by Jim Butcher
So I told her. In short sentences.
She stared at me, stunned, her eyes huge. “I …” She swallowed. “Does Lara know?”
I arched a brow. That was a smart question, but not one I would have expected from Justine, first thing. When people learn about a loved one under threat, their reactions are rarely rational right out of the gate—there’s an emotional response first, as fear has its say, and only after that immediate emotional response does logic start kicking in. Thomas was in trouble, and there were a couple of ways to get him out of it. The smartest way would be a political solution—and for that kind of fix, Lara was a much heavier hitter than I could ever be.
My brother was frequently on the outs with his big sister, something about having issues with authority figures, which I know nothing about. Lately, though, he’d been in better odor with the White Court and consequently with Lara. It was her job to protect her people against all comers on a political level, and it was a natural thought to seek out her protection from a political threat.
Lara was also a monster. A predator. She might have been a very attractive, very pleasant, polite, and urbane monster—but only a fool would forget what she was, even for a second. You don’t show predators weakness. You don’t ask them for help. And those factors alone should have put Lara at least second on a panicked girlfriend’s list of people who might help.
But … Lara was probably the smart person to seek help from. I had just expected it to take a few minutes and an effort of dispassionate reasoning to get that through to Justine. My bad, maybe. Maybe I’d made the unthinking assumption that Justine was too pretty to be smart, and too enamored of my brother to be rational.
You have to be careful with assumptions. In my line of work, they can get you killed.
“If she doesn’t, she will soon,” I said. “I came straight to you.”
She nodded jerkily. “How is he?”
“He’ll live,” I said. I’d seen him worse off. Once. But there was no point in torturing her with the details. “And the svartalves are sticklers for protocol. They won’t just kill him. They’ll abide by the Accords.”
“You’re sure?” Justine asked me.
“If you knew them,” I said, “you wouldn’t ask that. I’m sure.”
Justine exhaled slowly. “I … Where are my manners? Come in, please. Sit.”
“Thank you,” I said, and did. Thomas’s apartment had been done all in art deco and stainless steel. It had been aesthetically excellent, and I’d hated it. Justine’s ongoing presence there had changed things. The furniture was softer and comfier than it had been in the past, and there was more pleasant clutter, including books and a number of different kinds of craft projects, plus a small sewing area added to a corner that had previously contained only a large and expensive vase.
I sat down in the corner of the couch closest to the love seat, where Thomas and Justine habitually resided, generally together.
Justine sat down on her side of the love seat, curling her legs up beneath her, and looked very small.
“This is bad,” she said quietly. “Isn’t it?”
“It’s …” I blew out a breath, choosing my words carefully. “Sticky. This isn’t a problem I can blow up or burn down.”
“You think he’ll get out of it?” she asked.
Hell’s bells. If there was any getting out of this one, I didn’t see how he was going to manage it. The svartalves had the vices of their virtues: Those who labor never to wrong another see scant value in forgiveness. Thomas had betrayed them. They weren’t going to rest until the scales had been balanced to their satisfaction.
“I think,” I said, “that it isn’t over until it’s over. It’s possible that the emissary will find a way to resolve the situation without further loss of life.”
Her dark eyes watched my face closely. “Do you think that’s what will happen?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “We didn’t get to talk much, but Thomas wanted me to come see you and make sure you know that he loves you.”
She made an impatient sound and folded her arms. “If he loved me, then why …” She bit off the words and bowed her head, the composed veneer cracking. She shuddered in silence for a moment before her voice came out again, faded and cracked around the edges. “Why? Why, Harry? I don’t understand why he would do that.”
Hell. I didn’t, either. Things had been moving so fast that there’d been no time to sit down and ask myself some pretty basic questions. Like, why the hell had my brother tried to kill the svartalf king? Was that what had happened at all? Or was it only what had happened from the svartalves’ point of view?
What had my brother been doing? Why had he been doing it?
More questions that needed answers. At this rate, I was going to need a roll of newsprint to get them all written down.
Well then. Answer some questions. Starting with why my brother had gotten violent with the svartalves. And why was Etri still alive, if my brother had set out to kill him? Say what you will about Thomas, he’s good in a fight. Really good. I’d seen him take up gun and blade more times than I could count.
And every time he’d done it, my brother had gone into a fight clear-headed and purposeful. Thomas could fight, but he didn’t do it for fun. So that answered one question, right there.
“Whatever he did,” I said, “he had a good reason.”
“What reason?” she asked, her voice breaking.
“Hell if I know,” I said.
“He told you,” she said. “About me. Us.” She put a hand on her stomach.
“Yeah,” I said. “Um. Congratulations.”
“But what if he … if he doesn’t come home …”
I sat there, feeling helpless. “ Hey … Justine, hey … He’s still alive. And I’m going to make sure he stays that way.”
She looked up at me, loose hairs stuck to the tear streaks on her face. “You are?”
Oh my.
As she looked at me, I realized some part of me had made decisions without checking in with my conscious brain. Again.
I was going to keep my brother alive or die in the effort. It didn’t matter who was standing in the way. Not even if it was Etri and Mab and Lara and the whole White Council to boot.
Oh dear.
Cyclical winds rising. Unprecedented numbers of sharks schooling. Studio execs lurking with contracts for numbered sequels, ad infinitum.
“Yeah,” I said quietly. “I am.”
She leaned forward, her eyes beseeching. “Do you promise, Harry? You?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Me. My word on it, Justine.”
She cracked then, doubling over the hands she held cradling her still-flat tummy, and sobbed.
I couldn’t sit down in the spot on the love seat where my brother should have been. But I knelt on the other side of her and put an arm around her shoulders. “Hey. Hey. I’m right here.”
Justine went limp and wept.
11
I stood in the hall after Justine shut the door behind me and felt terrible.
My brother was going to die if I didn’t do something.
Justine was falling to pieces. I hadn’t been able to do much about that, other than just sit there like a giant wooden statue and put an arm around her and say, “There, there.”
My apartment at the svartalves’ place was clearly a thing of the past at this point. No matter how things played out with Thomas, I wasn’t going to keep Maggie in the same building with people who had either killed my brother or else thirsted for vengeance against him. So even if I got through the next several days alive, I was going to be looking at a move on the other end, which is always awesome.
And then there was the little matter of the peace talks with the Fomor, and the political turmoil within the White Council, and the possibility that I might be cast out of it. Which, personally, I didn’t much mind. The White Council had been mainly a pain in my neck my whole life, but … they also gave me the shelter of their community. I’
d made a lot of enemies over the years. One of the reasons they didn’t just openly come to kill me all the time was that the White Council was lurking in the background, the keepers of the secrets of the universe, the men and women who could reach out from anywhere in the world and lay the smack down on their enemies. The last time someone from an Accorded nation had openly set out to attack me directly, some rascal had pulled a satellite out of orbit and right down onto his head.
Granted, he’d had his own reasons for doing it—but as far as the world at large was concerned, the White Council had spoken in a simple and clear voice: Mess with one of us, and you mess with all of us.
If they voted me out, that aegis would be gone. No one would have my back, even theoretically.
No one but Mab.
Granted, I trusted Mab with my back, within certain circumstances, more than almost anyone alive. A monster she might be, but she kept her word and stood by her people. Even so, though, I had no illusions about the fact that she wanted me to be more malleable to her various needs. She wanted me meaner, colder, darker, more vicious, because it would make me better able to do the job of being the Winter Knight. Mab couldn’t push me too hard in that direction, I knew, because it would anger certain people on the Council—and the united White Council was a force not even Mab could casually defy.
But if I was cast out of the Council’s graces … Well. Without the threat of action up to and including all-out war to protect a wizard in good standing, Mab would be free to do a heck of a lot more than offer me fresh cookies when it came to pushing me toward the dark side.
I stood there for a moment, thinking. Thomas had gone gunning for Etri. Had it been personal? Unlikely. Thomas had been, ahem, in the good graces of the svartalves. Especially their females. I don’t think he’d even spoken to Etri.
Had it had something to do with jealousy, then? Had Thomas been defending himself against, or maybe trying to make a point to, a jealous boyfriend? Or brother?
Again, unlikely. Svartalves didn’t understand the concept of sexual monogamy. Their pairings were based upon shared assets, biological or otherwise, and beyond an ironclad code of honor when it came to taking care of one’s progeny, they found the usual human approach to sexuality baffling. If I’d sat down to dinner with Etri and announced that I’d boinked his sister, Etri would have found the remark of casual interest and inquired as to whether or not I had enjoyed myself.
Okay, I’m going to say something a little mean, here: My brother is not exactly a complicated guy. He likes, in order, Justine, sex, exercise, food and drink, and occasionally fighting someone who needs fighting. That last would not seem to include Etri and his people, who as a group were about as threatening as the Amish on your average day. So there just weren’t many reasons Thomas would have wanted to kill Etri.
So maybe he didn’t want to. Assume I was your average world-conquering, troublemaking megalomaniac, and I wanted Thomas to whack someone for me. How would I get him to do it?
Obvious answer. She’d still been dabbing at the occasional tear when I left.
If someone had threatened Justine, then at the very least they’d have her under surveillance. But who would do that?
To answer that question, I supposed I had to find out who was watching her and ask them.
I cracked my knuckles and got to work.
I did a quick sweep of the hallway outside their apartment and found nothing, which I expected. Lara and her security teams already had the place covered, and my brother had inherited vestiges of Mom’s power. He wasn’t anything close to a wizard, but he had enough juice to be aware of magical patterns, and it would be a hell of a job to slip around this hallway laying down surveillance spells for an hour or two without being noticed.
I did a second, more careful sweep to be sure, and then went outside, slowly, senses open to perceive any magical forces that might be present. I even took a quick peek at the doorman with my Sight—the dangerous practice of opening one’s mind to the raw input of the energy of the universe. Under the Sight, you see things for what they are, and you remember everything you see, and no enchantment can hide from it.
I got nothing. The doorman was clean, magically speaking, or at least unwounded by the kind of psychic attack it would take to coerce him. Someone could have bribed him just as easily, I supposed, though I felt confident that Lara’s security people would have had that one covered fairly well. Hell, for that matter, I assumed that the doorman was one of Lara’s people. It would be exactly her kind of move to do that.
So I took my search outside, as alert to any kind of magical mischief as I was to any purely vanilla suspicious activity. I circled the building carefully, all my senses open, and found … absolutely nothing.
Which made no damned sense, so I did it again, only slower and more thoroughly, not finishing until after midnight. Apparently, there was a whole lot of nothing going around. But at least it had taken me an hour and a half to determine as much.
I growled to myself, turned to go again, and readied my Sight to make absolutely sure I hadn’t missed anything.
“When a hound goes too hard after a scent,” said a man’s voice behind me, “he ain’t watching his own back trail. A wizard ought to do better.”
I absolutely did not jump in surprise. Not even a little. I turned calmly and with immense dignity and regarded the speaker with stoic calm, and not one of you can prove otherwise.
I turned to find Ebenezar stepping forward out of a veil, stumpy staff in hand. He stared at me for a good long moment, his craggy face devoid of emotion.
“Little late to be your apprentice now, sir,” I said.
“You’d be surprised,” the old man replied. “Hoss—”
“Busy,” I said brusquely. “I’m working. How’d you find me?”
The old man clenched his jaw and looked out at nothing for a minute. “Harry, word is out, about Thomas Raith. Once I knew who the svartalves were holding, I figured you’d be in one of a couple places. This was the first one.”
“You want to be a detective, you could apprentice with me for a year,” I said. “If my license is still current. Gotta be honest, I’ve been too busy to give the city of Chicago as much attention as it thinks it needs.”
“Hoss, Thomas Raith is not your responsibility,” Ebenezar said.
The hell he wasn’t.
“The hell he isn’t, sir,” I said. “I owe him my life, several times.”
“It ain’t about that, boy,” Ebenezar said, keeping his voice calm with an effort. “This one ain’t about right and wrong. It’s about authority and territory.”
My feet hurt. And I wasn’t a child to be lectured about the way of the goddamned world. “You know, it’s funny how many times I hear something isn’t about right and wrong from people who are about to do something awful,” I said. “It’s almost as if they know they’re about to do something awful, and they just don’t want to face any of the negative consequences associated with their choice.”
The muscles at the base of the old man’s jaws clenched until it looked like he was smuggling walnuts in his jowls. “Excuse me?”
“He’s my ally,” I said. “My friend. I recall you telling me about how one should respond to loyalty, once upon a time. That when you get it, you gotta give it back, or else a man starts looking at those people like they’re things to be used.”
“I said like coins to be spent,” the old man snapped, heat everywhere in his tone. Which was an admission that I was right, as much as anything.
We traded a look, and his expression told me that he knew what I was thinking, and it made him angrier.
“You think you know the world,” the old man said. “You’re barely in it yet. You ain’t seen what it gets like. How bad it can get. How cruel.”
I thought of Susan’s face. At the last. And the rage that went through me was incandescent, yet weirdly remote, like seeing fireworks from a passing jet. The scent of woodsmoke came to me, and the alley was suddenly
filling with green-gold light from the runes of my staff.
“Maybe I’ve seen a thing or two,” I said back, and my voice sounded perfectly calm.
The wrinkles on the old man’s face were heavier and thicker in the harsh lighting as his expression darkened, even as his voice became gentler, pleading. “You’ve put your feet in the water and you think you know the ocean. My God, boy, I hope you never see the things I’ve seen. But if you keep going the way you’re going, you’ll get that and worse. I’m trying to protect you from the mistakes that damn near killed me. That did kill so many of the people I cared about.”
I thought of Karrin. Of Nicodemus deliberately, efficiently breaking her body. For good. It had been one of those quiet, close winter nights. I had been near enough to hear the cartilage tearing.
The edges of the carved runes on my staff began to blacken, and my vision began to narrow.
In my head, Karrin’s voice warned me quietly about how fights with family hurt so much more. But the voice of my anger was so much louder. By now, the Winter mantle was alert and interested in what was going on, sending jolts of adrenaline into my system, preparing me for a fight.
I poured as much of my anger into my voice as I could, my only outlet. “Susan tried your way. And if they’d been smart instead of obsessed with revenge, the Red Court could have killed Maggie that same day, along with her mother and you and me. So tell me again what a great plan it is to send her away.”
“You never should have gotten mixed up in vampire business in the first place,” Ebenezar snarled. “My God, boy. Don’t you see what you’ve done?”
“I’ve done what is right,” I spat.
“How righteous of you,” the old man shot back. “I’m sure that is a great comfort to the families of those who have been killed so you could be right.” He slammed the end of his staff on the ground in frustration, and cracks sprang out through the concrete around it. “Dammit, boy. The extended consequences of your actions have cost lives. They keep costing lives. And if you do this, if you defend that vampire, there’s no chance at all you’ll keep the protection of the White Council.”