“Well,” she said, “at least you’re playing to your strengths.”
A square-jawed, flat-topped man in his thirties opened the door. He was wearing a casual beige sports suit accessorized by a gun in a shoulder holster and what was probably a Kevlar vest beneath his white tee. If that wasn’t enough, he had some kind of dangerous-looking little machine gun hanging from a nylon strap over one shoulder.
“Sir,” he said with a polite nod. “Ma’am. May I take your cloaks?”
“Thank you,” Anastasia said. “But they’re part of the uniform. If you could convey us directly to Ms. Raith, that would be most helpful.”
The security man nodded his head. “Before you accept the hospitality of the house, I would ask you both to give me your personal word that you are here in good faith and will offer no violence while you are a guest.”
Anastasia opened her mouth, as if she intended to readily agree, but I stepped slightly in front of her and said, “Hell, no.”
The security man narrowed his eyes and looked a little less relaxed. “Excuse me?”
“Go tell Lara that whether or not we rip this house to splinters and broken glass is still up for debate,” I said. “Tell her there’s already blood on the floor, and I think some of it is on her hands. Tell her if she wants a chance to clear the air, she talks to me. Tell her if she doesn’t that it is answer enough, and that she accepts the consequences.”
The guard stared at me for several seconds. Then he said, “You’ve got a real high opinion of yourself. Do you know what’s around you? Do you have any idea where you’re standing?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Ground zero.”
More silence stretched, and he blinked before I did. “I’ll tell her. Wait here, please.”
I nodded to him, and he walked deeper into the house.
“Ground zero?” Anastasia muttered out of the corner of her mouth. “A trifle melodramatic, don’t you think?”
I answered her in a similar fashion. “I was going to go with ‘three feet from where they’ll find your body,’ but I figured that would have made it too personal. He’s just doing his job.”
She shook her head. “Is there some reason this can’t be a civil visit?”
“Lara’s at her most dangerous when everyone’s being civil,” I said. “She knows it. I don’t want her feeling comfortable. It’ll be easier to get answers out of her if she’s worried about all hell breaking loose.”
“It might also be easier to question her if we aren’t worried about it,” Anastasia pointed out. “She does hold the advantage here. One notes that there is fairly fresh plaster on the walls on either side of us, for instance.”
I checked. She was right. “So?”
“So, if I was the one preparing to defend this place, I think I might line the walls with antipersonnel mines wired to a simple charge and cover them in plaster until I needed them to remove a threat too dangerous to engage directly.”
I’d personally seen what an AP mine could do to human bodies. It wasn’t pretty. Imagine what’s left of a squirrel when it gets hit with large rounds from a heavy-gauge shotgun. There’s not much there but scraps and stains. It’s essentially the same when a human gets hit with a load of ball bearings the size of gumballs that spew from an AP mine. I glanced at either wall again. “At least I was right,” I said. “Ground zero.”
Anastasia smiled faintly. “I just thought I’d mention the possibility. There’s a fine line between audacity and idiocy.”
“And if she thinks she’s in danger, Lara might just detonate them now,” I said. “Preemptive self-defense.”
“Mmmm. Generally the favored method for dealing with practitioners. The customs of hospitality would have protected us from her as much as her from us.”
I thought about that for a second and then shook my head. “If we were all calm and polite, she’d never give away anything. And she won’t kill us. Not until she finds out what we know.”
She shrugged. “You could be right. You’ve dealt with the smart, scary bitch more often than me.”
“I guess we’ll know in a minute.”
A minute later, we were still there, and the security guy reappeared. “This way, please,” he said.
We followed him through the wealthy splendor of the house. Hardwood floors. Custom carved woodworking. Statues. Fountains. Suits of armor. Original paintings, one of them a van Gogh. Stained-glass windows. Household staff in formal uniform. I kept expecting to come across a flock of peacocks roaming the halls, or maybe a pet cheetah in a diamond-studded collar.
After a goodly hike, the guard led us to a wing of the house that had, apparently, been converted to corporate office space. There were half a dozen efficient-looking people working in cubicles. A phone with a digital ring tone chirruped in the background. Copiers wheezed. In the background, a radio played soft rock.
We went past the office, down a short hall past a break room that smelled of fresh coffee, and to the double doors at the end of the hallway. The guard held open one of the doors for us, and we went inside, to an outer office complete with a secretary’s desk manned by a stunning young woman.
By Justine, in fact, her white hair held back in a tail, wearing a conservative grey pantsuit.
As we entered, she rose with a polite, impersonal smile that could have taken any number of competitive pageants. “Sir, ma’am. If you’ll come this way, please, Ms. Raith is ready to see you.”
She went over to the door on the wall behind her desk, knocked once, and opened it enough to say, “Ms. Raith? The Wardens are here.” A very soft feminine voice answered her. Justine opened the door all the way and held it for us, smiling. “Coffee, sir, ma’am? Another beverage?”
“No, thank you,” Anastasia said, as we entered. Justine shut the door carefully behind us.
Lara Raith’s office had a few things in common with Evelyn Derek’s. It had the same rich furnishings—though her style was more rich, dark hardwood than glass—the same clarity of function and purpose. The resemblance ended there. Lara’s office was a working office. Mail was stacked neatly on a corner of the desk. Files and envelopes each had their own specific positions upon her desk and the worktable against one wall. A pen and ink set was in evidence on the desktop. Paperwork anarchy threatened the room, but order had been strongly imposed, guided by an obvious will.
Lara Raith, de facto ruler of the White Court, sat behind the desk. She wore a silk business suit of purest white, cut close to the flawless lines of her body. The cut of the suit elegantly displayed her figure, and contrasted sharply with the long blue-black hair, which hung in waves past her shoulders. Her features had the classically immortal beauty of Greek statues, balancing sheer beauty with strength, intelligence, and perception. Her eyes were a deep, warm grey, framed by thick sooty lashes, and just looking at her full soft mouth made my lips twitch and tingle as they demanded an introduction to Lara’s.
“Warden Dresden,” she murmured, her voice soothing and musical. “Warden Luccio. Please, be seated.”
I didn’t need to check with Anastasia. Both of us just stood there, staff in hand, regarding her quietly.
She leaned back in her chair and a wicked little smile played over that mouth without ever getting as far as her eyes. “I see. I’m being intimidated. Are you going to tell me why, or do I get three guesses?”
“Stop being cute, Lara,” I said. “Your lawyer, Evelyn Derek, hired a private eye to tail me and report on my movements—and every time I turn around, something nasty has shown up to make a run at me.”
The smile remained in place. “Lawyer?”
“I took a look at her head,” I said. “And found the marks of the White Court all over it—including a compulsion not to reveal who she was working for.”