by Jim Butcher
I killed the engine and stared out the driver’s-side window at the four Wardens who barred my way.
Ramirez stood in the middle of the crew and slightly forward, leaning on his cane, his dark eyes steady. He’d have been the first one to meet bumper if I hadn’t been able to stop the car. Gone were the casual civilian clothes—he was dressed in the White Council’s version of tactical gear, complete with his grey Warden’s cloak.
To his right stood “Wild Bill” Meyers. Wild Bill had filled out a lot as he got into his late twenties, adding on the muscle and solidity of a maturing body. He’d grown his beard out, and it wasn’t all skinny and patchy like it used to be. He kind of reminded me of Grizzly Adams now. His cloak was shorter on him than it had been when we’d started the war with the Red Court—Wild Bill hadn’t been done growing yet. Rather than one of the enchanted swords most of the established Wardens carried, Wild Bill had a bowie knife he’d been working on steadily for years. It rode his belt across from a .45-70 Big Frame Revolver that weighed as much as my leg.
In the shadows cast to the left side of the road by my headlights stood Yoshimo, who refused to let anyone call her by her first name. It had taken Ramirez a couple of years to find out that it was Yukie, and I’m pretty sure she hadn’t forgiven him. She was a girl of Okinawan heritage, about five four, and she carried a katana on her hip and an assault rifle on a strap around one shoulder. She could use either of them like a Hong Kong action-movie star.
The fourth member of Ramirez’s crew stood to his left, looking steadily into my headlights. He was a slim, very dapper young man dressed in a camel-colored bespoke suit and wearing a neatly complementary bowler hat. Chandler had indulged in experimental facial hair as well, and currently sported a thick, fierce Freddie Mercury mustache. It could have looked dopey with his outfit, but Chandler being Chandler, he carried it off with panache. Maybe the strictly ornamental walking cane helped. He was the only one of the four not geared up for a fight—but then Chandler had always made it a point to uphold the forms of civilization harder than were strictly necessary.
The five of us had been through more than a little together, though Chandler had been our handler and point of contact, not usually a field guy.
None of them were smiling.
I could recognize game faces when I saw them.
Harry, I thought to myself. These kids might be here to hurt you.
I sat in the car for a moment while the engine clicked. Then I said, “In the future, you guys should probably look for a crosswalk. Or maybe an adult to hold your hand.”
“We need to talk, Harry,” Ramirez said. “Got a minute?”
I eyed him and then mused, “How’d you pull off the tracking spell?”
“Right wrist,” he said.
I eyed him, then held up my right hand and peered. I had to turn my thumb until it faced almost all the way away from me to spot the dot of black ink on the outside of my wrist.
Ramirez held up his right hand and wiggled his pinky finger, where an identically shaped ink spot marked his skin.
“Wow,” I said in a level tone. “Mistrusting me right from the get-go, huh?”
He shrugged. “I was pretty clear about my intentions,” he said. “If you don’t want others to think you’re shady, man, maybe you shouldn’t be doing shady things at shady times with shady people.” He nodded back the way I’d come, toward the Château. “Come on, Harry. It’s us. Make this simple. Talk to me.”
“Maybe you don’t know about my life’s relationship with simple,” I said. I eyed Ramirez. Then the others. “Hey, guys. What’s up?”
Yoshimo gave me her samurai face. Wild Bill lifted his chin, an almost unconscious gesture of acknowledgment. Chandler rolled his eyes at them and walked forward, extending his hand and speaking in a precise Oxford accent. “Harry, good to see you, man.”
Ramirez and the others tensed as Chandler walked into their lines of fire—a term that among wizards could become especially literal. I took the opportunity to get out of the Munstermobile and regard his extended hand with a skeptically lifted eyebrow.
Chandler’s cobalt blue eyes sparkled, and he held up his hand, showing me his fingers. I inspected them minutely, then traded grips with Chandler in a hearty handshake, eyeing Ramirez over the shorter man’s head as I did.
“How’s the PhD work coming?” I asked him.
“Viciously political,” he said, smiling. “History is such a thorny thing on the Continent.”
“Most people can’t just go talk to folks who were alive for it, I imagine,” I said.
“Precisely. Maddening,” Chandler said. “I’m sorry we’re doing this, Harry. But you’ve got to admit, old boy, you’ve had a damned peculiar day. Or so it would appear from the outside.”
I responded with a genial frown and duplicated his accent badly. “Oh really? How so, if you do not mind me asking?”
Chandler’s smile didn’t falter. But it took on an aspect of granite, somehow. “No one’s that disingenuous, Dresden. The Winter Lady gets you quarters inside the svartalf embassy. Not long after, a known personal agent of Lara Raith and a frequent ally of your own gets inside, somehow, and attempts to assassinate Etri. Hours later, you visit the assassin’s significant other, then have a meeting with Ms. Raith.”
“Um,” I said. “Sure, I mean, when you put it like that, I see how that might look a little suspicious… ”
“We’ve a long tradition of twisty thinking in my homeland,” Chandler said. “Perhaps it has made me cynical and uncharitable, but it occurs to me that there are a disturbing number of connections in these events. It makes one wonder if you’ve been entirely honest with us.”
I held up my wrist so that the spot of black ink Ramirez had put there was showing. “You’re going to lecture me about being open and honest? And, seriously, ink, after the last time around with an actual traitor in the Council? What were you thinking?”
Chandler arched an eyebrow. He glanced over his shoulder at Ramirez and said, “Fair points.” He took a step closer and lowered his voice. “But all the same, Dresden. It’s damned peculiar. Perhaps it’s time you ‘leveled’ with us, I believe is the vernacular.”
I studied Chandler’s face for a moment and then looked at the other Wardens. “How’d you decide who would be the good cop?” I asked him quietly. “Rock, paper, scissors?”
“Don’t be daft,” Chandler replied, “As an academic, I find myself dealing with temperamental potential lunatics on a regular basis. I was the obvious choice. And we drew straws.”
“Lunatic, eh?” I asked.
“There have been certain questions about how much of your will remains your own, yes,” Chandler said frankly.
“I’m my own man, more or less,” I told him.
“Yes, well, you would think that, wouldn’t you?” Chandler said with a wry smile. “You see our predicament. Matters are unfolding here that we don’t quite understand. We have an interest in learning as much as possible.”
The way he said we was something new. He wasn’t using the word as an inclusive one, like, we are all friends. He was using it as an exclusive term. We, all of us, not you.
He was referring to me as someone outside of the White Council. His bright blue eyes were direct, almost pleading as he said it, willing me to get the message. I saw recognition flicker in them as he saw me process what he was actually saying: Be advised, Harry. The White Council now considers you a threat.
Didn’t bode too well for that vote.
“Got it,” I said, looking away from his eyes hurriedly. I gave Chandler the faintest ghost of a nod of thanks, and he twitched his eyebrows in acknowledgment. “Look, you guys are worried about nothing. You told me you want me as a liaison with Winter. Fine. I’m liaising. Mab told me to keep an eye on Lara,” I said, and was technically more or less not lying, “and I came out to talk to her.”
Ramirez nodded. “What’d you find out?”
“She says she’s got no idea why h
e did it,” I said. “Right now it looks like she means to disavow him in front of the Accorded nations.”
“And you believe her?” Ramirez asked.
“No reason not to,” I said.
Yoshimo hissed, “Vampires are not to be trusted.”
The intensity of the words was, uh, kind of threatening, really.
“I’m not trusting a vampire,” I said to her. “I’m trusting my reason. Lara Raith has been all about supporting the Accords. These peace talks are going to be a major test of them. She wouldn’t do anything to rock the boat this hard right before they’re due to begin.”
“Unless she has deeper plans, and this is only part of them,” Ramirez said. He glanced at Yoshimo and nodded.
Yoshimo looked at me, frowned, and started to say something. Wild Bill put a hand on her shoulder. She glanced back and up at him, some strain visible briefly in her expression—then she smoothed it out into a mask again. Then she came toward me, hands empty, and stopped a couple feet in front of me. I found myself tensing.
When I did, up came Yoshimo’s and Wild Bill’s guns, not quite pointing at me, fingers not actually resting on triggers—but the barrels were only a twitch away from being locked on my chest, and at this range professionals wouldn’t miss.
“Easy,” Chandler said, his voice extremely calm and smooth. “Easy, everyone. Let’s not make this into something it doesn’t have to be.”
“What the hell is going on here, people?” I asked.
“We’re trying to help you, Harry,” Ramirez said, his voice like stone. “But you sure as hell aren’t making it easy.”
“Putting a tracker on me?” I asked, much more mildly than I felt at the moment. “Pulling over my car. Pointing weapons at me. You’ve got a damned peculiar idea of what help looks like, Carlos.”
“We have to know that you haven’t been compromised,” Chandler said in that same soothing tone. “Dresden, be reasonable. The last time a member of the Council operating at your level went bad, he bound the head of the Wardens under a geas, provided untold amounts of intelligence to our enemies resulting in tens of thousands of deaths, and summoned a mistfiend that could have wiped out most of the White Council.”
“You think I’m another Peabody,” I snarled.
“I think everyone here wants to show the Council that you aren’t,” Chandler said. He held up his hands helplessly. “We’re living in unstable times and playing for very high stakes, Harry.”
“We’re friends,” I said.
“Then let us be your friends,” Chandler said, his voice all but pleading.
“Yoshimo is just gathering evidence,” Ramirez said. “She isn’t going to hurt you.”
I clenched my jaw a couple of times.
The last time I’d faced off with this many Wardens, they’d been there to arrest me, after the death of Justin DuMorne. I’d been sixteen. I remember how frightening those grim spartan figures had been.
And those people hadn’t been through a war like these guys had. Fighting like mad against a relentless Red Court, always on the back foot, struggling to survive—and eventually turning the tide to a long and ugly stalemate. It was possible that I was looking at the most combat-experienced, dangerous team of Wardens on the planet.
I knew them.
They knew me.
A fight between us would be something swift and ugly, and no one would play fair or pull punches. I’d taught them better than that.
“Bear in mind,” I said in a very quiet voice, “that any spell you cast upon me, you’re also casting upon Mab’s left hand and personal headsman. If this is a sucker punch, she might take it personally. She might even get angry about it.”
For several seconds after that, you could hear the trees breathing. Wild Bill and Chandler traded a look.
“Do it,” Ramirez said.
Yoshimo lowered her rifle until it hung from its strap. Then she lifted her hands, made a few sharp-cornered passes with them, and murmured something low and harsh sounding. There was, as I had expected, a fluttering of breeze around me in time with the movements of her hands, and then a rush of air and a reciprocal fluttering around Yoshimo. She made a few more precise, geometric movements with her hands, and the air around her flickered with sparkles of red and amber light. Yoshimo studied the flickers for a moment and frowned, then slashed a hand at the air and ended the spell. She looked away from me.
“Well?” Ramirez said.
“He’s been with at least one sexual partner in the past several hours,” Yoshimo said. Her voice was smooth and calm on the surface, but there was boiling, acidic anger underneath.
And, as I realized what they’d been doing, my own anger started swelling dangerously. The Council had poked its nose in my business my entire adult life. It didn’t need to start poking it there. My heart started beating faster.
“Who was it?” Ramirez asked me, voice hard.
“The nerve,” I snarled.
“Was it Lara?” he pressed. His jaw set like stone. “Harry, has she gotten to you?”
My fingers tightened on my staff until the wood creaked. “You’re crossing a goddamned line, Carlos.”
“Harry,” Chandler began, his tone soothing. He reached out to put a companionable hand on my shoulder.
I struck it away.
Chandler hissed and withdrew his arm, holding it close to his body.
“We have to know, Dresden,” Ramirez said. “Who did you sleep with tonight?”
“Because your sex life is a disaster, you pull this crap on me,” I growled.
Carlos’s face drained of color, but his expression never changed. “Believe it. Who?”
“Suddenly I remember why I have authority issues,” I said. “Go fuck yourself, Ramirez. And tell whoever ordered you to do this to me to pound sand while you’re at it.”
“Captain Luccio ordered me to do this,” Ramirez said quietly. “She’s still your friend. She wants to help you, too.”
“I don’t need this kind of help,” I said. “We’re supposed to be on the same side.”
“We are,” Chandler said emphatically. Then his face fell. “ Unless … we aren’t, I suppose.”
“Every word I’ve said to you is true,” I snapped. Or at least not a lie. “I’ve had enough bullshit from the White Council for one night.”
“Harry, let’s sort this out with the captain,” Chandler said. “Come back to Edinburgh with us. Let’s talk this out, yes?”
It was a rational suggestion, and it was completely unacceptable—because Thomas did not have time for me to spend a full day in a hostile debriefing back in Edinburgh. Those things were thorough and exhausting. It was possible that I’d gone through them maybe once or twice.
That gave me little choice.
“I’ve been talking,” I said. “You aren’t listening. The problem is on your end.” I glared at Ramirez. “I’ve got a lot of work to do. Get out of the road. Or arrest me.” I grounded my staff and shook my shield bracelet clear of my sleeve. “If you can.”
Things got real quiet. No one took their eyes off me, but everyone’s attention was on Ramirez.
He exhaled slowly. Then he said, “My God, Harry, you don’t make it easy, do you?”
“Of the two of us here,” I said, “which of us has definitely wronged the other? You suspect that I might have done something wrong. You’ve definitely wronged me, trying to find out. And you did it first.”
“We’ve both done things we’d rather not have, as Wardens,” he answered. “That’s the job.” He shook his head and, leaning heavily on the cane, limped out of the road. “Six o’clock tomorrow, security meeting at the Four Seasons before the mixer. We’re registered under McCoy.”
I tilted my head and narrowed my eyes. “I’m still on the team, eh?”
“Keep your friends close,” Ramirez said.
I huffed out a breath in a parody of a laugh and turned back toward the Munstermobile.
“Harry,” Ramirez said.
I paused without looking back at him.
“I hope I’m wrong,” he said. “I hope I need to apologize to you later. God, I would love to do that. Please believe that much is true.”
For a second, I felt nothing but tired.
Secrets are heavy, heavy things. Carry around too many of them for too long and the weight will crush the life out of you.
I wanted to tell everyone to take a walk, talk to Ramirez alone, and tell him everything. Carlos was a good man. He’d do the right thing. But the professional paranoia of the White Council made that impossible. Hell, if they thought I’d been subverted, they would regard the fact that I wanted to talk to him alone as proof that I was, myself, trying to isolate Ramirez so that he could be subverted as well. The other Wardens might not even let me have the conversation. And even if I did, if Carlos really thought I’d been made into someone’s sock puppet, he might talk with me and report everything I’d said back to the Council in an effort to discover what disinformation I’d been trying to give them. If he knew I meant to free Thomas, he’d have excellent reason to have me detained, to prevent an incident that could rapidly spiral out of control.
Fear is a prison. But when you combine it with secrets, it becomes especially toxic, vicious. It puts us all into solitary, unable to hear one another clearly.
“You are,” I said tonelessly. “You do.”
Then I got into my car and got moving again.
Alone.
Chapter
Sixteen
I was tired and sick, which isn’t the best frame of mind to be in when you’re doing detail-oriented work, but I wasn’t sure how else to proceed.
Screw it. If I had to do this alone, I would.
I started planning ahead.
So after eating some fast food, I stopped at the trucker station at the highway and bought a shower. I rinsed off meticulously and at length, until I was sure that Ramirez’s tracking spell had lost its hold on me. I also scrubbed off the ink spot, along with a couple of layers of skin so that he wouldn’t be able to get it to lock on again. Once that was done, I made some purchases and headed back out.
I needed some isolation, so I picked a random direction away from the crowds and started following my instincts, doing so until I was damned sure I wasn’t being physically followed. I wound up at the Illinois Beach State Park as the sky in the east was just turning deep blue after several hours of black. It’s about seven miles of the shoreline of Lake Michigan, mostly pebbles and dunes and marshes with low scrub brush and the occasional larger stand of trees. I found parking in a church lot not too far from the park, took my stuff, and headed in. The park wasn’t due to open until well after sunrise, so I’d have to keep an eye out for rangers and other amateur meddlers. The professionals were at work here.