by Jim Butcher
Jet Skis, especially the brand-new ones, are intricate machines. They focus tremendous power and energy into a tiny space, and their systems are regulated by little computers and so on. They’re a gathering of tiny, nearly continuous explosions in a box, moving water under intense pressure—and a world of things can go wrong with them.
The Redcap’s Jet Ski suffered an abrupt, catastrophic engine failure. There was a hideous sound of tearing metal, a flash of flame, and the handlebar twisted abruptly from his hands. The Jet Ski’s nose plunged down into the water, flinging the Redcap off of it at full speed. He’d been doing maybe sixty when I hit him, and he skipped twice across the water’s surface before he slammed into a swell from the Water Beetle’s wake and vanished under the surface.
Thomas, meanwhile, had seized another opportunity. As the Jet Skis split off to swing around us, he whirled the steering wheel, turning the Water Beetle sharply to her left. I heard one scream, and a crunching sound accompanied by a heavy reverberation in the deck beneath my feet as a Jet Ski slammed into our boat’s nose—with results very similar to a deer slamming into a speeding semi.
“Hexus!” Molly shouted from where she was crouched on the deck. Her aim was good, even if her hex wouldn’t carry the same kind of raw power mine did. The Jet Ski Thomas had missed suddenly began billowing smoke, and its roaring engine cut away to a gasping, labored rattle.
I spun to face the other direction, pitching another hex at the two Jet Skis passing on the far side of the ship. They were at the edge of my range and racing away, so my hex didn’t convince their engines to tear themselves apart, the way the short-range, focused curse had the Redcap’s vehicle—but one of the Jet Skis abruptly began coasting to a stop, and the other took a sharp right turn and then simply went on turning in a furious, continuous circle.
Thomas opened up the throttle all the way, and the Water Beetle left the lamed flotilla of would-be assassins bobbing in her wake.
I didn’t relax until I’d swept the ship’s exterior with my eyes and magical senses alike to make sure no one was hanging on to a rail or something. Then, just to be certain, I double-checked the cabin and hold, until I was certain that no one had infiltrated the boat in the chaos.
And then I sank down in relief on a chair in the cabin. But only for a second. Then I grabbed the first-aid kit and went up to the bridge to see to Thomas.
Molly was sprawled on the deck in the morning sunshine, exhausted from her efforts, and obviously asleep. She snored a little. I stepped over her and went up to my brother. He saw me and grunted. “We should be pulling into port in another fifteen minutes,” he said. “I think we’re clear.”
“That won’t last,” I said. “How’s your arm?”
“Through and through,” Thomas said. “Not too bad. Just stop the leak.”
“Hold still,” I told him. Then I started working on his arm. It wasn’t bad, as bullet wounds go. It had entered the lean muscle at the bottom of his triceps in back and come out the other side, leaving a small hole. That had probably been the Redcap, then—the rounds from his M4 would be armor-piercing, metal-jacketed military rounds, specifically designed to punch long, fairly small holes. I cleaned it up with disinfectant, got a pressure bandage positioned over the holes, and taped it down. “Okay, you can stop complaining now.”
Thomas, who had been silent the whole time, gave me a look.
“You can have your harem change out the bandages later,” I said. “How busy are you today?”
“Oh,” he mused. “I don’t know. I mean, I’ve got to get a new shirt now.”
“After that,” I asked, “would you like to help me save the city? If you don’t already have plans.”
He snorted. “You mean, would I like to follow you around, wondering what the hell is going on because you won’t tell me everything, then get in a fight with something that is going to leave me in intensive care?”
“Uh-huh,” I said, nodding, “pretty much.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Okay.”
Chapter Nineteen
We took Thomas’s car back to his apartment.
“You got the Hummer fixed,” I said approvingly.
He snorted. “After I let you ride in it, it went undamaged for what, about thirty minutes?”
“Come on,” I said, stretching out my legs. There was room. “It was at least an hour. How you doing back there, Molly?”
From the backseat, Molly snored. I smiled. The grasshopper had shambled to the truck and flung herself down on the backseat without saying a word.
“She okay?” Thomas asked.
“She pushed it today,” I said.
“With that mist thing? She does illusions all the time, I thought.”
“Dude,” I said. “It was hundreds of yards long and hundreds of yards across. That’s a huge freaking image to project, especially over water.”
“Because water grounds out magic?” Thomas asked.
“Exactly right,” I said. “And be glad it does, or the Sidhe would have been chucking lightning bolts at us instead of bullets. Molly had to sustain her image while the energy from which it was made kept on draining away. And then she hexed one of the Jet Skis. For her, that’s some serious heavy lifting. She’s tired.”
He frowned. “Like that time you collapsed at my dad’s place?”
“More or less,” I said. “Molly’s still relatively new at this. The first few times you hit your wall, it just about knocks you out. She’ll be fine.”
“So how come the Sidhe didn’t hex up their own engines? I mean, I’m guessing a Jet Ski would run for about ten seconds with you on it.”
“I’d give it ten or fifteen minutes,” I said. “And it worked for the Sidhe because they aren’t human.”
“Why should that make a difference?”
I shrugged. “No one really knows. Ebenezar thinks it’s because human beings are inherently conflicted creatures. Magic responds to your thoughts and to your emotions—and people’s thoughts and emotions are constantly conflicting with one another. The way he figures it, that means that there’s a kind of turbulence around people with magical talent. The turbulence is what causes mechanical failure.”
“Why?”
I shrugged again. “It’s just the way things are. The specific effects this turbulence causes tend to change slowly over time. Three hundred years ago, it made cream turn sour, disturbed animals, and tended to encourage minor skin infections in wizards. Gave them blemishes and moles and pockmarks.”
“Fun,” Thomas said.
“Yeah, I’m not upset about missing out on that kind of fun,” I said. “Then sometime between then and now, it segued into triggering odd flashes of hallucination in the people who hung around in close proximity to us. You know the whole ergot theory of history? People with talent, especially people who didn’t even know they had it, probably had a lot to do with that. Now it mucks around with probability where machines are concerned.”
Thomas eyed me. Then he carefully powered off his truck’s stereo.
“Funny,” I said. After a moment I added, “I don’t mean to do it. I mean, I try not to do it, but . . .”
“I don’t mind if you break my stuff,” Thomas said. “I’ll just make Lara buy me new stuff.”
Lara, Thomas’s half sister, was the power behind the throne of the White Court of vampires. Lara was gorgeous, brilliant, and sexier than a Swedish bikini team hiking up a mountain of money. As a potential enemy, she was a little scary. As an occasional ally, she was freaking terrifying.
I wasn’t ever going to tell Thomas this, but when I’d been arranging my own murder, Lara had been the runner-up on my list of possible administrators of my demise. I mean, hey, if you’re going to go, there are worse ways to do it than to be taken out by the freaking queen of the world’s succubi.
“How’s Lara doing?” I asked.
“She’s Lara,” Thomas said. “Always doing business, planning plans, scheming schemes.”
“Like t
he Brighter Future Society?” I asked. The BFS was an alliance of unlikely bedfellows of the supernatural scene in Chicago, headquartered out of a small but genuine castle, guarded by hired guns from Valhalla.
Thomas bared his teeth in a smile. “That was Lara’s idea, actually. Marcone imported that freaking castle and had it rebuilt over your old boardinghouse. Lara says it’s impregnable.”
“The Death Star was impregnable,” I said. “So Lara got in bed with Marcone?”
“She tried,” Thomas said, “but Marcone kept it purely business. That’s two men who have turned her down in the same century. She was annoyed.”
I grunted. I’d been the other guy. John Marcone was the crime lord of Chicago. He could buy and sell United States congressmen, and had the establishment in Chicago completely wired. He was also the first regular mortal to sign on to the Unseelie Accords, and according to them, he was the baron of Chicago.
“I was sort of hoping she’d kill him,” I said.
“I was sort of hoping for the other way around,” Thomas said. “But with the Fomor trying to muscle in on everyone’s territory, they need each other—for now.”
“The Fomor are that bad?” I asked. They were a crew of bad guys whose names were known primarily in old mythology books, the survivors of a number of dark mythoi across the world, the worst of the worst—or at least the most survival-minded of the worst.
“They’re ruthless,” Thomas said. “And they’re everywhere. But between Marcone’s hired goons, Lara’s resources, and Murphy’s people, they haven’t gotten a solid foothold here. Other cities, it’s bad. Los Angeles, Seattle, San Francisco, Miami, and Boston are the worst off. They’re grabbing anyone with a lick of magical ability and carrying them away. Thousands of people.”
“Hell’s bells,” I muttered. “What about the White Council?”
“They’re busy,” Thomas said. “Word is that they’re operating around the coasts of Europe, especially in the Mediterranean, fighting the Fomor there. Lara’s people have been sharing a little information with the Council, and vice versa, but there’s nothing like an alliance.”
“They aren’t working in the U.S. at all?” I asked.
Thomas shrugged. “Your Warden buddies are trying,” he said. “Ramirez got hurt pretty bad last year. I don’t think he’s back in action yet. But the Wardens in Baltimore and San Diego are holding out, and the kid in Texas is giving them hell.”
“Good for Wild Bill,” I said. “So how come other cities haven’t gone down?”
“Lara,” Thomas said simply. His voice altered subtly and I could recognize the precise, enunciated tones that marked his sister’s voice. “We labored for centuries to cultivate this herd. I will not abide a horde of toady, has-been poachers.”
“She’s a sweetheart,” I said.
“She’s done a lot,” he said. “But she wouldn’t have been able to do it without the Paranet.”
“Wow. Seriously?”
“Knowledge is power,” Thomas said. “There are tens of thousands of people on the Paranet. Eyes and ears in every city, getting more experienced every day. Something happens, one of the Fomor moves, and the entire community knows about it in minutes.”
I blinked. “They can do that?”
“Internet,” Thomas said. “The Netters are all low-grade talents. They can use computers and cell phones without hexing them up. So something starts happening, they tweet about it, and Lara dispatches a ready team.”
“And she just happens to get to find out more about the magical talents in other cities. The ones who can’t really defend themselves. In case she gets hungry later.”
“Yeah,” Thomas said. “But it’s not like the Netters have a lot of choice in the matter.” He paused for a couple of blocks and then said, “Lara’s getting scary.”
“Lara was always scary.”
Thomas shook his head. “Not like this. She’s getting involved in government.”
“She was always doing that,” I said.
“City officials, sure. A few key state bureaucrats. And she kept it gentle and invisible—manipulation, influence. But now she’s going for something different.”
“What?”
“Control.”
It’s funny how chilling one little word can be.
“I’ll stick her on my to-do list, then,” I said.
Thomas snorted.
“Not like that,” I said. “Pervert.”
“Yeah. Because you think she’s hideous.”
“She’s too scary to be pretty,” I lied.
“If she knew I’d told you even that much, bad things would happen,” Thomas said.
“To you?”
“Not me. I’m family.” His jaw tensed. “To Justine.”
“No, it won’t,” I said. “Because if she tries it, we’ll protect Justine.”
My brother looked at me. “Thanks,” he said quietly.
“Whatever,” I said. “It’s getting cloying in here. Are we there yet?”
He smiled. “Jerk.”
“Wuss.”
“Jackass.”
“Pansy.”
“Philistine.”
“Dandysprat.”
“Butthead.”
“Whiner . . .”
* * *
Thomas had just pulled the Hummer into a parking space in a garage across from his apartment building in the Loop when a gold SUV roared up and came to a sudden halt behind the Hummer. Thomas and I traded a fast look, and we were both thinking the same thing. A car meant that an attacker would probably be a mortal, using mortal weapons. That meant guns. That meant that if they started shooting at us while we were still in the car, Molly, asleep in the backseat, wouldn’t have a prayer.
Both of us rolled out of the front seat, getting clear of the Hummer as fast as possible. Thomas had his handgun with him. I took the Winchester with me.
The occupants of the gold SUV didn’t come leaping out with guns blazing. The engine stopped. Then, several seconds later, the driver’s door opened, and someone got out. He walked calmly around the front of the SUV.
It was a slender man, a bit below average height. His hair was a blond so pale that it was nearly white. He wore faded blue jeans and a green silk shirt. He had a gun belt a lot like Thomas’s number, fitted with an automatic pistol on one hip and a sword on the other. He wasn’t a particularly good-looking man, and he didn’t carry himself aggressively, but his jaw and his eyes were both hard. He stopped at a point where he could see both of us and stood there, his arms akimbo, his hands not quite entirely relaxed by his sides—and near his weapons.
“Harry,” he said quietly.
“Fix,” I said. I knew him. He was my opposite number on the Summer side of things. His predecessor had been murdered by my predecessor.
“I heard that Mab had recruited you to be the new Winter Knight,” he said. “I was sure that it was a wild rumor. The man I knew would never have bowed to a creature like Mab.”
“I had my reasons,” I said.
He looked me up and down, slowly. Then he said, “You’ve been given instructions.”
“Maybe,” I said.
“You have,” he said. “Mab’s sent you to kill someone, hasn’t she?”
“It’s none of your concern,” I said quietly.
“The hell it isn’t,” Fix said. “The Winter Knight exists to execute people Mab can’t kill herself. You think I don’t know that?”
“I think that there’s an awful lot of glass in your house, Fix,” I said. “You’re in the same business as me.”
“Never,” Fix said. “The Summer Knight’s job isn’t to do Titania’s killing.”
“No? What is it, then?”
“To stop you,” he said simply. “Not even Mab should get to decide who lives and who dies, Harry. Life is too precious to be wasted that way. So when she sends you to kill someone, someone gets in the way. That’s me.”
I didn’t say anything for a minute. I had assumed that the Sum
mer Knight would have the same job I did, just for a different crew. I hadn’t really thought about actually crossing swords with Fix—metaphorically or otherwise. Ten years ago, that possibility wouldn’t have fazed me. But Fix wasn’t the same guy he had been back then. He was the Summer Knight, and he was currently standing up to a champion of the White Court and the Winter Knight without batting an eye. I recognized the calm in him, the stillness that was almost like serenity—it was focus and confidence. He knew the danger, he didn’t want to fight, but he was quietly ready for it, and ready to accept whatever consequences it might bring.
It’s generally a really bad idea to fight guys who are in that particular mental space.
“You want me to run him off?” Thomas asked.
Fix’s eyes didn’t move from me, but he directed his words at Thomas. “Come try it, vampire.”
“Stars and stones.” I sighed. I took the Winchester and put it gently back into the Hummer. “Fix, can we stop the High Noon routine? I’m not going to fight you.”
He frowned slightly. “That sort of remains to be seen.”
“Thomas,” I said, “get back in the truck, please.”
“What?”
“I want to talk to Fix, and it isn’t going to be a real productive conversation if he has to keep one eye on each of us and his fingers by his gun in case you draw on him.”
Thomas grunted. “Suppose he draws and shoots you as soon as I’m not backing you up.”
“If that happens, and if it’ll make you feel better, you can come fight him, I suppose.” I regarded Fix for a moment and then said, “But he won’t.”
“Harry,” Thomas said.
“He won’t,” I said quietly. “I know him. He won’t.”
Thomas let out a low growling grumble—but he got back into the Hummer and shut the door.
Fix eyed me warily, and checked his surroundings quickly, as though expecting some kind of ambush.
