“I’ve been known to pull out chairs and open doors, too,” I said.

“How very unfashionable,” Lara said, her pale eyes gleaming. “And endearing.”

Ebenezar stumped up to us, staff in hand, his eyes narrow and flickering all around us while Wardens continued to send blasts of power hammering into targets. Off in the woods behind us, submachine guns chattered. Apparently Lara’s sisters were still hunting the grey men who had gotten around us.

“We’ve got one Warden down,” Ebenezar said.

“How bad?”

“One of those things came out of a tree above her and tore her head off,” he said.

I tracked a slight motion in a nearby treetop and swiveled to point a finger. “Sir, up there!”

Ebenezar grunted a word, reached out a hand, and made a sharp, pulling motion. The grey man who had been clambering toward us was seized by an unseen force, ripped out of the tree, and sent sailing on an arc that would land it in Lake Michigan a quarter of a mile from the nearest shore.

“Where is the second group?” Ebenezar asked.

I thought about it. “They’re at the dock, at the edge of the trees. They’re closing on Mai and Injun Joe.” I glanced at Lara. “I think the vampires have been holding them off.”

Ebenezar spat a curse. “That summoner is still out there somewhere. His pets won’t last long in this rain, but we can’t afford to give him time to call up more. Can you find him?”

I checked. There was so much confusion and motion on the island that Demonreach had trouble distinguishing one being from another, but I had a solid if nonspecific idea of where Binder was. “Yeah.” I sensed more movement and pointed behind us, to where a trio of grey men had managed to close on a pair of Wardens who were standing on either side of a still, red-spattered form on the ground. “There!”

Ebenezar stopped talking to make another swift gesture, spoke a word, and one of the approaching grey men was suddenly and literally pounded flat by an invisible anvil. Ectoplasmic ichor flew everywhere. The two Wardens, warned by the magical strike and now facing even odds, made short work of the remaining two.

Ebenezar turned back to me and said, “Shut down that summoner, Hoss. I’m taking the Wardens back to support Injun Joe and Mai. Let’s go, vampire.”

“No,” Lara said. “If Binder is nearby, then so is my sweet cousin Madeline. I’ll stay with Dresden.”

Ebenezar didn’t argue with her. He just snarled, made a fist, and lifted it up, and Lara let out a short, choking cry and rose up ten feet into the air, her arms and legs snapping down straight, locking her body into a rigid board.

I put a hand against his chest. “Wait!”

He glanced at me from beneath shaggy grey brows.

“Let her down. She can come along.” Ebenezar had no way of knowing that I wasn’t out there alone. Georgia and Will were lurking nearby, and could be at my side in a couple of seconds if necessary. Between the two of them, they had accounted for three grey men, too. I tried to put that knowledge behind a very slight emphasis in my tone and told him, “I’ll be fine.”

Ebenezar frowned at me, then shot a glance out at the woods and gave me a reluctant nod. He turned back to Lara and released her from the grip of his will. She didn’t quite manage to fall gracefully, and landed in a sprawl that gave me a great look at her long, intriguingly lovely legs. The old man eyed her and said, “You just remember what I told you, missy.”

She rose to her feet, her expression unreadable—but I knew her well enough to know that she was furious. My old mentor had just insulted her on multiple levels, not the least of which was pointing out to her exactly how easy it would be for him to make good on his previous threat. “I’ll remember,” she said, her tone frosty.

“Wardens!” Ebenezar said. “On me!” The old man broke into a woodsman’s lope, a shuffle-footed, loose-kneed gait that managed unpredictable terrain well and covered ground with deceptive speed. The four remaining Wardens fell into a wedge shape behind him and they moved out heading south, back toward the docks and the confrontation with whoever had come forth from the Nevernever with his own army.

Lara turned to me and nodded her head once, gesturing me to lead. I tried to fix Binder’s presence firmly in mind, and was certain he was ahead of us and to the north, probably trying to circle widely around the scene of the battle with his minions. I started out through the woods again, pushing myself to move faster.

This time, Lara stayed close behind me. She mimicked my movements, down to the length of my stride, taking advantage of my instinctive knowledge of Demonreach.

“I have little interest in this mercenary,” she said to me as we ran. She wasn’t even breathing hard. “Do with him as you would. But Madeline is mine.”

“She might know something,” I said.

“I can’t believe anyone with half a mind would entrust her with knowledge of any importance.”

“And I can’t believe the treacherous bitch wouldn’t steal every bit of information she could find to use against whoever she’s working with,” I replied, glancing back.

Lara didn’t dispute the statement, but her eyes hardened like silver mirrors, reflecting the dancing flames that were still burning here and there as we moved through the site of the battle and out the other side. “Madeline has betrayed me, my House, and my Court. She is mine. I prefer you remained a living, breathing ally. You will not interfere.”

What do you say to something like that? I shut my mouth and concentrated on finding Binder.

It took us about five minutes to reach the piece of shoreline where Binder and his companion had come ashore. A pair of Jet Skis lay discarded on the beach. So that’s how they’d done it. The tiny craft would have no problems at all skimming over the stone reefs surrounding the island, though they would have been hellish to ride in the rough water.

We swung past the discarded equipment and up a little ridgeline, running along a deer trail. I knew we were getting close, and suddenly Lara accelerated past me, supernaturally fleet of foot on the even ground.

I don’t know what triggered the explosion. It might have been a tripwire stretched across the trail. It’s possible that it was detonated manually, too. There was a flash of light, and something hit me in the chest hard enough to knock me down. An ugly asymmetrical shape was burned into my vision as I lay on my back, trying to sort out what had just happened.

Then my body tingled, and Madeline Raith appeared over me. I realized that she was straddling me. There was a fire burning somewhere close by, illuminating her. She was wearing a black surfer’s wet suit with short arms and legs, unzipped past her navel. She held a mostly empty bottle of tequila in one hand. Her eyes were wide and shining with a disorienting riot of colors as she leaned down and kissed me on the forehead and . . .

And Hell’s freaking bells.

The pleasure that surged through me from that simple touch was delicious to the point of pain. Every nerve ending in my entire body lit up, as though someone had run up the wattage on my pleasure centers, or injected their engines with nitrous. I felt my body arch up and shudder, a purely sexual reaction to a physical bliss that went far beyond sexuality. I stayed that way, locked into a quivering arch of ecstasy. It took maybe ten or fifteen seconds to subside.

From a kiss on the forehead.

God. No wonder people came back to the vampires for more.

I could barely register what was happening around me. So I only dimly noticed when Madeline produced a gun of her own, the other favorite model of those with more than human strength—a Desert Eagle.

“Good night, sweet wizard,” Madeline purred, her hips grinding a slow rhythm against mine. She drew the half-inch-wide mouth of the gun over my cheek as she took a slug of tequila and then rested the gun’s barrel gently on the spot she’d just kissed. It felt obscenely good, like a caress on skin that has just been shaved smooth but hasn’t yet been touched. I knew that she was about to kill me, but I couldn’t stop thinking how good it felt. “And flights of angels,” she panted, her breath coming faster, her eyes alight with excitement, “sing thee to thy rest.”