by Jim Butcher
“She’s disposing of you without angering your allies at her. Surely you can’t be so deluded that you don’t see that.”
A slow chill went through me at the words.
That . . . could make a great deal of sense, actually. If Mab had decided not to use me after all, then my presence was no longer needed—but enough people thought well of me that they could prove extremely trying for her, should they set out to seek revenge.
Of course, that wasn’t how Mab played the game. When she set something up, she did it so that no matter what happened, she would run the table in the end. Mab probably intended me to do exactly what she’d told me she sent me to do. But what she hadn’t said was that she’d set it up so that it wouldn’t hurt her too badly if I failed. If I was too incompetent to work her will, she would regard me as a liability, to be dispensed with—preferably without angering my allies. Nicodemus would get the vengeance-level blame for my death if I failed, and Mab would be free and clear to choose a new Knight.
I felt my jaw tightening and loosening. Well. I couldn’t really have expected anything else. Mab struck me as the kind of mother who taught her children to swim by throwing them into the lake. My entire career with her would be shaped the same way—sink or swim.
“We’ll see,” I said.
She smiled, very slightly, and turned back to regard the table below. Grey was sitting with Karrin, speaking quietly, a smile on his face. She had her narrow-eyed expression on hers, but a smile also lurked somewhere inside it. He was being amusing.
Jerk.
“Is there anything else you’d like to ask me?” Deirdre asked.
“Yeah,” I said quietly. “Why?”
“Why what?”
I gestured around. “Why this? Why do you do what you do? Why bite out the tongues and murder hirelings and whatnot? What makes a person do something like this?”
She fell silent. The weight of it became oppressive.
“Tell me, child,” she said. “What is the longest-lasting relationship in your life?”
“Uh,” I said. “Like, in terms of when it started? Or how long it continued?”
“Whichever.”
“My mentor in the White Council, maybe,” I said. “I’ve known him since I was sixteen.”
“You see him daily? You speak to him, work with him?”
“Well, no.”
“Ah,” she said. “Someone that close to you. Who shares your life with you.”
“Uh,” I said. “A girlfriend or two. My cat.”
A small smirk touched her mouth. “Temporary mates and a cat. One cat.”
“He’s an awesome cat.”
“What you are telling me,” she said, “is that you have never shared your life with another over the long term. The closest you have come to it is providing a home and affection for a being which is entirely your subject and in your control.”
“Well, not at bath time . . .”
The joke did not register on her. “You have had nothing but firefly relationships, there and then gone. I have watched empires rise and fall and rise again beside Nicodemus. You call him my father, but there are no words for what we are. How can there be? Mortal words cannot possibly encompass something which mortals can never embrace and know. Centuries of faith, of cooperation, of trust, working and living and fighting side by side.” Her mouth twisted into a sneer. “You know nothing of commitment, wizard child. And so I cannot possibly explain to you why I do what I do.”
“And what is it that you think you’re doing with him, exactly?” I asked her.
“We,” she said, with perfect serenity, “are fighting to save the world.”
Which, if true, was about the creepiest thing I’d run into that day.
“From what?” I asked.
She smiled, very faintly, and finally fell silent.
I didn’t press. I didn’t want to hear anything else from her anyway.
I withdrew and went down to the table with the others.
“. . . dinner,” Grey was saying. “Assuming we’re all alive and filthy rich afterward, I mean.”
“I certainly can say no,” Karrin replied, her tone light with banter. “You’re a little creepy, Grey.”
“Goodman,” Grey said. “Say it with me. ‘Goodman.’”
“I was a cop for twenty years, Grey,” Karrin said. “I can recognize a fake name when I hear it.”
I settled down next to Karrin and pulled the new revolver out of my pocket, put it on the conference table right where I could reach it and said to Grey, “Hi.”
Grey eyed me and then the gun. Then he said to Karrin, “Does he make these kinds of calls for you?”
“You’ll have to try a little harder with something a little less obvious than that,” Karrin said. “Honestly, I’m sort of hoping he shoots you a little. I’ve never seen a round from that beast hit somebody.”
Grey settled back in his seat, eyeing me sourly. “Bro,” he said, “you’re totally cockblocking me.”
In answer, I picked up the monster revolver. “No,” I said, and then I freaking cocked it, drawing the hammer back with my thumb. Rather than a mere click, it made a sinister ratcheting sound. “Now I’m cockblocking you.”
The table got completely quiet and still. Anna Valmont’s eyes were huge.
“Touché,” Grey said, nodding slightly. “Well, there was no harm in my asking the lady, was there?”
“None to her,” I agreed amiably. “Murphy, should I shoot him anyway?”
Karrin put a finger to her lips and tapped thoughtfully. “I’ve got to admit, I’m curious as hell. But it seems a little unprofessional, as long as he backs off.”
“Hear that?” I asked Grey.
“You people are savages,” Grey said. He shook his head, muttered something beneath his breath, and rose to stalk away from the table and settle down not far from the Genoskwa—who did not object. The two exchanged a very slight nod, and began to speak in low voices in a language I did not recognize.
I lowered the hammer carefully and put the revolver down. The table was silent for another long moment, before Binder said in a jovial tone, as if he had never stopped speaking, “So there I was in Belize with thirty monkeys, a panda, and a pygmy elephant . . .”
He had begun to tell a story that everyone around the table thought was completely fabricated, while he insisted that every detail was absolutely true, when Nicodemus entered the factory through emergency doors on the floor level, letting in a blast of freezing mist and winter air. He had added a long coat to his ensemble, and he dropped it behind him as he strode forward across the floor. His shadow slid over the floor beside him, too large and never quite in sync with the rest of him.
“Good evening,” he said, as he took his seat at the head of the table. “Ladies and gentlemen, please give me your attention. Wizard Dresden, if you would, please give us a brief primer on the nature of Ways and how they open.”
I blinked as every eye on the table turned to me. “Uh,” I said. “Ways are basically passages between the mortal world and some portion of the Nevernever—the spirit world. Any point in the mortal world will open a Way to somewhere, if you know how to do it. The Way opens to a place that shares something in common with the point of origin in the mortal world. Uh, for example, if you wanted to open a Way to Hell, you’d have to find a hellish place in the mortal world and start from there. If you want to go to a peaceful place in the Nevernever, you start with a peaceful place here. Like that. Chicago is a great place for Ways—it’s a crossroads, a big one. You can get just about anywhere from here.”
“Thank you,” Nicodemus said. “Our goal is to open a Way into the secured facility containing our objective.” He accepted a large sheet of rolled paper from a squire who had hurried up to hand it to him. “Bearing all those factors in mind, I’m sure you’ll understand why
we will begin the job here.”
With a flick of his wrist, he unrolled the large sheet of paper.
It proved to be blueprints, a floor plan. I frowned and stared at it, but it didn’t look familiar.
Karrin made a choking sound.
“Murph?” I asked.
“Ah,” Nicodemus said, smiling. “You know it.”
“It’s a vault,” Karrin said, looking up at me. “A vault that belongs to a lord of the underworld.”
I felt myself clench up in a place that didn’t bear much more clenching. “Oh,” I said weakly. “Oh, Hell’s bells.”
Binder jerked a thumb at me. “What is he on about?” he asked Karrin.
Karrin put a forefinger on the plans. “This is the Capristi Building,” she said. “It’s the second most secure facility in the city.” She took a deep breath. “It’s a mob bank. And it belongs to Gentleman John Marcone, Accorded Baron of Chicago.”
Twenty-six
I’d been afraid it would come to something like this, though I’d held out hope that Nicodemus would come up with a better way of getting to where we needed to go. Like maybe burning down a building around our ears and hoping to open a Way at the last second. That would have been merely dicey.
Marcone was dangerous.
“Gentleman” Johnnie Marcone had clawed his way to the top of Chicago’s outfit back when I had first set up business in town, and he had ruled the city’s crime with an iron fist ever since, with an eye toward making organized crime safer, more efficient, and more businesslike. It worked. A lot of cops thought he had more power than the government. Those cops kept their mouths shut about it, for the most part, though, because he commanded more cops than the government, too.
Then, a few years back, he’d sought and gained the title of freeholding lord under the Unseelie Accords, the legal document that was the backbone of civilized relations between supernatural nations. He was the first vanilla human being on record as having done so, and he had claimed, fought for, and held Chicago against all comers thus far, as its Baron.
Though, to be fair, I’d been out of town for a lot of that time.
Still, I didn’t think it would be smart to cross him if I wasn’t prepared to go right to the mat, for keeps. Marcone commanded an army of thugs and hired killers, some of whom were truly excellent at their jobs. He kept a small squad of Einherjaren, dead-but-not-gone Viking warriors, on retainer, and I had seen them efficiently take on some of the toughest nasties I’ve ever encountered. He had at least one freaking Valkyrie on the payroll—and the man himself was ruthless, intelligent, and absolutely without fear.
I thought getting into it with Marcone was going to be about two steps shy of getting into it with Hades himself. But all I said out loud was, “Hoo boy.”
“Problem, Dresden?” Nicodemus asked.
“Marcone is not someone to cross lightly,” I said. “Not only that, but he’s a member of the Accords.”
“I’m not,” Nicodemus said. “Not any longer.”
“I am,” I said. “Twice. As a Wizard of the White Council and as the Winter Knight.”
“I’m sure the White Council will be stunned and disappointed should you not conform to their policy,” Nicodemus said. “And as for Mab—you are, in effect, simply my tool during this operation. As far as she is concerned, any obligation you incur with regard to the Accords can be laid at my feet, not hers.”
He was right, twice, which made me scowl. “My point is,” I said, “Marcone is not a man to be taken lightly. If you hit him, he hits you back. Harder.”
“Indeed,” Nicodemus said. “He has an excellent reputation. He would have made a fine monarch only a few centuries ago.”
Good King John Marcone? I shuddered at the thought. “Let’s say we hammer our way into his building,” I said. “Fine. It’s probably doable. Getting back out again is going to be the hard part—and even if we do that, it isn’t over. He isn’t going to forget, or let it go.”
“Dresden’s right,” Karrin said. “Marcone doesn’t suffer intrusions on his territory. Period.”
“We will do what we have come to do,” Nicodemus said calmly. “If necessary, reparations to the Baron can be considered once our mission is accomplished. I believe I can make the point to him that accepting such restitution will be more cost-effective than pursuing more personal collection efforts.”
I traded a look with Karrin, and could see that she was thinking the same thing I was.
Nicodemus had abducted Marcone himself, not so many years back, as part of one of his schemes. Mab had, in fact, sent me to bail Marcone out, back when I’d just owed her a couple of favors. I still remembered Marcone as a helpless prisoner. The image had kind of stuck in my memory.
He would never forget that. There are some things money can’t buy: One of them is redemption from the vengeance of Gentleman Johnnie Marcone.
And if Karrin and I went along with this plan, it would mean as much as declaring war on the Baron of Chicago.
“What do you think?” I asked her.
Karrin could do the math. She knew exactly what I was talking about. “Had to happen sometime.”
“Heh,” I said. “Right.”
“I don’t get it,” Binder said. “Look, if he’s a man of business, why don’t we just make him a proposition and cut him in for a piece of the action?”
“A valid notion,” Nicodemus said. “But it is not possible.”
“Why not?”
“In the first place,” Nicodemus said, “the vault houses materials belonging to more persons than our principal target alone. Marcone has become something of a notoriously neutral party in the affairs of the modern supernatural world. Svartalfheim, the White Court, Drakul, and a number of other individuals of similar weight have entrusted a portion of their wealth to his keeping, and he has given his word to protect it to the best of his ability.”
“That’s it, then,” I said to Binder. “He won’t bargain. Guy’s a murderous asshole, but he’s good to his word.”
Binder settled back, frowning. “What’s the other reason, then?”
“If he let us in, it would change the nature of the place,” I said before Nicodemus could answer. “We’re trying to open a Way into a jealously guarded vault. We probably won’t be able to do it from a vault that’s been opened to the public.”
“Exactly,” Nicodemus said. “Barring a few security systems requiring specific countermeasures, I have complete confidence that we can seize the building. Holding it until the job is done and escaping it with our hides is another matter, and that, Mr. Binder, is where you and your associates will play a critical role.”
Binder grunted and leaned forward to study the map. “How long will I need to hold it?”
“An hour, at most,” Nicodemus said.
“Barring anyone manipulating time on us between here and there,” I put in.
Nicodemus gave me a sour frown and said, “We shall be finished in one hour—one way or the other.” He pointed to a portion of the floor plans. “Here is the master vault door. That, Miss Valmont, is your responsibility—”
“Hang on,” Binder said. “If you leave me playing doorman, how am I supposed to collect my backpack of jewels, eh? I can’t go off to the Nevernever and leave my lads here behind me. That’ll cut the connection between us. I’m not doing this job on salary.”
“I suggest your partner carry and fill two packs,” Nicodemus said. “I will undertake to carry your pack out myself and give it to you upon my return. As I am, with the possible exception of Grey, the one most likely to survive to escape, this arrangement would give you a greater chance of successfully receiving your payment than anyone else here.”
Binder squinted at Nicodemus and sat back in his seat, obviously thinking it over. “What do you think, Ash?”
Hannah Ascher shrugged, whi
ch any red-blooded hetero male would have found utterly fascinating. It wasn’t just me. “If you’ll trust me to pick your share, I’m willing.”
Binder grunted and then nodded slowly. “I like the red ones.”
“I’ll remember,” Ascher promised.
I idly scratched at an itch on the back of my neck. “So what’s the big deal with Valmont cracking the door? And why drag poor Harvey into this?”
“Poor Harvey,” Nicodemus said, with all the sympathy of a bullet in flight, “was our principal’s factor in Chicago. He had exclusive access to the vault in question, which is kept shut by the best vault door money can buy in combination with what is known as a retina scan. A retina scan—”
“We know what a retina scan is,” Ascher said impatiently. “But why do you need it? Why not just blow the vault instead of going to all the trouble of getting Grey to duplicate the guy?”
“Same deal as before,” I said. “We’re trying to get into a secure vault, not one that’s been blown the hell open already. If we alter the place in the real world too much, we screw up the Way to the one in the Nevernever.” I glanced at Nicodemus and thumped a finger on the blueprint. “Our target has a private vault here?”
“Precisely. An inner security room inside the main vault. This location is one of several in which he acquires additional items for his collection by proxy,” Nicodemus said.
I had to give Nick this much: He’d thought this business through, lining up like to like, the way you needed to do to make magic work. “So first we have to get to the main vault?”
“Through two security doors, which Miss Ascher will see to with her newly practiced spell,” Nicodemus said, “the better not to activate the seismic sensors in the vault that will lock down the building more thoroughly and force us to take much more destructive measures to gain access.”
I nodded. “Then Valmont does the door on the main vault, and Grey does the private security room with the retina scan.” I blinked and eyed Grey. “Right down to his retinas, seriously?”
Grey looked up from where he sat in the shadows and gave me a modest smile.
