Peace Talks (The Dresden Files, #16)

by Jim Butcher

Marcone nodded and regarded Ferrovax. “Sir?” “My contribution to the defenses must be subtle,” Ferrovax said. “To do otherwise would be to risk destroying more of the city than I save.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “With Etri’s counsel and consent, I will close the underworld to them, prevent them from moving through or beneath the earth. One-Eye?” Vadderung nodded slowly, evidently tracking Ferrovax’s line of thought. “I will close all the Ways to them within the city itself. Given who they are, that will leave them only one viable avenue of approach.” “The water?” Marcone asked. “Aye,” Vadderung said. “Their power is greater beneath the water. They’ll be able to bore through the defenses beneath the lake.”

There was a polite cough. Or it would have been a polite cough if a human had been making it. Considering it came out of River Shoulders’s chest, it sounded more like a small cannon going off. The Sasquatch straightened his bow tie, stepped forward, and pushed his wire-rim spectacles up higher on his broad nose. “My people,” he rumbled, “are not signatories of the Accords. Not yet. But if I understand things correctly, what is happening here has the potential to bring them harm. I will stand with you.”

Sarissa rose, looking intensely uncomfortable, and said, “I can help with communications. The Little Folk are well suited for such tasks. I would recommend the roof of this castle, I think, for a command center, for easy access.” There was a rustle and then Molly slid out of the hole behind the high seat. “I’ve been handling transport for Winter troops for some time now. I can bring more of them in, as long as I know where they will be needed.”

“Communications are, I think, the place to begin.” “As well as a centralized collection of our military assets,” came a ragged voice. Mab came out of the hole in the wall. She was . . . broken. Literally. Half her body had been crushed and mangled as if in some kind of industrial accident. She came through the hole in the wall with jerky, too-quick motions, once more the queen in purple and white, though coated with stone dust, her skin dimpled in dozens of places, as if it had been made of some kind of mostly rigid material that showed some hail damage. As I watched, there was a hideous crackling sound, and her broken shoulder snapped unnaturally in its socket and then resolved into its normal pale perfection. She looked around the room, slowly.

The Gates are under intense attack.”

If the Outer Gates were suddenly being attacked, it meant that there was no way the timing of Ethniu’s actions could be a coincidence. It meant that the Last Titan was in league with the Outsiders. It meant that more than a few powerful entities had evidently decided that the Accorded nations had to go, and they were making their intentions known in no uncertain terms.

“If I may ask . . . where is the Winter Knight?” “He was last seen consorting with Ms. Raith,” Mab said in an offhand voice. She glanced in my direction, and her eyes suddenly became bright green and very cold. “Rest assured he will participate in the defense of the city as soon as he has concluded his business.” Ebenezar’s jaw hardened. “Ma’am, with respect. I will need to coordinate with him. The sooner the better.” “I will send him to you,” Mab said, turning a cool gaze to the old man. Ebenezar met her eyes for a moment and then nodded a stiff-necked acceptance. Great. Now I had this to explain.

The only human-made illumination came from, here and there, emergency road flares that people had deployed as light sources. If there hadn’t been a waxing moon, it would have been too dark to move as fast as I was. It was eerily silent.

The only sounds were worried voices and my running footsteps. There weren’t any screams. There wasn’t any smoke. Not yet. But it was coming. My God, it was coming.

The Accorded nations were preparing for all-out war. Freaking Ferrovax was involved. I ran for the docks, and as I did, I realized something truly terrifying: I had no idea what was coming next.

The supernatural nations might have their issues, and when we fought sometimes there was collateral damage—but for the most part, we kept it among us. Old ruins, jungles, deserts, underground caverns, that was where we did most of our fighting. Not in cities. Not in the streets of freaking Chicago.

I mean, my God, she had kicked Mab through walls. Mab. Walls, plural. Ethniu had gone through her as if she didn’t exist. A creature with power like that might not be impressed by a mere seven or eight billion mortals. She might very well be determined to play this one old-school, and a protogod’s idea of o...

The voice that came out of my grandfather when he said that . . . I’d heard it before. I’d been that voice before.

I thought of the savage satisfaction that had filled me while I did it. Because they had done wrong, and I had seen them do it. To children. And to deliver just retribution for that crime had been to be the right arm of the Almighty Himself, to be filled with pure, righteous, unarguably just hatred. My God, I knew how he felt. I knew how bright and pure that fire burned. But when it was happening, I hadn’t been able to feel it burning me. I just had to live with the scars afterward.

If Mab had been standing there advising me, she would have said something like, It is his weakness. Use it against him. And she wouldn’t have been wrong.

“If I let you do this,” the old man said to me, his voice desperate, “you’re out of the Council. You’re an outlaw. The svartalves won’t care about who hired who. They’ll know you prevented them from having justice. And they’ll kill you for it. It’s the only outcome their worldview will accept. Don’t you see, boy? You’ll be vulnerable, compromised. Mab, and this creature, they’re isolating you. That’s what abusers do.” My heart broke.

If I told him that Thomas was his grandson, he would . . . not receive the news well. The old man had a volcanic temper. That wasn’t a metaphor.

Some free advice for you: Never fight an old man. They’ve been there, done that, written the book, made and starred in the movie, designed the T-shirt, and they’ve got no ego at all about how the fight gets won. And never fight family. They know you too well.

I had a brief shot at his head when his foot slipped a little, but I was too slow to take it. Or maybe I just didn’t want to.

I checked the progress of the Water Beetle as it chugged out of the harbor. It had a hundred yards’ lead now. So, yeah. This was the right time.

His face was red. Too red. The veins stood out sharply in his head, his neck. And the ground was shaking. I could feel it through the dock. When he spoke, his voice came out in a register so calm and measured that it completely terrified me. If he was doing that, it was because he was employing mental discipline techniques to contain his, gulp, rage.

Then I croaked, “They don’t have anything on me.” His eyes went furious again, and . . . And tears formed in them. Oh God. “Then why?” he demanded. The calm in his voice was fraying. “Why are you doing this? Why are you destroying yourself for that thing?” I knew exactly what I was about to do. But he deserved the truth. Had to have it, really. “Because I’ve only got one brother,” I said. “And I’m not going to lose him.”

He whirled toward the retreating boat, barely visible from the shore by now, and his staff burst into incandescent blue flame as he lifted it in his right hand, the hand that projects energy, drawing it back. “No!” I shouted, and lurched toward him. He spun, eyes surrounded by white, his face scarlet, his teeth bared in a snarl, snapping his staff out . . . And what looked like a comet about the size of a quarter, blazing like a star, leapt from the staff, like some kind of bizarre random static spark, and plunged into my ribs and out my spine.

“That’s why you were so big on teaching me control,” I slurred dully. “You’re barely holding it together yourself.” “I’m a hotheaded fool,” he said. “I’m trying to help you.” “You knew you were losing it,” I said weakly. “And you kept going anyway. You could have backed me up.” Blood came out of the hole in my chest in rhythmic little spurts. “And instead it ends like this.” Shame touched his eyes. And he looked away from mine.

The pain we feel in life always grows. When we’re little, little pains hurt us. When we get bigger, we learn to handle more and more pain and carry on regardless. Old people are the hands-down champions of enduring pain. And my grandfather was centuries old. This pain, though. This hurt him. This broke him. He bowed his head. His tears fell to the dock. Then he paused. Then his expression changed. He looked up at me. His eyes widened, and then his face twisted into rage and disbelief. “Why, you sneaky—” “Good talk,” I said, “Wizard McCoy.” And I let go of the Winter glamour Lady Molly had crafted for me.

My eyes flew open and I was on the deck of the Water Beetle, on the far side of the cabin from where Ebenezar had been, where I’d taken cover after dropping the ring and beginning the illusion. Once I’d activated the ring, the veil around me had let me slip aboard the Water Beetle, take cover, and then project my consciousness back into the construct. I’d blown up my relationship with my grandfather by remote control. But at least I hadn’t taken a comet to the lung.

Had a wonderful chat with McCoy.” Murphy helped me sit up, staring at my face intently. “What happened?” she asked. I looked at her and said in a lifeless voice, “I won.” “Oh my God,” she said. “Is he . . .” “Pissed,” I said, with drawn-out, heavy emphasis.

“I told him,” I said. “About Thomas.” “Seems like he reacted a little,” she said. “He killed me,” I said quietly.

Then she said, “I heard the beginning of the conversation. And you’re both wrong about each other, you know. You don’t really know who he is. Not yet. And he doesn’t know you. And you both hurt each other terribly, because you’re family. Because what you say and do matters so much more than anyone else.” She leaned down and put her cheek against my forehead. “Listen to me. I know it hurts right now. But the reason it hurts so much is because you care about each other so much. And that pain will eventually fade. But you’ll both still care.” She was right. I did hurt. The kind of pain a magical mantle can’t do jack about. The real pain, of the heart, the kind that can kill you in about a million ways. Damn the stubborn old fool.

“What if . . .” I swallowed. “What if that’s me, one day? What if that’s what I’m like?” “There’s a difference between you and him,” Murph said. “Yeah?” She moved a bit, leaned down, and kissed my forehead. “Yeah. You’ve got me.”

“What makes this different,” I said, “is Ethniu. And this weapon she has. The Eye of Balor.” “Yeah,” Murphy said. “What’s up with that thing?” I blew out a breath. “Hell of a lot of variants in Celtic traditional folklore. It’s hard to say. Balor was kind of an equivalent to a Greek Titan, up in Celt territory. He had this eye that could be used to wither the world, to destroy everything it saw, to set it on fire. He kept it covered behind a bunch of eye patches and veils, and he could remove a few of them at a time to get different kinds of destructive effects, from making things rot to setting them on fire to blasting them to dust.” “Kind of like gradually reducing the shielding around a radioactive core,” Murphy noted.

“But if it had to be just me, yeah. I’d be good with that. It’s home. You gotta die somehow. Standing up to a monster at the door isn’t a bad way to do it.” She was quiet for a moment before she said, “I feel you.”

It prevented casual visitors: No one who came into these waters would feel at ease until they’d changed course to go around the island. Hell, planes didn’t fly directly overhead; that’s how powerful the island’s influence was. That wasn’t a planned defense, exactly. It was simply the natural presence of the things held prisoner there—a menagerie of supernatural terrors that started with some of the foulest beings I’d ever faced and progressed down into the depths of nightmare from there. Demonreach was the Alcatraz of the supernatural world—and I was the guy holding all the keys.

Then she said, “Involuntary. Honestly. We can always choose to use the Hunger. We can’t always choose not to.” “Well, it’s annoying,” I said grumpily. She lifted her hand and quickly covered a smile. “Oh. You know, I’ve . . . never been told that before. Not once.”

I had told everyone Thomas would be safe on the island. I hadn’t yet told them where he’d be staying. See, the thing about keeping people safe is that, in the end, if you really want to keep someone truly protected, your only option is to lock them up. Fortresses are prisons. And vice versa.

“Part of the process of being taken into the cells is . . .” I took a deep breath. “You suffer the pain you’ve inflicted on others,” I said. “It was meant to get through to the most alien of beings, why they were being imprisoned. It’s not fair. It’s not meant for people. It could hurt you. But if I don’t do it, you’re going to die.” My brother forced his eyes open and tried to find me. “J . . . J . . .” “Justine,” I said. “I know. I’m on it.” He sobbed. That was all he had left in him. I stood away from him, leaving him within the light of the crystal.

Alfred loomed over Thomas. “YOU HAVE THE CAGE. YOU HAVE THE BLOOD. DRAW THE CIRCLE AND SPEAK THE WORDS, WARDEN.”

“Bound be Thomas Raith,” I hissed. I felt resistance against my will begin to rise, the reluctance of this world to open a passage to another. “Bound be my wounded brother,” I growled, forcing my will into my voice, making it ring from the stones and trees and water. “Fallen warrior, father-to-be, I name him bound, consigned to thee.”

She probably didn’t realize she’d chosen her ground even more poorly than my brother had. Demonreach had been constructed by Merlin. The Merlin, the original, Camelot and Excalibur, that Merlin. He’d broken at least one of the Laws of Magic to build the place, romping about through time in order to lay a foundation strong enough to bear the supernatural weight of the prison. As a result, the island absolutely seethed with power—and if one knew the layout of the defenses, and the painstaking geomancy that had gone into laying all that energy into usable patterns, it was possible to use that energy at almost no cost to one’s own store of personal power. Behind Lara, Freydis and her shotgun vaulted off the ship and onto the shore, the Valkyrie following her boss into battle. Except it wasn’t a battle. It wasn’t even close.

I’d be aiming trees (for God’s sake, I should have practiced smashing things with trees) at targets on a floating, bobbing platform, and an inch’s difference in any direction could mean Murphy’s life or death. So I backed off, the trees groaning threateningly as they retreated.

“This is not the fight that is destined to be her last,” the Valkyrie called.

Oh, to have that knowledge would be terrible.

I’d heard the tone before. Back when I’d had to put the fear of, well, me, into a vampire named Bianca. We’d sort of been amicable opponents up until that point. Things changed when I’d made her feel helpless. Things had gotten a little complicated. And I’d just repeated history. Only Lara was smarter and stronger and a great deal more dangerous than Bianca had ever thought about being. This was one of those situations where it would maybe be wise to use my words.

“You never said anything about locking him in a cell.” “I said he’d have to stay here.” Lara let out a small bitter laugh. “You did. And you kept your word. To think I believed you’d come into Mab’s service as a result of misfortune rather than aptitude.” I winced at that one. Ow.

“What do you want?” she asked. “For what?” “Don’t be coy, Dresden,” Lara said. “You hold my brother’s life in your hand now. What is your price?” I lifted my eyebrows. “Wait—you think that . . . Wow.” She tilted her head. “Lara, look,” I said. “I’m slowly growing more aware of things, but . . . you’re giving me too much of what you probably think is credit. I don’t play the game like that.” “A cursory review of your defeated foes begs to differ, wizard.” “I’ll play hardball,” I acknowledged. “But I play it clean. Or at least, I don’t sell my own damned brother up the river for gain.”

“You’re not that much of an idealist, Dresden,” Lara said with a faint hard smile on her mouth. “At the end of the day, you’ll commit genocide if you think it’s the proper thing to do.” “You’re goddamned right I will,” I said, because the empirical evidence was pretty tough to dispute.

“He’s trapped there forever,” Lara said. “No. He’s safe there until we can find a way to cure him,” I said. She regarded me with flat eyes. “And as a happy side effect, if I wish to protect his life, now I must invest resources in protecting yours.” That hadn’t been what I’d been planning at all. And yet . . . by Lara’s standards, that’s exactly what I’d done. There is plenty of daylight between intentions and results. Intentions are fine things, but they don’t stanch bleeding or remove scars. Or heal broken brothers. Man. I hadn’t planned it like that. Had I? Maybe I’d been hanging around Mab too much.

Then she said, “Empty Night, wizard. Either you’re sincere, in which case”—she shook her head, baffled—“I feel I do not understand you very well at all. Or you’re a person capable of using even your brother’s misfortune and possible death to secure gain for yourself while simultaneously cladding your actions in such moral armor as to make them practically unassailable. In which case, I suppose . . . I admire your skill in arranging matters.”

Alfred was apparently able to hide things from me. The spirit could hide its presence from my intellectus of the island, for example. And it could hide the innate terror of the island’s inmates, preventing it from taking a toll on my psyche. So I kind of had to wonder—what else could Demonreach be hiding from me?

“Alfred, how big a being can the cells contain?” “PHYSICAL SIZE IS NOT A FACTOR,” the spirit replied. “METAPHYSICAL MASS IS A DIFFERENT CONSIDERATION.” The creature’s green eyes suddenly flashed fiercely. “THE LAST TITAN IS ON THE MOVE.” “Yes,” I said simply. “Can you hold her?” “IF YOU CAN PERFORM THE BINDING, I CAN HOLD HER,” Alfred said. “From how far out?” I asked. “I AM A JAILER, NOT A BOUNTY HUNTER,” Alfred replied. “PERHAPS TO THE SHORES OF THE LAKE—IF YOU USED THE ATHAME FROM THE ARMORY.”