Summer Knight (The Dresden Files, #4)

by Jim Butcher

“I’ve been out. I’ve been out plenty of times.” Billy snagged another toad. “Like when?” “I went to that football game with you and the Alphas.” He snorted. “Yeah. In January, Dresden. It’s June.” Billy glanced up at my face and frowned. “People are worried about you. I mean, I know you’ve been working on some project or something. But this whole unwashed wild man look just isn’t you.”

“Good God, man. I don’t need to be a wizard to see when someone’s in a downward spiral. You’re hurting. You need help.”

I sighed. “I’m an ass sometimes.” Billy laughed. “Sometimes. You’re human like the rest of us.”

I looked like a train wreck. More so than usual, I mean.

“Wise enough to be afraid. To understand, at least in part. How does it feel, to know what you know, child?” My voice came out unsteady, and more quiet than I would have liked. “Sort of like Tokyo when Godzilla comes up on the beach.”

I’d been clever a couple of times, lucky a couple of times, and I’d come out ahead of the game so far—but sooner or later the dice were going to come up snake eyes. It was as simple as that, and I knew it.

“All right. When we get inside, hang on to your temper. You’ve got a reputation as a hothead for some reason.” I scowled at him. “I do not.” “And for being stubborn and contrary.” “I am not.”

. . et, quae cum ita sint, censeo iam nos dimittere rees cottidianas et de magna re gravi deliberare—id est, illud bellum contra comitatum rubrum.” And given the circumstances, I move to dispense with the usual formalities in order to discuss the most pertinent issue before us—the war with the Red Court. “Consensum habemus?” All in favor?

“Ahhh, Magus Dresdenus. Prudenter ades nobis dum de bello quod inceperis diceamus. Ex omni parte ratio tua pro hoc comitatu nobis placet.” Ah, Wizard Dresden. How thoughtful of you to join us in discussions of the war you started. It is good to know that you have such respect for this Council.

“Uh,” I said, “ego sum miser, Magus Merlinus. Dolor diei longi me tenet. Opus es mihi altera, uh, vestiplicia.” Sorry, Merlin. It’s been a very long day. I meant to have my other robe.

“Excusationem vobis pro vestitu meo atque etiam tarditate facio.” Please excuse my lateness and appearance.

I briefly debated trying to translate Star Wars into Latin and decided against it. See, I can have common sense, too.

“Peace cannot be bought, Aleron,” he murmured to LaFortier. “History teaches that lesson. I learned it. You should have, too.”

The Gatekeeper joined the rest of the Senior Council, and they trooped back up to their podiums. Podii. Podia. Whatever. Goddamned correspondence course.

to make the mistakes of youth is no crime, but not to learn from them is.

Adding an unpleasant shock of bad news had been like tossing a spark onto a pile of tinder soaked in jet fuel.

I started going over the details in the folder, though my brain felt like some kind of gelatin dessert topped with mush.

“I know this will never sink into your head, but this isn’t a time for jokes. We need to come up with something.”

Morgan looked at me with flat eyes. “You think you’re funny.” “Oh, I know I’m funny. Unappreciated, but funny.”

Morgan shook his head. “Do you know what I think, Dresden?” “You think?” Morgan didn’t smile. Like I said, unappreciated.

I left the door open for a moment, and it was just as well that I did. Mister came padding back down the stairs a moment later and looked up at me with a plaintive meow. He prowled back into the apartment, curling around my legs and purring like a diesel engine. Mister is thirty pounds or so of tomcat. I figure one of his parents must have been a saber-toothed tiger. “Good timing, by the way,” I told him, and shut the door, locking it.

“There’s no more balance between Summer and Winter. Hell, that could explain the toads. That’s a serious play of forces, isn’t it?” Bob rolled his eyelights. “The turning of the seasons? Duh, Harry. The Sidhe are closer to the mortal world than any other beings of the Nevernever. Summer’s had a slight edge for a while now, but it looks like they’ve lost it.” “And here I thought global warming was due to cow farts.” I shook my head.

The man inside Reuel’s apartment looked like a catalog model for Thugs-R-Us.

His fingers started tightening, and I thought I heard something crackle and pop. I had to hope it was his knuckles instead of my trachea.

Smart plus strong plus quick equals badass.

Slate nodded to me. “How are you?” “Impatient,” I responded, but I nodded back to him warily. “You’re the Winter Knight?” “So far, yeah. I guess you’re the Winter Emissary. Asking questions and investigating and so on.” “Yep. Did you kill Ronald Reuel?” Slate burst out laughing. “Christ, Dresden. You don’t waste time, do you?” “I’ve filled my insincere courtesy quota for the day,” I said.

Monsters are born of pain and grief and loss and anger. Your heart is full of them.”

“That’s what I love about working with you, Dresden. The certainty.”

Murphy blinked at me. “You did that?” “Well, it was a plan at the time.” “Harry, that’s not a plan, it’s a Looney Tune.”

“Where are you going?” Murphy demanded. “I have a plan.” She limped after me. “Better than the Looney Tune one, I hope.” I grunted in reply. No need to agree with her. We both realized that if this plan wasn’t better than the last one, then, as Porky Pig would say, That’s all, folks.

The last thing the twenty-first century wants to admit is that it might not know everything.”

“What’s it like being a wizard?” I shrugged. “Mostly it’s like being a watch fob repairman. It’s both difficult and not in demand. The rest of the time . . .” More emotion rose in me, threatening my self-control. Meryl waited. “The rest of the time,” I picked up, “it’s scary as hell. You start learning the kinds of things that go bump in the night and you figure out that ‘ignorance is bliss’ is more than just a quotable quote.

I closed my eyes and tried to think. Whoever had sent the Tigress, Grum, the chlorofiend, and the lone gunman after me had been trying to kill me. It was a reasonable assumption, then, that I was on the right track. Generally speaking, the bad guys don’t try to bump off an investigator unless they’re worried he’s actually about to find something.

Once there, I got a Coke out of the icebox, put out fresh food and water for Mister, and changed his kitty litter. It wasn’t until I had dug around under the kitchen sink, gotten out the bottle of dishwashing soap, and blown the dust off of it that I realized I was stalling.

“Pride goeth before a fall, Harry. Pride can be bad. It can make you do stupid things.”

“I don’t think unicorns rely on the normal senses. If I remember right, they sense thoughts.” “In that case it shouldn’t notice you.” “Hah,” I said in a monotone. “Hah-hah, ho-ho, oh my ribs. I have a better plan.

“You wish answers?” “Yes,” I said. “How can you expect to get them,” Winter wheezed, “when you do not yet know the proper questions?” “Uh,” I said again. Brilliance incarnate, that’s me.

I shook my head and looked around until I spotted my bag, jewelry, staff, and rod on the ground several yards away from the muddy bog Aurora had created. I recovered all of them. “No,” I said. “It isn’t over.” “No?” the Gatekeeper said, surprise in the tone. “Why not?” “Because I’m an idiot.” I sighed. “And there are people in trouble.”

Taken as a whole, it was its own wild storm of music, huge, teeth-rattling, overwhelming, and charged with adrenaline. Wagner wished he could have had it so good.

I tried to hang on to the focus, the detachment I would need to concentrate, to unravel Aurora’s spell, but my fear and my anger and my worry made it all but impossible. They would have lent strength to a spell, but this was delicate work, and now my emotions, so often a source of strength, only got in the way.

I’d done it. I’d saved the girl, stopped the thief, proved Mab’s innocence, and won her support for the White Council, thereby saving my own ass.

“Not just no,” I muttered. “Hell, no.”

“I died,” I said. “I died and someone made a clerical error and this is heaven.”

I got myself some dice and some paper and some pencils and settled down with friends to pretend to be Thorg the Barbarian, to eat, drink, and be merry. Lord, what fools these mortals be.