Turn Coat (The Dresden Files, #11)

by Jim Butcher

I need an extra pair of hands.” I swallowed. “Uh. Butters, I don’t know if I’m the right guy to—” “Oh bite me, wizard boy,” Butters said, his tone annoyed. “You haven’t got a moral leg to stand on. If it’s okay that I’m not a doctor, it’s okay that you aren’t a nurse. So wash your freaking hands and help me before we lose him.”

“Because Morgan wouldn’t break the Laws of Magic,” I said quietly. “Not even if it cost him his life.” “You sound pretty sure about that.” I nodded. “I am. I’m helping him because I know what it feels like to have the Wardens on your ass for something you haven’t done.” I rose and looked away from the unconscious man on my bed. “I know it better than anyone alive.” Butters shook his head. “You are a rare kind of crazy, man.” “Thanks.”

So I stretched out on my couch to do some thinking, and began focusing on my breathing, trying to relax the headache away and clear my thoughts. It went so well that I stayed right there doing it for about six hours, until the late dusk of a Chicago summer had settled on the city. I didn’t fall asleep. I was meditating. You’re going to have to take my word for it.

“Aleron LaFortier is dead.” He stuck the thermometer in his mouth, presumably to attempt to kill me with the suspense. I fought back by thinking through the implications, instead. LaFortier was a member of the Senior Council—seven of the oldest and most capable wizards on the planet, the ones who ran the White Council and commanded the Wardens. He was—had been—skinny, bald, and a sanctimonious jerk. I’d been wearing a hood at the time, so I couldn’t be certain, but I suspected that his voice had been the first of the Senior Council to vote guilty at my trial, and had argued against clemency for my crimes. He was a hard-line supporter of the Merlin, the head of the Council, who had been dead set against me.

Try to imagine the stench of rotten meat. Imagine the languid, arrhythmic pulsing of a corpse filled with maggots. Imagine the scent of stale body odor mixed with mildew, the sound of nails screeching across a chalkboard, the taste of rotten milk, and the flavor of spoiled fruit. Now imagine that your eyes can experience those things, all at once, in excruciating detail. That’s what I saw: a stomach-churning, nightmare-inducing mass, blazing like a lighthouse beacon upon one of the buildings above me. I could vaguely make out a physical form behind it, but it was like trying to peer through raw sewage. I couldn’t get any details through the haze of absolute wrongness that surrounded it as it bounded from the edge of one rooftop to another, moving more than fast enough to keep pace with me.

There are bad things in the world. There’s no getting away from that. But that doesn’t mean nothing can be done about them. You can’t abandon life just because it’s scary, and just because sometimes you get hurt.

Cell phones were like those security guys in red shirts on old Star Trek: as soon as something started happening, they were always the first to go.

“What is it, Harry?” “A Native American nightmare,” I said. I looked at him grimly. “A skinwalker.”

I like to stay cozy with my paranoia, not pass her around to my friends and family.

WANTED FOR PERMANENT POSITION, DONALD MORGAN, 5MIL FINDER’S FEE, CONSIDERATIONS. lostwardenfound@yahoo.com.

“They always have good coffee here,” Ebenezar said a few moments later. “And they don’t call it funny names,” I said. “It’s just coffee. Not frappalattegrandechino.”

“That file is official property of the Senior Council,” Peabody protested, waving the paper and the ink. “I must insist that you sign for it at once.” “Stop!” I called. “Stop, thief!” I put a hand to my ear, listened solemnly for a few seconds and shook my head. “Never a Warden around when you need one, is there, Sam?” Then I walked off and left the little wizard sputtering behind me. I get vicious under pressure.

“If a revolver was good enough for Indiana Jones,” I said, “it’s good enough for me.” “He was a fictional character, Harry.” Her mouth curved up in a small smile. “And he had a whip.” I eyed her. Her eyes sparkled. “Do you have a whip, Dresden?” I eyed her even more. “Murphy . . . are you coming on to me?”

“Binder,” I said. “That’s what they call you, isn’t it?” Binder’s smile widened and he bowed slightly at the waist. “The same.” Murphy frowned at Binder and said, “Who is this asshole?” “One of the guys the Wardens wish they could just erase,” I said. “He’s a wizard?” “I do have some skills in that direction, love,” Binder said. “He’s a one-trick hack,” I said, looking directly at him. “Got a talent for calling up things from the Nevernever and binding them to his will.” “So, Binder,” Murphy said, nodding. “Yeah. He’s scum who sells his talent to the highest bidder, but he’s careful not to break any of the Laws of Magic, so the Wardens haven’t ever been able to take him down.”

He was simply enormous for a pixie, one of the Wee Folk, and stood no less than a towering twelve inches high. He looked like an athletically built youth dressed in an odd assortment of armor made from discarded objects and loose ends. He’d replaced his plastic bottle-cap helmet with one made of most of the shell of a hollowed-out golf ball. It was too large for his head, but that didn’t seem to concern him. His cuirass had first seen service as a bottle of Pepto-Bismol, and hanging at his hip was what looked like the blade to a jigsaw, with one end wrapped in string to serve as a grip. Wings like those of a dragonfly buzzed in a translucent cloud of motion at his back.

“Mission accomplished, my lord of pizza!”

“How do you know this guy is watching my apartment?” “Oh, oh! Don’t tell me this one!” Toot jittered back and forth in place, bobbing in excitement. “Because he has curtains on the windows so you can’t see in, and then there’s a big black plastic box with a really long nose poking through them and a glass eye on the end of the nose! And he looks at the back of it all the time, and when he sees someone going into your house, he pushes a button and the box beeps!”

“How many of your kin are about, Toot?” “Hundreds!” Toot-toot declared, brandishing his sword. “Thousands!” I arched an eyebrow. “You’ve been splitting the pizza a thousand ways?” “Well, lord,” he amended. “Several dozen, at any rate.”

“Sir,” said the guard from behind me. “I’d appreciate it if you left your club here.” I paused and looked over my shoulder. He had a gun. His hand wasn’t exactly resting on it, but he’d tucked his thumb into his belt about half an inch away. “It isn’t a club,” I said calmly. “It’s a walking stick.” “Six feet long.” “It’s traditional Ozark folk art.” “With dents and nicks all over it.” I thought about it for a second. “I’m insecure?” “Get a blanket.” He held out his hand. I sighed and passed my staff over to him. “Do I get a receipt?” He took a notepad from his pocket and wrote on it. Then he passed it over to me. It read: Received, one six foot traditional Ozark walking club from Mr. Smart-ass. “That’s Doctor Smart-ass,” I said. “I didn’t spend eight years in insult college to be called Mister.”

“Besides, who was the one on the ground getting pounded?” “Yes. You’re forty pounds heavier than me,” Anastasia said calmly. “Bitch, I know you didn’t just say that,” Molly bristled, stepping forward with her hands clenched. Mouse sighed and heaved himself back to his feet.

“The woman had a great many contacts among the Fey. That’s why everyone called her Margaret LaFey. She knew more Ways through the Nevernever than anyone I’ve ever seen, before or since. She could be in Beijing at breakfast, Rome at lunch, and Seattle for supper and stop for coffee in Sydney and Capetown in between.” She sighed. “Margaret vanished once, for four or five years. Everyone assumed that she’d finally run afoul of something in Faerie. She never seemed able to restrain her tongue, even when she knew better.”

I grinned at her, and took the hairs, depositing them in a white envelope I’d taken from Rawlin’s desk. “Give me about a minute and I’ll have it up.” “Hubba hubba,” Rawlins said through the intercom speaker. “I like this channel.”

I came through my apartment door, took one look around the candlelit place, and half shouted, “Hell’s bells! What is wrong with you people!?” Morgan sat slumped against the wall with the fireplace, and fresh spots of blood showed through his bandages. His eyes were only partly open. His hand lay on the floor beside him, limp, the fingers half curled. A tiny little semiautomatic pistol lay on the floor beneath his hand. It wasn’t mine. I have no idea where he’d been hiding it. Molly was on the floor in front of the sofa, with Mouse literally sitting on her back. She was heaving breaths in and out, making the big dog rise and settle slightly as she did. Luccio lay where I’d left her on the couch, flat on her back, her eyes closed, obviously still unconscious. Mouse had one of his paws resting lightly on her sternum. Given the nature of her recent injury, it seemed obvious that he would need to exert minimal pressure on her to immobilize her with pain, should she awaken. The air smelled of cordite. Mouse’s fur, all down his left foreleg, was matted and caked with blood.

“You were acting?” I said. “To make it hit Molly harder?” His tail wagged back and forth proudly. “Damn,” I said, impressed. “Maybe I should have named you Denzel.” His jaws opened in a doggy grin.

The dark shape, indistinct in the heavy shadows, moved and came closer, until it looked like . . . something that was not quite human. Its shoulders were too wide, its stance too crooked, and it walked with a slow, limping gait, drag-thump, drag-thump. It was covered with what appeared to be a voluminous dark cloak—oh, and it was eleven or twelve feet tall. Yikes. Green eyes the same color as the bolt of unnatural lightning burned inside the darkness of the cloak’s hood. They faced me and flashed brighter, once, and a gust of wind washed down onto me, almost taking me from my feet.

My heart pounded harder as I bowed my head respectfully. I don’t know why I said what I did, exactly. I just know that my instincts screamed at me that it was the right thing to say, my voice infused with my will. “I am Harry Dresden, and I give thee a name, honored spirit. From this day on, be thou called Demonreach.” Its eyes flashed, burning more brightly, sending out tendrils and streams of greenish fire in a nimbus around its head. Then Demonreach mirrored my gesture, bowing its own head in reply. When it looked up, its head turned briefly toward the cottage. Then the wind rose again, and darkness fluttered over the hilltop.

“And now you’ve got this intellectus, too?” I shook my head. “It’s Demonreach that has it. It stopped when I got out over the water.” I tapped my finger against my forehead. “I’ve got nothing going on in here at the moment.” I realized what I had said just as the last word left my mouth, and glanced at Morgan. He lay on the bunk with his eyes closed. His mouth was turned up in small smile. “Too easy.” Molly fought not to grin.

“It isn’t a pizza.” I said. “It’s a promotion. Get this work done, and from that time forward, you will be . . .” I paused dramatically. “Major-General Toot-toot Minimus commanding the Za-Lord’s Elite.” Toot’s body practically convulsed in a spasm of excitement. Had a giant yellow exclamation point suddenly appeared in the air over his head, I would not have been surprised. “A Major-General?” I couldn’t resist. “Yes, yes,” I said solemnly. “A Major-General.”

“Well, gentlemen,” Ebenezar said, turning to face the Wardens. “You’ve heard the will of the Council, such as it is. But you should be advised that since you’d be doing something foolish at the behest of someone acting foolish, I won’t be assisting you.” Mai’s head snapped around to focus on Ebenezar. “McCoy!” Ebenezar bowed his head to her. “Wizard Mai, I would advise you not to seek a quarrel with the young man. He’s a fair hand in a fight.” The old woman lifted her chin haughtily. “He was not truly your apprentice. You kept watch over him for a mere two years.” “And came to know him,” Ebenezar said. He turned to eye Listens-to-Wind. “What did that raccoon pup you had think of him? You go on about what good judges of character young animals can be. Is he the sort of man who would involve himself in that kind of plot? You know the answer.” Listens-to-Wind shook his head tiredly. “It isn’t about that and you know it.” “If you do not assist us in subduing him,” Mai said, her voice crisp and thrumming with tension, “it could be considered treason, Wizard McCoy.” “I am assisting you,” Ebenezar said. “By advising you to avoid conflict.” He paused and said, “You might try asking him.”

Toot-toot and half a dozen members of the Guard came streaking out of nowhere, miniature comets flashing through the vertical shadows of the trees. They went zipping ahead, alighting on low branches, and then tiny lights flickered as waterproof matches were set to fuses. A second later, a tiny shrill trumpet shrieked from somewhere ahead of us, and a dozen Roman candles began shooting balls of burning chemicals out into the darkness, illuminating the crouched running forms of at least ten of Binder’s grey men in their cheap suits, not fifty feet away. They froze at the sudden appearance of the flashing pyrotechnics, attempting to assess them as threats and determine where they were coming from.

“You,” Madeline said, her voice hollow and wheezing, “are a bad case of herpes, wizard. You’re inconvenient, embarrassing, no real threat, and you simply will not go away.” “Bitch,” I replied, wittily. I still hadn’t gotten my head back together. Everything’s relative, right? “Don’t kill him,” Binder rasped. Madeline shot him a look that could freeze vodka. “What?” Binder was sitting on the ground. His shotgun was farther away than he could reach. He must have tossed it there, because when he had fallen it was still in his hands. Binder had realized precisely how badly the fight had gone for his side, that he had been lamed and therefore probably could not escape, and he was making damned sure that he didn’t look armed and dangerous. “Death curse,” he said, breathing hard. “He could level the island with it.” I drew in my breath, lifted my chin, and tried to keep my eyes from slipping out of focus. “Boom,” I said solemnly.

Lara Raith’s eyes were bright with an insane rage and a terrible hunger as she snaked her bruised, swollen left arm around Madeline’s wind-pipe, and tightened it with a horrible strength. Madeline cried out as her head was jerked back sharply—and then she made no sound at all as the wind was trapped inside her lungs. The burned, blackened corpse that was Lara Raith dug one fire-ruined hip into Madeline’s upper back, using Madeline’s own spine as a fulcrum against her. Lara spoke, and her voice was something straight from Hell. It was lower, smokier, but every bit as lovely as it ever was. “Madeline,” she purred, “I’ve wanted to do this with you since we were little girls.” Lara’s burned black right hand, withered, it seemed, down to bones and sinew, reached slowly, sensually around Madeline’s straining abdomen. Slowly, very slowly, Lara sunk her fingertips into flesh, just beneath the floating rib on Madeline’s left flank. Madeline’s face contorted and she tried to scream. Lara shuddered. Her shoulders twisted. And she ripped an open furrow as wide as her four fingers across Madeline’s stomach, pale flesh parting, as wet red and grey things slithered out. Lara’s tongue emerged from her mouth, bright pink, and touched Madeline’s earlobe. “Listen to me,” she hissed. Her burned hand continued pulling things out of Madeline’s body, a hideous intimacy. “Listen to me.” Power shuddered in those words. I felt an insane desire to rush toward Lara’s ruined flesh and give her my ears...

Listens-to-Wind smiled faintly and shook his head. “Knocked senseless for a while, and wounded by blackberry thorns, though his armor protected him from the worst of it.” I found myself barking out a short little laugh of relief. “That armor? You’re kidding.” He shook his head. “Worst thing hurt was his pride, I think.” His dark eyes sparkled. “Little guy like that, taking on something so far out of his weight class. That was a sight to see.” Ebenezar snorted. “Yeah. Wonder where the pixie learned that.” I felt my cheeks coloring. “I didn’t want to do it. I had to.”

“You picked a good fight,” Listens-to-Wind said. “Not a very smart fight. But that old ghost is as close to pure evil as you’ll ever see. Good man always stands against that.” “You had it on the run,” I said. “You could have killed it.” “Sure,” Listens-to-Wind said. “Would have been a chase, and then more fight. Might have taken hours. Would have made the old ghost desperate. It would have started using innocents as shields, obstacles, distractions.” The old medicine man shrugged. “Maybe I would have lost, too. And while it was going on, spiders would be eating fat old hill-billies and picking their fangs clean with their bones.”

“My duty,” he replied. There was, I thought, a faint note of pride in his voice, absent since he had appeared at my door. “I’ve always known that it might call for me to give up my life to protect the Council. And so it has.” I stared at the wounded man, my stomach churning. “Morgan . . .” “You did your best,” Morgan said quietly. “Despite everything that has gone between us. You put yourself to the hazard again and again for my sake. It was a worthy effort. But it just wasn’t to be. No shame in that.” He closed his eyes again. “You’ll learn, if you live long enough. You never win them all.”

“Stop learning, start dying,” Ebenezar said, in the tone of a man quoting a bedrock-firm maxim. “You’re never too old to learn.”

Ebenezar snorted. “You’re going to make Ancient Mai and about five hundred former associates of LaFortier very angry.” “Yeah. I hardly slept last night, I was so worried about ’em.” He snorted.

Everyone present was wearing his or her formal robes, all flowing black, with stoles of silk and satin in one of the various colors and patterns of trim that denoted status among the Council’s members. Blue stoles for members, red for those with a century of service, a braided silver cord for acknowledged master alchemists, a gold-stitched caduceus for master healers, a copper chevron near the collar for those with a doctorate in a scholarly discipline (some of the wizards had so many of them that they had stretched the fabric of the stole), an embroidered white Seal of Solomon for master exorcists and so on. I had a plain blue stole with no ornaments whatsoever, though I’d been toying with the idea of embroidering “GED” on it in red, white, and blue thread. Molly was the only one in the room wearing a brown robe.

“Dresden,” he said quietly. “Yeah?” “I didn’t tell anyone about Molly. What she tried to do to Ana. I . . . I didn’t tell.” I stared at him, unable to speak. His eyes became cloudy. “Do you know why I didn’t? Why I came to you?” I shook my head. “Because I knew,” he whispered. He lifted his right hand, and I gripped it hard. “I knew that you knew how it felt to be an innocent man hounded by the Wardens.” It was the closest he’d ever come to saying that he’d been wrong about me. He died less than a minute later.

Maybe it’s better to look stupid but strong than it is to look smart but weak. I don’t know. I’m not sure I want to believe that the world stage bears that strong a resemblance to high school.

Maybe we should think of ourselves as . . . a Grey Council.”

I was wearing a black T-shirt that had a monochrome image of several multisided dice and said, in block print, “COME TO THE DORK SIDE. DO NOT MAKE ME DESTROY YOU.”

“This is Waldo Butters,” I said. “And his geek penis is longer and harder than all of ours put together.”

See, here’s the thing. Morgan was right: you can’t win them all. But that doesn’t mean that you give up. Not ever. Morgan never said that part—he was too busy living it.