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Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Anne Sowards, ent, Jenn Jackson, andthe kinds of proble, and you all have been a treure out how best to repay you for the tiiven me

And, always, for Shannon and JJ, who like me even when I vanish into my own head for days at a time

Chapter One

The suo &039;s streets, the agony in my head had kepton an, half his face covered in blood, gasped, "The Wardens are co Hide me Please"

His eyes rolled back into his skull and he collapsed

Oh

Super

Up until thatunder thepain into happen to me today

"Hell&039;s frickin&039; bells!" I blurted at Morgan&039;s unconscious for me!" I was really, really te there in a heap He sure as hell deserved it

I couldn&039;t just stand there doing nothing, though

"You need to get your head examined," I ical security systean under the ar man, over six feet, with plenty ofhih I&039;m no junior petite ht eneral, focused my will, and muttered, "Flickum bicus" A dozen candles spaced around the room flickered to life as I pronounced the sian, exa him for injuries

He had half a dozen nasty cuts, oozing and ugly and probably painful, but not life-threatening The flesh on his ribs, beneath his left arm, was blistered and burned, and his plain white shirt had been scorched away He also had a deep wound in one leg that was clumsily wrapped in what looked like a kitchen apron I didn&039;t dare unwrap the thing It could start the bleeding again, andI&039;d want to bet a life on

Even Morgan&039;s life

He needed a doctor

Unfortunately, if the Wardens of the White Council were pursuing him, they probably kneounded They would, therefore, be watching hospitals If I took hiency rooms, the Council would know about it within hours

So I called a friend

Waldo Butters studied Morgan&039;s injuries in silence for a few uy, and his black hair stood up helter-skelter, like the fur of a frightened cat He wore green hospital scrubs and sneakers, and his hands were swift and nient eyes behind black wire-rimmed spectacles, and looked like he hadn&039;t slept in teeks

"I&039;m not a doctor," Butters said

We&039;d done this dance several tihty Butters," I said "You can do anything"

"I&039;m a medical examiner I cut up corpses"

"If it helps, think of this as a preventative autopsy"

Butters gave me an even look and said, "Can&039;t take him to the hospital, huh?"

"Yeah"

Butters shook his head "Isn&039;t this the guy who tried to kill you that one Halloween?"

"And a few other times before that," I said

He opened a h it "I was never really clear on why"

I shrugged "When I was a kid, I killed a ic I was captured by the Wardens and tried by the White Council"

"I guess you got off"

I shookto survive the guy killing ic, an was my probation officer"

"Probation?" Butters asked

"If I screwed up again, he was supposed to chop ood excuse to do it"

Butters blinked up at me, surprised

"I spent the first several years of uy Getting hounded and harassed by hihtmares for a while, and he was in theht pursued by an i a wicked cold sword

Butters began to wet the bandages over the leg wound "And you&039;re helping hierous animal and needed to be put down He really believed it, and acted accordingly"

Butters gavehi," I said "That doesn&039;t make him a villain It just h to kill him"

"Reconciled, eh?"

"Not especially"

Butters lifted his eyebrows "Then why&039;d he come to you for help?"

"Last place anyone would look for hiuess"

"Jesus Christ," Butters e off, and found a wound es puckered like a littlefroer"

"That&039;s probably because it was done with soer"

"A sword?" Butters said "You&039;ve got to be kidding me"

"The Council&039;s old school," I said "Really, really, really old school"

Butters shook his head "Wash your hands the way I just did Do it thorough-takes two or three et back here I need an extra pair of hands"

I sed "Uh Butters, I don&039;t know if I&039;uy to-"

"Oh bite me, wizard boy," Butters said, his tone annoyed "You haven&039;t got ato stand on If it&039;s okay that I&039;m not a doctor, it&039;s okay that you aren&039;t a nurse So wash your freaking hands and help me before we lose him"

I stared at Butters helplessly for a second Then I got up and washed eries aren&039;t pretty There&039;s a hideous sense of inti, and it feels so in on a naked parent Only there&039;s ore Bits are exposed that just shouldn&039;t be out in the open, and they&039;re covered in blood It&039;s e all at the same time

"There," Butters said, an infinity later "Okay, let go Get your hands out of my way"

"It cut the artery?" I asked

"Oh, hell no," Butters said "Whoever stabbed him barely nicked it Otherwise he&039;d be dead"

"But it&039;s fixed, right?"

"For some definitions of &039;fixed&039; Harry, this is hest sort, but the wound should stay closed as long as he doesn&039;t go walking around on it And he should get looked at by a real doctor soonest" He frowned in concentration "Just give me a minute to close up here"

"Take all the time you need"

Butters fell silent while he worked, and didn&039;t speak again until after he&039;d finished sewing the wound closed and covered the site in bandages Then he turned his attention to the s a particularly ugly one He also applied a topical antibiotic to the burn, and carefully covered it in a layer of gauze

"Okay," Butters said "I sterilized everything as best I could, but it wouldn&039;t shocka fever, or if there&039;s too et hiue"

"Got it," I said quietly

"We should get him onto a bed Get hian by the si on, and settled him down on the only bed in the place, the little twin in my closet-sized bedrooht to have a saline IV going," Butters said "For that matter, a unit of blood couldn&039;t hurt, either And he needs antibiotics, man, but I can&039;t write prescriptions"

"I&039;ll handle it," I said

Butters grimaced at me, his dark eyes concerned He started to speak and then stopped, several times

"Harry," he said, finally "You&039;re on the White Council, aren&039;t you?"

"Yeah"

"And you are a Warden, aren&039;t you?"

"Yep"

Butters shook his head "So, your own people are after this guy I can&039;t iine that they&039;ll be very happy with you if they find hied "They&039;re always upset about so but trouble for you So why help hi down at Morgan&039;s slack, pale, unconscious face

"Because Morgan wouldn&039;t break the Laws of Magic," I said quietly "Not even if it cost him his life"

"You sound pretty sure about that"

I nodded "I a him because I knohat it feels like to have the Wardens on your ass for so you haven&039;t done" I rose and looked away from the unconscious man on my bed "I know it better than anyone alive"

Butters shook his head "You are a rare kind of crazy,up everything he&039;d set out during the iery "So How are the headaches?"

They&039;d been a probleraines "Fine," I told hiht," Butters said "I really wish you&039;d try the MRI again"

Technology and wizards don&039;t coexist well, and ht up there "One baptis foam per year isserious," Butters said "Anything happens in your head or neck, you don&039;t take chances There&039;s way tooup," I lied

"Hogwash," Butters said, giving ot a headache now, don&039;t you?"

I looked froan&039;s recuot one now"

Chapter Two

Morgan slept My first iuy had stuck with me pretty hard-tall, heavily muscled, with a lean, sunken face I&039;d always associated with religious ascetics and half-crazy artists He had brown hair that was unevenly streaked with iron, and a beard that, while always kept trimmed, perpetually seemed to need a few more weeks to fill out He had hard, steady eyes, and all the co charm of a dental drill

Asleep, he looked old Tired I noticed the deep worry lines between his brows and at the corners of his ered, showed e than the rest of hi toward active maturity, for a wizard There were scars across both of his hands-the graffiti of violence The last two fingers of his right hand were stiff and slightly crooked, as if they&039;d been badly broken, and healed without being properly set His eyes looked sunken, and the skin beneath thean had bad dreams, too

It was harder to be afraid of hi, rose fro post in the kitchen alcove, and shambled over to stand beside me, two hundred pounds of silent coan and then up at me

"Do me a favor," I told him "Stay with hi It could kill hiainstsound, and padded over to the bed He lay down on the floor, stretching out alongside it, and promptly went back to sleep

I pulled the door most of the way shut and sank down into the easy chair by the fireplace, where I could rub my temples and try to think

The White Council of Wizards was the governing body for the practice of ic in the world, andayour black belt in a martial art-it meant that you could handle yourself well, that you had real skill that was recognized by your felloizards The Council oversaw the use of ic

God help the poor practitioner who broke one of the Laws The Council would send the Wardens to adenerally took the form of ruthless pursuit, a swift trial, and a pro arrest

It sounds harsh, and it is-but over tiht well be necessary The use of black ic corrupts theit It doesn&039;t happen instantly, and it doesn&039;t happen all at once-it&039;s a slow, festering thing that grows like a tuht have once had is consumed in the need for power By the time a wizard has fallen to that temptation and become a warlock, people are dead, or worse than dead It was the duty of the Wardens to make a quick end of warlocks-by anya Warden than that, though They were also the soldiers and defenders of the White Council In our recent ith the Va had been carried out by the Wardens, those ic Hell, in an as in the center of the fighting

I&039;d donemy fellow Wardens, the only ones ere happy to ith me had been the newer recruits The older ones had all seen too ic, and their experiences had marked them deeply With one exception, they didn&039;t like me, they didn&039;t trustto do with enerally suited me just fine

Over the past few years, the White Council had co information to the vampires A lot of people died because of the traitor, but he, or she, had never been identified Given how eneral and the Wardens in particular lovedtoo boring-especially after I&039;d been dragooned into joining the Wardens myself, as part of the war effort

So as Morgan here, asking for help from me?

Call me crazy, but an was trying to sucker et ain Hell, he&039;d tried to kill ic sian wasn&039;t really in trouble with the Council, then I couldn&039;t get into trouble for hiding him from a pursuit that didn&039;t exist Besides, his injuries said more about his sincerity than any number of words could They had not been faked

He was actually on the la on, I didn&039;t dare go to anyone for help I couldn&039;t very well askpainfully obvious that I had seen him, which would only attract their interest And if the Council was after Morgan, then anyone who helped him would become an accomplice to the crime, and draw heat of his own I couldn&039;t ask anyone to help me

Anyone else, I corrected myself I&039;d had little option but to call Butters in-and frankly, the fact that he was not at all involved in the supernatural world would afford hiht arise froood credit with the White Council the night he&039;d helpedone of their nuod He&039;d saved the life of at least one Warden-two, if you counted er than anyone attached to the community would be

Me, for exaon, I really couldn&039;t take any intelligent action-and I didn&039;t dare start asking questions for fear of attracting unwanted attention Rushing headlong into a investigation would be a an could start talking to me

So I stretched out ononto relax the headache away and clearit for about six hours, until the late dusk of a Chicago summer had settled on the city

I didn&039;t fall asleep I wasto have to take my word for it

I woke up when Mouse let out a low guttural sound that wasn&039;t quite a bark, but was considerably shorter and rowl I sat up and went to an awake

Mouse was standing next to the bed, leaning his broad, heavy head on Morgan&039;s chest The wounded lanced aside at me and started to sit up

Mouse leaned harder, and gently flattened Morgan to the bed again

Morgan exhaled in obvious disco, dry voice, "I take it I a mandatory bed rest"

"Yeah," I said quietly "You were banged up pretty bad The doctor said that walking on that leg would be a bad idea"

Morgan&039;s eyes sharpened "Doctor?"

"Relax It was off the books I know a guy"