“Oh, yeah, definitely. And you’re on the fast track for the very top.” I took the hairs from him and said, “We’ll get the car. Lead us to her, Toot.”
“Yes, sir!”
“Good,” Sanya said, grinning. “Now we know where to go and have someone to rescue. This part I know how to do.”
34
“Admittedly,” Sanya said a few minutes later, “normally I do not storm headquarters buildings of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. And in broad daylight, too.”
We were parked down the block from the FBI’s Chicago office, where Toot had guided us, crouched on the dashboard and demanding to know why Sanya hadn’t rented one of the cars that could fly instead of the poky old landbound minivan he had instead. Toot hadn’t taken the answer that “cars like that are imaginary” seriously, either. He had muttered a few things in Russian that only made Sanya’s smile wider.
“Damn,” I said, staring at the building. “Toot? Was Martin with her?”
“The yellow-hair?” Toot sat on the dashboard facing us, waving his feet. “No, my liege.”
I grunted. “I don’t like that, either. Why wouldn’t they have been taken together? Which floor is she on, Toot?”
“There,” Toot said, pointing. I leaned over and hunkered down behind him so that I could look down the length of his little arm to the window he was pointing at.
“Fourth,” I said. “That was where Tilly was talking to me.”
Sanya reached down to produce a semiautomatic he’d hidden beneath the seat of the minivan and cycled a round into the chamber, his eyes glued to the outside mirror. “Company.”
A bald, slightly overweight bum in a shabby overcoat and cast-off clothing shambled down the sidewalk with vacant eyes—but he was moving a little too purposefully toward us to be genuine. I was watching his hands with my shield bracelet ready to go, expecting him to pull a weapon out from beneath the big coat, and it wasn’t until he was a few steps away that I realized it was Martin.
He stopped on the sidewalk next to the passenger window of the van and wobbled in place. He rapped on the glass and held out his hand as if begging a handout. I rolled down the window and asked him, “What happened?”
“The FBI did its legwork,” he said. “They tracked our rental car back to my cover ID, got my picture, put it on TV. One of the detectives we shook down confirmed my presence and told them I’d been seen at your place, and they were waiting there when we came back to get 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 with me, they can’t prove that she’s done anything. I’ve been operating long enough that the Red Court has seen to it that I’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’s inner circle arrived this morning. They’ll do the ceremony tonight,” he said. “Midnight, or a little after, if our astronomer’s assessment is solid.”
“Crap.”
Martin nodded. “How fast can you get us there?”
I touched a fingertip to my mother’s gem and double-checked the way there. “This one doesn’t have a direct route. Three hops, a couple of walks, one of them in bad terrain. Should take us ninety minutes, gets us to within five miles of Chichén Itzá.”
Martin looked at me for a long moment. Then he said, “I can’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 ample magical power. Chichén Itzá 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 miles. The routes I know through the Nevernever mostly run from confluence to confluence, so Chicago’s got 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’t look like he particularly believed or disbelieved me. “That gives us a little more than nine hours,” he said.
“The Church is trying to get us information about local security at Chichén