by Jim Butcher
“What is your point?” Lasciel asked. She seemed genuinely confused.
“The point is that he crossed the line, and I’m never going to play on his team. He doesn’t get understanding or sympathy anymore. Not from me. He’s got payback coming.”
“You wish to destroy him?”
“In a perfect world he would vanish off the face of the earth and I would never hear of him again,” I said. “But I’ll take whatever I can get.”
She absorbed that for a few moments, and then nodded slowly. “Very well,” she said. “I will depart. But let me leave you with a thought?”
“As long as you leave.”
She smiled, rising. “I understand your refusal to allow another to control your life. It’s a poisonous, repugnant notion to think of someone who would dictate your every move, impose upon you a code of behavior you could not accept, and refuse to allow you choice, expression, and the pursuit of your own heart’s purpose.”
“Pretty much,” I said.
The fallen angel smiled. “Then believe me when I say that I know precisely how you feel. All of the Fallen do.”
A little cold spot formed in the pit of my stomach, despite the hot tub. I shifted uncomfortably in the water.
“We have that in common, wizard,” Lasciel said. “You’ve no reason to believe me, but consider for a moment the possibility that I am sincere in my offer. I could do a great deal to help you—and you could continue to live your life on your own terms, and in accordance with your own values. I could help you be ten times the force for good that you already are.”
“With that power, I should have power too great and terrible. And over me the Ring would gain a power still greater and more deadly,” I said.
“Gandalf to Frodo,” the demon said, smiling. “But I am not sure the metaphor is applicable. You needn’t actually take up the coin, if it did not suit you to do so. The aid I can offer you in this shadow form is far more limited than if you took up the coin, but it is not inconsiderable.”
“Ring, coin, whatever. The physical object is only a symbol in any case—a symbol for power.”
“I merely offer you the benefit of my knowledge and experience,” she said.
“Yes,” I said. “Power. I’ve already got more than I’m comfortable with.”
“Which is the foremost reason that you, of all people, are capable of wielding it responsibly.”
“Maybe I am,” I said. “Maybe not. I know how it works, Lasciel. The first taste is free. The price goes up down the line.”
She watched me with luminous blue eyes.
“See, if I start leaning on you now, how long is it going to be before I decide that I need more of your help? How long before I start digging up the concrete in my lab because I think I need your coin in order to survive?”
“And?” she asked quietly. “If you do need it to survive?”
I sat in the swirling hot waters and sighed. Then I closed my eyes, made an effort of will, and reshaped the dream we stood within, so that the hot tub was gone and I stood dressed and facing her on a solid cavern floor. “If it comes to that, I hope I die with a little bit of style. Because I’m not going to sign on with Downbelow. Not even in hell’s Foreign Legion.”
“Fascinating,” Lasciel said. She smiled at me.
My God, it was beautiful. It wasn’t merely physical loveliness or the appearance of warmth. It was the whole sense of her, the vibrant, glowing life of the being before me, a life with energy enough to ignite a star. Seeing her smile was like watching the sun rise on the very first morning, like feeling the caress of the first breeze of the first spring. It made me want to laugh and run and spin around in it, like the sunny days of a childhood I could only dimly remember.
But I held myself back. Beauty can be dangerous, and fire, though lovely, can burn and kill when not treated with respect. I faced the fallen angel cautiously, my posture unthreatening but unbowed. I faced her beauty and felt the radiant warmth of her presence and held myself from reaching out for it.
“I’m not fascinating,” I said. “I am what I am. It isn’t perfect, but it’s mine. I’m not making deals with you.”
Lasciel nodded, her expression thoughtful. “You’ve been burned in bargains past, and you have no desire to repeat the experience. You are wary of dealing with me and those like me—and for good reason. I don’t think I would have had any lasting respect for you, had you accepted my offer at face value—even though it is genuine.”
“Gee. I would have felt crushed by your lack of respect.”
She laughed with a lot of belly in it, genuinely pleased. “I admire your will. Your defiance. As something of a defiant being myself, I think we might forge a strong partnership, given time to develop it.”
“That won’t happen,” I said. “I want you to leave.”
“Get thee behind me?” she asked.
“Something like that.”
She bowed her head. “As you wish, my host. I request that you merely consider my offer. Should you wish to converse with me again, you have only to call my name.”
“I won’t,” I said.
“As it pleases you,” she said.
Then she was gone, and the dream cavern was darker and lonelier for her absence. I relaxed and went back to my sleep and my solitary dreams.
I was too tired to remember if any of them had a hot tub.
Chapter
Twenty-six
I slept hard and didn’t wake up until well after sunrise. I heard voices, and after a minute I identified the sharp, crackling edges of tone that told me they were coming out of a radio. I got up and gave myself a washcloth bath at the bathroom sink. It wasn’t as nice as a hot tub, and not even as nice as a shower, but I didn’t feel like sticking my aching leg into a trash bag and taping it shut so that I could get one without getting my bandages wet.
I couldn’t find my clothes anywhere, so I wandered out into the house in my bare feet and mangled pants. The hospital staff had cut the pant leg mostly off of my wounded leg, and the edges were rough and uneven. I passed a mirror in the hallway of the house and stopped to examine myself.
I looked like a joke. A bad joke.
“…mysterious power outage continues,” the radio announcer was saying. “In fact, it’s difficult to estimate how long we’ll be able to stay on the air, or even how many people are actually receiving this broadcast. Gasoline-powered generators have been encountering odd trouble throughout the city, batteries seem unreliable, and other gasoline-powered engines, including those of vehicles, are behaving unpredictably. The telephone lines have been having all kinds of problems, and cell phones seem to be all but useless. O’Hare is completely shut down, and as you can imagine, it’s playing havoc with airline traffic throughout the nation.”
Thomas was standing in the kitchen, at the gas stove. He was making pancakes and listening to an old battery-powered radio sitting on Murphy’s counter. He nodded to me, put a finger against his lips, and flicked a glance at the radio. I nodded, folded my arms, and leaned against the doorway to listen to the announcer continue.
“National authorities have declined to comment on the matter, though the mayor’s office has given a statement blaming the problems on unusual sunspot activity.”
Thomas snorted.
The radio prattled on. “That answer doesn’t seem to hold much water, given that in cities as near as the south side of Joliet all systems are behaving normally. Other sources have suggested everything from an elaborate Halloween hoax to the detonation of some kind of electromagnetic pulse device, which has disrupted the city’s electrical utilities. A press conference has reportedly been scheduled for later this evening. We’ll be on the air all through the current crisis, giving you up-to-date information as quickly as we…”
The announcer’s voice broke up into wild static and sound. Thomas reached over and flicked the radio off. “Had it on for twenty minutes,” he said. “Got a clear signal for maybe five of them.”
I grunted.
“Do you know what’s happened?”
“Maybe,” I said. “Where’s Butters?”
Thomas tilted his head toward the back door. “Walking Mouse.”
I took a seat at the little kitchen table, getting my weight off of my injured leg. “Today’s going to be pretty intense,” I said.
Thomas flipped a pancake. “Because of the heirs of Kemmler?”
“Yeah,” I said. “If Mab is right about what they’re trying to do, someone has to stop them before tonight.”
“Why?”
“Because after that I’m not sure anyone will be able to stop them,” I said.
My brother nodded. “Think you can take them?”
“They’re fighting among themselves,” I said. “They’re all going to be more worried about their fellow necromancers than they are about me.”
“Uh-huh,” Thomas said. “But do you think you can take them?”
“No.”
“Then what you’re talking about isn’t heroism, man. It’s suicide.”
I shook my head. “I don’t need to kill them. I only need to stop them. If I play this right, I won’t need to fight anybody.”
Thomas flipped another pancake. The cooked side was a uniform shade of perfect light brown. “How are you going to manage that?”
“They need two things to make this godhood thing go,” I said. “The Erlking and the knowledge in The Word of Kemmler. If I can deny them either, the whole shebang is canceled.”
“You figure out those numbers yet?” Thomas asked.
“No.”
“So…what? You going to put a hit on the Erlking to keep him from showing up?”
I shook my head. “Mab gave me the impression that the Erlking was in the same weight class as her.”
“She tough?” Thomas asked.
“Beyond the pale,” I said.
“So you can’t kill the Erlking. What, then?”
“I summon him myself.”
He arched an eyebrow.
“Look, no matter how mighty he is, he can’t be in two places at once. If I call him up and keep him busy, then the heirs can’t summon him to their ceremony.”
He nodded. “How are you going to call him?”
“The book,” I said. “It’s almost got to be one of those poems or songs. One of them must be an incantation to attract the Erlking’s attention.”
“But you don’t have the book,” Thomas said.
“Yeah,” I said. “That’s the kink I haven’t worked out yet.”
Thomas nodded, scraping the last of the batter out of a bowl and onto the griddle. “Even if you do figure out how to call the Erlking, it sounds like he might be kinda dangerous.”
“Probably. But impersonal. That means not as dangerous as one of the heirs going godly and showing up to give me some payback for annoying them.” I shrugged. “And the only one in danger will be me.”
“Wrong,” Thomas said. “I’ll be with you.”
I had been sure he would say something like that, but hearing it still felt pretty good. Thomas had a truckload of baggage, and he wasn’t always the most pleasant person in the world—but he was my brother. Family. He’d stand with me.
Which made what came next hard to say.
“You can’t,” I said.
His expression smoothed over into neutrality. “Because of Mavra?”
“No,” I said. “Because I’m going to bring in the White Council.”
Thomas dropped his spatula onto the kitchen floor.
“I have to,” I said. “It took all the Wardens together to take down Kemmler and his students last time. I might not be able to prevent the Erlking’s arrival. If that happens, someone has to stop the heirs directly. I can’t do it. The Wardens can. It’s as simple as that.”
“Okay,” he said. “But that doesn’t explain why I can’t stick with you.”
“Because to them you’re just a White Court vampire, Thomas. With whom I am supposed to be at war. If they learn that you’re my brother, it might give the people in the Council who don’t like me grounds to question my loyalty. And even if they believe that I’m not acting against the Council or being controlled by you, they’d still be suspicious of you. They’d want assurances that you were on their team.”
“They’d use me,” he said quietly. “And use me against you.”
“They’d use us both against each other. Which is why you can’t be around when they show.”
Thomas turned and studied my face carefully. “What about Murphy? If you call in the Council, Mavra will screw up her life.”
I chewed on my lip a little. “Murphy wouldn’t want me to put innocents in danger to protect her. If one of the heirs turns into some kind of dark god, people are going to die. She wouldn’t forgive me for protecting her if that was the cost,” I said. “Besides. This isn’t about recovering the Word. This is about stopping the heirs. I can still get the book to Mavra and fulfill our bargain.”
Thomas took a deep breath. “Is that wise?”
“I don’t know. She’s not exactly alive. I doubt Kemmler’s techniques would apply to her use of magic.”
“If they didn’t,” Thomas said, “then why would she want the book?”
Which was a damned good question. I rubbed at my eyes. “All I know is that I’ve got to stop the heirs. And I’ve got to protect Murphy.”
“If the Council finds out that you’re planning on using them to defeat the heirs so that you can give Kemmler’s book to a vampire of the Black Court, you’ll be in trouble.”
“Not for long,” I said. “The Wardens will execute me on the spot.”
“God. And you can accept that? From your own people?”
“I’m acclimated,” I said.
We were quiet for a moment.
“You want me to sit this out,” Thomas said. “You don’t want me to help.”
“I don’t see that I have much choice,” I told him. “Do you?”
“You could just leave this whole thing. We could head for Aruba or something.”
I looked at him.
“Okay,” he said. “You won’t. But a guy can hope. I just don’t like the idea of sitting on the sidelines when you might need my help.” He frowned. “Hey. You’re doing this on purpose. You’re trying to keep me out of it to protect me, you…sneaky little bitch.”
“It works out that way,” I said. “Think of it as payback for those painkillers.”
He grimaced at me, then nodded.
“And thank you,” I said quietly. “You were right. I needed the rest.”
“Of course I was right,” Thomas said. “You looked like you were about to pass out. You still don’t look great.”
“I’m hungry. Did you make those pancakes for breakfast, or are they only decorative?”
“Go ahead and mock,” Thomas said. He slapped a bunch of pancakes onto a plate and brought it over to the table along with a plastic bottle of maple syrup. “Here. Happy birthday.”
I blinked at the pancakes and then up at him.
“I’d have gotten you a present, but…” He shrugged.
“No,” I said. “I mean, no, that’s okay. I’m surprised you remembered at all. No one has remembered my birthday since Susan left town.”
Thomas got himself a plate and left the rest on a third plate for Butters. He sat down at the table and started eating them without syrup. “Don’t make a big thing of it. I’m sort of surprised I remembered it myself.” He nodded at the world in general. “So you think Grevane and the Corpsetaker are the ones who turned the lights out?”
I shook my head. “They were both stretching themselves by keeping so many undead under their control. That’s why the Corpsetaker went after Grevane with a sword, and why he defended himself physically.”
“Then who did it?”
“Cowl,” I said. “He made himself scarce last night. My guess is that he was too busy setting it up to take a swing at Grevane or the Corpsetaker.”
> “Why Cowl?”
“Because this is a major hex, man. If you’d have asked me yesterday, I wouldn’t have thought this was possible. I don’t know how he did it, but…” I shivered. “His magic is stronger than mine. And from what I saw of his technique, he’s a hell of a lot more skilled, too. If he’s as good at thaumaturgy as he is at evocation, he’s the most dangerous wizard I’ve ever seen.”
“I’m not sure how he did it matters as much as why,” Thomas said.
I nodded. “He gets a lot of advantages. Paralyzes human power structures. Keeps cops and so on too busy to interfere with whatever they’re doing.”
“But that’s not the only reason. You said something about preparing the way?”
“Yeah.” I finished a large bite of syrupy pancake goodness. “Black magic is tied in pretty closely with a lot of negative emotions—especially fear. So if you do something that scares a whole lot of people, you get an environment that is better for black magic. This stunt is going to cause havoc. Make a lot of people worry. It will help with the heirs’ major mojo tonight.”
“You’re sure it’s tonight?”
I nodded. “Pretty much. It’s Halloween. The barriers between the mortal world and the spirit world are at their weakest. They’ll be able to call up the most spirits to devour tonight. All the acts of black magic they’ve been working around town were also part of that preparation. Creating spiritual turbulence. Making it easier to use larger and larger amounts of black magic.”
Thomas ate several bites while I listened. Then he said, “How are you going to contact the Council with the phones out?”
“Alternative channels,” I said. “I’ll call up a messenger.”
“Meanwhile,” Thomas said, his voice a little bitter, “I will stay here and do…nothing.”
“No, you won’t,” I said. “Because you’re going to be figuring out where they can call up the most old spirits. Not only that, but I’m leaving you a copy of Bony Tony’s code numbers. Figure out what they mean.”
He toyed with a bit of pancake. “Old spirits would come from a graveyard, right?”
