by Jim Butcher
No fighter, maybe, but the little guy had guts enough for any three bruisers.
It didn’t do either of them any good.
The large man seemed to sense the ploy. He ducked the swinging bolt cutters without so much as turning around and simultaneously snapped out his left arm, the heel of his hand thrusting forward. He hit Butters squarely in the belly and sent the little man sprawling. Then he whirled as Fitz recovered his balance and swung the bolt cutters again. He caught them with one hand, matching Fitz’s strength with a single arm. Then with a sinuous motion of his upper body that reminded me of Murphy at work, he both took the bolt cutters from Fitz’s hands and sent the young man sprawling into Butters, who had just begun to climb to his feet again. They both went down in a heap as the door clanged shut.
Daniel Carpenter, Michael Carpenter’s eldest son, stood in place for a moment, holding the bolt cutters lightly, as tall and as strong as his father, his grey eyes distant and cold. Then he glanced at me, opened his mouth, and closed it again.
I waved at him and said, “Hi, Daniel.”
The sound of my voice came to him only through the radio in Butters’s pocket.
He blinked. “What the hell?” Daniel asked, staring at me. Then he looked at Butters, then at Fitz, and then at the bolt cutters. “I mean, seriously. What the hell, Butters? What the hell are you doing?”
Butters pushed Fitz off him and eyed Daniel with annoyance. “Quietly, please,” he said in a lower, intent voice. “We’re sneaking up on a bad guy, here, and you aren’t helping.”
“Is that what you’re doing?” Daniel asked—but at least he lowered his voice. “Because Ms. Murphy thinks you’re losing your mind.”
Butters blinked. “What? Why would Karrin think that?”
“Because of that thing,” Daniel said, nodding toward me.
“Ouch,” I said. “That stings, Daniel.”
“Dude,” Butters said. “Don’t be a dick. That’s Dresden. Or at least it’s his spirit, which is mostly the same thing.”
“We don’t know that,” Daniel shot back. “Things from the spirit world can look like whatever they want to look like. You know that.”
“Didn’t we already go through this proper-identification thing?” I complained.
“I know. Right?” Butters said to me. “See what she’s gotten to be like?”
“Who?” Daniel demanded.
“Karrin, obviously,” Butters shot back. “Since you vanished, Harry, she’s been fighting a war, and using whatever weapons she can find. Hell, she’s even taken help from Marcone.”
Daniel’s face flushed darker. “Do not talk about Ms. Murphy that way. She’s the only reason the Fomor haven’t terrorized Chicago like they have everywhere else.”
“The two don’t preclude one another,” Butters said with a sigh. He looked at me and spread his hands. “You see what I’m dealing with?”
I grimaced and nodded. “It’s about her job, I think. She’s insecure about her place in the world. She was like this when I first opened up shop, about the time she got put in charge of SI—suspicious, closeminded, negative outlook about everything. It was impossible to talk to her.”
“You’re sneaking around against her orders,” Daniel said to Butters.
Butters got to his feet and offered Fitz a hand up. “Orders? This isn’t the army, man, and Murphy isn’t the King of Chicago. She can’t order me to do anything.”
“I notice you say that when she is not in the room,” I said.
“I’m an independent thinker, not a martyr,” Butters replied. He squinted at Daniel. “Wait a minute. She had you tailing me?”
“Damn,” I said. “That is paranoid.”
Daniel shook his head, scowling briefly at me. “You’re going to have to come with me, Mr. Butters.”
“No,” Butters said. “I’m not.”
Daniel set his jaw. “Ms. Murphy said that for your own good, I was to get you out of whatever that creature got you into. So let’s go.”
“No,” Butters said, glaring up at the much larger young man. “I’m not leaving Forthill to the mercy of a punk sorcerer.”
Daniel blinked his eyes several times, and the determined belligerence went out of his stance. “The father? He’s here? He’s in danger?”
“It gets less likely we’re going to be able to help him the longer we stand around gabbing,” Butters said. He recovered his bag, rummaged in it, and added, “This will work better with you here anyway.” He straightened up and tossed a folded square of grey cloth at Daniel. “Put that on. Stay next to me. Don’t talk.”
Daniel stared at the cloth dubiously, then looked at Butters.
“For Forthill,” Butters said quietly, softening his voice. “We’ll leave as soon as he’s safe, and you can take me straight to Karrin. You have my word. Okay?”
Daniel agonized over it for a couple of seconds. Then he nodded at Butters and unfolded the grey cloth.
“Oh,” I said, suddenly understanding the little guy’s plan. “Good call. The fabric isn’t exactly right, but it’s close. This could work.”
Butters nodded. “I thought it might. How should we approach it?”
“Small-timer like Aristedes is insecure about the size of his magical penis,” I said. “Give his ego a few crumbs and he’ll eat out of your hand.”
“We’ll have to go to radio silence,” Butters said. “There wasn’t time to make the headphones work with it.”
“If I think of anything imperative, I can tell Fitz. He’ll pass it on.”
Fitz looked nervously between Butters, Daniel, and me. “Oh. Uh. Sure. Because I can hear Dresden even without a radio.”
Butters drew a second square of grey cloth from the bag and then tossed the bag over to one side. Calmly, he unfolded the cloth and threw the hooded cloak it proved to be over his shoulders, fastening a clasp at his throat.
“So, Harry,” Butters said. “How do the Wardens like to make an entrance?”
Chapter Thirty-seven
Daniel Carpenter leaned back, lifted a size-fourteen work boot, and kicked the door leading to the factory floor completely off its hinges.
I was impressed. The kid had power. I mean, sure, the door was old and all, the hinges rusted, but it was still a freaking steel door. And it went a couple of feet through the air before it slammed down onto the floor with an enormous, hollow boom that echoed through the huge room beyond it.
“Thank you,” Butters said, in the absolutely obnoxious British accent he normally reserved for the nobleman his players were supposed to hate at our old weekly gaming sessions. He sniffed and strode onto the factory floor, his footsteps clear and precise in the empty space. The fake Warden’s cloak floated in his wake.
Daniel stomped along a step behind Butters, his dark brows lowered into a thug’s glower. It looked pretty natural on him. He had one huge hand clamped down on the back of Fitz’s neck and was dragging the kid along with brusque, casual power. Fitz looked intensely uncomfortable.
Butters stopped at a faint old line of chalk on the floor, regarded it for a moment, and then called out, “Hello? I say there, is anyone at home? I’m here to speak to the sorcerer Aristedes. I was told he was to be found here.” He paused for maybe a second and a half and added, “I’ve a warlock to catch in Trinidad in an hour. I would prefer not to draw this out.”
No one answered. There were soft, furtive sounds: an old tennis shoe dragging across the concrete floor with a faint squeak. Footsteps. A soft exhalation. A faint grunt of exertion.
“Warden,” Butters said. He picked at his teeth with his thumbnail.
Daniel’s shoulders locked up and tightened, and Fitz let out a short yowl. “It’s me!” he called out frantically. “It’s Fitz! Sir, they say they’re here to talk to you about the Fomor.”
“Fitz!” said a voice from off to one side. One of the kids from the drive-by, the little one, emerged from behind a set of metal cabinets. He got a look at Fitz’s situation and tensed int
o a crouch, ready to run.
“Hey, Zero,” Fitz said, trying to sound casual as he all but dangled from Daniel’s grip. “The boss home?”
There was a swishing sound, as if someone had thrown a large ball at considerable speed. And then Aristedes said, from directly behind us, “I am.”
Daniel twitched, but Butters concealed his reaction masterfully. He simply glanced over his shoulder and regarded Aristedes, who now stood in the newly doorless entryway. Butters arched an eyebrow, as if he’d seen the trick before but at least found it well-done, and turned to face Aristedes.
He gave the man a slight bow and said, “I am Warden Valdo. This is Warden Smythe.”
Daniel glowered.
“If you aren’t otherwise occupied, I wonder if we might ask for a moment of your time.”
Aristedes studied the three of them for a silent moment, his eyes narrowed. He was wearing a ragged, old dark blue bathrobe over loose cotton chinos and a tank top. The hair on his chest was thick and dark. The tattoos around his skull and over his cheekbones stood out sharply against his pale skin.
“You are from the White Council?” he asked.
Butters studied him for a moment and then sighed. “Should I start at the beginning again? Our files describe you as a minor but competent operator. Were they mistaken?”
Aristedes folded his arms, his expression a neutral mask. “I am, of course, aware of the White Council. What business do you have with me? And why are you holding my apprentice prisoner?”
I did a quick circle around Aristedes. Since I was all ghosty, he never knew I was there. He didn’t so much as get goose bumps on the back of his neck. I guessed that he was the opposite of Forthill: Being a selfcentered megalomaniac hadn’t prepared Aristedes to be sensitive to anyone’s soul at all.
“There’s a bulge under the robe at the small of his back,” I said to Fitz. “Blink twice for yes if you know what it is. Blink once for no.”
Fitz shot a glance at me and blinked twice.
“A weapon?” I asked.
Two blinks.
“Gun?”
One blink.
“Knife?”
Two blinks.
“Okay,” I said. “That’s definitely a need-to-know fact. If you get a chance, or if things get violent, tell Daniel about it.”
Two more nervous blinks.
I hesitated, and then said, in a gentler voice, “Hang tough, kid. I’ve been where you are. It’s going to be okay.”
No blinks. Fitz bit his lip.
Butters, meanwhile, kept the dialogue going. “Clearly, the Council finds the recent activities of the Fomor somewhat repulsive. Just as clearly, our recently concluded war with the Red Court has left us less able to act than we would have been otherwise.”
Which, thinking about it, probably wasn’t true. The Council finished the war with the Red Court with more active, experienced, dangerous Wardens than they’d had when it started. Granted, the vast majority of them were a bunch of kids Molly’s age or younger, but they were already veterans. But I was betting that the Fomor picking on a bunch of lowlevel talents was a problem that was fairly far down their priority list.
“I’d heard the Wardens were adept at coming to the point,” Aristedes said. “Should we start again at the beginning to give you another chance to get there?”
Butters gave the sorcerer a frosty smile and a small inclination of his head. “You and your crew are still here. That suggests competence. We approve of competence.”
Aristedes tilted his head to one side and was silent for a moment. “You’ve come to discuss a relationship of some kind?”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Butters replied. “I’m not a recruiter. This is a visit. A ground-level evaluation, if you will.”
I hated to leave the three of them standing in front of Aristedes and his knife, with nothing but Butters’s gaming accent and a few yards of grey cloth to protect them, but we hadn’t come here to face down Aristedes. We were here for Forthill. The hasty plan I’d sketched with Butters called for me to locate the father while they kept Aristedes’ attention.
Besides, those cloaks represented something that Aristedes would respect, if he had two brain cells to rub together. The Wardens of the White Council had never been regarded as friendly figures like your local traffic cop. People feared them—probably all the more so since the war with the Red Court. The Wardens were the guys who gave you one warning, way before you were anywhere close to crossing the line by breaking one of the Laws of Magic. The next time you saw them, they were probably there to cut off your head.
Whether they were more respected or more feared depended greatly on one’s point of view, but no one ever, ever took them lightly.
It felt right somehow that Butters was trading on their fearsome reputation. Maybe it felt right because that reputation was, like me, immaterial—but not unable to alter events. The ghost of the Wardens’ ferocity could do as much as I could to keep an eye on my companions. So I wished them luck within the silence of my thoughts and set out to accomplish my part of the plan.
I vanished and reappeared at ceiling level, being careful to stay out of any direct sunlight as it streamed through a few small windows high up on the walls. The ceiling wasn’t all that high compared to the area of the factory floor, and it took me several tries before I recognized the location of the gang’s camp in all that abandoned space. I willed myself over to it and found Forthill.
The priest was lying very still on the floor, curled into a half circle. I couldn’t see if he was breathing, and I couldn’t touch him to check for a pulse. I grimaced and knelt to thrust my hand into the matter of one of his feet. I felt the sharp, odd sensation of contact with living flesh, like when I’d touched both Morty and my apprentice, and not the sharp tingling of contact with something solid but inert. He was alive. It felt like my own heart had stopped beating and then lurched into gear again.
I studied him for a moment, trying to assess what had happened to him. There was blood coming from several cuts around his face, where his thin, elderly skin had broken open under a sharp blow—across his cheekbones, his brow ridges, and on his chin. His lip had been split and was swelling. He’d taken a beating from someone’s fists—or possibly from open-handed slaps delivered with supernatural speed.
That felt right. The old priest, a living, breathing symbol of everything Aristedes resented, must have shown up to talk. No matter how polite the father had been, his simple presence would have been challenge enough to the ego of anyone like the sorcerer. Challenges could be answered only with violence, and the slaps he delivered would have been both painful and insulting.
Forthill’s left arm was pressed against his ribs. He’d fallen and curled up around his midsection. The sorcerer must have given him some body blows as well. Broken ribs, maybe, or worse. Everything about trauma was worse when it happened to the elderly—thinner skin, less muscle, less bone, worn organs. They were vulnerable.
I ground my teeth and looked around the camp. Aristedes had left a guard to watch Forthill. He was a boy, and he might have been a very scrawny and underfed ten-year-old, at most. He sat near the fire barrel, shivering, holding a rusted old steak knife. His eyes roamed everywhere, but he wouldn’t look at the priest’s still form.
Forthill suddenly shuddered and let out a soft moan before sinking into stillness again.
The little boy with the knife looked away, his eyes suddenly wet. He wrapped his arms around his knees and rocked back and forth. I wasn’t sure which sight hurt more.
I clenched my jaw. What animal would do this to an old man? To a child? I felt my skin beginning to heat up, a reflection of the rage that had swelled up inside me again.
“It is better not to let such thoughts occupy your mind,” said a very calm, very soothing voice.
I spun to face the speaker, the words of a spell on my tongue, ghostly power kindling in the palm of my right hand.
A young woman stood over Forthill,
opposite me, in a shaft of sunlight that spilled in through a hole in a blacked-out window. She was dressed in a black suit, a black shirt, a black tie. Her skin was dark—not like someone of African ancestry, but like someone had dunked her in a vat of perfectly black ink. The sclera, the whites of her eyes, were black, too. In fact, the only things on her that weren’t ink black were her eyes and the short sword she held in her hand, the blade dangling parallel to her leg. They were both shining silver with flecks of metallic gold.
She met my gaze calmly and then glanced down at my right hand, where flickers of fire sent out wisps of smoke. “Peace, Harry Dresden,” she said. “I have not come to harm anyone.”
I stared at her for a second and then checked the guard. The little kid hadn’t reacted to the stranger’s voice or presence; ergo she was a spirit, like me. There were plenty of spirit beings who might show up when someone was dying, but not many of them could have been standing around in a ray of sunlight. And I’d seen a sword identical to the one she currently held, back at the police station in Chicago Between.
“You’re an angel,” I said quietly. “An angel of death.”
She nodded her head. “Yes.”
I rose slowly. I was a lot taller than the angel. I scowled at her. “Back off.”
She arched an eyebrow at me. Then she said, “Are you threatening me?”
“Maybe I’m just curious about who will show up for you when it’s your turn.”
She smiled. It moved only her lips. “What, exactly, do you think you will accomplish here?”
“I’m looking out for my friend,” I said. “He’s going to be all right. Your services are not required.”
“That is not yet clear,” the angel said.
“Allow me to clarify,” I said. “Touch him, and you and I are going to throw down.”
