by Jim Butcher
“Of course,” I said.
“But unofficially…” She shrugged. “I’m losing SI. They’re busting me down to detective sergeant.”
I winced. “Who’s getting the job?”
“Stallings, most likely. He’s the next most experienced, better record than most of the department, and he’s respected.” She looked away. “I’m losing my seniority, too. All of it. So they’re partnering me with their most experienced detective.”
“Which is that?” I asked.
“Rawlins,” she said, her mouth moving in a tight smile. “He did so good on this one they promoted him to SI.”
“No good deed goes unpunished,” I said.
“Ain’t that the truth,” Murphy sighed.
“That a bad thing? He seems like a decent guy.”
“He is, he is,” Murphy said, scrunching up her nose. “But he knew my father.”
“Oh,” I said. “And it’s possible you have issues.”
“Remotely,” she said. “What about you? You okay?”
I met her eyes for a second and then looked away. “I, uh. I’ll be okay.”
She nodded, and then simply stepped forward and hugged me. My arms went around her without me telling them to do it. It wasn’t a tense, meaning-laden hug. She was my friend. She was exhausted and worried and suffering, and she’d had what she valued most sullied and stained, but she was worried about me. Giving me a hug. Assuring me, by implication, that everything was going to be all right.
I gave as good as I got for a while. When we broke the embrace, it was at the same time, and it wasn’t awkward. She smiled at me, just a little bittersweet, and glanced at her watch. “I have to get moving.”
“Right,” I said. “Thanks, Murph.”
She left. A while later, my phone rang. I answered it.
“Everything work out?” Thomas asked. “With the girl?”
“Pretty much,” I told him. “You all right?”
“Yeah,” he said.
“Need anything?” Like maybe to talk about how he was feeding on people again and making money at the same time.
“Not especially,” he told me. I was pretty sure he had heard the unasked question, because his tone of voice carried an unyielding coolness, telling me not to push. Thomas was my brother. I could wait.
“What’s up with Murphy?” he asked me.
I told him about her job.
He was silent for an annoyed second and then said, “But what’s up with Murphy?”
I glowered and slouched down onto my couch. “There isn’t anything up with her. She isn’t interested.”
“How do you know?” he asked.
“She told me.”
“She told you.”
“She told me.”
He sighed. “And you believed her.”
“Well,” I said. “Yes.”
“I had a talk with her when she drove me home,” he said.
“A talk?”
“A talk. I wanted to figure something out.”
“Did you?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“What?”
“That you’re both stiff-necked idiots,” he said, his tone annoyed, and hung up on me.
I glowered at the phone for a minute, muttered a couple of choice words about my half brother, then got out my guitar and labored to make something resembling music for a while. Sometimes it was easier for me to think when playing, and the time drifted by. I played and mulled things over until someone else knocked. I set my guitar aside and went to the door.
Ebenezar stood on the other side, and he gave me a nod and a cautious smile when I opened the door. “Hot enough for you?” the old wizard asked.
“Almost,” I said. “Come in.”
He did, and I grabbed a couple of beers, offering him one. “What’s up?”
“You tell me,” he said.
So I told him all about the last few days, especially my dealings with Lily and Fix, Maeve, and Mab. Ebenezar listened to it all in silence.
“What a mess,” he said when I finished.
“Tell me about it.” I sipped at my beer. “You know what I think?”
He finished his beer and shook his head.
“I think we got played.”
“By the Summer Lady?”
I shook my head. “I think Lily got suckered just as much as we did.”
He frowned and rubbed at his head with one palm. “How so?”
“That’s the part I can’t figure,” I said. “I think someone set Molly up to be a beacon for the fetches. And I’m damned sure that it was no accident that those fetches took Molly to Arctis Tor when it was so lightly defended. Someone wanted me there at Arctis Tor.”
Ebenezar pursed his lips. “Who?”
“I think we got used by one of the Queens to one-up one of the others, somehow. But damned if I can figure out how.”
“You think Mab really is insane?”
“I think it would be hard to tell the difference,” I said in a sour voice. “Lily thinks so. But Lily wasn’t exactly widely famed for her intellect before she became the Summer Lady.” I shook my head. “If Mab really is loopy, it’s going to be bad.”
The old man nodded.
“And since you can’t swing a cat without hitting a cat’s-paw lately, I think maybe someone was trying to use Mab for something. Like all the others who’ve gotten set up around here.”
“Set up?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Starting with Victor Sells a few years ago. Then those FBI creeps with the wolf belts. I think that someone out there wants to get things done without getting his—”
“Or her,” Ebenezar said.
“Or her own hands dirty,” I continued. “Consider all these things running around with more power than they should have had or better connected than they should have been. The Shadowman, the hexenwulfen, the Nightmare, the last Summer Lady—and that’s just for starters. The Red Court sure are a hell of a lot more dangerous than anyone thought they would be.”
Ebenezar frowned, nodding.
“I think whoever is backstage moving things around tried to use Mab and got more than they bargained for. I think that’s what the attack on Arctis Tor was about. Maybe they tried to put her down before she turned on them.”
“Which she would,” Ebenezar said.
“Of course she would. She’s Mab. She’d keep any bargain she made, but she isn’t the kind who takes orders real well.”
“Go on, boy,” Ebenezar said gently. “You’ve got facts. Where do they lead you?”
I lowered my own voice to a whisper. “A new power is moving around out there. Something big, smart, strong, and sneaky as hell. Something with a lot of strength and magical know-how.” I licked my lips. “Put that together with the evidence of varied powers. Wolf belts handed out to those poor FBI bastards. Black magic being taught to small-timers like the Shadowman and the Nightmare. Vampires cross-training one another in sorcery. Hellfire used on Arctis Tor. And, of course, the White Council’s highly placed traitor. All of that together doesn’t point to just one person. It indicates an organization.” I regarded the old man steadily. “And they’ve got wizards on the staff. Probably several of them.”
Ebenezar grunted. “Damn.”
“Damn?”
“I was hoping maybe I was starting to go senile. But I came to the same conclusion.” He nodded. “Boy, don’t breathe a word of this. Not to anyone. I got the feeling that this is information worth as much as your life.” He shook his head. “Let me think about who else needs to know.”
“Rashid,” I said in a firm voice. “Tell the Gatekeeper.”
Ebenezar frowned, though it looked more weary than anything else. “Likely he knows already. Knew already. Maybe even pointed you in a direction that would show you more. Assuming he wasn’t simply using you to poke a hornet’s nest and see what flew up.”
Which was somewhat creepy to think about. If Ebenezar was right, I could count myself among the pawns in play, courtesy of the G
atekeeper.
“You don’t want to tell him?” I asked.
“Rashid is a tough one to figure,” Ebenezar said. “Three, four years ago, I wouldn’t have thought twice. But with all that’s happened…since Simon died…” He shrugged. “Better to be cautious. We can’t put the genie back in the bottle once it’s out.”
“Or maybe that’s the worst thing we could do,” I said. “Maybe it’s what these…Black Council assholes are counting on.”
He looked up at me sharply. “Now why would you call them that?”
“Black Council?” I shrugged. “If the shoe fits. It’s better than the Legion of Doom.”
He regarded me for a moment more and then shrugged. “Times are changing, Hoss. That’s for sure.” He polished off his beer. “But they always do. I know you’re going to do what you think you need to do. But I’d like to ask that you be very cautious, Hoss. We still don’t know what our enemies look like. That means we’ll have to bring in our allies carefully.”
“Meaning without troubling the White Council and the Wardens about it?” I asked, my tone dry.
He grunted in the affirmative. “Don’t forget the other loose end.”
I frowned and thought back over it. “Huh,” I said. “You’re right. Who was driving that car that ran into me?”
“Exactly,” he said.
“More mysteries.”
“Thought you were a professional investigator, Hoss,” he teased. “For you, this should be fun.”
“Yeah. Fun. Fun, fun, fun. I’m having fun already.”
He smiled. “Mmmmph. It isn’t good news that Winter isn’t going to stand with us against the Reds, but it could have been worse. And we learned something valuable.”
I grunted. “The traitor to the Council. Someone had to tell the Reds where Luccio’s boot camp was hidden.”
“Yes,” he said, and leaned forward. “And outside of Luccio only four people knew.”
I arched my brows at him. “Morgan?”
“That’s one,” he agreed. “Injun Joe, the Merlin, and Ancient Mai were the only others.”
I whistled slowly. “Heavy hitters. But knock Morgan off your list. He didn’t do it.”
Ebenezar arched his brows. “No?”
I shook my head. “Guy is a dick,” I said, “but he’s on the level. We shouldn’t tell him, but he’s no traitor.”
Ebenezar frowned for a moment and then nodded slowly. “Very well, then. I’ll vouch for Injun Joe.”
“So what comes next?” I asked him.
“Watching them,” he said. “Waiting. Not letting on that we know. We won’t get more than one chance to take them off guard. When we do move, we got to make it hurt.”
I frowned at my now-empty bottle and nodded. “We wait. Lie in the weeds. Keep a low profile. Got it.”
“Hoss,” my old teacher said quietly. “What you did for that girl…”
“Yeah,” I said, waving a hand. “Stupid. The Merlin is going to be royally pissed at me. He’ll probably start insisting I go on shooting missions now, in hopes someone will take me out and remove a thorn in his side.”
“True,” Ebenezar said. “But what I meant to say was that what you did was damned brave. From what I hear, you were ready to take on everyone there if you had to.”
“Wouldn’t have lasted long.”
“No. But then, that wasn’t the point.” He rose a little stiffly and said, “I’m proud of you, boy.”
Something inside me melted.
“You know,” I said. “You always told me you weren’t at my trial. That the Council saddled you with me because you skipped out. I think that isn’t true.”
He grunted.
“It was all in Latin, which I didn’t understand then. And I had that hood over my head, so I couldn’t see anyone. But someone had to have defended me, the way I did Molly.”
“Could be.” He rolled one shoulder in a shrug. “I’m getting old, Hoss. I forget things.”
“Ah,” I said. “You know, I’ve missed a meal or three lately. And I know this little joint that’s got the best spaghetti in town.”
Ebenezar froze in place, like a man walking on ice who suddenly hears cracking sounds. “Oh?” he asked, tone careful.
“They’ve got this great bread that goes with it, too. And it’s right by the campus, so cute waitresses.”
“Sounds promising,” Ebenezar said. “Makes me feel a mite hungry hearing about it.”
“Absolutely,” I said. “Let me get my shoes. If we hurry we can get there before the evening rush.”
We looked at each other for a long moment, and my old teacher bowed his head to me. It conveyed a lot of things. Apology. Gratitude. Happiness. Forgiveness. Affection. Pride.
“You want me to drive us?” he asked.
I bowed my head in reply. “I’d like that, sir.”
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter
One
Many things are not as they seem: The worst things in life never are.
I pulled my battle-scarred, multicolored old Volkswagen Beetle up in front of a run-down Chicago apartment building, not five blocks from my own rented basement apartment. Usually, by the time the cops call me, things are pretty frantic; there’s at least one corpse, several cars, a lot of flashing blue lights, yellow-and-black tape, and members of the press—or at least the promise of the imminent arrival of same.
This crime scene was completely quiet. I saw no marked police cars, and only one ambulance, parked, its lights off. A young mother went by, one child in a stroller, the other toddling along holding Mommy’s hand. An elderly man walked a Labrador retriever past my car. No one was standing around and gawking or otherwise doing anything at all out of the ordinary.
Odd.
A creepy shiver danced over the nape of my neck, even though it was the middle of a sunny May afternoon. Normally, I didn’t start getting wigged out until I’d seen at least one nightmarish thing doing something graphic and murderous.
I put it down to the paranoia of advancing age. It isn’t like I’m all that old or anything, especially for a wizard, but age is always advancing and I’m fairly sure it’s up to no good.
I parked the Blue Beetle and headed into the apartment building. I went up several flights of stairs that needed their old tile replaced, or at least scrubbed and shined. I left them to find a hallway carpeted in a low, grey-blue pile that had been crushed down to shiny smoothness in the middle. The apartment doors were battered, old, but made of thick oak. I found Murphy waiting for me.
At five feet and small change, a hundred and not much, she didn�
��t exactly look like a tough Chicago cop who could face down monsters and maniacs with equal nerve. Chicks like that aren’t supposed to be blond or have a cute nose. Sometimes I think Murphy became that tough cop she didn’t look like purely for the sake of contrariness—no amount of sparkling blue eyes or seeming harmlessness could hide the steel in her nature. She gave me her we’re-at-work nod, and a terse greeting. “Dresden.”
“Lieutenant Murphy,” I drawled, with an elaborate bow and flourish of one hand, deliberately at odds with her brusque demeanor. I wasn’t doing it out of pure contrariness. I’m not like that. “I am dazzled by your presence once more.”
I expected a snort of derision. Instead, she gave me a polite, brittle little smile and corrected me in a gentle tone: “Sergeant Murphy.”
Open mouth, insert foot. Way to go, Harry. The opening credits aren’t done rolling on this case, and you’ve already reminded Murphy of what it cost her to be your friend and ally.
Murphy had been a detective lieutenant, and in charge of Special Investigations. SI was Chicago PD’s answer to problems that didn’t fall within the boundaries of “normal.” If a vampire slaughtered a transient, if a ghoul killed a graveyard watchman, or if a faerie cursed someone’s hair to start growing in instead of out, someone had to examine it. Someone had to look into it and reassure the government and the citizenry that everything was normal. It was a thankless job, but SI handled it through sheer guts and tenacity and sneakiness and by occasionally calling in Wizard Harry Dresden to give them a hand.
Her bosses got real upset about her abandoning her duties in a time of crisis, while she helped me on a case. She’d already been exiled to professional Siberia, by being put in charge of SI. By taking away the rank and status she had worked her ass off to earn, they had humiliated her, and dealt a dreadful blow to her pride and her sense of self-worth.