I stood there staring at the skinwalker. It was hard, and I had to use the wall to help me balance. Then I took a deep breath and stepped away from the wall, moving very carefully, until I stood between the skinwalker and Lara. I turned to face it squarely.

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s have it.”

“Have what, pretender?” the skinwalker growled.

“You aren’t here to kill us,” I said. “You could have done it by now.”

“Oh, so true,” it murmured, its eyes dancing with malicious pleasure.

“You don’t have to gloat about it, prick,” I muttered under my breath. Then I addressed the skinwalker again. “You must want to talk. So why don’t you just say what you came to say?”

The skinwalker studied me, and idly nipped another finger from the unconscious vampire girl. It chewed slowly, with some truly unsettling snapping, popping sounds, and then swallowed. “You will trade with me.”

I frowned. “Trade?”

The skinwalker smiled again and tugged something from around its neck with one talon. Then it caught the object and tossed it to me. I caught it. It was a silver pentacle necklace, a twin to my own, if considerably less battered and worn.

It was Thomas’s necklace.

My belly went cold.

“Trade,” the skinwalker said. “Thomas of Raith. For the doomed warrior.”

I eyed the thing. So it wanted Morgan, too. “Suppose I tell you to fuck off.”

“I will no longer be in a playful mood,” it purred. “I will come for you. I will kill you. I will kill your blood, your friends, your beasts. I will kill the flowers in your home and the trees in your tiny fields. I will visit such death upon whatever is yours that your very name will be remembered only in curses and tales of terror.”

I believed the creature.

No reflexive comeback quip sprang from my lips. Given what I’d seen of the skinwalker’s power, I had to give that one a five-star rating on the threatometer.

“And to encourage you . . .” Its gaze shifted to Lara. “If the wizard does not obey, I will unmake you as well. I will do it every bit as easily as I have done today. And it will bring me intense pleasure to do so.”

Lara stared at the skinwalker with pure white eyes, her expression locked into a snarl of hate.

“Do you understand me, little phage? You and that rotting bag of flesh you’ve attached yourself to?”

“I understand,” Lara spat.

The skinwalker’s smile widened for an instant. “If the doomed warrior is not delivered to me by sundown tomorrow, I will begin my hunt.”

“It might take more time than that,” I said.

“For your sake, pretender, pray it does not.” It idly flung the unconscious vampire away from it, to land in a heap atop the other sister. “You may reach me through his speaking devices,” the skinwalker said.

Then it leapt lightly up through one of the holes in the ceiling, and was gone.

I slumped against the wall, almost falling.

“Thomas,” I whispered.

That nightmare had my brother.

Chapter Twenty-seven

Lara took charge of the aftermath. A dozen security guards were dead, another dozen maimed and crippled. The walls in the hallway where the guards had sprung their ambush were so covered in blood that it looked like they had been painted red. At least a dozen more personnel hadn’t been able to reach the battle before it was over, it had all happened so swiftly—which meant that there was someone available to help stabilize the wounded and clean up the bodies.

The skinwalker’s hex had effectively destroyed every radio and cell phone in the Château, but the land lines, based on much older, simpler technology, were still up. Lara called in a small army of other employees, including the medical staff that the Raiths kept on retainer.

I sat with my back against the wall while all this happened, a little apart from the activity. It seemed appropriate. My head hurt. When scratching an itch, I noticed that there was a wide stripe of mostly dried blood covering my left ear and spreading down my neck. Must have been a scalp wound. They bleed like crazy.

After some indeterminately fuzzy length of time, I looked up to see Lara supervising the movement of her two wounded relatives. The two vampires were liberally smeared with their own blood, and both were senseless. When they were carried off in stretchers, the medics began helping wounded security guards, and Lara walked over to me.

She knelt down in front of me, her pale grey eyes concealing whatever thought was behind them. “Can you stand, wizard?”

“Can,” I said. “Don’t want to.”

She lifted her chin slightly and looked down at me, one hand on her hip. “What have you gotten my little brother involved in?”

“Wish I knew,” I said. “I’m still trying to figure out where the bullets are coming from.”

She folded her arms. “The doomed warrior. The skinwalker meant the fugitive Warden, I presume.”

“It’s one way to interpret that.”

Lara studied me intently and suddenly smiled, showing neat white teeth. “You have him. He came to you for help.”

“Why the hell would you think that?” I asked.

“Because people in hopeless situations come to you for help on a regular basis. And you help them. It’s what you do.” She tapped her chin with one finger. “Now, to decide what is more advantageous. To play along with the skinwalker’s demands. Or to write Thomas off as a loss, take the Warden from you, and turn him into fresh political capital for those who are hunting him. There is a rather substantial reward for his capture or death.”

I eyed her dully. “You’re going to play along. You’re hoping that you’ll be able to act reluctant and get some concessions from me in exchange for your cooperation, but you’re going to give it to me anyway.”

“And why should I do that?” Lara asked.

“Because after the coup attempt in the Deeps, Thomas is a White Court celebrity. If you let some big bad shagnasty come along and kill him after it openly defies you in your own home, you look weak. We both know you can’t live with that.”

“And by giving in to his demands, I avoid the appearance of weakness?” she asked skeptically. “No, Dresden.”

“Damn right, no,” I said. “You’re going to play along, set Shagnasty up, and then take him out in the true, treacherous tradition of the White Court. You get Thomas back. You lay low a heavyweight. You gain status among your own folk.”

She narrowed her eyes at me, her expression giving me no hint to the direction of her thoughts. Then she said, “And when that is done, what if I should take the Warden and turn him over to the White Council myself? It would be a formidable bargaining chip to bring to the table with your folk in the future.”

“Sure it would. But you won’t do that.”

“Won’t I?” Lara asked. “What’s stopping me?”

“I am.”

“I always enjoy dealing with a man possessing a well-developed sense of self-worth.”

It was my turn to show my teeth in a smile. “Slugging matches aren’t your style, Lara. If you play this situation right, it will further your reputation and influence. Why jeopardize that by throwing down with me?”

“Mmmm,” she said, her eyes wandering over me. She idly smoothed her skirt with one hand, instantly drawing my eyes to the pale length of thigh showing through the torn seam. Trickles of blood from her wounds slithered lovingly over smooth flesh. “I wonder, occasionally, what it might be like to throw down with you Dresden. To go to the mat. I wonder what might happen.”

I licked my lips and jerked my eyes away with an effort, incapable of speech.

“Do you know how to really control someone, Harry?” she asked, her voice a low purr.

I cleared my throat and rasped, “How?”

Her pale grey eyes were huge and deep. “Give them what they want. Give them what they need. Give them what no one else can give. If you can do that, they’ll come back to you again and again.” She leaned down close and whispered in my ear, “I know what I can give you, Harry. Shall I tell you?”