by Butcher, Jim
I went back to the woods where I knew the hornets were, and found their nest in short order. I retreated without crushing anything and went back to the boat.
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m sure.”
Morgan sank back onto the bunk as if he was being slowly deflated. “Merciful God,” he said. “Intellectus.”
I felt my eyebrows go up. “You’re kidding.”
Molly muttered a couple of candles to light so that we could see each other clearly. “Intell-whatsis?” she asked me.
“Intellectus,” I said. “Um. It’s a mode of existence for a very few rare and powerful supernatural beings—angels have it. I’m willing to bet old Mother Winter and Mother Summer have it. For beings with intellectus, all reality exists in one piece, one place, one moment, and they can look at the whole thing. They don’t seek or acquire knowledge. They just know things. They see the entire picture.”
“I’m not sure I get that,” Molly said.
Morgan spoke. “A being with intellectus does not understand, for example, how to derive a complex calculus equation—because it doesn’t need the process. If you showed him a problem and an equation, he would simply understand it and skip straight to the answer without need to think through the logical stages of solving the problem.”
“It’s omniscient?” Molly asked, her eyes wide.
Morgan shook his head. “Not the same thing. The being with intellectus has to be focused on something via consideration in order to know it, whereas an omniscient being knows all things at all times.”
“Isn’t that pretty close?” Molly asked.
“Intellectus wouldn’t save you from an assassin’s bullet if you didn’t know someone wanted to kill you in the first place,” I said. “To know it was coming, you’d first need to consider the question of whether or not an assassin might be lurking in a dark doorway or on top of a bell tower.”
Morgan grunted agreement. “And since beings of intellectus so rarely understand broader ideas of cause and effect, they can be unlikely to realize that a given event might be an indicator of an upcoming assassination attempt.” He turned to me. “Though that’s a terrible metaphor, Dresden. Most beings like that are immortal. They’d be hard-pressed to notice bullets, much less feel threatened by them.”
“So,” Molly said, nodding, “it might be able to know anything it wants to know—but it still has to ask the right questions. Which is always harder than people think it is.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Exactly.”
“And now you’ve got this intellectus, too?”
I shook my head. “It’s Demonreach that has it. It stopped when I got out over the water.” I tapped my finger against my forehead. “I’ve got nothing going on in here at the moment.”
I realized what I had said just as the last word left my mouth, and glanced at Morgan.
He lay on the bunk with his eyes closed. His mouth was turned up in small smile. “Too easy.”
Molly fought not to grin.
Morgan pursed his lips thoughtfully. “Can the entity feed you any other information, Dresden? The identities of those behind LaFortier’s murder, for example.”
I almost hit myself in the head with the heel of my hand. I should have thought of that already. “I’ll let you know,” I said, and went back to the shore.
Demonreach sensed me at the same time as I perceived it, and the mutual sensation felt oddly like a hand wave of acknowledgment. I frowned thoughtfully and looked around the island, concentrating on the issue of LaFortier’s killer.
Nothing sprang to mind. I tried half a dozen other things. Who was going to win the next World Series? Could I get the Blue Beetle out of impound yet? How many books had Mister knocked off my shelves in my absence?
Zip.
So I thought about hornet’s nests, and instantly felt certain that there were thirty-two of them spread around the hundred and fifty or so acres of the island, and that they were especially thick near the grove of apple trees on the island’s northern side.
I went back to the boat and reported.
“Then it only exists upon the island itself,” Morgun rumbled, “like any other genius loci. This one must be bloody ancient to have attained a state of intellectus, even if it is limited to its own shorelines.”
“Could be handy,” I noted.
Morgan didn’t open his eyes but bared his teeth in a wolf’s smile. “Certainly. If your foes were considerate enough to come all the way out here to meet you.”
“Could be handy,” I repeated, firmly.
Morgan arched an eyebrow and gave me a sharp look.
“Come on, grasshopper,” I said to Molly. “Cast off the lines. You’re about to learn how to drive the boat.”
By the time we made it back to the marina, the sun had risen. I coached Molly through the steps of bringing the Water Beetle safely into dock, even though I wasn’t exactly Horatio Hornblower myself. We managed to do it without breaking or sinking anything, which is what counts. I tied off the boat and went onto the dock. Molly followed me anxiously to the rail.
“No problem here, grasshopper. Take her out for about ten minutes in a random direction that you choose. Then turn off the engine and wait. I’ll signal you when I’m ready for you to pick me up.”
“Are you sure we shouldn’t stay together or something?” she asked anxiously.
I shook my head. “Tracking spells can’t home in too well over water,” I said. “And you’ll know if someone’s coming for you from a mile away. Literally. Keep Morgan out there, and you should be as safe as anywhere.”
She frowned. “What if he gets worse?”
“Use your noggin, kid. Do whatever you think is most likely to keep you both alive.” I started untying the line. “I shouldn’t be gone more than a couple of hours. If I don’t show, the plan is the same as when I went up to the tower. Get yourself vanished.”
She swallowed. “And Morgan?”
“Make him as comfortable as you can and leave him.”
She stared at me for a minute. “Really?”
“If I get taken out, I don’t think you’ll be able to protect him,” I said, as matter-of-factly as I could. “Or catch the real bad guy. So run like hell and let him look out for himself.”
I saw her think that over. Then she smiled slightly.
“It would really humiliate him if he found himself under the protection of a girl. An apprentice. And a possible warlock, to boot.”
I nodded. “True.”
Molly pursed her lips thoughtfully. “That might be worth staying for.”
“Kid,” I said, “the smart thing for you to do if it all goes sour is to run.”
“Smart,” she said. “But not right.”
I studied her soberly. “You sure? Because there’s a world of hurt waiting to fall.”
She nodded, her face pale. “I’ll try.”
And she would. I could see that in her eyes. She knew better than most exactly how dangerous such a thing would be for her, and it clearly terrified her. But she would try.
“Then if I’m taken off the board, see Murphy,” I said. “She knows everything I do about the case. Listen to her. She’s smart, and you can trust her.”
“All right,” she said.
I tossed the mooring lines back onboard. “Get a move on.”
I started walking down the dock. Behind me, Molly called, “Harry? What signal are you going to use?”
“You’ll know it,” I called back.
I left the docks in search of the tool that could rip apart this tangled web of suspicion, murder, and lies.
I found it in the marina’s parking lot.
A pay phone.
Lara answered on the second ring. “Raith.”
“Dresden,” I said. “What have you got for me?”
“Oh, to have straight lines like that more often,” she said, her tone wry. “What makes you think I have anything for you?”
“ ’Cause I’ve got something to trade.”
“Pheromone Lass,” I said, “can we have the rest of this conversation above the waistline?”
She let out that rich, throaty laugh of hers, and my hormones sounded the charge. I ignored them. Stupid hormones.
“Very well,” she said. “It should interest you to know that the money deposited in Warden Morgan’s account came from a dummy corporation called Windfall.”
“Dummy organization?” I asked. “Who owns it?”
“I do,” she said calmly.
I blinked. “Since you’re sharing this information, I take it that it happened without your knowledge.”
“You are quite correct,” she said. “A Mr. Kevin Aramis is the corporation’s manager. He is the only one, other than myself, with the authority to move that much money around.”
I thought furiously. Whoever aced LaFortier hadn’t just intended the Council to implode. He or they had also gone to a lot of trouble to incite hostility with the White Court.
Hell’s bells.
My imagination treated me to a prophetic nightmare. Morgan fights against the injustice of his frame. Hostilities erupt, creating strife between various factions of wizards. The Council eventually runs down the money trail, discovers Lara on the other end, and the Council seizes upon the opportunity to unify the factions again, thanks to a common enemy. Hostilities with the vampires start fresh. The Red Court sees the poorly coordinated Council exposing itself in battle with the White Court, and pounces, breaking the back of the Council. And after that, it would all be over but the heroic last stands.
Hell’s bells, indeed.
“We’re being played against one another,” I said.
“That was my conclusion as well.”
A couple more pieces clicked into place. “Madeline,” I said. “She got to this Aramis guy and coerced him into betraying you.”
“Yes,” Lara hissed. Barely suppressed, wholly inhuman rage filled her level, controlled voice. “When I catch up to her, I’m going to tear out her entrails with my bare hands.”
Which took care of my hormone problem. I shivered.
I’d seen Lara in action. I could never decide if it had been one of the most beautiful terrifying things I’d ever seen, or if it was one of the most terrifying beautiful things I’d ever seen.
“You might try looking at the Hotel Sax, room twelve thirty-three,” I said. “If I’m right, you’re going to find Mr. Aramis’s body there. Madeline’s working for someone, a man. She didn’t say anything that would help identify him. You should also know that she has hired the services of a mercenary named Binder. Not exactly a rocket scientist, but smart enough to be dangerous.”
Lara was silent for a second. Then she said, “How did you learn this?”
“Shockingly, with magic.”
I heard her speaking to someone in the room with her. Then she got back on the phone and said, “If Aramis is dead, Madeline has tied up the loose end in her plan. It will be impossible to provide credible evidence that I did not in fact pay for LaFortier’s murder.”
“Yeah. That’s why she did it.”
I heard her make a displeased sound, but it was still ladylike. “What do we intend to do about this, Harry?”
“Do you have a nice dress?”
“Pardon?”
I found myself grinning maniacally. “I’m throwing a party.”
Thomas’s phone rang four times before the connection opened. There was a moment of silence. Then Thomas spoke, his voice raw and ragged. “Harry?”
My heart just about stopped beating to hear my brother’s voice. “Thomas. How’s it going?”
“Oh,” he rasped, “I’m just hanging around.”
I’ve seen Thomas in agony before. He sounded exactly like this.
The phone emitted random noises, and then the yowl-purring voice of the skinwalker came over the line. “He is here. He is alive. For now. Give me the doomed warrior.”
“Okay,” I said.
There was a moment of silent consternation from the far end of the line.
“Bring him to me,” it said.
“Nah. That isn’t going to happen.”
“What?”
“You’re coming to me.”
“Do you wish me to end his life this instant?”
“Frankly, Shaggy, I don’t give a damn,” I said, forcing boredom into my voice. “It’d be nice to be able to return one of the vampires to his own, get myself a marker I can call in some day. But I don’t need it.” I paused. “You, on the other hand, need Thomas to be alive, if you expect me to trade Morgan for him. So this is how it’s going to go down. At dusk, you will be contacted on this phone. You will be told where our meeting will take place. When you arrive, you will show me the vampire, alive and well, and when he is returned to me, you will take Morgan without contest.”
“I am not some mortal scum you can command, mageling,” Shagnasty seethed.
“No. You’re immortal scum.”
“You blind, flesh-feeding worm,” Shagnasty snarled. “Who are you to speak to me so?”
“The worm who’s got what you need,” I said. “Dusk. Keep the phone handy.”
I hung up on him.
My heart hammered against my chest and cold sweat broke out over my upper body. I felt myself shaking with terror for Thomas, with weariness, with reaction to the conversation with Shagnasty. I leaned my aching head against the earpiece of the phone and hoped that I hadn’t just ended my brother’s life.
One more call.
The White Council of Wizards uses telephone communications like everyone else, albeit with a lot more service calls. I gave headquarters a ring, gave them the countersign to their security challenge, and got patched through to one of the administrative assistants, an earnest young woman not quite finished with her apprenticeship.
“I need to get a message to every member of the Senior Council,” I told her.
“Very well, sir,” she said. “What is the message?”
“Get this verbatim. Okay?”
“Yes, sir.”
I cleared my throat and spoke. “Be advised that I have been sheltering Warden Donald Morgan from discovery and capture for the past two days. An informant has come to me with details of how Warden Morgan was framed for the murder of Senior Council Member LaFortier. Warden Morgan is innocent, and what’s more, I can prove it.
“I am willing to meet with you tonight, on the uncharted island in Lake Michigan, east of Chicago at sundown. The informant will be present, and will produce testimony that will vindicate Warden Morgan and identify the true culprit of the crime.
“Let me be perfectly clear. I will not surrender Warden Morgan to the alleged justice of the Council. Come in peace and we will work things out. But should you come to me looking for a fight, be assured that I will oblige you.”
The assistant had started making choking sounds after the very first sentence.
“Then sign it ‘Harry Dresden,’ ” I said.
“Um. Yes, sir. Sh-shall I read that back to you?”
“Please.”
She did. I’d heard sounds of movement in the background around her, but as she read aloud, all of those sounds died to silence. When she finished, she asked, in a rather small, squeaky voice, “Do I have that down correctly, sir?”
Murmurs burst out in the background over the phone, excited and low.
“Yeah,” I told her. “Perfect.”
Chapter Thirty-eight
I figured I had an hour, maybe, before someone was going to show up from Edinburgh. It was time enough to grab a cab and head to the hospital.
Back in the ICU, Will was sacked out in the waiting room and Georgia was the one sitting with Andi. A middle-aged couple who looked as if they hadn’t slept much was in there with her. I knocked on the glass. Georgia said something to the couple and rose to come out into the hallway with me. She looked tired but alert,
and had her long, rather frizzy hair pulled back into a ponytail.
“Harry,” she said, hugging me.
I returned the hug, cutting it off a little early. “How is she?”
Georgia studied me for a second before she answered. “In bad shape. The doctors don’t seem to be willing to say whether or not she’ll recover.”
“Better that way,” I said. “If one of them said she’d be fine and then she wasn’t . . .”
Georgia glanced at the couple sitting beside Andi’s bed, holding each other’s hands. “I know. It would be cruel to offer false hope, but . . .”
“But you’re still irrationally angry that the docs haven’t saved her yet. You know better, but you’re upset anyway.”
She nodded. “Yes. Irrationality is not something I’m comfortable with.”
“It isn’t irrational,” I said. “It’s human.”
She gave me a small smile. “Will and I talked. And you’re in a hurry.”
I nodded. “I need you both, and right now.”
“I’ll get him,” Georgia said.
We took Georgia’s SUV back down to the marina and arrived with ten minutes to spare on my estimated time window. I definitely wanted to be out over open water by the time members of the Council started showing up. The water wouldn’t be a perfect protection from incoming magic, but it would make it a lot harder for anyone to target me solidly, and it was a hell of a lot better than nothing.
“Okay,” I said. “You guys wait here for a minute.”
Will frowned. “Why?”
“I need to talk to someone who can be a little shy around strangers.
One minute.” I hopped out of the SUV and walked down the rows of cars until I found two vans parked together. I slipped between them, put the fingers of one hand to my lips, and let out a sharp whistle.
There was a whirring sound and Toot-toot streaked down from overhead, came to a hover in front of me, drew his little sword, and saluted. “Yes, my liege!”
“Toot, I have two missions for you.”
“At once, my lord!”
“No, I want you to do them one at a time.”
Toot lowered his sword, his expression crestfallen. “Oh.”