Chapter Text
“Let go of the kid,” I said quietly. “You’re done here.”
The dwarf looked at me, and then at Toot hovering in the air beside me. “The mortal trespassed.”
“The mortal lives in my castle, he’s under my protection. I’ll ask one last time: Let. Him. Go.” I punctuated the words by thumping my staff on the rubble beneath us.
Jaime Garcia, a former neighbor of mine and now a refugee sheltering in Castle Dresden was 10 years old and extremely angry. The dwarf had him in a headlock, and the boy was reaching a crescendo of bilingual swears that I was finding increasingly impressive. The dwarf tightened its grip on the wrathful child, backing up against a chunk of fallen masonry. “If I do, you’ll kill me, Knight.”
Well, potentially, yeah. He’d taken someone most of faerie would consider a member of my household, and aside from my personal dislike for creatures that snatch the young and defenceless, I really shouldn’t let that slide. But for all I knew the dwarf could have a family full of bigger, angrier dwarf brothers, and I try not to start feuds by accident these days. “I don’t know your Name or where your hold is. Drop the kid and run fast enough, you might get lucky.”
In response he bodily threw the kid at me, and I did a bit of complicated shielding on the fly that meant I caught Jaime and burned off the rest of the kinetic energy in a light show that prevented us slamming into a chunk of rebar. The dwarf slipped away into a shadow as I set Jaime on his feet.
“Ow!” The boy yelled, hand clapped to his scalp. “He pulled my hair. Bastard!” I looked and sure enough, there was a chunk of hair missing from his head. Why did no-one ever pick the easy option?
I hesitated for a split second, torn between getting Jaime’s hair back and the risks of abandoning a ten year old on a pile of wreckage in the middle of the city. Then I realised where we were.
“Toot!” I yelled, “Take him to Mac’s! Jaime, follow the faerie or I’ll tell your mother about your language!”
“Sorry Mr Dresden,” he said, and then completely ruined it by adding, “kick his ass!”
I stepped into the shadow and opened a way to the Nevernever. It led to a spectral version of Chicago Before, buildings still standing proud. I jumped through and dropped to street level in time to see the dwarf rounding a corner ahead of me. I gave chase.
The city was empty. It showed no signs of the Battle, but everything felt grey and listless. The dwarf might have jumped into one of the unclaimed places that had sprung up over the last eight months, a place vacated by a dead or injured power, untethered to any particular resonance to give it shape.
It made for a quiet pursuit. The dwarf’s legs were a lot shorter than mine, but the earth gave him strength and he bounded over it, taking unreasonably long strides. I tried to line my staff up to get a clean shot, at which point he ran straight through a building and I realised exactly how spectral this place was; Afterimages, echoes of the city, but nothing of substance.
Following the dwarf through nonexistent walls made me flinch, brain insistent I was about to smash my face into an obstacle, but I still sped up, determined not to lose him. As we ran through the ghostly lobby of a hotel I had another go at persuasion, “Drop it, you idiot! I’ve got the entire rest of the kid, I can use him to find that hair no matter how fast you run!”
The dwarf threw a look over his shoulder and I took my chance. “Forzare!” The dwarf tripped, falling flat on his face and scrambling back upright, but before he could gain his feet, I tackled him. We skidded along the floor and I felt the world shiver around us. Color and noise bled back into our surroundings; the dwarf had pulled us back through to normal Chicago.
Which meant I was now lying on top of a dwarf in a hotel lobby, with a panicked looking man staring down at me over the reception desk. The dwarf took advantage of my surprise to punch me in the head and throw me off him.
I slid across the marble floor, throwing up a belated shield as I blinked away stars. Through the ringing in my ears, I heard the dwarf spitting threats at me. “I’ll tear his head off to decorate my hall! You may keep the body, Knight.”
Like hell. I ended my hockey puck impression by crashing into the foot of a sweeping staircase, then leapt to my feet, planting my staff ready for some serious wizardry.
The dwarf was gone.
The dwarf was gone, and the reception guy, three guests, and a terrified looking bellboy were all staring at me.
“Same time again tomorrow, folks!” I said and took a bow. Then I hastily threw up a veil and snuck back to where the dwarf and I had started scuffling. Had he slipped back through to the Nevernever?
I found my answer: One short brown hair, dropped during the fight. Between that and the staircase, I had exactly what I needed to finish this confrontation. I’d given him a chance and he’d thrown it back in my face. Time to throw something at him.
The staircase was adorned by an ornate iron railing. I made a brief mental apology to the original architect, and the people of Chicago for vandalising more of our built environment, and lit up my blasting rod.
I don’t recommend impromptu metal cutting without protective equipment, but if you’re the Winter Knight and good at directing fire and ice, you can cut a metal railing free of a stairway without incinerating yourself, and then cool your impromptu javelin to be safe to the touch.
Safe for me, anyway. It wasn’t going to be very safe for anyone I impaled with it.
Then I took the hair and rigged a simple tracking spell using my necklace as a pendulum. Directing it to the rest of the chunk of hair and not the entirety of Jaime was a little tricky, but achievable once I cleared my mind and focussed on my intent. The spell pulled right, further into the hotel; The dwarf was still on this side of the Nevernever.
I trotted after him, veil flickering in and out as I tried to juggle it with the tracking spell. My path took me past several banners about an awards evening sponsored by the Chicago Renewal Society, and then through to a ballroom full of people seated at wide round tables, all turned to look up at a stage where a video on recent reconstruction efforts was playing out.
This wasn’t the right venue to start throwing iron or magic around, but if I could track the dwarf down quietly, I could chase him somewhere less populated. I headed across the room diagonally, tugged along by the spell, and realised I was following a surprisingly spry old man, bent over in his evening finery. The dwarf had glamored himself, but still held a handful of hair, and he was headed for the doors on the far side of the room. Fine by me.
The room he slipped through to was still grand but clearly not part of the celebration proper. There were a couple of tables full of gift bags and brochures, and stacks of extra chairs and display materials. It was also deserted, which was just what I needed. I let my veil drop.
“Last chance. Drop the hair. Swear fealty to me and I’ll let you live,” I said.
In reply, the dwarf dropped his glamor and smashed his hand down onto the floor. The marble beneath my feet cracked, snaking out behind me into the ballroom. I staggered sideways and crashed into a folding table full of gift bags. The table collapsed, bags tumbling across the floor with a tinkle of shattering glass echoed by distant shrieks from the ballroom.
The dwarf had his eyes on the iron bar, so he missed my gesture with my staff. Ice flowed towards him and wrapped its way around his feet, and that’s when I flung the javelin.
He tried to dodge, but the ice held him fast. The realisation he was about to die hit him half a second before the iron did, and there was disbelief in his eyes as he collapsed. Dead.
I looked around me at the broken floor, upended table, tumbled bags and impaled corpse. Was this the kind of thing people still explained away? Heebie Jeebies in the punch? Before I could decide what to do, I heard footsteps behind me.
I spun with my shield up and came face to face with John Marcone. We stared at one another with equally blank expressions, and then he looked around me at the body of the dwarf.
“Hi,” I said, when he continued not to say anything. I realised he was wearing a tux, and holding what looked like notecards for a speech. “Good evening?”
“It was,” he said, “until a Winter thug decided to gatecrash the event I was hosting, indulge in a little gangland execution in a side room and destroy the gifts for my guests.”
Well, shit. I scrambled for verbal cover. “This guy could have hurt one of your guests, I did you a favor.”
“Hardly. The safety of my guests isn’t your concern.” Marcone moved over to the dwarf and nudged the corpse with his shoe. Definitely dead. “Are you on Mab’s business?”
I was very definitely not on Mab’s business, and fairly keen I remained that way. “Doesn’t matter. This is a mundane event. The Accords weren’t set up so you can have a snit about some crumpled party bags.”
A smile slipped onto his face. It had sharp edges that I didn’t like. “Mundane? Did you charge through that ballroom with a blindfold on?”
Oh crap. “Who did I miss?” I asked, knowing I wouldn’t like the answer.
“You’ve offered me a public insult in front of your fiancée, Dresden.”
Lara? Well, that was embarrassing. I’d spent the last few months carefully negotiating how and where we could be seen in public together, and then I stormed through a ballroom on a dwarf hunt without noticing her. There went any hope of passing this off as a personal matter. Damn it.
I tried another angle. “The insult wasn’t mine. I killed the guy who cracked the floor and scared your guests. Like I said, a favor.”
“And the gift bags?” Marcone asked, looking at the pile of upended gifts.
“Come on. I bumped into a table. That’s nothing.”
He pinned me with a look. “Certainly no weightier a matter than damaging your company car.”
Well, I’d officially annoyed Marcone. The tight grip he had on those notecards looked like one he’d like to transfer to my throat. “Are you telling me breaking some corporate tat is the same order of magnitude as a car bomb in your world?” I just about managed not to add get a grip to the end of that sentence, but I think Marcone heard it anyway.
He pulled out the big guns. “The Accords say it is.”
Yeah. Gatecrashing his event and interfering with the hospitality he offered another power was a serious business if he felt like making a fuss. Which it looked like maybe he did. I switched to fighting a rearguard action. “Fine, if you want to play things that way. But before you start getting litigious about this, I need a minute. The dwarf tried to take a child.”
To his credit, Marcone let that divert him from what I was reading as genuine anger. “Here?” his gaze flicked around the room.
“No, from one of the disaster sites south of the hotel.” Which I would be reminding everyone in the castle, at length, were not playgrounds. “I told one of the Guard to take the kid to Mac’s, but dewdrop faeries aren’t the world's best babysitters.”
Marcone fixed his eyes on the dead dwarf before asking his next question. “I assume we aren’t talking about your daughter?”
“No!” I made some unorthodox parenting choices sure, but Maggie’s only non-human guardian was a Temple Dog. Anyone else might have triggered hulk dad mode with that question, but Marcone looked about as comfortable as I did that he’d mentioned Maggie. She’d been conspicuously absent from his threats when I’d come after Tripp. “No. A kid from the castle.”
His expression smoothed back into cool inscrutability. “Ah. Your little refugee project? And how does Mab feel about you championing the dispossessed?”
I leaned on my staff. “Mab has better things to do than police my household arrangements.”
“I certainly do, which makes this little fracas another insulting waste of my time, Knight.” The Queen of Air and Darkness stepped out of the shadows in the corner of the room. I might have shrieked. Marcone locked his reaction down to an aborted twitch of his fingers.
There was a half second while we both stared at her, and then I summoned up some words. “Uh, doesn’t it have to be the same person saying your Name three times for that to work?”
“If they haven’t already caught my attention, yes. This is clumsy, Knight.” She gestured at the corpse and the general mess.
I bowed to give myself a precious few seconds of internal gibbering while I figured out my game plan. Mab and Marcone exchanged nods of greeting. “It was unintentional. I was just offering an explanation, my Queen.”
“You were?” Marcone cut in. His voice was scathing. “I find explanations are usually less argumentative.” I tried to convey if you shut the hell up we can reach an agreement later with the force of my glare, but his answering look gave me nothing.
“You haven’t settled on a manner of redress?” Mab sighed.
“Uh, no.” I had in fact been hoping to argue my way out of redress altogether, but that hope had vanished over the horizon.
She shared a look with Marcone that I should probably have been offended by. “He’s impossible. If there’s no-one on your arm tonight, Baron, why not have your satisfaction of him?”
What. Did she mean… what? Marcone was close enough to catch the panic flash across my face.
“That’s a generous offer,” he paused, and watched me twist. “If you’re inclined to negotiate, I’d prefer his more professional services.”
Yes, of course he would. What the hell was Mab thinking in that twisty sidhe brain of hers? She considered Marcone with obsidian eyes. “By all means, if you have use for him. Until the next sunset.”
Marcone won’t accept an inch if he can take a mile. “It was a very public insult, your majesty. Three should redress it.”
But Mab was Mab, and still out of his league. “And my Knight is very potent. Two, and be content, or I’ll think you question his worth.”
Marcone knew when to stop pushing. “Very well. In the interests of precision, I’m satisfied with 48 hours of his service.”
“I’m right here,” I complained, which was exactly the wrong thing to say, because Mab went straight from looking bored with this entire inconvenience to mildly ticked off with me. The air got colder.
“You have acted the fool and landed yourself in trouble again. If you want your duty to the baron to be the end of it, hold your tongue. Otherwise I’ll illustrate my displeasure when he’s done with you.” Mab’s words chilled my skin and the shadows lengthened under her feet.
She was pissed, and I’d promised to take Maggie to the aquarium at the weekend, so I didn’t have time for torture after paying this debt. It wasn’t a fight worth winning; I knelt and bowed my head, ignoring Marcone. The obeisance pleased her.
“So there is some sense in there,” Mab said. I didn’t fall into the trap of a smartass response, and Mab dropped a hand to my bowed head, brushing my hair behind my ear. I held still beneath the chill of her fingers. “Agreed, Baron. Use him well. He may not act against my interests.”
There was an artic breeze and Mab vanished. I grit my teeth and took a moment to get my temper under control because if I looked up and Marcone was smirking at me and I threw him into a wall, I was fucked. His shiny party shoes came into my field of vision.
“Well. Sold into a marriage and being pimped out as a party favor? You need more leverage, Dresden.”
I bounced to my feet and smiled at him, refusing to be drawn. “Aw, come on John, the first offer from the fae’s always a distraction. You know that.”
He considered me. “True.” Then he gestured at the dwarf. ”Tidy that up. I’m going to find 48 hours of tasks for you.”
“Hold up, I need to check on the kid first,” I reminded him.
Marcone looked me over. “You’re overqualified for a babysitter.” I opened my mouth to argue but he cut me off. “Be quiet and do what you’re told. I’ll have someone check in with your barkeeper.”
I swallowed the argument, because that was pretty reasonable. I hadn’t seriously considered the safety of a child would be an outlet for Marcone’s anger, but he held a coin now. If Namshiel was in the process of ensnaring him, the Fallen might start whittling away at the handful of rules that passed for his conscience.
“Thank you,” I said instead, because Marcone was one of the people I now got my manners out for. Marcone still hadn’t come to terms with the idea because he narrowed his eyes at me like I was being sarcastic.
“A little late for civilities. I doubt you’ll be thanking me later.”
Hell. He was going to be prickly about this. “Marcone. Think carefully about what you tell me to do, or this won’t end in 48 hours.”
He snatched the last word. “You lost the opportunity to negotiate when your queen did it for you. I want that cleaned away before I get back.”
Marcone left. I took a breath and considered. Things had been going surprisingly smoothly between us after the Battle. Taking a castle from him had earned his admiration rather than a grudge, and attempts at explosive assassination aside, we’d negotiated the whole Tripp incident with relative civility. He’d even been helpful within the limits of his obligations. But now there was a non zero chance Marcone was going to overcompensate for my perceived lack of respect by being an utter dick and I’d lose my temper.
“Should have led with the apology,” I muttered. Marcone knew exactly where my buttons were; he wouldn’t find it hard to push me into defying him and trouble with Mab. Was there any reason not to, from his point of view?
I ran the question through the little model of Marcone logic I’d assembled over the years, and concluded efficiency might be the key. I just had to convince him it’d be a more productive 48 hours if we both played nice.
“Tidy up,” I said to myself and looked around. The corpse was probably a sensible place to start.