“You can send someone to Mab,” I suggested. “Someone expendable. Once you tell her you want to humiliate her by abusing her chosen champion, she’s going to react predictably.”
“Arrogant fool,” Ilyana snarled.
“Get out,” Carlos said quietly to her. “Right now.”
Ilyana shot him a look from ice-cold blue eyes that could have curdled milk. Maybe literally. Then she turned and walked stiffly out of the great hall and back to the entry hall.
Ramirez watched her go and then said, quietly, “She had a twin sister. Went warlock, bad. Then the warlock sister set Ilyana up to take the fall with the Council. Luccio worked out what happened just before the sword fell.” He shook his head. “Ilyana’s got a lot of feelings and she doesn’t have much forgiveness in her for anyone who comes close to crossing the line.”
“Do you?” I asked.
Ramirez bobbed his head slightly to one side. “I’ve lost a lot of illusions lately.”
“Yeah,” I said wearily.
We were quiet for a moment.
“You going to play ball here, Harry?” he asked me.
“Start with showing some respect,” I said without heat. “I’ll try to do the same.”
“I can work with that,” Ramirez said. “Maybe. See where it takes us. The Merlin won’t like it.”
“I’m going to lose sleep over that thought,” I said. “The Merlin not liking something.”
Ramirez smiled briefly. “He denied expenditure of Council resources to recover Wild Bill’s and Yoshimo’s bodies.”
Wild Bill Meyers and Yukie Yoshimo had been turned by Black Court vampires during the Battle of Chicago. They weren’t themselves anymore. They were undead things with our friends’ stolen faces and memories, under the thrall of the most powerful Black Courters left on the planet. Their sacrifice and discipline and talents had been taken and would be used for malevolent purposes by some truly epic monsters, and even through my constant fog of personal pain, I felt slow anger rising.
“He’s not going to help lay them to rest,” I said quietly.
Ramirez’s eyes looked sunken. “Says it isn’t time.” He took a deep breath. “So here’s how it is. I’m not your junior anymore, either, Harry. So if I’m going to work with you, you’re going to work with me. When we’re both ready, we track them down. We settle things. You and me. Like you said.”
He looked up at me, his gaze searching.
I nodded slowly. “We’ll find them. We’ll bring them home. And settle up with Drakul and his people. Just like I said.”
Ramirez offered me his hand.
I crossed to him and shook it.
Chapter
Seven
“What did you do to theWater Beetle?” I complained.
Molly and I had just gotten out of a Winter Court stretch limousine. The waterfront roads hadn’t been busy when the EMP had gone off, and they had been cleared quickly so that supplies being shipped in via Lake Michigan could be distributed more efficiently. I’d had to walk several blocks to meet the limo, and I’d gotten mildly motion sick riding in the back of the thing, but it had air-conditioning. The summer noon was brutally hot, possibly as a result of the interaction of Summer and Winter power over the city back in June.
“Oh, come on, Harry,” Molly said, a faint smile on her face. “Can’t you just say ‘thank you’ and enjoy it?”
“Hmph,” I said, and folded my arms.
My old fishing tub, theWater Beetle, was almost a clone of theOrcain the movieJaws. It wasn’t a terribly sexy vessel, but it had been practical, serviceable, and comfortable—at least until Justine had stolen it, torn open its belly on rocks, and sunk it in three feet of water.
Molly’s people had salvaged theWater Beetleand given it a makeover.
The hull had been cleaned up and repainted in clean white. Brass and stainless steel fittings and fastenings had been polished and shone in the summer sun. Smudged and dirty old glass windows had been switched out with mirror-tinted replacements.
