by Jim Butcher
“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.”
“Your enemy has captives?” I asked. “Right now?”
She nodded and said, “On the ship, belowdecks. While they are captive, there will be no tribute.”
“Well, then,” I said. I exchanged a glance with Carlos. He gave me a wolfish grin and nodded. I nodded back and said to Aluki, “The Warden and I are going to go get them out of there.”
She lifted her chin. “You can do this?”
“I can,” I said. “I will.”
There was a low thrum in the air as I spoke the words, and I felt something go click somew
here in my head. I had just made a promise.
And Winter kept its promises.
Aluki stared at me for a moment, then sagged, bowed her head, and nodded. “Very well.”
“Your people who were taken,” I said, “how will I know them?”
Nauja bared her teeth and spoke with her jaw clenched. “They took our children.”
“God, I love hero work,” Carlos said as we stepped back out into the storm. “No murky gray area, no anguished questions, no conflicting morality. Bad guys took some kids, and we’re gonna go get ’em out.”
“Right?” I asked him, and nodded. “This must be what my dad felt, all the time.”
“Knights of the Cross never have any missions they question?” Carlos asked.
“I think they get a different kind of question,” I said. “For Dad, it was always about saving everyone. Not just the victims. He had to try for the monsters, too.”
“Weird,” Carlos said.
“Not so weird,” I said. “Maybe if someone had offered a hand to the monsters, they wouldn’t have become monsters in the first place. You know?”
“I don’t,” Carlos said. “Maybe I’ve seen too many monsters.” He settled his weapons belt a little more comfortably on his hips and wrapped himself up in his cloak again. “Or too many victims. I don’t know.”
Our steps crunched in the sleet, and between that and the rattle of more sleet and the crash of waves on the shore, I almost didn’t hear his next words.
“About six months into the war,” he said, “I was carrying pliers with me, so that I could take vampire teeth as trophies. That was how much I hated them.”
I didn’t say anything. Carlos, like a lot of the other young Wardens of the Council, had been baptized in fire. Harry had spoken of it once while doing his best to shield me from the war. He’d felt horrible leading a team of children, as he saw it, into a vicious conflict between the White Council and the Red Court:
I feel like I’m putting them through a meat grinder. Even if they come home in one piece.
“You hated them. And then they were gone,” I said.
“Poof,” Carlos said. “War over.” He shook his head. “Odium interruptus. And then it was supposed to be back to business as usual again. Just supposed to move on. Only I never quite figured out how. And half the bunks in the barracks were empty.”
“Part of you misses it,” I said.
His lips tightened, though it wasn’t a smile. “I miss the certainty,” he said. “I miss how tight I was with the squad. The rest I can mostly do without.” He glanced at me and then away. “The Wardens’ job isn’t always simple. Or clean. I’ve done things I’m not proud of.”
“Haven’t we all?” I said.
We walked in silence for a few steps. Then he said, “Once we get these kids clear, I want to kiss you again.”
My tummy did a little happy cartwheel, and my heart sped up to keep it company. “Oh yeah? What if I don’t want to?”
He gave me a very direct, very intense look. His eyes were dark and hot and bold.
“You want to,” he said.
He wasn’t wrong.
We stole up to the Betsy Lee under my best veil, moving quick and quiet. We’d already worked out the plan. Carlos was going in first and was going to raise a hell of a racket and attract everyone’s attention. My job was to stay veiled, grab the kids, and get them off the ship.
Then we’d kill things.
But halfway across the deck toward the door leading below, Carlos paused. He tilted his head to one side and narrowed his eyes. He glanced at me, lifting his brows in an unspoken question.
I paused, frowned at him, and then looked carefully around the deck. It was empty. The boat rolled and pitched with the waves, but there was no other motion upon it. It was still and silent as a tomb. In fact . . .
It just felt empty, like an apartment with no furniture, like a school playground on the weekend.
Carlos suddenly moved faster, gliding to the stairs. He held up a hand, telling me to wait, and went down them in a rush. He reappeared within a minute.
“Empty,” he reported. “There’s no one down there.”
“Dammit, something must have tipped them off,” I said.
He nodded. “They’ve got eyes somewhere, all right.”
I went back to the dock and then to where it met dry land. I couldn’t see very well, but I murmured, “Akari,” flicked my wrist, and created an orb of glacial green light in the air over my right shoulder. Green was a good color for this kind of work. The mortal eye can detect more shades of green than any other color on the spectrum.
I cast back and forth, but it took only a few seconds to find what I was after: a depression in the accumulating sleet, the marks of the passage of many feet. “Carlos,” I said, and pointed at the ground. “Tracks.”
He came over and squinted down. “Aren’t these where they came back to the boat the first time?”
“Can’t be,” I said. “Our tracks from an hour ago are gone. These were made after we left.”
He lifted his eyebrows. “Seriously, Aragorn? Where’d you learn this stuff?”
“Mom taught me. She was scoutmaster for my brothers.”
“And to think I wasted my youth learning magic,” Carlos said. “Can you tell if the kids were with them?”
“Dammit, man. I’m a Faerie Princess, not a forensic analyst.” I jerked my head to tell him to follow me, and we set out after our quarry.
The trail ended at a church.
It was a Russian Orthodox church, complete with a couple of onion domes, and the sign out front read HOLY ASCENSION OF OUR LORD CATHEDRAL. It was also creepy and ominous as hell in the freezing night. Odd blue-green light glowed within the windows of the sanctuary. I thought I saw a shadow move past a window, sinuous and smooth, like a cruising shark.
“Oh,” Carlos said, stopping short. I could see calculations and connections forming behind his eyes. “Uh-oh.”
“What-oh?”
“This just got worse.”
“Why?”
He licked his lips nervously. “Uh. How much Lovecraft have you read?”
“I haven’t kept track,” I said. “Somewhere between zero and none. Should I have?”
“Probably,” he said. “It’s always the last thing a formally trained apprentice learns about.”
“I have a funny feeling my training wasn’t formal,” I said.
“Yeah. Neither was Harry’s. Have you heard of the Old Ones?”
“I don’t think it’s a very kind nickname for the Rolling Stones. They still put on a great show.”
He nodded and squinted at me. “I kind of need you to put on your serious face now.”
“That bad?” I asked.
“Maybe,” he said. “They’re . . . kind of a collection of entities. Really old, really powerful entities.”
“What, like gods?” I asked.
“Like the things gods have nightmares about,” he said.
“Outsiders.”
He nodded. “Only they aren’t outside. They’re here. Caged, bound, and sleeping, but they’re here.”
“That seems kind of dangerous.”
“Yes and no,” he said. “They feed on psychic energy. On fear. On the collective subconscious awareness of them that exists within humanity.”
I squinted at him. “Meaning what?”
“The more people who know about them and fear them, the more awake and more powerful they become,” he said. “That’s why the people who know about them don’t talk about them much.”
“What’s that got to do with the price of beer in Unalaska?”
“One of the Old Ones is known as the Sleeper. It’s said his tomb is somewhere under the Pacific. And that goddamned moron Lovecraft published stories and easy-to-remember rh
ymes about the thing.” He shook his head. “The signal boost gave the Sleeper enough power to influence the world. It has a number of cults. People get . . . infested, I guess. Slowly go insane. Lose their humanity. Turn into something else.”
I remembered the captain’s open mouth and writhing tentacles and shivered. “So you think that’s what is happening here? A Sleeper cult?”
“It’s the Holy Ascension of Our Lord Cathedral,” he pointed out. “That means something way different to a Sleeper cultist than it does to most folks. They aren’t exactly making it difficult to suss out.”
“Okay. So, how does that change anything about what we have to do tonight?”
He nodded toward the cathedral. “You feel that?”
“It’s capital-C creepy,” I said, and nodded.
“It’s worse than that,” he said. “It’s holy ground. Consecrated to the Sleeper. We go in there, we won’t be dealing with a bunch of ’roided-up fishermen with tentacle mouth. They’ll have power. It’s a nest of sorcerers in there.”
“Oh,” I said. “Ouch.” I thought about it for a moment. “So how does that change anything about what we have to do tonight?”
He bared his teeth. “Guess it doesn’t.”
“I guess it doesn’t,” I agreed.
“You know,” he said, “I am pretty damned valorous.”
“I know,” I said.
“But I am not stupid. You’re a Faerie Queen now, right?”
“Uh-huh, I guess,” I said.
“Couldn’t you whistle up a squad of ogres or something to help make this happen?”
I thought about it for a second and said, “Yeah, I could.”
“Maybe something like that should happen?” he suggested.
I was quiet for a second before I said, “No.”
“Uh-huh,” he said, and nodded. “Why not?”
“In the first place, it would take time to get them here. In the second, this is Miksani territory, and the ogres would have to arrange payment for intruding and observe customs, and it would take even longer. And in the third place . . .”
I blinked. Oh. That’s what Mab meant.