by Jim Butcher
The ring pulsed with stored power, with densely packed magical energy. I could feel it against my skin like the light of a tiny sun. I carefully pocketed it, then changed my mind and put it on. If I needed the thing, I was going to really need it, tout de suite. “It’s also the same material the Warden capes are made of.” I set the suit down and frowned for a moment. “So Molly wants to make a statement with my outfit.”
“That you aren’t afraid of spiders?” Maggie asked. “I mean, what else would that say?”
I pursed my lips. “You know … I’m not really sure.”
So some other crosscurrents were swirling, only no one was saying anything about it. Par for the course when dealing with Mab, but I was used to more open communication with Molly. Only … taking on the mantle of the Winter Lady had given my former Padawan a lot of power, and whether you’re talking about the supernatural world or any other one, more power meant more obligations, more responsibilities. Molly might not have entirely free will, as the concept was generally understood, anymore.
And Mab loved her some secrets. If she wanted them kept, I’m not sure Molly would be able to tell me.
Or maybe I was just being paranoid.
Well. I’d done pretty well, in the survival department, by assuming that my paranoia was justified. Maybe taking out an insurance policy wouldn’t be a bad idea.
“Dad?” Maggie asked me. “What is it? You’ve been staring into space for like three minutes.”
I blinked. “Could you please run and tell Michael that I need to borrow his office for a private phone call?” I asked her.
“Okay,” she said, and hopped up with the energy of children on a sunny afternoon, running out. Mouse lumbered to his feet, nuzzled my face fondly with his big, slobbery mouth, and padded out after her.
I looked around helpless for a second, wiped off my face on the comforter, got out my wallet, found it empty, and started rummaging in my pockets for whatever change I could find there.
I got dressed and made a call in Michael’s spartan, organized office. Once I shut the heavy wooden door, the sounds of the television out in the family room and the rap of wood on wood coming from the backyard were muted to nothing.
“It’s Dresden,” I said when he answered.
“Oh boy.”
“I need your help,” I said.
“With what?”
“Good cause.”
He sounded skeptical. “Oh. Those.”
“There’s a cute girl.”
“I like that.”
“You can’t have her,” I said.
“I like that less.”
“In or out?”
“Usual fee,” he said.
“I only stole so many rocks.”
He snorted. “So, get someone else.”
“You’re killing me, man.”
“Only if it’s for a good cause. Tell me about this girl.”
I told him where to find Justine and what she looked like.
“You get that she’s obviously a femme fatale, right?”
I arched an eyebrow. “She’s … kind of not.”
“Uh-huh,” he said.
“She isn’t.”
“Customer’s always right. What result do you want?”
I shuddered a bit. It wouldn’t matter to him, personally, whether or not I asked him to save her or kill her. But the more experience I had in the world, the more I had come to think that monstrousness or a lack of it was a little less important than whether or not the monster would keep his word.
This one would.
“Covert surveillance. Make sure nothing bad happens to her.”
“Am I a spy or a bodyguard?”
“Yes.”
“Oh. You’re floundering.”
I was definitely not floundering. “I am definitely not floundering,” I told him in a tone of perfect confidence. “I … just need more information before I can act appropriately.”
“Uh-huh,” he said. Only more annoyingly. “Opposition?”
“Unknown,” I said.
He was quiet for a moment.
“To you,” he said.
“Yeah.”
“Now.”
“Yeah.”
“Here.”
“Yeah.”
“Oh,” he said. “Super.”
“If I get an easy job, I can call a temp agency.”
“I don’t do politics,” he said. “The good causes mostly aren’t.”
“I’ll handle that part,” I said. “Your concern is solely the girl—and the baby. She’s pregnant. Keep them safe from harm.”
“Ah,” he said, as though I had just simplified his life. “Rules of engagement?”
“Well, I think you should—”
“Trick question,” he said, and hung up on me.
I eyed the phone.
Then I got into my pocket, got out the dollar bill that had been stuck in a pocket on a ride through the laundromat and was now a wadded block of solid pseudo-wood. I put it in an envelope, sealed it, and wrote GREY on it in pink highlighter. I stowed that in a pocket. That’ll put marzipan in your pie plate, bingo.
Then I got up and headed outside.
Butters was a squirrely little guy—quick, bouncy, and bright-eyed.
The man pursuing him around the Carpenters’ backyard was more of a bear—huge, powerful, and too fast for his size. He’d shaved his head entirely, and his scalp was the color of dark chocolate, covered with beads of sweat, and the blazing afternoon sun shone gratuitously upon all the muscle. Sanya was the size and build of an NFL linebacker, and his teeth showed in a broad smile the entire time he fought.
Even as I watched, the two men squared off, facing each other, each holding a length of wood carved to vaguely resemble a samurai sword. Butters held his in a two-handed grip, high over his head. The little guy was wearing his sports goggles, a tank top, and close-fit exercise pants. He looked like the protagonists in the old Hong Kong Theater movies—blade thin, flexible, and wiry with lean muscle that was all about speed and reflexes.
Sanya, dressed in battered blue jeans and biker boots, whirled his practice sword in one hand through a couple of flourishes and settled into a fencing stance in front of Butters and just out of his own reach, his off hand held out behind him.
“You have gotten much smoother,” said Sanya, his voice a deep rumble inflected with a thick Russian accent on the vowels.
“Still not any faster,” Butters said. And then his practice sword blurred as it swept down toward Sanya. Santa intercepted with a deflection parry, though he had enough muscle and mass on Butters that he probably didn’t need to. His return thrust slithered down the haft of Butters’s practice sword so fast that I heard it hit Waldo’s thumb. He yelped and leapt back, shaking that hand for a moment—but he didn’t lose his practice weapon.
“Smooth almost always better than fast,” Sanya said, stepping back and lifting up a hand to signal a pause in the practice. “Smooth is technique. Grace. Smooth lets you think while you fight.”
“And that’s a big deal?” Butters asked.
“Is everything,” Sanya said. “Fighting is least civilized thing one can do. Intellect is not made for fighting. You have been there, da?”
“Yeah. It’s terrifying.”
“Da,” Sanya replied. “Hard to take test while some stinking thing shoving your face into stinking armpit.” He set the practice sword carefully against the wall of the Carpenters’ little workshop and then picked up an old, worn-looking cavalry saber with a wire-wrapped hilt in a battered leather scabbard. “Hard to get much thinking done in fight,” Sanya said. He jabbed a thumb at one of his own biceps. “Muscle can be useful tool—or deadweight,” Sanya said. He jabbed his thumb at his own forehead. “But this is most dangerous weapon.”
Butters eyed the much, much larger man for a moment. “Yeah, everyone has one of those.”
“Exactly true,” Sanya said. “Dangerous place, planet Earth. Dangerous animals, humans.�
�� His grin became more wolfish. “Be more human than next guy. And pick up Sword.”
Butters arched an eyebrow. “Um. Are you sure you want to play with these? I mean, there’s like zero margin for error with that thing.”
“Always zero margin for error,” Sanya said calmly. He drew the old saber. Worn though the weapon might be, its blade shone nicked and bright and true in the sunlight. Esperacchius, the Sword of Hope, sang a bright, quiet song of power that I could feel against my face and chest like sunlight.
“Dude,” Butters said. He stepped to one side and reached into an old messenger bag lying on the ground nearby. “I’m not sure what this thing will do to Esperacchius.”
Sanya let out a rolling laugh. “Me, either. But have faith.”
Butters frowned. “But what if it … ?”
The Russian shook his head. “If there is a sword that mine cannot stand against, I must know.”
“What happened to having faith?” Butters asked.
Sanya gave Butters a nonplussed look before the smile resurged. “I suppose I have no objection to faith, in absence of knowledge,” he said. “But knowledge good, too, da?”
“Da,” I said, firmly.
Both men looked up at me, unsurprised at my presence. They’d just been busy. Butters bounced the hilt of Fidelacchius in his hand a couple of times, frowning. “You sure?”
“Worth knowing, isn’t it?” I asked. “There’s plenty of enchanted swords running around out there. They were the number one piece of military hardware for a very long time. The way I heard it, figuring out how to lay Power into that general mass of steel had been pretty much optimized. If what happened to the Sword of Faith represents a major escalation, a game-changer, that would be a good thing to know.”
“Well, I don’t want God yelling at me if I break His stuff.” Butters sighed.
“Assuming there is one,” Sanya said.
Butters gave Sanya a blank look and then said, “You are a very weird man.”
“Da,” Sanya agreed cheerfully. Then he lifted the Sword, all business again, and said, “En garde.”
Butters grimaced. But his feet settled into a fighting stance and he lifted Fidelacchius. He glanced around carefully at the neighboring houses to make sure no one was just out in their yard goggling and said, “But not for long. Okay?”
“Da, da,” Sanya said.
Butters nodded once, grimly, and there was a hum of power and a flicker of extra sunlight as the Sword of Faith’s shining blade sprang from its shattered hilt. The soft, wavering chord of ghostly choral music followed each motion of the blade as Butters raised it to an overhead guard position again.
“Always with the high guard,” Sanya commented.
“Everyone’s taller than me,” Butters pointed out.
Then he swept the Sword of Faith at Sanya’s arm.
Sanya moved smoothly, in a direct parry, pitting the strength of his Sword’s steel and his arm directly against that of his opponent.
There was a flash of light, like when the mirror of a passing car briefly shows you the image of the sun, and the ghostly choral music swelled in volume and intensified for a moment. Sparks flew up from the contact of the weapons, and at the point where they met there was a light so white and so pure that I felt as if perhaps its like had not been seen for several billion years, at least. Maybe not since Someone said, “Let there be light.”
Then the two men disengaged. Sanya held his blade out to one side and studied it, but its steel was shining, bright, and unchanged.
Butters frowned. Then he turned to an old stump in the yard that bore the remains of an old anvil fastened to it. About half of the anvil was gone, as if sliced away at an angle. Butters peered at the anvil for a second, took half a breath, and then swept the Sword of Faith at it. There was a howl from the sword, a cascade of sparks, and then a slice of the anvil about the thickness of a dinner plate fell away from it and onto the yard, where the sizzling-hot metal promptly started a small fire in the drying summer grass.
Butters yelped, seized a nearby water bottle, and put the fire out with a great deal of hissing, some stomping, and a small cloud of steam.
Sanya’s expression, meanwhile, lit up into an even brighter version of his usual smile, and when he turned his eyes back to Butters, they shone brightly.
Butters regarded the other man’s expression warily and then slowly smiled. “Yeah,” he said. “Okay.”
And without a word, the two Knights charged each other, Swords held high.
Once again, the swords clashed, only things were different now. Instead of Sanya dominating the fight, Butters had the edge. Esperacchius darted and whirled, liquid smooth, but as fast as Sanya was with his blade, the steel sword wasn’t weightless.
Fidelacchius, the Sword of Faith, was.
Butters pressed the attack with absolute ruthlessness, never giving the Russian a break once he had the big man back on his heels. Sanya began retreating in earnest, parrying and returning attacks wherever he could—which was seldom, in the face of Butters’s onslaught.
The big Russian tripped on a five-gallon bucket set neatly near an outdoor water spigot, fell back into a roll, and came back to his feet barely in time to catch the Sword of Faith on Esperacchius’s blade. He burst out into laughter as Butters drove him back relentlessly, and his flickering saber shifted to almost total defense. “Is not even fair! This is wonderful!”
Butters gasped out an answering laugh, and when he did, Sanya cheated. The taller Knight kicked some of Michael’s lawn up at Butters’s face, and the smaller man flinched back. Sanya took a risk and bulled in, and his timing was good. He got in close, his blade holding Butters’s back, and swiped at Butters’s head with his off hand.
He’d underestimated the little guy’s reaction speed. Butters moved on pure instinct, shining blade of his sword sweeping to the side.
And directly through Sanya’s wrist.
The big man screamed and fell to his knees, doubled up around his wrist.
“Sanya!” Butters cried. He stared at the shining sword for a moment, his eyes terrified—and then he dropped it. The blade flickered out and vanished as the hilt bounced off the lawn. Then he ran to the big man’s side.
I turned to the house and bellowed, “Medic!” Then I joined Butters beside Sanya.
The big man rocked back and forth, shaking hard, the muscles on his back and shoulders standing out sharply.
“Oh, wow, we were warned and we did not listen,” I muttered. “How many hands did we see go flying off?”
“I know,” Butters said, his voice horrified. “Sanya, come on, man. Let me see it.”
“Is all right,” Sanya said through clenched teeth. “Only need one hand for saber. Can still be Knight.”
“God, I am such an idiot,” Butters said. “I shouldn’t ever take that thing out unless evil’s, like, right here. Let me see, man.”
“Do not blame self, Waldo,” Sanya said gravely. “Cannot see myself as Christian, but they have good ideas about forgiveness. I will forgive you, brother.”
I stood up abruptly and folded my arms, arching an eyebrow.
“God, Sanya,” Butters said. “It was an accident. I am so sorry. I …” He suddenly frowned. “Hey.”
Sanya’s deep voice rolled out in a bubbling laugh that came up from somewhere around his toes and rolled up through his belly and chest before finally spilling out his mouth. He held up the fingers of his “maimed” hand and wiggled them, still laughing.
“Oh,” Butters stammered. “Oh, oh, oh. You jerk.”
Sanya rose, still laughing, and swiped a hand over his shaven head. He went over to the discarded scabbard. He took a cloth from a small case on the scabbard’s belt, wiped down the saber, and slid it neatly away. “Did not think so.”
“Think what?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Was instinct. Did not feel like I was in danger from that sword.”
“Instinct?” Butters demanded. He raked a hand back throu
gh his haystack of a hairdo. “For God’s sake, man. If you’d been wrong …”
“Wasn’t,” Sanya pointed out with a smile.
Butters made an exasperated sound and snatched up Fidelacchius’s hilt, but his expression was puzzled. “What just happened?”
“Obviously, it failed to cut him,” I said. “Question is why.” I looked around the backyard. Honestly, there was very little danger of anyone seeing much of what was going on. Between the rosebushes planted along the fences, a few shrubs, an enormous tree, and some actual privacy fencing along the back of the yard, there weren’t many places to see in. Michael had planned ahead.
As if the thought had summoned him, he came out the back door of the house, hurrying along in a heavy limp with his cane, the strap of a large medical kit slung over one shoulder. He slowed as he took in everyone’s body language and gave me a questioning glance.
“Sanya was playing with us,” I said.
“Cannot help it.” Sanya chortled. “You are such simple provincial folk.”
I knuckled him in the arm at the same time Butters kicked his shins. It only made him laugh again.
“What happened?” Michael asked calmly.
Butters told him.
“Huh,” Michael said, lifting his eyebrows. “Have you ever touched the blade of the sword?”
“God no,” Butters said. “I mean … come on, no. Just no.”
“But it’s cut people before,” I said. “Right?”
“Yeah,” Butters began. Then his voice trailed off. “No. It hasn’t cut people. It’s cut monsters.”
The four of us considered that for a moment.
“Well,” I said. “Light it up. Let’s try it.”
“I guess we have to.” Butters sighed. He lifted the sword, simply holding it blade up, and it sprang to life with a choral hum.
Without hesitating an instant, Sanya held out his hand and put it squarely into the blade.
Absolutely nothing happened. It just passed into his flesh and then continued on the other side as if there’d been no interruption at all.
“Weird,” Butters breathed. He reached up and tested it with a pinky finger—then put his whole hand into the beam as well. “Huh,” he said. “It just feels a little warm.”