Dresden Files 03 - Grave Peril

by Jim Butcher

  “Aha,” I said. “That nurse recognizes us. I didn’t realize we were back down at Cook County. Didn’t recognize the place without something being on fire.”

  “Charity’s doctor is here.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said. “So. Which one is the newest little Carpenter?”

  Michael remained silent.

  I got a sick little feeling, and glanced aside at him. “Michael?”

  When he spoke, his voice was exhausted, numb. “The labor was complicated. She was cold, and might have been getting sick with something. Her water did break, back at the graveyard. I guess it makes it a lot harder on the baby.”

  I just listened to him, feeling sicker.

  “They had to go ahead and do a C-section. But . . . they think there might be damage. She got hit in the stomach at one point, they think. They don’t know if she’ll be able to have children again.”

  “The baby?”

  Silence.

  “Michael?”

  He stared at the infants and said, “The doctor says that if he lasts thirty-six hours, he might have a chance. But he’s weakening. They’re doing everything they can.” Tears started at his eyes and rolled down his cheeks. “There were complications. Complications.”

  I tried to find something to say, and couldn’t. Dammit. Tired frustration stirred my already unsteady belly. This shouldn’t have happened. If I’d been faster, or smarter, or made a better decision, maybe I could have stopped Charity from getting hurt. Or the baby. I put my hand on Michael’s shoulder and squeezed tight. Just trying to let him know that I was there. For all the good I’d done.

  He took in a breath. “The doctor thinks I beat her. That’s how she got the bruises. He never said anything, but . . .”

  “That’s ridiculous,” I said, at once. “Stars and stones, Michael, that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

  His voice came out hard, bitter. He stared at his faint reflection in the glass. “It might as well have been me, Harry. If I hadn’t gotten myself involved, this demon wouldn’t have gone after her.” I heard his knuckles pop as he clenched his fists. “It should have come after me.”

  “You’re right,” I said. “Holy hell, Michael, you’re right.”

  He shot me a look. “What are you talking about?”

  I rubbed my hands together, trying to sort through the ideas flashing across my brain in neon lights. “It’s a demon, this thing we’re after, right? It’s a demon’s ghost.” An orderly, walking by pushing a tray, gave me an odd look. I smiled at him, feeling rather manic. He hurried along.

  “Yes,” Michael said.

  “Demons are tough, Michael. They’re dangerous and they’re scary, but they’re really kind of clueless in a lot of ways.”

  “How so?”

  “They just don’t get it, about people. They understand things like lust and greed and the desire for power, but they just don’t get things like sacrifice and love. It’s alien to most of them—doesn’t make any sense at all.”

  “I don’t understand what you’re driving at.”

  “Remember what I said, about how I knew the worst way to get to you would be through your family?”

  His frown darkened, but he nodded.

  “I know that because I’m human. I know what it’s like to care about someone other than myself. Demons don’t—especially the thug-type demons who make pacts with two-bit sorcerers like Kravos. Even knowing that I thought the best way to get to you would be through someone close to you, I don’t think a demon would have understood the context of that information.”

  “So what you’re saying is that this demon would have had no reason to go after my wife and child.”

  “I’m saying it’s inconsistent. If it was just a question of a demon’s ghost going after the people who had killed it, then it should have just hammered on us all until we died and been done with it. I don’t think it ever would have occurred to it to take a shot at someone that we care about—even if it did have my knowledge about you. There’s got to be something else going on here.”

  Michael’s eyes widened a bit. “The Nightmare is a cat’s-paw,” he said. “Someone else is using it to hit at us.”

  “Someone who can cast those barbed-wire torment spells,” I said. “And we’ve been chasing around after the tool instead of going after the hand that’s wielding it.”

  “Blood of God,” Michael swore. It was about the secondmost powerful oath he used. “Who could it be?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. Someone who has us both in common, I guess. How many enemies do we share?”

  He wiped his eyes on his sleeve, expression intent. “I’m not sure. I’ve made enemies with pretty much every creature in the country.”

  “Ditto,” I said, morosely. “Even some of the other wizards wouldn’t mind seeing me fall down a few flights of stairs. Not knowing our attacker’s identity doesn’t bother me as much as something else, though.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Why he hasn’t taken us out already.”

  “They want to hurt us, first. Vengeance.” His brow beetled. “Could your godmother be behind this?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t think so. She’s a faerie. They aren’t usually this methodical or organized. And they aren’t impatient, either. This thing’s been active every night, like it couldn’t wait to get going.”

  Michael looked at me for a moment. Then he said, “Harry, you know that I don’t think it’s my place to judge another person.”

  “I hear a ‘but’ coming.”

  He nodded. “But how did you get mixed up with the likes of that faerie? She’s bad, Harry. Some of them are merely alien, but that one is . . . malevolent. She enjoys causing pain.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I didn’t exactly pick her.”

  “Who did?”

  I shrugged. “My mother, I think. She was the one with power. My father wasn’t a wizard. Wasn’t into their world.”

  “I don’t understand why she would do that to her child.”

  Something inside me broke with a little snapping sensation, and I felt tears at my eyes. I scowled. They were a child’s tears, to go with a child’s old pain. “I don’t know,” I said. “I know that she was mixed up with some bad people. Bad beings. Whatever. Maybe Lea was one of her allies.”

  “Lea. It’s short for Leanandsidhe, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah. I don’t know her real name. She takes blood from mortals and gives them inspiration in return. Artists and poets and things. That’s how she amassed most of her power.”

  Michael nodded. “I’ve heard of her. This bargain you have with her. What is it?”

  I shook my head. “It isn’t important.”

  Something shifted in Michael, became harder, more resolute. “It is important to me, Harry. Tell me.”

  I stared at the babies for a minute, before I said, “I was a kid. Things fell out with my old teacher, Justin. He sent a demon to kill me, and I went on the run. I made a bargain with Lea. Enough power to defeat Justin in exchange for my service to her. My loyalty.”

  “And you broke faith with her.”

  “More or less.” I shook my head. “She’s never pushed it before now, and I’ve been careful to stay out of her way. She doesn’t usually get this involved with mortal business.”

  Michael moved his hand to Amoracchius’s empty scabbard. “She did take the sword though.”

  I winced. “Yeah. I guess that was my fault. If I hadn’t have tried to use it to weasel out of the deal . . .”

  “You couldn’t have known,” Michael said.

  “I should have,” I said. “It isn’t as though it as a tough one to figure out.”

  Michael shrugged, though his expression was less casual than the gesture. “What’s done is done. But I don’t know how much help to you I can be without the sword.”

  “We’ll get it back,” I said. “Leah can’t help herself. She makes deals. We’ll figure out a way to get it back from her.”
>
  “But will we do it in time,” Michael said. He shook his head, grim. “The sword won’t stay in her hands forever. The Lord won’t allow that. But it may be that my time to wield it has passed.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked.

  “Perhaps it was a sign. Perhaps that I am no longer worthy to serve Him in this way. Or that the burden of it has passed on to someone else.” He grimaced, staring at the glass, the infants. “My family, Harry. Perhaps it’s time they had a full-time father.”

  Oh, great. All I needed, now, was a crisis of faith and bad case of career doubt from the Fist of God. I needed Michael. I needed someone to watch my back, someone who was used to dealing with the supernatural. Sword or no sword, he had a steady head, and his faith had a subtle power of its own. He could be the difference between me getting killed and defeating whoever was out there.

  Besides, he had wheels.

  “Let’s get going. Time’s a-wasting.”

  He frowned. “I can’t. I’m needed here.”

  “Michael, look. Is someone with your kids at home?”

  “Yes. I called Charity’s sister last night. She went over. Father Forthill was going to get some sleep, and then stay on.”

  “Is there anything more you can do for Charity here?”

  He shook his head. “Only pray. She’s resting, now. And her mother is on the way here.”

  “Okay, then. We’ve got work to do.”

  “You expect me to leave them again?”

  “No, not leave them. But we need to find the person behind the Nightmare and take care of them.”

  “Harry. What are we going to do? Kill someone?”

  “If we have to. Hell’s bells, Michael, they might have murdered your son.”

  His face hardened, and I knew then that I had him, that he’d followed me into Hell to get at whoever had hurt his wife and child. I had him all right—and I hated myself for it. Way to go, Harry. Jerk those heartstrings like a fucking puppeteer.

  I held up the book. “I think I’ve got a line on the Nightmare’s name. I’ll bet you anything that Kravos recorded it in his book of shadows, here. If I’m right, I might be able to use it to make contact with the Nightmare and then trace his leash back to whoever’s holding it.”

  Michael stared at the glass, at the kids beyond it.

  “I need you to drive me home. From my lab, I might be able to sort out what’s going on before things get any more out of hand. Then we go handle it.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “Michael.”

  “All right,” he said, voice quiet. “Let’s go.”

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Back in my lab, it felt a little creepy to be working by candle-light. Intellectually, I knew that it was still full daylight outside, but last night had brought out the instinctive fear of the dark that is a part of being human. I had been wounded. Everything, every shadow, every small sound made me twitch and jerk and look aside.

  “Steady, Harry,” I told myself. “You have time before sundown. Just relax and get it over with.”

  Good advice. Michael and I had driven around most of the morning, collecting what I would need for the spell. I’d read through Kravos’s journal while Michael drove. Sick stuff. He’d been careful about listing out every step of his rituals, complete with notes on the physical ecstasy he’d experienced during the killings—nine in all. Most of them had been women or children he’d killed with a cruelly curved knife. He’d roped a bunch of young people into his fold with drugs and blackmail, and then thrown orgies where he’d either participate or else channel the energy raised by all that lust into his magic. That seemed to be standard operating procedure for guys like Kravos. Win-win situation.

  A thorough man. Thorough in his efforts to kill and corrupt lives to acquire more power, thorough in the documentation of his sick pleasures—and thorough in the listing of his efforts to secure a familiar demon by the name of Azorthragal.

  The name had been carefully written, each syllable marked for specific emphasis.

  Magic is a lot like language: it’s all about stringing things together, linking one thing with another, one idea with another. After you establish links, then you pour power into them and make something happen. That’s what we call thaumaturgy in the business—creating links between small things and big things. Then, you make something happen on the small scale and it happens on the large scale, too. Voodoo dolls are the typical example for that one.

  But simulacra, like a voodoo doll, aren’t the only way to create links. A wizard can use fingernail clippings, or hair, or blood, if it’s fresh enough, or just about any other body part to create a link back to the original being.

  Or you can use its name. Or maybe I should say, its Name.

  Names have power. Everyone’s Name says something about them, whether they’re aware of it or not. A wizard can use that Name to forge a link to someone. It’s difficult with people. People’s self-concepts are always changing, evolving, so even if you get someone to tell you their full name, if you try to establish the link when they’re in a radically different mood, or after some life-changing event that alters the way they see themselves, it might not work. A wizard can get a person’s name only from their own lips, but if he doesn’t use it fairly quickly, it’s likely to get stale.

  Demons, however, are a different matter. Demons aren’t people. They don’t have the problem of having a soul, and they don’t worry about silly things like good and evil, or right and wrong. Demons are. If a demon is going to be inclined to eat your face, it’s going to eat your face then, and now, and a thousand years from now.

  It’s almost comforting, in a way—and it makes them vulnerable. Once you know a demon’s Name, you can get to it whenever you want to. I had Azorthragal’s Name. Even though it was a ghost now, instead of a demon, it ought to respond to the memory of its Name, if nothing else.

  Time to get to it.

  Five white candles surrounded my summoning circle, the points of an invisible pentacle. White for protection. And because they’re the cheapest color at Wal-Mart. Hey, being a wizard doesn’t make money grow on trees.

  Between each candle was an object from someone the Nightmare had touched. My shield bracelet was there. Michael had given me his wedding ring, and Charity’s. I’d gone by the station, and grabbed the hand-lettered nameplate Murphy had kept stubbornly on her office door until the publicity last year had driven the municipal politicians into getting her a real one. It lay on the floor beside them. A visit to a grateful Malone household had turned up Micky’s retirement watch. It completed the circle, between the last pair of candles.

  I drew in a breath, and checked my props. You don’t need all the candles and knives and whatnot to work magic. But they help. They make it easier to focus. In my weakened condition, I needed all the help I could get.

  So I lit the incense and paced around the outside of the summoning circle, leaving myself enough room to work with inside the circle of incense and outside the circle of copper. I put out a little willpower as I did, just enough to close the circle, and felt the energy levels rise as random magic coalesced.

  “Harry,” Michael called down from the room above. “Are you finished?”

  I suppressed a flash of irritation. “Just getting started.”

  “Forty-five minutes until sundown,” he said.

  I couldn’t keep the annoyance out of my voice. “Gee, thanks. No pressure, Michael.”

  “Can you do it or not, Harry? Father Forthill is staying at my house with the children. If you can’t stop this thing now, I’ve got to go back to Charity.”

  “I sure as hell can’t do it with you breathing down my neck. Hell’s bells, Michael, get out of the way and let me work.”

  He growled something to himself about patience or turning the other cheek or something. I heard his feet on the floor above as he retreated from the door leading down to my lab.

  Michael didn’t come down into the lab with m
e because the whole concept of using magic without the Almighty behind it didn’t sit well with him, regardless of what we’d been through together. He could tolerate it, but not approve of it.

  I got back to work, closing my eyes and forcing myself to clear my thoughts, to focus on the task at hand. I started to draw my concentration toward the copper circle. The incense smoke tickled at my senses, and swirled about inside the perimeter of the outer circle, not leaving it. The energy grew slowly, as I concentrated, and then I picked up the knife in my right hand, and a handful of water from a bowl on my left.

  Now for the three steps. “Enemy, mine enemy,” I spoke, slipping power into the words, “I seek you.” I passed the knife over the copper circle, straight down. I couldn’t see it, without opening my Sight, but could feel the silent tension as I cut a slit between the mortal world and the Nevernever.

  “Enemy, mine enemy,” I spoke again. “I search for you. Show me your face.” I cast the water up, over the circle, where the energy of the spell atomized it into a fine, drifting mist, filled with rainbows from the surrounding candles, shifting shapes and colors.

  Now for the hard part. “Azorthragal!” I shouted, “Azorthragal, Azorthragal! Appare!” I used the knife to cut my finger, and smeared the blood onto the edge of the copper circle.

  Power surged out of me, into the circle, through the rent in the fabric of reality, and as it did, the circle sprang up like a wall around the band of copper in the floor. I felt the cut as an acute, vicious pain, enough to make me blink tears out of my eyes as the power quested out, fueled by the energy of the circle, guided by the articles spread around it.

  The spell quested about in the Nevernever, like the blind tentacle of the Kraken scouring the deck, looking for some hapless soul to grab. It shouldn’t have happened like that. It should have zipped to the Nightmare like a lariat and brought it reeling in. I reached out and put more power into the spell, picturing the thing that I had been fighting, the results of its work, trying to give the spell more guidance. It wasn’t until I hit upon the sense of the Nightmare, for lack of a better word, the terror it had inspired that the spell latched onto something. There was a moment of startled stillness, and then a wild, bucking energy, a resistance, that made my heart pound in my chest, the cut in my finger burn as though someone had poured salt over it.