"Well, I hinted about how since her entire power base depended on a certain secret being kept, and since you were awfully irrational about protecting the good citizens of Chicago, that you might develop loose lips to sink her ship if she didn't help you in your moment of need."

"Urn," I said. "So you're telling me that I just engaged in blackmail against the ruler of the White Court. By proxy."

"Yeah," Thomas said. "You've got some great big brass balls on you to do something like that, Harry."

"I guess I do." I shook my head. "Why did I do that?"

"Because we needed help," Thomas said. "We were getting nowhere fast. Lara's got a ton of resources available to her, and a lot of manpower. She was able to come up with some of the other information we needed."

"Which is the good news," Butters said. "She wasn't blacked out and cut off from the Internet like we are, and she was able to get a bunch of information we couldn't." He passed me a piece of paper. "Not on the numbers—but one of her people was able to find out about Native American artifacts and weapons here in Chicago."

I looked up sharply at Butters. "Yeah?"

He nodded at the paper and I read over it. "Yep," he said. "The Native American Center is using their facility to host this big display on tribal hunting and warfare before all of us palefaces showed up with guns and smallpox. The History Channel is using it as a part of some history-of-warfare special, and they were filming there all last week."

"Yeah," I said. "That could have some old hunter spirits attached to it." I read over the list. "Dammit, I should have remembered this myself. The Field Museum has that big Cahokian artifacts exhibit that Professor Bartlesby was in charge of. Hell, it was a bunch of Indian artifacts that Corpsetaker helped assemble himself. Probably with tonight in mind."

Butters nodded. "And the Mitchell Museum up in Evanston has got more Native American artifacts than either one put together."

"Crap," I said. "That's it."

"How do you know that?" Butters asked.

"It only stands to reason," Bob supplied. "The whole point is to summon up as many old spirits as possible and then consume them. The most spirits are going to be attracted to wherever there is the most old junk."

I nodded. "I remember this place now. That museum's on a college campus, right?"

"Kendall College," Butters confirmed.

"College campus on Halloween night," Thomas said. "Hell of a place for a gang of necromancers to slug it out. There's going to be collateral damage."

"No, there isn't," I said, and I was surprised how vicious my own voice sounded. "Because we're going to stop this stupid summoning. And then we're going to hunt those murderous bastards down and kill them."

There was dead silence in the kitchen.