by Jim Butcher
“I am getting tired,” Murphy said, in a faintly annoyed tone, “of people using that phrase as if I was not standing right here.”
Freydis stared down at Murphy for a long moment. If she was bothered by the gun under her chin, it didn’t show on her face. She nodded and turned her palms up. “Enter, warrior.”
Murphy met her eyes and nodded. She withdrew carefully, keeping the gun on Freydis until the last possible second, then took a limping step back. I picked up her cane and held it for her while she put the gun away, her eyes still on the Valkyrie. She accepted the cane with a nod.
I gestured toward the house and said, “Lead on, then?”
Freydis lifted a hand and rubbed briefly at the spot on her chin where the gun’s muzzle had left a mild indentation. Then she said, to Murphy, “Are you seeing anyone?”
Murphy blinked.
“Mortals make the best lovers by far,” Freydis explained. “And this job means I’m basically sexually frustrated around the clock. But it’s hard to find mortals I respect.”
Murphy’s cheeks turned bright pink. “Um.”
Freydis frowned slightly and glanced from Murphy to me and back. “I don’t mind sharing.”
“I’m … I’m Catholic,” Murphy said.
Freydis’s eyes shone with a wicked sparkle. “I don’t mind conflicted, either.”
Murphy gave me a somewhat desperate glance.
Huh. I’d officially seen everything now. Murphy asking for a rescue. From monsters and madmen, she’d never cried uncle.
It had taken a redhead.
“Business first, maybe?” I suggested.
“We could all die tonight,” Freydis said. “But as you wish.”
Freydis led us to the rear of the château and outside, to gardens I had never seen before. There was even a hedge maze, or maybe an hedge maze, depending on who you asked, a good ten feet high, and Freydis led us right into it.
“I apologize for the walk, Ms. Murphy,” Freydis said.
Murphy limped along grimly, leaning on her cane. “I’m fine.”
Freydis nodded but glanced my way, and it was possible that her steps gradually, imperceptibly slowed a bit over the next couple of minutes, until we reached the center of the maze.
We stepped into a grassy bower where apple trees had been planted beside a beautifully laid-out … not pond; it was definitely a water feature, complete with an abstract statue of a pair of faceless lovers intertwined in its center, with water rippling down over them. A party had taken place the night before, apparently. There were bottles and plates scattered with the remnants of food lying about on the grass, along with articles of clothing. Many of them ripped.
The center of the bower was … Well, I’m sure it had some kind of official garden title, but it amounted to a giant canopy bed, big enough for at least half a dozen people, and probably more if you squeezed, gauzy white curtains all around it. The morning light made them mistytranslucent, and the breeze, enough to keep away the promise of another hot day, for the moment, stirred them in rippling waves.
Sitting cross-legged at the head of the bed, sipping a tiny cup of espresso, was Lara Raith. She was wearing an oversized blue T-shirt and old cutoff sweatpants with paint stains on them. Her hair was rumpled, and she wasn’t wearing any makeup at all. As we entered, she looked up, and her eyes were absolutely sapphire blue, almost gemlike. She stretched, as anyone might in the morning, though not many of us would have made it look that good in those clothes, and smiled at us. “Harry. Ms. Murphy. Good morning.”
I looked around. “Late night?”
“Your people and the svartalves aren’t the only ones I’m practicing diplomacy with,” she replied. “And it’s always a good idea to eat a large meal before one expects difficulty.”
Murphy leaned on her cane. “You prepare for trouble by having sex?”
“I’m a vampire, Ms. Murphy,” Lara said calmly. “I have certain physiological needs. So yes. It is also often necessary for celebrating a victory. Or recovering from a defeat.”
“I’m sensing a pattern,” Murphy said in a very dry voice.
Lara laughed. It was just a laugh, with none of the supernatural comehither in her voice I’d heard before. “Our information suggested you’d be in the casts for another week.”
“Four days,” Murphy corrected her. “And I got bored. But this isn’t really a social call.”
“Oh, how unprofessional of me,” Lara said.
I peered around and said, “Someone bugged your office, didn’t they?” Lara lifted her little cup to me in a salute. “And they say you’re a mindless thug.”
“Who?” I asked.
“Even if I felt like sharing my”—she fluttered her lashes—“intimate details with you, Harry, what makes you think it would be wise to do so?”
“Just asking,” I said. “One professional to another.”
“I know you meant that to be flattery,” Lara said, her tone wry. “So I’m going to take your intention into consideration.” She visibly considered it for a moment before saying, “I’m not sure. But too many leaks have happened in the past few weeks. I’m secure against strictly technical means of doing it. And I’ve never had issues with my people betraying me.”
“Not even in the Raith Deeps?” I asked.
She waved a dismissive hand. “Oh, that was just everyday treachery. That’s different.”
“How?”
“It was kept mostly in-house,” she said. “It benefits all of the White Court to have the strongest and most capable leadership possible. Challenging that leadership for control of our people’s aims is good for everyone.”
I sputtered. “I almost died. So did you.”
“Don’t be a whiner, Harry,” Lara said. “Neither of us did. When my people turn on me, we keep it mainly between us. This information has been falling into outside hands. I work with consultants in such matters, of course, but they haven’t been able to find any magical surveillance, either. My working theory is that it would take one of your people to manage a spell they couldn’t detect.”
I frowned. The White Council tended to wage information-based warfare whenever it could, right up until it was time to start ripping satellites out of orbit and triggering volcanic eruptions, on the theory that with enough knowledge, leverage would be far more effective, obviating the necessity for open war. It was an obnoxious, arrogant stance to take on such matters—and it worked.
Mostly.
That didn’t mean being the target of a full-court press on surveillance was fun. I hadn’t much liked it when they’d been monitoring me more closely, earlier in my career.
Wizards could be really annoying sometimes.
“Would either of you care for coffee?” she asked.
We did. Freydis set us up, her eyes always looking at nothing specific, as if she was trying to take in everything around us at once.
“So,” Lara said. “Why are you here?”
“It’s about tonight,” I said.
She gave me a sharp look and then glanced at Murphy.
“You demanded my help,” I said. “You’re getting it. My way.”
Something that very nearly resembled anger changed the shape of her face, made it look remote and cold. It was gone again after a breath. “I see.” Her eyes went to Murphy. “I apologize that you were dragged into the matter.”
“Then why’d you do it?” Murphy asked.
I shifted my weight a little so that my hip pressed against Murphy’s. Well. It pressed against her upper arm.
Lara took that in for a moment and nodded slowly. “I see. I trust that you can keep this matter a professional one?”
“Try to stab us in the back or feed on either one of us, and I’ll make holes in your skull,” Murphy said. “Play it straight with us and we’ll all be fine. I like your brother.”
“Did you just threaten me in my own garden?” Lara asked.
“I just explained our stance to you,” Murphy said.
/> Lara glanced at me.
I shrugged. “Better to have it out in the open than under the table.”
She smiled and shook her head. “I suppose we are all here for Thomas, are we not?”
“Which is why we’ve come,” I said. “This can’t be a smash-and-grab run.”
Lara frowned. “Given the security around him, I don’t see any option.”
“Do you want a war with Svartalfheim? What happened to avoiding open conflict?”
She gave me a pained glower and looked abruptly away. “The equation changed when they moved my brother. I’ll be facing considerable in-house trouble if my own sibling is put to death. My enemies within the Court will use it as a justification to rally against me. If I can’t protect my own family, how can I protect them, et cetera.” She shook her head. “Allies outside the Court will also be watching. A quick conflict and a brokered peace could make my position stronger than it currently is.”
“So this is all about power,” Murphy noted.
“It is also about power,” Lara corrected her. “For people in positions like mine, power concerns are a constant. But Thomas is my only brother. He’s frequently vexing, but …” She shrugged. “I like him. Family isn’t something one discards lightly.”
I thought of the old man. “No, it isn’t,” I said quietly. “So what if I told you I thought we could get Thomas out clean, no bloodshed.”
“To what advantage?” she asked. “Etri’s people would track him and kill him. The Accorded nations will, theoretically, be honor bound to help.”
“I think I can keep him hidden,” I said. “From all of them.”
“Even your own people?”
“Especially those assholes,” I said.
Lara’s eyebrows climbed.
“If we do it smoothly enough,” Murphy said, “we can do this without violence and it will be a fait accompli. He’ll be out of their hands and unreachable. You’ll have time to talk things down. And since you’ll have done it without shedding more blood, there will be pressure from the Accorded nations for Etri to restore peace and resolve the matter via weregild.”
“A very steep weregild,” Lara noted.
“Still cheaper than slugging it out with the svartalves,” I said, “or slapping down another rebellion among your own people.”
Lara frowned, narrowing her eyes in thought for a full minute. Her chin bobbed up and down very slightly. “I take it Mab is fine with this?”
“Mab can be very creative about what she notices or doesn’t,” I said. “Particularly if the forms are observed correctly. The lack of bloodshed at what amounts to her party will go a long way toward pacifying her.”
“But she doesn’t know,” Lara pressed.
“She loaned me to you so that she wouldn’t have to know.”
Lara finished the last of her espresso. “ Meaning … that there might well be consequences for you in the aftermath.”
“Especially if we screw it up,” I said.
“If we attempt and fail,” Lara noted, “my position is even worse than if I do nothing.”
“He’s family.”
Her sapphire eyes met mine for a dangerous second and then turned to Murphy. “I take it this is your plan?”
“I don’t get weepy about who gets credit,” Murphy said. “As long as the plan gets results.”
Lara took a deep breath.
Then she said, “All right. Walk me through it.”
25
It’s not complicated,” Murphy said.
Lara tilted her head and said, “Please don’t assume I’m too thick to see the obvious options.”
“You’ve been in the building for meetings of the Brighter Future Society,” Murphy said. “I trained there on a daily basis for more than a year. With the guards.”
Lara arched an eyebrow. “I assumed you were watchdogging the imperiled families who were staying there.”
“I was,” Murphy said. “I was also learning everything I could about the place.” She snorted. “Marcone owns it. Keep your friends close.”
Lara’s smile was somehow both appreciative and predatory. “So you have information I didn’t when I was making plans.”
“The strong rooms are in the basement,” Murphy said.
“Only one way in and out,” Lara noted.
“That’s not the first problem to plan for,” Murphy said.
I nodded. “Before we go in, we need to set up a way out.”
I arrived at the reception on time, wearing my silver suit and my Warden’s cloak. It wasn’t the original, which I preferred, sort of. It was a dress cloak, made of shimmery grey silk of some kind, and it didn’t have any tears or burns or patches on it. Once again, I walked in with the Wardens and the members of the Senior Council, though this time Ramirez, dressed as I was, lagged a bit behind, leaning more heavily on his cane than the day before.
Predators would note that he was an easy target, isolated and falling behind like that, and this summit could be fairly described as a convocation of some of the deadliest predators around. I slowed my pace to walk next to him. That way he wouldn’t be alone.
It was a muggy night, with light, sullen rainfall that made the warm air smell like hot asphalt and motor oil and cut grass. The rain was something to be expected when powerful delegates of both Summer and Winter were in proximity for any length of time.
“Hey, man,” I said quietly. “You okay?”
Ramirez set his jaw, glanced at me for a second, and then said, “I will be. Right now it’s inconvenient. At least I’m not stuck in a wheelchair anymore.”
“What happened?” I asked.
The muscles in his jaw flexed before he spoke. “Tangled with the wrong monster.”
“Line of duty?”
He shrugged a shoulder. “As it turned out.”
I frowned. There were enormous anger and pain in the spaces between his words. I’d seen Carlos get hurt, during the war with the Red Court. It hadn’t ever stopped his smile for very long.
This had.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
His lips pressed into a line. “Yeah.” He gave his head a little shake, as if dislodging an insect. “I heard about the vote in the Council, man. It’s bullshit. However inconvenient you might be for them, whether any of them like it or not, you’re a wizard, Harry.”
“Yer a wizard, Harry,” I growled.
He didn’t smile, but an amused glint came to his eyes. “Point is, I’ve already cast my vote on your behalf. So have most of the other Wardens.”
I was quiet for a second, with my throat a little tight. “Oh. Thanks.”
“Yeah, well. We’re just the guys who have to do the fighting and the dirty work,” he said bitterly. “All the wizards who sit on their fat asses all day, who knows? To them, you’re scary.”
“You didn’t used to curse so much,” I noted. And he’d never sounded so bitter doing it, either. Man.
Something had done a number on Ramirez.
I made a mental note to grab a bottle of something very flammable and have a long talk with Carlos before long.
“How’s Karrin doing?” he asked.
“Like always, but slower and grouchier.”
“I heard what she did. Went hand to hand with Nicodemus Archleone and survived.”
“You got that backwards, but yeah,” I said. “Difference is, she can still live in her house.”
“Hah,” he said, with a flash of teeth. “Yeah. You wouldn’t believe how many people have come to the Council asking us to help them find him.”
“Are we?”
“Hell, yes,” Ramirez said. “Guy’s a goddamned monster. But he’s slippery as hell.”
“Sounds about right.”
“Someone’s going to get him, sooner or later.”
“Can’t be soon enough for me,” I said. “So what’s the deal with another reception? I thought that was last night. Is one party not enough?”
“Oh, God no,” Ramirez said. �
�That was just an icebreaker. Tonight is opening ceremonies.”
“Which is another party.”
“Obviously. The Accords provide space for a lot of business at a summit meeting. New applicants, addressal of grievances, public announcements, explicitly stating the purpose of the summit, that kind of thing. That’s what opening ceremonies are for, before the actual haggling starts.”
I grunted. “Whee.”
“Don’t you like parties, Harry?” Ramirez asked. A ghost of his old humor came into his voice and face.
“Well,” I said. “I heard that at least there will be cute girls.”
Wham. It was nearly audible, how fast his expression became a closed door.
“ ’Los?” I asked.
He shook his head once and said, “Just hurting. I’ll get some painkillers after the reception.”
I nodded. Like fire, pain was something that seemed to have its own extra-heavy existential mass. Magic could dull or erase pain, but not without side effects that were nearly as serious as those of medicinal palliatives. It took someone with centuries of experience in that kind of magic to do it safely, and that was neither one of us. I had eight years on Carlos, but by wizard standards, both of us were entry-level noobs in a lot of ways. It made sense that he wouldn’t want to have his senses dulled on a night like this one.
Which made what I was about to do difficult, as well as painful.
And necessary.
I put a hand on his shoulder and said, “Hang in there, man. Once we get through this, maybe we should get Wild Bill and Yoshimo and go camping again or something.”
“Sure,” he said in a neutral voice. “That might be good.”
He didn’t notice the little ampule in my hand, or how it broke and spread the liquid inside onto his cloak and my skin. No one would notice one extra splash of liquid on his clothes. I lowered my hand, palming the broken ampule, and Ramirez didn’t notice a thing.