Proven Guilty (The Dresden Files, #8)

by Jim Butcher

Sometimes I get tired of being the guy who is supposed to deal with un-deal-withable situations.

‘Exercise is good for the body, but music is good for the soul.’

On the one hand, he taught me about what it meant to be a wizard, about how a wizard’s magic comes from his deepest beliefs, about how doing evil with magic was more than simply a crime – it was a mockery of what magic meant, a kind of sacrilege.

You can never tell how someone is going to handle power – not until you hand it to them and see what they do with it.

For a long time I’d been stupid enough to assume that I could handle everything on my own. That’s vanity, though. Nobody can handle everything by themselves. Sometimes, you need someone’s help – even if that help is only giving you a little of their time and attention.

I had never had a home like that, growing up. Even now that Thomas and I had found one another, when I thought of a family, I thought of the Carpenter household. I had never had that kind of intimacy, closeness. Those who have such a family seldom realize how rare and precious it is. It was something worth preserving.

‘The power of positive thinking?’ I asked. ‘No. Free will,’ she said. ‘You can’t change what has already happened. But you choose what to do next. Which means that you only cross over to the dark side if you choose to do it.’

When I was younger, I learned a lot of stuff, like the role of colors in the casting of spells. Green for fertility and prosperity, red for passion and energy, white for purity, black for vengeance, and so on. It could be that the color doesn’t matter at all – but if I expect the spell to work because of the color used, then that color is important. If I don’t believe in it, the spell won’t ever get off the ground.’

‘Life is short,’ I said. ‘Too short to waste it on stupid arguments. I’m not saying your mom is perfect, because God knows she isn’t. But my God, Molly, you’ve got the kind of family people like me would kill for. You think they’ll always be there later – but they might not be. Life doesn’t give you any guarantees.’

Worse, entering such a place as the church might force him to face his choices, to question them, to be confronted with the fact that the road he’d chosen kept getting darker and further from the light.

‘Maybe I don’t want to talk to you,’ I said. ‘Of course,’ he said, nodding. ‘But my offer stands, should you wish to talk. Sometimes the only way to carry a heavy burden is to share it with another. It is your choice to make.’

Choices. Sometimes I thought it might be nice not to make any choices. If I never had one, I could never screw it up.

‘Power,’ he said, waving a hand in an all-encompassing gesture. ‘All power is the same. Magic. Physical strength. Economic strength. Political strength. It all serves a single purpose – it gives its possessor a broader spectrum of choices. It creates alternative courses of action.’

There is something holy, something divine, hidden in the most ordinary situations, and it is up to each one of you to discover it.’ ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ I asked. ‘That the good that will come is not always obvious. Nor easy to see. Nor in the place we would expect to find it. Nor what we personally desire. You should consider that the good being created by the events this night may have nothing to do with the defeat of supernatural evils or endangered lives. It may be something very quiet. Very ordinary.’

‘Everyone gets scared sometimes,’ I said. ‘But I allowed it to rule me. I should have been stronger than that, Mister Dresden. Wiser than that. We all should be. God did not give us a spirit of fear, but of love, of power, and of self-control.’

I turned back to the dancing lights on the movie screen and told the others, ‘Things just got a lot worse. I’m still going. None of you have to come with me. I don’t expect you to—’ Before I finished speaking, Charity, Murphy, and Thomas stepped up to stand beside me. A bolt of warmth, fierce with joy and pride and gratitude, flashed through me like sudden lightning. I don’t care about whose DNA has recombined with whose. When everything goes to hell, the people who stand by you without flinching – they are your family. And they were my heroes.

Thomas sat down on my other side, wincing as he touched the lump on his head. ‘Harry,’ Thomas said. ‘Remind me why we keep hurling ourselves into this kind of insanity.’ I traded a smile with Murphy and said nothing. We all three of us watched as Charity, on the floor in front of the first row of seats, clutched her daughter hard against her. Molly leaned against her with a child’s gratefulness, need, and love. She spoke very quietly, never opening her eyes. ‘Mama.’ Charity said nothing, but she hugged her daughter even more tightly. ‘Oh,’ Thomas said. ‘Right.’ ‘Exactly,’ I said. ‘Right.’

What she needed was a guide. Someone to show her the ropes, to give her the tools she would need to deal with her newfound power, and all the baggage that came with it. Yes, that kernel of darkness still burned coldly within her, but I could hardly throw stones there. Yes, she had the potential to go astray on an epic scale. Don’t we all.

‘Most of the bad guys in the real world don’t know that they are bad guys. You don’t get a flashing warning sign that you’re about to damn yourself. It sneaks up on you when you aren’t looking.’

‘She is my child,’ Charity objected. ‘She was,’ Forthill corrected her, ‘if only for a time. Children are a precious gift, but they belong to no one but themselves. They are only lent us a little while.’

He could never stand aside and do nothing while bad things happened, even if meant that he had to kill his friend. I could respect that. I understood it, because I couldn’t do it, either. I couldn’t stand aside, abandon my magic, and cut myself loose of the responsibility to use it for good. Not even if it killed me. Life can be confusing. Good God, and how. Sometimes it seems like the older I get, the more confused I become. That seems ass-backwards. I thought I was supposed to be getting wiser. Instead, I just keep getting hit over the head with my relative insignificance in the greater scheme of the universe. Confusing, life. But it beats the hell out of the alternative.