by Butcher, Jim
“He’s mildly amusing,” Thomas agreed.
“He’s up past his bedtime,” I said. “Don’t mean to be rude, but I need to talk to Arturo before I fall asleep on my feet.”
“I understand,” Madge said. “The music’s a little loud in the living room. Thomas, why don’t I show you both to the study, and I’ll bring Arturo to you.”
“Is Justine here?” Thomas asked. His voice held a note of quiet tension to it that I doubted Madge noticed.
“Somewhere,” she said vaguely. “I’ll tell her you’ve arrived.”
“Thank you.”
We followed Madge inside the apartment suite. The living room was fairly dim, but I saw maybe twenty people there, men and women, some of them dancing, others standing and drinking or laughing or talking, like most parties. There was a haze of smoke, and only some of it was from cigarettes. Colored lights shifted and changed in time with the music.
I watched Thomas as we walked through the room. His manner changed subtly, something I could sense without being able to define. He didn’t move any more quickly, but his steps became more fluid somehow. He looked around the room as we went through, his eyelids a little heavy, and he started drawing the eyes of every woman we walked past.
I drew no such looks, even with the grey puppy sleeping in the crook of my arm. It’s not like I’m Quasimodo or anything, but with Thomas walking through the room like a predator angel, it was tough to compete.
Madge led us past the party room and into a small room with bookshelves and a desk with a computer. “Have a seat and I’ll go find him,” she said.
“Thank you,” I said, and settled down onto the chair at the desk. She left, her eyes lingering on Thomas for a moment before she did. He perched on a corner of the desk, his expression pensive. “You look thoughtful,” I said, “which seems wrong somehow. What is it?”
“I’m hungry,” Thomas said. “And thinking. Madge is Arturo’s first ex-wife.”
“And she’s hosting a party for him?” I asked.
“Yeah. I never thought she liked the guy much.”
“What did she mean about investing?”
Thomas shrugged. “Arturo broke off from a larger studio on the West Coast to found his own. Madge is real practical. She’s the kind of person who could despise someone while still being professional and working with him. Acknowledging his talents. If she thought it was a winning bet, she wouldn’t be worried that she didn’t like the person in charge. It wouldn’t be out of character for her to have invested money in Arturo’s new company.”
“What kind of money are we talking about?”
“Not sure,” Thomas said. “Seven figures, maybe more. I’d have to get someone to look.”
I whistled. “Lot of money.”
“I guess,” Thomas said. Thomas was rich enough that he probably didn’t have much perspective on the value of a buck.
I started to ask him more questions, but the door opened, and a tall and vigorous man in his fifties entered, wearing dark slacks and a grey silk shirt rolled up over his forearms. He had a head of magnificent silver locks framing a strong face with a dark, short beard. He had a boater’s tan, pale smile lines at the corners of his eyes and mouth, and large, intelligent dark eyes.
“Tommy!” the man boomed, and strode to Thomas. “Hey, I was hoping I would see you tonight.” His voice had a thick accent, definitely Greek. He clapped both hands on Thomas’s shoulders and kissed him on either cheek. “You’re looking good, Tommy boy, real good. You should come work with me, huh?”
“I don’t look good on camera,” Thomas said. “But it’s good to see you, too. Arturo Genosa, this is Harry Dresden, the man I told you about.”
Arturo looked me up and down. “Tall son of a bitch, huh?”
“I ate my Wheaties,” I said.
“Hey, pooch,” Arturo said. He scratched the grey puppy behind the ear. The little dog yawned, licked Arturo’s hand once, and promptly went back to sleep. “Your dog?”
“Temporarily,” I said. “Recovered him for a client.”
Arturo nodded, his expression calculating. “You know what a strega is, Mr. Dresden?”
“Practitioner of Italian folk magic,” I responded. “Divinations, love potions, fertility blessings, and protections. They also can manage a pretty vicious set of curses with a technique they call the malocchio. The Evil Eye.”
His eyebrows lifted in surprise. “Guess you know a thing or two, huh.”
“Just enough to get me into trouble,” I said.
“But do you believe in it?”
“In the Evil Eye?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve seen stranger things.”
Arturo nodded. “Tommy boy tell you what I need?”
“He said you were worried about a curse. Said some people close to you died.”
Arturo’s expression flickered for a second, and I saw grief undermine his confidence. “Yes. Two women. Good souls, both.”
“Uh-huh,” I said. “Assuming there is a curse involved, what makes you think it was meant for you?”
“They had no other contact with each other,” Arturo said. “Far as I know, I was the only thing they had in common.” He opened a drawer in his desk and drew out a couple of manila file folders. “Reports,” he said. “Information about their deaths. Tommy says maybe you can help.”
“Maybe,” I agreed. “Why would someone curse you?”
“The studio,” Arturo said. “Someone wants to stop the company from getting off the ground. Kill it before the first picture gets made.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Protection,” Arturo said. “I want you to protect the people on my crew during the shoot. Don’t want anything else to happen to anyone.”
I frowned. “Can be a tough job. Do you know who would want to stop production?”
Arturo scowled at me and stalked across the room to a cabinet. He opened it and withdrew an already opened bottle of wine. He pulled out the cork with his teeth and took a swig. “If I knew that, I wouldn’t need to hire an investigator.”
I shrugged. “I’m a wizard, not a fortune-teller. Got any guesses? Anyone who might want to see you fail?”
“Lucille,” Thomas said.
Arturo glanced at Thomas, scowling.
“Who is Lucille?” I asked.
“My second ex-wife,” Arturo answered. “Lucille Delarossa. But she is not involved.”
“How do you know?” I asked.
“She would not,” he said. “I am certain.”
“Why?”
He shook his head and stared down at his wine bottle. “Lucille . . . well. Let us say that I did not marry her for her mind.”
“You don’t have to be smart to be hostile,” I said, though I couldn’t really think of the last time someone stupid had pulled off powerful magic. “Anyone else? Is there another ex-wife around?”
Arturo waved a hand. “Tricia would not try to stop the picture.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“She is the star.”
Thomas made a choking sound. “Christ, Arturo.”
The silver-maned man grimaced. “No choice. She had a standing contract. Could have killed me in court if I did not cast her.”
“Is there an ex-wife number four?” I asked. “I can keep track of three. If there’s four, I have to start writing things down.”
“Not yet,” Arturo muttered. “I am single. So far just the three.”
“Well, that’s something,” I said. “Look, unless whoever is bringing this curse onto you does something right in front of me, there’s not a lot I can do. We call a spell like the Evil Eye an entropy curse, and it’s damned near impossible to trace any other way.”
“My people must be protected from the malocchio,” Arturo said. “Can you do that?”
“If I’m there when it goes down, yes.”
“How much does that cost?” he asked.
“Seventy-five an hour, plus expenses.
A thousand up-front.”
Arturo didn’t hesitate. “Done. We start shooting in the morning, nine o’clock.”
“I’ll have to be close. Within sight, if possible,” I said. “And the less anyone knows about it, the better.”
“Yeah,” Thomas agreed. “He’ll need a cover story. If he stands around in the open, the bad guy will just wait until he leaves or goes to the bathroom or something.”
Arturo nodded. “He can boom for me.”
“Boom?” I asked.
“Boom microphone,” Thomas supplied.
“Oh. That isn’t such a hot idea,” I said. “My magic doesn’t get on so well with machines and such.”
Arturo’s face clouded with annoyance. “Fine. Production assistant.” Something in his pants made a chirping sound, and he drew a cell phone from his pocket. He held up a hand to me and stepped over to the other side of the room, speaking in low tones.
“Production assistant. What’s that?” I asked.
“Gofer,” Thomas said, “Errand boy.” He stood up, his movements restless.
There was a knock at the door, and it opened to admit a girl who may not have reached drinking age. She had dark hair, dark eyes, and was a little taller than average. She wore a white sweater with a short black skirt that showed off a lot of leg, and even compared to the pretty people outside, she was a knockout. Of course, the last time I’d seen her she’d been naked except for a red, Christmas-present-type bow, so it was possible that I was biased.
“Justine,” Thomas said, and there was the kind of relief in his voice that I would usually have associated with historical sailors shouting, “Land ho.” He took a step over to the girl and pulled her to him in a kiss.
Justine’s cheeks colored and she let out a breathless little laugh before her lips touched his, and then melted into the kiss like there wasn’t anything else in the whole world.
The puppy in the curl of my arm vibrated, and I glanced down to see him staring at Thomas, an inaudible, disapproving growl shaking his fuzzy chest.
They didn’t kiss for a long time, really, but when Thomas finally lifted his mouth from hers, she was flushed and I could see the pulse beating in her throat. Nothing remotely like thought or restraint touched her face. The heat in her eyes could have scorched me if I’d been a little closer, and for a second I thought she was about to drag Thomas to the carpet right there in front of me.
Instead Thomas turned her so that she stood with her back to his chest, and drew her against him, pinning her there with his arms. He looked paler, and his eyes had become an even fainter shade of grey. He rested his cheek on her hair for a moment, and then said, “You’ve met Harry.”
Justine regarded me with heavy, sultry eyes and nodded. “Hello, Mister Dresden.” She inhaled through her nose, and made a visible effort to draw her thoughts together. “You’re cold,” she said to Thomas. “What happened?”
“Nothing,” Thomas said, his tone light.
Justine tilted her head and then took a tiny step away from him. Thomas blinked at her, but didn’t try to keep her there. “Not nothing,” she said. She touched his cheek with her fingers. “You’re freezing.”
“I don’t want you to worry about it,” Thomas told her.
Justine looked over her shoulder at me.
I checked on Arturo, who was still in his conversation on the phone, then said in a low voice, “Black Court. I think it was one of Mavra’s goons.”
Justine’s eyes widened. “Oh, God. Was anyone hurt?”
“Only the vampire,” I said. I gave the puppy, now silent, a vague wave. “The pup saw him coming.”
“Thomas,” Justine said, looking back at him. “You told me you didn’t have to worry about Mavra.”
“In the first place, we don’t know it’s Mavra,” Thomas said. He gave me a look over Justine’s head that warned me to shut the hell up. “And in the second place, they were after Dresden. He’s here under my invitation, so I helped him out a little.”
“Boot to the head,” I agreed. “Ran him off.”
“My God. I’m glad you are all right, Mister Dresden, but this shouldn’t have happened. Thomas, we shouldn’t even be in town. If you don’t—”
Thomas put a finger under Justine’s chin and drew her eyes up to his.
Justine shuddered, her lips faltering to a halt, her mouth partly open. Her pupils dilated until there was practically no color showing around them. She swayed a little on her feet.
“Relax,” Thomas said. “I’ll take care of things.”
Her brow furrowed with a tiny line, and she stammered, “But . . . I don’t want you to . . . get hurt.”
Thomas’s eyes glittered. Deliberately he raised one pale hand and touched a fingertip to the pulse in Justine’s throat. Then he drew it down in a slow, lazy spiral that stopped half an inch under her collarbone. She shuddered again, and her eyes slipped entirely out of focus. Whatever thought had been in her head, it died a silent little death, and left her swaying on her feet making soft, mindless sounds between quick breaths.
And she loved it. From the looks of things she didn’t have a choice.
The puppy’s silent growl buzzed against the skin of my arm. Anger flashed through me in a wave of silent outrage.
“Stop it,” I said in a quiet voice. “Get out of her head.”
“This doesn’t concern you,” Thomas replied.
“Like hell it doesn’t. Back off on the mind-mojo. Right now. Or you and I are going to have words.”
Thomas’s gaze moved to me. Something vicious in his eyes flashed with a cold fury and one of his hands closed into a fist. Then he shook his head and closed his eyes for a moment. He spoke before they opened.
“The less she knows about the details,” he said in a rough, strained voice, “the safer she’s going to be.”
“From who?” I demanded.
“From anyone who might not like me or my House,” Thomas said. The words were laced with a hint of a feral snarl. “If she doesn’t know any more than any other doe, there’s no reason to target her. It’s one of the only things I can do to protect her. Back off, wizard, or I’ll be happy to start the conversation myself.”
Just then Arturo finished his call and turned back to us. He blinked and stopped short of conversation distance. “I’m sorry. Did I miss something?”
Thomas arched an eyebrow at me.
I took a deep breath and said, “No. We just stumbled onto an uncomfortable topic. But we can put a lid on it until later.”
“Good,” Arturo said. “Now where were we?”
“I need to take Justine home,” Thomas said. “She’s had a little too much tonight. Best of luck, Arturo.”
Arturo nodded to him and managed to smile. “Thank you, Tommy boy, for your help.”
“It’s nothing.” He slipped an arm around Justine, drawing her with him, and nodded to me as he left the room. “Later, Harry.”
I rose too, and asked Arturo, “Where do you want me tomorrow?”
He sat down his bottle of wine, grabbed a memo pad off the desk, and scribbled down an address. Then he withdrew a roll of money, peeled off ten bills and slapped a thousand dollars cash down on top of the address. I collected all of it.
“I do not know if I believe in your sincerity, Mr. Dresden,” Arturo said.
I waved the bills. “As long as you’re paying, I don’t really need you to believe in me. See you in the morning, Mr. Genosa.”
Chapter Five
I shambled back to my place around late o’clock. Mister, the bobtailed grey tomcat who shares my apartment, hurled himself at my legs in a shoulder-block of greeting. Mister weighs twenty-five or thirty pounds, and I had to brace myself against his ritual affection.
Mister tilted his head at me and sniffed at the air. Then he made a low, warning sound of his imperial displeasure. As I came in, he bounded up onto the nearest bit of furniture and peered at the puppy still sleeping in my arm.
“Temporary,” I assured h
im. I sat down on the couch. “He isn’t staying.”
Mister narrowed his eyes, prowled over to me, and swatted at the puppy with an indignant paw.
“Take it easy. This little lunatic is a featherweight.” I murmured a minor spell and lit a few candles around my apartment with my will. I dialed the number where I had been contacting Brother Wang while he was in town, but got only a recording telling me the number had been disconnected. The phones are occasionally wacky when it’s me using them, so I tried again. No success. Bah. My bones ached and I wanted to rest, safe and cozy in my lair.
Said lair was in the basement of a creaky old boardinghouse built better than a hundred years ago. It had sunken windows high up on its walls, and largely consisted of a single living area around a fireplace. I had old, comfortable furniture—a sofa, a love seat, a couple of big recliner-type chairs. They didn’t match, but they looked soft and inviting. The stone floor was covered with a variety of area rugs, and I’d softened the look of the concrete walls with a number of tapestries and framed pictures.
The whole place was sparkling clean, and the air smelled of pine boughs. Even the fireplace was scoured down to a clean stone surface. You can’t beat the Fair Folk as housekeepers. You also can’t tell people about them, because they’ll pack up and clear out. Why? I have no idea. They’re faeries, and that’s just how it works.
On one side of the living room there was a shallow alcove with a wood-burning stove, an old-fashioned icebox, and some cabinets that held my cooking ware and groceries. On the other, a narrow doorway led to my bedroom and bath. There was barely enough room for my twin bed and a secondhand dresser.
I pulled up the rug that covered the entrance to the subbasement, a trapdoor set into the floor. It was deep enough underground to keep a subterranean chill the year-round, so I juggled the puppy while putting on a heavy flannel robe. Then I got a candle, opened the trapdoor, and descended the folding stepladder into my laboratory.
I had forbidden the cleaning service to move around my lab, and as a result it had been slowly losing the war against entropy for a couple of years. The walls were lined with wire racks, and I’d filled them with Tupperware, boxes, bags, tubs, bottles, cups, bowls, and urns. Most of the containers had a label listing their contents, ingredients for any number of potions, spells, summonings, and magical devices I had occasion to make from time to time. A worktable ran down the middle of the room, and at its far end was a comparatively recent concrete patch that did not match the rest of the floor. The patch was surrounded by the summoning circle set into the stone. I’d splurged on replacing the old ring with a new one made of silver and I’d moved everything in the room as far from it as I could.