you will be destroyed, and she with you.”
“Understood,” I said calmly.
Alamaya gave me a more conventional bow and hurried out after the Red King.
When she was gone, I took two steps over to the altar and the dead woman upon it. Then I said, “All right. Tell me what I’m looking at.”
From the improvised Rolling Stones T-shirt bag tied to my sash, Bob the Skull said, in his most caustic voice, “A giant pair of cartoon lips.”
I muttered a curse and fumbled with the shirt until one of the skull’s glowing orange eye sockets was visible.
“A big goofy magic nerd!” Bob said.
I growled at him and aimed his eye at the altar.
“Oh,” Bob said. “Oh, my.”
“What is it?” I asked.
“The ritual curse they’re setting up,” Bob said. “It’s a big one.”
“How does it work? In ten seconds or less.”
“Ten sec—Argh,” Bob said. “Okay. Picture a crossbow. All the human sacrifices are the effort you need to pull back the string and store the energy. This crossbow has its string all the way back, and it’s ready to fire. It just needs a bolt.”
“What do you mean, a bolt?”
“Like the little girl hiding back behind it,” Bob said. “Her blood will carry the stored energy out into the world, and conduct that energy to the target. In this case, her blood relatives.”
I frowned for a second. Then I asked, “Does it have to be Maggie, specifically?”
“Nah. One bolt is pretty much like another. Long as you use a compatible knife to spill the blood, it should work.”
I nodded. “So . . . what if we used a different bolt?”
“The same thing would happen,” Bob said. “The only difference would be who is on the receiving end.”
“It’s a loaded gun,” I said quietly. I frowned. “Then why’d they leave me alone with it?”
“Who you gonna kill to set it off?” Bob asked. “Your little girl? Yourself? Come on, boss.”
“Can we disarm it then? Scramble it?”
“Sure. It’d blow this temple halfway to orbit, but you could do that.”
I ground my teeth. “If it goes off the way they mean it to, will it kill Thomas?”
“The girl’s human,” Bob said. “So only the human bits. His body, his mind. I suppose if he got lucky, he might wind up a vegetable in which his Hunger demon was trapped, but it won’t spread any farther into the White Court than that.”
“Dammit,” I said. I started to say more, but caught motion out of the corner of my eye. I stuffed Bob all the way back into the sack, admonishing him to shut up, and turned to find Alamaya entering the temple with a dozen of the full-vampire jaguar warriors at her back.
“If you would follow me, lord wizard,” the girl said, “I will conduct you to she who has wronged you. My lord wishes you to know that he gives his word that your daughter will be spared from any harm until the duel is concluded.”
“Thank you,” I said. I turned to look at my little girl one more time. She huddled against the wall, her eyes open but not fixed on anything, as if she were trying to watch everything around her at once.
I moved over to the child, and she flinched again. I knelt down in front of her. I didn’t try to touch her. I didn’t think I would be able to keep cool if I saw her recoil from my hand.
“Maggie,” I said quietly.
Her eyes flashed up to me, surprise evident there.
“I’m going to take you away from the mean people,” I said, keeping my voice as soft and gentle as I knew how. I didn’t know if she even understood English. “Okay? I’m taking you out of here.”
Her lip trembled. She looked away from me again.
Then I stood up and followed the priestess of the junkie god to face my enemy.
Outside, things had changed. The Red Court had filed down from the pyramid and were on the move, walking in calm, ordered procession to another portion of the ruins. My companions waited at the bottom of the stairs.
“Right,” I said, once I reached them. “Duel time.”
Sanya shook his head. “Mark my words. This will not be settled in a dueling circle. Things like this always go to hell.”
“The Accords are serious,” I said. “He’ll play it straight. If I win, I get the girl and we’re gone.”
Martin shook his head.
“What?” I asked him.
“I know them,” he said levelly. “None of us are leaving this place alive.”
His words had an instant