In hindsight I was willing to admit — under duress and extreme torture — that Marcone might have been onto something with his plan-thingy. The place was booby-trapped. It wasn't just the wards helping to keep the White Council out; the whole warehouse was built like a prison. The sigils on the walls, the threshold and the windowsills were specially designed to stop wizards from escaping. My throat was dried with apprehension, not that I was willing to admit it. I'd never seen anything like it before. Whoever this warlock was, vanilla hookers weren't his intended prey.

"This is a trap," I told Marcone.

"Really," he commented dryly, and despite the bleakness of the situation I rolled my eyes at him.

"Phones are out," Cujo said, trying uselessly to make his mobile react in any way. I could've told him that it was useless. The place reeked with dark magic. Not even old, landline phones would've stood a chance. "Now what?"

A deafening roar stopped me from replying. I spun around, holding my blasting rod in a tight grip. Out of the shadows a huge construct leaped at us. "Fuego!" The words were pure instinct. The creature's growl turned into a high-pitched scream as fire consumed it.

"Harry, down," Marcone said. I dropped to my knees and folded on myself, clearing out of Marcone and Hendricks' line of fire. I whirled around in time to see yet another construct charging. Three more stepped forward from between the shadows. They were everywhere: oddly-shaped, saber-toothed cats that made grizzly bears look small. Marcone's and Hendricks' bullets hit their mark but didn't kill them. Nonetheless, they slowed them down enough for me to destroy them with fire. I was grateful for Marcone and Hendricks' presence, which probably gives you an idea of how screwed up we truly were.

We were being swarmed. No matter how many I set on fire, more appeared. It was like fighting a hydra.

Hendricks was the first to go down in a stupid move aimed to save Marcone. I was too busy torching one of the biggest cats, when another attacked Marcone while he was reloading his gun. Cujo stepped in front of it, shoving Marcone out of the way. I wanted to help Hendricks, but two more cats were coming our way. Marcone screamed something unintelligible and emptied his clip on the construct. It shrugged off the bullets as if they were annoying flies and dragged Hendricks away.

It was down to Marcone and me. We fought back to back. I heard the moment when he ran out of bullets and knew that it was over. I had already incinerated over a dozen of creatures, and there were still as many more surrounding us. I used my bracelet to raise a shield around us, pouring my power into it. Screw fighting, we just needed to stay alive until I came up with a better idea.

"I'll distract them," Marcone said to me. "Try to escape and bring back reinforcements."

"Stupid plan," I told him between clenched teeth, concentrating on keeping the shield up. "The place is warded tighter than Queen Mab's personal vault. Believe me, I won't be able to walk out. You have better odds. The wards won't keep vanilla mortals in."

The cats stopped attacking the moment we stopped firing. They sat there, watching us out of their empty black eyes. I was uncomfortably reminded of Mister, when he found a half-dead pigeon particularly entertaining and let it twitch uselessly around, instead of just finishing it off.

"Ms. Dresden," a male voice spoke from the shadows, "what a memorable show. Not even Ms. Gard destroyed as many of my creatures as you did. I see I've chosen right." An old man walked past the cats, stopping just a few feet shy of the shield. The stench of dark magic filled my nostrils.

"Who are you? And what do you want?" Marcone asked.

The warlock's eyes didn't waver away from me when he answered. "What I want? Right now, I just want to offer you a deal, Ms. Dresden."

"What kind of a deal?" I asked, making sure to keep my shield up.

"Give yourself up, and I'll let your friends live," the warlock said.

"I'll take door number two," I said. In my experience, when someone tells you that if you give up they'll spare your friends, believing them only gets you and your friends killed faster.

"I'll swear on my true name and my magic, if you so wish it," he said. "I'm willing to trade their freedom for yours."

That gave me pause. The offer was tempting. I've dealt often enough with faeries to know how to word vows in a way that make the magic work in my favor.

For the most part anyway.

"Harry, don't be stupid! It's a trap," Marcone said.

"Tell me something I don't know," I whispered to him, before addressing the warlock once more. "What do you want with me?" I asked. Regardless of Marcone's lack of confidence in my plans, I was able to be careful every now and then.

"You'll help me finish the Ritual of Panathenaea," he said.

I racked my brain trying to remember where I'd heard those words before. I didn't talk too often with other magic users about rituals, just with Bob, and Bob only shared information about rituals that involved sex. Wait a minute…

"Isn't that the ritual where you sacrifice seven whores and one virgin in exchange for absolute knowledge?" According to Bob, it had been used to create the first Archive. The ritual had been destroyed. Even Bob himself didn't know enough to recreate it. He just remembered the pervy details, but that was Bob for you.

"Interesting. I didn't think anyone but the Archive herself knew about its existence, and she, as all Archives before her, has gone to great lengths to keep it hidden." The warlock cocked his head slightly, watching me hungrily.

"If it's so secret, how did you find about it then?" A girl could ask. Marcone's fingers dug into my forearm in a silent warning. What could I say? I had a rather long name, but careful wasn't any part of it.

The warlock's lips curled. "That's irrelevant. Will you help me in order to save your friends?"

"We both know you're lying," I pointed out. "You need the hookers for the ritual to work."

The smirk on his face widened, twisting into a cruel sneer. "I said I'd free your friends, not the whores. They're nothing to you. Only the Baron and his two bodyguards will be allowed to walk free."

Ah. So that was his angle. "You still haven't told me what you want with me."

"You said it yourself, little wizardess, seven whores and a virgin. You'll do nicely."

I hated it when men thought that having a dick made them bigger somehow. For the record, I can tower over pretty much every man I've ever met, with a few exceptions. I might not have any curves to speak of, but I'm tall, thank you very much. There was nothing little about me.

I was so pissed off that it took me a moment to actually understand what he was implying. "You need to do your research better, honey. I haven't been a virgin for a long while."

He chuckled. "It's there in your aura for everyone to see, if they know what to look for," he said. "Imagine my surprise when I first saw you, prancing through Chicago: a virgin wizardess leaking power all over the place. I knew then that I had to have you, and I will."

Marcone tensed, ready to jump. It was my turn to tighten my grip on his arm. He couldn't loose his cool now. Besides, I didn't need him jumping to my rescue. I was perfectly capable of defending myself.

"Look, asshole, I'm not a virgin. If someone would know, it'd be me. You need to have your Sight checked."

"If you can tell me — under oath — the name of one man you've had sex with, I'll let you and your friends go. I'll even let you take the whores with you," he said.

The memory of Justin's cold hands, sliding over my inner thighs, came unbidden. I forced myself to stay still, even though every muscle in my body wanted to shudder with revulsion. Justin didn't count, though. He'd burned to ashes before he— I cut off the thought with the ease of practice, pushing it down to the deepest corners of my mind.

"Fine, I can't name any males, but that doesn't make me a virgin, just a lesbian. It's not the same thing." I still had the dark blue strap-on Susan had given me for my birthday to prove it.

"For the purpose of this ritual, it is."

When this was over, Bob and I were going to have words. Why did I have an all-knowing spirit, who could read auras, if he wasn't going to warn me about these things? But first things first. "Just to clarify, will you have to take off my clothes to finish this ritual?" An idea was taking shape in my head. Granted, it was a crazy idea, but I had good reason to believe it'd work. I trusted my gut. More than that, I trusted Bob.

The warlock blinked, as if he couldn't quite follow where I was going with this. That was fine, I was hoping that he wouldn't. "Evidently," he said.

"And I assume that part of the ritual involves you helping me get rid of my hetero-normative pseudo-virginity, right?"

He paused. "Yes."

"Is that after or before you kill the sex-workers?"

"The blood of the virgin opens the Path to Wisdom," he said as if quoting from a book. I could even hear the capital letters. Ivy and I were going to have words, too. She should have at least given me a hint that this was coming.

"Unless you use a knife, there won't be any blood to speak of, asshole."

Marcone tensed even further. "Harry," he hissed, you can't…"

I scraped my fingernails over the soft skin of his inner wrist, silencing him. "I'll do what needs to be done. Just like you would." He quieted, and I knew that he got my message. I wasn't going to sacrifice my life uselessly; he would never do that. "All right," I said to the warlock. "I agree to your terms, but I want to see Hendricks and Sigrun first, alive, or not deal."

He nodded. Two of the constructs moved away and came back minutes later, dragging an unconscious Hendricks and a struggling Sigrun between their huge teeth. They dropped them on the floor. Sigrun lurched into an attack, naked, beautiful, but before she could so much as touch the warlock an invisible wave of magic slapped her down, forcing her to stay on the floor. She struggled like a berserker to not avail.

"Enough!" I snapped, unable to watch any further. "Let's get this show on the road. You let my friends go, and I won't use my magic to burn you down to ashes when you try to rape me." I dropped my shield and stood up, keeping my blasting rod aimed between the two of us. "I want a vow swore upon your true name."

Marcone was probably frothing at the mouth with rage. I didn't need telepathic powers to know that he was calling me all kind of idiots in his mind. I glanced at Sigrun. Strangely enough, she'd stopped struggling and was watching me with curiosity.

"You will cooperate, then?" The warlock looked unsure.

"I will not actively fight you," I corrected the warlock, being careful to enunciate each word. I did have a faery godmother, after all. Words had power.


--------

Note: Sorry for the long delay. Work Project of Doom is over, though. I should be able to update more frequently again.