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Chapter 34

"Admittedly," Sanya said a few s of the Federal Bureau of Investigation And in broad daylight, too"

We were parked down the block frouided us, crouched on the dashboard and de to knohy Sanya hadn&039;t rented one of the cars that could fly instead of the poky old landbound minivan he had instead Toot hadn&039;t taken the answer that "cars like that are is in Russian that only made Sanya&039;s s at the building "Toot? Was Martin with her?"

"The yellow-hair?" Toot sat on the dashboard facing us, waving his feet "No, runted "I don&039;t like that, either Why wouldn&039;t they have been taken together? Which floor is she on, Toot?"

"There," Toot said, pointing I leaned over and hunkered down behind hith of his little ar at

"Fourth," I said "That here Tilly was talking to me"

Sanya reached down to produce a semiautomatic he&039;d hidden beneath the seat of the lued to the outside ht bu sha a little too purposefully toward us to be genuine I atching his hands withhi coat, and it wasn&039;t until he was a few steps away that I realized it was Martin

He stopped on the sidewalk next to the passengerof the van and wobbled in place He rapped on the glass and held out his hand as if begging a handout I rolled down theand asked hiwork," he said "They tracked our rental car back to ot my picture, put it on TV One of the detectives we shook down confirmed my presence and told the there e caet you Susan created a distraction so that I could get away"

"And you left her behind, huh?"

He shrugged "Her identity is genuine, and while they know she arrived with me and was seen withI&039;ve been operating long enough that the Red Court has seen to it that I&039;m on multiple international lists of wanted terrorists If I were caught, both of us would have been taken"

I grunted "What did you find out?"

"The last of the Red King&039;s inner circle arrived this ht," he said "Midnight, or a little after, if our astronomer&039;s assessment is solid"

"Crap"

Martin nodded "How fast can you get us there?"

I touched a fingertip to em and double-checked the way there "This one doesn&039;t have a direct route Three hops, a couple of walks, one of theets us to within five miles of Chich¨¦n Itz¨¢"

Martin looked atmoment Then he said, "I can&039;t help but find it somewhat convenient that you are suddenly able to provide that kind of fast transport to exactly the places we need to go"

"The Red Court had their goodies stashed near a confluence of ley lines," I said, "a point of aical power Chich¨¦n Itz¨¢ is at another such confluence, only a lot bigger Chicago is a crossroads, both physically and metaphysically There are dozens of confluences either in the town or within twenty-five h the Nevernever ot a direct route to a lot of places"

Sanya made an interested sound "Like the airports in Dallas or Atlanta Or here Travel nexuses"

"Exactly"

Martin nodded, though he didn&039;t look like he particularly believed or disbelieved ives us a little more than nine hours," he said

"The Church is trying to get us information about local security at Chich¨¦n Itz¨¢ Meet ed from my pockets "Tell them Harry Dresden said you were no Stevie D We&039;ll leave from there"

"You" He shook his head a little "You got the Church to help you?"

"Hell,me around"

Sanya snorted

Martin studied Sanya with eyes that were a little wide "Isee" A certain energy seemed to enter hi - the positive upswing in his emotions, an electricity that ca that not only was death not certain, but that victory ht actually be possible

Hope is a force of nature Don&039;t let anyone tell you different

Martin nodded "What about Susan?"

"I&039;ll get her out," I said

Martin ducked his head in another nod Then he took a deep breath and said simply, "Thank you" He turned and sha his coins

"Seems a decent fellow," Sanya said His nostrils flared a little "Half-vampire, you say? Fellowship of St Giles?"

"Yeah Like Susan" I watched Martin vanish into Chicago&039;s lunchtime foot traffic and said, "I&039; is mutual," Sanya said "When a man lives a life like Martin&039;s, he learns not to trust anyone"

I grunted sourly "Stop being reasonable I enjoy disliking him"

Sanya chuckled and said, "So What now?"

I took the guns out of my duster pockets and stowed theo back to St Mary&039;s I go in and get Susan and meet you there"

Sanya lifted his eyebrows "You get her from in there?"

"Sure"

He pursed his lips thoughtfully, then shrugged "Okay I suppose it is your funeral, da?"

I nodded firh the metal detectors They went beep I stopped and dropped all the rings and the shield bracelet into a plastic tub, then tried again They didn&039;t fuss at ot my stuff back and walked up to a station in the center of the floor that looked like an information desk I produced one of ator I had only half a dozen of them left The rest had been in ent Tilly about his current investigation"

The woman behind the desk nodded matter-of-factly, called Tilly&039;s office, and asked if he&039;d see me She nodded once and said, "Yes, sir," and se Here Please make sure it is displayed at all tie and clipped it to my duster "Thanks I know the drill"

"Fourth floor," she said, and nodded at the person in line behind me

I walked down to the elevators, rode them up to four, and walked to Tilly&039;s office, which turned out to be right across the hall froation roo, stood in the doorway, looking at a file in a manila folder He let me see that there was a picture of Susan paper-clipped to the inside cover before he closed the file and tucked it under his arm

"So," he said "It&039;s Mr Known Associate Just as well I needed to talk to you again anyway"

"I&039;uy this week," I said

"You&039;re telling ot a car rented by athat blows up We got sworn testiy looker naot a pancaked Volkswagen Bug, belonging to Harry Dresden, and seventy thousand dollars&039; worth of property dae near the house of a local crooked IA cop who lied his ass off to point uez was at one point your girlfriend Eyewitnesses that place both her and the mystery man at your apart that could io back and take a real hard close look at it for trace evidence, it burns to the ground Fire chief is still working on the investigation, but his first ihtfully "I don&039;t know if you&039;re current on investigative technique, but when there are this many connections between a relatively small number of people and events, it can so nefarious"

"Nefarious, huh?" I asked

Tilly nodded "Good word, isn&039;t it" He scrunched up his nose "Disappointsit level with uess you can always run into so them, huh"

"Probably," I said "But you didn&039;t At least not with lanced back into his office "What do you think?"

"I think you&039;re playing with dynaain, Tilly," said Murphy&039;s voice

"Murph," I said, relieved I leaned around Tilly and waved at her She looked at me and shook her head "Da quietly and in an orderly fashion?"

"No way," I said "It&039;s the only thing keeping Tilly here fro I&039;m some kind of bomb maker"

Murphy&039;s mouth twitched up at one corner, briefly She asked soberly, "Are you okay?"

"They burned down ot out, but I don&039;t knohere he&039;s at I ht now but" I shrugged "I guess I&039;," Murphy said wryly, "I&039; to a mountain lion for a few hundred miles He&039;ll be fine"

Tilly blinked and turned to Murphy "Seriously?"

Murphy frowned at him "What?"

"You still back hi off"

"Yeah," Murphy said

Tilly exhaled slowly Then he said, "All right, Dresden Step into my office?"

I did Tilly shut the door behind us

"Okay," he said "Tellon here"

"You don&039;t want to know," Murphy said She&039;d beaten me to it

"That&039;s funny," Tilly said "I just checked in with o, and at that time, it told me that it did want to know"

Murphy exhaled and glanced at uy Your call"

Murphy nodded and asked Tilly, "How much do you know about the Black Cat case files?"

Tilly looked at her for a e, clipped to his jacket "Funny For a second there, I thought soed it to say &039;Mulder&039; "

"I&039;m serious, Till," Murphy said

His dark eyebrows cliations, right? Sixties, seventies, I think They got handed all the weirdo stuff The files make some clai fun with all the wonderful new psychotropic drugs that were co out back then"

"What if I told you they weren&039;t stoned, Till?" Murphy asked

Tilly frowned "Is that what you&039;re telling me?"

"They weren&039;t stoned," Murphy said

Tilly&039;s frown deepened

"SI handles all the same stuff the Black Cats did It&039;s just been made real clear to us that our reports had better not sound like a drug trip So the reports provide an explanation They don&039;t providethere, right in front ofserious?"

"Completely," Murphy said

Tilly folded his ar to you?" she asked

"You aren&039;t," he said "But that doesn&039;taround out there It just means that you believe it&039;s true"

"Maybe I&039;ave her a reproachful look "Orto you and you aren&039;t seeing things objectively I mean - "

"If youto ment," Murphy interrupted, "I will break your arether sourly "Dammit, Murphy Can you hear yourself? Vampires? For Christ&039;s sake What am I supposed to think?"

Murphy spread her hands "I&039;?"

I laid out the last couple of days, focusing on the events in Chicago and leaving out everything but the broadest picture of the White Council and the Red Court and their involvement

"This vampire couple," Murphy said "You think they&039;re the ones who got to Rudolph?"

"Stands to reason They could put pressure on him a lot of different ways They wanted to remove him before he could squeal and sent their heavy to do it"