacrifices for the good of others - even when there's not going to be anyone telling you what a hero you are.

Faith is a power of its own, and one even more elusive and difficult to define than magic. A symbol of faith, presented with genuine belief and sincerity, is the bane of many an otherworldly predator - and one of the creatures most strongly affected were vampires of the Red Court. I don't know how it works, or why. I don't know if some kind of powerful being or Being must get involved along the line. I never asked for one of them to do that - but if so, one of them was backing me up anyway.

The pentacle flared into brilliant silver light that struck Esmerelda like a six-foot wave, throwing her off of me and tearing the flesh mask she wore to shreds, revealing the creature inside it.

I twisted and presented the symbol to Esteban, but he had already backed several paces away, and it only forced him to lift his hand to shade his eyes as he continued retreating.

There was a hissing, serpentine sound from Esmerelda, and I saw a gaunt, black-skinned creature stand up out of the ruins of gown and flesh mask alike. It was just as small as she was, but its limbs were longer, by at least a third, than hers had seemed, long and scrawny. A flabby black belly sagged down, and its face would make one of those really ugly South American bats feel better about itself.

She opened her jaws, baring fangs and a long, writhing tongue that was pink with black spots. Her all-black eyes were ablaze with fury.

Shadows shifted as a pale blue light began to grow nearer, and the woods suddenly rang out with Mouse's triumphant hunting howl. He had found my scent - or that of the vampires - and was closing in.

Esmerelda hissed again, and the sound was full of rage and hate.

"We mustn't!" Esteban snarled. He dashed around me with supernatural speed, giving the glowing pendant a wide berth. He seized the little vampire woman by the arm. They both stared at me for an instant with their cold, empty black eyes - and then there was the sound of a rushing wind and they were gone.

I sagged onto the ground gratefully. My racing heart began to slow, my fear to subside. My confusion as to what was happening remained, though. Maybe it was so tangled and impossible because I was so exhausted.

Yeah. Right.

Mouse let out a single loud bark and then the big dog was standing next to me, over me. He nudged me with his nose until I lifted a hand and scratched his ears a little.

Thomas and Molly arrived next. I was glad Thomas had let Mouse do the pursuit, while he came along more slowly so that my apprentice wouldn't be alone in the woods. His eyes were bright silver, his mouth set in a smug line, and there was broken glass shining in his hair. The left half of Molly's upper body was generously coated in green paint.

"Okay," I slurred. "I'm backward."

"What's that?" Molly asked, kneeling down next to me, her expression worried.

"Backward. 'M a detective. Supposed to find things out. I been working backward. The more I look at it, the more certain I am that I have no idea what's going on."

"Can you stand?" Thomas asked.

"Leg," I said. "Ribs. Might be broken. Can't take the weight."

"I'll carry him," Thomas said. "Find a phone."

"Okay."

My brother picked me up and carried me out of the woods. We went back to the car.

The car's remains.

I stared dully at the mess. It looked as though something had taken Thomas's white Jag and put it in a trash compactor with the Blue Beetle. The two cars, together, had been smashed down into a mass about four feet high. Liquids and fuel bled out onto the street below them.

Thomas gingerly put me down on my good leg as I stared at my car.

There was no way the Beetle was going to resurrect from this one. I found myself blinking tears out of my eyes. It wasn't an expensive car. It wasn't a sexy car. It was my car.

And it was gone.

"Dammit," I mumbled.

"Hmmm?" Thomas asked. He looked considerably less broken up than me.

"My staff was inna car." I sighed. "Takes weeks to make one of those."

"Lara's going to be annoyed with me," Thomas said. "That's the third one this year."

I rolled my eyes. "Yeah. I feel your pain. What happened with the big thing?"

"The fight?" Thomas shrugged. "Bullfighting tactics, for the most part. When it tried to focus on one, the other two would come at its back. Mouse did you rather proud."

The big dog wagged his tail cheerily.

"Paint?" I asked.

"Oh, the thing threw a five-gallon bucket of paint at her, either trying to kill her with it or so it could try to see her through the veil. Worked for about five seconds, too, but then she fixed it and was gone again. She did fairly well for someone so limited in offense," Thomas said. "Let me see if I can salvage anything from my trunk. Excuse me."

I just sat down on the street in front of the car, and Mouse came up to sit with me, offering a furry flank for support. The Blue Beetle was dead. I was too tired to cry much.

"I called a cab," Molly said, reappearing. "It will meet us two blocks down. Get him and I'll veil us until it arrives."

"Yeah," Thomas said, and picked me up again.

I don't remember being awake for the cab ride.