Page 26 (1/2)

Chapter Thirty-six

I sat in the silence of the old s I felt tired I felt afraid And I felt alone The puppy sat up and displayed some of the wisdom and compassion of his kind He wobbled carefully over tothe bottom of ave me an unexpected sense of co, but he ar and a brave little beast And he liked , until I finally shed up his fur with one hand

Mister wasn&039;t about to let aoutdo him The hefty torn promptly descended fro himself back and forth under uess you aren&039;t nothing but trouble," I told the dog "But I already have a furry coht, Mister?"

Mister blinked at matic cat expression, batted the puppy off the couch and onto the floor, and promptly lost interest in me Mister flowed back down onto the floor, where the puppy rolled to his feet, tail wagging ferociously, and began to roame Mister flicked his ears with disdain and went back up onto his bookshelf

I laughed I couldn&039;t help it The world ht be vicious and treacherous and deadly, but it couldn&039;t kill laughter Laughter, like love, has power to survive the worst things life has to offer And to do it with style

It got ue pants, a heavy wool shirt of deep red, black coun belt with one hand, clipped my sword cane to the belt, and covered it with my duster I made sure I had my mother&039;s amulet and my shield bracelet, sat down, and called Thoot about half of a ring out before sohtened voice asked, "Tommy?"

"Inari?" I asked "Is that you?"

"It&039;s me," she confirmed "This is Harry, isn&039;t it"

"For another few hours anyway," I said "May I speak to Thomas, please?"

"No," Inari said It sounded like she had been crying "I was hoping this was him I think he&039;s in trouble"

I frowned "What kind of trouble?"

"I saw one of un He et into the car I didn&039;t knohat I should do"

"Easy, easy," I said "Where was he taken from?"

"The studio," she said, her voice aveI&039;m here now"

"Is Lara there?" I asked

"Yes She&039;s right here"

"Put her on, please"

"Okay," Inari said

The phone rustled A lided out of the phone and into my ear "Hello, Harry"

"Lara I know your father is behind the curse on Arturo, along with Arturo&039;s wives I know they&039;ve been gunning for his fianc§ڥ so that Raith can get Arturo back under his control And I have a question for you"

"Oh?" she said

"Yeah Where is Thomas?"

"It excites me when a man is so subtle," she said "So debonair"

"Better brace yourself, then," I said "I want hiets in the way And I&039; to pay you to help me"

"Really?" Lara said I heard her , presumably to Inari She waited a ed subtly, beco to hear you out"

"And I&039;ive you House Raith And the White Court with it"

Shocked silence followed Then she said, "And hoould you ?"

"I remove your father froue The situation isn&039;t a si note of excitement in her voice "The other Houses of the White Court follow House Raith because they fear and respect my father It seems unlikely that they would transfer that respect to me"

"Unlikely Not impossible I think it can be done"

Shesound "Do you? And ould you expect from me in return? If my father has decided to re him"

"You won&039;t need to Just take et Thomas myself"

"After which, my father will be so impressed with your diplomatic skills that he cedes the House tolike that," I said "Get me there Then all you have to do is watch from the sidelines while Cat&039;s-paw Dresden handles your father"

"M the Lords of the Court To arrange for a usurpation isn&039;t so unusual, but very few ood seats to it as well A firsthand view of it would be a grace note few have attained"

"Plus if you were standing right there and things went badly for ood spot to backstab oodwill"

"Of course," she said, without a trace of shame "You understand me rather well, wizard"

"Oh, there&039;s one other thing I want"

"Yes?" she asked

"Leave the kid alone Don&039;t push her Don&039;t pressure her You come clean with Inari You tell her the deal with her bloodline and you let her make up her own mind when it comes to her future"

She waited for a beat and then said, "That&039;s all?"

"That&039;s all"

She purred again "My I am not yet sure if you are truly that forhty fool, but for the ti irls tell hed "Let us assureeable I would need to kno you intend to overthrow my father He&039;s somewhat invincible, you see"

"No, he isn&039;t," I said "I&039; to show you hoeak he really is"

"And how do you know this?"

I closed ht"

Lara lapsed into a thoughtful silence for aelse I must knoizard Why? Why do this?"

"I owe Thomas for favors past," I said "He&039;s been an ally, and if I leave hi to be bad forteret sos at the White Court who is more reasonable to ith"

Lara made a soft sound that was probablyin the dark Uh I mean, in person

"No," she said then "That&039;s not all of it"

"Why not?"

"That would be sufficient reason if it were me," she said "But you aren&039;t like me, wizard You aren&039;t like most of your own kind I have no doubt that you have reasonable skill at the calculus of power, but calculation is not at the heart of your nature You prepare to take a terrible risk, and I would knohy your heart is set to it"

I chewed onmy options and the possible consequences Then I said, "Do you knoho Thoaret LeFay," she said, puzzled "But what does that-" She stopped abruptly "Ah Now I see That explains a great deal about his involvement in political h, but it was somehow sad "You&039;re much like him, you know Thomas would sooner tear off his own ars hurt He&039;s quite irrational about it"

"Is that reason enough for you?" I asked

"I am not yet entirely devoid of affection for my family, wizard It satisfies me"

"Besides," I added, "I&039;ve just handed you a secret with the potential for sohed "Oh, you do understand me"

"Are you in?"

There was silence When Lara finally spoke again, her voice was firer "I do not know precisely where my father would have had Thomas taken"

"Can you find out?"

Her voice took on a pensive tone "In fact, I believe I can Perhaps it was fate"

"What was fate?"

"You&039;ll see," she said "What sort of time frame did you have in mind?"

"An immediate one," I said "The immediater the better"

"I&039;ll need half an hour or a little more Meet me at my family&039;s home north of town"

"Half an hourish," I said "Until then"

I hung up the phone just as a loud, low rumble approached my house A morade deni so," I said "You ready for another fight?"

Her teeth flashed She tossed me a red motorcycle helmet and said, "Get on the bike, bitch"

Chapter Thirty-seven

Motorcycles aren&039;t safe transport, as far as it goes I mean, insurance statistics show that everyone in the country is going to wind up in a traffic accident of so to be involved inaround in a beat-up old Lincoln battleship and so to frighten and annoy you If you&039;re sitting on a motorcycle when it happens, you&039;ll be lucky to wind up in traction Even if you aren&039;t in an accident with another vehicle, it&039;s way too easy to get yourself hurt or killed on a bike Bikers don&039;t wear all that leather around simply for the fashion value or possible felony assaults It&039;s handy for keeping the highway fro control of the bike and sliding along the asphalt for a while

All that said, riding a motorcycle is fun

I put on the bulky, clunky red heluised myself as a kitchen match-stick Murphy&039;s black hel ihed as the battered corpse of ot on the bike behind Murphy I gave her directions, and her old Harley growled as she unleashed it on the unsuspecting road

I thought the bike was going to jump out from underneath me for a second, and my balance wobbled

"Dresden!" Murphy shouted back toon to my waist!"

"With what?" I shouted back I waved ed hand to one side of her field of vision and the hand holding the staff to the other

In answer, Murphy took my staff and shoved the end of it down into soe rack placed so conveniently close to the rider&039;s right hand that it couldn&039;t have beenbut a holster for a rifle or baseball bat My staff stuck up like the plastic flagpole on a golf cart, but at least I had a free hand I slipped my arm around Murphy&039;s waist, and I could feel theas she accelerated or leaned into turns, cuing ot onto some open road and zoomed out of the city, the wind took the ends ofthee, and I had to hold tight to Murphy or risk having my coat turn into a short-terh Little Sherwood and up to the entrance of Chateau Raith Murphy brought the Harley to a halt It ht have taken me a few extra seconds to take my arm from around her waist, but she didn&039;t seem to mind She had her bored-cop face on as she took in the house, the roses, and the grotesque gargoyles, but I could sense that underneath it she was as intimidated as I had been, and for the same reasons The enormous old house reeked of the kind of power and wealth that disdains laws and societies It loo way froot off the bike and she passed me my staff The place was silent, except for the sound of wind slithering through the trees There was a sht at the door, another at the end of the walk up to it, and a couple of splotches of landscape lighting, but other than that, nothing

"What&039;s the plan?" Murphy asked She kept her voice low "Fight?"

"Not yet," I said, and gave her the short version of events "Watchunless one of the Raiths tries to physically touch you If they can do that, there&039;s a chance they could influence you in one way or another"

Murphy shivered "Not an issue If I could help it they weren&039;t going to be touching ine roared and a white sports car shot through the last several hundred yards of Little Sherwood It all but flew up the drive, narrowly missed Murphy&039;s bike, spun, and screeched to a neat stop, parallel-parked in the opposite direction

Murphy traded a glance with me She looked impressed I probably looked annoyed

The door opened and Lara slid out, dressed in a long, loose red skirt and a white cotton blouse with embroidered scarlet roses She walked purposefully toward us Her feet were bare Silver flashed on a toe and one ankle, and as she drew closer I heard the jingle of , wizard"

"Lara," I said "I like the skirt Nice statement Very Carmen"

She flashed aze on Murphy and said, "And who is this?"

"Murphy," she said "I&039;m a friend"

Lara smiled at Murphy Very slowly "I can never have too many friends"

Murph&039;s cop face held, and she added a note of casual disdain to her voice "I didn&039;t say your friend," she said "I&039;m with Dresden"

"What a shame," Lara said

"I&039;htened her spine a little at the words, and studied Murphy again Then she inclined her head with a little esture of concession

The other door of the white sports car opened and Reforot out, carsick and a little wobbly on his feet Inari followed hi underneath one of his arms to help hold hi

Lara raised her voice "Inari? Be a darling and fetch her for ht away Bobby, dear, if you could help her I would take it as a kindness"

"Yeah, sure," Bobby said He looked a little green but was recovering as he hurried toward the house with Inari

"We&039;ll bring her right down," Inari said

I waited until they had gone inside "What the hell are they doing here?" I deed "They insisted and there was little tiument"

I scowled "Next ti the sex appeal, o-thither&039; to go with all the &039;come-hither"