by Jim Butcher
It would have been more stylish to drive up through the gates and have a valet park the truck, but Michael didn’t want to hand over his truck to vampires. I didn’t blame him. I wouldn’t trust a bloodsucking, night stalking, fiend of the shadows valet, either.
The gate had an honest-to-goodness guardhouse, with a pair of guards. Neither one of them looked like they were carrying guns, but they held themselves with an armed arrogance that neither myself nor Michael missed. I held up the invitation. They let us in.
We walked up the drive to the house. A black limo pulled up along the drive as we did, and we had to step off to the side to let it past. When we got to the front of the house, the occupants were just getting out of the car.
The driver came around to the rear door of the limo and opened it. Music washed out, something loud and hard. There was a moment’s pause, and then a man glided out of the limo.
He was tall, pale as a statue. Sable hair fell in tousled curls to his shoulders. He was dressed in a pair of opalescent butterfly wings that rose from his shoulders, fastened to him by some mysterious mechanism. He wore white leather gloves, their gauntlet cuffs decorated in winding silver designs, and similar designs were set around his calves, down to his sandals. At his side hung a sword, delicately made, the handle wrought as though out of glass. The only other thing he had on was a loincloth of some soft, white cloth. He had the body for it. Muscle, but not too much of it, good set of shoulders, and the pale skin wasn’t darkened anywhere by hair. Hell’s bells, I noticed how good he looked.
The man smiled, bright enough for a toothpaste commercial, and then reached a hand back down to the car. A pair of gorgeous legs in pink high heels slid out of the car, followed by a slender and scrumptious girl barely covered in flower petals. She had a short, tight skirt made out of them, and more petals cupped her breasts like delicate hands. Other than that, and the baby’s breath woven into the tumbled mass of her black hair, she wore nothing. And she wore it well. In heels, she might have been five-seven, and she had a face that made me think that she was both lovely and sweet. Her cheeks were flushed in a delicate pink blush, vibrant and alive, her lips parted, and she had a look to her eyes that told me she was on something.
“Harry,” Michael said. “You’re drooling.”
“I’m not drooling,” I said.
“That girl can’t be nineteen years old.”
“I’m not drooling!” I scowled, gripped my cane in hand, and stalked on up the driveway to the house. And wiped at my mouth with my sleeve. Just in case.
The man turned toward me, and both his eyebrows lifted. He looked me and my costume up and down, and burst out into a rich, rolling laugh. “Oh, my,” he said. “You must be Harry Dresden.”
That got my hackles up. It always bugs me when someone knows me and I don’t know them. “Yeah,” I said. “That’s me. Who the hell are you?”
If the hostility bothered him, it didn’t bother his smile. The girl with him slipped beneath his left arm and nestled against him, watching me with stoned eyes. “Oh, of course,” he said. “I forget that you probably know very little of the intricacies of the Court. My name is Thomas, of House Raith, of the White Court.”
“White Court,” I said.
“Three Vampire Courts,” Michael supplied. “Black, Red, and White.”
“I knew that.”
Michael shrugged one shoulder. “Sorry.”
Thomas smiled. “Well. Only two, for all practical purposes. The Black Court has fallen on hard times of late, the poor darlings.” His tone of voice suggested muted glee rather than pity. “Mister Dresden, allow me to introduce Justine.”
Justine, the girl beneath his arm, gave me a sweet smile. I half-expected her to extend her hand to me to be kissed, but she didn’t. She just molded her body to Thomas’s in what looked like a most pleasant fashion.
“Charmed,” I said. “This is Michael.”
“Michael,” Thomas mused, and studied the man up and down. “Dressed as a Knight Templar.”
“Something like that,” Michael said.
“How ironic,” Thomas said. His eyes returned to me, and that smile widened. “And you, Mister Dresden. Your costume is … going to make quite a stir.”
“Why, thank you.”
“Shall we go inside?”
“Oh, let’s.” We all trouped up the front stairs, affording me an uncomfortably proximate view of Justine’s legs along the way, lean and lovely and made for doing things that had nothing to do with locomotion. A pair of tuxedo-clad doormen who looked human swung open the mansion’s doors for us.
The entry hall to Bianca’s mansion had been redecorated since the last time I’d been there. The old-style decor had been lavishly restored. She’d had marble laid out instead of gleaming hardwood. All the doorways stood in graceful arches rather than stolid rectangles. Alcoves every ten feet or so sported small statuary and other pieces of art. It was lit only by the spots on each alcove, creating deep pools of shadow in between.
“Rather tacky,” Thomas sniffed, his butterfly wings quivering. “Have you been to any Court functions before, Mister Dresden? Are you aware of the etiquette?”
“Not really,” I said. “But it had better not involve anyone drinking anyone’s bodily fluids. Particularly mine.”
Thomas laughed, richly. “No, no. Well,” he admitted, “not formally, in any case, though there will be ample opportunity to indulge, if you wish.” His fingers caressed the girl’s waist again, and she focused her eyes on me in a disconcertingly intent fashion.
“I don’t think so. What do I need to know?”
“Well, we’re all outsiders, not being members of the Red Court, and this is a Red function. First, we’ll be presented to the company and they’ll have the chance to come meet us.”
“Mingle, eh?”
“Just so. Afterwards, we’ll be presented to Bianca herself, and she, in turn, will give us a gift.”
“A gift?” I asked.
“She’s the hosting party. Of course she’ll be giving gifts.” He smiled at me. “It’s only civilized.”
I eyed him. I wasn’t used to vampires being so chatty. “Why are you being so helpful?”
He laid his fingers upon his chest, lifting his eyebrows in a perfectly executed “who me?” expression. “Why, Mister Dresden. Why should I not help you?”
“You’re a vampire.”
“So I am,” he said. “But, I’m afraid, I’m not a terribly good one.” He gave me a sunny smile and said, “Of course, I could also be lying.”
I snorted.
“So, Mister Dresden. Rumor had it you had refused Bianca’s invitation.”
“I had.”
“What changed your mind?”
“Business.”
“Business?” Thomas asked. “You’re here on business?”
I shrugged. “Something like that.” I stripped off my gloves, trying to look casual, and offered him my hand. “Thanks again.”
His head tilted to one side and he narrowed his eyes. He looked down at my hand and then back up at me, his gaze calculating, before trading grips with me.
There was a faint, flickering aura about him. I felt it dance and glide over my skin like a soft, cool wind. It felt odd, different than the energy that surrounded a human practitioner—and nothing like the sense of whatever had been pumping up the Nightmare.
Thomas wasn’t my man. I must have relaxed visibly, because he smiled and said, “I pass the test, eh?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Whatever you say. You’re an odd duck, Harry Dresden. But I like you.” And with that, he and his escort turned and glided together down the length of the entry hall, and through the curtained doors at the far end.
I glowered after them.
“Anything?” Michael asked.
“He’s clean,” I said. “Relatively speaking. Must be someone else here.”
“You’ll get the chance to do some handshaking, it
sounds like,” Michael said.
“Yeah. You ready?”
“Lord willing,” Michael said.
We started together down the hall, and through the curtained doorway, and emerged into Vampire Party Central.
We stood on a concrete deck, elevated ten feet off the rest of a vast, outdoor courtyard. Music flowed up from below. People crowded the courtyard in a blur of color and motion, talk and costume, like some kind of Impressionist painting. Glowing globes rested on wire stands, here and there, giving the place a sort of torch-lit mystique. A dais, opposite the entryway we stood in, rose up several feet higher in the air, a suspiciously throne-like chair upon it.
I had just started to take in details when a brilliant white light flooded my eyes, and I had to lift a hand against it. The music died down a bit, and the chatter of people quieted some. Evidently, Michael and I had just become the center of attention.
A servant stepped forward and asked, calmly, “May I have your invitation, sir?” I passed it over, and a moment later heard the same voice, over a modest public address system.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the Court. I am pleased to present Harry Dresden, Wizard of the White Council, and guest.”
I lowered my hands, and the voices fell completely silent. From either side of the throne opposite, a pair of spotlights glared at me.
I shrugged my shoulders to get my cape to fall into place correctly, tattered red lining flashing against the black cotton exterior. The collar of the thing came up high on either side of my face. The spot glared off of the painted gold plastic medallion I wore at my throat. The worn powder-blue tux beneath it could have made an appearance at someone’s prom, in the seventies. The servants at the party had better tuxes than I did.
I made sure to smile, so that they could see the cheap plastic fangs. I suppose the spotlight must have bleached my face out to ghostly whiteness, especially with the white clown makeup I had on. The fake blood drooling out the corners of my mouth would be standing out bright red against it.
I lifted a white-gloved hand and said, slurring a little through the fangs. “Hi! How are you all doing?”
My words rang out on deathly silence, from below.
“I still can’t believe,” Michael said, sotto voce, “that you came to the Vampires’ Masquerade Ball dressed as a vampire.”
“Not just a vampire,” I said, “a cheesy vampire. Do you think they got the point?” I managed to peer past the spotlights enough to make out Thomas and Justine at the foot of the stairs. Thomas was staring around at the courtyard with undisguised glee, then flashed me a smile and a thumbs-up.
“I think,” Michael said, “that you’ve just insulted everyone here.”
“I’m here to find a monster, not make nice with them. Besides, I never wanted to come to this stupid party in the first place.”
“All the same. I think you’ve peeved them off.”
“Peeved? Come on. How bad could that be? Peeved.”
From the courtyard below came several distinctive sounds: A few hisses. The rasp of steel as several someones drew knives. Or maybe swords. The nervous click-clack of someone with a semiautomatic working the slide.
Michael shrugged in his cloak, and I sensed, more than saw him put his hand on the hilt of one of his knives. “I think we’re about to find out.”
Chapter
Twenty-five
Silence lay heavy over the courtyard. I gripped my cane and waited for the first gunshot, or whistle of a thrown knife, or bloodcurdling scream of fury. Michael was a steel-smelling presence beside me, silent and confident in the face of the hostility. Hell’s bells. I’d meant to give the vamps a little thumb of the nose with the costume, but wow. I didn’t think I’d net this much of a reaction.
“Steady, Harry,” Michael murmured. “They’re like mean dogs. Don’t flinch or run. It will only set them off.”
“Your average mean dog doesn’t have a gun,” I murmured back. “Or a knife. Or a sword.” But I remained where I stood, my expression bland.
The first sound to ring out was neither gunshot nor battle cry, but rich, silvery laughter. It drifted up, masculine, somehow merry and mocking, bubbling and scornful all at once. I squinted down through the lights, to see Thomas, posed like some bizarre post-chrysalis incarnation of Errol Flynn, one foot up on the stairs, hand braced, his other hand on the crystalline hilt of his sword. His head was thrown back, every lean line of muscle on him displayed with the casual disregard of skilled effort. The butterfly wings caught the light at the edges of the spots and threw them back in dazzling colors.
“I’ve always heard,” Thomas drawled, his voice loud enough to be heard by all, artfully projected, “that the Red Court gave its guests a warm welcome. I hadn’t thought I’d get such a picturesque demonstration, though.” He turned toward the dais and bowed. “Lady Bianca, I’ll be sure to tell my father all about this dizzying display of hospitality.”
I felt my smile harden, and I peered past the spotlights to the dais. “Bianca, dear, there you are. This was a costume party, was it not? A masquerade? And we were all supposed to come dressed as something we weren’t? If I misread the invitation, I apologize.”
I heard a woman’s voice murmur something, and the spotlights flicked off. I was left in the dark for a minute, until my eyes could adjust, and I could regard the woman standing across from me, upon the dais.
Bianca wasn’t tall, but she was statuesque in a way you only find in erotic magazines and embarrassing dreams. Pale of skin, dark of hair and eye, full of sensuous curves, from her mouth to her hips, everything possessed of luscious ripeness coupled with slender strength that would have caught the eye of any man. She wore a gown of flickering flame. I don’t mean that she wore a red dress—she wore flame, gathered about her in the shape of an evening gown, blue at its base fading through the colors of a candle to red as it cupped her full, gorgeous breasts. More flame danced and played through the elegant piles of her dark hair, flickering over her like a tiara. She had on a pair of real heels at least, adding several inches to her rather unimpressive height. The shoes did interesting things to the shape of her legs. The curve of her smile promised things that were probably illegal, and bad for you, and would carry warnings from the Surgeon General, but that you’d still want to do over and over again.
I wasn’t interested. I had seen what was underneath her mask, once before. I couldn’t forget what was there.
“Well,” she purred, her voice carrying over the whole of the courtyard. “I suppose I shouldn’t have expected any more taste from you, Mister Dresden. Though perhaps we will see about your taste, later in the evening.” Her tongue played over her teeth, and she gave me a dazzling smile.
I watched her, watched behind her. A pair of figures in black cloaks, hardly more than vague shapes behind her stood quietly, as though ready to attack if she snapped a finger. I suppose every decent flame casts shadows. “I think you’d better not try it.”
Bianca laughed again. Several in the courtyard joined in with her, though it was a nervous thing. “Mister Dresden,” she said. “Many things can change a man’s mind.” She crossed her legs, slowly, flashing naked skin up to her taut, silky thigh as she did. “Perhaps we’ll find something that changes yours.” She waved her hand, lazy and arrogant. “Music. We are here to celebrate. Let us do so.”
The music began again while I sorted out the meaning behind what Bianca had just said. She had given her tacit permission for her people to try to get to me. They couldn’t just walk up and bite me, maybe, but yeesh. I’d have to be on my guard. I thought of Kelly Hamilton’s narcotic kisses on my throat, the glowing warmth that had surrounded me, infused me, and shivered. Some part of me wondered what it might be like to let the vamps catch me, and if it would be all that bad. Another chewed furiously over everything I’d seen so far that evening—Bianca clearly had something in mind.
I shook my head and glanced back at Michael. He nodded to me, a slight motion beneath the great helm,
and we both descended the stairs. My legs were shaking, making the trip down unsteady. I prayed that none of the vamps noticed it. Wouldn’t do to let them see weakness. Even if I was as nervous as a bird in a coal mine.
“Do what you need to do, Harry,” Michael said, low. “I’ll be a couple steps behind you, to your right. I’ll watch your back.”
Michael’s words steadied me, calmed me, and I felt profoundly grateful for them.
I expected the vamps to descend on me in a charming and dangerous cloud when I reached the courtyard, but they didn’t. Instead, Thomas was waiting for me with one hand on the hilt of his sword, his pale body on shameless display. Justine stood a bit behind him. His face practically glowed with glee.
“Oh, my, that was marvelous, Harry. May I call you Harry?”
“No,” I said. I caught myself, though, and tried to soften the answer. “But thanks. For what you said, when you did. Things might have gotten ugly.”
Thomas’s eyes danced. “They still might, Mister Dresden. But we couldn’t have it descending into a general brawl, now could we?”
“We couldn’t?”
“No, of course not. There would be far fewer opportunities to seduce and deceive and backstab.”
I snorted. “I suppose you’ve got a point.”
The tip of his tongue touched his teeth when he smiled. “I usually do.”
“Um, thanks, Thomas.”
He glanced aside, and frowned. I followed his gaze. Justine had drifted away from him, and now stood with a bright smile on her sweet face as she spoke to a lean, smiling man dressed in a scarlet tux and a domino mask. While I watched, the man reached out and stroked his fingers over her shoulder. He made some comment that made the lovely girl laugh.