Molly frowned. “Why didn’t it work?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe it’s because there’s something more than simple blood relation involved. Maybe there has to be a bond, a sense of family between the parent and child, that the tracking spell uses to amplify its effects. Maybe the Red Court is using some kind of magic that conceals or jams tracking spells—God knows, they would have been forced to come up with some kind of countermeasure during the war.” I shook my head wearily. “Or maybe it was simple distance. I’ve never tracked anything more than a couple of hundred linear miles away. I’ve heard of tracking spells that worked over a couple of thousand miles, but not from anyone who had actually done it. Gimme some credit, grasshopper. Of course I tried that. I wouldn’t have spent half a day summoning my contacts if I hadn’t.”

“Oh,” Molly said. She looked troubled. “Yeah. Sorry.”

I sighed and tipped my head back and closed my eyes. “No problem. Sorry, kid. I’m just tense.”

“Just a little,” she said. “Um. Should we be sitting out here in broad daylight? I mean, we’re not hiding the car or anything.”

“Yeah,” I said. “We want to be visible.”

“Why?”

“I’m gonna close my eyes,” I told her. “Just for a bit. Stay alert, okay?”

She gave me a look, but said, “Okay.”

I closed my eyes, but about half a second after I had, Molly nudged me and said, “Wake up, Harry. We have company.”

I opened them again and found that the grey late afternoon had settled into the murk of early evening. I looked up into the rearview mirror and spotted a white sports car coming to a halt as it parked on the street behind us. The running lights went off as the driver got out.

“Took him long enough,” I muttered.

Molly frowned at me. “What do you mean?”

“Asked him to meet me here. Didn’t know where to find him.”

Molly peered through the back window, and even Mouse lifted his head to look around. “Oh,” Molly said, understanding, as Mouse’s tail thumped hesitantly against the back of my seat.

I got out of the car and walked to meet my half brother, the vampire.

Thomas and I were a study in contrasts. I was better than six and a half feet tall and built lean. He was a hair under six feet, and looked like a fitness model. My hair was a muddy brown color, generally cut very short on the sides and in back, a little longer on top. It tended to stick up any which way within a few minutes of being ordered by a comb. Thomas’s hair was black, naturally wavy, and fell to touch his shoulders. I wore jeans, a T-shirt, and my big black leather duster. Thomas was wearing custom-fitted pants made from white leather, a white silk shirt, and a coarser silk jacket, also in white, decorated with elaborate brocade. He had the kind of face that belonged on billboards. Mine belonged on wanted posters.

We had the same contour of chin, and our eyes resembled each other’s unmistakably in shape, if not in color. Mom gave them to us.

Thomas and I had finally met as adults. He’d been right there next to me in some of the worst places I’d ever walked. He saved my life more than once. I’d returned the favor. But that had been when he decided to fight against his Hunger, the vampiric nature native to the vampires of the White Court. He’d spent years maintaining control of his darker urges, integrating with Chicago’s society, and generally trying to act like a human being. We’d had to keep our kinship a secret. The Council would have used him to get at the White Court if they knew. Ditto for the vampires getting at the Council through me.

Then something bad happened to him, and he stopped trying to be human. I might have seen him for a total of two, even three minutes since he’d been knocked off the life- force-nibbling wagon and started taking big hearty bites again.

Thomas swaggered up to me as if we’d been talking just yesterday, looked me up and down, and said, “You need an image consultant, stat, little brother.”

I said, “Guess what. You’re an uncle.”

Thomas let his head fall back as he barked out a little laugh. “What? No, hardly, unless one of Father’s by-blows actually survived. Which essentially just doesn’t happen among—”

He stopped talking in midsentence and his eyes widened.

“Yeah,” I said.

“Oh,” he said, still wide-eyed, apparently locked into motionlessness by surprise. It was a little creepy. Human beings still look like human beings when they’re standing still. Thomas’s pale skin and bright blue eyes went still, like a statue. “Oh.”

I nodded. “Say ‘oilcan.’ ”

Thomas blinked. “What?”

“You get to be the Tin Woodsman.”

“What?”

“Never mind, not important.” I sighed. “Look, without going into too many details: I have an eight-year-old daughter. Susan never told me. Duchess Arianna of the Red Court took her.”

“Um,” said Thomas. “If I’d known that, maybe I would have been here sooner.”

“Couldn’t say anything on the phone. The FBI and the cops are involved, having been made into roadblocks to slow me down.” I tilted my head down the street. “The cop who lives in that house at the end of the street has been coerced into helping whoever is trying to stop me. I’m here hoping to nab either his handler or his cleaner and grab every bit of information I can.”

Thomas looked at me and said, “I’m an uncle.”

I ran the palm of my hand over my face.

“Sorry,” he said. “I just thought this was going to be another chat, with you all worried that the evil White Court had been abusing me. I need to take a moment.”

“Make it a short moment,” I said. “We’re on the clock.”

Thomas nodded several times and seemed to draw himself back into order. “Okay, so you’re looking for . . . What’s her name?”

“Maggie.”

My brother paused for a couple of heartbeats, and bowed his head briefly. “That’s a good name.”

“Susan thought so.”

“So you’re looking for Maggie,” he said. “And you need my help?”

“I don’t know the exact date, but I know she’s going to be brought to Chichén Itzá. Probably tonight, tomorrow night at the latest.”

“Why?” Thomas asked. He then added, “And how does this have anything to do with me?”

“They’re using her in a bloodline curse,” I said. “When they sacrifice her, the curse kills her brothers and sisters, then her parents, then their brothers and sisters and so on.”

“Wait. Maggie has brothers and sisters? Since when have you ever gotten that busy?”

“No, dammit!” I half shouted in frustration. “That’s just an illustration for how the bloodline curse works.”

His eyebrows shot up. “Oh, crap. You’re saying that it’s going to kill me, too.”

“Yes, that is exactly what I’m freaking saying. You tool.”

“Um,” Thomas said, “I’m against that.” His eyes widened again. “Wait. What about the other Raiths? Are they in any danger through me?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

“Empty night,” he muttered. “Okay. You know where she’s going to be. You want me to saddle up and help you get Maggie back, like we did with Molly?”

“Not unless there’s no other choice. I don’t think we would survive a direct assault on the Red King and his retinue on their home turf.”

“Well, maybe you and I couldn’t, naturally. But with the Council behind y—”

“Way behind me,” I interrupted, my voice harsh with anger. “So far behind me you wouldn’t know they were there at all.”

My brother’s deep blue eyes flashed with an angry fire. “Those assholes.”

“Seconded, motion carried,” I agreed.

“So what do you think we should do?”

“I need information,” I said. “Get me whatever you can. Any activity at Chichén Itzá or a nearby Red stronghold, sightings of a little girl surrounded by Reds, anything. There’s got to be something, somewhere that will show us a chink in their armor. If we find out where they’re holding her, we can hit the place. If I can learn something about the defensive magic around the site, maybe I can poke a hole in it so that we can just grab the girl and go. Otherwise . . .”