“Should you live long enough to level it, perhaps,” he said. “But I am willing to take that risk.”
I flicked my eyes around the room, looking for options, but they seemed few. The fellow on the high stool had his eyes on a man dealing cards at a nearby table. The cowboys were far more interested in drinking and making merry than in what, to them, must have appeared to be a domestic squabble between a wife come to drag her husband from a den of iniquity. Even the deputy at the door was gone, his chair standing empty.
Ah.
I turned to the German and said, “Very well. Let us take this discussion elsewhere.”
“I do not think you realize your position, Warden,” the German said, as we began walking. “I am not asking for your consent. I am merely informing you of your options.”
I flinched slightly at the words and let the fear I was feeling show on my face. “What do you mean to do with me?” I asked.
“Nothing good,” he said, and his eyes glinted with something manic and hungry. Then he frowned, noticing that his last words had fallen into a silence absent of music or stomping feet.
Into that silence came what seemed like a singularly significant mechanical click.
“Mister,” the lanky deputy said. “You pass over that belly gun, or your next hat is going to be a couple of sizes smaller.”
The deputy had moved in silently behind him and now held his revolver less than a foot from the back of the German’s skull.
I let the fear drop off my face and smiled sweetly up at my captor.
The German froze, his eyes suddenly hot with rage as he realized that I had distracted him, just as his fellows had distracted me. The derringer pressed harder against my ribs as he turned his head slightly toward the deputy. “Do you have any idea who I am?”
“Mmmm,” the deputy said calmly. “You’re the fella who’s about to come quietly or have lead on his mind.”
The German narrowed his eyes and ground his teeth.
“He’s not asking for your consent,” I said. “He’s merely informing you of your options.”
The German spat an oath in his native tongue. Then he slipped the little pistol away from my side and slowly held it up.
The deputy took the weapon, his own gun steady.
“You will regret this action,” said the German. “Who do you think you are?”
“My name is Wyatt Earp,” said the deputy. “And I think I’m the law.”
EARP TOOK THE German to the town marshal’s office, which was on the southern side of the tracks and contained a pair of iron jail cells. I led Karl along, and the n?cken was mercifully well behaved for once, playing the role of a horse to perfection when I tied him to the post outside the office.
“Deputy,” I said, as we entered the building. “I do not think you understand the threat.”
Earp passed me his lantern and nodded toward a hanging hook on the wall. I put it there, as he walked the German into the cell, gun steady on the man all the while. He made the man lean against a wall with both hands and patted him down for weaponry, removing a small knife—and calmly taking a charm hanging from a leather necklace around his neck.
“What?” he said evenly. “On account of he’s a sorcerer? Is that what you mean?”
I felt both of my eyebrows lift. Typically, and increasingly, authority figures had very little truck with the world of the supernatural.
“Yes,” I said. “That is precisely what I mean.”
Earp walked over to me and held out the necklace and its simple, round copper charm. A familiar symbol was carved onto its surface: a skull, twisted and horrifically stretched, marked on its forehead with a single slanted, asymmetric cross.
“Thule Society,” I murmured.
“Hngh,” he said, as if my recognition of the symbol confirmed his suspicions rather than surprising him. “Guess that makes you White Council.”
I tilted my head at him. “A Warden. Goodness, you are well-informed. I must ask, how do you know of the Council, sir?”
“Venator,” he said simply. “Lost my necklace in a card game. You can take it or leave it that I’m telling the truth.”
The Venatori Umbrorum were a secret society of their own, steeped in the occult, quietly working against supernatural forces that threatened humanity. They boasted a few modestly gifted practitioners, but had a great many members, which translated to a great many eyes and ears. The society was a longtime ally, more or less, of the White Council—just as the Thule Society was more or less a longtime foe, using their resources to attempt to employ supernatural powers for their own benefit.
I regarded Earp thoughtfully. It was, I supposed, possible that he could be in league with the German, playing some sort of deceitful game. But it seemed improbable. Had he and the German wanted me dead, Earp could simply have watched him walk me out without taking note of it.
“I believe you,” I told him simply.
“That cell’s warded,” Earp said. “From the inside, he’s not going to be doing much.” He glanced over at the German and gave him a cold smile. “Makes a lot of noise if you try, though. Figure I’ll shoot you five or six times before you get done whipping up enough magic to hurt anybody.”
The German stared at Earp through narrowed eyes and then abruptly smiled and appeared to relax. He unbuttoned his collar, removed his tie, and sat down on the cell’s lumpy bunk.
“Nnnngh,” Earp said, a look of mild disgust on his face. He squinted around the room at the building’s windows. Then he looked back at me and said, “Warden, huh? You’re a lawm—” He pursed his lips. “You carry a badge.”
“Something like that,” I said.
“What I mean to say is, you can fight,” Earp said.
“I can fight,” I said.
He leaned his lanky body back against the wall beside the desk and tilted his chin toward the German. “What do you think?”
“I think he has four friends,” I said. “All of them gifted. Do your windows have shutters?”
“Yep.”
“Then we should shutter them,” I said. “They will come for him.”
“Damn,” he drawled. “That’s what I think, too. Before dawn?”
The hours of darkness were the best time for amateurs to practice the dark arts, for both practical and purely psychological reasons. “Almost certainly.”
“What do you think about that?”
I narrowed my eyes and said, “I object.”
Earp nodded his head and said, “Only so much I can do about someone bringing spells at me. Can you fight that?”
“I can.”
Earp studied me for a moment, those dark eyes assessing. Then he seemed to come to a decision. “How about I’ll put up the shutters?” he said. “Unless you’d rather me make the coffee, which I don’t recommend.”
I shuddered at the American notion of coffee. “I’ll do that part,” I said.
“Good,” he said. “We got ourselves a plan.”
“WELL,” EARP SAID a few hours later. “I don’t much care for all the waiting. But this is some damned fine coffee, Miss Anastasia.”
I had, of course, used magic to help it. The beans had not been properly roasted, and the grinder they had been through had been considerably too coarse in its work. Some other Wardens thought my coffee-making spells to be a frivolous waste of time in the face of all the darkness in the world, but what good is magic if it cannot be used to make a delicious cup of a fine beverage?
“Just be glad you did not ask me to cook,” I said. “It is not one of my gifts.”
Earp huffed out a breath through his nose. “You ain’t got much femaleness to you, ma’am, if you pardon my saying so.”
I smiled at him sweetly. “I’m on the job at the moment.”
He grunted. “That Page fella you mentioned?”
I nodded.
“What’s he wanted for?”
“He murdered three people in Liverpool,” I said. “A girl he favored and her parents.”
“Guess she didn’t favor him back,” Earp said. “He shoot ’em?”
I shook my head and suppressed a shudder at the memory of the crime scene. “He ripped out their eyes and tongues,” I said. “While they lay blind and bleeding, he did other things.”