by Jim Butcher
“I’m hit, aren’t I?” Butters stuttered. “I’m in shock. I can’t feel it because I’m in shock. Right? Was it in the liver? Is the blood black? Call emergency services!”
“Butters,” I said. “Look at me.”
He did, his eyes wide.
“Polka,” I said, “will never die.”
He blinked at me. Then he nodded and started forcing himself to take slower, deeper breaths. “I’m all right?”
“The magic underwear worked,” I said. “You’re fine.”
“Then why does my back hurt so much?”
“Somebody just hit it twice with a hammer moving about twelve hundred feet per second,” I said.
“Oh,” he said. He turned to look at Molly, who nodded at him and gave him an encouraging smile. Then he shuddered and closed his eyes in relief. “I don’t think I’m temperamentally suited for the action thing.”
“Yeah. Since when are you the guy in the bulletproof vest?” I asked him.
Butters nodded at Molly. “I put it on about ten seconds after she called me and said you needed help,” he said. He fumbled a small case from his pocket and opened it. “See? I got chalk, and holy water, and garlic, too.”
I smiled at him, but felt a little bit sick. The gunman had put Butters down for the simple reason that he had been blocking the shooter’s line of sight to the room. If he’d been trying for Butters, the two shots to clear his sight line would have included a third shot to the back of Butters’s head. Of course, if Butters hadn’t been in the way, my head wouldn’t have fared any better than his.
We’re all so damned fragile.
Footsteps sounded outside the door, and I raised the gun to cover it, taking a grip with both hands, my feet centered. I was lining up the little green targeting dots when Sanya came through the door carrying a platter of sandwiches. He stopped abruptly and lifted both eyebrows, then beamed broadly. “Dresden! You are all right.” He looked around the room for a moment, frowning, and said, “Did I miss something? Who is that?”
“I don’t think there’s anything broken,” Butters told Forthill, “but you’d better get an X-ray, just to be sure. Mandibular fracture isn’t anything to play around with.”
The old priest nodded from his chair in the living quarters of the church’s residents, and wrote something down on a little pad of paper. He showed it to Butters.
The little guy grinned. “You’re welcome, Father.”
Molly frowned and asked, “Should we take him to the emergency room?”
Forthill shook his head and wrote on his notepad: Things to tell you first.
Now I had a pair of guns I’d swiped from bad guys: the security guard’s .40-caliber and the gunman’s nine- millimeter. I was inspecting them both on the coffee table, familiarizing myself with their function, and wondering if I should be planning to file off the serial numbers or something. Mouse sat next to me, his flank against my leg and his serious brown eyes watching me handle the weapons.
“You found out something?” I asked Forthill.
In a way, he wrote back. There are major movements afoot throughout South and Central America. The Red Court’s upper echelon uses human servitors to interface with mortals. Many of these individuals have been sighted at airports in the past three days. All of them are bound for Mexico. Does Chichén Itzá have any significance to you?
I grunted. Donar Vadderung’s information seemed to have been solid, then. “Yeah, it does.”
Forthill nodded and continued writing. There is a priest in that area. He cannot help you with your fight, but he says he can offer you and your people sanctuary, care, and secure transportation from the area when you are finished.
“It seems like begging for trouble to plan for our victorious departure before we know if we can get there in the first place,” I said. “I can get us to the general area, but not into the ruins themselves. I need to know anything he can find out about the security the Red Court will be setting up in the area.”
Forthill frowned at me for a moment. Then he wrote, I’ll ask him. But I’ll need someone to talk for me.
I nodded. “Molly, you’re with the padre. Get a little sleep as soon as you can. Might not get a chance to before we move out, otherwise.”
She frowned but nodded instead of trying to talk me out of it. It’s nice how brushes with violent death can concentrate even the most stubbornly independent apprentice’s better judgment.
Forthill held up a hand. Then he wrote, First, I need to know how it is that you are back on your feet. Dr. Butters said that you would be too injured to get out of bed.
“Magic,” I said calmly, as if that should explain everything.
Forthill eyed me for a moment. Then wrote, I hurt too much to argue with you. Will make the calls.
“Thank you,” I said quietly.
He nodded and wrote, God go with you.
“Thank you,” I repeated.
“What about me?” Butters asked. There were equal measures of dread and excitement in his voice.
“Hopefully, we won’t need any more of your help,” I said. “Might be nice if you were standing by, though. Just in case.”
“Right,” Butters said, nodding. “What else?”
I clenched a hand and resisted the urge to tell him that he would be better off hiding under his bed. He knew that already. He was as frightened as a bunny in a forest full of bears, but he wanted to help. “I think Father Forthill has a car. Yes, Father?”
He started to write something, then scratched it out and held out his hand in a simple thumbs-up.
“Stay with them,” I said. I slapped magazines into both guns, confident that I knew them well enough to be sure they’d go bang when I pulled the trigger. “Soon as Forthill is done, get him to an emergency room.”
“Emergency room,” Butters said. “Check.”
Forthill frowned and wrote, Are you certain we shouldn’t turn our attacker over to the police?
“Nothing in life is certain, Father,” I said, rising. I stuck a gun in either pocket of my duster. “But if the police get involved, they’re going to ask a lot of questions and take a long time trying to sort everything out. I can’t spare that time.”
You don’t think this gunman will go to the authorities?
“And tell them what?” I asked. “That he got kidnapped off the street by a priest from St. Mary’s? That we beat him up and took his illegal weapon away?” I shook my head. “He doesn’t want the cops involved any more than we do. This was business to him. He’ll make a deal to fess up to us if it means he gets to walk.”
And we let a murderer go free?
“It’s an imperfect world, Father,” I said. “On the other hand, you don’t hire professional killers to take out nice old ladies and puppy dogs. Most of the people this guy has an appointment with are underworld types—I guarantee it—mostly those who are going to turn state’s evidence on their organization. Sooner or later one of them gets lucky, and no more hit man.”
Live by the sword, die by the sword, Forthill wrote.
“Exactly.”
He shook his head and winced as the motion caused him discomfort. It will be hard to help a man like that.
I snorted. “It’s a noble sentiment, padre, but a guy like him doesn’t want any help. Doesn’t see any need for it.” I shrugged. “Some men just enjoy killing.”
He frowned severely, but didn’t write down any response. Just then, someone rapped on the door, and Sanya opened it and poked his head in. “Dresden,” the Knight said. “He’s awake.”
I rose, and Mouse rose with me. “Cool. Maybe get started on those calls, padre.”
Forthill gave me another thumbs-up rather than nodding. I walked out, Mouse stolid at my back, and went to the utility closet with Sanya to talk to our . . . guest, I suppose.
The blocky hit man lay on the backboard, strapped down to it, and further secured in a cocoon of duct tape.
“Stand him up,” I said.
Sanya did
so, rather casually lifting the gunman, backboard and all, and leaning it back at a slight angle against the wall.
The gunman watched me with calm eyes. I picked up a wallet from the little folding card table we had set up and opened it. “Steven Douglas,” I read from the license. “That you?”
“Stevie D,” he said.
“Heard of you,” I said. “You did Torelli a couple of years back.”
He smiled, very slightly. “I don’t know any Torelli.”
“Yeah, I figured,” I said.
“How is he?” Stevie D asked.
“Who?”
“The little guy.”
“Fine,” I said. “Wearing a vest.”
Stevie D nodded. “Good.”
I lifted an eyebrow. “Professional killer is happy he didn’t kill someone?”
“Had nothing against him. Wasn’t getting paid for him. Don’t wanna do time for hitting the wrong guy. Isn’t professional. But everything I heard about you said I shouldn’t dick around waiting to get the shot off, so I had to get him out of the way.”
“Stevie,” I said, “this can go a couple of different ways. The simplest is that you give me who hired you, and I let you go.”
His eyes narrowed. “No cops?”
I gestured at his bound form with one hand. “Does it look like we want cops all over this? Spill and you’re loose as fast as we can take the tape off.”
He thought about it for a moment. Then he said, “Nah.”
“No?”
He made a motion that might have been a shrug. “Did that for you, I might never work again. People get nervous when a contractor divulges personal information about their clients. I gotta think long-term.”
I nodded. “I can respect that. Honoring a bargain and all.”
He snorted softly.
“So we can go to option two. I’m going to go call Marcone. I’m going to tell him what happened. I’m going to ask him if he’s interested in talking to you, Stevie. I’m sure he’ll want to know who is purchasing hits in his territory, too. What impact will that have on your long-term productivity, do you think?”
Stevie’s nerve cracked. He licked his lips. “Um,” he said. “What’s option three?”
Sanya stepped forward. He beamed at Stevie D, picked the backboard up off the floor without too much trouble, and in his lowest voice and thickest Russian accent said, “I pick up this board, break in half, and put both halves into incinerator.”
Stevie D looked like a man who suddenly realizes he is sitting near a hornets’ nest and is trying desperately not to run away screaming. He licked his lips again and said, “Half of what I hear about you says Marcone wants you dead, that you hate his guts. The other half says you work for him sometimes. Kill the people he thinks need killing.”
“I wouldn’t pay much attention to rumors if I were you, Stevie,” I said.
“Which is it?” he asked.
“Find out,” I said. “Don’t tell me anything.”
Sanya put him back down again. I stood facing him expectantly.
“Okay,” he said, finally. “A broad.”
“Woman, huh. Who?”
“No name. Paid cash.”
“Describe her.”
Stevie nodded. “Five-nine, long legs, brown eyes,” he said. “Some muscle on her, weighed maybe one fifty. Long dark hair. Had these tattoos on her face and neck.”
My heart just about stopped in my chest.
I closed down every doorway and window in my head, to shut out the gale that was suddenly whipping up in my heart. I had to stay focused. I couldn’t afford to let the sudden tide of emotion drown my ability to think clearly.
I reached into my pocket and drew out my own wallet. I’d kept a picture of Susan in there for so long that when I pulled it out some of the image’s colors stuck to the plastic sleeve. I showed him the picture.
The hit man squinted and nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “That’s her.”
Chapter Thirty-three
“Give me the details,” I said quietly.
“She said you’d be here. Gave me twenty thousand up front, twenty more held in escrow until delivery was confirmed.”
Mouse made a soft, uncomfortable noise that never quite became a whine. He sat watching my face intently.
“When?” I asked.
“Last night.”
I stared at him for a moment. Then I tossed Stevie’s wallet back onto the folding card table and said, “Cut him loose. Walk him to the door.”
Sanya let out what seemed like a disappointed sigh. Then he produced a knife and began cutting Stevie free.
I walked down the hall, back toward the living area with my head bowed, thinking furiously.
Susan had hired a gunman to kill me. Why?
I stopped walking and leaned against a wall. Why would she hire someone to kill me? Or, hell, more to the point—why would she hire a gunman to kill me? Why not someone who stood a greater chance of success?
Granted, a gunman could kill even a wizard if he were taken by surprise. But pistols had to be fired at dangerously short ranges to be reliable, and Stevie D had a reputation as a brazen sidearm specialist. It meant that the wizard would have more time to see something bad coming, as opposed to being warned only when a high-powered rifle round hit his chest, and would have an easier time responding with hasty defensive magic. It was hardly an ideal approach.
If Susan wanted me dead, she wouldn’t really need to contract it out. A pretext to get me alone and another one to put us very close to each other would just about do it. And I’d never see that one coming.
Something about this just wasn’t right. I’d have called Stevie a liar, but I didn’t think he was one. I was sure he believed what he was saying.
So. Either Stevie was lying and I was just too dim to pick up on it, or he was telling the truth. If he was lying, given what kind of hot water I could get him into, he was also an idiot. I didn’t think he was one of those. If he was telling the truth, it meant . . .
It meant that either Susan really had hired someone to kill me, or else someone who could look like Susan had done business with Stevie D. If Susan had hired someone to kill me, why this guy, in particular? Why hire someone who didn’t have better than even chances of pulling it off? That was more the kind of thing Esteban and Esmerelda would come up with.
That worked a lot better. Esmerelda’s blue and green eyes could have made Stevie remember being hired by Mister Snuffleupagus, if that was what she wanted. But how would she have known where to find me? Had they somehow managed to tail Sanya back to the church from my apartment without being noticed by Mouse?
And just where the hell were Susan and Martin? They’d had more than enough time to get here. So why weren’t they?
Someone was running a game on me. If I didn’t start getting some answers to these questions, I had a bad feeling that it was going to turn around and bite me on the ass at the worst moment imaginable.
Right, then.
I guessed that meant it was time to go get some answers.
Paranoia is a survival trait when you run in my circles. It gives you something to do in your spare time, coming up with solutions to ridiculous problems that aren’t ever going to happen. Except when one of them does, at which point you feel way too vindicated.
For instance, I had spent more than a couple of off hours trying to figure out how I might track someone through Chicago if I didn’t have some kind of object or possession of theirs to use as a focus. Basic tracking magic is completely dependent upon having a sample of whoever it is you want to follow. Hair, blood, and nail clippings are the usual thing. But let’s say you don’t have any of those, and you still want to find someone. If you have a sample of something in their possession, a piece snipped from their clothing, the tag just torn out of their underwear, whatever, you can get them that way, too.
But let’s say things are hectic and crazy and someone has just burned down your house and your lab and you still need
to follow somebody.
That’s when you need a good, clear photograph. And minions. Lots of minions. Preferably ones who don’t demand exorbitant wages.
There’s a Pizza ’Spress less than two blocks from St. Mary’s. Sanya and I went straight there. I ordered.
“I do not see how this helps us,” Sanya said, as I walked out from the little shop with four boxes of pizza.
“You’re used to solving all your problems the simple way,” I said. “Kick down the door, chop up everybody who looks fiendish, save everyone who looks like they might need it. Yeah?”
“It is not always that simple,” Sanya said, rather stiffly. “And sometimes I use a gun.”
“Which I applaud you for, very progressive,” I said. “But the point is, you do your work directly. You pretty much know where you’re going, or get shown the way, and after that it’s just up to you to take care of business.”
“Da,” Sanya said as we walked. “I suppose.”
“My work is sort of the same,” I said. “Except that nobody ever points the way for me.”
“You need to know where to go,” Sanya said.
“Yes.”
“And you are going to consult four large pizzas for guidance.”
“Yes,” I said.
The big man frowned for a moment. Then he said, “There is, I think, humor here which does not translate well from English into sanity.”
“That’s pretty rich coming from the agnostic Knight of the Cross with a holy Sword who takes his orders from an archangel,” I said.
“Gabriel could be an alien being of some kind,” Sanya said placidly. “It does not change the value of what I do—not to me and not to those whom I protect.”
“Whom,” I said, with as much Russian accent as I could fit into one word. “Someone’s been practicing his English.”
Sanya somehow managed to look down his nose at me, despite the fact that I was several inches taller. “I am only saying that I do not need the written code of a spiritual belief to act like a decent human being.”
