by Jim Butcher
“I’m easy,” I said. “Any old rag will do.”
Marcone narrowed his eyes. There was a short, pointed silence while he met my gaze. He could do that. I’d gotten into a soulgaze with him in the past. It was one of the reasons he scared me. “In that case, I would advise you to exercise caution in your acquisitions.”
“Cautious, that’s me,” I said. “You sure you wouldn’t rather make this simple?”
“In deference to your limitations, I almost would,” Marcone said. “But I’m afraid I’m not quite sure what you’re talking about.”
I felt my eyes narrow and I took a step forward. Susan’s hand pressed against my arm, silently urging restraint. I lowered my voice to something between Marcone and myself. “Tell you what. Let’s start with one of your monkeys trying to punch my ticket in a parking garage. From there, we can move along to the part where I come up with a suitable reply.”
I didn’t expect what happened next.
Marcone blinked.
It wasn’t a huge giveaway. At a card table, only a couple of the players would have seen it. But I was right in his face, and I knew him and I saw it. My words startled Marcone, and for half a second it showed. He covered it, bringing out a businessman’s smile that was a lot better than my fake smile, and clapped a hand gently to my arm. “Don’t try me in public, Dresden. You can’t afford to do it. I can’t afford to let you.”
A shadow fell over Marcone, and I looked up to see Hendricks hulk into view behind him. Hendricks was still huge, still redheaded, still looked vaguely like a defensive lineman a little too awkward to make it from college to pro ball. His tux was nicer than mine. I wondered if he was wearing body armor under it again.
Cujo Hendricks had a date. He had a blond date. He had a gorgeous, leggy, blue-eyed, elegant, tall, Nordic angel of a date. She was wearing a white gown, and silver flashed at her throat, on each wrist, and on one ankle. I’d seen bikinis in issues of Sports Illustrated that might have felt too plain to be worn by Hendricks’s date.
She spoke, and her voice was a throaty purr. “Mister Marcone. Is there a problem?”
Marcone arched an eyebrow. “Is there, Mister Dresden?”
I probably would have said something stupid, but Susan’s nails dug into my forearm through my jacket. “No trouble,” Susan said. “I don’t believe we’ve met.”
“No,” said the blonde, with a faint roll of her eyes. “We haven’t.”
“Mister Dresden, Miss Rodriguez, I believe you both know Mister Hendricks. And this is Miss Gard.”
“Ah,” I said. “She’s an employee, I take it?”
Miss Gard smiled. Professional smiles all around tonight, it would seem. “I’m from the Monoc Foundation,” she said. “I’m a consultant.”
“Regarding what, one wonders,” said Susan. She definitely had the sharpest smile of those present.
“Security,” Gard said, unruffled. She focused on me. “I help make sure that thieves, spies, and poor wandering spirits don’t wind up all over the lawn.”
And I got it. Whoever Miss Gard was, it seemed fairly likely that she was responsible for the wards that had torn Bob up so badly. My head of righteous fury died out, replaced by caution. Marcone had been concerned about my talents. He’d started taking steps to balance things, and Marcone wasn’t one to show his hand early, which meant that he was already prepared for trouble of one kind or another with me. He was ready to fight me.
Marcone read my features and said, “Neither one of us wants any unpleasantness, Dresden.” His eyes became flat and hard. “If you want to talk, call my office tomorrow. In the meantime, I suggest you search for your classic renditions of Elvis elsewhere.”
“I’ll take it under advisement,” I answered. Marcone shook his head and walked away to do his own mingling, which seemed to consist mainly of shaking hands, and nodding in the appropriate spots. Hendricks and the Amazonian Gard shadowed Marcone, never far away.
“What a charmer you are,” Susan murmured.
I grunted.
“Such diplomacy.”
“Me and Kissinger.” I scowled after Marcone and said, “I don’t like this.”
“Why not?”
“Because he’s up to something. He set up magical defenses around his house.”
“Like he was expecting trouble,” Susan said.
“Yeah.”
“You think he’s the buyer for the Shroud?”
“Would make a lot of sense,” I said. “He’s got enough contacts and money to do it. The buy is apparently going down here at his gala.” I scanned the room as I spoke. “He doesn’t do anything without planning it out to his advantage. He’s probably got friends in hotel security. It would give him all kinds of freedom to meet Valmont where no one was watching.”
I spotted Marcone as he found a spot near a wall and lifted a tiny cell phone to his ear. He spoke into it, his eyes hard, and he had the look of a man who wasn’t listening, only giving orders. I tried to Listen in on what he was saying, but between the band, the ballroom, and the chatter of voices I wasn’t able to make anything out.
“But why?” Susan asked. “He’s got the means and the resources but what reason would he have to buy the Shroud?”
“Hell if I know.”
Susan nodded. “He certainly isn’t happy to see you here.”
“Yeah. Something unsettled him, gave him a nasty surprise. Did you see his face?”
Susan shook her head. “What do you mean?”
“A reaction, during the conversation. I’m sure I saw it. He got caught flat-footed when I was talking to him, and he didn’t like it.”
“You rattled him?”
“Maybe,” I said.
“Enough to push him into moving early?” Susan’s dark eyes had also picked out Marcone, who snapped the cell phone closed and headed for one of the service doors with Gard and Hendricks behind him. Marcone paused to speak to a red-jacketed security guard and glanced in our direction.
“Looks like we’d better get moving,” I said. “I need a minute to use the spell on this thread sample and lead us to the Shroud.”
“Why haven’t you done that already?”
“Limited range,” I said. “And the spell won’t last long. We need to be close.”
“How close?” Susan asked.
“Maybe a hundred feet.”
Marcone left the room, and the security guard lifted his radio to his mouth.
“Crap,” I said.
“Relax,” Susan said, though her own voice sounded tight. “These are the upper crust of Chicago. The security guards won’t want to make a scene.”
“Right,” I said, and started for the door.
“Slowly,” Susan said, her smile in place again. “Don’t rush.”
I tried not to rush, despite the security guard closing in behind us. I saw red jackets moving in my peripheral vision as well. We kept up the slow, graceful walk of people wandering around a party, and Susan smiled enough for both of us. We got as far as the doors before another red jacket appeared in the doors in front of us, cutting us off.
I recognized the man—the gunman outside the television studio, the one who had nearly ventilated Father Vincent and me in the parking garage. His eyes widened in recognition and his hand moved toward his jacket, where a gun would be inside a shoulder holster. The body language was clear: Come along quietly or get shot.
I looked around us, but other than the partygoers, the dance floor, and the other security guards, nothing really seemed to present itself as an option. Then the band struck up something a little faster with a syncopated Latin beat, and several of the younger couples who hadn’t been dancing previously moved out onto the floor.
“Come on,” I said, and guided Susan with me.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Buying some time to get across the room to those other doors,” I said. I turned to her, put one hand on her waist and took her other hand in mine, and led off onto the dance floor w
ith an uncomplicated two-step. “Just follow.”
I looked back to her to see her mouth open in shock. “You told me you couldn’t dance.”
“Not like in clubs and stuff,” I said. She followed me well enough to let me do a little dip and step into a restrained hustle. “I don’t do so well with rock and roll. Ballroom is something else.”
Susan laughed, her dark eyes shining, even as she watched the crowd around us for more red jackets. “Between this and the tux, you’re threatening to become classy. Where did you learn?”
I kept us moving down the dance floor, rolling Susan out to the length of our arms and then drawing her in again. “When I first came to Chicago, I had a bunch of jobs until I hooked up with Nick Christian at Ragged Angel Investigations. One of them was as a dance partner with a senior-citizen organization.”
“You learned from little old ladies?”
“Tough to tango with someone with lumbago,” I said. “It requires great skill.” I spun Susan again, this time bringing her back to me with her back to my chest, one hand still on her hip with the other holding her arm out. There was a subtle electricity in touching her, her waist slender and supple under my hand. Her hair smelled of cinnamon, and her dress left quite a bit of her back naked to view. It was distracting as hell, and when she glanced over her shoulder at me, her eyes were growing heated. She felt it too.
I swallowed. Focus, Harry. “See those doors behind the food tables?”
Susan nodded.
I checked over my shoulder. The security guards had been slowed down by the press of the crowd, and we had beaten them to the other side of the room. “That’s where we’re going. We need to ditch these guys and find Valmont before Marcone gets to her.”
“Won’t security just follow us through the kitchen?”
“Not if Vanilla Martin diverts their attention before we leave the floor.”
Susan’s eyes glittered and she kept dancing with me, drawing the tiny cell phone from her clutch. “You have a devious mind.”
“Call me crazy but I’d rather not have Marcone’s goons walk us out.” A little luck came our way, and the band moved to a somewhat slower number. Susan was able to stay closer to me, half concealing her cell phone. I heard the phone dialing numbers, and I tried to still my thoughts and feelings. It hadn’t worked for long at the Larry Fowler studio, but if I could rein in my emotions, Susan should at least be able to make a call.
It worked. She spoke quietly into the phone for all of three or four seconds, then clicked it closed and put it away. “Two minutes,” she said.
Damn. Martin was good. I could pick out a couple of security guards at the main doors. Marcone’s dark-haired hitter was closer. He had trouble making his way politely through the crowd, and we had managed to gain a small lead on him as we danced.
“Do we have a signal or anything?”
“I think we wait for something distracting to happen,” Susan said.
“Like what?”
The sudden shriek of braking tires cut through the band music. There was a loud crunch, and the sound of plate glass breaking, along with shrieks from the hotel lobby below. The band stopped in confusion, and people crowded toward the exit to see what was happening.
“Like that,” Susan said. We had to swim upstream, so to speak, but it didn’t look like anyone was bothering to look at us. I caught a glimpse of Marcone’s hitter, heading out toward the ruckus. The ass had his gun in his hand, despite any possible field of fire he might have picked being filled with rich and influential socialites. At least he was holding the weapon low and against his leg.
The staff were just as interested in the disturbance as anyone else, and we were able to duck back into the service hallway without comment from anyone. Susan took a quick look around and said, “Elevator?”
“Stairs if they have them. If someone shoots at us on stairs, we can scream and flail around a lot more.” I spotted a fire alarm diagram on the wall and traced my finger over it. “Here, down the hall and left.”
Susan stepped out of her shoes while I did that. It left her a lot shorter, but her feet were silent on the utilitarian carpet. We went down the hall, found the stairs, and started down them. We went down three flights, which put us at ground level again, I guessed. I opened the door from the stairwell and took a look around. A dingy little elevator opened, and a couple of guys in the food-stained white of kitchen hands went walking down the hallway, peering ahead and chattering. I heard a siren or two wailing outside.
“I’ll say this for Martin,” I muttered. “When he distracts, he distracts.”
“He has a strong work ethic,” Susan agreed.
“Keep an eye out,” I said, and stepped back from the door. Susan’s gaze flicked around the stairwell and over the hallway while I stepped back to kneel on the ground, drawing out what I would need for my seeking spell.
I pulled out a black Magic Marker and drew a smooth circle on the tiled landing, all the way around me. The marker squealed as I did, and as I closed the circle I willed it shut. A gentle barrier, something I couldn’t see but could easily feel closed around me, screening out disruptive forces so that I could work my spell.
“Is that a permanent marker?” Susan asked.
“Thus do I strike a blow for anarchy whenever the mood takes me,” I muttered. “Just a minute.” I took out the sample from Father Vincent and a windup plastic duck.
Which isn’t as goofy as it sounds. Stay with me.
I touched the thread to the duck’s bill, then wound the duck up. I muttered a low chant, mostly nonsense syllables, and focused on what I wanted. I set the duck down on the floor, but instead of beginning to waddle, it instead waited, completely still. I had to use a rubber band to attach the tiny thread to the duck’s bill. It was too short to tie on. I focused, brushing aside any thoughts besides those I needed for the spell, and let the gathered magic go with a whispered, “Seek, seek, seek.”
The power poured out of me, leaving me a bit short of breath. The little yellow duck quivered and then lurched into motion, spinning about in an aimless circle. I nodded once, reached out a hand, and with an effort of will to support the gesture, I broke the circle. The screen vanished as quickly as it had arrived, and the little yellow duck quacked and marched toward the door.
I glanced up at Susan. Her dark and lovely eyes watched the duck with what could charitably be termed extreme skepticism.
I scowled at her. “Don’t say it.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Well, don’t.”
She fought down a smile. “I won’t.”
I opened the door. The duck waddled out into the hallway, quacked, and turned to the left. I stepped out, picked the duck up, and said, “It’s close. Let’s move. We just check the duck at intersections.”
“Does the duck know about stairs?”
“More or less. Come on; I don’t know how long the spell will last.”
I led the way. I’m not the world’s mightiest athlete, but I exercise a bit, I have really long legs, and I can walk faster than some run. The duck led us down a pair of long hallways to a door with an EMPLOYEES ONLY sign on it.
I opened the door, peeked in, and reported in a whisper, “Big laundry room.”
Footsteps sounded behind us, coming down another hallway. Susan looked at me with wide eyes. I pushed into the room, Susan close behind me. I closed the door almost all the way, holding it from closing completely so that the lock wouldn’t click and give us away.
The footsteps came closer, a couple sets of them, and two shapes went quickly by, passing close to the cracked doorway.
“Hendricks and Gard,” I murmured to Susan.
“How do you know?” she whispered back.
“Smelled the blonde’s perfume.” I counted silently to ten and opened the door, looking out. The hallway was clear. I closed the door and turned on the lights. The room was fairly large, with several commercial washing machines ranked against one wall. A bank
of dryers faced them on the opposite side of the room, and in between were several long counters that held stacks and stacks of folded white sheets and towels. I put the duck on the floor, and it waddled off down the row of counters. “This is how they had it hidden on the yacht. Concealed among laundry.”
“And those professional-thief types tend to be so predictable?” Susan asked.
I frowned and put the duck on the floor. “Watch the door.”
The duck waddled at once over to the far side of the room, and bumped into some hanging laundry. I pulled the hanging sheets to one side, and found a large ventilation grate behind them. I knelt down, running my fingers and eyes over the edges of the grate, and found a pair of holes where screws had been. A quick tug on the grate had it off the wall, revealing a vent maybe three feet square. I stuck my head in and found a ventilation shaft running between the walls. The duck waddled in and took a determined right.
“Air duct,” I said. I twisted out of the tuxedo jacket and absently ripped off the tie from around my neck. I stepped out of the clumsy shoes and rolled up my shirtsleeves, baring my shield bracelet to view. “Be right back.”
“Harry,” Susan began, her voice worried.
“I saw Alien. I’m not Tom Skerritt.” I winked at Susan, picked up the duck, and entered the air duct, moving as quietly as I could.
Evidently, it was very quiet. The duct ran straight, grates opening into utility rooms every fifteen or twenty feet. I had gone past three of the grates when I heard voices.
“This isn’t according to the deal,” came Marcone’s voice. It had the scratchy edges of a radio transmission to it.
Anna Valmont’s smooth British accent answered it from the other side of the next grate. “Neither was an early rendezvous. I don’t like it when a buyer changes the plan.”
A radio clicked. Marcone’s voice came through it, smooth and calm. “I assure you that I have no interest in breaking faith with your organization. It isn’t good business.”
“When I have confirmation of the transfer of funds, you’ll get the article. Not a second before.”
