Martin had gotten up during the discussion. He came over to me and studied the map I'd marked. Then he nodded. As the discussion went on-with Molly's sponsorship, Mouse was lobbying to claim Gimli on the basis of being the shortest, the stoutest, and the hairiest-Martin explained what they knew of the security measures around the ruins.
"That's why we're going in here," he said, pointing to the eastern-most point of the ruins, where rows and rows and rows of great columns stood. Once, they had held up some kind of roof over a complex attached to the great temple. "Now," Martin continued, "the jungle has swallowed the eastern end of it. They're only using torchlight, so movement through the galleries should be possible. There will be considerable shadow to move through."
"Means they'll have guards there," I said.
"True. We'll have to silence them. It can be done. If we can move fully through the galleries, we'll be within two hundred feet of the base of the temple. That's where we think they'll be performing the ritual. In the temple."
"Plenty of temples got built on top of ley line confluences," I said, nodding. I studied the map. "A lot can happen in two hundred feet," I said. "Even moving fast."
Martin nodded. "Yes, it can. And, if our various intelligence sources are correct, there are more than a thousand individuals nearby."
"A thousand vampires?" I asked.
Martin shrugged. "Many. Many will be their personal guards. Others, the ... highest-ranking servants, I suppose you would call them. They are like Susan and myself. There may also be mortal foot soldiers, there to keep the sacrifices in line."
"Sacrifices, plural?"
Martin nodded. "The ceremonies of the Red Court of old could last for days, with blood sacrifices made every few minutes. There might be a hundred or two hundred others chosen to die before the ritual."
I didn't shudder, but only by sheer force of will. "Yeah. Priming the pump." I nodded. "Probably they're doing it right now."
"Yes," Martin said.
"What we need," I said.
"A diversion," Martin said.
I nodded. "Get everyone looking in one direction. Then Susan, Lea, and I will hit the temple, get the kid. Then we all run for Father Forthill's sanctuary on holy ground."
"They'll catch us long before we can cover that distance."
"You ever tried chasing a faerie through the woods at night?" I asked wryly. "Trust me. If we can break contact, we can make it a few miles."
"Why not retreat directly to the spirit world?" Martin asked.
I shook my head. "No way. Creatures this old and powerful know all the tricks there, and they'll be familiar with the terrain on the other side that close to their strong places. I won't fight them on that ground unless there's no other choice. We head for the church." I pointed to the location of the church, in a small town only about two and a half miles from Chichen Itza.
Martin smiled faintly. "Do you honestly think a parish chapel will withstand the might of the Red King?"
"I have to think that, Martin," I said. "Besides, I think a parish chapel with all three Swords defending it, along with two members of the White Council and an elder sorceress of the Winter Sidhe, will be a tough nut to crack. And all we have to do is make it until dawn. Then we're back in the jungle and gone."
Martin mused on that for a moment and said, "It might work."
"Yeah. It might," I said. "We need to move. Our ride is outside waiting."
"Right."
Martin looked at Susan and nodded. Then he put his fingers to his mouth and let out a piercing whistle. The good-natured discussion came to a halt and he said, "The car's outside."
"Let's go, people," I said quietly. "It's the big green car."
Everyone grew serious rather rapidly, and began gathering up their various forms of gear.
Susan went out first, to make sure there weren't any problems with Lea, and everyone filed out after her, Sanya last.
"Sanya," I said. "Who did I get cast as?"
"Sam," Sanya said.
I blinked at him. "Not ... Oh, for crying out loud, it was perfectly obvious who I should have been."
Sanya shrugged. "It was no contest. They gave Gandalf to your godmother. You got Sam." He started to leave and then paused. "Harry. You have read the books as well, yes?"
"Sure," I said.
"Then you know that Sam was the true hero of the tale," Sanya said. "That he faced far greater and more terrible foes than he ever should have had to face, and did so with courage. That he went alone into a black and terrible land, stormed a dark fortress, and resisted the most terrible temptation of his world for the sake of the friend he loved. That in the end, it was his actions and his actions alone that made it possible for light to overcome darkness."
I thought about that for a second. Then I said, "Oh."
He clapped me on the shoulder and left.
He didn't mention the other part of the book. That following the heroes when they set out was the tenth member of their party. A broken creature who went through all the same dangers and trials, who had made a single bad choice and taken up a power he didn't understand- and who had become a demented, miserable, living nightmare because of it. In the end, he had been just as necessary to the overthrow of the darkness.
But he sure as hell didn't enjoy his part.
I shook my head and berated myself sharply. Here I was wasting time talking about a damned book. About a world of blacks and whites with precious little in the way of grey, where you could tell the good guys from the bad guys with about two seconds of effort.
And right now, I didn't give a damn about good and bad. I just wanted a little girl home safe.
It didn't matter which of them I was. As long as I got Maggie home.
I picked up my bag, left St. Mary's behind me, and stalked out to my wicked godmother's limo, pulling the soft hood of my dark cape up over my head.
If I was on the road to Hell, at least I was going in style.
Chapter Forty
There was room for everyone in the back of the limo. I was pretty sure that there hadn't been the first time I'd ridden in it. But it had gotten several extra feet of seats along the walls, and everyone was sitting there being only a little bit crowded as Glenmael charged out to assault Chicago's streets.
"I still think we should try a frontal assault," Sanya argued.
"Suicidally stupid," Martin said, his voice scornful.
"Surprise tactic!" Sanya countered. "They will not expect it after a thousand years of never being challenged. Harry, what do you think?"
"Uh," I said.
And then Ebenezar's voice said, quite clearly and from no apparent source, "Damn your stubborn eyes, boy! Where have you been?"
I went rigid with surprise for a second. I looked around the interior of the limo, but no one had reacted, with the exception of my godmother. Lea sighed and rolled her eyes.
Right. The speaking stones. I'd stuck mine in the bag, but since I was holding it on my lap now, it was close enough to be warmed by the heat of my body to function. It was possible to send terse messages through the stones without first establishing a clear connection, as my mentor and I had done back toward the beginning of this mess.
"Damnation and hellfire, Hoss!" growled Ebenezar's voice. "Answer me!"
I looked from Sanya to my godmother. "Uh. I kind of have to take this call."
Sanya blinked at me. Thomas and Murphy exchanged a significant glance.
"Oh, shut up," I said crossly. "It's magic, okay?"
I closed my eyes and fumbled through the bag until I found the stone. I didn't really need to show up in my outlandish costume for this conversation, so I thought about my own physical body for a moment, concentrating on an image of my limbs and flesh and normal clothing forming around my thoughts.
"So help me, boy, if you don't-"
Ebenezar appeared in my mind's eye, wearing his usual clothing. He broke off suddenly as he looked at me and his face went pale. "Hoss? Are you all right?"
"Not really," I said. "I'm kind of in the middle of something here. What do you want?"
"Your absence from the conclave did not go over well," he responded, his voice sharp. "There are people in the Grey Council who think you aren't to be trusted. They're very, very wary of you. By missing the meeting, you told them that either you don't respect our work enough to bother showing up, or else that you don't have the wisdom and the fortitude to commit to the cause."
"I never saw the appeal of peer pressure," I said. "Sir, I'm finding a little girl. I'll come play Council politics after I get her home safe, if you want."
"We need you here."
"The kid needs me more. It's not as noble as trying to save the whole White Council from its own stupidity, I know. But by God, I will will bring that child out safe." bring that child out safe."
Ebenezar's mostly bald pate flushed red. "Despite my orders to the contrary."
"We aren't an army. You aren't my superior officer. Sir."
"You arrogant child child," he snapped. "Get your head out of your ass and get your eyes on the world around you or you're going to get yourself killed."
"With all due respect, sir, you can go to hell," I snarled. "You think I don't know how dangerous the world is? Me? Me?"
"I think you're doing everything in your power to isolate yourself from the only people who can support you," he said. "You feel guilty about something. I get that, Hoss. You think you ain't fit for company because of what you've done." His scowl darkened still more. "In my time, I've done things that would curl your hair. Get over it. Think."
"After I get the girl out."
"Do you even know where she is?" Ebenezar demanded.
"Chichen Itza," I said. "She's scheduled to be the centerpiece of one of the Red King's shindigs in the next couple of hours."
Ebenezar took a sharp breath, as if I'd poked him in the stomach with the end of a quarterstaff. "Chichen Itza ... That's a confluence. One of the biggest in the world. The Reds haven't used it in ... Not since Cortes was there."
"Confluence, yeah," I said. "The Duchess Arianna is going to kill her and use the power to lay a curse on her bloodline-Susan and me."
Ebenezar began to speak and then blinked several times, as if the sun had just come out of a cloud and into his eyes. "Susan and ..." He paused and asked, "Hoss?"
"I meant to tell you the last time we spoke," I said quietly. "But ... the conversation wasn't exactly ..." I took a deep breath. "She's my daughter by Susan Rodriguez."
"Oh," he said very quietly. His face looked grey. "Oh, Hoss."
"Her name's Maggie. She's eight. They took her a few days ago."
He bowed his head and shook it several times, saying nothing. Then he said, "You're sure?"
"Yeah."
"H-how long have you known?"
"Since a day or so after she was taken," I said. "Surprised the hell out of me."
Ebenezar nodded without looking up. Then he said, "You're her father and she needs you. And you want to be there for her."
"Not want to be there," I said quietly. "Going to be."
"Aye-aye," he said. "Don't go back to the Edinburgh facility. We think Arianna laced it with some kind of disease while she was there. So far there are sixty wizards down with it, and we're expecting more. No deaths yet, but whatever this bug is, it's putting them flat on their backs-including Injun Joe, so our best healer isn't able to work on the problem."
"Hell's bells," I said. "They aren't just starting back in on the war again. They're going to try to decapitate the Council in one blow."
Ebenezar grunted. "Aye. And without the Way nexus around Edinburgh, we're going to have a hell of a time with that counterstroke." He sighed. "Hoss, you got a damned big talent. Not real refined, but you've matured a lot in the past few years. Handle yourself better in a fight than most with a couple of centuries behind them. Wish you could be with us."
I wasn't sure how to feel about that. Ebenezar was generally considered the heavyweight champion of the wizarding world when it came to direct, face-to-face mayhem. And I was one of the relatively few people who knew he was also the Blackstaff-the White Council's officially nonexistent hit man, authorized to ignore the Laws of Magic when he deemed it necessary. The old man had fought pretty much everything that put up a fight at one point or another, and he didn't make a habit of complimenting anyone's skills.
"I can't go with you," I said.
"Aye," he said with a firm nod. "You do whatever you have to do, boy. Whatever you have to do to keep your little girl safe. You hear?"
"Yeah," I said. "Thank you, sir."
"Godspeed, son," Ebenezar said. Then he cut the connection.
I released my focus slowly until I was once more in my body in the back of the limo.
"Who was it?" Molly asked. The others let her take the lead. She must have explained the whole speaking-stone concept to them. Which made me look less crazy, but I felt twitchy about her handing out information like that to the entire car. It wasn't a big deadly secret or anything, but it was the principle of the thing that- I rubbed at my face with one hand. Ye gods. I was becoming my mentors. Next I'd be grumbling about those darned kids and their loud music.
"Uh, the Council," I said. "Big shock, they aren't helping."
Murphy looked like she might be asleep, but she snorted. "So we're on our own."