for a coin to flip when grey shapes loomed up in the road in front of me. I stood on the brakes and left broad swaths of rubber on the road behind me as I fought the big old car to a halt.
I wound up with the nose of the car pointing into the weeds and the headlights casting a harsh cone of white light, partly over the road and partly over the thick trees that hemmed it in.
I killed the engine and stared out the driver’s-side window at the four Wardens who barred my way.
Ramirez stood in the middle of the crew and slightly forward, leaning on his cane, his dark eyes steady. He’d have been the first one to meet bumper if I hadn’t been able to stop the car. Gone were the casual civilian clothes—he was dressed in the White Council’s version of tactical gear, complete with his grey Warden’s cloak.
To his right stood “Wild Bill” Meyers. Wild Bill had filled out a lot as he got into his late twenties, adding on the muscle and solidity of a maturing body. He’d grown his beard out, and it wasn’t all skinny and patchy like it used to be. He kind of reminded me of Grizzly Adams now. His cloak was shorter on him than it had been when we’d started the war with the Red Court—Wild Bill hadn’t been done growing yet. Rather than one of the enchanted swords most of the established Wardens carried, Wild Bill had a bowie knife he’d been working on steadily for years. It rode his belt across from a .45-70 Big Frame Revolver that weighed as much as my leg.
In the shadows cast to the left side of the road by my headlights stood Yoshimo, who refused to let anyone call her by her first name. It had taken Ramirez a couple of years to find out that it was Yukie, and I’m pretty sure she hadn’t forgiven him. She was a girl of Okinawan heritage, about five four, and she carried a katana on her hip and an assault rifle on a strap around one shoulder. She could use either of them like a Hong Kong action-movie star.
The fourth member of Ramirez’s crew stood to his left, looking steadily into my headlights. He was a slim, very dapper young man dressed in a camel-colored bespoke suit and wearing a neatly complementary bowler hat. Chandler had indulged in experimental facial hair as well, and currently sported a thick, fierce Freddie Mercury mustache. It could have looked dopey with his outfit, but Chandler being Chandler, he carried it off with panache. Maybe the strictly ornamental walking cane helped. He was the only one of the four not geared up for a fight—but then Chandler had always made it a point to uphold the forms of civilization harder than were strictly necessary.
The five of us had been through more than a little together, though Chandler had been our handler and point of contact, not usually a field guy.
None of them were smiling.
I could recognize game faces when I saw them.
Harry, I thought to myself. These kids might be here to hurt you.
I sat in the car for a moment while the engine clicked. Then I said, “In the future, you guys should probably look for a crosswalk. Or maybe an adult to hold your hand.”
“We need to talk, Harry,” Ramirez said. “Got a minute?”
I eyed him and then mused, “How’d you pull off the tracking spell?”
“Right wrist,” he said.
I eyed him, then held up my right hand and peered. I had to turn my thumb until it faced almost all the way away from me to spot the dot of black ink on the outside of my wrist.
Ramirez held up his right hand and wiggled his pinky finger, where an identically shaped ink spot marked his skin.
“Wow,” I said in a level tone. “Mistrusting me right from the get-go, huh?”
He shrugged. “I was pretty clear about my intentions,” he said. “If you don’t want others to think you’re shady, man, maybe you shouldn’t be doing shady things at shady times with shady people.” He nodded back the way I’d come, toward the Château. “Come on, Harry. It’s us. Make this simple. Talk to me.”
“Maybe you don’t know about my life’s relationship with simple,” I said. I eyed Ramirez. Then the others. “Hey, guys. What’s up?”
Yoshimo gave me her samurai face. Wild Bill lifted his chin, an almost unconscious gesture of acknowledgment. Chandler rolled