“Yes?” I asked.
“City ordinance against carrying sidearms, ma’am,” he said. His voice was deep and musically resonant in his lean chest. I liked it immediately. “If you’re not a peace officer, you’ll need to turn in your gun for as long as you’re in town.”
“I find this ordinance irksome,” I said.
The corners of his eyes wrinkled and his cheeks tightened slightly. The mustache made it difficult to see his mouth. “If I was a woman as good-looking as you in a place like this, I’d find it powerful irksome, too,” he said, “but the law is the law.”
“And what does the ordinance say about swords?” I asked.
“Can’t recall that it says anything ’bout that,” the deputy said.
I unfastened my belt and slid the gun from it, still in its holster. I offered it to him. “I assume I can turn it over to you, Deputy?”
He touched the brim of his hat and took the gun. “Thank you, ma’am. Might I know your name so I can be sure your weapon gets safe back to you?”
I smiled at him. “Anastasia Luccio.”
“Charmed, Anastasia,” said the deputy. He squinted at my sidearm and said, “Webley. Lot of gun.”
He was not so very much taller than me. I arched an eyebrow at him and smiled. “I am a lot of woman. I assure you, Deputy, that I am more than capable of handling it.”
His eyes glinted, relaxed and amused. “Well. People say a lot of things, ma’am.”
“When my business here is done, perhaps we shall go outside the town limits and wager twenty dollars on which of us is the better marksman.”
He let his head fall back and barked out a quick laugh. “Ma’am, losing that bet would be a singular pleasure.”
I looked around the saloon again. “It seems that tensions are running high at the moment,” I said. “Might I ask why that is?”
The lawman pursed his lips thoughtfully and then said, “Well, there’s some fellas on one side of the tracks upset at some other fellas on the other, ma’am, is the short of it.” He smiled as he said it, as if enjoying some private jest. “Shouldn’t be of much concern to you, ma’am. This is a rough place, but we don’t much take kindly to a man who’d lift his hand to a woman.” A pair of cowboys entered the saloon, laughing loudly and clearly already drunk. His calm eyes tracked them. He slid my holstered gun around beneath his stool and touched his finger to the brim of his hat again. “You have a good time, now.”
“Thank you, Deputy,” I said. Then I walked to the exact center of the room.
As a Warden of the White Council of Wizardry, I traveled a great deal and dealt with dangerous men. I was comfortable in places like this one and worse, though I had noted that they rarely seemed to be comfortable with me. The only women in sight were those working behind the bar, in the kitchen, and on the stage, so I rather stuck out. There was little sense in attempting anything like subtlety, so I donned my bottle green spectacles, focused my supernatural senses, and began a slow survey of the entire place.
The energy known as magic exists on a broad spectrum, much like light. Just as light can be split into its colors by a sufficient prism, magical energy can be more clearly distinguished by using the proper tools. The spectacles gave me a chance to view the energy swirling around the crowded room. It was strongly influenced by the presence of human emotion, and various colors had gathered around individuals according to their current humor.
Angry red tension tinted many auras, while lighter shades of pink surrounded the more merrily inebriated. Workers, including the dancers and dealers at the tables, evinced the steady green of those focused on task, while the deputy and a shotgun-wielding man seated on a tall stool at the end of the bar pulsed with the protective azure of guardians.
The warlock sat in the little balcony overlooking the stage, at a table with three other men, playing cards. Through the spectacles, shadows had gathered so thickly over their game that it almost seemed they had doused their lanterns and were playing in the dark.
I drew a breath. One warlock was typically not a threat to a cautious, well-trained, and properly equipped Warden. Two could be a serious challenge. The current Captain of the Wardens, a man named McCoy, a man with a great deal more power and experience than me, had once brought down three.
But as I watched through the spectacles, I realized that the warlock hadn’t simply been running. He’d been running to more of his kind.
There were four of them.
I took off the spectacles and moved into an open space at the bar, where I would hopefully be overlooked for a few moments longer, and thought furiously.
My options had just become much more limited. In a direct confrontation with that many opponents, I would have little chance of victory. Which was not to say that I could not attack them. They were involved in their card game, and I had seen no evidence of magical defenses. An overwhelming strike might take them all at once.
Of course, fire magic was the only thing that would do for that kind of work—and it would leave the crowded building aflame. Tarred wood exposed to a blast of supernatural fire would become an inferno in seconds. Not only that, but such an action would violate one of the Council’s unspoken laws: Wizards were expected to minimize the use of their abilities in the presence of magic-ignorant mortals. It had not been so long since our kind had been burned at stakes by frightened mobs.
While I could not simply attack them, neither could I remain here, waiting. A warlock would have fewer compunctions about exposing his abilities in public. The wisest option would have been to report in to the captain, send for reinforcements, veil myself, and follow them.
I had never been a particularly cautious person. Even the extended life of a wizard was too brief a time, and the world full of too much pleasure and joy to waste that life by hiding safely away.
I was not, however, stupid.
I turned to begin walking decisively toward the door and practically slammed my nose into that of a handsome man in his mid-forties, beard neatly shaved, dressed in an impeccable suit. His eyes were green and hard, his teeth far too white for his age.
And he was pressing a tiny derringer pistol to my chest, just beneath my left breast.
“Timely,” he said to me in a fine German accent. “We knew a Warden would arrive, but we thought you would be another week at least.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.
“Please,” he said, his eyes shading over with something ugly. “If you attempt to resist me, I will kill you here and now.” He moved smoothly, stepping beside me and tucking my left arm into the crook of his right, positioning the tiny gun in his left hand atop my arm, keeping it artfully concealed while trained steadily on my heart. He nodded once at the balcony, and the four men on it immediately put their cards down and descended, heading out the door without so much as glancing back.
“You’re making a mistake,” I said to him tightly. “To my knowledge, you and your companions are not wanted by the Council. I’m not here for you today. I’ve only come for Alexander Page.”
“Is that a fact?” he asked.
“He is a murderer. By sheltering him, you have become complicit in his crimes,” I said. “If you kill me, you will only draw down the full wrath of the Wardens. But if you let me go immediately and disassociate yourself from Page, I will not prosecute a warrant for your capture.”
“That is most generous, Warden,” said the German. “But I am afraid I have plans. You will accompany me quietly outside.”
“And if I do not?”
“Then I will be mildly disappointed, and you will be dead.”
“You’ll be more than disappointed when my death curse falls upon you,” I said.