by Jim Butcher
“Oh,” she said. “Okay. Molly says you’re really nice.”
“I try to be.”
“Is he nice, Mouse?”
Mouse continued wagging his tail furiously, and gave a quiet bark.
“Mouse is smart,” she said, nodding. “Really super dog smart. We’re reading James and the Giant Peach.”
I blinked. Did she mean that she was reading the book to the dog or that Mouse was reading the book, too? I mean, I already knew that he was as smart as most people, but I’d never really considered whether or not he could learn to do abstract things like reading. It seemed like a very strange notion.
On the other hand, he was going to school. Hell, I only had a GED. If he stayed close enough to Maggie for long enough, the dog might wind up with more education than me. Then there’d be no talking to him.
“Don’t tell people about Mouse, though, okay?” Maggie said, suddenly worried. “It’s a top secret.”
“I won’t,” I said.
“Okay. Do you wanna see my room?”
“I’d like that.”
I came up the stairs, and Maggie let go of the dog’s mane with one hand, to grab my right forefinger with it, and to lead me down the hall.
Maggie’s room had, long ago, been Charity’s sewing room. They’d cleaned it out and redecorated the little chamber, in purple and pink and bright green. There was a tiny kid-sized desk with a chair, and several toy boxes. The toys had all been put neatly away. There were a couple of schoolbooks on the desk. A closet stood slightly open, and proved to have its floor covered in dirty clothes that hadn’t made it into a small laundry hamper. There was a raised bed against one wall, the kind that usually came with a second one beneath it. There wasn’t a lower bunk. Instead, there was a big futon mattress on the floor beneath the bed. Posters of brightly colored cartoon ponies adorned the walls, and the ceiling above the bed.
Once we were in the room, Mouse finally let out a few little whines and came over to me, grinning a big doggy grin. I spent a few minutes rubbing his ears and scratching him beneath the chin and telling him what a good dog he was and how much I’d missed him and what a good job he was doing. Mouse wriggled all over and gave my hands a few slobbery kisses and in general behaved exactly like a happy dog and not at all like a mystic, super-powered guardian creature from Tibet.
Maggie climbed a little ladder to her bunk, to watch the exchange closely. After a minute, Mouse leaned against me so hard that he nearly bowled me over, and then he happily settled down on the futon mattress beneath the little girl’s bed.
“I have a monster under my bed, and it’s Mouse,” she said proudly. “There was another one there but me and Mouse slayerized it.”
I lifted an eyebrow. I mean, any other kid, I might have thought she was reporting a recent game of pretend. But on the other hand . . . I mean, she was a Dresden and all. Maybe she was giving me the facts and nothing but the facts.
“He’s the most awesome dog ever,” I said.
That pleased her immensely. “I know!” She chewed on her lip thoughtfully, a gesture that reminded me so much of Susan that a tangible pang went through my chest. “Um,” she said. “Would you like to . . . tuck me in?”
“Sure,” I said.
She nodded and flopped down onto her pillow. I stepped up to the bed and took a few seconds to sort out the sheets and the blanket and to get them pulled over her. Once that was done, she said, “Would you like to read me a story?”
Mouse’s tail thumped enthusiastically against the wall.
“Sure,” I said. And we read Where the Wild Things Are.
When I finished, she said, “You didn’t do the voices right.”
“Hmmm,” I said. “Maybe I’ll do better next time.”
“I don’t know,” she said dubiously. “I guess you can try.” She looked at my face searchingly for a moment and then said, in a tiny voice, “Do you want to be my dad?”
I went blind for a few seconds, until I blinked the tears away.
“Sure,” I said. It came out in a tight croak, but when I said it she smiled at me.
* * *
By the time I’d finished the second run-through of Sendak’s opus, she was asleep.
I made sure the blankets had her all covered up, and kissed her hair, and then crouched down beside Mouse and put my arms around him.
“Thank you, boy,” I said. “Thank you for taking care of her.”
He leaned against me, tail wagging, and snuggled his huge head into my ribs. I petted him some more. “I have to go soon. But I need you to keep her safe. The Carpenters, too. Okay?”
He chuffed and snuggled a little closer.
“Missed you too, boy,” I said, rubbing his ears. “I just need a little time to figure this out. To figure out what comes next.”
Had I decided that I was going to be a dad to Maggie now? I examined myself and realized that indeed I had. When did that happen? And why hadn’t anyone kept me in the loop?
It had happened, I thought, the moment I had seen her, talked to her.
Oh my God.
That was terrifying.
And . . . exciting?
All things considered, I wasn’t sure I could put a lot of trust in my emotions at the moment. But one thing was certain.
If I wanted to keep my word to my daughter, I’d have to come back. That meant staying alive tomorrow.
I got up, gave Mouse a final round of petting and scratching, and padded quietly from the room into the upstairs hallway. The lights in the other rooms were out—except for the one in Michael and Charity’s room. A light burned there. The door was slightly open.
And I could see Charity, sitting on the edge of the bed in flannel pajamas, a tall blond woman with an excellent physique, whose hair was threading through with silver in style as she aged. Her tearstained face was miserable, as she spoke, presumably, to her husband, seated on the bed beside her. I couldn’t see him from there.
Obviously Michael had intended that talk to take place in private.
I turned away from it and went back down the stairs. I sat down on the bottom steps and tried to clear my head.
A few minutes later, Charity came down the stairs and sat down next to me. I made room.
“Where’s Michael?” I asked.
“Praying over the children,” she answered. “He always does that before he leaves. In case . . .”
“Yeah,” I said.
“You know,” Charity said, “I had intended to punch you in the nose, twice, the moment I saw you again. Once to make it bleed, once to break it.”
“Oh?”
“Mmm-hmm. The first time for trying to kill yourself. The second for using my daughter to do it.”
“You, uh. You know about that? How?”
“I watch. I listen. Her reaction to reports of your death was . . . too much. It took time, but I eventually worked out why she was so furious at herself.”
“You can hit me right now, if you think it would help,” I said.
“No,” she said tiredly. “I just wanted to tell you something.”
“Yeah?”
She nodded. “Kids need their father to come home safe, Harry. Make sure it happens.”
“I’ll bring him back to you or die trying. I promise.”
Charity glanced at me and then shook her head with a weary smile. “I wasn’t talking about Michael, Harry. I meant you.” She glanced back up the stairs, toward Maggie’s room. “That child has lost everyone she’s ever loved. Did you notice how close she stays to Mouse? Without him, I wonder if she’d be functioning at all. If anything should happen to you . . .”
“Ah,” I said quietly.
“Maggie doesn’t need to feel that pain again. Don’t let her down.”
I chewed on my lip and nodded with my watery eyes closed. “Right.”
“And . . . please remember that Michael has children who need him, too. Please.”
“I’ll bring him back or die trying,” I repeated.
>
Charity exhaled a shaky breath, and then touched my shoulder gently. “Thank you. God be with you and bring you home safe, Harry. Both of you.”
Thirty-three
At three thirty a.m., we rolled up to the evil lair in a soccer mom’s minivan with a MY KID IS AN HONOR STUDENT AT . . . bumper sticker on the back. It is worth noting that by the standards of my life, this was not a terribly incongruous entrance.
Michael regarded the slaughterhouse for a moment after he had killed the ignition and said, “This is a bad place.”
“Yeah,” I said. I rubbed at the small of my back. I’d gotten a few hours’ worth of sleep before we’d left, on the futon mattress on the floor beneath Maggie’s bed. Mouse had been happy to snuggle up to me. The lummox likes to pretend he’s still a tiny puppy that will fit on my lap if he tries hard enough, and I’d been too tired to argue with him. As a result, I’d had to practice defensive sleeping, and it had left my back a little twitchy.
On the upside, even the modest amount of sleep I’d gotten had done wonders to restore me, or at least the power of the Winter mantle. I felt practically normal, broken arm, gunshot wound, and all.
Michael was dressed in his old mail, which he had kept clean and scoured free of rust despite his retirement. He wore body armor beneath it. He’d put his big white cloak with its bright red cross on the left breast over it.
“You sure you couldn’t just put something black on?” I asked him. “You’re going to clash with all the bad-guy robbery wear.”
“That’s the idea,” Michael said.
“You don’t get it, man,” I said. “This building we’re going to hit belongs to John Marcone. We’re supposed to go in without taking down their electronic systems. That means there will be cameras and pictures. The blindest security tech in the world could identify you—and your guardian angels won’t protect you from Marcone’s people.”
Michael shook his head. “It won’t come to that.”
“You say that,” I said, “but you don’t know what Marcone is like.”
“Perhaps,” he said. “But I do know what the Almighty is like, Harry. And He wouldn’t give me the strength to do this only to have it result in harm to my family.”
I grimaced. “Seems to me it would be polite of you to take a couple of prudent steps—like wearing dark clothes and a mask—so that the Almighty wouldn’t need to go out of His way to arrange things for you.”
He barked out a quick laugh and gave me a rueful smile. “So you have been listening to me, all this time.” He shook his head. “Nicodemus and his ilk operate in the shadows, in secret. The Swords aren’t meant for that. I have nothing to hide.”
“Hey,” I said, letting my voice be annoyed, “as shadowy ilk myself, I think I resent that statement.”
Michael snorted. “You destroy buildings, fight monsters openly in the streets of the city, work with the police, show up in newspapers, advertise in the phone book, and ride zombie dinosaurs down Michigan Avenue, and think that you work in the shadows? Be reasonable.”
“I will if you will,” I said. “At least wear a ski mask.”
“No,” Michael said calmly. “The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me. Trust Him, Harry.”
“Probably not in the cards,” I said.
His smile widened. “Then trust me.”
I threw up my hands. “Fine. Whatever. Are you sure your people can find someplace safe to keep the Grail if we get it back? Because apparently they go out and use the Coins to get snacks out of the vending machine, the things go back into circulation so fast.”
“Part of the nature of the Coins is to be in circulation, as you put it,” Michael said. “They can only be contained for so long. The Grail is a different proposition entirely. They’ll keep it safe.”
“And you know the rules I have to play by, right?” I asked.
“You have to help Nicodemus recover the Grail,” he said. “After that, you can go weapons free.”
“Right. And you’ll respect that?”
“I will do what is right,” Michael said.
I licked my lips. “Yeah, but . . . could you maybe put off doing what is right until we get clear of Mab’s restrictions?”
“All things considered,” Michael said, “no. I’m not taking chances.”
Translation: He wasn’t going to do anything—or not do anything—that might screw up Uriel’s grace, no matter what.
Thank you, Mab, for this wonderful, wonderful game. Maybe next time we can play pin the tail on the wizard.
“I’m pretty sure Nicodemus is going to play it straight, at least until right before we get back to Chicago,” I said.
“Why would he?”
“Because I’m going to say please.”
Michael arched an eyebrow at me.
“I’m going to say it in his native tongue,” I said.
“Power?”
“Bingo.”
* * *
Nicodemus hadn’t warned his squires what to expect, and when Michael strode in at my side, Jordan and his brothers-in-arms produced a truly impressive number of weapons in what appeared to be a state of pure panic.
Michael just stood there with his thumbs hooked into his belt, Amoracchius hanging quietly at his side in its scabbard. “Son,” he said to Jordan, “don’t you have anything better to do than point that thing at me?”
“Lower your weapons,” I snarled in a voice loud enough to carry throughout the slaughterhouse. “Before I start downsizing your organization.”
They didn’t put their guns down, but my threat did make a lot of the squires eye me nervously. Go me.
“Hey, Nick,” I shouted. “Your boys are all jittery. You want to calm them down or should I do it?”
“Gentlemen,” Nicodemus called, a moment later, “I know who is with Dresden. Let them through.”
Jordan and the others lowered their weapons with manifest reluctance, but kept their hands on them, ready to bring them to bear again at any time. Michael didn’t move or take a threatening posture, but he swept his gaze from squire to squire, one by one.
They all dropped their eyes from his. Every one of them.
We started down to the conference table, and Michael said, “I feel sorry for these men.”
“The tongue thing?” I asked.
“Removing their tongues is one way to keep their loyalty,” Michael said.
“Yeah. I love people who mutilate my body parts.”
He frowned. “It’s designed to keep them isolated. Think what it does to them. They can’t talk—so how much more difficult is it for them to connect with other people? To form the kinds of bonds that might let them free themselves of this cult? They can’t taste their food, which precludes eating for pleasure—and eating together is one of the primary means of forming real relationships between human beings. Think how much more difficult it makes even the simplest of interactions with outsiders. And how the shared experience of that hardship means that one’s fellow squires will always be the only ones who truly understand his pain.” He shook his head. “It’s the last step of their indoctrination for a reason. Once it’s done, they no longer have a voice of their own.”
“It’s not the same as not having a choice,” I said. “These guys have made their call.”
“Indeed. After being manipulated by Nicodemus and Anduriel as unwise young men.” He shook his head. “Some men fall from grace. Some are pushed.”
“Once their fingers pull the trigger, does it matter?”
“Of course it matters,” Michael said, “but it doesn’t change what has to be done. I just wish they could find another way to fill the empty place inside them.”
We’d reached the conference table by that time, where the crew was making final preparations. Anna Valmont, Hannah Ascher, and Binder were all there, dressed in close-fit, dark clothing, and each of them was wearing a shoulder holster. Valmont had a roll-up leather tool pouch laid out on the table and was going throug
h various bits of equipment in it one by one. Ascher was sipping coffee, her bagel untouched on the plate in front of her. Binder was going over his gang’s Uzis one more time.
The loading doors at one end of the slaughterhouse rolled open, and a pair of large stepside vans rumbled into the place a moment later. Several squires set about getting them lined up and then rolling their rear doors open.
“Morning, Dresden,” Hannah Ascher said. “What happened to your girlfriend?”
“She’s not my girlfriend,” I said. “And she had a misunderstanding with Nicodemus.”
Anna Valmont’s eyes flicked up to me, hard.
“She’s alive,” I told her. “But she wasn’t in any shape to go to work today.”
“So you brought Captain Crusader instead?” Ascher asked. “He looks like a Renaissance fair.”
Binder abruptly stood up, his eyes widening. “Bloody hell, girl. That’s a Knight of the Sword.”
Ascher frowned. “I thought there were only, like, three of those guys in the whole world.”
“Two,” Michael said, “at the moment.”
Binder stared at Michael, and narrowed his eyes in calculation. “Aw, dammit. Dresden, this is what you do because Nicodemus gets in a tiff with your girlfriend?”
“She’s not my g—” I rubbed at the bridge of my nose. “Look, I want someone I know and trust watching my back. Murphy couldn’t do it, so he’s doing it instead.”
“What a load of tripe,” Binder said. “You think I don’t know what the Coins and the Swords are like with each other? You didn’t bring him to watch your back. You brought him to fight.”
“Let’s just say I don’t mind having a deterrent around,” I said. “If Nicodemus plays it straight and keeps his word, I will too and we’ll all get rich.”
Binder scowled and eyed Michael. “Is that right, Knight?”
“Harry’s generally a very honest man,” Michael said. “I really don’t care about the money, though.”
Binder and Ascher both tilted their heads to one side, like dogs that have just heard a new noise.
Anna Valmont smiled and shook her head slightly, going back to checking her tools.
“So what happened last night?” Ascher asked me. “Binder’s goons drew him a picture of a lion. The ones who came back, I mean.”
