by Jim Butcher
Ramirez produced a well-worn web belt of black nylon. He clipped a holster to it and then fixed the grenades in place. “What’s going to stop them from smashing us the second we win this duel?”
That’s one of the things I love about working with Ramirez. The possibility of losing the duel simply didn’t enter into his calculations. “Their nature,” I said. “They like to play civilized, and do their wet work through cat’s-paws. They are not fond of direct methods and direct confrontation.”
Ramirez lifted his eyebrows, drew a slender, straight, double-edged blade of a type he called a willow sword from the bag, and laid it on the table, too. The tassel on the hilt had been torn off by a zombie the night we’d first fought together. He had replaced it, over the last few years, with a little chain strung with fangs taken from Red Court vampires he’d killed with it. They rattled against one another and the steel and leather of the hilt. “I get it. We’re the White King’s cat’s-paws.”
I walked to the icebox. “Bingo. And we can’t hang around as potential threats to his rebellious courtiers if he kills us outright after we help him out. It would damage his credibility with his allies, too.”
“Ah,” Ramirez said. “Politicians.”
I returned with two opened beers. I gave one to him, clinked my bottle against his, and we said, in unison, “Fuck ’em,” and drank.
Ramirez lowered the bottle, squinted at it, and said, “Can we do this?”
I snorted. “Can’t be any harder than Halloween.”
“We had a dinosaur then,” Ramirez said. Then he turned and pulled fatigue pants and a black Offspring T-shirt out of his bag. He gave me an up-and-down look. “Of course, we still do.”
I kicked the coffee table into his shins. He let out a yelp and hobbled off to change clothes in my bedroom, snickering under his breath the whole way.
When he came back out, the smile was gone. We got suited up. Swords and guns and grey cloaks and staves and magical gewgaws left and right, yeehaw. One of these days, I swear, as long as I’m playing supernatural sheriff of Chicago, I’m getting myself some honest-to-God spurs and a ten-gallon hat.
I got out a yellow legal pad and a pen, and Ramirez and I sat down over another beer. “The meeting is at the Raith family estate north of town. I’ve been in the house, but only part of it. Here’s what I remember.”
I started sketching it out for Ramirez, who asked plenty of smart questions about both the house and exterior, so that I had to go to a new page to map out what I knew of the grounds. “Not sure where the vamps will be having their meeting, but the duel is going to be in the Deeps. It’s a cave outside the house, somewhere out here.” I circled an area of the map. “There’s a nice deep chasm in them. It’s a great place to dispose of bodies, and no chance of being seen or heard.”
“Very tidy,” Ramirez noted. “Especially if we’re the ones who need disposing of.”
The doorknob twisted and began to open.
Ramirez went for his gun and had it out almost as quickly as I had my blasting rod pointed at the door. Something slammed against it, opening it five or six inches. I flicked my gaze aside for a minute, and then lowered the blasting rod. I put a hand on Ramirez’s wrist and said, “Easy, tiger. It’s a friendly.”
Ramirez glanced at me and lowered the gun, while I watched Mouse rise to his feet and pad toward the door, tail wagging.
“Who is it?” he asked.
“That backup we might be getting,” I said quietly.
The door banged open by inches and Molly slipped inside.
She’d ditched the Goth-wear almost entirely. She didn’t sport any of the usual piercings—nose rings are great fashion statements, but in anything like a fight, they just aren’t a good idea. Her clothing wasn’t all ripped up, either. She wore heavy, loose jeans, and not slung so low on the hips that they’d threaten to fall off and trip her if she twitched her spine just right. Her combat boots had been divested of their brightly colored laces. She wore a black shirt with a Metallica logo on it, and a web belt that bore a sheathed knife and the small first-aid kit I’d seen her mother carry into battle. She wore a dark green baseball cap, with her hair gathered into a tail and tucked up under it, where it wouldn’t provide an easy handle for anyone wanting to grab it.
Molly didn’t look up at us. She greeted the big dog first, kneeling to give him a hug. Then she rose, facing me, and looked up. “Um. Hi, Harry. Hello, Warden Ramirez.”
“Molly,” I replied, keeping my voice neutral. “Is this the third or fourth time in the last two days I’ve told you to stay home only to have you ignore me?”
“I know,” she said, looking down again. “But…I’d like to talk to you.”
“I’m busy.”
“I know. But I really need to talk to you, sir. Please.”
I exhaled slowly. Then I glanced aside at Ramirez. “Do me a favor? Gas up the Beetle? There’s a station two blocks down the street.”
Carlos looked from me to Molly and back, then shrugged and said, “Um. Sure, yeah.”
I took the keys from my pocket and tossed them. Carlos caught them with casual dexterity, gave Molly a polite nod, and left.
“Shut the door,” I told her.
She did, pressing her back against it and using her legs to push. It cost her a couple of grunts of effort and a few ounces of dignity, but she got it shut.
“You can barely shut the door,” I said. “But you think you’re ready to fight the White Court?”
She shook her head and started to speak.
I didn’t let her. “Again, you’re ignoring me. Again, you’re here when I told you to stay away.”
“Yes,” she said. “But—”
“But you think I’m a frigging idiot too stupid to make these kinds of judgments on my own, and you want to go with me anyway.”
“It isn’t like that,” she said.
“No?” I said, thrusting out my chin belligerently. “How many beads can you move, apprentice?”
“But—”
I roared at her, “How many beads?”
She flinched away from me, her expression miserable. Then she lifted the bracelet and dangled it, heavy black beads lining up at the bottom of the strand. She faced it, her blue eyes tired and haunted, and bit her lip.
“Harry?” she asked softly.
She sounded very young.
“Yes?” I asked. I spoke very gently.
“Why does it matter?” she asked me, staring at the bead bracelet.
“It matters if you want to go into this with me,” I said quietly.
She shook her head and blinked her eyes several times. It didn’t stop a tear from leaking out. “But that’s just it. I…I don’t want to go. I don’t want to see that…” She glanced aside at Mouse and shuddered. “Blood, like that. I don’t remember what happened when you and Mother saved me from Arctis Tor. But I don’t want to see more of that. I don’t want it to happen to me. I don’t want to hurt anyone.”
I let out a low, noncommittal sound. “Then why are you here?”
“B-because,” she said, searching for words. “Because I need to do it. I know that what you’re doing is necessary. And it’s right. And I know that you’re doing it because you’re the only one who can. And I want to help.”
“You think you’re strong enough to help?” I asked her.
She bit her lip again and met my eyes for just a second. “I think…I think it doesn’t matter how strong my magic is. I know I don’t…I don’t know how to do these things like you do. The guns and the battles and…” She lifted her chin and seemed to gather herself a little. “But I know more than most.”
“You know some,” I admitted. “But you got to understand, kid. That won’t mean much once things get nasty. There’s no time for thinking or second chances.”
She nodded. “All I can promise you is that I won’t leave you when you need me. I’ll do whatever you think I can. I’ll stay here and man the phone. I’ll drive the car. I’ll walk
at the back and hold the flashlight. Whatever you want.” She met my eyes and her own hardened. “But I can’t sit at home being safe. I need to be a part of this. I need to help.”
There was a sudden, sharp sound as the leather strand of her bracelet snapped of its own volition. Black beads flew upward with so much force that they rattled off the ceiling and went bouncing around the apartment for a good ten seconds. Mister, still batting playfully at his gift sack of catnip, paused to watch them, ears flicking, eyes alertly tracking their movement.
I went up to the girl, who was staring at them, mystified.
“It was the vampire, wasn’t it,” I said. “Seeing him die.”
She blinked at me. Then at the scattered beads. “I…I didn’t just see it, Harry. I felt it. I can’t explain it any better than that. Inside my head. I felt it, the same way I felt that poor girl. But this was horrible.”
“Yeah,” I said. “You’re a sensitive. It’s a tremendous talent, but it has some drawbacks to it. In this case, though, I’m glad you have it.”
“Why?” she whispered.
I gestured at the scattered beads. “Congratulations, kid,” I told her quietly. “You’re ready.”
She blinked at me, her head tilted. “What?”
I took the now-empty leather strand and held it up between two fingers. “It wasn’t about power, Molly. It was never about power. You’ve got plenty of that.”
She shook her head. “But…all those times…”
“The beads weren’t ever going to go up. Like I said, power had nothing to do with it. You didn’t need that. You needed brains.” I thumped a forefinger over one of her eyebrows. “You needed to open your eyes. You needed to be truly aware of how dangerous things are. You needed to understand your limitations. And you needed to know why you should set out on something like this.”
“But…all I said was that I was scared.”
“After what you got to experience? That’s smart, kid,” I said. “I’m scared, too. Every time something like this happens, it scares me. But being strong doesn’t get you through. Being smart does. I’ve beaten people and things who were stronger than I was, because they didn’t use their heads, or because I used what I had better than they did. It isn’t about muscle, kiddo, magical or otherwise. It’s about your attitude. About your mind.”
She nodded slowly and said, “About doing things for the right reasons.”
“You don’t throw down like this just because you’re strong enough to do it,” I said. “You do it because you don’t have much choice. You do it because it’s unacceptable to walk away, and still live with yourself later.”
She stared at me for a second, and then her eyes widened. “Otherwise, you’re using power for the sake of using power.”
I nodded. “And power tends to corrupt. It isn’t hard to love using it, Molly. You’ve got to go in with the right attitude or…”
“Or the power starts using you,” she said. She’d heard the argument before, but this was the first time she said the words slowly, thoughtfully, as if she’d actually understood them, instead of just parroting them back to me. Then she looked up. “That’s why you do it. Why you help people. You’re using the power for someone other than yourself.”
“That’s part of it,” I said. “Yeah.”
“I feel…sort of stupid.”
“There’s a difference in knowing something”—I poked her head again—“and knowing it.” I touched the middle of her sternum. “See?”
She nodded slowly. Then she took the strand back from me and put it back on her wrist. There was just enough left to let her tie it again. She held it up so that I could see and said, “So that I’ll remember.”
I grinned at her and hugged her. She hugged back. “Did you get a lesson like this?”
“Pretty much,” I said. “From this grumpy old Scot on a farm in the Ozarks.”
“When do I stop feeling like an idiot?”
“I’ll let you know when I do,” I said, and she laughed.
We parted the hug and I met her eyes. “You still in?”
“Yes,” she said simply.
“Then you’ll ride up with Ramirez and me. We’ll stop outside the compound and you’ll stay with the car.”
She nodded seriously. “What do I do?”
“Keep your eyes and ears open. Stay alert for anything you might sense. Don’t talk to anyone. If anyone approaches you, leave. If you see a bunch of bad guys showing up, start honking the horn and get out.”
“Okay,” she said. She looked a little pale.
I pulled a silver cylinder out of my pocket. “This is a hypersonic whistle. Mouse can hear it from a mile away. If we get in trouble, I’ll blow it and he’ll start barking about it. He’ll face where we are. Try to get the car as close as you can.”
“I’ll have Mouse with me,” she said, and looked considerably relieved.
I nodded. “Almost always better not to work alone.”
“What if…what if I do something wrong?”
I shrugged. “What if you do? That’s always possible, Molly. But the only way never to do the wrong thing—”
“—is never to do anything,” she finished.
“Bingo.” I put a hand on her shoulder. “Look. You’re smart enough. I’ve taught you everything I know about the White Court. Keep your eyes open. Use your head, your judgment. If things get bad and I haven’t started blowing the whistle, run like hell. If it gets past ten P.M. and you haven’t heard from me, do the same. Get home and tell your folks.”
“All right,” she said quietly. She took a deep breath and let it out unsteadily. “This is scary.”
“And we’re doing it anyway,” I said.
“That makes us brave, right?”
“If we get away with it,” I said. “If we don’t, it just makes us stupid.”
Her eyes widened for a second and then she let out a full-throated laugh.
“Ready?” I asked her.
“Ready, sir.”
“Good.”
Outside, gravel crunched as Ramirez returned with the Beetle. “All right, apprentice,” I said. “Get Mouse’s lead on him, will you? Let’s do it.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
Château Raith hadn’t changed much since my last visit. That’s one of the good things about dealing with nigh-immortals. They tend to adjust badly to change and avoid it wherever possible.
It was a big place, north of the city, where the countryside rolls over a surprising variety of terrain—flat stretches of rich land that used to be farms, but are mostly big, expensive properties now. Dozens of little rivers and big creeks have carved hills and valleys more steep than most people expect from the Midwest. The trees out in that area, one of the older settlements in the United States, can be absolutely huge, and it would cost me five or six years’ worth of income to buy even a tiny house.
Château Raith is surrounded by a forest of those enormous, ancient trees, as if someone had managed to transplant a section of Sherwood Forest itself from Britain. You can’t see a thing of the estate from any of the roads around it. I knew it was at least a half-mile run through the trees before you got to the grounds, which were enormous in their own right.
Translation: You weren’t getting away from the château on foot speed alone. Not if there were vampires there to run you down.
There was one new feature to the grounds. The eight-foot-high stone wall was the same, but it had been topped with a double helix of razor wire, and lighting had been spaced along the outside of the wall. I could see security cameras at regular intervals as well. The old Lord Raith had disdained the more modern security precautions in favor of the protection of intense personal arrogance. Lara, however, seemed more willing to acknowledge threats, to listen to her mortal security staff, and to employ the countermeasures they suggested. It would certainly help keep the mortal riffraff out, and the Council had plenty of mortal allies.
More important, it said something about Lara’s admi
nistration: She found skilled subordinates and then listened to them. She might not look as overwhelmingly confident as Lord Raith had—but then, Lord Raith wasn’t running the show anymore, either, even if that wasn’t public knowledge in the magical community.
I reflected that it was entirely possible that I might have done the Council and the world something of a disservice by helping Lara assume control. Lord Raith had been proud and brittle. I had the feeling that Lara would prove to be far, far more capable and far more dangerous as the de facto White King.
And here I was, about to go to her aid again and help solidify her power even more.
“Stop here,” I told Molly quietly. The gates to the château were still a quarter mile down the road. “This is as close as you get.”
“Right,” Molly said, and pulled the Beetle over—onto the far side of the road, I noted with approval, where anyone wanting to come to her would have to cross the open pavement to get there.
“Mouse,” I said. “Stay here with Molly and listen for us. Take care of her.”
Mouse looked unhappily at me from the backseat, where he’d sat with Ramirez, but leaned forward and dropped his shaggy chin onto my shoulder. I gave him a quick hug and said in a gruff voice, “Don’t worry; we’ll be fine.”
His tail thumped once against the backseat, and then he shifted around to lay his head on Molly’s shoulder. She immediately started scratching him reassuringly behind the ear, though her own expression was far from comfortable.
I gave the girl half of a smile, and then got out of the car. Summer twilight was fading fast, and it was too hot to wear my duster. I had it on anyway, and I added the weight of the grey cloak of the Wardens of the White Council to the duster. Under all that, I wore a white silk shirt and cargo pants of heavy black cotton, plus my hiking boots.
“Hat,” I muttered. “Spurs. Next time, I swear.”
Ramirez slid out of the Beetle, grenades and gun and willow sword hanging from his belt, and staff gripped in his right hand. He paused to pull on a glove made out of heavy leather overlaid with a layer of slender steel plates, each inscribed with pictoglyphs that looked Aztec or Olmec or something.