by Jim Butcher
"And maybe she wouldn't much care for this particular branch of your business?" I suggested.
He showed me his teeth. "I see you got your membership package."
"I'm fighting not to gush at you with gratitude," I told him. "But it's oh so hard."
His upturned mouth and glittering white teeth did not resemble a smile. "Actually, all of my places of business have instructions to so treat you, should you arrive."
I raised my eyebrows. "You can't seriously be trying to buy me."
"Hardly. I am under no illusions about your fondness for myself and my business. I regard it as a preventive measure. In my judgment, my buildings are considerably less likely to burn to the ground during one of your visits if you are disoriented from being treated like a sultan. I do, after all, recall the fate of the last Velvet Room."
Murphy snorted without taking her wary eyes from Marcone. "He's got a point, Dresden."
"That was one time," I muttered. Something in one of the envelopes dug at me through my duster pocket, and I reached down to take it out.
Hendricks may have been big, but he was not slow. He had a gun out before my fingers had closed on the envelope.
Murphy went for her gun, hand darting beneath the baggy shirt.
Marcone's voice cracked like a whip. "Stop. Everyone."
We all did it, a reflexive response to the complete authority in his tone.
There are reasons Marcone runs things in Chicago.
Marcone hadn't moved. Hell, he hadn't blinked. "Mister Hendricks," he said. "I appreciate your zeal, but if the wizard wished to harm me, he'd hardly need to draw a concealed weapon to do it. If you please."
Hendricks let out another rumbling growl and put the gun away.
"Thank you." Marcone turned to me. "I trust you will forgive Mister Hendricks's sensitivity. As my bodyguard, he is all too aware that whenever you get involved in my business, Dresden, matters tend to become a great deal more dangerous."
I scowled at them both and drew the folded materials from my duster pocket, tossing them down beside the discarded gym bag. "No harm, no foul. Right, Murph?"
Murphy remained motionless for a long moment, hand under her shirt—long enough to make a point that no one was ordering her to do it. Then she returned her hand to her lap.
"Thank you," Marcone said. "Now, shall we tilt at one another a few more times or just skip to the point of your visit, Dresden?"
"I want information about one of the women who worked here."
Marcone blinked once and said, "Go on."
"Her name was Jessica Blanche. Her body was found a few days ago. The ME couldn't find a cause of death. I did. I've got more bodies. I think the killings are related. I need to find the link between Jessica and the other victims so I can figure out what the hell is going on and put a stop to it."
"That information is specific," Marcone said. "My knowledge of operations here is merely general. My manager will be more familiar with such things than I."
"Ms. Demeter, I take it."
"Yes. She should be here momentarily."
"Or sooner," said a woman's voice.
I turned to the doorway.
A woman walked through it, dressed in a somber black skirt suit, a white blouse, black pumps, pearls. She walked calmly across the office to stand behind Marcone, her left hand coming to rest on his right shoulder.
"Well, Dresden," Helen Beckitt murmured. "It took you long enough."
Chapter Twenty-Nine
I stared, momentarily silent. Marcone's teeth showed again.
"I don't believe it is polite to gloat," Helen murmured to him.
"If you knew the man, you would realize what a rare moment this is," he replied. "I'm savoring it."
Murphy glanced from Helen to me and back. "Harry…?"
"Shhh," I said, holding up a hand. I closed my eyes for a second, chasing furiously down dozens of twisty lanes of demented logic and motivation, trying to fit each of them to the facts.
The facts, man. Just the facts.
Fact one: Male operatives of House Skavis and House Malvora had been engaging in murders that attempted to frame the Wardens as the perpetrators.
Fact two: House Raith, their nominal superior, led by the White King (sort of), had pursued a policy of armistice with the White Council.
Fact three: That dippy twit Madrigal jumped into the deal on Malvora's side, pitching in a murder or two of his own, evidently to attract my attention.
Fact four: Thomas, though aware of the lethal intentions of his fellow White Court vampires, had shared nothing of it with me.
Fact five: The victims had been women of magical talent, universally.
Fact six: Vampires live for a long, long time.
Fact seven: In a whole graveyard full of the corpses of minor-league practitioners, one normal, pretty young girl named Jessica Blanche had been killed. Her only connection to the others was Helen Beckitt.
Fact eight: Helen Beckitt worked for Marcone.
Fact nine: I don't like Marcone. I don't trust him. I don't believe him any further than I can kick him. I've never hidden the fact. Marcone knows it.
"Son of a bitch," I whispered, shaking my head. Things went from bad to worse when Marcone showed up, and I naturally figured that the dangerometer had peaked.
I was wrong. Really, really wrong.
I needed one question answered to be sure what was going on, even though I was fairly sure what the answer would be—the only problem was figuring out whether or not the answer would be an honest one.
I could not afford to get it wrong.
"Helen," I said quietly. "If it's all right with you, I'd like to speak to you alone."
A small smile graced her mouth. She took a deep breath and let it out with a slow, satisfied exhalation.
"You needn't, if you do not wish to do so," Marcone said. "I do not react well when others threaten or harm my employees. Dresden is aware of that."
"No," Helen said. "It's all right."
I glanced aside. "Murph…"
She didn't look overjoyed, but she nodded once and said, "I'll be right outside."
"Thanks."
Murphy departed under Hendricks's beady gaze. Marcone rose as well, and left without glancing at me. Hendricks went last, shutting the door behind him.
Helen ran a fingertip lightly over the pearls on her necklace and settled into the chair behind the desk. She looked quite comfortable and confident there. "Very well."
I took a seat in one of the chairs facing the desk, and shook my head. "Jessica Blanche worked for you," I said.
"Jessie…" Helen's dead eyes flickered momentarily down to her folded hands. "Yes. She lived near me, actually. I gave her a ride to work several days each week."
Which must have been when Madrigal had seen them together—out in public, presumably not in their "professional" clothes, and the moron had just assumed that Miss Blanche was another member of the Ordo. From there, it wouldn't have been hard for him to ease up to the girl, snare her with the incubus come-hither, and take her off to a hotel room for a little fun and an ecstatic death.
"You and Marcone," I said. "That's one I can't figure. I thought you hated him. Hell, you were trafficking with the powers of darkness, helping to create an addictive drug—helping the Shadowman kill people, to get back at him."
"Hate," she said, "and love are not so very different things. Both are focused upon another. Both are intense. Both are passionate."
"And there's not much difference between 'kiss' and 'kill.' If you only look at the letters." I shrugged. "But here you are, working for Marcone. As a madam."
"I am a convicted felon, Mister Dresden," she replied. "I used to handle accounts with a total value in the hundreds of millions of dollars. I was ill suited to work as a waitress in a diner."
"Nickel in the pen didn't do much for your resume, huh?"
"Or references," she replied. She shook her head. "My reasons for being here are none of your business,
Dresden, and have nothing to do with the matter at hand. Ask your questions or get out."
"After you parted company with the other members of the Ordo tonight," I said, "did you place a phone call to them?"
"Again," she said quietly, "we are at an impasse, exactly as we were before. It doesn't matter what I say, given that you are clearly unwilling to believe me."
"Did you call them?" I asked.
She stared steadily, her eyes so dull and empty that it made her elegant black outfit look like funerary wear. I couldn't tell if it would be more suitable for mourners—or for the deceased. Then her eyes narrowed and she nodded. "Ah. You want me to look you in the eyes. The term is overdramatic, but I believe it is referred to as a soulgaze."
"Yeah," I said.
"I hadn't realized it was a truth detector."
"It isn't," I said. "But it will tell me what sort of person you are."
"I know what sort of person I am," she replied. "I am a functional borderline psychopath. I am heartless, calculating, empty, and can muster very little in the way of empathy for my fellow human beings. But then, you can't take my word for it, can you?"
I just looked at her for a moment. "No," I said then, very quietly. "I don't think I can."
"I have no intention of proving anything to you. I will submit to no such invasion."
"Even if it means more of your friends in the Ordo die?"
There was the slightest hesitation before she answered. "I have been unable to protect them thus far. Despite all…" She trailed off and shook her head once. Confidence returned to her features and voice. "Anna will watch over them."
I stared at her for a second, and she regarded me coolly, focused on a spot a bit over my eyebrows, avoiding direct eye contact.
"Anna's important to you?" I asked.
"As much as anyone can be, now," she replied. "She was kind to me when she had no cause to be. Nothing to gain from it. She is a worthy person."
I watched her closely. I've done a lot of work as both a professional wizard and a professional investigator. Wizardry is awfully intriguing and useful, but it doesn't necessarily teach you very much about other people. It's better at teaching you about yourself.
The investigating business, though, is all about people. It's all about talking to them, asking questions, and listening to them lie. Most of the things investigators get hired to handle involve a lot of people lying. I've seen liars in every shape and size and style. Big lies, little lies, white lies, stupid lies. The worst lies are almost always silence—or else truth, tainted with just enough deception to rot it to the core.
Helen wasn't lying to me. She might have been dangerous, might have been willing to practice black magic to seek vengeance in the past, might have been cold and distant—but she had not, for one second, tried to conceal any of it, or denied anything that had happened.
"Oh, God," I said quietly. "You don't know."
She frowned at me for a moment—then her face became drawn and pale. "Oh." She closed her eyes and said, "Oh, Anna. You poor fool." She opened them again a moment later. She cleared her throat and asked, "When?"
"A few hours ago. The hotel room. Suicide."
"The others?"
"Safe. Hidden and under guard." I took a deep breath. "I have to be sure, Helen. If you really do give a damn about them, you'll cooperate with me. You'll help me."
She nodded once, her eyes distant. Then she said, "For them." And met my eyes.
The phenomenon referred to as a soulgaze is a fairly mysterious thing. No one's ever been able to get a really good grasp on exactly how it works. The best descriptions of it have always been more poetical than anything else.
The eyes are the windows of the soul.
Lock eyes with a wizard and the essence of who and what you are is laid bare. It is perceived in different ways by every individual. Ramirez had once told me that he heard it as a kind of musical theme that accompanied the person he was gazing upon. Others looked on a soul in a series of frozen images. My interpretation of a soulgaze was, perhaps inevitably, one of the most random and confusing I'd ever heard about. I see the other person in symbol and metaphor, sometimes in panorama and surround sound, sometimes in misty translucence and haunting whispers.
Whoever was gazed upon got a good look back. Whatever universal powers governed that kind of thing evidently decided that the soul's windows don't come in an optional issue of one-way mirrored glass. You saw them. They saw you, with the same kind of searing permanence.
For me, meeting someone's eyes is always risky. Every human being on earth knows what I'm talking about. Try it. Walk up to someone, without speaking, and look them in the eyes. There's a certain amount of leeway for a second, or two, or three. And then there's a distinct sensation of sudden contact, of intimacy. That's when regular folks normally cough and look away. Wizards, though, get the full ride of a soulgaze.
All things considered, I shouldn't have been surprised that when Helen met my eyes, it got uncomfortably intimate before a second had passed and…
… and I stood in Chicago, in one of the parks on Lake Michigan. Calumet, maybe? I couldn't see the skyline from where I was standing, so it was hard to be sure.
What I could see was the Beckitt family. Husband, wife, daughter, a little girl maybe ten or eleven years old. She looked like her mother—a woman with smile lines at the corners of her eyes and a white-toothed smile who very little resembled the Helen Beckitt I knew. But all the same, it was her.
They'd been on a family picnic. The sun was setting on a summer evening, golden sunset giving way to twilight as they walked back to the family car. Mother and father swung the little girl between them, each holding one hand.
I didn't want to see what was about to happen. I didn't have a choice in the matter.
A parking lot. The sounds of a car roaring up. Muffled curses, tight with fear, and then a car swerved up off the road and gunfire roared from its passenger window. Screams. Some people threw themselves down. Most, including the Beckitts, stared in shock. More loud, hammering sounds, not ten feet away.
I looked over my shoulder to see a very, very young-looking Marcone.
He wasn't wearing a business suit. He had on jeans and a black leather jacket. His hair was longish, a little mussed, and he also sported a stubble of beard that gave him the kind of rakish look that would attract attention from the girls who fantasized about indulging with a bad boy.
His eyes were still green—but they were the green of a summer hunter's blind, bright and intelligent and predatory, but touched with more… something. Humor, maybe. More life. And he was skinnier. Not a lot skinnier or anything, but it surprised me how much younger it and the other minor changes made him look.
Marcone crouched next to another young man, a now-dead thug I'd christened Spike years ago. Spike had his pistol out, and was hammering away at the moving car. The barrel of his 1911-model Colt tracked the vehicle—and its course drew its muzzle into line with the Beckitt family.
Marcone snarled something and slapped the barrel of the gun away from the family. Spike's shot rang out wild and splashed into the lake. There was a last rattle of fire from the moving car, and it roared away. Marcone and Spike piled into their own car and fled the scene. Spike was driving.
Marcone was staring back over his shoulder.
They left the little girl's broken body, limp and spattered with scarlet, behind them.
Helen saw it first, looking down to the hand that gripped her daughter's. She let out a cry as she turned to her child.
In the wake of the gunshots, the silence was deafening.
I didn't want to see what was coming. Again, I had no choice.
The girl wasn't unconscious. There was a lot of blood. Her father screamed and knelt with Helen, trying to stop the bleeding. He tore off his shirt, pressing it to the child's midsection. He babbled something to Helen and ran for the nearest phone.
His white shirt soaked through as Helen tried to hold it to the we
akly struggling girl.
This was the worst part.
The child was in pain. She cried out with it. I expected her to sound horrible and inhuman, but she didn't. She sounded like every little kid who had ever suddenly found herself faced with her first experience of real, nontrivial pain.
"Owie," she said, over and over, her voice rough. "Owie, owie, owie."
"Baby," Helen said. The tears were blocking her vision. "I'm here. I'm here."
"Mommy, Mommy, Mommy," the girl said. "Owie, owie, owie."
The little girl said that.
She said it over and over.
She said it for maybe sixty seconds.
Then she went silent.
"No," Helen said. "No, no, no." She leaned down and felt her daughter's throat, then desperately pressed her ear to the girl's chest. "No, no, no."
Their voices, I realized, sounded almost identical. They blazed with the same anguish, the same disbelief.
I watched Helen shatter, rocking back and forth, trying through blinding tears to apply CPR to the silent little form. Everything else became an unimportant blur. Ghostly figures of her husband, cops, paramedics. Dim little echoes of sirens and voices, a church organ.
I'd known that the Beckitts set out to tear Marcone down out of revenge for what the warring gangsters had done to their daughter—but knowing the story was one thing. Seeing the soul-searing agony the little girl's death had inflicted upon her helpless mother was something else.
And suddenly, everything was bright and new again. Helen and her family were laughing again. In a few moments, they were walking again toward the parking lot, and I could hear the engine of the car whose gunmen would miss Marcone and kill the little girl as it approached.
I tore my eyes away from it, fighting to end the soulgaze.
I could not go through that again, could not remain locked in that horrible moment that had shaped what Helen had become.
I came back to myself standing, turned half away from Helen, leaning heavily on my staff with my head bowed.
There was a long moment of silence before Helen said, "I didn't call anyone in the Ordo, Dresden."
