But I was alone, and Evis had left word, so I walked right to the door to knock.

The woman laughed again before I could lift my hand. I heard Evis speak, his words not quite clear, and the lady laughed again, and there was a tinkle of glass on glass and a slosh of liquor.

I knocked. If Evis was pitching woo he could always tell me to go away.

“Come on in, Markhat,” called Evis. “We were just talking about you.”

The door swung inward, meaning Evis had touched something behind his desk.

I stepped inside.

Gertriss was seated across from Evis, trying to decide whether to hide her cigar or take a puff. She’d already managed to put her glass of brandy down on the corner of Evis’s desk. I knew she’d done that in a hurry because she’d missed the cork coaster and even sloshed a bit of brandy on the polished wood.

Something squealed and caught me across my knees. I tousled Buttercup’s hair, and she greeted me by leaping up and wrapping her arms around my neck before sliding around to ride on my back.

“Boss,” said Gertriss. Her cigar trailed up a damning swirl of smoke. “I was just waiting for you.”

I trotted a half-circle around the room while Buttercup giggled and squealed.

“I see. Did Buttercup decline to smoke, or has she finished hers already?”

“Oh, knock it off, Markhat. The banshee is older than all of us put together, and you know it. It’s not like she’s never seen people have a smoke or a drink before.” Evis leaned back in his chair and blew a smoke ring. “Anyway, your junior partner here is helping me celebrate. We got the go ahead from the House. We’re going to blow the bluffs.”

Gertriss cringed. I disengaged Buttercup and sat her on the floor. I wasn’t happy with Uncle Evis, but when vampires babysit banshees, I suppose hoping for nursery rhymes and games of dolls and houses is a bit too much.

Evis reached behind him and groped for a moment amid the sorcerous knick-knacks he keeps in those huge glass cases of his. When he withdrew his hand, he held a glowing orb that trailed twisting wakes of dancing light.

“Here you go, kid. Play with this.”

He tossed it to Buttercup, who snatched it out of the air and began to coo and mutter over it, engrossed.

I pulled a chair beside Gertriss. “What’s that thing you just gave her?”

“Damned if I know. We’ve had it for a couple hundred years. Maybe she can figure it out. Did you hear what I said? We’re heading up the river. Going to stop the War before it starts. We’ll be heroes. Probably have a parade. Brass statues, for sure.”

I tried to take the luminous sphere away from Buttercup, but she did a little banshee hop-step and appeared all the way across the room.

“Oh, calm down, finder. Trolls could blast the House down around us, and we both know the banshee wouldn’t suffer a hair out of place.”

Gertriss handed me a cigar, and a flame appeared in her hand.

“Boss. It’s all right. Tell us what you’ve been up to. And what’s that you’re holding?”

I sucked in a long draw of very expensive tobacco.

“This is the stuff of Lethway’s nightmares. Evis, I’d like to keep this here. But before we get into that, tell me about the celebration.”

“The House agrees that blowing up the bluffs is cheaper than fighting a new war. In fact, they’re pulling out all the stops.” He leaned forward, his dead eyes almost gleaming. “We might actually make this work. I was hoping for grudging support, at best. I had no idea they’d hand me the keys to the treasury.”

“Good way to get on the Regent’s Yule list, keeping his city nice and intact. If it works, you’re heroes of the realm. If it fails, oh well, money will be the least of everyone’s problems, won’t it?”

Evis laughed. “Money is never the least of any problem. But look here, Markhat. Remember when I said it would take us a week to get the wagons and the gunpowder up the Brown?”

“I remember.”

“They’ve a got steamboat,” said Gertriss. Her eyes were wide, and I wondered how many of those tumblers of brandy Evis had offered her. “It’s amazing, boss. You have to see it.”

“A steam what?”

“Another line of research the House pursued during the War,” said Evis. “It’s a shallow-keeled, flat-bottomed boat. Burning wood heats water. The hot water turns to steam. The steam drives an engine. The engine-”

“Oh bloody hell,” snapped Gertriss. She grabbed my arm. “Boss, the thing can go upriver. No sails. No oars. No pulling it with chains and donkeys. You just point it north and feed it logs and it goes. Fast.”

“How many of those drinks have you finished, young lady?”

She shook her head violently. “Three. But I’m not drunk, boss. Evis, how fast did you say it could go?”

“Eight knots. Ten if she’s pushed, and she will be.”

“For how long?”

“The whole way. With luck. The steam engine is not without its problems. But our engineers say she’s ready. The House has issued its blessing. We set sail in two days, finder-steamboat and barges and gunpowder and all.”

I finished my brandy in one quick gulp. It burned all the way down.

“You’re serious.”

“Dead serious. Pardon the pun. We have a navy, finder. Hurrah for Encorla’s Irregulars. We fight on land and sea.” He lifted his glass. Gertriss did the same, and they clinked together, and vampire and partner drained their glasses.

“And this steamboat of yours can do ten knots, day and night. That’ll put it at the bluffs in, say, two days.”

“Less. But say two.”

“Hauling enough gunpowder to level a few thousand tons of solid rock.”

“We’ll be towing that on a barge well behind us, but yes.”

“Just how big is this thing, Evis?”

“Huge,” said Gertriss.

“She’s a two hundred and ten feet from bow to stern. Forty-two feet wide. Her draft is only six feet, under a full load. We’ll be seeing four. She’s down at the docks now, getting prepped. The paddle-wheel is under wraps, but it won’t be a secret much longer.”

“No sails.”

“None at all.”

“Did you think to add a couple of cannon?”

Evis froze, face blank.

“Angels and devils, finder. No. No, we didn’t. But we will. We will.”

Buttercup squealed. She was rolling her ball across the floor, where it trailed a twisting nimbus of light.

It reached an empty spot on the floor, and then it stopped, wobbled around for a bit, and rolled back to the little banshee-on its own.

I held out my tumbler for a refill. Gertriss obliged, filling her own glass as well, and chuckling at some secret joke with Evis.

I stayed for quite a while, drinking and smoking and plotting. I laid out my day with Fields, my plan to loosen Lethway’s clenched jaw, my hope that Mama would put a stop to any further hexed visitors before one of them put a stop to me.

All the while, I watched Buttercup play a spirited game of roll the glowing magic ball with a playmate who wasn’t there while Gertriss made googly eyes at Evis and he taught her how to blow a passable smoke ring.

Some days are just strange that way.

I didn’t see the steamboat, that night. Evis offered to take me, but a couple of glasses of his aged brandy left the weight of my day dragging me quickly toward sleep.

He did convince me to spend the night under Avalante’s roof. I didn’t relish the thought of a strange bed, but for all I knew half a dozen irate Sprangs or a pair of Lethway’s bully boys were waiting by my door. I couldn’t have fought off an assault of determined laying hens, and I knew it, so in the end I allowed myself to be domiciled in a guest room slightly smaller than a city block.

They even had a fancy bath with hot and cold running water. I managed to clean myself without being scalded or drowned, and after that I slept the sleep of the truly weary.

Being surrounded on all sides by vampires troubled me not at all.