Jim Butcher - Dresden Files Omnibus

by Jim Butcher

  Mab continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “And Ms. Raith is welcome to explode within it or not, as she sees fit.”

  “Uh,” I said, “I think she was employing a metapho—”

  “Particularly during such a shocking display of bad grace as you are engaging in at the moment.” She gave my hands a pointed look and then stared back at my eyes. “Do you mean to attack my person and my guest or not, my Knight?”

  I twitched and remembered that my shield and the energy for an offensive strike were still glowing and pulsing between us. I relaxed my will and let the spells fade out, until there was nothing left but a drizzle of inefficiently transferred energies falling as campfire sparks from my bracelet. “Oh, right,” I said. “Um. Excuse me.”

  “I regret my Knight’s … excessive impulse-control issues,” Mab said, turning to Lara. “I trust it has not cast a sour tone upon this meeting.”

  “On the contrary,” Lara said. “I find it rather charming.”

  Mab’s expression was entirely unreadable. “Your response does nothing to increase my good opinion of you, Ms. Raith. My Knight needs no encouragement.”

  “Hey!” I said.

  Lara’s eyes wrinkled at the corners. “Think of it as you would someone who had encountered a novel kind of food.” She looked at me, and her eyes turned a few shades paler. “Something substantial and rarely obtained.”

  Mab considered that for a moment. Then she smiled. Her scary smile. I mean, most of what Mab does is sort of scary, but her smile is just unnerving. “Just so long as you understand that my Knight is a part of my house. Do not attempt to eat my porridge, Ms. Raith. You will find it neither hot nor cold nor just right, because, unlike Goldilocks, the bears will have eaten you. Am I understood?”

  “Entirely,” Lara said, inclining her head to Mab. Her eyes lingered on me for a moment. “Are you sure what I ask isn’t too much trouble?”

  “Such things are part and parcel of his duties,” Mab said. “Assuming you find him acceptable.”

  “Oh my,” Lara said, glancing at me again. “Oh yes.”

  I didn’t much like the sound of where this conversation was going, so I cleared my throat and said, “Ladies. I’m sitting right here. I can hear you.”

  “Then you shall have no trouble understanding your orders,” Mab said. “Ms. Raith is owed three favors by the Winter Court.”

  “Three?” I blurted. “I had to fight for my life through Arctis Tor and slug it out with an Elder Phobophage just to earn one favor!”

  Mab’s eyes swiveled to me. “And you were repaid appropriately for your deeds.”

  “I got a doughnut!”

  “It is hardly my concern if you wasted your favor upon something so frivolous,” Mab said.

  I scowled. “What the hell did she do?”

  “She used her mind,” Mab said. “Unlike some.”

  “Hey!” I said.

  “She has indicated that she wishes to collect upon these favors,” Mab said. “I have already agreed to one. I place the responsibility for providing the substance of the remaining two in your hands.”

  I blinked and then narrowed my eyes. “ You … what?”

  Mab blinked her eyes and appeared to, just barely, avoid rolling them in exasperation. “Two favors. She may ask them of you during the approaching summit. You will provide whatever she asks, with as much energy and sincerity and forethought … as you are capable of employing. You will not fail me in this.”

  “Here’s the thing,” I said. “I’m already kind of busy. You know that. I’m guarding the Senior Council and liaisoning between the Council and Faerie already.”

  “My time and attention are infinitely more important than yours,” Mab said. “You now have more work. Cease your whining, desist from your dalliances, and do your duty.”

  “Two favors,” I said.

  “No more, no less,” Mab said.

  “ Just … anything she asks, you expect me to do.”

  “I expect her to show respect for my Court and my resources,” Mab said. “I expect her to ask nothing of you that she would be unwilling to ask from me. Within those constraints—yes.”

  I sputtered and said, “Suppose she asks me to steal something?”

  “I expect you to acquire it.”

  “Suppose she asks me to burn down a building?”

  “I expect a mountain of fine ash.”

  “Suppose she asks me to kill someone?”

  “I expect their corpse to be properly disposed of,” Mab said. She leaned forward and narrowed her eyes slightly. “For you to do anything less would be for you to cast shame and dishonor upon my name, upon my throne, and upon all of Winter.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I invite you to contemplate the consequences of that.”

  I didn’t meet her eyes. I’d seen the kind of thing Mab would do to someone who merely displeased her, much less made her look bad. My predecessor begged me to kill him. He’d been a monster when he’d had my job—but Mab had crushed him into a broken, whimpering mass of cells before she’d allowed him to die.

  And if I gave her reason, she would do the same to me.

  No.

  She’d do worse. A lot worse.

  I glanced at Lara, who was watching me with a much less inhuman but no less unreadable version of Mab’s feline expression. As the effective queen of the White Court, Lara was a card-carrying monster. She was intelligent, driven, and dangerous as hell. Rumor was that she owned politicians coast to coast in the United States now, and that her ambition was driving her to reach even further. Lara was perfectly capable of asking me to do something beyond the pale of any functioning conscience.

  But Lara was damned smart, too. She had to know that I had limits—that my compact with Mab hadn’t changed that. If she told me to do something unconscionable, I was going to tell her where she could shove it.

  Which would get me killed. Overkilled. Überkilled.

  I looked back at Mab. Her face was blank granite, immovable.

  Lara was a ruling peer under the Unseelie Accords, the Geneva Conventions of the supernatural world. If I said no, if I defied Mab in front of her, I was pretty sure I would get the Prometheus treatment at the very least. But if I said yes, I could find myself in even more trouble. If I knew one thing about paying off favors that were part of a Faerie bargain, it was that they were never, ever simple.

  I had nothing but lousy choices. So what else was new?

  “Fine,” I said. “Whatever.”

  “Excellent,” Mab said. “Ms. Raith?”

  Lara nodded, her large, luminous eyes never leaving my face. “Acceptable.”

  “Then our business is concluded, for now,” Mab said.

  There was a sudden surge of icy cold wind, so out of place in the summer evening that the windows of the car glazed over with misty condensation and I was forced to blink my eyes and shield them with one hand.

  When I could see again, Mab and Lara were gone, and I was alone in the Munstermobile.

  “Drama queen,” I muttered, and started rolling down the windows. A few minutes later, the glass was clear and I was on the road, muttering imprecations about the ruthless nature of Faerie Queens as I drove back to the apartment.

  I heard the sirens a couple of blocks out. I nudged the accelerator as I came down the street toward the svartalf embassy, suddenly anxious.

  I became a lot more anxious when I saw the haze of smoke in the air—and when I saw the fire department’s emergency vehicles deploying onto the grounds, anxiety blossomed into pure panic.

  Flames leapt forty feet into the air above the compound as the building burned.

  The embassy was on fire—and my daughter was inside.

  Chapter

  Seven

  I parked the Munstermobile a block away and ran in. I didn’t really feel like being stopped by a well-meaning first responder, so I ran in under a veil. I also didn’t feel like being away any longer than necessary, so I ran in at something like Olympic speed. It
probably would have been more subtle if I hadn’t vaulted the hood of the last police car in the way. The cop standing next to the driver’s-side door goggled and fumbled his radio, which I guess is understandable when something resembling a low-budget Predator goes by.

  There’s no point in having a soul-threatening source of power to draw on if you aren’t going to draw on it when your daughter is in danger.

  That’s exactly the reasoning that got you into this mess in the first place, Dresden, isn’t it?

  Shut up, me.

  The svartalves must have disabled the wards all over the exterior grounds, or else CFD wouldn’t have been able to get near the place. It must have pained Austri to no end to lower the defenses for a gang of humans. I went by the little security shack outside the place and saw no one in it.

  The front door of the building was open, and smoke was billowing from it, hazing out everything more than thirty or forty feet away. Two teams of firefighters with hoses had already deployed up to the door and were flooding the place with water, evidently preparing to work their way inside. I didn’t feel like getting hosed down or set on fire, so I skirted the front door, circling the building. There was an emergency exit on the side of the building, and a secondary entrance in the rear where deliveries came in.

  The earth abruptly became liquid under my feet and forced me to slow my pace or pitch forward into it. The svartalves manipulated earth the way mortals do plastic, only with magic, obviously, and I dropped my veil at once, lifting my hands. “Whoa, whoa, it’s me! Harry Dresden!”

  A svartalf’s head came up out of the ground without any kind of accompanying illusion, enormous dark eyes blinking twice and staring at me. “Ah,” the svartalf said, rising higher out of the ground, and I recognized the voice. It was Etri’s sister, Evanna, his second-in-command. Her hair was pale and so silken-fine that it hung rather lankly around her head. More of her rose out of the ground, clothed in a simple shift the same color as her hair. “Wizard, I was told to watch for you. I need you to come with me.”

  “My daughter,” I said. “I have to get to her.”

  “Precisely,” Evanna said, her voice crisp. She held out her hand to me.

  I gritted my teeth and said, “We’re going to earthwalk?”

  “If you please,” she said.

  “I hate this,” I said. “No offense.” Then I took a deep breath and took her hand.

  I can earthwalk. Technically. I mean, if I really, really, really wanted to, I could do it. Wizards can pull off almost anything other supernatural beings can do, if we want to work at it.

  But why would I want to?

  Evanna’s hand pulled me down and I sank into the ground as if it had suddenly become thick Jell-O. Dirt-flavored Jell-O. We began moving, and the ground passed through us in the most unsettling way imaginable. I could feel the earth grinding at every inch of my skin, as if I was thrashing my way through fine sand, and my clothes didn’t do a thing to stop the sensation. Worse, it gritted away at my eyelashes, forcing me to blink and hold my hand up over my eyes—which also did no good whatsoever.

  Worst was the phantom sensation of earth in my mouth and my nose and tickling at my throat. Technically, I think she was using magic to slide our molecules around and through those of the ground around us. Practically, I was enjoying the experience of a slow and torturous sandblasting, including getting punched in the taste buds with overwhelming mineral sensations.

  Seriously. It’s revolting.

  We emerged from the earth into one of the residential corridors below the main building, which was presumably burning merrily somewhere above us. You couldn’t have guessed it. There was no smoke in the air, no sound of any fire, no leak of water from above.

  I fought against the urge to spit as Evanna let go of my hand—and looked up at my grimace with amusement. “Mortals find it unpleasant, I know. Do you need a cup of water?”

  I lifted an eyebrow and looked down at her. Way, way, down. Evanna is six inches shorter than Karrin, though the two of them shared something in the way of the same solid, muscular frame. “Are you patronizing me?”

  “Wizard. Would I do such a thing?” She started walking and I set out behind her.

  “I’m not familiar with this level,” I said.

  “We’re a level below our guest apartments and staff homes. These are the family quarters,” Evanna replied. “Etri, myself, our mates and children, a few cousins from time to time,” she said. Her feet made no sound on the stone floor.

  “Uh. Shouldn’t everyone be leaving? You know, the fire and all?”

  Evanna cocked her head to look back and up at me. “We took precautions.”

  “Precautions?”

  “With guests like yourself, it seemed wise,” she said. Her delivery was stone-faced, completely dry. “We had heard rumors of other buildings burning down. The upper levels have been isolated from the quarters below. If the administrative offices burn to a pile of ash, it will not touch these levels.”

  I let out a breath in a sharp exhale, a sound of relief.

  She inclined her head to me. “Your daughter is safe. We assume.”

  “What do you mean, you assume?” I asked.

  “Once the fire began, security forces attempted to enter your quarters,” she said. “The Guardian would not permit us to remove her.”

  I suddenly felt a little sick. “Mouse. You guys didn’t …”

  Evanna stared hard at me for a moment. Then her expression softened very slightly. “No, of course not. The character of the Temple Guardians is well-known. We would never desire to harm such a being unless at great need. And we do not harm children. That is why I was sent to watch for you.”

  I arched an eyebrow. “Wait. You’re saying that you couldn’t go get her.”

  Evanna shrugged a slender shoulder. “The Guardian seemed very determined.”

  I walked a few steps, thinking. She was right about Mouse. He was a good dog. Or maybe even a Good dog. But he had an unerring ability to determine when someone or something was hostile. He’d die before he let any harm come to Maggie.

  Which meant that if Mouse was defending her from the svartalves …

  I had to consider that they might be up to something he considered to be no good. They were a very insular people, and they weren’t human. They might not necessarily think or feel about things the way I would expect them to. I’d lived among them for a time now, and while I was comfortable interacting with them, I wasn’t fool enough to think that I knew them.

  Evanna stared at up my face as I thought, and I suddenly realized that she was reading my expression. Her own face went completely blank, completely empty of any emotion, as she regarded me.

  “What’s going on here?” I asked her carefully.

  “You tell me,” she said.

  I made an exasperated sound. “Hell’s bells, Evanna, how should I know? I’ve been at my girlfriend’s all evening. I just got here.”

  She turned abruptly, in front of me, confronting me exactly as if I wasn’t two feet taller and two hundred pounds heavier than her. “Stop,” she said firmly.

  I did.

  She narrowed her eyes and said, “Say that again.”

  “Why is everyone so shocked that I have a girlfriend?” I asked.

  She closed her eyes for a moment, as if silently counting to three, and opened them again. “Not that part. Your explanation of events.”

  “Oh,” I said. I began to speak but stopped myself at the last second and took a moment to think. I’d only met Evanna in passing, but she was looking remarkably intense by svartalf standards—which is to say, she was working as hard as she could to give away nothing by her expression or body language. I had to wonder what else she was concealing.

  I looked around us. Then I focused and used my wizard senses, looking deeper. I could feel the energy moving around us, feel the disturbances in the stone beneath my feet, in several discrete locations.

  Evanna wasn’t alone. There were half
a dozen of the embassy’s security personnel shadowing us, earthwalking through the safety of the stone.

  The svartalves were being polite about it and had sent a pretty and charming captor to round me up—but subtle or not, I suddenly realized that I was a prisoner being escorted. And that my next words were going to count for more than most.

  In moments like this, I generally try to tell the truth, because I don’t have the intellectual horsepower to keep track of very many lies. They add up.

  “I’ve been at my girlfriend’s all evening,” I said. “I just got here. I don’t know what’s going on.”

  As I spoke, her eyes closed. She opened them again slowly after I finished speaking and said quietly, “You speak the truth.”

  “No kidding!” I blurted. “Evanna, I know that I’m a guest, but you are officially starting to freak me out. I want to see my daughter, please.”

  “You are under guest-right,” she said quietly. Then she nodded once and said, “This way.”

  We went up the stairs, down a hall, and through a set of doors and were suddenly in territory I recognized—the hall outside of the apartment. There were a number of svartalf security staff gathered outside the door, and they were talking among themselves as Evanna and I approached.

  “… doesn’t make any sense,” one of them said. “The lock is disengaged. It should open.”

  “It must be a spell holding the lock closed,” said another.

  The first twisted the doorknob by way of demonstration. It turned freely the way unlocked doorknobs do. “Behold.”

  “A ram, then,” said the second.

  “You’d ruin the wood,” I told them as we approached. “And you still wouldn’t be able to get past.”

  The second svartalf rounded on me with a scowl. “You installed additional security precautions without notifying security?”

  “Clearly.”

  “That is explicitly against our corporate policy!”

  “Oh, get over it, Gedwig,” I said. “For a guy who puts magical land mines all over his lawn, you’re being awfully sensitive.”

  “You could have threatened the safety of everyone here.”

  I shook my head. “It’s a completely passive plane of force. Extends across the walls on either side, too. Won’t hurt anyone, and you’d need a tank to break it down.” And it had cost me a very long weekend of work installing it.