by Jim Butcher
“All or nothing?” Ebenezar demanded. “Is that it? You expect the youngest wizard in the Council to get the best of Queen Mab somehow?Mab? That’s not a Trial. It’s a goddamned execution. How is he even supposed to know what her request was to begin with?”
I stood up, my legs shaking a little. “Ebenezar,” I said.
“How the hell is the boy supposed to know what she wants?”
“Ebenezar—”
“I’m not going to stand by while you—” He abruptly blinked and looked at me. So did everyone else.
“I know what Mab wants,” I said. “She approached me earlier today, sir. She asked me to investigate something for her. I turned her down.”
“Hell’s bells,” Ebenezar breathed. He took the blue bandanna from his pocket and mopped at his gleaming forehead. “Hoss, this is out of your depth.”
“Looks like it’s sink or swim, then,” I said.
The Gatekeeper murmured to me in English, “Will you accept this, Wizard Dresden?”
I nodded my head. My throat had gone dry. I swallowed and tried to remind myself that there wasn’t much choice. If I didn’t play with the faeries and come out on top, the Council would serve me up to the vampires on a silver platter. The former might get me really, really killed. The latter would certainly kill me as well—and probably more than that.
As deals went, it blew. But some little part of me that hadn’t let me forget all the destruction, maybe even the deaths I’d caused last year, danced gleefully at my apparent comeuppance. Besides, it was the only game in town. I tightened my grip on my staff and spoke as clearly as I could manage.
“Yeah. I accept.”
Chapter Seven
The rest of the Council meeting was somewhat anticlimactic—for me, anyway.
The Merlin ordered the wizards to disperse immediately after the meeting via preplanned, secure routes. He also distributed a list to everyone, noting the Wardens near them to call upon if help was needed, and told them to check in with the Wardens every few days, as a safety precaution.
Next, a grizzled old dame Warden went over the theories to a couple of newly developed wards meant to work especially well against vampires. Representatives of the White Council’s allies—secret occult brotherhoods, mostly—each gave a brief speech, declaring his or her group’s support of the Council in the war.
Toward the end of the meeting, Wardens showed up in force to escort wizards to the beginnings of their routes home. The Senior Council, I presumed, would loiter around for a few days in order to see if I got killed trying to prove that I was one of the good guys. Sometimes I feel like no one appreciates me.
I stood up about three seconds before the Merlin said, “Meeting adjourned,” and headed for the door. Ebenezar tried to catch my eye, but I didn’t feel like talking to anyone. I slammed the doors open a little harder than I needed to, stalked out to the Blue Beetle, and drove away with all the raging power the ancient four-cylinder engine could muster. Behold the angry wizard puttputt-putting away.
My brain felt like something made out of stale cereal, coffee grounds, and cold pizza. Thoughts trudged around in aimless depression, mostly about how I was going to get myself killed playing private eye for Mab. If things got really bad, I might even drag down a few innocent bystanders with me.
I growled at myself. “Stop whining, Harry,” I said in a firm, loud voice. “So what if you’re tired? So what if you’re hurt? So what if you smell like you’re already dead? You’re a wizard. You’ve got a job to do. This war is mostly your own fault, and if you don’t stay on the ball, more people are going to get hurt. So stiff upper lip, chin up, whatever. Get your ass in gear.”
I nodded at that advice, and glanced aside, to the envelope Mab had given me, which lay on the passenger seat. I had a name, an address, a crime. I needed to get on the trail of the killer. That meant I would need information—and the people who would have the most information, a couple of days after the fact, would be the Chicago PD.
I drove to Murphy’s place.
Lieutenant Karrin Murphy was the head of Chicago PD’s Special Investigations team. SI was the city’s answer to weirdness in general. They got all of the unusual crimes, the ones that didn’t fall neatly into the department’s other categories. SI has handled everything from sightings of sewer alligators to grave robbing in one of the city’s many cemeteries. What fun. They also got to take care of the genuine supernatural stuff, the things that no one talks about in official reports but that manage to happen anyway. Trolls, vampires, demon-summoning sorcerers—you name it. The city had appointed SI to make sure the paperwork stayed nice and neat, with no mention of preposterous fantasies that could not possibly exist. It was a thankless job, and the directors of SI typically blew it after about a month by refusing to believe that they were dealing with genuine weirdness. Then they got shuffled out of Chicago PD.
Murphy hadn’t. She’d lasted. She’d taken things seriously and employed the services of Chicago’s only professional wizard (guess who) as a consultant on the tougher jobs. Murphy and I have seen some very upsetting things together. We’re friends. She would help.
Murphy lives in a house in Bucktown, near a lot of other cops. It’s a tiny place, but she owns it. Grandma Murphy left it to her. The house is surrounded by a neat little lawn.
I pulled up in the Beetle sometime well after summertime dark but before midnight. I knew she’d be home, though I wasn’t certain she’d be awake. I made sure that I didn’t sound like I was trying to sneak up anywhere. I shut the door of the Beetle hard and walked with firm footsteps to her door, then knocked lightly.
A moment later the curtains on the barred windows beside the door twitched and then fell back into place. A lock disengaged, then another, then a door chain. I noted, as I waited, that Murphy had a steel-reinforced door just like I did. Though I doubted she’d had as many demons or assassins showing up at it.
Murphy opened the door partway and peered out at me. The woman didn’t look like the chief of Chicago PD’s monster hunters. Her bright blue eyes were heavy, weary, and underscored with dark bags. She stood five feet nothing in her bare feet. Her golden hair was longer on top than in back, with bangs hanging down to her eyes. She wore a pale peach terry-cloth bathrobe that fell most of the way to her feet.
In her right hand she held her automatic, and a small crucifix dangled on a chain wrapped around her wrist. She looked at me.
“Heya, Murph,” I said. I looked at the gun and the holy symbol and kept my voice calm. “Sorry to drop in on you this late. I need your help.”
Murphy regarded me in silence for more than a minute. Then she said, “Wait here.” She shut the door, returned a minute later, and opened it again, all the way. Then, gun still in hand, she stepped back from the doorway and faced me.
“Uh,” I said, “Murph, are you all right?”
She nodded.
“Okay,” I said. “Can I come in?”
“We’ll know in a minute,” Murphy said.
I got it then. Murphy wasn’t going to ask me in. There are plenty of monsters running around in the dark that can’t violate the threshold of a home if they aren’t invited in. One of them had caught up to Murphy last year, nearly killing her, and it had been wearing my face when it did it. No wonder she didn’t look exactly overjoyed to see me.
“Murph,” I said, “relax. It’s me. Hell’s bells, there isn’t anything that I can think of that would mimic me looking like this. Even demonic fiends from the nether regions of hell havesome taste.”
I stepped across her threshold. Something tugged at me as I did, an intangible, invisible energy. It slowed me down a little, and I had to make an effort to push through it. That’s what a threshold is like. One like it surrounds every home, a field of energy that keeps out unwanted magical forces. Some places have more of a threshold than others. My apartment, for example, didn’t have much of a threshold—it’s a bachelor pad, and whatever domestic energy is responsible for such thin
gs doesn’t seem to settle down as well in rental spaces and lone dwellings. Murphy’s house had a heavy field surrounding it. It had a life of its own; it had history. It was a home, not just a place to live.
I crossed her threshold uninvited, and I left a lot of my power at the door as I did. I would have to really push to make even the simplest of spells work within. I stepped inside and spread my hands. “Do I pass inspection?”
Murphy didn’t say anything. She crossed the room and put her gun back into its holster, setting it down on an end table.
Murphy’s place was . . . dare I say it,cute . The room was done in soft yellows and greens. And there were ruffles. The curtains had ruffles, and the couch had more, plus those little knitted things (aren’t they called doilies?) were draped over the arms of the two recliners, the couch, the coffee table, and just about every other surface that seemed capable of supporting lacy bits of froo-fra. They looked old and beautiful and well cared for. I was betting Murphy’s grandma had picked them out.
Murphy’s own decorating was limited to the gun-cleaning kit sitting on the end table beside the holster for her automatic and a wooden rack over the fireplace that bore a pair of Japanese swords, long and short, one over the other. That was the Murphy I knew and loved. Practical violence ready at hand. Next to the swords was a small row of photographs in holders—maybe her family. A thick picture album with what looked like a real leather cover sat open on the coffee table, next to a prescription bottle and a decanter of some kind of liquor—gin? The decanter was half empty. The glass next to it was completely empty.
I watched her settle down in the corner of the couch in her oversized bathrobe, her expression remote. She didn’t look at me. I got more worried by the moment. Murphy wasn’t acting like Murphy. She’d never passed up a chance to trade banter with me. I’d never seen her this silent and withdrawn.
Dammit, just when I needed some quick and decisive help. Something was wrong with Murphy, and I hardly had time to play dime-store psychologist, trying to help her. I needed whatever information she could get me. I also needed to help her with whatever it was that had hurt her so badly. I was fairly sure I wouldn’t be able to do either if I didn’t get her talking.
“Nice place, Murph,” I told her. “I haven’t seen it before.”
She twitched one shoulder in what might have been a shrug.
I frowned. “You know, if conversation is too much for you we could play charades. I’ll go first.” I held up my hand with my fingers spread. Murphy didn’t say anything, so I provided her end of the dialogue. “Five words.” I tugged on my ear. “Sounds like . . . What Is Wrong with You?”
She shook her head. I saw her eyes flicker toward the album.
I leaned forward and turned the album toward me. It had been opened on a cluster of wedding pictures. The girl in them must have been Murphy, back when. She had longer, sunnier hair and a kind of adolescent slenderness that showed around her neck and wrists. She wore a white wedding gown, and stood next to a tuxedo-clad man who had to have been ten years older than she was. In other pictures she was shoving cake into his mouth, drinking through linked arms, the usual wedding fare. He had carried her to the getaway car, and the photo-Murphy’s face had been caught in a moment of laughter and joy.
“First husband?” I asked.
That got through to her. She glanced up at me for just a second. Then nodded.
“You were a kid in this. Maybe eighteen?”
She shook her head.
“Seventeen?”
She nodded. At least I was getting some kind of response out of her.
“How long were you married to him?”
Silence.
I frowned. “Murph, I’m not like a genius about this stuff or anything. But if you’re feeling guilty about something, maybe you’re being a little hard on yourself.”
Without a word, she leaned forward and picked up the album, moving it aside to reveal a copy of theTribune . It had been folded open to the obituaries page. She picked it up and handed it to me.
I read the first one out loud. “Gregory Taggart, age forty-three, died last night after a long bout with cancer . . .” I paused and looked at the photograph of the deceased and then at Murphy’s album. It was the same man, give or take several years of wear and tear. I winced and lowered the paper. “Oh, God, Murph. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
She blinked her eyes several times. Her voice came out thready, quiet. “He didn’t even tell me that he was sick.”
Talk about your nasty surprises. “Murph, look. I’m sure that . . . that things will work out. I know how you’re hurting, how you must feel, but—”
“Do you?” she said, still very quiet. “Do you know how I feel? Did you lose your first love?”
I sat quietly for a full minute before I said, “Yeah. I did.”
“What was her name?”
It hurt to think the name, much less to say it. But if it helped me get through to Murphy, I couldn’t afford to be touchy. “Elaine. We were . . . both of us were orphans. We got adopted by the same man when we were ten.”
Murphy blinked and looked up at me. “She was your sister?”
“I don’t have any relatives. We were both adopted by the same guy, that’s all. We lived together, drove one another nuts, hit puberty together. Do the math.”
She nodded. “How long were you together?”
“Oh. Until we were about sixteen.”
“What happened? How did she . . .”
I shrugged. “My adoptive father tried to get me into black magic. Human sacrifice.”
Murphy frowned. “He was a wizard?”
I nodded. “Strong one. So was she.”
“Didn’t he try to get Elaine, too?”
“Did get her,” I said. “She was helping him.”
“What happened?” she asked quietly.
I tried to keep my voice even and calm, but I wasn’t sure how well I managed it. “I ran away. He sent a demon after me. I beat it, then went back to save Elaine. She hit me with a binding spell when I wasn’t looking, and he tried a spell that would break into my head. Make me do what he wanted. I slipped out of the spell Elaine had on me and took on Justin. I got lucky. He lost. Everything burned.”
Murphy swallowed. “What happened to Elaine?”
“Burned,” I said quietly, my throat tightening. “She’s dead.”
“God, Harry.” Murphy was quiet for a moment. “Greg left me. We tried to talk a few times, but it always ended in a fight.” Her eyes welled up with tears. “Dammit, I should have at least gotten to tell him good-bye.”
I put the paper back on the table and closed the album, studiously not looking at Murphy. I knew she wouldn’t want me to see her crying. She inhaled sharply. “I’m sorry, Harry,” she said. “I’m flaking out on you here. I shouldn’t. I don’t know why this is getting to me so hard.”
I glanced at the booze and the pills on the table. “It’s okay. Everyone has an off day sometimes.”
“I can’t afford it.” She drew the bathrobe a little closer around herself and said, “Sorry, Harry. About the gun.” Her words sounded heavy, maybe a little slurred. “I had to be sure it was really you.”
“I understand,” I said.
She looked at me and something like gratitude touched her eyes. She got up from the couch abruptly and walked down a hallway, out of the living room, and said over her shoulder, “Let me put something else on.”
“Sure, okay,” I said after her, frowning. I leaned over to the table and picked up the prescription bottle behind the booze, next to the empty tumbler. A medium-sized dose of Valium. No wonder Murphy had been slurring her words. Valium and gin. Hell’s bells.
I was still holding the pills when she came back in, wearing baggy shorts and a T-shirt. She’d raked a brush through her hair and splashed water on her face, so that I could barely tell that she’d been crying. She stopped short and looked at me. I didn’t say anything. She chewed on her lip.
“Murph,” I said, finally, “Are you okay? Is there . . . I mean, do you need—”
“Relax, Dresden,” she said, folding her arms. “I’m not suicidal.”
“Funny you say that. Mixing drinks with drugs is a great way to get it done.”
She walked over to me, jerked the pill bottle out of my hands, and picked up the bottle of booze. “It isn’t any of your business,” she said. She walked into the kitchen, dropped things off, and came back out again. “I’m fine. I’ll be fine.”
“Murph, I’ve never seen you with a drink in your life. And Valium? It makes me worry about you.”
“Dresden, if you came over here to lecture me, you can leave right now.”
I shoved my fingers through my shaggy hair. “Karrin, I swear I’m not lecturing. I’m just trying to understand.”
She looked away from me for a minute, one foot rubbing at the opposite calf. It hit me how small she looked. How frail. Her eyes were not only weary, I saw now. They were haunted. I walked over to her and put a hand on her shoulder. Her skin was warm underneath the cotton of her T-shirt. “Talk to me, Murph. Please.”
She pulled her shoulder out from under my hand. “It isn’t a big deal. It’s the only way I can get any sleep.”
“What do you mean?”
She took a deep breath. “I mean, I can’t sleep without help. The drinks didn’t help. The drugs didn’t, either. I have to use both or I won’t get any rest.”
“I still don’t get it. Why can’t you sleep? Is it because of Greg?”
Murphy shook her head, then moved over to the couch, away from me, and curled up in the corner of it, clasping her hands over her knees. “I’ve been having nightmares. Night terrors, the doctors say. They say it’s different from just bad dreams.”
I felt my cheek twitch with tension. “And you can’t stay asleep?”
She shook her head. “I wake myself up screaming.” I saw her clench her fists. “God dammit, Dresden. There’s no reason for it. I shouldn’t get rattled by a few bad dreams. I shouldn’t fall to pieces hearing about a man I haven’t spoken to in years. I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with me.”
