by Jim Butcher
“You’ve got Mom’s pentacle with you, right?” I asked him. I had a matching pendant on a silver chain around my own neck—which, other than Thomas, was my mother’s only tangible legacy.
“Of course,” he said. “I’ll find you. Where now?”
“St. Mary’s,” I said.
“Figured.”
Thomas started driving. I broke open my double-barreled shotgun, which I’d sawed down to an illegal length, and loaded two shells into it. Tessa the Mantis Girl had rudely neglected to return my .44 after the conclusion of hostilities at the Aquarium, and I have rarely regretted taking a gun with me into what could prove to be a hairy situation.
“Here,” I said when the truck got within a block or so of the church. “Drop me off here.”
“Gotcha,” Thomas said. “Hey, Harry.”
“Yeah?”
“What if they aren’t keeping the little girl on the island?”
I shook my head. “You’ll just have to figure something out. I’m making this up as I go.”
He frowned and shook his head. “What about those goons from Summer? What are you going to do if they show up again?”
“If? I should be so lucky.” I winked at him and got out of the Hummer. “The real question is, what am I going to do if they don’t show up, and at the worst possible time to boot? Die of shock, probably.”
“See you soon,” Thomas said.
I nodded to my brother, shut the door, and trudged across the street and into the parking lot of St. Mary of the Angels.
It’s a big church. A really, really big church. It takes up a full city block, and is one of the town’s more famous landmarks, Chicago’s version of Notre Dame. The drive leading up to the delivery doors in the back of the church had been cleared, as had the little parking lot outside it. Michael’s truck was there. The ambient glow of winter night showed me his form and Sanya’s, standing outside the truck, both of them wearing long white cloaks emblazoned with scarlet crosses over similarly decorated white surcoats—the Sunday-go-to-meeting wear of the Knights of the Cross. They wore their swords at their hips. Michael wore an honest-to-God breastplate, while Sanya opted for more modern body armor. The big Russian, always the practical progressive, also carried a Kalashnikov assault rifle on a sling over his shoulder.
I wondered if Sanya realized that Michael’s antiquated-looking breastplate was lined with Kevlar and ballistic strike plates. The Russian’s gear wouldn’t do diddly to stop swords or claws.
I’d made some modification to my own gear as well. The thong that usually secured my blasting rod, on the inside of my duster, now held up my shotgun. I’d tied a similar strip of leather thong to either end of the simple wooden cane that held Fidelacchius, and now carried the holy blade slung over my shoulder.
Michael nodded to me and then glanced down at his watch. “You’re cutting it a little fine, aren’t you?”
“Punctuality is for people with nothing better to do,” I said.
“Or for those who have already taken care of the other details,” murmured a woman’s voice.
She stepped out of the shadows across the street, a tall and striking woman in motorcycle leathers. She had eyes that were the warm brown shade of hot chocolate, and her hair was dark and braided tightly against her head. She wore no makeup, but even without it she was a knockout. It was the expression on her face that tipped me off to who she was—sadness mingled with regret and steely resolve.
“Rosanna,” I said quietly.
“Wizard.” She strode toward us, somehow arrogant and reserved at the same time, her hips rolling as she walked. The jacket was open almost all the way to her belly button, and there was nothing but skin showing where it was parted. Her eyes, however, remained on the Knights. “These two were not a part of the arrangements.”
“And it was supposed to be Nicodemus that met me,” I said. “Not you.”
“Circumstances necessitated a change,” Rosanna replied.
I shrugged one shoulder—the one bearing Fidelacchius. “Same here.”
“What circumstances are those?” Rosanna demanded.
“The ones where I’m dealing with a pack of two-faced, backstabbing, treacherous, murderous lunatics whom I trust no farther than I can kick.”
She regarded me with level, lovely eyes. “And what is the Knights’ intended role?”
“They’re here to build trust.”
“Trust?” she asked.
“Absolutely. I can kick you a lot farther when they’re around.”
A very small smile touched her mouth. She inclined her head slightly to me. Then she turned to Sanya. “Those colors hardly suit you, animal. Though it is more than agreeable to see you again.”
“I am not that man anymore, Rosanna,” Sanya replied. “I have changed.”
“No, you haven’t,” Rosanna said, those warm eyes locked onto Sanya’s now. “You still long for the fray. Still love the fight. Still revel in bloodshed. That was never Magog. That was always you, my beast.”
Sanya shook his head with a faint smile. “I still enjoy a fight,” he said. “I simply choose them a bit more carefully now.”
“It isn’t too late, you know,” Rosanna said. “Make a gift of that toy to my lord and my lady. They will accept you again with open arms.” She took a step toward him. “You could be with me again, animal. You could have me again.”
Something very odd happened to her voice on the last couple of sentences. It became…thicker somehow, richer, more musical. The individual sounds seemed to have little to do with meaning—but the voice itself carried a honey-slow swirl of sensuality and desire that felt like it was going to glide into my ears and start glowing gently inside my brain. I was only on the fringe of it, too, and had gotten only a watered-down version of the promise contained in that voice. Sanya got it at full potency.
He threw his head back and laughed, a rich, booming, basso laugh that bounced back and forth from the icy stones of the church and the cold walls of the buildings around us.
Rosanna took a step back at that, her expression showing surprise.
“I told you, Rosanna,” he rumbled, laughter still bubbling in his tone. “I have changed.” Then his expression sobered abruptly. “You could change, too. I know how much some of the things you have done disturb you. I’ve been there when you had the nightmares. It doesn’t have to be like that.”
She just stared at him.
Sanya spread his hands. “Give up the coin, Rosanna. Please. Let me help you.”
Her eyelids lowered into slits. She shuddered once and looked down. Then she said, “It is too late for me, Sanya. It has been too late for me for a long, long time.”
“It is never too late,” Sanya said earnestly. “Not as long as you draw breath.”
Something like contempt touched Rosanna’s features. “What do you know, stupid child.” Her gaze swung back to me. “Show me the Sword and the coins, wizard.”
I tapped the hilt of Shiro’s Sword, hanging from its improvised strap over one shoulder. Then I drew the purple Crown Royal bag out of my pocket and held it up. I shook it. It jingled.
“Give the coins to me,” Rosanna said.
I folded my arms. “No.”
Her eyes narrowed again. “Our bargain—”
“You can see them after I’ve seen the girl,” I replied. “Until then, you’ll have to settle for some jingle.” I shook the bag again.
She glowered at me.
“Make up your mind,” I said. “I haven’t got all night. Do you want to explain to Nicodemus how you threw away his chance of destroying the Swords? Or do you want to get moving and take us to the kid?”
Her eyes flickered with something like anger, and warm brown became brilliant gold. But she only gave me a small, stiff nod of her head, and said, “I will take you to her. This way. Please.”
Chapter
Forty-one
The next few minutes were intense, and I didn’t dare let it show. If I’d been complete
ly wrong in my deductions—which was possible; God knew it had happened before—then Michael, Sanya, and I were about to walk into the lion’s den together. Granted, that worked out for Daniel, but he was the exception to the rule. Most of the time it works out well only for the lions. That’s why the Persians used it as a means of execution.
Granted, Michael was working for the same employer, and technically Sanya was too, even if he wasn’t wholly decided on whether or not that was what he was doing. But me and the Almighty haven’t ever really sat down for a chat. I’m not really sure where He stands on the Harry Dresden issue, and as a result my theological stance has been pretty simple: I try not to get noticed by anything Godly, godly, or god-ish. I think we’re all happier that way.
All the same, given who I was up against, I didn’t think it would be inappropriate if a couple of breaks came my way. Hopefully Michael had put in a good word for me.
Rosanna walked down the street and lifted a hand. A van cruised up out of the night. It was occupied by a single driver, a thick-necked, broken-nosed type whose eyes didn’t look like he was all the way there. One of Nick’s fanatics, probably. They had their tongues ritually removed as a point of honor and practicality—from Nicodemus’s perspective, anyway. I supposed I could ask him to open up and confirm it, but it seemed a little gauche.
Michael stuck his head in the van and checked it out. Then he politely opened the passenger door for Rosanna. The Denarian stared levelly at him for a moment, and then nodded her head and slid into the van.
Sanya went in the van first, taking the rearmost seat. I went in after Michael. Rosanna muttered something to the driver, and the van took off.
I got nervous for a minute. The van headed west—in exactly the opposite direction from the lake. Then the driver turned north, and after a few minutes I realized that we were headed for one of the marinas at the north end of Lake Shore Drive. I forced myself to keep my breathing smooth and even. If the bad guys tumbled to the fact that we’d already guessed their location, the situation could devolve pretty quickly.
Michael sat calmly, his face imperturbable, his hands resting on the sheathed form of Amoracchius, the picture of saintly serenity. Sanya, behind us, let out a low, buzzing snore. It wasn’t as saintly as Michael, but it conveyed just as much blithe confidence. I tried to match their calm, with mixed results. Don’t get jittery, Harry. Play it cool. Ice water in your veins.
The van stopped at one of the marinas off Northerly Island. Rosanna got out without a word and we followed her. She stalked down to the shore, out onto the docks, and out to a modestly sized ski boat moored at the dock’s end. Michael and I went aboard after her. Sanya untied the lines holding the boat to the dock, pushed it away from the pier, and casually hopped across the widening distance and into the vessel.
It took her a couple of minutes, but Rosanna coaxed the old boat’s engines to life and turned us away from the lights of the city and out into the darkness of the great lake.
It was eerie how swiftly the world became pitch-black. That strange faerie-light of the night under a heavy snow vanished out on the waters of the lake, where the snow simply sank into the depths. The low overcast gave us a little light, for a time, reflecting the glow of the city, but as the boat continued skimming out into the center of the lake, even that faded away until I could barely distinguish the outline of the boat and its occupants against the water all around.
I wasn’t sure how long we went on like that in the dark. It seemed like an hour, but it couldn’t have been more than half that. The boat bounced across waves, whump, whump, whump, throwing up splashes of spray that coated the bow in a shining crust of ice. My stomach got a little queasy as I tried to anticipate the motion in the darkness and failed.
At length, the rumble of the boat’s engine died away, and then stopped altogether. The silence was disorienting. I’ve lived my entire adult life in Chicago. I’m used to the city, to its rhythms, its music. The hum and hiss of traffic, the clatter of elevated trains, the blaring radios, the beeping horns, cell phones, sirens, music, animals, and people, people, people.
But out here, in the center of the vast, empty cold of the lake, there was nothing. No heartbeat of the city, no voices, no nothing, except the glug and slap of water hitting the hull of the boat.
I waited for a couple of minutes while the boat was rocked by the waves of the lake. Now that we weren’t moving under power, I thought that they were rocking the boat to a really alarming degree, but I wasn’t going to be the one to start whimpering.
“Well?” Sanya demanded, about five seconds before I would have cracked. “What are we waiting for?”
“A signal,” Rosanna murmured. “I would as soon not tear out the boat’s bottom on rocks and drown us all, dear animal.”
I reached into my duster pocket and took out a chemical light. I tore it out of its package, snapped it, and shook it to life. Up sprang a greenish glow that lit up the immediate area well enough, considering how dark it had been for the past half an hour or so.
Rosanna turned to look at the light. Sometime during the trip her human form had changed, vanishing back into the shape of the scarlet-skinned, goat-legged, bat-winged demoness I had seen at the Aquarium. Her eyes, both the brown ones and the glowing green pair, focused on the chemical light, and she smiled, revealing white, delicately pointed fangs. “No magic, wizard? Are you so fearful about husbanding your strength?”
Out this far from shore, floating over this much water, it would have been difficult to put together a spell of any complexity—but I was sure Rosanna knew that as well as I did, if the flames I’d seen her tossing around back at the Shedd were any indication. It would have been a waste of energy I might need later. But I reminded myself about the ice water alleged to be in my veins.
“Mostly I just think the glow lights are fun,” I said. “Did you know that they used these things for the blood of the Predator in that movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger?”
The smile faltered. “What are you talking about?”
“That’s the problem with you nearly immortal types,” I said. “You couldn’t spot a pop culture reference if it skittered up and implanted an embryo down your esophagus.”
At the back of the boat, Sanya started coughing.
Rosanna stared at him for a moment, her eyes unreadable. Then the barest shadow of something mournful touched her features, and she turned away from him. She walked to the front of the boat and stood facing east into the darkness, her arms folded across her body in a posture of tightly closed insecurity, her wings wrapping around her like a blanket.
Sanya didn’t miss it. He’d been forcing himself to conceal a grin, but it faded into uneasy discomfort at Rosanna’s reaction. He looked like he was about to say something, then frowned and shook his head. He turned his face to stare out over the water. Large flakes of snow continued to drift down, flickers of crystalline green in the glow light. Michael started humming contentedly—“Amazing Grace.” He must have learned the song from some Baptists somewhere. He had a nice voice, rich and steady.
I stepped up next to Rosanna and said in a quiet voice, “Tell me something. This maiden-of-sorrow thing you’ve got going—how many Knights have you killed with it?”
Her eyes, both pairs, flicked aside to glance at me for a second, then back out at the night. “What do you mean?”
“You know. You’ve got that beautiful sad aura going. You look mournful and tragic and pretty. Radiate that ‘save me, save me’ vibe. Probably get all kinds of young men who want to carry you off on a white horse.”
“Is that what you think of me?” she asked.
“Lady,” I said, “a year or three ago, I’d have been the first in line. Hell, if I thought you were serious about getting out, I’d probably still help you. But I don’t think you want out. I think that if you were all that pathetic, you wouldn’t be controlling your Fallen—it would be controlling you. I think you’re Tessa’s trusted lieutenant for a reason. Which means tha
t either this tragic, trapped-lady routine is a bunch of crocodile tears, or else it’s hypocrisy on such an epic scale that it probably qualifies as some kind of psychological dysfunction.”
She stared out into darkness and said nothing.
“You never did answer my question,” I said.
“Why not say it louder?” she asked me in a bitter undertone. “If that is what you think of me, then your friends need to be forewarned of my treachery.”
“Right,” I said. “I do that, and then your eyes well up with tears, and you turn away from me. You let them see one tear fall down your cheek, then turn your head enough to let the wind carry your hair over the rest. Maybe let your shoulders shake once. Then it’s the big bad suspicious wizard, who doesn’t forgive and doesn’t understand, picking on the poor little girl who is trapped in her bad situation and really just wants to be loved. Give me some credit, Rosanna. I’m not going to help you set them up.”
The glowing green eyes turned to examine me, and Rosanna’s mouth moved, speaking in an entirely different, feminine voice. “Lasciel taught you something of us.”
“You might say that,” I replied.
Ahead of us and slightly to the right a light flared up in the darkness—a bonfire, I thought. I couldn’t tell how far away it was, given the night and the falling snow.
“There,” Rosanna murmured. “That way. If you would excuse me.”
As she walked back to the wheel of the boat, a breath of wind sighed over the lake. In itself that wasn’t anything new. Wind had been blowing all the way through the snowstorm. Something about this breeze, though, caught my attention. It wasn’t right.
It took me another three or four seconds to realize what was wrong.
This was a south wind. And it was warm.
“Uh-oh,” I said. I held up the chemical light and started scanning the waters all around us.