"This is not how diplomacy is done," Anastasia said as we approached the Château Raith.
"You're in America now," I said. "Our idea of diplomacy is showing up with a gun in one hand and a sandwich in the other and asking which you'd prefer."
Anastasia's mouth curved up at one corner. "You brought a sandwich?"
"Who do I look like, Kissinger?"
I'd been to Château Raith before, but it had always been at night, or at least twilight. It was an enormous estate most of an hour away from Chicago proper, a holding of House Raith, the current ruling house of the White Court. The Château itself was surrounded by at least half a mile of old-growth forest that had been converted to an idyllic, even gardenlike, state, like you sometimes see on centuries-old European properties. Huge trees and smooth grass beneath them dominated, with the occasional, suspiciously symmetrical outgrowth of flowering plants, often located in the center of golden shafts of sunlight that came down through the green-shadowed trees at regular intervals.
The grounds were surrounded by a high fence, topped with razor wire that couldn't be readily seen from the outside. The fence was electrically charged, too, and the latest surveillance cameras—seemingly little more than glass beads with wires running out of them—monitored every inch of the exterior.
At night, it made for one extremely creepy piece of property. On a bright summer afternoon, it just looked . . . pretty. Very, very wealthy and very, very pretty. Like the Raiths themselves, the grounds were only scary when seen at the right time.
A polite security guard with the general bearing of ex-military had watched us get out of a cab, called ahead, and let us in with hardly a pause. We'd walked past the gate and up the drive through Little Sherwood until we reached the Château proper.
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SNIP
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"Ground zero?" Anastasia muttered out of the corner of her mouth. "A trifle melodramatic, don't you think?"
I answered her in a similar fashion. "I was going to go with 'three feet from where they'll find your body,' but I figured that would have made it too personal. He's just doing his job."
She shook her head. "Is there some reason this can't be a civil visit?"
"Lara's at her most dangerous when everyone's being civil," I said. "She knows it. I don't want her feeling comfortable. It'll be easier to get answers out of her if she's worried about all hell breaking loose."
"It might also be easier to question her if we aren't worried about it," Anastasia pointed out. "She does hold the advantage here. One notes that there is fairly fresh plaster on the walls on either side of us, for instance."
I checked. She was right. "So?"
"So, if I was the one preparing to defend this place, I think I might line the walls with antipersonnel mines wired to a simple charge and cover them in plaster until I needed them to remove a threat too dangerous to engage directly."
I'd personally seen what an AP mine could do to human bodies. It wasn't pretty. Imagine what's left of a squirrel when it gets hit with large rounds from a heavy-gauge shotgun. There's not much there but scraps and stains. It's essentially the same when a human gets hit with a load of ball bearings the size of gumballs that spew from an AP mine. I glanced at either wall again. "At least I was right," I said. "Ground zero."
Anastasia smiled faintly. "I just thought I'd mention the possibility. There's a fine line between audacity and idiocy."
"And if she thinks she's in danger, Lara might just detonate them now," I said. "Preemptive self-defense."
"Mmmm. Generally the favored method for dealing with practitioners. The customs of hospitality would have protected us from her as much as her from us."
I thought about that for a second and then shook my head. "If we were all calm and polite, she'd never give away anything. And she won't kill us. Not until she finds out what we know."
She shrugged. "You could be right. You've dealt with the smart, scary bitch more often than me."
"I guess we'll know in a minute."
A minute later, we were still there, and the security guy reappeared. "This way, please," he said.
We followed him through the wealthy splendor of the house. Hardwood floors. Custom carved woodworking. Statues. Fountains. Suits of armor. Original paintings, one of them a van Gogh. Stained-glass windows. Household staff in formal uniform. I kept expecting to come across a flock of peacocks roaming the halls, or maybe a pet cheetah in a diamond-studded collar.
After a goodly hike, the guard led us to a wing of the house that had, apparently, been converted to corporate office space. There were half a dozen efficient-looking people working in cubicles. A phone with a digital ring tone chirruped in the background. Copiers wheezed. In the background, a radio played soft rock.
We went past the office, down a short hall past a break room that smelled of fresh coffee, and to the double doors at the end of the hallway. The guard held open one of the doors for us, and we went inside, to an outer office complete with a secretary's desk manned by a stunning young woman.
By Justine, in fact, her white hair held back in a tail, wearing a conservative grey pantsuit.