by Jim Butcher
Childs tilted his head. “Do you distrust her?”
“I don’t drop my guard around her,” Murphy said. “And that’s my answer.”
The bleach-blond man considered her words for a few seconds and then nodded. “I will carry it to my employer. The island will be clear of his interests by Monday.”
“Will you give me your word on that?”
“I already have.” Childs stood up, the motion a portrait of grace. If he was a mortal, he was deadly fast. Or a ballet dancer. And somehow I didn’t think he had some Danskins stuffed in his suit’s pockets. “I will go. Please inform me if anything of relevance comes out of the meeting.”
Murphy nodded, her hand near her gun, and watched Childs walk to the front door. Childs opened it and began to leave.
“You should know,” Murphy said quietly, “that my trust issues don’t change the fact that she’s one of mine. If I think for a second that the outfit has done any harm to Molly Carpenter, the arrangement is over and we segue directly to the OK Corral. Starting with you.”
Childs turned smoothly on a heel, smiling, and lifted an empty hand to mime shooting Murphy with his thumb and forefinger. He completed the turn and left the house.
Murphy came over to the window where I was standing and watched Childs walk to the black town car and get in. She didn’t relax her vigilance until the car had pulled out into the snow and cruised slowly away.
Then she bowed her head, one hand against the window, and rubbed at her face with her other hand.
I stretched my arm to put my hand out to mirror hers, being careful not to touch the wards humming quietly around the house’s threshold. You could have fit two or three of Murphy’s hand spans into one of mine. I saw her shoulders shake once.
Then she shook her head and straightened, blinked her eyes rapidly a few times, and schooled her expression into its usual cop mask of neutrality. She turned away from me, went to the room’s love seat, and curled up on one side of it. She looked tiny, with her legs bunched up against her upper body, barely more than a child—if not for the care lines on her face.
There was a quiet motion, and then a tiny grey mountain lion with a notched ear and a stump of a tail appeared and leapt smoothly up onto the love seat with Murphy. She reached out a hand and gathered the cat’s furry body against hers, her fingers stroking.
Tears blurred my eyes as I saw Mister. My cat. When the vampire couple, the Eebs, had burned my old apartment down, I knew Mister had escaped the flames—but I didn’t know what had happened to him after that. I’d been killed before I could go round him up. I remembered meeting the cat as a kitten, scrambling in a trash bin, skinny and near starvation. He’d been my roommate, or possibly landlord, ever since I’d come to Chicago. He was thirty pounds of feline arrogance. He was always good about showing up when I was upset, giving me the chance to lower my blood pressure by paying attention to him. I’m sure he thought it a saintly gesture of generosity.
It’s a cat thing.
I don’t know how long I stood there staring through the window, but suddenly Sir Stuart was beside me.
“Dresden,” he said quietly. “There are several creatures approaching from the southeast.”
“You are not doing your lack of being named Threepio any good whatsoever, Sir Stuart.”
He blinked at me several times, then shook his head and recovered. “There are half a dozen of them, as well as a number of cars.”
“Okay. Keep Mort in his car until I can identify them,” I said. “But I suspect he’s in no danger.”
“No?” the shade asked. “Know you these folk, then?”
“Dunno,” I said. “Let’s go see.”
Chapter Nine
Ten minutes later, I was humming under my breath and watching the gathering in Murphy’s living room. Sir Stuart stood beside me, his expression interested, curious.
“Beg pardon, wizard,” he said, “but what is that tune you’re trying to sing?”
I belted out the opening trumpet fanfare of the main theme and then said, in a deep and cheesy announcer’s voice, “In the great Hall of the Justice League, there are assembled the world’s four greatest heroes, created from the cosmic legends of the universe!”
Sir Stuart frowned at me. “Created from . . .”
“The cosmic legends of the universe,” I repeated, in the same voice.
Sir Stuart narrowed his eyes and turned slightly away from me, his shoulders tight. “That makes no sense. None. At all.”
“It did on Saturday mornings in the seventies, apparently,” I said. I nodded at the room beyond the window. “And we’ve got something similar going on here. Though for a Hall of the Justice League, it looks pretty small. Real estate wasn’t as expensive back then, I guess.”
“The guests assembled inside,” Sir Stuart asked. “Do you know them?”
“Most of them,” I said. Then I felt obliged to add, “Or, at least, I knew them six months ago.”
Things had changed. Murphy’s buzz cut was just a start. I started introducing Sir Stuart to the faces I knew.
Will Borden leaned against one wall, slightly behind Murphy, his muscular arms folded. He was a man of below-average height and wellabove-average build. All of it was muscle. I was used to seeing him mostly in after-work, business-casual clothing—whenever he wasn’t transformed into a huge, dark wolf, I mean. Today, he was wearing sweats and a loose top, the better for getting out of in a hurry if he wanted to change. Generally a quiet, reliable, intelligent man, Will was the leader of a local band of college kids, now all grown-up, who had learned to take on the shape of wolves. They’d called themselves the Alphas for so long that the name had stopped sounding silly in my own head when I thought it.
I wasn’t used to seeing Will playing the heavy, but he was clearly in that role. His expression was locked into something just shy of a scowl, and his dark eyes positively smoldered with pent-up aggression. He looked like a man who wanted a fight, and who would gladly jump on the first opportunity to get into one.
On the couch not far from Will, the other Alpha present was curled up into a ball in the corner, her legs up to her chest. She had straight hair the color of a mouse’s fur that hung to her chin in an even sheet all the way around, and she looked as if a strong breeze might knock her to the floor. She peered owlishly out through a pair of large eyeglasses and a curtain of hair, and I got the impression that she saw the whole room at the same time.
I hadn’t seen her in several years, but she’d been one of the original Alphas and had gotten her degree and toddled off into the vanilla world. Her name was . . . Margie? Mercy? Marci. Right. Her name was Marci.
Next to Marci sat a plump, cheerful-looking woman with blond, curly hair held sloppily in place with a couple of chopsticks, who looked a couple of years shy of qualifying to be a television grandmother. She wore a floral-print dress, and on her lap she held a dog the approximate size of a bratwurst—a Yorkshire terrier. The dog was clearly on alert, his bright, dark eyes moving from person to person around the room, but focused mostly on Marci. He was growling deep in his chest, and obviously ready to defend his owner at an instant’s notice.
“Abby,” I told Sir Stuart. “Her name’s Abby. The dog is Toto. She survived a White Court vampire who was hunting down her social circle. Small-time practitioners.”
The little dog abruptly sprang out of Abby’s arms to throw itself toward Will, but the woman moved in remarkably quick reaction and caught Toto. Except it hadn’t been remarkably quick—it had simply begun a half second before the little dog had jumped. Abby was a prescient. She couldn’t see far into the future—only a few seconds—but that was enough talent to make me bet there weren’t many broken dishes in her kitchen.
Will looked at Toto as the little dog jumped, and smiled. Abby shushed the Yorkie and frowned at Will before turning to the table to pick up a cup of tea in one hand, still holding the dog with the other.
Next to Abby was a brawny young man in jeans,
work boots, and a heavy flannel shirt. He had dark, untidy hair and intense grey eyes, and I could have opened a bottle cap with the dimple in his chin. It took me a second to recognize him, because he’d been a couple of inches shorter and maybe forty pounds lighter the last time I’d seen him—Daniel Carpenter, the eldest of my apprentice’s younger brothers. He looked as though he were seated on a hot stove rather than a comfortable couch, like he might bounce up at any second, boldly to do something ill conceived. A large part of Will’s attention was, I thought, focused on Daniel.
“Relax,” Murphy told him. “Have some cake.”
Daniel shook his head in a jerky negative. “No, thank you, Ms. Murphy,” he said. “I just don’t see the point in this. I should go find Molly. If I leave right now, I can be back before an hour’s up.”
“If Molly isn’t here, we’ll assume it’s because she has a good reason for it,” Murphy said, her tone calm and utterly implacable. “There’s no sense in running all over town on a night like this.”
“Besides,” Will drawled, “we’d find her faster.”
Daniel scowled from beneath his dark hair for a second, but quickly looked away. It gave me the sense that he’d run afoul of Will before and hadn’t liked the outcome. The younger man kept his mouth shut.
An older man sat in the chair beside the couch, and he took the opportunity to lean over the table and pour hot tea from a china teapot into the cup in front of the young Carpenter. He added a lump of sugar to it, and smiled at Daniel. There was nothing hostile, impatient, or demanding in his eyes, which were the color of a robin’s eggs—only complete certainty that the younger man would accept the tea and settle down.
Daniel eyed the man, then dropped his eyes to the square of white cellulose at his collar and the crucifix hanging beneath it. He took a deep breath, then nodded and stirred his tea. He took the cup in both hands and settled back to wait. After a sip, he appeared to forget he was holding it—but he stayed quiet.
“And you, Ms. Murphy?” asked Father Forthill, holding up the teapot. “It’s a cold night. I’m sure a cup would do you good.”
“Why not?” she said. Forthill filled another cup for Murphy, took it to her, and pulled at his sweater vest, as if trying to coax more warmth from the garment. He turned and walked over to the window where Sir Stuart and I stood, and held out both hands. “Are you sure there isn’t a draft? I could swear I feel it.”
I blinked and eyed Sir Stuart, who shrugged and said, “He’s one of the good ones.”
“Good what?”
“Ministers. Priests. Shamans. Whatever.” His expression seemed to be carefully neutral. “You spend your life caring for the souls of others, you get a real sense of them.” Sir Stuart nodded at Father Forthill. “Ghosts like us aren’t souls, as such, but we aren’t much different. He feels us, even if he isn’t fully aware of it.”
Toto escaped Abby’s lap and came scrambling over the hardwood floor to put his paws up on the walls beneath the windows. He yapped ferociously several times, staring right at me.
“And dogs,” Sir Stuart added. “Maybe one in ten of them seem to have a talent for sensing us. Probably why they’re always barking.”
“What about cats?” I asked. Mister had fled the living room upon the arrival of other people and wasn’t in sight.
“Of course cats,” Sir Stuart said, his voice faintly amused. “As far as I can tell, all cats. But they aren’t terribly impressed with the fact that we’re dead and still present. One rarely gets a reaction from them.”
Father Forthill gently scooped Toto from the floor. The little dog wiggled energetically, tail flailing in the air, and kissed Forthill’s hands soundly before the old priest passed him carefully back to Abby, smiling and nodding to her before refilling his own cup of tea and sitting down again.
“Who are they waiting on?” Sir Stuart asked. “This Molly person?”
“Maybe,” I said. There was one more chair in the room. It was closest to the door—and farthest from every other piece of furniture in the room. Practically every other seat in the room would have a clear line of fire to the last chair, if it came to shooting. Maybe that was a coincidence. “But I don’t think so.”
There was a quick chirping sound, and Murphy picked up a radio smaller than a deck of cards. “Murphy. Go.”
“Ricemobile imminent,” said a quiet voice. “Furry Knockers is running a sweep.”
Will blew out a sudden snort of amused breath.
Murphy smiled and shook her head before she spoke into the radio. “Thanks, Eyes. Pull in as soon as she’s done. Hot tea for you.”
“Weather’s just crazy, right? Only in Chicago. Eyes, out.”
“That is just so wrong,” said Daniel, as Murphy put the radio away. “That’s a terrible radio handle. It could cause mixed messages in a tactical situation.”
Murphy arched an eyebrow and spoke in a dry tone. “I’m trying to imagine the situation in which someone mistakenly being told to be alert for the enemy ends in disaster.”
“If someone on the team was juggling glass vials of a deadly virus,” Will supplied promptly. “Or nitroglycerin.”
Murphy nodded. “Make a note: Discontinue use of radio in the event of a necessary nitro-viro juggling mission.”
“Noted,” Will drawled.
Daniel stiffened. “You’ve got a big mouth, Mr. Borden.”
Will never moved. “It’s not my mouth, kid. It’s your skin. It’s too thin.”
Daniel narrowed his eyes, but Forthill put a hand on the brawny youth’s shoulder. The old man couldn’t possibly restrain Daniel physically, but his touch might as well have been a steel chain attached to a battleship’s anchor. His move to rise became an adjustment of himself in his seat, and he folded his arms, scowling.
“Pasty Face in five, four, three . . .” came from Murphy’s radio.
Backs tightened. Faces became masks. Several hands vanished from sight. Someone’s teacup clinked several times in rapid succession against a saucer before it settled.
I could see the front door from where I stood outside the window, and a couple of seconds after the radio stopped counting aloud, it opened upon a White Court vampire.
She was maybe five-two, with a dimpled smile and dark, curly hair that fell to her waist. She was wearing a white blouse with a long, full white skirt and bright scarlet ballet slippers. The first thought that went through my head was Awww, she’s tiny and adorable—followed closely by the notion that she would be fastidious when blood was everywhere. I could just see her carefully lifting the hem of her pristine skirt so that only the scarlet slippers would touch it.
“Good evening, everyone,” she said, breezing through the door without an invitation, speaking with a strong British accent. “I apologize for being a few moments late, but what’s a lady to do with weather like this? Tea? Lovely.” She minced over to the table and poured some hot tea into an empty cup. Her eyes fastened on Daniel as she did, and she bowed just low enough to draw the young man’s eyes to her décolletage. He flushed and looked away sternly. After a second.
Tough to blame the kid. I’ve been a young man. Boobs are near the center of the universe, until you turn twenty-five or so. Which is also when young men’s auto insurance rates go down. This is not a coincidence.
The vampire smirked, a surprisingly predatory expression on her cupid’s-bow lips, and glided back to the empty chair by the door, seating herself in it like Shirley Temple on a movie set, sure that she held the attention of everyone there.
“Gutsy,” I said quietly.
“Why do you say that?” Sir Stuart asked.
“She came in without an invitation,” I said.
“I thought vampires couldn’t do that.”
“The Reds ca—That is, they couldn’t without being half-paralyzed. The Black Court vampires can’t cross a threshold, period. The Whites can, but it cripples their abilities, makes it very difficult to draw on their Hunger for strength and speed.”
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sp; Sir Stuart shook his head. “Ah yes. She’s a succubus.”
“Well . . . not exactly, but the differences are academic.”
The shade nodded. “I’m not exposing Mortimer to that creature.”
“Probably not a bad idea,” I agreed. “He’s got access to way too much information. They’d love to get someone like Mort under their thumb.”
“Hello, Felicia,” Murphy said, her tone cool and professional. “All right, people. Mr. Childs won’t be here tonight. I’m holding his proxy.”
Felicia curled the fingers of both tiny hands around the teacup and sipped it. The tea had been scalding when the others had first sipped it. They’d been cautious. The vampire took a mouthful as if it had been room-temperature Kool-Aid and swallowed it down with a little shiver of apparent pleasure. “How convenient for you. Shall we ever see the dapper gentleman again?”
“That will be up to Marcone,” Murphy replied. “Abby?”
Toto was staring at Felicia and standing with stiff legs on Abby’s lap. If he’d been capable of a threatening growl, he’d have been doing it. Instead, there was just a steady squeaking sound coming from his general direction.
Abby took a firmer grip on Toto and looked down at a notebook in her lap. “The Paranet continues to operate at better than seventy-five percent of its original capacity. We actually regained contact with Minnesota, Massachusetts, and Alabama this week.” She cleared her throat and blinked her eyes several times. “We lost contact with Oregon.”
“Seattle or Tacoma?” Murphy asked.
“Yes,” Abby said quietly. “No one has heard from a member in either place there for the past three days.”
Forthill crossed himself and said something beneath his breath.
“Amen, Father,” Felicia murmured.
“Someone got their roster,” Daniel said, his voice harsh.
Will grunted and nodded. “Do we know who?”
“Um,” Abby said, giving Will a brief, apologetic smile. “We haven’t heard from anyone. So no. We’ll have to send someone to investigate.”