Jim Butcher - Dresden Files Omnibus

by Jim Butcher

  “Smooth,” I said. “Did me proud.”

  She nodded, but there was a little bit too much energy in it to be offhand agreement. Hell’s bells, I remembered what she was feeling: wanting, so badly, to prove my talent, my discipline, my skill—myself—to a teacher. It took me nearly a decade for my hindsight to come into focus, and to realize how inexperienced, how foolish, and how lucky I had been to survive my apprenticeship with both eyes and all my fingers intact.

  I wasn’t too worried about sending the kid on a solo mission. It was pretty tame, and Forthill liked her. Molly wasn’t much in a fight, but she could avoid the hell out of them if she had an instant’s warning—which was where Mouse came in. Very little escaped the big dog’s solemn notice. If hostility loomed, Mouse would warn her, and hey- presto, they would both be gone.

  She’d be fine.

  “Don’t take too long,” I said quietly. “Eyes open. Play it safe.”

  She beamed, her face alight. “You aren’t the boss of me.”

  I could all but taste the pride she felt at making her talents useful to my cause. “The hell I’m not,” I told her. “Do it or I dock you a year’s pay.”

  “You know you don’t pay me anything, right?”

  “Curses,” I said. “Foiled again.”

  She flashed me another smile and hurried out, bouncing eagerly up the steps. Mouse followed close on her heels, his ears cocked alertly up, his demeanor serious. He grabbed his leather lead from the little table by the door as he went by. Molly had forgotten it, but there were leash laws in town. I suspected that Mouse didn’t care about the law. My theory was that he insisted on his lead because people were more inclined to feel comfortable and friendly toward a huge dog when he was “safely restrained.”

  Unlike me, he’s a people person. Canine. Whatever.

  I waited until the Beetle had started and pulled out to close the door. Then I picked up Martin’s printed pages, tugged aside the rug that covered the trapdoor in the living room floor, and descended into my laboratory.

  “My laboratory,” I said, experimentally, drawing out each syllable. “Why is it that saying it like that always makes me want to follow it with ‘mwoo-hah-hah-hah-hahhhhhh’?”

  “You were overexposed to Hammer Films as a child?” chirped a cheerful voice from below.

  I got to the bottom of the stepladder, murmured a word, and swept my hand in a broad gesture. A dozen candles flickered to life.

  My lab wasn’t fancy. It was a concrete box, the building’s subbasement. Someone probably had neglected to backfill it with gravel and earth when the house was built. Tables and shelves lined the walls, covered in wizardly bric- a-brac. A long table ran down the middle of the room, almost entirely occupied by a scale model of downtown Chicago made of pewter, right down to the streetlights and trees.

  My apprentice had a workstation at a tiny desk between two of the tables. Though she had continued to add more and more of her own notes, tools, and materials as her training continued, somehow she had kept the same amount of space open. Everything was neatly organized and sparkling clean. The division between Molly’s work area and the rest of the room was as sharp and obvious as the lines on a map.

  I’d upgraded my summoning circle, which was set in the concrete floor at the far end of the little room, a five- foot hoop of braided copper, silver, and iron that had set me back three grand when I ordered it from a svartalf silversmith. The materials weren’t all that expensive, but it took serious compensation to convince a svartalf to work with iron.

  Each metal strand in the circle’s braid was inscribed with sigils and runes in formulae that harnessed and controlled magical energies to a far greater degree than any simple circle. Each strand had its own string of symbols, work so tiny and precise that only svartalves and maybe Intel could have pulled it off. Flickers of light, like static discharge but more liquid, slithered around each strand of metal, red light, blue, and green dancing and intertwining in continuous spirals.

  I’m still young for a wizard—but once in a while, I can make something that’s fairly cool.

  One shelf was different from all the others in the room. It was a simple wooden plank. Volcanic mounds of melted candle wax capped either end. In the center of the shelf was a human skull, surrounded by paperback romance novels. As I watched, orange flickering light kindled in the skull’s empty eye sockets, then swiveled to focus on me. “Too many Hammer Films,” Bob the Skull repeated. “Or, possibly, one too many nights at the Rocky Horror Picture Show.”

  “Janet, Brad, Rocky, ugh,” I said dutifully. I went to the shelf, picked the skull up off of it (“Wheee!” said Bob), and then carried it over to a mostly clean space on one of the worktables. I set the skull down on top of a stack of notebooks, and then put Martin’s manila folder down in front of him.

  “Need your take on something,” I said. I opened up the folder and started laying out the photographs Martin had given me.

  Bob regarded them for a moment, and asked, “What are we looking at, here?”

  “Metacapacitors,” I said.

  “That’s weird. ’Cause they look like a bunch of ritual objects.”

  “Yeah. I figure metacapacitor is code language for ritual object.”

  Bob studied the pictures and muttered to himself under his breath. He isn’t actually a talking skull—he’s a spirit of intellect who happens to reside inside a specially enchanted skull. He’s been assisting wizards since the Dark Ages, and if he hasn’t forgotten more than I ever knew about the wide world of magic, it’s only because he doesn’t forget anything, ever.

  “They’re traveling in a single group. I need to get a ballpark estimate on what they might be used for.”

  “Tough to tell from two-dimensional images,” Bob said. “I start getting confused when there are any fewer than four dimensions.” He rattled the skull’s teeth together a few times, thoughtfully. “Is there anything else? Descriptions or anything?”

  I opened the folder. “Just the inventory list.” I put my finger on the picture of the stone knife and read, “ ‘Flint blade.’ ” I touched an old brick with crumbling edges. “ ‘Brick.’ ”

  “Well, that’s just blindingly useful,” Bob muttered.

  I grunted. “It’s possible that this is just miscellaneous junk. If you don’t think it has a specific purpose, then—”

  “I didn’t say that,” Bob interrupted sourly. “Jeez, Harry. Ye of little faith.”

  “Can you tell me anything or not?”

  “I can tell you that you’re teetering on the edge of sanity, sahib.”

  I blinked at that. “What?”

  Bob didn’t look up from the pictures. “Your aura is all screwed up. It’s like looking at an exploding paint factory. Crazy people get that way.”

  I grunted and considered Bob’s words for a moment. Then I shrugged. “I’m too close to this case, maybe.”

  “You need some time in a quiet place, boss. Unkink your brain’s do. Mellow your vibe.”

  “Thank you, Doctor Fraud,” I said. “I’ll take that under advisement. Can you tell me anything about those objects or what?”

  “Not without getting to examine them,” Bob said.

  I grunted. “Super. Another bad inning for the wizard gumshoe.”

  “Sorry,” he said. “But all I can tell you from here is the trigger.”

  I frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “Oh, those are objects of dark, dangerous magic,” Bob said. “I mean, obviously. Look at the angles. Nothing is proportional and balanced. They’re meant for something destructive, disruptive, deadly.”

  I grunted. “That tracks. Rumor has it that the war is going to rev up again soon.” I ran my fingers tiredly through my hair. “What did you say the trigger was, again?”

  “For something this dark?” Bob asked. “Only one thing’ll do.”

  I felt myself freeze. My coffeeless gorge began to rise.

  “Human sacrifice,” the skull chirped brightl
y. “The slaughter of an innocent.”

  Chapter

  Ten

  I leaned on a table with my eyes closed.

  The Red Court was preparing a destructive act of high black magic.

  The ritual, whatever it was, required a human sacrifice to succeed.

  In my head, I watched a movie of Maggie being bled out like a slaughtered sheep within a ritual circle, surrounded by an army of vampires beneath a nightmare sky.

  There was a hideous elegance in it. In a single stroke my daughter would die, and her death would be used to lash out against the Council. It was bald guesswork, but it fit what I’d seen of the duchess. She could inflict the maximum amount of personal agony on me and launch a sorcerous attack simultaneously. Revenge and war would both be served—all while she smiled and smiled and offered promises of peace and understanding, protected from me by the same idiots she was plotting to destroy.

  I could try to warn them, but few would listen. Ebenezar, maybe, and Anastasia, and some of the young Wardens—but even if they listened and believed, they would still have to convince others. The freaking Council never does anything quickly, and I had a bad feeling that tempus was fugiting furiously.

  So. I’d just have to do it myself.

  But to do that, I needed information.

  I looked at my summoning circle again and took a slow, deep breath. There were things I could do. Horrible things. There were beings I could call up, malicious mavens and entities of wicked wisdom who might make the unknowable as plain as daylight.

  If I did, there would be a terrible price.

  I tore my eyes from the circle and shook my head. I wasn’t that desperate.

  Yet.

  Someone knocked loudly on my apartment door.

  I went upstairs, closed the lab, and picked up my blasting rod. I carried it to the door and looked out the peephole. Murphy stood outside, her hands in her coat pockets, her shoulders hunched.

  “Couldn’t use the phone,” she said when I opened the door. She stepped in and I closed it behind her.

  “Yeah, we figure the Red Court might be tapping them.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know about that, Harry. But Internal Affairs has got mine wired.”

  I blinked at her. “Those IA idiots? Again? Can’t Rudolph just let it rest?” Rudolph the Brown- nosed Cop-cop, as he was affectionately known at SI, had managed to kiss enough ass to escape SI and get reassigned to IA. He seemed to hold a grudge against his former coworkers, irrationally blaming them for his (now concluded) exile among the proles of SI.

  “Apparently not,” Murphy said. “He’s making quite a name for himself over there.”

  “Murph, you’re a good cop. I’m sure that—”

  She slashed a hand at the air and shook her head. “That’s not important right now. Listen. Okay?”

  I frowned and nodded at her.

  “There’s a full-scale investigation going into the bombing of your office building,” Murphy said. “Rudolph talked to the lead FBI agent and the local lead detective in charge of the case and convinced them that you’re a suspicious character and good perpetrator material.”

  I groaned. “Forensics will bear them out. The explosives were on my floor, some of them in the walls of my office.”

  Murphy pushed her hair back with one hand. The bags beneath her eyes had grown visibly darker. “They’re going to bring you in and question you in the next couple of hours. They’ll probably hold you for the full twenty-four. More if they can find a charge to stick you with.”

  “I don’t have time for that,” I said.

  “Then you’ve got to get scarce,” Murphy said. “And I’ve got to go. Neither of us will be helped if we’re seen together.”

  “Son of a bitch,” I snarled. “I am going to throw Rudolph halfway across Lake Michigan and see if the slimy little turd floats.”

  “I’ll bring the lead weights,” Murphy said. She drew the amulet I’d made to let her past my apartment’s magical defenses from her shirt and showed it to me. “Hopefully I won’t be able to find you. Get in touch with me when you need my help, huh?”

  “Murph,” I said. “If the authorities are getting set to come down on me … you can’t be around.”

  Her eyebrows climbed a tiny fraction. It was a danger signal. “Excuse me?” she said politely.

  “It’s already going to look bad enough, we’ve worked together so much. If you’re actually abetting me now … they won’t let you keep your badge. You know they won’t. And they might do even more than that. You could wind up in jail.”

  The subliminal angry tension in her abruptly vanished. “God, Dresden. You are a simp.”

  I blinked at her.

  “If I go with you,” she said, “I could wind up in the ground. That didn’t seem to worry you.”

  “Well,” I said. “I …”

  “I choose my battles, Dresden. Not you.” She looked up at me calmly. “Let me put this in terms that will get through your skull: My friend is going to save a child from monsters. I’m going with him. That’s what friends do, Harry.”

  I nodded and was silent for several seconds. Then I said, “I know you, Karrin. For you, dying in a good fight would not be a terrible end. You’ve known it was possible, and you’ve prepared yourself for it.” I took a deep breath. “But … if they took your shield away … I know what your job means to you. You’d die by inches. I don’t think I could handle watching that happen.”

  “So you get to choose to shut me out? What I want doesn’t count?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe.”

  “And you’re the one who decides?”

  I thought about it for a moment. Then I said, “No.”

  She nodded. “Good answer.” She touched her fingertips to the shape of her amulet under her T-shirt. “Call.”

  “I will. Maybe by messenger, but I will.”

  “It’s occurred to me that someone who wanted to make you suffer might start pulling the trigger on your friends. How do I verify the message?”

  I shook my head. The more I thought about it, the more I was sure that even here, in my own home, I couldn’t be too careful about being overheard. My apartment was blanketed in protective magic, but there were plenty of people (and not- people) who were stronger, more experienced, or wilier than me. “If I have to send a messenger, I’ll make sure you know who it’s from.”

  Murphy watched me answer. Then she glanced slowly around the room, as if looking for an unseen observer, and nodded her understanding. “All right. Don’t stay here long, Harry.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Don’t worry about me, Murph.”

  She made a face. “I’m not worried about just you. You’ve got at least one gun stashed here, and I’m betting there’s more illegal material in the lab. If they like you for a suspect, they’ll get a warrant. And the FBI, as far as I know, doesn’t have any amulets to get them in here alive.”

  I groaned aloud. Murph was right. I had a couple of illegal weapons in my apartment. The Swords were still in the lab, too. Plus some miscellaneous material that the government probably wouldn’t want me owning, including depleted uranium dust, for when the answer to “Who you gonna call?” turns out to be “Harry Dresden.”

  The wards that protected my apartment were going to be an issue as well. They wouldn’t do anything if someone walked up and knocked on the door, or even if they fiddled with the doorknob—but anyone who tried to force the door open was in for a shock. About seventy thousand volts of shock, in fact, thanks to the defenses I’d put in place around my door. The lightning was savage, but it was only the first layer of the defense. It hadn’t been so terribly long since an army of zombies tore their way into my living room, and I wasn’t going to repeat the experience.

  But my wards wouldn’t have any way of differentiating between a zombie or a crazed vampire or a misguided FBI agent. They simply reacted to someone forcing his way inside. I’d have to deactivate the wards before someone
got hurt. Then I’d have to remove any suspect gear from the house.

  Hell’s bells. Like I didn’t have enough on my mind. I rubbed my thumb against the spot between my eyebrows where the headache was forming. “I did not need this on top of everything else. Which is why she did it.”

  “Why who did what?”

  “Duchess Arianna of the Red Court,” I said. I filled Murphy in on my day.

  “That’s out of character, isn’t it?” Murphy asked. “I mean, for them to do something this obtrusive? Blowing up a building?”

  “They did similar things several times during the war,” I said. “She was making a statement. Blowing up my place of business right in front of God and everybody, the same way the wizards took out her husband’s command post in Honduras. Plus she’s diverting my attention and energy, yanking more potential support out from under me.”

  Murphy shook her head. “She’s so clever she’s making a mistake.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. If she was all that smart, she would have blown you to pieces in your office.”

  I nodded. “Yeah. That’s the most practical way.”

  “So why didn’t she?”

  “Figure she wants to inflict the maximum amount of pain she can before she gets rid of me.”

  Murphy lifted her eyebrows. “For vengeance? That’s … kind of like a bad movie script, isn’t it?” She put on a faint British accent. “No, Mr. Dresden. I expect you to die.”

  I grunted. Murphy had a point. Duchess Arianna almost couldn’t have been the sort to enjoy indulging her sadistic side at the expense of practicality. You don’t survive millennia as a vampire without being deadly cold-blooded.

  Which meant …

  “There’s something else at work here,” I said. “Some other game going on.”

  Murphy nodded. “How sure are you that Susan is being straight with you?”

  “Pretty sure,” I said. It sounded a little hollow, even to me.

  Murphy’s mouth twisted up into a bitter curl. “That’s what I thought. You loved her. Makes it easy to manipulate you.”

  “Susan wouldn’t do that,” I said.

  “I hope not,” Murphy replied. “But … she’s been gone awhile, Harry. Fighting a war, from the sounds of it. That’s enough to change anyone, and not for the better.”