Jim Butcher - Dresden Files Omnibus

by Jim Butcher

  “Marci,” I said, to possibly the second-cutest werewolf I knew. “Um, hello. Yeah, just having ol’ Doc Butters take a look and make sure I didn’t void the warranty.”

  “Oh,” Marci said. “Oh. I see.”

  There followed a long, awkward silence, in which Butters turned a sufficient shade of pink to advertise for breast cancer awareness and in which Marci looked at everything in the apartment except me.

  “Oh for God’s sake,” Andi said. “He’s an adult human being, guys. And I’m tired. Draw conclusions, Harry. You won’t be far off. And I’m not cleaning this mess up.” She turned, took Marci’s hand, and walked firmly back toward the bedroom. Marci’s cheeks flushed bright red, but she went with Andi.

  I looked at Butters, whose earlobes could have been mistaken for tamales, and arched an eyebrow.

  The little guy took a deep breath. Then he said, in a calm and sincere tone, “Harry, tease me about this or screw it up for me and I’ll knock your teeth out.”

  And he said it right.

  I mean, there’s a way to convey your sincere willingness to commit violence. Most people seem to think it involves a lot of screaming and waving your arms. It doesn’t. Really dangerous people don’t feel a need to shout about it. Delivering that kind of warning, sincerely, takes mostly the sort of confidence that only comes from experience.

  Butters had only had the Sword since the end of winter. He’d only been doing full-speed Knight work for about a month. But I’d seen him square off against maybe the scariest and most dangerous bad guy I personally knew—and Butters won.

  And here he was, facing off with me like a grouchy badger. He told me to back off and made me want to do it.

  Damn. Little guy had gotten all grown up on me.

  I lifted my hands, palms out in a gesture of peace, and said, “Okay. But I reserve the right to talk to you about it later.”

  “Oh God, can we not?” Butters said. He went to rummage in the fridge, restless and uncomfortable as a schoolboy caught with adult magazines. “We’re sort of keeping this low-key.”

  “Low-key, huh?”

  “Look,” he said plaintively, “I’m honestly not quite sure how this happened, and I am not going to let anyone screw it up.”

  “Butters,” I said. I waited until he turned to look at me. Then I said, “You’re not sitting in my kitchen asking for my help, man. I’m pretty sure you can make the choices for your own damned life. And there’s too much glass in my house to throw stones at anyone.”

  His eyes searched my expression for a moment before some of the tension went out of him. “Yeah. Yeah, okay. Sorry, man.”

  “Nothing to be sorry for,” I said. I glanced back toward where the women had disappeared to and opened my mouth. Then I ran my tongue thoughtfully over my teeth and closed it.

  Honestly, it’s really kind of startling how many problems that avoids. I should think about doing it more often.

  “Well,” Butters said, in the tone of a man getting back to business. “The Paranet has sent out advance warning. Everyone’s been told to see something, say something. How about some details?”

  I nodded and let him know what was up with the Accorded nations and their peace talks, and what had happened to Thomas.

  He listened, his expression growing increasingly concerned. “That sounds, um, like it could get interesting.”

  Something in his tone made me look up at him. “Oh?”

  “Sanya’s in town,” Butters explained. “Hotel by the airport. He was just transferring through O’Hare, but his flight got delayed. Seven times.”

  There were currently two Knights operating in the whole world. Two of them. And the Knights of the Sword (or Cross, depending on how you looked at their professional priorities) tended to wind up wherever they were needed most, always by pure coincidence. In fact, the coincidence was so freaking pure that it basically told me that it wasn’t. I have a dubious relationship with God—but judging from the timing of the entrances of the Knights He sponsored, He would have made one hell of a travel agent.

  “Ah,” I said. “Um. Maybe Sanya could visit for a couple of days. You guys could swap some Knightly stories or something.”

  Butters gave me a tight smile. “Right. How do I help you?”

  I shook my head. “I’ve learned by now that you guys are gonna show up exactly where the Almighty wants you, and I’m probably smart not to bump anybody’s elbow. So it’s up to you. How do you think you’ll do the most good?”

  He regarded me for a moment. Then he said quietly, “It’s the Paranet crowd I’m worried about.”

  Magical talent is like the rest of it—not everybody gets the same amount. There are people like me who can sling around the forces of the universe as if they were their personal play toys. And then there are folks who, while gifted, just can’t do that much. The have-nots of the magical world had an unenviable position in life—aware of the world of the paranormal, but without sufficient personal power to affect it.

  Until the Paranet, anyway. Use of the Internet had done something for the have-nots that nothing else had before—it had united them. Meeting people, making friends, coordinating activities, had all become more possible to do in relative safety, and it had created something just as powerful as tremendous inborn magical talent: a community. Supernatural predators were having less and less luck against the have-nots these days, as they coordinated actions, communicated with one another about possible threats—and joined their individually unimpressive talents into coordinated efforts that made them, in some senses, damned near as strong as a wizard themselves.

  But though they had gathered enough strength to keep the vermin at bay, they still couldn’t stand against a storm like the one that was brewing.

  “Agree,” I said quietly. “And they know you. Trust you. Work with them. Get all the intelligence you can and coordinate it with Murphy.”

  “What about Thomas?” Butters didn’t know Thomas was my brother, but he knew he was an ally we’d fought beside on too many occasions to consider leaving him behind.

  “What I’m working on,” I said. “Could be that a diplomatic solution is the best one.”

  Butters slipped on the slime and nearly fell on his ass. He caught the countertop and held himself up instead. Then he stared at me, fighting back a smile, and said, “Who are you, and what have you done with Harry Dresden?”

  I glowered at him and rose, careful to keep my balance amid the ectoplasm on the floor. It was already sublimating. Maybe half of it was gone. I shrugged back into my duster. “I don’t prefer to blow things up and burn things down. It just sort of works out that way.”

  Butters nodded. “What’s your next move?”

  “Diplomacy,” I said, “with a Vampire Queen.”

  “You’re not going out to the château alone, are you?”

  Château Raith was White Court headquarters in these parts. “Yeah.”

  Butters sighed. “I’ll get my bag.”

  “No need,” I told him. “Mab and Lara have a deal going, and Mab’s made it clear what Lara is and is not allowed to do. She’ll play nice.”

  Butters frowned. “You sure?”

  I nodded. “Rest up. Might need you for real in the next few days.”

  He looked from me toward the bedroom, his conscience at war with the rest of him.

  “Okay,” he said finally. “Good luck, Harry.”

  “I only have one kind of luck.” I nodded my thanks to Butters, grabbed my staff, and set out to visit Lara Raith.

  Chapter

  Fourteen

  The Raith Estates are about an hour north of town, out in the countryside, where the nearest neighbor is too far away to hear you scream. The place is surrounded by a forest of old enormous trees, mostly oak, that look like they were transplanted from Sherwood Forest.

  Hell, given how much money and power the White Court had, maybe they had been.

  I pulled up to the gates of the estate in the Munstermobile to find
them guarded by half a dozen men in full tactical gear and body armor. They weren’t kidding around. As I stopped the car, five men pointed assault rifles at me, and one approached the car. His spine was rigid, his shoulders square, his manner relaxed. Lara recruited her personal security almost exclusively from former military, mostly Marines.

  The man who approached my car had a solid blend of the lean athleticism of youth and the weather-beaten edges of experience. He wasn’t even bothering with a friendly smile. I’d run into him before. His name was Riley.

  “Can I help you, sir?”

  “Those look like ARs,” I said. I squinted at the guns pointing at me. “But with real big barrels. Beowulfs?”

  Riley shrugged. “Can I help you?”

  “I’m to see Ms. Raith,” I said.

  “The grounds are closed for the night.”

  I looked at him and rested my arm on the window, leaning back comfortably in my seat. Lara didn’t hire chumps, so I was dealing with a professional. Most of the time, when something like this happened, I tended to react … adversely. But I was here to talk about a diplomatic solution. I was kind of new to this, but it seemed like me blowing things up and knocking Lara’s people ass over teakettle probably wouldn’t be an auspicious beginning.

  And besides. I was willing to bet the other five or six guys I couldn’t see right now would have a rocket launcher or something, and I didn’t need to add getting blown up to my list of problems.

  So I smiled at the guard and said, “Look. You and I crossed trails over the Luther case. Didn’t turn out so good for your boss, but you kept it from being a real wreck—and we were both good to our word.”

  Riley eyed me and grunted acknowledgment.

  “I’m here to help,” I said. “Call the house. You won’t regret it.”

  He stared down at me for a second. Then he walked to the guardhouse and got on a phone while several extremely heavy-duty guns, known for their vehicle-stopping capability, pointed steadily at my noggin. His face turned a little paler than it had been, and he waved at the other guards, causing them to lower the weapons and get out of the way. He pointed at me and then at the gate, and the gate buzzed and began to swing open.

  Before I could put the car in gear and pull in, a Humvee pulled out of the dark inside the fence. The military-style truck was painted all black and had an actual Ma Deuce machine gun on a pintle mount atop it. The Humvee preceded me, and as my car began to roll, a second truck, mounted with a second machine gun, pulled in behind me. Riley swung up onto the running board of the second vehicle, his rifle held up and ready with one hand as we began to move forward. I was, it seemed, to have an escort up to the house.

  We all drove a couple of miles through Sherwood until we emerged from the trees onto the lawn of a grand estate I’d been to a few times before. As we drove, I could feel subtle webs of magic woven throughout the path along the road. We were moving too fast for me to get much out of what I could sense, but the implications were pretty clear—Lara had blanketed her grounds in magical protections of some kind.

  Now, where had she gotten someone to do that for her?

  Raith Manor was a brooding château, built in the rural French style from some point in the eighteenth century, only with more gargoyles and Gothic features that vaguely called Notre-Dame to mind. You know, before the fire. Our cars parked out front, and Riley came over to open my door for me.

  “We’ll secure your car while you’re inside, sir,” he said, and held out his hand for my keys.

  Securing my car could mean a lot of things, among them tearing it apart to look for bugs and bombs. I eyed him. “After you’ve acknowledged my guest-right,” I said.

  “You are Ms. Raith’s guest and are under her protection,” he confirmed.

  I grunted and handed him the keys. Then I walked up the steps for several seconds, Riley moving behind me. I opened the door and went inside like I owned the place.

  The big old house was a dark and brooding structure, even on a sunny day. On a dark night, it looked like a set from a Scooby-Doo cartoon. There was little light inside, just a few subtle spots, here and there, on art that was scattered throughout the place. I started to turn to ask Riley where everyone was, but Riley had stopped at the door and shut it carefully, leaving me alone in the dimness.

  I wasn’t alone for long. There were the firm clicks of someone approaching in heels over hardwood floors. I didn’t want to assume it was a woman. Raith Manor was that kind of place.

  A tall figure in a close-fit black business suit approached me through one of the swaths of dim light. Dark red hair, cropped close to her head, intent sea green eyes—with scar tissue at their corners. She moved like an athlete and looked about thirty—but something about the way she regarded me as she came closer made me wary, and I took note of the fact that her knuckles were swollen with scars.

  “Good evening, Mister Dresden,” she said, smiling slightly. “If you will follow me, I’ll take you to Ms. Raith.”

  “Yeah, okay,” I said, and we started walking deeper into the manor. The place looked like it had been furnished by the Louvre. I’d lived in apartments that cost less to build than a few square feet of the château.

  It took me maybe twenty seconds to be pretty sure of my guess. “What, did Vadderung throw some kind of bargain-basement sale on renting out his Valkyries?”

  “Monoc Securities provides consultants in many places, sir,” the redhead said. She gave me a smile with maybe four teeth too many in it, and her voice turned into a purr. “Though I’d be interested to hear what you mean by bargain-basement.”

  Valkyries were superhumanly strong, swift, and tough and had the kind of experience that comes with agelessness. And they didn’t just like fighting—they lusted for it. I’d seen a Valkyrie in action before. I didn’t particularly want to take one on for funsies, and this Valkyrie walked with a kind of steady, inevitable confidence that said that walls would be well advised to stay out of her way.

  “It wasn’t an insult for you personally,” I said. “I’m playing.”

  “Don’t I look playful to you?” she asked.

  “You look like you play rough,” I said.

  The woman let out a laugh that came up straight from her belly. “You’ve got eyes and you use them, seidrmadr.” She regarded me speculatively. “Most men don’t know to show some respect.”

  “You have much trouble correcting them?”

  “No, I don’t,” she said calmly. “My sister says you’re all right in a bad spot.”

  “Sister?” I asked. “Oh, Sigrun Gard?”

  “Obviously,” she said. She offered me her hand. “Freydis Gard.”

  “Harry.” I took her hand. She had a grip like a pneumatic clamp, and my bandaged hands were sensitive. “Ouch, be gentle with me.”

  She laughed again. “I’ve heard some about you, but you must be something special. Lara doesn’t let anyone interrupt this part of her day.”

  “It’s probably easier than replacing the landscaping,” I said.

  “That must be it,” Freydis said. She came to a door, stopped, and gave me an utterly incongruous Vanna White kind of gesture toward it. “And here we are.”

  So I opened the door and went through it, into the Raith Dojo.

  I mean, when you’ve got five gazillion rooms in the house, one of them obviously needs to be a dojo. Sure.

  The room was brightly lit, a stark contrast to the rest of the place. The walls were white and had a number of white silk banners hanging from them, marked with black kanji that had been painted on. I knew enough to recognize the lettering but not enough to read it. The practice floor was smooth wood with tatami matting over much of it.

  A woman wearing a white kimono was in the middle of the practice floor, with one of the smooth round staves called a bo in her hands. She was flowing through a practice routine that had the weapon whirling in an arcing blur around her and before her. The sound of the weapon cutting the air, faster than a vanilla h
uman could have moved it, was a steady hiss.

  She turned and faced me, still striking, spinning, thrusting at the empty air. Lara Raith had cheekbones that could split atoms, bright grey-silver eyes capable of boring through plate steel, and a smile that could turn crueler than a hook-tipped knife. Her blue-black hair was long and would have fallen to the small of her back if it hadn’t been bound up into a messy bun. She froze in the midst of her routine, body coming to an utter halt, transforming her from a dervish into a mannequin. The demonstration of perfect control was more than a little impressive. And interesting.

  But that was Lara. I had never been in her presence without feeling an intense attraction for her, and I wasn’t at all sure it was because she was a vampire of the White Court, and the closest thing to a succubus that you could find this side of Hell. It had more to do with her. Lara was as beautiful and dangerous as a hungry tigress, and very, very smart.

  She met my eyes for a second and then gave me an edged smile. “You want to talk to me right now, Harry,” she said, “take off your shoes and pick up a bo.”

  “Oh, come on,” I said.

  She arched an eyebrow. “I don’t give anyone my practice time,” she said. “This is my house. You came to me. Take my terms or leave them, Dresden.”

  I exhaled.

  Doing what she asked was an acceptable way for her to get around the traditional protections of my guest-right. After all, if we were in the dojo, training, and something bad happened to me, it could be a regrettable accident. Combat training is dangerous in its own right, after all. Or, I supposed, she could claim I had attempted to assassinate her, just as Thomas had tried to take out Etri. In fact, I could see a sort of hare-brained logic in Lara attempting to muddy the waters around Thomas’s situation by creating a similar one with me, and then casting blame at a wider conspiracy. Cockamamie nonsense, but someone desperate enough to help family might reason themselves into it.