by Jim Butcher
“Choice?”
“Sure. Do you want to put your cap back on and play? Or do you want to wind up an old maid wandering around your house in the rotting remains of a wedding dress and thirty yards of Bubble Wrap, plotting heartlessly against some kid named Pip?” I regarded her soberly. “There’s really no middle ground.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s not right,” she said.
“See there? I’m not much good at offering wise counsel, but that didn’t stop me from trying.” I winked at her and walked on, around behind the backstop to where Michael sat on the bleachers on the far side of the field.
Molly sat on a blanket underneath a tree maybe ten yards away, with earbuds trailing wires down into her shirt’s front pocket, as if she were listening to a digital music player. It was an effort to blend into the background, I supposed, since she couldn’t have been listening to one of those gizmos any more than I could have. She was wearing sunglasses, too, so I couldn’t tell where her focus was, but I was sure she was being alert. She gave me the barest trace of a nod as I approached her father.
I sat down next to him and waited for it.
“Harry,” Michael said, “you look awful.”
“Yes, I do,” I said. I told him about the attempted assassination and about my discussion with Forthill.
Michael frowned at the children practicing, his expression quietly disturbed. “The Church wouldn’t do something like that, Harry. It isn’t how they operate.”
“People are people, Michael,” I said. “People do things. They make mistakes.”
“But it isn’t the Church,” he said. “If this person is part of the Church, he isn’t acting with their blessing or under their instructions.”
I shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t think they were too happy with me when I was a couple of days late turning over the Shroud.”
“But you did return it, safe and sound,” Michael said.
“How many people know about the swords? How many knew that I had Amoracchius?”
He shook his head. “I’m not certain. Given the sorts of foes they contend with, the knowledgeable people within the Church are more than mildly secretive and security conscious.”
I gestured around us. “Ballpark it for me.”
He blew out a breath. “Honestly, I just don’t know. I’ve personally met perhaps two hundred priests who understood our mission, but it wouldn’t shock me if there were as many as six or seven hundred, worldwide. But among them, that kind of important information would be closely kept. Four or five, at most. Plus the Holy Father.”
“I’m going to assume that il Papa didn’t personally attempt to blow me away,” I said gravely. “How do I find out about the others?”
“You might talk to Father For—”
“Been there, done that. He isn’t a fountain of exposition.”
Michael grimaced. “I see.”
“So, other than him—”
He spread his hands. “I don’t know, Harry. Forthill was my primary temporal contact.”
I blinked. “He never talked to you about your support structure in the Church?”
“He was sworn to secrecy,” Michael said. “I just had to trust him. Excuse me.” He stood up and called to the softball team, “Thank you, ladies! Two laps of the park and we’ll call it a day!”
The team began discarding gloves and such, and fell into a line to begin jogging around the exterior of the park, in no great hurry, talking and laughing as they went. I noticed that Kelly was among them and felt a little less like a complete incompetent.
“I’d really like to keep my brains on the inside of my skull,” I told him when he sat down again. “And if one of the Church’s top guys is leaking information or has sprung a gear, they need to know it.”
“Yes.”
I stared out at the now-empty softball diamond for a minute. Then I said, “I don’t want to kill anybody. But Buzz is playing for keeps. I’m not going to pull any punches.”
Michael frowned down at his hands. “Harry, you’re talking about murder.”
“What a shock,” I said, “after taking one of those monster rounds in the back.”
“There must be some way to end this without bloodsh—”
Over his shoulder, I saw Molly abruptly spring to her feet and whip off her sunglasses, staring across the park with a puzzled frown on her face. Then the girls from the team appeared from the direction in which Molly had been staring. The girls were running as fast as they could, screaming as they came.
“Coach!” screamed Kelly. “Coach! The man took her!”
“Easy, easy,” Michael said, rising. He put his hands on Kelly’s shoulders as Molly came hurrying over. “Easy. What are you talking about?”
“He came out of the van with one of those electric stunner things,” Kelly babbled, through her panting. “He zapped her, and then he put her in the van and drove away.”
Molly drew in a sudden breath and almost seemed to turn green.
Michael stared at the girl for a second, and then glanced at me. His eyes widened in horror. “Alicia!” he called, stepping past Kelly and looking wildly around the park. “Alicia!”
“He took her!” sobbed Kelly, her tears making her face blotchy. “He took her!”
“Kelly,” I said, to get her attention. “What did he look like?”
She shook her head. “I don’t—I can’t . . . White, not really tall. His hair was cut really short. Like army haircuts.”
Buzz.
He’d threatened Michael to get me to bring a sword out in the open, where it was vulnerable. Then he’d tried to kill me before I locked it away again. And when that failed, he tried something else.
“Molly,” Michael said quietly. “Take the truck. Drive Sandra and Donna home. Call your mother on the way and tell her what’s happened. Stay at the house.”
“But—” Molly began.
Michael turned hard eyes to her and said, “Now.”
“Yes, sir,” Molly said instantly.
Michael tossed her the keys to the truck. Then he turned to a nearby equipment bag and smoothly withdrew an aluminum bat. He whipped it around in a flowing rondello motion, nodded as if satisfied, and turned to me. “Let’s go. You’re driving.”
“Okay,” I said. “Where?”
“St. Mary’s,” Michael said, his tone positively grim. “I’m going to talk to Forthill.”
FORTHILL HAD JUST finished saying evening Mass when we showed up. Father Paulo greeted Michael like a long-lost son, and how was he doing, and of course we could wait for Forthill in his chambers. I suspected Paulo held deep reservations in regard to me. But that was okay. I wasn’t feeling particularly trusting toward him, either.
We’d been waiting in Forthill’s quarters for maybe five minutes when the old priest came in. He took one look at Michael and got pale.
“Talk to me about the order,” Michael said quietly.
“My son,” Forthill said. He shook his head. “You know that I—”
“He’s taken Alicia, Tony.”
Forthill’s mouth dropped open. “What?”
“He’s taken my daughter,” Michael roared, his voice shaking the walls. “I don’t care what oaths you’ve sworn. I don’t care what the Church thinks needs to be kept secret. We have to find this man and find him now.”
I blinked at Michael and found myself leaning a little away from him. The heat of his anger was palpable, a living thing that brought its own presence, its own gravity, into the room.
Forthill faced that anger like an old rock thrusting up stubbornly through a turbulent sea—worn and unmoving. “I will not break my oaths, Michael. Not even for you.”
“I’m not asking you to do it for me,” Michael said. “I’m asking you to do it for Alicia.”
Forthill flinched. “Michael,” he said quietly. “The order maintains security for a reason. Its enemies have sought to destroy it for two thousand years, and in that time the order has helped hundreds of thou
sands, even millions. You know that. A breach could put the entire order at risk—and that means more than my life, or yours.”
“Or an innocent child’s, apparently,” I said. “I guess you’re going to take that ‘Suffer the little children to come unto Me’ thing kind of literally, eh, Padre?”
Forthill looked from Michael to me, and then to the floor. He took a slow breath, and then smoothed his hands over his vestments. “It never gets any easier, does it? Trying to work out the right thing to do.” He answered his own question. “No. I suppose it’s often simpler to determine the proper path than it is to actually walk it.”
Forthill rose and walked over to a section of the wood-paneled wall. He put his hands at the top-right and lower-left sections of the panel and, with a grunt, pushed it in. It slid aside, revealing a space the size of a closet, filled with file cabinets and a small bookshelf.
I traded a glance with Michael, who raised his eyebrows in surprise. He hadn’t known about the hidey-hole.
Forthill opened a drawer and started thumbing through files. “The Ordo Malleus has existed, in one form or another, since the founding of the Church. Originally, we were tasked with the casting out of demons from the possessed, but as the Church grew, it became clear that we needed to be able to counter the threats from other enemies as well.”
“Other enemies?” I asked.
“Various beings who were masquerading as gods,” Forthill said. “Vampires and other supernatural predators. Wicked faeries who resented the Church’s influence.” He glanced at me. “Practitioners of witchcraft who turned their hand against the followers of Christ.”
“Hell’s bells,” I muttered. “The Inquisition.”
Forthill grimaced. “The Inquisition has become the primary reason Malleus maintains itself in secrecy—and why we very seldom engage in direct action ourselves. It’s all too easy to let power go to your head when you’re certain God is on your side. The Inquisition, in many ways, attempted to bring our struggle into the light—and because of the situation it helped create, more innocent men and women died than throughout centuries of the most savage, supernatural depredation.
“We support the Knights of the Cross and do whatever we can to counsel and protect God’s children against supernatural threats—the way we protected the girl you brought to me the year Michael’s youngest was born. Now the order recruits people singly, after years of personal observation, and maintains the highest levels of personal, ethical integrity humanly possible.” He turned to us, with a file folder in his hands. “But as you pointed out earlier, Harry, we’re only human.”
I took the folder from him, opened it, and found Buzz’s picture. I recognized the short haircut, and the severe lines of his chin and jaw. His eyes were new to me, though. They were as grey as stone, but less warm and fuzzy.
“‘Father Roarke Douglas,’” I read. “‘Age forty-three. Five eleven, one hundred eighty-five. Sniper for the Rangers, trained in demolitions, U.S. Army chaplain, parish priest in Guatemala, Indonesia, and Rwanda.’”
“Good Lord preserve us,” Michael said.
“Yeah. A real holy warrior,” I said. I eyed Forthill. “And this guy was brought in?”
“I’ve met Roarke on several occasions,” Forthill said. “I was always impressed with his reserve and calm in the face of crisis. He repeatedly distinguished himself by acts of courage in protecting his parishioners in some of the most dangerous locations in the world.” He shook his head. “But he . . . changed, in the last few years.”
“Changed,” Michael said. “How?”
“He became a strong advocate for . . . preemptive intervention.”
“He wanted to hit back first, eh?” I asked.
“You wouldn’t say that if you’d seen what life can be like in some of the places Father Douglas has lived,” Forthill said. “It’s not so simple.”
“It never is,” I said.
“He was, in particular, an admirer of Shiro’s,” Forthill continued. “When Shiro died, he was devastated. They had worked together several times.”
“The way you worked with Michael,” I said.
Forthill nodded. “Roarke was . . . not satisfied with the disposition of Fidelacchius. He made it known to the rest of Malleus, too. As time went by, he became increasingly frustrated that the sword was not being put to use.”
I could see where this one was going. “And then I got hold of Amoracchius, too.”
Forthill nodded. “He spent the last year trying to convince the senior members of Malleus that we had been deceived. That you were, in fact, an agent of an enemy power, who had taken the swords so they could not be used.”
“And no one thought to mention the way those archangels gave orders that I was supposed to hold them?”
“They never appear to more than one or two people at a time—and you are a wizard, Harry,” Forthill said. “Father Douglas hypothesized that you had created an illusion to serve your purpose, or else had tampered directly with our minds.”
“And now he’s on a crusade,” I muttered.
Forthill nodded. “So it would seem.”
I kept on reading the file. “He’s versed in magic—well enough, at least, to be smart about how he deals with me. Contacts in various supernatural communities, like the Venatori Umbrorum, which probably explains that protective amulet.” I shook my head. “And he thinks he’s saving the world. The guy’s a certifiable nightmare.”
“Where is he?” Michael asked quietly.
“He could be anywhere,” Forthill replied. “Malleus sets up caches of equipment, money, and so forth. He could have tapped into any one of them. I tried his cell phone. He’s not returning my calls.”
“He thinks you’ve been mind-scrambled by the enemy,” I muttered. “What did you expect to accomplish?”
“I had hoped,” Forthill said gently, “that I might ask him to be patient and have faith.”
“I’m pretty sure this guy believes in faith through superior firepower.” I closed the file and passed it back to Forthill. “He tried to kill me. He abducted Alicia. As far as I’m concerned, he’s off the reservation.”
Forthill’s expression became distressed as he looked at me. He turned to Michael, beseeching.
Michael’s face was bleak and unyielding, and quiet heat smoldered in his eyes. “The son of a bitch hurt my little girl.”
I rocked a step backward at the profanity. So did Forthill. The room settled into an oppressive silence.
The old priest cleared his throat after a moment. He put the file back in the cabinet and closed the door. “I’ve told you what I know,” he said. “I’m only sorry I can’t do more.”
“You can find her, can’t you?” Michael asked me. “The way you found Molly?”
“Sure,” I said. “But he’s bound to be expecting that. Magic isn’t a cure-all.”
“But you can find her.”
I shrugged. “He can’t stop me from finding her, but he can damn well make sure that something happens to her if I do.”
Michael frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Maybe he stashes her in a box that’s being held fifty feet above the ground with an electromagnet, so that when I get close with an active spell up and running, it shorts out and she falls. The bastard is smart and creative.”
Michael’s knuckles popped as his hands closed into fists.
“Besides,” I said, “we don’t need to find him.”
“No?”
“No,” I said. “We’ve got the swords. He’s got the girl.” I turned to go. “He’s going to find us.”
FATHER DOUGLAS CALLED Michael’s house later that night, and asked for me. I took the call in Michael’s office.
“You know what I want,” he said, without preamble.
“Obviously,” I said. “What do you have in mind?”
“Bring the swords,” he said. “Give them to me. If you do so without attempting any tricks or deceptions, I will release the girl to you unharmed. If
you involve the police or attempt anything foolish, she will die.”
“How do I know you haven’t killed her already?”
The phone rustled, and then Alicia said, “H-Harry? I’m okay. H-he hasn’t hurt me.”
“Nor do I want to,” Father Douglas said, taking the phone back. “Satisfied?”
“Can I ask you something?” I said. “Why are you doing this?”
“I am doing God’s work.”
“Okay, that doesn’t sound too crazy or anything,” I said. “If you’re so tight with God, can you really expect me to believe that you’ll be willing to murder a teenage girl?”
“The world needs the swords,” he replied in a level, calm voice. “They are more important than any one person. And while I would never forgive myself, yes. I will kill her.”
“I’m just trying to get you to see the fallacious logic you’re using here,” I said. “See, if I’m such a bad guy to have stolen the swords, then why would I give a damn whether or not you murder some kid?”
“You don’t have to be evil to be ambitious—or wrong. You don’t want to see the girl harmed. Give me the swords and she won’t be.”
There clearly wasn’t going to be any profitable discussion of the situation here. Father Douglas was going to have his way, regardless of the impediments of trivial things like rationality.
“Where?” I asked.
He gave me an address. “The roof. You come to the east side of the building. You show me the swords. Then you come up and make the exchange. No staff, no rod. Just you.”
“When?”
“One hour,” he said, and hung up.
I put the phone down, looked at Michael, and said, “We don’t have much time.”
THE BUILDING IN question stood at the corner of Monroe and Michigan, overlooking Millennium Park. I had to park a couple of blocks away and walk in, with both swords stowed in a big gym bag. Father Douglas hadn’t specified where I was supposed to stand and show him the swords, but the streetlights adjacent to the building were all inexplicably dark except for one. I ambled over to the pool of light it cast down onto the sidewalk, opened the bag, and held out both swords.
