by Jim Butcher
She swallowed. “And Morgan?”
“Make him as comfortable as you can and leave him.”
She stared at me for a minute. “Really?”
“If I get taken out, I don’t think you’ll be able to protect him,” I said, as matter-of-factly as I could. “Or catch the real bad guy. So run like hell and let him look out for himself.”
I saw her think that over. Then she smiled slightly.
“It would really humiliate him if he found himself under the protection of a girl. An apprentice. And a possible warlock, to boot.”
I nodded. “True.”
Molly pursed her lips thoughtfully. “That might be worth staying for.”
“Kid,” I said, “the smart thing for you to do if it all goes sour is to run.”
“Smart,” she said. “But not right.”
I studied her soberly. “You sure? Because there’s a world of hurt waiting to fall.”
She nodded, her face pale. “I’ll try.”
And she would. I could see that in her eyes. She knew better than most exactly how dangerous such a thing would be for her, and it clearly terrified her. But she would try.
“Then if I’m taken off the board, see Murphy,” I said. “She knows everything I do about the case. Listen to her. She’s smart, and you can trust her.”
“All right,” she said.
I tossed the mooring lines back onboard. “Get a move on.”
I started walking down the dock. Behind me, Molly called, “Harry? What signal are you going to use?”
“You’ll know it,” I called back.
I left the docks in search of the tool that could rip apart this tangled web of suspicion, murder, and lies.
I found it in the marina’s parking lot.
A pay phone.
Lara answered on the second ring. “Raith.”
“Dresden,” I said. “What have you got for me?”
“Oh, to have straight lines like that more often,” she said, her tone wry. “What makes you think I have anything for you?”
“ ’Cause I’ve got something to trade.”
“Men generally seem to think that way. Most of them tend to overestimate the value of their wares.”
“Pheromone Lass,” I said, “can we have the rest of this conversation above the waistline?”
She let out that rich, throaty laugh of hers, and my hormones sounded the charge. I ignored them. Stupid hormones.
“Very well,” she said. “It should interest you to know that the money deposited in Warden Morgan’s account came from a dummy corporation called Windfall.”
“Dummy organization?” I asked. “Who owns it?”
“I do,” she said calmly.
I blinked. “Since you’re sharing this information, I take it that it happened without your knowledge.”
“You are quite correct,” she said. “A Mr. Kevin Aramis is the corporation’s manager. He is the only one, other than myself, with the authority to move that much money around.”
I thought furiously. Whoever aced LaFortier hadn’t just intended the Council to implode. He or they had also gone to a lot of trouble to incite hostility with the White Court.
Hell’s bells.
My imagination treated me to a prophetic nightmare. Morgan fights against the injustice of his frame. Hostilities erupt, creating strife between various factions of wizards. The Council eventually runs down the money trail, discovers Lara on the other end, and the Council seizes upon the opportunity to unify the factions again, thanks to a common enemy. Hostilities with the vampires start fresh. The Red Court sees the poorly coordinated Council exposing itself in battle with the White Court, and pounces, breaking the back of the Council. And after that, it would all be over but the heroic last stands.
Hell’s bells, indeed.
“We’re being played against one another,” I said.
“That was my conclusion as well.”
A couple more pieces clicked into place. “Madeline,” I said. “She got to this Aramis guy and coerced him into betraying you.”
“Yes,” Lara hissed. Barely suppressed, wholly inhuman rage filled her level, controlled voice. “When I catch up to her, I’m going to tear out her entrails with my bare hands.”
Which took care of my hormone problem. I shivered.
I’d seen Lara in action. I could never decide if it had been one of the most beautiful terrifying things I’d ever seen, or if it was one of the most terrifying beautiful things I’d ever seen.
“You might try looking at the Hotel Sax, room twelve thirty-three,” I said. “If I’m right, you’re going to find Mr. Aramis’s body there. Madeline’s working for someone, a man. She didn’t say anything that would help identify him. You should also know that she has hired the services of a mercenary named Binder. Not exactly a rocket scientist, but smart enough to be dangerous.”
Lara was silent for a second. Then she said, “How did you learn this?”
“Shockingly, with magic.”
I heard her speaking to someone in the room with her. Then she got back on the phone and said, “If Aramis is dead, Madeline has tied up the loose end in her plan. It will be impossible to provide credible evidence that I did not in fact pay for LaFortier’s murder.”
“Yeah. That’s why she did it.”
I heard her make a displeased sound, but it was still ladylike. “What do we intend to do about this, Harry?”
“Do you have a nice dress?”
“Pardon?”
I found myself grinning maniacally. “I’m throwing a party.”
Thomas’s phone rang four times before the connection opened. There was a moment of silence. Then Thomas spoke, his voice raw and ragged. “Harry?”
My heart just about stopped beating to hear my brother’s voice. “Thomas. How’s it going?”
“Oh,” he rasped, “I’m just hanging around.”
I’ve seen Thomas in agony before. He sounded exactly like this.
The phone emitted random noises, and then the yowl-purring voice of the skinwalker came over the line. “He is here. He is alive. For now. Give me the doomed warrior.”
“Okay,” I said.
There was a moment of silent consternation from the far end of the line.
“Bring him to me,” it said.
“Nah. That isn’t going to happen.”
“What?”
“You’re coming to me.”
“Do you wish me to end his life this instant?”
“Frankly, Shaggy, I don’t give a damn,” I said, forcing boredom into my voice. “It’d be nice to be able to return one of the vampires to his own, get myself a marker I can call in some day. But I don’t need it.” I paused. “You, on the other hand, need Thomas to be alive, if you expect me to trade Morgan for him. So this is how it’s going to go down. At dusk, you will be contacted on this phone. You will be told where our meeting will take place. When you arrive, you will show me the vampire, alive and well, and when he is returned to me, you will take Morgan without contest.”
“I am not some mortal scum you can command, mageling,” Shagnasty seethed.
“No. You’re immortal scum.”
“You blind, flesh-feeding worm,” Shagnasty snarled. “Who are you to speak to me so?”
“The worm who’s got what you need,” I said. “Dusk. Keep the phone handy.”
I hung up on him.
My heart hammered against my chest and cold sweat broke out over my upper body. I felt myself shaking with terror for Thomas, with weariness, with reaction to the conversation with Shagnasty. I leaned my aching head against the earpiece of the phone and hoped that I hadn’t just ended my brother’s life.
One more call.
The White Council of Wizards uses telephone communications like everyone else, albeit with a lot more service calls. I gave headquarters a ring, gave them the countersign to their security challenge, and got patched through to one of the administrative assistants, an earnest young woman not quite
finished with her apprenticeship.
“I need to get a message to every member of the Senior Council,” I told her.
“Very well, sir,” she said. “What is the message?”
“Get this verbatim. Okay?”
“Yes, sir.”
I cleared my throat and spoke. “Be advised that I have been sheltering Warden Donald Morgan from discovery and capture for the past two days. An informant has come to me with details of how Warden Morgan was framed for the murder of Senior Council Member LaFortier. Warden Morgan is innocent, and what’s more, I can prove it.
“I am willing to meet with you tonight, on the uncharted island in Lake Michigan, east of Chicago at sundown. The informant will be present, and will produce testimony that will vindicate Warden Morgan and identify the true culprit of the crime.
“Let me be perfectly clear. I will not surrender Warden Morgan to the alleged justice of the Council. Come in peace and we will work things out. But should you come to me looking for a fight, be assured that I will oblige you.”
The assistant had started making choking sounds after the very first sentence.
“Then sign it ‘Harry Dresden,’ ” I said.
“Um. Yes, sir. Sh-shall I read that back to you?”
“Please.”
She did. I’d heard sounds of movement in the background around her, but as she read aloud, all of those sounds died to silence. When she finished, she asked, in a rather small, squeaky voice, “Do I have that down correctly, sir?”
Murmurs burst out in the background over the phone, excited and low.
“Yeah,” I told her. “Perfect.”
Chapter Thirty-eight
I figured I had an hour, maybe, before someone was going to show up from Edinburgh. It was time enough to grab a cab and head to the hospital.
Back in the ICU, Will was sacked out in the waiting room and Georgia was the one sitting with Andi. A middle-aged couple who looked as if they hadn’t slept much was in there with her. I knocked on the glass. Georgia said something to the couple and rose to come out into the hallway with me. She looked tired but alert, and had her long, rather frizzy hair pulled back into a ponytail.
“Harry,” she said, hugging me.
I returned the hug, cutting it off a little early. “How is she?”
Georgia studied me for a second before she answered. “In bad shape. The doctors don’t seem to be willing to say whether or not she’ll recover.”
“Better that way,” I said. “If one of them said she’d be fine and then she wasn’t . . .”
Georgia glanced at the couple sitting beside Andi’s bed, holding each other’s hands. “I know. It would be cruel to offer false hope, but . . .”
“But you’re still irrationally angry that the docs haven’t saved her yet. You know better, but you’re upset anyway.”
She nodded. “Yes. Irrationality is not something I’m comfortable with.”
“It isn’t irrational,” I said. “It’s human.”
She gave me a small smile. “Will and I talked. And you’re in a hurry.”
I nodded. “I need you both, and right now.”
“I’ll get him,” Georgia said.
We took Georgia’s SUV back down to the marina and arrived with ten minutes to spare on my estimated time window. I definitely wanted to be out over open water by the time members of the Council started showing up. The water wouldn’t be a perfect protection from incoming magic, but it would make it a lot harder for anyone to target me solidly, and it was a hell of a lot better than nothing.
“Okay,” I said. “You guys wait here for a minute.”
Will frowned. “Why?”
“I need to talk to someone who can be a little shy around strangers.
One minute.” I hopped out of the SUV and walked down the rows of cars until I found two vans parked together. I slipped between them, put the fingers of one hand to my lips, and let out a sharp whistle.
There was a whirring sound and Toot-toot streaked down from overhead, came to a hover in front of me, drew his little sword, and saluted. “Yes, my liege!”
“Toot, I have two missions for you.”
“At once, my lord!”
“No, I want you to do them one at a time.”
Toot lowered his sword, his expression crestfallen. “Oh.”
“First, I want you to find the boat out on the lake that my apprentice is in. She’s not more than a mile or two from shore.” I took off my silver pentacle amulet, wrapped the chain around it, and handed it to Toot-toot. “Leave this where she will notice it right away.”
Toot accepted the amulet gravely, tucking it under one arm. “It will be done.”
“Thank you.”
Toot-toot’s chest swelled out, and he stood a little bit straighter.
“Second,” I told him. “I need to know how many of the little folk you could convince to join the Guard for one night.”
He frowned and looked dubious. “I don’t know, Lord Harry. The pizza ration is already stretched as far as it can go.”
I waved a hand. “The Guard’s pay won’t change. I’ll order extra to pay for the new guys’ service. Call them the Za-Lord’s Militia. We only need them sometimes. How many do you think would agree to that?”
Toot buzzed in an excited circle. “For you? Every sprite and pixie and dewdrop faerie within a hundred miles knows that you saved our kind from being imprisoned by the Lady of the Cold Eyes! There’s not a one who didn’t have comrade or kin languishing in durance vile!”
I blinked at him. “Oh,” I said. “Well. Tell them that there may be great danger. Tell them that if they wish to join the Militia, they must obey orders while they serve. And I will pay them one large pizza for every fourscore volunteers.”
“That’s less than you pay the Guard, Harry,” Toot said smugly.
“Well, they’re amateurs, not full-time veterans like you and your men, are they?”
“Yes, my lord!”
I looked at him seriously. “If you can recruit a Militia and if they perform as asked, there’s a promotion in it for you, Toot.”
His eyes widened. “Does it come with cheese in the crust and extra toppings?”
“It isn’t a pizza.” I said. “It’s a promotion. Get this work done, and from that time forward, you will be . . .” I paused dramatically. “Major-General Toot-toot Minimus commanding the Za-Lord’s Elite.”
Toot’s body practically convulsed in a spasm of excitement. Had a giant yellow exclamation point suddenly appeared in the air over his head, I would not have been surprised. “A Major-General?”
I couldn’t resist. “Yes, yes,” I said solemnly. “A Major-General.”
He let out a whoop of glee and zipped up and down the little space between vans. “What do you wish us to do when I have them, my lord!”
“I want you to play,” I said. “Here’s what we’re going to do. . . .”
I rejoined Will and Georgia, and ten minutes later, the Water Beetle came chugging back toward the marina. The grasshopper got my brother’s boat into dock with only a mildly violent impact. I secured lines quickly, and Will and Georgia jumped on. Almost before Will’s feet were on the deck, I was already untying the lines and following them onto the boat. Molly, for her part, already had the engine in reverse.
“Now what?” she called down to me from the wheel atop the cabin.
“Use the compass on the dashboard. One to two degrees south of due east, and call me when you spot the island.”
“Aye aye!”
Will squinted at Molly and then at me. “ ‘Aye aye’?”
I shook my head sadly. “Landlubbers. I’m going to go shiver timbers or something. I haven’t slept in a while.”
“Go ahead, Harry,” Georgia said. “We’ll wake you if anything happens.”
I nodded, shambled down to the second bunk, and passed out immediately.
Someone shook me two seconds later and I said, “Go away.”
“Sorry, Ha
rry,” Will said. “We’re here.”
I said several uncouth and thoughtless things, then manned up and opened my eyes, always the hardest part of waking up. I sat up, and Will retreated from the cramped cabin with a glance at Morgan’s unconscious form. I sat there with my mouth feeling like it had been coated in Turtle Wax. It took me a second to identify a new sound.
Rain.
Raindrops pattered onto the deck of the boat and the roof of the cabin.
I shambled out onto the deck, unconcerned about the rain ruining my leather duster. One handy side effect of going through the painfully precise ritual of enchanting it to withstand physical force as if it had been plate steel was that the thing was rendered waterproof and stainproof as well—yet it still breathed. Let’s see Berman’s or Wilson’s do that.
Sufficiently advanced technology, my ass.
I climbed up to the bridge, keeping an eye on the sky as I did. Lowering clouds of dark grey had covered the sky, and the rain looked to be a long, steady soaker—a rarity in a Chicago summer, which usually went for rough-and-tumble thunderstorms. The heat hadn’t let up much, and as a result the air was thick and heavy enough to swim through.
I took the wheel from Molly, oriented myself by use of the compass and the island, now only a few minutes away, and yawned loudly. “Well. This makes things less pleasant.”
“The rain?” Molly asked. She passed me my pentacle.
I slipped it back over my head and nodded. “I’d planned on lying off the island until closer to dark.”
“Why?”
“Mostly because I just challenged the Senior Council to a brawl there at sundown,” I said.
Molly choked on her gum.
I ignored her. “I didn’t want to make it easy for them to slip up on me. Oh, and I’ve arranged to trade Thomas for Morgan with Shagnasty. He won’t get word of where to go until later, though. I think otherwise he’d cheat and show up early. He looks like a shifty character.”
The pun went past Molly, or maybe she was just that good at ignoring it. “You’re trading Morgan for Thomas?”
“Nah. I just want to get Shagnasty out here with Thomas in one piece so that the White Court can take him down.”