Death Masks

It wasn’t much to work with. I could use the thread to create a channel to the rest of the Shroud, but nothing was certain. The thread had presumably been absent from the rest of the Shroud for going on thirty years. Not only that, but it had presumably been handled by various scientists or clergy, and it was possible that they had left enough of a psychic residue on the thread to cloud a seeking spell.

On top of all that, the thread was tiny. I would have to be extremely careful if I used a spell to go hunting the Shroud, or the forces in it would overload the thread in the same way that enough electrical current will overload the filament in a lightbulb. I’m not so great with delicate spell work. I’ve got plenty of power, but fine control of it could be a problem. By necessity, I would have to use a very gentle spell, and that would put severe limits on the range of it.

The spell would be a metal detector, rather than a radar dish, but it was a whole lot better than nothing. I hit the door.

Rather than inflicting another Charity encounter upon myself, I pulled the Beetle up to the curb in front of Michael’s house and honked the horn. A moment later, Shiro appeared. The little old man had shaved the white down from his head, and where he didn’t have liver spots, the skin shone. He wore some kind of loose-fitting black pants that looked a lot like the ones I’d seen Murphy wear at one of her aikido tournaments. He also wore a black shirt and a white gi jacket with a scarlet cross on either side of his chest. A belt of red silk held the jacket closed, and he wore his sword through it, still in its wooden cane-sheath. He opened the door, slipped into the Beetle, and held his sword across his lap.

I got going, and neither of us said anything for a while. My knuckles were getting white again, so I started talking. "So you’ve done one of these duels before?"

"Hai," he said, nodding. "Many times."

"Why?"

Shiro shrugged. "Many reasons. Protect someone. Force something to leave an area in peace. Fight without involving others."

"To the death?"

Shiro nodded. "Many times."

"Guess you’re pretty good at it then," I said.

Shiro smiled a little, eyes wrinkling even more. "Always someone better."

"You ever dueled a vampire?"

"Hai. Jade Court. Black Court."

"Jade Court?" I said. "I’ve never heard that there was such a thing."

"Southeast Asia, China, Japan. Very secretive. But they respect the Accords."

"Have you dueled any of the Denarians?"

He frowned out the window. "Twice. But they do not honor agreements. Treachery both times."

I thought that over for a while before I said, "I’m going for energy. If he won’t take it, we’ll do will."

Shiro glanced aside at me and nodded. "But there is a better choice."

"What?"

"Don’t fight. Can’t lose a fight you don’t have."

I felt a snort coming on but I held it back. "I’m sort of locked into it now."

"Both parties want to quit, duel over," Shiro said. "I will be talking to Ortega’s second. Ortega will be there. Smart for you try to talk him out of it."

"I don’t think he’ll do it."

"Maybe. Maybe not. Not fighting always smarter."

"Says the militant Knight of the Cross and his holy blade?"

"I hate fighting."

I glanced at him for a second, then said, "You don’t usually hear that from someone good at it."

Shiro smiled. "Fighting is never good. But sometimes necessary."

I blew out a deep breath. "Yeah. I guess I know what you mean."

The rest of the ride to McAnnally’s was quiet. In the streetlights, my knuckles looked the same color as the rest of my hands.

McAnnally’s is a tavern. Not a bar, not a pub, but an actual, Old World-style tavern. When I went in, I stepped down three steps to the hardwood floor and looked around the place. The bar has thirteen stools at it. There were thirteen columns of dark wood, each one hand-carved with swirling leaves and images of beings of tale and fantasy. Thirteen tables had been spaced out around the room in an irregular pattern, and like the columns and bar stools, they had been intentionally placed that way in order to deflect and scatter random magical energies. It cut down on the accidents from grumpy wizards and clueless kids just discovering their power. Several ceiling fans whirled lazily, and were low enough that I always felt a bit nervous about one of them whirling into my eyebrows. The place smells of wood smoke, old whiskey barrels, fresh bread, and roasting meat. I like it.

Mac stood behind the bar. I didn’t know much about Mac. He was tall, medium build, bald, and somewhere between thirty and sixty. He had large and facile hands and thick wrists. All I’ve ever seen him wear is dark pants with a loose white shirt and an apron that somehow remained free of splatters of grease, spilled drinks, and the various other things he prepared for customers.

Mac caught my eye when I came in and nodded to my left. I looked. A sign on the wall said, ACCORDED NEUTRAL GROUND. I looked back at Mac. He drew a shotgun out from behind the bar so that I could see it and said, "Got it?"

"No problem," I answered.

"Good."

The room was otherwise empty, though normally there would be a couple of dozen members of the local magical scene. Not full-fledged wizards or anything, but there were plenty of people with a dab of magical talent. Then there were a couple of different Wiccan groups, the occasional changeling, scholars of the arcane, a gang of do-gooder werewolves, members of secret societies, and who knew what else. Mac must have put out the word that a meeting was happening here. No one sane wants to be anywhere close to what could be a fight between a White Council member and a Red Court warlord. I knew I was sane because I didn’t want to be there, either.

I walked over to the bar and said, "Beer." Mac grunted and plopped down a bottle of brown. I pushed some bills at him but he shook his head.

Shiro stood at the bar next to me, facing the opposite way. Mac put a bottle down beside him. Shiro twisted off the cap with one hand, took a modest sip, and set the bottle back down. Then he glanced at it thoughtfully, picked it up, and took a slower sip. "Yosh."

Mac grunted, "Thanks."

Shiro said something in what I guessed was Japanese. Mac answered monosyllabically. A man of many talents and few syllables is Mac.

I killed time with a couple more sips and the door opened.

Kincaid walked in, in the same outfit I’d seen that morning, but without the baseball cap. His dark blond hair was instead pulled back into an unruly tail. He nodded at Mac and asked, "All set?"