Jim Butcher: Side Jobs

So much for the easy part.

My P-90 hung easily from the tac harness, its stock high, its barrel hanging down the line of my body. I took a moment to screw a suppressor onto the end of the gun and lifted it to firing position against my shoulder. The little Belgian assault weapon was illegal for a civilian to own within city limits; the suppressor, too. If I got caught with them, I’d be in trouble. If I got caught using them, I’d do time. Both of those consequences were subordinate to the fact that if I didn’t go in armed for bear, I might not live to congratulate myself on my sterling citizenship.

Well, there’s no such thing as a perfect solution, is there.

I moved quietly back to the entry door, silenced weapon tight against my shoulder. I duckwalked, my steps quick and small and rolling, to keep my upper body level as it moved. I’d put a red dot sight on the P-90, and it floated in my vision as a translucent crosshair of red light. The sight made the weapon, to some degree, point and click. The idea was for the bullets to go wherever the crosshairs were centered. I had it sighted for short work. Even though I’d seen more action than practically any cop in the country—thanks to Dresden—I could count on one hand the number of times I’d used a weapon in earnest against a target more than seven or eight yards away.

Standing next to the entry door, I tested the knob. It turned freely. So, the folks inside had been relying on their guard to keep intruders out.

I thought of the first hissing voice I’d spoken to on the phone and shivered. They wouldn’t be relying on purely physical defenses. But I knew something about those, too. Harry’s defenses had been deadly dangerous—but to create them, apparently you had to use the energy of a threshold, which only grew up around an actual home. This old warehouse was a place of business and didn’t have a threshold. So, if a spell had been put up to guard the door, it would have to be fairly weak.

Of course, weak was a relative term in Dresden’s vocabulary. It might hit me only hard enough to break bones, instead of disintegrating me completely—if there was a spell there at all.

I hated this magic crap.

Screw it. I couldn’t just stand here all night.

I turned the doorknob slowly, keeping my body as far to one side as possible. Then I pushed in gently, and the door swung open by an inch or three. When nothing exploded or burst into wails of alarm, I eased up next to it and peeked into the building.

It was like looking into another world.

Green and blue light crawled and slithered up the walls and over the warehouse’s interior, eerie and subtly unsettling, each color moving in waves of differing widths and speeds. The strange scent of water and fish was strong inside. There were things on the wall— growths was all I could call them. Ugly patches of some kind of lumpy, rough substance I didn’t recognize were clumped all around the walls and ceiling of the warehouse in roughly circular patches about six feet across.

Cages were scattered all around the floor—a bunch of five-foot cubes made of heavy steel grid. People were locked up in several of them, the doors held shut by heavy chains. Most of them just sat, staring at nothing, or lay upon their sides doing the same thing, completely motionless. That wasn’t normal. Even someone who was drugged but conscious would show a little more animation than that. This meant magic was involved, some kind of invasive mental stuff, and a little voice in my head started screaming.

I’ve been subjected to that kind of invasion, more than once.

It’s bad.

My legs felt weak. My hands shook. The rippling colors of light on the walls became something sinister, disorienting, the beginnings of another attack on my mind. Jesus Christ, I wanted to turn around and scurry away, as swiftly and as meekly as possible. In fact, I tried to. My legs quivered as if preparing to move, but the motion drew my gaze across another row of cages, and I saw Georgia.

She was naked, kneeling, her hands wrapped gently around her swelling stomach, cradling her unborn child. Her head was bowed in a posture of meekness, and her sleek shoulders and neck were relaxed. But I saw her eyes, open and staring at the bottom of the cage, and I saw the defiance flickering in them.

Whatever held the others held Georgia as well—but she evidently had not been subdued as readily as they had. She was still fighting them.

Something deep inside me, something hard and fierce and furious, locked my legs into place. I stared at Georgia, and I knew I couldn’t run. I remembered that Will and Marcy were in there, waiting for me to announce that the moment was right to change form and fight. I remembered that nearly all of those people in the cages were young, even younger than the werewolves—including the youngest of all, in Georgia’s cage.

I remembered blood splattered on the weathered cabin of a boat—and that there was no one but me coming to help those kids.

The fear changed form on me. It disguised itself as reason. Don’t go in , it told me. Know your limits. Send for help.

But the only serious help I could get would be SI—and they would be putting their own careers, as well as their lives, on the line if they came to my aid. I could send for the regular police, drop in an anonymous call, but in this part of town it might take half an hour for them to show up. Even when they did arrive, they’d be lambs to the slaughter. Most of the force had no idea what really went on in the city’s darkest shadows.

You could go get the Sword , said my fear. You know where it is. You know how strong it makes you .

Not many people could honestly say they’d wielded a magic sword against the forces of darkness, but I’m one of them. Fidelacchius , the Sword of Faith, lay waiting for the hand of someone worthy to wield it against the powers of darkness. In the final battle with the Red Court, that hand had been mine. In the darkest moment of that fight, when all seemed lost, it had been my hand upon Fidelacchius that had tipped the balance, enabling Dresden to prevail. And I had felt a Power greater than I supporting me, guiding my movements, and, for a single, swift moment, entering into me and making use of my lips and tongue to pronounce sentence upon the murderous creatures surrounding us.

I could go for the Sword. Odds were it would be of some help.

But I knew that if I did, I would have taken the easy path. I would have turned away from a source of terror for the most excellent, rational of reasons. And the next time I faced the same kind of fear, it would be a little easier to turn away, a little easier to find good reasons not to act.

The Sword was a source of incredible power—but it was nothing but cool, motionless steel without the hand that could grip it, the muscles that would move it, the eyes and the mind that would guide it. Without them, the Sword was nothing.

I stopped and stared down at my shaking hand. Without my hand, my mind, my will, the Sword was nothing. And if that was true, then it must also be true that my hand was what mattered. That it had been my hand, my will that had made the difference.

And my hand was right here. In fact, I had two of them.

My breathing steadied and slowed. Sword or no Sword, I had sworn to serve and protect the people of this city. And if I turned away from that oath now, if I gave in to my fear, even for the most seductively logical of reasons, then I had no right to take up the Sword of Faith in any case.

My hands stopped shaking and my breathing slowed and steadied, bringing the terror under control. I whispered a quick, almost entirely mental prayer to St. Jude, the patron of lost causes and policemen. It sounded something like, “OhGodohGodohGod. Help .”