by Jim Butcher
“I’ll take the roll with me, just in case,” I said. “Can I get dressed, then?”
He sighed. “Try not to move too fast, okay? And be careful standing up. I don’t think the blood loss was too serious, but you might be a little dizzy for a while.”
I got up, slowly, and found my duffel bag. I pulled a set of fresh clothes out, ditched the rest of the tux, and tugged them on.
“So what are you doing?” Butters asked as I did. “Karrin’s been more tight-lipped than usual.”
“It’s better if I don’t say, for now,” I said. “But before I do anything else, I need to pay off a debt.”
He frowned at me. “What?”
I finished dressing, reached into the duffel bag, and withdrew a block of oak wood. It had taken me most of a month and several botched attempts to get the proportions correct, but in the end I had finally managed to carve a modestly accurate replica of a human skull. Once I’d gotten it carved, I’d boned it with tools I’d made from several curved and pointed sections of a deer’s antler Alfred had found for me, and then I’d gone to work. Now, the wooden skull was covered in neat, if crowded, inscriptions of runes and sigils much like those on my staff.
“Four months it took me to make this,” I said, and held it out to Butters. I didn’t know exactly who else was in the house, or how much they might hear, so I didn’t want to mention Bob the Skull out loud. The adviser-spirit was far too valuable and vulnerable a resource to advertise. “Give this to our mutual friend and tell him we’re even. He’ll be able to tell you what to do with it.”
Butters blinked several times. “Is this . . . what I think it is?”
I stepped closer to him and lowered my voice to a near whisper. “A backup vessel for him,” I confirmed. “Not as nice as the one he has, but it should protect him from sunrise and daylight if he needs it. I made a deal with him. I’m paying up.”
“Harry,” Butters said. He shook his head slowly. “I’m sure he’ll be very pleased.”
“No, he won’t,” I snorted. “He’ll bitch and moan about how primitive it is. But he’ll have it, and that’s the important thing.”
“Thank you,” Butters said in a carefully polite tone, and slipped the wooden skull into his bag. “I’ll get it to him.”
I blinked a couple of times. “Uh, man? Are you okay?”
He looked at me for a moment before turning back to the sink and continuing to wash things. “It’s been a long year,” he said. “And I haven’t slept in a while. That’s all.”
That wasn’t all. I mean, I’m not exactly a social genius, but I could see that he was clearly anxious about something.
“Butters?” I asked.
He shook his head and his voice came out harder and cooler than I would have expected. “You should probably stop asking, Harry.”
“Yeah, I should probably eat more vegetables, too,” I said, “but let’s face it. That isn’t going to happen. So what’s up?”
He sighed. Then he said, “Harry . . . did you ever read Pet Sematary?”
I frowned. “Yeah, like, a long time ago . . .” My stomach twisted a little. “What are you saying exactly? You think I came back wrong?”
“You were dead, man,” Butters said. “People were . . . Look, when you were here, you were the sheriff in town, in a lot of ways. You died and things started moving on Chicago. Not just the Fomor. Ghouls have been lurking around. Stuff came out of Undertown. The vampires started putting people in their pockets. Even the straights started to notice. Molly did what she could, but the price she was obviously paying to do it . . .”
I watched his face as he spoke. His eyes were focused out at a thousand yards, his hands moving more and more slowly. “And your ghost showed up, and that was . . . you know. Weird. But we all figured that, hey, you hadn’t lived like the rest of us. It figured you wouldn’t die the same way, either.”
“Technically, it was more of a code-blue situation . . . ,” I began.
“You didn’t say that at the time,” Butters said.
I opened my mouth and then closed it again. He was right. I hadn’t. I mean, I hadn’t known back then, but he’d had a considerable amount of time to get used to the idea of me being an ex-wizard.
“Then you show up again, when things are getting worse and worse,” he said, smiling faintly. “I mean, badass big brother Harry, back from the dead, man. I don’t think you can know what that was like for us. You’ve had the kind of power you have for so long, I think maybe you’ve got very little clue what it feels like to walk around without it. You don’t know what it was like to sit there helplessly as bad things happened to people while you couldn’t do more than fumble around and maybe help someone once in a blue moon.” He let out a bitter little laugh. “Oh, the skull could tell me all kinds of things. I’m not sure that made it any better, knowing all about what was happening, without having the strength to do anything but slink around and do little things when you could—just hardly ever when you wanted to.”
“Butters,” I said.
He didn’t hear me. “And then to suddenly see that protector back, when you thought he was gone for good, when things were getting even worse.” He shook his head, his eyes welling. “It was like an IV of pure hope, man. Superman had his cape again. The sheriff was back in town.”
I bowed my head. I was pretty sure I knew what was next, and I didn’t like it at all.
“Except . . . you weren’t back in town, were you,” he said. “You stayed out on Creepy Island. You didn’t do anything. And then Molly was gone, too, so we didn’t even have that going for us. Will and Georgia both got put in the hospital last year, you know. For a while we weren’t sure they were going to make it. They have a little girl now. She almost wound up an orphan. Everyone’s lost someone over the past couple of years, or knows someone who has. And you stayed on Creepy Island.”
“I had to,” I said.
Butter’s jawline hardened. “Try to see this from my perspective, Harry,” he said. “Ever since Chichén Itzá, you haven’t been you. Do you even get that?”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“You made a deal. With Mab,” he said simply. “You apparently died. Your ghost showed up claiming you had died, and got us all to do things. Then you show up alive again, only you’ve got freaky Winter faerie powers. You were here for a day before Molly was gone, with freaky Winter faerie powers of her own. And you’ve been back for a year, living out on that island where hardly anyone can get to you, not talking, not helping, not here.” He looked at me for the first time. “Not you. Not the you we all know. The guy who came to gaming every week. Who we went to drive-in movies with.”
I stuffed my hands in my pockets.
“I know that things happen to people,” he said. “And maybe you’ve got excellent and real reasons for doing what you’ve done. But . . . at the end of the day, there’s just no replacement for being here. We’re losing people. Kids. Old folks. Hell, there was this thing killing people’s pets for a while.” He turned back to his washing. “It’s enough to make a guy a little bit cynical. And now you show up again, only you’re not talking about what you’re doing. People are worried that you’re going to go bad like the other Winter Knights have.” He spun back to me, his dark eyes hard and pained. “And when you sit up from being sewn up, what’s the first thing you do? Hey, Butters? How you doing, Butters? Sorry about beating up your girlfriend? Didn’t mean to wreck your computer room, man? No. The first thing you start talking about is paying off a debt. Just like one of the Fae.”
Which made a cold chill go through my stomach. Butters might not have all the facts, he might not have the full story, but . . .
He wasn’t wrong.
He started slapping his stuff back into his bag, though his voice stayed gentle. “I’m afraid, man. I know what’s going on out there now, and it’s scary as hell. So you tell me, Harry. Should I be anxious about Superman hanging out with Luthor? When I find out more about what you’re dr
agging Karrin into, is it going to make me less worried? Because I’m not sure I know you anymore.”
It was maybe fifteen seconds before I could answer.
“It isn’t going to make you any less worried,” I said quietly. “And I still can’t talk to you about it.”
“Honesty,” he said. He nodded a couple of times. “Well. At least we’ve got that much. There’s orange juice in the fridge. Drink some. Get a lot of fluids in the next few days.”
Then Butters took his bag and walked out of the kitchen.
He looked at least as tired as I felt. And I could see how afraid he was, and how the fear had worn him down. He had doubts. Which, in this world, was only smart. He had doubts about me. That hurt. But they were understandable. Maybe even smart. And he’d been up-front with me about it all. That had taken courage. If I truly had been turning into the monster he feared, by being honest with me about it, he would’ve just painted a huge target on his face. He’d done it anyway—which meant that he wasn’t sure, and he was willing to risk it.
And most important, when I’d needed his help, he’d shown up and given it.
Butters was good people.
And he wasn’t wrong.
I heard quiet talking going on in the living room, between Butters and Karrin and another female voice—Andi, presumably. A moment later, the door opened and closed again. The quiet of an emptier house settled over the place.
Karrin appeared in the doorway.
“You heard that, huh?” I asked.
“Yeah,” she said. “I did.” She crossed to the refrigerator, opened it, and took out a jug of orange juice. She got a plastic drinking glass out of the cupboard and poured it full. Then she passed the juice to me.
I grimaced and drank some, then stared down at the rest. “You agree with him?”
“I understand him,” she said.
“But do you agree?”
“I trust you,” she said.
Three words. Big ones. Especially coming from her. For a moment, they filled the room, and I felt something tight in my chest ease out of me.
I looked up at her and smiled with one side of my mouth. She answered it.
“Maybe you shouldn’t,” I said.
The smile deepened around her eyes. “Maybe I’m a big girl who can make up her own mind.”
“Maybe you are,” I allowed.
“It’s been a hard year,” she said. “They’re tired, and scared. People lose faith sometimes. They’ll come around. You’ll see.”
“Thanks,” I said quietly.
She put her hand on my arm and squeezed, then let go of me. “I set Valmont up in the guest bedroom,” she said. “You’re in my room. I’m on the couch.”
“I’ll take the couch,” I said.
“You don’t fit on it, bonehead. You’re the one who got shot, remember? And I need you in the best shape possible if we’re going to do this.”
I swirled the orange juice in the glass. She had a point.
Mister appeared in the doorway, then flung himself at my shins. I pulled the injured one back so that his shoulder hit my left shin alone. I leaned down to rub his notched ear. “Where have you been, fuzzball?”
“It’s funny,” Karrin said. “He vanishes whenever Andi shows up for some reason.”
I remembered a scene of perfect havoc in the living room of my old apartment, and it made me smile. “Maybe she’s not a cat person,” I said.
“Drink your juice,” she said. I did. She filled up the glass and watched me drink it down again before she was satisfied.
“Okay,” she said. “Valmont’s already gone to bed. Go sleep. We’re getting an early start tomorrow, and you need to be sharp.”
This wasn’t my first rodeo, and Karrin had a point. You don’t survive situations like this by shorting yourself on vital rest for no reason. Besides, I’d already dealt with enough for one evening. Let the day’s trouble be enough for the day.
I headed back toward Karrin’s bedroom and paused as I entered the living room.
There were guns on the coffee table. Like, a lot of them, broken out on cloths, being cleaned, leaned against a nearby chair, where a large equipment bag waited to receive them. Karrin’s favorite little Belgian carbine was there, along with what looked like a couple of space guns. “New toys?” I asked.
“I’m a girl, Harry,” she said, rather smugly. “I accessorize.”
“Is that a bazooka?”
“No,” she said. “That is an AT4 rocket launcher. Way better than a bazooka.”
“In case we have to hunt dinosaurs?” I asked.
“The right tool for the right job,” she answered.
“Can I play with it?”
“No. Now go to bed.”
She settled down on the couch and started reassembling one of her handguns. I hesitated for a moment. Did I have the right to drag her into the kind of conflict I was about to start?
I bottled that thought real quick, with a follow-up question: Did I have the capability to stop her from being involved, at this point?
Karrin looked up at me and smiled, putting the weapon together as swiftly and as automatically as other people tie their shoes. “See you in the morning, Harry.”
I nodded. The best way to get her through this was to focus and get it done. She wouldn’t leave my side, even if I wanted her to. So stop dithering around, Harry, get your head in the game, and lay Nicodemus and company out so hard that they never have the chance to hurt her.
“Yep,” I said. “See you in the morning.”
Fourteen
Whatever it was about the mantle of Winter I held that sustained me during action, it didn’t seem to have nearly as much interest in looking after me once I was safe somewhere.
I had too many stitches to hop into Karrin’s shower, but I bathed myself as best I could with a washcloth and a sink full of warm water and a little soap, and then fell down in the bed. I’d been there for maybe ten seconds before the distant weariness became acute, and the low burn and dull ache of dozens of cuts and bruises swelled up to occupy my full attention.
I was too tired to care. I thought about getting up and getting some aspirin or something for maybe a minute and a half, and then sleep snuck up on me and sucker punched me unconscious.
I dreamed.
It was one of those fever dreams, noisy and bright and disjointed. I don’t remember many of the details—just that I could never keep up with what was happening, and I felt as though as soon as my eyes would focus on something, everything would change, and as soon as I caught up to the action that was happening in the dream, it would roar off in a different direction, leaving me struggling to reorient myself, trying to keep up the pace with my feet dragging in the mud. The whole while, I was conscious of several other Harry Dresdens in the dream, all of them operating a little ways off from me, doing their own confusion dance in parallel to mine, and we occasionally paused to wave at one another and exchange polite complaints.
Toward the end of it, I found myself driving along some random section of road in my old multicolored Volkswagen Bug, the Blue Beetle, scowling ahead through heavy rain. My apprentice, Molly, sat next to me.
Molly was in her midtwenties and gorgeous, though she still looked a little too lean to my eyes. Her hair, which had seemed to be colored at random ever since she was a teenager, was now long and white-blond. She wore old designer jeans, a blue T-shirt with a faded recycling symbol on it, and sandals.
“I hate dreams like this,” I said. “There’s no plot—just random weird things happening. I get enough of that when I’m awake.”
She looked at me as if startled and blinked several times. “Harry?”
“Obviously,” I said. “It’s my dream.”
“No,” she said, “it kind of isn’t. How are you doing this?”
I took my hands off the steering wheel long enough to waggle my fingers and say, in a dramatic voice, “Wizard.”
Molly burst out into a warm laugh. “Oh,
good Lord, it’s an accident, isn’t it? Are you finally off the island, then? How’s your head?”
At that, I blinked. “Wait. Molly?”
“Me,” she said, smiling, and leaned across the car. She snaked an arm around my neck for a second and leaned her head against my shoulder in a quick hug. There was a sense of warmth to the touch that went beyond the normal sense of a dream, a sense of another’s presence that was too absolute to question. “Wow, it’s good to hear from you, boss.”
“Wow,” I said. “How is this happening?”
“Good question,” she said. “I’ve been attacked in my dreams, like, fifty times since the New Year. I thought I had my defenses locked up pretty tight.”
“Attacked? By who?” I asked.
“Oh,” she said in an offhand tone, “the Sidhe, mainly.”
“Wait,” I said. “Aren’t you supposed to be their princess?”
“In the flesh, sure,” Molly said, her eyes sparkling. “In dreams, though, they can come at me anonymously, so every punk thinks he’s tough. It’s like the Internet for faeries.”
“What jerks,” I said.
“No,” she said, “not at all. Look, Harry, Maeve was a really, really awful Winter Lady. I have a job to do. The Sidhe just want to be sure I’m up for it. So they test me.”
“By coming at you?” I asked.
“Quietly, where Mab can’t see,” Molly said. “It actually kind of reminds me of when Mom used to leave me in charge of all my little brothers and sisters at home. Only more felonious.”
I blinked at that and let out a short bark of laughter.
“There, good, a smile,” she said. “They step up. I swat them down. It’s nothing personal,” she continued. “Then I get back to business. Which, by the way, is why you haven’t heard much from me. Sorry. I’ve had about a hundred and fifty years of Maeve’s backlog to deal with. What’s your excuse?”
“I’ve been sending messengers every day for the last six months,” I said.
Molly’s eyes widened, then narrowed. “Mab.”
“Mab.”
“Grrr,” she said. “You need me?”