by Jim Butcher
The old lessons helped, and I separated myself from the fury. I put my hands slowly out to my sides, making sure they were visible. Then I turned to face Andi. She stood with a pistol in a solid Weaver stance, like she’d learned how from someone who knew.
I could deflect bullets if I had to do it, but I couldn’t stop them. And we were in a building full of innocent bystanders. “You know about the skull?” I asked.
“Kind of hard not to,” she said. “Since I live here.”
I blinked several times. “You and . . . Damn. Way to go, Butters.”
Andi stared steadily down the sights of her gun. She was holding herself a little hitched, as if her right side pained her. That elbow I’d thrown must have caught her in the ribs. I winced. I don’t mind a little of the rough-and-tumble when necessary, but I don’t hit my friends, I don’t hit women, and Andi was both.
“Sorry about that,” I said, nodding toward her. “I didn’t know it was you.”
“And I still don’t know if it’s you,” she replied. “Especially with you dead and all. There are plenty of things that might try to look like Harry.”
“Bob,” I said over my shoulder. “Tell her it’s me.”
“Can’t,” Bob said in a dreamy tone. “Boobs.”
Right. Because Andi was naked. I’d seen her that way before, because that was one of the hazards of being a werewolf. I knew several, and they’d been my friends. When they change form, clothes and things don’t go with, so when they change back, they’re stark naked.
I’ll give Bob this much—the little creep had good taste. Changing into a wolf must be a really fantastic exercise regimen, because Andi and naked went really well together. Although at the moment, I was mostly impressed with her great big, slightly heaving gun.
“Bob,” I said more urgently. I put my hand out, trying to get it between the skull and Andi without actually reaching for it.
“Hey!” Bob demanded. “Dammit, Harry! It’s not like I get much of a chance to see ’em!”
Andi’s eyes widened. “Bob . . . is it really him?”
“Yes, but he works for the bad guys now,” Bob said. “It’s probably safest to shoot him.”
“Hey!” I said.
“Nothing personal,” Bob assured me. “What would you advise a client to do if the Winter Knight broke into her place, fought with her, and cracked two of her ribs?”
“Not to shoot,” I said. “The bullet’s going to bounce and there are way too many people in the apartments around us.”
At that, Andi took her finger off the trigger, though she left it extended and pressed against the guard. She exhaled slowly. “That’s . . . more like what I would expect from . . . from you, Harry.” She swallowed. “Is it really you?”
“Whatever’s left of me,” I said.
“We heard about your ghost. I could even sort of . . . sort of smell you, when you were near. I knew. We thought you were dead.”
“Wasn’t really my ghost,” I said. “It was me. I just sort of forgot to bring my body along with me.” I coughed. “Think you could maybe point that somewhere else?”
“My finger’s not on the trigger,” she said. “Don’t be such a baby. I’m thinking.” She watched me for a moment and said, “Okay, let’s assume it’s really you. What are you doing here?”
“I came for the skull,” I said.
“I’m invaluable!” Bob piped.
“Useful.” I scowled at him. “Don’t get cocky.”
“I know you came for the skull,” Andi said. “Why now? In the middle of the night? Why break in? Harry, all you had to do was ask.”
I ground my teeth. “Andi . . . I don’t have a lot of time. So I’m going to give you the short answer. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“When I break in here and take something from Butters, he’s my victim and of no particular consequence. If I come here and ask him for help, he’s my accomplice, and it makes him a target for the people I’m working against.”
She frowned. “What people?”
I sighed. “That’s the kind of thing I’d tell an accomplice, Andi.”
“Um,” she said, “isn’t that kind of what we are?”
“It’s what you were,” I said, with gentle emphasis. “Bob’s right. I’m not exactly on the side of the angels right now. And I’m not taking you and Butters down the drain with me.”
“Say, Harry,” Bob asked, “who are you up against?”
“Not in front of the eye-stander-bey,” I said.
“Just trolling for info like a good lackey,” Bob said. “You understand.”
“Sure,” I said.
Andi frowned. “Bob isn’t . . . Isn’t he supposed to be yours?”
“I’m not the present owner of the skull,” I said. “Whoever has the skull has Bob’s loyalty.”
“Services,” Bob corrected me. “Don’t get cocky. And right now I’m working for Butters. And you, of course, toots.”
“Toots,” Andi said in a flat voice. “Did you really just say that?” Her gaze shifted to me. “Bystander?”
“If you don’t know anything,” I said, “there’s no reason for anyone to torture you to death to find it.”
That made her face turn a little pale.
“These people think the Saw movies were hilarious,” I said. “They’ll hurt you because for them, it feels better than sex. They won’t hesitate. And I’m trying to give you all the cover I can. You and Butters both.” I shook my head and lowered my hands. “I need you to trust me, Andi. I’ll have Bob back here before dawn.”
She frowned. “Why by then?”
“Because I don’t want the people I work for to get hold of him either,” I said. “He’s not the same thing as a human—”
“Thank you,” Bob said. “I explain and explain that, but no one listens.”
“—but he’s still kind of a friend.”
Bob made a gagging sound. “Don’t get all sappy on me, Dresden.”
“Andi,” I said, ignoring him. “I don’t have any more time. I’m gonna pick up the skull now. You gonna shoot me or what?”
Andi let out a short, frustrated breath and sagged back against the table. She lowered the gun, grimaced, and slipped one hand across her stomach to press against her ribs on the other side.
I didn’t look at what that motion did to her chest, because that would have been grotesquely inappropriate, regardless of how fascinating the resulting contours may or may not have been.
I picked up the skull, an old, familiar shape and weight in my hand. There was a flitter in the flickering eyelights, and maybe a subtle change of hue in the flames.
“Awright!” Bob crowed. “Back in the saddle!”
“Pipe down,” I said. “I’ve got backup with me. The other team might have surveillance on me that is just as invisible. I’d rather they didn’t listen to every word.”
“Piping down, O mighty one,” Bob replied.
When I turned back to Andi, she looked horrified. “Oh, God, Harry. Your back.”
I grunted, twisted a bit, and got a look at myself in the reflection in the window. My jacket was in tatters and stained with blots of blood. It hurt, but not horribly, maybe as much as a bad sunburn.
“I’m sorry,” Andi said.
“I’ll live,” I said. I walked over to her, leaned down, and kissed the top of her head. “I’m sorry about your ribs. And the computers. I’ll make up the damages to you guys.”
She shook her head. “Don’t worry about it. Whatever, you know. Whatever we can do to help.”
I sighed and said, “Yeah, about that. Um. I’m sorry about this, too.”
She frowned and looked up at me. “About what?”
I was going to deck her, clip her on the chin and put her down for a few moments while I left. That would do two things. First, it would prevent her from getting all heroic and following me. Second, if I was currently being observed, it would sell the notion that I had stolen Bob from her. It was a logical, if
ruthless move that would give her an extra layer of protection, however thin.
But when I told my hand to move, it wouldn’t.
Winter Knight, Mab’s assassin, whatever. I don’t hit girls.
I sighed. “I’m sorry I can’t deck you right now.”
She lifted both eyebrows. “Oh. You think you’d be protecting me, I take it?”
“As screwed up as it is to think that—yeah, I would be.”
“I’ve been protecting myself just fine for a year, Harry,” Andi said. “Even without you around.”
Ouch. I winced.
Andi looked down. “I didn’t . . . Sorry.”
“No worries,” I said. “Better call the police after I’m gone. Report an intruder. It’s what you’d do if a burglar had broken in.”
She nodded. “Is it all right if I talk to Butters about it?”
This whole thing would have been a lot simpler if I could have kept anyone from getting involved. That had been the point of the burglary. But now . . . Well. Andi knew, and I owed her more than to ask her to keep secrets from Butters, whom I owed even more. “Carefully,” I said. “Behind your threshold. And . . . maybe not anyone else just yet. Okay?”
“Okay,” she said quietly.
“Thanks.” I didn’t know what else to say, so I added another “I’m sorry.”
Then I took the skull and hurried back out into the night.
Chapter Eleven
Once I was in the hearse again, I started driving. I had a silent and nearly invisible squadron of the Za Lord’s Guard flying in a loose formation around the car, except for Toot, who perched on the back of the passenger seat. Bob’s skull sat in the seat proper, its glowing eye sockets turned toward me.
“So, boss,” Bob said brightly, “where we headed?”
“Nowhere yet,” I said. “But I’m operating on the theory that a moving target is harder to hit.”
“That’s a little more paranoid than usual,” Bob said. “I approve. But why?”
I grimaced. “Mab wants me to kill Maeve.”
“What?” Bob squeaked.
Toot fell off the back of the passenger seat in a fit of shock.
“You heard me,” I said. “You okay, Toot?”
“Just . . . checking for assassins, my lord,” Toot said gamely. “All clear back here.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Bob said. “Tell me everything.”
So I did.
“And then she told me to kill Maeve,” I finished, “and I decided to come looking for you.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” Bob said. “Let me get this straight. Mab gave you a whole girl, all to yourself, and you didn’t even get to first base?”
I scowled. “Bob, can you focus, please? This isn’t about the girl.”
Bob snorted. “Making this the first time it hasn’t been about the girl, I guess.”
“Maeve, Bob,” I said. “What I need to know is why Mab would want her dead.”
“Maybe she’s trying to flunk you intentionally,” Bob said.
“Why do you say that?”
“Because you can’t kill Maeve, Harry.”
“I don’t want to do it,” I said. “I’m not even sure if I’m going to.”
“You’re too busy wrestling with your stupid conscience to listen to me, boss,” Bob said. “You can’t kill her. Not might, not shouldn’t. Can’t.”
I blinked several times. “Uh. Why not?”
“Maeve’s an immortal, Harry. One of the least of the immortals, maybe, but immortal all the same. Chop her up if you want to. Burn her. Scatter her ashes to the winds. But it won’t kill her. She’ll be back. Maybe in months, maybe years, but you can’t just kill her. She’s the Winter Lady.”
I frowned. “Huh? I killed the Summer Lady just fine.”
Bob made a frustrated sound. “Yeah, but that was because you were in the right place to do it.”
“How’s that?”
“Mab and Titania created that place specifically to be a killing ground for immortals, a place where balances of power are supposed to change. They’ve got to have a location like that for the important fights—otherwise nothing really gets decided. It’s a waste of everyone’s time and cannon fodder.”
I’d seen part of that place being created—with my Sight, no less—and it was burned indelibly into my memory. I saw the surging energy the two Queens of Faerie were pouring out, power on a level that defied description. And of course I had, in some sense, been in that place when I murdered Lloyd Slate and took his job as Mab’s triggerman.
Memory. The ancient stone table, stained with blood. Stars wheeling above me, dizzying in their speed and clarity. Writhing, cold mist reaching up over the edges of the table, clutching at my bare skin, while Mab bestrode me, her naked beauty strangling me, raking my thoughts out through my eyes. Power surging through me, into me, from the blood in the swirling grooves of the table, from Mab’s hungry will.
I shuddered and forced the memory away. My hands clenched the wheel.
“So I can’t kill her,” I said quietly.
“No,” Bob said.
I glowered out at the road. “What is the point of telling me to do something she knows is impossible?” I wondered aloud. “You’re sure about this, Bob? There’s no way at all, without the stone table?”
“Not really,” Bob said, his eyes flicking around the car. “And not in most of the Nevernever, either.”
“Hey,” I said. “What’s with the shifty eyes?”
“What shifty eyes?” Bob asked.
“When you said ‘Not really,’ your eyes got all shifty.”
“Uh, no, they didn’t.”
“Bob.”
The skull sighed. “Do I have to tell you?”
“Dude,” I said. “Since when has it been like that between us?”
“Since you started working for her,” Bob said, and somehow managed to shudder.
I tilted my head, thinking as hard as I could. “Wait. This has to do with your feud with Mab?”
“Not a feud,” Bob says. “In a feud, both sides fight. This is more like me screaming and running away before she rips me apart.”
I shook my head. “Man, Bob. I know you can be an annoying git when you want to be one—but what did you do to make Mab mad at you?”
“It isn’t what I do, Harry,” Bob said in a very small voice. “It’s what I know.”
I lifted an eyebrow. It took a lot to make the skull flinch. “And what is that, exactly?”
The lights in the eye sockets dwindled to tiny pinpoints, and his voice came out in a whisper. “I know how to kill an immortal.”
“Like Maeve?” I asked him.
“Maeve,” Bob said. “Mab. Mother Winter. Any of them.”
Holy crap.
Now, that was a piece of information worth killing for.
If the skull knew how to subtract the im from immortal, then he could be a source of danger to beings of power throughout the universe. Hell, he was lucky that gods and demons and supernatural powers everywhere hadn’t formed up in a safari and come gunning for him. And it meant that maybe I wasn’t looking at an impossible mission after all.
“I’d like you to tell me,” I said.
“No way,” Bob said. “No way. The only reason I’ve been around this long is that I’ve kept my mouth shut. If I start shooting it off now, Mab and every other immortal with an interest in this stupid planet are going to smash my skull to powder and leave me out to fry in the sun.” The eyelights bobbed toward the rear compartment. “And there are too many ears around here.”
“Toot,” I said, “get everybody out of the car. I need privacy. Make sure no one gets close enough to eavesdrop.”
“Aw,” Toot complained from the rear compartment. “Not even me?”
“You’re the only one I can trust to keep those other mugs from doing it, Major General. No one overhears. Got it?”
I could practically hear the pride bursting out of his voice: “Got it!�
�� he piped. “Will do, my lord!”
He rolled down a window and buzzed out. I rolled it back up and took a look around the hearse with both normal and supernatural senses, to be sure we were alone. Then I turned back to the skull.
“Bob, it’s just you and me talking here. Think about this. Mab sends me off to kill Maeve, something that would be impossible for me to do on my own—and she knew that you know how to do it. She knew the first thing I would do is come back here as the first step in the job. I think she meant for me to come to you. I think she meant for you to tell me.”
The skull considered that for a moment. “It’s indirect and manipulative, so you’re probably onto something. Let me think.” A long minute went by. Then he spoke very quietly. “If I tell you,” he said, “you’ve got to do something for me.”
“Like what?”
“A new vessel,” he said. “You’ve got to make me a new house. Somewhere I can get to it. Then if they come after this one, I’ve got somewhere else to go.”
“Tall order for me,” I said soberly. “You’ve basically got your own little pocket dimension in there. I’ve never tried anything that complicated before. Not even Little Chicago.”
“Promise me,” Bob said. “Promise me on your power.”
Swearing by one’s power is how a wizard makes a verbal contract. If you break your word, your ability with magic starts to fray, and if you keep doing it, sooner or later it’ll just wither up and die. A broken promise, sworn by my power, could set me back years and years in terms of my ability to use magic. I held up my hand. “I swear, on my power, to construct a new vessel for you if you tell me, Bob, assuming I survive the next few days. Just . . . don’t expect a deluxe place like you have now.”
The flickering eyelights flared up to their normal size again. “Don’t worry, boss,” Bob said with compassion. “I won’t.”
“Wiseass.”
“Right, then!” Bob said. “The only way to kill an immortal is at certain specific places.”
“And you know one? Where?”
“Hah, already you’re making a human assumption. There are more than three dimensions, Harry. Not all places are in space. Some of them are places in time. They’re called conjunctions.”