pay for killing a lot of innocent people, and this is the only way to get to them."
Ramirez pulled three round-sided grenades from the pack and put them down next to the Desert Eagle. "I like that second one better. It's a fight I can get behind. Do we have any backup?"
"Maybe," I said.
He paused and blinked up at me. "Maybe?"
"Most of the Wardens are in India," I told him. "A bunch of old bad guys under some big daddy rakshasa started attacking some monasteries friendly to us while we were distracted with the vamps. I checked, and Morgan and Ebenezar have been hammering them for two days. You, me, your guys, and Luccio's trainees are the only Wardens in North America right now."
"No trainees." Ramirez grunted. "And my guys haven't had their cloaks for a year yet. They… are not up for something like this yet. Half a dozen vamps in an alley, sure, but there's only the three of them."
I nodded. "Keep this simple. Swagger in, look confident, kick ass. You dealt with White Court before?"
"Not much. They stay clear of our people on the coast."
"They're predators like the rest of them," I said. "They react well to body language that tells them that you are not food. They've got some major mental influence skills, so keep focused and make sure your head is clear."
Ramirez produced a well-worn web belt of black nylon. He clipped a holster to it and then fixed the grenades in place. "What's going to stop them from smashing us the second we win this duel?"
That's one of the things I love about working with Ramirez. The possibility of losing the duel simply didn't enter into his calculations. "Their nature," I said. "They like to play civilized, and do their wet work through cat's-paws. They are not fond of direct methods and direct confrontation."
Ramirez lifted his eyebrows, drew a slender, straight, double-edged blade of a type he called a willow sword from the bag, and laid it on the table, too. The tassel on the hilt had been torn off by a zombie the night we'd first fought together. He had replaced it, over the last few years, with a little chain strung with fangs taken from Red Court vampires he'd killed with it. They rattled against one another and the steel and leather of the hilt. "I get it. We're the White King's cat's-paws."
I walked to the icebox. "Bingo. And we can't hang around as potential threats to his rebellious courtiers if he kills us outright after we help him out. It would damage his credibility with his allies, too."
"Ah," Ramirez said. "Politicians."
I returned with two opened beers. I gave one to him, clinked my bottle against his, and we said, in unison, "Fuck 'em," and drank.
Ramirez lowered the bottle, squinted at it, and said, "Can we do this?"
I snorted. "Can't be any harder than Halloween."
"We had a dinosaur then," Ramirez said. Then he turned and pulled fatigue pants and a black Offspring T-shirt out of his bag. He gave me an up-and-down look. "Of course, we still do."
I kicked the coffee table into his shins. He let out a yelp and hobbled off to change clothes in my bedroom, snickering under his breath the whole way.
When he came back out, the smile was gone. We got suited up. Swords and guns and grey cloaks and staves and magical gewgaws left and right, yeehaw. One of these days, I swear, as long as I'm playing supernatural sheriff of Chicago, I'm getting myself some honest-to-God spurs and a ten-gallon hat.
I got out a yellow legal pad and a pen, and Ramirez and I sat down over another beer. "The meeting is at the Raith family estate north of town. I've been in the house, but only part of it. Here's what I remember."
I started sketching it out for Ramirez, who asked plenty of smart questions about both the house and exterior, so that I had to go to a new page to map out what I knew of the grounds. "Not sure where the vamps will be having their meeting, but the duel is going to be in the Deeps. It's a cave outside the house, somewhere out here." I circled an area of the map. "There's a nice deep chasm in them. It's a great place to dispose of bodies, and no chance of being seen or heard."
"Very tidy," Ramirez noted. "Especially if we're the ones who need disposing of."
The doorknob twisted and