I felt a little sick and withdrew step by step, not turning my back on the scene. Paula toppled slowly to the floor, writhing her way toward unconsciousness with an evident glee. Bianca followed her down, unladylike now, a creature of bestial hunger. She crouched over the supine woman, and in the hunch of her pale shoulders I could see the batlike thing beneath the flesh mask, lapping up Paula's blood.

I got out of there, fast, shutting the door behind me. My heart was hammering, too quickly. The scene with Paula might have aroused me, if I hadn't seen what was underneath Bianca's mask. Instead, it only made me sick to my stomach, afraid. The woman had given herself to that thing, as quickly and as willingly as any woman to her lover.

The saliva, some part of me rationalized, desperate to latch on to something cold and logical and detached. The saliva was probably narcotic, perhaps even addictive. It would explain Paula's behavior, the need to have more of her drug. But I wondered if Paula would have been so eager, had she known Bianca's true face.

Now I understood why the White Council was so hard-nosed with vampires. If they could get that kind of control over a mortal, what would happen if they could get their hooks into a wizard? If they could addict a wizard to them as thoroughly as Bianca had the girl I'd just seen? Surely, it wasn't possible.

But if it wasn't, why would the Council be so nervous about them?

Do not think I will not make you regret it, she had said.

I felt cold as I hurried down the dark driveway toward the gate.

Fido the security guard was waiting for me at the front gate, and passed back my knife and my cane without a word. A tow truck was out front, latching itself to the Beetle. I put one hand on the cold metal of the gate and kept the other, with its handkerchief, pressed to my throat, as I watched George the tow-truck guy work. He recognized me and waved, flashing a grin that showed the white teeth in his dark face. I nodded back. I wasn't up to answering the smile.

A few minutes later, the guard's cellular phone beeped at him. He withdrew several paces, repeated several affirmatives, then took a notebook from his pocket, writing something down. He put the phone away and walked back over to me, offering me the piece of paper.

"What's this?" I said.

"The phone number you were looking for. And a message."

I glanced at the paper, but avoided reading it just then. "I thought Bianca was going to send Paula down with it."

He didn't say anything. But his jaw tightened, and I saw his eyes flick toward the house, where his mistress was. He swallowed. Paula wasn't coming out of the house, and Fido was afraid.

I took the paper. I kept my hand from shaking as I looked at it.

On it was a phone number. And a single word: Regret.

I folded the piece of paper in half and put it away into the pocket of my duster. Another enemy. Super. At least with my hands in my pockets, Fido couldn't see them shaking. Maybe I should have listened to Murphy. Maybe I should have stayed home and played with some nice, safe, forbidden black magic instead.

Chapter Ten

I departed Bianca's place in George's loaner, a wood-panel Studebaker that grumbled and growled and squealed everywhere it went. I stopped at a pay phone, a short distance from the house, and called Linda Randall's number.

The phone rang several times before a quiet, dusky contralto answered, "Beckitts', this is Linda."

"Linda Randall?" I asked.

"Mmmm," she answered. She had a furry, velvety voice, something tactile. "Who's this?"

"My name is Harry Dresden. I was wondering if I could talk to you."

"Harry who?" she asked.

"Dresden. I'm a private investigator."

She laughed, the sound rich enough to roll around naked in. "Investigating my privates, Mr. Dresden? I like you already."

I coughed. "Ah, yes. Ms. Randall—"

"Miss," she said, cutting in. "Miss Randall. I'm not occupied. At the moment."

"Miss Randall," I amended. "I'd like to ask you some questions about Jennifer Stanton, if I could."

Silence on the other end of the line. I could hear some sounds in the background, a radio playing, perhaps, and a recorded voice talking about white zones and red zones and loading and unloading of vehicles.

"Miss Randall?"

"No," she said.

"It won't take long. And I assure you that you aren't the subject of anything I'm doing. If you could just give me a few moments of your time."

"No," she told me. "I'm on duty, and will be the rest of the night. I don't have time for this."

"Jennifer Stanton was a friend of yours. She's been murdered. If there's anything you could tell me that might help—"

She cut me off again. "There isn't," she said. "Good-bye, Mr. Dresden."

The line went dead.

I scowled at the phone, frustrated. That was it, then. I had gone through all the preparation, the face-off with Bianca, and possible future trouble for nothing.

No way, I thought. No way in hell.

Bianca had said that Linda Randall was working as a driver for someone, the Beckitts, I presumed, whoever they were. I'd recognized the voice in the background as a recorded message that played outside the concourses at O'Hare airport. So she was in a car at the airport, maybe waiting to pick up the Beckitts, and definitely not there for long.

With no time to lose, I kicked the wheezing old Studebaker into gear and drove to O'Hare. It was far easier to blow off someone over the phone than it was to do it in person. There were several concourses, but I had to trust to luck—luck to guide me to the right one, and luck to get me there before Miss I-am-not-occupied Randall had the opportunity to pick up her employers and leave. And a little more luck to keep the Studebaker running all the way to O'Hare.

The Studebaker did make it all the way there, and on the second concourse I came across a silver baby limo, idling in a parking zone. The interior was darkened, so I couldn't see inside very well. It was a Friday evening, and the place was busy, business folk in their sober suits returning home from long trips about the country. Cars continually purred in and out of the semicircular drive. A uniformed cop was directing traffic, keeping people from doing brainless things like parking in the middle of one of the traffic lanes in order to load up the car.

I swerved the old Studebaker into a parking place, racing a Volvo for it and winning by dint of driving the older and heavier vehicle and having the more suicidal attitude. I kept an eye on the silver limo as I got out of the car and strode over to a bank of pay phones. I plopped my quarter in, and once more dialed the number provided by Bianca.

The phone rang. In the silver limo, someone stirred.

"Beckitts', this is Linda," she purred.

"Hello, Linda," I said. "This is Harry Dresden again."

I could almost hear her smirk. There was a flicker of light from inside the car, the silhouette of a woman's face, then the orange glow of a cigarette being lit. "I thought I told you I didn't want to talk to you, Mr. Dresden."

"I like women who play hard to get."

She laughed that delicious laugh. I could see her head move in the darkened car when she did. "I'm getting harder to get by the second. Good-bye again." She hung up on me.

I smiled, hung up the phone, walked over to the limo, and rapped on the window.

It buzzed down, and a woman in her mid-twenties arched an eyebrow at me. She had beautiful eyes the color of rain clouds, a little too much eye shadow, and brilliant scarlet lipstick on her cupid's-bow lips. Her hair was a medium brown, drawn back into a tight braid that made her cheeks look almost sharp, severe, except for her forelocks, which hung down close to her eyes in insolent disarray. She had a predatory look to her, harsh, sharp. She wore a crisp white shirt, grey slacks, and held a lit cigarette in one hand. The smoke curled up around my nose, and I exhaled, trying to push it away.