Death Masks

I rubbed at my eyes. "Tell me about it. I’ll work out something to give me a shot at winning."

"Sounds like your wagon’s already pretty full to be letting this vampire push you."

"He knew where to push," I said. "Ortega brought a bunch of goons into town. Vampires and straight hit men, too. He says that if I don’t face him he’s going to have a bunch of people I know killed."

Ebenezar spat something in what I presumed was Gaelic. "You’d better tell me what happened, then."

I told Ebenezar all about my encounter with Ortega. "Oh, and a contact of mine says that the Red Court is divided over the issue. There are lots of them who don’t want the war to end."

"Of course they don’t," Ebenezar said. "That fool of a Merlin won’t let us take the offensive. He thinks his fancy wards will make them give up."

"How are they working out?" I asked.

"Well enough for now," Ebenezar admitted. "One major attack has been pushed back by the wards. No more Council members have been killed in attacks on their homes, though the Red Court’s allies are putting pressure on ours, and a few Wardens have died on intelligence-gathering missions. But it isn’t going to last. You can’t win a war sitting behind a wall and hoping the enemy decides to leave."

"What do you think we should do?"

"Officially," Ebenezar said, "we follow the Merlin’s lead. More than anything, now, we need to stay together."

"What about unofficially?"

"Think about it," Ebenezar snorted. "If we just sit here, the vampires are going to take apart or drive away our allies and then we’ll have to take them all on alone. Look, Hoss. Are you sure about this duel?"

"Hell no," I said. "I just didn’t see much choice. I’ll figure out something. If I win, it might be worth it to the Council. Neutral territory for meeting and negotiating could come in handy."

Ebenezar sighed. "Aye. The Merlin will think the same thing." He was quiet for a moment before he said, "Not much like the days on the farm, is it, Hoss?"

"Not much," I agreed.

"Do you remember that telescope we set up in the loft?"

Ebenezar had taught me what I knew of astronomy, on long, dark summer evenings in the Ozark hills, hay doors to the barn’s loft open, stars overhead shining in the country darkness by the millions. "I remember. That asteroid we discovered that turned out to be an old Russian satellite."

"Asteroid Dresden was a better name than Kosmos Five." He chuckled and added, as an afterthought, "Do you remember whatever happened to that telescope and such? I kept meaning to ask you but I never got around to it."

"We packed it in that steamer trunk in the horse stall."

"With the observation logs?"

"Yeah," I said.

"Oh, that’s right," Ebenezar said. "Obliged."

"Sure."

"Hoss, we’ll agree to the duel if that’s what you want. But be careful."

"I don’t plan to roll over and die," I said. "But if something should happen to me -" I coughed. "Well, if it does, there are some papers in my lab. You’ll know how to find them. Some people I’d like to make sure are protected."

"Of course," Ebenezar said. "But I’m likely to carry on cranky if I have to drive all the way up to Chicago twice in as many years."

"Hate for that to happen."

"Luck, Hoss."

"Thanks."

I hung up the phone, rubbed tiredly at my eyes, and stomped back down to the lab. Ebenezar hadn’t come out and said it, but the offer had been there, behind the old man’s talk of days gone by. He’d been offering me sanctuary at his farm. It wasn’t that I didn’t like Chicago, but the offer was a tempting one. After a couple of rough years slugging it out with various bad guys, a quiet year or two on the farm near Hog Hollow, Missouri, sounded tempting.

Of course, the safety offered in that image was an illusion. Ebenezar’s place was going to be as well protected as any wizard’s on earth, and the old man himself could be a terrible foe. But the Red Court of vampires had a big network supporting it and they didn’t generally bother to play fair. They’d destroyed a wizard stronghold the previous summer, and if they’d cracked that place they could do it to Ebenezar’s Ozark hideaway too. If I went there and they found out about it, it would make the old man’s farm too tempting a target to pass by.

Ebenezar knew that as well as I did, but he and I shared a common trait-he doesn’t like bullies either. He’d be glad to have me and he’d fight to the death against the Reds if they came. But I didn’t want to draw that kind of thing down on him. I was grateful for the old man’s support, but I owed him more than that.

Besides, I was almost as well protected here in Chicago. My own wards, defensive screens of magic to protect my apartment, had kept me safe and alive for a couple of years, and the presence of a large mortal population kept the vampires from trying anything completely overt. Wizards and vampires notwithstanding, everyone in the supernatural community knew damned well that plain old vanilla mortals were one of the most dangerous forces on the planet, and went out of their way not to become too noticeable to the population at large.

The population at large, meanwhile, did everything it possibly could to keep from noticing the supernatural, so that worked out. The vampires had taken a poke or two at me since the war began, but it hadn’t been anything I couldn’t handle, and they didn’t want to risk being any more obvious.

Thus, Ortega and his challenge.

So how the hell was I supposed to fight a duel with him without using magic?

My bed called to me, but that thought was enough to keep me from answering. I paced around my living room for a while, trying to think of some kind of weapon that would give me the most advantage. Ortega was stronger, faster, more experienced, and more resistant to injury than me. How the hell was I supposed to pick a weapon to go up against that? I supposed if the duel could be worked into some kind of pizza-eating contest I might have a shot, but somehow I didn’t think that the Pizza Spress Hungry Man Special was on the list of approved weaponry.

I checked the clock and frowned. Dawn was only minutes away, and Bob wasn’t back yet. Bob was a spirit being, a spirit of intellect from one of the more surreal corners of the Nevernever. He wasn’t evil as much as he was magnificently innocent of any kind of morality, but as a spirit, daylight was a threat to him as surely as it was to the vampires of the Red Court. If he got caught out in it, it could kill him.

Dawn was about two minutes off before Bob returned, flowing down the ladder and toward the skull.