Brief Cases

by Jim Butcher

  Or wait: Soccer is the one with hooligans. Drunken American football fans are just … drunks, I guess.

  River had provided me with a small dossier he’d had prepared, which included a copy of his kid’s class schedule. I parked my car in an open spot on the street not too far from campus and ambled on over. I got some looks; I sort of stand out in a crowd. I’m a lot closer to seven feet tall than six, which might be one reason why River Shoulders liked to hire me—I look a lot less tiny than other humans to him. Add in the big black leather duster and the scar on my face, and I looked like the kind of guy you’d want to avoid in dark alleys.

  The university campus was as confusing as all of them are, with buildings that had constantly evolved into and out of multiple roles over the years. They were all named after people I doubt any of the students had ever heard of or cared about, and there seemed to be no organizational logic at all at work there. It was a pretty enough campus, I supposed. Lots of redbrick and brownstone buildings. Lots of architectural doohickeys on many of the buildings, in a kind of quasiclassical Greek style. The ivy that was growing up many of the walls seemed a little too cultivated and obvious for my taste. Then again, I had exactly the same amount of regard for the Ivy League as I did for the Big 12. The grass was an odd color, like maybe someone had sprayed it with a blue-green dye or something, though I had no idea what kind of delusional creep would do something so pointless.

  And, of course, there were students—a whole lot of kids, all of them with things to do and places to be. I could have wandered around all day, but I thought I’d save myself the headache of attempting to apply logic to a university campus and stopped a few times to ask for directions. Irwin Pounder, River Shoulders’s son, had a physics course at noon, so I picked up a notebook and a couple of pens at the university bookstore and ambled on into the large classroom. It was a perfect disguise. The notebook was college ruled.

  I sat near the back, where I could see both doors into the room, and waited. Bigfoot Irwin was going to stand out in the crowd almost as badly as I did. The kid was huge. River had shown me a photo he kept in his medicine bag, carefully laminated to protect it from the elements. Irwin’s mom could have been a second-string linebacker for the Bears. Helena Pounder was a formidable woman, and over six feet tall. But her boy was a head taller than she already, and still had the awkward, too-lean look of someone who wasn’t finished growing. His shoulders had come in, though, and it looked like he might have had to turn sideways to walk through doors.

  I waited and waited, watching both doors, until the professor arrived and the class started. Irwin never arrived. I was going to leave, but it actually turned out to be kind of interesting. The professor was a lunatic but a really entertaining one. The guy drank liquid nitrogen, right there in front of everybody, and blew it out his nose in this huge jet of vapor. I applauded along with everyone else, and before I knew it, the lecture was over. I might even have learned something.

  Okay.

  Maybe there were some redeeming qualities to a college education.

  I went to Irwin’s next class, which was a freshman biology course, in another huge classroom.

  No Irwin.

  He wasn’t at his four o’clock math class, either, and I emerged from it bored and cranky. None of Irwin’s other teachers held a candle to Dr. Indestructo.

  Huh.

  Time for plan B.

  River’s dossier said that Irwin was playing football for OU. He’d made the team as a walk-on, and River had been as proud as any father would be about the athletic prowess of his son. So I ambled on over to the Sooners’ practice field, where the team was warming up with a run.

  Even among the football players, Irwin stood out. He was half a head taller than any of them, at least my own height. He looked gangly and thin beside the fellows around him, even with the shoulder pads on, but I recognized his face. I’d last seen him when he was about fourteen. Though his rather homely features had changed a bit, they seemed stronger and more defined. There was no mistaking his dark, intelligent eyes.

  I stuck my hands in the pockets of my old leather duster and waited, watching the field. I’d found the kid, and, absent any particular danger, I was in no particular hurry. There was no sense in charging into the middle of Irwin’s football practice and his life and disrupting everything. I’m just not that kind of guy.

  Okay, well.

  I try not to be.

  “Seems to keep happening, though, doesn’t it,” I said to myself. “You show up on somebody’s radar, and things go to DEFCON 1 a few minutes later.”

  “I’m sorry?” said a young woman’s voice.

  “AH,” SAID OFFICER Dean. “This is where the girl comes in.”

  “Who said there was a girl?”

  “There’s always a girl.”

  “Well,” I said, “yes and no.”

  SHE WAS BLOND, about five foot six, and my logical mind told me that every inch of her was a bad idea. The rest of me, especially my hindbrain, suggested that she would be an ideal mate. Preferably sooner rather than later.

  There was nothing in particular about her that should have caused my hormones to rage. I mean, she was young and fit, and she had the body of the young and fit, and that’s hardly ever unpleasant to look at. She had eyes the color of cornflowers and rosy cheeks, and she was a couple of notches above cute, when it came to her face. She was wearing running shorts, and her legs were smooth and generally excellent.

  Some women just have it. And no, I can’t tell you what it means because I don’t get it myself. It was something mindless, something chemical, and even as my metaphorically burned fingers were telling me to walk away, the rest of me was going through that male physiological response the science guys in the Netherlands have documented recently.

  Not that one.

  Well, maybe a little.

  I’m talking about the response where when a pretty girl is around, it hits the male brain like a drug and temporarily impairs his cognitive function, literally dropping the male IQ.

  And, hey, how Freudian is it that the study was conducted in the Netherlands?

  This girl dropped that IQ nuke on my brain, and I was standing there staring a second later while she smiled uncertainly at me.

  “Um, sorry?” I asked. “My mind was in the Netherlands.”

  Her dimple deepened, and her eyes sparkled. She knew all about the brain nuke. “I just said that you sounded like a dangerous guy.” She winked at me. It was adorable. “I like those.”

  “You’re, uh. You’re into bad boys, eh?”

  “Maybe,” she said, lowering her voice and drawing the word out a little, as if it was a confession. She spoke with a very faint drawl. “Plus, I like meeting new people from all kinds of places, and you don’t exactly strike me as a local, darlin’.”

  “You dig dangerous guys who are just passing through,” I said. “Do you ever watch those cop shows on TV?”

  She tilted back her head and laughed. “Most boys don’t give me lip like that in the first few minutes of conversation.”

  “I’m not a boy,” I said.

  She gave me a once-over with those pretty eyes, taking a heartbeat longer about it than she really needed. “No,” she said. “No, you are not.”

  My inner nonmoron kept on stubbornly ringing alarm bells, and the rest of me slowly became aware of them. My glands thought that I’d better keep playing along. It was the only way to find out what the girl might have been interested in, right? Right. I was absolutely not continuing the conversation because I had gone soft in the head.

  “I hope that’s not a problem,” I said.

  “I just don’t see how it could be. I’m Connie.”

  “Harry.”

  “So what brings you to Norman, Harry?”

  “Taking a look at a player,” I said.

  Her eyes brightened. “Oooooh. You’re a scout?”

  “Maybe,” I said, in the same tone she’d used earlier.

  Con
nie laughed again. “I’ll bet you talk to silly college girls like me all the time.”

  “Like you?” I replied. “No, not so much.”

  Her eyes sparkled again. “You may have found my weakness. I’m the kind of girl who likes a little flattery.”

  “And here I was thinking you liked something completely different.”

  She covered her mouth with one hand, and her cheeks got a little pinker. “Harry. That’s not how one talks to young ladies in the South.”

  “Obviously. I mean, you look so outraged. Should I apologize?”

  “Oh,” she said, her smile widening. “I just have to collect you.” Connie’s eyes sparkled again, and I finally got it.

  Her eyes weren’t twinkling.

  They were becoming increasingly flecked with motes of molten silver.

  Cutie-pie was a frigging vampire.

  I’ve worked for years on my poker face. Years. It still sucks pretty bad, but I’ve been working on it. So I’m sure my smile was only slightly wooden when I asked, “Collect me?”

  I might not have been hiding my realization very well, but either Connie was better at poker than me or else she really was too absorbed in the conversation to notice. “Collect you,” she said. “When I meet someone worthwhile, I like to have dinner with them. And we’ll talk and tell stories and laugh, and I’ll get a picture and put it in my memory book.”

  “Um,” I said. “Maybe you’re a little young for me.”

  She threw back her head and gave a full-throated laugh. “Oh, Harry. I’m talking about sharing a meal. That’s all, honestly. I know I’m a terrible flirt, but I didn’t think you were taking me seriously.”

  I watched her closely as she spoke, searching for the predatory calculation that I knew had to be in there. Vampires of the White Court—

  “WAIT,” DEAN SAID. “Vampires of the White Castle?”

  I sighed. “White Court.”

  Dean grunted. “Why not just call her a vampire?”

  “They come in a lot of flavors,” I said.

  “And this one was vanilla?”

  “There’s no such thing as …” I rubbed at the bridge of my nose. “Yes.”

  Dean nodded. “So why not just call ’em vanilla vampires?”

  “I’ll … bring it up at the next wizard meeting,” I said.

  “So the vampire is where all the blood came from?”

  “No.” I sighed. “This kind doesn’t feed on blood.”

  “No? What do they eat, then?”

  “Life energy.”

  “Huh?”

  I sighed again. “Sex.”

  “Finally, the story gets good. So they eat sex?”

  “Life energy,” I repeated. “The sex is just how they get started.”

  “Like sticking fangs into your neck,” Dean said. “Only instead of fangs, I guess they use—”

  “Look, do you want the story or not?”

  Dean leaned back in his chair and propped his feet up on his desk. “You kidding? This is the best one in years.”

  ANYWAY, I WATCHED Connie closely, but I saw no evidence of anything in her that I knew had to be there. Vampires are predators who hunt the most dangerous game on the planet. They generally aren’t shy about it, either. They don’t really need to be. If a White Court vampire wants to feed off a human, all she really has to do is crook her finger, and he comes running. There isn’t any ominous music. Nobody sparkles. As far as anyone looking on is concerned, a girl winks at a boy and goes off somewhere to make out. Happens every day.

  They don’t get all coy asking you out to dinner, and they sure as hell don’t have pictures in a memory book.

  This was weird, and long experience has taught me that when the unexplained is bouncing around right in front of you, the smart thing is to back off and figure out what the hell is going on. In my line of work, what you don’t know can kill you.

  But I didn’t get the chance. There was a sharp whistle from a coach somewhere on the field, and football players came rumbling off it. One of them came loping toward us, put a hand on top of the six-foot chain-link fence, and vaulted it in one easy motion. Bigfoot Irwin landed lightly, grinning, and continued directly toward Connie.

  She let out a girlish squeal of delight and pounced on him. He caught her. She wrapped her legs around his hips, held his face in her hands, and kissed him thoroughly. They came up for air a moment later.

  “Irwin,” she said, “I met someone interesting. Can I collect him?”

  The kid only had eyes for Connie. Not that I could blame him, really. His voice was a basso rumble, startlingly like River Shoulders’s. “I’m always in favor of dinner at the Brewery.”

  She dismounted and beamed at him. “Good. Irwin, this is …”

  The kid finally looked up at me and blinked. “Harry.”

  “Heya, Irwin,” I said. “How’re things?”

  Connie looked back and forth between us. “You know each other?”

  “He’s a friend,” Irwin said.

  “Dinner,” Connie declared. “Harry, say you’ll share a meal with me.”

  Interesting choice of words, all things considered.

  I think I had an idea what had caused River’s bad dream. If a vampire had attached herself to Irwin, the kid was in trouble. Given the addictive nature of Connie’s attentions, and the degree of control it could give her over Irwin … maybe he wasn’t the only one who could be in trouble.

  My, how little Irwin had grown. I wondered exactly how much of his father’s supernatural strength he had inherited. He looked like he could break me in half without causing a blip in his heart rate. He and Connie looked at me with hopeful smiles, and I suddenly felt like maybe I was the crazy one. Expressions like that should not inspire worry, but every instinct I had told me that something wasn’t right.

  My smile probably got even more wooden. “Sure,” I said. “Why not?”

  THE BREWERY WAS a lot like every other sports bar you’d find in college towns, with the possible exception that it actually was a brewery. Small and medium-sized tanks stood here and there throughout the place, with signs on each describing the kind of beer that was under way. Apparently, the beer sampler was traditional. I made polite noises when I tried each, but they were unexceptional. Okay, granted, I was probably spoiled by having Mac’s brew available back at home. It wasn’t the Brewery’s fault that their brews were merely excellent. Mac’s stuff was epic, it was legend. Tough to measure up to that.

  I kept one hand under the table, near a number of tools I thought I might need, all the way through the meal, and waited for the other shoe to drop—only it never did. Connie and Irwin chattered away like any young couple, snuggled up to one another on adjacent chairs. The girl was charming, funny, and a playful flirt, but Irwin didn’t seem discomfited by it. I kept my responses restrained, anyway. I didn’t want to find out a couple of seconds too late that the seemingly innocent banter was how Connie got her psychic hooks into me.

  But a couple of hours went by, and nothing.

  “Irwin’s never told me anything about his father,” Connie said.

  “I don’t know much,” Irwin said. “He’s … kept his distance over the years. I’ve looked for him a couple of times, but I never wanted to push him.”

  “How mysterious,” Connie said.

  I nodded. “For someone like him, I think the word eccentric might apply better.”

  “He’s rich?” Connie asked.

  “I feel comfortable saying that money isn’t one of his concerns,” I said.

  “I knew it!” Connie said, and looked slyly at Irwin. “There had to be a reason. I’m only into you for your money.”

  Instead of answering, Irwin calmly picked Connie up out of her chair, using just the muscles of his shoulders and arms, and deposited her on his lap. “Sure you are.”

  Connie made a little groaning sound and bit her lower lip. “God. I know it’s not PC, but I’ve got to say, I am into it when you get all caveman on me,
Pounder.”

  “I know.” Irwin kissed the tip of her nose and turned to me. “So, Harry. What brings you to Norman?”

  “I was passing through,” I said easily. “Your dad asked me to look in on you.”

  “Just casually,” Irwin said, his dark eyes probing. “Because he’s such a casual guy.”

  “Something like that,” I said.

  “Not that I mind seeing you,” Irwin said, “but in case you missed it, I’m all grown-up now. I don’t need a babysitter. Even a cool, expensive one.”

  “If you did, my rates are very reasonable,” Connie said.

  “We’ll talk,” Irwin replied, sliding his arms around her waist. The girl wasn’t exactly a junior petite, but she looked tiny on Irwin’s scale. She hopped up and said, “I’m going to go make sure there isn’t barbecue sauce on my nose, and then we can take the picture. Okay?”

  “Sure,” Irwin said, smiling. “Go.”

  Once she was gone from sight, Irwin looked at me and dropped his smile. “Okay,” he said resignedly. “What does he want this time?”

  There wasn’t a load of time, so I didn’t get all coy with the subject matter. “He’s worried about you. He thinks you may be in danger.”

  Irwin arched his eyebrows. “From what?”

  I just looked at him.

  His expression suddenly turned into a scowl, and the air around us grew absolutely thick with energy that seethed for a point of discharge. “Wait. This is about Connie?”

  I couldn’t answer him for a second, the air felt so close. The last time I’d felt this much latent, waiting power, I’d been standing next to my old mentor, Ebenezar McCoy, when he was gathering his strength for a spell.

  That pretty much answered my questions about River Shoulders’s people having access to magical power. The kid was a freaking dynamo of it. I had to be careful. I didn’t want to be the guy who was unlucky enough to ground out that storm cloud of waiting power. So I answered Irwin cautiously and calmly.

  “I’m not sure yet. But I know for a fact that she’s not exactly what she seems to be.”

  His nostrils flared, and I saw him make an effort to remain collected. His voice was fairly even. “Meaning what?”