by Jim Butcher
The team began discarding gloves and such, and fell into a line to begin jogging around the exterior of the park, in no great hurry, talking and laughing as they went. I noticed that Kelly was among them and felt a little less like a complete incompetent.
“I’d really like to keep my brains on the inside of my skull,” I told him when he sat down again. “And if one of the Church’s top guys is leaking information or has sprung a gear, they need to know it.”
“Yes.”
I stared out at the now-empty softball diamond for a minute. Then I said, “I don’t want to kill anybody. But Buzz is playing for keeps. I’m not going to pull any punches.”
Michael frowned down at his hands. “Harry. You’re talking about murder.”
“What a shock,” I said, “after taking one of those monster rounds in the back.”
“There must be some way to end this without bloodsh—”
Over his shoulder, I saw Molly abruptly spring to her feet and whip off her sunglasses, staring across the park with a puzzled frown on her face. Then the girls from the team appeared from the direction Molly had been staring. The girls were running as fast as they could, screaming as they came.
“Coach!” screamed Kelly. “Coach! The man took her!”
“Easy, easy,” Michael said, rising. He put his hands on Kelly’s shoulders as Molly came hurrying over. “Easy. What are you talking about?”
“He came out of the van with one of those electric stunner things,” Kelly babbled, through her panting. “He zapped her and then he put her in the van and drove away.”
Molly drew in a sudden breath and almost seemed to turn green.
Michael stared at the girl for a second, and then glanced at me. His eyes widened in horror. “Alicia!” he called, stepping past Kelly and looking wildly around the park. “Alicia!”
“He took her!” sobbed Kelly, her tears making her face blotchy. “He took her!”
“Kelly,” I said, to get her attention. “What did he look like?”
She shook her head. “I don’t, I can’t . . . White, not really tall. His hair was cut really short. Like army haircuts.”
Buzz.
He’d threatened Michael to get me to bring a sword out in the open, where it was vulnerable. Then he’d tried to kill me before I locked it away again. And when that failed, he tried something else.
“Molly,” Michael said quietly. “Take the truck. Drive Sandra and Donna home. Call your mother on the way and tell her what’s happened. Stay at the house.”
“But—” Molly began.
Michael turned hard eyes to her and said, “Now.”
“Yes, sir,” Molly said, instantly.
Michael tossed her the keys to the truck. Then he turned to a nearby equipment bag and smoothly withdrew an aluminum bat. He whipped it around in a flowing rondello motion, nodded as if satisfied, and turned to me. “Let’s go. You’re driving.”
“Okay,” I said. “Where?”
“St. Mary’s,” Michael said, his tone positively grim. “I’m going to talk to Forthill.”
Forthill had just finished giving evening Mass when we showed up. Father Paulo greeted Michael like a long-lost son, and how was he doing, and of course we could wait for Forthill in his chambers. I suspected Paulo held deep reservations in regards to me. But that was okay. I wasn’t feeling particularly trusting toward him, either.
We’d been waiting in Forthill’s quarters for maybe five minutes when the old priest came in. He took one look at Michael and got pale.
“Talk to me about the order,” Michael said quietly.
“My son,” Forthill said. He shook his head. “You know that I—”
“He’s taken Alicia, Tony.”
Forthill’s mouth dropped open. “What?”
“He’s taken my daughter,” Michael roared, his voice shaking the walls. “I don’t care what oaths you’ve sworn. I don’t care what the Church thinks needs to be kept secret. We have to find this man and find him now.”
I blinked at Michael and found myself leaning a little away from him. The heat of his anger was palpable, a living thing that brought its own presence, its own gravity, into the room.
Forthill faced that anger like an old rock thrusting up stubbornly through a turbulent sea—worn and unmoving. “I will not break my oaths, Michael. Not even for you.”
“I’m not asking you to do it for me,” Michael said. “I’m asking you to do it for Alicia.”
Forthill flinched. “Michael,” he said quietly. “The order maintains security for a reason. Its enemies have sought to destroy it for two thousand years, and in that time the order has helped hundreds of thousands, even millions. You know that. A breach could put the entire order at risk—and that means more than my life, or yours.”
“Or an innocent child’s, apparently,” I said. “I guess you’re going to take that ‘suffer the little children to come unto Me’ thing kind of literally, eh, padre?”
Forthill looked from Michael to me, and then to the floor. He took a slow breath, and then smoothed his hands over his vestments. “It never gets any easier, does it? Trying to work out the right thing to do.” He answered his own question. “No. I suppose it’s often simpler to determine the proper path than it is to actually walk it.”
Forthill rose and walked over to a section of the wood-paneled wall. He put his hands at the top right and lower left section of the panel, and with a grunt, pushed it in. It slid aside, revealing a space the size of a closet, filled with file cabinets and a small bookshelf.
I traded a glance with Michael, who raised his eyebrows in surprise. He hadn’t known about the hidey-hole.
Forthill opened a drawer and started thumbing through files. “The Ordo Malleus has existed, in one form or another, since the founding of the Church. Originally, we were tasked with the casting out of demons from the possessed, but as the Church grew, it became clear that we needed to be able to counter the threats from other enemies as well.”
“Other enemies?” I asked.
“Various beings who were masquerading as gods,” Forthill said. “Vampires and other supernatural predators. Wicked faeries who resented the Church’s influence.” He glanced at me. “Practitioners of witchcraft who turned their hand against the followers of Christ.”
“Hell’s bells,” I muttered. “The Inquisition.”
Forthill grimaced. “The Inquisition has become the primary reason Malleus maintains itself in secrecy—and why we very seldom engage in direct action ourselves. It’s all too easy to let power go to your head when you’re certain that God is on your side. The Inquisition, in many ways, attempted to bring our struggle into the light—and because of the situation it helped create, more innocent men and women died than centuries of the most savage supernatural depredation.
“We support the Knights of the Cross and do whatever we can to counsel and protect God’s children against supernatural threats—the way we protected the girl you brought to me the year Michael’s youngest was born. Now the order recruits people singly, after years of personal observation, and maintains the highest levels of personal, ethical integrity humanly possible.” He turned to us, with a file folder in his hands. “But as you pointed out earlier, Harry. We’re only human.”
I took the folder from him, opened it, and found Buzz’s picture. I recognized the short haircut, and the severe lines of his chin and jaw. His eyes were new to me, though. They were as grey as stone, but less warm and fuzzy.
“Father Roarke Douglas,” I read. “Age forty-three. Five eleven, hundred eighty-five. Sniper for the Rangers, trained in demolitions, U.S. Army Chaplain, parish priest in Guatemala, Indonesia, and Rwanda.”
“Good Lord preserve us,” Michael said.
“Yeah. A real holy warrior,” I said. I eyed Forthill. “And this guy was brought in?”
“I’ve met Roarke on several occasions,” Forthill said. “I was always impressed with his reserve and calm in the face of crisis. He repeatedly distingu
ished himself by acts of courage in protecting his parishioners in some of the most dangerous locations in the world.” He shook his head. “But he . . . changed, in the last few years.”
“Changed,” Michael said. “How?”
“He became a strong advocate for . . . preemptive intervention.”
“He wanted to hit back first, eh?” I asked.
“You wouldn’t say that if you’d seen what life can be like in some of the places Father Douglas has lived,” Forthill said. “It’s not so simple.”
“It never is,” I said.
“He was, in particular, an admirer of Shiro’s,” Forthill continued. “When Shiro died, he was devastated. They had worked together several times.”
“The way you worked with Michael,” I said.
Forthill nodded. “Roarke was . . . not satisfied with the disposition of Fidelacchius. He made it known to the rest of Malleus, too. As time went by, he became increasingly frustrated that the sword was not being put to use.”
I could see where this one was going. “And then I got hold of Amoracchius, too.”
Forthill nodded. “He spent the last year trying to convince the senior members of Malleus that we had been deceived. That you were, in fact, an agent of an enemy power, who had taken the swords so that they could not be used.”
“And no one thought to mention the way those archangels gave orders that I was supposed to hold them?”
“They never appear to more than one or two people at a time—and you are a wizard, Harry,” Forthill said. “Father Douglas hypothesized that you had created an illusion to serve your purpose, or else had tampered directly with our minds.”
“And now he’s on a crusade,” I muttered.
Forthill nodded. “So it would seem.”
I kept on reading the file. “He’s versed in magic—well enough, at least, to be smart about how he deals with me. Contacts in various supernatural communities, like the Venatori Umbrorum, which probably explains that protective amulet.” I shook my head. “And he thinks he’s saving the world. The guy’s a certifiable nightmare.”
“Where is he?” Michael asked quietly.
“He could be anywhere,” Forthill replied. “Malleus sets up caches of equipment, money, and so forth. He could have tapped into any one of them. I tried his cell phone. He’s not returning my calls.”
“He thinks you’ve been mindscrambled by the enemy,” I muttered. “What did you expect to accomplish?”
“I had hoped,” Forthill said gently, “that I might ask him to be patient and have faith.”
“I’m pretty sure this guy believes in faith through superior firepower.” I closed the file and passed it back to Forthill. “He tried to kill me. He abducted Alicia. As far as I’m concerned, he’s off the reservation.”
Forthill’s expression became distressed as he looked at me. He turned to Michael, beseeching.
Michael’s face was bleak and unyielding, and quiet heat smoldered in his eyes. “The son of a bitch hurt my little girl.”
I rocked a step backward at the profanity. So did Forthill. The room settled into an oppressive silence.
The old priest cleared his throat after a moment. He put the file back in the cabinet and closed the door. “I’ve told you what I know,” he said. “I’m only sorry that I can’t do more.”
“You can find her, can’t you?” Michael asked me. “The way you found Molly?”
“Sure,” I said. “But he’s bound to be expecting that. Magic isn’t a cure-all.”
“But you can find her.”
I shrugged. “He can’t stop me from finding her, but he can damn well make sure that something happens to her if I do.”
Michael frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Maybe he stashes her in a box that’s being held fifty feet above the ground with an electromagnet, so that when I get close with an active spell up and running, it shorts out and she falls. The bastard is smart and creative.”
Michael’s knuckles popped as his hands closed into fists.
“Besides,” I said. “We don’t need to find him.”
“No?”
“No,” I said. “We’ve got the swords. He’s got the girl.” I turned to go. “He’s going to find us.”
Father Douglas called Michael’s house later that night, and asked for me. I took the call in Michael’s office.
“You know what I want,” he said, without preamble.
“Obviously,” I said. “What do you have in mind?”
“Bring the swords,” he said. “Give them to me. If you do so without attempting any tricks or deceptions, I will release the girl to you unharmed. If you involve the police or attempt anything foolish, she will die.”
“How do I know you haven’t killed her already?”
The phone rustled, and then Alicia said, “H-Harry? I’m okay. H-he hasn’t hurt me.”
“Nor do I want to,” Father Douglas said, taking the phone back. “Satisfied?”
“Can I ask you something?” I said. “Why are you doing this?”
“I am doing God’s work.”
“Okay, that doesn’t sound too crazy or anything,” I said. “If you’re so tight with God, can you really expect me to believe that you’ll be willing to murder a teenage girl?”
“The world needs the swords,” he replied in a level, calm voice. “They are more important than any one person. And while I would never forgive myself, yes. I will kill her.”
“I’m just trying to get you to see the fallacious logic you’re using here,” I said. “See, if I’m such a bad guy to have stolen the swords, then why would I give a damn whether or not you murder some kid?”
“You don’t have to be evil to be ambitious—or wrong. You don’t want to see the girl harmed. Give me the swords and she won’t be.”
There clearly wasn’t going to be any profitable discussion of the situation here. Father Douglas was going to have his way, regardless of the impediments of trivial things like rationality.
“Where?” I asked.
He gave me an address. “The roof. You come to the east side of the building. You show me the swords. Then you come up and make the exchange. No staff, no rod. Just you.”
“When.”
“One hour,” he said, and hung up.
I put the phone down, looked at Michael, and said, “We don’t have much time.”
The building in question stood at the corner of Monroe and Michigan, overlooking Millennium Park. I had to park a couple of blocks away and walk in, with both swords stowed in a big gym bag. Father Douglas hadn’t specified where I was supposed to stand and show him the swords, but the streetlights adjacent to the building were all inexplicably dark except for one. I ambled over to the pool of light it cast down onto the sidewalk, opened the bag, and held out both swords.
It was hard to see past the light, but I thought I saw a gleam on the roof. Binoculars?
A few seconds later, a red light flashed twice from the same spot where I’d thought I had seen something.
This would be the place, then.
I’d brought my extremely illegal picklocks with me, but as it turned out, I didn’t need to use them. Father Douglas had already circumvented the locks and, presumably, the security system. The front door was open, as was the door to the stairwell. From there, it was just one long, thigh-burning hike up to the roof.
I emerged into cold, strong wind. You get up twenty stories or so and you run into that a lot. It ripped at my duster, and sent it to flapping like a flag.
I peered around the roof, at spinning heat pumps and AC units and various antennae, but saw no one.
The beam of a handheld floodlight hit me, and I whirled in place. The light was coming from the roof of the building next to mine. Father Douglas flipped it off, and after blinking a few times, I could see him clearly, standing in the wind in priestly black, his white collar almost luminous in the ambient light of the city. His grey eyes were shadowed, and he was maybe a day and a half past
time to shave. A long plank lay on the rooftop at his feet, which he must have used to move over.
Alicia sat in a chair next to him, her wrists bound to its arms, blindfolded, with a gag in her mouth.
Father Douglas lifted a megaphone. “That’s far enough,” he said. I could hear him over the heavy wind. “That’s detcord she’s tied up with. Do you know what that is?”
“Yeah.”
He held up his other hand. “This is the detonator. As long as it’s sending a signal, she’s fine. It’s a dead man switch. If I drop it or let it go, the signal stops and the cord goes off. If the receiver gets damaged and stops receiving the signal, the cord goes off. If you start using magic and destroy one of the devices, it goes off.”
“That’s way better than the electromagnet thing,” I muttered to myself. I raised my voice and bellowed, “So how do you want to do this?”
“Throw them.”
“Disarm the explosives first.”
“No. The girl stays where she is. Once I’m gone, I’ll send the code to disarm the device.”
I considered the distance. It was a good fifteen-foot jump to get from one rooftop to the other. An easy throw.
“Douglas,” I shouted. “Think about this for a minute. The swords aren’t just sharp and shiny. They’re symbols. If you take one up for the wrong reasons, you could destroy it. Believe me, I know.”
“The swords are meant for better things than to molder in a dingy basement,” he replied. He held up the detonator. “Surrender them now.”
I stared at him for a long second. Then I tossed the entire bag over. It landed at his feet with a clatter. He bent down to open it.
I steeled myself. This was about to get dicey. I hadn’t counted on the dead man switch or a fifteen-foot-long jump.
Father Douglas opened the bag and the smoke grenade Michael had rigged inside it in his workshop went off with a heavy thud. White smoke billowed back into his face, and I took three quick steps and hurled myself into the air. For an awful portion of a second, twenty stories of open air yawned beneath me, and then I hit the edge of the other roof and collided with Father Douglas. We went down together.