One of the vampires let out a velvet laugh, and stepped out into the dim light. He wasn't particularly tall, and he moved with a casual and dangerous grace that belied his crystal-blue eyes, styled blond hair, and the tennis whites he wore. "Bianca told us you'd be nervous," he purred.

The second of the pair kept coming toward us from the corner of the boardinghouse. She, too, was of innocuous height and build, and possessed the same blue eyes and flawless golden hair as the man. She too was dressed in tennis whites. "But," she breathed, and licked her lips with a cat-quick tongue, "she didn't tell us you would smell so delicious."

Susan fumbled with her keys, and pressed up against me, tight with tension and fear. "Harry?"

"Don't look them in the eyes," I said. "And don't let them lick you."

Susan shot me a sharp look from beneath raven brows. "Lick?"

"Yeah. Their saliva's some kind of addictive narcotic." We reached her car. "Get in."

The male vampire opened his mouth, showing his fangs, and laughed. "Peace, wizard. We're not here for your blood."

"Speak for yourself," the girl said. She licked her lips again, and this time I could see the black spots on her long, pink tongue. Ewg.

The male smiled and put a hand on her shoulder, a gesture that was half affection, half physical restraint. "My sister hasn't eaten tonight," he explained. "She's on a diet."

"Vampires on a diet?" Susan murmured beneath her breath.

"Yeah," I said back, sotto voce. "Make hers a Blood Lite."

Susan made a choking sound.

I eyed the male and raised my voice. "Who are you, then? And why are you at my house?"

He inclined his head politely. "My name is Kyle Hamilton. This is my sister, Kelly. We are associates of Madame Bianca's, and we are here to give you a message. An invitation, actually."

"It only takes one of you to deliver a message."

Kyle glanced at his sister. "We were just on the way to our game of doubles."

I snorted. "Yeah, right," I told him. "Whatever it is you're selling, I don't want any. You can go now."

Kyle frowned. "I urge you to reconsider, Mr. Dresden. You, of all people, should know Madame Bianca is the most influential vampire in the city of Chicago. Denying her invitation could have grave consequences."

"I don't like threats," I shot back. I hefted my blasting rod and leveled it at Kyle's baby blues. "Keep it up and there's going to be a greasy spot right about where you're standing."

The pair of them smiled at me - innocent angels with pointed teeth. "Please, Mr. Dresden," Kyle said. "Understand that I am only pointing out the potential hazards of a diplomatic incident between the Vampire Court and the White Council."

Whoops. That changed things. I hesitated, and then lowered the blasting rod. "This is court business? Official business?"

"The Vampire Court," Kyle said, a measured cadence to his words, "extends a formal invitation to Harry Dresden, Wizard, as the local representative of the White Council of Wizards, to attend the reception celebrating the elevation of Bianca St. Claire to the rank of Margravine of the Vampire Court, three nights hence, reception to begin at midnight." Kyle paused to produce an expensive-looking white envelope and to refresh his smile. "The safety of all invited guests is assured, by word of the assembled court, of course."

"Harry," Susan breathed. "What's going on?"

"Tell you in a minute," I said. I stepped away from Susan. "You are acting as an ordained herald of the court, then?"

"I am," Kyle said.

I nodded. "Bring me the invitation."

The pair of them started toward me. I lifted my blasting rod and muttered a word. Power flooded through the rod, and the far tip began to glow with an incandescent light. "Not her," I said, nodding to the herald's sister. "Just you."

Kyle kept his smile, but his eyes had changed from blue to a shade of angry black that was rapidly expanding to cover the whites. "Well," he said, his voice tense, "aren't we the little lawyer, Mr. Dresden."

I smiled back at him. "Look, Sparky, you're the herald. You should know the accords as well as I do. You've license to deliver and receive messages and to have safe passage granted you so long as you don't start any trouble." I waved the tip of the rod toward the girl beside him. "She doesn't. And she's not obliged to keep the peace, either. Let's just say I'd rather we all walked away from this."

They both made a hissing sound that no human could quite have duplicated. Kyle pushed Kelly roughly back behind him, where she remained, her soft-looking hands pressed to her stomach, her eyes flooded entirely black and empty of humanity. Kyle stalked toward me and thrust the envelope at me. I swallowed my fear, lowered my blasting rod, and took it.

"Your business here is complete," I told him. "Blow."

"You'd better be there, Dresden," Kyle snarled, pacing back to his sister's side. "My lady will be most upset if you are not."

"I told you to blow, Kyle." I lifted my hand, gathered my anger and my fear as handy sources of fuel, and said, quietly, "Ventas servitas."

Energy flowed out of me. Wind roared up in response to my command, and whipped out toward the pair of vampires, carrying a cloud of dust and dirt and debris with it. They both staggered, lifting a hand to shield their eyes against flying particles.

As the wind faded I sagged, wearied by the effort of moving that much air, and watched the vampires gather their wits and blink their eyes clear. Their perfect tennis whites were stained, their beautiful complexions were mussed, and best of all, their flawless hair was standing up every which way.

They hissed at me and crouched, bodies oddly balanced and held with an inhuman lightness. Then there was a blur of tennis whites, and they were gone.

I didn't assume that they had left until I let my senses drift out from me, tasting the air for the cold energy that had surrounded them. It had faded, as well. Only then, when I was absolutely sure they were gone, did I relax. Well, it felt like simple relaxing - but generally when I relax, I don't stagger and need to plant my staff firmly on the ground to keep from falling over. I stood there like that for a second, my head swimming.

"Wow." Susan came toward me, her face concerned. "Harry, you sure know how to make friends."

I wobbled a little, hardly able to stand. "I don't need friends like that."

She got close enough for me to lean on, and spared my ego by slipping underneath my arm as though for my protection. "Are you all right?"

"Tired. I've been working too hard tonight. Must have gotten out of shape."

"Can you walk?"

I gave her a smile that probably looked strained, and started walking toward the stairs leading down to my apartment. Mister, my grey cat, came flying over the ground from the darkness somewhere and threw himself fondly against my legs. Thirty pounds of cat is a lot of fondness, and I had to have Susan's help to keep from falling over. "Eating small children again, Mister?"

My cat meowed, then padded down the stairs and pawed at the door.

"So," Susan said. "The vampires are throwing a party."

I fished my keys out of my duster's pocket. I unlocked the door to the old place, and Mister bolted inside. I shut the door behind us, and stared wearily at my living room. The fire had died down to glowing embers, but still shed red-golden light over everything. I decorated my apartment in textures, not colors, in any case. I like the smooth grain of old woods, the heavy tapestries on the bare stone walls. The chairs are all thickly padded and comfortable looking, and rugs are strewn over the bare stone floor in a variety of materials, patterns, and weaves, from Arabian to Navajo.

Susan helped me hobble in until I could collapse on my plushly cushioned couch. She took my staff and blasting rod from me, wrinkling her nose at the charred smell, and set them in the corner next to my cane sword. Then she came back over to me and knelt down, flashing a lot of bare, pretty leg. She took my boots off, and I groaned as my feet came free.

"Thanks," I said.

She plucked the envelope from my hand. "Could you get the candles?"

I groaned, for an answer, and she sniffed. "Big baby. You just want to see me walk around in this skirt."

"Guilty," I said. She quirked a smile at me, and went to the fireplace. She added a few logs to it from the old tin hod, and then stirred the embers with a poker until licks of flame came up. I don't have any electric lights in my apartment. Gadgets go out so often that there's no point in constantly replacing them. My refrigerator is an old-style icebox. The kind with ice. I shuddered to think of what I could do to gas lines.

So, I lived without heat, except for my fireplace, and without hot water, without electricity. The curse of a wizard. It saves on the utilities bills, I have to admit, but it can be damned inconvenient.

Susan had to bend down far over the fire to thrust a long candlestick's tip down into the small flames. The orange light curved around the lean muscles of her legs in a fashion I found positively fascinating, even as wearied as I was.

Susan rose with the lighted candle in her hand and cast a smirk at me. "You're staring, Harry."

"Guilty," I said again.

She lit several candles on the mantel from the first, and then opened the white envelope, frowning. "Wow," she said, and held the invitation inside up to the light. I couldn't make out the words, but they had that white-yellow glint that you only get from true gold. "The bearer, Wizard Harry Dresden, and an escort of his choosing are hereby courteously invited to a reception ... I didn't think they used invitations like this anymore."

"Vampires. They can be a couple hundred years out of style and not notice."

"Harry," Susan said. She flicked the invitation against the heel of her hand a couple of times. "You know, something occurs to me."

My brain tried to stir from its congealment. Some instinct twitched, warning me that Susan was up to something. "Um," I said, blinking my eyes in an effort to clear my thoughts. "I hope you're not thinking what a great opportunity it would be for you to go to the ball."

Her eyes glinted with something very much like lust. "Think of it, Harry. There could be beings there hundreds of years old. I could get enough stories from a half hour of chat to last me - "

"Hang on, Cinderella," I said. "In the first place, I'm not going to the ball. In the second, even if I was I wouldn't take you with me."

Her back straightened and she put one fist on her hip. "And just what is that supposed to mean?"

I winced. "Look, Susan. They're vampires. They eat people. You've got no idea how dangerous it would be for me there - or for you, for that matter."

"What about what Kyle said? The guarantee of your safety?"

"Talk is cheap," I said. "Look, everyone in the old circles is big on the old laws of courtesy and hospitality. But you can only trust them to adhere to the letter of the law. If I happened to get served a bad batch of mushrooms, or someone drove by and filled the whole place with bullets and I was the only mortal there, they'd just say, 'Oh my, what a terrible shame. So sorry, really, it won't happen again. »

"So you're saying they'd kill you," Susan said.

"Bianca has a grudge against me," I said. "She couldn't just sneak up on me and tear my throat out, but she could arrange for something to happen to me more indirectly. It's probably what she has in mind."

Susan frowned. "I've seen you handle things a lot worse than those two out there."

I let out a breath in exasperation. "Maybe, sure. But what's the point in taking chances?"

"Can't you see what this might mean to me?" she said. "Harry, that footage I shot of the werewolf - "

"Loup-garou," I interrupted.

"Whatever. It was ten seconds of footage that was only aired for three days before it vanished - and it put me further ahead than five years of legwork. If I could publish actual interviews with vampires - "

"Sheesh, Susan. You're reading too much off the bestseller list. In the real world, the vampire eats you before you get to hit the record button."

"I've taken chances before - so have you."

"I don't go looking for trouble," I said.

Her eyes flashed. "Dammit, Harry. How long have I been putting aside the things that happen to you? Like tonight, when I was supposed to be spending the evening with my boyfriend and instead I'm bailing him out of jail."

Ouch. I glanced down. "Susan, believe me. If I could have done anything else - "

"This could be a fantastic opportunity for me."

She was right. And she had bailed me out of trouble often enough before that maybe I owed her that opportunity, dangerous as it might be. She was a big girl and could make her own choices. But dammit, I couldn't just nod my head and smile and let her walk into that kind of danger. Better to try to sidetrack her. "No," I said. "I've got enough problems without pissing off the White Council again."

Her eyes narrowed. "What's this White Council? Kyle talked to you as though it were some kind of ruling body. Is it like the Vampire Court, only for wizards?"

Exactly like that, I thought. Susan hadn't gotten as far as she had by being stupid. "Not really," I told her.

"You're a horrible liar, Harry."

"The White Council is a group of the most powerful men and women in the world, Susan. Wizards. Their big currency is in secrets, and they don't like people knowing about them."

Her eyes gleamed, like a hound on a fresh scent. "And you're ... some kind of ambassador for them?"

I had to laugh at the notion. "Oh, God, no. But I'm a member. It's sort of like having a black belt. It's a mark of status, of respect. With the council, it means that I get to vote, when issues come up, and that I have to abide by their rules."

"Are you entitled to represent them at a function like this?"

I didn't like the direction this conversation was headed. "Um. Obligated to, really, in this case."

"So if you don't show up, you'll be in trouble."

I scowled. "Not as much trouble as I'll be in if I go. The worst the council'd be able to accuse me of is being impolite. I can live with that."

"And if you do show up? Come on, Harry. What's the worse that could happen?"

I threw up my hands. "I could get myself killed! Or worse. Susan, you really don't understand what you're asking of me." I pushed myself up off the couch, to go to her. Bad idea. My head swam and my vision blurred.

I would have fallen, but Susan dropped the invitation and caught me. She eased me back down to the couch, and I kept my arm around her, drawing her down with me. She felt soft and warm.

We lay there for a minute, and she rubbed her cheek against the duster. Leather creaked. I heard her sigh. "I'm sorry, Harry. I shouldn't hit you with this right now."

"It's all right," I said.

"I just think that it's something big. If we - "

I turned a little, tangled my fingers in the dark softness of her hair, and kissed her.

Her eyelids opened wide for a second, and then lowered. Her words broke off into a low, growling sound, and her mouth softened beneath mine, warm and getting warmer. In spite of my aches and bruises, the kiss felt good. It felt really good. Her mouth tasted nice, the softness of her lips mobile and eager beneath mine. I felt her slide a few fingers in between the buttons of my shirt, caressing the skin there, and electric sensation thrilled through me.

Our tongues met, and I dragged her closer. She moaned again, then abruptly pushed me back enough to straddle my hips with those long and lovely legs and begin to kiss me as though she meant to inhale me. I ran my hands over her hips, lingering on the small of her back, and she moved them, grinding against me. I moved my hands to the taut tension of her thighs and slid them up over the bare, smooth skin, lifting the skirt up, baring her legs, her hips.

I faltered in surprise for a half-second when I realized she wasn't wearing anything underneath - but then, we'd been planning on an evening in. A spasm of need and hunger pounded through all the exhaustion, and I clutched her, felt her gasp again, willing and as hungry as me, her body tensing against me, beneath my hands.

She started jerking at my belt, gasping, her breath hot in my face. "Harry. You jerk. Don't you think this is going to distract me forever."

Shortly after that, we made sure that neither of us could think of anything at all, and fell asleep a goodly while after that, tangled together in a sprawl of exhausted limbs, dark hair, and soft blankets in front of the fire.

All right, so. The entire day wasn't a living hell.

But, as it turned out, hell got up awfully early in the morning.