Peace Talks

by Jim Butcher

  The room grew colder yet. Anxious, quickened breaths began to plume in front of tension-tightened faces.

  “Old woman,” Corb taunted. “I remember you as a bawling brat. I remember your pimply face when you rode with the Conqueror. I remember how you wept when Merlin cast you out.”

  Mab’s face …

  … twisted into naked, ugly, absolute rage. Her body became so rigid, so immobile, that it could not possibly have belonged to a living thing.

  “Tell me,” Corb purred. “If he was yet among the living, do you think he would still love you? Would he be so proud of what you’ve become?”

  Mab did not descend from her high seat so much as reality itself seemed to take a polite step to one side. One moment she was there; the next there was a trail of falling snow and frost-blanketed floor in a laser-straight line, and Mab stood within arm’s length of Corb. “Your maggot lips aren’t worthy to speak his name,” she hissed.

  “There you are,” Corb said, his tone approving. “I knew you had to be inside all of that ice somewhere. Gather all the power you wish, old woman. You know who you are, and so do I. You are no one.”

  Mab’s face twisted in very human-looking fury, and that scared me more than anything I’d seen in a good long while. Her lips lifted into a snarl and she began to speak—before her black eyes widened. Her focus shifted, her gaze swiftly tracking up the chain to the bronze-and-crystalline fist of the woman who held it.

  Corb let his head fall back and let out a delighted, crowing cackle.

  The cloaked figure moved every bit as quickly as Mab had. One moment she was ten feet behind Corb. The next, there was a sound like thunder.

  There was no way to track what happened clearly. I think the cloaked figure lashed out with a kick. I had the sense that there were defensive energies beyond anything I could have managed around Mab, and that the kick went through them as if they had not existed. The thunder was followed almost instantly by a second sound, a roar of shattering stone.

  I turned my head, feeling as if I had been encased in gelatin, and saw the pieces of the high seat flying out in a cloud. There was a ragged hole in the stone wall behind the seat about half the size of a coffin.

  And the Queen of Air and Darkness was nowhere to be seen.

  A stunned silence settled over the room.

  The cloaked figure raised her hands in a very slow, deliberately dramatic gesture and slowly peeled back her hood.

  The woman beneath the hood was made of bronze and crystal, and she was beautiful beyond mortal reckoning. Her hair, long and slick and close, as if she’d just emerged from water, looked like silk spun from silver.

  It was her eyes that bothered me. Or rather, her eye. One of her eyes was a crystalline emerald green.

  The other …

  On that perfect bronze face, the mutilation of her eye stood out like a gallows in a public park. The orbital ridges around the socket were covered in white, granite-like scars, as if the biggest, ugliest cat you’d ever seen had scratched it out. It wasn’t sunken, though the lid was closed. That mangled eye bulged ever so slightly, as if it had been meant for a being considerably larger than she was.

  There was, around her, a humming throb of energy unlike anything I had ever sensed before, a power so ancient and terrible that the world had forgotten its like. That power demanded my respect, my obedience, my adoration, my abject terror, and suddenly I knew what was happening.

  I was standing in the presence of a goddess.

  I could barely breathe.

  I couldn’t have moved if I’d wanted to.

  A moan went through the room, and I realized with a bit of alarm that one of the voices moaning was mine.

  Some part of me noted that Vadderung and Ferrovax had both come to their feet, fists clenched—and they were not looking at each other any longer. Both stared hard at the woman.

  The goddess swept her single-eyed gaze around the room, tracking from face to face. She gave the Winter Lady a look of pure contempt and delivered exactly the same expression to the rest of the gathered Accorded nations.

  Her voice …

  Oh God.

  Her voice was sex and chocolate and hot soup and a bath on a cold, rainy night. It was a voice that promised things, that you could find yourself listening to with absolute intensity. It filled the room as if she’d been using a PA system, even though she wasn’t.

  “Children, children, children,” she murmured, shaking her head in disapproval. “The world has gone to the children.” Her gaze reached Ferrovax and paused. One of her cheeks ticked. She looked from the dragon to Vadderung, and when she saw him her teeth showed white and perfect. “One-Eye. Are you that involved in the Game, still? Are you still that arrogant? Look how far you’ve fallen. Consorting with insects, as if you’re barely more than mortal yourself.”

  No one moved.

  No one spoke.

  And then footsteps sounded on the stone floor.

  Gentleman John Marcone stepped out from behind the unmoving Gard, impeccable in his suit. He didn’t look frightened, though he had to be. He simply stepped forward, clear of his guards, and said, “Good evening, madam. I am Baron John Marcone. This is my home. Might I have the pleasure of knowing how you wish to be addressed?”

  The goddess narrowed her eyes, watching Marcone with the kind of revulsion that one normally sees reserved for a swarm of maggots. She shook her head, dismissing Marcone from her attention as she fixed her gaze on Vadderung again.

  “This is your host?” she demanded. “You permit a mortal among you? Where is your dignity? Where is your pride?” She shook her head. “This world has gone astray. We have failed it. And I will no longer huddle fearfully in the seas and watch the mortals turn it into their filthy hive.”

  The goddess walked forward, staring down at Marcone. She circled him, shaking her head in judgment—and still no one moved. She pointed a finger at Ferrovax without looking at him and said, “Introduce me to this ephemeral.”

  For a few seconds there was silence. Then Ferrovax spoke in a ragged voice that sounded like it was being dragged out through his teeth. “This is Ethniu. Daughter of Balor. The Last Titan.”

  Ethniu lowered her pointing finger. Ferrovax gasped and staggered, putting a hand on the back of his chair to balance himself as he breathed heavily.

  “This world has manifestly failed,” she continued, now addressing the room. “You thought yourselves wise to band together. To live quietly. To embrace”—her lip lifted in a sneer—“civility. With the mortals that used to tremble at the sound of our footsteps.”

  I was trembling pretty damned hard right about then. And I still couldn’t make a voluntary motion.

  “I have stood by doing nothing for too much of my life,” Ethniu said, pacing slowly. “I have watched holy place after holy place fall to the mortals. Forest after forest. Sea after sea. They dare to walk where they were never meant to walk. And as they do, the divine retreats, withers, dies.” She paused for a moment, and that emerald eye landed on me like a truckload of lead, regarded me, and dismissed me all within half of a heartbeat. “They grow more numerous, more petty, more vicious, while they foul the world we helped to create with their filth, their noise, their buildings, and their machines.”

  She came to a stop beside King Corb and laid a hand on his shoulder almost fondly. “This ends. Tonight.”

  She turned and strode to Vadderung. She dropped to one knee in order to speak to him eye to eye. “I remember what you were. Because I respect you, I assume you have seen some redeeming value among these …” She waved a hand at the room. “Children. And because of that respect, I offer you something I was never given: a choice.”

  She looked around the room. “I offer it to all of the divine here. At the witching hour tonight, we who you thought fallen, defeated, banished, and humbled march upon the mortal world—starting with this fetid hive around us.” She smiled, very slowly. “Finally.”

  Vadderung spoke, as if someone h
ad superglued his tongue to the back of his teeth. “Ethniu. Do not do this.”

  She stared down at him for a moment with something almost like pity. “I remember that once you were great,” she said quietly. “For the sake of the being I remember, I offer you this one chance: Do not interfere. My quarrel is with the mortals. Stand aside and there need be no conflict.” She gestured at the hole in the wall behind the high seat. “That creature cannot protect you. Cannot enforce her justice. Each of the divine here must choose: abandon the mortal world—or burn with it.”

  Her closed eye quivered, and suddenly there was a light behind the scarred eyelid, red and pulsing through the thin skin. She leaned back her head, took a breath, and opened that eye, the Eye, screaming.

  The scream itself threatened to deafen me by sheer volume, but it was far, far more painful than that. I could feel it press against the vaults of my mind, emotion so violent and intense that it would tear my sanity to pieces if I let even a portion of it into my head.

  Light erupted from Ethniu, lashing out furiously at the ceiling. Where it touched the hanging swaths of fabric, they rotted and flaked away, scorching at the edges and bursting into flame. When it touched the ceiling, there was an enormous concussion, and the dark grey stone of the castle suddenly erupted with cold blue glowing light emanating from previously unseen runes and sigils written on every surface. I could feel a surge of pressure, which might have put out my ears had it been physical, as the castle’s magical defenses pitted themselves against the power of a goddess.

  They failed.

  Stone shattered to dust, and energy exploded upward through the ceiling, through the upper floor, and through the roof into the summer night. Pure magical energy surged out with it, through the room, into the night, in a wave of such breadth and power that five minutes before, I would have considered it impossible.

  Looking back, that was the moment everything started to change.

  Magic ran rampant into the air. It howled through the streets and alleys of Chicago. It thundered through tunnels and roadways, a tsunami of raw power.

  And wherever it went, the mortal world fell into darkness.

  Power stations exploded. Electronic devices screamed and showered sparks. Screens played diabolical images and screeched in demonic voices before dying. Cars died; systems failed; trains went powerless and slowed. I heard later that there were nearly fifteen hundred automobile collisions in that single moment, resulting in scores of deaths.

  Chicago fell into total darkness.

  I found myself on my knees, sometime after, breathing hard, making pained sounds. Others were making similar noises. The lighting in the great hall hadn’t changed—not when it had been firelight in the first place.

  King Corb and the Last Titan were gone.

  I found myself staring at Vadderung as he fell heavily back into his chair, his expression stunned.

  30

  Asolid quarter minute of stunned silence followed before Gentleman John Marcone hauled himself to his feet, looked around at the destruction and confusion in the hall, and mused, “It would seem we have the Fomor’s answer with regards to the peace process.”

  Ebenezar was the next one up. He looked around the room and said, “Is anyone hurt?”

  “The dead, it would appear,” Marcone said. He started for the high seat and offered a hand to Molly. She glowered at him but took his hand and rose with a polite nod. He spoke in a low, intent voice that wouldn’t be overheard by most of the room. “Assess Mab, please, Winter Lady.”

  Molly stared at him for a second. Then she went over to the hole in the stone wall behind the high seat. She stared for a moment and said, “What’s on the other side of the wall?”

  “Storage,” Marcone said.

  “On the other side of that,” Molly said, and vanished into the hole.

  Etri and his sister stood up together. Voices rose in a babble of confusion and anxiety. Everyone had begun to recover and no one looked like they were happy about what was going on.

  My grandfather looked around, eyes searching. He leaned over to Ramirez and muttered something. The Warden nodded and spoke quietly to the rest of the security team.

  Carter LaChaise and his ghouls got up and were heading toward the exit.

  “LaChaise,” Marcone said in a voice that very much was meant to carry to the rest of the room.

  The ghoul looked over his shoulder at Marcone.

  “Where are you going, sir?” Marcone asked.

  LaChaise pointed a finger at the hole in the rear wall. His voice was a low, rich Louisiana gumbo with some whiskey added in. “You heard that monster. You saw what she did.”

  “Yes,” Marcone said, his tone bored. “I also saw your signature at the bottom of the Unseelie Accords, I believe.”

  “And?”

  Marcone’s voice was mild. “And mutual defense in the case of an aggressor nation is stipulated therein.”

  “Mab was the Accords,” LaChaise spat. “You saw what the Titan did to her.”

  “And so I did,” Marcone replied.

  “If she can do that to Mab, what chance do any of us have?” LaChaise asked. He looked around at the rest of the room. “All of us signed because all of us fear Mab. Do any of you think you can stand up to Corb and Ethniu when even Mab gets swatted down like a fly? Let this mortal throw away his short life if that is his desire. The rest of us were doing business long before these recent Accords, and we can do it again quite comfortably.”

  LaChaise turned to leave, trailing half a dozen ghouls in the wake of his massive presence.

  “Are you a coward, sir?” Marcone asked, his voice deadly quiet.

  The ghoul whirled, light and fast for all his bulk, and a low growl bubbled across the room.

  “A question, sir,” Marcone said. “Not a statement.”

  “Tread carefully, mortal,” LaChaise said. “I would be pleased to use your own entrails to make sausage links.”

  “I ask the question,” Marcone said, “because your next actions will show everyone here what you are, LaChaise.”

  LaChaise quivered, his face contorting in rage. Actually, it started contorting from human form into something more bestial, uncomfortable crackling sounds coming from the ghoul’s bulky form as his shoulders rounded and hunched and his back kinked.

  Marcone’s voice cracked out. “You are a guest, sir. In my house.”

  LaChaise’s eyes had already gone hideous and vaguely serpentine. His weight had shifted to take a step toward Marcone, but the words locked him into place as rigidly as bonds of steel. He looked around the room to see the entirety of the leadership of the Accorded nations staring hard at him.

  “Baron Marcone is correct,” Etri said. “You are signatories of the Accords, as are we all. You are obligated to come to Mab’s defense. As are we all.”

  LaChaise’s jaw had extended slightly, and it made his voice a snarling, gobbling thing. “Your people are bleeding from a tussle with a mere White Court assassin,” the ghoul hissed. “Do you think you can challenge a Titan, Etri?”

  “Not alone,” Etri said calmly. He turned to Marcone and nodded firmly. “Svartalfheim does not make commitments lightly. We will stand in defense of this city.”

  Marcone returned the nod.

  “Fools,” LaChaise said. “This is hopeless. The enemy has been given free reign to prepare. We have mere hours to assemble our own forces, assuming the attack has not already begun. Do you think Corb means to fight fairly?”

  “Obviously not,” Marcone said. “Which tends to make me think that he is not invincible—otherwise, he should simply have attacked, without any of this … drama. It is an attempt to destroy the Accords without firing a shot—to divide us, make us easily taken one at a time.”

  “And the Titan?” LaChaise demanded. “Did you see what she was wearing?”

  “Titanic bronze,” Etri noted. “An alloy beyond the skill of even my people. Only the Hundred-Handed Ones knew its secret.” He looked at M
arcone and clarified, “Mere physical force will never stop her. Only the most puissant of powers stands any chance of doing more than annoying her.”

  “A problem to be overcome,” Marcone said, and looked at Cristos. “Perhaps our clever friends of the White Council have a solution.”

  Cristos looked at Ebenezar. The two of them traded looks with Martha Liberty and Listens-to-Wind, and the Senior Council put their heads together for a brief conference. Listens-to-Wind looked up from it and nodded at Marcone. “Perhaps. And in any case, we will stand with you and summon a complement of Wardens to the city’s defense.”

  “Perhaps they can do something,” LaChaise scoffed. He looked around at the rest of the room. “What does this city, this mortal, mean to any of you? I say it’s better to let the Fomor expend their strength on the mortals.”

  “Idiot,” snapped Ferrovax, a plume of thick volcanic-smelling smoke rushing from his nostrils. “You know the mortals as well as I do. Once you awaken them, frighten them, you anger them. They will lash out at any supernatural threat they can find—and may I remind you, LaChaise, that you do not enjoy the safety of dwelling beneath an ocean they have barely explored.”

  “The wurm is right,” Vadderung said. He exchanged a nod with Ferrovax. “We must stop Ethniu here and now. If she is allowed to sack a mortal city of this size, there will be no way to contain their rage. Blind and foolish as they are, they are many, and full of the courage of ignorance. None of us will be able to carry on business in the face of that—and Corb and Ethniu will simply sit in their palace under the sea and laugh while the rest of us try to survive.”

  “I don’t see how all of us dying in a foolish battle is an improvement,” LaChaise said in an acid tone. “If Ethniu can do that to Mab, what can any of us do against her? What weapon do we have against her?”

  Marcone stared at LaChaise as if the ghoul were a simpleton. “Courage, sir,” the robber baron of Chicago said. “Skill. And will.” He turned to Vadderung and said, “I wish to hire the entirety of the available Einherjaren for a night.”