"Oh," Ramirez said.
"Thank yon," Lara told me.
"Of course," I said, "there's been some uncharacteristic behavior going around lately."
Lara tilted her head at me, frowning.
"Oh, come on," I said. "You think it's a little odd the faeries didn't immediately stomp all over the Red Court when they violated Unseelie territory a couple of years back? Don't tell me you're trapping the little faeries because it's cheaper than getting those paper party lanterns."
Lara narrowed her eyes at me.
"You're testing their reaction," I said. "Giving a minor but deliberate insult and seeing what happens."
Her lips turned up very, very slowly. "Are you sure you're quite determined to remain attached to that sad little clubhouse of old men?"
"Why? Do you take care of your own?" I asked.
"In a great many senses, wizard," she promised.
"The way you took care of Thomas?" I asked.
Her smile turned brittle.
"Pride goeth, Lara," I said.
"Each is entitled to his opinion." She glanced up and said, "The runners have returned with your foes' weaponry. Good hunting, gentlemen."
She bowed to us again, her expression a mask, and drifted away, back toward her place behind the throne.
The music came to an end, and it seemed to be a signal to the vampires. They withdrew from the center of the chamber to stand on either side, leaving the long axis of the cavern open, the entrance upon one end, the White Throne upon the other. Last of all, the White King himself rose and descended from the enormous throne to move to one side of the cavern. On the right side of the room were all the members of Malvora and Skavis, and on the left gathered the members of House Raith. The Skavis and Malvora weren't actually standing together, but… there was a sense of hungry anticipation in the air.
"Vampires standing on both sidelines," Ramirez said. "Guess no one wants to catch a stray lightning bolt."
"Or bullet," I muttered. "But it won't help them much if things get confused and turned around once the fight starts."
Raith snapped a finger, and thralls in their white kimonos began filing into the room. They swayed more than walked, filing down the "sidelines" of the dueling ground, and then simply knelt down, in a pair of double ranks, in front of the vampires on either side of the chamber. They formed, taken together, a wall like that around a hockey arena—but one made of living, human flesh.
Crap. Any form of mayhem that spread to the sidelines was going to run smack into human victims—and my own powers, in a fight, were not exactly surgical instruments. Torrents of flame, blasts of force, and impenetrable bastions of will were sort of my thing. You will note, however, how seldom words like torrent, blast, and bastion get used in conjunction with terms that denote delicacy and, precision.
Ramirez was going to be better off than I was, in that regard. His combat skills ran more to speed and accuracy, versus my own preference for massive destruction, but they were no less deadly in their own way.
Carlos looked back and forth, then said to me, "They're going to try to stay on our flanks. Use those people in the background to keep us from cutting loose."
"I know I never went to Warden combat school," I told him. "But I feel I should remind you that this is not my first time."
Ramirez grimaced at me. "You just aren't going to let that go, are you?"
I showed him my teeth. "So I hit them fast and hard while you keep them off me. If they flank, you're on offense while I keep them off of you. Try to maneuver them out to where I'll have a clean shot."
Ramirez scowled, and his voice came out with more than the usual heat. "Yes, thank you, Harry. You want to tie my shoes for me before we start?"
"Whoa, what's that?" I asked him.
"Oh, come on, man," Ramirez said quietly, his voice tight and, angry. "You're lying to me. You're lying to the Council."
I stared at him.
"I'm not an idiot, man," Ramirez said, his expression neutral. "You can barely get by in Latin, but you speak ghoul? Ancient Etruscan? There's more going on here than a duel and internal politics, Dresden. You're involved with these things. More than you should be. You know them too well. Which is a really fucking disturbing thing to realize, considering we're talking about a race of mind-benders."
Vitto and Madrigal emerged from the Malvoran contingent. Vitto bore a long rapier at his side, and there were a number of throwing knives on his belt, as well as a heavy pistol in a holster. Madrigal, meanwhile, carried a spear with a seven-foot haft, and his arms were wrapped with two long strips of black cloth covered in vaguely oriental characters in metallic red thread. I'd have guessed that they were constructs of some kind, even before I felt the ripple of magical energy in them as he walked with Vitto to stand facing us from thirty feet away.
"Carlos," I said. "This is one hell of a time to start having doubts about my loyalty."
"Dammit, Harry," he said. "I'm not backing out on you. It's too late for that, even if I wanted to. But this whole thing feels more and more like a setup every second."
I couldn't argue with him there.
I was pretty sure it was.
I looked back and forth down the length of the ranks of vampires, all of whom watched in total silence now, grey eyes bright, edging over into metallic silver with their rising hunger. The formalities of the Accords had kept us alive and largely unmolested, here amidst the monsters, but if we deviated from the conventions, we'd never live to see the surface again. We were in the same position as Madrigal and Vitto, really: Win or die.
And I didn't delude myself for one single second that this was going to be as simple as a stand-up fight. Part of the nature of the White Court was treachery, as well. It was only a matter of time, and timing, before one of them turned on us, and if we weren't ready when it happened, we'd either be dead or getting fitted for our own white robes.
Vitto and Madrigal squared off against us, hands on their weapons.
I took a deep breath and faced them. Beside me, Ramirez did the same.
Lord Raith reached up his sleeve and withdrew a handkerchief of red silk. He offered it to Lara, who took it and walked slowly down the lines of kneeling thralls. She stopped at the sidelines, midway between us, and slowly lifted the red silk. "Gentlemen," she said. "Stand ready. Let no weapon of any kind be drawn until this cloth reaches the earth."
My heart started pounding faster, and I drew my duster back enough to put a hand near the handle of my blasting rod.
Lara flicked the scarlet silk cloth into the air, and it began to fall.
Ramirez was right. This was a trap. I had done everything I could to prepare for it, but the bottom line was that I was not sure what was going to happen.
But like the man said: It was too late to back out now.
The cloth hit the floor and my hand blurred for my blasting rod as the duel began.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Some people are faster than others. I'm fast. Always have been, especially for a man my size, but this duel had gotten off to a fair start, and no merely mortal hand is faster than a vampire's.
Vitto Malvora's gun cleared its holster before my fingers had tightened on the blasting rod's handle. The weapon resembled a fairly standard Model 1911, but it had an extension to the usual ammunition clip sticking out of the handle, and it spat a spray of bullets in the voice of a yowling buzz saw.
Some vampires are faster than others. Vitto was fast. He'd drawn and fired more swiftly than I'd ever seen Thomas move, more swiftly than I'd seen Lara shoot. But bodies, even nigh-immortal vampire bodies, are made of flesh and blood, and have mass and inertia. No hand, not even a vampire's, is swifter than thought.