by Jim Butcher
We’re ostriches and the whole world is sand.
Newbies who are just learning about the world of wizards and the unpleasant side of the supernatural always think there’s this huge conspiracy to hide it from everyone. There isn’t. There’s no need for one, beyond preventing actual parades down Main Street. Hell’s bells, from where I’m standing, it’s a miracle anyone ever notices.
Which is why I was fairly sure that our parley with the Archive and the Denarians in the Shedd Aquarium was going to go unremarked. Oh, sure, it was right in the middle of town, within a stone’s throw of the Field Museum and within sight of Soldier Field, but given the weather there wasn’t going to be a lot of foot traffic—and the Aquarium was in its off-season. There might be a handful of people there caring for the animals, but I felt confident that Kincaid would find a way to convince them to be somewhere else.
Murphy had rented a car, since hers was so busted-up. The past few days of snow had seen a load of accidents, and there weren’t any compact cars left, so she’d wound up with a silver Caddy the size of a yacht, and I’d called shotgun. Hendricks and Gard rode in the backseat. Gard had gotten to the car under her own power, though she had been moving carefully. Luccio sat beside Gard with her slender staff and her silver rapier resting on the floorboards between her feet, though my own staff was a lot longer and had to slant back between the front seats and past Gard’s head, up into the rear window well.
City work crews were still laboring to clear roads and access to critical facilities. An off-season tourist attraction was not high on anyone’s priority list. For that matter, the Field Museum had been closed due to the weather, which meant that there really weren’t any functioning public buildings for several hundred yards in any direction.
That could be a problem. Michael’s white truck wasn’t going to be able to get anywhere close without being spotted, which meant that he and Sanya were going to be two, maybe three minutes away from helping, provided they could be signaled at all. That was practically the other side of the world, where a violent confrontation is concerned. On the other hand, it also meant that the bad guys weren’t going to be able to bring in any help without being spotted, either.
Provided they were driving cars, of course.
Glass half-full, Harry, glass half-full. There was no profit to be had in a fight—not yet, anyway. Whatever Nicodemus was after, he’d have to make his demands before he had a chance to double-cross us out of whatever he wanted us to bring him. Besides, given what I’d seen of the Archive in action, he’d be freaking insane to try anything where she was officiating. She didn’t brook slights to her authority lightly.
The nearest street had been cleared by city trucks, but none of the parking lots had been done, and the excess snow from the streets formed small mountains on either side of the road.
“Looks like we’re going to have to walk in,” Murphy said quietly.
“Keep circling. They keep the animals here year-round,” I said quietly. “And they’ve got to be fed every day. The staff will have broken a trail in somewhere.”
“Perhaps they let the exhibits go hungry during the storm,” Gard suggested. “Few would venture into this for the sake of their paychecks.”
“You don’t do oceanography for the money,” I said. “And you sure as hell don’t take up working with dolphins and whales for the vast paycheck and the company car.” I shook my head. “They love them. Someone’s gone in every day. They’ll at least have broken a foot trail.”
“There,” Murphy said, pointing. Sure enough, someone had hacked a narrow opening into the mounded snow at the side of the road and dug out a footpath on the other side. Murph had to park at the side of the road, with the doors of the rental car just an inch from the snow walls. If someone came along going too fast, given the condition the streets were in, the Caddy was going to get smashed, but it wasn’t like she had a lot of choice.
We all piled out of the driver’s side of the car into the wan light of early afternoon. Luccio and I both paused to put on our grey Warden’s cloaks. Cloaks look cool and everything, but they don’t go well with cars. Luccio buckled on a finely tooled leather belt that held a sword on her left hip and a Colt on her right.
My .44 was back in my duster pocket, and the weight of both the coat and the gun felt greatly comforting. The wind caught my coat and the cloak both, and almost knocked me over until I got them gathered in close to my body again and under control. Hendricks, stolid and huge in his dark, sensible London Fog winter coat, went by me with a small smile on his face.
Hendricks took point, and the rest of us followed him through what could only generously be called a trail. Instead of the snow being up to our chests, on the trail we sank only to our knees. It was a long, cold slog up to the Aquarium, and then around the entire building, where the snow had piled up to truly impressive depths in the lee of the wind on the south side of the structure. Wind hustling in over the frozen lake felt like it had come straight from outer space, and everyone but Gard hunched up miserably against it. The trail led us to an employee’s door in the side of the building, which proved to have had the lock housing on its frame covered in duct tape, leaving it open.
Hendricks opened the door, and I stuck my head in and took a quick look around. The building was dark beneath its smothering blanket of snow, except for a few dim night-lights set low on the walls. I didn’t see anyone, but I took an extra moment or two to extend my senses into the building, searching for any lurking presences or hostile magicks.
Nothing.
But a little paranoia never hurts in a situation like this.
“Captain,” I said quietly, “what do you think?”
Luccio moved up beside me and studied the hall beyond the doorway, her dark eyes flickering alertly back and forth. “It seems clear.”
I nodded, said, “Excuse me,” and went through the door in a burst of raging anticlimax. I stomped the snow off my boots and jeans as best I could as the others came in behind me. I moved farther down the hall, straining to sense anyone approaching, which meant that I heard the soft scuff of deliberately obtrusive footsteps two or three seconds before Kincaid rounded the far corner. He was dressed in his customary black clothing again, fatigue pants, and a hunting jacket over body armor, and he had enough guns strapped to his body to outfit a terrorist cell, or a Texan nuclear family.
He gave his chin a sharp little lift toward me by way of greeting. “This way, ple…” His eyes focused past me and his voice died in midcourtesy. He stared over my shoulder for a second, sighed, and then told me, “She can’t be here.”
I felt my eyebrows rising. The corners of my mouth went along for the ride. I leaned in a little to Kincaid and murmured, “You tell her.”
His gaze went from Murphy to me. A less charitable man than I might have called his expression sour. He drummed one thumb on the handle of a sidearm and asked, “She threaten to call in the constabulary?”
“She’s got this funny thing where she takes her oath to protect the city and citizens of Chicago seriously. It’s as if her promises mean something to her.”
Kincaid grimaced. “I’ll have to clear it with the Archive.”
“No Murphy, no meeting,” I said. “Tell her I said that.”
The assassin grunted. “You can tell her yourself.”
He led me through the halls of the Shedd, to the Oceanarium. It was probably the most popular exhibit there—a great big old semicircular building containing the largest indoor aquatic exhibits in the world. Its outer ring of exhibits sported a number of absolutely huge pools containing millions of gallons of water and a number of dolphins and those little white whales whose names I can never remember. The same as the caviar. Beluga, beluga whales. There were rocks and trees built up around the outsides of the pools, complete with moss and plants and everything, to make it look like the Pacific Northwest. Although I was fairly sure that the bleacher seats, where the audience could marvel at whales and dolphins who would show
up and do their usual daily health inspections for their trainers to the sound of applause, weren’t indigenous to the Pacific Northwest. I think those were actually Floridian in origin.
A pair of dolphins swept by us in the water, flicking their heads out to get a look at us as they went. One of them made a chittering sound that wasn’t very melodic. The other twitched its tail and splashed a little water our way, all in good fun. They weren’t the attractive Flipper kind of dolphins. They were regular dolphins that aren’t as pretty and don’t get cast on television. Maybe they just refused to sell out and see a plastic surgeon. I held up a fist to them. Represent.
Kincaid scanned the bleachers, frowning. “She’s supposed to be sitting here. Dammit.”
I sighed and circled back toward the stairs to the lower level. “She might be the Archive but she’s still a kid, Kincaid.”
He frowned and looked at me. “So?”
“So? Kids like cute.”
He blinked at me. “Cute?”
“Come on.”
I led him downstairs.
On the lower level of the Oceanarium there’s an inner ring of exhibits, too, containing both penguins and—wait for it—sea otters.
I mean, come on, sea otters. They open abalone with rocks while floating on their backs. How much cuter does it get than small, fuzzy, floating, playful tool users with big, soft brown eyes?
We found Ivy standing in front of one of the sea otter habitats, dressed much more warmly and practically this time, and carrying a small backpack. She was watching two otters chase each other around the habitat, and smiling.
Kincaid stopped in his tracks when he saw that. Just to see what he’d do, I tried to step past him. He shot me a look like he’d murder me if I tried to interrupt her, and my opinion of him went up a notch. I eased back and waited. No skin off my teeth to let the girl watch the otters for a minute.
It had been hard sometimes, when I was a kid, after my magic had started coming in. I’d felt weird and different—alone. It had gradually distanced me from the other kids. But Ivy had never had the luxury of belonging, even temporarily. From what I understood, she’d been the Archive since she was born, fully aware and stuffed full of knowledge from the time she’d opened her eyes. I couldn’t even imagine how hideous that would be.
Hell, the more I learned as I got older, the more I wished I were ignorant again. Well. Innocent, anyway. I remembered what it was like, at least.
Ivy had never been innocent.
I could let her smile at sea otters. You bet.
A shadow moved behind me, and I willed myself not to be creeped out. I turned and saw the two dolphins from the tank above cruise by, observing us again. The huge tanks contained observation windows running the whole length of the second-level gallery, so you could see the cute things on one side, and ogle the homely dolphins and the caviar whales on the other.
From down here you could also see the far wall of the big tank, which was a curved wall of glass that faced the open waters of Lake Michigan. That always seemed a little sadistic to me. I mean, here were animals whom nature had equipped to roam the open vastness of the deep blue sea, being kept in a mere three million gallons or so of water. Bad enough to do that to them without giving them a window seat onto all that open water too.
Or maybe it wasn’t. I hear it kind of sucks to be a whale or a dolphin in the open ocean these days, given the state of the fishing industry.
“I guess they’re looking at a can one way or another,” I muttered.
“Hmmm?” Kincaid said.
“Nothing.”
Ivy let out her breath in a satisfied sigh a moment later as the otters vanished into their den. Then she turned toward us and blinked. “Oh,” she said. Her cheeks colored slightly, and for a moment she looked very much like a young girl. “Oh.” She smoothed wrinkles that didn’t exist in her trousers, nodded at Kincaid, and said, “Yes?”
Kincaid nodded toward me. “Local law enforcement wants a representative present to observe. Dresden’s supporting it.”
She took that in for a moment. “Sergeant Murphy?”
“Yes,” I said.
“I see.” She frowned. When she spoke, her tone was careful, as if she was considering each word before she spoke it. “Speaking as arbiter, I have no objection, provided both parties involved in the parley give their assent.”
“Right,” Kincaid said. He turned and started walking.
I nodded to Ivy, who returned the gesture. Then I turned and hurried to catch up to Kincaid. “So?” I asked him as we climbed the stairs.
“So,” he said, “let’s go talk to Nicodemus.”
Kincaid led me down the way from the Oceanarium and out to the main entry hall. It’s another grandiose collection of shining stone floor and towering Corinthian columns, arranged around a huge tank the size of a roller rink. It’s full of salt water and coral and seaweed and all kinds of tropical fish. Sometimes there’s a diver with a microphone built into his or her mask feeding the little sharks and fish and talking to gawking tourists. Diffused light floods in through an enormous, triangular-paneled cupola overhead.
The recent snow had blackened the panes of the cupola and drifted up over most of the glass front doors, so the only light in the room came from the little colored lights in the huge tank. Fish glided through the tank like wraiths, the odd light casting sinister shades over their scales, and their shadows drifted disembodied over the walls of the room, magnified by the distance and the glass walls of the aquarium.
It was eerie as hell.
One of the shadows drew my attention as some instinct picked out a strong, subtle sense of menace about it. It took me a couple of seconds to realize that this particular shadow disturbed me because it was human, and moving in a perfect, gliding pace around the wall, behind the shadow of one of the tank’s small but genuine sharks—even though the man who cast the shadow was standing perfectly still.
Nicodemus turned from contemplating the fish swimming in the tank so that I could see the outline of his profile against the softly colored lights. His teeth gleamed orange-red in the light of the nearest underwater lamp.
I stopped myself from taking an involuntary step back, but just barely.
“It is a metaphor,” he said quietly. He had a good voice, mellow and surprisingly deep. “Look at them. Swimming. Eating. Mating. Hunting, killing, fleeing, hiding, each to its nature. All of them so different. So alien to one another. Their world in constant motion, always changing, always threatening, challenging.” He moved one arm, sweeping it in a wider gesture. “They cannot know how fragile it is, or that they are constantly surrounded by beings with the power to destroy their world and kill them all with the twitch of a finger. It is no fault of theirs, of course.” Nicodemus shrugged. “They are simply…limited. Very, very limited. Hello, Dresden.”
“You’re playing the creepy vibe a little hard,” I said. “Might as well go for broke, put on a black top hat and pipe in some organ music.”
He laughed quietly. It didn’t sound evil as much as it did rich and supremely confident. “There’s some irregularity with the meeting, I take it?”
Kincaid glanced at me and nodded.
“Local law enforcement wishes a representative to be present,” I said.
Nicodemus’s head tilted. “Really? Who?”
“Does it matter?” Kincaid asked, his tone bored. “The Archive is willing to permit it, if you have no objections.”
Nicodemus turned all the way around finally. I couldn’t see his expression, just his outline against the tank. His shadow, meanwhile, kept circling the room behind the shark. “Two conditions,” he said.
“Go on,” Kincaid said.
“First, that the representative be unarmed, and that the Archive guarantee his neutrality in the absence of factors that conflict with matters of law-enforcement duty.”
Kincaid glanced at me. Murphy wouldn’t like the “unarmed” part, but she’d do it. If nothing else, she wouldn’
t want to back down in front of me—or maybe Kincaid.
But I had to wonder, what was Nicodemus’s problem with an armed cop? Guns did not bother the man. Not even a little. Why that stipulation?
I nodded at Kincaid.
“Excellent,” Nicodemus said. “Second…” He walked forward, each footstep sounding clearly upon the marble floors, until we could see him in the nearest floorlights. He was a man of medium height and build, his features handsome, strong, his eyes dark and intelligent. Hints of silver graced his immaculate hair, though he was holding up pretty well for a man of two thousand. He wore a black silk shirt, dark pants, and what could have been mistaken for a grey Western tie at his throat. It wasn’t. It was an old, old rope from the same field as his coin. “Second,” he said, “I want five minutes alone with Dresden.”
“No offense, Nick,” I said, “but that’s about five minutes longer than I want to spend with you.”
“Exactly,” he replied, smiling. It was the kind of smile you see at country clubs and in boardrooms and on crocodiles. “There’s really never a good opportunity for us to have a civilized conversation. I’m seizing the chance for a chat.” He gestured at the building around us. “Sans demolition, if you think you can refrain.”
I scowled at him.
“Mister Archleone,” Kincaid said, “are you offering a peace bond? If so, the Archive will hold you to it.”
“I offer no such thing,” Nicodemus said without looking away from me. “Dresden would count it as worthless coin, and his is the only opinion that really matters in this particular situation.” He spread his hands. “A talk, Dresden. Five minutes. I assure you, if I wished to do you harm, even the Hellhound’s reputation”—he paused deliberately to glance at Kincaid with naked contempt in his gaze—“would not make me hesitate for an instant. I would have killed you already.”
Kincaid gave Nicodemus a chill little smile, and the air boiled with potential violence.