by Jim Butcher
Yoshimo looked at me, frowned, and started to say something. Wild Bill put a hand on her shoulder. She glanced back and up at him, some strain visible briefly in her expression—then she smoothed it out into a mask again. Then she came toward me, hands empty, and stopped a couple feet in front of me. I found myself tensing.
When I did, up came Yoshimo’s and Wild Bill’s guns, not quite pointing at me, fingers not actually resting on triggers—but the barrels were only a twitch away from being locked on my chest, and at this range professionals wouldn’t miss.
“Easy,” Chandler said, his voice extremely calm and smooth. “Easy, everyone. Let’s not make this into something it doesn’t have to be.”
“What the hell is going on here, people?” I asked.
“We’re trying to help you, Harry,” Ramirez said, his voice like stone. “But you sure as hell aren’t making it easy.”
“Putting a tracker on me?” I asked, much more mildly than I felt at the moment. “Pulling over my car. Pointing weapons at me. You’ve got a damned peculiar idea of what help looks like, Carlos.”
“We have to know that you haven’t been compromised,” Chandler said in that same soothing tone. “Dresden, be reasonable. The last time a member of the Council operating at your level went bad, he bound the head of the Wardens under a geas, provided untold amounts of intelligence to our enemies resulting in tens of thousands of deaths, and summoned a mistfiend that could have wiped out most of the White Council.”
“You think I’m another Peabody,” I snarled.
“I think everyone here wants to show the Council that you aren’t,” Chandler said. He held up his hands helplessly. “We’re living in unstable times and playing for very high stakes, Harry.”
“We’re friends,” I said.
“Then let us be your friends,” Chandler said, his voice all but pleading.
“Yoshimo is just gathering evidence,” Ramirez said. “She isn’t going to hurt you.”
I clenched my jaw a couple of times.
The last time I’d faced off with this many Wardens, they’d been there to arrest me, after the death of Justin DuMorne. I’d been sixteen. I remember how frightening those grim spartan figures had been.
And those people hadn’t been through a war like these guys had. Fighting like mad against a relentless Red Court, always on the back foot, struggling to survive—and eventually turning the tide to a long and ugly stalemate. It was possible that I was looking at the most combat-experienced, dangerous team of Wardens on the planet.
I knew them.
They knew me.
A fight between us would be something swift and ugly, and no one would play fair or pull punches. I’d taught them better than that.
“Bear in mind,” I said in a very quiet voice, “that any spell you cast upon me, you’re also casting upon Mab’s left hand and personal headsman. If this is a sucker punch, she might take it personally. She might even get angry about it.”
For several seconds after that, you could hear the trees breathing. Wild Bill and Chandler traded a look.
“Do it,” Ramirez said.
Yoshimo lowered her rifle until it hung from its strap. Then she lifted her hands, made a few sharp-cornered passes with them, and murmured something low and harsh sounding. There was, as I had expected, a fluttering of breeze around me in time with the movements of her hands, and then a rush of air and a reciprocal fluttering around Yoshimo. She made a few more precise, geometric movements with her hands, and the air around her flickered with sparkles of red and amber light. Yoshimo studied the flickers for a moment and frowned, then slashed a hand at the air and ended the spell. She looked away from me.
“Well?” Ramirez said.
“He’s been with at least one sexual partner in the past several hours,” Yoshimo said. Her voice was smooth and calm on the surface, but there was boiling, acidic anger underneath.
And, as I realized what they’d been doing, my own anger started swelling dangerously. The Council had poked its nose in my business my entire adult life. It didn’t need to start poking it there. My heart started beating faster.
“Who was it?” Ramirez asked me, voice hard.
“The nerve,” I snarled.
“Was it Lara?” he pressed. His jaw set like stone. “Harry, has she gotten to you?”
My fingers tightened on my staff until the wood creaked. “You’re crossing a goddamned line, Carlos.”
“Harry,” Chandler began, his tone soothing. He reached out to put a companionable hand on my shoulder.
I struck it away.
Chandler hissed and withdrew his arm, holding it close to his body.
“We have to know, Dresden,” Ramirez said. “Who did you sleep with tonight?”
“Because your sex life is a disaster, you pull this crap on me,” I growled.
Carlos’s face drained of color, but his expression never changed. “Believe it. Who?”
“Suddenly I remember why I have authority issues,” I said. “Go fuck yourself, Ramirez. And tell whoever ordered you to do this to me to pound sand while you’re at it.”
“Captain Luccio ordered me to do this,” Ramirez said quietly. “She’s still your friend. She wants to help you, too.”
“I don’t need this kind of help,” I said. “We’re supposed to be on the same side.”
“We are,” Chandler said emphatically. Then his face fell. “ Unless … we aren’t, I suppose.”
“Every word I’ve said to you is true,” I snapped. Or at least not a lie. “I’ve had enough bullshit from the White Council for one night.”
“Harry, let’s sort this out with the captain,” Chandler said. “Come back to Edinburgh with us. Let’s talk this out, yes?”
It was a rational suggestion, and it was completely unacceptable—because Thomas did not have time for me to spend a full day in a hostile debriefing back in Edinburgh. Those things were thorough and exhausting. It was possible that I’d gone through them maybe once or twice.
That gave me little choice.
“I’ve been talking,” I said. “You aren’t listening. The problem is on your end.” I glared at Ramirez. “I’ve got a lot of work to do. Get out of the road. Or arrest me.” I grounded my staff and shook my shield bracelet clear of my sleeve. “If you can.”
Things got real quiet. No one took their eyes off me, but everyone’s attention was on Ramirez.
He exhaled slowly. Then he said, “My God, Harry, you don’t make it easy, do you?”
“Of the two of us here,” I said, “which of us has definitely wronged the other? You suspect that I might have done something wrong. You’ve definitely wronged me, trying to find out. And you did it first.”
“We’ve both done things we’d rather not have, as Wardens,” he answered. “That’s the job.” He shook his head and, leaning heavily on the cane, limped out of the road. “Six o’clock tomorrow, security meeting at the Four Seasons before the mixer. We’re registered under McCoy.”
I tilted my head and narrowed my eyes. “I’m still on the team, eh?”
“Keep your friends close,” Ramirez said.
I huffed out a breath in a parody of a laugh and turned back toward the Munstermobile.
“Harry,” Ramirez said.
I paused without looking back at him.
“I hope I’m wrong,” he said. “I hope I need to apologize to you later. God, I would love to do that. Please believe that much is true.”
For a second, I felt nothing but tired.
Secrets are heavy, heavy things. Carry around too many of them for too long and the weight will crush the life out of you.
I wanted to tell everyone to take a walk, talk to Ramirez alone, and tell him everything. Carlos was a good man. He’d do the right thing. But the professional paranoia of the White Council made that impossible. Hell, if they thought I’d been subverted, they would regard the fact that I wanted to talk to him alone as proof that I was, myself, trying to isolate Ramirez so that h
e could be subverted as well. The other Wardens might not even let me have the conversation. And even if I did, if Carlos really thought I’d been made into someone’s sock puppet, he might talk with me and report everything I’d said back to the Council in an effort to discover what disinformation I’d been trying to give them. If he knew I meant to free Thomas, he’d have excellent reason to have me detained, to prevent an incident that could rapidly spiral out of control.
Fear is a prison. But when you combine it with secrets, it becomes especially toxic, vicious. It puts us all into solitary, unable to hear one another clearly.
“You are,” I said tonelessly. “You do.”
Then I got into my car and got moving again.
Alone.
16
I was tired and sick, which isn’t the best frame of mind to be in when you’re doing detail-oriented work, but I wasn’t sure how else to proceed.
Screw it. If I had to do this alone, I would.
I started planning ahead.
So after eating some fast food, I stopped at the trucker station at the highway and bought a shower. I rinsed off meticulously and at length, until I was sure that Ramirez’s tracking spell had lost its hold on me. I also scrubbed off the ink spot, along with a couple of layers of skin so that he wouldn’t be able to get it to lock on again. Once that was done, I made some purchases and headed back out.
I needed some isolation, so I picked a random direction away from the crowds and started following my instincts, doing so until I was damned sure I wasn’t being physically followed. I wound up at the Illinois Beach State Park as the sky in the east was just turning deep blue after several hours of black. It’s about seven miles of the shoreline of Lake Michigan, mostly pebbles and dunes and marshes with low scrub brush and the occasional larger stand of trees. I found parking in a church lot not too far from the park, took my stuff, and headed in. The park wasn’t due to open until well after sunrise, so I’d have to keep an eye out for rangers and other amateur meddlers. The professionals were at work here.
Which was just as well—when you summon a powerful extradimensional being, you’re taking on a lot of responsibility.
First of all, you’re bringing something powerful and dangerous into the world. It doesn’t matter if you’re trying to call down an angel or whistle up one of the Fallen; you’ve got to take that into account. Even benevolent beings, if they’re big enough, can kill you without even realizing it’s happening until it’s too late. Malicious creatures are going to want to kill you as a matter of course. So location is pretty important, so you can maybe have a chance to run for it, first of all. If you can get a location that somehow parallels the nature of the creature you’re summoning, it gives you an edge against them, costs less energy to bring them in.
Next, containment. In keeping with the theme of part one, you need some way to make sure that the thing you’re calling can’t just get out and do as it pleases. Most things will simply leave, rendering all that travel to the middle of nowhere a waste of time.
Finally, you need some motivation. Beings from beyond the mortal world don’t generally work for free. After you talk them out of either leaving or murdering you outright, you’ll need something to sweeten the pot.
I found the perfect spot after I’d hiked all the way in and reached the lakeshore, with the light changing, announcing the approach of dawn without actually getting any brighter. I wound up at the base of a spit of sandy, pebbly beach that met harshly with a stand of thick trees. At the base of the largest tree were the crumbled remains of a clearly illegal tree house someone had built a decade or two in the past. I could still find what was left of slats that had been nailed into the tree trunk to provide an improvised ladder up.
Perfect.
I set my bag of things down and began laying them out in a circle I drew in the sandy soil with my staff. At the top of the circle went a storm candle and a magazine featuring an image of the weirdest female pop singer operating at the time—she was wearing an outfit made mostly out of old tires and did not look any too warm. The next candle featured a can of cold Dr Pepper. I popped it open and listened to it hiss out the pressure, then crackle in the quiet of predawn, bubbles bubbling enthusiastically. Beside the next candle, I placed a watermelon Ring Pop in its plastic wrapper. I opened the wrapper, leaving the jewel-like candy atop it, and the smell of its sweetness and the tangy scent of artificial watermelon filled the air.
The next candle featured a sheet of coarse sandpaper, rough side up. I laid my hand on it and moved my palm slowly over the grit and adhesive, feeling it tear gently at my skin. And beside the fifth and last candle went a jar of Nutella.
I double-checked the positioning of the ingredients, made sure the circle was closed, and then leaned down and touched it with one finger and an effort of will. The energy whirled about the circle in the sand and sprang up at once in an invisible curtain, enclosing the ground within it, cutting off the circle’s interior from the mortal world behind an insulative firewall.
Then I closed my eyes, cleared my head, and began whispering a Name.
“Margaret Katherine Amanda Carpenter,” I chanted rhythmically, “I call you.”
The candles flickered and danced, though there was no wind. Their colors began to shift and change, seemingly at random, through the spectrum.
“Margaret Katherine Amanda Carpenter,” I whispered, “I need you.”
Behind me, the trees exploded with movement, and I flinched and whirled. A flock of vultures, disturbed from their evening rest, burst into the air, wings flapping in miniature thunder. It took them several seconds to clear out, and then they were gone into the darkness of the air, leaving behind jitters and a few falling black feathers.
I took a deep breath and braced my will. “Margaret Katherine Amanda Carpenter,” I said, louder and firmer. “We need to talk. Come on, Molls.”
At the third Naming, energy rushed out of me and into the circle. The candles there burst into showers of sparks in a dozen colors, and I had to blink my eyes and look away.
When I looked back, the youngest Queen of Faerie stood in the circle of power.
Molly Carpenter was a tall young woman, and when I looked at her, I always thought of swords and knives, these days. She’d gone very lean, living on the streets and fighting the incursions of the Fomor, back when I’d been mostly dead, and though her situation had improved, apparently her diet hadn’t. Her cheekbones looked like something the TSA would be nervous about letting onto a plane, and that leanness extended to her neck, creating shadows that were a little too deep and sharp. Her blue eyes had always been beautiful, but were they a hint more oblique than they had been, or was that just clever makeup?
The Winter Lady wore a grey business skirt suit with sensible heels and stood with one hip shot out to one side, her fist resting on it. Her silver-white hair was drawn back into a painstakingly neat braid that held it close to her head with no strands escaping. Her expression was nonplussed, and she held a smoldering cell phone in one hand.
She regarded the phone for a moment, sighed, and dropped the useless wreck onto the ground.
“Hey, Molls,” I said.
“Harry,” she said. “I have a phone for exactly this reason.”
“This is a business call,” I said in a quiet, low voice. “Knight to Lady.”
Molly inhaled slowly. “I … oh. I see.”
“Things are getting tense,” I said. “The Wardens have decided I am a threat. I’m being monitored, and they’re doing some kind of cheesy technical weirdness with cell phones now. Couldn’t risk a call without Ramirez getting involved in the conversation.”
Some ugly flicker went across Molly’s face at the mention of the Wardens. She shook her head, put her hands on her stomach, and said, “Ugh. That’s the strangest feeling, being summoned.”
“That seems like it should be true,” I said. “I apologize for the inconvenience.”
The Winter Lady stared at me for an unnerving seco
nd before she said, in Molly’s voice, “Apology accepted.” She looked around the circle at the objects involved in the summoning and promptly pounced on the jar of Nutella. “Aha! Payment. Now we’re square.” She opened the jar, seized the Ring Pop, and put it on her left forefinger. Then she dipped the Ring Pop in, and closed her eyes as she licked the confection off it. “Oh God,” she said. “I haven’t had food in a day and a half.”
“Hell’s bells, Padawan,” I said. “Nutella and corn syrup is probably not the place to start.”
“Probably not,” she agreed, and scooped out an even larger dollop. “You going to let me out of the circle or what?”
“Honestly,” I said, “I’m a little curious to see if you can do it yourself. I mean, you’re still human, too. That circle shouldn’t be able to hold Molly.”
She lifted her eyebrows. “Harry, you could put me through a wood chipper if you wanted. I’d get better. Immortal now, remember?” She lifted a hand and reached out to touch the plane of the circle. The tip of her finger flattened as if pressed against perfectly transparent glass. “I’m human. But this mantle isn’t like yours. It’s an order of magnitude more complex. It’s not something you put on like a cloak. It’s all through me now. Intermixed.” She shook her head sadly. “I could leave this circle, I think—but not without leaving the largest part of me behind. Whatever was left wouldn’t be … right. Find someone else to experiment with.”
A cold feeling kind of spread through me, starting right behind my belt buckle.
Because that circle shouldn’t have been able to hold Molly.
Which meant that the being talking to me … wasn’t. Not the way I remembered. Molly had taken on the mantle of the Winter Lady and become something that wasn’t quite human anymore. She was dealing with forces that I might literally be unable to comprehend. Those pressures might have changed the shape of her, made her into something else, something dangerous.
Which, I thought, must be almost precisely what Ramirez is thinking about you.
Molly had definitely become someone darker and more dangerous.
