In the instant that realization came to me, the force vanished, evaporating as if it had never been. I lay on the floor gasping.
"It is within my capabilities to kill you, young wizard," Vadderung said quietly. "I could wish you dead. Especially here, at the center of my power on Midgard." He got up, came around the desk, and offered me his hand. I took it. He pulled me to my feet, steady as a rock. "You will be at the center of their power. There will be a dozen of them, each nearly as strong as I am." He put a hand on my shoulder briefly. "You are bold, clever, and from time to time lucky. All of those are excellent qualities to have in battles like yours. But against power such as this you cannot prevail as you are. Even if you are able to challenge the Red King at Chichen Itza, you will be crushed down as you were a moment ago. You'll be able to do nothing but watch as your daughter dies."
He stared at me in silence for a time. Then the door to his office opened, and one of the receptionists leaned in. "Sir," she said, "you have a lunch appointment in five minutes."
"Indeed," Vadderung said. "Thank you, M."
She nodded and retreated again.
Vadderung turned back to me, as Gard returned to the room, carrying a covered tray. She set it down on the big steel desk and stepped back, unobtrusively.
"You've defied fate, Dresden," Vadderung said. "You've stood up to foes much larger than you. For that, you have my respect."
"Do you think I could swap in the respect for ... I dunno ... half a dozen Valkyries, a receptionist, and a couple of platoons of dead heroes?"
Vadderung laughed again. He had a hearty laugh, like Santa Claus must have had when he was young and playing football. "I couldn't do without my receptionists, I'm afraid." He sobered. "And those others ... would be less strong at the center of the Red King's power." He shook his head. "Like it or not, this is a mortal matter. It must be settled by mortals."
"You're not going to help," I said quietly.
He went to a steel closet and opened the door, removing an overcoat. He slipped into it, and then walked over to me again. "I've been in this game for a long, long time, boy. How do you know I haven't given you exactly what you need?"
Vadderung took the lid off the covered tray, nodded to me pleasantly, and left.
I looked at the tray. A cup of tea steamed there, three empty paper packets of sugar beside it. The tea smelled like peppermint, a favorite. Next to the cup of tea was a little plate with two cake doughnuts on it, both of them covered in thick white frosting and unmarred by sprinkles or any other edible decorations.
I looked up in time to see Vadderung walk by, trailed by the pair of receptionists, and saw them all simply vanish, presumably into a Way.
"Well?" Gard asked me. "Are you ready to go?"
"Just a minute," I said.
I sat back down. And I drank the tea and ate the doughnuts, thoughtfully.
Chapter Twenty-two
I needed sleep. needed sleep.
I rode back to my place with Molly in the midmorning. Mouse came padding up the stairs from the apartment as we got out of the car, his alert, wary stance relaxing into the usual waving of a doggy tail and enthusiastic sniffs and nudges of greeting. I shambled on into my apartment calmly. All was obviously well.
Susan and Martin were both inside, both busy, as Mister looked on from his lordly peak atop the highest bookshelf. Susan had been shaking out all the rugs and carpets that cover the floor of my living room, and was now rolling them back into place, probably not in the same order as they had been before. She picked up one end of a sofa with a couple of fingers of one hand to get an edge into place.
Martin was alphabetizing my bookshelves.
They used to kill men for sacrilege like that.
I suppressed my twitches as best I could, and told myself that they thought they were helping.
"Success," Susan said. "Or at least a little of it. Our people found out exactly who is tailing us up here."
"Yeah?" I asked. "Who?"
"The Eebs," she said.
Molly came in and frowned severely at what they were doing. Granted, the place was kind of a mess after the FBI and cops got done, but still. She was probably as used to the place as I was. "Sounds like the Scoobies, only less distinctive."
Martin shook his head. "Esteban and Esmerelda Batiste," he clarified. "One of the husband-wife teams the Red Court uses for fieldwork."
"One of?" I asked.
"Couples traveling together attract less attention," Susan said. "They're often given the benefit of the doubt in any kind of judgment call made by various officers of the law. It smooths things out a little more than they would be otherwise."
"Hence you and Martin," I said.
"Yes," said Martin. "Obviously."
"Esteban and Esmerelda are notorious," Susan said. "They're unorthodox, difficult to predict, which is saying something when you're talking about vampires. They'll throw away their personnel, too, if that is what it takes to get results. Personally, I think it's because they have some kind of gruesome variation of love for each other. Makes them more emotional."
"They have complementary insanities," Martin said. "Don't dignify it with anything more."
"The one you said got away, Harry?" Susan said. "Esteban, probably. He rabbits early and often, which probably explains why he's still alive. Esmerelda would have been the spotter on top of a nearby building-also the one who probably triggered the explosives."
"Gotta figure they're behind the hit outside the FBI building, too," I said. "Tinted windows on the car. Shooter was way back inside the backseat, away from the window."
"Maybe, sure," Susan said. "They'll suit up in all-over coverage and head out in the daytime if they think it's really necessary."
I grunted. "So Esteban and Esmerelda ..."
"Eebs," Susan said firmly.
"So the Eebs aren't really fighters. They're planners. Fair to say?"
"Very much so," said Martin. There might have been a faint note of approval in his voice.
I nodded. "So they and their vampire gang were supposed to follow you, only when they saw you heading into the data center, they were forced to do more than shadow you. They tried to protect the data. All rational."
Susan began to frown and then nodded at me.
"Of course," Martin said. "Difficult to predict but never stupid."
"So why," I said, "if they were here operating under orders from the duchess to foil your efforts, would they take the trouble to try an assassination on me me?"
Martin opened his mouth, and then closed it again, frowning.
"I mean, Arianna wants to see me suffer, right? Thank God for cliched mind-sets, by the way. I can't do that if I'm dead. I go early, it cheats her of the fun."
"There's division in the ranks of the Red Court," Susan murmured. "It's the only thing that would explain it. Countervailing interests-and at the summit of their hierarchy, too."
"Or," Martin said, "it was not the"-he sighed-"Eebs ... who made the attempt."
"But I haven't seen any of the other people who want to kill me lately," I said. "I saw the Eebs just the other night. They're the simplest explanation."
Martin tilted his head slightly in allowance. "But remember that what you have is a theory. Not a fact. You are not blessed with a shortage of foes, Dresden."
"Um, Harry?" Molly asked.
I turned to her.
"I don't know if I'm supposed to jump in with this kind of thing or not, but ... if there's some sort of internal schism going on inside the Red Court ... what if the kidnapping and so on is ... like a cover for something else she's doing, inside her court? I mean, maybe it isn't all about you. Or at least, not only only about you." about you."
I stared at her blankly for a moment. "But for that to be true," I said, "I would have to not be the center of the universe."
Molly rolled her eyes.
"Good thought, grasshopper," I said. "Something to keep in mind. Maybe we're the diversion."
"Does it matter?" Susan asked. "I mean, as far as our interests go?"
I shrugged. "We'll have to see, I guess."
She grimaced. "If the Eebs are working for a different faction than Arianna, then there goes our only lead. I was hoping I could convince them to tell us where Maggie was being held."
"Worth a try in any case," Martin said. "If we can catch them."
"We could do that," I said. "Or we could make sure we've got Chichen Itza staked out and grab her when the Reds bring her there for their uber-magic shindig."
Susan whirled to face me, her eyes wide. "What?"
"They're pulling off their big ceremony at Chichen Itza," I said. I met Susan's eyes and nodded. "I found her. She'll be there. And we'll go get her."
Susan let out a fiercely joyful cry and pounced upon me clear from the other side of the room. The impact drove my back up against one of the bookshelves. Susan's legs twined around my waist and her mouth found mine.
Her lips were fever-hot and sweet, and when they touched mine silent fire spread out into my body and briefly consumed all thought. My arms closed around her-around Susan, so warm and real and ... and so very, very here here. My heart lurched into double time, and I started to feel a little dizzy.
Mouse's growl rolled through the room, sudden and deep in his chest.
"Rodriguez," Martin barked, his voice tense.
Susan's lips lifted from mine, and when she opened her eyes, they were solid black, all the way across-just like a Red vampire's. My lips and tongue still tingled at the touch of her mouth, a very faint echo of the insidious venom of one of the Reds. Bright red tattoos showed on her face, her neck, and winding down one arm. She stared at me for a moment, dazed, then blinked slowly and looked over her shoulder at Martin.
"You're close," he said, in a very quiet, very soothing voice. "You need to back down. You need to take some time to breathe."
Something like rage filled Susan's face for an instant. Then she shuddered, glancing from Martin to me and back, and then began disentangling herself from me.
"Sun's out, and it's warm," Martin said, taking her elbow gently. "Come on. We'll get some sun and walk and sort things out."
"Sun," Susan said, her voice still low and husky with arousal. "Right, some sun."
Martin shot me a look that he probably hoped would kill me, and then he and Susan left the apartment and walked up into the morning's light.
Molly waited until they were well away from the front door and said, "Well. That was stupid of you both."
I looked over my shoulder at her and frowned.
"Call it like I see it," my apprentice said quietly. "You know she has trouble controlling her emotions, her instincts. She shouldn't have been all over you. And you shouldn't have kissed her back." Her mouth tightened. "Someone could have gotten hurt."
I rubbed at my still-tingling lips for a moment and suppressed a flash of anger. "Molly ..."
"I get it," she said. "I do. Look. You care about her, okay. Maybe even loved her. Maybe she loved you. But it can't be like that anymore." She spread her hands and said, "As messed up as that is, it's still the reality you have to live with. You can't ignore it. You get close to her, and there's no way for it to come out good, boss."
I stared hard at her, all the rage inside me coming out in my voice, despite the fact that I tried to hold it in. "Be careful, Molly."
Molly blanched and looked away. But she folded her arms and stood her ground. "I'm saying this because I care, Harry."
"You care about Susan?" I asked. "You don't even know her."
"Not Susan," she said. "You."
I took a step toward her. "You don't know a goddamned thing about me and Susan, Molly."
"I know that you already blame yourself for what happened to her," she said, spitting out the words. "Think about what it'll be like for her if she gets lost in a kiss with you and realizes, later, that she ripped your throat open and drank your blood and turned herself into a monster. Is that how you want your story, Susan and Harry, to end?"
The words made me want to start screaming. I don't know what kept me from lashing out at the girl.
Other than the fact that she would never believe me capable of such a thing.
And she was right. That might have something to do with it.
So I took a deep breath and closed my eyes and fought down the rage again. I was getting tired of that.
When I spoke, a moment later, my voice sounded raw. "Study with a wizard has made you manipulative."
She sniffed a couple of times, and I opened my eyes to see her crying silently. "N-no," she said. "That was my mom."
I made a sound of acknowledgment and nodded.
She looked at me, and made no move to wipe the tears from her face. "You look awful."
"I found out some things," I said.
She bit her lip. "It's bad. Isn't it."