I saw her think that over. Then she smiled slightly.

“It would really humiliate him if he found himself under the protection of a girl. An apprentice. And a possible warlock, to boot.”

I nodded. “True.”

Molly pursed her lips thoughtfully. “That might be worth staying for.”

“Kid,” I said, “the smart thing for you to do if it all goes sour is to run.”

“Smart,” she said. “But not right.”

I studied her soberly. “You sure? Because there’s a world of hurt waiting to fall.”

She nodded, her face pale. “I’ll try.”

And she would. I could see that in her eyes. She knew better than most exactly how dangerous such a thing would be for her, and it clearly terrified her. But she would try.

“Then if I’m taken off the board, see Murphy,” I said. “She knows everything I do about the case. Listen to her. She’s smart, and you can trust her.”

“All right,” she said.

I tossed the mooring lines back onboard. “Get a move on.”

I started walking down the dock. Behind me, Molly called, “Harry? What signal are you going to use?”

“You’ll know it,” I called back.

I left the docks in search of the tool that could rip apart this tangled web of suspicion, murder, and lies.

I found it in the marina’s parking lot.

A pay phone.

Lara answered on the second ring. “Raith.”

“Dresden,” I said. “What have you got for me?”

“Oh, to have straight lines like that more often,” she said, her tone wry. “What makes you think I have anything for you?”

“ ’Cause I’ve got something to trade.”

“Men generally seem to think that way. Most of them tend to overestimate the value of their wares.”

“Pheromone Lass,” I said, “can we have the rest of this conversation above the waistline?”

She let out that rich, throaty laugh of hers, and my hormones sounded the charge. I ignored them. Stupid hormones.

“Very well,” she said. “It should interest you to know that the money deposited in Warden Morgan’s account came from a dummy corporation called Windfall.”

“Dummy organization?” I asked. “Who owns it?”

“I do,” she said calmly.

I blinked. “Since you’re sharing this information, I take it that it happened without your knowledge.”

“You are quite correct,” she said. “A Mr. Kevin Aramis is the corporation’s manager. He is the only one, other than myself, with the authority to move that much money around.”

I thought furiously. Whoever aced LaFortier hadn’t just intended the Council to implode. He or they had also gone to a lot of trouble to incite hostility with the White Court.

Hell’s bells.

My imagination treated me to a prophetic nightmare. Morgan fights against the injustice of his frame. Hostilities erupt, creating strife between various factions of wizards. The Council eventually runs down the money trail, discovers Lara on the other end, and the Council seizes upon the opportunity to unify the factions again, thanks to a common enemy. Hostilities with the vampires start fresh. The Red Court sees the poorly coordinated Council exposing itself in battle with the White Court, and pounces, breaking the back of the Council. And after that, it would all be over but the heroic last stands.

Hell’s bells, indeed.

“We’re being played against one another,” I said.

“That was my conclusion as well.”

A couple more pieces clicked into place. “Madeline,” I said. “She got to this Aramis guy and coerced him into betraying you.”

“Yes,” Lara hissed. Barely suppressed, wholly inhuman rage filled her level, controlled voice. “When I catch up to her, I’m going to tear out her entrails with my bare hands.”

Which took care of my hormone problem. I shivered.

I’d seen Lara in action. I could never decide if it had been one of the most beautiful terrifying things I’d ever seen, or if it was one of the most terrifying beautiful things I’d ever seen.

“You might try looking at the Hotel Sax, room twelve thirty-three,” I said. “If I’m right, you’re going to find Mr. Aramis’s body there. Madeline’s working for someone, a man. She didn’t say anything that would help identify him. You should also know that she has hired the services of a mercenary named Binder. Not exactly a rocket scientist, but smart enough to be dangerous.”

Lara was silent for a second. Then she said, “How did you learn this?”

“Shockingly, with magic.”

I heard her speaking to someone in the room with her. Then she got back on the phone and said, “If Aramis is dead, Madeline has tied up the loose end in her plan. It will be impossible to provide credible evidence that I did not in fact pay for LaFortier’s murder.”

“Yeah. That’s why she did it.”

I heard her make a displeased sound, but it was still ladylike. “What do we intend to do about this, Harry?”

“Do you have a nice dress?”

“Pardon?”

I found myself grinning maniacally. “I’m throwing a party.”

Thomas’s phone rang four times before the connection opened. There was a moment of silence. Then Thomas spoke, his voice raw and ragged. “Harry?”

My heart just about stopped beating to hear my brother’s voice. “Thomas. How’s it going?”

“Oh,” he rasped, “I’m just hanging around.”

I’ve seen Thomas in agony before. He sounded exactly like this.

The phone emitted random noises, and then the yowl-purring voice of the skinwalker came over the line. “He is here. He is alive. For now. Give me the doomed warrior.”

“Okay,” I said.

There was a moment of silent consternation from the far end of the line.

“Bring him to me,” it said.

“Nah. That isn’t going to happen.”

“What?”

“You’re coming to me.”

“Do you wish me to end his life this instant?”

“Frankly, Shaggy, I don’t give a damn,” I said, forcing boredom into my voice. “It’d be nice to be able to return one of the vampires to his own, get myself a marker I can call in some day. But I don’t need it.” I paused. “You, on the other hand, need Thomas to be alive, if you expect me to trade Morgan for him. So this is how it’s going to go down. At dusk, you will be contacted on this phone. You will be told where our meeting will take place. When you arrive, you will show me the vampire, alive and well, and when he is returned to me, you will take Morgan without contest.”

“I am not some mortal scum you can command, mageling,” Shagnasty seethed.

“No. You’re immortal scum.”

“You blind, flesh-feeding worm,” Shagnasty snarled. “Who are you to speak to me so?”

“The worm who’s got what you need,” I said. “Dusk. Keep the phone handy.”

I hung up on him.

My heart hammered against my chest and cold sweat broke out over my upper body. I felt myself shaking with terror for Thomas, with weariness, with reaction to the conversation with Shagnasty. I leaned my aching head against the earpiece of the phone and hoped that I hadn’t just ended my brother’s life.

One more call.

The White Council of Wizards uses telephone communications like everyone else, albeit with a lot more service calls. I gave headquarters a ring, gave them the countersign to their security challenge, and got patched through to one of the administrative assistants, an earnest young woman not quite finished with her apprenticeship.

“I need to get a message to every member of the Senior Council,” I told her.

“Very well, sir,” she said. “What is the message?”

“Get this verbatim. Okay?”

“Yes, sir.”

I cleared my throat and spoke. “Be advised that I have been sheltering Warden Donald Morgan from discovery and capture for the past two days. An informant has come to me with details of how Warden Morgan was framed for the murder of Senior Council Member LaFortier. Warden Morgan is innocent, and what’s more, I can prove it.