by Jim Butcher
I nudged my brain and looked down at them. “You brought them here. For me.”
“Not so much,” he said. He nodded at the sleeping child. “For her.”
“What about the White Council?”
“They’ll get things sorted out soon,” he said. “Amazing how things fell apart just long enough for them to sit them out.”
“With Cristos running it.”
“Aye.”
“He’s Black Council,” I said.
“Or maybe stupid,” Ebenezar countered.
I thought about it. “Not sure which is scarier.”
Ebenezar blinked at me, then snorted. “Stupid, Hoss. Every time. Only so many blackhearted villains in the world, and they only get uppity on occasion. Stupid’s everywhere, every day.”
“How’d Lea arrange a signal with you?” I asked.
“That,” Ebenezar said sourly. “On that score, Hoss, I think our elders ran their own game on us.”
“Elders?”
He nodded down the stairs, where the tall figure with the metal-headed staff had begun creating another doorway out of green lightning. Once it was formed, the space beneath the arch shimmered, and all the hooded figures at the bottom of the stairs looked up at us.
I frowned and looked closer. Then I realized that the metal head of the staff was a blade, and that the tall man was holding a spear. Within the hood, I saw a black eye patch, a grizzled beard, and a brief, grim smile. He raised the spear to me in a motion that reminded me, somehow, of a fencer’s salute. Then he turned and vanished into the gate. One by one, the other figures in grey began to follow him.
“Vadderung,” I said.
Ebenezar grunted. “That’s his name this time. He doesn’t throw in often. When he does, he goes to the wall. And in my experience, it means things are about to get bad.” He pursed his lips. “He doesn’t give recognition like that lightly, Hoss.”
“I talked to him a couple of days ago,” I said. “He told me about the curse. Put the gun in my hand for me and showed me where to point it.”
Ebenezar nodded. “He taught Merlin, you know. The original Merlin.”
“How’d Merlin make out?” I asked.
“No one’s sure,” Ebenezar said. “But from his journals . . . he wasn’t the kind to go in his sleep.”
I snorted.
The old man stood and used his right hand to pull his hood up over his face. He paused and then looked at me. “I won’t lecture you about Mab, boy. I’ve made bargains myself, sometimes.” He twitched his left hand, which was still lined with black veins, though not as much as it had been hours before. “We do what we think we must, to protect who we can.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“She might lean on you pretty hard. Try to put you into a box you don’t want to be in. But don’t let her. She can’t take away your will. Even if she can make it seem that way.” He sighed again, but there was bedrock in his voice. “That’s the one thing all these dark beings and powers can’t do. Take away your ability to choose. They can kill you. They can make you do things—but they can’t make you choose to do ’em. They almost always try to lie to you about that. Don’t fall for it.”
“I won’t,” I said. I looked up at him and said, “Thank you, Grandfather.”
He wrinkled up his nose. “Ouch. That doesn’t fit.”
“Grampa,” I said. “Gramps.”
He put his hand against his chest.
I smiled a little. “Sir.”
He nodded at the child. “What will you do with her?”
“What I see fit,” I said, but gently. “Maybe it’s better if you don’t know.”
Both pain and faintly amused resignation showed in his face. “Maybe it is. See you soon, Hoss.”
He got halfway down the stairs before I said, “Sir? Do you want your staff?”
He nodded at me. “You keep it, until I can get you a new blank.”
I nodded back at him. Then I said, “I don’t know what to say.”
His eyes wrinkled up even more heavily at the corners. “Hell, Hoss. Then don’t say anything.” He turned and called over his shoulder, “You get in less trouble that way!”
My grandfather kept going down the stairs, walking with quick, sure strides. He vanished through the doorway of lightning.
I heard steps behind me, and turned to find Murphy standing in the entrance of the temple. Fidelacchius rode over one shoulder, and her P-90 hung from its strap on the other. She looked tired. Her hair was all coming out of its ponytail, strands hanging here and there. She studied my face, smiled slightly, and came down to where I sat.
“Hey,” she said, her voice hushed. “You back?”
“I guess I am.”
“Sanya was worried,” she said, with a little roll of her eyes.
“Oh,” I said. “Well. Tell him not to worry. I’m still here.”
She nodded and stepped closer. “So this is her?”
I nodded, and looked down at the sleeping little girl. Her cheeks were pink. I couldn’t talk.
“She’s beautiful,” Murphy said. “Like her mother.”
I nodded and rolled one tired and complaining shoulder. “She is.”
“Do you want someone else to take her for a minute?”
My arms tightened on the child, and I felt myself turn a little away from her.
“Okay,” Murphy said gently, raising her hands. “Okay.”
I swallowed and realized that I was parched. Starving. And, more than anything, I was weary. Desperately, desolately tired. And the prospect of sleep was terrifying. I turned to look at Murphy and saw the pain on her face as she watched me. “Karrin,” I said. “I’m tired.”
I looked down at the child, a sleepy, warm little presence who had simply accepted what meager shelter and comfort I had been able to offer. And I thought my heart would break. Break more. Because I knew that I couldn’t be what she needed. That I could never give her what she had to have to stand a chance of growing up strong and sane and happy.
Because I had made a deal. If I hadn’t done it, she’d be dead—but because I had, I couldn’t be what she deserved to have.
Never looking away from the little girl’s face, I whispered, “Will you do me a favor?”
“Yes,” Karrin said. Such a simple word, to have so much reassuring mass.
My throat tightened and my vision blurred. It took me two tries to speak. “Please take her to Father Forthill, when we get b-back,” I said. “T-tell him that she needs to disappear. The safest place he has. That I . . .” My voice failed. I took deep breaths and said, “And I don’t need to know where. T-tell him that for me.”
I turned to Murphy and said, “Please?”
She looked at me as if her heart were breaking. But she had a soul of steel, of strength, and her eyes were steady and direct. “Yes.”
I bit my lip.
And, very carefully, I passed my little girl over into her arms. Murphy took her, and didn’t comment about the weight. But then, she wouldn’t.
“God,” I said, not two full seconds later. “Molly. Where is she?”
Murphy looked up at me as she settled down to hold the child. The girl murmured a sleepy complaint, and Murphy rocked her gently to soothe her back to sleep. “Wow. You were really out of it. You didn’t see the helicopter?”
I raked through my memories of the night. “Um. No.”
“After . . .” She glanced at me and then away. “After,” she said more firmly, “Thomas found a landline and made a call. And a navy helicopter landed right out there on the lawn less than an hour later. Lifted him, Molly, and Mouse right out.”
“Mouse?”
Murphy snorted gently. “No one was willing to tell him he couldn’t go with Molly.”
“He takes his work seriously,” I said.
“Apparently.”
“Do we know anything?” I asked.
“Not yet,” Murphy said. “Sanya’s manning the phone in the visitors’ center. We gave Th
omas the number before he left.”
“Be honest, Sergeant Murphy,” the Leanansidhe said quietly as she glided back over to me. “You gave the dog the number.”
Murphy eyed her, then looked at me and said defensively, “Thomas seemed to have enough on his mind already.”
I frowned.
“Not like that,” Murphy said sternly. “Ugh. I wouldn’t have let him go with her if he’d seemed . . . all weird.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Yeah. Mouse wouldn’t have, either, would he.”
“He was in no danger of losing control,” my godmother said calmly. “I would never let such a promising prospect be accidentally devoured.”
Sanya appeared, jogging around the lower end of the pyramid from its far side. Esperacchius hung at his side—and Amoracchius, still in its sheath on Susan’s white leather belt, hung from his shoulder.
I stared at the belt for a moment.
It hurt.
Sanya came chugging up the stairs, moving lightly for a big guy with so much muscle. He gave my godmother a pleasant smile, one hand checking to be sure that Amoracchius was still on his shoulder.
“Next time,” Lea murmured.
“I think not,” Sanya said, beaming. He turned to me. “Thomas called. He seemed surprised it was me. Molly is on navy cruiser on maneuvers in Gulf of Mexico. She will be fine.”
I whistled. “How did . . . ?” I narrowed my eyes.
“Lara?” Murphy asked quietly.
“Got to be,” I answered.
“Lara has enough clout to get a navy chopper sent into another country’s airspace for an extraction?” Murphy kept on rocking Maggie as she spoke, seemingly unaware that she was still doing it. “That’s . . . scary.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Maybe she sang ‘Happy Birthday, Mister President.’ ”
“Not to be rude,” Sanya said, “but I saw some people come up road in car and drive away very fast. Now would be a good time to . . .” He glanced over his shoulder and frowned. “Who left that lightning door there?”
“I arranged that,” Lea said lightly. “It will take you directly back to Chicago.”
“How’d you manage that?” I asked.
The Leanansidhe smoothed her gown, a hungry little smile on her lips, and folded her hands primly in her lap. “I . . . negotiated with its creator. Aggressively.”
I made a choking sound.
“After all, your quest must be completed, my child,” my godmother said. “Maggie must be made safe. And while I found the swim bracing, I thought it might not be safe for her. I’m given to understand that the little ones are quite fragile.”
“Okay,” I said. “I . . .” I looked back up at the temple. “I can’t just leave her there.”
“Will you take her back to Chicago, child?” my godmother asked. “Allow your police to ask many questions? Perhaps slip her into your own grave at Graceland Boneyard, and cover her with dirt?”
“I can’t just leave her,” I said.
The Leanansidhe looked at me and shook her head. Her expression was . . . less predatory than it could have been, even if it wasn’t precisely gentle. “Go. I will see to the child’s mother.” She lifted her hand to forestall my skeptical reply. “With all the honor and respect you would wish to bestow yourself, my godson. And I will take you to visit when you desire. You have my word.”
A direct promise from one of the Sidhe is a rare thing. A kindness is even rarer.
But maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised: Even in Winter, the cold isn’t always bitter, and not every day is cruel.
* * *
Sanya, Murphy, and I went down the stairs and through the lightning gate. Murphy politely refused Sanya’s offer to carry Maggie for her. He didn’t know how to work her the right way to get her to accept help.
I offered to carry her gear.
She surrendered the Sword and her guns willingly enough, and I lagged a few steps behind them while I settled the straps and weaponry about myself. I hung the P-90, the only object Murph was carrying with enough open space in it to hide an itinerant spirit, so that it bumped against the skull still in the improvised bag on my belt and murmured, very quietly, “Out of the gun.”
“About time,” Bob whispered back. “Sunrise is almost here. You trying to get me cooked?” Orange light flowed wearily out of the apertures of the P-90 and back into the safety of the skull. The lights in the eye sockets flickered dimly, and the spirit’s slurred voice whispered, “Don’ gimme any work for a week. At least.” Then they flickered out.
I made sure the T-shirt was still tied firmly, and that the gun wasn’t going to scratch the skull. Then I caught up to the others, and was the first one through the gateway.
It was like walking through a light curtain into another room. A step, a single stride, took me from Chichén Itzá to Chicago. Specifically, we emerged into Father Forthill’s storage room-slash-refugee closet, and the lightning gate closed behind us with a snap of static discharge.
“Direct flight,” said Sanya with both surprise and approval, looking around. “Nice.”
Murphy nodded. “No stops? No weird places? How does that work?”
I had no idea. So I just smiled, shrugged, and said, “Magic.”
“Good enough,” Murphy said with a sigh, and immediately settled Maggie down onto one of the cots. The child started to cry again, but Murphy shushed her and tucked her beneath the blankets and slipped a pillow beneath her head, and the little girl was out in seconds.
I watched Maggie without getting involved.
Her mother’s blood was on my hands. Literally.
Sanya stepped up next to me and put his hand on my shoulder. He nodded toward the hallway and said, “We should talk.”
“Go ahead,” Murphy said. “I’ll stay with her.”
I nodded my thanks to her, and went out into the hallway with Sanya.
Wordlessly, he offered me Amoracchius. I stared at the Sword for a moment.
“I’m not so sure I should have that,” I said.
“If you were,” he said, “I wouldn’t want you to have it. Uriel placed it in your care. If he wanted it moved, he should say so.”
After a moment, I took the sword and hung its belt over the same shoulder as Fidelacchius. The Swords felt very heavy.
Sanya nodded. “Before he left, Thomas said to give you this. That you would know what it was.” He passed me a key.
I recognized it from the stamp on the head reading, WB. It stood for the name of the Water Beetle, Thomas’s beat-up old commercial fishing boat. It had a bathroom, a shower, a little kitchen, some bunks. And I had a couple of changes of clothing there, from overnight trips to one of the islands in Lake Michigan.
My brother was offering me a place to stay.
I had to blink my eyes several times as I took the key. “Thank you,” I said to Sanya.
He studied my face for a second, thoughtfully. Then he said, “You’re leaving now, aren’t you?”
I looked back toward Forthill’s quiet little haven. “Yeah.”
He nodded. “When will Mab come for you?”
“I don’t know,” I said quietly. “Soon, I guess.”
“I will talk to Michael for you,” he said. “Tell him about his daughter.”
“I appreciate it,” I said. “Just so you know . . . Murphy knows my wishes regarding Maggie. She’ll speak for me.”
“Da,” he said. Then he reached into his pocket and produced a metal flask. He sipped from it, and offered it to me. “Here.”
“Vodka?”
“Of course.”
“On an empty stomach,” I said, but took the flask, tilted it to him in a little salute, and downed a big swallow. It burned going in, but not necessarily in a bad way.
“I am glad that we fought together,” he said, as I passed the flask back. “I will do everything in my power to help make your daughter safe until you can return.”
I lifted my eyebrows. “Returning . . . isn’t really in the cards,
man.”
“I do not play cards,” he said. “I play chess. And in my opinion, this is not your endgame. Not yet.”
“Being the Winter Knight isn’t the kind of job you walk out of.”
“Neither is being Knight of the Sword,” he said. “But Michael is with his family now.”
“Michael’s boss was a hell of a lot nicer than mine.”
Sanya let out a rolling laugh, and took another sip from the flask before slipping it back into his coat. “What will be, will be.” He offered me his hand. “Good luck.”
I shook it. “And you.”
“Come,” the Russian said. “I will call you a cab.”
I went down to the Water Beetle. I took off the armor. I hid the swords in the concealed compartments Thomas had built into the boat for just such an occasion, along with Bob’s skull. And I took a long, long shower. The water heater on the tub wasn’t much, but I was used to not having hot water. Being the Winter Knight didn’t help when it came to the cold water, which seemed a complete rip-off to me—in other words, typical. I scrubbed and scrubbed at myself, especially my hands. I couldn’t decide if Susan’s blood was coming off my skin or just sinking in.
I moved mechanically after that, with the routine of a longtime bachelor. There was chicken soup and chili in the kitchen—sorry, galley. I heated them both up and ate them. I had a choice between white wine, orange juice, or warm Coke to go with them. The orange juice was about to go bad, so it won the decision. Hot soups and cold juice got along better than I thought they would, and I lay down on a bunk. I thought I would sleep.
I couldn’t.
I lay there feeling the gentle motion of the great lake rocking the boat. Water made soft slaps and gurgles against the hull. Sunlight warmed the cabin. I was clean and dressed in an old pair of sweats and lying in a bed that was surprisingly comfortable—but I couldn’t sleep.
The old clock on the wall—sorry, bulkhead—ticked with a steady, soothing rhythm.
But I couldn’t sleep.
Chicken soup and chili. That was one hell of a last meal.
Maybe I should have had the cab stop at Burger King.
As noon closed in, I sat up and stared at my godmother’s armor, which had stopped bullets and lightning bolts and maybe worse. I’d found several marks on the back and sides, but no corresponding memories matching them to any of the attacks I knew about. Evidently, it had handled a number of hits I hadn’t noticed, and I knew that without the ridiculously ornate stuff I’d be dead.