Jim Butcher - Dresden Files Omnibus

by Jim Butcher

  He tried to get up, twice. Then he settled down onto his side as if going to sleep.

  The acid kept chewing at him, even after he was dead.

  The stench hit me, and I retched horribly.

  I backed farther away and sat for a second with my knees up against my chest, my good arm wrapped around them, and sobbed. I hurt so much.

  I hurt so much.

  And my arm throbbed dully.

  “Dammit, Dresden,” I said into the silence in a choked voice. “Dammit. Here I am doing your job. Dammit, dammit, dammit.”

  I got to my feet a moment later. I recovered the second flare. I found my gun. I went to do what I could for Will and Marcy, who would both live.

  After that, I went around the warehouse and methodically put another half-dozen rounds into the head of each and every fallen turtleneck. And I used a can of paint thinner I found in a corner to set their master on fire, just to be sure.

  There’s no such thing as overkill.

  I STOOD IN the open loading door with Will, facing into a wind that blew from the east, over the lake, cool and sweet. There was nothing between us and the water but forty feet of paved loading area. It was quiet. There had been no reaction to the events in the building.

  Behind us, lying in quiet rows on the concrete floors, were the prisoners, each of them freed from their respective cages. Even though his left shoulder had been badly dislocated, Will had done most of the heavy lifting, dragging the cages out of the railroad car so I could open them and, with Marcy’s and Georgia’s help, drag the prisoners out.

  Marcy came up to stand beside us, wearing her sundress once more. Her right shoulder looked hideous. The urchin projectile had struck her, and two tines had sunk in deeply. Acid had gone into the muscle and dribbled down from the other tines to slither over her skin, burning as it went. The tines had been barbed, but the acid had liquefied the skin immediately around the barbs, and I had been forced to pry the projectile out with a knife. Marcy had stopped the bleeding, the same way Will had, but her arm was somewhat misshapen, and the scar tissue was truly impressive in its hideousness.

  That didn’t seem to overly worry the young woman, whom I would never again be able to compare to a mouse in any fashion. But she looked exhausted.

  “She’s sleeping,” Marcy reported quietly to Will.

  “Good,” Will said. His voice sounded flat, detached. He was hurting a lot. He looked at me, eyes dull, and said, “Think this will work?”

  “Sunrise,” I said quietly, nodding, and glanced back at the rows of motionless prisoners. “It has a kind of energy, a force of positive renewal in it. It should wipe away the spells holding them.”

  “How do you know?” Will asked.

  “Dresden,” I said.

  Marcy tilted her head suddenly and said, “Someone’s coming.”

  I stood by the door, ready to pull it down, as a car, a silver Beemer, came around the corner of the warehouse into the paved loading lot. It stopped maybe thirty feet away, and Ms. Gard got out of it. She looked at me for a moment, then came around to the front of the car and stood there, waiting. The eastern wind blew her long blond hair toward us, like a gently rolling banner.

  “Wait here,” I said quietly.

  “You sure?” Will asked.

  “Yeah.”

  He nodded. “Okay.”

  I stepped out, went down a short set of concrete stairs to the level of the lot, and walked over to face Gard.

  She looked at me expressionlessly for a moment, and then at the prisoners. She shook her head slowly and said, “You did it.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “That’s fomor magic,” she said quietly. “One of their lesser sorcerers and his retainers.”

  “Why?” I asked her. “Why are they doing this?”

  Gard shook her head and shrugged. “I don’t know. But there are teams like it operating all over the world right now.”

  “Not in Chicago,” I said quietly.

  “Not in Chicago,” she agreed. And her mouth stretched into a slow, genuine grin. She bowed to me from the waist, a gesture of antiquated, stately grace, and said, “There are few mortals with courage enough to face the fomor and their minions. Fewer still with skill enough to face them and win.” Her eyes grew serious, and she lost the smile. “Hail, Warrior.”

  Dresden would have known how to respond to that kind of anachronistic gibberish. I nodded back to her and said, “Thank you.”

  “My employer owes you a debt, it seems.”

  “Didn’t do it for him.”

  “But your actions are significant regardless,” she said. “This is the second time the fomor have attempted to move on Chicago—and failed.” She was quiet for a moment and then said, “If you told him you wanted your job back, he could make it happen. Without further obligation.”

  I stood very still for a long, silent minute.

  Then I sighed, very tired, and said, “Even if I was sure he wouldn’t try to use it as leverage down the line … If Marcone got it for me, I wouldn’t want it. I’ll make my own way.”

  Gard nodded, her eyes steady, and she looked back at the warehouse again. “There’s another position you might consider. Monoc Securities is always hiring. My boss is always pleased to find those with the proper”—she pursed her lips—“frame of mind. Considering your experience and skill set, I think you could do very well as one of our security consultants.”

  “And work for guys like Marcone?” I asked.

  “You should bear in mind that this is the second such incursion of the fomor,” Gard said in a level voice. “And there have been a half-dozen others nosing at the city in the last eight months alone. All of them have been turned away, courtesy of Marcone.”

  “He’s swell,” I said.

  “He keeps his word,” Gard replied, “which puts him a step above most of your own superiors, in my opinion. Like him or not, he has defended this city. It’s no minor thing.”

  “Every predator defends its territory,” I said. “Pass.”

  Her eyes glittered with amusement, and she shook her head. “Vadderung would definitely find you interesting. You’ve even got the hair for it. Don’t be surprised if you get a call sometime.”

  “It’s a free country,” I said. “Is there anything else?”

  Gard turned to look at the rapidly lightening eastern horizon, and looked from there to the prisoners. “You seem to have things fairly well contained.”

  I nodded.

  “Don’t worry too much about the scene,” Gard said. “Hardly anyone ever noses around places like this.”

  But that wasn’t what she meant. Gard was telling me that the evidence—the bodies, the rounds, the weapons, all of it—was going to disappear. Marcone’s people were very, very good at making evidence vanish. In this particular case, I wasn’t sure I minded. It would protect Will and Marcy, both of whom had left blood there, and it would also cover me.

  And Gard hadn’t made me ask for it.

  She held up her hand, palm up—another one of those gestures, their meanings forgotten by everyone except for long-term wackjobs like Dresden. I returned it. She nodded in approval, got into her car, and left.

  Will came up to stand at my side, watching her go. Then both of us turned to watch the sun beginning to rise over the lake.

  “He’s really gone,” Will said quietly. “Dresden, I mean.”

  I frowned and stared at the waters that had, by every rational indication, swallowed Dresden’s lifeblood. I didn’t answer him.

  “Was she telling the truth, you think? That Marcone’s the one standing in the gap now?”

  “Probably,” I said, “to some degree. But she was wrong.”

  “Wrong how?”

  “Dresden’s not gone,” I said. I touched a hand lightly to my brow. “He’s here.” I touched Will’s bare chest, on the left side. “Here. Without him, without what he’s done over the years, you and I would never have been able to pull this off.”


  “No,” he agreed. “Probably not. Definitely not.”

  “There are a lot of people he’s taught. Trained. Defended. And he’s been an example. No single one of us can ever be what he was. But together, maybe we can.”

  “The Justice League of Chicago?” Will asked, smiling slightly.

  “Dibs on Batman,” I said.

  His smile turned into a real grin for a minute. Then sobered. “You really think we can do it?”

  I nodded firmly. “We’ll cover his beat.”

  “That will be a neat trick, if you can do it,” Will said.

  “If we can do it,” I corrected him. “I’ll need a deputy, Will. Someone I trust. You.”

  He was quiet for a moment. Then he nodded. “I’m in. But you’re talking about some very, ah, disparate personalities. How long can you keep it up?”

  My answer surprised even me. “Until Dresden gets back.”

  Will frowned. “You really think that’s possible?”

  I shook my head. “It doesn’t seem to be. But … There’s this voice inside me that keeps pointing out that we haven’t seen a body. Until I have …”

  The sun rose over the horizon, burning gently through the morning haze over the lake, and golden light washed over us, warm and strong. We turned to watch the prisoners, and as the light touched them, they began to shudder. Then they began to stir. The first to rise was Georgia.

  Will sucked in a long, slow breath, his eyes shining.

  “Until I have,” I said quietly, “I can’t believe he’s dead.”

  We walked back to the warehouse together, to see to the business of getting the prisoners safely home.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-one

  Chapter Forty-two

  Chapter Forty-three

  Chapter Forty-four

  Chapter Forty-five

  Chapter Forty-six

  Chapter Forty-seven

  Chapter Forty-eight

  Chapter Forty-nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-one

  Chapter

  One

  Life is hard.

  Dying’s easy.

  So many things must align in order to create life. It has to happen in a place that supports life, something approximately as rare as hen’s teeth, from the perspective of the universe. Parents, in whatever form, have to come together for it to begin. From conception to birth, any number of hazards can end a life. And that’s to say nothing of all the attention and energy required to care for a new life until it is old enough to look after itself.

  Life is full of toil, sacrifice, and pain, and from the time we stop growing, we know that we’ve begun dying. We watch helplessly as year by year, our bodies age and fail, while our survival instincts compel us to keep on going—which means living with the terrifying knowledge that ultimately death is inescapable. It takes enormous effort to create and maintain a life, and the process is full of pitfalls and unexpected complications.

  Ending a life, by comparison, is simple. Easy, even. It can be done with a relatively minor effort, a single microbe, a sharp edge, a heavy weight . . . or a few ounces of lead.

  So difficult to bring about. So easy to destroy.

  You’d think we would hold life in greater value than we do.

  I died in the water.

  I don’t know if I bled to death from the gunshot wound or drowned. For being the ultimate terror of the human experience, once it’s over, the details of your death are unimportant. It isn’t scary anymore. You know that tunnel with the light at the end of it that people report in near-death experiences? Been there, done that.

  Granted, I never heard of anyone rushing toward the light and suddenly hearing the howling blare of a train’s horn.

  I became dimly aware that I could feel my feet beneath me, standing on what seemed to be a set of tracks. I knew because I could feel the approaching train making them shake and buzz against the bottoms of my feet. My heart sped up, too.

  For crying out loud, did I just say that death isn’t scary anymore? Tell that to my glands.

  I put my hands on my hips and just glared at the oncoming train in disgust. I’d had a long, long day, battling the forces of evil, utterly destroying the Red Court, rescuing my daughter, and murdering her mother—oh, and getting shot to death. That kind of thing.

  I was supposed to be at peace, or merging with the holy light, or in line for my next turn on the roller coaster, or maybe burning in an oven equipped with a stereo that played nothing but Manilow. That’s what happens when you die, right? You meet your reward. You get to find out the answer to the Big Questions of life.

  “You do not get run over by trains,” I said crossly. I folded my arms, planted my feet, and thrust out my jaw belligerently as the train came thundering my way.

  “What’s wrong with you?” bellowed a man’s voice, and then a heavy, strong hand wrapped around my right biceps and hauled me off the track by main force. “Don’t you see the damned train?”

  Said train roared by like a living thing, a furious beast that howled and wailed in disappointment as I was taken from its path. The wind of its passage raked at me with sharp, hot fingers, actually pulling my body a couple of inches toward the edge of the platform.

  After a subjective eternity, it passed, and I lay on flat ground for a moment, panting, my heart beating along lickety-split. When it finally began to slow down, I took stock of my surroundings.

  I was sprawled on a platform of clean but worn concrete, and suddenly found myself under fluorescent lights, as at many train stations in the Chicago area. I looked around the platform, but though it felt familiar, I couldn’t exactly place it. There were no other commuters. No flyers or other advertisements. Just an empty, clean, featureless building.

  And a pair of polished wing tip shoes.

  I looked up a rather modest length of cheap trousers and cheap suit and found a man of maybe thirty years looking back at me. He was built like a fireplug and managed to give the impression that if you backed a car into him, he’d dent your fender. His eyes were dark and glittered very brightly, hinting at a lively intellect, his hairline had withdrawn considerably from where it must have been at one point, and while he wasn’t exactly good-looking, it was the kind of face you could trust.

  “Southbound trains are running pretty quick lately,” he said, looking down at me. “I figured you probably didn’t want to hook up with that one, mister man.”

  I just stared up at him. I mentally added twenty years and forty pounds to the man standing in front of me, subtracted more hair, and realized that I knew him.

  “C—” I stammered. “C-c-c—”

  “Say it with me,” he s
aid, and enunciated: “Carmichael.”

  “But you’re . . . you know,” I said. “Dead.”

  He snorted. “Whoa, buddy. We got us a real, gen-yoo-wine detective with us now. We got us the awesome wizardly intellect of mister man himself.” He offered me his hand, grinning, and said, “Look who’s talking, Dresden.”

  I reached up, dazed, and took the hand of Sergeant Ron Carmichael, formerly of the Chicago Police Department’s Special Investigations division. He’d been Murphy’s partner. And he’d given his life to save her from a rampaging loup-garou. That had been . . . Hell’s bells, more than ten years ago. I saw him die.

  Once I was standing, I stared down at him for a moment, shaking my head. I was a lot taller than he was. “You . . .” I said. “You look great.”

  “Funny what being dead can do for you,” he said, widening his eyes dramatically. “And I tried Weight Watchers and everything.” He checked his watch. “This is fun and all, but we’d better get moving.”

  “Uh,” I said warily, “get moving where, exactly?”

  Carmichael stuck a toothpick in his mouth and drawled, “The office. Come on.”

  I followed him out of the station, where an old, gold-colored Mustang was waiting. He went around to the driver’s side and got in. It was dark. It was raining. The city lights were on, but the place looked deserted except for the two of us. I still couldn’t tell exactly where in Chicago we were, which was damned odd; I know my town. I hesitated for a moment, looking around, trying to place myself by spotting the usual landmarks.

  Carmichael pushed open the door. “Don’t bother, kid. Out there’re all the buildings that coulda been, as well as the ones that are. You’ll give yourself a headache if you keep thinking at it.”

  I looked around once more and got into the old Mustang. I shut the door. Carmichael pulled sedately into the empty streets.

  “This isn’t Chicago,” I said.

  “Genius,” he said amiably.