It stood out a little from my old neighborhood’s aesthetic like a luchador at a Victorian tea party.
Tonight, the place’s floodlights were on, glowing and golden, playing up over stone walls as dusk came on. When it got fully dark, Marcone’s castle would look like it was holding a flashlight under its chin. A number of staff in red jackets were running a valet service. I parked on the street instead. Better to know where my car was and how to get back to it.
I sat behind the wheel, watching cars come and go, and waited until a pair of white, gold-chased stretch limos pulled up a few minutes later. The vehicles stopped in front of the castle and the staff leapt into action, opening doors and offering hands.
I exited my car at almost exactly the same time my grandfather got out of his. He was wearing his full formal attire, flowing dark wizard’s robes with a purple stole hanging from his shoulders. Given his stocky frame and the width of the old man’s still-muscular shoulders, the outfit made him look like a Weeble—those toys that wobble but won’t fall down. He had shaved his usual fringe of wispy silver hair, and he looked younger for it, and he carried his staff in his right hand.
Ebenezar peered at the castle with narrowed eyes, then glanced sharply around and nodded when he saw me approaching.
“Hoss,” he said.
“Sir.”
Ebenezar turned to help the next person out, and I glanced back at the second limo to see Ramirez and his team pile out in rapid order, moving calmly and quickly into defensive positions around the lead limo. Carlos gave me a courteous, neutral nod as he went by.
I turned back to see a tall, sturdy woman with dark skin and thick silver hair wave off Ebenezar’s offered hand. And when that didn’t work, she took up a crutch from the vehicle’s interior and poked my grandfather in the stomach. “I am not some wilting violet, Ebenezar McCoy. Move aside.”
My grandfather shrugged and took a calm step back as Martha Liberty laboriously removed herself from the limo. She, too, was dressed in black robes and a purple stole, but in addition she sported an old-style white plaster cast around her right leg, evidently immobilizing the knee. I didn’t know the woman well, but she always struck me as tough-minded, judgmental, and more or less fair. She swung her leg out, positioned her crutches, and lurched to her foot, holding the injured one slightly off the ground.
She glanced at me and gave me a short nod. “Warden Dresden.”
“Senior Councilwoman,” I replied politely, returning the nod.
“Excuse me, please,” came a man’s voice from the limo. “I should like to smooth things over with Etri before he has time to build up a head of steam.”
Martha Liberty stepped aside so that Cristos, in the same robe and stole as the others, could emerge from the limo. The newly minted Senior Councilman had a thick mane of salt-and-pepper hair brushed straight back and falling to his collar. He wore an expensive suit beneath his formal robes, was a little taller than average, a little more muscular than average, and a little more possibly a member of the Black Council than average. He traded a neutral glance with Ebenezar, gave me a stiff nod, and strode quickly up to the castle’s entrance.
“Always in a hurry, that one,” came a voice from the limo. “Hey, Hoss Dresden. Give an old man your hand.”
I grinned and stepped over to the car to clasp hands with Listens-to-Wind. He was one of the oldest members of the White Council and one of the most universally liked. A Native American shaman, he had seen the end of his people’s world and the rise of a new one and had carried on unbowed. His skin was the color of smoke-smudged copper and covered in a map of leathery wrinkles. His silver braids were still thick, and if he stood with a slight stoop as he rose to his feet from the car, his dark eyes glittered very brightly within his seamed face. He wore the same outfit as the others, although he’d refused to trade in his sandals for formal shoes.
“Good to see you,” I said, and meant it.
Listens-to-Wind squeezed my hand and gave me a brief, tired smile. “And you. You look better than the last time I saw you. More easy.”
“Some, maybe,” I said.
“We got a mutual friend here tonight,” he said. “Crowds aren’t really his thing, though. Maybe you can help me run interference for him at some point.”
“Sure,” I said. “Uh, who is it?”
“Heh,” he said. “Mattie, shall we?”
Martha Liberty smiled, and the two of them started moving deliberately toward the castle, side by side.
Ebenezar came to stand at my side and look after them. “Good old Listens-to-Wind,” the old man said. “The man loves his pranks.” Then he cleared his throat and said, “Wardens, to me, please.”
Ramirez walked over to us, giving the rally sign, and the rest of the Wardens came over, too.
“All right, people,” Ebenezar said. “Remember that this is an Accorded event. The laws of hospitality are in full force, and I expect you to observe them rigorously. Understood?”
A murmur of assent went up.
“That said, do not assume others will be as courteous as we will. Eyes open, all night.”
Wild Bill piped up. “What if we see something suspicious?”
“Use your best judgment,” my grandfather replied, “while remembering that Mab, who is quite capable of enforcing the articles of the Unseelie Accords, will be in the room.”
I snorted supportively. “She takes infractions kinda personal.”
The younger Wardens exchanged uneasy looks.
“The wisest course is to observe the Accords and the laws of hospitality rigidly,” Ebenezar said, his tone certain. “If you are not the first to break the laws, an argument can be made for reasonable self-defense.”
“If we wait for an enemy to break the laws first, it might be too late to enact self-defense,” Ramirez noted.
“Nobody ever said the job would be easy,” I said. “Only that it would make us all rich.”
At that a startled huff of laughter went up; Wardens were paid mainly in acrimony.
“Relax, guys,” I said. “Believe me when I say that everyone else is just as afraid to piss off Mab as we are. Stay sharp, be polite, and we’re home by ten.”
“Warden Ramirez,” Ebenezar said.
“You heard the man, folks.” Ramirez sighed. “Let’s mingle.”
Technically, this wasn’t my first visit to Marcone’s little fortress, but it was the first time I’d done so physically. I’d been dead during the last visit, or mostly dead, or comatose and projecting my spirit there, or something.
I try not to get bogged down in details like that.
But as I approached the front door, I was struck by two things: First, a modest, plain bronze plaque fixed to the wall that spelled out the words BETTER FUTURE SOCIETY in letters an inch high. Second, that my magical senses were all but assaulted by the humming power of the defensive enchantments that had apparently been built into each individual stone of the castle. I had to pause for a moment and put up a mild mental defense against the hum of unfamiliar power, and I had the impression that the other wizards with me had to do the same.
Whoever had constructed this place, they’d warded it at least as heavily as the defenses of the White Council’s own headquarters under Edinburgh. I could have hurled Power at this place all the ding-dong day, and it would have about as much effect as tossing handfuls of sand at sheet metal. It was similarly fortified against spiritual intrusion, with the only possible access points being the heavily armored entryways—and even those had been improved upon since I’d slipped my immaterial self through an open door.