Lizbeth glared at me. Abeyance ignored us both. There was an uncomfortable silence.

It was broken by the sounds of the other Keepers climbing the stairs. “. . . not getting anything,” Trask was saying in his deep voice. “Could sweat the others.”

“No,” Haken said. “They won’t have anything useful.” He appeared in the doorway, took one look at the archway, then turned to me. “What’ll happen if we go through that?”

“It’ll take us right into the middle of White Rose’s base,” I said. “That’ll start a fight, no two ways about it.”

“So we do it fast,” Slate said.

“They know we’re coming.”

Slate eyed me. “You have something to do with that?”

“White Rose aren’t stupid,” I said. “There are silent alarms spread out through this building. The guys here aren’t meant up to stand up to a Keeper raid; they’re an ablative screen. Same way you guys use your security men.”

“Any chance we can do it peacefully?” Haken asked.

“We step through that gate, they’re going to shoot first and ask questions later. And if you try to talk them down, you might not live long enough to do it. They’ve got a barbican setup. Crossfire, wards, the works.”

“So how about you go first?” Slate said. “They’re your kind, right?”

I gave Slate a look. He grinned and looked at Haken. “So we doing it?”

Haken shook his head. “No.” He threw me a phone; I caught it one-handed. “From one of the guys downstairs. Get me the password.”

I nodded, thumbed the display to reveal the unlock screen, and started working through the numbers. Slate looked at me, then at Haken. “Seriously?” he said in disbelief. “You’re still trying to talk to her?”

“We are trying,” Haken said, “to do this peacefully.”

“Hey, Haken,” Slate said. “You might have missed it so here’s a newsflash for you: Dark mages don’t go peacefully. This is a fucking waste of time.”

Haken looked levelly at Slate. “Go down and help Coatl.”

Slate gave us a disgusted look and stalked off. “Well, this is the place,” Abeyance said. “Vihaela’s used this gate. At least once in the past week, maybe more.”

“Good,” Haken said. “Keep looking for anything else with her. Verus?”

I’d found the passcode and had been scanning the past calls and the messages. “Code is 1535,” I said, tossing the phone back to Haken. “Look for the contact listed as B. It’s not Vihaela, but he’s got access.”

“Uh,” Lizbeth said. “Not to point out the obvious, but how’s calling her going to help?”

Haken didn’t look up from the phone. “Is there a problem?”

“Yeah, the fact that these guys haven’t turned up shit and we’ve got nothing on Vihaela. You think she’s going to just roll up?”

“If she doesn’t,” Haken said absently, “she’ll be disobeying the Council.”

“Oh yeah, that’ll scare her.”

Haken looked up at Lizbeth. “I want you and Trask up here. Set up a defence in case anyone comes through that gate. Verus, you’re on early warning. I want to know at least two minutes before anyone steps through.” He looked between the three of us. “If you make contact, you notify me immediately. You are not to attack first under any circumstances. Clear?”