by Jim Butcher
I looked at the gift popcorn tin in the corner by the door, where my staff and rod were settled, along with my practice fighting staff, an uncarved double of my wizardly tool, my sword cane, an umbrella, and the wooden cane sheath of Fidelacchius, one of the three swords borne by Michael and his brothers in arms.
The sword’s last wielder had told me that I was to keep it and pass it on to the next Knight. He said I would know who, and when. And then the sword sat there in my popcorn tin for years. When my house had been invaded by bad guys, they’d overlooked it. Thomas, who had lived with me for almost two years, had never touched it or commented on it. I wasn’t sure that he’d ever noticed it, either. It just sat there, waiting.
I glanced at the sword, and then up at the roof. If God wanted to throw a little help our way, now would be a good time to get that foreordained knowledge of who to give the sword to, at least. Not that it would do us all that much good, I supposed. With or without Fidelacchius, we had a fair amount of power of the ass-kicking variety. What we needed was knowledge. Without knowledge, all the ass kicking in the world wouldn’t help.
I watched the sword for a minute, just in case.
No light show. No sound effects. Not even a burst of vague intuition. I guess that wasn’t the kind of help Heaven was dishing out at the moment.
I settled back in my chair. Charity had returned to her quiet prayers. I tried to think thoughts that wouldn’t clash, and hoped that God wouldn’t hold it against Molly that I was on her side.
I glanced back over my shoulder. Thomas had listened to the whole thing with an almost supernatural quality of noninvolvement. He was watching Charity with troubled eyes. He traded a glance with me that seemed to mirror most of what I was feeling. Then he brought everyone a cup of tea, and faded immediately back to the kitchen alcove again while Charity prayed.
Maybe ten minutes later, Murphy knocked at the door and then opened it. Besides Thomas, she was the only person I’d entrusted with an amulet that would let her through my wards without harm. She wore one of her usual work outfits: black jacket, white shirt, dark pants, comfortable shoes. Grey predawn light backlit her. She took a look around the place, frowning, before she shut the door. “What’s happened?”
I brought her up to speed, finishing with my failure to locate the girl’s trail.
“So you’re trying to find Molly?” Murphy asked. “With a spell?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“I thought that was pretty routine for you,” Murphy said. “I mean, I can think of four or five times at least you’ve done that.”
I shook my head. “That’s tracking down where something is. I’m looking for where Molly’s been. It’s a different bag of snakes.”
“Why?” Murphy asked. “Why not go straight to her?”
“Because the fetches have taken her back home with them,” I said. “She’s in the Nevernever. I can’t zero in on her there. The best I can do is to try to find where they crossed over, follow them across, and use a regular tracking spell once I’m through.”
“Oh.” She frowned and walked over to me. “And for that you need her hair?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Which we don’t have. So we’re stuck.”
She chewed on her lip. “Couldn’t you use something else?”
“Nail clippings,” I said. “Or blood, if it was fresh enough.”
“Uh-huh,” Murphy said. She nodded at Charity. “What about her blood?”
“What?” I said.
“She’s the girl’s mother,” Murphy said. “Blood of her blood. Wouldn’t that work?”
“No,” I said.
“Oh,” Murphy said. “Why not?”
“Because…” I frowned. “Uh…” I looked up at Charity for a moment. Actually, there was a magical connection between parents and children. A strong one. My mother had worked a spell linked to Thomas and me that would confirm to us that we were brothers. The connection had been established, even though she had been the only common parent between us. The blood connection was the deepest known to magic. “It might work,” I said quietly. I thought about it some more and breathed, “Stars and stones, not just work. Actually, for this spell, it might work better.”
Charity said nothing, but her eyes glowed with that steady, unmovable strength. I thought to myself, That’s what faith looks like.
I nodded my head to her in a bow of acknowledgment.
Then I turned to Murphy and gave her a jubilant kiss on the mouth.
Murphy blinked in total surprise.
“Yes!” I whooped, laughing. “Murphy, you rock! Go team Dresden!”
“Hey, I’m the one who rocks,” she said. “Go team Murphy.”
Thomas snorted. Even Charity had a small smile, though her eyes were closed and her head was bowed again, murmuring thanks, presumably to the Almighty.
Murphy had asked the exact question I’d needed to hear to tip me off to the answer. Help from above? I was not above taking help from on high, and given whose child was in danger it was entirely possible that divine intervention was precisely what had happened. I touched the brim of my mental hat and nodded my gratitude vaguely heavenward, and then turned to hurry back to the lab. “Charity, I presume you’re willing to donate for the cause?”
“Of course,” she said.
“Then we’re in business. Get ready to move, people. This will only take me a minute.”
I stopped and put a hand on Charity’s shoulder. “And then we’re going to get your daughter back.”
“Yes,” she murmured, looking up at me with fire in her eyes. “Yes, we are.”
This time, the spell worked. I should have known where the fetches had found the swiftest passage from their realm to Chicago. It was one of those things that, in retrospect, was obvious.
Charity’s minivan pulled into the little parking lot behind Clark Pell’s rundown old movie theater. It was out of view of the street. The sun had risen on our way there, though heavy cloud cover and grumbling thunder promised unusually bad weather for so early in the day. That shouldn’t have surprised me either. When the Queens of Faerie were moving around backstage, the weather quite often seemed to reflect their presence.
Murphy pulled her car in right behind the minivan and parked beside it.
“All right Murph, Thomas,” I said, getting out of the van. “Faerie Fighting 101.”
“I know, Harry,” Thomas said.
“Yeah, but I’m going to go over it anyway, so listen up. We’re heading into the Nevernever. We’ve got some wicked faeries to handle, which means we have to be prepared for illusions.” I rummaged in my backpack and came out with a small jar. “This is an ointment that should let you see through most of their bullshit.” I went to Thomas and slapped some on him, then did Murphy’s eyes, and then did my own. The ointment was my own mixture, based on the one the Gatekeeper used. Mine smelled better, but stained the skin it touched with a heavy brown-black tone. I started to put the jar away. “After we—”
Charity calmly took the jar from my hands, opened it, and put ointment on her own eyes.
“What are you doing?” I asked her.
“I’m preparing to take back my daughter,” she said.
“You aren’t going with us,” I told her.
“Yes, I am.”
“No, you’re not. Charity, this is seriously dangerous. We can’t afford to babysit you.”
Charity put the lid back on the jar and dropped it into my backpack. Then she opened the sliding door on the minivan and drew out a pair of heavy-duty plastic storage bins. She opened the first, and calmly peeled out of her pullover jersey.
I noted a couple of things. First, that Charity had won some kind of chromosomal lottery when it came to the body department. She wore a sports bra beneath the sweater, and she looked like she could have modeled it if she cared to do so. Molly had definitely gotten her looks from her mother.
The second thing I noticed was Charity’s arms. She had broad shoulders, for a woman, but he
r arms were heavy with muscle and toned. Her forearms, especially, looked lean and hard, muscles easily seen shifting beneath tight skin. I traded a glance with Murphy, who looked impressed. I just watched Charity for a minute, frowning.
Charity took an arming jacket from the first tub. It wasn’t some beat-up old relic, either. It was a neat, quilted garment, heavy black cotton over the quilting, which was backed by what looked a lot like Kevlar ballistic fabric. She pulled it on, belted it into place, and then withdrew an honest-to-God coat of mail from the tub. She slipped into it and fastened half a dozen clasps with the swift assurance of long practice. A heavy sword belt came next, securing the mail coat. Then she pulled on a tight-fitting cap made in the same manner as the jacket, tucking her braided hair up into it, and then slipped a ridged steel helmet onto her head.
She opened the second tub and drew out a straight sword with a cruciform hilt. The weapon was only slightly more slender and shorter than Michael’s blessed blade, but after she inspected the blade for notches or rust, she flicked it around a few times as lightly as she would a rolled-up newspaper, then slid the weapon into the sheath on the sword belt. She tucked a pair of heavy chain gloves through the belt. Finally, she took a hammer from the big tub. It had a steel-bound handle about four feet long, and mounted a head almost as large as a sledgehammer’s, backed by a wicked-looking spike.
She put the hammer over her shoulder, balancing its weight with one arm, and turned to me. She looked ferocious, so armed and armored, and the heavy black stain around her eyes didn’t do anything to soften the image. Ferocious, hell. She looked competent—and dangerous.
Everyone just stared at her.
She arched a golden eyebrow. “I make all of my husband’s armor,” she said calmly, “as well as his spare weaponry. By hand.”
“Uh,” I said. No wonder she was buff. “You know how to fight, too?”
She looked at me as though I was a dim-witted child. “My husband didn’t become a master swordsman by osmosis. He works hard at it. Who did you suppose he’s practiced against for the last twenty years?” Her eyes smoldered again, a direct challenge to me. “These creatures have taken my Molly. And I will not remain here while she is in danger.”
“Ma’am,” Murphy said quietly. “Practice is very different from the real thing.”
Charity nodded. “This won’t be my first fight.”
Murphy frowned for a moment, and then turned a troubled glance to me. I glanced at Thomas, who was facing away, a little apart from the rest of us, staying out of the decision-making process.
Charity stood there with that warhammer over one shoulder, her weight planted, her eyes determined.
“Hell’s bells,” I sighed. “Okay, John Henry, you’re on the team.” I waved a hand and went back to the briefing. “Faeries hate and fear the touch of iron, and that includes steel. It burns them and neutralizes their magic.”
“There are extra weapons in the tub, as well as additional coats of mail,” Charity offered. “Though they might not fit you terribly well, Lieutenant Murphy.”
Charity had thought ahead. I was glad one of us had. “Mail coat is just the thing for discouraging nasty faerie beasties with claws.”
Murphy looked skeptical. “I don’t want to break up the Battle of Hastings dress theme, Harry, but I find guns generally more useful than swords. Are you serious about this?”
“You might not be able to rely on your guns,” I told her. “Reality doesn’t work the same way in the Nevernever, and it doesn’t always warn you when it’s changing the rules. It’s common to find areas of Faerie where gunpowder is noncombustible.”
“You’re kidding,” she said.
“Nope. Get some steel on you. There’s not a thing the faeries can do about that. It’s the biggest edge mortals have on them.”
“The only edge,” Charity corrected. She passed me a sleeveless mail shirt, probably the only one that would fit me. I dumped my leather duster, armored myself, and then put the duster back on over the mail. Murphy shook her head, then she and Thomas collected mail and weaponry of their own.
“Couple more things,” I said. “Once we’re inside, don’t eat or drink anything. Don’t accept any gifts, or any offers from a faerie interested in making a deal. You don’t want to wind up owing favors to one of the Sidhe, believe you me.” I frowned, thinking. Then I took a deep breath and said, “One thing more. Each of us must do everything possible to control our fear.”
Murphy frowned at me. “What do you mean?”
“We can’t afford to carry in too much fear with us. The fetches feed on it. It makes them stronger. If we go in there without keeping our fear under control, they’ll sense a meal coming. We’re all afraid, but we can’t let it control our thoughts, actions, or decisions. Try to keep your breathing steady and remain as calm as you can.”
Murphy nodded, frowning faintly.
“All right, then. Everyone hat up and sing out when you’re good to go.”
I watched as Murphy got her gear into place. Charity helped her secure the armor. Her mail was a short-sleeved shirt, maybe one of Charity’s spare suits. She’d compensated for the oversize armor by belting it in tight, but the short sleeves fell to her elbows, and the hem reached most of the way to her knees. Murphy looked like a kid dressing up in an adult’s clothes.
Her expression grew calm and distant as she worked, the way it did when she was focused on shooting, or in the middle of one of her five trillion and three formal katas. I closed my eyes and tentatively pushed my magical senses toward her. I could feel the energy in her, the life, pulsing and steady. There were tremors in it, here and there, but there was no screaming beacon of violent terror that would trumpet our approach to the bad guys.
Not that I thought there would be. What she lacked in height, she more than made up for in guts. On the other hand, Murphy had never been in the Nevernever, and even though Faerie was as normal a place as you can find there, it could get pretty weird. Despite training, discipline, and determination, novice deepwater divers can never be sure that they will remain free from the onset of the condition called “pressure sickness.” The Nevernever was much the same. You can’t tell how someone is going to react the first time they fall down the rabbit hole.
Thomas, being Thomas, made the mail into a fashion statement. He wore black clothing, black combat boots, and the arming jacket and mail somehow managed to go with the rest of his wardrobe. He had his saber on his belt on his left side, carried the shotgun in his right hand, and made the whole ensemble look like an upper-class version of The Road Warrior.
I checked on Thomas with my wizard’s senses, too. His presence had never been fully human, but like the other members of the White Court, the vampiric aspects of him were not obvious to casual observation, not even to wizards. There was something feline about his aura, the same quality I would expect in a hungry leopard waiting patiently for the next meal to approach; enormous power held in perfect balance. There was a darker portion of him, too, the part I’d always associated with the demonic presence that made him a vampire, a black and bitter well of energy, equal parts lust, hunger, and self-loathing. Thomas was no fool—he was certainly afraid. But the fear couldn’t be sensed under that still, black surface.
Charity, after she finished helping Murphy, stepped back from her and went to her knees in the parking lot. She folded her hands in her lap, bowed her head, and continued praying. Around her I felt a kind of ambient warmth, as though she knelt in her own personal sunbeam, the same kind of energy that had always characterized her husband’s presence. Faith, I suppose. She was afraid, too, but it wasn’t the primitive survival fear the fetches required. Her fear was for her daughter; for her safety, her future, her happiness. And as I watched her, I saw her lips form my name, then Thomas’s, then Murphy’s.
Charity was more afraid for us than herself.
Right there, I promised myself that I would get her back home with her daughter, back to her family and her husband
, safe and sound and whole. I would not, by God, hesitate for a heartbeat to do whatever was necessary to make my friend’s family whole again.
I checked myself out, taking inventory. Leather duster, ill-fitting mail shirt, staff, and blasting rod, check. Shield bracelet and amulet, check. My abused left hand ached a little, and what I could feel of it felt stiff—but I could move my fingers. My head hurt. My limbs felt a little bit shaky with fatigue. I had to hope that adrenaline would kick in and make that problem go away when it counted.
“Everyone good to go?” I asked.
Murphy nodded. Thomas drawled, “Yep.”
Charity rose and said, “Ready.”
“Let me sweep the outside of the building first,” I said. “This is their doorway home. It’s possible that they’ve got the place booby-trapped, or that they’ve set up wards. Once I clear it, we’ll go in.”
I trudged off to walk a slow circle around Pell’s theater. I let my fingertips drag along the side of the building, closed my eyes most of the way, and extended my wizard’s senses into the structure. It wasn’t a quick process, but I tried not to dawdle, either. As I walked, I sensed a kind of trapped, suffocated energy bouncing around inside the building—leakage from the Nevernever probably, from when the fetches took Molly across. But several times I also felt tiny, malevolent surges of energy, too random and mobile to be spells or wards. Their presence was disturbingly similar to that of the fetch I’d destroyed in the hotel.
I came back to where I’d begun about ten minutes later.
“Anything?” Thomas asked.
“No wards. No mystic land mines,” I told him. “But I think there’s something in there.”
“Like what?”
“Like fetches,” I said. “Smaller than the big ones we’re after, and probably set to guard the doorway between here and the Nevernever.”
“They’ll try to ambush us when we go in,” Murphy said.
“Probably,” I said. “But if we know about it, we can turn it against them. When they come, hit them fast and hard, even if it seems like overkill. We can’t afford any injuries.”
