Jim Butcher - Dresden Files Omnibus

by Jim Butcher

  “But the girl,” I said, “didn’t die.”

  Marcone shook his head. “It put Vargassi in an awkward position. If the girl recovered, she might identify his son as the shooter, and no jury in the world would fail to send a thug to jail who’d shot a pretty little girl. But if the girl died, and it came back on Marco, he’d be looking at a murder charge.”

  “And someone who murders little girls gets the needle in Illinois,” I said.

  “Exactly. There was a great deal of corruption at the time—”

  I snorted.

  Marcone’s little smile returned for a moment. “Pardon me. Say instead that the Vargassis exerted their influence on official matters with a heavy hand. Vargassi had the little girl declared dead. He convinced the medical examiner to sign false paperwork, and he hid the girl away in another hospital.”

  I grunted. “If Marco got identified as the shooter and put up for trial, Vargassi could produce the little girl. Look, she’s not dead. Mistrial.”

  “One possibility,” Marcone replied. “And if things went quietly for a while, he could simply delete her records.”

  “And her,” I said.

  “Yes.”

  “Whatever happened to old Tony Vargassi?” I asked.

  I saw a flash of Marcone’s teeth. “His whereabouts are unknown. As are Marco’s.”

  “When did you find out about the girl?”

  “Two years later,” he said. “Everything was set up through a dummy corporation’s trust fund. She could have just…” He looked away from me. “Just lain there. Indefinitely. No one would have known who she was. Known her name.”

  “Does Helen know?” I asked him.

  He shook his head. He was quiet for a moment more. “I can’t return Persephone from Hades. The child’s death almost destroyed Helen—and her world is still frozen. If she knew her daughter was…trapped…just lying there in a half-life…” He shook his head. “It would shatter her world, Dresden. And I shouldn’t wish that.”

  “I’ve noticed,” I said quietly, “that most of the young ladies working here would be about the same age as her daughter.”

  “Yes,” Marcone said.

  “That isn’t exactly a healthy recovery.”

  “No,” Marcone said. “But it’s what she has.”

  I thought about it while I kept reading. Maybe Helen deserved to know about her daughter. Hell, she probably did. But whatever else Marcone was, he was no fool. If he thought news of her daughter’s fate might shatter Helen, he was probably right. Sure, she should know. But did I have the right to make that decision?

  Probably not—even if Marcone wouldn’t do his best to have me killed if I tried. Hell, I probably had less right to decide than Marcone. He had way more invested in the girl and her fate than I did.

  Because that was the secret I’d seen in a soulgaze with Gentleman Johnnie Marcone, years ago. The secret that gave him the strength and the will to rule the mean streets.

  He felt responsible for the little girl who’d taken a bullet meant for him.

  He’d taken over Chicago crime with ruthless efficiency, always cutting down on the violence. A couple of people had been hurt in gang-related crimes. The gangsters responsible hadn’t been heard from again. I’d always assumed it was because Marcone had decided to manipulate matters, to make himself appear to be a preferable alternative to more careless criminals who might take his place if the cops took him down.

  I’d never even considered the idea that he might actually give a crap about innocents being harmed.

  Granted, that didn’t change anything. He still ran a business that killed far more people than any amount of collateral damage. He was still a criminal. Still a bad guy.

  But…

  He was the devil I knew. And he probably could have been worse.

  I got to the last page of the contract and found spaces for three signatures. Two of them were already filled.

  “Donar Vadderung?” I asked Marcone.

  “Current CEO of Monoc Securities,” Marcone replied. “Oslo.”

  “And Lara Raith,” I murmured.

  “Signing on behalf of her father, the White King, who is obviously in charge of the White Court.” There was a trace of irony in Marcone’s voice. He hadn’t been fooled by the puppet show.

  I looked at the third open line.

  Then I signed it, and left without another word.

  It isn’t a perfect world. I’m doing the best I can.

  “Hmmmm,” said Bob the Skull, peering at my left hand. “It looks like…”

  I was sitting in my lab, my hand spread open on the table, while the skull examined my palm.

  I’d worn a mark there for years—an unblemished patch of skin amidst all the burn scars, in the perfect shape of the angelic sigil that was Lasciel’s name.

  The mark was gone.

  In its place was just an irregular patch of unburned skin.

  “It looks like there’s no mark there anymore,” Bob said.

  I sighed. “Thank you, Bob,” I said. “It’s good to have a professional opinion.”

  “Well, what did you expect?” Bob said. The skull swiveled around on the table and tilted up to look at my face. “Hmmmmm. And you say the entity isn’t responding to you anymore?”

  “No. And she’s always jumped every time I said frog.”

  “Interesting,” Bob said.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Well, from what you told me, this psychic attack the entity blocked for you was quite severe.”

  I shivered, remembering. “Yeah.”

  “And the process she used to accelerate your brain and shield you was traumatic as well.”

  “Right. She said it could cause me brain damage.”

  “Uh-huh,” Bob said. “I think it did.”

  “Huh?”

  “See what I mean?” Bob asked cheerfully. “You’re thicker already.”

  “Harry get hammer,” I said. “Smash stupid talky skull.”

  For a guy with no legs, Bob backpedals swiftly and gracefully. “Easy there, chief; don’t get excited. But the brain damage thing is for real.”

  I frowned. “Explain, please.”

  “Well, I told you that the entity in your head was like a recording of the real Lasciel, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That recording was written in your brain, in portions you weren’t using.”

  “Right.”

  “I think that’s where the damage is. I mean, I’m looking at you right now, and your head has been riddled with tiny holes, boss.”

  I blinked and rubbed my fingers over my scalp. “It doesn’t feel like that.”

  “That’s because your brain doesn’t sense injuries. It manages sensing injuries for the rest of you. But trust me, there’s damage. I think it wiped out the entity.”

  “Wiped out…you mean, like…”

  “Killed it,” Bob said. “Technically, it was never alive, but it was constructed. It’s been deconstructed, and…”

  I frowned. “And what?”

  “And there’s, um, a portion of you missing.”

  “I’m sure I would have felt that,” I said.

  “Not your body,” Bob said scornfully. “Your life force. Your chi. Your soul.”

  “Whoa, wait a minute. Part of my soul is gone?”

  Bob sighed. “People get all excited when you use that word. The part of you that is more than merely physical, yes. You can call it whatever you want. There’s some missing, and it’s nothing to panic over.”

  “Part of my soul is gone and I’m not supposed to be worried about that?” I demanded.

  “Happens all the time,” Bob said. “You shared a bunch of yours with Susan, and she with you. It’s what protected you from Lara Raith. You and Murphy swapped some pretty recently, looks like—you must have gotten a hug or something. Honestly, Harry, you really ought to bang her and get it over wi—”

  I reached under the worktable, drew
out a claw hammer, and gave Bob a pointed look.

  “Um, right,” he said. “Back to business. Uh, your soul. You give away pieces of yourself all the time. Everyone does. Some of it goes out with your magic, too. It grows back. Relax, boss.”

  “If it’s no big deal,” I said, “then why is it so interesting?”

  “Oh, well,” Bob said. “It is energy, you know. And I wonder if maybe…maybe…well, look, Harry. There was a tiny bit of Lasciel’s energy in you, supporting the entity, giving you access to Hellfire. That’s gone now, but the entity had to have had some kind of power source to turn against the essence of its own originator.”

  “So it was running off my soul? Like I’m some kind of battery?”

  “Hey,” Bob said, “don’t get all righteous. You gave it to her. Encouraging her to make her own choices, to rebel, to exercise free will.” Bob shook his head. “Free will is horrible, Harry, believe me. I’m glad I don’t have it. Ugh, no, thank you. But you gave her some. You gave her a name. The will came with it.”

  I was quiet for a moment, then said, “And she used it to kill herself.”

  “Sort of,” Bob said. “She chose which areas of your brain were going to take the worst beating. She took a psychic bullet for you. I guess it’s almost the same thing as choosing to die.”

  “No, it isn’t,” I said quietly. “She didn’t choose to die. She chose to be free.”

  “Maybe that’s why they call it free will,” Bob said. “Hey, tell me that at least you got a pony ride before the carnival left town. I mean, she could have made you see and feel anything at all, and…” Bob paused, and his eyelights blinked. “Hey, Harry. Are you crying?”

  “No,” I snapped, and left the lab.

  The apartment felt…very empty.

  I sat down with my guitar and tried to sort out my thoughts. It was hard. I was feeling all kinds of anger and confusion and sadness. I kept telling myself that it was the emotional fallout of Malvora’s psychic assault, but it’s one thing to repeat that to yourself over and over, and quite another to sit there feeling awful.

  I started playing.

  Beautifully.

  It wasn’t perfect performance—a computer can do that. It wasn’t a terribly complex bit of music. My fingers didn’t suddenly regain their complete dexterity—but the music became alive. My hands moved with a surety and confidence I usually felt only in bursts a few seconds long. I played a second piece, and then a third, and every time my rhythm was on, and I found myself seeing and using new nuances, variations on chords that lent depth and color to the simple pieces I could play—sweet sadness to the minor chords, power to the majors, stresses and resolutions I’d always heard in my head, but could never express in life.

  It was almost like someone had opened a door in my head, like they were helping me along.

  I heard a very, very faint whisper, like an echo of Lash’s voice.

  Everything I can, dear host.

  I played for a while longer, before gently setting aside my guitar.

  Then I went to call Father Forthill and tell him to come over, so that he could pick up the blackened denarius as soon as I dug it out of my basement.

  I picked up Thomas outside his apartment and tailed him as he crossed town. He took the El over toward the Loop, and hit the sidewalks again. He looked tense, and paler than usual. He’d blown an awful lot of energy killing those ghouls, and I knew he’d have to feed—maybe dangerously—to recover what he’d lost.

  I’d called him the day after the battle and tried to talk to him, but he’d remained reticent, remote. I’d told him I was worried about him, after blowing that much energy. He’d hung up on me. He’d cut short two more calls since.

  So, being as how I am a smart and sensitive guy who respects his brother’s feelings, I was tailing him to find out what the hell he was trying so hard not to talk to me about. This way, I was sparing him all the effort and trouble of telling me about it by finding out all on my own. Like I said, I’m sensitive. And thoughtful. And maybe a little stubborn.

  Thomas wasn’t being very careful. I would have expected him to move around the city like a long-tailed cat at a rocking chair convention, but he sort of trudged along, fashionable in his dark slacks and loose, deep crimson shirt, his hands in his pockets, his hair hiding his face most of the time.

  Even so, he attracted more than a little feminine attention. He was like a walking, talking cologne commercial, except that even silent and standing he was making women look over their shoulders at him, while coyly rearranging their hair.

  He finally stalked into the Park Tower, and went into a trendy little boutique-slash–coffee shop calling itself the Coiffure Cup. I checked a clock, and thought about following him in. I could see a few people inside, where a coffee bar backed up to the front window. A couple of fairly pretty girls were getting things set up behind the counter, but I couldn’t see any more than that.

  I found a spot where I could watch the door and loomed unobtrusively—which is easier than you’d think, even when you’re as tall as I am. A couple of women whose hair and nails screamed “beautician” came in later. The boutique opened for business a few minutes after Thomas got there, and immediately began doing a brisk trade. A lot of evidently wealthy, terribly attractive, generally young women started coming and going.

  It put me in a quandary. On the one hand, I didn’t want anyone to get hurt because my brother had exerted himself so furiously on my behalf. On the other, I didn’t particularly care to go in and find my brother lording it over a roomful of worshipful women like some dark god of lust and shadow.

  I chewed on my lip for a while, and decided to go on in. If Thomas had…if he had become the kind of monster his family generally did, I owed it to him to try to talk some sense into him. Or pound it in. Whichever.

  I pushed open the door to the Coiffure Cup and was immediately, pleasantly assaulted by the aroma of coffee. There was techno music playing, thumping bouncily and mindlessly positive. The front room contained the coffee bar, a few little tables, and a little podium next to a heavy curtain. Even as I came in, one of the young women behind the bar came out to me, gave me a bubbly, caffeinated smile, and said, “Hi! Do you have an appointment?”

  “No,” I said, glancing back at the curtains. “Um, I just need to talk to someone. One second.”

  “Sir,” she said in protest, and tried to hurry into my path. My legs were longer. I gave her a smile and outdistanced her, pushing the curtain aside.

  The techno music grew a little louder as I went through. The back room of the boutique smelled the way boutiques always do, of various tonsorial chemicals. A dozen styling stations, all in use, stood six on a side, marching up to a rather large and elaborate station on a little raised platform. At the base of the little platform was a pedicure station, and a young woman with a mud mask, and cucumber slices, and a body posture of blissful relaxation was lounging through a pedicure. On the other side, another young woman was under a dryer, reading a magazine, her expression heavy and relaxed with that postcoiffure glow. On the main chair on the platform, a deluxe number that leaned back to a custom shampoo sink, another young woman lay back with a blissful expression while having her hair washed.

  By Thomas.

  He was chatting with her amiably as he worked, and she was in the middle of a little laugh when I came in. He leaned down and said something in her ear, and though I couldn’t hear the substance of it, it came across in an unmistakable just-us-girls kind of tone, and she laughed again, replying in a similar manner.

  Thomas laughed and turned away, practically prancing over to a tray of…styling implements, I supposed. He came back with a towel and, I swear to God, a dozen bobby pins held in his lips. He rinsed her hair and started pinning.

  “Sir!” protested the coffee girl, who had followed me into the room.

  Everyone stopped and looked at me. Even the woman with the cucumbers over her eyes took one of them off and peered at me.

 
; Thomas froze. His eyes widened to the size of hand mirrors. He swallowed, and the bobby pins fell out of his mouth.

  All the women looked back and forth between us, and there was an immediate buzz of whispers and quiet talks.

  “You have got to be kidding me,” I said.

  “O-oh,” Thomas said. “Ah-ree.”

  One of the stylists glanced back and forth between us and said, “Thomas.” (She pronounced it Toe-moss.) “Who is your friend?”

  Friend. Oy vey. I rubbed at the bridge of my nose with one hand. I was never going to get away from this one. Not if I lived to be five hundred.

  Thomas and I sat down at a table over cups of coffee.

  “This?” I asked him without preamble. “This is your mysterious job? This is the moneymaking scam?”

  “It was cosmetology school first,” Thomas said. He spoke in a French accent so thick that it barely qualified as English. “And night work as a security guard in a warehouse where no one else ever showed up, to pay for it.”

  I rubbed at my nose again. “And then…this? Here I’m thinking you’ve created your own batch of personal thralls while running around as a hired killer or something, and…you’re washing hair?”

  It was difficult to keep my voice quiet, but I made the effort. There were too many ears in that little place.

  Thomas sighed. “Well. Yes. Washing, cutting, styling, dying. I do it all, baby.”

  “I’ll bet.” Then it hit me. “That’s how you’re feeding,” I said. “I thought that took…”

  “Sex?” Thomas asked. He shook his head. “Intimacy. Trust. And believe me, next to sex, washing and styling a woman’s hair is about as intimate as you can get with her.”

  “You’re still feeding on them,” I said.

  “It isn’t the same, Harry. It isn’t as dangerous—more like…sipping, I suppose, than taking bites. I can’t take very much, or very quickly. But I’m here all day and it…” He shivered. “It adds up.” He opened his eyes and met mine. “And there’s no chance I’m going to lose control of myself. They’re safe.” He shrugged a shoulder. “They just enjoy it.”

  I watched the woman who’d been under the hair dryer come out, smile at Thomas, and pick up a cup of coffee on the way out. She looked…well, radiant, really. Confident. She looked like she felt sexy and beautiful, and it was quite pleasant to watch her move while she did.