the usual heat. "Yes, thank you, Harry. You want to tie my shoes for me before we start?"
"Whoa, what's that?" I asked him.
"Oh, come on, man," Ramirez said quietly, his voice tight and, angry. "You're lying to me. You're lying to the Council."
I stared at him.
"I'm not an idiot, man," Ramirez said, his expression neutral. "You can barely get by in Latin, but you speak ghoul? Ancient Etruscan? There's more going on here than a duel and internal politics, Dresden. You're involved with these things. More than you should be. You know them too well. Which is a really fucking disturbing thing to realize, considering we're talking about a race of mind-benders."
Vitto and Madrigal emerged from the Malvoran contingent. Vitto bore a long rapier at his side, and there were a number of throwing knives on his belt, as well as a heavy pistol in a holster. Madrigal, meanwhile, carried a spear with a seven-foot haft, and his arms were wrapped with two long strips of black cloth covered in vaguely oriental characters in metallic red thread. I'd have guessed that they were constructs of some kind, even before I felt the ripple of magical energy in them as he walked with Vitto to stand facing us from thirty feet away.
"Carlos," I said. "This is one hell of a time to start having doubts about my loyalty."
"Dammit, Harry," he said. "I'm not backing out on you. It's too late for that, even if I wanted to. But this whole thing feels more and more like a setup every second."
I couldn't argue with him there.
I was pretty sure it was.
I looked back and forth down the length of the ranks of vampires, all of whom watched in total silence now, grey eyes bright, edging over into metallic silver with their rising hunger. The formalities of the Accords had kept us alive and largely unmolested, here amidst the monsters, but if we deviated from the conventions, we'd never live to see the surface again. We were in the same position as Madrigal and Vitto, really: Win or die.
And I didn't delude myself for one single second that this was going to be as simple as a stand-up fight. Part of the nature of the White Court was treachery, as well. It was only a matter of time, and timing, before one of them turned on us, and if we weren't ready when it happened, we'd either be dead or getting fitted for our own white robes.
Vitto and Madrigal squared off against us, hands on their weapons.
I took a deep breath and faced them. Beside me, Ramirez did the same.
Lord Raith reached up his sleeve and withdrew a handkerchief of red silk. He offered it to Lara, who took it and walked slowly down the lines of kneeling thralls. She stopped at the sidelines, midway between us, and slowly lifted the red silk. "Gentlemen," she said. "Stand ready. Let no weapon of any kind be drawn until this cloth reaches the earth."
My heart started pounding faster, and I drew my duster back enough to put a hand near the handle of my blasting rod.
Lara flicked the scarlet silk cloth into the air, and it began to fall.
Ramirez was right. This was a trap. I had done everything I could to prepare for it, but the bottom line was that I was not sure what was going to happen.
But like the man said: It was too late to back out now.
The cloth hit the floor and my hand blurred for my blasting rod as the duel began.
* * *
CHAPTER
Thirty-Eight
S ome people are faster than others. I'm fast. Always have been, especially for a man my size, but this duel had gotten off to a fair start, and no merely mortal hand is faster than a vampire's.
Vitto Malvora's gun cleared its holster before my fingers had tightened on the blasting rod's handle. The weapon resembled a fairly standard Model 1911, but it had an extension to the usual ammunition clip sticking out of the handle, and it spat a spray of bullets in the voice of a yowling buzz saw.
Some vampires are faster than others. Vitto was fast. He'd drawn and fired more swiftly than I'd ever seen Thomas move, more swiftly than I'd seen Lara shoot. But bodies, even nigh-immortal vampire bodies, are made of flesh and blood, and have mass and inertia. No hand, not even a vampire's, is swifter than thought.
Ramirez already had his power held ready when the scarlet cloth hit