November 1070

Raith broke the silence first, speaking to his Court in Etruscan. "I suppose, in the end, poor Gauthier was right about one thing. The kine were displeased with him."

Titters ran through the cliques of vampires, and he let them go on for a while before raising his hand, looking down at the six of us, and continuing in Latin. "Honored visitors," he said, "you have your vengeance. What other business brings you to this great hall?"

"The matter of the Unseelie Accords," Salazar said.

Raith arched an eyebrow. "Oh?"

"Yes. We wish for you to sign and join the august assembly of courts that have come together to establish these Accords."

"And how is the decision of the White Throne the business of your Council?" Raith asked. He then looked directly at me, lips stretching into a smirk. "Or is this a private matter, on behalf of a woman spurned?"

"We are the duly appointed representatives of Queen Mab, yes," Salazar replied.

"Really? All of you? Or just her... toy?" Raith asked lazily.

I tightened my grip around my staff.

"In this matter, we stand as one," Salazar said. "And we strongly urge you to reconsider your prior decision."

Raith laughed like Palpatine had, when Luke had been fighting Vader. And no, I'm never going to stop with the Star Wars references. "You 'strongly urge' me? Oh, this I must see. Tell me, what argument do you present?"

"The oldest one of all," Salazar said, then hissed sharply. Raith's eyes narrowed and the vampires around the room stiffened, but they all stopped as a loud, gravely, almost rumbling hiss filled the hall. I spared a quick glance over my shoulder, and I saw the murky plane of the rift swell before bursting like a blister, revealing the head of an enormous snake crowned by fire. The head came to rest above us, the basilisk's eyes closed, his forked tongue flicking out through its teeth as he hissed and panned his head across the room.

"Do what I ask, or perish," Salazar concluded.

Raith's expression had changed. He'd sucked in his cheeks partway, and he'd curled his lips into a circle. There was an edge of wariness in his expression, one super-predator suddenly finding himself in the vicinity of another one. As if sensing him, the basilisk turned his head to stare blindly at Raith, still hissing.

"I see. Is that a basilisk and a phoenix, together?" Raith asked. "How... diametric."

Salazar nudged his foot back into mine, and I slowly drew out the Accords and shook the book, holding it by the covers.

"Your response, O King?" Salazar asked.

"Patience, patience. This matter requires careful deliberation," he said, looking down at Lucille and Tim and switching to Etruscan. "Lucille and Timothée, yes? You would be my great grand-niece and nephew, as I recall."

Small world. Then again, all the Vampire Courts I knew of were literal family affairs. The Whites were just more direct about it.

"Yes?" Lucille replied in Etruscan, holding her calm well considering the circumstances.

"Your immediate family has perished. That makes you the heirs to these grand estates. I congratulate you on your inheritance, but I mean to ask: do you mean to stand with your 'puppets' in this matter?" Raith asked.

Lucille looked my way, and I could see the conflict in her eyes. Her father was dead, her aunt too. No one threatened her any longer. Raith was extending an open hand. If she wanted, she could just leave. Forget our arrangement, forgo my protection, and take what was being offered. Power, authority, influence. I didn't have anything left to offer her at this point.

Then she looked over at her brother, and studied him. Finally she turned back to Raith and studied him.

As the silence stretched on, I began to have a bad feeling. More than the entirely understandable "we're surrounded by vampires" kind of bad feeling. The kind of feeling that I had missed something.

"I do, King Raith. I would not bet against Dresden if you offered me the world," she replied.

Esther's attack on Rowena gnawed at my thoughts like a canker. Why had a single vampire attacked a witch directly? It couldn't have been just because of stupidity, there had to be a reason behind it. And why had she and Gauthier acted so openly, so directly? It didn't fit with what I knew of the White Court. I'd already assumed that it was because the White Court felt less need to be circumspect in this day and age, that they hadn't been burned quite so hard as to need to act through cutouts and patsies.

As I looked at Raith, and considered what Salazar had told me earlier today, the pieces came together. The White Council wasn't the giant bestriding the supernatural world right now. The Red Court was locked to the Americas, perhaps even just to Central America. The Faerie Courts were limited in a number of ways. The Black Court didn't exist. The Denarians rarely "went loud." But the White Court was present. The White Court wasn't limited in numbers like the Denarians. The White Court could reliably replenish their own numbers. The White Court didn't need to spend decades and centuries training a new member to make them a danger.

The White Court weren't in the middle of the pack of predators. They were the current apex predators. And apex predators had no need to be subtle.

"Ah," Raith said. "Shame."

My will and power was already surging into my physical shield when Raith responded, a shining blue hemispherical barrier sparking to life in front of the six of us. Even with the warning, even with the realization, I barely reacted in time. One heartbeat Raith was lounging on his throne, the next he was slamming up against my shield with enough force to make Magog pause and take heed. Raith had come within a hair's breadth of breaking my shield with a single punch.

I reinforced my shield in time for him to smile at me, and I realized he'd been expecting that. He then pressed a hand up against my shield and used it fling himself upward, right at the basilisk, where he lightly kissed the basilisk right on the nose.

My eyes widened, and I snapped my shield straight up as the basilisk's hissing instantly stopped, and a moment later the head came crashing down on us.

"Take them!" Raith yelled.

Fifty vampires unleashed their Hungers all at once and came at us, the combined bow-wave of lust, fear, and despair crashing into us only to be stopped by Guy's song. Salazar didn't react in time, his eyes wide with shock as his basilisk lay limply atop my shield. Rowena's reflexes weren't sharp. I was busy with the shield.

That left Helga.

Eyes narrowed in concentration, Helga sharply jerked her wand to the side and yelled something in some Nordic tongue, and the floor for ten feet around us, past the line of Salazar's writhing glowing snakes, turned to muddy slush, the vampires stumbling and falling over each other as they rushed us.

"Salazar!" I yelled. "Some help!"

A second later I breathed a sigh of relief as Rowena gestured with her wand and pinned the basilisk's head to the roof, freeing me to lower my shield as Raith dropped to the ground on the other side of the slush. I narrowed the shield a little as Lucille and Tim moved to its flanks, three swords flashing through the front ranks of pinned and fallen vampires.

Raith bellowed for the vampires to send the thralls, and as a result the ones in the middle and back pushed their comrades towards the front while extricating themselves from the mud. Panicked screams began to fill the air as servants were manhandled and thrown and pushed forward, forming a curve of human shields.

As the vampires began hauling the servants through the mud, Salazar finally recovered. He looked upon the vampires with absolute fury, and moved forward far enough until none of us could see his face. I felt a surge of magic as he bellowed in rage and pain, and everyone that was facing him, the servants, the vampires, all froze, just like the draugr had.

All except one - Raith.

With relatively clear lines of fire I pulled my blasting rod out of my coat and yelled, "Infriga!", pulling the heat right out of a few unlucky vampire's heads and directing that heat into the heads of a few more. At the same time some of the mud shot upwards as spouts, turning into stone just before they hit and rent pale flesh. Next to me, Rowena stabbed her athame towards Raith, her line of fire unobstructed by any servants. Her spell came out as a jagged bolt of light which tore right through my shield and hit Raith right in the chest. For a moment, I dared hope that the athame would cut through whatever protections Raith had, would just kill him then and there.

The light surged up and around Raith's stole, cutting it to shreds and taking out his toga for good measure. But it didn't cut into his chest. Instead it slid around him, following the cut along his stole, and there it managed to cut his shoulder, deeply.

Raith looked down at his shoulder in surprise, the skin and muscle already surging and trying to regrow, only to not quite succeed. He stared at it in wonder, then looked over at Rowena and grinned like a shark.

I got my shield back up just in time for him to slam into it, and it held for all of two punches before he battered right through it. Salazar snarled and turned to face him, gesturing with his wand, but his red cutting bolt splashed harmlessly against Raith's bare chest, and then a heartbeat later he was in front of Salazar. He shouldn't have had the height on Salazar to loom, he was barely taller, but somehow he seemed like a giant in comparison to Salazar. He reached out with one hand, brushing it across Salazar's face, and then recoiled with a snarl as his hand burst into flame.

"Love," he snarled. "How trite."

He ducked out of the way of Rowena's next attack, a bolt of light shot diagonally upwards, and punched Salazar in the chest, hard. I heard ribs shatter as Salazar flew back, hitting the bottom bit of his basilisk that was sticking out of the rift, coughing out blood on impact. Whatever spell he'd been maintaining with his eyes cut out, and all the vampires started screaming again.

Helga moved to help Tim and Lucille with the swarm of vampires, transforming and maneuvering the muddy slurry to slow and block and direct the oncoming vampires without hindering the two on our side. Lucille struck like a serpent, sword flashing in and out through vampire's heads, while on the other side Tim was wading through the mud as if it didn't bother him, swords flashing out around him. One vampire tried to interpose a servant in front of Amoracchius, but Tim just tossed the Sword into the air, tore the servant out of the vampire's grasp, and took hold of the Sword in time to crack the vampire's skull with it.

Guy had been keeping to the air up until this moment, but now he tried to plunge towards Salazar. Tried, because as he flew by Raith's hand snapped out and grabbed Guy by the neck. He squeezed, hard, and Guy's head went limp, though a moment later his body started to glow. With a contemptuous sneer Raith threw Guy's body into the mud and then turned to face me and Rowena.

I'd tried to fight Raith once, back in my time. I'd probed at him with my magic, felt the kind of protection he had around him - a cold, hungry emptiness that filled the space where he should have been, a void like that of mordite. My power hadn't even been able to touch him then. I wasn't sure it would make that much of a difference now, even with soulfire.

I dropped my staff and blasting rod, drew Snickers, and prepared to get my ass kicked buying time for Rowena.

Raith laughed as he saw me draw. "Really, Dresden, a sword? Well, if you wish." He came at me fast, but not fast enough that I couldn't react, couldn't bring my sword around to dissuade his punch. I realized two seconds in that Raith was just toying with me, dodging around and keeping me between him and Rowena. I managed to scratch him a few times, lightly, spilling his blood across the floor, but that was just because he didn't care to avoid me entirely.

Soon enough he got bored and tapped into his Hunger more strenuously, blurring around me and smashing an elbow into my right hand. I grunted in pain as he broke my wrist, my fingers going limp and dropping Snickers. He tried to catch it, but the enchantments Luccio had put on the sword meant his fingers just slid clean off the hilt.

He cocked his head at that, glancing down quickly. "Hmm. Interesting." Then he stepped forward, hands shooting forth to grab my head and pull me in for a kiss.

And the moment he touched me, his hands burst into flame.

He cursed and jerked his hands away, taking two steps back, and for a few moments we just stared at each other, both utterly shocked at the turn of events. Neither of us had been expecting anything like that to happen.

I'd like to say that what happened next was planned. I'd like to say that I called up all my power and pressed my will against Raith, empowering the force with soulfire in order to bull just a fraction of my power through, just a fraction of my soul. I'd like to say that I used soulfire because that was as good as physical contact, better even, for burning him with the energy that was somehow protecting me. I'd like to say that I wasn't being an idiot.

But I can't say any of that, because in that moment, I just lost it.

I screamed in pain and rage and loss and hatred and so much more, a glowing white hand forming around Raith and squeezing. I heard him scream in agony as scraps of my power flowed through the void surrounding him, burning every inch of his bare flesh. I poured everything I had into it, every ounce of power, every scrap of soulfire, without any sense of restraint.

I would have burnt my soul to ash in that moment, destroyed myself completely and utterly, if not for one thing. As Raith gurgled and suffered, a very calm, very gentle, very rational voice whispered in my ear, "Bonea."

I gasped and and let go, my power dissipating, and my right arm went numb. In fact most of my body went numb, and it was a miracle that I didn't fall over. I felt thin, stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread. I'd used more soulfire in one go than I'd ever used before, more soulfire in one spell than I'd ever used in a day. I couldn't even guess how much of my soul remained. A fifth? A tenth? Less?

All I knew was that I was exhausted, filled with a bone-deep weariness that threatened to drag me into oblivion. And yet I still stood, and Raith didn't, and that was enough.

It took me a few seconds to realize the room had gone silent. I looked around, my head turning at a snail's pace, and I found that maybe half the vampires, at most, were still alive. All of them were watching us. All of them were watching me, standing over their once-invincible King. The King that was now writhing on the floor, every inch of his skin burnt clean off.

Wincing, I staggered forward, falling to my knees in the process. I grabbed Raith by one hand and he jerked as his flesh started sizzling again. I dragged his hand and fingers through a small pool of blood, then let go. I then reached around to grab the book I'd dropped, and with agonizing slowness, set it down on the ground and flipped it open to the last page.

"Sign," I forced out. "Sign in blood."

Raith just lay there and twitched, so I grabbed him by what remained of his hair and pulled him up, his screams starting up again.

"Sign!"

Raith smeared his bloody hand all over the page, making a complete mess of everything. It was, I felt, a more powerful statement than if he'd signed and sealed it properly and neatly and formally. I let go of his hair and his head hit the ground with a loud thud. Carefully, I picked the Accords back up, waiting for the blood to dry before closing the back cover.

Vampires milled around us uncertainly. The odds were uncertain - they still outnumbered us about five to one, and of our number Salazar was down and out, the basilisk was dead, Rowena was half-occupied by keeping it from crushing us, Tim and Lucille both looked wounded and battered, their Hungers sparsely fed in comparison to their cousins, and I could barely even limp.

But Helga was still fine, Rowena could still use her athame, Tim still had Joyeuse and Amoracchius, and across from us, Guy's literal funeral pyre was beginning to get pretty bright, signaling he was close to rebirth. And their King was lying prostrate, defeated, broken.

Part of me wanted to kill him then. But as I stared down at his pitiful form, I knew he wouldn't recover from this. Even if his Hunger could somehow heal his wounds, he'd be left starving, weak. And all the vampires around him would never follow him again. His image had been shattered, absolutely. Whatever else happened today, Raith was done. He'd never rule again.

And I could tell Lucille realized that. I saw her staring at Raith, eyes wide and bright silver, her heavy breathing and torn clothes interacting in interesting ways. If she wanted to, Lucille could take it all today. Dominate Raith, turn him into her puppet, take control of the White Court. After all, she was ultimately the main reason we were here, why any of this had happened. She and her brother could spin this as a master plan on their part, a grand ploy to demonstrate their power and remove all obstacles to their reign. Tim would be her enforcer; armed with Joyeuse, he'd probably be a terror.

And honestly, I wasn't sure what I wanted her to do. If we left Raith alone, one of the other surviving vampires would just take over for him, and who knows what they would do, how they would act, the grudges they might hold. With a passably friendly Queen at the helm, one who understood me and what I could do, the White Court might have made peace with the Council, formed an uneasy détente. But she would sacrifice much of her humanity in the process. The power and intrigues of the White Court bred monsters. I doubted Lucille could reform it successfully - she was ultimately too inexperienced.

Lucille met my gaze, and as she did, the silver in her eyes faded, her Hunger instinctively retreating from me. She swallowed and looked away, peering over the rest of the hall, at all the surviving Raiths and Skavis and Malvora.

She took a deep breath, straightened her posture, and made her choice.

Author's Note: Yes, I am cruel with cliffhangers, why do you ask?