by Jim Butcher
I turned away and went back to my station, beginning the routine of cleaning. Not today. One day, doubtless, the Hunger would gain the upper hand again, and feed and feed until it was the only thing inside and there was nothing left of me.
But not today.
2
I left the store in the good hands of my employees and went out to my car, a white Hummer, huge, expensive, and ostentatious as hell. It was also one of the more robust vehicles a civilian could buy. Entire sections of houses could fall on it without causing it more than minor inconvenience, as could giant demon insects, and before you ask, I know it from experience. Just as I know that having a really tough vehicle on hand is not at all a bad move when you’ve made the kinds of enemies I have—which is to say, all of my own and pretty much all of my little brother’s to boot.
Before I got in, I checked the engine, the undercarriage, and the interior for explosives. One reason Lara might have wanted me to hurry out might have been to make me rush out to the car, turn the ignition key, and blow tiny pieces of me all over Chicago.
I pulled up a mix list on the truck’s MP3 player—Cole Porter and Mozart, mostly, with a dash of Violent Femmes—and headed back home to my apartment, hoping that whatever Lara had in mind for me, it wouldn’t send me running to all corners of the earth . . . again. Even though our breed of vampire doesn’t share the others’ weaknesses for sunlight and running water and so on, the kinds of places Oblivion missions had taken me hadn’t exactly been tourist attractions.
I live in a trendy, expensive apartment building in Chicago’s Gold Coast. It’s not exactly to my taste, but it’s the sort of place where Toe-moss the French stylist would live. One thing you learn young when you’re a vampire is how to camouflage yourself, and to do that you have to sell every aspect of the disguise. It’s a high-security building, but Lara’s courier would be waiting for me in my apartment despite that. My sister had the resources to get it done.
Before I got out of the truck, I reached under the seat and slipped the sheathed kukri knife there into my coat, then tucked the barrel of my Desert Eagle into the waist of my leather pants, in back, hiding the grip under my coat. It had occurred to me, ten minutes into Michelle’s appointment, that telling me to expect a courier in my apartment would be an excellent way to get me to lower my guard against an assassin who lurked inside, waiting for my return.
I went up to my apartment, took the knife in my teeth, and drew the gun, holding it low, the barrel parallel to my leg. Then I stood as far to the left of the door as I could, unlocked it, and pushed it open. No one opened fire. I waited a moment more, just being quiet and listening, and picked out two things—the low throb of an excited heartbeat, and the scent of her shampoo.
Her shampoo.
I came through the door in a rush, discarding the weapons, and Justine met me on the other side. She threw her arms around me, and I had to fight to remember that if I didn’t restrain my strength, I might hurt her as I hugged her back. She just pressed against me, everywhere, as if she wanted to just push herself inside me. She let out a soft little sob of laughter and pressed her face into my shirt.
She felt so good; soft and warm and alive.
We just stood there, holding each other for a long time.
My body surged with need, and an instant later, my Hunger howled in frenzied lust.
Justine. Our doe, our bottle of wine, ours, ours, ours. So many nights with her screaming under us, so many soft sighs, so many touches—so much rich, warm, madness-laced life rushing into us.
I ignored the demon—but while blocking it away, I moved my hand without really thinking about it, and I stroked it over her hair.
Pain, pain so unreal, so unimaginably intense that I could not adequately describe it, surged up my arm, as if the softness of those hairs had been the touch of high-power electrical cables. I hissed, my arm jerking away by pure reflex.
Sunlight, holy water, garlic, and crosses don’t bother an incubus of the White Court much. But the touch of someone who truly loves and is loved in return is a different story.
I glanced at my hand. It was already blistering.
Justine drew away from me, her lovely face distressed. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think.”
I shook my head. “It’s all right,” I said quietly, and stepped back from her, while the demon screamed its frustration behind my eyes.
She bit her lip and looked up at me uncertainly.
It had been a long time since I had seen Justine face-to-face. I had forgotten how beautiful she was. The lines of her face had changed, subtly. She looked leaner now, more confident, more assured. Maybe I was too used to dealing with things that were immortal, or practically so. It’s easy to forget how much difference a couple of years can make.
Her dark hair, of course, was gone now. It was growing in just as rich, long, and curling as before, but now it was silver-white. I’d done that to her—fed on her, drained her to the very edge of death, almost torn the life from her body in my eagerness to sate the Hunger.
I closed my eyes for a moment at the memory of that pleasure, and shivered. I’d nearly killed the woman I loved, and remembering it was nearly as arousing as her touch had been. When I opened my eyes again, Justine’s gaze was steady and calm—and knowing.
“It doesn’t make you a monster to want,” she said, her voice very gentle. “It’s what you do with the want that matters.”
Instead of answering her, I turned and shut the door, then picked up my hardware. It isn’t gentlemanly to leave weapons lying around on the floor. They clashed with the apartment’s décor, too. I studied Justine from the corner of my eye as I did, taking in her clothing—elegant business-wear, suitable for Lara’s executive assistant.
Or for a corporate courier.
“Empty night,” I swore, viciously, suddenly furious.
Justine blinked at me. “What is it?”
“Lara,” I spat. “What did she tell you?”
Justine shook her head slowly, frowning at me, as though trying to read my thoughts from my expression. “She said to bring you a briefing on a situation you needed to know about. Nothing could be written down. I had to memorize it all and bring it to you, along with some photos, here.” She put a slender hand on a valise that sat on my coffee table.
I stared at her intently. Then I sat slowly down on one of the chairs in my apartment’s living room. It wasn’t a comfortable chair, but it was very, very expensive. “I need you to tell me everything she told you,” I said. “Absolutely every word.”
Justine stared back for a long moment, her frown deepening. “Why?”
Because knowing certain things, simply being aware of them, was dangerous. Because Justine had been providing me with information from within Lara’s operation, and which I had, in turn, been providing to Harry, and through him to the White Council. If Lara had found out about that, she might have brought Justine into the Oblivion War. If she had, I was going to kill my sister.
“I need you to trust me, love,” I said quietly. “But I can’t tell you.”
“But why can’t you tell me?”
The real bitch about the Oblivion War was that question.
“Justine,” I said, spreading my hands. “Please. Trust me.”
Justine narrowed her eyes in wary thought, which took me somewhat aback. It was not an expression I was used to seeing on her face.
No. I was used to seeing a look of dazed satiation after I’d fed, or of molten desire as I stalked her, or of shattering ecstasy as I took her—
I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and shoved my demon down again.
“My poor Thomas,” she said quietly, when I opened them again. She sat down across the table from me, her dark eyes compassionate. “When we were together, I never realized how hard it was for you. Your demon is much stronger than theirs. Stronger than any but hers, isn’t it.”
“It only matters if I give in to it,” I replied, more harshly t
han I meant to. “Which means it doesn’t matter. Tell me, Justine. Please.”
She folded her arms across her body, biting on her bottom lip. “It really isn’t much. She said to tell you that word had come to her through the usual channels that the Ladies of the Dark River were in town.” She opened the valise. “And that you would know which one you were dealing with.” She took out a full-page photo, and slid it across the table to me. It was grainy, but big enough to clearly show an image of a stark-featured, young-looking woman getting into a cab at O’Hare. The time stamp on the photo said it was from that morning.
“Yes,” I said quietly. “I know her. I thought she was dead.”
“Lara said that this person had taken a child,” Justine continued. “Though she didn’t say how she knew that. And that her aim was to draw out one who could do her cause great good.”
I got a sick feeling in my stomach as Justine slid out the second photograph and pushed it across the table.
The photograph was simple, this time—a hallway, a picture of a door, its top half of frosted glass, bearing simple black lettering:
HARRY DRESDEN, WIZARD.
The door was closed, but I could see the outline of a tall, feminine form, facing an even taller, storkish, masculine outline.
The time stamp said it was barely two hours before.
So.
Lara had been trying to do me a favor, after all. She had protected Justine behind a layer of generalities. And I had dithered around cutting hair and indulging my Hunger and my suspicions, while the Stygian Sisterhood had suckered my brother into a ploy to bring back one of their monstrous matrons.
Justine had never been stupid. Even when she’d been deep in my influence, before, she’d walked into it with her eyes open. “He’s in trouble, isn’t he?”
“And he doesn’t even know it yet,” I said quietly.
She pursed her lips in thought. “And you can’t tell him why, can you? Any more than you could tell me.”
I looked up at her helplessly.
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
I rose and reclaimed my knife and gun. “He’s my brother,” I said. “I’m going to cover his back.”
“How are you going to explain it to him?” she asked.
I tugged on a pair of leather gloves and went to her, so I could take her hands in mine, squeezing gently, before I turned to go.
“If he thinks he’s helping her, and you interfere, he’s not going to understand,” she said. “How are you going to explain it to him, Thomas?”
It sucks to be a Venator.
“I’m not,” I said quietly.
Then I and my demon went out to continue an ages-old silent war and help my brother.
I just hoped the two activities wouldn’t be mutually exclusive.
3
Justine had a driver circling the block, waiting for her to call. She did. I walked her to the elevator, holding her hand in my gloved fingers, the whole way. We didn’t speak again. She smiled at me, though, when the elevator arrived, and kissed my fingers through the glove.
Then she was gone.
Technically, there was always a huge empty place inside me—that was what the Hunger was, after all.
So I told myself that this wasn’t any different, and I went back to my apartment to get to work.
Purely for form, I tried Harry’s home and office phones before I left my apartment, but I got no answer at his apartment, and only his answering service at his office. I left a message that I needed to talk to him, but I doubted he would get it in time for it to be of any help. I grimaced as I took my cell phone out of my pocket and left it on my kitchen counter. There wasn’t any point in carrying it with me. Technology doesn’t get along well with magic. Twenty or thirty minutes in Harry’s company could kill a cell phone if he was in a bad mood—less if he was actively throwing spells around.
My own remedial skills weren’t any particular threat to the phone, but once I brought up the tracking spell I’d need to find my brother, my reception would go straight to hell, anyway.
Harry waxes poetic about magic. He’ll go on and on about how it comes from your feelings, and how it’s a deep statement about the nature of your soul, and then he’ll whip out some kind of half-divine, half-insane philosophy he’s cobbled together from the words of saints and comic books about the importance of handling power responsibly. Get him rolling, and he’ll go on and on and on.
For someone on Harry’s level, maybe it’s relevant. For the rest of us, here’s what you need to know about magic: It’s a skill. Anyone can learn it to one degree or another. Not very many people can be good at it. It takes a lot of practice and patience, it makes you tired, leaves you with headaches and muscle cramps, and everyone and their dog has an opinion about the “correct” way to do it.
Harry’s a master of the skill—as in simultaneous doctorates from MIT, Harvard, and Yale, and a master’s from Oxford. By comparison, I went to a six-month vo-tech—which means I skipped a bunch of the flowery crap and focused on learning some useful things that work.
It took me a couple of minutes longer than it would have taken him, but I used the silver pentacle amulet my mother had given me for my fifth birthday to create a link to Harry’s amulet, a battered twin to mine.
Early springtime in Chicago can come at you with a psychotic array of weather. This spring had been pleasantly mild, and by the time I’d used the tracking spell to catch up to my little brother, the day had faded into a pleasantly brisk evening.
I held the silver amulet in my right hand, its chain wrapped around my knuckles, four or five inches above the pendant left dangling. The pendant swung steadily, back and forth in one direction, no matter which way I turned, as if it had been guided by a tiny gyroscope. I’d paid a small fortune to park the Hummer—money well spent. Now I followed the swing of the pendant, and the spell guiding it, across the grounds of Millennium Park.
Millennium Park is something fairly rare—a genuinely beautiful park in the middle of a large city. Granted, the buildings spaced around the grounds look like something inspired by an Escher painting and a period of liberal chemical xperimentation in an architect’s underclassman years, but even they have their own kind of madman’s charm. Even though night was coming on, the park was fairly busy. The skating rink stayed open until ten every night, and it would only stay open for a few more days before it would shut down until the seasons turned again. Kids and parents skated around the rink. Couples strolled together. Uniformed police officers patrolled in plain sight nearby, making sure the good people of Chicago were kept safe from predators.
I spotted Harry stalking along the side of the skating rink, walking away from me. He was head and shoulders taller than most of the people around him, professional-basketball-player tall, and rather forebidding in his big black duster. His head was down, his attention on something he was holding in his hands—probably a tracking spell of his own. I hurried across the distance to the skating rink to begin shadowing him.
I realized I was being followed about twenty seconds later.
Whoever they were, the Stygian hadn’t told them they were dealing with a vampire. They hadn’t stayed downwind, and a stray breeze had brought in the aromas of a couple of dozen humans who were nearby, the reek of a couple of trash cans, the scents of several nearby food vendors selling various temptations from their carts—and the distinct, rotten-meat and stale-sweat stench (badly hidden under generous splashes of Axe) of two ghouls.
That wasn’t good. Like me, ghouls can pass for human. They’re the cheap muscle-for-hire of the supernatural world. Doubtless, the Stygian had hired them on against the possibility of interference from the Venatori.
One ghoul I could handle, no problem. Though they were tough to kill, strong, fast, and vicious as the day is long, that’s nothing I haven’t slaughtered before. Two of them, though, changed the picture. It meant that if they had any brains going for them at all, they could make it very difficult,
if not impossible, for me to take them out without being incapacitated myself.
True, hired thugs generally weren’t known for their brains, but it wasn’t a good time to start making assumptions about the opposition. I quickened my pace, attempting to catch up with Harry, and pretended I hadn’t noticed the ghouls.
Harry turned aside and hurried across the park grounds toward the Pavilion. It was an enormous structure, which I always thought looked something like a medieval Mongol’s war helmet. Giant Attila chapeau, turned into a building, where concerts were held on a regular basis for the good people of Chicago. Tonight, though, the Pavilion was dark and empty. It should have been locked up—and probably was. Locks, though, never seemed to pose much of an obstacle to my brother. He went to a door on the side of the stage building of the Pavilion and opened it, vanishing inside.
I hurried after him and called out his name. I was still a good fifty yards away, though, and he didn’t hear me.
The ghouls did, though. I heard one of them snarl something to the other, and their footsteps quickened to a run.
I ran faster. I beat them to the door, and my demon and I shut it behind me, hard—hard enough to warp the metal door in its metal frame.
“Harry!” I shouted. “Harry, we need to talk!”
The ghouls hit the door and tried to open it. They didn’t have much luck on the first try, but they settled in to wrench it open. The door was only metal. It wouldn’t hold them out for long.
The interior of the building was empty and completely unlit, except for the faintest greenish radiance, which came through dimly, as though reflecting from many other interior surfaces, several rooms away. My demon had no trouble seeing through it, and I went through the halls in silent haste, following the faint light source toward its origin.
