by Jim Butcher
He sounded amused. “In what way?”
“Coming to my rescue just as someone was about to punch my ticket. You must admit, Marcone, that it smells like a setup.”
“Even I occasionally enjoy good fortune,” he replied.
I shook my head. “I called you less than an hour ago. If it wasn’t a setup then how did you find me?”
“He didn’t,” said Gard. “I did.” She looked over her shoulder at Marcone and frowned. “This is a mistake. It was his fate to die in that alley.”
“What is the point of having free will if one cannot occasionally spit in the eye of destiny?” Marcone asked.
“There will be consequences,” she insisted.
Marcone shrugged. “When aren’t there?”
Gard turned her face back to the front and shook her head. “Hubris. Mortals never understand.”
“Tell me about it,” I said. “Everyone makes that mistake but me.”
Marcone glanced at me, and his eyes wrinkled at the corners. It was very nearly a smile. Gard turned her head slowly and gave me a cold glare that wasn’t anywhere close to smiling.
“Let’s get to the part of the conversation where you tell me what you want,” I said. “I don’t have time for any more banter.”
“Ah,” Marcone said. “I suspected you would somehow become involved in the events at hand.”
“What events would those be?” I asked.
“The situation concerning the death of Tony Mendoza.”
I scowled at him. “What do you want?”
“Unless I miss my guess,” Marcone said, “I want to help you.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Right.”
“I’m quite serious, Dresden,” he told me. “I allow no one to harm those in my employ. Whoever murdered Mendoza must be chastised immediately—whether or not they happen to be necromancers.”
I blinked. “How did you know what they were?”
“Miss Gard,” he replied serenely. “She and her colleagues have outstanding resources.”
I shrugged. “Good for you. But I’m not interested in helping you maintain your empire.”
“Naturally. But you are interested in stopping these men and women before they accomplish whatever goal it is that they are pursuing.”
I shrugged. “You don’t know that.”
“Yes, I do,” he said, his tone growing distant and cool. He met my eyes and said, “Because I know you. I know that you would oppose them. Just as you know that I will not permit them to take one of mine from me without punishment.”
I glared back at him. I wasn’t worried about a soulgaze. Those happened only once between any two people, and Marcone had already gotten a look at me. When he said that he knew me, that’s what he was talking about. I’d seen his soul in return, and it had been a cold and barren place—but one of order, as well. If Marcone gave his word, he kept it. And if someone came for one of his people, he would go after them without hesitation, fear, or pity.
That didn’t make him noble. Marcone had the soul of a tiger, of a predator protecting his territory. It only made him more resolved and more dangerous.
“I’m not a hit man,” I told him. “And I don’t work for you.”
“Nor am I asking you to,” he said. “I simply want to give you information that might help you in your efforts.”
“You aren’t listening. I am not going to kill anyone for you.”
His teeth suddenly showed, very white against the tan. “But you will go up against them.”
“Yes.”
He settled back in his seat. “I’ve seen what you do to the people who get in your way. I’m willing to take my chances.”
That thought, that attitude, was a little creepier than I was comfortable with. I wasn’t a killer. I mean, sure, sometimes I fought. Sometimes people and not-people got killed. But it wasn’t as though I was some kind of Jack the Ripper. From time to time matters got desperately dangerous between me and various denizens of the preternatural world, but I had only killed…
I thought about it for a minute.
I’d killed more of them than I hadn’t.
Quite a few more.
I felt a little sick to my stomach.
Marcone watched me from behind hooded eyes and waited.
“What do you want to tell me?” I asked him.
“I don’t want to waste your time,” he said. “Ask me questions. I’ll answer whichever I can.”
“How much do you know about the deal that got Mendoza killed?”
He drummed the fingers of his right hand on his thigh for a moment. “Mendoza was getting ready to retire,” Marcone said. “He had a final scheme to complete. I owed the man for loyalties past, and at his request I allowed him certain liberties.”
“He was selling something independently?”
Marcone nodded. “The contents of an old storage locker. Mendoza had come across the key to it in an estate sale.”
That was criminal-speak for purchasing hot merchandise from a mugger or burglar. “Go on.”
“The key opened a storage locker that had been sealed since 1945. It contained a number of works of art, jewelry, and similar cultural artifacts.”
I arched an eyebrow. “Loot from World War Two?”
“So Mendoza presumed,” Marcone said. “He offered me my selection of the contents, and in return I allowed him to dispose of the rest in whatever manner he saw fit.”
“What did you get out of it?” I asked.
“Two Monets and a Van Gogh.”
“Holy crap.” I shook my head. “What happened then?”
“Mendoza went about liquidating his cache. It had been in process for several weeks when he reported that one of the people he had approached regarding an antique book seemed to have access to resources that were well beyond the ordinary.”
“Did he give you a name?” I asked.
“A man named Grevane,” Marcone said. “Mendoza asked for my advice on the matter.”
“And you told him about how wizards are technologically challenged.”
“Among other things,” he said, nodding.
“But the deal went south.”
“So it would seem,” Marcone said. “Since Mendoza’s death, I have asked Miss Gard to collect information on recent events in the local supernatural community.”
I glanced at the woman and nodded. “And she told you there were necromancers running around.”
“Once that had been established, we attempted to narrow down the location of these individuals, particularly Grevane, but met with very limited success.”
“I’m able to find where they’ve been,” Gard said without turning around. “Or at least where they’ve been weaving their spells.”
“And there are a number of hot spots of necromantic energy around town,” I said. “I know that already.”
Marcone placed his fingers in a steeple before him. “But what I suspect you do not know is that last night at the location on Wacker, a member of my organization had an altercation with representatives of a rival interest from out of town. There was a gun-fight. My man was mortally wounded and left for dead.”
“That doesn’t add up to necromancy,” I said, frowning. “What caused the hot spot?”
“That is the question,” Marcone said. He took a folded piece of paper from his breast pocket and passed it to me. “These are the names of the responding EMTs,” he said. “According to my man, they were the first on the scene.”
“Did he talk to you before he died?” I asked.
“He did,” Marcone replied. “In point of fact, he did not die.”
“Thought you said he was mortally wounded.”
“He was, Mister Dresden,” Marcone said, his features remote. “He was.”
“He survived.”
“The surgeons at Cook County thought it a bona fide miracle. Naturally I thought of you at once.”
I rubbed at my chin. “What else has he said?”
“Nothing,” Marco
ne said. “He has no memory of the events after he saw the ambulance arriving.”
“So you want me to talk to the EMTs. Why haven’t you done it yourself?” I asked.
He arched his brows. “Dresden. Try to keep in mind that I am a criminal. For some reason it’s quite difficult to get people in uniforms to open their hearts to me.”
I gritted my teeth at another agonizing twinge from my leg. “Right.”
“So,” he said, “we’re back to my original question. How serious is your injury?”
“I’ll make it,” I said.
“Do you think you’ll need to see a doctor? If it’s too mild a wound, I’ll be glad to have Miss Gard make it look more authentic.”
I looked at him for a moment. “I’m heading for an emergency room whether I need it or not, eh?”
“As luck would have it, we are near a hospital. Cook County, in fact.”
“Yeah. The cut’s pretty deep.” I looked at the piece of paper and then stuck it in my pocket. “There’s bound to be an EMT or two there. Maybe you should drop me off at the emergency room.”
Marcone smiled, and it didn’t touch his eyes. “Very well, Dresden. You have my deepest sympathies for your pain.”
Chapter
Nineteen
Marcone and company dropped me off a hundred yards from the emergency entrance to the hospital, and I had to hobble in alone. It was hard, and I was tired, but I’d been hurt worse before. It wasn’t like I wanted to do this every day or anything, but after a certain point of ridiculous discomfort, the pain all feels pretty much the same.
Once I made it to the emergency room, I was a big hit. When you drag yourself inside panting and leaving a trail of bloody footprints behind you, it makes a certain impression. I had an orderly and a nurse helping me onto my stomach on a gurney within a few seconds while the nurse examined the wound.
“It isn’t life-threatening,” she reported after she cut away my pant leg and took a look. She glanced at me almost in accusation. “From the way you came in here, you’d think this almost killed you.”
“Well,” I said, “I’m kind of a wimp.”
“Nasty,” commented the burly orderly. He produced a clipboard layered in forms and a ballpoint pen and handed them both to me. “They’ll have to cut this out.”
“We’ll let the doctor decide that,” the nurse said. “How did this happen, sir?”
“I have no clue,” I said. “I was walking down the street and all of a sudden I thought my leg was on fire.”
“You walked here?” she asked.
“A helpful Boy Scout brought me most of the way,” I said.
She sighed. “Well, it’s been a slow day. They should be able to see to you shortly.”
“That’s super,” I said. “Because it hurts like hell.”
“I can get you some Tylenol,” the nurse said primly.
“I don’t have a headache. I have a four-inch piece of steel in my leg.”
She passed me a paper cup and two little white tablets. I sighed and took them.
“Heh,” the orderly said after she left. “Don’t worry too much. They’ll get you something when the doctor sees to you.”
“With this kind of loving care, I probably won’t need it.”
“Don’t be too hard on her,” the orderly said. “You should see what people try so that they can get to some painkillers. Vicodin, morphine, that kind of thing.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Hey, man, can I ask you something?”
“Sure.” He had brought a bowl of ice with him, and he started sealing it into plastic bags, which he started packing around my leg. “This should numb it a little, and maybe take down some of the swelling. It ain’t a local, but it’s what I’ve got.”
The ice didn’t actually burst into steam upon touching me, even though it felt like it should have. The pain didn’t exactly lessen, but it did suddenly feel a little more distant. “Thanks, man. Hey, I was hoping I could talk to a couple of guys I know while I was here,” I said. “They’re EMTs. Gary Simmons and Jason Lamar.”
The orderly lifted his eyebrows. “Simmons and Lamar, sure. They drive an ambulance.”
“I know. Are they around?”
“They were on shift last night,” he said. “But it’s the end of the month and they might be on their swing shift. I’ll ask.”
“Appreciate it,” I said. “If Simmons is there, tell him a school buddy is here.”
“Sure. If I do that, though, you gotta do something for me and fill out these forms.”
I eyed the clipboard and picked up the pen. “Tell the doc to sign me up for carpal tunnel surgery when he gets that thing out of me. Two birds with one stone.”
The orderly grinned. “I’ll do that.”
He left me to fill in forms, which didn’t used to take terribly long to fill out since I didn’t have any kind of insurance. One of these days, when I had the money, I was going to have to get some. They say that when you pay for insurance you’re really buying peace of mind. It might make me feel peaceful to think of how much money the company was probably going to lose on me in the long run. If I lived my whole life in the open, as I had been since I’d come to Chicago, they might be dealing with me for two or three centuries. I wondered what the yearly markup would be for a two-hundred-and-fifty-year-old.
A young doctor came in after I was finished with the forms, and true to the orderly’s prediction, he had to cut the shuriken out of me. I got a local, and the sudden cessation of pain was like a drug all by itself. I fell asleep while he was cutting and woke up as he was wrapping my leg up.
“…the sutures dry,” he was saying. “Though from the looks of your file I suppose you know that.”
“Sure, Doc,” I said. “I know the drill. Do you need to take them out or did I get the other kind?”
“They’ll dissolve,” he said. “But if you experience any swelling or fever, get in touch. I’m giving you a prescription for something for the pain and some antibiotics.”
“Follow all the printed instructions and be sure to take them all,” I said, in my best surgeon-general-slash-television-announcer voice.
“Looks like you’ve done this as often as I have,” he said. He gestured to the steel tray where the bloodied shuriken lay. “Did you want to keep the weapon?”
“Might as well. I’ll have to get a souvenir in the gift shop otherwise.”
“You sure you don’t want the police to look at it?” he said. “They might be able to find fingerprints or something.”
“I already told you guys it must have been some kind of accident,” I said.
He gave me a look of extreme skepticism. “All right. If that’s the way you want it.” He dropped the little weapon into a metal tray of alcohol or some other sterilizer. “Keep your leg elevated. That will ease the swelling. Stay off of it for a couple of days, at least.”
“No problem,” I said.
He shook his head. “The orderly will be by in a minute with your prescriptions and a form to sign.” He departed.
A minute later there were footsteps outside the little alcove they’d put me in, and a large young man drew the curtain aside. He had skin almost as dark as my leather duster, and his hair had been cropped into a flat-top so precise that his barber must have used a level. He was on the heavy side—not out of shape or ripped out, but simply large and comfortable with it. He wore an EMT’s jacket, and the name tag on it read LAMAR. He stood there looking at me for a minute and then said, “You’re the wrong color to have been in my high school. And I didn’t do college.”
“Army medic?” I asked.
“Navy. Marines.” He folded his arms. “What do you want?”
“My name is Harry Dresden,” I said.
He shrugged. “But what do you want?”
I sat up. My leg was still blissfully numb. “I wanted to talk to you about last night.”
He eyed me warily. “What about it?”
“You were on the team who responded t
o a gunshot victim on Wacker.”
His breath left him in a long exhale. He looked up and down the row, then stepped into the little alcove and closed the curtain behind him. He lowered his voice. “So?”
“So I want you to tell me about it,” I said.
He shook his head. “Look, I want to keep my job.”
I lowered my voice as well. “You think telling me is going to endanger that?”
“Maybe,” he said. He pulled open his jacket and then unbuttoned two buttons on his shirt. He opened it enough to show me a Kevlar vest beneath it. “See that? EMTs have to wear them around here, because people shoot at us sometimes. Gangbangers, that kind of thing. We show up to try to save lives and people shoot at us.”
“Must be tough,” I said cautiously.
He shook his head. “I can handle it. But a lot of people don’t. And if it looks like you’re starting to crack under the pressure, they’ll pull you out. Word gets around that I’m telling fairy tales about things I’ve seen, they’ll have me on psychiatric disability by tomorrow.” He turned to go.
“Wait,” I said. I touched his arm lightly. I didn’t grab him. You don’t go unexpectedly grabbing former marines if you want your fingers to stay in the same shape. “Look, Mr. Lamar. I just want to hear about it. I’m not going to repeat it to anyone. I’m not a reporter or—”
He paused. “You’re the wizard,” he said. “Saw you on Larry Fowler once. People say you’re crazy.”
“Yeah,” I said. “So it isn’t as if they’d believe me, even if I did talk about you. Which I won’t.”
“You’re the one they arrested in the nursery a few years back,” he said. “You broke in during a blackout. They found you in the middle of a wrecked room with all those babies.”
I took a deep breath. “Yeah.”
Lamar was silent for a second. Then he said, “You know that the year before, the SIDS rate there was the highest in the nation? They averaged one case every ten days. No one could explain it.”
“I didn’t know that,” I said.
“Since they arrested you there, they haven’t lost one,” he said. He turned back to me. “You did something.”
“Yeah. Do you like ghost stories?”