"The Wardens fell back to fight a holding action against the Red Court so that our wounded could escape to safety," Luccio reported, her crisp voice at odds with her weary eyes. "That was when they loosed the Outsiders upon us. We lost another twenty-three Wardens in the first moments of combat, and many more were wounded." There was silence while she took a long pull from her bottle, emptying it, then setting it down sharply on the table, anger flickering in her eyes. "If Senior Council members McCoy and Liberty had not come to our aid, we might have all died there. Even with them, we managed to hold them only long enough for the Gatekeeper and the Merlin to raise a ward behind us, to give us time to escape."
"A ward?" I blurted. "Are you telling me that they stonewalled an entire army of vampires and demons? With one ward?"
"You don't get to be Merlin of the White Council by collecting bottle caps," Ramirez said, his voice dry.
I glanced aside at Ramirez. He grinned at me and swigged beer.
"McCoy was injured," Luccio continued.
Ramirez snorted. "Who wasn't?"
Luccio snapped, "Carlos."
He lifted a hand in surrender and settled back onto his chair again, but his grin never faded.
"There were many injuries," Luccio continued. "But as the hospice in Sicily had been taken, we diverted the worst cases to a hospital we control in the Congo." She stared at her bottle for a moment. Her mouth opened, and then she closed it again. She closed her eyes.
Morgan frowned at her. Then he put a hand on Luccio's shoulder, looked at me, and said, "The vampires knew."
I got a sick, twisting feeling in my stomach. "Oh, God."
"It was daylight there," Morgan said. "And the place was a fortress of the Merlin's wards. There was no way for the vampires to breach it from the Nevernever, and nothing short of a demon lord could have broken through them." His mouth twisted, and his eyes glittered with rage and hate. "They sent mortals against us. Against men and women lying injured, unconscious, helpless in their beds." The anger in his voice seemed to strangle him for a moment.
"But…" I said. "Look, I know what it's like going up against mortals you don't want to kill. It's difficult, but they can be stopped. Fought. Bullets and explosives can be defended against."
"Which is why they used gas," Ramirez said quietly, stepping in where Morgan's and Luccio's voices had failed. His own tone was serious. His grin had vanished. "A nerve agent, probably sarin. They deployed it against the entire hospital, the people we had protecting it, and six square blocks of city around it." He put his own bottle down and said, "No one survived."
"My God…" I whispered.
There was dead silence.
"Ebenezar?" I asked in a whisper. "You said he was wounded. Was he…"
Ramirez shook his head. "Stubborn old bastard wouldn't go to the hospital," the young Warden said. "He went with one of the teams staging a counteroffensive with the Fellowship of Saint Giles."
"Thousands of innocent mortals died," Luccio said, and there was a slow, low snarl in her voice. She kept it tightly leashed and under control, but I heard it. I recognized it, and I knew what it was like to feel it permeating my words. "Women. Children. Thousands. And today I buried one hundred and forty-three Wardens."
I sat there, stunned.
In a single, vicious stroke, the Red Court had very nearly destroyed the White Council.
"They have crossed every line," Luccio said, her voice quiet and precise. "Violated every principle of war of our world and the mortal world alike. Madness. They have gone mad."
"They've committed suicide," I said quietly. "They don't have a prayer against the Council and the Faerie Courts alike."
"The Sidhe were taken by surprise," Morgan rumbled. "They aren't prepared for a fight. And we're holding on by our fingernails. We've got less than fifty Wardens capable of combat. Without our communications network in order, members of the Council have been attacked individually and by surprise. We don't know how many more wizards have died."
"And it gets even better," Ramirez said. "Agents of the Red Court are haunting the ways through Faerie. We were attacked on the way here, twice."
"Our priority," Luccio said, voice crisp, "is to consolidate our forces and to draw upon every available resource to restore the Wardens as a fighting force. We must draw the members of the Council together and make sure that they are protected. We're reorganizing our security." She shook her head. "And frankly, we must protect the lives of the Senior Council. So long as they are concealed from the enemy and still able to take action, they are a dangerous force. Together they wield more power than any hundred members of the Council, and it can be concentrated with deadly effect, as the Merlin showed in the Nevernever. So long as they stand ready to strike, the enemy cannot openly unveil his full strength."
"More important," Morgan growled, "the mortal wizards who betrayed us, whoever they are, fear the Senior Council. That is why their first move was an attempt to destroy them."
Luccio nodded. "If we can hold on until the Faerie Courts mobilize for action, we can recover from this attack. Which brings us to today," Luccio said, and studied me, tired and frank. "Every other Warden able to fight is currently either engaged against the enemy or safeguarding the Senior Council. Our lines of support and communication are tenuous." She gestured at those seated at the table. "This is every resource the White Council has to spare."
I looked at the weary captain of the Wardens. At the battered Morgan. At Ramirez, who had reclaimed his cocky smile, and at Yoshimo and Kowalski, untried, quiet, and frightened.
"Warden Luccio," I said. "May I speak to you privately?"
Morgan scowled and said in a hot voice, "Anything you have to say to her you can say to all-"
Luccio put her hand on Morgan's arm, a gentle gesture, but it cut him off. "Morgan. Perhaps you would be so kind as to get me another bottle. And I'm sure McAnally would be willing to provide us all with some dinner."
Morgan stared at her for a second, then at me. Then he rose, smudged the chalk circle with a boot, and broke the circle around the table, releasing the buzzing tension from the air.
"Come on, kids," Ramirez told the other two younger wardens, rising. "We have to go sit with Uncle Morgan while the other adults have a serious talk." He put a hand on my shoulder on the way past and squeezed. "Hey, bartender! Are those onion rings I smell?"
I waited until they had all settled down at the far end of the bar and Mac began to bring them some food. Then I turned to Luccio and said, "I can't be a Warden."
She studied me for a second and then asked, in a very precise, very polite voice, "And why not?"
"Because you people have been threatening to kill me for doing something I didn't do since I was sixteen years old," I said. "You're all convinced I'm some sort of hideous threat, and every time you get the chance you try to make my life miserable."
Luccio listened attentively and then said, "Yes. And?"
"And?" I said. "I've spent my entire adult life with the Wardens looking over my shoulder waiting for a chance to accuse me of things I didn't do, and trying to set me up and entrap me when you never found me doing anything."
Luccio's eyebrows shot up. "What?"
"Don't give me that," I said. "You know damned well that Morgan tried to provoke me into attacking him just before we got the treaty with Winter, so he and the Merlin would have an excuse to throw me to the vampires."
Luccio's eyes widened, and her voice came out harder. "What?" She shot a look at Morgan, and then back at me. "Are you telling me the truth?"