She surrendered the Sword and her guns willingly enough, and I lagged a few steps behind them while I settled the straps and weaponry about myself. I hung the P-90, the only object Murph was carrying with enough open space in it to hide an itinerant spirit, so that it bumped against the skull still in the improvised bag on my belt and murmured, very quietly, “Out of the gun.”
“About time,” Bob whispered back. “Sunrise is almost here. You trying to get me cooked?” Orange light flowed wearily out of the apertures of the P-90 and back into the safety of the skull. The lights in the eye sockets flickered dimly, and the spirit’s slurred voice whispered, “Don’ gimme any work for a week. At least.” Then they flickered out.
I made sure the T-shirt was still tied firmly, and that the gun wasn’t going to scratch the skull. Then I caught up to the others, and was the first one through the gateway.
It was like walking through a light curtain into another room. A step, a single stride, took me from Chichén Itzá to Chicago. Specifically, we emerged into Father Forthill’s storage room-slash-refugee closet, and the lightning gate closed behind us with a snap of static discharge.
“Direct flight,” said Sanya with both surprise and approval, looking around. “Nice.”
Murphy nodded. “No stops? No weird places? How does that work?”
I had no idea. So I just smiled, shrugged, and said, “Magic.”
“Good enough,” Murphy said with a sigh, and immediately settled Maggie down onto one of the cots. The child started to cry again, but Murphy shushed her and tucked her beneath the blankets and slipped a pillow beneath her head, and the little girl was out in seconds.
I watched Maggie without getting involved.
Her mother’s blood was on my hands. Literally.
Sanya stepped up next to me and put his hand on my shoulder. He nodded toward the hallway and said, “We should talk.”
“Go ahead,” Murphy said. “I’ll stay with her.”
I nodded my thanks to her, and went out into the hallway with Sanya.
Wordlessly, he offered me Amoracchius. I stared at the Sword for a moment.
“I’m not so sure I should have that,” I said.
“If you were,” he said, “I wouldn’t want you to have it. Uriel placed it in your care. If he wanted it moved, he should say so.”
After a moment, I took the sword and hung its belt over the same shoulder as Fidelacchius. The Swords felt very heavy.
Sanya nodded. “Before he left, Thomas said to give you this. That you would know what it was.” He passed me a key.
I recognized it from the stamp on the head reading, WB. It stood for the name of the Water Beetle, Thomas’s beat-up old commercial fishing boat. It had a bathroom, a shower, a little kitchen, some bunks. And I had a couple of changes of clothing there, from overnight trips to one of the islands in Lake Michigan.
My brother was offering me a place to stay.
I had to blink my eyes several times as I took the key. “Thank you,” I said to Sanya.
He studied my face for a second, thoughtfully. Then he said, “You’re leaving now, aren’t you?”
I looked back toward Forthill’s quiet little haven. “Yeah.”
He nodded. “When will Mab come for you?”
“I don’t know,” I said quietly. “Soon, I guess.”
“I will talk to Michael for you,” he said. “Tell him about his daughter.”
“I appreciate it,” I said. “Just so you know . . . Murphy knows my wishes regarding Maggie. She’ll speak for me.”
“Da,” he said. Then he reached into his pocket and produced a metal flask. He sipped from it, and offered it to me. “Here.”
“Vodka?”
“Of course.”
“On an empty stomach,” I said, but took the flask, tilted it to him in a little salute, and downed a big swallow. It burned going in, but not necessarily in a bad way.
“I am glad that we fought together,” he said, as I passed the flask back. “I will do everything in my power to help make your daughter safe until you can return.”
I lifted my eyebrows. “Returning . . . isn’t really in the cards, man.”
“I do not play cards,” he said. “I play chess. And in my opinion, this is not your endgame. Not yet.”
“Being the Winter Knight isn’t the kind of job you walk out of.”
“Neither is being Knight of the Sword,” he said. “But Michael is with his family now.”
“Michael’s boss was a hell of a lot nicer than mine.”