"I know the old man," I said. "He would."
"You know that," Ramirez said. "What if the Whites don't?"
"We count on our second safety net. King Raith doesn't want to get his finely accoutred ass deposed. Our challenge is going to remove a couple of potential deposers. He'll want us to succeed. After that, I figure quid pro quo should be enough to get us out in one piece."
Ramirez shook his head. "We're doing the White King, our enemy, with whom we are at war, a favor by stabilizing his grasp on the throne."
"Yeah."
"Why are we doing that again?"
"Because it might give the Council a chance to catch its breath, at least, if we can recover while Raith hosts peace talks." I narrowed my eyes. "And because those murdering sons of bitches have to pay for killing a lot of innocent people, and this is the only way to get to them."
Ramirez pulled three round-sided grenades from the pack and put them down next to the Desert Eagle. "I like that second one better. It's a fight I can get behind. Do we have any backup?"
"Maybe," I said.
He paused and blinked up at me. "Maybe?"
"Most of the Wardens are in India," I told him. "A bunch of old bad guys under some big daddy rakshasa started attacking some monasteries friendly to us while we were distracted with the vamps. I checked, and Morgan and Ebenezar have been hammering them for two days. You, me, your guys, and Luccio's trainees are the only Wardens in North America right now."
"No trainees." Ramirez grunted. "And my guys haven't had their cloaks for a year yet. They... are not up for something like this yet. Half a dozen vamps in an alley, sure, but there's only the three of them."
I nodded. "Keep this simple. Swagger in, look confident, kick ass. You dealt with White Court before?"
"Not much. They stay clear of our people on the coast."
"They're predators like the rest of them," I said. "They react well to body language that tells them that you are not food. They've got some major mental influence skills, so keep focused and make sure your head is clear."
Ramirez produced a well-worn web belt of black nylon. He clipped a holster to it and then fixed the grenades in place. "What's going to stop them from smashing us the second we win this duel?"
That's one of the things I love about working with Ramirez. The possibility of losing the duel simply didn't enter into his calculations. "Their nature," I said. "They like to play civilized, and do their wet work through cat's-paws. They are not fond of direct methods and direct confrontation."
Ramirez lifted his eyebrows, drew a slender, straight, double-edged blade of a type he called a willow sword from the bag, and laid it on the table, too. The tassel on the hilt had been torn off by a zombie the night we'd first fought together. He had replaced it, over the last few years, with a little chain strung with fangs taken from Red Court vampires he'd killed with it. They rattled against one another and the steel and leather of the hilt. "I get it. We're the White King's cat's-paws."
I walked to the icebox. "Bingo. And we can't hang around as potential threats to his rebellious courtiers if he kills us outright after we help him out. It would damage his credibility with his allies, too."
"Ah," Ramirez said. "Politicians."
I returned with two opened beers. I gave one to him, clinked my bottle against his, and we said, in unison, "Fuck 'em," and drank.
Ramirez lowered the bottle, squinted at it, and said, "Can we do this?"
I snorted. "Can't be any harder than Halloween."
"We had a dinosaur then," Ramirez said. Then he turned and pulled fatigue pants and a black Offspring T-shirt out of his bag. He gave me an up-and-down look. "Of course, we still do."
I kicked the coffee table into his shins. He let out a yelp and hobbled off to change clothes in my bedroom, snickering under his breath the whole way.
When he came back out, the smile was gone. We got suited up. Swords and guns and grey cloaks and staves and magical gewgaws left and right, yeehaw. One of these days, I swear, as long as I'm playing supernatural sheriff of Chicago, I'm getting myself some honest-to-God spurs and a ten-gallon hat.
I got out a yellow legal pad and a pen, and Ramirez and I sat down over another beer. "The meeting is at the Raith family estate north of town. I've been in the house, but only part of it. Here's what I remember."
I started sketching it out for Ramirez, who asked plenty of smart questions about both the house and exterior, so that I had to go to a new page to map out what I knew of the grounds. "Not sure where the vamps will be having their meeting, but the duel is going to be in the Deeps. It's a cave outside the house, somewhere out here." I circled an area of the map. "There's a nice deep chasm in them. It's a great place to dispose of bodies, and no chance of being seen or heard."
"Very tidy," Ramirez noted. "Especially if we're the ones who need disposing of."
The doorknob twisted and began to open.
Ramirez went for his gun and had it out almost as quickly as I had my blasting rod pointed at the door. Something slammed against it, opening it five or six inches. I flicked my gaze aside for a minute, and then lowered the blasting rod. I put a hand on Ramirez's wrist and said, "Easy, tiger. It's a friendly."
Ramirez glanced at me and lowered the gun, while I watched Mouse rise to his feet and pad toward the door, tail wagging.
"Who is it?" he asked.
"That backup we might be getting," I said quietly.
The door banged open by inches and Molly slipped inside.
She'd ditched the Goth-wear almost entirely. She didn't sport any of the usual piercings - nose rings are great fashion statements, but in anything like a fight, they just aren't a good idea. Her clothing wasn't all ripped up, either. She wore heavy, loose jeans, and not slung so low on the hips that they'd threaten to fall off and trip her if she twitched her spine just right. Her combat boots had been divested of their brightly colored laces. She wore a black shirt with a Metallica logo on it, and a web belt that bore a sheathed knife and the small first-aid kit I'd seen her mother carry into battle. She wore a dark green baseball cap, with her hair gathered into a tail and tucked up under it, where it wouldn't provide an easy handle for anyone wanting to grab it.
Molly didn't look up at us. She greeted the big dog first, kneeling to give him a hug. Then she rose, facing me, and looked up. "Um. Hi, Harry. Hello, Warden Ramirez."