Jim Butcher - Dresden Files Omnibus

by Jim Butcher

  Etri looked at them and sighed. “Beautiful things ought not be destroyed,” he said. “But they were not our guests. We owe no one for their end and will not answer for it.”

  “There is a vampire in your custody,” I said, “is there not?”

  Etri regarded me for a moment and then said, “Yes.”

  “You owe me a favor. I wish to secure his release.”

  He arched an eyebrow. Then he bowed slightly and said, “Come with me.”

  I followed Etri out of the suite and across the hall to room 6. Though the door was shattered, Etri stopped outside of it respectfully and knocked. A moment later, a female voice said, “You may enter.”

  We went in. It was a suite much like the Fomor’s, only with way more throw pillows and plush furniture. It was a wreck. The floor was literally covered with shattered furniture, broken décor, and broken turtlenecks. Svartalf security was already binding them and carrying them from the room.

  Listen walked out on his own power, his hands behind his back, one of his eyes swollen halfway shut. He gave me a steady look as he went by and said nothing.

  Bastard.

  Etri turned toward the curtained door to the suite’s bedroom and spoke. “The mortal apprentice who warned us has earned a favor. She asks for the release of the vampire.”

  “Impossible,” answered the female voice. “That account has been settled.”

  Etri turned to me and shrugged. “I am sorry.”

  “Wait,” I said. “May I speak to him?”

  “In a moment.”

  We waited. Thomas appeared from the doorway to the bedroom dressed in a black terry-cloth bathrobe. He’d just gotten out of the shower. Thomas was maybe a finger’s width under six feet tall, and there wasn’t an inch of his body that didn’t scream sex symbol. His eyes were a shade of deep crystalline blue, and his dark hair hung to his wide shoulders. My body did what it always did around him and started screaming at me to make babies. I ignored it. Mostly.

  “Molly,” he said. “Are you all right?”

  “Nothing a bucket of aspirin won’t help,” I said. “Um. Are you okay?”

  He blinked. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “I thought … you know. You’d been captured as a spy.”

  “Well, sure,” he said.

  “I thought they would, uh. Make an example of you?”

  He blinked again. “Why would they do that?”

  The door to the bedroom opened again, and a female svartalf appeared. She looked a lot like Etri—tiny and beautiful, though she had long silver hair instead of a cue ball. She was wearing what might have been Thomas’s shirt, and it hung down almost to her ankles. She had a decidedly … smug look about her. Behind her, I saw several other sets of wide, dark eyes peer out of the shadowy bedchamber.

  “Oh,” I said. “Oh. You, uh. You made a deal.”

  Thomas smirked. “It’s a tough, dirty job …”

  “And one that is not yet finished,” said the female svartalf. “You are ours until dawn.”

  Thomas looked from me to the bedroom and back and spread his hands. “You know how it is, Molly. Duty calls.”

  “Um,” I said. “What do you want me to tell Justine?”

  Again he gave me a look of near incomprehension. “The truth. What else?”

  “Oh, thank goodness,” Justine said as we were walking out. “I was afraid they’d have starved him.”

  I blinked. “Your boyfriend is banging a roomful of elf girls and you’re happy about it?”

  Justine tilted her head back and laughed. “When you’re in love with an incubus, it changes your viewpoint a little, I think. It isn’t as though this is something new. I know how he feels about me, and he needs to feed to be healthy. So what’s the harm?” She smirked. “And besides. He’s always ready for more.”

  “You’re a very weird person, Justine.”

  Andi snorted, and nudged me with her shoulder in a friendly way. She’d recovered her dress and the shoes she liked. “Look who’s talking.”

  After everyone was safe home, I walked from Waldo’s apartment to the nearest parking garage. I found a dark corner, sat down, and waited. Lea shimmered into being about two hours later and sat down beside me.

  “You tricked me,” I said. “You sent me in there blind.”

  “Indeed. Just as Lara did her brother—except that my agent succeeded where hers failed.”

  “But why? Why send us in there?”

  “The treaty with the Fomor could not be allowed to conclude,” she said. “If one nation agreed to neutrality with them, a dozen more would follow. The Fomor would be able to divide the others and contend with them one by one. The situation was delicate. The presence of active agents was intended to disrupt its equilibrium—to show the Fomor’s true nature in a test of fire.”

  “Why didn’t you just tell me that?” I asked.

  “Because you would neither have trusted nor believed me, obviously,” she said.

  I frowned at her. “You should have told me anyway.”

  “Do not be ridiculous, child.” Lea sniffed. “There was no time to humor your doubts and suspicions and theories and endless questions. Better to give you a simple prize upon which to focus: Thomas.”

  “How did you know I would find the bomb?”

  She arched an eyebrow. “Bomb?” She shook her head. “I did not know what was happening in any specific sense. But the Fomor are betrayers. Ever have they been; ever will they be. The only question is what form their treachery will take. The svartalves had to be shown.”

  “How did you know I would discover it?”

  “I did not,” she said. “But I know your mentor. When it comes to meddling, to unearthing awkward truths, he has taught you exceedingly well.” She smiled. “You have also learned his aptitude for taking orderly situations and reducing them to elemental chaos.”

  “Meaning what?” I demanded.

  Her smile was maddeningly smug. “Meaning that I was confident that whatever happened, it would not include the smooth completion of the treaty.”

  “But you could have done everything I did.”

  “No, child,” Lea said. “The svartalves would never have asked me to be their guest at the reception. They love neatness and order. They would have known my purposes were not orderly ones.”

  “And they didn’t know that about me?”

  “They cannot judge others except by their actions,” Lea said. “Hence their treaty with the Fomor, who had not yet crossed their paths. My actions have shown me to be someone who must be treated with caution. You had … a clean record with them. And you are smoking hot. All is well, your city saved, and now a group of wealthy, skilled, and influential beings owes you a favor.” She paused for a moment and then leaned toward me slightly. “Perhaps some expression of gratitude is in order.”

  “From me to you?” I asked. “For that?”

  “I think your evening turned out quite well,” Lea said, her eyebrows raised. “Goodness, but you are a difficult child. How he manages to endure your insolence I will never know. You probably think you have earned some sort of reward from me.” She rose and turned to go.

  “Wait!” I said suddenly.

  She paused.

  I think my heart had stopped beating. I started shaking, everywhere. “You said that you know Harry. Not knew him. Know. Present tense.”

  “Did I?”

  “You said you don’t know how he manages to put up with me. Manages. Present tense.”

  “Did I?”

  “Auntie,” I asked her, and I could barely whisper. “Auntie, is Harry … Is he alive?”

  Lea turned to me very slowly, and her green eyes glinted with wicked knowledge. “I did not say that he was alive, child. And neither should you. Not yet.”

  I bowed my head and started crying. Or laughing. Or both. I couldn’t tell. Lea didn’t wait around for it. Emotional displays made her uncomfortable.

  Harry. Alive.

  I hadn’t k
illed him.

  Best reward ever.

  “Thank you, Auntie,” I whispered. “Thank you.”

  Goodbye

  Kincaid

  I hung up the phone on Dresden and stared at it for a moment.

  Damn.

  And I thought I was a hard case.

  Only goes to show you that not only do principles get you raked over the coals, they make you lay, light, and rake them for yourself. A man should live his life for more practical things.

  But I had to respect him a little. He believed goofball things about the world, but he meant it.

  I went to the closet, opened the safe, and removed my most dangerous weapon, my laptop. It had been secured with absolutely every software and hardware precaution I could arrange, all the most up-to-date surveillance countermeasures that were available. It was impregnable. For the next few weeks. Then someone would do something clever and I’d have to update.

  I arranged for travel to Chicago. I arranged for hardware to be waiting for me.

  I’d already figured my approach for Dresden as a potential target. He was too annoying for words, and too powerful to ignore. Sooner or later, someone was going to contract him. I just hadn’t expected him to do it himself.

  I got my coat and walked out of my bedroom in the safehouse.

  The Archive was standing in the hallway outside my room, between me and the door.

  She was at that awkward age, where if I’d actually been the single father I was being paid to imitate, I’d have been getting worried about uncomfortable conversations. But she wasn’t a pubescent girl. She was the Archive, the living memory of humanity, and one of the most powerful beings on the planet.

  And she was furious.

  Dresden had named her Ivy. And she had clung to it like a teddy bear.

  I stopped and faced her. I had a gun in the small of my back, another in an ankle holster. I’d store them in a secured compartment in the car before I went into the airport. Not that the gendarmes would appreciate the distinction if I was caught with them.

  If the Archive decided to come at me, I doubted they’d do me much good.

  She stared at me. A child who I’d been attending since shortly after she could walk. Who I’d watched grow up. Who sometimes had nightmares. Who sometimes got sick.

  I’d taken care of her.

  If I’d been her father, and not a hired driver and gun, that look would have broken something small and fragile, way down inside.

  She knew.

  “In the chest, Kincaid,” Ivy said.

  If you’re shooting at someone, you’ve already decided to kill him. There’s no reason to shoot him anywhere other than the head, if you can. And I can.

  She took a step toward me, maybe ninety pounds of furious, tearful eyes and newly-filled-out lips pulled away from a snarl. “In the chest. Or face me.”

  I thought about asking her why. But in the end, it didn’t really matter. She had the power to stop me, for good. And she would use it if I didn’t comply. A chest shot might give the wizard time to throw a death curse at me, if he changed his mind.

  It was a less risky proposition than going up against the Archive herself, here, now.

  I gave her a small bow.

  She returned it. Then she stepped aside, so that I could walk to the door.

  “I’ll be back in two days,” I said.

  “Kincaid,” Ivy said quietly.

  I paused at the door.

  “He’s my only other friend,” she said.

  I looked back at her.

  All the knowledge of humanity in one place. But she still couldn’t keep the schoolgirl stockings from rumpling by herself. She had power and ageless wisdom, but she was still a child. Tears stained her cheeks.

  “My feet reach the pedals, now,” she said. “Your services are no longer required.”

  For a moment, it was hard to move.

  But I owed the wizard. And I repay what is rightfully owed.

  Spend enough time on this earth, and that’s all that makes sense.

  It was only a job, I told myself.

  I turned my back on the little girl and left to kill the wizard.

  Never did say goodbye.

  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 Fifty-two

  Chapter Fifty-three

  Chapter

  One

  Mab, the Queen of Air and Darkness, monarch of the Winter Court of the Sidhe, has unique ideas regarding physical therapy.

  I woke up in softness.

  What I probably should say was that I woke up in a soft bed. But… that just doesn’t convey how soft this bed was. You know those old cartoons where people sleep on fluffy clouds? Those guys would wake up screaming in pain if they got suckered into taking one of those clouds after they’d been in Mab’s bed.

  The fire in my chest had finally begun to die away. The heavy wool lining coating my thoughts seemed to have lightened up. When I blinked my eyes open, they felt gummy, but I was able to lift my arm, slowly, and wipe them clear. I’d gone jogging on beaches with less sand than was in my eyes.

  Man. Being mostly dead is hard on a guy.

  I was in a bed.

  A bed the size of my old apartment.

  The sheets were all perfectly white and smooth. The bed was shrouded in drapes of more pure white, drifting on gentle currents of cool air. The temperature was cold enough that when I exhaled, my breath condensed, but I was comfortable beneath the bed’s covering.

  The curtains around the bed parted and a girl appeared.

  She was probably too young to drink legally and she was one of the lovelier women I’d ever seen in person. High cheekbones, exotic almond-shaped eyes. Her skin was a medium olive tone, her eyes an almost eerie shade of pale green-gold. Her hair was pulled back into a simple tail, she wore pale blue hospital scrubs, and she had no makeup at all.

  Wow. Any woman who could wear that and still look that good was a freaking goddess.

  “Hello,” she said, and smiled at me. Maybe it was just the bed talking, but the smile and her voice were even better than the rest of her.

  “Hi,” I said. My voice came out in a croak that hardly sounded human. I started coughing.

  She placed a covered tray on a little stand beside the bed and sat down on the edge of it. She took the cover off the tray and picked up a white china
cup. She passed it to me, and it proved to be filled with not quite scalding chicken noodle soup. “You do that every day. Talk before you’ve gotten anything down your throat. Drink.”

  I did. Campbell’s. And it was awesome. I flashed on a sudden memory of being sick when I was very young. I couldn’t remember where we’d been, but my dad had made me chicken noodle soup. It was the same.

  “I think… I remember some of it,” I said, after several sips. “Your name is… Sarah?” She frowned, but I shook my head before she could speak. “No, wait. Sarissa. Your name is Sarissa.”

  She lifted both eyebrows and smiled. “That’s a first. It looks like you’re finally coming back into focus.”

  My stomach gurgled and at the same time a roaring hunger went through me. I blinked at the sudden sensation and started gurgling down more soup.

  Sarissa laughed at me. It made the room feel brighter. “Don’t drown yourself. There’s no rush.”

  I finished the cup, spilling only a little on my chin, and then murmured, “The hell there isn’t. I’m starving. What else is there?”

  “Tell you what,” she said. “Before you do that, let’s shoot for another first.”

  “Eh?” I said.

  “Can you tell me your name?”

  “What, you don’t know?”

  Sarissa smiled again. “Do you?”

  “Harry Dresden,” I said.

  Her eyes sparkled and it made me feel good all the way to my toes. More so when she produced a plate that was piled with chicken and mashed potatoes and some other vegetables that I had little use for but which were probably good for me. I thought I was going to start drooling onto the floor, that food looked so good.

  “What do you do, Harry?”

  “Professional wizard,” I said. “I’m a PI in Chicago.” I frowned, suddenly remembering something else. “Oh. And I’m the Winter Knight, I guess.”

  She stared at me like a statue for several seconds, absolutely nothing on her face.

  “Um,” I said. “Food?”

  She shivered and looked away from me. Then she took a quick breath and picked up an odd little fork, the kind they give to kids with motor control issues—it had lots of rounded edges—and pressed it into my hand. “If you’re willing to go for three, we’ll have had a really good day.”