by Jim Butcher
Carlos let out a growl beneath his breath. “And we have a Third Law violation. And there’s no way that’s an accident or even badly misguided benevolence.”
“Assuming he’s mortal,” I whispered. “If he isn’t, then the laws don’t apply to him.”
“Either way, his head is coming off.”
“Cool,” I said. “Who is he?”
“Who cares?”
“What’s he doing here?”
“Breaking the Laws.”
“Uh-huh,” I said. “I wonder how many friends he has.”
In my peripheral vision, I could see the muscles along Carlos’s jaw contract and then relax again. I glanced aside and saw him visibly force down his anger and shake his head a little. “I’m taking him down. Just as soon as I find out exactly who he is, how many buddies he has, and what designs he has on this town.”
“Oh,” I said innocently. “Is that not what you meant the first time?”
He started to mutter an answer when his fingers slipped on the slickened windowsill and he fell.
He didn’t make much noise—a little scrape on the wall and a thump as he hit the ground—but the captain’s head whipped around in a turn at least forty-five degrees too great to take place on a human neck, his eyes narrowed. He paused for about two seconds, and then spun on a heel and started walking for the door.
“Company,” I hissed to Carlos. I dropped down quietly from the window. My feet did not slip on the ice, because, hey, Queen of Winter over here. I moved quickly and crouched over him, putting my hands lightly on his chest. “Stay flat and stay still. I’ll keep you covered.”
He looked down at my hands and gave me a quick glance; then his expression went focused and stoic and he lay back on the sleet-covered ground.
I did everything I could to shore up the veil covering us both. The captain stepped out of the Elbow Room and looked around, and I got a close look at the man for the first time.
There was visibly something wrong with him. At a casual glance, it might have looked like he’d simply been exposed to a little too much cold and ultraviolet radiation and freezing salt water. But the cracks in his skin were a little too sharp edged, the reddened portions a little too brightly colored for that. I got the slow and horrible impression that his skin was trying to contain too much mass, like an overstuffed sausage. There were what looked like the beginnings of cataracts in his eyes—only their edges quivered and wobbled, like living things.
That was pretty weird, even by my standards.
It got absolutely hentai-level weird when the man opened his mouth and then opened it a little wider, and then opened it until his jaw visibly unhinged and a writhing tangle of purplish red tentacles emerged and thrashed wildly at the air, as if grasping for scents.
I felt my mouth stretch into a widening grin. A sleet storm was a terrible place for scent hunting. I couldn’t tell you how I knew that, but I knew it as certainly as I knew that he hadn’t noticed the flaws in my veil. This was not the territory of this creature, whatever it was. It was mine.
The tentacles withdrew with a whipping motion, like a frog recovering its tongue. The captain swayed from foot to foot, looking around the night for a moment, and then turned and paced back into the bar. A moment later, the whole weirdly silent column of fisherman freaks, including Clint, marched out of the bar and back down the hill toward the harbor. Clint was walking on his broken knee as if it didn’t particularly bother him that it was bent inward like that.
“What the hell?” Carlos breathed as they walked away. “What was that?”
“Right?” I asked him. An absolutely mad giggle came wriggling up out of my belly. “That was the most messed-up thing I have ever seen from that close.” I looked down at him, put my hand up to my mouth, and made gargling sounds while wiggling my fingers like tentacles.
And suddenly I realized that I was straddling Carlos Ramirez. And that he was staring at me with dark eyes that I felt like I could look at for a good, long while.
“Do you know what I want to do?” I asked him.
He licked his lips and then glanced at the retreating group. “Follow them?”
“Yes, all right,” I said, and swallowed. “Follow them. We can also do that.” I rose and helped him up.
“Wait. What?”
“I’m flirting with you, dummy,” I said, and smiled at him. “What, you can’t work and banter at the same time? After all your big talk?”
He lifted a hand, closed his eyes, and pinched the bridge of his nose for a moment. “Dios. This … is very much not what I was expecting for this evening. And hang on.” He ducked back around the corner of the Elbow Room, and a moment later emerged with a small bundle of gear. In a few seconds, he was donning the grey cloak of the Wardens of the White Council and buckling on a weapons belt that bore a sword on one side and a large pistol on the other.
“Swords and guns,” I said. “Hot.” I picked up a corner of the cloak and wrinkled my nose. “This, though … Not.”
“Wardens do a lot of good,” he said quietly. “It isn’t always pretty, what we do, but it needs to be done.” He nodded toward the retreating backs of the captain and his crew. “Like those … things. Someone has to do something.” He smiled faintly as he started walking in their wake. “You and Dresden can’t be everywhere.”
I watched him for a moment, taking in details. “You’re limping,” I noted. It was a weakness, and it stood out to me. It might not have before.
“Should have seen me a month ago,” he said. “Could barely get out of my chair. Chupacabra kicked me in the back. Come on.”
I could see the pain in his movements now, and cataloged them on pure reflex. His back was too rigid, much more so than it had been before. The fall from the window had aggravated injuries that hadn’t healed properly. That could be used against him.
I wish thoughts like that didn’t come to me so naturally, but after months fighting the Fomor on Chicago’s streets, months under the instruction of the Leanansidhe, they were second nature.
I folded my arms against a little chill that had nothing to do with the weather and hurried after the handsome young Warden.
THE WEATHER CONTINUED worsening as we reached the waterfront. It wasn’t far from the Elbow Room, but far was a relative term when a viciously cold wind was driving sleet and icy spray up the slope and into our faces. To me, it was brisk but actually a little bit pleasant. But for the sake of camaraderie, and definitely not because I wanted to conceal my increasing levels of weirdness from Carlos, I emulated him. I bowed my head against the wind and hunched my shoulders while hugging my own stomach.
“Who would live in this?” Carlos growled, shuddering.
“People smart enough to stay indoors during this kind of weather?” I suggested. “Tentacular parasites? Obstinate wizards? You come to Alaska but you don’t plan for the cold?”
He couldn’t really roll his eyes very well when his lashes were becoming steadily encased in ice, but he came close. “Maybe you’d like it back in your cell, Your Highness.”
I flashed him a quick grin, and then we kept on following the captain and his crew. They wasted no time in marching back to a waterfront pier and boarding a ship with the name Betsy Lee painted across her stern. They filed up the gangplank, neat as you please, and went belowdecks, all without hesitating or looking back—and all in total silence.
We watched for a moment more, and then Carlos nodded and said, “I’m thinking freak fuel explosion. Boat burns to the water in moments, takes them with it.”
“Wow,” I said.
“Not yet,” he said. “Not until I’m sure it’s only them. Just thinking of the shape of things to come.”
I looked up and down the waterfront, what I could see of it through the weather, and said, “Well, we’re not sitting out here all night and babysitting the boat.” And we weren’t going to be moving quietly around the Betsy Lee, either, not with all that ice on the deck.
But I could.
“Whoa,” Carlos said. “What? Molly …”
I ignored him and ran lightly over the short distance to the dock and down it, and then leapt lightly out onto the deck of the ship. My feet didn’t slip, and a continuous series of rippling shivers ran up and down my spine. I was putting myself in danger, treading into the territory of what was clearly a dangerous predator, and it felt really, really good.
Is that what happened to Maeve? Had she gotten a little too fond of the feeling of danger? I mean, she’d spent years defying freaking Mab. Could it get more dangerous than that?
I shook my head and started scouting the ship, relying on my instincts. Harry’d always been a good source of advice about problems. He dealt with them on a continuous basis, after all, and in his studied opinion, if you had one problem, you had a problem. But if you had multiple problems, you might also have an opportunity. One problem, he swore, could often be used to solve another, and he had stories about a zombie tyrannosaurus to prove it.
The Miksani had several centuries’ worth of a spotless record in paying tribute to Mab. They’d stopped only a few years ago. As diverse and fickle as the beings of Faerie could be, they rarely did things for no reason. And, lo and behold, in this same little town in the middle of more nowhere than any other little town I had ever seen, tentacular weirdo critters were conducting a quiet reign of terror.
Chances that these two facts were unrelated? Probably close to zero.
I didn’t want to take foolish risks in the confined spaces belowdecks—that was a losing proposition for me, if it came to a confrontation. So I conducted a quick survey of the deck, the bridge, and the fishing paraphernalia stored on it, keeping my steps as light and silent as I could. I spotted it just before deciding to leave again: a single, dark feather gleaming with opalescence, pinned between two metal frames of what I presumed to be crab cages, stored and ready to drop into the sea.
I felt a little surge of triumph, took it, and leapt lightly back to the deck. I rejoined Carlos a moment later. He was sliding his gun into its holster. He’d been ready to start shooting if I got into trouble. And they say there are no gentlemen anymore.
“What’d you find?”
I held it up, grinning.
“Feather?”
“Not just a feather,” I said. “A cormorant feather.”
He peered at me. “How do you know that?”
I didn’t want to say something like I Googled it under Winter Law, but the mantle of power I’d inherited from Maeve knew all about Mab’s subjects, and the knowledge it contained flowed through me as certainly as lessons learned in childhood. “How do you think?” I asked instead.
He struck his head lightly with the heel of his hand and said, “Durr. The Miksani.”
“Elementary, Watson,” I said, and winked at him before I started walking. “I suggest you bring your pistol, just in case.”
“Just in case of what?” he asked, turning to follow.
“In case the Miksani decide they aren’t in the mood for company.”
ILIULIUK BAY is the next-best thing to four miles long, and that makes for a lot of shoreline. We had to walk around the bay to get to the portion of Unalaska that was physically farthest from the dock where the Betsy Lee was moored. The weather stopped worsening and held steady at torturously miserable levels. Carlos drew up his cloak’s hood and trudged along stoically.
It took time, but we reached a log building on the edge of town that bore a sign that read UNALASKA FISH MARKET. A pair of cormorants—large, dark seabirds—huddled on a protruding log at the building’s corner, taking partial shelter from the night beneath the eaves of the building’s roof. I could feel their dark, bright eyes on me as I approached the darkened building, but I didn’t head for the door. Instead I went straight to the birds.
“Greetings to the Miksani from the mistress of Arctis Tor,” I said in formal tones. “I, her appointed representative, have come for the tribute rightfully due the Winter Court. I believe that a meeting with your elders could produce positive results for all parties.”
The birds stared at me hard. Then, as one, their eyes swiveled to Carlos.
He lifted a hand and said, “Warden Ramirez of the White Council of Wizardry. I apologize for showing up at the last minute, but I come in peace, and would appreciate a meeting with your elders as well.”
The two birds stared at him for a moment and then looked at each other. One winged away into the night.
The other flapped its wings, soared down to the ground not far from us, and shimmered. A second later, the cormorant was gone, and an entirely naked young woman crouched where it had been a moment before. She had the bronze skin and almond eyes of someone with a generous helping of Native American blood in her veins, and her hair was nearly longer than she was, dark and glossy, with faint flickers of opalescence in it. She couldn’t have been older than me, and she was built like a swimmer, all supple muscle and muted curves.
Her eyes were agate hard. The anger boiled off her in waves.
“Now?” she demanded of me. “Now you come?”
“I’m kind of new at this,” I said. “This was actually my first stop. I’m Molly, the new Winter Lady.”
The girl narrowed her eyes, staring a hole in me as she did. She was silent for a full minute before she spat, “Nauja.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Nauja,” I said.
The simple pleasantry got a suspicious look and narrowed eyes in response. Apparently, Maeve had left quite an impression on the locals. That girl had been a real piece of work.
“I have nothing to say to you,” Nauja said, her tone carefully neutral. She turned to Carlos and inclined her head in something resembling politeness, only a lot stiffer. “Wizard Ramirez. We have heard of you, even here. You have done much for one so young.”
Carlos gave her his easy, confident grin. “Just wait until I’m old enough to get my driver’s license.”
Nauja stared at him for a second and then looked down sharply, her cheeks turning a few shades pinker. Not that I could really blame her. Carlos was pretty darned cute, and he could kiss. My lips tingled faintly in memory, and I folded my arms so that I could rub at my mouth unobtrusively.
Maybe three minutes later, the door to the fish market opened and candlelight shone weakly out into the foul weather of the night. Nauja rose immediately and walked inside. There was a young man about her age waiting inside, wearing a heavy flannel robe. He had another one waiting, and wrapped it around her shoulders carefully before nodding to us and standing aside so that we could enter.
We went in, and the young man shut the door behind us. It took a couple of seconds for our eyes to adjust to the low candlelight, and then I saw why the Miksani were so upset.
They were in the middle of a funeral.
A dead man of middle years, resembling Nauja enough to be her father or uncle, lay on a table in the middle of the room. He was dressed in a mix of practical modern clothing and native garb, maybe sealskin, richly decorated in beads and ivory. His hands were folded on his chest, and a bone knife or spearhead of some kind lay beneath them. Nauja and her male counterpart took up positions on either side of a woman of middle age who stood beside the body, her expression drawn with grief. The three of them stared at me expectantly.
Carlos stepped close enough to me that he was almost touching. His hip bumped mine deliberately, and he looked up at the rafters of the little market building.
Dozens of bright eyes were staring down at us. I couldn’t tell how many cormorants lurked in the rafters, but they were everywhere, and waiting with the silent patience of predators.
I dragged my eyes from them back to the elder woman facing me. “I am Molly, the new Winter Lady,” I said in what I hoped was a respectful, quiet tone. “I’ve come for the tribute.”
“I am Aluki,” said the woman in a quiet voice. She gestured toward the bier. “This is my husband,
Tupiak. We sent to you for help years ago.”
“I take it no help came,” I said.
Aluki stared at me. Nauja looked like she wanted to fling herself on me and rip my eyes out.
“Well, the problem has been addressed, and now I’m here,” I said. “Let’s set things straight.”
“What do you know of our troubles?” Aluki said.
“I know they’re on the Betsy Lee,” I said.
Nauja’s eyes suddenly became huge and black, and she all but quivered in place.
Carlos stepped between us and nodded respectfully. “Elder Aluki, I am Warden Ramirez of the White Council of Wizardry. We’ve been made aware of difficulties in this place. I’m here to help. If I can be of service in restoring balance to the Miksani, I will be glad to do so.”
Aluki inclined her head to Carlos. “We are not a wealthy people, Warden. I cannot ask for your help.”
Of course not. The Miksani were of Winter, and the Fae never gave or accepted gifts or services without equal recompense. The scales of obligation had to remain balanced at all times.
“You need not,” Carlos responded. “I’ve come to a bargain with Lady Molly, who has already offered payment on your behalf.”
Oh, that was an excellent gesture on Carlos’s part. And it worked. Aluki gave me another glance, one more thoughtful, before she nodded.
“My predecessor,” I said, “failed to make me aware of her obligations before she passed. Please tell me how Winter may assist you.”
“No,” Nauja hissed, surging toward me.
Aluki stopped the younger Miksani with a lifted hand, her eyes on me. Then she said, “Our enemy has arisen from the deeps and taken mortal shells. Each season, they take some of our number.”
“Take?” Carlos asked. He nodded toward the dead Miksani. “Like that?”
Aluki shook her head and spoke in a level, weary tone. “The enemy has power. Our people survive by hiding among the mortals. Few of us are warriors. Only Tupiak, Nauja, and Kunik had the power to challenge the enemy. They tried to rescue those who had been taken. They failed. My husband was wounded and did not survive.”