push you into some sort of reaction. Something he thinks you’ll do if you’re frightened.”
“Like what?” I asked.
“What do you think?” he replied.
I put my hand on the hilt of Amoracchius. The sword’s tip rested on the floorboards of the truck, between my feet.
“That would be my guess, too,” he said.
I frowned down at the blade and nodded. “Maybe Buzz figured I’d bring you the sword if you were in danger. So that . . .” I didn’t finish.
“So that I’d have some way of defending myself,” Michael said gently. “You can say it, Harry. You won’t hurt my feelings.”
I nodded at the true sword. “Sure you don’t want it?”
Michael shook his head. “I told you, Harry. That part of my life is over.”
“And what if Buzz makes good?” I asked quietly. “What if he kills you?”
Michael actually laughed. “I don’t think that’s going to happen,” he said. “But if it does ...” He shrugged. “Death isn’t exactly a terrifying proposition for me, Harry. If it was, I could hardly have borne the sword for as long as I did. I know what awaits me, and I know that my family will be taken care of.”
I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, I’m sure everything will be fine if your younger kids have to grow up without a father in their lives.”
He winced, and then he pursed his lips thoughtfully for a few moments before he replied. “Other children have,” he said finally.
“And that’s it?” I asked, incredulous. “You just surrender to whatever is going to happen?”
“It isn’t what I’d want—but a lot of things happen that I don’t want. I’m just a man.”
“The last thing I would expect from you,” I said, “is fatalism.”
“Not fatalism,” he said, his voice suddenly and unexpectedly firm. “Faith, Harry. Faith. This is happening for a reason.”
I didn’t answer him. From where I was standing, it looked like it was happening because someone ruthless and fairly intelligent wanted to get his hands on one of the swords. And worse, it looked like he was probably a mortal, too. If what Charity had said was accurate, that meant Michael didn’t have a heavenly insurance policy against the threat.
It also meant I would have to pull my punches—the First Law of Magic prohibited using it to kill a human being. There was some grey area involved with it, but not much, and it was the sort of thing that one didn’t play around with. The White Council enforced the laws, and anyone who broke them faced the very real possibility of a death sentence.
“And that’s all I need,” I muttered.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
Michael pulled the truck into the gravel parking lot of my apartment, in the basement of a big old boardinghouse. “I need to drop by a site before we go back to get your car. Is that all right?”
I took the sword with me as I got out of the truck. “Well,” I said, “as long as it’s all happening for a reason.”
MICHAEL’S SMALL COMPANY built houses. Years of vanishing at irregular intervals to battle the forces of evil had probably held him back from moving up to building the really expensive, really profitable places. So he built homes for the upper couple of layers of the middle class instead. He probably would have made more money if he cut corners, but it was Michael. I was betting that never happened.
This house was a new property, down toward Wolf Lake, and it had the depressing look of all construction sites—naked earth, trees bulldozed and piled to one side, and the standard detritus of any such endeavor: mud, wood, garbage discarded by the workers, and big old boot tracks all over the ground. Half a dozen men were at work, putting up the house’s skeleton.
“Shouldn’t take me long,” Michael said.
“Sure,” I said. “Go to it.”
Michael hopped down from the truck and gimped his way over to the house, moving with an energy and purpose I’d seldom seen from him. I frowned after him, and then pulled the first envelope out of my pocket and started looking at the photos inside.
The photo of Michael at a building site had been taken at this one. Buzz had been here, watching Michael.
He might still be here now.
I got out of the car and slung the sword’s belt over my shoulder, so that it hung with its hilt sticking up next to my head. Photo in hand, I started circling the site, trying to determine where Buzz had been standing when he’d taken his