by Jim Butcher
“Like life-threatening and dangerous,” I said.
“Oh.” He was quiet for a minute. “No. I tried to go into the army, but I couldn’t make it through boot. Wound up in the hospital. Same thing when I tried to be a policeman. The spirit was willing, but Butters was weak.”
“Some people just aren’t cut out for that kind of thing,” I told him. “That’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
“Sure, it isn’t,” he said, but he wasn’t agreeing with me.
“You can do a lot that I can’t,” I told him. I nodded at my leg.
“But this stuff is…hell, it’s simple,” Butters said. “I mean, the words get a little bit long. But all in all, it isn’t that complicated.”
“Listen to yourself, Butters,” I told him. “You’re sitting there with a straight face saying that medicine and medical forensics is simple, except for the long words. Do you have any clue what it’s like to not be as intelligent as you?”
He shook his head impatiently. “I’m not some kind of genius.” He frowned. “Okay, well, technically I have a genius IQ, but that isn’t the point. A lot of people do. The point is that I’ve spent most of my adult life doing this. That’s why I can do it well.”
“And the point is,” I told him, “that I’ve spent most of my adult life doing zombies and ghosts and other things trying to kill me. That’s why I can do it well. We’ve got different specialties. That’s all. So don’t beat yourself up for not being better at my job than I am.”
He started cleaning up the medical detritus, throwing things away and stripping out of the gloves. “Thanks, Harry. But it’s more than that. I just…I couldn’t think. When those things grabbed me. When he was hitting me. I knew I should have been doing something, planning something, but my brain wouldn’t work.” He slammed something down into the trash can with more force than necessary. “I was too afraid.”
I was too tired to move, and for the first time I started to notice how cold it was without my coat. I folded my arms and tried not to shiver. I watched Butters quietly for a moment and said, “It gets easier.”
“What does?”
“Living with the fear.”
“It goes away?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “Never. Gets worse, in some ways. But once you face it down, you learn to accommodate it. Even work with it, sometimes.”
“I don’t understand,” he whispered.
“Fear can’t hurt you,” I said. “It can’t kill you.”
“Well, technically—”
“Butters,” I said. “Don’t give me statistics on heart failure. Fear is a part of life. It’s a warning mechanism. That’s all. It tells you when there’s danger around. Its job is to help you survive. Not cripple you into being unable to do it.”
“I have empirical evidence to the contrary,” he said, bitter humor in his voice.
“That’s because you’ve never thought about it before,” I said. “You’ve reacted to the fear, but you haven’t ever faced it and put it into the right perspective. You have to make up your mind to overcome it.”
He was quiet for a second. “Just like that?” he said. “Just make up my mind and poof, it’s different?”
“No. But it’s the first step,” I said. “After that, you find other steps to take. Think about it for a while. Maybe you’ll never need it again. But at least you’ll be ready if it happens sometime down the line.”
He closed up the medical toolbox. “You mean it’s over?”
“For you,” I said. “Grevane knows that you don’t have anything he wants. He’s got no reason to look for you. Hell, for that matter, I think you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time when he did come looking. Anyone with access to the corpse and the ability to find where Bony Tony had hidden the jump drive would have been good enough for Grevane. Your part in this is over.”
Butters closed his eyes for a second. “Oh, thank God.” He blinked up at me. “Sorry. I mean, it isn’t that I don’t like being around you, but…”
I smiled a little. “I understand. I’m glad you’re all right.” I glanced down at my leg. “Looks nice and neat again. Thanks, Butters. You’re a good friend.”
He frowned up at me. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
I thought I saw him straighten his shoulders a little. “Okay.”
Thomas appeared in the door of the kitchen. “Gas stove. Hot food and tea. Sugar?”
“Tons,” I said.
“Not for me,” Butters said.
Thomas nodded, and slipped back into the kitchen.
“So how come if I’m your friend, you don’t tell me important things?” Butters said.
“Like what?” I asked him.
Butters gestured at the kitchen. “Well. That, you know…you’re gay.”
I blinked at him.
“I mean, don’t get me wrong. It’s the twenty-first century. You can live your life how you want, and it doesn’t make you any less cool.”
“Butters—” I began.
“And hey, look at the guy. I mean, I’m not even gay, and I think he looks great. Who could blame you?”
Choking sounds came from the kitchen.
“Oh, shut up!” I snarled at Thomas.
He kept on making choking sounds that bubbled with laughter.
“You should have just said something,” Butters said. “Don’t feel like you have to hide anything, Harry. I won’t judge. I owe you too much for that.”
“I’m not gay,” I stated.
Butters nodded at me, compassion and empathy all over his face. “Oh. Okay, sure.”
“I’m not!”
Butters raised his hands. “It wasn’t my place to intrude,” he said. “Later, some other time, maybe. None of my business.”
“Oh, for crying out loud,” I muttered.
Thomas came out bearing plates of steaming, reheated pizza, some roast beef sandwiches, and crackers with slices of cheese partly melted on them. He put them down and came back with bottles of cold beer and cups of hot tea. He poured my tea for me, then leaned over and gave me a chaste kiss on the hair. “There you go.”
Butters pretended not to notice.
I punched Thomas awkwardly in the ribs. “Give me the damned pizza before I kill you.”
Thomas sighed and confided to Butters, “He gets like this sometimes.”
I grabbed the pizza from Thomas, and leaned over enough to snag a beer. Mouse, who had been lying by the front windows staring out at the darkness, got up and came nosing over toward the food.
“Oh, here,” Thomas said. “The antibiotics.” He put a couple of pills down on my plate.
I growled wordlessly at him, washed them down with a swallow of beer, and fell to eating pizza and roast beef sandwiches and crackers with cheese. I shared a bit with Mouse, every third or fourth bite, until Thomas snagged the last roast beef sandwich and put it on the floor for Mouse to have to himself.
I finished the beer and settled back with the tea afterward. I hadn’t realized how hungry I was until I’d started eating. The tea was sweet and just barely cool enough to drink. In the wake of the meal and the evening’s excitement, I finally started to feel warm and human again. The pain in my leg faded until it was barely noticeable.
I blinked heavily down at my bandaged leg and said, “Hey.”
“Hmmm?” Thomas asked.
“You bastard. Those weren’t antibiotics.”
“No, they weren’t,” Thomas said, and without a trace of shame. “They were the painkillers. You idiot. You need to rest before you kill yourself.”
“Bastard,” I said again. The couch really was very comfortable. I finished my tea over the next several moments. “Maybe you have a point.”
“Of course I do,” Thomas said. “Oh, here’s the antibiotic, by the way.” He passed me a single horse pill. I swallowed it with the last of my tea. Thomas set the teacup aside and then helped me to my feet. “Come on. Get a few hours of rest. Then you can figure out your next move
.”
I grunted. Thomas helped me into one of the darkened bedrooms, and I sank onto a soft bed, too tired to be angry. Too tired to be awake. I vaguely remember stripping out of my shirt and shoes before pulling soft and heavy covers over me. Then there was blessed darkness, warmth, and quiet.
The last thing I thought, before I dropped off to sleep, was that the covers smelled faintly of soap and sunlight and strawberries.
They smelled like Murphy.
Chapter
Twenty-five
In the odd dream, I had a hot tub.
I lay back in it, luxuriating, the water churning to a controlled froth by jets that hit it and me from dozens of angles. The water was at that perfect temperature, a little short of scalding my skin, and the heat of it sank into muscle and bone, warming me deliciously and washing away aches and pains.
It was an odd dream, because I have never in my life been in a hot tub.
I opened my eyes and looked slowly around me. The hot tub was set in the floor of what looked like a natural cave. Low, reddish light came from what looked like some kind of moss growing on the stalactites overhead.
That was odd, because I’d never been in a cave like this, either.
“Hello?” I called. My voice bounced around the empty cavern.
I heard the sound of movement, and a woman stepped into sight from behind a rock formation. She was a little taller than average and had hair that fell in a sheet of golden silk to her shoulders. She was dressed in a silken tunic belted with soft rope, both pure white. The outfit neither displayed any impropriety nor allowed anyone looking to ignore the beauty of the body it clothed. Her eyes were of a deep, deep blue, like a sunny October sky, and her skin glowed with wholesome appeal. She was, quite simply, a stunning creature.
“Hello. I thought it was time we had a talk,” she said. “You’ve had a hard day. I thought pleasant surroundings might suit you.”
I eyed her for a moment. I was naked, which was good. The surface of the pool had enough in the way of bubbles and froth to be opaque, which was also good. It saved me the embarrassment of my response to her. “Who are you?”
She lifted golden brows in a faint smile, and seated herself beside the hot tub, on the floor of the cave, her legs together and to one side, her hands folded on her lap. “Have you not reasoned it yourself by now?”
I stared at her for a long minute and then said, quietly, “Lasciel.”
The woman bowed her head, smiling in acknowledgment. “Indeed.”
“You can’t be here,” I said. “I sealed you into the floor under my lab. I imprisoned you.”
“Indeed you did,” the woman said. “What you see here is not my true self, as such. Think of me as a reflection of the true Lasciel who resides within your mind.”
“As a what?”
“When you chose to touch the coin, you accepted this form of my awareness within you,” Lasciel said. “I am an imprint. A copy.”
I swallowed. “You live in my head. And you can talk to me?”
“I can now,” Lasciel said. “Now that you have chosen to employ what I have offered you.”
I took in a deep breath. “Hellfire. I used Hellfire today to empower my magic.”
“You made the conscious choice to do so,” she said. “And as a result, I can now appear to your conscious mind.” She smiled. “Actually, I’ve been looking forward to meeting you. You are a great deal more interesting than most I have been given to.”
“You, uh,” I said, “you don’t look much like a demon.”
“Keep in mind, please, that I was not always a resident of Hell. I relocated there.” She looked at herself. “Shall I add the wings? A harp? A golden halo?”
“Why are you asking me?” I asked.
“Because I am something of a guest,” she said. “It costs me nothing to take on an appearance that pleases my host.”
“Uh-huh,” I said. “If you’re my guest, then get out.”
She laughed, and there was nothing alluring or musical about it. It was just laughter, warm and genuine. “That isn’t possible, I’m afraid. By taking the coin, you invited me in. You cannot simply will me away.”
“Fine,” I said. “This is a dream. I’ll wake up. See ya.”
I made the simple effort of will required to wake myself from a dream.
And nothing happened.
“Maybe it’s the painkillers,” Lasciel suggested. “And you were, after all, very tired. It looks like we’ll be spending a little time together.”
I glared for a while. I don’t usually take the time to glower at things in dreams, either. “What do you want?” I said.
“To make you an offer,” she said.
“The answer is no,” I said. “We now return me to my regularly scheduled dream.”
She pursed her lips, then smiled again. “I think you want to hear me out,” she said. “This is your dream, after all. If you truly wished me to begone, don’t you think you could make it so?”
“Maybe it’s the hot tub,” I suggested.
“I saw that you’d never experienced one,” Lasciel said. She dipped a toe into the pool and smiled. “I have, often. Do you like it?”
“It’s okay,” I said, and tried to look like I didn’t think it was just about the nicest thing ever for an aching and tired body. “You know what I know, eh?”
“I exist within your mind,” she said. “I see what you see. Feel what you feel. I learn what you learn—and quite a bit more besides.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” I said.
“That I can do you a great deal of good,” she said. “I have the knowledge and memory of two thousand years of life upon this world, and infinite thousands outside it. I know many things that could be of use to you. I can advise you. Teach you secrets of your craft never known to mortalkind. Show you sights no human has ever seen. Share with you memory and image beyond anything you could imagine.”
“By any chance does all of this knowledge and power and good advice come for only three easy installments of nineteen ninety-five plus shipping and handling?”
The fallen angel arched a golden brow at me.
“Or maybe it comes with a bonus set of knives tough enough to saw through a nail, yet still cut tomatoes like this.”
She regarded me steadily and said, “You aren’t nearly as funny as you think you are.”
“I had to come up with some kind of response to your offer to corrupt and enslave me. Bad jokes seemed perfectly appropriate, because I can only assume that you’ve got to be kidding.”
Lasciel pursed her lips, a thoughtful expression. It made me start thinking about how soft her mouth looked, for example. “Is that what you think I want? A slave?”
“I got a look at how you guys work,” I said.
“You’re referring to Ursiel’s previous host, yes?”
“Yes. He was insane. Broken. I’m not eager to give it a whirl for myself.”
Lasciel rolled her eyes. “Oh, please. Ursiel is a mindless thug. He doesn’t care what happens to the holder of his coin, provided he gets to taste blood as often as possible. I don’t operate that way.”
“Sure you don’t.”
She shrugged. “Your derision will not unmake the truth. Some of my kindred prefer domination in their relationships with mortals. The wiser among us, though, find a mutual partnership to be much more practical, and beneficial for both parties. You saw something of how Nicodemus functions with Anduriel, did you not?”
“No offense, but I would shove a sharpened length of rebar into one ear and out the other if I thought I was going to turn into anything like Nicodemus.”
Her expression registered surprise. “Why?”
“Because he’s a monster,” I said.
Lasciel shook her head. “Perhaps from your perspective. But you know very little of him and his goals.”
“I know he did his damnedest, literally, to kill me and two of my friends, and God knows how many innocent people with that
plague. And he did kill another friend.”
“What is your point?” Lasciel asked. She seemed genuinely confused.
“The point is that he crossed the line, and I’m never going to play on his team. He doesn’t get understanding or sympathy anymore. Not from me. He’s got payback coming.”
“You wish to destroy him?”
“In a perfect world he would vanish off the face of the earth and I would never hear of him again,” I said. “But I’ll take whatever I can get.”
She absorbed that for a few moments, and then nodded slowly. “Very well,” she said. “I will depart. But let me leave you with a thought?”
“As long as you leave.”
She smiled, rising. “I understand your refusal to allow another to control your life. It’s a poisonous, repugnant notion to think of someone who would dictate your every move, impose upon you a code of behavior you could not accept, and refuse to allow you choice, expression, and the pursuit of your own heart’s purpose.”
“Pretty much,” I said.
The fallen angel smiled. “Then believe me when I say that I know precisely how you feel. All of the Fallen do.”
A little cold spot formed in the pit of my stomach, despite the hot tub. I shifted uncomfortably in the water.
“We have that in common, wizard,” Lasciel said. “You’ve no reason to believe me, but consider for a moment the possibility that I am sincere in my offer. I could do a great deal to help you—and you could continue to live your life on your own terms, and in accordance with your own values. I could help you be ten times the force for good that you already are.”
“With that power, I should have power too great and terrible. And over me the Ring would gain a power still greater and more deadly,” I said.
“Gandalf to Frodo,” the demon said, smiling. “But I am not sure the metaphor is applicable. You needn’t actually take up the coin, if it did not suit you to do so. The aid I can offer you in this shadow form is far more limited than if you took up the coin, but it is not inconsiderable.”
“Ring, coin, whatever. The physical object is only a symbol in any case—a symbol for power.”
“I merely offer you the benefit of my knowledge and experience,” she said.