“Captain Luccio, I reckon,” Ebenezar said. “Or someone she appoints. But she ain’t the kind to foist something like that off on a subordinate.”
I got treated to the mental image of Anastasia decapitating her old apprentice. Then of me, taking Molly’s head. I shuddered. “That sucks.”
Ebenezar kept staring at the fire, and his eyes seemed to sink into his head, as if he had aged twenty years right in front of me. “Aye.”
The door to the War Room opened and a slender, reedy little wizard in a tan tweed suit entered, lugging a large portfolio. His short white hair was curled tightly against his head and his fingers were stained with ink. There was a pencil tucked behind one ear, and a fountain pen behind the other. He stopped and peered around the room for a moment, spotted Ebenezar, and bustled right on over.
“Pardon, Wizard McCoy,” he said. “If you have a moment, I need you to sign off on a few papers.”
Ebenezar put his coffee on the floor and accepted a manila folder from the little guy, along with the fountain pen. “What this time, Peabody?”
“First, power of attorney for the office in Jakarta to purchase the building for the new safe house,” Wizard Peabody said, opening the folder and turning a page. Ebenezar scanned it, then signed it. Peabody turned more pages. “Very good. Then an approval on the revision of wages for Wardens-initial there, please, thank you. And the last one is approval for ensuring Wizard LaFortier’s holdings are transferred to his heirs.”
“Only three?” Ebenezar asked.
“The others are eyes-only, sir.”
Ebenezar sighed. “I’ll drop by my office when I’m free to sign them.”
“Sooner is better, sir,” Peabody said. He blinked and seemed to notice me for the first time. “Ah. Warden Dresden. What brings you here?”
“I thought I’d come see if someone wanted help taking Morgan down,” I drawled.
Peabody gulped. “I… see.”
“Has Injun Joe found anything?” Ebenezar asked.
Peabody’s voice became laced with diffident disapproval as he answered. “Wizard Listens-to-Wind is deep in preparations for investigative divination, sir.”
“So, no,” I said.
Peabody sniffed. “Not yet. Between him and the Merlin, I’m sure they’ll turn up precisely how Warden Morgan managed to bypass Senior Council security.” He glanced at me and said, in a perfectly polite tone, “They are both wizards of considerable experience and skill, after all.”
I glowered at Peabody, but I couldn’t think of a good dig before he had accepted the papers and pen back from Ebenezar. Peabody nodded to him and said, “Thank you, sir.”
Ebenezar nodded absently as he picked up his coffee cup, and Peabody bustled out again.
“Paper-pushing twit,” I muttered under my breath.
“Invaluable paper-pushing twit,” Ebenezar corrected me. “What he does isn’t dramatic, but his organizational skills have been a critical asset since the outbreak of the war.”
I snorted. “Bureaucromancer.”
Ebenezar smiled faintly as he finished his cup, the first couple of fingertips of his right hand stained with blue ink. Then he rose and stretched, drawing several faint popping sounds from his joints. “Can’t fight a war without clerks, Hoss.”
I stared down at my half cup of coffee. “Sir,” I said quietly. “Speaking hypothetically. What if Morgan is innocent?”
He frowned down at me for a long moment. “I thought you wanted a piece of him.”
“I’ve got this weird tic where I don’t want to watch wrongly accused men beheaded.”
“Well, naturally you do. But, Hoss, you’ve got to underst-” Ebenezar froze abruptly and his eyes widened. They went distant with thought for a moment, and I could all but hear gears turning in his head.
His eyes snapped back to mine and he drew in a slow breath, speaking in a murmur. “So that’s it. You’re sure?”
I nodded my head once.
“Hell’s bells,” the old man sighed. “You’d best start asking your questions a lot more careful than that, Hoss.” He lowered his chin and looked at me over the rims of his spectacles. “Two heads fall as fast as one. You understand?”
I nodded slowly. “Yeah.”
“Don’t know what I can do for you,” he said. “I’ve got my foot nailed to the floor here until Morgan’s located.”
“Assuming it’s not a duck,” I said, “where do I start looking?”
He pursed his lips for a moment. Then he nodded slowly and said, “Injun Joe.”
Chapter Fifteen
The Senior Council members, as it turned out, do not live like paupers.
After I passed through still more security checkpoints, the stone hallway yielded to a hall the size of a ballroom that looked like something out of Versailles. A white marble floor with swirls of gold in it was matched in color to elegant white marble columns. A waterfall fell from the far wall, into a pool around which grew a plethora of plants, from grass to roses to small trees, forming a surprisingly complex little garden. The faint sound of wind chimes drifted through the air, and the golden light that poured down from crystals in the ceiling was indistinguishable from sunlight. Birds sang in the garden, and I saw the quick, darting black shape of a nightingale slalom between the pillars and settle in one of the trees.
A number of expensive, comfortable-looking sets of furniture were spaced in and near the garden, like the sets you sometimes see at the pricier hotels. A small table against one wall was covered with an eclectic buffet of foods, everything from cold cuts to what looked like the sauteed tentacles of an octopus, and a wet bar stood next to it, ready to protect the Senior Council members from the looming threat of dehydration.
A balcony ran around the entire chamber, ten feet up, and doors opened onto the Senior Council members’ private chambers. I paced through the enormous, grandiose space of the Ostentatiatory to a set of stairs that swept grandly up one wall. I looked around until I spotted which door had a pair of temple-dog statues standing guard along with a sleepy-looking young man in a Warden’s cape and a walking cast. I walked around the balcony and waved a hand at him.
I was just about to speak when both temple-dog constructs abruptly moved, turning their heads toward me with a grating sound of stone sliding against stone.
I stopped in my tracks, and held my hands up a little. “Nice doggy.”
The young Warden peered at me and said something in a language I didn’t recognize. He looked like someone from eastern Asia, though I couldn’t have guessed at his nation of origin. He stared at me for a second, and I recognized him abruptly as one of the young men on Ancient Mai’s personal staff. The last time I’d seen him, he’d been frozen half to death, trying to bear a message to Queen Mab. Now a broken ankle had presumably kept him from joining the search for Morgan.
Some people are just born lucky, I guess.
“Good evening,” I said to him, in Latin, the official tongue of the White Council. “How are you?”
Lucky stared at me for another moment before he said, “We are in Scotland. It is morning, sir.”
Right. My half hour walk had taken me six time zones ahead. “I need to speak with Wizard Listens-to- Wind.”
“He is occupied,” Lucky told me. “He is not to be disturbed.”
“Wizard McCoy sent me to speak to him,” I countered. “He felt it was important.”
Lucky narrowed his eyes until they were almost closed. Then he said, “Wait here, please. Do not move.”
The temple dogs continued staring at me. Okay, I knew they weren’t really staring. They were just rock. But for essentially mindless constructs, they had an intense gaze.
“That will not be a problem,” I told him.
