Blood Rites (The Dresden Files, #6)

by Jim Butcher

Vengeance of some kind could be a motive, but after a moment’s thought, I decided that greed opened up the field to more possibilities. Greed is a nice, sterile motivation. If the money’s right, you don’t need to know someone to take advantage of them. You don’t have to hate them, or love them, or be related to them. You don’t even have to know who they are. You just have to want money more than you want them to keep on breathing, and if history is any indicator, that isn’t a terribly uncommon frame of mind.

But I’ve noticed that people got the most irrational whenever family was around—while simultaneously losing their ability to distinguish reason from insanity. I call it familial dementia.

Beyond mere physical presence, I could sense the nature of the woman—strength of will, intelligence, blended with a sardonic wit and edged with a lazy, sensuous hunger. Or maybe the hunger was mine.

When kind men grow angry, things are about to change.

“Uh. Actually, it is, now that I think about it,” I said. “Feng shui is all about manipulating positive and negative energy around, right? Here, hold this. What I’m doing here is setting up a kind of . . . well, a lightning rod, for lack of a better analogy. I’m setting things up so that if that negative energy gathers again, it gets sent to the place I want it to go, rather than at a particular target. Like a person.”

“Oh, right,” Jake said. “I read about this one. Mirror to pull the bad mojo away?” “Sort of,” I said, standing up and dusting off my hands. “If I’ve done it right, the curse comes flying in, hits the mirror, and bounces back at whoever threw it.” Jake lifted his eyebrows. “That’s kind of hostile, man.” “No, it isn’t,” I said. “Someone tries to send good vibes at us, they’ll get that bounced back at them. They go trying to pull off another killing . . . well. What goes around comes around.” “Hey, that’s a fundamental core of many religions,” Jake said. “Golden rule, man.” “Yeah, it is,” I said. “Maybe a little more literal than usual, in this case.”

“Materialism is not good for the soul,” Jake said. “Those are the folks who can do the worst, when they’re after money.” “Money’s new,” I answered. “Power’s old. Power is the real deal. Money, voters, oil, SUVs—they’re just stand-ins for power.” “For a feng shui artist, you’re sort of intense, man.”

I put on the bulky, clunky red helmet, fairly certain that I had never before disguised myself as a kitchen matchstick.