Peace Talks

by Jim Butcher

  Those words fell on a very long silence.

  When Michael spoke, his voice was frank. “How well did that work out for you, the last time?”

  I tilted my head a little, in acceptance of the hit.

  “Harry,” he said, “over the years, I’ve talked to you many times about coming to church.”

  “Endlessly,” I said.

  He nodded cheerfully. “And the invitation is a standing one. But all I’ve ever wanted for you was to help you develop in your faith.”

  “I’m not sure how much Catholicism I’ve got to develop,” I said.

  Michael waved a hand. “Not religion, Harry. Faith. Faith isn’t all about God, or a god, you know.”

  I peered at him.

  “Mine is,” he said. “This path is, to me, a very good path. It’s brought me a very wonderful life. But maybe it isn’t the only path. Many children learn things very differently, after all. It seems to me that God should be an excellent teacher enough to take that into account.” He shook his head. “But faith is about more than that. Like Waldo, for example.”

  “How do you mean?” I asked.

  “He’s not particularly religious,” Michael said. “But I’ve never, ever met an individual more dedicated to the idea that tomorrow can be better than today. That people, all of us, have the ability to take action to make things better—and that friends always help. Despite all the ugliness he’s seen, in his job and in his other, ah, interests. He holds on to that.”

  “Polka in the morgue,” I said.

  Michael smiled. “Yes. Yes, exactly. But I think you miss my point.”

  I tilted my head at him.

  “He has faith in you, Harry Dresden,” Michael said. “In the path you’ve walked, and in which he now emulates you.”

  I felt my eyebrows slowly climb in horror. “ He … what now?”

  Michael nodded, amused. “You’re an example. To Waldo.” His voice softened. “To Molly.”

  I sighed. “Yeah.”

  “You might think about them, when you consider your next steps. And you might try to have a little faith, yourself.”

  “In what?”

  “In you, man,” he said, almost laughing. “Harry, do you really think you’ve found yourself where you have, time and time again, at the random whims of the universe? Have you noticed how often you’ve managed to emerge more or less triumphant?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Sort of.”

  “Then perhaps you are the right person, in the right place, at the right time,” Michael said. “Again. Have faith in that. And get some sleep.”

  I glared at him for a minute. “Seems an awfully egotistical way to look at the universe,” I said darkly.

  “How can it be egotistical when I’m the one who had to point it out to you?” Michael countered.

  Michael was just better at this kind of talk than me. I glowered at him and then sneered in concession. “I’ll try to sleep. No promises.”

  “Good,” he said. He limped over to a small refrigerator and got out a couple of bottles of water. He brought one to me and I accepted it. We drank them together in silence. Then Michael said, “Harry?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Have you seen much of Molly lately?”

  “A little,” I said.

  He hesitated for a long moment before saying slowly, “You might … ask her to check in with us?”

  I lifted my eyebrows. “Hasn’t she?”

  “Not face-to-face,” he said. “Not in some time.”

  “She’s been very busy in her new job, I know, a lot of travel …” I began.

  Michael gave me a very direct look. “Harry. Please don’t assume that I do not realize secrets are being kept from me. Tolerance is not the same as ignorance. But I trust you. I trust Molly.”

  I keyed into what was going on. “Ah. But Charity doesn’t.”

  Michael hedged. “ She … is worried that her daughter is a very young person moving in a world that rewards inexperience with pain. She very much wants to be sure her daughter is all right. And I am not sure that is an unreasonable position.”

  It had begun to dawn on me, through all the awful, that Molly still hadn’t told her mom and dad about her new gig as the Winter Lady. And it had been … how long now?

  Hell’s bells. My stomach sank a little. I wasn’t at all sure how well Charity and Michael would react to the news that their daughter had gotten herself knit to the wicked Winter Fae. That was a far, far cry from merely hanging out with the wrong crowd. If she’d come directly to them, at the beginning, it might have been talked through immediately. But after a year and more of doubt and silence and avoidance and worry … Wow.

  Family complicates things.

  And, after all, they were both absolutely right to be worried about their daughter.

  Hell. I was.

  “Maybe it isn’t,” I allowed.

  “Thank you,” he said. “I know she’s a grown woman now, but … she’s also still our little girl.”

  “I’m sure she’d roll her eyes to hear it,” I said.

  “Likely,” Michael said, his smile a little sad. “But perhaps she’ll humor us.”

  “I’ll talk to Molly,” I promised.

  And yawned.

  Yeah. That’s what I would do. Be sane. Be smart. Get some rest and come at them fresh, Harry.

  Assuming you figure out who they are.

  18

  The Carpenters had a number of empty bedrooms these days, and I crashed in Daniel’s old room. After recovering from his injuries, and avoiding what could have been a serious scrape with the law, Daniel had re-upped with the military. He was on a base in the Southwest somewhere, married, with the family’s first grandchild on the way.

  There was a very lonely quality to his old room—posters on the wall advertised bands that few people cared about anymore. The clothes hanging in the closet were years out of style, waiting faithfully for someone who might not even fit into them anymore. The bed seemed too small for the man I knew, who I’d seen fighting some genuine darkness, and paying the price for his courage, and it was certainly too small for the husband and father he’d become.

  But I bet it would make a great room for grandkids to stay in when they visited fussy old Grandma and Grandpa Carpenter, the boring squares who never did anything interesting.

  Hah.

  And meanwhile, it would do quite well for a worried, world-weary wizard.

  I slept, not long enough but very hard, and woke to a small face about two inches from mine and late-afternoon sunlight coming through the window.

  “Hi,” Maggie said when I managed to get an eye to creak open.

  “Hmph,” I said, in as gentle a tone as I could manage.

  “Are you awake now?” she asked.

  I blinked. It took about five minutes to accomplish that much. “Apparently.”

  “Okay,” she said seriously. “I’m not supposed to bother you until you’re awake.” She pushed back from the bed and ran out of the room.

  I took that under advisement for a sober moment and then heard her feet pounding back up the stairs. She was carrying a large box, wrapped in white paper and tied with a length of silver cord. She grunted and hefted it onto the general vicinity of my hips, with the inherent accuracy that small children and most animals seemed to possess.

  I flinched and caught the box, preventing any real damage, and sat blearily up. “What is this?”

  “It was on the porch this morning,” Maggie said. “Mouse doesn’t think there’s a bomb or poison or anything.”

  I eyed the box. There was a paper tag on it. I caught it and squinted until I could make out Molly’s handwriting:

  I KNOW YOU MEANT TO GET ONE EVENTUALLY. M.

  “Hmmm,” I said, and opened the box with Maggie looking on in eager interest.

  “Awww,” she said in disappointment a moment later, as I drew a new suit out of the box. “It’s just clothes.”

  “Nothing wrong with clothes,�
� I said.

  “Yeah, but it could have been a knife or a gun or a magic sword or something.” She sighed. “You know. Cool wizard stuff to help you fight monsters.” She picked up the silver-grey rough silk of the suit’s coat. “And this is weird fabric.”

  I ran my hand over the cloth, musing. “Weird how?”

  “It just … feels weird and looks weird. I mean, look at it. Does that look like something you’d see on TV?”

  “It’s spider silk,” I mused. “I think it’s a spider-silk suit.”

  “Ewg,” Maggie said, jerking her hand back. Then she put it on again, more firmly. “That’s so gross.”

  “And it’s enchanted,” I mused. I could feel the subtle currents of energy moving through the cloth, beneath my palms. I closed my eyes for a moment and felt the familiar shapes of my own defensive wardings, the same ones I worked into my leather coat. I’d taught the grasshopper the basics of enchanting gear by using my own most familiar formulae. She was probably the only person alive who could have duplicated my own work so closely. “Yeah, see? Once I’m wearing this, it’s going to store the energy of my body heat, of my movements, and use it to help redirect incoming forces.”

  Maggie looked skeptical. “Well. Enchanted armored bug suit is better than just a suit, I guess.”

  “Yes, it is,” I said. I checked the box. It included all the extras, including buttons and cuff links and a pinky crest ring in the glittering deep blue opals favored by the Winter Court.

  The ring pulsed with stored power, with densely packed magical energy. I could feel it against my skin like the light of a tiny sun. I carefully pocketed it, then changed my mind and put it on. If I needed the thing, I was going to really need it, tout de suite. “It’s also the same material the Warden capes are made of.” I set the suit down and frowned for a moment. “So Molly wants to make a statement with my outfit.”

  “That you aren’t afraid of spiders?” Maggie asked. “I mean, what else would that say?”

  I pursed my lips. “You know … I’m not really sure.”

  So some other crosscurrents were swirling, only no one was saying anything about it. Par for the course when dealing with Mab, but I was used to more open communication with Molly. Only … taking on the mantle of the Winter Lady had given my former Padawan a lot of power, and whether you’re talking about the supernatural world or any other one, more power meant more obligations, more responsibilities. Molly might not have entirely free will, as the concept was generally understood, anymore.

  And Mab loved her some secrets. If she wanted them kept, I’m not sure Molly would be able to tell me.

  Or maybe I was just being paranoid.

  Well. I’d done pretty well, in the survival department, by assuming that my paranoia was justified. Maybe taking out an insurance policy wouldn’t be a bad idea.

  “Dad?” Maggie asked me. “What is it? You’ve been staring into space for like three minutes.”

  I blinked. “Could you please run and tell Michael that I need to borrow his office for a private phone call?” I asked her.

  “Okay,” she said, and hopped up with the energy of children on a sunny afternoon, running out. Mouse lumbered to his feet, nuzzled my face fondly with his big, slobbery mouth, and padded out after her.

  I looked around helpless for a second, wiped off my face on the comforter, got out my wallet, found it empty, and started rummaging in my pockets for whatever change I could find there.

  I got dressed and made a call in Michael’s spartan, organized office. Once I shut the heavy wooden door, the sounds of the television out in the family room and the rap of wood on wood coming from the backyard were muted to nothing.

  “It’s Dresden,” I said when he answered.

  “Oh boy.”

  “I need your help,” I said.

  “With what?”

  “Good cause.”

  He sounded skeptical. “Oh. Those.”

  “There’s a cute girl.”

  “I like that.”

  “You can’t have her,” I said.

  “I like that less.”

  “In or out?”

  “Usual fee,” he said.

  “I only stole so many rocks.”

  He snorted. “So, get someone else.”

  “You’re killing me, man.”

  “Only if it’s for a good cause. Tell me about this girl.”

  I told him where to find Justine and what she looked like.

  “You get that she’s obviously a femme fatale, right?”

  I arched an eyebrow. “She’s … kind of not.”

  “Uh-huh,” he said.

  “She isn’t.”

  “Customer’s always right. What result do you want?”

  I shuddered a bit. It wouldn’t matter to him, personally, whether or not I asked him to save her or kill her. But the more experience I had in the world, the more I had come to think that monstrousness or a lack of it was a little less important than whether or not the monster would keep his word.

  This one would.

  “Covert surveillance. Make sure nothing bad happens to her.”

  “Am I a spy or a bodyguard?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh. You’re floundering.”

  I was definitely not floundering. “I am definitely not floundering,” I told him in a tone of perfect confidence. “I … just need more information before I can act appropriately.”

  “Uh-huh,” he said. Only more annoyingly. “Opposition?”

  “Unknown,” I said.

  He was quiet for a moment.

  “To you,” he said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Now.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Here.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Oh,” he said. “Super.”

  “If I get an easy job, I can call a temp agency.”

  “I don’t do politics,” he said. “The good causes mostly aren’t.”

  “I’ll handle that part,” I said. “Your concern is solely the girl—and the baby. She’s pregnant. Keep them safe from harm.”

  “Ah,” he said, as though I had just simplified his life. “Rules of engagement?”

  “Well, I think you should—”

  “Trick question,” he said, and hung up on me.

  I eyed the phone.

  Then I got into my pocket, got out the dollar bill that had been stuck in a pocket on a ride through the laundromat and was now a wadded block of solid pseudo-wood. I put it in an envelope, sealed it, and wrote GREY on it in pink highlighter. I stowed that in a pocket. That’ll put marzipan in your pie plate, bingo.

  Then I got up and headed outside.

  Butters was a squirrely little guy—quick, bouncy, and bright-eyed.

  The man pursuing him around the Carpenters’ backyard was more of a bear—huge, powerful, and too fast for his size. He’d shaved his head entirely, and his scalp was the color of dark chocolate, covered with beads of sweat, and the blazing afternoon sun shone gratuitously upon all the muscle. Sanya was the size and build of an NFL linebacker, and his teeth showed in a broad smile the entire time he fought.

  Even as I watched, the two men squared off, facing each other, each holding a length of wood carved to vaguely resemble a samurai sword. Butters held his in a two-handed grip, high over his head. The little guy was wearing his sports goggles, a tank top, and close-fit exercise pants. He looked like the protagonists in the old Hong Kong Theater movies—blade thin, flexible, and wiry with lean muscle that was all about speed and reflexes.

  Sanya, dressed in battered blue jeans and biker boots, whirled his practice sword in one hand through a couple of flourishes and settled into a fencing stance in front of Butters and just out of his own reach, his off hand held out behind him.

  “You have gotten much smoother,” said Sanya, his voice a deep rumble inflected with a thick Russian accent on the vowels.

  “Still not any faster,” Butters said. And then his practice sword blurred as it swept dow
n toward Sanya. Santa intercepted with a deflection parry, though he had enough muscle and mass on Butters that he probably didn’t need to. His return thrust slithered down the haft of Butters’s practice sword so fast that I heard it hit Waldo’s thumb. He yelped and leapt back, shaking that hand for a moment—but he didn’t lose his practice weapon.

  “Smooth almost always better than fast,” Sanya said, stepping back and lifting up a hand to signal a pause in the practice. “Smooth is technique. Grace. Smooth lets you think while you fight.”

  “And that’s a big deal?” Butters asked.

  “Is everything,” Sanya said. “Fighting is least civilized thing one can do. Intellect is not made for fighting. You have been there, da?”

  “Yeah. It’s terrifying.”

  “Da,” Sanya replied. “Hard to take test while some stinking thing shoving your face into stinking armpit.” He set the practice sword carefully against the wall of the Carpenters’ little workshop and then picked up an old, worn-looking cavalry saber with a wire-wrapped hilt in a battered leather scabbard. “Hard to get much thinking done in fight,” Sanya said. He jabbed a thumb at one of his own biceps. “Muscle can be useful tool—or deadweight,” Sanya said. He jabbed his thumb at his own forehead. “But this is most dangerous weapon.”

  Butters eyed the much, much larger man for a moment. “Yeah, everyone has one of those.”

  “Exactly true,” Sanya said. “Dangerous place, planet Earth. Dangerous animals, humans.” His grin became more wolfish. “Be more human than next guy. And pick up Sword.”

  Butters arched an eyebrow. “Um. Are you sure you want to play with these? I mean, there’s like zero margin for error with that thing.”

  “Always zero margin for error,” Sanya said calmly. He drew the old saber. Worn though the weapon might be, its blade shone nicked and bright and true in the sunlight. Esperacchius, the Sword of Hope, sang a bright, quiet song of power that I could feel against my face and chest like sunlight.

  “Dude,” Butters said. He stepped to one side and reached into an old messenger bag lying on the ground nearby. “I’m not sure what this thing will do to Esperacchius.”

  Sanya let out a rolling laugh. “Me, either. But have faith.”

  Butters frowned. “But what if it … ?”