by Jim Butcher
She grimaced, nodded, and we started toward the Tunnel of Terror together.
The old carnie woke up as we came up the ramp, let out a wheezing cough, and pointed to a sign that required us to give him three tickets each for the ride. I hadn’t bought any, and the ticket counter was more than far enough away for Maroon to scamper if we stopped to follow the rules.
“Sir,” Murphy said, “a man we’re looking for just went into your attraction, but he didn’t come out again. We need to go in and look for him.”
He blinked gummy eyes at Murphy and said, “Three tickets.”
“You don’t understand,” she said. “A fugitive may be hiding inside the Tunnel of Terror. We need to check and see if he’s there.”
The carnie snorted. “Three tickets, missy. Though it ain’t the nicest room you two could rent.”
Murphy’s jaw muscles flexed.
I stepped forward. “Hey, man,” I said. “Harry Dresden, PI. If you wouldn’t mind, all we need to do is get inside for five minutes.”
He eyed me. “PI, huh?”
I produced my license and showed it to him. He eyed it and then me. “You don’t look like no private investigator I ever saw. Where’s your hat?”
“In the shop,” I said. “Transmission gave out.” I winked at him and held up a folded twenty between my first and second fingers. “Five minutes?”
He yawned. “Naw. Can’t let nobody run around loose in there.” He reached out and took the twenty. “Then again, what you and your lady friend mutually consent to do once you’re inside ain’t my affair.” He rose, pulled a lever, and gestured at the car. “Mount up,” he leered. “And keep your, ah, extremities inside the car at all times.”
We got in, and I was nearly scalded by the steam coming out of Murphy’s ears. “You just had to play along with that one.”
“We needed to get inside,” I said. “Just doing my job, Sergeant.”
She snorted.
“Hey, Murph, look,” I said, holding up a strap of old, worn leather. “Seat belts.”
She gave me a look that could have scoured steel. Then, with a stubborn set of her jaw, secured the flimsy thing. Her expression dared me to object.
I grinned and relaxed. It isn’t easy to really get Murph’s goat and get away with it.
On the other side of the platform, the carnie pulled another lever, and a moment later the little cart started rolling forward at the blazing speed of one, maybe even two miles an hour. A dark curtain parted ahead of us, and we rolled into the Tunnel of Terror.
Murphy promptly drew her gun—it was dark, but I heard the scratch of its barrel on plastic as she drew it from its holder. She snapped a small LED flashlight into its holder beneath the gun barrel and flicked it on. We were in a cramped little tunnel, every surface painted black, and there was absolutely nowhere for Maroon to be hiding.
I shook out the charm bracelet on my left wrist, preparing defensive energies in case they were needed. Murph and I had been working together long enough to know our roles. If trouble came, I would defend us. Murphy and her Sig would reply.
A door opened at the end of the little hallway, and we rolled forward into an open set dressed to look like a rustic farmhouse, with a lot of subtle details meant to be scary—severed fingers at the base of the chicken-chopping stump, just below the bloody ax, glowing eyes appearing in an upstairs window of the farmhouse, that kind of thing. There was no sign of Maroon and precious little place for him to hide.
“Better get that seat belt off,” I told her. “We want to be able to move fast if it comes to that.”
“Yeah,” she said, and reached down, just as something huge and terrifying dropped onto the car from the shadows above us, screaming.
Adrenaline hit my system like a runaway bus, and I looked up to see a decidedly demonic scarecrow hanging a few feet above our heads, bouncing on its wires, and playing a recording of cackling, mad laughter.
“Jesus Christ,” Murphy breathed, lowering her gun. She was a little white around the eyes.
We looked at each other and both burst into high, nervous laughs.
“Tunnel of Terror,” Murphy said. “We are so cool.”
“Total badasses,” I said, grinning.
The car continued its slow grind forward, and Murphy unfastened the seat belt. We moved into the next area, meant to be a zombie-infested hospital. It had a zombie mannequin, which burst out of a closet near the track, and plenty of gore. We got out of the car and scouted a couple of spots where he might have been but wasn’t. Then we hopped into the car again before it could leave the set.
So it went, on through a ghoulish graveyard, a troglodyte-teaming cavern, and a literal Old West ghost town. We came up with nothing, but we moved well as a team, better than I could remember doing with anyone before. Everything felt as smooth and natural as if we’d been moving together our whole lives. We did it in total silence, too, divining what each other would do through pure instinct.
Even great teams lose a game here or there, though. We came up with diddly and emerged from the Tunnel of Terror with neither Maroon nor any idea where he’d gone.
“Hell’s bells,” I muttered. “This week has been an investigative suckfest for me.”
Murphy tittered again. “You said suck.”
I grinned at her and looked around. “Well,” I said, “we don’t know where Maroon went. If they hadn’t made us already, they have now.”
“Can you pick up on the signal-whatsit again?”
“Energy signature,” I said. “Maybe. It’s pretty vague, though. I’m not sure how much more precise I can get.”
“Let’s find out,” she said.
I nodded. “Right, then.” We started around the suspect circle of attractions, moving slowly and trying to blend into the crowds. When a couple of rowdy kids went by, one chasing the other, I put an arm around her shoulders and drew her into the shelter of my body so she wouldn’t get bowled over.
She exhaled slowly and did not step away from me.
My heart started beating faster.
“Harry,” she said quietly.
“Yeah?”
“You and me … Why haven’t we ever …” She looked up at me. “Why not?”
“The usual, I guess,” I said quietly. “Trouble. Duty. Other people involved.”
She shook her head. “Why not?” she repeated, her eyes direct. “All these years have gone by. And something could have happened, but it never did. Why not?”
I licked my lips. “Just like that? We just decide to be together?”
Her eyelids lowered. “Why not?”
My heart did the drum solo from “Wipeout.”
Why not?
I bent my head down to her mouth and kissed her, very gently.
She turned into the kiss, pressing her body against mine. It was a little bit awkward. I was most of two feet taller than she was. We made up for grace with enthusiasm, her arms twining around my neck as she kissed me, hungry and deep.
“Whoa,” I said, drawing back a moment later. “Work. Right?”
She looked at me for a moment, her cheeks pink, her lips a little swollen from the kiss, and said, “Right.” She closed her eyes and nodded. “Right. Work first.”
“Then dinner?” I asked.
“Dinner. My place. We can order in.”
My belly trembled in sudden excitement at that proposition. “Right.” I looked around. “So let’s find this thing and get it over with.”
We started moving again. A circuit around the attractions got me no closer to the source of the energy I’d sensed earlier.
“Dammit,” I said, frustrated, when we’d completed the pattern.
“Hey,” Murphy said. “Don’t beat yourself up about it, Harry.” Her hand slipped into mine, our fingers intertwining. “I’ve been a cop a long time. You don’t always get the bad guy. And if you go around blaming yourself for it, you wind up crawling into a bottle or eating your own gun.”
“Thank you,” I said quiet
ly. “But …”
“Heh,” Murphy said. “You said but.”
We both grinned like fools. I looked down at our entwined hands. “I like this.”
“So do I,” Murphy said. “Why didn’t we do this a long time ago?”
“Beats me.”
“Are we just that stupid?” she asked. “I mean, people, in general. Are we really so blind that we miss what’s right there in front of us?”
“As a species, we’re essentially insane,” I said. “So, yeah, probably.” I lifted our hands and kissed her fingertips. “I’m not missing it now, though.”
Her smile lit up several thousand square feet of the midway. “Good.”
The echo of a thought rattled around in my head: Insane …
“Oh,” I said. “Oh, hell’s bells.”
She frowned at me. “What?”
“Murph … I think we got whammied.”
She blinked at me. “What? No, we didn’t.”
“I think we did.”
“I didn’t see anything or feel anything. I mean, nothing, Harry. I’ve felt magic like that before.”
“Look at us,” I said, waving our joined hands.
“We’ve been friends a long time, Harry,” she said. “And we’ve had a couple of near misses before. This time we just didn’t screw it up. That’s all that’s happening here.”
“What about Kincaid?” I asked her.
She mulled over that one for a second. Then she said, “I doubt he’ll even notice I’m gone.” She frowned at me. “Harry, I haven’t been this happy in … I never thought I could feel this way again. About anyone.”
My heart continued to go pitty-pat. “I know exactly what you mean,” I said. “I feel the same way.”
Her smile warmed even more. “Then what’s the problem? Isn’t that what love is supposed to be like? Effortless?”
I had to think about that one for a second. And then I said, carefully and slowly, “Murph, think about it.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know how good this is?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“How right it feels?”
She nodded. “Yeah.”
“How easy it was?”
She nodded energetically, her eyes bright.
I leaned down toward her for emphasis. “It just isn’t fucked-up enough to really be you and me.”
Her smile faltered.
“My God,” she said, her eyes widening. “We got whammied.”
WE RETURNED TO the Tunnel of Terror.
“I don’t get it,” she said. “I don’t … I didn’t feel anything happen. I don’t feel any different now. I thought being aware of this kind of thing made it go away.”
“No,” I said. “But it helps sometimes.”
“Do you still … ?”
I squeezed her hand once more before letting go. “Yeah,” I said. “I still feel it.”
“Is it … Is it going to go away?”
I didn’t answer her. I didn’t know. Or maybe I didn’t want to know.
The old carnie saw us coming, and his face flickered with apprehension as soon as he looked at us. He stood up and looked from the control board for the ride to the entranceway to the interior.
“Yeah,” I muttered. “Sneaky bastard. You just try it.”
He flicked one of the switches and shambled toward the tunnel’s entrance.
I made a quick effort of will, raised a hand, and swept it in a horizontal arc, snarling, “Forzare!” Unseen force knocked his legs out from beneath him and tossed him into an involuntary pratfall.
Murphy and I hurried up onto the platform before he could get to his feet and run. We needn’t have bothered. The carnie was apparently a genuine old guy, not some supernatural being in disguise. He lay on the platform moaning in pain. I felt kind of bad for beating up a senior citizen.
But hey. On the other hand, he did swindle me out of twenty bucks.
Murphy stood over him, her blue eyes cold, and said, “Where’s the bolt-hole?”
The carnie blinked at her. “Wha?”
“The trapdoor,” she snapped. “The secret cabinet. Where is he?”
I frowned and walked toward the entranceway.
“Please,” the carnie said. “I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
“The hell you don’t,” Murphy said. She leaned down and grabbed the man by the shirt with both hands and leaned closer, a snarl lifting her lip. The carnie blanched.
Murph could be pretty badass for such a tiny thing. I loved that about her.
“I can’t,” the carnie said. “I can’t. I get paid not to see anything. She’ll kill me. She’ll kill me.”
I parted the heavy curtain leading into the entry tunnel and spotted it at once—a circular hole in the floor about two feet across, the top end of a ladder just visible. A round lid lay rotated to one side, painted as flat black as the rest of the hall. “Here,” I said to Murph. “That’s why we didn’t spot anything. By the time you had your light on, it was already behind us.”
Murphy scowled down at the carnie and said, “Give me twenty bucks.”
The man licked his lips. Then he fished my folded twenty out of his shirt pocket and passed it to Murphy.
She nodded and flashed her badge. “Get out of here before I realize I witnessed you taking a bribe and endangering lives by letting customers use the attraction in an unsafe manner.”
The carnie bolted.
Murphy handed me the twenty. I pocketed it, and we climbed down the ladder.
WE REACHED THE bottom and went silent again. Murphy’s body language isn’t exactly subtle—it can’t be, when you’re her size and working law enforcement. But she could move as quietly as smoke when she needed to. I’m gangly. It was more of an effort for me.
The ladder took us down to what looked like the interior of a buried railroad car. There were electrical conduits running along the walls. Light came from a doorway at the far end of the car. I moved forward first, shield bracelet at the ready, and Murphy walked a pace behind me and to my right, her Sig held ready.
The doorway at the end of the railroad car led us into a large workroom, teeming with computers, file cabinets, microscopes, and at least one deluxe chemistry set.
Maroon sat at one of the computers, his profile in view. “Dammit, Stu,” he snarled. “I told you that you can’t keep coming down here to use the john. You’ll just have to walk to one of the—” He glanced up at us and froze in midsentence, his eyes wide and locked on Murphy’s leveled gun.
“Stu took the rest of the night off,” I said amiably. “Where’s your boss?”
A door opened at the far end of the workroom and a young woman of medium height appeared. She wore glasses and a lab coat, and neither of them did anything to make her look less than gorgeous. She looked at us and then at Maroon and said, in a precise, British accent, “You idiot.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Good help is hard to find.”
The woman in the lab coat looked at me with dark, intense eyes, and I sensed what felt like a phantom pressure against my temples, as if wriggling tadpoles were slithering along the surface of my skin. It was a straightforward attempt at mental invasion, but I’d been practicing my defenses for a while now, and I wasn’t falling for something that obvious. I pushed the invasive thoughts away with an effort of will and said, “Don’t meet her eyes, Murph. She’s a vampire. Red Court.”
“Got it,” she said, her gun never moving from Maroon.
The vampire looked at us both for a moment. Then she said, “You need no introduction, Mr. Dresden. I am Baroness LeBlanc. And our nations are not, at the moment, in a state of war.”
“I’ve always been a little fuzzy on legal niceties,” I said. I had several devices with me that I could use to defend myself. I was ready to use any of them. A vampire in close quarters is nothing to laugh at. LeBlanc could tear off three or four of my limbs in the time it takes to draw and fire a gun. I watched her closely, ready
to act at the slightest semblance of an attack. “We both know the war is going to start up again eventually.”
“You are out of anything reasonably like your territory,” she said, “and you are trespassing upon mine. I would be well within my rights under the Accords to kill you and bury your torso and limbs in individual graves.”
“That’s the problem with this ride,” I complained to Murphy. “There’s nothing that’s actually scary in the Tunnel of Terror.”
“You did get your money back,” she pointed out.
“Ah, true.” I smiled faintly at LeBlanc. “Look, Baroness. You know who I am. You’re doing something to people’s minds, and I want it stopped.”
“If you do not leave,” she said, “I will consider it an act of war.”
“Hooray,” I said in a Ben Stein monotone, spinning one forefinger in the air like a New Year’s noisemaker. “I’ve already kicked off one war with the Red Court, and I will cheerfully do it again if that is what is necessary to protect people from you.”
“That’s irrational,” LeBlanc said. “Completely irrational.”
“Tell her, Murph.”
“He’s completely irrational,” Murphy said, her tone wry.
LeBlanc regarded me impassively for a moment. Then she smiled faintly and said, “Perhaps a physical confrontation is an inappropriate solution.”
I frowned. “Really?”
She shrugged. “Not all of the Red Court are battle-hungry blood addicts, Dresden. My work here has no malevolent designs. Quite the opposite, in fact.”
I tilted my head. “That’s funny. All the corpses piled up say differently.”
“The process does have its side effects,” she admitted. “But the lessons garnered from them serve only to improve my work and make it safer and more effective. Honestly, you should be supporting me, Dresden, not trying to shut me down.”
“Supporting you?” I smiled a little. “Just what is it you think you’re doing that’s so darned wonderful?”
“I am creating love.”
I barked out a laugh.
LeBlanc’s face remained steady, serious.
“You think that this, this warping people into feeling something they don’t want to feel is love?”