Cold Days (The Dresden Files, #14)

by Jim Butcher

But there had always been a sense of energy and life and simple joy welling up from the grasshopper. It had been her default setting, and I hadn’t realized how much I had loved that about her. Now her blue eyes looked weary, wary.

Maybe, maybe, maybe, but I was kidding myself. Molly’s eyes were always going to end up like that sooner or later—just like mine had. This business doesn’t play nice with children.

“There’s always a choice,” I said. “That’s the thing, man. There’s always, always a choice. My options might really, truly suck, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a choice.”

“I’ll owe you one,” I said. That seemed to amuse the hell out of him. Wrinkled topography appeared at the corner of his eye. “Given the caliber of your talents for making enemies, I hope you’ll understand if I don’t consider what you offer a sound long-term value.” I smiled and sipped some beer. “But it’s worth a few minutes of your time—or you wouldn’t have come here in the first place.” That drew a quick flicker of an amused smile. “I will accept your offer of one favor—and a nickel.”

“What I mean,” he said, “is that I know about your island. I know where it came from. I know what it does. I know what’s beneath it.” “Uh,” I said. “Oh.” “I’m aware of how important it is that the island be well managed. Most of the people who came to your party in Mexico are.”

“Banefire?” “The fail-safe,” Vadderung said. “The fire the island showed you.” “Right. It’ll kill everything held there rather than let them escape, right?” “It is the only way,” Vadderung said. “If anyone managed to set free the things in the Well . . .” “Seems like it would be bad,” I said. “Not bad,” Vadderung said. “The end.”

I frowned. “There’s . . . a law of the conservation of history?” Vadderung grinned. “I’ve never heard it phrased quite like that, but it’s accurate enough. In any event, overcoming that inertia requires tremendous energy, will, and a measure of simple luck. If one wishes to alter the course of history, it’s a far simpler matter to attempt to shape the future.”

I grunted. “So if I go back in time and kill my grandfather, what happens?” “He beats you senseless, I suspect,” Vadderung said, his gaze direct. Oh, man. Vadderung knew about Ebenezar.

Meddling with time is an irrationally, outrageously, catastrophically dangerous and costly business. I encourage you to avoid it at all costs.”

“It’s your island,” Vadderung said. “That makes no sense.” He tilted his head and looked at me. “Wizard . . . you have been dead and returned. It has marked you. It has opened doors and paths that you do not yet know exist, and attracted the attention of beings who formerly would never have taken note of your insignificance.”

“Meaning that now more than ever, you are a fulcrum. Meaning that your life is about to become very, very interesting.” “I don’t understand,” I said. He leaned forward slightly. “Correct that.”

“Can I do this?” I asked his back. “You can.” I made an exasperated sound. “How do you know?” Odin turned to look back at me with his gleaming eye, his teeth bared in a wolf’s smile, the scar on either side of his eye patch silver in the light coming through the door. “Perhaps,” he murmured, “you already have.”

It was more or less human-shaped, and I was suddenly struck by the realization that I was looking at a humanoid who was wearing some kind of enormous, ungainly garment made of all those restless, rustling strips. It lifted its head slowly and focused on me. It didn’t look at me—it didn’t have any eyes, just smooth skin laced with scars where they had once been. Its skin was pearly grey lined with darker stripes that made me think of a shark. Its mouth was gaping open in a wide grin that reinforced the impression. It didn’t have teeth—just a single smooth ridge of bone where teeth would have been on a human. Its lips were black, and its mouth smudged with more of it. Twin trails of saliva drooled from the corners of its mouth, leaving black streaks to down past its chin. There wasn’t a hair to be seen on its head.

“Harry,” said a strange voice. Or rather, it wasn’t strange—it was just strange to actually hear it. Mac isn’t much of a talker. “Don’t chat. Kill it.”

“You!” Sharkface snarled. “You have no place in this, watcher. Do you think this gesture has meaning? It is every bit as empty as you. You chose your road long ago. Have the grace to lie down and die beside it.”

And just like that, the psychic assault of despair that Sharkface had sent into my head evaporated, and I could think clearly again. I hadn’t felt the cloying, somehow oily power slithering up to me—but I could sure as hell feel it now as it recoiled and pulled away. I’d felt it before—and I suddenly knew what I was dealing with. Sharkface jerked its head toward me, and its mouth opened in shock.

I expected a roar of flame, a flash of white and gold light, the concussion of superheated air suddenly expanding, right in Sharkface’s ugly mug. What I got was an arctic-gale howl and a spiraling harpoon of blue-white fire burning hotter than anything this side of a star. Sharkface hurled furniture at me, trying to shelter behind it, but the fire I’d just called vaporized chairs and tables in the instant it touched them. They shattered with enormous, screaming detonations of thunder, and every impact made sounds that by all rights should have belonged to extremely large and poorly handled construction vehicles.

It screamed in pain, a sound that raked at my ears, and began to lower its arms to retaliate. The second it did, I drove my right fist into its stupid, creepy face. Man, the yahoos I scrap with never seem to anticipate that tactic.

I hurled my will through my body, drawing forth the frigid purity of Winter, calling, “Infriga!” Howling wind and cold engulfed the nascent fires. And the floor around where the fires had been. And the walls. And, um, the ceiling. I mean, pretty much every nonliving surface in the place was completely covered in a layer of frost half an inch thick.

Outsiders,” Thomas said. “Are you sure?” “You felt it,” I said. “That mental whammy. It was exactly like that night in the Raith Deeps.”

I sighed. “That little creep Peabody dropped one Outsider on a meeting of the Council. The best wizards in the world were all in that one room and took it on together, and the thing still managed to murder a bunch of them.

They’re insanely violent, insanely powerful, and just plain insane. But that isn’t what makes them dangerous.” “Uh,” Thomas said. “It isn’t? Then what is?” “They work together,” I said quietly. “Near as we can tell, they all work together.”

“You think this is going to work? This peaceful summit thing?” “Sure,” I said. After a second, I added, “Probably.” “Probably?” “Maybe,” I said. “We’re down to maybe now?” I shrugged. “We’ll see.”

I’d played the malicious obedience card more than a couple of times in my life, but this was the first time I’d had it played against me. Man. No wonder it drives people insane.

“Well,” I growled, “I’m not Slate. I’m not some pet monster Maeve made to play with.” “No,” Lily said, her voice sad. “You are a weapon Mab made to war with.

“Why did you touch my head like that? What were you looking for?” “A disease,” she replied. “A parasite. A poison.”

Was she checking for Outsider influence?

“Victor Sells the Shadowman,” I whispered. “Agent Denton and the Hexenwolves. Leonid Kravos the Nightmare. My first three major cases.” “Yes,” Lily whispered. “Each of them was tainted by the contagion. It destroyed them.”

“Fourth case. Aurora. A champion of peace and healing who set out to send the natural world into havoc.” Lily’s eyes glistened with tears. “I saw what it did to her,” she said.

“Mab,” she breathed, “my mother, the Queen of Air and Darkness, and your liege . . .” She leaned closer and whispered, “Mab has been tainted and has gone utterly mad.”

Great misdirect

Remember your godmother, bound in ice at Arctis Tor. That was when my mother trapped her and spread the contagion into her.

That was not what happened

“No one must realize that you know of the contagion,” she said. “You cannot know which of your allies or associates it has already taken. If you demonstrate awareness, anyone infected will either remove you or infect you.”

woman stood over him. She was five nothing, and built with the kind of lithe, solid power that you’d expect in an Olympic gymnast who had stayed fit as she aged. Her blond hair was cut short, to finger-length. She’d had a pert upturned nose the last time I’d seen her. It had been broken since then, and while it had healed, I could see the slight bump the break had left. She had on jeans and a denim jacket, and her eyes were blue and blazing. Ace started to get up, but a motorcycle boot much smaller than his own slammed down on his chest. Karrin Murphy scowled at him, tossed the bat into the bushes, and said in a hard voice, “Stay down, creep. Only warning.”

The bushes crashed and Thomas appeared from them, pistol in one hand, that insanely big Gurkha knife in the other. His gun tracked to Murphy, then snapped upward, and retrained upon the downed Ace. “Oh, hi, Karrin.”

“And he just wakes up?” Waldo Butters, Chicago’s most polka-savvy medical examiner, asked. “Tell me that isn’t a little creepy.”

“Wow, that’s cynical,” I said. “And calculating.” “I’m in the right ballpark, aren’t I?” Butters asked. I sighed. “Yeah, it sounds . . . very Mab-like.”

“Sith?” Butters asked. “Not what you’re thinking,” I said. “Oh,” he said, clearly disappointed.

Paranoia—because why should the conspiracy theorists get to have all the fun?

“Oh!” Butters said. “It’s a phantom menace!” “Ah!” Molly said. Thomas grunted. Karrin glanced around at all of us and then said, “Translate that from nerd to English, please.”

None of us but the major general.

“Lady of Light and Life, hear me. Thou who art Queen of the Ever-Green, Lady of Flowers, hear me. Dire portents are afoot. Hear my voice. Hear my need. I am Harry Dresden, Winter Knight, and I needs must speak with thee.” I lifted my joined voice and will and thundered, “Titania, Titania, Titania! I summon thee!”

“You who slew my daughter,” Titania said quietly. “You dare summon me?”

I just hadn’t seen any scenario in which my talking to Titania wouldn’t make her furious—so I’d drawn the circle as a precaution. Sometimes I use my brain.

I mean, I thought the war between the White Council and the Red Court was a big deal—but now it looks to me like it was more or less an opening act for the real band.”

This was exactly the kind of family tension into which sane people do not inject themselves. “I’m going to inject myself into your family business,” I said.

“In many ways, she and I are alike. In many more ways, we are entirely different. Do you know what my sister believes in?” “Flashy entrances,” I said. Titania’s lips actually twitched. “In reason.” “Reason?” “Reason. Logic. Calculation. The cold numbers. The supremacy of the mind.” Titania’s eyes became distant. “It is another place where we differ. I prefer to follow the wisdom of the heart.” “Meaning what?” I asked. Titania lifted her hand and spoke a single word, and the air rang with power. The ground buckled, ripping my circle apart and flinging me from my feet onto my back. “Meaning,” she said, her voice hot and furious, “that you murdered my daughter.”

Hell’s bells. Elder Gruff had spoken on my behalf? I owed that guy a beer.

She paused. “But this thing I will tell a Winter Knight who believes in freedom: You must learn greater discretion. The power you have come to know and fear has a name. One should know the proper names of things.” She turned and walked toward me. My body told me to run like hell, but I told it to shut up, that my legs were shaking too hard anyway. Titania leaned up onto her toes and whispered, very close to my ear. “Nemesis,” she breathed.

Forgot this was the name drop location

With that she turned and began walking away. “Fare thee well, wizard. You say that people should be free. I agree. I will not shackle you with my wisdom. Make your choices. Choose what the world is to be. I care not. There is little light left in it for me, thanks to you.”

Graves aren’t for the dead. They’re for the loved ones the dead leave behind them. Once those loved ones have gone, once all the lives that have touched the occupant of any given grave had ended, then the grave’s purpose was fulfilled and ended.

“Ancient crone, harbinger!” I began, then raised my voice, louder. “Longest shadow! Darkest dream! She of the endless hunger, the iron teeth, the merciless jaws!” I poured more of my wind and my will into the words, and the inside of my grave rang with the sheer volume. “I am Harry Dresden, the Winter Knight, and I needs must speak with thee! Athropos! Skuld! Mother Winter, I summon thee!”