“In other words,” I said, “he’d made himself more like you. Patterned himself after you. And because he’d done that, after your change he wasn’t capable of giving you what you wanted.”
She nodded.
I shook my head. “A hundred years is a long time to carry a torch,” I said. “That one must burn like hell.”
“I know. And I never wanted to hurt him. You must believe me.”
“Here’s where you say, ‘The heart wants what the heart wants,’ ” I said.
“Trite,” she said, “but true all the same.” She turned until her right shoulder leaned on the door, facing me. “We should talk about where this leaves us.”
I toyed with the can of Coke. “Before we can do that,” I said, “we have to talk about Morgan and LaFortier.”
She exhaled slowly. “Yes.”
“What do you intend to do?” I asked.
“He’s wanted by the Council, Harry,” she said in a gentle voice. “I don’t know how he’s managed to avoid being located by magical means, but sooner or later, in hours or days, hewill be found. And when that happens, you and Molly will be implicated as well. You’ll both die with him.” She took a deep breath. “And if I don’t go to the Council with what I know, I’ll be right there beside you.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“You really think he’s innocent?” she asked.
“Of LaFortier’s murder,” I said. “Yes.”
“Do you have proof?”
“I’ve found out enough to make me think I’m right. Not enough to clear him—yet.”
“If it wasn’t Morgan,” she said quietly, “then the traitor is still running around loose.”
“Yeah.”
“You’re asking me to discard the pursuit of a suspect with strong evidence supporting his guilt in favor of chasing a damn ghost, Harry. Someone we’ve barely been able to prove exists, much less identify. Not only that, you’re asking me to gamble your life, your apprentice’s life, and my own against finding this ghost in time.”
“Yes. I am.”
She shook her head. “Everything I’ve ever learned as a Warden tells me that it’s far more likely that Morgan is guilty.”
“Which brings us back to the question,” I said. “What are you going to do?”
Silence yawned.
She pushed off the door and came to sit down on the chair facing my seat on the couch.
“All right,” she said. “Tell me everything.”
Chapter Twenty-four
“This is not how diplomacy is done,” Anastasia said as we approached the Château Raith.
“You’re in America now,” I said. “Our idea of diplomacy is showing up with a gun in one hand and a sandwich in the other and asking which you’d prefer.”
Anastasia’s mouth curved up at one corner. “You brought a sandwich?”
“Who do I look like, Kissinger?”
I’d been to Château Raith before, but it had always been at night, or at least twilight. It was an enormous estate most of an hour away from Chicago proper, a holding of House Raith, the current ruling house of the White Court. The Château itself was surrounded by at least half a mile of old-growth forest that had been converted to an idyllic, even gardenlike, state, like you sometimes see on centuries-old European properties. Huge trees and smooth grass beneath them dominated, with the occasional, suspiciously symmetrical outgrowth of flowering plants, often located in the center of golden shafts of sunlight that came down through the green-shadowed trees at regular intervals.
The grounds were surrounded by a high fence, topped with razor wire that couldn’t be readily seen from the outside. The fence was electrically charged, too, and the latest surveillance cameras—seemingly little more than glass beads with wires running out of them—monitored every inch of the exterior.
At night, it made for one extremely creepy piece of property. On a bright summer afternoon, it just looked . . . pretty. Very, very wealthy and very, very pretty. Like the Raiths themselves, the grounds were only scary when seen at the right time.
A polite security guard with the general bearing of ex-military had watched us get out of a cab, called ahead, and let us in with hardly a pause. We’d walked past the gate and up the drive through Little Sherwood until we reached the Château proper.
“How good are her people?” Anastasia asked.
“I’m sure you’ve read the file.”
“Yes,” she said, as we started up the steps. “But I’d prefer your personal assessment.”
“Since Lara’s taken over the hiring,” I said, “they’ve improved significantly. I don’t think they’re fed upon to keep them under control anymore.”
“And you base that assessment on what?”
I shrugged. “The before and after. The last batch of hired muscle was . . . just out of touch. Willing to die at a moment’s notice, but not exactly the sharpest tacks in the box. Pretty and vacant. And pretty vacant.” I gestured back at the entrance. “That guy back there had a newspaper nearby. And he was eating lunch when we showed up. Before, they just stood around like mannequins with muscle. I’m betting that most of them are ex-military. The hard-core kind, not the get-my-college-funded kind.”
“Officially,” she said, as we reached the top of the steps, “they remain untested.”
“Or maybe Lara’s just smart enough not to show them off until it’s necessary to use them,” I said.
“Officially,” Anastasia said dryly, “she remains untested.”
“You didn’t see her killing super ghouls with a couple of knives the way I did during the White Court coup,” I said. I rapped on the door with my staff and adjusted the hang of my grey cloak. “I know my word isn’t exactly respected among the old guard Wardens, but take it from me. Lara Raith is one smart and scary bitch.”
Anastasia shook her head with a faint smile. “And yet you’re here to hold a gun to her head.”
“I’m hoping that if we apply some pressure, we’ll get something out of her,” I said. “I’m low on options. And I don’t have time to be anything but direct.”
“Well,” she said, “at least you’re playing to your strengths.”
A square-jawed, flat-topped man in his thirties opened the door. He was wearing a casual beige sports suit accessorized by a gun in a shoulder holster and what was probably a Kevlar vest beneath his white tee. If that wasn’t enough, he had some kind of dangerous-looking little machine gun hanging from a nylon strap over one shoulder.
“Sir,” he said with a polite nod. “Ma’am. May I take your cloaks?”
“Thank you,” Anastasia said. “But they’re part of the uniform. If you could convey us directly to Ms. Raith, that would be most helpful.”
The security man nodded his head. “Before you accept the hospitality of the house, I would ask you both to give me your personal word that you are here in good faith and will offer no violence while you are a guest.”
Anastasia opened her mouth, as if she intended to readily agree, but I stepped slightly in front of her and said, “Hell, no.”
The security man narrowed his eyes and looked a little less relaxed. “Excuse me?”
“Go tell Lara that whether or not we rip this house to splinters and broken glass is still up for debate,” I said. “Tell her there’s already blood on the floor, and I think some of it is on her hands. Tell her if she wants a chance to clear the air, she talks to me. Tell her if she doesn’t that it is answer enough, and that she accepts the consequences.”
The guard stared at me for several seconds. Then he said, “You’ve got a real high opinion of yourself. Do you know what’s around you? Do you have any idea where you’re standing?”