by Butcher, Jim
“Clichés,” I interjected, smiling. The old man puffed out a breath of quiet laughter and offered me his hand. I shook it, and found myself newly appreciative of the calloused strength that belied the man’s evident age. “Good to see you, sir. I was starting to feel a little swamped.”
Ebenezar McCoy, senior member of the White Council, a sometime mentor of mine, and by all accounts I’d heard one hell of a strong wizard, clapped me on my biceps with his free hand. “You, in over your head? It’s as if you’re too stubborn to know when to run.”
“We’d best get moving,” I told him. “The police will be along shortly.”
His frown knitted his shaggy white eyebrows together, but he nodded and said, “Hop in.”
I got in the truck and slid my staff into the gun rack with Ebenezar’s. The old man’s staff was shorter and thicker than mine, but the carved sigils and formulae on it were noticeably similar, and the texture and color of the wood was identical. They’d both come from the same lightning-wounded tree, back on Ebenezar’s land in the Ozarks. I shut the door and closed my eyes for a moment, while Ebenezar got the truck rolling.
“Your Morse is rusty,” he said a few minutes later. “On my staff it sounded like you spelled it ‘blampires.” ’
“I did,” I said. “Black Court vampires. I just shortened it some.”
Ebenezar tsked. “Blampires. That’s the problem with you young people. Shortening all the words.”
“Too many acronyms?” I asked.
“Ayuh.”
“Well, then,” I said. “I’m glad you took the time to RSVP me. I have a problem that needs to stay on the QT, but is rapidly going FUBAR. I’m sorry to call you LD through AT&T instead of using UPS, but I needed your help ASAP. I hope that’s OK.”
Ebenezar grunted, shot me a sidelong look, and said, “Don’t make me kick your ass.”
“No, sir,” I said.
“Black Court,” he said. “Who?”
“Mavra. You know her?”
“I know it,” he said, the pronoun mildly emphasized. “Killed a friend of mine in the Venatori once. And she was in the Wardens’ files. They suspect she’s got a little skill at dark sorcery and consider her to be very dangerous.”
“It’s more than a little skill,” I said.
The old man frowned. “Oh?”
“Yeah. I’ve seen her throw raw power around, and put up the best veil I’ve ever seen through. I also saw her using some long-range mental communications with her flunkies.”
The old man frowned. “That’s more than a little.”
“Uh-huh. She’s gunning for me. Only, you know, without the guns.”
Ebenezar frowned, but nodded. “She holding that mess at the Velvet Room against you?”
“That’s how it looks from here,” I said. “She’s taken two swings at me. But I found where she’s laired, and I want to take her down before she gets to three.”
“Makes sense,” he said. “What’s your plan?”
“I’ve got help. Murphy—”
“The police girl?” he interrupted.
“God, don’t call her a girl,” I said. “At least not to her face. Yeah, her, and a mercenary named Kincaid.”
“Haven’t heard of him,” Ebenezar said.
“He works for the Archive,” I said. “And he’s good at killing vampires. I’m going in with those two, but we need someone standing by to get us out in a hurry.”
“I’m your driver, eh?” he mused. “And I suppose you want someone to lock down Mavra’s power, if she’s got access to that much magic.”
“It hadn’t occurred to me, really,” I lied. “But hey, if you are bored and want to do that to pass the time while you keep the car running, I don’t mind.”
The old man’s teeth flashed in a wolfish smile. “I’ll keep that in mind, Hoss.”
“I don’t have anything to use as a channel, though,” I said. “Are you going to be able to target her without hair or blood or something?”
“Yes,” Ebenezar said. He didn’t elaborate how he’d do it. “Though I doubt I can get her down to nothing. I can prevent her from working anything big, but she might have enough left in her to be annoying.”
“I’ll take what I can get,” I said. “But we need to move right now. She’s already taken several people.”
“Vampires are that way,” Ebenezar agreed in a casual tone, but I saw the way his eyes narrowed. He didn’t care for monsters like Mavra any more than I did. I could have kissed him.
“Thank you.”
He shook his head. “What about her death curse?”
I blinked.
“You’d thought of that, right?” he asked.
“What death curse?” I stammered.
“Use your head, boy,” Ebenezar said. “If she’s got a wizard’s power, she might well be able to level a death curse at you when she goes down.”
“Oh, come on,” I muttered. “That’s no fair. She’s already dead.”
“Hadn’t thought of that, eh?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “Though I should have. Been a busy couple of days, what with dodging all the certain death coming at me from every direction. Not a second to spare for thinking. We have precious little time.”
He grunted. “So where we going?”
I checked the time at a passing bank billboard. “A picnic.”
Chapter Twenty-eight
What looked like a small army had invaded a portion of Wolf Lake Park and claimed it in the name of God and Clan Murphy. Cars filled the little parking lot nearby, and lined the nearest lane for a hundred yards in either direction. Summer had been generous with the rain for once, and all the trees in the park had put on glorious autumn colors so bright that if I scrunched up my eyes until my lashes blurred my vision they almost seemed to be afire.
In the park, a couple of gazebos had been stockpiled with tables and lots of food, and a pair of portable pavilions flanked them, giving shade to maybe a dozen people who had fired up their grills and were singeing meat. Music was playing from several different locations, the beats of the various songs stumbling into one another, and evidently someone had brought a generator, because there was an enormous TV set up out in the grass while a dozen men crowded around it, talking loudly, laughing, and arguing about what looked to be a college football game.
There were also a pair of volleyball nets and a badminton net, and enough Frisbees flying around to foul up radar at the local airports. A giant, inflatable castle wobbled dramatically as a dozen children bounced around on the inside of it, caroming off the walls and one another with equal amounts of enthusiasm. More kids ran in packs all over the place, and there must have been a dozen dogs gleefully racing one another and begging food from anyone who seemed to have some. The air smelled like charcoal, mesquite, and insect repellent, and buzzed with happy chatter.
I stood there for a minute, watching the festivities. Spotting Murphy in a crowd of a couple of hundred people wasn’t easy. I tried to be methodical, sweeping the area with my gaze from left to right. I didn’t spot Murphy, but as I stood there it occurred to me that a bruised and battered man better than six and a half feet tall in a black leather duster didn’t exactly blend in with the crowd at the Murphy picnic. A couple of the men around the television had spotted me with the kind of attention that made me think that they were with the law.
Another man walking by with a white Styrofoam cooler on one shoulder noticed the men at the television and followed their gaze to me. He was in his mid-thirties and about an inch or two over average height. His brown hair was cut short, as was a neatly cropped goatee. He had the kind of build that dangerous men seem to develop—not enormous, pretty muscle, but the kind of lean sinew that indicated speed and endurance as well as strength. And he was a cop. Don’t ask me how I could tell—it was just something about the way he held himself, the way he kept track of his surroundings.
He promptly changed course, walked up to me, and said, “Hey, there.”
“Hey,” I said.
His tone was overtly friendly, but I could taste the suspicion in it. “Mind if I ask what you’re doing here?”
I didn’t have time for this crap. “Yes.”
He dropped the fake friendliness. “Listen, buddy. This is a family get-together. Maybe you could find another part of the park to stand around looking forboding.”
“Free country,” I said. “Public park.”
“Which has been reserved by the Murphy family for the day,” he said. “Look, buddy, you’re scaring the kids. Walk.”
“Or you’ll call the cops?” I asked.
He set the cooler down and squared off facing me, just barely far enough away to avoid a sucker punch. He looked relaxed, too. He knew what he was doing. “I’ll do you a favor and call the ambulance first.”
By this time we were getting more attention from the football fans. I was frustrated enough to be tempted to push him a little bit more, but there was no sense in it. I assumed that the cops in the family were off today, but if I got beaten up someone might call in and find out about Emma’s death. That was a good way to get bogged down in a holding cell and dead.
The guy faced me with confidence, even though I had a head and shoulders on him and outweighed him by forty or fifty pounds. He knew if anything happened, he’d have a ton of help.
Must be a nice feeling.
I lifted a hand by way of capitulation. “I’ll go. I just need to speak to Karrin Murphy for a moment. Business.”
His expression flickered with surprise that was quickly hidden. “Oh.” He looked around. “Over there,” he said. “She’s reffing the soccer game.”
“Thanks.”
“Sure,” the man said. “You know, it wouldn’t kill you to be a little more polite.”
“Why take chances,” I muttered, turning my back on him and heading over to the makeshift soccer field. There were a bunch of rugrats too big for playground equipment and too young for pimples playing with what could kindly be construed as abundant enthusiasm while a few motherly types looked on. But I didn’t see Murphy.
I began to turn around and start another sweep. At this rate I would have to ask someone for directions.
“Harry?” Murphy’s voice called from behind me.
I turned around. My jaw dropped open. I was lucky none of the kids kicked their soccer ball into my exposed uvula. It took me a minute to stammer, “You’re wearing a dress.”
She glowered up at me. Murphy wasn’t going to qualify under anyone’s definition of willowy or svelte, but she had the build of a gymnast—tough, flexible, and strong. Generally speaking, being five-nothing, a hundred and nothing, and female had made her professional life less than pleasant, including getting her landed in charge of Special Investigations—a post that was the career equivalent to being exiled to the Bastille, or maybe left out for the ants.
Murphy had excelled at her new job, much to the distress of the folks who had gotten her put there. Partly, to be sure, because she had engaged the services of the only professional wizard in Chicago. But also because she was damned good at her job. She’d been able to inspire loyalty, to judge and employ her detectives’ skills effectively, and to keep everyone together through some fairly terrifying times—both in my company and outside of it. She was smart, tough, dedicated, and everything else an ideal leader of a police division should be.
Except male. In a profession that was still very much a boys’ club.
As a result, Murphy had made a number of accommodations to the male ego. She was an award-winning marksman, she had taken more than her share of martial-arts tournaments, and she continued to train ferociously, most of it with, among, and around cops. There was no one in the department who had any questions about whether or not Murphy could introduce the baddest bad guys to new vistas of physical pain in hand-to-hand, and no one who had survived the battle with the loup-garou would ever doubt her skill with firearms or her courage again. But being Murphy, she went the extra mile. She wore her hair shorter than she liked it, and she went almost entirely without makeup or adornments. She dressed functionally—never scruffy, mind you, but almost always very subdued and practical—and never, ever wore a dress.
This one was long, full, and yellow. And it had flowers. It looked quite lovely and utterly . . . wrong. Just wrong. Murphy in a dress. My world felt askew.
“I hate these things,” she complained. She looked down, brushing at the skirt, and swished it back and forth a little. “I always did.”
“Wow. Uh, why are you wearing it, then?”
“My mom made it for me.” Murphy sighed. “So, I thought, you know, maybe it would make her happy to see me in it.” She took a whistle from around her neck, promoted one of the kids to referee, and started walking. I fell into pace beside her.
“You found them,” she said.
“Yeah. Our driver is here, and I called Kincaid about twenty minutes ago. He’ll have the hardware nearby and waiting for us.” I took a deep breath. “And we need to move in a hurry.”
“Why?” she asked.
“I’m pretty sure your brothers and sisters in law enforcement are going to want to sit me down for a long talk. I’d rather they didn’t until I’ve closed a couple of accounts.” I gave her a brief rundown of Emma’s murder.
“Christ,” she said. After a few steps she added, “At least this time around I heard it from you first. I’ve got a change of clothes in the car. What else do I need to know?”
“Tell you on the way,” I said.
“Right,” she said. “Look, I promised my mom I’d come see her before I left. My sister wanted to talk to me about something. Two minutes.”
“Sure,” I said, and we veered toward one of the pavilions. “You have a big family. How many?”
“Couple of hundred the last time I looked,” she said. “There, in the white blouse. That’s mother. The girl in the tight . . . everything is my baby sister, Lisa.”
“Baby sister has pretty legs,” I noted. “But those shorts must be a little binding.”
“The clothes keep the blood from reaching her brain,” Murphy said. “At least that’s my theory.” She stepped under the pavilion, smiling, and said, “Hi, Mom!”
Murphy’s mom was taller than her daughter, but she had that kind of matronly plumpness that comes with age, pasta, and a comfortable life. Her hair was dark blond, threaded through with grey that she had made no effort at all to conceal, and it was held back off her face with a jade comb. She was wearing a white blouse, a floral print skirt, and tinted sunglasses. She turned around to face Murphy as we walked up, and her face lit for a moment. “Karrin,” she said, her tone warm and wary.
Murphy held out her hands as she walked over to her mom, and the two clasped hands and hugged. There was a sort of stiffness to the gesture that suggested ritual, formality, and less-than-pleasant emotional undercurrents. They batted a few chatty words back and forth, and while they did I noted something odd. There had been at least a dozen people under the pavilion when we came in, but most of them had wandered away. In fact, there was a widening circle of open space clearing out around the pavilion.
Murphy didn’t miss it, either. She glanced back at me, and I quirked an eyebrow at her. She twitched one shoulder in a minimal shrug, and went back to talking with her mom.
A minute later only five people were within twenty or thirty feet: me, Murphy, her mom, little sister, Lisa, and the man whose lap she was draped across. The guy with the cooler. They were behind Murphy and me, and I turned my body halfway so that I could look at them without totally ignoring Murphy and her mom.
Lisa reminded me a lot of Murphy, had Murphy been an estrogen princess rather than a warrior princess. Blond hair, fair skin, a pert nose, and cornflower blue eyes. She wore a scarlet baby-doll T-shirt with the Chicago Bulls’ team logo stretched out over her chest. Her shorts had been blue jeans at some point, but they had come down with a bad case of spandex envy. She wore flip-flops and dangled
them from her painted toes as she sat across the lap of the man I presumed to be the fiancé Murphy had mentioned.
He made quite a contrast with Lisa. He was a bit older than her, for one. Not double her age or anything, but definitely older. He was being careful not to let any expression show on his face, and it made me think that he was worried about something.
“Mom,” Murphy was saying. “This is my friend Harry. Harry, this is my mother, Marion.”
I put on my best smile for Mother Murphy and stepped forward, offering her my hand. “Charmed, ma’am.”
She shook my hand and gave me a calculating look. Her grip reminded me of Murphy’s—her hands were small, strong, and had been hardened by work. “Thank you, Harry.”
“And this is my baby sister, Lisa,” Murphy said, turning to face her for the first time. “Lisa, this is—” Murphy froze, her words dying into a choking gasp. “Rich,” she said after a second, her voice shaking with a tide of emotion. “What are you doing here?”
He murmured something to Lisa. The girl slipped off his lap, and he stood slowly up. “Hello, Karrin. You’re looking well.”
“You miserable son of a bitch,” Murphy spat. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Karrin,” Murphy’s mom snapped. “There is no place for that kind of language here.”
“Oh, please!” Lisa cried.
“I don’t have to put up with that, Karrin,” Rich growled.
Murphy clenched her hands into fists.
“Whoa, whoa, people,” I said. I must have been feeling suicidal, because I took a step forward and placed myself in the middle of the circle of angry stares. “Come on, guys. At least let me get introduced to everyone before the fighting starts, so I’ll know who to duck.”
There was a second of heavy silence, and then Rich snorted out a quiet laugh and subsided back into his chair. Lisa folded her arms. Murphy tensed up a little, but with her it was a good sign. She always got that deadly relaxed look to her stance when she was about to kick someone’s ass.