by Jim Butcher
“Pictures? What pictures?”
“Of the Way to Chicago from Edinburgh,” I said. “Where it opens up into that alley behind the old meatpacking factory. I had Vince take pictures of anyone coming out of it, right after I informed Edinburgh about the meeting on the island.”
Molly frowned. “But . . . why?”
“Didn’t give them time to think, kid,” I said. “I was fairly sure the killer was in Edinburgh. So I made sure he or she had to come to Chicago. I made sure he didn’t have time to get here by alternate means.”
I drew out the pictures and started flipping through them. Vince had done a crisp, professional job. You could have used them for portraits, much less identification. McCoy, Mai, Listens-to-Wind, Bjorn Bjorngunnarson, the other Wardens were all pictured, both in a wide shot, walking in a Right Stuff group, and in tight focus on each face. “And I made sure Vince and Mouse were there to watch the only fast way into town from Scotland.”
While I did that, Molly puzzled through the logic. “Then . . . that entire scenario on the island . . . the meeting, the fight . . . the entire thing was a ploy?”
“Wile E. Coyote,” I said wisely. “Suuuuuper Genius.”
Molly shook her head. “But . . . you didn’t tell anyone?”
“Nobody. Had to look good,” I said. “Didn’t know who the traitor might be, so I couldn’t afford to give anyone any warning.”
“Wow, Obi-Wan,” the grasshopper said. “I’m . . . sort of impressed.”
“The smackdown-on-the-island plan might have worked,” I said. “And I needed it to get a crack at the skinwalker on friendly ground. But lately I’ve started thinking that you don’t ever plan on a single path to victory. You set things up so that you’ve got more than one way to win.
“What I really needed was a weapon I could use against the killer.” I stared at the last photo for a moment, and then flipped it over and showed it to her. “And now,” I said, a snarl coming unbidden into my voice, “I’ve got one.”
Molly looked at the picture blankly. “Oh,” she said. “Who’s that?”
Chapter Forty-seven
Morgan’s trial was held the next day, but since Scotland was six hours ahead of Chicago, I wound up getting about three hours’ worth of sleep sitting up in a chair. My head and face hurt too much when I lay all the way down.
When I got back to the apartment with Molly, Luccio was gone.
I had been pretty sure she would be.
I got up the next morning and took stock of myself in the mirror. What wasn’t under a white bandage was mostly bruised. That was probably the concussion grenade. I was lucky. If I’d have been standing where Lara had been when Binder’s grenade went off, the overpressure would probably have killed me. I was also lucky that we’d been outdoors, where there was nothing to contain and focus the blast. I didn’t feel lucky, but I was.
It could have been a fragmentation grenade spitting out a lethal cloud of shrapnel—though at least my duster would probably have offered me some protection from that. Against the blast wave of an explosion, it didn’t do jack. Having gained something like respect for Binder’s know-how, when it came to mayhem, I realized that he may have been thinking exactly that when he picked his gear for the evening.
I couldn’t shower without getting my stitches wet, so after changing my bandages, I took a birdbath in the sink. I wore a button-up shirt, since I would probably compress my brain if I tried to pull on a tee. I also grabbed my formal black Council robe with its blue stole and my Warden’s cape. I did my best to put my hair in order, though only about a third of it was showing. And I shaved.
“Wow,” Molly said as I emerged. “You’re taking this pretty seriously.” She was sitting in a chair near the fireplace, running her fingers lightly down Mister’s spine. She was one of the few people he deemed worthy to properly appreciate him in a tactile sense. Molly wore her brown apprentice’s robe, and if her hair was bright blue, at least she had it pulled back in a no-nonsense style. She never wore a lot of makeup, these days, but today she was wearing none at all. She had made the very wise realization that the less attention she attracted from the Council, the better off she would be.
“Yup. Cab here yet?”
She shook her head and rose, displacing Mister. He accepted the situation, despite the indignity. “Come on, Mouse,” she said. “We’ll give you a chance to go before we head out.”
The big dog happily followed her out the door.
I got on the phone and called Thomas’s apartment. There was no answer.
I tried Lara’s number, and Justine answered on the first ring. “Ms. Raith’s phone.”
“This is Harry Dresden,” I said.
“Hello, Mr. Dresden,” Justine replied, her tone businesslike and formal. She wasn’t alone. “How may I help you today?”
Now that the furor of the manhunt had blown over, my phone was probably safe to talk on. But only probably. I emulated Justine’s vocal mannerisms. “I’m calling to inquire after the condition of Thomas.”
“He’s here,” Justine said. “He’s resting comfortably, now.”
I’d seen what terrible shape Thomas was in. If he was resting comfortably, it was because he had fed, deeply and intently, with instinctive obsession.
In all probability, my brother had killed someone.
“I hope he’ll recover quickly,” I said.
“His caretaker—”
That would be Justine.
“—is concerned about complications arising from his original condition.”
I was quiet for a moment. “How bad is it?”
The businesslike meter of her voice changed, filling with raw anxiety. “He’s under sedation. There was no choice.”
My knuckles creaked as they tightened on the earpiece of the phone.
I left nothing behind. You don’t have words for the things I did to him.
“I’d like to visit, if that can be arranged.”
She recovered, shifting back into personal assistant mode. “I’ll consult Ms. Raith,” Justine said. “It may not be practical for several days.”
“I see. Could you let me know as soon as possible, please?”
“Of course.”
“My number is—”
“We have that information, Mr. Dresden. I’ll be in touch soon.”
I thanked her and hung up. I bowed my head and found myself shaking with anger. If that thing had done my brother as much harm as it sounded like, I was going to find the naagloshii and rip him to gerbil-sized pieces if I had to blow up every cave in New Mexico to do it.
Molly appeared in the doorway. “Harry? Cab’s here.”
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s go spoil someone’s day.”
I tried not to think too hard about the fact that Wile E. Coyote, Super Genius, pretty near always took a hideous beating at the hands of his foes, and finished the day by plunging off a two-mile-high cliff.
Well, then, Harry, I thought to myself, you’ll just have to remember not to repeat Wile E.’s mistake. If he would just keep going after he runs off the cliff, rather than looking down at his feet, everything would be fine.
They held the trial in Edinburgh.
There wasn’t much choice in that. Given the recent threats to the Senior Council and the unexpected intensity of the attack at Demonreach, they wanted the most secure environment they could get. The trial was supposed to be held in closed session, according to the traditions of how such things were done, but this one was too big. Better than five hundred wizards, a sizable minority of the whole Council, would be there. Most of them would be allies of LaFortier and their supporters, who were more than eager to See Justice Done, which is a much prettier thing to do than to Take Bloodthirsty Vengeance.
Molly, Mouse, and I took the Way, just as I had before. This time, when I reached the door, there was a double-sized complement of Wardens on duty, led by the big Scandinavian, all of them from the Old Guard. I got a communal hostile glare from them as I ap
proached, with only a desultory effort to disguise it as indifference. I ignored it. I was used to it.
We went into the complex, past the guard stations—they were all fully manned, as well—and walked toward the Speaking Room. Maybe it said something about the mind-set of wizards in general that the place was called “the Speaking Room” and not “the Listening Room” or, in the more common vernacular, “an auditorium.” It was an auditorium, though, rows of stone benches rising in a full circle around a fairly small circular stone stage, rather like the old Greek theaters. But before we got to the Speaking Room, I turned off down a side passage.
With difficulty, I got the Wardens on guard to allow me, Mouse, and Molly into the Ostentatiatory while one of them went to Ebenezar’s room and asked him if he would see me. Molly had never been into the enormous room before, and stared around it with unabashed curiosity.
“This place is amazing,” she said. “Is the food for the bigwigs only, or do you think they’d mind if I ate something?”
“Ancient Mai doesn’t weigh much more than a bird,” I said. “LaFortier’s dead, and they haven’t replaced him yet. I figure there’s extra.”
She frowned. “But is it supposed to be only for them?”
I shrugged. “You’re hungry. It’s food. What do you think?”
“I think I don’t want to make anyone angry at me. Angrier.”
The kid has better sense than I do, in some matters.
Ebenezar sent the Warden back to bring me up to his room at once, and he’d already told the man to make sure Molly was fed from the buffet table. I tried not to smile, at that. Ebenezar was of the opinion that apprentices were always hungry. Can’t imagine who had ever given him that impression.
I looked around his receiving room, which was lined with bookshelves filled to groaning. Ebenezar was an eclectic reader. King, Heinlein, and Clancy were piled up on the same shelves as Hawking and Nietzsche. Multiple variants of the great religious texts of the world were shamelessly mixed with the writings of Julius Caesar and D. H. Lawrence. Hundreds of books were handmade and handwritten, including illuminated grimoires any museum worth the name would readily steal, given the chance. Books were crammed in both vertically and horizontally, and though the spines were mostly out, it seemed clear to me that it would take the patience of Job to find anything, unless one remembered where it had been most recently placed.
Only one shelf looked neat.
It was a row of plain leather-bound journals, all obviously of the same general design, but made with subtly different leathers, and subtly different dyes that had aged independently of one another into different textures and shades. The books got older and more cracked and weathered rapidly as they moved from right to left. The leftmost pair looked like they might be in danger of falling to dust. The rightmost journal looked new, and was sitting open. A pen held the pages down, maybe thirty pages in.
I glanced at the last visible page, where Ebenezar’s writing flowed in a strong, blocky style.
. . . seems clear that he had no idea of the island’s original purpose. I sometimes can’t help but think that there is such a thing as fate—or at least a higher power of some sort, attempting to arrange events in our favor despite everything we, in our ignorance, do to thwart it. The Merlin has demanded that we put the boy under surveillance at once. I think he’s a damn fool.
Rashid says that warning him about the island would be pointless. He’s a good judge of people, but I’m not so sure he’s right this time. The boy’s got a solid head on his shoulders, generally. And of all the wizards I know, he’s among the three or four I’d be willing to see take up that particular mantle. I trust his judgment.
But then again, I trusted Maggie’s, too.
Ebenezar’s voice interrupted my reading. “Hoss,” he said. “How’s your head?”
“Full of questions,” I replied. I closed the journal, and offered him the pen.
My old mentor’s smile only touched his eyes as he took the pen from me: he’d intended me to see what he’d written. “My journal,” he said. “Well. The last three are. The ones before that were from my master.”
“Master, huh?”
“Didn’t used to be a dirty word, Hoss. It meant teacher, guide, protector, professional, expert—as well as the negative things. But it’s the nature of folks to remember the bad things and forget the good, I suppose.” He tapped the three books previous to his own. “My master’s writings.” He tapped the next four. “His master’s writings, and so on, back to here.” He touched the first two books, very gently. “Can’t hardly read them no more, even if you can make it through the language.”
“Who wrote those two?”
“Merlin,” Ebenezar said simply. He reached past me to put his own journal back up in place. “One of these days, Hoss, I think I’ll need you to take care of these for me.”
I looked from the old man to the books. The journals and personal thoughts of master wizards for more than a thousand years? Ye gods and little fishes.
That would be one hell of a read.
“Maybe,” Ebenezar said, “you’d have a thought or two of your own, someday, that you’d want to write down.”
“Always the optimist, sir.”
He smiled briefly. “Well. What brings you here before you head to the trial?”
I passed him the manila envelope Vince had given me. He frowned at me, and then started looking through pictures. His frown deepened, until he got to the very last picture.
He stopped breathing, and I was sure that he understood the implication. Ebenezar’s brain doesn’t let much grass grow under its lobes.
“Stars and stones, Hoss,” Ebenezar said quietly. “Thought ahead this time, didn’t you?”
“Even a broken clock gets it right occasionally,” I said.
He put the papers back in the envelope and gave it back to me. “Okay. How do you see this playing out?”
“At the trial. Right before the end. I want him thinking he’s gotten away with it.”
Ebenezar snorted. “You’re going to make Ancient Mai and about five hundred former associates of LaFortier very angry.”
“Yeah. I hardly slept last night, I was so worried about ’em.”
He snorted.
“I’ve got a theory about something.”
“Oh?”
I told him.
Ebenezar’s face darkened, sentence by sentence. He turned his hands palm up and looked down at them. They were broad, strong, seamed, and callused with work—and they were steady. There were scabs on one palm, where he had fallen to the ground during last night’s melee. Ink stained some of his fingertips.
“I’ll need to take some steps,” he said. “You’d best get a move on.”
I nodded. “See you there?”
He took his spectacles off and began to polish the lenses carefully with a handkerchief. “Aye.”
The trial began less than an hour later.
I sat on a stone bench that was set over to one side of the stage floor, Molly at my side. We were to be witnesses. Mouse sat on the floor beside me. He was going to be a witness, too, though I was the only one who knew it. The seats were all filled. That was why the Council met at various locations out in the real world, rather than in Edinburgh all the time. There simply wasn’t enough room.
Wardens formed a perimeter all the way around the stage, at the doors, and in the aisles that came down between the rows of benches. Everyone present was wearing his or her formal robes, all flowing black, with stoles of silk and satin in one of the various colors and patterns of trim that denoted status among the Council’s members. Blue stoles for members, red for those with a century of service, a braided silver cord for acknowledged master alchemists, a gold-stitched caduceus for master healers, a copper chevron near the collar for those with a doctorate in a scholarly discipline (some of the wizards had so many of them that they had stretched the fabric of the stole), an embroidered white Seal of Solomon for master exorcists and so
on.
I had a plain blue stole with no ornaments whatsoever, though I’d been toying with the idea of embroidering “GED” on it in red, white, and blue thread. Molly was the only one in the room wearing a brown robe.
People were avoiding our gazes.
The White Council loved its ceremonies. Anastasia Luccio appeared in the doorway in her full regalia, plus the grey cloak of the Wardens. Her arm was still in a sling, but she carried the ceremonial staff of office of the Captain of the Wardens in one hand. She entered the room, and the murmuring buzz of the crowd fell silent. She slammed the end of the staff three times upon the floor, and the six members of the Senior Council entered in their dark robes and purple stoles, led by the Merlin. They proceeded to the center rear of the stage and stood solemnly. Peabody appeared, carrying a lap-sized writing desk, and sat down on the far end of the bench from Molly and me, to begin taking notes, his pen scratching.
I put my hand on Mouse’s head and waited for the show to begin—because that’s all this was. A show.
Two more Wardens appeared with a bound figure between them. Morgan was brought in and stood as all accused brought before the Council did—with his hands bound in front of him and a black hood over his head. He wasn’t in any shape to be walking, the idiot, but he was managing to limp heavily along without being physically supported by either Warden. He must have been on a load of painkillers to manage it.
The Merlin, speaking in Latin, said, “We have convened today on a matter of justice, to try one Donald Morgan, who stands accused of the premeditated murder of Senior Council Member Aleron LaFortier, conspiracy with the enemies of the White Council, and treason against the White Council. We will begin with a review of the evidence.”
They stacked things up against Morgan for a while, laying out all the damning evidence. They had a lot of it. Morgan, standing there with the murder weapon in his hand, over the still-warm corpse. The bank account with slightly less than six million dollars suddenly appearing in it. The fact that he had escaped detention and badly wounded three Wardens in the process, and subsequently committed sedition by misleading other wizards—Molly and I were just barely mentioned by name—into helping him hide from the Wardens.