"Can't argue with that," I admitted.

"So tell me," Sanya said, "why have you not considered taking up the sword?"

I thought about it for a second and said, "Because it isn't for me. And Shiro said I would know who to give it to."

Sanya shrugged and nodded his head in acquiescence. "Reason enough." He sighed. "We could use Fidelacchius Fidelacchius's power in this conflict. I wish Shiro were with us now."

"Good man," I agreed quietly. "He was a king, you know."

"I thought he just liked the King's music."

"No, no," I said. "Shiro himself. He was a direct descendent of the last king of Okinawa. Several generations back, but his family was royalty."

Sanya shrugged his broad shoulders. "There have been many kings over the centuries, my friend, and many years for their bloodlines to spread through the populace. My own family can trace its roots back to Salahuddin."

I felt my eyebrows rise. "Salahuddin. You mean Saladin? King of Syria and Egypt during the Crusades?"

Sanya nodded. "The same." He paused in midstrop and looked up at me, his eyes widening.

"I know you're agnostic," I said. "But do you believe in coincidence?"

"Not nearly so much as I once did," Sanya replied.

"That can't be a coincidence. Both of you descended from royalty." I chewed on my lip. "Could that have something to do with who can take up one of the swords?"

"I am a soldier and an amateur philosopher," Sanya said. "You are the wizard. Could such a thing be significant?"

I waggled a hand in midair. "Yes and no. I mean, there are a lot of factors that tie magic to matters of inheritance-genetic or otherwise. A lot of the old rites were intimately bound up with political rulers."

"The king and his land are one," Sanya intoned solemnly.

"Well, yeah."

Sanya nodded. "Michael showed me that movie."

"Merlin was the only good thing about that movie. That and Captain Picard kicking a.s.s in plate mail with a big ax." I waved my hand. "The point is that in many cultures, the king or sultan or whatever held a position of duty and authority that was as much spiritual as physical. Certain energies could have been connected to that, giving the old kings a form of metaphysical significance."

"Perhaps something similar to the power of the Swords?" Sanya asked.

I shrugged. "Maybe. By the time I was born the planet was running a little low on monarchs. It isn't something I've looked at before."

Sanya smiled. "Well. Now you need only find a prince or princess willing to lay down his or her life over matters of principle. Do you know any?"

"Not so much," I said. "But I've got a feeling that we're onto something." I glanced at the clock on the wall. "It's getting late. I'll be back here in about two hours, or I'll call."

"Da," Sanya said. "We will watch over your criminals for you."

"Thanks," I said, and went back out to the workshop. Hendricks had slumped to the floor and was sleeping. Gard was actually snoring. Thomas had been pacing restlessly when I entered.

"Well?" he asked.

"Gotta get to Mac's and meet Murphy," I said. "Let's roll."

Thomas nodded and headed for the door.

I reached into the trash can by the door, took out an empty motor oil can, and tossed it into the least cluttered corner of the workshop. It bounced off something in midair, and Molly let out a soft yelp, appearing there a moment later, rubbing a hand to her hip.

"Where'd she come from?" Thomas demanded crossly.

"What did I miss?" Molly demanded, her tone faintly offended. "I had all the senses covered. Even Thomas didn't know I was there."

"You didn't miss anything," I said. "I just know how you think, gra.s.shopper. If I can't make you stay where it's safe, I might as well keep you where I can see you. Maybe you'll even be useful. You're with us."

Molly's eyes gleamed. "Excellent," she said, and hurried over to join me.

Chapter Sixteen.

I was more than an hour late, and Murphy was not amused. was more than an hour late, and Murphy was not amused.

"Your nose looks worse than it did yesterday," she said when I sat down at the table. "I think the black eyes have grown, too."

"Gosh, you're cute when you're angry," I responded.

Her eyes narrowed dangerously.

"It makes your little b.u.t.ton nose all pink and your eyes get bloodshot and even bluer."

"Did you have any last words, Dresden, or should I just choke you now?"

"Mac!" I called, raising a hand. "Two pale!"

She fixed me with a steady look and said, "Don't think you can buy your way out of this with good beer."

"I don't," I said, rising. "I'm buying my way out of it with really, really really good beer." good beer."

I walked over to the bar as Mac set two bottles of his microbrewed liquid nirvana down and took off the caps with a deft twist of his hand, disdaining a bottle opener. I winked at him and picked up both bottles, then sauntered back over to Murphy.

I gave her my bottle, took mine, and we drank. She paused after the first taste and blinked at the bottle before drinking again more deeply. "This beer," she p.r.o.nounced after that, "just saved your life."

"Mac's a master beeromancer," I replied. I'd never tell him, but at the time I wished he'd serve his brew cold. I'd have loved to hold a frosty bottle against my aching head for a moment. You'd think the pain from the d.a.m.ned broken nose would fade eventually. But it just kept on stubbornly burning.

We had settled down at a table along one wall of the pub. There are thirteen tables in the room, and thirteen wooden pillars, each extensively carved with scenes mostly out of Old World fairy tales. The bar is crooked and has thirteen stools, and thirteen ceiling fans whir lazily overhead. The setup of the entire place is designed to diffuse and refract random magical energies, the kind that often gather around pract.i.tioners of magic when they're grumpy or out of sorts. It offers a measure of protection from acc.u.mulated negative energies, enough to make sure that annoying or depressing "vibes," for lack of a more precise term, don't adversely affect the moods and att.i.tudes of the pub's clientele.

It doesn't keep out any of the supernatural riffraff-that's what the sign by the door is for. Mac had the place legally recognized as neutral ground among the members of the Unseelie Accords, and members of any of the Accorded nations had a responsibility to avoid conflict in such a place, or at least to take it outside.

Still, neutral ground is safe only until someone thinks they can get away with violating the Accords. It's best to be cautious there.

"On the other hand," Murphy said, more quietly, "maybe you're too pathetic to beat to death right now."

"My nose, you mean. Compared to the way my hand felt, it's nothing," I said.

"Still can't be much fun."

"Well. No."

She watched me through her next sip and then said, "You're about to play the wizard card and tell me to b.u.t.t out."

"Not exactly," I said.

She gave me her cop eyes, all professionally detached neutrality, and nodded once. "So talk."

"Remember the guys from the airport a few years back?"

"Yeah. Killed the old Okinawan guy in the chapel. He died real bad."

I smiled faintly. "I think he'd probably argue the point, if he could."

She shrugged and said, tone quietly flat, "It was a mess."

"The guys behind it are back. They've abducted Marcone."

Murphy frowned, her eyes distant for a moment, calculating. "They're grabbing his business?"

"Or forcing him onto their team," I said. "I'm not sure yet. We're working on it."

"We?"

"You remember Michael?" I asked.

"Charity's husband?"

"Yeah."

"I remember that at the airport we found a couple of men with no tongues and fake identification. They'd been killed with long blades. Swords, if you can believe that in this day and age. It was messy, Harry." She put her hands flat on the table and leaned toward me. "I don't like like messy." messy."

"I'm all kinds of sorry about that, Murph," I said. It's possible that a grain or two of sarcasm was showing in my reply. "I'll be sure to ask them to put on the kid gloves. If I survive asking the question, I'll let you know what they say."

Murphy regarded me calmly. "They're back, then?"

I nodded. "Only this time they brought more friends to the party."

She nodded. "Where are they?"

"No, Murph."

"Where are they, Harry?" Murph asked, her voice hard. "If they're that dangerous, I'm not waiting for them to choose their ground so that we have to rush into a hostile situation in response to them. We'll go after them right now, before they have a chance to hurt anyone else."

"It'd be a slaughter, Murphy."

"Maybe," she said. "Maybe not. You'd be surprised what kinds of resources the department has gotten its hands on, what with the whole War on Terror."

"Right. And you're going to tell your bosses what?"

"That the same terrorists who attacked the airport and murdered a woman in the marina are in the city, planning another operation. That the only way to ensure the safety of its citizens is to preemptively a.s.sault them. Then show up with SWAT, SI, every cop in town, anyone we can get from the Bureau, and all the military backup available on short notice."

I sat back in my chair at that, startled at Murphy's tone-and at the possibilities.

h.e.l.l. The kind of firepower she was talking about might give even the Denarians pause. And given the current climate, terrorist plot terrorist plot was all but synonymous with was all but synonymous with respond with overwhelming force respond with overwhelming force. Oh, sure, most modern weaponry was far less effective on supernatural targets than anyone without knowledge of them would expect-but even reduced to the effectiveness of bee stings, enough enough bee stings can be just as deadly as a knife in the heart. bee stings can be just as deadly as a knife in the heart.

Humanity, at large, enjoys a dichotomous role in supernatural politics. On the one hand they are sneered at and held in contempt for being patently unable to come to grips with reality, to the point where the supernatural world hardly needed to bother to hide from them. Given half a chance, the average human being would rationalize the most bizarre of encounters down to "unusual but explainable" events. They are referred to as herd animals by a lot of the things that prey on them, and often toyed with and tormented.

On the other hand, no one wants to get them stirred up, either. Humanity, when frightened and angry, is a force even the supernatural world does not wish to reckon with. The torches and pitchforks are just as deadly, in their numbers and their simple rage, as they ever were-and it was my opinion that most of the supernatural crowd had very little appreciation for just how destructive and dangerous mankind had grown in the past century.

Which is why I found myself sorely tempted to let the Denarians get a big old faceful of angry cop. Five or six rifles like Gard's might not kill Mantis Girl-but if you followed them up with thirty or forty pairs of stompy combat boots for all the little bugs, Little Miss Clamphands could go down for the count.

Of course, all that was predicated on the idea that the humans involved a) knew what they were up against and b) took it seriously and worked together tightly enough to get the job done. Murphy and the guys in SI might have a pretty good grasp of the situation, but the others wouldn't. They'd be expecting a soldier movie, but they'd be getting something out of a horror flick instead. I didn't for one second believe that Murphy or Stallings or anyone else in Chicago could make everyone involved listen to them once they started talking about demons and monsters.

I rubbed at my head again, thinking of Sanya. Maybe we could try to explain it in more palatable terms. Instead of "shapeshifting demons" we could tell them that the terrorists were in possession (ha-ha, get it?) of "experimental genetically engineered biomimetic armored suits." Maybe that would give them the framework they needed to get the job done.

And maybe it wouldn't. Maybe they'd run into something out of a nightmare and start screaming in fear. Coordination and control would go right out the window, especially if the Denarians had anyone with enough magical juice to start blowing out technology. Then would come the panic and slaughter and terror.

"It's an idea," I said to Murphy. "Maybe even a workable idea. But I don't think its time has come. At least, not yet."

Her eyes flashed very blue. "And you're the one who decides."

I took another sip of beer and set the bottle down again, deliberately. "Apparently."

"Says who?" Murphy demanded.

I leaned back in my chair. "In the first place," I said quietly, "even if you brought in all that firepower, the best you could hope for is a hideously b.l.o.o.d.y, costly victory. In the second place, there's a chance that I can resolve this whole thing through Council channels-or at least make sure that when the fur starts flying, we're not in the middle of the b.l.o.o.d.y town."

"But you-"

"And in the third place," I continued, "I don't know where they are."

Murphy narrowed her eyes, and then some of the tension abruptly left her features. "You're telling me the truth."

"Usually do," I said. "I could probably track them down, given a day or so. But it might not come to that."

She studied my face for a moment. "But you don't think that talk will stop them from whatever they're doing here."

"Not a chance in h.e.l.l. But hopefully I'll talk them out of the woodwork to someplace a little more out of the way."