Chapter Text
I pulled up a veil to help us slip out of the ballroom unnoticed. It wasn’t spectacular, but we were surrounded by people focused on having a good time, so it didn’t need to be. With the event contained to the East side of the building, it was no problem to navigate to the front ticket area off Michigan Avenue, where hopefully there would be less chance of me destroying priceless works of art and we could avoid civilians being caught in the crossfire. Once there, I got to work.
Marcone helped to move things out of the way so that I could draw a chalk circle on the floor. I would’ve preferred working with a medium that wouldn’t be visible, but I was limited, and thankfully the lighter flooring meant that the circle wasn’t terribly obvious.
All in all, it was a pretty quick trap to set up. With the circle complete, I pulled out the bait and set it in the center with a nod to Marcone. “Be quick.” I could lead Arithi to the trap just fine - it was getting her to step into it that I was worried about. And there I might end up needing backup.
“Do try not to damage the tux,” he suggested wryly before disappearing behind a veil that I refused to admit was better than mine.
I rolled my eyes as I unbuttoned the jacket of said tux to retrieve my blasting rod hidden beneath. I gave Marcone a couple minutes’ head start, then I began.
I stood on the back edge of the circle, my head down, and focused on the green crystal in the center. It was from Demonreach - it wasn’t a whole crystal that could be used to entomb someone beneath the surface of the island, just a fragment. But it had power. And with me focusing on it, amplifying its power throughout the building, there was no way the Arithi wouldn’t feel it. And if she had any interest in power and in controlling the people with it, she would come. A being like her, she wouldn’t be able to resist.
So, I waited.
I didn’t have to wait long. In just a few minutes, the gorgeous Sidhe turned the corner. And here’s the thing about Fae beauty. Once you get up close to it, you realize how inhuman it is - features too sharp, too perfect, and something in your instincts just screams at you that it’s wrong. Arithi was no less beautiful up close, but so was an icicle, reflecting rainbows of light as it falls straight for your eye.
I kept my head down and I heard her steps slow as she assessed the scene before her - one sharp-dressed rando conducting some sort of ritual with a glowing, green crystal. A bit out of place, sure, but Sidhe rarely understood the things humans did.
“Lost sheep,” she murmured, her voice melodic. “The party is on the other side of the building.”
At that, I looked up. I saw it in her eyes as she quickly reassessed the situation - not a rando, the Winter Knight. Danger. Her eyes narrowed and I smiled. “Seems like you’re the one who’s lost.”
“Knight,” she acknowledged, her voice becoming clipped and cold. “Surely you have more important things to be doing right now.” She came to a stop on the other side of the circle, her eyes flickering down to it then back up again. Drat. “Or is the Queen seriously sending her lapdog to parties at a time like this?”
“Oh, come on, cupcake, you’ve been at this far longer than I’ve been.” I thought fast as I spoke, surreptitiously shaking out my shield bracelet. “It’s about boosting morale.”
Anger washed over her features, her eyes flashing. Wow, I hadn’t even started trying to get her worked up yet. “And who exactly are you boosting the morale of, Knight? There’s no one here but the enemy.”
Now my eyes narrowed. “Humanity is not the enemy,” I said, my voice hard.
“As you said, cupcake, I’ve been at this longer.” She began pacing around the side of the circle as she spoke. “I have watched humanity for tens of thousands of years and I know how they respond to their nightmares. Make no mistake, Knight, they are the enemy. And our only hope is for them to fight amongst themselves until they are all destroyed.” Her smile was as sharp as a razer blade. “And then there will be no use for a mortal Knight.”
I raised my shield just in time before she leapt at me, nails sharp enough to be considered claws grasping towards my throat. The shield flashed green-gold where she collided, and I twisted, angling the shield so that she would ricochet off it into the circle. It half-worked. I changed her trajectory, but she fell into a roll that carried her over top of the circle and off to my left, where she took the opening to swing a leg at me beneath my shield.
The impact was staggering, at odds with the amount of force it had looked like was behind the kick. I dropped my shield and caught myself on the wall before I could fall, raising my blasting rod out in front of me.
“Ventus fulmino!” I thundered, just as Arithi was regaining her footing. The gust of wind hit her hard, wreaking havoc on her picture-perfect curls, and sending her stumbling back towards the circle.
The problem was, that also brought her closer to me. Instead of fighting the wind, she used it to get in range again, this time succeeding in digging one of her clawed hands into my neck.
I felt the TV static sensation of the Winter Mantle covering the pain as I grabbed for her wrist, attempting to pull her off of me. I had a split-second to see her second hand coming towards me before a violet thread of light suddenly encircled her wrist, followed by a second thread wrapping around her throat.
“Ha!” I gasped as she released her hold on me to pull desperately at the cord of light that was strangling her, while still more reached out for her. There was just something so satisfying about seeing an enemy subjected to something that had been used against me in the past, and that spell was a bitch. I could tell she was gathering her own energy, trying to disrupt the spell, but I knew from experience that each thread was on a different wavelength, and it would take time for her to destroy all of them. Time that she no longer had.
Arithi was tugged back into the circle, allowing me to see Marcone on the other side, manipulating the threads with his hands while a matching pair of violet eyes glowed above his own.
“Took you long enough,” I grumbled because I couldn’t thank him on principle. Regaining my balance now that I no longer had a crazed faerie hanging off my neck, I began gathering my will to close the circle.
Before I could manage it, though, Arithi got her wrist free, and apparently decided that that was enough. Her arms shot out in either direction, extending longer than was natural and a manic smile spread over her face, despite Namshiel’s spell still strangling her. She caught a handful of the front of my shirt, yanking me forward. I had a moment to realize that she had grabbed Marcone with her other hand, and then the very room disappeared from around me.
I’ve dealt with psychic attacks before. I’d gotten decent at fighting them off. But this wasn’t a psychic attack, so much as it was a psychic manifestation. It was almost like a soulgaze in the way that once it started, there was no stopping it, and it came with the inherent understanding that what I was seeing was the absolute truth. And I saw what John Marcone truly wanted of me.
I stumbled in shock as I returned to reality, and I might have fallen if Marcone hadn’t caught me.
I jerked back as though his touch burned me, staring at him with wide eyes that might have looked a touch crazed given what I had just seen. What the actual fuck?!
Marcone frowned at me, questions clearly warring behind his eyes, but he just said, “She’s getting away.”
I nodded jerkily, sucking in a breath as I pulled myself together. Right, capture rogue faerie now, deal with… that… later.
Marcone and I fell into step beside each other as we sprinted from the ticket area, out to the entrance.
“Arithi!” I shouted, drawing her up short before she could exit the building.
She whirled on us, her eyes going wide. “What?!” she snarled. “You should be fighting each other!”
“Well, that’s the thing about humanity, cupcake,” I said through a bitter smile. “We’re full of surprises.”
“I showed you the truth!”
“Yes,” Marcone said calmly. “And you very clearly don’t know what that truth is.”
I vaguely wondered what exactly Marcone had seen. It clearly wasn’t something that warranted fighting me over, which is what I might have expected. And he’d seemed confused when we came out of it. I couldn’t imagine what would cause that. As far as I knew, I just wanted nothing to do with the guy, but he wouldn’t find that surprising. Okay, yeah, so I’m not the most in touch with myself. I have other things to deal with.
“Yeah, talk about a serious oversight,” I chimed in conversationally, letting my hands fall behind my back. “Hey, Marcone, do you think we should just let her walk? I mean, since she’s such a crappy judge of people, maybe she’ll end up bringing people closer together. Could be good for humanity.”
“Hmm,” Marcone mused thoughtfully, allowing himself a small smile. “It’s definitely worth consideration. She hardly seems worth it.”
“You dare?!” Arithi shrieked furiously. “I have been sowing strife between allies since before Mab was even born. I reveal what mortals seek to keep in the dark, I have made brothers take up arms against each other, I have brought down empires! And I will ensure humanity falls before they come for us!”
“Eh, I don’t know…” I shrugged as I slid a few steps away from Marcone, bringing my hands out in front of me, palms up. “You seem to be losing your touch. I mean you just tried to pit the most conniving scumbag in Chicago against someone who’s been threatening to take him down for years. And you failed. This should’ve been a slam-dunk!”
She paced towards me, positively fuming by this point. And that was the advantage to fighting older creatures like the Arithi. We talk about how people over 60 are set in their ways. Well, how do you think it is for people over 60,000? Arithi had a technique that had worked for her her entire life, and it had just failed. And now not only did she not know what to do, but she was pissed that she was having to change up her methods. So, she wasn’t thinking clearly. And she wasn’t paying attention.
“You are a child!” she hiss vehemently.
“Yeah, I get that a lot,” I admitted. “But come on! Adults should be able to play, too. Have you ever been on a slip n’ slide?”
She hesitated in her advance, incredulity mixing with her fury. “A what?”
A wide smile spread across my face. “A slip n’ slide! Arctis!” I reached out and coated the ground between Arithi and the circle in a thin, slippery sheet of ice.
Simultaneously, Marcone finished the spell that he’d been working on and teleported behind her, immediately releasing a kinetic wave that was the culmination of all of my force rings, which I had passed off to him while Arithi had been ranting.
The Sidhe shrieked as her feet went out from under her, and she slid along the icy slip n’ slide I had made until she landed in a heap in the circle. I quickly gathered my will and brought the circle up around her, effectively trapping her inside.
I let out a giant breath of relief, feeling my shoulders sag. I was glad I’d included a sound barrier in the circle because Arithi was already screaming.
“Dresden,” Marcone spoke from directly behind me, and I had to fight not to jump out of my skin. He must have teleported back over. Show-off.
Before I could turn around, I felt a pressure on my neck. Immediately, I snapped my hand up and grabbed Marcone’s wrist in a vice grip that threatened to break bone. I used the momentum to spin around, glaring daggers at him.
“You’re bleeding,” he snapped, twitching his fingers to indicate the cloth he had apparently just pressed to my neck, judging from the splotches of my blood on it.
My eyes narrowed in suspicion and I swiftly grabbed the cloth from his hand. I didn’t even want to think about what he would be able to do if he got some of my blood. Before today, I would have assumed he’d use it to kill me, but…. I shook my head.
“I’ll take that.” I released his wrist and backed away a step, bringing the cloth back up to my neck, glaring at him the entire time. “And I’ll take my rings back,” I added, holding out my free hand expectantly.
He gave an irritated sigh, but deposited the rings into my hand. I counted them, and once satisfied that he didn’t steal any, I pocketed them and paced away. I walked around the circle, pausing in front of the wall to check for any blood splatter, deliberately ignoring the screaming Arithi as I did so. It wasn’t too bad - just a few flecks that I easily wiped up. Curious, I checked the collar of my tux. Yep, it was ripped.
And then another thought occurred to me and I quickly checked my pockets. I hadn’t been keeping a close eye on all the wires of Namshiel’s strangler spell, and the last time he’d pulled that, my pockets had gotten lighter. Thankfully, nothing seemed to be missing.
When I turned around, I saw Marcone standing at the corner of the room, watching me. I glared.
“We need to talk about what we saw,” he said evenly.
The image suddenly came back to me of Marcone and me smiling, Marcone and me kissing, Marcone and me in bed. I shook my head to dislodge it, crossing my arms over my chest. “I’m not talking about that.” The raw panic that slipped into my voice was borderline embarrassing.
He arched an eyebrow at me. “ Mr. Dresden, if you could table your shock or horror, or whatever it is at the fact that I want you. I promise you, it is not nearly as shocking as what I saw from you.”
I blinked. At the fact that I want you…. He knew more or less exactly what I’d seen of his desires. Which meant it was a desire that he was well aware of. And at his words, I had even less of an idea of what he might’ve seen from me. That just wasn’t fair
Marcone apparently got tired of waiting for me to catch up and began walking across the room towards me. “Dresden, do you want to explain to me why you want to marry me?”