by Jim Butcher
The line was supposedly secure, but we both knew how much that was worth. Neither of us would mention any details over the phone— and we certainly would not use the word oblivion. Too many Venatori had discovered, too late, that the enemy had very sharp ears, and that they would swiftly carry the war into the homes of those careless enough not to guard their tongues.
It had been nearly eight years since I had been involved in the Oblivion War. I suppose I had known I couldn’t avoid being drawn back into the fight forever. Lara, the only other Venator in the White Court, was largely occupied with her current responsibilities—namely, spending her days manipulating our father like a puppet on her psychic strings and ruling the White Court from the shadows behind his throne. Naturally, if something came up, she would pass it along to me to deal with.
“I’m busy,” I told her.
“Grooming pets?” she said. “Trimming their fur? Checking for fleas? Priorities, brother-mine.”
Lara is most annoying when she has a point. “Where do you want to meet?”
She laughed, a warm little sound. “Tommy, Tommy, I’m flattered you want to be with me, but no. I’ve no time to spend playing games with you. I’ve sent a courier with everything you need and . . . Mmmmmm.” Her voice turned into a sensual little purr of pleasure. “You know the stakes. Don’t ask too many questions, brother-mine,” she murmured. “Don’t start using that pretty little head for anything taxing. Go back to your apartment. Talk to the courier. Take the job. Or you and I are going to have a very . . . ahhhhh . . .” Her breathing sped up. “A very serious falling-out.”
I could hear other soft sounds in the background, and another voice. A woman. Maybe two. Most of my family isn’t what you’d call particular, when it comes to feeding on mortals.
“I’d tell you that you were a much nicer person before you got into the power-behind-the-throne game, Lara,” I said. “But you were a bitch then, too.”
I hung up on her before she had a chance to reply and went back upstairs, thinking. It was always good to get as much thinking done as you could, before the actual mind-boggling crisis came down. That way, when it got there and you only had half a second to decide what to do before something from beyond the borders of sanity started ripping at your soul, you could skip the preliminaries and go straight to the mistake.
When you deal with someone like my sister, you never take anything at face value. She was up to something. Whatever it was, it included putting pressure on me to hurry. Lara wanted me to rush into the situation blindly. If that was what she wanted me to do, it was probably a good idea not to do it.
Besides, I didn’t want Lara to start getting used to the idea that I would run to do her bidding every time she snapped her fingers. More important, I didn’t want to get into the habit of obeying her. It was an important first step toward becoming ensnared by more inflexible means, the way she had done to our father.
Anyway, I had a business to run.
And I was hungry.
Michelle Marion, eldest daughter of the Honorable Senator Marion of the Great State of Illinois, had arrived a minute or two early for her haircut. My clients almost always did—especially the young ones. Michelle was a brunette, though you couldn’t tell that by looking. Only her hairdresser knew for sure.
“Thomas!” she exclaimed, smiling at me, pronouncing it with the Latin emphasis. “What have you done with your hair?”
I had cut it a bit shorter after getting a rather large section of it burned off by a flaming arrow fired by a faerie assassin—but that isn’t the sort of thing you share with your customers when you’re supposed to be a flaming French master stylist. “Darling,” I said, taking her hands and kissing her on either cheek.
The Hunger inside me stirred as my skin touched hers. The demon gleefully danced through her for a heartbeat or two, and as it did, she shivered, her heart rate rose, and her pupils dilated. The Hunger told me what it always did about Michelle. Though she looked sweet, gentle, and kind, her repressed desires, far darker, would make her easy prey. Fingers tightening in the back of her hair, feeling a man’s body press hers against a wall—that was the stuff of her fantasies. She would follow me to the hall downstairs without hesitation. I could take her there. I could fulfill her desires, feed the Hunger, draw away her life, and take my fill. I could leave my mark ripped into her mind and soul so that forever after she would come to me willingly, eagerly, yearning to be taken again and again and agai—
Until she died.
I pushed the Hunger back down into the corruption that passes for my soul, and I smiled at Michelle, slipping on the accent as easily as an Italian leather glove. “I grew bored, so tediously bored, darling. I had half decided to shave it all, just to shock everyone.”
The girl laughed, her cheeks still flushed with excitement, in the wake of my demon’s touch. “Don’t you dare!”
“Have no fear,” I assured her, tucking her arm through mine and walking her to my station. “The men who prefer such things aren’t really my type in any case.”
She laughed again, and I kept up the inane chatter until I could lean her chair back to the sink and begin washing her hair.
The Hunger lunged forward, eager as always—and I let it begin to feed upon the girl.
Michelle’s eyes glazed over slightly as I went through the wash—very slowly, very thoroughly, working a full-scalp massage into the process. I felt her mind slip into idle fantasy as the thin warmth of her aura pooled around my fingertips and slid up into me.
The Hunger screamed for me to do more, to take more, that it wasn’t enough. But I didn’t. Feeding would have been . . . delicious. But it might have hurt her, too. It might even have killed her. So I kept on with the steady, gentle circular motions, barely tasting of her life force. She sighed in bliss as her fantasies dissolved into a gentle euphoria, and I shuddered with the need to give in to my Hunger and take more.
Some days, it was more difficult than others to hold back. But it’s what I do. It’s what I have left.
Michelle left about an hour later, hair trimmed, color retouched, blissfully relaxed, flushed, happy, and humming to herself under her breath. I watched her go, and my Hunger snarled and paced about restlessly in the cage I’d built for it in my thoughts, furious that the prey had escaped. For just a second, I found myself turning toward her, my weight shifting as if to take a step forward, to follow her to someplace quiet and—
I turned away and went back to my station, beginning the routine of cleaning. Not today. One day, doubtless, the Hunger would gain the upper hand again, and feed and feed until it was the only thing inside and there was nothing left of me.
But not today.
2
I left the store in the good hands of my employees and went out to my car, a white Hummer, huge, expensive, and ostentatious as hell. It was also one of the more robust vehicles a civilian could buy. Entire sections of houses could fall on it without causing it more than minor inconvenience, as could giant demon insects, and before you ask, I know it from experience. Just as I know that having a really tough vehicle on hand is not at all a bad move when you’ve made the kinds of enemies I have—which is to say, all of my own and pretty much all of my little brother’s to boot.
Before I got in, I checked the engine, the undercarriage, and the interior for explosives. One reason Lara might have wanted me to hurry out might have been to make me rush out to the car, turn the ignition key, and blow tiny pieces of me all over Chicago.
I pulled up a mix list on the truck’s MP3 player—Cole Porter and Mozart, mostly, with a dash of Violent Femmes—and headed back home to my apartment, hoping that whatever Lara had in mind for me, it wouldn’t send me running to all corners of the earth . . . again. Even though our breed of vampire doesn’t share the others’ weaknesses for sunlight and running water and so on, the kinds of places Oblivion missions had taken me hadn’t exactly been tourist attractions.
I live in a trendy, expensive apartment building
in Chicago’s Gold Coast. It’s not exactly to my taste, but it’s the sort of place where Toe-moss the French stylist would live. One thing you learn young when you’re a vampire is how to camouflage yourself, and to do that you have to sell every aspect of the disguise. It’s a high-security building, but Lara’s courier would be waiting for me in my apartment despite that. My sister had the resources to get it done.
Before I got out of the truck, I reached under the seat and slipped the sheathed kukri knife there into my coat, then tucked the barrel of my Desert Eagle into the waist of my leather pants, in back, hiding the grip under my coat. It had occurred to me, ten minutes into Michelle’s appointment, that telling me to expect a courier in my apartment would be an excellent way to get me to lower my guard against an assassin who lurked inside, waiting for my return.
I went up to my apartment, took the knife in my teeth, and drew the gun, holding it low, the barrel parallel to my leg. Then I stood as far to the left of the door as I could, unlocked it, and pushed it open. No one opened fire. I waited a moment more, just being quiet and listening, and picked out two things—the low throb of an excited heartbeat, and the scent of her shampoo.
Her shampoo.
I came through the door in a rush, discarding the weapons, and Justine met me on the other side. She threw her arms around me, and I had to fight to remember that if I didn’t restrain my strength, I might hurt her as I hugged her back. She just pressed against me, everywhere, as if she wanted to just push herself inside me. She let out a soft little sob of laughter and pressed her face into my shirt.
She felt so good; soft and warm and alive.
We just stood there, holding each other for a long time.
My body surged with need, and an instant later, my Hunger howled in frenzied lust.
Justine. Our doe, our bottle of wine, ours, ours, ours. So many nights with her screaming under us, so many soft sighs, so many touches—so much rich, warm, madness-laced life rushing into us.
I ignored the demon—but while blocking it away, I moved my hand without really thinking about it, and I stroked it over her hair.
Pain, pain so unreal, so unimaginably intense that I could not adequately describe it, surged up my arm, as if the softness of those hairs had been the touch of high-power electrical cables. I hissed, my arm jerking away by pure reflex.
Sunlight, holy water, garlic, and crosses don’t bother an incubus of the White Court much. But the touch of someone who truly loves and is loved in return is a different story.
I glanced at my hand. It was already blistering.
Justine drew away from me, her lovely face distressed. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think.”
I shook my head. “It’s all right,” I said quietly, and stepped back from her, while the demon screamed its frustration behind my eyes.
She bit her lip and looked up at me uncertainly.
It had been a long time since I had seen Justine face-to-face. I had forgotten how beautiful she was. The lines of her face had changed, subtly. She looked leaner now, more confident, more assured. Maybe I was too used to dealing with things that were immortal, or practically so. It’s easy to forget how much difference a couple of years can make.
Her dark hair, of course, was gone now. It was growing in just as rich, long, and curling as before, but now it was silver-white. I’d done that to her—fed on her, drained her to the very edge of death, almost torn the life from her body in my eagerness to sate the Hunger.
I closed my eyes for a moment at the memory of that pleasure, and shivered. I’d nearly killed the woman I loved, and remembering it was nearly as arousing as her touch had been. When I opened my eyes again, Justine’s gaze was steady and calm—and knowing.
“It doesn’t make you a monster to want,” she said, her voice very gentle. “It’s what you do with the want that matters.”
Instead of answering her, I turned and shut the door, then picked up my hardware. It isn’t gentlemanly to leave weapons lying around on the floor. They clashed with the apartment’s décor, too. I studied Justine from the corner of my eye as I did, taking in her clothing—elegant business-wear, suitable for Lara’s executive assistant.
Or for a corporate courier.
“Empty night,” I swore, viciously, suddenly furious.
Justine blinked at me. “What is it?”
“Lara,” I spat. “What did she tell you?”
Justine shook her head slowly, frowning at me, as though trying to read my thoughts from my expression. “She said to bring you a briefing on a situation you needed to know about. Nothing could be written down. I had to memorize it all and bring it to you, along with some photos, here.” She put a slender hand on a valise that sat on my coffee table.
I stared at her intently. Then I sat slowly down on one of the chairs in my apartment’s living room. It wasn’t a comfortable chair, but it was very, very expensive. “I need you to tell me everything she told you,” I said. “Absolutely every word.”
Justine stared back for a long moment, her frown deepening. “Why?”
Because knowing certain things, simply being aware of them, was dangerous. Because Justine had been providing me with information from within Lara’s operation, and which I had, in turn, been providing to Harry, and through him to the White Council. If Lara had found out about that, she might have brought Justine into the Oblivion War. If she had, I was going to kill my sister.
“I need you to trust me, love,” I said quietly. “But I can’t tell you.”
“But why can’t you tell me?”
The real bitch about the Oblivion War was that question.
“Justine,” I said, spreading my hands. “Please. Trust me.”
Justine narrowed her eyes in wary thought, which took me somewhat aback. It was not an expression I was used to seeing on her face.
No. I was used to seeing a look of dazed satiation after I’d fed, or of molten desire as I stalked her, or of shattering ecstasy as I took her—
I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and shoved my demon down again.
“My poor Thomas,” she said quietly, when I opened them again. She sat down across the table from me, her dark eyes compassionate. “When we were together, I never realized how hard it was for you. Your demon is much stronger than theirs. Stronger than any but hers, isn’t it.”
“It only matters if I give in to it,” I replied, more harshly than I meant to. “Which means it doesn’t matter. Tell me, Justine. Please.”
She folded her arms across her body, biting on her bottom lip. “It really isn’t much. She said to tell you that word had come to her through the usual channels that the Ladies of the Dark River were in town.” She opened the valise. “And that you would know which one you were dealing with.” She took out a full-page photo, and slid it across the table to me. It was grainy, but big enough to clearly show an image of a stark-featured, young-looking woman getting into a cab at O’Hare. The time stamp on the photo said it was from that morning.
“Yes,” I said quietly. “I know her. I thought she was dead.”
“Lara said that this person had taken a child,” Justine continued. “Though she didn’t say how she knew that. And that her aim was to draw out one who could do her cause great good.”
I got a sick feeling in my stomach as Justine slid out the second photograph and pushed it across the table.
The photograph was simple, this time—a hallway, a picture of a door, its top half of frosted glass, bearing simple black lettering:
HARRY DRESDEN, WIZARD.
The door was closed, but I could see the outline of a tall, feminine form, facing an even taller, storkish, masculine outline.
The time stamp said it was barely two hours before.
So.
Lara had been trying to do me a favor, after all. She had protected Justine behind a layer of generalities. And I had dithered around cutting hair and indulging my Hunger and my suspicions, while the Stygian Sisterhood had sucke
red my brother into a ploy to bring back one of their monstrous matrons.
Justine had never been stupid. Even when she’d been deep in my influence, before, she’d walked into it with her eyes open. “He’s in trouble, isn’t he?”
“And he doesn’t even know it yet,” I said quietly.
She pursed her lips in thought. “And you can’t tell him why, can you? Any more than you could tell me.”
I looked up at her helplessly.
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
I rose and reclaimed my knife and gun. “He’s my brother,” I said. “I’m going to cover his back.”
“How are you going to explain it to him?” she asked.
I tugged on a pair of leather gloves and went to her, so I could take her hands in mine, squeezing gently, before I turned to go.
“If he thinks he’s helping her, and you interfere, he’s not going to understand,” she said. “How are you going to explain it to him, Thomas?”
It sucks to be a Venator.
“I’m not,” I said quietly.
Then I and my demon went out to continue an ages-old silent war and help my brother.
I just hoped the two activities wouldn’t be mutually exclusive.
3
Justine had a driver circling the block, waiting for her to call. She did. I walked her to the elevator, holding her hand in my gloved fingers, the whole way. We didn’t speak again. She smiled at me, though, when the elevator arrived, and kissed my fingers through the glove.
Then she was gone.
Technically, there was always a huge empty place inside me—that was what the Hunger was, after all.
So I told myself that this wasn’t any different, and I went back to my apartment to get to work.
Purely for form, I tried Harry’s home and office phones before I left my apartment, but I got no answer at his apartment, and only his answering service at his office. I left a message that I needed to talk to him, but I doubted he would get it in time for it to be of any help. I grimaced as I took my cell phone out of my pocket and left it on my kitchen counter. There wasn’t any point in carrying it with me. Technology doesn’t get along well with magic. Twenty or thirty minutes in Harry’s company could kill a cell phone if he was in a bad mood—less if he was actively throwing spells around.
