by Jim Butcher
He smiled a little. "You get Cowl?"
"Doubt it," I said. "He was right by his gate. When he saw me running for the exit, ten to one he just stepped back through it and zipped it shut. In fact, I'm pretty sure he did. If there'd been an open gate there, the blast would have been able to spread into it. I don't think we would have been thrown so far."
"How about Vitto?"
I shook my head. "Vitto was pretty far gone even before the bombs went off. I'm pretty sure we nailed him, and those ghouls, too."
"Good thing you had that army on standby, huh," Ramirez said, a faint edge to his voice.
"Hey," I said, "it's late. I should let you get some rest."
"No," Ramirez said, his voice stronger. "We need to talk."
I sat there for a minute, bracing myself. Then I said, "About what."
"About how tight you are with the vamps," he said. "About you making deals with scumbag mobsters. I recognized Marcone. I've seen his picture in the papers." Ramirez shook his head. "Jesus Christ, Harry. We're supposed to be on the same team. It's called trust, man."
I wanted to spit something hostile and venomous and well deserved. I toned myself down to saying, "Gee. A Warden doesn't trust me. That's a switch."
Ramirez blinked at me. "What?"
"Don't worry about it. I'm used to it," I said. "I had Morgan sticking his nose into every corner of my existence for my entire adult life."
Ramirez stared at me for a second. Then he let out a weak snort and said, "All hail the drama queen. Harry…" He shook his head. "I'm talking about you not trusting me, man."
My increasingly angry retort died unspoken. "Uh. What?"
Ramirez shook his head wearily. "Let me make some guesses. One. You don't trust the Council. You never have, but lately, it's been worse. Especially since New Mexico. You think that whoever is leaking information to the vampires is pretty high up, and the less anyone in the Council knows about what you're doing, the better."
I stared at him and said nothing.
"Two. There's a new player in the game. Cowl's on the new team. We don't know who they are, but they seem to have a hard-on for screwing over everyone equally—vampires, mortals, wizards, whoever." He sighed. "You aren't the only one who's been noticing these things, Harry."
I grunted. "What do you call them?"
"The Black Hats, after our Ringwraith-wannabe buddy, Cowl. You?"
"The Black Council," I said.
"Oooh," Ramirez muttered. "Yours is better."
"Thanks," I said.
"So you can't trust our own people," he said. "But you're cutting deals with the vampires…" He narrowed his eyes. "You think you might be able to find the traitor coming in from the other side."
I put my finger on my nose.
"And the gangster?" Ramirez asked.
"He's a snake," I said. "But his word is good. And Madrigal and Vitto had killed one of his people. And I know he isn't working for Cowl's organization."
"How do you know that?"
"Because Marcone works for Marcone-"
Ramirez spread his hands weakly. "Was that so damned hard, Dresden? To talk to me?"
I settled back in my chair. My shoulders suddenly felt loose and Wobbly. I breathed in and out a few times, and then said, "No."
Ramirez snorted gently. "Idiot."
"So," I said. "Think I should come clean to the Merlin?"
Ramirez opened one eye. "Are you kidding? He hates your guts. He'd have you declared a traitor, locked up, and executed before you got through the first paragraph." He closed his eye again. "But I'm with you, man. All the way."
You don't have much endurance after going through something like Ramirez had. He was asleep before he realized it was about to happen.
I sat with him for the rest of the night, until Senior Council Member Listens-to-Wind arrived with his team of medical types before dawn the next morning.
You don't leave an injured friend all alone.
The next day, I knocked on the door to the office at Executive Priority and went in without waiting for an answer.
"Tonight you will be visited by three spirits," I announced. "The ghosts of indictment past, present, and future. They will teach you the true meaning of 'you are still a scumbag criminal.'"
Marcone was there, sitting behind the desk with Helen Beckitt, or maybe Helen Demeter, I supposed. She wore her professionally suggestive business suit—and was sitting across Marcone's lap. Her hair and suit looked slightly mussed. Marcone had his third shirt button undone.
I cursed my timing. If I'd come ten minutes later, I'd have opened the door in medias res. It would have been infinitely more awkward.
"Dresden," Marcone said, his tone pleasant. Helen made no move to stir from where she was. "It's nice to see you alive. Your sense of humor, of course, remains unchanged, which is unsurprising, as it seems to have died in your adolescence. Presumably it entered a suicide pact with your manners."
"Your good opinion," I said, "means the world to me. I see you got out of the Nevernever."
"Simple enough," Marcone said. "I had to shoot a few of the vampires, once we were clear of the fight. I did not appreciate the way they were attempting to coerce my employees."
"Hell's bells." I sighed. "Did you kill any of them?"
"Unnecessary. I shot them enough to make my point. After that, we had an adequate understanding of one another—much as you and I do."
"I understand that you settled matters with Anna's killers, Mister Dresden," Helen said. "With help, of course."
Marcone smiled his unreadable little smile at me.
"The people who did the deed won't be bothering anyone anymore," I said. "And most of the people who motivated them have gone into early retirement." I glanced at Marcone. "With help."
"But not all of them?" Helen asked, frowning.
"Everyone we could make answer," Marcone said, "has answered. It is unlikely we could accomplish more."
Something made me say, "And I'm taking steps to prevent or mitigate this kind of circumstance in the future. Here and elsewhere."
Helen tilted her head at me, taking that in. Then she nodded and said, very quietly, "Thank you."
"Helen," Marcone said. "Would you be so good as to excuse us for a few moments."
"Won't take long," I added. "I don't like being here."
Helen smiled slightly at me and rose smoothly from Marcone's lap. "If it makes you feel any better, Mister Dresden, you should know that he dislikes having you here as well."
"You should see how much my insurance premiums go up after your visits, Dresden." He shook his head. "And they call me an extortionist. Helen, could you send Bonnie in with that file?"
"Certainly."
Helen left. Healthy brunette Bonnie, in her oh-so-fetching exercise outfit, bounced in with a manila folder, gave me a Colgate smile, and departed again. Marcone opened the folder, withdrew a stack of papers, and started flicking through them. He got to the last page, turned it around, slid it across the desk, and produced a pen from his pocket. "Here is the contract you faxed me. Sign here, please."
I walked over to the desk, took the entire stack, and started reading it from page one. You never sign a contract you haven't read, even if you aren't a wizard. If you are one, it's even more important than that. People joke about signing away their soul or their firstborn. In my world, it's possible.
Marcone seemed to accept that. He made a steeple of his fingers and waited with the relaxed patience of a well-fed cat.
The contract was the standard one for approving a new signatory of the Accords, and though he'd had it retyped, Marcone hadn't changed a word. Probably. I kept reading. "So you suggested the name Demeter for Helen?" I asked as I read.
Marcone's expression never changed. "Yes."
"How's Persephone?"
He stared at me.
"Persephone," I said. "Demeter's daughter. She was carried away by the Lord of the Underworld."
Marcone's stare became cold
.
"He kept her there in Hades, but Demeter froze the whole world until the other gods convinced him to return Persephone to her mother." I turned a page. "The girl. The one in the coma, who you're keeping in a hospital somewhere, and visiting every week. That's Helen's daughter, isn't it. The one who got caught in the cross fire of one of your shoot-outs."
Marcone didn't move.
"Newspaper file on it said she was killed," I said.
I read several more pages before Marcone answered. "Tony Vargassi, my predecessor, I suppose, had a son. Marco. Marco decided that I had become a threat to his standing in the organization. He was the shooter."
"But the girl," I said, "didn't die."
Marcone shook his head. "It put Vargassi in an awkward position. If the girl recovered, she might identify his son as the shooter, and no jury in the world would fail to send a thug to jail who'd shot a pretty little girl. But if the girl died, and it came back on Marco, he'd be looking at a murder charge."
"And someone who murders little girls gets the needle in Illinois," I said.
"Exactly. There was a great deal of corruption at the time—"
I snorted.
Marcone's little smile returned for a moment. "Pardon me. Say instead that the Vargassis exerted their influence on official matters with a heavy hand. Vargassi had the little girl declared dead. He convinced the medical examiner to sign false paperwork, and he hid the girl away in another hospital."
I grunted. "If Marco got identified as the shooter and put up for trial, Vargassi could produce the little girl. Look, she's not dead. Mistrial."
"One possibility," Marcone replied. "And if things went quietly for a while, he could simply delete her records."
"And her," I said.
"Yes."
"Whatever happened to old Tony Vargassi?" I asked.
I saw a flash of Marcone's teeth. "His whereabouts are unknown. As are Marco's."
"When did you find out about the girl?"
"Two years later," he said. "Everything was set up through a dummy corporation's trust fund. She could have just…" He looked away from me. "Just lain there. Indefinitely. No one would have known who she was. Known her name."
"Does Helen know?" I asked him.
He shook his head. He was quiet for a moment more. "I can't return Persephone from Hades. The child's death almost destroyed Helen—and her world is still frozen. If she knew her daughter was… trapped… just lying there in a half-life…" He shook his head. "It would shatter her world, Dresden. And I shouldn't wish that."
"I've noticed," I said quietly, "that most of the young ladies working here would be about the same age as her daughter."
"Yes," Marcone said.
"That isn't exactly a healthy recovery."
"No," Marcone said. "But it's what she has."
I thought about it while I kept reading. Maybe Helen deserved to know about her daughter. Hell, she probably did. But whatever else Marcone was, he was no fool. If he thought news of her daughter's fate might shatter Helen, he was probably right. Sure, she should know. But did I have the right to make that decision?
Probably not—even if Marcone wouldn't do his best to have me killed if I tried. Hell, I probably had less right to decide than Marcone. He had way more invested in the girl and her fate than I did.
Because that was the secret I'd seen in a soulgaze with Gentleman Johnnie Marcone, years ago. The secret that gave him the strength and the will to rule the mean streets.
He felt responsible for the little girl who'd taken a bullet meant for him.
He'd taken over Chicago crime with ruthless efficiency, always cutting down on the violence. A couple of people had been hurt in gang-related crimes. The gangsters responsible hadn't been heard from again. I'd always assumed it was because Marcone had decided to manipulate matters, to make himself appear to be a preferable alternative to more careless criminals who might take his place if the cops took him down.
I'd never even considered the idea that he might actually give a crap about innocents being harmed.
Granted, that didn't change anything. He still ran a business that killed far more people than any amount of collateral damage. He was still a criminal. Still a bad guy.
But…
He was the devil I knew. And he probably could have been worse.
I got to the last page of the contract and found spaces for three signatures. Two of them were already filled.
"Donar Vadderung?" I asked Marcone.
"Current CEO of Monoc Securities," Marcone replied. "Oslo."
"And Lara Raith," I murmured.
"Signing on behalf of her father, the White King, who is obviously in charge of the White Court." There was a trace of irony in Marcone's voice. He hadn't been fooled by the puppet show.
I looked at the third open line.
Then I signed it, and left without another word.
It isn't a perfect world. I'm doing the best I can.
"Hmmmm." said Bob the Skull, peering at my left hand. "It looks like…"
I was sitting in my lab, my hand spread open on the table, white the skull examined my palm.
I'd worn a mark there for years—an unblemished patch of skin amidst all the burn scars, in the perfect shape of the angelic sigil that was Lasciel's name.
The mark was gone.
In its place was just an irregular patch of unburned skin.
"It looks like there's no mark there anymore," Bob said.
I sighed. "Thank you, Bob," I said. "It's good to have a professional opinion."
"Well, what did you expect?" Bob said. The skull swiveled around on the table and tilted up to look at my face. "Hmmmmm. And you say the entity isn't responding to you anymore?"
"No. And she's always jumped every time I said frog."
"Interesting," Bob said.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Well, from what you told me, this psychic attack the entity blocked for you was quite severe."
I shivered, remembering. "Yeah."
"And the process she used to accelerate your brain and shield you was traumatic as well."
"Right. She said it could cause me brain damage."
"Uh-huh," Bob said. "I think it did."
"Huh?"
"See what I mean?" Bob asked cheerfully. "You're thicker already."
"Harry get hammer," I said. "Smash stupid talky skull."
For a guy with no legs, Bob backpedals swiftly and gracefully. "Easy there, chief; don't get excited. But the brain damage thing is for real."
I frowned. "Explain, please."
"Well, I told you that the entity in your head was like a recording of the real Lasciel, right?"
"Yeah."
"That recording was written in your brain, in portions you weren't using."
"Right."
"I think that's where the damage is. I mean, I'm looking at you right now, and your head has been riddled with tiny holes, boss."
I blinked and rubbed my fingers over my scalp. "It doesn't feel like that."
"That's because your brain doesn't sense injuries. It manages sensing injuries for the rest of you. But trust me, there's damage. I think it wiped out the entity."
"Wiped out… you mean, like…"
"Killed it," Bob said. "Technically, it was never alive, but it was constructed. It's been deconstructed, and…"
I frowned. "And what?"
"And there's, um, a portion of you missing."
"I'm sure I would have felt that," I said.
"Not your body," Bob said scornfully. "Your life force. Your chi. Your soul."
"Whoa, wait a minute. Part of my soul is gone?"
Bob sighed. "People get all excited when you use that word. The part of you that is more than merely physical, yes. You can call it whatever you want. There's some missing, and it's nothing to panic over."
"Part of my soul is gone and I'm not supposed to be worried about that?" I demanded.
"Happens all the time," Bob said
. "You shared a bunch of yours with Susan, and she with you. It's what protected you from Lara Raith. You and Murphy swapped some pretty recently, looks like—you must have gotten a hug or something. Honestly, Harry, you really ought to bang her and get it over wi—"
I reached under the worktable, drew out a claw hammer, and gave Bob a pointed look.
"Um, right," he said. "Back to business. Uh, your soul. You give away pieces of yourself all the time. Everyone does. Some of it goes out with your magic, too. It grows back. Relax, boss."
"If it's no big deal," I said, "then why is it so interesting?"
"Oh, well," Bob said. "It is energy, you know. And I wonder if maybe… maybe… well, look, Harry. There was a tiny bit of Lasciel's energy in you, supporting the entity, giving you access to Hellfire. That's gone now, but the entity had to have had some kind of power source to turn against the essence of its own originator."
"So it was running off my soul? Like I'm some kind of battery ?"
"Hey," Bob said, "don't get all righteous. You gave it to her. Encouraging her to make her own choices, to rebel, to exercise free will." Bob shook his head. "Free will is horrible, Harry, believe me. I'm glad I don't have it. Ugh, no, thank you. But you gave her some. You gave her a name. The will came with it."
I was quiet for a moment, then said, "And she used it to kill herself."
"Sort of," Bob said. "She chose which areas of your brain were going to take the worst beating. She took a psychic bullet for you. I guess it's almost the same thing as choosing to die."
"No, it isn't," I said quietly. "She didn't choose to die. She chose to be free."
"Maybe that's why they call it free will," Bob said. "Hey, tell me that at least you got a pony ride before the carnival left town. I mean, she could have made you see and feel anything at all, and…" Bob paused, and his eyelights blinked. "Hey, Harry. Are you crying?"
"No," I snapped, and left the lab.
The apartment felt… very empty.
I sat down with my guitar and tried to sort out my thoughts. It was hard. I was feeling all kinds of anger and confusion and sadness. I kept telling myself that it was the emotional fallout of Malvora's psychic assault, but it's one thing to repeat that to yourself over and over, and quite another to sit there feeling awful.
I started playing.
