by Jim Butcher
The deep-voiced man thought about it for a moment and then grunted. Translation: Agreed. "How will you identify me?"
I snorted and said, "Park isn't huge, tough guy. And it ain't my first rodeo."
I hung up on him, then went back to my motorcycle and left, heading for Buttercup Park. A lighted sign hanging outside a bank told me it was a quarter after nine. The metro traffic grid was dying down for the night. I got there in a little more than fifteen minutes, parked my Harley in a garage, and made my way to where Georgia's high-dollar SUV was waiting in the same structure. I went around to the back and opened the hatch. Will was just finishing wrapping Marcy in what appeared to be several layers of duct tape, covering her in a swath from her hips to her deltoids, trapping her arms against her sides. She was wearing a simple sundress with, I assumed, nothing underneath. I guess when you change into a wolf, you don't take your ensemble with you-being trapped in undies made for a different species could prove awkward in a fight.
Will looked up and gave me a quick nod of greeting. "All set?"
"So far. You're sure you won't have a problem getting out?" I asked.
Will snorted. "Claws, fangs. It'll sting a bit, when it tears out the hair. Nothing serious."
"Spoken like someone who's never had his legs waxed," Marcy said in a nervous, forcedly jovial tone. She might have looked like a skinny little thing, but the muscles showing on her legs were lean and ropy.
Will tore off the end of the duct tape and passed the roll to me. He sat down on the open floor in the back of the SUV, the seats of which had been folded away to make room for the "prisoners." He stripped out of his shirt, leaving only a pair of loose sweats. I started wrapping him.
"Tighten your muscles," I said. "When I'm done, relax them. It should leave you enough room to maintain blood flow."
"Right," Will said. "Houdini." He contracted the muscles in his upper body and the duct tape creaked. Damn, the kid was built. Given that I was more or less leaning against his naked back to reach around him with the roll of tape, it was impossible not to notice.
Dresden hadn't been muscled as heavily as Will. Harry'd had a runner's build, all lean, tight, dense muscle that…
I clenched my jaw and kept wrapping tape.
"One more time," I said. "I meet the contact, then bring him here." I held up the SUV's remote control fob. "I'll disarm the security system so you know we're coming. If you hear me say the word red, it means things aren't going well. Get loose and help me jump the contact. We'll question him, find out where the other specials are being kept. Otherwise, sit tight, and make like you got hit with tranquilizer darts. I'll shadow you back to their HQ."
"What then?" Marcy asked.
"We'll have to play that by ear," I said. "If there aren't many of them, we'll hit them and get your people out. If they've got a lot of muscle, I'll make a call. If I can get a large force here, they'll run rather than fight."
"Can you be sure of that?" Will asked.
"Dresden said that to the supernatural world, bringing in mortal authorities was equated with nuclear exchanges. No one wants to be the one to trigger a new Inquisition of some kind. So any group with a sense of reason will cut their losses rather than tangle with the cops."
"The way they didn't tangle with FBI headquarters?" Will asked.
I had sort of hoped no one would notice that flaw in my reasoning. "That was an act of war. This is some kind of profit-gaining scheme."
"Come on, Karrin," Will said. "You've got to know better than that."
"This is a professional operation," I said. "Whoever is behind it is depending on distraction and speed to enable them to get away with it. They'll already have their escape plan ready to go. If a bunch of cars and lights come at them, I think their first instinct will be to run rather than fight."
"Yeah," Marcy said, nodding. "That makes sense. You've always said supernatural predators don't want a fight if they can avoid one, Will."
"Lone predators don't," Will said, "but this is an organization. And you might have noticed how a lot of supernatural types are a couple of french fries short of a Happy Meal. And I'm talking about more than here, tonight. More than Georgia and Andi. More than just Chicago."
I frowned at him. "What do you mean?"
He leaned forward, his eyes intent. "I mean that if Dresden just blew up the Red Court… that means the status quo is gone. There's a power vacuum, and every spook out there is going to try to fill it. The rules have changed. We don't know how these people are going to react."
A sobering silence fell over us.
I hadn't followed the line of reasoning, like Will had. Or rather, I hadn't followed it far enough. I'd only been thinking of Dresden's cataclysm in terms of its effect on my city, upon people who were part of my life.
But he was right. Dear God, he was right. The sudden demise of the Red Court, with consequences that would reach around the whole world, would make the fall of the Soviet Union look like a minor organizational crisis.
"So, what?" I asked. "We back out?"
"Are you kidding?" Will said. "They took my wife. We go get her and anyone else they've taken."
"Right," Marcy said firmly, from where she lay on the bed of the vehicle.
I felt a smile bare my teeth. "And if they fight?"
Will's face hardened. "Then we kick their fucking ass."
"Ass," said Marcy, nodding.
I finished wrapping Will in the duct tape. He exhaled slowly and relaxed. He took a few experimental breaths and then nodded. "Okay. Good."
"Lie down, both of you. I'll be back with the buyer."
"Be careful," Will said. "If you aren't back in twenty minutes, I'll come looking."
"If I'm not back in twenty minutes, there won't be much point in finding me," I said.
Then I shut them into the SUV and headed for the park. BUTTERCUP PARK WASN'T exactly overwhelming. There were grass, playground equipment, and a tree or two on an island bordered by four city streets. That was pretty much it. It was the sort of place my low-life persona would choose. It was out in the open, and there was not much to break up the line of sight. It was a good location for criminals with mutual trust issues to meet up. Each could be sure the other was alone. Each could be reasonably sure the other wouldn't start shooting, right out there in front of God and everybody.
The park, as it should have been, was empty. The surrounding streetlights left little hidden on the green grass, but the playground equipment cast long, asymmetric shadows.
A man sat on one of the swings. He was huge-the biggest individual I'd ever seen. He was heavy with muscle, though it was an athlete's balanced build-made for action, not for display. His hips strained the heavy flexible plastic seat of the swing to the horizontal. He must have been better than seven feet tall.
He was quietly sitting there, completely still, watching and waiting. His head was shaved and his skin was dark. He wore a simple outfit-black chinos and a thin turtleneck sweater. If the October chill was bothering him, it didn't show. I stomped over toward him in my Munster boots. When I was about thirty feet away, he turned his head toward me. His gaze was startling. His eyes were blue-white, as on some northern sled dogs, and looked nearly luminous in the half shadows.
He lifted his eyebrows as I came closer, then rose and bowed politely from the waist. I realized that he wasn't seven feet tall. He was more like seven foot four or five.
"Good evening," he said. His basso rumble was unmistakable. This was the person I had spoken to earlier.
I stopped in front of him and put a hand on my hip, eyeing him as if I wasn't much impressed. "As long as you brought the money, it will be," I drawled.
He reached into a cavernous pocket in his pants and drew out a brick wrapped in plastic. He tossed it to me. "Half."
I caught it and tore open the plastic with my teeth. Then I started counting the money, all of it in nonsequential Ben Franklins.
A trace of impatience entered my contact's voice. "It's all t
here."
"Talking to me is just going to make me lose count and start over," I said. "What am I supposed to call you?"
"Nothing," he said. "No one. I am nothing to you."
"Nothing it is," I replied. The bills were bound in groups of fifty. I counted one out and compared its thickness to that of the others, then flipped through just to be sure Nothing wasn't trying to short me by throwing some twenties into the middle of the stack. Then I stuck the money in my jacket pocket and said, "We're in business."
Nothing inclined his head a bit. "The merchandise?"
"Come with me," I said, injecting my voice with breezy confidence. I turned to stomp back toward the garage parking lot, and Nothing paced along beside me.
Already, this wasn't going well. This guy was huge. I was good, but training and practice can get you only so far. The old saying is that a good big man will beat a good little man. Which is sexist as all get-out, but no less true. Levels of skill being equal, whoever has the size and weight advantage damn near always wins. Nothing probably outweighed all three of us together, and I already had a sense, from the way he held himself and moved, that he was a person accustomed to violence. He was good.
I could shoot him (probably), but I didn't need a dead trafficker on my hands. I needed one who could talk-which meant I was going to have to let Will and Marcy be taken.
"How long you fellas setting up shop?" I asked him as we walked. "Might be able to come up with another one, if the price is right."
Nothing looked at me for a moment before speaking. "If you cannot do it by dawn, do not bother."
"Maybe. We'll see how this plays out."
Nothing shrugged and kept on walking. I caught sight of our reflection in a passing window-Biker Barbie and Bigfoot. I tried to keep out of his reach as we walked, but there was only so much sidewalk, and Nothing's arms looked long enough to slap me from the middle of the street.
As we walked, I noticed the smell. The man just smelled wrong. I wasn't sure what it was-something… musty, vaguely like the scent of stagnant water and rotting fish. It hung in the air around him.
"You aren't really human, are you," I noted as we walked into the parking garage-and away from any potential witnesses.
"Not anymore," he replied.
As he spoke, the collar of the turtleneck… stirred. It rippled, as if something had moved beneath it.
"Well, I am," I said. "Completely worthless for whatever you're doing collecting specials. So don't be thinking you can get three for the price of two."
Nothing looked down at me with those unsettling eyes. "You are pathetic."
I put a little extra swagger into my step. "Careful what you say there, big guy. You'll turn me on."
Nothing made a small, quiet sound of disgust and shook his head. It was hard not to smile as I watched him pigeonhole me into "scum, treacherous, decadent."
"It's right up here."
"Before we approach the vehicle," he said, "you should know that if you have associates waiting in ambuscade, I will break their necks-and yours."
I lifted my hands. "Jesus. Show a little trust, will you? We're all capitalists here." I pointed the fob at the SUV and disarmed the alarm with a little electronic chirp. The lights flashed once. I tossed him the keys. "That one. I'll stay back here if you like."
"Acceptable," he said, and strode to the SUV. Watching him bend down to look in was like a scene from Jurassic Park. He opened the rear hatch and then lifted his hands to his neck for a moment. He tugged the turtleneck down a little.
The skin of Nothing's neck was deformed with narrow flaps of skin, somehow, and it took me a few seconds to realize what I was looking at.
Gills.
The man had gills. And he was breathing through them. They opened and closed in a rhythm not far removed from a dog's sniffing.
"Werewolves," he said. "Valuable."
"They make good pets?" I asked.
He reached in and seized Will, lifting him with one hand. The young man remained limp, his eyes closed.
"Their blood has unique properties. What did you use to subdue them?"
"Roofies. The way my dating life has been going, I keep some on hand."
He made a dissatisfied sound and tugged his collar up again. "The drug might lower their value."
"I hope not," I said. "This has been such a nice conversation. I'd hate for it to end in a gunshot."
Nothing turned his head slightly and gave me a very cold little smile.
I felt threatened enough to produce my gun without even consciously thinking about it. I held it in two hands, pointed at the ground near his feet. We stayed that way, facing off for several seconds. Then he shrugged a shoulder. He produced another brick of bills and threw it to me, along with the truck keys. Then he gathered up Marcy and tossed her over one shoulder, and Will over the other.
He turned to the entrance of the garage and made several sharp, popping clicks as he went, producing with an odd quiver of his chest and throat a sound that was somehow familiar. They must have been a signal. A moment later, a van with rental-agency plates pulled up to the curb and stopped.
A man dressed identically to Nothing rolled open the side door. Nothing put the two werewolves inside, then followed them, somehow compressing his bulk enough to get into the van. The driver pulled back into traffic a second later. The entire pickup had taken less than ten seconds.
I got back onto my motorcycle and rolled out of the garage with my lights off before their van had gotten to the end of the block. Then, settling in to follow them from several car lengths back, I tried to make like a hole in the air.
Nothing and his driver headed for the docks, which was hardly unanticipated. Chicago supports an enormous amount of shipping traffic that travels through the Great Lakes, and offloads cargo to be transferred to railroads or trucking companies for shipment throughout the United States. Such ships remain one of the best means for moving illegal goods without being discovered.
There are plenty of storage buildings down by the docks, and Nothing went to one of the seedier, more run-down warehouses on the waterfront. I noted the location and went on by without stopping. Then I circled around, killed the engine with the bike still in motion, and came coasting back over the cracked old asphalt, the whisper of my tires lost in the susurrus of city sounds and water lapping the lakeshore.
There wasn't much to see. The warehouse had a single set of standard doors, and several large steel doors that would roll up to allow crates and shipping containers to be brought inside. They were all closed. A single guard, a man in a watch cap and a squall coat, wandered aimlessly around outside the building, smoking cigarettes and looking bored.
I got rid of the damn clunky Munster boots and pulled on the black slippers I always wore on the practice mat. I pulled weapons and gear out of the bike's saddlebags, attached the items to the tactical harness under my coat, and slipped closer. I stayed where it was dark, using the shadows to hide my approach. Then I found a particularly deep patch of darkness and waited.
It took a seemingly endless five minutes for the guard to get close enough for me to shoot him with a Taser.
Darts leapt out and plunged into his chest, trailing shining wires, and I pulled the trigger while he jerked and twitched and fell to the ground. I wasn't sure if this guy was human or not, but I wasn't taking chances. I kept the juice on him until I was sure he was down for the count. When I let up, he just lay there on his side, curled up halfway into a fetal position, quivering and twitching while drool rolled out of his mouth.
Actually, he sort of reminded me of my second husband in the morning.
I jerked the darts out of him and shoved the Taser and the trailing wire into my jacket pocket. It would take too much time to reset it for use, and I had a bad feeling that the electronic device wouldn't do me much good inside the warehouse. I could have slapped some heavy restraining ties on him-but I would be happier if anyone who found the downed man had no idea what had happened to him
.
So much for the easy part.
My P-90 hung easily from the tac harness, its stock high, its barrel hanging down the line of my body. I took a moment to screw a suppressor onto the end of the gun and lifted it to firing position against my shoulder. The little Belgian assault weapon was illegal for a civilian to own within city limits; the suppressor, too. If I got caught with them, I'd be in trouble. If I got caught using them, I'd do time. Both of those consequences were subordinate to the fact that if I didn't go in armed for bear, I might not live to congratulate myself on my sterling citizenship.
Well, there's no such thing as a perfect solution, is there.
I moved quietly back to the entry door, silenced weapon tight against my shoulder. I duckwalked, my steps quick and small and rolling, to keep my upper body level as it moved. I'd put a red dot sight on the P-90, and it floated in my vision as a translucent crosshair of red light. The sight made the weapon, to some degree, point and click. The idea was for the bullets to go wherever the crosshairs were centered. I had it sighted for short work. Even though I'd seen more action than practically any cop in the country-thanks to Dresden-I could count on one hand the number of times I'd used a weapon in earnest against a target more than seven or eight yards away.
Standing next to the entry door, I tested the knob. It turned freely. So, the folks inside had been relying on their guard to keep intruders out.
I thought of the first hissing voice I'd spoken to on the phone and shivered. They wouldn't be relying on purely physical defenses. But I knew something about those, too. Harry's defenses had been deadly dangerous-but to create them, apparently you had to use the energy of a threshold, which only grew up around an actual home. This old warehouse was a place of business and didn't have a threshold. So, if a spell had been put up to guard the door, it would have to be fairly weak.
Of course, weak was a relative term in Dresden's vocabulary. It might hit me only hard enough to break bones, instead of disintegrating me completely-if there was a spell there at all.
I hated this magic crap.
Screw it. I couldn't just stand here all night.