by Butcher, Jim
Of course, that would probably punch a hole in the barrier, but not a catastrophic one. If one portion of my wards lost integrity, the whole thing would come down and whatever remained of the energy that had broken it would come through. If someone knocked out a bit of these wards, it would send a bunch of LEGOs flying—probably soaking up all of the energy by dividing it among lots of little pieces—but the rest of the barrier would stand.
That might offer several advantages on the minor-league end of the power scale. The modular wards would be easy to repair, compared to classic integral wards, so that even if something smashed through, the wards could be closed again in a brief time. God knows, the ingredients for the spell were probably a lot cheaper—and you wouldn’t need a big-time White Council wizard to put them up.
But they had a downside, too. There were a lot of things that could smash through—and if you got killed after they came inside, the ease of repair wouldn’t matter much to your cooling corpse.
Still. It was a hell of a lot better than nothing. The basic profile was my design, just implemented differently. Who the hell would have done this to Murphy’s place? And why?
I turned and stepped off the porch to peer in a window, feeling vaguely voyeuristic as I did so. But I wasn’t sure what else I was going to do until Mort got here to do some speaking for me.
“Are you quite all right?” asked a man’s voice, from inside the house.
I blinked, scowled in concentration, and managed to stand up on some of the wispy shrubbery under the window, until I could see over the chair back that blocked my view from where I was standing.
There was a man sitting on the couch of Murphy’s living room. He was wearing a black suit with a crisp white shirt and a black tie with a single stripe of maroon. His skin was dark—more Mediterranean than African—but his short, neat sweep of hair was dyed peroxide blond. His eyes were an unsettling color, somewhere between dark honey and poison ivy, and the sharp angularity of his nose made me think of a bird of prey.
“Fine,” said Murphy. She was on her feet, her gun tucked into the waist of her jeans in front. SIG made a fine, compact 9mm, but it looked big, dangerous, and clumsy on Murphy’s scale. She folded her arms and stared at the man as if he’d been found at the side of the highway, gobbling up raw roadkill. “I told you not to show up early anymore, Childs.”
“A lifetime of habit,” Childs said in reply. “Honestly, it isn’t something to which I give any thought.”
“You know how things are out there,” Murphy said, jerking her chin toward the front of the house. “Start thinking about it. You catch me on a nervous evening, and maybe I shoot you through the door.”
Childs folded his fingers on one knee. He didn’t look like a big guy. He wasn’t heavy with muscle. Neither are cobras. There was plenty of room for a gun under that expensive suit jacket. “My relationship with my employer is relatively new. But I have a sense that, should such a tragedy occur, the personal repercussions to you would be quite severe.”
Murphy shrugged a shoulder. “Maybe. On the other hand, maybe we start killing his people until the price of doing business with us is too high and he breaks it off.” She smiled. It was almost gleefully wintry. “I don’t have a badge anymore, Childs. But I do have friends. Special, special friends.”
Between them there was a low charge of tension in the room, the silent promise of violence. Murphy’s fingers were dangling casually less than two inches from her gun. Childs’s hands were still folded on his knee. He abruptly smiled and dropped back into a more relaxed pose on the sofa. “We’ve coexisted well enough for the past six months. I see no sense in letting frayed tempers put an end to that now.”
Murphy’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Marcone’s top murderer—”
Childs lifted a hand. “Please. Troubleshooter.”
Murphy continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “—doesn’t back down that quickly, regardless of how survival oriented he is. That’s why you’re here early, despite my request. You want something.”
“So nice to know you eventually take note of the obvious,” Childs replied. “Yes. My employer sent me with a question.”
Murphy frowned. “He didn’t want the others to hear it being asked.”
Childs nodded. “He feared it might generate unintended negative consequences.”
Murphy stared at him for a moment, then rolled her eyes. “Well?”
Childs showed his teeth in a smile for the first time. It made me think of skulls. “He wishes to know if you trust the Ragged Lady.”
Murphy straightened at the question, her back going rigid. She waited to take a deep breath and exhale before responding. “What do you mean?”
“Odd things have begun happening near some of the locations she haunts. Things that no one can quite explain.” Childs shrugged, leaving his hands in plain sight, resting comfortably on the sofa. “Which part of the question is too difficult for you?”
Murphy’s shoulder twitched, as if her hand had been thinking about grabbing the gun from her waistband. But she took another breath before she spoke. “What’s he offering for the answer?”
“Northerly Island. And before you ask, yes, including the beach.”
I blinked at that. The island over by Burnham Park Harbor wasn’t exactly prime criminal territory, being mostly parks, fields, and a beach a lot of families visited—but “Gentleman” John Marcone, kingpin of Chicago’s rackets and the only plain-vanilla mortal to become a signatory of the Unseelie Accords, simply did not surrender territory. Not for anything.
Murphy’s eyes widened, too, and I watched her going through the same line of thought I had. Though, to be perfectly fair, I think she got to the end of that line before I did.
“If I do agree to this,” she said, her tone cautious, “it will have to pass our standard verification by Monday.”
Childs’s face was a bland mask. “Done.”
Murphy nodded and looked down at the floor for a moment, evidently marshaling her thoughts. Then she said, “There isn’t a simple answer.”
“There rarely is,” Childs noted.
Murphy passed a hand back over her brush cut and studied Childs. Then she said, “When she was working with Dresden, I’d have said yes, in a heartbeat, without reservation.”
Childs nodded. “And now?”
“Now . . . Dresden’s gone. And she came back from Chichén Itzá changed,” Murphy said. “Maybe post-traumatic stress. Maybe something more than that. She’s different.”
Childs tilted his head. “Do you distrust her?”
“I don’t drop my guard around her,” Murphy said. “And that’s my answer.”
The bleach-blond man considered her words for a few seconds and then nodded. “I will carry it to my employer. The island will be clear of his interests by Monday.”
“Will you give me your word on that?”
“I already have.” Childs stood up, the motion a portrait of grace. If he was a mortal, he was deadly fast. Or a ballet dancer. And somehow I didn’t think he had some Danskins stuffed in his suit’s pockets. “I will go. Please inform me if anything of relevance comes out of the meeting.”
Murphy nodded, her hand near her gun, and watched Childs walk to the front door. Childs opened it and began to leave.
“You should know,” Murphy said quietly, “that my trust issues don’t change the fact that she’s one of mine. If I think for a second that the outfit has done any harm to Molly Carpenter, the arrangement is over and we segue directly to the OK Corral. Starting with you.”
Childs turned smoothly on a heel, smiling, and lifted an empty hand to mime shooting Murphy with his thumb and forefinger. He completed the turn and left the house.
Murphy came over to the window where I was standing and watched Childs walk to the black town car and get in. She didn’t relax her vigilance until the car had pulled out into the snow and cruised slowly away.
Then she bowed her head, one hand against the window, and rubbed at he
r face with her other hand.
I stretched my arm to put my hand out to mirror hers, being careful not to touch the wards humming quietly around the house’s threshold. You could have fit two or three of Murphy’s hand spans into one of mine. I saw her shoulders shake once.
Then she shook her head and straightened, blinked her eyes rapidly a few times, and schooled her expression into its usual cop mask of neutrality. She turned away from me, went to the room’s love seat, and curled up on one side of it. She looked tiny, with her legs bunched up against her upper body, barely more than a child—if not for the care lines on her face.
There was a quiet motion, and then a tiny grey mountain lion with a notched ear and a stump of a tail appeared and leapt smoothly up onto the love seat with Murphy. She reached out a hand and gathered the cat’s furry body against hers, her fingers stroking.
Tears blurred my eyes as I saw Mister. My cat. When the vampire couple, the Eebs, had burned my old apartment down, I knew Mister had escaped the flames—but I didn’t know what had happened to him after that. I’d been killed before I could go round him up. I remembered meeting the cat as a kitten, scrambling in a trash bin, skinny and near starvation. He’d been my roommate, or possibly landlord, ever since I’d come to Chicago. He was thirty pounds of feline arrogance. He was always good about showing up when I was upset, giving me the chance to lower my blood pressure by paying attention to him. I’m sure he thought it a saintly gesture of generosity.
It’s a cat thing.
I don’t know how long I stood there staring through the window, but suddenly Sir Stuart was beside me.
“Dresden,” he said quietly. “There are several creatures approaching from the southeast.”
“You are not doing your lack of being named Threepio any good whatsoever, Sir Stuart.”
He blinked at me several times, then shook his head and recovered. “There are half a dozen of them, as well as a number of cars.”
“Okay. Keep Mort in his car until I can identify them,” I said. “But I suspect he’s in no danger.”
“No?” the shade asked. “Know you these folk, then?”
“Dunno,” I said. “Let’s go see.”
Chapter Nine
Ten minutes later, I was humming under my breath and watching the gathering in Murphy’s living room. Sir Stuart stood beside me, his expression interested, curious.
“Beg pardon, wizard,” he said, “but what is that tune you’re trying to sing?”
I belted out the opening trumpet fanfare of the main theme and then said, in a deep and cheesy announcer’s voice, “In the great Hall of the Justice League, there are assembled the world’s four greatest heroes, created from the cosmic legends of the universe!”
Sir Stuart frowned at me. “Created from . . .”
“The cosmic legends of the universe,” I repeated, in the same voice.
Sir Stuart narrowed his eyes and turned slightly away from me, his shoulders tight. “That makes no sense. None. At all.”
“It did on Saturday mornings in the seventies, apparently,” I said. I nodded at the room beyond the window. “And we’ve got something similar going on here. Though for a Hall of the Justice League, it looks pretty small. Real estate wasn’t as expensive back then, I guess.”
“The guests assembled inside,” Sir Stuart asked. “Do you know them?”
“Most of them,” I said. Then I felt obliged to add, “Or, at least, I knew them six months ago.”
Things had changed. Murphy’s buzz cut was just a start. I started introducing Sir Stuart to the faces I knew.
Will Borden leaned against one wall, slightly behind Murphy, his muscular arms folded. He was a man of below-average height and wellabove-average build. All of it was muscle. I was used to seeing him mostly in after-work, business-casual clothing—whenever he wasn’t transformed into a huge, dark wolf, I mean. Today, he was wearing sweats and a loose top, the better for getting out of in a hurry if he wanted to change. Generally a quiet, reliable, intelligent man, Will was the leader of a local band of college kids, now all grown-up, who had learned to take on the shape of wolves. They’d called themselves the Alphas for so long that the name had stopped sounding silly in my own head when I thought it.
I wasn’t used to seeing Will playing the heavy, but he was clearly in that role. His expression was locked into something just shy of a scowl, and his dark eyes positively smoldered with pent-up aggression. He looked like a man who wanted a fight, and who would gladly jump on the first opportunity to get into one.
On the couch not far from Will, the other Alpha present was curled up into a ball in the corner, her legs up to her chest. She had straight hair the color of a mouse’s fur that hung to her chin in an even sheet all the way around, and she looked as if a strong breeze might knock her to the floor. She peered owlishly out through a pair of large eyeglasses and a curtain of hair, and I got the impression that she saw the whole room at the same time.
I hadn’t seen her in several years, but she’d been one of the original Alphas and had gotten her degree and toddled off into the vanilla world. Her name was . . . Margie? Mercy? Marci. Right. Her name was Marci.
Next to Marci sat a plump, cheerful-looking woman with blond, curly hair held sloppily in place with a couple of chopsticks, who looked a couple of years shy of qualifying to be a television grandmother. She wore a floral-print dress, and on her lap she held a dog the approximate size of a bratwurst—a Yorkshire terrier. The dog was clearly on alert, his bright, dark eyes moving from person to person around the room, but focused mostly on Marci. He was growling deep in his chest, and obviously ready to defend his owner at an instant’s notice.
“Abby,” I told Sir Stuart. “Her name’s Abby. The dog is Toto. She survived a White Court vampire who was hunting down her social circle. Small-time practitioners.”
The little dog abruptly sprang out of Abby’s arms to throw itself toward Will, but the woman moved in remarkably quick reaction and caught Toto. Except it hadn’t been remarkably quick—it had simply begun a half second before the little dog had jumped. Abby was a prescient. She couldn’t see far into the future—only a few seconds—but that was enough talent to make me bet there weren’t many broken dishes in her kitchen.
Will looked at Toto as the little dog jumped, and smiled. Abby shushed the Yorkie and frowned at Will before turning to the table to pick up a cup of tea in one hand, still holding the dog with the other.
Next to Abby was a brawny young man in jeans, work boots, and a heavy flannel shirt. He had dark, untidy hair and intense grey eyes, and I could have opened a bottle cap with the dimple in his chin. It took me a second to recognize him, because he’d been a couple of inches shorter and maybe forty pounds lighter the last time I’d seen him—Daniel Carpenter, the eldest of my apprentice’s younger brothers. He looked as though he were seated on a hot stove rather than a comfortable couch, like he might bounce up at any second, boldly to do something ill conceived. A large part of Will’s attention was, I thought, focused on Daniel.
“Relax,” Murphy told him. “Have some cake.”
Daniel shook his head in a jerky negative. “No, thank you, Ms. Murphy,” he said. “I just don’t see the point in this. I should go find Molly. If I leave right now, I can be back before an hour’s up.”
“If Molly isn’t here, we’ll assume it’s because she has a good reason for it,” Murphy said, her tone calm and utterly implacable. “There’s no sense in running all over town on a night like this.”
“Besides,” Will drawled, “we’d find her faster.”
Daniel scowled from beneath his dark hair for a second, but quickly looked away. It gave me the sense that he’d run afoul of Will before and hadn’t liked the outcome. The younger man kept his mouth shut.
An older man sat in the chair beside the couch, and he took the opportunity to lean over the table and pour hot tea from a china teapot into the cup in front of the young Carpenter. He added a lump of sugar to it, and smiled at
Daniel. There was nothing hostile, impatient, or demanding in his eyes, which were the color of a robin’s eggs—only complete certainty that the younger man would accept the tea and settle down.
Daniel eyed the man, then dropped his eyes to the square of white cellulose at his collar and the crucifix hanging beneath it. He took a deep breath, then nodded and stirred his tea. He took the cup in both hands and settled back to wait. After a sip, he appeared to forget he was holding it—but he stayed quiet.
“And you, Ms. Murphy?” asked Father Forthill, holding up the teapot. “It’s a cold night. I’m sure a cup would do you good.”
“Why not?” she said. Forthill filled another cup for Murphy, took it to her, and pulled at his sweater vest, as if trying to coax more warmth from the garment. He turned and walked over to the window where Sir Stuart and I stood, and held out both hands. “Are you sure there isn’t a draft? I could swear I feel it.”
I blinked and eyed Sir Stuart, who shrugged and said, “He’s one of the good ones.”
“Good what?”
“Ministers. Priests. Shamans. Whatever.” His expression seemed to be carefully neutral. “You spend your life caring for the souls of others, you get a real sense of them.” Sir Stuart nodded at Father Forthill. “Ghosts like us aren’t souls, as such, but we aren’t much different. He feels us, even if he isn’t fully aware of it.”
Toto escaped Abby’s lap and came scrambling over the hardwood floor to put his paws up on the walls beneath the windows. He yapped ferociously several times, staring right at me.
“And dogs,” Sir Stuart added. “Maybe one in ten of them seem to have a talent for sensing us. Probably why they’re always barking.”
“What about cats?” I asked. Mister had fled the living room upon the arrival of other people and wasn’t in sight.