Changes (The Dresden Files 12)

Chapter 44

Alamaya departed the temple in silence. Within a minute she was back. She bowed to the Red King - a full, kneeling bow, at that - and said something quietly.

The Red King narrowed his eyes. He murmured something to the girl and walked out. Conch horns blew and the drums began again as he appeared to those outside.

Alamaya had to raise her voice slightly to be heard. "My lord wishes you to know that this place is watched and warded. Should you attempt to leave with the child, you will be destroyed, and she with you."

"Understood," I said calmly.

Alamaya gave me a more conventional bow and hurried out after the Red King.

When she was gone, I took two steps over to the altar and the dead woman upon it. Then I said, "All right. Tell me what I'm looking at."

From the improvised Rolling Stones T-shirt bag tied to my sash, Bob the Skull said, in his most caustic voice, "A giant pair of cartoon lips."

I muttered a curse and fumbled with the shirt until one of the skull's glowing orange eye sockets was visible.

"A big goofy magic nerd!" Bob said.

I growled at him and aimed his eye at the altar.

"Oh," Bob said. "Oh, my."

"What is it?" I asked.

"The ritual curse they're setting up," Bob said. "It's a big one."

"How does it work? In ten seconds or less."

"Ten sec - Argh," Bob said. "Okay. Picture a crossbow. All the human sacrifices are the effort you need to pull back the string and store the energy. This crossbow has its string all the way back, and it's ready to fire. It just needs a bolt."

"What do you mean, a bolt?"

"Like the little girl hiding back behind it," Bob said. "Her blood will carry the stored energy out into the world, and conduct that energy to the target. In this case, her blood relatives."

I frowned for a second. Then I asked, "Does it have to be Maggie, specifically?"

"Nah. One bolt is pretty much like another. Long as you use a compatible knife to spill the blood, it should work."

I nodded. "So . . . what if we used a different bolt?"

"The same thing would happen," Bob said. "The only difference would be who is on the receiving end."

"It's a loaded gun," I said quietly. I frowned. "Then why'd they leave me alone with it?"

"Who you gonna kill to set it off?" Bob asked. "Your little girl? Yourself? Come on, boss."

"Can we disarm it then? Scramble it?"

"Sure. It'd blow this temple halfway to orbit, but you could do that."

I ground my teeth. "If it goes off the way they mean it to, will it kill Thomas?"

"The girl's human," Bob said. "So only the human bits. His body, his mind. I suppose if he got lucky, he might wind up a vegetable in which his Hunger demon was trapped, but it won't spread any farther into the White Court than that."

"Dammit," I said. I started to say more, but caught motion out of the corner of my eye. I stuffed Bob all the way back into the sack, admonishing him to shut up, and turned to find Alamaya entering the temple with a dozen of the full-vampire jaguar warriors at her back.

"If you would follow me, lord wizard," the girl said, "I will conduct you to she who has wronged you. My lord wishes you to know that he gives his word that your daughter will be spared from any harm until the duel is concluded."

"Thank you," I said. I turned to look at my little girl one more time. She huddled against the wall, her eyes open but not fixed on anything, as if she were trying to watch everything around her at once.

I moved over to the child, and she flinched again. I knelt down in front of her. I didn't try to touch her. I didn't think I would be able to keep cool if I saw her recoil from my hand.

"Maggie," I said quietly.

Her eyes flashed up to me, surprise evident there.

"I'm going to take you away from the mean people," I said, keeping my voice as soft and gentle as I knew how. I didn't know if she even understood English. "Okay? I'm taking you out of here."

Her lip trembled. She looked away from me again.

Then I stood up and followed the priestess of the junkie god to face my enemy.

Outside, things had changed. The Red Court had filed down from the pyramid and were on the move, walking in calm, ordered procession to another portion of the ruins. My companions waited at the bottom of the stairs.

"Right," I said, once I reached them. "Duel time."

Sanya shook his head. "Mark my words. This will not be settled in a dueling circle. Things like this always go to hell."

"The Accords are serious," I said. "He'll play it straight. If I win, I get the girl and we're gone."

Martin shook his head.

"What?" I asked him.

"I know them," he said levelly. "None of us are leaving this place alive."

His words had an instant effect on everyone. They hit Molly the hardest. She was already pale. I saw her swallow nervously.

"Maybe you know the monsters, Martin," Murphy said quietly. "But I know the guy who stops them. And if they don't return the girl, we'll make them regret it." She nodded at me and said, "Let's go. We can watch Dresden kill the bitch."

I found myself smiling. Murphy was good people.

Once the last of the half-mortal jaguar warriors had departed, we fell into step behind them, and followed them toward what looked like another temple, on the north end of the ruins.

As we went beneath the temple doorway, though, we found ourselves passing through it into the open space beyond - a swath of green grass at least a hundred and fifty yards long and seventy or eighty yards wide. Stone walls about thirty feet high lined the long sides of the rectangle, while the far end boasted a temple like the one we'd just entered.

"It's a stadium," I murmured, looking around the place.

"Ugh," Molly said. "There are some pretty horrific stories about the Mayans' spectator sports, boss."

"Indeed." Lea sighed happily. "They knew well how to motivate their athletes."

Alamaya turned to me and said, "Lord, your retainers may wait here. Please come with me."

"Keep your eyes open, folks," I said. Then I nodded to Alamaya and followed her onto the field. Even as I started out, a woman began walking toward me from the opposite end. As she approached, I saw that Arianna had the same facial features, more or less, but she had traded in her pale skin for red-brown, her icy eyes for vampire black, and she'd dropped six inches from her height. She wore a simple buckskin shift and more gold jewelry than a Mr. T look- alike convention. Her nose was a little sharper, a little longer, but as we stopped and faced each other from about ten feet away, I could see the hate boiling behind her eyes. I had no doubt that this was the duchess.

I smiled at her and said, "I gotcha now."

"Yes," Arianna replied. Her eyes flicked up and around us in a quick circle, taking in the thousands of members of the Red Court and their retainers. "I may faint with the terror."

"Why?" I demanded of her. "Why bring the child into this? Why not just come straight to me?"

"Does it matter at this point?"

I shrugged. "Not really. I'm curious."

She stared at me for a moment and then she smiled. "You don't know."

I eyed her warily. "Don't know what?"

"Dear boy," she said. "This was never about you."

I scowled. "I don't understand."

"Obviously," Arianna said, and gave me a stunning smile. "Die confused."

A conch horn moaned and Alamaya turned to bow toward the temple I'd just come through. I could see the Red King seated upon a throne made of dark, richly polished wood, decorated with golden filigree and designs.

Alamaya rose and turned to us. "Lord and lady, these are the limits within which you must do battle. First . . ."

I scowled. "Hey. This is an Accords matter. We abide by the Code Duello."

The Red King spoke, and though he was more than two hundred feet away, I heard him clearly. Alamaya listened and bowed. "My lord replies that this is a holy time and holy ground to our people, and has been from time immemorial. If you do not wish to respect the traditions of our people, he invites you to return tomorrow night. Unfortunately, he can make no promises about the fate of his newest chattel should you choose to do so."

I eyed the Red King. Then I snorted. "Fine," I said.

Alamaya nodded and continued. "First," she said. "As you are both wielders of Power, you will duel with Power and Power alone. Physical contact of any kind is forbidden."

Arianna's eyes narrowed.

Mine did, too. I knew that the Red Court had dabblers in magic - hell, the first Red Court vampire I'd ever met had been a full-blown sorceress by the time she'd been elevated to the Red Court's nobility. Judging by Arianna's jewelry, her proper place had been on the eleventh tier of the pyramid - the one directly below the Lords of Outer Night themselves. It stood to reason that even a dabbler could have accrued way too much experience and skill over the course of millennia.

"Second," the mortal priestess said, "your persons and whatsoever power you use must be contained within the walls of this court. Should either of you violate that proscription, you will be slain out of hand by the wills of my lord and the Lords of Outer Night."

"I have this problem with buildings," I said. "Maybe you noticed the columns back the other way . . . ?"

Alamaya gave me a blank look.

I sighed. Nobody appreciates levity when they're in the middle of their traditional mumbo jumbo, I guess. "Nothing. Never mind."

"Third," Alamaya said. "The duel will begin at the next sounding of the conch. It will end only when one of you is no more. Do you understand the rules as I have given them to you?"

"Yep," I said.

"Yes," said Arianna.

"Have you anything else to say?"

"Always," I said. "But it can wait."

Arianna smiled slightly at me. "Give my father my thanks, and tell him that I will join him in the temple momentarily."

Alamaya bowed to us both. Then she retreated from the field and back over to her boss.

The night grew silent. Down in the stadium, there wasn't even the sound of wind. The silence gnawed at me, though Arianna looked relaxed.

"So," I said, "your dad is the Red King."

"Indeed. He created me, as he created all of the Thirteen and the better part of our nobility."

"One big bloodsucking Brady Bunch, huh? But I'll bet he missed all the PTA meetings."

The duchess studied me and shook her head. "I shall never understand why someone hasn't killed you before now."

"Wasn't for lack of trying," I said. "Hey, why do you suppose he set up the rules the way he did? If we'd gone by the Code Duello, there's a chance it could have been limited to a physical confrontation. Really seems to be taking away most of your advantages, doesn't he?"

She smiled. "A jaded person might consider it a sign of his weakness."

"Nice spin on that one. Purely out of curiosity, though: Once you kill me, what comes next?"

She lifted her shoulders in a shrug. "I continue to serve the Red Court to the best of my ability."

I showed her my teeth. "Meaning you're going to knock Big Red out of that chair, right?"

"That is more ambitious than reasonable," she said. "One of the Thirteen, I should think, will ascend to become Kukulcan."

"Creating an opening in the Lords of Outer Night," I said, getting it. "Murdering your father to get a promotion. You're all class."

"Cattle couldn't possibly understand."

"Couldn't understand that Daddy's losing it?" I asked. "That he's reverting into one of your blood slaves?"

Her mouth twitched, as if she were restraining it from twisting into a snarl. "It happens, betimes, to the aged," Arianna said. "I love and revere my father. But his time is done."

"Unless you lose," I said.

"I find that unlikely." She looked me up and down. "What a . . . novel outfit."

"I wore it especially for you," I said, and fluttered my eyelashes at her.

She didn't look amused. "Most of what I do is business. Impersonal. But I'm going to enjoy this."

I dropped the wiseacre attitude. The growing force of my anger burned it away. "Taking my kid isn't impersonal," I said. "It's a Kevorkianesque cry for help."

"Such moral outrage. Yet you are as guilty as I. Did you not slay Paolo's child, Bianca?"

"Bianca was trying to kill me at the time," I said. "Maggie is an innocent. She couldn't possibly hurt you."

"Then you should have considered that before you insulted me by murdering my grandchild," she hissed, her voice suddenly tight and cold. "I am patient, wizard. More patient than you could imagine. And I have looked forward to this day, when the consequences of your arrogance shall fall upon both you and all who love you."

The threat lit a fire in my brain, and I thought the anger was going to tear its way free of my chest and go after her without me.

"Bitch," I spat. "Come get some."

The horn blew.