by Jim Butcher
“Yeah, it got a little crazy,” I said.
“Did you get the guy?” Binder asked.
“Nah, he skated,” I said. “Nobody’s fault, really. Tricky, slippery little bastard.”
Binder eyed me. “Yeah. Right. You give me a big speech about how you’ll come down on my neck if I hurt anyone in your town. Then you two tear out of here to take up the chase, and Murphy winds up too busted up to continue after a ‘misunderstanding’ with Nicodemus.”
I gave him a beatific smile. “Binder, relax. The op isn’t in any danger. I made sure he’s not going to go to anyone. That was the point of chasing him down in the first place, right?”
Binder frowned. “I thought the White Council didn’t let you use mind magic.”
Which I hadn’t meant, at all, and which I really couldn’t do, considering my utter lack of talent in that area, but Binder didn’t know that. “I did what needed to be done,” I said. “And think of it like this—I don’t have to stomp on your neck now.”
Binder looked skeptical, but he didn’t push it—which was smart. Binder had a really formidable skill, but he was a one-trick pony. He wasn’t up to facing a Wizard of the White Council directly, and he knew it.
Michael rounded himself up a cup of coffee and looked at me. I nodded, and he brought me back one. “That’s a very large pen for just four goats,” he noted.
Which meant that the Genoskwa had come back here last night, and gotten a couple more meals in. Damn, but that thing ate a lot. It ate more than something that size should have been able to consume—but a lot of supernatural creatures had supernatural metabolisms that helped fuel their exceptional speed and strength. Ghouls could put down forty or fifty pounds of meat in a meal, and need more the next day. Maybe Big Shaggy had a similar high-consumption engine fueling its physical power.
I sipped coffee and waited. At a quarter to four, Goodman Grey came ambling in. The unassuming-looking man stopped ten feet short of the table and stared hard at Michael. The Knight returned the shifter’s look, and dropped the heel of his hand casually to the hilt of Amoracchius, resting it there with his fingers relaxed.
“What’s wrong?” I asked him.
“I don’t like that man very much,” Michael said. “He’s done terrible things.”
“Obviously,” Goodman Grey said, his tone wary. “I’m a monster for hire. But I’ve got no quarrel with you today, sir Knight.”
“Maybe,” Michael said. “Maybe not.”
Grey’s eyes flicked to me. “Do you really expect me to work with someone like this, wizard, on our side?”
“Yes,” I said. “You’ve been hired, haven’t you? Show a little professionalism.”
Grey grunted and seemed to relax a little. “Well. I won’t give him any cause to take issue with me. But if he does, don’t think I won’t take him apart.”
“Pretty sure you can’t,” I told him. “But it might be fun to watch you try it.”
Grey gave me a sour look and went over to the coffeepot.
At five minutes to four, Nicodemus and Deirdre arrived together. Deirdre was in her demonic battle form, all purple scales and metallic ribbons of hair. Both sets of her eyes were focused on Michael warily. Nicodemus looked like he always did, but more smug. “Good morning, everyone,” he said. “Table, please.”
In the shadows back behind Nicodemus, I could see the hulking outline of the Genoskwa, lurking in silence.
We all gathered around the table, where Nicodemus had laid out a large piece of paper with a map of the bank drawn cleanly upon it. “This will be a simple entry,” he said. He pointed at the front doors of the bank. “We’ll go in through these doors. There will be between three and six security personnel, and I will expect Binder and Dresden to keep their attention and eventually neutralize them. The rest of us will head straight back to the vaults. There are two large security doors in the way, but we aren’t going to bother opening them. Miss Ascher will go through the walls beside them here and here.” He marked the appropriate places with a red pen. “After that, Miss Valmont and Mr. Grey will move forward into the main vault. Miss Valmont will open the vault’s door, and Mr. Grey will open the target’s private storage room. Once those systems have been circumvented and the doors opened, it will be safe to bring our wizards into the vault.” He smiled widely. “And then the real fun can begin. Are there any questions?”
“What happens when we get where we’re going?” I asked. “You got a map for that?”
“Unfortunately, no,” Nicodemus said. “Though our path should be an obvious one. Our target uses active defenses to protect his vaults, not obfuscation.”
“No map,” I said. “Just some vague references to gates.”
“One does not attain great reward without daring similarly great risk,” Nicodemus said. “We will simply have to adapt to what we find as we enter.”
I did not, for a minute, believe that Nicodemus had no further information about Hades’ vault. But there wouldn’t be much point in saying it.
“If that is all,” Nicodemus said, “we shall load up. Dresden and his escort, Grey, and Valmont will be in the leftmost van. The rest of us will take the one on the right. I took the liberty of stocking them with heavy-duty backpacks for each of you, in order to allow you to gather up your shares. Mr. Binder, twenty of your associates in each van, if you please.”
“Got it,” Binder said. He produced his circle of wire and began calling up suits, issuing them an Uzi and a couple of spare clips as they arrived. They rushed to the waiting vans, leaping up into them with a will.
Michael watched and shook his head.
“Oh, cheer up, Mr. Carpenter,” Nicodemus said. “By the time the sun rises this morning, you may be twenty million dollars richer.”
“I have a family. I am already rich beyond measure,” Michael said. “But I really wouldn’t expect you to understand that.”
Nicodemus’s face went blank, his eyes cold.
I took note of that. It was far more reaction than I’d seen from him this whole time. Something about what Michael had said struck home.
“The time for talking and planning is over,” Nicodemus said. “Now is the time for action. Everyone get in the vans.”
Thirty-four
The inside of the van was crowded, with twenty of Binder’s goons crammed in with the four of us, and a couple of squires driving.
“All right, Dresden,” Grey said. “Let’s have your wrists.”
“What?” I said. “Oh, right. The manacles.”
“What is he talking about?” Michael asked.
“Thorn manacles,” I said. “They inhibit magical ability. They should greatly reduce the odds that I’ll blow out any of the building’s security systems by walking past—and we need them to stay up and functioning until we get all the doors open.”
“His wrist is broken,” Michael said to Grey. “Will they fit on his ankles?”
Grey held up a set of manacles on a heavy steel chain. They looked just like the ones I’d seen before, only they had the heavy gleam of steel to them, instead of that weird silvery metal the Sidhe used. The inner surfaces of the cuffs were lined with small, sharp thorns of steel. They would bite into the flesh when they were locked on—and with that steel breaking my skin, the Winter mantle would go to pieces.
That wasn’t going to feel good.
“Doesn’t matter,” I said, eyeing them. “If either of the cuffs is on, I can’t use the magic. Just have them both on one wrist and wrap the chain around to keep it out of my way. Gimme.”
“Sure you don’t want me to do it?” Grey asked.
“Nah, I dislike you enough already. I’ll put them on.” I took the manacles from Grey and gave Michael a look to let him know that I wanted him to pay attention. He frowned and did.
I elbowed myself enough room to wrap the chain around my wrist. Then I closed my eyes for a moment and took slow, deep breaths, concentrating. Blocking out pain was a lesson I’d learned a long time ag
o, and I could do it pretty well if I had time to prepare for it. Mostly, the bad guys aren’t that courteous before they start hurting me, but fortunately this time the bad guy was me, and I was willing to cut myself a break. It took me a couple of minutes to erect the mental barriers, and then I opened my eyes, pulled up the sleeve of my duster, and fastened both manacles onto my right wrist, locking them on with their key.
Steel bit into my skin with a hundred tiny teeth, and the Winter mantle vanished. As suddenly as light comes on when you flip the switch, my body started reporting injuries.
My arm was pretty horrid, but my back had apparently turned into a single large contusion when the Genoskwa slammed me into that parked car. My calf burned steadily where I’d been shot. My feet were killing me, too, which—what the hell? Had I gotten a pair of shoes the wrong size or something? I was aching in the knees, and somehow I’d collected a cut on my tongue and on one of my gums—I hadn’t really noticed them before, though I sure as hell felt them now.
And my head . . . oh, my aching head. Mab’s little silver earring was as cold as an ice cream truck in Antarctica, but with its numbing influence reduced by the steel, my head felt like it was going to crack open and spill out streams of molten lead.
I realigned my mental shields for a moment, once I knew exactly what I was supposed to be blocking out, and then straightened up slowly.
“Harry,” Michael said. “You just went pale.”
“Hurts,” I said shortly. “I’ll be fine.” I put the key to the manacles in my pocket, then picked up my oversized duffel bag and started rooting around in it. I’d tied a leather thong onto my wizard’s staff, and now wore it over one shoulder like a rifle. “Grey, I’m going to be making all kinds of light and noise once we’re inside. If you feel like doing something about the guards, try to make it nonfatal.”
“Or what?” Grey asked.
“The manacles come off and I get upset with you,” I said.
“Maybe I’ll just let them shoot you,” he said.
I gave him a pleasant smile. “If you do, who is going to open your Way to the vault, eh? Took me years of formal instruction to learn enough to make that happen. I guarantee you that Ascher can’t pull that one off.” I squinted at Grey. “Ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“Why take money for something like this?” I asked. “Someone with your talents can get it any way he wants.”
Grey shrugged. “No mystery. Everyone’s got to pay the Rent,” he said, and something in his voice put a capital letter on the last word.
“I don’t get it,” I said.
“I know,” Grey replied placidly. “Not my problem.”
“If you don’t mind, gentlemen,” Valmont said, speaking for the first time since we got in the van. “You may think your bits of the job are simple, but mine is the next best thing to impossible. I would appreciate some quiet, please.”
I eyed Valmont, grunted, and fell silent, working to rearrange the contents of my duffel to my satisfaction.
It didn’t take us long to get where we were going. The van came to a stop, and a moment later Jordan rolled up its rear door.
The Capristi Building is one of the last skyscrapers to be had on the north end of the city of Chicago proper, right across the street from Lincoln Park. It’s made of white concrete and glass, a mediocre bit of soulless modern architecture that’s all monotonous squares and right angles stretching up and up into the still-sleeting skies.
Between the weather and the time, the streets were almost completely empty and still—which actually bothered me a little bit. That stillness would have made our vans pretty obvious to anyone who saw them moving. I stepped out of the van, slipped on the ice, and would have fallen if I hadn’t grabbed onto the truck. Right. No Winter mantle to help with the ice.
By now, there was half an inch of transparent ice lying over every surface in sight. Power lines were bowed down with the weight of it. In the park behind me, the trees were bent almost double, and here and there, branches had cracked and fallen beneath its weight. The streets had been a mess, and only careful driving and the weight of the heavily loaded vans had kept them from slithering all over the place.
A sign on the first floor of the Capristi Building read: VERITY TRUST BANK OF CHICAGO. Which was a fine name for a mob bank. The first floor was the bank’s lobby, with the secure floors being on the levels below. At least half the outside of the building was glass, and I could see a security guard inside staring at the vans.
“Michael,” I said, striding toward the guard, drawing my gear out of my duffel and preparing it. “Doors.”
Michael stepped in front of me and said, as if reminding himself, “The building belongs to a criminal overlord and functions to assist him in his evil enterprise.” Then he drew Amoracchius, made two sweeping slashes, and the glass fell entirely out of the door immediately in front of me.
I deployed the material I’d picked up the day before: specifically, a self-lighting butane torch and a bundle of two dozen large roman candles I had duct-taped together. I held the roundish bundle of fireworks under my left arm and was already lighting their fuses en masse with the butane torch as Michael leapt aside. By the time the guard had begun to rise from his chair, twenty-four twenty-shot roman candles were sending out screaming projectiles that detonated with deafening cracks of thunder.
It was a constant stream of fire and sound and light and smoke, and the poor guard had no idea how to react. He’d been fumbling for his gun when the first projectile went off not a foot from his nose, and before he could recover from that, two dozen more were going off all around him.
I hated to admit it, but . . . it was pretty gratifying. I mean, it was like holding my own personal pyrotechnic minigun, so many rounds were spewing out of the various roman candles. They filled the air with the scorched scent of sulfur and thick smoke that I hoped would confuse the surveillance cameras.
The guard was hit by twenty or thirty of the sizzling munitions in a couple of seconds, and flung himself down behind his desk, while I peppered the wall behind him with more of the raucous projectiles. While I did that, Grey bounded into the place, danced between the last few rounds from my bundle, and slugged the guard across the jaw with bone-cracking force.
The guard went down in a moaning heap.
Grey looked at something behind the desk and said, “He got to the silent alarm.”
“Right,” I said. I dropped the first bundle of roman candles and pulled the second one out of the duffel bag. I started walking toward the stairs down to the vault below as I lit the second bundle, and began hosing down the top of the stairway with more fireworks just as two more men in the same uniform came pelting up the stairs.
These two weren’t as slow as the first one—and they had shotguns. That said, there’s a really limited amount of damage you can do when you can’t see or hear and loud things are going bang half an inch from your face, or giving you first-degree burns as they sizzle into your arm. They got a few aimless rounds off before Deirdre, in her demonform, swarmed past them, walking on her ribbons of hair as if they were the manifold legs of some kind of sea crustacean. A couple of them lashed out, slashing the shotguns in half, and the guards began to beat a hasty retreat back down the stairs.
Grey flung himself down the stairwell after them, not touching the stairs with his feet on the way, and there came the sounds of efficient and brutal violence from below, beneath the howling and banging of the fireworks.
“Clear!” Grey shouted.
I went to the top of the stairs and looked down. Grey had both guards lying back to back at the bottom of the stairs, in front of the first security door. He was busy using their handcuffs to cross-bind their wrists to one another.
I spattered him with the last few rounds from the roman candles. He rolled his eyes and gave me a disgusted look.
“Oops,” I said, and discarded the exhausted bundle of fireworks.
Nicodemus appeared on the stair
s beside me, looking down at Grey. He arched an eyebrow. “All three, still alive. Going soft, Grey?”
“They set off the silent alarm,” Grey said. “Means the authorities are coming. It will be easier for Binder to convince them to sit and talk rather than simply assaulting the place if we have prisoners instead of corpses.”
“I suppose that’s true,” Nicodemus said. He turned and called, “Mr. Binder, bring your associates in, if you would, and prepare to defend the building. Miss Ascher, we are ready for you now.”
I put the butane torch out, put it back in my duffel, and then slung my staff down off my shoulder. Nicodemus was eyeing me as I did.
“Fireworks,” he said.
“You think you’re the only guy in the world who can get things done without his supernatural gadgets?” I asked him.
He waved a hand at the smoke in his face and said mildly, “Let us hope that their firefighting systems do not include—”
An alarm began to blare, and sprinkler heads all around the first floor started up, spraying chilly, slightly stale-smelling water everywhere.
“—sprinklers,” Nicodemus finished on a sigh.
Hannah Ascher came in, moving quickly, and eyed me with disgust. “Fireworks? Seriously?”
“Loud and distracting, remember?” I called after her, as she descended the stairs. “I am the king of loud and distracting.”
“Not only do I have to burn through a wall,” she muttered. “I’ve got to do it in a downpour, too.”
“Get tough. It should help muffle the excess magical energy,” I said, maybe a bit grumpily.
Ascher shot a look back up at me, and gestured at the sprinklers. “You did this on purpose?”
“Yeah, well. Sometimes, when I get bored, I stop and think.”
She held up a small spray can. “How am I supposed to lay out a circle on the floor when there’s a layer of water over it? Did you think about that?”
“Deirdre,” Nicodemus said.
Deirdre promptly swarmed halfway down the stairs, and then there were several sharp sounds of impact, as her metallic hair shot out, surrounding Ascher, and slammed onto the floor around her. The flat ribbonlike hairs spread out, edge down, scraping along the marble tile like a squeegee, sweeping the standing water away.
