Turn Coat (The Dresden Files, #11)

by Jim Butcher

“One baptism in fire-extinguishing foam per year is my limit,” I said.

There were scars across both of his hands—the graffiti of violence.

Nothing motivates like a deadline. Especially the literal kind.

Knowing full well that the justice of the Council was blind, especially to annoying things like facts, they would have little choice but to resist.

“Look, I’m not asking her to deactivate the tractor beam, rescue the princess, and escape to the fourth moon of Yavin. I just need to know what she’s heard and what she can find out without blowing her cover.”

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.

That was the upside of being human. On the whole, we’re an adaptable sort of being.

Read a little folklore, the stuff that hasn’t been prettied up by Disney and the like. Start with the Brothers Grimm. It won’t tell you about skinwalkers, but it will give you a good idea of just how dark some of those tales can be.

“The reason treachery is so reviled,” she said in a careful tone of voice, “is because it usually comes from someone you didn’t think could possibly do such a thing.”

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

Sometimes irony is a lot like a big old kick in the balls.

If you can’t stop the bad thoughts from coming to visit, at least you can make fun of them while they’re hanging around.

Everyone always thinks that such obvious logical inconsistencies wouldn’t hold up, that the mind would somehow tear free of the bonds placed upon it using those flaws. But the fact is that the human mind isn’t a terribly logical or consistent place. Most people, given the choice to face a hideous or terrifying truth or to conveniently avoid it, choose the convenience and peace of normality. That doesn’t make them strong or weak people, or good or bad people. It just makes them people.

It’s our nature. There’s plenty to distract us from the nastier truths of our lives, if we want to avoid them.

“This is not how diplomacy is done,” Anastasia said as we approached the Château Raith. “You’re in America now,” I said. “Our idea of diplomacy is showing up with a gun in one hand and a sandwich in the other and asking which you’d prefer.”

Paperwork anarchy threatened the room, but order had been strongly imposed, guided by an obvious will.

“No one is an unjust villain in his own mind, Harry. Even—perhaps even especially—those who are the worst of us. Some of the cruelest tyrants in history were motivated by noble ideals, or made choices that they would call ‘hard but necessary steps’ for the good of their nation. We’re all the hero of our own story.” “Yeah. It was really hard to tell who the good guys and bad guys were in World War Two.” She rolled her eyes. “You’ve read the histories written by the victors of that war, Harry. As someone who lived through it, I can tell you that at the time of the war, there was a great deal less certainty. There were stories of atrocities in Germany, but for every one that was true, there were another five or six that weren’t. How could one have told the difference between the true stories, the propaganda, and simple fabrications and myths created by the people of the nations Germany had attacked?”

“Wars and feuds can live for generations even when there isn’t a group of wizards involved. Settling the conflicts would have required even more involvement in mortal affairs.” “You mean control,” I said quietly. “You mean the Council seeking political power.” She gave me a knowing look. “One of the things that makes me respect you more than most young people is your appreciation for history. Precisely. And for gaining control over others, for gathering great power to oneself, there is no better tool than black magic.”

“Jealousy, thy name is Dresden,” Bob said with a pious sigh.

“Can we focus, here?” I said. “The world’s coming to an end.” Murphy shook her head and then got in the car with me. “Well. At least you’re going out in style.”

“Behold,” Murphy said. “Bureaucracy. Organization to combat the entropy that naturally inhibits that kind of cooperative effort.”

“Everyone dies, honey,” I said, very quietly. “Everyone. There’s no ‘if.’ There’s only ‘when.’ ” I let that sink in for a moment. “When you die, do you want to feel ashamed of what you’ve done with your life? Feel ashamed of what your life meant?”

I scratched my cat’s ears and said, “Keep her company.” He gave me an inscrutable look that said maybe he would and maybe he wouldn’t. Mister was a cat, and cats generally considered it the obligation of the universe to provide shelter, sustenance, and amusement as required. I think Mister considered it beneath his dignity to plan for the future.

“I think you’re right about the killer acting in desperation. This situation got way too confused and complicated for it to be a scheme. It’s just . . . a big confluence of all kinds of chickens coming home to roost.” “Maybe that will make it simpler to resolve.” “World War One was kind of the same deal,” I said. “But then, it was sort of hard to point a finger at any one person and say, ‘That guy did it.’ World War Two was simpler, that way.”

Murphy turned to me. She reached up with both hands, put them on the sides of my head, and pulled me down a little. Then she kissed my forehead and my mouth, neither quickly nor with passion. Then she let me go and looked up at me, her eyes worried and calm. “You know that I love you, Harry. You’re a good man. A good friend.” I gave her a lopsided smile. “Don’t go all gushy on me, Murph.” She shook her head. “I’m serious. Don’t get yourself killed. Kick whatsoever ass you need to in order to make that happen.” She looked down. “My world would be a scarier place without you in it.”

My brother owned an ancient battered commercial fishing boat. He told me it was a trawler. Or maybe he said troller. Or schooner. It was one of those—unless it wasn’t. Apparently, nautical types get real specific and fussy about the fine distinctions that categorize the various vessels—but since I’m not nautical, I don’t lose much sleep over the misuse of the proper term.

After a few minutes, Molly came partway up the short ladder to the bridge and stopped. “Do I need to ask permission to come up there or something?” “Why would you?” I asked. She considered. “It’s what they do on Star Trek?” “Good point,” I said. “Permission granted, Ensign.” “Aye aye,” she said, and came up to stand next to me.

Grimm’s fairy tales, a compilation of the most widely known scary stories of Western Europe, darn near always feature a forest as the setting. Monstrous and terrifying things live there. When the hero of a given story sets out, the forest is a place of danger, a stronghold of darkness—and there’s a good reason for it.

I’d seen Lara in action. I could never decide if it had been one of the most beautiful terrifying things I’d ever seen, or if it was one of the most terrifying beautiful things I’d ever seen.

There’s power in the night. There’s terror in the darkness. Despite all our accumulated history, learning, and experience, we remember. We remember times when we were too small to reach the light switch on the wall, and when the darkness itself was enough to make us cry out in fear.

I had to work hard to keep from twitching. The only thing worse than scary is smart and scary.

Adrenaline does weird things to your head. You hear people talk about how everything slows down. That isn’t the case. Nothing is happening slowly. It’s just that you somehow seem to be able to fit a whole lot more thinking into the time and space that’s there. It might feel like things have slowed down, but it’s a transitory illusion.

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

I looked around his receiving room, which was lined with bookshelves filled to groaning. Ebenezar was an eclectic reader. King, Heinlein, and Clancy were piled up on the same shelves as Hawking and Nietzsche. Multiple variants of the great religious texts of the world were shamelessly mixed with the writings of Julius Caesar and D. H. Lawrence.

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. I closed the door behind me, while life went on.