Jim Butcher - Dresden Files Omnibus

by Jim Butcher

He didn’t react to my words. Not at all.

  I studied his profile for a few moments. Then I said, “What’s wrong?”

  He moved one shoulder in a careless gesture. “Nothing is wrong, per se. Unless … it was me.”

  “You? Were wrong?”

  “I was an idiot to try to live the way I’ve been living,” he said.

  I looked at him sharply. “What?”

  He rolled a hand in a lazy gesture. “The boutique. The constant nibbling, never sating myself. The …” He shrugged. “All of it.”

  I stared hard at him. Then I asked, very quietly, “What did the skinwalker do to you?”

  “He reminded me of what I really am.”

  “Oh?”

  Thomas turned to look at me with calm deep grey eyes. “Yes. It didn’t take him long, once he set about it.”

  I felt sick to my stomach. “What happened?”

  “He hung me up by my heels,” Thomas said. “And ripped strips of skin off of me. One at a time.”

  I shuddered.

  “It’s agonizing,” he said. “Not terribly dangerous to one of us. My demon didn’t really have any trouble regenerating the skin—but it did become hungry. Very, very hungry.” His eyes suddenly gleamed paler silver and he looked back at the tigers, which were now restlessly prowling the pit. “He’d taken a female kine to the lair where he had me prisoner. And he fed her to me.”

  “Hell’s bells,” I breathed.

  Thomas watched the tigers pace. “She was lovely. Sixteen or so? I don’t know, exactly. I didn’t ask for her name.” He spread his hands. “It was a fatal feeding, of course. I don’t think I’ve ever really explained to you exactly what that is like.”

  “What is it like?” I asked in a quiet rasp.

  “Like becoming light,” he said, his eyes drifting closed. “Like sinking into the warmth of a campfire when you’ve been shivering for hours. Like a hot steak after a day of swimming in cold water. It transforms you, Harry. Makes you feel …” His eyes became haunted, hollow. “Whole.”

  I shook my head. “Thomas. Jesus.”

  “Once she was gone and my body was restored, the skinwalker tortured me again, until I was in the same desperate condition. Then he fed me another doe.” He shrugged. “Rinse and repeat. Perhaps half a dozen times. He gave me young women and then put me in agony again. I was all but chewing out my own innards when he took me to the island. To tell you the truth, I barely remember it.” He smiled. “I remember seeing Molly. But you’ve taught her enough to protect herself, it seems.”

  “Thomas,” I said gently.

  He smirked. “If you ever get tired of her, I hope you’ll let me know.”

  I stared at him, sickened. “Thomas.”

  He looked at me again, still smirking—but he couldn’t hold it. Once again, his eyes looked hollow, touched with despair. He looked away from me. “You don’t get it, Harry.”

  “Then talk to me,” I said, urgently. “Thomas, Jesus Christ. This is not you.”

  “Yes, it is,” he spat, the words a bladed hiss. “That’s what it taught me, Harry. At the end of the day, I’m just an empty place that needs to be filled.” He shook his head. “I didn’t want to kill those girls. But I did it. I killed them, over and over, and I loved how it felt. When I think back on the memory of it, it doesn’t make me horrified.” He sneered. “It just makes me hard.”

  “Thomas,” I whispered. “Please, man. This isn’t what you want to be. I know you, man. I’ve seen you.”

  “You’ve seen who I wanted to be,” he said. “Who I thought I was.” He shook his head and looked around at the people around us. “Play a game with me.”

  “What game?”

  He nodded toward a pair of young women walking by holding ice-cream cones. “What do you see when you look at them? Your first thought.”

  I blinked. I looked. “Uh. Blonde and brunette, too young for me, not bad to look at. I bet the blonde paid too much for those shoes.”

  He nodded and pointed at an old couple sitting on a bench. “Them?”

  “They’re fighting with each other over something and enjoying it. They’ve been together so long, it’s comfortable for them. Later, they’ll hold hands and laugh over the fight.”

  He pursed his lips, and pointed at a mother chivvying a trio of small children of various sizes along the zoo. “Them?”

  “She’s got an expensive ring, but she’s here at the zoo alone. Her kids all have matching outfits. Her husband works a lot, and she doesn’t look as good as she used to—look how the shoes are biting into her feet. She’s worried that she’s a trophy wife, or maybe an ex-wife in progress. She’s about to start crying.”

  “Uh-huh,” he said. “Can I give you my first thoughts?”

  I nodded, frowning at him.

  Thomas pointed a finger at the young women. “Food.” He pointed a finger at the old couple. “Food.” He pointed a finger at the mother and her children. “Food.”

  I just stared at him.

  He rolled his head, inhaling deeply and then exhaling. “Maybe it was all those kills together like that. Maybe he drove me insane with the torment.” He shrugged. “Honestly, I don’t know. I just know that things seem a lot simpler now.”

  “What are you trying to tell me?” I asked. “That you’re happy, now?”

  “Happy,” he said, scorn ringing lightly in his voice. “I’m … not wandering around blind anymore. Not trying desperately to be something that I’m not.” He looked back down at the tigers. “Something I can never be.”

  I just stood there, shaking my head.

  “Oh, empty night, Harry,” he said, rolling his eyes. “I’m not some kind of ravaging monster. I’m not some kind of psychotic rampaging around the city devouring virgins.” He waved a hand in a casual gesture. “Killing when you feed feels fantastic, but it’s stupid. There are far too many advantages in ensuring that the kine survive. Not only survive, but grow and prosper.” He smiled a bit. “You know, I really think I might have something to offer the world. I never could have exerted any kind of influence on my kin as a moping exile, trying to be human. Maybe this way, I actually can accomplish something. Promote a more responsible standard of relations between humanity and my kind. Who knows?”

  I stared at him and said, “Gosh, that’s noble.”

  He eyed me.

  I hit him with my heaviest sucker punch. “What does Justine think of it?”

  He straightened and turned toward me, and there was imminent violence in the set of his body. “What?” he asked. “What did you say to me?”

  “You heard me,” I said, without changing posture or rising to the threat.

  His hands closed into fists, knuckles popping.

  “Still stings, doesn’t it?” I said quietly. “Still burns you when you try to touch her?”

  He said nothing.

  “And you still remember what it was to hold her. Like you did the night you trashed Madeline at Zero.”

  “Jesus Christ, Harry,” he said. He turned to face out, away from the tigers, and his voice was full of weariness. “I don’t know. I just know that it doesn’t hurt so bad all the time anymore.” He was quiet for a long time. Then he said, in a very quiet voice, “I have bad dreams.”

  I wanted to put my hand on his shoulder, to give him some support. But some instinct warned me that it wouldn’t be welcomed.

  “You took a beating,” I said quietly. “What that thing did to you … ? Thomas, it knew exactly how to get to you. How to torment you the most. But it won’t last. You survived. You’ll get past it.”

  “And go back to that miserable half life I had?” he whispered.

  “Maybe,” I said quietly. “I don’t know.”

  He looked at me.

  “You’re my brother,” I said. “Nothing will ever change that. I’m here for you.”

  “You’re a damn fool,” he said.

  “Yeah.”

  “It would be easy to use you. Part of me thinks it�
��s a fantastic idea.”

  “I didn’t say you weren’t an asshole. I said you were my brother.”

  The bodyguards stirred. Nothing big. They just sort of animated and moved toward the exits.

  Thomas grimaced. “Lara thinks I’ve made great progress. She’s …” He shrugged. “Proud of me.”

  “I liked you better the other way,” I said. “So did Justine. Maybe that should tell you something.”

  “I’ve got to go. She’s afraid you’ll think I’m all brainwashed. Didn’t want to risk you trying to deprogram me when I haven’t been programmed.”

  “I confess. The idea occurred to me.”

  “If someone had gotten into my head, I don’t think there’d be so many doubts,” he said. “This isn’t something you can help me with, Harry.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “Maybe not. Either way, you’re still my brother.”

  “Broken damn record,” he said.

  I held up a fist.

  He stared at it for a couple of silent beats before he made a fist of his own and rapped my knuckles against his.

  “Don’t call me,” he said.

  “I’ll be patient,” I said. “But not forever.”

  He hesitated and then nodded once more. Then he thrust his hands into the hip pockets of his jeans and walked quickly away. The bodyguards fell in behind him. One of them said something while he had one hand pressed against his ear.

  Purely from petty malice, I waved a hand and hexed his radio, or phone. Sparks flew out of his ear and he all but fell over trying to get the earbud out.

  Thomas looked back.

  He grinned. Not long but real.

  After he was gone, I turned to regard the tigers. I wondered if I knew them for what they really were, or if all I could see were the stripes.

  I’d missed Kirby’s funeral while I was in the infirmary in Edinburgh. A couple of weeks had gone by after that, and I’d talked to Will and Georgia by phone occasionally.

  Gaming night came along, and as I had most weeks for the past several years, I showed up at Will and Georgia’s place. I had my Arcanos rule book with me, and a Crown Royal bag filled with dice. I was wearing a black T-shirt that had a monochrome image of several multisided dice and said, in block print, “COME TO THE DORK SIDE. DO NOT MAKE ME DESTROY YOU.”

  Will answered the door and smiled at me. “Hey, Harry. Wow, your face is … manly.”

  “Chicks dig scars,” I said.

  “Who is it?” came Andi’s voice. It sounded limp, lifeless.

  “It is I, Harry Dresden,” I said solemnly.

  Georgia appeared behind Will, smiling. “Harry.” She looked at my shirt, and my gaming stuff. “Oh … we weren’t really going to …”

  Kirby had been the one who ran the game for us.

  I stepped aside, grabbed the geek standing behind me, and tugged him forward. “This is Waldo Butters,” I said. “And his geek penis is longer and harder than all of ours put together.”

  Butters blinked, first at Georgia and Will, and then at me. “Oh,” he said. “Um. Thank you?”

  Will looked from Butters to me, his eyes searching. “What is this?” he asked gently.

  “Life,” I said. “It keeps going. Butters says he can handle an Arcanos game. Or he can run a bunch of other ones if we want to try something new.” I cleared my throat. “If you like, we can go over to my place. Change of view and so on.”

  Georgia looked at me and gave me a small and grateful smile.

  Will looked at me uncertainly. Then he turned back into the apartment. “Andi?”

  She appeared beside Georgia. Andi looked absolutely withered. Multiple broken ribs and major surgery will do that to you. She was on her feet and moving, but it was clear that she’d been staying with Will and Georgia so that they could help care for her until she recovered.

  I smiled at Andi and said, “I don’t think Kirby would want us to stop playing completely. What do you think? I mean it won’t be the same game, but it might be fun.”

  She looked at me and then at Butters. Then she gave me a little smile and nodded.

  Will swung the door open wide, and we went inside, where I introduced Butters to everyone and produced several bottles of Mac’s best ale.

  See, here’s the thing. Morgan was right: you can’t win them all.

  But that doesn’t mean that you give up. Not ever. Morgan never said that part—he was too busy living it.

  I closed the door behind me, while life went on.

  Bigfoot on Campus

  Harry

  The campus police officer folded his hands and stared at me from across the table. “Coffee?”

  “What flavor is it?” I asked.

  He was in his forties, a big, solid man with bags under his calm, wary eyes, and his name tag read DEAN. “It’s coffee-flavored coffee.”

  “No mocha?”

  “Fuck mocha.”

  “Thank God,” I said. “Black.”

  Officer Dean gave me hot black coffee in a paper cup, and I sipped it gratefully. I was almost done shivering. It just came in intermittent bursts now. The old wool blanket Dean had given me was more gesture than cure.

  “Am I under arrest?” I asked him.

  Officer Dean moved his shoulders in what could have been a shrug. “That’s what we’re going to talk about.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said.

  “Maybe,” he said in a slow, rural drawl, “you could explain to me why I found you in the middle of an orgy.”

  “Well,” I said, “if you’re going to be in an orgy, the middle is the best spot, isn’t it?”

  He made a thoughtful sound. “Maybe you could explain why there was a car on the fourth floor of the dorm.”

  “Classic college prank,” I said.

  He grunted. “Usually when that happens, it hasn’t made big holes in the exterior wall.”

  “Someone was avoiding the cliché?” I asked.

  He looked at me for a moment, and said, “What about all the blood?”

  “There were no injuries, were there?”

  “No,” he said.

  “Then who cares? Some film student probably watched Carrie too many times.”

  Officer Dean tapped his pencil’s eraser on the tabletop. It was the most agitated thing I’d seen him do. “Six separate calls in the past three hours with a Bigfoot sighting on campus. Bigfoot. What do you know about that?”

  “Well, kids these days, with their Internets and their video games and their iPods. Who knows what they thought they saw.”

  Officer Dean put down his pencil. He looked at me and said calmly, “My job is to protect a bunch of kids with access to every means of self-destruction known to man from not only the criminal element but also from themselves. I got chemistry students who can make their own meth, Ecstasy, and LSD. I got ROTC kids with access to automatic weapons and explosives. I got enough alcohol going through here on a weekly basis to float a battleship. I got a thriving trade in recreational drugs. I got lives to protect.”

  “Sounds tiring.”

  “About to get tired of you,” he said. “Start giving it to me straight.”

  “Or you’ll arrest me?” I asked.

  “No,” Dean said. “I bounce your face off my knuckles for a while. Then I ask again.”

  “Isn’t that unprofessional conduct?”

  “Fuck conduct,” Dean said. “I got kids to look after.”

  I sipped the coffee some more. Now that the shivers had begun to subside, I finally felt the knotted muscles in my belly begin to relax. I slowly settled back into my chair. Dean hadn’t blustered or tried to intimidate me in any way. He wasn’t trying to scare me into talking. He was just telling me how it was going to be. And he drank his coffee old-school.

  I kinda liked the guy.

  “You aren’t going to believe me,” I said.

  “I don’t much,” he said. “Try me.”

  “Okay,” I said. “My name is Harry Dresden. I’m a professional wizard.”<
br />
  Officer Dean pursed his lips. Then he leaned forward slightly and listened.

  The client wanted me to meet him at a site in the Ouachita Mountains in eastern Oklahoma. Looking at them, you might not realize they were mountains, they’re so old. They’ve had millions of years of wear and tear on them, and they’ve been ground down to nubs. The site used to be on an Indian reservation, but they don’t call them reservations anymore. They’re Tribal Statistical Areas now.

  I showed my letter and my ID to a guy in a pickup, who just happened to pull up next to me for a friendly chat at a lonely stop sign on a winding back road. I don’t know what the tribe called his office, but I recognized a guardian when I saw one. He read the letter and waved me through in an even friendlier manner than he had used when he approached me. It’s nice to be welcomed somewhere once in a while.

  I parked at the spot indicated on the map and hiked a good mile and a half into the hills, taking a heavy backpack with me. I found a pleasant spot to set up camp. The mid-October weather was crisp, but I had a good sleeping bag and would be comfortable as long as it didn’t start raining. I dug a fire pit and ringed it in stones, built a modest fire out of fallen limbs, and laid out my sleeping bag on a foam camp pad. By the time it got dark, I was well into preparing the dinner I’d brought with me. The scent of foil-wrapped potatoes baking in coals blended with that of the steaks I had spitted and roasting over the fire.

  Can I cook a camp meal or what?

  Bigfoot showed up half an hour after sunset.

  One minute, I was alone. The next, he simply stepped out into view. He was huge. Not huge like a big person, but huge like a horse, with that same sense of raw animal power and mass. He was nine feet tall at least and probably tipped the scales at well over six hundred pounds. His powerful, wide-shouldered body was covered in long, dark brown hair. Even though he stood in plain sight in my firelight, I could barely see the buckskin bag he had slung over one shoulder and across his chest, the hair was so long.

  “Strength of a River in His Shoulders,” I said. “You’re welcome at my fire.”

  “Wizard Dresden,” River Shoulders rumbled. “It is good to see you.” He took a couple of long steps and hunkered down opposite the fire from me. “Man. That smells good.”