“You have one other vulnerability, I think,” I said. “And we need to address it.”
His grin disappeared. “They have sunlight in a bottle or something?”
“No, but they will probably have some hellfire available. Eight of them are carrying demon spawn. You’re rather flammable, am I right?”
“Well, yes, now that you mention it.”
“I have a fix for that, strictly a loan item for tonight only.”
“All right.” I gave him Oberon’s talisman and activated it to protect him. He regarded me doubtfully and flicked the amulet hanging from his neck. “This hunk of metal will keep me from turning into ashes?”
“You’ll feel the heat, but it shouldn’t burn you.”
He raised his brows and rolled his eyes briefly by way of a facial shrug and said, “Fine. Are we ready to go?”
“Couple more things we have to do first,” I said, and wagged my head significantly at the house across the street. “You remember my inquisitive neighbor?”
“Of course.”
“He let it slip the other day that he has a rocket-propelled grenade in his garage. I’d like to see if he was telling the truth and, if so, liberate it for the greater good of the East Valley.”
Leif’s head didn’t move, but his nostrils flared. “He is in the house right now.”
“Oh, aye, and he’s watching us through his blinds.”
“What do you propose we do?”
“You charm his ass and get him to open the garage for me. I’ll brazenly walk in there and take what we need, then you tell him to forget it.”
“If he has military weaponry in there, we should report him to the
ATF.”
I sighed in exasperation and pinched the bridge of my nose. Who would have thought a bloodsucking lawyer would actually care about the law? “Okay, but only after we take some to play with.”
Mollified, Leif said, “He is looking at us now? Through his window?”
I slid my eyes sideways to confirm that the blinds were still parted. “Yes.”
Without warning, Leif whipped his head around and stared across the street at the blinds. They fell closed after a couple of moments.
“Got him,” Leif said. “Proceed. The garage should open in a few seconds.”
We strode across the street, and the heavy door began to rumble open ponderously. It occurred to me that I’d never seen it open at all; Mr. Semerdjian drove a silver Honda CR-V and always parked it in his driveway.
The rocket-propelled grenade-one of several-was there. And so were a crate of standard fragmentation grenades, several crates of automatic weapons, and handheld surface-to-air missiles. There were also a dozen flak jackets hanging on the wall.
“Wow,” I said. “It’s just like my garage, except with extra overkill.”
“Clearly these weapons are not for personal defense,” Leif said at the threshold. Mr. Semerdjian was under his control, but he hadn’t invited Leif into his home of his own free will yet. The man was standing, somewhat slack-jawed, by the door that led into his house. “Mr. Semerdjian,” Leif addressed him, “please explain why you have all this weaponry here.”
“It’s for the coyotes,” he replied.
I looked up sharply. “What did he say? What coyotes?”
Leif repeated my question, since Semerdjian wouldn’t answer anyone but him.
“Coyotes. The men who smuggle people across the Mexican border.”
“Oh, those coyotes,” I said. “Okay.”
“I supply two different gangs of them,” Semerdjian continued. “They always need something extra to get away from the border patrol these days.”
Leif pumped him for more information about his suppliers and customers, while I loaded up. I took a flak jacket, remembering that die Tochter des dritten Hauses liked to use handguns, then I snagged two RPGs and stuffed five frags into my pockets. I laid the RPGs in the trunk of Leif’s Jaguar and then called across to him that I was just about ready to roll.
Granuaile and Oberon were inside the house, entertaining three werewolves with the extended version of The Fellowship of the Ring. One of them was Dr. Snorri Jodursson, and I called to him to follow me into the backyard for a minute. He inquired after my health and thanked me for paying his huge bill so promptly, then vaulted me up into the branches of my neighbor’s palo verde tree, where I unbound Fragarach and Moralltach but kept them camouflaged. That was the full extent of the aid I could expect from the Tempe Pack, under Magnusson’s orders.
After depositing the weapons in the trunk of Leif’s Jaguar, I was truly ready to pick a fight-or, rather, to finish one that die Tochter des dritten Hauses had picked with me.
“Come on, Leif,” I called across the street. “Wrap it up and drop a dime on him later. Let’s go pick up the nice witches now so we can go kill the naughty witches.”
Chapter 24
The Sisters of the Three Auroras came down from their tower quickly and met us in the underground parking garage. They walked briskly in their pointy boots toward a line of slinky two-seat sports cars. Malina and Klaudia stepped lively to an Audi TT Roadster; Bogumila and Roksana made for a Mercedes SLR McLaren; and Kazimiera and Berta, something of a mismatched pair, looked as if they were going to squeeze themselves improbably into a Pontiac Solstice. Unlike the German hexen, they knew what decade it was and how to properly dress in black. Bogumila had actually pulled her hair back into a practical ponytail, and I was mildly disappointed that the previously hidden side of her face was perfectly pleasant, no hideous scarring or missing chunks of flesh or gaping ocular cavity with a worm wriggling around inside.
“Time is of the essence,” Malina explained as their cars’ security systems chirped at them. “I think we’ve shielded ourselves from divination, but if they somehow penetrate it and know we’re unprotected now, they may have time to repeat the hex that killed Waclawa and wipe us out all at once. I’m sure they have demons ready and waiting to aid them.”
“The clock is ticking, eh? How long do we have?” I wasn’t worried about being found through divination; no one but the Morrigan could find me that way, thanks to my amulet. And Leif had nothing to worry about either, because it’s tough to divine dead guys, and they’d have to know he was involved ahead of time before trying.
“Once they begin the ritual, perhaps as little as twenty minutes. Follow us and we’ll talk on the phone.”
Leif became a little bit envious as he watched the witches pull out in front of him. “Those are very nice toys. What do they do for a living?”
“Consulting.”
“Really? What sort of consulting?”
“Magical, I guess, in the sense that they magically draw a salary without truly consulting anyone.”
“How very clever of them. Though I suppose it is not all that different from real consultants.”
“Malina made the same observation,” I said as we turned left onto Rio Salado and headed for Rural Road to catch the 202 east. My cell phone began to play “Witchy Woman,” and I said, “Speaking of whom, she probably wants to consult with me on our plan of attack.” I flipped open my phone and cooed, “Hel-loooo,” with my voice gliding up into an interrogative tone at the end.
“You’re sounding remarkably cavalier about this confrontation,” Malina said, her Polish accent pronounced. She was already getting herself into a snit.
“I’m simply living in the moment and enjoying it. The near future holds a kill-or-be-killed situation, so I am
